Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Friends of Lettice, newlyweds Margot and Dickie Channon, have been gifted a Recency country “cottage residence” called ‘Chi an Treth’ (Cornish for ‘beach house’) in Penzance as a wedding gift by the groom’s father, the Marquess of Taunton. Margot in her desire to turn ‘Chi an Treth’ from a dark Regency house to a more modern country house flooded with light, commissioned Lettice to help redecorate some of the rooms in a lighter and more modern style, befitting a modern couple like the Channons. Lettice decamped to Penzance for a week where she oversaw the painting and papering of ‘Chi an Treth’s’ drawing room, dining room and main reception room, before fitting the rooms out with a lorryload of new and repurposed furnishings, artwork and objets d’arte that she had sent down weeks prior to her arrival from her London warehouse.
Now the rooms are finished, and under Lettice’s adept hands where once there was dark red paint, modern white geometric wallpaper hangs, and where formal, uncomfortable and old fashioned furnishings sat, more modern pieces dispersed by a select few original items give the rooms a lighter, more relaxed and more contemporary 1920s country house feel. To celebrate Margot and Dickie have organised a Friday to Monday, just as they did in January when they wanted Lettice to view the rooms of ‘Chi an Treth’ and give her interior redecoration suggestions. As Lettice is unable to drive and therefore does not own a car, Margot and Dickie have extended the weekend invitation, as they also did in January, to one of their other Embassy Club coterie, Lettice’s old childhood chum, Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy who has tried to gain some independence from his family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. Gerald owns a Morris*, so he can motor both Lettice and himself back to London on Monday at the end of their stay. The quartet now sit in the house’s newly appointed drawing room, which is light and airy and very welcoming, just as Margot had hoped it would be. The fragrance of late summer roses freshly picked from ‘Chi an Treth’s’ garden by Mr. Treventhan, the gardener and odd job man, intermixes with the light waft of still fresh paint and the smell of the crashing ocean outside as it drifts in through the open French doors at the end of the room.
“I say Lettice darling!” Gerald enthuses as he looks around the newly redecorated drawing room of ‘Chi an Treth’. “You’ve transformed the old girl!”
“Isn’t it marvellous, Gerald! It’s so light and bright and thoroughly modern. Just what I wanted!” Margot purrs contently from the roomy confines of her sleek and modern eau-de-nil armchair. “No more dark red walls hung with ghastly maritime daubs. No more horrible old fashioned furniture.”
“Well,” Lettice says lowering her lids as she smiles and blushes at Margot’s evident happiness with her work. “I wouldn’t go quite that far, Margot.”
“Oh! Is it in here?” Gerald asks.
“It’s over there,” Lettice points behind Margot’s chair. “To the left of the fireplace, exactly where it was before the redecoration.”
Margot turns and looks over her shoulder at the small demilune table** covered in family photographs that sits beneath a pretty Georgian painting. “Oh no Gerald,” she remarks to him as he gets up from his seat on the end of the sofa that matches her armchair and walks across the room to the white painted demilune table. “You and Lettice are mistaken. That painting wasn’t here before the redecoration. There was a rather dull seascape hanging there in a frightful black frame. No. That painting comes from my old bedroom in Sloane Street. Mummy and Daddy said I could have it because I loved it so much.”
“I wasn’t talking about the painting, Margot darling.” Gerald corrects her.
“You weren’t, Gerald?” she questions, looking quizzically at the photos in gold, brass and silver frames on the demilune table, none of which were in ‘Chi an Treth’ prior to the redecoration.
“I was taking about the table.” he goes on to elucidate.
“Good god?” Dickie splutters from his place, smoking a pipe, his newest affectation as he plays lord of the manor, whilst leaning against the fireplace, a newspaper hanging limply in his empty left hand. “Is that the same half-round table that we used for port and sherry when we first came here?”
“It is.” Lettice confesses quietly. “It broke my heart just to fling all the house’s history out, just for the sake of modernisation.” She blushes at the last comment. “Sorry Margot.”
“You always were a sentimental thing, old girl!” Dickie laughs good naturedly as he carelessly tosses the Daily Mail onto the pile of newspapers and periodicals that sit atop a large eau-de-nil pouffe that matches the armchairs and sofa. “I wouldn’t have known it was the same table if Gerald hadn’t said something.”
“Well, it seemed a shame to waste a perfectly good table.” Lettice admits.
“But it wasn’t going to waste! I said you could do what you like with any of the furniture we weren’t going to keep, Lettice darling.” Margot says in surprise.
“And she did, Margot.” Gerald counters as he runs his hand idly along the smooth edge of the table.
“I spoke to my aunt about how best to repurpose it.” Lettice goes on.
“What does Lady Rostrevor know about repurposing furniture?” Dickie asks quizzically.
“Oh, not that aunt,” Lettice explains. “My Aunt Egg: Pater’s sister.”
“Oh, she’s the Chelsea artist, isn’t she?” Dickie confirms.
“Little Venice, but close enough.” corrects Lettice.
“I’ve been encouraging Lettice to apply her own artistic skills to her interiors and add a personal touch.” Gerald explains.
“So, I consulted Aunt Egg as how best to paint wood.”
“And the rest is her skills as an artist.” Gerald beams. “I was there, encouraging her every doubtful step of the way.”
“Doubtful?” Dickie asks.
“Lettice has doubts about her own abilities.” Gerald explains with a kind smile towards his friend sitting demurely on the sofa in the empty seat next to the one he has vacated.
“I say, old girl!” Dickie exclaims. “I don’t think you have anything to doubt, don’t you agree, my love?” he asks, addressing his wife.
“Rather, Lettice darling!” Margot smiles beatifically at her friend. “I agree with you, my love. I’d have scarcely recognised that old table myself!”
“I’d scarcely recognise this to be the same dark and old fashioned room we sat in, in January!” Gerald elaborates with a sweeping gesture at the papers, curtains, carpets and furnishings around them.
Just at that moment the door to the drawing room is forced open by a heavy boot, startling them all. Looking to the door as it creaks open noisily on its hinges, old Mrs. Trevethan, the housekeeper, with her wind weathered face with her unruly wiry white hair tied loosely in a bun, wearing a rather tatty apron over an old fashioned Edwardian print dress, walks in carrying a silver tray. Although weighed down heavily with a champagne bottle, four champagne flutes and a range of canapes for the Channons and their guests, the rather frail looking old woman, as usual, seems unbothered by its weight. She lowers the tray onto the low occasional table between the settee and armchairs with a groan and the disconcerting crack of bones.
“Oh, thank you Mrs. Trevethan.” Margot acknowledges the old woman.
“Omlowenhewgh agas boes!***” the elderly woman replies in a gravelly voice, groaning as she stretches back into an upright position before retreating the way she came, closing the door noisily behind her.
“Well,” Gerald corrects his lasts statement despondently. “I see some things haven’t changed.”
“Oh Gerald!” Lettice exclaims. “What do you have against old Mrs. Trevethan?”
“Is it because you think she was too slow binging you Aspirin the last time you stayed, old bean?” Dickie asks.
“Well there is that too.” mumbles Gerald, rubbing the toe of his shoe into the thick fabric of the green and blue Art Deco rug beneath his feet.
“She took very good care of me over the last week whilst I’ve been staying here on my own, Gerald.” Lettice defends the old woman. “And when I was down here a few months ago, Mr. Trevethan took me sightseeing.”
“She’s just an old Cornish witch, and you’ve fallen under her spell.” Gerald replies rather sulkily. When Margot and Dickie laugh at him he adds, “You all have!”
“It was the Aspirin.” Dickie chuckles knowingly as he puts down his pipe and walks over to the low table and picks up the bottle of champagne.
As Gerald blushes with guilt, his three friends laugh good naturedly at his expense.
“Well, the table isn’t the only piece of original furnishing I retained,” Lettice adds, reverting the subject back to her interior designs to spare her best friend any more embarrassment. “I did keep the two Regency gilt side tables and used those two matching stands that were in the reception room. I hope you don’t mind, Margot.”
Dickie pops the bottle of champagne expertly, the sound filling he and his guests with excitement and enthusiasm, rather like the effervescence of the golden champagne within the bottle.
“Oh I know I said I wanted a modern look, but I don’t mind the occasional piece, within reason.” Margot assures her friend as she hands a champagne flute to her husband to fill. “In fact I think they rather suit the room now you’ve redecorated it. It looks light enough with the pale wallpaper and the eau-de-nil suite that they don’t make the room look fusty or dark.” She passes the full flute to Lettice, who gratefully accepts it. “Besides, they complement Miss Rosvear’s presence.”
The quartet all pause and turn their heads to gaze upon the luminous portrait of the beautiful woman looking over her shoulder in the ornate gilded frame, hanging over a mirror topped Art Deco demilune table now used for the drinks tray, a dainty carriage clock and Lettice’s wedding gift to the Channons: a silver Regency tea Caddy from Asprey’s****.
“I am sorry that she wasn’t a Winterhalter***** after all, old bean.” remarks Gerald sadly.
“Oh I’m not!” Dickie laughs, resuming filling a second glass with champagne, which he passes over to Gerald.
“I’m not either.” adds Margot as she holds out a third flute to Dickie to fill.
“By her not being a Winterhalter, I have been spared the indignity of watching my father sell off yet another piece of our family history.” Dickie says, wiping the mouth of the champagne bottle against his wife’s glass. He smiles to himself as he goes on, “It was jolly good fun to see the old bully get his comeuppance for once. To see the colour drain from his face when the Bonham’s****** man told him that it was likely done by a local Cornish artist who was perhaps inspired by Winterhalter, was priceless!”
“Poor Mr. Fox.” Lettice remarks piteously.
“That was an ordeal!” Margot says as she releases a pent up breath that shudders nervously from within her. “But by finding out that she isn’t worth the fortune Lord and Lady Channon were hoping for, I am afforded the pleasure of having her hang here in my new drawing room.”
“Where she belongs.” Lettice smiles.
“Where she belongs.” the other three chime in, in agreement.
“Shall we propose a toast to Miss Rosevear?” suggests Lettice, raising her glass.
“Well, if you don’t mind, old girl,” Dickie says, raising his own glass. “I have a toast of my own that I’d like to raise first, that I think is more timely.”
“Well it is your house, Dickie darling,” Lettice concedes. “So as master, you may do as you wish.”
“What is the toast?” his wife asks, an expertly plucked eyebrow arching over her right eye, this revelation obviously unknown to her too.
“Well, I was chatting to Henry Tipping******* at my club earlier this week,” Dickie begins.
“Who is Henry Tipping, my love?” queries Margot.
“He’s a great authority on history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain.” Gerald clarifies.
“Quite so, old bean!” exclaims Dickie. “And he is also the Architectural Editor of Country Life, and he’s rather thrilled to come down and see Lettice’s sympathetic redecoration of ‘Chi an Treth’.”
“Henry Tipping is interested in seeing my interior designs?” Lettice asks in astonishment. “Mine?”
“Indubitably, old girl.” Dickie smiles proudly, full of self-satisfaction at his announcement. “So I’d like to propose a toast to my hopes for this room to be featured in Country Life. To your future success, old girl!”
“To Lettice’s success!” Margot says, standing up elegantly and raising her glass.
“To Lettice’s success!” Gerald and Dickie echo as they click glasses with Margot and the silently stunned Lettice.
“Just imagine Sadie’s face when she sees your interiors in her beloved Country Life, Lettice!” giggles Gerald mischievously. “How I should like to be a fly on the wall to witness that!”
But Lettice doesn’t reply, this surprise in Margot’s new drawing room robbing her of words. However, a hopeful smile plays on her lips as she sips the effervescent champagne from her flute, her eyes sparking with possibility as she considers what this could mean for her career as an interior designer.
*Morris Motors Limited was a privately owned British motor vehicle manufacturing company established in 1919. With a reputation for producing high-quality cars and a policy of cutting prices, Morris's business continued to grow and increase its share of the British market. By 1926 its production represented forty-two per cent of British car manufacturing. Amongst their more popular range was the Morris Cowley which included a four-seat tourer which was first released in 1920.
**Co-opting the French word for “half moon,” the demilune table is an accent table featuring an elegant, rounded front and a flat back. A demilune's flat back allows it to sit flush against a wall, making it a striking substitution for a standard console table or credenza.
***”Omlowenhewgh agas boes” is Cornish for “bon appetit”.
****Founded in 1781 as a silk printing business by William Asprey, Asprey soon became a luxury emporium. In 1847 the business moved to their present premises at 167 Bond Street, where they advertised 'articles of exclusive design and high quality, whether for personal adornment or personal accompaniment and to endow with richness and beauty the table and homes of people of refinement and discernment’. In 1862 Asprey received a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria. They received a second Royal Warrant from the Future Edward VII in 1889. Asprey has a tradition of producing jewellery inspired by the blooms found in English gardens and Woodland Flora. Over the decades jewelled interpretations of flowers have evolved to include Daisy, Woodland and sunflower collections. They have their own special cut of diamond and produce leather goods, silver and gold pieces, trophies and leatherbound books, both old and new. They also produce accessories for playing polo. In 1997, Asprey produced the Heart of the Ocean necklace worn in the motion picture blockbuster, ‘Titanic’.
*****Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805 – 1873) was a German painter and lithographer, known for his flattering portraits of royalty and upper-class society in the mid-19th century. His name has become associated with fashionable court portraiture. Among his best known works are Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting (1855) and the portraits he made of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1865).
******Established in 1793, Bonhams is a privately owned international auction house and one of the world's oldest and largest auctioneers of fine art and antiques. It was formed by the merger in November 2001 of Bonhams & Brooks and Phillips Son & Neale.
*******Henry Tipping (1855 – 1933) was a French-born British writer on country houses and gardens, garden designer in his own right, and Architectural Editor of the British periodical Country Life for seventeen years between 1907 and 1910 and 1916 and 1933. After his appointment to that position in 1907, he became recognised as one of the leading authorities on the history, architecture, furnishings and gardens of country houses in Britain. In 1927, he became a member of the first committee of the Gardens of England and Wales Scheme, later known as the National Gardens Scheme.
This elegantly appointed drawing room with its modish Art Deco furnishings may not be all that you think them to be, for this scene is in truth made up with pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
On the coffee table, he savoury petite fours on the white porcelain plate and the champagne flutes, which are made from hand spun glass, have been made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The ornamental glass bon-bon dish, also made from hand spun glass, was made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures. The silver tray and the bowl of caviar come from Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The bottle of Deutz and Geldermann champagne is an artisan miniature and is made of glass and has real foil wrapped around its neck. It was made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire.
The Statue of the nude Art Nouveau woman on the right-hand pedestal to the right at the back is based on a real statue and is made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. It has been hand painted by me.
The glass topped demilune table in the background is a hand made miniature artisan piece, which sadly is unsigned. On its surface, made of real glass are decanters of whiskey and port and a cranberry glass soda syphon made by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering in England. The hand spun Art Deco glass vase containing creamy yellow handmade roses are also from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The silver Regency tea caddy is made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, whilst the metal carriage clock comes from Melody Jane Doll House Suppliers in the United Kingdom.
The three novels on the occasional table next to the armchair come from Shepherds Miniatures in England.
The wedding photo in the silver frame on the mantlepiece and the photos in frames on the demilune table behind the armchair are real photos, produced to high standards in 1:12 size on photographic paper by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The frame comes from Melody Jane’s Doll House Suppliers.
The Georgian style demilune table behind and to the right of the armchair is an artisan miniature from Lady Mile Miniatures in the United Kingdom. Painted white and then aged, it has been hand painted with a Georgian style design on its surface.
The hand spun Art Deco glass vase in the foreground containing white roses with yellow centres are made roses are also from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering.
The newspapers on the pouffe, except the copy of Country Life, are made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The copy of Country Life was made by me.
The eau-de-nil suite consisting of armchairs, sofa and pouffe are all made of excellent quality fabric, and are very well made, as is the coffee table with its small drawer beneath the tabletop. All these pieces were made as a set by high-end miniatures manufacturer Jiayi Miniatures.
The Regency gilt swan pedestals and round tables are made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.
The fireplace is made of plaster, and comes from Kathleen Knight’s Miniatures in the United Kingdom.
The stylised Art Deco fire screen is made using thinly laser cut wood, made by Pat’s Miniatures in England.
The paintings around the ‘Chi an Treth’ drawing room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by V.H. Miniatures and Marie Makes Miniatures in the United Kingdom and geometric Art Deco wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series. The Geometrically patterned Art Deco carpet on the floor comes from a miniatures specialist store on E-Bay.