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.
Yet we are far from London, returning to Wiltshire, where Lettice grew up at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie. Today however, we are not at Glynes, but rather on the neighbouring property adjoining the Glynes estate to the south and are at Garstanton Park, the grand Gothic Victorian home of the Tyrwhitts. Whilst not as old, or as noble a family as the Chetwynds, the Tyrwhitts have been part of the Wiltshire landed gentry for several generations and Lord and Lady Tyrwhitt have been as much a part of county society as the Viscount and Countess of Wrexham. The current generation of the two families have grown up as friends with the Viscount and Countess of Wrexham often visiting Lord and Lady Tyrwhitt and conversely. In fact, the families have become so close that Leslie, the heir to the Wrexham title married Lord and Lady Tyrwhitt’s only daughter, Arabella, last year, thus guaranteeing a joining of the two great county families.
Sadly, it is a sombre occasion that has brought Lettice back to Wiltshire. For many years Lady Isobel Tyrwhitt has been battling cancer, as it and the radiotherapy* used to treat it ravishes her body. Yet whilst all attentions were paid to her, no-one expected her husband Lord Sherbourne to suddenly drop dead of a heart attack in the Estate Manger’s office. Yet that is exactly what happened, shocking the Tyrwhitts, the Chetwynds and the wider county. Lord Sherbourne has always been such a hard working and popular character in the district, well known for his kindness, generosity, good humour and his passion for music. In fact, his love of music was how he and his wife, Lady Isobel, met, after attending a piano concert at the newly opened Bechstein Hall** in London in 1899. Lord Sherbourne has just been laid to rest in the Glynes village churchyard in the classical temple style vault designed by his grandfather, where he lies alongside several generations of his ancestors and two of his and Lady Isobel’s children who did not survive infancy. The newly minted Lord Tyrwhitt, Sherbourne’s eldest son Nigel, and now Dowager, Lady Isobel have opened Garstanton Park for a wake following the funeral, and the public reception room and drawing room are full of all of Sherbourne and Isobel’s family, friends and all the great and good of the county and Glynes village, including Lettice, who dressed in a simple black crepe frock with a severe v-line collar, cuts a suitably sombre figure amongst the mourners for the man she has grown up calling her “Uncle Sherbourne”.
“We always thought him so hale and hearty, Miss Chetwynd,” remarks the church verger, Mr. Lewis to Lettice as he accepts a rather limp looking cucumber sandwich from a tray proffered by one of the Garstanton Park maids, suitably dressed in her black moire afternoon outfit with ornamental lace apron, cuffs and cap, sporting a black velvet armband of mourning. “It truly came as such a surprise.”
“Yes indeed, to me too, Mr. Lewis.” Lettice replies, shaking her head politely at the maid with the sandwiches, clutching her nearly champagne flute in both hands.
“Oh of course, Miss Chetwynd,” agrees Mr. Lewis. “For you it must be like losing an uncle. We village folk always noted how close the Chetwynds and the Tyrwhitts are. At least he lived to see his daughter marry your brother, Miss Chetwynd. That was a great highlight in the village for all of us last year.” He takes a bite out of the sandwich, a cascade of delicate white crumbs falling into his neatly trimmed white beard where they disappear and onto his Sunday best suit, where they make their presence evident against the black serge. “Poor Lady Isobel. We must do our best to take good care of her, now that Lord Sherbourne is gone.”
“Indeed, Mr. Lewis.” Lettice agrees rather non-committally again before draining what remains of her champagne.
“And how long are you staying for this visit, Miss Chetwynd?”
However Lettice doesn’t hear the old verger’s question as she looks around the room populated with men and women of different ages and social standings, all dressed in funerary black chattering away with one another.
“Miss Chetwynd?” the verger asks again, cocking his head as he waits for a reply.
“I’m sorry. What was that, Mr. Lewis?”
“How long will you be staying for, Miss Chetwynd? At Glynes?”
“Oh, only as long as I can be useful, I suppose.” Lettice replies rather distractedly.
“Yes, I suppose you must have many clients back in London who need your attention, also. We were so thrilled to see your name in print when the Miss Evanses showed us the article in that magazine.”
“Yes, yes, Mr. Lewis.” Lettice agrees, not really paying attention to him as she studies the faces of those around her. “I say, would you excuse me please. There is something I really must attend to.”
“Oh of course, Miss Chetwynd.” Mr, Lewis says with a small deferential nod always given by the citizenry of the village to those who live in the big houses of the district.
Lettice slips away and moves between the clusters of mourners chattering away noisily as they drink champagne from their late host’s wine cellar and consume sandwiches and small petite fours supplied from the Garstanton Park kitchen. She scans the faces, looking in hope, but not finding the one she is looking for. Depositing her empty champagne flute onto the tray carried by a passing maid, she very discreetly slips away and works her way to the library cum music room of Garstanton Park, the former preserve of the late Lord Sherbourne. She quietly closes the door, shutting out the distant burble of chatter and allows the smell of old books and the silence of the room to revive her a little. Like her Uncle Sherbourne, Lettice has always had a love of books, and it is over some of the volumes filling the shelves that line the room that they bonded. She walks up to a shelf and fondly runs her fingers down the colourful gilded spine of a book of short stories by French writer Guy de Maupassant, the first adult book her Uncle Sherbourne lent her from his library. Just as her fingers reach the lettering of the author’s name she hears a few melancholy notes coming from the Lord Sherbourne’s beloved Bechstein*** piano. Turning, Lettice sees the Tyrwhitts eldest son, Nigel sitting at the piano covered with family photos. He has the faceted bottle of brandy from the library’s tantalus**** sitting on the highly polished surface of the piano and a single snifter***** filled with amber liquid.
“I thought I might find you in here.” Lettice says, walking across the thick woven carpet into which the louis heels of her black shoes sink. “I’ve been looking for you.”
“Ahh Tice,” Nigel replies sadly. “You always did know me the best out of all the Chetwynds. I just had to get away from the cloying crowd out there.” He eyes the closed door, knowing what lies on the other side down the corridor.
“Yes, I know the feeling.” Lettice confides with a sigh. “If I hear one more comment about how healthy Uncle Sherbourne seemed and how shocking it all is, I think I might scream. As if any of them knew anything.”
“As if any of us did, Tice. We were always so wound up with Mother and her cancer. Drink?” Nigel raises his glass questioningly to Lettice before he takes a sip.
“As long as that isn’t whiskey.” Lettice replies, eyeing the glass and bottle suspiciously.
“As if it would be!” gasps Nigel. “Nasty old fire water! No, it’s brandy. Purely for medicinal purposes, of course.”
“Of course. Then I shan’t say no.” Lettice replies, as Nigel reaches behind him and picks up a second, clean snifter from the silver tray containing a small selection of alcoholic beverages and glasses.
As he pours her a glass, Lettice looks around the room. Although silent except for the tick of the grandfather clock in the corner and the occasional crackle from the rather miserable fire in the grate, the room still feels welcoming, and the book lined shelves take away some of the room’s formality and make it more cosy. “I’ve always loved this room too.”
“It’s where I feel the closest to Father since his passing.” Nigel admits and without further ado he begins to pick out the gentle notes of Chopin’s Mazurka Opus 17. Number 4.
Lettice leans against the corner of the closed piano top and picks up her snifter, staring at the foppishly handsome, yet tired looking Nigel as he plays effortlessly, very much the younger version of his father. “Well, that’s hardly surprising considering that you inherited his talent for playing the piano.” She indicates with a nod to his hands on the piano’s keys.
“Yes,” Nigel snorts derisively. “In another life where I wasn’t destined to become the next Lord Tyrwhitt, I might have made quite a good concert pianist,” He continues to play. “Or at the very least a mediocre jazz pianist.”
“On definitely the former, Nigel, however attractive and fun the latter might appear.” Lettice replies with a sad smile. “Do you remember when you are I were last together in this room?”
In answer to Lettice’s question, Nigel stops playing Chopin and starts to play the notes that commence the chorus of ‘The Wibbly Wobbly Walk******, yet the bright and happy music hall song takes on a melancholy feeling as he plays it slowly and languidly.
“So they all walk the Wibbley Wobbley Walk, and they all talk the Wibbley Wobbley talk.” Nigel sings sadly, emotion chocking his usually clear voice.
“And they all wear Wibbley Wobbley ties, and wink at all the pretty girls with Wibbley Wobbley eyes.” Lettice sings sweetly, at Nigel’s nodding indication to her.
“They all smile the Wibbley Wobbley Smile, when the day is dawning.” they both sing together as Nigel continues to play the notes on the piano’s keyboard. “Then all through the Wibbley Wobbley Walk, they get a wibbley wobbley feeling in the morning.”
Nigel stops playing and Lettice wonders whether he has the same hollow and empty feeling that she has as she stands at his elbow.
“Yes, we were celebrating Leslie and Bella’s nuptials that night.” Nigel muses, his voice taking on a faraway air, as though he were staring into a crystal ball and seeing the scene set in what felt like a century ago, rather than only a few months.
“I’d not long found out that Leslie and Bella had come to an understanding.” Lettice admits. “I’m sure you all knew long before I did.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that, Tice. Leslie’s always been a dark horse really, and you know that Bella is the keeper of all our childhood secrets, being so discreet.”
“Yes,” Lettice laughs and smiles as she takes another sip of brandy. Bella probably still remembers those secrets of mine whispered to her in the day nursery of our childhoods, and I’ve long forgotten them.”
Nigel takes up playing Chopin softly again. “Happy days.”
“This too shall pass,” Lettice consoles her childhood friend.
“But you see, Tice, it won’t. I’ll never be that mediocre jazz piano player, because I must now fulfil my destiny as the next Lord Tyrwhitt.”
“Yes,” Lettice acknowledges. “With all the burden that it bestows.
“I just don’t know how I’m going to manage it without him, Tice. I’m not ready to take all this on. I’m not even thirty yet.”
Nigel stops playing and picks up his glass. He gulps what remains of the amber glowing liquid in it and then he removes the square faceted stopper of the bottle and pours himself a fresh glass, before pointing the neck of it in Lettice’s direction. She nods and Nigel tops up her glass. He then recommences playing from where he left off.
“You’ll manage Nigel.” Lettice assures him. “Surely you will.”
“Will I, Tice?”
“You’ve been following Uncle Sherbourne and his instructions for years, Nigel.”
“Following instructions is one thing, but actually having to manage all this in reality,” He stops playing and waves his hands expansively around him momentarily before continuing to play again. “Is really quite another. For a start, I have death duties******* to pay, and I actually had a look at the books of the estate for the first time after I had Mr. Briers bring them up to the house.”
“The way you say that makes me think that what lay within them is ominous.” Lettice admits.
“The estate is haemorrhaging money, Tice.”
Lettice gasps.
“Father has been throwing money into paying for Mother’s treatment, but he’s let the estate business slip through his fingers whilst he’s been distracted by her.”
“Are you suggesting that your Estate Manager is stealing money from the estate?”
“Not Briers, Tice,” Nigel explains. ‘But of course, you wouldn’t know, being up in London.”
“Know what, Nigel?”
“Well Briers is the new Estate Manager, as Mr. Langley, the old Manager left in July last year under a cloud of some kind. Father never told Mother and I exactly what happened. He said he had it all in hand.”
“And did he?”
“We were led to believe so, but it would appear not. It seems that Langley was stealing money from the estate whilst Father’s back was turned taking care of Mother. Langley hadn’t been collecting rents from the tenant farmers he favoured, who often were letting their farms fall into ruin, and he increased the rents on the others to cover the costs, but didn’t tell Father. When they left because they couldn’t afford the increase in rents, Langley simply moved his friends into them.”
“Yes, I remember Pater saying something about a couple of your father’s tenants taking up some of the more neglected farms on our estate, but I never thought much of it.”
“Langley charged the estate for works done on the cottages, but as far as I can tell, nothing was actually done. So now I’m stuck with farms that are run down and neglected with lazy tenants who don’t work the land and don’t pay their rents. Briers has been trying since he began to turn the fortunes of the estate around, but he’s not a miracle worker.” Nigel sighs. “And after a year, a miracle is really what I need.”
“What happened to Mr. Langley?”
“He did a midnight flit with the cash box.” Nigel says matter-of-factly. “Not that Father told any of us that. I only found out thanks to Briers who confided the truth to me when he showed me the appalling state of the books. When he took over as the new Manager of the estate, he noticed discrepancies, and the more he looked, the bigger they were.”
“No!” Lettice gasps. “Does Aunt Isobel know?”
“No!” Nigel assures her quickly. “And I don’t want her being told. It might kill her too, and I can’t lose Mother,” he pauses. “Not yet at least.”
“What about Bella?”
“I haven’t told her yet, but she’s inciteful. It won’t take her long to read my face and know it isn’t just Father’s passing that is worrying me.”
“You won’t have to sell Garstanton Park, will you?”
Nigel doesn’t answer straight away, taking another larger than polite swig from his glass and cradling it in his hand. “No.”
Lettice releases a pent-up breath she has been holding onto in her chest.
“It would break Mother’s heart. But,” Nigel adds. “I may have to seriously consider it, or at least consider selling off some of the land.”
“Pater and Leslie might buy some of the land adjoining the Glynes estate. Leslie would do it for Bella, I’m sure.”
“I’m not sure how I’m going to manage things to get us out of the bother we’re in.” He deposits his glass back on top of the piano, and begins to play again – a piece Lettice doesn’t know. “I’m not sure I even can. And this is why I said I don’t know how I’m going to manage it all without Father. It’s all so overwhelming. I don’t know where to start. I need him to tell me what to do.”
“Unless he is Lazarus,” Lettice remarks with macabre wit. “I’m afraid that you’ll find that somewhat difficult, Nigel.”
“After all these years of you and I comparing our families with one another, it seems as though I have more in common with poor Gerald’s family, literally, rather than yours, now.”
“You didn’t put the estate in this situation, Nigel, and nor did Uncle Shelbourne. It was that weasel, Mr. Langley. Lord Bruton just buried his head in the sand when he knew what was happening and carried on in spite of it. I feel sorry for Gerald, but Lord Bruton has no one but himself to blame for his financial ruination.”
“Same outcome.” Nigel acknowledges bitterly. He sighs as he strikes the keyboard dramatically and then adds a trill of other notes. “At least I still have my music, for now.”
“Who is this?” Lettice asks in an effort to change the subject to a lighter topic, if only momentarily.
“Pinto. George Frederick Pinto.” Nigel elucidates. “He was an English composer.”
“It’s beautiful.”
For a short while she listens to the soothing sound of Nigel’s slender fingers depressing the white ivory and black ebony keys of the piano and allows her mind to drift to all the occasions she and her family spent with the Tyrwhitt family in this room: birthdays with cake, gifts and charades, and musical evenings where they all learned whether they excelled musically or not, and then when they were older, cocktail parties with suitable young people from the other good families of the county. She looks around her at the shelves full of tomes she knows as well as those in her own father’s library in her childhood home of Glynes. The room is full of more vases of flowers than usual, doubtless arrangements sent in condolence from family and friends. The recent addition of a wireless, something no-one thought a musical purist like Lord Sherbourne would ever allow in his music room, sitting on a quirky ornate table made of black painted bamboo.
“There’s something different about this room.” Lettice observes.
“Is there?” Nigel asks unconcerned, glancing around him as his hands continue to glide across the keys and his arms flow with the fluidity of movement of a natural pianist.
“Yes.” Lettice declares. “But I can’t put my finger on it.”
“Is it the absence of Father?”
“No,” Lettice counters. “Well, yes, but no, it’s more than that. It’s something physical.”
Nigel stops playing and turns on the piano stool. He gazes at Lettice with his blue eyes, and then he follows her gaze. Suddenly the Georgian grandfather clock in the corner of the room releases a mournful clang, making Lettice gasp.
“Oh, it’s just the clock, Tice.” Nigel says, reaching out a hand and clasping her black clad forearm.
“But that’s it!” Lettice exclaims. “That’s what’s different about this room. That clock never used to be in here. It used to stand in the hallway outside.”
Nigel turns and looks at the mahogany longcase clock with its slightly tarnished brass face beneath its cover of glass, as if seeing it for the first time. “By Jove Tice! You’re right! Gosh! You know my home better than I do myself,” he chuckles. “And I live here.” He contemplates the clock again as it stands against the old fashioned Victorian flocked gold wallpaper. “What used to be there?”
“The Renaissance boy with the doleful face and red hair. Remember?” Lettice says straight away.
“That’s right! See this is why you’re the interior designer, Tice.” Nigel laughs. “You’re the one with an eye for detail.”
“Uncle Sherbourne loved that painting.” Lettice muses quietly. “Why would he move it from his favourite room in the whole of Garstanton Park?”
“Oh,” Nigel says offhandedly, recommencing his piano playing. “He was always tinkering and rearranging things. I think he enjoyed doing it as much as Mother did. One day something was there and the next day it wasn’t. It will turn up somewhere, someday.”
Nigel’s words begin to fade from Lettice’s consciousness as the blood drains, unnoticed by her piano playing companion, from her face as she suddenly remembers something from when she went to Bonhams******** with Margot and Dickie in August of last year to determine whether the painting of Miss Rosevear from ‘Chi an Treth’ really was a Winterhalter********** painting or not. She had noticed it, hanging low on the wall in the room they were in, surrounded by old masters and Georgian portraits – the young Renaissance boy with the sad face and red hair. She just hadn’t been able to place where she had seen him before, seeing him out of context of the Garstanton Park library cum music room. Now privy to the fact that when she visited Bonhams was probably just after Mr. Langley ran off with the cash box of profits from her honorary uncle’s estate, she suspects sadly that no matter how much Nigel searches the house, he will never find that painting again.
*By the 1920s radiotherapy was well developed with the use of X-rays and radium. There was an increasing realisation of the importance of accurately measuring the dose of radiation and this was hampered by the lack of good apparatus. The science of radiobiology was still in its infancy and increasing knowledge of the biology of cancer and the effects of radiation on normal and pathological tissues made an enormous difference to treatment. Treatment planning began in this period with the use of multiple external beams. The X-ray tubes were also developing with replacement of the earlier gas tubes with the modern Coolidge hot-cathode vacuum tubes. The voltage that the tubes operated at also increased and it became possible to practice ‘deep X-ray treatment’ at 250 kV. Sir Stanford Cade published his influential book “Treatment of Cancer by Radium” in 1928 and this was one of the last major books on radiotherapy that was written by a surgeon.
**Wigmore Hall is a concert hall located at 36 Wigmore Street, London. Originally called Bechstein Hall, it specialises in performances of chamber music, early music, vocal music and song recitals. It is widely regarded as one of the world's leading centres for this type of music and an essential port of call for many of the classical music world's leading stars. With near-perfect acoustic, the Hall quickly became celebrated across Europe and featured many of the great artists of the 20th century. Today, the Hall promotes 550 concerts a year and broadcasts a weekly concert on BBC Radio 3. The Hall also promotes an extensive education programme throughout London and beyond and has a huge digital broadcasting arm, which includes the Wigmore Hall Live Label and many live streams of concerts.
***C. Bechstein Pianoforte AG (also known as Bechstein), is a German manufacturer of pianos, established in 1853 by Carl Bechstein (1826 – 1900).
****Originally patented in 1881 by George Betjemann, a tantalus is a wooden container for glass decanters, characterised by a lock and key. The basic framework of the piece allows two, three and sometimes four decanters to be secured within it, visible but inaccessible when locked.
*****A snifter (also called brandy snifter, brandy glass, brandy bowl, or a cognac glass) is a type of stemware, a short-stemmed glass whose vessel has a wide bottom and a relatively narrow top. It is mostly used to serve aged brown liquors such as bourbon, brandy, and whisky.
******’They All Walk the Wibbly Wobbly Walk’ is a song written by Paul Pelham and J. P. Long sung by the famous British music hall performer Mark Sheridan in 1912. It was a song often sung during the Great War, and associated by the British general public with the survivors of the conflict who trembled due to shell shock or had misshapen walks thanks to injuries inflicted upon them.
*******Modern inheritance tax dates back to 1894 when the government introduced estate duty, a tax on the capital value of land, in a bid to raise money to pay off a £4m government deficit. It replaced several different inheritance taxes, including the 1796 tax on estates introduced to help fund the war against Napoleon. The earliest death duty can be traced back to 1694 when probate duty, a tax on personal property in wills proved in court, was brought in. When the tax was first introduced it was intended to affect only the very wealthy, but the rise in the value of homes, particularly in the south-east of England, it began to creep into the realms of the upper middle-classes. From 1896, it was possible to avoid estate duty by handing on gifts during the life of the donor. To counter avoidance through last minute transfers, gifts handed over a limited time before death were still subject to the tax. Initially the period was one year but that rose to seven years over time. Freshly recovering from the Great War, the hefty death taxes imposed on wealthy families such as the Tyrwhitts in the post-war years of the 1920s, combined with increases to income taxes on the wealthy, caused some to start to sell off their country houses and estates, settling in more reduced circumstances (still very luxurious by today’s standards) in their smaller London homes.
********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 and Brooks and Phillips Son and Neale.
*********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).
Cluttered with books and with art on the walls, Garstanton Park’s library cum music room with its typical English country house furnishings is different from what you might think, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures from my collection, including pieces from my own childhood.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The majority of the books that you see lining the shelves of the library cum music room are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Ken Blythe was famous in miniature collectors’ circles mostly for the miniature books that he made: all being authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real volumes. I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. However, he did not make books exclusively. He also made other small pieces like the sheet music you see sitting atop the piano. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make these miniature artisan pieces. Ken Blythe’s work is highly sought after by miniaturists around the world today and command high prices at auction for such tiny pieces, particularly now that he is no longer alive. I was fortunate enough to acquire pieces from Ken Blythe prior to his death about four years ago and through his estate courtesy of the generosity of his daughter and son-in-law. His legacy will live on with me and in my photography which I hope will please his daughter.
The grand piano and matching stool appearing in the midground is a 1:12 miniature piece I have had since I was a teenager. It is covered in family photos, all of which are all real photos, produced to high standards in 1:12 size on photographic paper by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The frames are from various suppliers, but all are metal. The two snifters and bottle of brandy come from an online stockist on miniatures on E-Bay.
The red roses on the piano and the summer flowers in the vase on the table closest to the foreground come from the Dolls House Emporium, and have been made carefully by hand. The very lifelike irises and delphiniums in the background on the Bespaq pedestal are made of polymer clay they are moulded on wires to allow them to be shaped at will and put into individually formed floral arrangements. They are made by a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany. The vase they stand in was made by M.W. Reutter Porzellanfabrik in Germany, who specialise in making high quality porcelain miniatures.
The chairs and sofa in the library cum music room are made by the high-quality miniature furniture manufacturer, Bespaq. The ebonised ornate occasional table I acquired Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom as I did the table in the foreground and the Georgian longcase grandfather clock in the background.
The carpet beneath the furniture is hand made by Mackay and Gerrish in Sydney, Australia.
The gold flocked Edwardian wallpaper is beautiful hand impressed paper given to me by a friend, which inspired the whole “Cavendish Mews – Lettice Chetwynd” series.