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.
Tonight however, we have travelled a short distance from Cavendish Mews, skirting Hyde Park, around Hyde Park Corner, through Knightsbridge past the Brompton Road and Harrods with its ornate terracotta façade, to the northern edge of South Kensington where the great round Roman amphitheatre inspired Royal Albert Hall, built in honour of Queen Victoria’s late husband prince Albert in 1861 stands. Illuminated by lights, the great terracotta mosaic frieze, depicting “The Triumph of Arts and Sciences” above the doors welcomed men in white waistcoats and women a-glitter with jewels earlier in the evening as they were ushered through the Hall’s doors to enjoy a performance of a selection of pieces by Schumann and Brahms by the famous British concert pianist, Sylvia Fordyce. Amongst the appreciative audience seated in the lofty auditorium were Lettice and her fiancée, Sir John Nettleford-Hughes, accompanied by Sir John’s widowed sister Clementine (known preferably now by the more cosmopolitan Clemance) Pontefract serving as chaperone for Lettice. Sir John and Clemance are both long time friends of Sylvia Fordyce, and Sylvia has invited Sir John, Clemance and Lettice to her dressing room in the basement of the Hall after the completion of the evening’s performance for a private audience.
“Would you kindly tell Miss Fordyce that Sir John Nettleford-Hughes, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd and Mrs. Clemance Pontefract are here to see her.” Sir John says with hauteur to the rather surly, muscular looking man standing outside Sylvia’s dressing room door with his arms folded across his chest menacingly.
“Is she expecting you?” the man asks gruffly, eyeing the trio perfectly in elegant evening dress who look so out of place in the greasy and dirty service corridors of the great Victorian hall.
Sir John smiles politely at the man, oozing the confidence of male privilege that his sex, class and enormous wealth bestows, wearing it every bit as well as the smart and well-cut set of tails he is dressed in. “Of course she is!” he enunciates in a haughty tone.
By his left side, Lettice squeezes his hand with her own nervously as the man knocks at the door and is granted entry by a commanding female voice from within.
“Don’t worry my darling.” Sir John assures Lettice, giving her a winning smile. “Sylvia doesn’t like too much of a crowd after a performance, but she’ll see us.”
“We’re very old friends of hers.” Clemance adds in a comforting purr as she pats the diamond tiara that has been expertly woven into her stylishly waved hair.
“In fact, she specifically sent tickets to me, for you Lettice,” Sir John goes on. “Because she so wants to meet you.”
“I’m a little nervous, meeting one of Britain’s most accomplished concert pianists,” Lettice admits. “Never mind her also being an old friend of yours.”
Sir John wraps his arm around her and gives her a gentle squeeze. “You’ll be fine. You’ll charm her as you do everyone. Sylvia wants to meet you because you are now my fiancée, my dear. She is anxious that we should all be friends.”
“And you’ll like her, Lettice.” Clemance insists. “She’s a very charismatic woman.”
The door suddenly opens, and the burly guard reemerges. “Miss Fordyce will see you.” He says in a grumpy tone, pushing the door open roughly with his muscular arm and allowing the trio entry.
They walk into a dressing room decorated with old fashioned Victorian style gold flocked wallpaper filled with a mish-mash of furnishings including a wardrobe, a chaise, some drawers and a Chinese screen. The room is crammed with dozens and dozens of flower arrangements in vases, urns and baskets: irises, tulips, lilies and ever so many roses in any number of shades. As Lettice looks around the space it reminds her more of the regent Street Flower Box than a dressing room. The fragrance of so many blooms is cloying and almost overpowering. And there, sitting at a flounced dressing table amongst them all is Sylvia Fordyce the world famous concert pianist herself.
“Ahh, Nettie darling!” Sylvia says, using Sir John’s pet name used only by his closest friends from his younger days, looking up from a selection of cards from well wishes and glimpsing his reflection in the black and gilt painted mirror before her.
“Sylvia my dear! A marvellous performance tonight, if I may say so.” Sir John says with pleasure as she walks up to his friend and kisses her hand chivalrously as she extends it to him.
“You may, dear Nettie!” Sylvia replies, spinning around to face him properly.
Dressed in the traditional black worn by performers on stage, Sylvia’s black georgette sleeveless sheath frock is spangled with rhinestones applied in a diamond patterns around the waist and a long necklace of shimmering golden faceted beads hangs about her elegant, swan like neck. Her hair is cut into a sharp bob, the style of which only accentuates the angularity of her face. Dyed jet black, her tresses make her face, pasted in a thick layer of white makeup, look even paler. She has high and sharp cheek bones and expertly plucked and fashioned brows over large brown eyes framed by long black lashes. Her thin lips are the only part of her coloured, painted with a bright red shade of lipstick. They part in a happy smile and her dark eyes warm as she spies Clemance. “Oh and Clemmie! I didn’t know you were coming tonight! How delicious!”
“Sylvia darling!” Clemance exclaims in reply.
“I’d heard you were back in the country after Harrison’s death.” Sylvia reaches out her hands with her long pianist’s fingers, graced by only one cluster of sparking jewels to her old friend. “I’m so sorry for your loss, my dear.”
“Thank you Sylvia.” Clemance replies, accepting Sylvia’s condolences and hands warmly.
“So where are you living, now you’re back in London?” Sylvia asks, her eyes alert. “Bunking in with that no good brother of yours in Belgravia?” She glances across at Sir John and gives him a cheeky smile before refocussing her attention on Clemance.
“Never fear!” Clemance chuckles good naturedly. “No, I’m living in Holland Park.”
“Why, then we’re practically neighbours, Clemmie darling! I’m only in Holland Park Gardens! We must catch up, - properly I mean, not like this.” She waves her hand expansively around the flower filled dressing room. “Are you in the book*?”
“Yes.”
“Then I shall look you up, once I’m back from this latest tour of the provinces my agent has booked me to do.”
“I’d like that, Sylvia.”
“Sylvia I’d like to…” Sir John begins before being interrupted by a young woman dressed in a smart tweed suit as she bursts through the door past the guard.
“More flowers, Miss Fordyce.” she announces, hoisting a basket filled with a cascade of the most beautiful red and white fragrant roses.
“Oh!” Sylvia mutters distractedly. “Put them down over there, Atlanta.” She points to a space on the floor near to the Chinese screen. “Anywhere you can find a space, really.”
“Yes Miss Fordyce.” the young woman answers.
“Nettie darling! Clemmie! You remember my private secretary, Atlanta, don’t you?”
“How do you do.” Sir John says politely.
“Lovely to make your acquaintance again, Atlanta.” Clemance echoes.
“And you remember my friends, Sir John Nettleford-Huges and his sister, Mrs. Pontefract, don’t you, Atlanta?” Sylvia asks her secretary.
Stretching as she resumes a standing position after placing the unwieldy basket of flowers on the floor of the dressing room the young girl replies, “Yes of course! How do you do, Sir John,” She nods curtly from the neck. “Mrs. Pontefract” She nods again.
“Who is that rather overblown basket from anyway, Atlanta?” Sylvia glares at the basket.
“The Messrs Charteris, Colquhoun and Denver of course.” Atlanta replies tiredly with a sniff of disapproval. “Who else would send you something so incredibly gushing?”
“Oh lord!” Sylvia remarks, looking more hostilely at the basket of blooms. “That can go to Guy’s Hospital then**. It’s not coming home with us.”
“You wait until you read their card, Miss Fordyce.” her secretary goes on.
“Oh, spare me!” Sylvia replies, raising her hands and rolling her eyes to the discoloured distemper*** ceiling above. She looks imploringly at Sir John. “What it is to be a victim of one’s own success, Nettie darling!” She sighs and sinks back into her seat. “I’ve grown somewhat of a following amongst the queers**** of Lonon’s West End theatre audience. They’ll all be clamouring at the door when I leave later tonight.”
“How very tiresome for you.” Sir John replies with an edge of sarcasm to his voice.
“Well, let’s just hope there is at least one red blooded stage-door johnny***** buried amongst them whom I can take home to Holland Park Gardens tonight.” Sylvia replies with a wicked smirk.
“Sylvia,” Sir John huffs with frustrated with his friend’s narcissistic obsession of herself. “I’d like to introduce you to my fiancée, Miss Lettice Chetwynd.”
“Ah!” Sylvia exclaims, her irritation at the flowers a moment ago forgotten. “Now this should be interesting! I’ve been dying to meet you, Miss Chetwynd!”
Sir John steps aside and guides Lettice, dressed in a striking turquoise silk crêpe evening dress with a gypsy girdle****** ornamented with silver lined black seed beads, forward. She wears a matching bandeau******* decorated with an aigrette******** of dyed black feathers and a diamond spray in her waved blonde hair and a rope of pearls that is wrapped around her throat and cascades down her front. “How do you do, Miss Fordyce.” Lettice says politely, extending an elbow length white glove clad right hand to the concert pianist.
“Enchanté!” Sylvia gasps with unbridled delight, drinking in Lettice’s elegant form, reaching out her own hand and taking Lettice’s. She glances at Sir John. “Nettie! She’s every bit as beautiful as you described!” she exclaims, the remark making Lettice blush. Drawn back to Lettice, Sylvia goes on, “Now, now! You mustn’t blush Miss Chetwynd! You should always accept every compliment when it’s given,” She pauses for a moment as she thinks of the word she wants to use. “Graciously.” She wags a finger at Lettice. “After all, you never know when they might dry up.” She then shifts her gaze to Sir John’s sister. “So that’s why you came this evening, Clemmie: to act as chaperone for Miss Chetwynd!”
“Well, Lettice hardly needs a chaperone at twenty-five, Sylvia,” Clemence replies. “But for societal purposes, yes.”
“Well, I’m glad you came, Clemmie darling, and I hoped you enjoyed the performance!” Sylvia says.
“Oh I did, Sylvia. We all did, didn’t we?”
Sir John and Lettice both murmur in agreement.
“Then you must come again, when I give a new performance!” Sylvia claps her hands together theatrically, making the large diamond and aquamarine ring on her middle left finger sparkle in the light. “But enough of that now. As I said, I’ll telephone you, Clemmie, or I’ll get Atlanta to do so once I’m back from touring.” She returns her focus to Lettice, her dark brown eyes widening. “And you Miss Chetwynd. I’ve been dying to meet you, even before you met Nettie here and decided to make an honest man of him.” She chuckles throatily.
“Me?” Lettice queries, gulping in surprise.
“You my dear!” she purrs as she concurs with a nod. “In fact, whilst I asked Nettie to bring you here this evening, so that he could introduce you to me as his fiancée, I have my own ulterior motives for wishing to meet you.”
“Really?” Lettice asks. “That sounds rather foreboding.”
“Mmmm…” Sylvia murmurs with an enigmatic smile.
Sir John makes an awkward stage cough. “Now behave, Sylvia.”
“Nettie darling! Clemmie!” Sylvia replies. “It’s been lovely to see you two tonight, but right now, I want to chat with Miss Chetwynd alone.”
“I don’t know if I think that’s a very good idea, Sylvia.” Sir John says with a low and slightly nervous chuckle. “Can you be trusted? It looks like there is mischief in your eyes this evening.”
“Mischief!” Sylvia tuts in return. “You and your suspicious mind, Nettie!” She laughs. “How wise you are, my dear.” She smiles a wide and knowing smile at her friend. “However, in this case I can assure you that you have nothing to fear. Your character shall not be defamed.” She winks at him. “I wish only to discuss the business of redecoration with Miss Chetwynd this evening, not you.”
“Sylvia, it’s been lovely.” Clemance says, bending down and kissing the pianist on the right cheek proffered to her.
“I’ll telephone you.” Sylvia assures her again, reaching up and squeezing Clemance’s upper arms with her elegant fingers. “And we’ll have cocktails, like they do in America.”
“I’ll hold you to that, Sylvia.” Clemance laughs.
Once again turning her attentions to Sir John, Sylvia goes on, “And Nettie darling, no doubt I will see you,” She arches a well plucked eyebrow high over her right eye. “With the delightful Miss Chetwynd.” Her gaze darts momentarily back to Lettice before returning to Sir John. “You make a handsome couple. Now!” She proffers the same cheek to Sir John and like his sister, he bends down to the seated pianist and kisses her. “Atlanta will escort you and Clemmie to the bar for a drink, where you may cool you heels at my expense, whilst Miss Chetwynd and I become better acquainted as we discuss a little interior design over champagne.” She taps a bottle of French champagne cooling in a silver bucket on a spindly black japanned table sitting next to her dressing table.
“Right this way, Sir John, Mrs. Pontefract.” Sylvia’s assistant says, opening the dressing room door with a sweeping gesture.
Sir John looks quizzically at Sylvia.
“Don’t worry, Nettie!” Sylvia moves her hand up and down in a calming sign in the air between she and her friend. “I told you I wanted to talk about some redecoration I want done, with the most fashionable and desirable interior designer of the moment. It’s just luck that she also happens to be your fiancée. I promise we won’t discuss you,” Her eyes flit back to Lettice, gleaming wickedly, before shooting back to Sir John. “Much!”
“We’ll be at the basement bar, Lettice darling.” Sir John assures his fiancée.
“I’ll be fine, John.” Lettice replies. “If Miss Fordyce wants to discuss interior design…”
“Well I hope that’s all.” Sir John says darkly.
“You sound like you have something to hide, John.” Lettice replies in a low voice. “Do you?”
Sir John holds up his hands. “We have no secrets, you and I.” He glances nervously at Sylvia. “But Sylvia is a dangerous and fierce woman in her own right.”
“Then she will have met her match with me, won’t she John?” Lettice smiles bravely. “If I can manage Lady Gladys Caxton.”
He turns back to Lettice and smiles weakly. “Just make sure she doesn’t shock you too much with her talk, or eat you alive, eh?”
“Oh pshaw!” Sylvia says, flipping her elegant left hand dismissively at Sir John. “Off you go now, Nettie. Leave Miss Chetwynd and I to chat like a good and obedient boy.”
With some gentle persuasion and guidance, Atlanta manages to usher Sir John and Clemance out through the door and closes it quietly behind her.
“Well, Miss Fordyce,” Lettice begins with a deep intake of breath.
The pianist suddenly sits upright in her seat at the dressing table, throwing off her languid stance as she holds her arms up rigidly and stretches out her fine fingers as though she is reaching to the heavens above. Her face is serious, her eyes closed, and her lips now nothing more than a thin streak of red across her white powdered face as she lifts her face to the light above. “Hush!” Sylvia commands as she pauses in this dramatic position for a moment before slowly lowering herself back into her seat and languidly opening her eyes. “Pray allow me this moment of silence.”
Lettice stands before the older woman and does as she is bid, saying nothing and not moving as a look of peace crosses the musician’s face and a blissful smile slowly curls up the corners of her mouth.
“Isn’t it divine, my dear Miss Chetwynd?” Sylvia asks, breathing deeply.
“Isn’t what divine, Miss Fordyce?” Lettice responds with her own question.
“The silence.” Sylvia replies.
Lettice listens. Around them the quiet air is thick. The slightly sweet and metallic smell of fifty years of greasepaint from past occupiers of the room fills the already cloying floral atmosphere. Lettice remembers her parents talking about the extravagant Shakespeare Memorial Ball********* that they attended at the Royal Albert Hall, two days before King George’s Coronation in 1911, with the Viscount dressed up as Julius Caesar and Lady Sadie as Lady Macbeth. Dust motes float silently through the air around the overhead pendant light and the wall sconces around the dressing room. Only the occasional footfall or hushed conversation in the corridor outside breaks the silence.
“I love this quiet time,” Sylvia finally says, exhaling deeply through her nostrils. “Even more than the adulation of the audience as it rises to its feet and cries for an encore.” She sighs happily. “It’s what every artist craves in their heart of hearts – the silence after the theatrics are all over. It is sheer bliss.”
Lettice doesn’t answer, unsure as to what to say, however, evidently an answer was not required from her.
“Please, do sit down, Miss Chetwynd.” Sylvia says, indicating with a sweeping gesture to the sagging flouncy Edwardian floral chaise lounge that sits across from the dressing table. “Just push those chocolates aside to make room for yourself.” She nods at an open box full of very expensive looking sweetmeats. “Who are they from?”
Lettice pushes the box along the seat cushion to make some space and picks up the card. “A Miss. Vesta Hartley.” Lettice replies, blushing red as she reads what else is written in the card.
“Damn woman.” Sylvia mutters. “I don’t care how many times she implores me, or what she tries to bribe me with, I have never shared her sapphist********** inclinations, and never will.”
Lettice quietly and discreetly slips the card aside. “So, Miss Fordyce, you wanted to speak to me on business?” she asks.
“Do you mind if I smoke?” Sylvia asks Lettice, not waiting for a response before fishing out a black ashtray and packet of Craven “A” cigarettes*********** from behind a screen of congratulatory cards cluttering her lace draped dressing table. Lettice shallowly shakes her head as the woman fossicks for a silver lighter. “Would you care for one?” she asks Lettice, thrusting the open packet out to Lettice.
“No thank you.” Lettice answers with a gentle shake of her head. “I don’t smoke.”
“Oh I thought you would.” Sylvia replies, withdrawing the packet she proffered. “I thought all you young Flappers did. Besides, you’re engaged to Nettie, and he’s not exactly known for farouche dining companions or wallflowers.”
Lettice toys distractedly with the black lace fan with ebony slats dangling from her right wrist by black velvet ribbon. “Look, Miss Fordyce,” she begins with irritation. “Did you want to talk to me privately just to warn me off marrying John?” She sighs heavily. “Because if you are, I think you should know that John has been very disclosing about his…” Lettice doesn’t know quite how to conclude her sentence.
“Attachments?” Sylvia queries helpfully, cocking her eyebrow at Lettice’s pretty, yet forlorn figure seated upon the chaise.
“Exactly.” Lettice sighs again.
“Certainly not, Miss Chetwynd!” Sylvia scoffs, lighting her cigarette and blowing out a plume of pale grey acrid smoke. “Who am I to tell you what to do? Besides, when it comes to marriage, I don’t exactly have the best record.”
“But you aren’t married Miss Fordyce.” Lettice opines in surprise.
“Fordyce is my maiden name, and my stage name. I was married. I’m really, Mrs. Marmaduke Piggott.” She stops and draws on her cigarette again before pulling a face. “Ghastly name, isn’t it? I’m a widow now.” She puffs out another cloud of roiling smoke. “But even when I wasn’t, I’ve always been known as Miss Fordyce professionally. I was known as Sylvia Fordyce the pianist long before I met and married Marmaduke, and I decided to carry on as such, but I can tell you more about that, later. Sylvia Fordyce looks far better on a concert program or playbill and sounds far nicer than Sylvia Piggott. Anyway,” she goes on. “You must call me Sylvia, since your fiancée and I are on a first name term basis, and I shall call you Lettice.”
“Very well, Sylvia.” Lettice agrees.
“Anyway as I was saying, I make it my business never to interfere with other people’s love lives. You marry whomever you want, Lettice. Why did you think I’d warn you off Nettie?”
Lettice’s face crumples as she lowers her head and looks down into her lap. “Because others have tried to do so, my own family included.”
“Ahh.” Sylvia says knowingly, dragging thoughtfully on her cigarette. As she taps the spent ash off its end into the ashtray, she slips it into a notch on the rim to hold it. She leans over to the bottle of champagne, withdraws it and unravels the foil from around its top. “Well, I’m glad that you told me that you have full disclosure as far as Nettie is concerned. You’re obviously walking into this marriage with your eyes open, which is good. You need to. Nettie, god love him, has quite a history, as I’m sure he’s told you, and you must know of, if you know Gladys Caxton.” Lettice nods shallowly, but Sylvia is too busy removing the cage from around the cork to notice. “Oh, and before you ask.” She pops the cork. “I might call him Nettie, but that doesn’t mean I’m the same as Gladys or the countless other women who call him that. Nettie and I have never had a fling.” She assures Lettice. “I take it you’ll have a glass of champagne, Lettice?” Lettice nods and as Sylvia pours the sparkling golden liquid into one of the glass flutes sitting in front of the wine cooler, she adds, “He’s never been my type. Interestingly, for a woman who has made a career in the arts, Nettie is too cultivated culturally to appeal to me in that way. I love my friendship with Nettie and our long and in-depth conversations about the nuances of music, but I seem to prefer the rather boorish, brutish military type of man who knows all there is to know about a revolver, but couldn’t tell one end of a violin from the other: like my dead husband.” She smiles as she hands the glass of champagne to Lettice and chuckles bitterly. “Which is why I say that I never interfere in anyone else’s romantic affairs. I pick the wrong type of man every time.” She sighs through barred teeth. “But there you have it. Cin-cin.”
Sylvia picks up her own filled glass of champagne and extends it towards Lettice’s. Lettice raises her own and the two flutes clink cheerfully.
Sylvia continues, “I only really know Nettie because of his sister. Clemmie and I became friends because we were two English girls staying with the same impecunious German aristocratic family, the von Nyssens, in Charlottenburg as part of our finishing off at the same time. Clemmie had been sent out to Berlin to improve her German, and I was living with the von Nyssens so that I could take lessons at the Universität der Künste, Berlin************.”
After taking a sip of her champagne, Lettice tentatively asks, “So, if you’ve not invited me here to warn me off John, Sylvia. Why am I here?”
“To talk business of course!” Sylvia sips her own glass of champagne. “I’ve read quite a bit about you, my dear. I read the favourable articles Henry Tipping************* write about you in Country Life**************, and I’ve been following your career, although I must confess, it was that last article by Henry Tipping on the room you decorated for the Giffords in Wiltshire that really made me want to speak with you.”
“Alisdair Gifford is John’s nephew.” Lettice opines.
“Yes, I know. Nettie mentioned to me that you were going to redecorate a room for Alisdair’s wife to house her blue and white china collection, so I was most anxious to see what the results looked like, and I was suitably impressed.”
“You were, Sylvia.”
“Quite.” Sylvia nods before taking another sip of her champagne. She swallows, picks up the butt of her cigarette, takes one long final draw on it and extinguishes it in the ashtray, expelling another cloud of greyish smoke tumbling through the air. She withdraws another cigarette from her packet and lights it immediately with her bulky silver lighter. “You see, I am a collector of blue and white porcelain too.”
“Really?”
“Not in the way Adelinda Gifford does,” Sylvia drags on her freshly lit cigarette and sighs, blowing out more smoke. “But, I do have a few rather nice pieces, even if I do say so, myself.”
“Alright Sylvia,” Lettice says in a relieved tone, reaching into the gold tissue paper lined box of chocolates and taking out one with a piece of candied orange peel on its top. “My interest is piqued.”
“Oh good!” Sylvia claps her hands, sending a shower of ash across her lap, which she blows off with a puff. “I told you before that I would share a little about my married life, so here it is, sad and bitter though it may be.” She settles back in her seat like a true performer: a storyteller before her enthralled audience. “The best thing Brigadier Marmaduke Piggott did for me and our ill-fated marriage was to get himself blown up at the Battle of Passchendaele***************.”
“Sylvia!” Lettice gasps.
“I’m sorry, Lettice, but it’s true. Whilst I don’t wish him dead, Marmaduke took very much after the first part of his surname. He was a pig: brutish and violent. Ours was a very unhappy marriage, and I’d be lying if I said that it was all one sided. If you back me into a corner, Lettice, I will fight like a tigress. We did things to deliberately hurt one another in every sense.” She draws on her cigarette, blows out another tumble of smoke and then takes a less than ladylike gulp of champagne from her glass. “Anyway, he died, and he left me, even after death duties, well off enough for me to buy a small parcel of land in Essex, just outside of a charming little village called Belchamp St Paul****************.”
“I can’t say I know it.” Lettice admits.
“Oh I’m hardly surprised, Lettice. It’s a small farming village, very picturesque with a pub and a rather large church built in the Fifteenth Century. A local famer was selling off some of his land which included a rather lovely copse of trees, which is why I bought it. I had Sydney Castle***************** build me a smart and select little red brick cottage there, hidden from view from the road by the copse. I call it ‘The Nest’ because it is nestled in amongst the trees, hidden and private. I had Syrie Maugham****************** decorate it.” She pauses for a moment before asking, “You aren’t friends with her, are you?”
“Who, Syrie Maugham?” Lettice asks.
“Yes.”
“Well, considering that we are in competition with one another, I can safely say that, no we aren’t, Sylvia.”
“Oh good!” Sylvia takes another sip of champagne. “So I can tell you then, without fear of reprisals, that I wasn’t at all happy with her insistence on white walls. She has an obsession for shades of white!”
“Oh yes I know.” Lettice sips her champagne.
“So as a result I have white chairs and white cushions, white curtains and white carpets. I got rid of her white carpet and replaced it with a blue one I much prefer, but I’m still stuck with her god-awful white walls. ‘The Nest’ is my little place out of London, where I can stop being Sylvia Fordyce the famous concert pianist and entertainer, and just be Sylvia the country hostess and entertain a select group of close friends in cosy comfort. An all white colour scheme does not suggest cosy comfort in any way, shape or form. I’m sure you agree, Lettice.”
“So what was it you were hoping you’d engage me to do, Sylvia?”
“Well, I read in a previous article by Henry Tipping that you painted a table for Mrs. Richard Channon of Penzance.”
“Margot!” Lettice gasps. “She’s my best girlfriend, and I hope my maid-of-honour when I marry John. Yes, she had a rather pretty demilune table******************* which she was happy to discard, but I decided to paint it and repurpose it in my design. Did you want me to paint some of your furnishings?”
“Goodness me no, Lettice!” Sylvia puffs out another cloud of smoke after dragging on her cigarette again. “No! I want something far grander than that! What I want is a feature wall in my drawing room at ‘The Nest’, my dear.”
“You want me to recommend some paper hangings?”
“I want you to paint it, Lettice!” Sylvia exclaims. “I want something blue and bold to be a foil for Syrie Maugham’s shades of white, that will also compliment my blue and white porcelain collection. Nettie tells me you’re quite an accomplished paintress.”
“Oh, that’s very flattering and kind of him to say so.” Lettice blushes at the compliment, awkwardly taking another sip of champagne.
“He’s nothing of the sort if your table is anything to go by, Lettice. You’re obviously a talented artist, like your Aunt Eglantyne.” Sylvia’s eye flash with excitement. “I want you to paint my feature wall in the drawing room of ‘The Nest’. Say you’ll do it, Lettice!” she implores. “Say you will.”
“Well, I’ll have to…”
“I have a series of concerts to give, here at the Hall this week, and then I’m free for a couple of weeks before I go on tour around the country. Come down to ‘The Nest’ at Belchamp St Paul, and stop the night. Come alone. Then you can see it for yourself, and maybe get some ideas as to what you could do.”
Lettice looks at the older woman sitting across from her. In spite of the thick layer of white makeup she wears, Lettice can sense that her cheeks are flushed with excitement beneath it. Her eyes sparkle with hope, and her thin painted lips are pressed into a tentative smile.
“Please consider it.” Sylvia says expectantly. “Or, at the very least accept my invitation as a form of hospitality from one of Nettie’s oldest and dearest friends to you, as his fiancée, Lettice. It sounds as if you may be a little short on well wishers, and I for one am happy to wish you both well.”
A grateful smile breaks across Lettice’s lips. “Thank you, Sylvia. I accept.”
“Splendid!” Sylvia sighs with relief.
*In the 1920s, being listed in “the book” meant being listed in the telephone directory
**Guy's Hospital is an NHS hospital founded by philanthropist Thomas Guy in 1721, located in the borough of Southwark in central London. It is part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and one of the institutions that comprise the King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre.
***Distemper is a kind of paint using glue or size instead of an oil base, for use on walls, ceilings or for scene-painting.
****Originally meaning strange or peculiar, the word “queer” came to be used pejoratively against LGBT people in the late Nineteenth Century.
*****A stage-door johnny is a term used to describe a man who frequents a theatre for the purpose of courting an actress or chorus girl.
******A gypsy girdle became a popular feature of women’s dresses from the mid 1920s, consisting of a wide sash fastened over the hips. It was gathered vertically at the centre front where it was often accented by a fashionable rhinestone, or real jewel, brooch or a mirror image clasp.
*******A bandeau is a narrow band, usually made or ribbon or fabric worn round the head to hold the hair in position.
********An aigrette is a headdress consisting of a white egret's feathers (often dyed) or other decoration such as a spray of gems.
*********Recreating the magnificence of Tudor England, the auditorium of the Royal Albert Hall was decked out with stone columns, draping vines, sloping green lawns, groves of cypress trees, and a blue fabric sky stretched below the Hall’s dome on the 20th of June 1911. Guests included the Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, Home Secretary Winston Churchill, and, due to the event taking place two days before the Coronation of King George V, many members of European royalty. The event was possibly the most spectacular event to ever take place at the Hall and was a roaring success, raising £10,000.00 for the Shakespeare Memorial Fund.
**********A sapphist is an old fashioned term for a lesbian. The term is derived from the name of the poet Sappho who lived on the Greek island of Lesbos (circa 600 BC). She was a lesbian by geography and sexual orientation.
***********Craven A (stylized as Craven "A") is a British brand of cigarettes, currently manufactured by British American Tobacco. Originally founded and produced by the Carreras Tobacco Company in 1921 until merging with Rothmans International in 1972, who then produced the brand until Rothmans was acquired by British American Tobacco in 1999. The cigarette brand is named after the third Earl of Craven, after the "Craven Mixture", a tobacco blend formulated for the 3rd Earl in the 1860s by tobacconist Don José Joaquin Carreras.
************The Universität der Künste, Berlin (Berlin College of Music) ranks as one of the largest educational music institutes in Europe, rich in content and quality. It dates back to the Royal (later State) Academy of Music, founded under the aegis of the violinist Joseph Joachim, a friend of Brahms, in 1869. From the date of its foundation under directors Joseph Joachim, Hermann Kretzschmar, Franz Schreker and Georg Schünemann, it has been one of the leading academies of music in the German-speaking countries. Composers such as Max Bruch, Engelbert Humperdinck and Paul Hindemith, performers such as Artur Schnabel, Wanda Landowska, Carl Flesch and Emanuel Feuermann, and academics such as Philipp Spitta, Curt Sachs, Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Kurt Singer taught there. Prominent teachers later included the two directors Boris Blacher and Helmut Roloff, and the composer Dieter Schnebel.
*************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.
**************Country Life is a British weekly perfect-bound glossy magazine that is a quintessential English magazine founded in 1897, providing readers with a weekly dose of architecture, gardens and interiors. It was based in London at 110 Southwark Street until March 2016, when it became based in Farnborough, Hampshire. The frontispiece of each issue usually features a portrait photograph of a young woman of society, or, on occasion, a man of society.
***************The Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele, was a campaign of the First World War, fought by the Allies against the German Empire. The battle took place on the Western Front, from July to November 1917, for control of the ridges south and east of the Belgian city of Ypres in West Flanders, as part of a strategy decided by the Allies at conferences in November 1916 and May 1917.
****************Belchamp St Paul is a village and civil parish in the Braintree district of Essex, England. The village is five miles west of Sudbury, Suffolk, and 23 miles northeast of the county town, Chelmsford.
*****************Sydney Ernest Castle was born in Battersea in July 1883. He trained with H. W. Edwards, a surveyor and worked as chief assistant to Arthur Jessop Hardwick (1867 - 1948) before establishing his own practice in London in 1908. From 1908 to 1918 he was in partnership with Gerald Warren (1881-1936) as Castle & Warren. He worked on St. George's Hill Estate in Weybridge, Surrey with Walter George Tarrant (1875-1942). Castle was elected a Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects (FRIBA) in 1925. He designed many buildings, including the Christian Association building in Clapham, a school in Balham and a private hotel in the Old Brompton Road, as well as many private residences throughout Britain. His firm’s address in 1926, when this story is set was 40, Albemarle Street, Piccadilly. He died in Wandsworth in March 1955.
******************Syrie Maugham was a leading British interior decorator of the 1920s and 1930s and best known for popularizing rooms decorated entirely in shades of white. She was the wife of English playwright and novelist William Somerset Maugham.
*******************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.
This theatrical dressing room is different to what you may think at first glance, for it is made up entirely of 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The flounced dressing table adorned with lace and ribbon and its matching chair come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop in the United Kingdom, as does the small black cane table on which the bucket of champagne and champagne glass stand, the floral chaise in the foreground and the oriental screen in the background. The mirror is actually a small pink plastic framed doll’s looking glass. The handle broke off long ago, but I kept it anyway, and I painted it in black and gilded it to give it a Regency look.
The two glasses of sparkling champagne are made of real glass and were made by Karen Ladybug Miniatures in the United Kingdom. The silver champagne bucket is made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The bottle of Deutz and Geldermann champagne. It is an artisan miniatures and made of glass and has real foil wrapped around its neck. It was made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. The box of hand made chocolates and Bassett’s liquorice all sorts were also made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures with close attention paid to their packaging to make them as authentic as possible.
The array of flowers come from several different sources including: Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering, the Doll House Emporium in America and Falcon Miniatures in America who specialise in high end miniatures, as well as some made of polymer clay that are moulded on wires to allow them to be shaped at will and put into individually formed floral arrangements which come from a 1:12 miniature specialist in Germany. The glass vases you see come from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures, whilst the porcelain one comes from Kathleen Knight’s Doll’s House Shop.
The cards buried amidst the flowers or sitting on the dressing table and the letters in their envelopes are 1:12 size miniatures made by the British miniature artisan Ken Blythe. Ken was known for the books he made, which may be opened to reveal authentic printed interiors. In some cases, you can even read the words, depending upon the size of the print! I have quite a large representation of Ken Blythe’s work in my collection. As well as making books, Ken also made other small items out of paper, including this selection of cards. What might amaze you is that all Ken Blythe’s books and cards are authentically replicated 1:12 scale miniatures of real life-sized versions. To create something so authentic to the original in such detail and so clearly, really does make this a miniature artisan piece. 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, as well as through his estate via 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 black ashtray is also an artisan piece, the bae of which is filled with “ash”. The tray as well as having grey ash in it, also has a 1:12 cigarette which rests on its lip (it is affixed there).
The Persian 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.
