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.
As a young woman, Edith is very interested in fashion, particularly now that she is stepping out with Mr. Luckily like most young girls of her class, her mother has taught Edith how to sew her own clothes and she has become an accomplished dressmaker, having successfully made frocks from scratch for herself, or altered cheaper existing second-hand pieces to make them more fashionable by letting out waistlines and taking up hems.
Boothby, who lives in nearby Poplar, Edith now has a wonderful haberdasher in Whitechapel, which she goes to on occasion on her days off when she needs something for one of her many sewing projects as she slowly adds to and updates her wardrobe.
Today she is visiting Mrs. Weekend parties and all that. Minkel to keep the moths at bay. I just wish I had such luxury. You remember what it was like. Not even for Christmas when she goes home, and you go to your parents?
She knows how much better off she is with Lettice than in her old position as a parlour maid alongside Hilda at Mrs. Plaistow is a hard employer, and very mean, whereas Lettice is the opposite, and she knows that she is very spoilt in her position as live-in domestic for a woman who is not at home almost as often as she is. Did I tell you that Queenie chucked in her position? Plaistow and all her mean ways. She wrote to me a few weeks ago after she settled in. She writes that she can even take the train in to Manchester on her afternoons off to go shopping and see her old mum.
