ABSTRACT
Emmeline had determined that her new Emerson’s should sell a more moderately priced version of the artistic furnishings and pretty wares found at the major department London store, Liberty’s, just across the road from their new home in Russell Square. She employed an impecunious cabinet maker to make furniture decorated with fretwork, and bought lovely silks in bright colours, lamp shades, Chinese tea-pots, old Persian plates, Japanese embroidery, rugs from Turkey, cretonnes by William Morris and his imitators and Indian brasses. Once everything was shipshape, Cecil Sowerby, an artist whom Aunt Mary had known in her Paris schooldays, was engaged to tutor Christabel and her sisters. Cecil Sowerby, whatever her failings, broadened the girls’ horizons by taking them to the nearby British Museum, where they especially liked the Egyptian rooms and the mummies. The resourceful Christabel came up with an idea; instead of going to school, she and Sylvia should give each other lessons.
