A Cup of Tea (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

A dark romantic novel set during World War I tells the story of a love triangle involving a woman of privilege, her fiance+a7, and an impoverished girl she invites in from the cold, to her own undoing. Reprint.

New York City

January, 1917

A young woman stood under a street lamp. It was difficult to make her out at first because she was standing almost in shadow and the mist from the ground, the rain, and approaching night made the air and the street seem similarly gray and damp. It was dusk. A light rain was falling.

A man walked up and solicited her. It startled her. She shook her head and turned away. Without another thought of her, he hailed a cab which stopped for him at once. She pulled the thin sweater, hardly protection from the rain, tighter around her shoulders as she stepped back from the curb to avoid the spray of dirt and water as the taxi pulled away.

Down the street, a very different scene. In an antique store famous for accepting only quality estates and European shipments where not a speck of dust had ever been allowed to gather on the shelves, a woman, slightly older than the woman under the street lamp, stood in front of a display case. Her name was Rosemary Fell. Her clothing was exquisite. Her dark hair framed her face even though in the morning she had put it up severely but it was of such thickness that no amount of coaxing, particularly in damp weather, could ever get it not to fall, a few moments later, softly around her face. She liked the effect and would sometimes play with one of the curls about her forehead when she wanted to appear as though she was thinking of something. Her stance was casual, almost disinterested, her gloves and coat still on as though she had not yet decided whether she had stopped in long enough to actually consider anything. Mr. Rhenquist, the owner of the antique store, was all over her.

"You see, I love my things," he said, in low respectful tones, waiting for her reaction. "I would rather not part with them than sell them to someone who has not that"--he gestured with his hand displaying a pale green jade ring on his ring finger that Rosemary could not help but notice--"feeling of appreciation which is so rare."

He unrolled a tiny square of blue velvet and pressed it on the glass counter with his pale finger-tips. It was an enamel box he had been keeping for her with a glaze so fine it looked as though it had been baked in cream. "I saved this for you."

On its lid, a minute creature stood under a flowery tree. A hat, no bigger than a geranium petal, with green ribbons, hung from a branch. And a pink cloud like a watchful cherub floated above the creature's head. Rosemary took her hands out of her long gloves to examine the box.

She set the box down as though she had no interest other than to look at it. She said, after a moment, "It's beautiful." And then very casually asked, "How much?"

For a moment, Mr. Rhenquist seemed not to hear her, or else he was considering the price. "For you. . ." He leaned in and whispered to her as if it would be impolite to speak of this out loud.

She made a face and then looked vague. She stared at an etched glass figurine on a shelf directly above his head. She reached for her gloves and started to put them on. And then, as she was about to leave, she said, "I guess I have no choice," as her eye was caught by something else in the display case.

Rhenquist saw what she was looking at and without a word, took it carefully out of the case and put it on the glass for her to see. It was a letter opener, simple yet ornate, silver slightly etched in gold. She took it in her hand to gauge its weight. Its blade was thin and razor sharp. For a moment, it caught the light from the overhead lamp and glinted slightly.

"I'll take it, too," said Rosemary laughing. "At least it will be something useful."

"Of course, Miss Fell," said Rhenquist as he put the porcelain box carefully in a velvet bag. With a pen carved out of mother-of-pearl, he discreetly scribbled a number on a piece of paper and turned it toward her.

It was fairly extravagant. She could sometimes be such a wasteful thing. But what good was it to have money if one didn't sometime indulge.

Rosemary nodded and reached into her purse for her chequebook. She wrote him a cheque, ripped it from her chequebook, and casually left it on the counter.

Rosemary watched as Rhenquist wrapped the velvet bag and letter opener deftly in brown paper, his pale hands amazing for their dexterity. Nothing rare was ever broken here.

He handed her the parcel and bowed his head slightly. It was clear he would have kept them for her forever. Rosemary smiled and started to leave. As she opened the door, the bells on the shop door jingled slightly.

It was still raining but Rosemary didn't seem to mind as she walked down the street to the flower shop. Smoke was rising from the potholes contributing to the mist and griminess of the city.

On the corner, there was still the shape of the woman standing under the streetlight. It was more than an accident of birth and a length of pavement that separated these two women.

The salesgirl followed Rosemary as she made her way through the crowded florist shop a few doors down from the antique store. "I'll have those and those." Rosemary pointed to some lilies and irises. "Four bunches of those. And I'll take those sweet pink roses."

The salesgirl held some lilacs up for her to see.

"No, no lilacs." So this next didn't come out too harshly, Rosemary smiled. "I hate lilacs. They have no shape. And that smell, you know they're there before you even walk into the room." She laughed. "But give me those stumpy little tulips, the red and white ones." In her mind she was figuring that they would sit prettily in the gray stone vase in her bedroom while the longer stemmed lilies could be arranged downstairs in the dining room in the pewter vase.

Her thoughts drifted to how she might get out of Florence Pemberton's invitation to lunch the following day. Flo was always so serious. Flo's life was so uneventful. Rosemary would have cut her years ago if it hadn't been for the fact that Florence Pemberton was Philip Alsop's cousin and Rosemary had known since she was a little girl that she was going to marry Philip Alsop. But now that the wedding was six months off, couldn't she afford to be a little less attentive to Florence Pemberton or did it require that she be more so?

She seemed distracted as the salesgirl trimmed her flowers and wrapped them in paper. She took some money out of her wallet to pay. And then the salesgirl walked in front of her out of the shop to the car, carrying the immense white paper armful.

Rosemary stopped on the pavement. Her eye was caught by the creature with enormous eyes holding her sweater around her with reddened hands. It was raining harder now and with it came the darkness spinning down like ashes. Rosemary walked over to her. "Are you all right?"

The woman nodded. She looked at Rosemary and hesitated before speaking. "C-could I--?" the creature stammered. "Could I ask you for some money--enough for a cup of tea?"

Rosemary couldn't help but notice it wasn't the voice of a street-person. "Have you no money?" she asked.

"None at all, ma'am," was the answer.

Rosemary considered this a moment. She looked over at her car and her driver who stood waiting for her. The rain was coming down in sheets around them.

It was like something one would read about, to find a girl in the dusk and bring her home for tea. Ought she to have been frightened that the girl would turn out to be a thief or half-mad. She didn't look half-mad. She looked like someone who life had done a wrong turn to, who had never had the proper opportunity. And think how she would feel if she could successfully show...