A cup of tea

THE CUP OF TEA

by Katherine Mansfield

MANSFIELD, KATHERINE (1888 - 1923) is a pseudonym of Kathleen Mansfield Beauchamp, British short-story writer, born in Wellington, new Zealand. She is considered one of the greatest mas­ters of the short-story form. At the age of 18 she settled in London to study music and to establish herself as a writer. In 1918 she married the English literary critic John Middleton Murry. She spent the last five years of her life seeking a cure for the tuberculosis that afflicted her.

Mansfield's stories are poetic, delicate, and ironic; they are char­acterized by a subtle sensivity to mood and emotion, ^revealing the inner conflicts her characters face and resolve. Her style, much Influenced by that of the Russian writer Anton Chekhov, in turn had great influence on later short-story writing. Collections of her short fiction include " In a German Pension " (19ПУ~^1ГВП$Т'~(1920), " The Garden Party" (1922). " The Dove's Nest" (1923) and " Something Childish " (1924), both edited by her husband, were published after Mansfield's death, as were collections of her poems, journals, and letters.

Rosemary Fell was not exactly beautiful. No, you couldn't have called her beautiful. Pretty? Well, if you took her to pieces'... But why be so cruel as to take anyone to pieces? She was young, brilliant, extremely modern, exquisitely well dressed, amazingly well read in the newest of the new books, and her parties were the most delicious mixture of the really important people and... artists-quaint creatures, discoveries of hers, some of them too terrifying for words, but others quite presentable and amusing.

Rosemary had been married two years. She had a duck² of a boy. No, not Peter-Michael. And her husband absolutely adored her. They were rich, really rich, not just comfortably well off, which is odious and stuffy and sounds like one's grandparents. But if Rosemary wanted to shop she would go to Paris as you and I would go to Bond Street³. If she wanted to buy flowers, the car pulled up at that perfect shop in Regent Street³, and Rosemary inside the shop just gazed in her dazzled, rather exotic way, and said: " I want those and those and those. Give me four bunches of those. And that jar of roses. Yes, I'll have all the roses in the jar. No, no lilac. I hate lilac. It's got no

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shape." The attendant bowed and put the lilac out of sight, as though this w^J only too true; lilac was dreadfully shapeless. " Give me those stumpy Цщ_е tulips. Those red and white ones. " And she was followed to the car by a thin shop-girl, staggering under an immense white paper armful that locked likeJ baby in long clothes...

One winter afternoon she had been buying something in a little antique! shop in Curzon Street³. It was a shop she liked. For one thing⁴, one usually j had it to oneself. And then the man who kept it was ridiculously fond он serving her. He beamed whenever she came in. He clasped his hands; he was so gratified he could scarcely speak. Flattery, of course. All the same, the.J was something....

" You see, madam, " he would explain in his low respectful tones, " 1 love] my things. I would rather not part with them than sell themio someone whe does not appreciate them, who has not that fine feeling which is so гаге...Я And, breathing deeply, he unrolled a tiny square of blue velvet⁵ and pressed ■ on the glass counter with his pale finger-tips.

To-day it was a little box. He had been keeping it for her. He had shown I it to nobody as yet. An exquisite little enamel box with a glace so fine it looked as though it had been baked in cream. On the lid a minute creature stood under a flowery tree, and a more minute creature still had her arms гоим his neck. Her hat, really no bigger than a geranium petal, hung from Щ branch; it had green ribbons. And there was a pink cloud like a watchful) cherub floating above their heads. Rosemary took her hands out of her long gloves. She always took off her gloves to examine such things. Yes, she liked it very much. She loved it; it was a great duck. She must have it. And, ¹ turning the creamy box, opening and shutting it, she couldn't help noticing how charming her hands were against the blue velvet. The shopman, in some j dim cavern of his mind, may have dared to think so too. For he ток а ■ pencil, leant over the counter, and his pale bloodless fingers crept timidly towards those rosy, flashing ones, as he murmured gently. " If I may venture to point out to madam, the flowers on the little lady's bodice."

" Charming! " Rosemary admired the flowers. But what was the price? For a moment the shopman did not seem to hear. Then a murmur reached her-" Twenty-eight guineas, madam."

" Twenty-eight guineas." Rosemary gave no sign. She laid the little bo down; she buttoned her gloves again. Twenty-eight guineas. Even if one rich... She looked vague. She stared at a plump tea-kettle like a plump №4 above the shopman's head, and her voice was dreamy as she answered: THE CUP OF TEA

" Well, keep it for me-will you? I'll..."

But the shopman had already bowed as though keeping it for her was all any human being could ask. He would be willing, of course, to keep it for her for ever.

The discreet door shut with a click. She was outside on the step, gazing at the winter afternoon. Rain was falling, and with the rain it seemed the dark came too, spinning down like ashes. There was a cold bitter taste in the air, and the new-lighted lamps looked sad. Sad were the lights in the houses oppo­site. Dimly they burned as if regretting something. And people hurried by, hidden under their hateful umbrellas. Rosemary felt a strange pang. She pressed her muff against her breast; she wished she had the little box, too, to ciing to. Of course the car was there. She'd only to cross the pavement. But still she waited. There are moments, horrible moments in life, when one emerges from shelter and looks out, and it's awful. One oughtn't to give way to them. One ought to go home and have an extra-special tea. But at the very instant of thinking that, a young girl, thin, dark, shadowy-where had she come from? -was standing at Rosemary's elbow and a voice like a sigh, almost like a sob, breathed: " Madam, may 1 speak to you a moment? "

" Speak to me? " Rosemary turned. She saw a little battered creature with enormous eyes, someone quite young, no older than herself, who clutched at her coat-collar with reddened hands, and shivered as though she had just come out of the water.

" M-madam, " stammered the voice. " Would you let me have the price of a cup of tea? ⁶"

" A cup of tea? " There was something simple, sincere in that voice; it wasn't in the least the voice of a beggar. " Then have you no money at all? " asked Rosemary.

" None, madam, " came the answer.

" How extraordinary! " Rosemary peered through the dusk and the girl gazed back at her. How more than extraordinary! And suddenly it seemed to Rosemary such an adventure. It was like something out of a novel by Dostoyevsky, this meeting in the dusk. Supposing she took the girl home? Supposing she did do one of those things she was always reading about or seeing on the stage, what would happen? It would be thrilling. And she heard herself saying afterwards to the amazement of her friends: " I simply took her home with me, " as she stepped forward and said to that dim person beside her: " Come home to tea with me."

The girl drew back startled. She even stopped shivering for a moment. Rosemary put out a hand and touched her arm. " I mean it, " she said,