A Cup Of Tea

by Amy Ephron

  “I’ll have my driver take you,” he said.

  She finished the sentence for him. “…And drop me four blocks away, so nobody will see.”

  He sat up in bed and put a pillow behind his head. He looked chastened. He wasn’t sure how to respond to her.

  “It’s one thing in the night,” she said, “but in the daytime when everyone can see and our eyes aren’t tricked by shadows or artificial light…”

  “Don’t make me feel cheap, Eleanor. It’s not something I would ever do to you. Take the day off. I’ll take it, too.”

  “That’s easy for you,” she said. “You work for yourself,” reminding him again of the differences between them.

  “We’ll send a note in that you’re ill,” he said and smiled. And in that moment, she realized that she wasn’t just an evening’s entertainment. Almost without meaning to, she’d crossed the room and his arms were around her once again.

  It was long after the customary time for breakfast when they finally went out onto the street and stopped in a bakery for fresh buns and warm cups of tea. Philip took her downtown and they walked the open air markets on Canal Street. He bought a basket of fresh apricots. Eleanor took a bite of one, warm from the sun, and a bit of juice dripped down her chin. He reached his hand over to clean her face and she held his hand and kissed it. They stopped at a stand of silks where he bought a shawl for her that was wildly over-priced but, under the circumstances bartering would never occur to him. She wrapped it around her shoulders. He took the edges of the shawl where it lightly fringed and wrapped them around his back, as well, binding them together. And then, leaned in and kissed her. They were so far from his normal, social world that it didn’t occur to him that anyone would see them.

  The mood at Rosemary’s was much the same as always. The champagne flowed easily, the slight clink of glasses from good crystal, despite the fact that the guests toasted one another for a future that for the first time was uncertain. There were plates of hors d’oeuvres passed on silver platters. There was a discussion on one side of the room about a play that was all the rage on Broadway but that Rosemary’s friend Sarah found baffling. “They made such a fuss about it in the Times,” said Sarah, “and then we went to see it…? Maybe I’m not much for, what do they call it, satire?”

  “I liked it,” her husband said.

  “Of course you did, dear,” she said and looked at him rather patronizingly until he added, “Maybe your problem is that we are the thing that is being satirized.”

  “I think I’ll skip it,” said Rosemary more in an effort to placate Sarah than to miss an experience. “Can I offer you a little more champagne?”

  Rosemary’s father stuck his head in for a moment and decided he’d rather not be part of this gathering, at least for the moment. He helped himself to a toast with salmon and retired, presumably, to his study.

  Jane and Philip were standing by the window which was framed by heavy velvet drapes. They were talking softly, almost conspiratorially.

  “You’ve seen her?” Jane asked but it was more a statement than a question. And there was a look on his face which made it all seem not so light anymore, not something simply to be dabbled in. “Are you sure you haven’t taken on more than you can…”

  He put a hand on her arm and tried to stop her but she continued questioning him.

  “Are you feeling a certain amount of guilt?” Jane asked.

  He came right back at her. “Are you?”

  They didn’t notice Rosemary was standing there until she spoke. “Do either of you need another drink?” And then, because Jane looked so startled, Rosemary said, “Oh, I’ve interrupted you.”

  “No,” said Jane, a little bit too quickly, “we were just discussing the pressures of war on modern society.”

  “A subject I’m familiar with but would rather not discuss,” said Rosemary. She gave Philip a kiss on the cheek and went off to tend to her other guests.

  “A certain amount of guilt,” said Philip after she was a safe distance away. “Yes, I would say that.”

  It was hard to tell what the aged Miss Wetzel thought of her charges, if they could indeed be called that. Certainly, if you asked her, the nature of the individual girls she’d boarded in the last ten years had become as a whole markedly wilder and more independent. No one ever stayed there very long. Wetzel’s was a stopping place. But except for an occasional stern reprimand when one of the house rules was broken, Miss Wetzel mostly kept to herself, retiring at half past eight each night to her lonely bed and the few pages of the Bible, New Testament only, she read before retiring. The girls treated the house more like a boarding school, preferring to do their living in their rooms instead of in the bleak and modest parlor downstairs. And once Wetzel fell asleep, as she could barely hear when awake, they felt it would take a near avalanche to rouse her.

  Eleanor liked the simplicity of Wetzel’s. Most nights she stayed in. It had been so long since she’d felt safe anywhere. Since childhood when she’d had to dodge her father’s drunken rages that could turn so easily to maudlin self-pity (which was somehow even harder for her to bear)—she’d always felt as though she’d been on her own. She would take a bit of work home from the shop some nights. On the night in question, she was sitting at the vanity in her room, wearing the silk shawl that Philip had bought for her wrapped around her shoulders, imitating the casual nature of two women who were in the shop that day, running Dora fairly ragged but spending. They were not her usual sort of customers, as Dora seemed to specialize in Old New York. These were women who had married well, blonde with perfectly made-up faces. They were women who had invented themselves successfully, as if they themselves were something to be marketed, and they shopped the way a child would shop, unbridled in a toy store.

  “I’ll have one of those,” said the first woman pointing to an elegant forest green hat with a veil as if there were many of them sitting somewhere on a shelf. “Oh,” she added as if it had just occurred to her, “and I need a navy blue hat.”

  Dora obligingly showed her one which was instantly accepted, rather than scrutinized, as if she didn’t realize if she were to reject it, two or three other styles would magically appear.

  Eleanor stood in the doorway of the workroom watching them, silently studying their moves.

  The second woman, who looked very much like the first woman except that she was a few inches taller, spoke in a voice that was a little husky and fairly trilled with laughter. “I like that little white one,” she said. She picked up a fluffy concoction with a veil and held it in front of her. She didn’t even try it on. “Of course, I couldn’t wear it till the spring,” she said. “But it will keep.”

  Eleanor picked up a white straw summer hat she had been stitching and put it on her head. She looked at herself in the mirror of the vanity. She secured it to her head with a hat pin and said out loud as she looked at herself in the mirror, “Of course, I couldn’t wear it till the spring, but it will keep.”

  Her reverie was broken by a knock at the door, a very quiet tapping but insistent. She hurriedly unpinned the hat as though afraid she would be caught playing at something she ought not to be playing at and opened the door a crack. It was Philip. Eleanor spoke to him in a half-whisper. “You shouldn’t be here.” House rules—no male visitors. It was almost a game to her. She pretended every night that it was the first time he’d come to see her, as though she needed to preserve some vestige of prudery before she let him in the door. And then his immediate response, “But you’re glad I am. Let me in before I make a scene.”

  After she’d shut the door, “You’re always threatening to make a scene,” she said. She put a finger to her mouth. She was almost laughing. “Shh. You’ll get me thrown out of here.”

  He leaned in and kissed her. There was no need after that to quiet him.

  Philip didn’t spend the night, he left at three in the morning. Eleanor stood in the window watching him as he walked out of the building onto the street. She w
as wearing a silk robe, her hair was down, her face reflected in the pane of glass, and she looked as innocent as if she were fourteen. He’d brought her a present that night, a necklace that had belonged to his mother, a delicate chain of white gold and at the base of it a small inlay of diamonds around a larger square-cut diamond, elegant and simple although the middle stone was quite impressive. He told her, his father had given it to his mother the month before they married and it was the one piece that she had refused to pawn. She put her hand on the diamond. It was his mother’s and he’d given it to her….

  She watched as, on the street, Philip got into his carriage. He half-turned when he was on the step of the running board, almost inside, and looked up at her. She put a hand to her face and stood there watching as he got in and the carriage took off down the street.

  The next morning, Eleanor was rearranging the hats on display, all light colored and pastel because it was spring, jauntily tipping them at angles on their stands. Dora was sitting behind the desk, practically immobile as she was most mornings, drinking a cup of coffee that Eleanor had brought for her from the café across the street and looking at the morning paper. Dora opened the newspaper and flipped immediately to the Society Page.

  “You can’t buy publicity like this,” she said, suddenly excited, as she spread the newspaper out on the table. “She’s wearing our hat! See, I do give you credit, dear,” she said to Eleanor.

  She read the item aloud:

  “Miss Rosemary Fell and Captain Philip Alsop will be wed…”

  She was only glad her back was turned so that Dora couldn’t see her face.

  “…A month earlier than planned. At St. Luke’s Cathedral tomorrow. As the handsome bridegroom has received his war orders and will ship out next week to France. New York will be emptier without him but Europe will be a safer place.”

  Dora didn’t seem to notice that Eleanor was barely holding herself up, her hand gripping a hatstand, as she answered so quickly it didn’t seem as though she had lost her composure. “Really?” said Eleanor. She faltered a little bit when she said this next bit. “What—hat is she wearing?”

  Dora showed her the picture. Philip, in uniform, and a smiling Rosemary Fell in a moss-green hat that Eleanor remembered stitching. Underneath was the caption, “The soon-to-be-Mr.-and-Mrs.-Alsop”.

  Eleanor feigned a headache and walked the twelve blocks to the waterfront, although she was so pale, it hadn’t required a lot of acting. She stopped on the corner and bought a copy of the paper. She had always known he was betrothed, but somehow seeing it in black-and-white:

  Miss Rosemary Fell and Captain Philip Alsop will be wed, a month earlier than planned…

  She couldn’t imagine that the time they’d spent together had meant nothing to him.

  She saw him standing at the edge of the dock shouting orders to some shipyard workers who were loading a freighter that had just come in.

  Philip smiled when he saw Eleanor approaching him. “I was hoping I would see you today,” he said.

  “And what about tomorrow?” she said accusingly. “Were you hoping you would see me tomorrow? And what about this?” She waved the newspaper at him. “Were you planning to tell me?”

  He held her shoulders to try to calm her. She realized Rosemary Fell would never cause a scene in public. She responded flatly, almost without emotion, “What?”

  He noticed that the dockworkers were staring at them and pulled Eleanor off to the side of the dock. She was beyond caring. What did she expect him to say? That he loved her. Certainly, she expected him to say that. But what declaration could he make to her? What could he promise? There wasn’t anything he could say to change the way it was. There were too many feelings to account for, too much propriety at stake, too little time.

  He let go of her and shut his eyes. “It’s as if your life is going one way,” he said finally, “and then something happens…Are you supposed to derail your entire life?”

  She finished for him. “Or just not care about the consequences that it, has on others?” He would always remember the way that she looked at him, directly, almost as if it were a challenge. “I’m a big girl,” she said, “I can take care of myself.”

  There was a moment where neither of them spoke. “I know—” she said, “your name is supposed to appear in the papers three times—when you’re born, when you marry, and when you die. And that’s where I’ll get my information about you.”

  She threw the newspaper on the ground where it landed in a puddle, opened to the offending item. The edges of the paper curled slightly as the picture of Philip and Rosemary became submerged in water. He watched her as she walked away from him down the dock.

  It was late, after midnight, when Josie came in from the theater. She was elated from her performance and didn’t feel like going to sleep. The light was on in Eleanor’s room. She knocked softly and Eleanor, still in her street clothes, answered the door.

  “Oh, it is there,” said Josie. Eleanor forced a smile.

  “Well, you are never here anymore. Let me in before we wake the warden.” Without waiting for her to open the door fully, Josie pushed her way in.

  Eleanor’s bedroom was so plain, it was almost austere. Minimally decorated, a dried floral wreath with ribbons hung on the wall, and a cheap paisley shawl had been thrown over the end table as a covering. There were fresh flowers, lilies, in a vase on the table. Josie threw herself dramatically across the bed and lay on her stomach, her head propped up by her hands and elbows. “You got anything to eat? I’m starving.”

  “You’re the one who works in a restaurant,” said Eleanor.

  “Not anymore. I’ve gotten a part. Not a part exactly. I’m part of the chorus…” She added, laughing, “…And, I’m completely broke.” Eleanor tossed her an apple from the top of the bureau.

  Josie was so intent on herself, she could still hear the applause from the theater, she hadn’t eaten, and it took her a few moments to realize that Eleanor was not her usual self.

  She noticed the necklace around her friend’s neck. “Where did you get that?” asked Josie.

  “I gave myself a present.”

  Josie wasn’t buying any of it. “Some present.” She took a bite of the apple. “You don’t have to lie to me,” she said. “He has good taste.”

  “I should give it back to him,” she said. It was all she could do to hold back tears.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” Josie said. “It’s always a good idea to have something around you can hock in case things get tough.”

  Eleanor’s hand flew protectively to the necklace at this remark and it was clear, that no matter what were to occur in the future, she would never part with it.

  Did she expect to hear from him, expect him to show up on her doorstep? Did she harbor any illusions that he would change his mind about the course his life was going to take? Perhaps. But she was practical enough to know that he wouldn’t. And impractical enough to ever give up the notion that he would.

  Military feet marching with their own rhythm and syncopation, in contrast to the provincial French countryside they were marching through, rough, chaotic, as though it were a portent of what was to come. They received a warm reception, cheered on, fed, embraced, as if the Americans were the saviours they’d been waiting for.

  As Philip wrote to Rosemary, “It’s odd. I feel as though we’re on a trip. Or on a roller coaster that has started up and down is just around the corner. We stop and eat at inns along the way. Except that everyone looks frightened, awfully glad to see us though.

  “We’ve stopped at a small country inn for lunch. Provincial. You would like the menu. It feels so normal here as though I have a foot in my old life. The officers will sleep in beds tonight and then, I think, there will be no more inns. We are supposed to camp in Normandy.

  “I want to tell you to light a candle in the window but pour a glass of wine instead. Its feeling will be more immediate.”

  He was sitting in the dining room
of a provincial country inn as he wrote to her looking out the window at a vast expanse of rolling meadow that months later would be decimated by war. He signed his name and sealed the letter. Timothy Whitfield, a British Officer who would die two months later in a trench outside Vevey, walked over carrying a small chess set which he placed between them on the table. Philip drew white and Whitfield set the board up.

  “Pawn to pawn four,” said Philip. “I’m not very good at this,” he mused. “I never had a head for schematics.” He started to draw on the tablecloth. “It’s like chess,” he went on as he moved a knight out. “You have to have a head for it.” He finished the sketch, perplexed. “If they come from the north and we’re here…” He drew an arrow. He realized that he didn’t know the answer.

  “May the best man win…” said Whitfield, answering for him.

  “Something like that,” said Philip as he looked out the window again at the pristine meadowland and the rows of stone houses that edged it. “But aren’t I supposed to feel angry? I am angry—that you could take a history like this and trample on it.”

  “But, Philip,” said Whitfield as he captured his knight with his pawn, “we are history.”

  Rosemary did as he asked, pouring herself a glass of burgundy because she thought it was appropriate and sat alone by the fire in the sheltered and sequestered silence of her New York parlor. The last four weeks seemed almost a blur, the chaos of the wedding where everyone around her had seemed to almost lose their minds.

  Her father had turned into a child, on the morning of her wedding, forgetting how to tie his tie, presenting himself to Gertrude. “Oh, Gertrude. Are you any good at this? I’ve been doing it all my life and suddenly today, I can’t even remember…”