Women and Tea
A tea-shop is a delightful place. It is the milestone that marks the end of a day's work.
In the provinces, and particularly in the north and in Scotland, where men take tea with passionate sincerity, frequently starting with sardines and ending with apple tart, the tea-shop occupies an appropriately massive position in daily life. London's tea-shops are, however, talk-shops, refuges from a day's shopping, trysting-places after a terrible eight hours' separation.
O, the eyes that meet over a muffin every afternoon in London; the hands that thrill to a casual touch beneath the crumpet plate....
London's tea-shops are of many kinds, from the standardized shop to the good pull-up for millionaires constructed on the Paris plan, where slim Gruyère sandwiches hide in paper coats, and cakes taste of Benedictine, and bills have a queer habit of working out at fifteen shillings.
Then, of course, there is the cosy type of tea-shop run on amateur lines where genteel young women who do not seem to have forgotten William Morris bend wistfully over the meringues in brown or sage green crêpe de Chine gowns and an air of shattered romance. Such places have fanciful names designed to attract those with a passion for peace. They are always opening or going smash, and there is a widespread belief in the suburbs among enterprising young women that this is the way to an enormous bank account.
"Thanks awfully!"
That's what they say when you pay the bill, and such a sad, sweet smile goes with it. Andromeda chained to a cheese cake.
* * *
I entered a large musical tea-shop in the heart of Shopland yesterday. The atmosphere was as feminine as that of a perfume store. It was No Man's Land. I steered my conspicuous way to a table through a jungle of musquash, moleskin, and beaver. The only other men there were in the toils of women, politely tapping their éclairs, and wearing photographic faces, behaving as men never behave away from this uplifting and ennobling atmosphere.
I heard a girl describe a bridesmaid's dress; another girl was talking about a baby; a third had discovered John Galsworthy. Two young married women were discussing their husbands, how really sweet they were, how they hated cold mutton, how amusingly irritable they were, and how upset they were when their wives shingled their hair....
A slight stir was caused by the entrance of husbands to claim their wives. One, a handsome young man, was charmingly introduced with shy pride; another, an elderly, bluff, old-established husband, was received quite calmly like an over-due muffin. Then the human event that electrified the entire tea-shop happened, that marvellous touch of nature that unites Kennington with even the best parts of Kensington.
A small, smug child, distinguished only by a red balloon on the end of a string, set up a wild and awful howl. It was dramatic in its suddenness. Everybody looked round in the belief that the infant had sat on a pin. Instead they saw the red balloon drifting with a gay and careless determination towards the roof. Reaching its destination, it bumped gracefully twice and remained there, coyly nestling against a frescoed cupid.
Immediately the entire tea-shop, hitherto split into self-centred groups, became one in a solid endeavour to rescue the red balloon. Young men anxious to distinguish themselves stood on chairs and made wild grabs for the string with their umbrellas; dogs which till then had been asleep and unsuspected, awakened and barked.
In the centre of the stage stood the smug, small child, breathless with anxiety, pointing to the roof, grief-stricken that his balloon had played him false, yet encouraged by the stir the event was causing in so many grown-up lives.
A grim old man melted by the tragedy obtained a long pole employed in pulling down shop blinds. He succeeded in driving the balloon from its fastness and sending it fatuously bumping into another. Meanwhile the entire shop held its breath, expecting these good intentions to end in a loud plop and a worse tragedy. There was a gasp of relief as this ancient hero gave way to a man in an apron with a step-ladder.
He did the deed.
The tea-shop settled down. The smug child that had united an afternoon's assembly left unnoticed. Over the tea-tables rose again the talk of bridesmaids and husbands and shingles and Maud's hennaed hair. The orchestra played some more Puccini, and a small boy who had profited by the commotion to seize his fourth éclair gave an enormous sigh of joy.