A CUP OF TEA (1921) - A Story

Sep 20, 2026

Uploaded by Finn

“A Cup of Tea” centers on Rosemary Fell, a young, wealthy, fashionable woman living in an exquisitely modern world of taste and privilege. While shopping in a Curzon Street antique shop, she bargains mentally over an enamel box and then steps out into a rainy dusk that shifts her mood. At the moment she hesitates to go on, a thin, dark young girl asks, in a voice both sincere and unembarrassed, for the price of a cup of tea. The encounter turns a casual errand into an emotionally charged dilemma.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryStory & Novel

FormatPDF

Pages6

Reading Time9 min

AccessFree to download

Plot Overview

Rosemary and the Antique Shop

The Price and the Dusk

The Girl’s Request

A CUP OF TEA (1921) By Katherine Mansfield 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 duck ofa 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 Street. If she wanted to buy flowers, the car pulled up at that perfect shop in Regent Street, 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 shape.” The attendant bowed and put the lilac out of sight, as though this was only too true; lilac was dreadfully shapeless.“Give me those stumpy little tulips. Those red and white ones.” And she was followed to the car by a thin shopgirl staggering under an immense white paper armful that looked like a baby in long clothes . . . . One winter afternoon she had been buying something in a little antique shop in Curzon Street. It was a shop she liked. For one thing, one usually had it to oneself. And then theman who kept it was ridiculously fond of 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, there was something . . . “You see, madam,” he would explain in his low respectful tones,“I love my things. I would rather not part with them than sell them to someone who does not appreciate them, who has not that fine feeling which is so rare . . . .” And, breathing deeply he unrolled a tiny square of blue velvet and pressed it on the glass counter with his pale finger-tips. Today it was a little box. He had been keeping it for her. He had shown it to nobody as yet. An exquisite little enamel box with a glaze 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 round his neck. Her hat, really no bigger than a geranium petal, hung from a 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, 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 dim cavern of his mind, may have dared to think so too. For he took a 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 theshopman 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 box down; she buttoned her gloves again. Twenty-eight guineas. Even if one is rich . . . She looked vague. She stared at a plump tea-kettle like a plump hen above the shopman ’s head, and her voice was dreamy as she answered: “Well, keep it for me—will you? I’ll . . .” But the shopman had already bowed as th

FAQs

Who is the main character in “A Cup of Tea”?

The story centers on Rosemary Fell, a young, stylish woman with money and a modern social life.

What object plays a key role in Rosemary’s experience?

An exquisite enamel box from a Curzon Street antique shop becomes central to her thoughts and feelings.

What does the young girl ask Rosemary for in the dusk?

The girl asks for the price of a cup of tea, speaking with simple sincerity rather than desperation.

Sep 20, 2026

Uploaded by Finn