Tea for One
Many of us have preconceived notions of life in Victorian London after reading the works of Charles Dickens. We envision poor street urchins forced to steal in order to survive and hardhearted misers who put profit above the welfare of their fellow men. Yet in reality, England's capital was not populated solely with characters like Oliver Twist, Jack Dawkins, Jonas Chuzzlewit and Ebenezer Scrooge. There was not always a murky fog cloaking a Fagin or a Uriah Heep.
Not all parts of London were as bad as Bethnal Green, Whitechapel and Spitalfields. Belgravia, for instance, was and still is one of the wealthiest districts in the world, home to several Prime Ministers, actors, novelists, musicians and members of British nobility. Rather than unsanitary, overcrowded, crime-ridden tenements, you are far more likely to encounter stately mansions in the regions of May Fair, Kensington, Regent's Park, Knightsbridge and Chelsea.
The Queen's Tea Room, the principal setting of our story was not located in one of these upscale neighborhoods. Rather, it was hidden away on a narrow back road in the twisted web of old London streets. By day, there was a steady stream of people passing by, but at night few pedestrians traveled the dingy, gas-lit path.
The proprietress of the establishment, Amaryllis Danes, was not born to be a shopkeeper. Her parents had been solid, middle-class citizens with a home in Yorkshire. Her father, who worked as a foreman in a textile mill, made enough money not only to provide life's necessities for his family but also to educate both his son and his daughter.
"I don't see why I should have to learn to read and write," young Amaryllis Wick often complained to her mother. "Instead of wasting my time on books, I ought to be learning something useful."
"And you don't think reading and writing are useful?"
"Maybe to Father and to my brother, but not to me nor to any woman."
"I know how to read," Mrs. Wick pointed out.
"That's because your father was a vicar, and he wanted you to learn the Bible. I, on the other hand, am going to be a wife and a mother. I'll need to learn how to run a house."
"Life doesn't always work out as we hope it will. What if you don't get married? How will you support yourself? If you have an education, you could become a governess."
"I refuse to consider such a thing!" Amaryllis declared haughtily.
Despite her disdain of book learning, the girl continued with her studies, at her father's insistence.
On the day she was married, the beautiful, golden-haired bride reminded her mother of their earlier disagreements.
"I told you I wouldn't need to learn how to read," she said. "I'm Mrs. Danes now, and I'll be mistress of my own home."
"I still believe knowing how to read and write is an asset," her mother argued. "You're young yet. The world may change, and an education may be necessary for both men and women someday."
The complacent bride looked down at the wedding ring on her finger.
Why worry about such things now? she asked herself.
She was about to take the first step in a new life. Let those who had no dreams of their own be content to bury their noses in books.
* * *
Sadly, only one year into her marriage, all Amaryllis's hopes and dreams for a happy future were dashed. In the 1830s, a deadly cholera pandemic swept through the United Kingdom, killing more than fifty-five thousand people. Amaryllis was considered one of the lucky ones because she survived the dreadful illness. The same could not be said of her husband, brother and parents, as her entire family succumbed to the disease.
Eventually, the cholera pandemic passed. The dead were laid in their graves, and the survivors went on with their lives. Amaryllis was more fortunate than most since she was left the sole owner of not one but two houses: the one she had been living in with her husband and her parents' home. However, she had no means of income. Even if she sold one of the houses, the money she received would not last forever.
I need to find suitable employment if I'm to have a steady source of funds, she realized.
Being a governess did not appeal to her. She did not want to take care of wealthy people's children. It would be a painful reminder of the dreams that had died along with her husband.
What good is my book learning if all I can get out of it is a job as a governess? Surely, I'm qualified to do something else!
Amaryllis took a quick mental inventory of her skills. She could not sew very well, and she hated keeping house, even her own. Some women of her day worked in factories or became secretaries. Neither of these options appealed to her.
I'm not even much of a cook, she thought with frustration. About all I can do is serve a decent tea.
Thus, Amaryllis decided to risk her future on her one skill. She sold both houses and moved to London where a tea shop was more likely to be successful. Unfortunately, even with the money she earned from the sale of both homes, she could not afford a building in one of the nicer sections of the city. Instead, she set up business in one of those older areas that was still considered middle-class but too close to the crime-ridden slums of East London for comfort. Still, the building was a large one, with an apartment above the shop, both of which were in good condition.
With some fresh paint, a thorough cleaning, a few tables and chairs and new curtains for the windows, the Queen's Tea Room was ready for business.
* * *
Despite the long hours Amaryllis spent serving customers, brewing tea and washing dishes, she barely eked out a living. When the shop closed for the evening, she stayed up to the early hours of the morning baking scones, cakes, pastries and cookies to be served, along with tea sandwiches, the next day.
If only I could afford a shop in a more fashionable neighborhood, I could charge my customers more. Of course, my expenses would also be higher, so in the long run, my profit would probably be the same.
As she waited patiently for the last of her patrons, an elderly couple who visited the shop twice a week for the past ten years, to finish their tea, she wondered how people were ever able to get ahead in life. Finally, the wife put down her cup and two of them stood up.
"Have a good night," she called as the husband put on his coat after paying his bill.
"You, too," he replied as he and his wife walked out the door.
After locking the door behind them, Amaryllis picked up the dirty dishes and cups and headed toward the kitchen. As she walked past one of the other tables, she noticed a thin book lying on the chair.
One of my customers must have left this behind.
She washed the dishes, wiped down the table and then picked up the novel.
"The String of Pearls: A Romance," she read the title aloud.
Maybe I'll read it, she thought. Some evening if business is slow.
When she eventually found the time to sit down and pick up the book again, she needed to read only the first few pages to realize the book was no romance, despite its title. Instead, it was a gory murder mystery.
Amaryllis was horrified by what she read yet, at the same time, fascinated. She likened the experience to one where a person passes the scene of a tragic carriage accident or a fire. He or she wants to look away but is inexplicably drawn to the sight.
The following day Lawrence Sturgis, an editor at one of London's lesser known publishing houses came into the Tea Room. After serving him a pot of tea and plate of scones with clotted cream and strawberry jam, the shopkeeper mentioned the book to him.
"It wasn't like any love story I'd ever read," she declared. "It was all about a man named Sweeney Todd who was a barber that cut the throats of his customers. Then he sends the bodies down a trapdoor to a Mrs. Lovett who cuts them up and serves them in meat pies. I ask you: what kind of romance is that?"
"The String of Pearls is what we in the publishing business call a penny dreadful or a penny awful. They're serialized works, usually of a more lurid nature, that sell for a penny a piece."
"A penny? How can a writer and publisher make any money at that price?"
"By selling a lot of copies. Don't misunderstand me. These writers obviously don't make as much as Mr. Dickens, but they do all right for themselves. For instance, this book you've been reading is only one of eighteen parts, each installment being released a week after the previous one. That's eighteen cents for the whole story."
"But who comes up with an idea to write about a murderous barber and a woman who sells human flesh baked in a pie?"
"From what I've heard, this Sweeney Todd bloke was a real person who lived in London around 1800. All the author had to do was embellish the facts a little, and, lo and behold, he's written a story."
* * *
For the next several days, Amaryllis replayed the conversation with Lawrence Sturgis in her mind. If all a person needed to do was tell a fanciful account of an actual murder, anyone could become a writer.
Why, even I could do it! Heaven knows, with all the crime in London, it shouldn't be difficult to find suitable material.
That Sunday after the midday business came to an end, Amaryllis sat at one of the tables in her empty tea room with a pen and several sheets of paper. Just two weeks earlier, the body of an unidentified woman was pulled out of the Thames. She had been stabbed through the heart by an unknown assailant. With only the barest of facts to work with, Amaryllis would need to use her imagination to come up with a motive as well as the identity of the killer.
At first, writing proved to be difficult. She had no idea where to start. Should the woman still be alive or should the story begin with the discovery of her water-bloated corpse? After she rejected nearly a dozen opening paragraphs, the rudiments of a story began to come to her. By closing hour of the tea room, she had already written six pages.
For the next three weeks, Amaryllis stole as many hours from her busy day as possible to add another sentence or paragraph to her story. Even when she was baking, cleaning or serving, her mind was on solving the murder of the woman in the Thames. When it was finally finished, after careful editing and rewriting, Amaryllis asked Mr. Sturgis if he would read it.
"I can't afford to pay you," she said, "but I'll give you free cream teas for a week if you do."
"I never could turn down a fresh scone with Devonshire cream," Lawrence replied, agreeing to the arrangement.
At the end of the week, Sturgis had good news for the shopkeeper.
"What you've written is really good," he said. "I showed it to my employer, and he thinks so, too. He wants to publish it, if you can add enough material to make it at least twelve installments long."
"Really?" Amaryllis cried with excitement. "And how much is he willing to pay me?"
"You get one-fourth of the sales after the expenses are deducted. Oh, and you'll need to pick a pen name."
"Why can't I use my own name?"
"Because many men won't buy a book written by a woman."
"Well, if it means more shillings in my pocket, you can call me anything you want to!"
* * *
Murder on the Thames, published as a fourteen-part serial, earned Amaryllis more money than she made at the Tea Room over a six-month period. Encouraged by her success, she wrote a second serialized murder mystery, followed by a third, a fourth and a fifth, all of which were inspired by actual crimes committed in and around London.
Amaryllis did not take her good fortune lightly. Despite the financial windfall her writing brought, she continued to live frugally on her earnings from the tea shop, meanwhile putting her royalties from her books into the bank, hoping someday to move out of the city and live comfortably in a safer, more affluent area.
One stormy night, when business at the tea room was slow, the proprietress sat working on her sixth book that told of a killer who preyed on prostitutes in London's East End. The door to the shop opened and in walked a man seeking shelter from the rain.
"May I help you?" Amaryllis asked, putting down her pen.
"I'll have some tea," he mumbled.
"Tea for one," she repeated pleasantly and went to the kitchen for the teapot.
As she poured the steaming hot beverage into a clean cup, she asked the customer if he wanted something to eat as well.
"I have a few scones left and some tea cookies. Or, if you'd prefer, I can make you a sandwich."
"No, thank you. I'm not hungry. I just wanted to get something hot to drink to warm up."
"I'll leave the pot here for you, then, if you want a refill. If there's anything else I can get you, just let me know."
Leaving the man to enjoy his tea in peace, Amaryllis returned to her writing.
Sadie walked through the humid, foggy night, searching for a man with a few pence to spend, she wrote. She didn't want much, just a room at a doss house for the night, something to fill her empty stomach and a tot of gin to chase away ....
The customer finished his drink and rose from his seat.
"Will that be all?" she called to him.
"Not quite," he replied.
"Did you change your mind about having something to eat?"
The man approached her, reaching into his pocket. Once he paid his bill, Amaryllis would lock the door, clear away the dishes and then go upstairs to her small apartment where she could write undisturbed.
"The rain seems to have let up a bit," she said as she waited for the customer to hand over his coins.
When the arm came out of his pocket, however, it was not holding money. The knife-wielding hand struck quickly, taking Amaryllis Danes by surprise. The stranger, a master of the art of murder, worked so quickly that his defenseless victim had no time to scream. With the third swift fall of the blade, the dying young widow could no longer stand. She fell onto the table, gasping for breath, her life's blood turning the pages of her latest manuscript red.
Although the killer's fourth blow resulted in the widow's death, the fiend unmercifully continued to plunge his weapon into her lifeless body. At the conclusion of his frenzied attack, as a final affront to the victim, he used the bloody knife to cut off a lock of her blond hair, which he kept as a token of his kill.
* * *
Lawrence Sturgis walked past the Queen's Tea Room, which had been boarded up by the police after the monstrous crime was discovered there.
I'll miss you, Amaryllis, he thought, seeing the familiar sign hanging above the door.
It was not only the loss of the young woman herself that brought sorrow to the editor. He would also miss the books she wrote. After only five published works, she became one of the most popular writers of penny dreadfuls at the publishing house.
And, although he hated to admit it, he would miss the cream teas that she gave him on the house every afternoon since he agreed to review her manuscript. The memory of those delicious scones, covered in clotted cream and jam—which had caused his waistline to increase by two inches over the past few years—woke his appetite. With a final, longing look at the Queen's Tea Room, he continued on his way, in search of a new place to eat.
In lieu of another tea shop, Lawrence stopped at a pub where he ordered a pint and a sandwich. He paid what he believed was too high a price for the slightly stale bread and the flavorless cheese.
At least the beer tastes good, he thought and ordered another.
When he finished his rather unsatisfactory meal, he raised the mug.
To you, Amaryllis Danes. I hope they find the bloody bastard who murdered you.
* * *
No sooner did Lawrence arrive at work the next day than he was called into the publisher's office.
Why does he want to see me? he wondered, feeling anticipation mixed with apprehension.
"A new manuscript arrived for you yesterday afternoon," the publisher announced. "I happened to see it on your desk as I passed by."
Lawrence frowned. It was unheard of for the publisher to concern himself with material until it had gone through one of the editors, whose job it was to weed out the unacceptable works. When he saw the name of the author written beneath the title of the book, however, he understood the publisher's interest.
"Tea for One by Hugo Norville," the editor read.
"That manuscript was written by your friend, the lady who owned the tea shop, the one who was killed not long ago."
"She must have completed it before she died," Lawrence said, overwhelmed by sadness.
"I want you to stop whatever you're working on now and have a look at it. It's nothing like her other stories."
"You've read it?"
"Yes, and I want you to see it before I send it off to Scotland Yard."
Intrigued by mention of Scotland Yard, Lawrence took the manuscript to his desk where he read the handwritten copy of Amaryllis's last novel. Although the title sheet was in flawless condition, many of the pages were wrinkled, torn and spotted with ink.
Halfway through the story, the editor turned a page and saw blood stains on the paper. He was so upset by the sight that he temporarily could not concentrate on what the author had written. When he finally recovered, he quickly realized with shock, that Amaryllis had strayed from the plot of her story. The scene had suddenly shifted from a dark alley in Whitechapel to the inside of a tea shop. He knew by her description of the surroundings that it was her own establishment, the Queen's Tea Room.
Repulsed yet fascinated by the events that unfolded on the blood-smeared pages, he continued reading. Lawrence held his breath as Amaryllis described the stranger who plunged the knife into her body. He did not resume a normal breathing pattern until the story concluded with the killer cutting off a lock of her blond hair, putting it in his jacket pocket and exiting the tea shop.
As though in a trance, the editor stumbled into the publisher's office with the disturbing manuscript still in his hand.
"I don't know when she began writing this," he said, "but the ending ...."
He was unable to continue.
"Yes," the publisher agreed. "I came to the same conclusion. She was writing that story in the tea room when she was murdered."
* * *
Chief Inspector Mallon of Scotland Yard, with the help of the victim's final manuscript, was eventually able to discover and arrest the murderer. Although the monster had killed ten other women before Amaryllis Danes, he was convicted and sentenced to hang for her death alone.
Lawrence Sturgis, who was called to testify at the trial, identified the handwriting on the blood-stained pages as belonging to the victim. Those bloody pages and the lock of blond hair found in the accused man's jacket pocket were all the evidence the jury needed to send him to the gallows at Newgate.
After the trial was concluded, Lawrence walked down the narrow back road where the Queen's Tea Room once stood; a new owner had bought the building and turned it into a tobacco store. He stood on the cobblestone street, closed his eyes and recalled the sights, smells and sounds of the tea shop. It all came flooding back to him: the scent of the freshly baked scones, the clinking sound of cups being placed on their saucers, the whistles of teapots, the floral patterned curtains that hung in the windows.
Although the sun was shining down on London, making its best effort to penetrate the haze created by the smoke-belching factories, Lawrence imagined the street at night, illuminated by the gas lamps that created shadowy pools of dim light in the murky darkness. He could see Amaryllis sitting at a table, tired after a day of work, laboriously writing out her story in longhand while her killer sat at another table drinking tea.
Imagine that poor woman being stabbed more than a dozen times and still having the strength to be able to write a description of the man who attacked her. And then ... and then what?
Oddly enough, it had never occurred to Lawrence, his publisher, Chief Inspector Mallon, the barristers or any of the members of the jury to question how the manuscript found its way from the crime scene to the editor's desk. The bobby who first discovered Amaryllis's body did not find any papers on the table or on the floor nearby. Someone must have removed the manuscript from the scene before the police arrived. But who? And how would he or she know where to send it?
When Lawrence returned to his office, he asked to speak with his publisher.
"When you found Amaryllis's manuscript on my desk, was it in an envelope?"
"No, it was lying on the corner of your desk, just as I gave it to you. I saw the name on the title page, picked it up and brought it here to my office to read it. Why?"
"I wanted to know who sent it to me."
"Well, obviously, the boy in the mail room must have opened the envelope and put the manuscript on your desk. What does it matter anyway? The man's going to hang. It's time to move on."
Lawrence could not put the matter behind him, however. In all the years he worked at the publishing house, no one from the company ever opened his mail. Stranger yet, after checking with the young man in the mail room, he learned that no manuscript had come in for him during the entire week in which Amaryllis Danes was killed.
Who sent it?
Without asking permission from the publisher, Lawrence left work early and went directly to the coroner's office.
"What can I do for you, Mr. Sturgis?" the doctor asked, recognizing the editor from the trial.
"There's something that's troubling me," he replied. "I don't know who sent the manuscript to me."
"Obviously, the person who finished it."
"I don't follow you."
"There must have been a witness to the murder who, wanting to retain his or her anonymity, described the crime and the killer on the pages of her story and then sent them to you."
"But Mrs. Danes wrote the entire work herself."
"I assure you, that's impossible," the coroner declared with a chuckle. "The poor woman was stabbed a total of thirteen times, all resulting in deep wounds to vital areas of the body. She would have succumbed long before the thirteenth blow. No. Someone else completed her book."
Lawrence thanked the doctor and left his office. Rather than return to the publishing house, the editor went to the pub with the stale bread, tasteless cheese and good beer. He ordered a pint and told the barman to have a second one ready for him.
Amaryllis DID write the ending of the book. I know her handwriting.
He downed his first beer and signaled to the barman to bring his second. He finally left the pub after his fifth.
Although he fully intended to return to his place of employment, despite the alcohol he had consumed, he was mysteriously drawn to the narrow back road.
Lawrence was not sure if it was the beer or his morbid thoughts that caused him to hallucinate, but as he turned the corner and saw the familiar building halfway down the block, he stopped and stared. The tobacco shop was gone. In its place was the Queen's Tea Room.
Am I dreaming? he wondered, knowing full well he was wide awake.
He forced his legs to move, and as he drew nearer to the shop, it became more real to him. Even from several yards away, he could smell the baking scones and hear the whistle of a teapot.
The astonished editor was just four feet away from the large front window, when a woman became visible through the pane of glass. He knew the almond-shaped blue eyes, the slightly upturned nose and the golden hair piled on top of her head in a fashionable bun. Their eyes met, and then the woman smiled and waved.
Lawrence raised his arm, but before he could return her gesture of farewell, he was rudely pushed aside by a burly man who was eager to enter the door of the tobacco shop.
* * *
Lawrence Sturgis lived for many more years, dying peacefully in his sleep at the age of ninety-six. In his long life, he saw the beginning and end of the Crimean War, the publication of Darwin's On the Origin of Species, the opening of the London underground, the Fenian rising in Ireland, the invention of the telephone, the death of Queen Victoria and the coronation of Edward VII. He witnessed great strides in art, science, medicine and literature.
Yet as he lay on his deathbed, one image broke through the jumble of ninety-six years of memories: that of a young widow with blue eyes and golden hair waving farewell to him through a tea shop window.
The dying man closed his eyes and prayed that after he took his last breath, he would finally learn how a dead woman had somehow managed to finish writing a penny dreadful that led to the capture and execution of her murderer.
On Mother's Day, Salem always serves me tea and scones. And on each such occasion, he has clotted cream on his whiskers.
