The Cordless Diaries

Afternoon Tea

Afternoon Tea is a noble institution, a social event designed for anti-social gossip and malign debate of all who are not there. Father calls it civilised incivility. I have usually found that it involves a group of elderly, malodorously perfumed women, dry as prunes, denigrating all who have ever been kind to them on, presumably, the maxim that no good turn should go unpunished.

The note I received from Mrs Felicity Daker a few days after the dinner inviting me to tea did not, therefore, excite me. To the contrary, I did not anticipate the event with any happy expectation. Mother was unable to attend for some reason best known to herself and so it was I went alone. However much I did not relish the idea, a few hours away from the Hall was an attractive proposition and the day was warm and sunny.

Mary was cross with me for my choice of dress, I had decided to ride to Mrs Daker’s house, almost two miles from Cordless Hall rather than take the carriage. This meant I could wear riding attire which did not include the vile corsetry. A long, split skirt was as near to trousers as were suitable for a woman of my rank but was at least comfortable and less constraining than any other sort of gown. I pinned my hat in place on my hair that Mary had meticulously piled and, eschewing the scarf Mary proffered, once more to her annoyance, I mounted the small grey, called Caroline, and turned her head to the west and toward Cordless village.

I rode to Mrs Daker’s house, a delightfully simple property of good proportion and dressed about with rose vines which perfumed the warm summer afternoon air. I tied Caroline to a convenient bar, opened the gate at the end of the short path leading to the house and, as I was about to rap upon the door, it opened and there was Mrs Daker.

‘Oh, Miss Cordless, how nice to see you do please come in.’ I was surprised that she had no maid to anwer her door but, as she explained, ‘I gave my maid the afternoon off. Her mother is ill and it seemed unkind to detain her when I am quite capable of making tea for two.’ More surprise, I was the only guest. I unpinned my hat and removed my riding jacket. Mrs Daker took it from me in and placed it carefully on a chair in the substantial hallway and begged me follow her through the house.

‘I thought in view of the weather we might take tea on the garden. I know some would frown upon it as common but I fear I do not care much for the opinion of others.’ If I had said a word up to this point I have no recollection of it.

‘How is Mr Daker?’

‘He is well, thank you. He attends upon business in London a great deal, I seldom see him during the week. This is, of course, the subject of much tittle tattle here in Cordless but again, I care not.’ I began to warm to this woman. She wore a dress of pale yellow, low at the bodice and long to the ankle. Her bare arms were slightly tanned and I suspected she tended much of her own garden, no doubt the subject of yet more disdainful gossip. After all, no gentlewoman should work, nor should she allow the sun to darken her skin like some workman. I noticed too that she wore no corset, her dress was loose and, with the sun behind her we walked out into the garden, translucent. I could almost imagine she was naked under the soft cotton. She led me to a table set informally for tea. A jug of cold, iced blackcurrant juice was covered with a cloth as was a plate of, I assumed, sandwiches.

‘Pray, take a seat and I shall fetch the tea.

‘Oh, Mrs Daker, that delicious juice will assuredly suffice for me.’ She smiled and as she bent to remove the cloth and fill two glasses I felt sure I could see two unfettered breasts sway in their yellow confines.