Gender Issues
In the second paragraph of the story, the narrator specifically uses the plural pronoun to inform the reader that “they were rich, really rich,” in reference to Rosemary Fell and her husband. This pluralization betrays a major irony in the story. Although “really rich” Rosemary hesitates about spending money on a box she clearly adores. She leaves the story thinking the cost is high even for a rich person. The irony of this delay of gratification is revealed in almost the story’s final lines. In a scene of almost grotesque irony, Philip Fell bounces his wife on his knee as though she were a child as she must submissively ask his permission buy the box which they are quite clearly rich enough for Rosemary to have bought on impulse. The “they” part of being really rich proves to be an ironic overstatement of the actual circumstances of equality in sharing the wealth.
Gender Conventions
The story opens with the almost cruel assertion, “Rosemary Fell was not exactly beautiful.” The narrator then goes on to suggest that if one worked really hard at it, one might be able to say her features were attractive enough on their own but just didn’t quite come together. Rosemary has a husband whom we are told adores her, store owners who slavishly fall all over her, is rich and somewhere inside seems to be a halfway-decent person. Ironically, however, the last words we hear out of her mouth brings the focus of society’s view about what is important about women full circle when she asks her husband if he thinks she’s pretty.
Milliner’s Gazette
At one point the highly questionable charm of Rosemary’s husband is put on crude display with a remark about the poor girl and reading something called the Milliner’s Gazette. That reference is archaic to modern readers but what Philip is saying in a coded way is that if the girl does enjoy any employment at all it is on roughly the same level of a prostitute. This scene is immediately followed by the deeply uncomfortable scene in which Rosemary takes out five notes of British currency but winds up giving only three to Miss Smith. The suggestion here is that if Miss Smith is a prostitute then, ironically, Philip’s wife is not just her customer but a customer who can easily afford to pay full price but instead cheats her.
Who’s Cup of Tea?
The most bitter irony of the story may well be the revelation that the title initially refers to Rosemary’s desire to enjoy a cup of tea as a way to escape the literal storm swirling outside and the uneasy turbulence of emotions twisting inside Rosemary. The cup of tea is therefore originally brought up as a means of escaping unhappy things. This idea of lightening the darkness surrounding her with a cup of tea is immediately—in the very next line—turned on its head when the young beggar-girl ironically asks Rosemary for a handout so that she can buy a cup of tea for what one can easily presume is pretty much the exact same reason. This dark irony continues building throughout the story as Rosemary’s plans for the cup of tea to quietly brighten her day sets in motion a series of events which serve to make the day darker and darker on a personal level.
Social Status
At every level, Rosemary enjoys a superior status to the girl he brings home for tea. Her wealth means she—with her husband’s permission, of course—can waste money on luxury items serving no necessity. Meanwhile, Miss Smith must beg just to get something nice to drink. Everything about Rosemary exists on such a higher plane than that of the beggar-girl that the only common ground she can locate is they are both women. By the end of the story, however, it appears that Rosemary is on the verge of becoming obsessed with the one single station in life in which she is inferior to an overly thin woman with tangled hair. The irony is thick here. For one thing, Philip finds this woman “absolutely lovely” despite the fact that she lacks his wife’s breeding, taste, and sense of personal aesthetics. It is also ironic that the one thing which Rosemary does not get from her husband—her looks—becomes the facet of her married life which makes her most unhappy. Finally, the entire purpose of Rosemary bringing the girl to her fashionable home to enjoy a cup of tea was to become a kind of fairy godmother proving that “rich people had hearts.” Her jealous reaction to Philip’s observation that the girl may be poor but at least she’s pretty proves the ironic opposite.