Chapter 4
Englishmen and their passions
Tea at Beardley Manor is not only mandatory and sumptuous, it is unchanging. Served rigidly at half-past four, it is a solemn ritual, which goes forward as it always does, day after day.
The obligatory menu consists of Indian or Ceylon tea poured from gleaming silver tea pots into delicate bone china cups, a selection of dainty sandwiches—including, of course, thinly sliced cucumber sandwiches—cakes, pastries, and scones with clotted cream and homemade strawberry jam.
A sense of order is paramount to tea. Paraphernalia—pot, cups, strainer, spoons—is required to carry out the ritual in the complicated manner tradition dictates. It is the flouting of this expected sense of order which makes tea parties quite so enchanting.
Yet, yesterday, there wa
