Summary:  In Virginia City ladies know how to celebrate a proper tea party.   Written for the Poker Tournament in 2013

Rating:  K+   WC  2100

 

Virginia City Tea Party

Love and scandal are the best sweeteners of tea. (Henry Fielding)Dear Jane,

Time flies! Four weeks passed since I left Boston to start my new life! I don’t regret my decision for one minute. Virginia City is splendid: all kind of stores (they order from San Francisco, if it isn’t already in stock!), several churches, numerous restaurants, and – ta-dah! – Piper’s Opera House, where famous actors and actresses beat a path to the doorstep. Obviously the ‘Wild West’ is a lot less wild than we assumed.

I reside at a nice clean boarding house not far from the school building – my new working place. I felt in love with my students straightaway; the little boys are very lively and the little girls are sweet, albeit a little shy and less self-confident than little girls in Boston. But you know me; I’ll change that before long. Let’s see what the members of the school board have to say about new ideas. Our first meeting is scheduled for tomorrow. So far I only met one of the members. Mrs. Myers (née Jones) is a former teacher herself and introduced me to the class. She is friendly and helpful but a bit old-fashioned.

But now let me tell you about last Saturday, when I had my first official entrance as the new schoolmistress. A little boy delivered a card on Thursday:

Miss Clarissa Cartwright
Would like to extend her cordial invitation
To a Traditional English Tea Party
Saturday, the First of July
At three o’clock in the afternoon
Hosted at her Home
“The Orchard”
Virginia City, Nevada

I was thrilled. The Cartwrights are one of the wealthiest families here, well-respected and very popular with everyone in Virginia City. Their ranch ‘The Ponderosa’ covers the better half of Nevada, so the people say. And now this invitation – maybe even especially to welcome me! Unfortunately the card said nothing about the Ponderosa. Much to my dismay I learned from my landlady that Clarissa Cartwright is only a distant cousin who lives here in a town house that she named ‘The Orchard’.

With my expectations somewhat subdued I arrived at the house a couple of minutes past three on Saturday. ‘The Orchard’ turned out to be a little house, small but neat with its freshly painted white fence and a flowerbed in front. An apple tree and a cherry tree seem to be the name-giving orchard.

Clarissa Cartwright opened the door, gave me an appraisingly once over, frowned and welcomed me with: “Miss Griggs, how sweet of you to come – and almost on time. Please come in. I didn’t expect you to be so young. You must be very grateful that Benjamin gave such a responsible position to an inexperienced girl like you.”

I followed her into the house flabbergasted. What a welcome! And who was this Benjamin person?

Inside more tea party guests were assembled; one of them was Mrs. Myers. She overheard the last sentence and corrected: “Quite the contrary, Miss Cartwright, quite the contrary. The members of the school board are grateful Miss Griggs agreed to work here. She is an excellent teacher. She couldn’t come with a higher recommendation. The board members decided unanimously to hire her. Ben Cartwright is one of them, but not the only one.”

Our host’s face said ‘That is what you think’ but she nodded: “Certainly, certainly.”

She introduced me to the ladies and I shook hands with Mrs. Fair, Mrs. Piper, and Mrs. Michelson. This seemed to be everyone who is anyone in Virginia City: a senator’s wife, our mayor’s daughter-in-law and Mr. Michelson owns the two biggest mercantile stores in town. To lighten up the formal introducing I offered: “Miss Griggs is what my students say. Please call me Emily.”

To my surprise Mrs. Michelson – maybe in her early sixties – was the first to agree. “Oh yes, I read about it. Nowadays young people are very quick on first-name terms. I’m Rosa.” She giggled. Obviously she enjoyed her excursion into the world of young people. Hesitantly Theresa and Lavinia joined in and finally Clarissa and Abby accepted, too. (Clarissa looked ready to kill me.)

We all took a seat. To do Clarissa Cartwright justice: she obviously put a lot of work into the preparation of this tea party. Colorful flowers in several vases decorated the room. Their fragrances mixed with the aroma of freshly baked muffins and cookies. The table was set with the finest white china and a silver tea service with tea pot, sugar and milk in the center. I commented on the lovely tea set and she beamed with pride. “Benjamin gave it to me. He said it deserves to be in a caring woman’s household.”

She was pouring the tea when a loud knock at the door disturbed the procedure. She rose and went to open. Before that she explained apologetically “Clementine Hawkins – I had to invite her as I need her to do the routine chores.”

The ladies looked distinctly uncomfortable; because of the arriving guest or because of Clarissa’s rudeness I can’t say. Anyway, the little elderly lady who swept into the room was the most colorful, most unconventional, most vibrant person I ever met. And the most direct one, too.

She greeted everyone, looked around the room appraisingly, sat down and commented: “For what reason such pomp and circumstance? And why does this tea set look so familiar to me? I hope you didn’t nick it from Ducky’s cupboard.”

Lavinia nearly spilt her tea. She and Theresa changed meaningful glances. Abby coughed slightly, trying to stifle a giggle. It was fun to watch the color of Clarissa’s skin going from pink to red. She preferred to ignore the second question and concentrated on the first.

“We are here to plan the festivities for the upcoming Founder’s Day celebrations.”

Everyone got excited; soon we were discussing refreshments, a shooting gallery, a ball toss stand, the annual best-apple-pie-competition, the traditional best-dressmaking-competition, and so on. Suddenly Clarissa said: “Miss Griggs, just now an idea crossed my mind. How about a little theatre play to add some style to the event? Do you think your students can handle Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Screw? It is very amusing.”

I am sure this was the only reason I was in invited and definitely not ‘just now an idea’. And of course she wanted “The Taming”! As you know it ends with Katharina giving a speech on the subject of why wives should always obey their husbands and with the men marveling at how successfully Petruchio has tamed the shrew. Suddenly I got an idea.

“Don’t you think Shakespeare is a bit worn out nowadays? How about an ancient Greek comedy for a change? I happen to have the translation of an extraordinary play by Aristophanes – very entertaining and very educational.”

“Oh, that sounds wonderful. We’ll use costumes and props from the opera house.” At once Lavinia was pretty keen on the idea. Abby gave me a strange look. Maybe she guessed what I planned. But she didn’t object to it. So the decision was made: the students will perform a Greek comedy on Founder’s Day. Can’t wait to see Clarissa’s face when Lysistrata appears on stage.

The last item on the agenda was money. Isn’t it always? Each year all takings from the day are donated to a good cause and we had to decide who needs our help the most. It was the senator’s wife who suggested giving the money to the Indians. She told us about an Indian woman who had come to the senator’s office to ask for help a couple of days ago. Her tribe is starving to death. It was a desperate try to find help for her people who are living in the mountains.

“You want us to help that savage?” Clarissa asked disgustedly.

“She isn’t a savage. Strictly speaking she isn’t an Indian either. She is a white woman brought up by Indians. Now she is living with them to help them,” Theresa explained.

“Her name is Ruth Halversen,” Rosa added. “She is a very nice and civilized person.”

“How come you know her?”

“She came to our store a few times to get some urgently needed things for her tribe.”

“So she has the money to pay for things.”

“She didn’t pay for them but Ben Cartwright did. He offered his help when he heard about her problems.”

“Isn’t Ducky the most generous man?” Clementine beamed as if it was to her own credit.

“In this case it was more than generosity,” Rosa lowered her voice mysteriously. Tea and cookies were forgotten, we hung on her lips and she enjoyed being the center of attention immensely.

“When Ben settled her account, he told me a little secret. Years ago Adam proposed to Ruth. She rejected for the sake of the Indians.”

“That’s impossible. Adam is a Cartwright! He would never…” Clarissa whispered. Merciless the ladies warmed up to the matter.

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist Clarissa,” Clementine said. “Adam is a man and when it comes to women they don’t give two hoots about social conventions. I remember him dating a girl with a reputation, too. He even fought a duel for her. Her name is on the tip of my tongue. Later she was shot by a jealous wannabe lover.”

“Her name was Sue-Ellen, Sue-Ellen Terry. The Cartwright boys seem to be drawn to women with a reputation. Years ago Little Joe fell in love with a saloon owner – if you prefer to call it a saloon. Julia Bulette was killed by a jealous lover, too.”

“Wasn’t there another Julia he wanted to marry? The one with the little boy? She was much too old for Little Joe. She could have been his mother.”

“Oh yes, Julia Grant. She wanted to be an actress and was allowed to sing and perform at the saloon. Little Joe paid for her wages secretly behind her back. She left him when someone offered her a theatre engagement in San Francisco.”

“Like father, like son. Ben has his little secrets, too.”

“Oh yes, I know. Little Joe’s mother came from a dubious quarter in New Orleans, doesn’t she?”

“Yes, she did, but that happened a long time ago. I was thinking of another actress.”

“What do you mean, Lavinia?”

“Do you remember Adah Menken?”

“The one who starred in Mazeppa? Who played the role in her birthday suit?”

“Absolutely stark naked she was. One could see not only her ankles or her knees, one could see everything. Everything!”

“To do her justice, she wore close-fitting tights. And a good body she had – no wonder Ben was very, very fond of her. Did I mention she was a married woman?”

“How embarrassing! So Hoss is the only gentleman in the Cartwright family.”

“He isn’t better than the rest. Remember Helen Layton? Hoss wanted to marry the widow of his Pa’s old friend three days after they met for the first time. She turned out to be a cardsharper, wasn’t she?”

“As far as I know she was addicted to gambling. She nearly ruined the Cartwrights with her Poker games.”

“Poor Hoss, he is so very unfortunate with his love life, too. Do you remember the redhead – Carol Atley? She was totally drunk when she turned Hoss down. And he was lucky to get away. And then the woman got arrested by an US-Marshal. It turned out she had killed her former husband.”

“And don’t forget about Ragan Miller. Hoss proposed to her. It didn’t stop her from seducing Adam. She was successful; he kissed her in her garden. Half of Virginia City witnessed it.”

Speechless and with growing horror Clarissa had listened to the conversation. This put her over the edge. She dropped the tray she was carrying. It crashed down and freshly brewed tea and cookies spread out on the carpet. We helped to clean up and the rest of the afternoon we chatted about this and that and developed more plans for the fundraising. Clarissa slowly recovered. But I guess there won’t be any traditional English tea parties for a while.

I have to come to an end now. I need to prepare tomorrow’s lessons. And, more important, I need a plan for the school board meeting. Ben Cartwright is a member of this board and if he attends I have to lure him into an invitation to the Ponderosa. These Cartwrights are the most interesting men in the world – I have to meet them!

With lots of love,

Emily