Rebecca is a book about a young woman who is too frightened to ask her husband a question or even have a first name. She spends the entire novel very nearly having tea, then thinking better of it.

Only the first Mrs. de Winter deserved to have tea.

Perhaps I Will Not Go Mad Until Then

“There was something sane and comforting about the ticking
of the clock. It reminded me of the present, and that tea
would soon be ready for me on the lawn.”

Terrible Things Have Happened Under That Chestnut Tree

“How dark and sombre they were in the white skull’s face of hers, how malevolent, how full of hatred. Then she opened the door into the corridor. ‘Robert is back now,’ she said. “He came back a quarter of an hour ago. He has orders to take your tea out under the chestnut tree.'”

How I Wish I Could Forget The Things That Happened Under That Chestnut Tree

“Did she ever think about Manderley? Did she remember sitting at the dining-room table, where I sat? Did she too have tea under the chestnut tree?”

Only Bitches Get Tea. You Are A Nonentity. You Get Nothing

“‘Is it water-cress day?’ said Maxim’s grandmother, raising her head from the pillows, and looking towards the door. ‘You did not tell me that. Why does not Norah bring in the tea?'”

Oh How Everything Causes Me Pain, Not Like Rebecca, She Was So Full Of Life

“The tea was scalding, much too hot to drink. The nurse
drank hers in tiny sips.”

I? I Do Not Deserve To Drink Tea And Swallow Crumpets In The Presence of Maxim, A Cold And Remote God

“Soon tea was brought to us, a stately little performance enacted by Frith and the young footman, in which I played no part until they had gone, and while Maxim glanced through his great pile of letters I played with two dripping crumpets, crumbled cake with my hands, and swallowed my scalding tea.”

Indeed Who Ever Could Bear It

“I felt the afternoon had been too much for her. She wanted to be alone again, and did not want to face another belated tea at Manderley.”

I Resented The Tree But I Loathed The Drawing Room

“They stayed for tea of course, and instead of a lazy nibbling of cucumber sandwiches under the chestnut tree, we had the paraphernalia of a stiff tea in the drawing-room, which I always loathed.”

How Tea Reminds Me Of Entropy And Also Eeeuuuuughh

“His own cup of tea grew cold, left on a side table behind some flowers, and I, steaming behind my kettle, and Frank, gallantly juggling with scones and angel cake, were left to minister to the common wants of the herd.”

I Don’t Deserve Cake

“No,” I said. “No, you might bring me some tea, Robert,
in the library. Nothing like cakes or scones. Just tea and
bread-and-butter.”

And For A Moment I Almost Knew Joy. The Moment Passed

“I went back into the drawing-room and had another cup of tea which I thoroughly enjoyed now that the burden of entertaining had been taken from me.”

That’s More Like It, The Tea Is Cold, Like My Hopes, No More Of This Joy Business

“As I sipped my cold tea I thought with a tired bitter feeling of despair that I would be content to live in one corner of Manderley and Maxim in the other as long as the outside world should never know.”

No One Wants Tea Because They Are Dead

“What do you think it meant to me to hear Frith and Robert and the rest of the servants talking about you as ‘Mrs. de Winter?’ ‘Mrs. de Winter has gone out for a walk.’ ‘Mrs. de Winter wants the car this afternoon at three o’clock.’ ‘Mrs. de Winter won’t be in to tea till five o’clock.’ And all the while my Mrs. de Winter, my lady with her smile and her lovely face and brave ways, the real Mrs. de Winter, lying dead and cold and forgotten in the church crypt.”

Food Is For Women In Successful Marriages, And I Am A Child And A Failure

“I remembered I had only had cold tea at half-past eleven, and no breakfast.”