Company permitted to have short tea for author (7)
I believe the answer is:
colette
'for author' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'company permitted to have short tea' is the wordplay.
'company' becomes 'co' (abbreviation).
'permitted' becomes 'let' (to let something happen is to permit it).
'to have' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'short' means to remove the last letter.
'tea' with its last letter taken off is 'te'.
'co'+'let'+'te'='COLETTE'
(Other definitions for colette that I've seen before include "Fr. novelist, wrote Gigi" , "French writer" , "French female novelist" , "French novelist, author of Gigi, d. 1954" .)