"Charles L. Harness-George Washington Slept Here" - читать интересную книгу автора (Harness Charles L)

6. SUNDAY AT SENA'S

Potts accepted Sena's invitation for Sunday dinner.
As she ushered him in, she said, "Actually, Oliver, I should be giving a great festive party in your
honor, just as in the old colonial days, when someone important came to visit." She smiled at him as they
walked into the dining room.
"That's hardly indicated, Sena."
"You're right, of course. But at least we can have the fixin's, just as they had in the old time: soup, river
oysters, fish, roast turkey, chicken, duck, goose, beef, mutton, molded jellies, plum pudding, pies, cakes,
tarts, spiced punch..."
He stared at her, appalled.
 She laughed merrily. "Small wonder the men had gout and the women the dropsy. No, Oliver dear,
actually, we'll have just a little dab of different things, all over on the side table. It's buffet style tonight.
Take what you want. Just soup and crackers, if that's your preference."
They got trays and loaded up.
She poured him a tumbler of foamy pinkish liquid. "Sillabub," she explained. "Wine and cream. Old
plantation recipe. The lipids in the cream facilitate absorption of the alcohol through the stomach lining.
Knocks you on your ear."
"Like a double martini?"
"More like a triple."
Great, thought Potts. Oh well, maybe we can finally get to the bottom of things.
As they sat at table, he noted the strange music from the far side of the room.
She explained. "That's a 'player' spinet, otherwise genuine for the period. The strings are plucked by
little quills."
"What's the tune?'
"That one is High Betty Martin. Next you'll hear Old Father George."
"G.W. again?"
"No, no connection. Although they were very popular in his day, and he did love to accompany me on
the fife when I played the spinet."
"I didn't know he played anything."
"He wasn't very good at it, but he could pat his foot and keep the rhythm."
"Sounds like a good life."
"It was different. I once had a museum room, where I kept things characteristic of the period. But it all
went into storage when I had to move my house."
"What's your house made of?"
"Not wood, or stone, or plastic. It's the same stuff as the Rock. When the Rock goes, so will the
house, and everything in it."
He looked around. "Lots of tapestries."
"Actually, those are rugs. In colonial days they were too valuable to walk on. We hung them on walls
and put them on tables."
She was in a reminiscent mood. It worried him. He had once observed the same mood in a man
awaiting execution. "How did you get along with the early colonials?"
"Pretty well, until they caught religion. Then they decided I was a witch and should be burnt. That was
about sixteen ninety. The town fathers chased me out here with torches and blunderbusses. But as they
watched, I sank into the Rock. The preacher cursed the place in an elaborate ceremony, and then the
warders stripped my house bare and tried to burn it. But it wouldn't burn. I stayed in the Rock for years.
When I came out again it was seventeen twenty-five, and all was forgotten. Tea had come to the colony.
Cups from France, no handles. When you went to a tea party you brought your own cup and saucer, and
you sipped daintily from the saucer, not the cup. It's all different now."
"Did going into the Rock have any ill effect?"