The covenant - James A. Michener [634]
'Now tell me,' she said brightly, 'how did a decent Saltwood ever get to an outlaw place like America?' She laughed.
'As far as I can tell, there was a renegade brother far back. You English are wonderful in producing renegade brothers.'
'Woods are full of them.'
'So about the time your branch came out here, our branch, and a very lowly one it must have been, came to America. Massachusetts, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan. If you can visualize the map, they're stations west. My family was always on the move.'
'The sheriff?'
'I think so. I continued the tradition. Colorado, Texas.'
'You're a real American. Tell me, have you ever visited Salisbury? The old cathedral town west of London? No? Well, you must. The Saltwoods have a very ancient house there, with the tiles upside down or something. Quite wonderful, you know, with a river at the doorstep and a cathedral across the meadow.'
'This silverware . . .'
'A wedding gift in Salisbury, many years ago. My husband and I named this house New Sarum after the little hill where the members of Parliament used to be elected. Do you know about that? Well, we'll talk about that later. We liked to entertain and had plenty of servants. In the old days white people in this country always seemed to have plenty of servants. And my vanity was to have five complete tea services in silver.'
'Why?'
'Because in the morning we liked to serve our guests tea in bed. At seven o'clock sharp, bare feet came down the hall. Five servants, five tea services. Knock on the door, "Tea, Baas," and there was your tea.' Delicately she ticked off the silver pieces: 'Tea in this, hot water in this, toast in its silver rack, sugar, cream, lemon, one sweet biscuit.' Suddenly she rose and went inside the house, returning after a brief moment with four silver teapots, which she added to the tray.
'These were my only vanity. I wanted to remember Salisbury and tea in the shadow of the cathedral, and these enabled me to do so. But I also wanted to put away childish things and engage myself in Africa. So I helped found the Black Sash, and I spoke as I did, and now I'm banned. For life, I judge.'
Philip dared not speak. Staring at the five glistening teapots, he felt a chaos of thoughts rush through his brain, but there were none he cared to verbalize. Finally he asked, 'How do you keep these damned things so highly polished?'
She answered in a curious way: 'Do you know what I miss most? Not the meetings, where people say the same things over and over. And not the friendships, really, for people like you come by often. But I do miss the bowls. That's a wonderful game for relaxationthe proper uniform, you know, the lovely green grass. I miss that.'
'I don't follow you.'
'I can't bowl any more, of course, so whenever the urge strikes me, I polish my silver. Again and again I polish it. Everyone who comes here gets a cup of tea. It's compulsive, really, because I want to use a different pot each day. This one, then this one, then this one.'
Philip got up and walked away to hide his emotion, and of course Laura knew why he had done so. 'One must do something to keep occupied,' she said gaily. 'One can't read Solzhenitsyn week after week.'
'Good God! What are these?'
'Bullet holes,' she said matter-of-factly. 'At night sometimes they shoot at me.'
He wiped his forehead and sat down. 'What I'd really like,' he said, trying to sound casual, 'is another cup of tea . . . from that one,' and he pointed to one of the highly polished pots.
'That can be arranged,' she said, and with an elegant sweep of her hands she emptied the tea from the filled pot into the waiting one, then graciously poured Philip a cup. 'But I shall have my cup from