“Tea is the thinking man’s coffee,” he began. “For five thousand years in China it has been known as a revitalizing beverage, increasing concentration and alertness. Later, the Japanese promoted harmony and tranquillity with the tea ceremony. Dutch and Portuguese traders introduced tea to England and Russia. Caravans of two or three hundred camels used to bring chests of tea to the Russian border. Clipper ships raced each other from China to London.”
His niece was yawning. She spoke only when spoken to but paid deferential attention to Old Campo. At one point she whispered to him, and he said, “Now I know where I’ve seen you! In my suite there’s a portrait of Mark Twain. You could be brothers!”
During Carol’s excellent dinner he discussed the three thousand kinds of tea in the world, and then the seven grades of tea. The latter sounded like a comic routine, and I was glad I had my miniature tape recorder in my pocket when he recited them: Pekoe, orange pekoe, flowery orange pekoe, golden flowery orange pekoe, tippy golden flowery orange pekoe, finest tippy golden flowery orange pekoe, and special finest tippy golden flowery orange pekoe.
The after-dinner tea was Darjeeling, “the champagne of teas,” we were told, “Grown in India in the Himalayan foothills. Sometimes on a forty-five-degree slope.”
The special guests left shortly after that, and the rest of us had some good strong coffee while we re-capped the evening and had a few laughs.
At one point Polly excused herself and returned with a look of wonderment. “Carol! You’ve done over the powder room! It’s spectacular!”
Naturally. Nosy Me had to investigate. They had made one entire wall into a lighted niche with glass shelves for a collection of French perfume bottles.
“Larry gives me perfume on every anniversary,” she said, “and I save the bottles: Shalimar, Champs Elysees, L’Heure Bleue – all the Guerlain classics. The bottles are works of art. Every time we go to Paris I haunt the antique shops and flea markets for vintage bottles. Some are priced as high as five thousand francs – and more if they’re Baccarat.”
Little did Polly know I had special-ordered a bottle of L’Heure Bleue for her.
As Qwilleran and Polly drove back to Indian Village, she said, “Mr. Delacamp is visiting Maggie tomorrow morning to buy her pearl-and-diamond torsade. I’d love to know what he offers for it. I won’t ask, of course, and Maggie won’t tell.”
“And even if she does, she isn’t bound to tell the truth. You know the old rule; ‘Ask me no questions, and I’ll till you no lies’. Who said that? Shakespeare?”
“Oliver Goldsmith,” she corrected him. “And he said ‘fibs’ – not ‘lies.’ It was a line in ‘She Stoops to Conquer’.”
“With a friend like you, Polly, who needs an encyclopedia?”
“Thank you, dear. That’s the nicest thing you ever said! Did you know that ‘fib’ has been a euphemism for ‘lie’ as far back as the eighteenth century? It’s derived from ‘fibble-fabble’. I hope I’m not boring you.”
“Not at all, This is a lot more interesting than tea.”
Conversation stopped as they passed the site of the Old Glory mine and turned to look at the old shafthouse, a spectral presence in the moonlight. Then she said, “I hear the historical society and the county commissioners are squabbling about the new historical markers – to put them outside the fence, inside the fence, or on the fence. What’s your opinion, Qwill?”
“Inside the fence. They’re bronze and susceptible to theft.”
“Down Below, perhaps, but not up here.”
“There are vacationers from Down Below who might like to take home a bronze souvenir. I still say it’s safest to post it inside the fence.”
A quarter mile rolled by, and he said, “Tomorrow afternoon I visit Maggie to tape her great-grandmother’s story.”
“Take an oxygen inhaler,” she advised. “Her apartment is suffocatingly Victorian. But you’ll like her late husband’s collection of books.”
“Eddington Smith sold me a fine old copy of ‘Oedipus Rex’ this week. Handsome binding but poor translation.”
“In Canada this summer I saw a wonderful production of the play, complete with grotesque masks and exaggerated buskins.”
They turned into Ittibittiwassee Road. He asked, “How did you like Carol’s breast of duck?”
“It was a little rich for my taste.”
“But the blackberry cobbler was good.”
When they reached Indian Village Polly asked, “Would you like to come in and say goodnight to Brutus and Catta?”
“For a few minutes.”
It was late when Qwilleran returned to the barn that night, and the internal clocks of the Siamese told them their bedtime snack was long overdue. Yum Yum prowled aimlessly; Koko sat on his haunches, his tail slapping the door impatiently. They gave the impression they were too weak from hunger to protest; that was one of their subtle strategies, designed to make him feel guilty.
“Sorry about this, but you know how it is,” he apologized while measuring a serving of Kabibbles on each plate. “We had breast of duck. I had hoped to bring you a taste, but there was none left.”
