Читать книгу Heathcliff Redux - Lily Tuck - Страница 50

Originally a pub, our brick house was built in the 1740s, and rumor had it that Thomas Jefferson and James Madison dined there. It has since been remodeled and enlarged several times. The warren of small rooms upstairs has been turned into three decent-sized bedrooms, and the downstairs, despite the low ceilings (guests over six feet tall are warned to duck their heads when they enter the living room), has been opened up so that the kitchen and dining area are one large room. The huge stone fireplace in the kitchen, in which, if we were so disposed, we could have roasted an ox, was original, as was the back staircase—the steps steep, narrow, and treacherous. (Once, slipping down those stairs when I was seven months pregnant, I was afraid I would miscarry.)