Muriel's Reign Read Free Page B

was alive. Fergie plays tiresome practical jokes and Diana won’t eat anything. Mummy’s had enough.’
    The worst problem for Muriel was finding extra men. Mambles loathed being placed next to women at meals. She was certain to encourage Hugh who flirted with her and she couldn’t stand Peter who had no inkling of how to flirt.
    Some weeks earlier she had persuaded her old and dear American friend David, to join them. He, in his own words, ‘went for anything that was on offer,’ and had accepted with amused delight. Then, only two evenings before, had telephoned to say that he was unwell and must stay at home in his solitary London flat.
    Maybe that peculiar Tommy Tiddler, who rented the old school building and who wore shawls and wobbled when he moved, would come in handy.
    There was, too, a judge, a widower, who lived nearby and who had angled for over a year to be invited byMuriel to share in her good fortune. He had been disqualified from his profession for goosing a member of the jury but, Delilah insisted, ‘It was no more than a prank.’
    Muriel had kept a letter from him, a few weeks’ old and unanswered; had thrown it into a basket where it lay near the top of a pile of incoming post. The basket was at her feet beside Monopoly and the fire. She leant to ask Peter for advice on how to handle each letter in turn as Hugh trudged past the house in melancholy puzzlement on his way to the squash court after the rectory party.
    The judge’s letter was alive with screech marks and read:
    ‘Hail once again to my new neighbour! I know you have been busy. I’m constantly hearing of great doings under the new regime! Great tidings that Bradstow Manor has been handed down through family connections! Too many jumped-up Johnnie’s in this neighbourhood! Last thing we want are any more estate agents.’
    He told her, too, that he owned an interesting house not far from hers; that his ‘lady wife’ had died seven years earlier and that he hoped they could meet up. (Meet with Muriel – not with his wife.)
    Peter suggested inviting him to lunch on Boxing Day and Muriel wished she knew if he had been knighted before goosing the member of the jury. Wasn’t sure how to address him.
    Then there was the problem of church services. Mambles was certain to duck them but her mother, still aware of having been consort to a King Emperor, liked ceremony.
    Village jammed with detectives. Crackers. Dogs. The royal dogs, Jubilee and Sir Walter Raleigh, upsetting Monopoly and causing havoc in Dulcie’s cat kingdom.
    Her old schoolfriend, Lizzie, also had to be included. Lizzie had altered in behaviour since first hearing of Muriel’s unexpected inheritance. At that juncture she had been brittle and undermining. ‘What a foul thing to happen. I’d loathe to have to live in the country. Especially Lincolnshire.’
    A year later she chose other tactics. Poor relation tactics. ‘You are lucky. You have your live-in lover in your bed, your husband in the squash court and your son in the barn. Living alone on a budget, as I do, is a very different thing.’
    ‘I know I’m lucky,’ Muriel answered as her head burst with anxious thoughts.
    Lizzie didn’t much like Muriel; found her earthy and dowdily dressed but was, nonetheless, unstoppable in her demands.
    In Lizzie’s view Muriel was scatty and uninterested in art exhibitions or jewellery – even in clothes – but seemed to attract one drama after another and there wasalways a fear of missing out on excitement if she didn’t keep in constant contact by inviting herself, mercilessly, to stay.
    Muriel found Lizzie unstoppable in her deadly liveliness.
    She walked, past treasures, to the kitchen that had been improved and re-stocked since she moved in, and found Kitty preparing brandy butter to store away for Christmas Day. She ladled a large quantity of brandy, hinting that she was beginning to get familiar with the tastes of Queen Elizabeth and her daughter. Muriel asked if she