The Twelve Clues of Christmas Read Free Page A

into the theater? Will Max approve of that?”
    “Max can like it or lump it,” she said breezily. “I’m not Frau Von Strohheim yet, and anyway Max wants me to do anything that makes me happy. And I’ve been away from the theater for too long. My public still yearns for me.”
    I could find no response to this except to wonder how a mother with such supreme confidence in her own wonderfulness managed to produce a shy and awkward daughter like me.
    “Where is this Piddleton-under-Lovey?” I asked.
    She gave another tinkling laugh. “Tiddleton, darling. Not Piddleton. In Devon. Tucked at the edge of Dartmoor, one gathers. Noel chose it because of its name, I’m sure. You know what a wicked sense of humor he has. But also because it was featured in
Country Life
as one of England’s most charming and quaint villages. He’s rented a thatched cottage on the village green and promises me roaring fires and hot toddy and all the delights the countryside has to offer.”
    “It sounds lovely.” I tried not to sound disappointed.
    “I’d invite you to join us, darling, but it really is a working holiday and Noel insists that he wants no distractions. He can be so intense when he’s creating. He’s already slaving away furiously in his London flat and naturally he’s left all the domestic details of this Tiddleton-under-Lovey business to me. I’m supposed to come up with a good cook who can produce plain old-fashioned English food and someone to look after us, which means, I suppose, that I’ll have to abandon Brown’s and go down to Devon ahead of him. I can’t see any staff I’d hire in London wanting to go down to Devon in the bleak midwinter, can you?”
    If I’d known how to cook, I’d have volunteered for the job myself. But since my repertoire didn’t go beyond toast, boiled eggs and baked beans, I didn’t think I’d prove satisfactory.
    “Anyway, I must toddle off, darling.” Mummy cut short my thoughts. “I’ve a million and one things to do. Should I order the hamper from Fortnum’s or Harrods, do you think? I seem to remember I was rather disappointed in Harrods last time—terribly bourgeois in their choices.” (This from someone who was raised in a two-up, two-down house in Barking where luxury consisted of an extra helping of chips on Saturday night.) “So have a lovely Christmas, won’t you, my sweet, and afterwards we’ll meet in London and I’ll treat you to a lovely shopping spree as a Christmas present. All right?”
    Before I could say good-bye the line went dead.

Chapter 3
    S TILL C ASTLE R ANNOCH
    Blizzard still continuing.
    I came down to dinner with what I hoped was a confident and jaunty air. I was not going to let Fig and her mother know that I had overheard their conversation.
    “Beastly day,” I said as I took my place. “Did any of you go out?”
    “Absolutely not,” Fig said. “I have to be careful that I don’t catch a chill after all that I’ve been through.”
    “Nobody in their right mind would go out in weather like this,” her mother added.
    “I went for my usual walk,” Binky said in his jolly fashion, oblivious to the fact that he had just admitted to not being in his right mind. “It wasn’t too bad. Blowing a bit hard, but one expects a good stiff blow at this time of year. You didn’t go out riding, did you, Georgie?”
    “Of course not. I would not expose Rob Roy to this weather, poor thing. But I did tramp around the estate a bit this afternoon before I was nearly buried in the blizzard. One does need some exercise, doesn’t one?” I gave Fig a swift glance. She frowned. “So have you decided what we’re going to do about Christmas?” I went on cheerfully. “Don’t you think it would be more fun in London? It’s so remote up here and nobody will come to visit.”
    “On the contrary,” Lady Wormwood said, “we are expecting the rest of our family to join us. Hilda’s sister, Matilda, and her husband and daughter. I believe you met