A Christmas Gambol Read Online Free PDF

scarecrow, Meg. I just meant you’re so thin. Perhaps that’s why you can’t get pregnant.”
    “I’ve only been married two years!”
    “You must be at your wits’ end.” When this elicited no reply, Sissie said, “What time do you eat your meals? Do you take dinner at six, or a fashionable seven?”
    “Seven or eight, depending on whether we plan to go out, but we shall have some luncheon in a few hours.”
    “A few hours! Then I shall have some more bread,” Cicely said and picked up another slice. She looked for cold mutton, but found none. “Anne hoped you might know a coiffeur who could do something with my hair,” was her next comment.
    “Yes, I have been thinking I must smarten you up,” Lady Fairly replied, happy to be able to retaliate for earlier slights. “No one would believe my cousin would wear such a gown,” she added.
    “Naturally I shan’t wear this to the dinner party. Fortunately, I had just put new bows on my ball gown, and Anne lent me Mama’s diamonds.”
    “New bows, eh?” Montaigne said. “That should do the trick.”
    He finished up his tea and rose to take his leave. “I leave you in Meg’s capable hands, Sissie. I shall call on you tomorrow.”
    “Oh, good. I want to see the slums.”
    “Where the poor people live,” Montaigne explained to Meg, with a glint of mischief in his eye. “Perhaps Meg could take you. I am very busy at the House. I meant I would drop in for a moment in the afternoon to arrange details for the evening dinner party.”
    Lady Fairly gave him a gimlet glance. “What are you doing this evening, Monty? I’m sure you would like to take Sissie with you.”
    “There is an evening sitting in the House,” he lied. “But no doubt Sissie would be happy to do whatever you are doing.”
    Sissie looked expectantly to her hostess.
    “I thought Sissie and I would have a nice cose this afternoon. I’m attending the theater this evening. The Montagues invited Fairly and me to join them, along with the Wartons.”
    This told Montaigne that the six seats in the box would be filled, leaving Sissie alone. It was obviously ineligible to treat a young lady who was doing him a favor so shabbily.
    “Ah, just so. I believe I shall skip tonight’s sitting and also attend the theater. Sissie, would you like to come with me?”
    Cicely looked uncertain. “Should I not go with Meg?” she asked.
    “Meg will have you all to herself until after dinner. I insist you come with me. I shan’t keep you up late.”
    “Share and share alike,” Lady Fairly said, happy to have fobbed her guest off for one evening. “We shall expect you around eight, Monty.”
    “Until then.” He bowed to the ladies and left.
    As soon as the bread and biscuits were gone, the ladies went abovestairs to discuss the important matter of toilette. Cicely gaped in pleasure at her room, which looked like something out of a fairy tale, with its delicate white French furnishings and its gleaming lutestring canopy and drapes in a dusty rose shade.
    “How lovely! I feel like a princess.”
    “I decorated it myself,” Lady Fairly said. “You know I always liked rose.”
    “It’s just as I imagined,” Sissie said, rushing around the room and examining details. Lady Fairly looked at her with something like satisfaction.
    Cicely’s trunk had been unpacked while she was belowstairs. She went to the clothespress and proudly displayed her Olympian blue ball gown, with the new bows added. Lady Fairly did not gasp in consternation, but she had to work to control her face. She would not be caught dead in a ditch in such an unfashionable gown, nor did she relish any guest of hers being seen in such an outfit. The material, the cut, the surfeit of bows—it fairly shrieked “country.”
    Cicely saw her hostess’s dismay and said, “I daresay it’s too fancy for the theater. I had planned to wear it to Mr. Murray’s dinner party, with Mama’s diamond necklace.”
    “Much too fancy,” Lady Fairly