Murder Goes Mumming Read Online Free PDF

forthwith.”
    “And when Lady Rhys commands, you obey, eh?”
    “Not always, I’m afraid. But this is one time when we’re quite willing to be dutiful children. Eh, Jenny love?” Madoc slipped an arm around Janet and gently detached her from Donald’s grasp.
    “Shall you be living here or going back to Britain?” Squire asked.
    “We shall be staying in Fredericton, at least for the time being. My parents keep a place in Winnipeg that we’ll probably use sometimes and I expect we’ll go over to visit my great-uncle as soon as the Canadian government feels it can manage without me for a week or two. Our plans are a bit up in the air at the moment. So are we. Ah, what is this?”
    “Here I come awassailing,” caroled May, holding aloft a steaming silver bowl the size of a washbasin. She must be strong as a bull moose. “Squire, come and do the honors. We’re all dying of thirst.”
    She set the bowl down on an ebony and ormolu table that already held a vast silver tray, an ornate ladle, and an array of crystal cups. Squire plunged the ladle into the bowl and brought it up full. The old lady in velvet shrieked and fainted. Everybody else broke into whoops of merriment.
    “Well, Cyril complained last year that a wassail bowl’s supposed to have roasted crabs in it,” May said with a feigned air of injured innocence. “I couldn’t find any crabs at the market so I used plastic spiders instead. They look much the same now that I’ve roasted them.”
    “I meant crab apples, you jackass,” replied her brother affectionately. “Come on, let’s not waste good liquor. Chuck ’em out and start baling. We’ve got to toast the newlyweds.”
    “They’re not wed yet,” Clara contradicted him.
    “Good. That means we get to toast them again next time. Do you suppose somebody ought to cut Aunt Adelaide’s corset strings?”
    “I’ll tuck a pillow under her head,” said Babs kindly. “She’ll come round in a minute. Val dear, do be careful where you step in those high heels. You know how Aunt Addie hates being trodden on while she’s in a swoon.”
    “But shouldn’t we at least try smelling salts or spirits of ammonia?” Janet was appalled at this cavalier attitude.
    “Oh, we wouldn’t think of it,” Val assured her. “Aunt Addie enjoys fainting, she does it so beautifully. It would be a shame to spoil her fun too soon, so we always let her lie. Have to humor the old folks, you know. By the way, where’s Granny?”
    “Good Lord yes, where is she?” cried Squire. “This is terrible. Granny’s never missed the bringing in of the Yule log before. Run up and see if she’s in her room. No, wait, you mustn’t miss the toasts. Ludovic! Ludovic, where—oh, there you are. Go find out why Mrs. Condrycke isn’t down here with the rest of us.”

Chapter 4
    S QUIRE WENT ON LADLING wassail and passing around the crystal cups while the old retainer, for Ludovic was surely that, zigzagged up the incredible staircase out in the front hall. No wonder this family was so prone to jokes, Janet thought. Graylings was a joke in itself.
    Ludovic was no joke, though. He could have passed for a Presbyterian minister in his sober black suit, black tie, and dazzling white linen. He was tallish, though by no means so big as the Condryckes; thinner and grayer and craggier in the features and infinitely graver of countenance. His shoulders were stooped as if from a lifetime of carrying trays, and he had a habit of looking a hair’s breadth to the left of whomever he happened to be facing, as though it wasn’t the done thing for a servant to look those he served full in the eyes.
    Janet supposed Ludovic must be the butler. She’d never seen one in the flesh before. The closest they came to one at the farm was Sam Neddick, who sat down to meals with the rest of them and expected to be waited on by the womenfolk just like Bert. She smiled to herself. Madoc, who had been feasting his eyes on his beloved since nobody had yet