The Snow Globe Read Online Free PDF Page A

experiences!” Dosia, her sister-in-law, had declared to her the last time they had seen each other in London. “That’s what you need, Mabe. What we all need.”
    Mabel had created an idyll, an orderly idyll, where the dressing bell sounded at six thirty and the dinner bell at seven twenty-five, but she was bored of bells and order. She was bored of Eden Hall. She had had no new experiences for a quarter of a century, and what she longed for, privately longed for more than anything else, was a lover.

Chapter Three

    Ten days before Christmas, Mrs. Christie was found, alive and well and staying at a hydropathic hotel in Harrogate, where—Iris told Daisy—she had been registered under another name: that of her husband’s mistress.
    â€œWhat an almighty lark,” Iris said on the telephone. “And all to teach that wretched husband of hers a lesson.”
    â€œDo you honestly think she planned it all?” asked Daisy.
    â€œOf course!” shrieked Iris. “And what a brilliant wheeze.”
    â€œReally? I read that it’s cost the country a fortune
and
been the biggest manhunt in history.”
    â€œHmm, well, the bill should certainly be dispatched to Colonel Christie,” Iris said and snorted. She seemed to find it all amusing, like everything else.
    â€œPoor Dodo,” Iris went on, “I know you’ve been awfully caught up in the whole thing—Mummy said—but it has been frightfullyentertaining . . . We should all be writing to Mrs. Christie to thank her for keeping us so riveted.”
    Daisy shook her head. She felt for Mrs. Christie—because of her marriage problems, and hoped they wouldn’t interfere with her ability to write—but she also felt cheated. For if what Iris said was true, if Mrs. Christie had staged the whole thing simply to teach her husband a lesson, the whole country had been nothing more than pawns in her own domestic squabble. Stephen was right. Either way, it seemed as though the writer’s disappearance had been some sort of publicity stunt . . . and what publicity she had garnered.
    â€œAre you excited about Christmas, Dodo? Have you unpacked your snow globe yet?” Iris asked.
    Daisy rolled her eyes. “I am eighteen, you know. I’ve grown out of all that.”
    Iris laughed. “Oh, darling, we
all
know what you’re like.”
    â€œHave you been out dancing much?” Daisy asked.
    Dancing: It was Iris’s obsession. And everybody was doing it, she said, even the Prince of Wales, whose dancing she raved about—“Such fabulous rhythm and so extraordinarily light on his feet!”—and with whom she had danced on more than one occasion at the Embassy in Old Bond Street. It was Iris’s favorite club and only a short walk from her second favorite, the Grafton Galleries. These places and others seemed to be like second homes to Iris, and Daisy had heard enough about them to know them all, vicariously.
    â€œAlmost every night . . . London’s simply
devastating
,” drawled Iris.
    Devastating: It was Iris’s favorite word. She used it to describe almost everything, or everything she had a passion for, but it had tobe said in a particular way, and in a much deeper tone of voice. And it wasn’t just people or places that were devastating to Iris; even a hat could be “simply devastating.”
    â€œAnd when are you coming down?”
    â€œI’m not sure . . . maybe Christmas Eve.”
    â€œI rather think you’re expected to be here before then.”
    â€œReally? Oh, well, maybe I’ll cadge a ride back with Howard, if I can bear it.”
    Iris was always so mean about their father, and for absolutely no reason. “You can always get the train,” Daisy suggested.
    Iris laughed again. “Have to dash now. Bye, darling,” she said, and the line went dead.
    When Daisy walked into the hallway,