Tied Up in Tinsel Read Online Free PDF Page A

aunt.
    “Yes. The arrangement stands. I am in high hopes, Aunt Bed, that you will take more of a fancy to Cressida on second sight.”
    “It’s not second sight. It’s fiftieth sight. Or more.”
    “But you know what I mean. Second sight since we became engaged.”
    “What’s the odds?” she replied ambiguously.
    “Well, Aunt Bed, I would have thought —” Hilary broka off and rubbed his nose. “Well, anyway, Aunt Bed, considering I met her in your house.”
    “More’s the pity. I warned your uncle. I said I warned you, Fred.”
    “What about, B?”
    “Your gel! The Tottenham gel. Cressida.”
    “She’s not
mine
, B. You put things so oddly, my dear.”
    “Well, anyway,” Hilary said. “I hope you change your mind, Auntie.”
    “One can but hope,” she rejoined and turned to Troy. “Have you met Miss Tottenham?” she asked.
    “No.”
    “Hilary thinks she will go with the house. We’re still talking about Cressida,” Mrs. Forrester bawled at her husband.
    “I know you are. I heard.”
    After this they sipped their drinks, Mrs. Forrester making rather a noise with hers and blowing on it to cool it down.
    “The arrangements for Christmas Day,” Hilary began after a pause, “are, I think, an improvement on last year. I’ve thought of a new entrance for you, Uncle Flea.”
    “Have you, though? Have you? Have you?”
    “From outside. Through the french windows behind the tree.”
    “Outside!” Mrs. Forrester barked. “Do I understand you, Hilary? Do you plan to put your uncle out on the terrace on a midwinter night — in a snowstorm, I said a snowstorm?”
    “It’ll only be for a moment, Aunt Bed.”
    “You have not forgotten, I suppose, that your uncle suffers from a circulatory complaint.”
    “I’ll be all right, B.”
    “I don’t like it, I said —”
    “But I assure you! And the undergarment is quilted.”
    “Pshaw! I said—”
    “No, but do listen!”
    “Don’t fuss, B. My boots are fur-lined. Go on, old boy. You were saying —?”
    “I’ve got a lovely tape recording of sleigh bells and snorting reindeer. Don’t interrupt, anybody. I’ve done my research and I’m convinced that there’s an overlap here, between the Teutonic and the druidical and if there’s not,” Hilary said rapidly, “there ought to be. So. We’ll hear you shout ‘Whoa,’ Uncle Flea, outside, to the reindeer, and then you’ll come in.”
    “I don’t shout very loud nowadays, old boy,” he said worriedly. “Not the Pirbright note any more, I’m afraid.”
    “I thought of that. I’ve had the ‘whoa’ added to the bells and snorts. Blore did it. He has a stentorian voice.”
    “Good. Good.”
    “There will be thirty-one children and about a dozen parents. And the usual assortment of county and farmers. Outside hands and, of course, the staff.”
    “Warders?” asked Mrs. Forrester. “From That Place?”
    “Yes. From the married quarters. Two. Wives and families.”
    “Marchbanks?”
    “If he can get away. They have their own commitments. The chaplain cooks up something pretty joyless. Christmas,” said Hilary acidly, “under maximum security. I imagine one can hardly hear the carols for the alarm bells.”
    “I suppose,” said his aunt after a good suck at her toddy, “you all know what you’re about. I’m sure I don’t. I smell danger.”
    “That’s a dark saying, Auntie,” remarked Hilary.
    Blore came in and announced dinner. It was true that he had a very loud voice.

Two — Christmas Eve
    Before they went to bed they listened to the regional weather report. It said that snow was expected to fall through the night and into Christmas Eve but that it was unlikely to continue until Christmas Day itself. A warm front was approaching over the Atlantic Ocean.
    “I always think,” Hilary remarked, “of a warm front as belonging to a décolleté Regency lady thrusting her opulent prow, as it were, into some consequential rout or ball and warming it up no end. The