Read Murder Goes Mumming Online
Authors: Charlotte MacLeod
“Hello, Roy. Happy Yuletide. Is that the proper thing to say, Squire?”
“Oh, do you two know each other?”
“Of course. I used to type up his letters.”
“And correct my spelling.” Roy was himself now, all teeth and personality.
“But now she brings me my tea.” Donald laid a hand on each of their shoulders. “Though not for long, I’m afraid. Janet’s about to retire from the business world. Right, Madoc?”
“Couldn’t be righter. She’ll be giving you her notice for a Christmas box. Mother’s ordered us to start house hunting 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.”
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 given him anything to feed his face with, asked her what was so funny.
“I was just wondering what Ludovic would say if I told him to haul up a chair while I cut him a piece of pie.”
“Jenny love, have I happened to mention lately that I adore you?”
“It’s always nice to be reminded.”
“Er—that chap Roy. Is he …?”
“Madoc, you surely don’t think you’ve caught me on the rebound? Yes, he’s the one, but don’t bother poking him in the jaw on my account. Feel free to do it on your own if you care to, of course. I’ll bet you once fell for a girl like Val.”
“How did you know?”
“Because you looked at her the same way I’ve been feeling about Roy. Relieved and puzzled.”
This time they laughed together. May demanded to know why.
“Come on, you two, no private jokes. What’s so funny?”
“Nothing much,” Janet told her composedly. “We’re simply enjoying ourselves. What’s in this punch? It smells divine.”
“Heavens, child, don’t call it punch or the water kelpies will get you. That’s the wassail and I wish Granny would get a move on because my tongue’s hanging out. We don’t dare take a swallow till Squire fires the starting pistol. Everybody got some? Watch it, Cyril. Only one to a customer.”
“Then why don’t we just hand him the bowl?” quipped Herbert. “Ah, here’s Ludovic. Where is she, Lewd?”
“Mrs. Condrycke regrets that she is unable to join the party,” the butler reported.
“Why? She’s not sick is she?” asked Babs.
“No, madam, Mrs. Condrycke has misplaced her dentures and does not care to appear without them.”
“Oh, poor Granny!”
But Babs couldn’t help laughing and neither could anybody else. At last Squire wiped his eyes on a monogrammed linen handkerchief and said, “Then take one up to her, Ludovic, and we’ll toast her
in absentia.
Ready, everyone? To Granny, and a speedy recovery.”
“Not too speedy,” said Lawrence. “At least for the moment we can be reasonably sure her bark is worse than her bite.”
But he didn’t say it loudly and hardly anyone heard him except Madoc Rhys, who began to wonder about Granny.
There were any number of other toasts. Either each was funnier than the one before or else the wassail was pretty strong. Janet suspected the latter and drank her toasts in the tiniest possible sips. Madoc nursed his along, too, but nobody else was showing much restraint. Even Aunt Adelaide had risen from her swoon in time to join in the wassail and was swigging away with the best of them. All of a sudden, she grabbed Clara by the arm and cried, “Hark!”
“Is it out there?” cried Cyril in delight.
“It’s coming! I can feel it.”
“Draw the curtains, quick.”
Everybody rushed to pull aside the heavy draperies that had been drawn close to keep out the drafts from the large front windows.
“What’s happening?” Janet asked Clara. “I don’t see anything.”
“Wait. It’s coming. Aunt Addie always knows.”
“Look!” shouted Val. “There it is.”
Janet caught her breath. Not having grown up along the coast, she’d never seen a fire ship, although tales of these seagoing specters were rife in New Brunswick waters. But she’d heard tales enough, and she knew at once what she was seeing now. The Phantom Ship of Bay Chaleur was no fairy tale. How silently it came; how swiftly; how terrifying its eerie glow. She could see flames licking at the shrouds, yet each mast and spar stood out clearly against the snow-covered rocks that ringed the bay for an instant before it vanished.
“I can’t believe it,” she murmured.
“You’re in luck, Janet,” Squire told her jovially. “Some people live out their whole lives around the Bay Chaleur and never once set eyes on the Phantom Ship. Some say it’s the ghost of a vessel called the
John Craig,
which was wrecked in a gale sometime during the eighteenth century. Some claim it’s a French ship, burned to keep it from falling into British hands during the Battle of the Restigouche. About seventeen-sixty, that would be. Anyway, I’m glad we were able to give you the treat.”
“Do you see it often, Squire?”
May answered Janet’s question for her father. “No, thank God. The ship is no treat to me, I can tell you. The first time I ever saw it, I fell off my horse the very next morning and broke my leg. The second was the night of the big gale that wrecked my boat and knocked down a big hackmatack that came right through my bedroom window and scared me half to death.”
“And the third time you married Herbert,” said Clara not quite so playfully as she might have. “Remember? I came down with measles and crashed the reception with spots all over me and gave them to Herbert and put a crimp in your honeymoon.”
“Clara always had an original sense of humor,” Squire laughed indulgently. “Come along, everybody, drink up. Ludovic, isn’t it almost time we went into the dining room?”
“Yes, sir. I was about to announce dinner when the fire ship arrived.”
“Well, let’s hope if the ship portends another disaster, it isn’t to the dinner,” said Lawrence. “I’m starved.”
“When are you not?” His playful wife gave the lawyer a poke in the paunch. “All hands round and do-si-do. Last one in’s a rotten egg.”
In fact, they formed up decorously enough. Squire gave his arm to Janet, which was an honor she hadn’t anticipated and could have done nicely without, although her status as a bride-to-be entitled her to it, she supposed. Madoc offered his to Aunt Adelaide as the eldest of the ladies, somewhat to the chagrin of Valerie, who had been eyeing Dafydd’s younger brother with a certain amount of interest despite Roy’s toothsome presence. The rest paired off one way and another, all but Cyril. He made a last detour past the wassail bowl before winding up the procession with May’s sons Edwin and Francis, whom their elders thought it fun to call Winny and Franny though Ed and Frank would no doubt have pleased the boys better.
Babs had not exaggerated about the tons of lovely food. Janet would have been willing to call it quits after the oyster soup, but there was still the roast goose and a good deal more to come. The Condryckes ate as lustily as they drank. Janet and Madoc couldn’t possibly begin to keep up, though they both had healthy enough appetites for smallish people. They made jokes about not being able to get into their wedding clothes if they overstuffed and managed to avoid surfeit without giving offense, or so they hoped.
“What a pity about your grandmother’s teeth,” Janet remarked to Donald, who was sitting on her other side. “You must be sorry she had to miss dinner.”
“Oh, Granny never eats with the family,” he replied. “She has a sort of high tea at five o’clock or thereabout, and a snack at bedtime if she feels like it. She’s quite old, you know. Though come to think of it, how could you know? Perhaps Babs or May will take you and Madoc up to meet her after we finish, if she’s not asleep and has managed to find her teeth. Granny’s much too vain to show herself without them. She was a beauty in her day, and she still likes to be thought one. Are you quite sure you don’t want Ludovic to give you another sliver of goose?”
“Really, I couldn’t,” she assured him. “I’m sure there’s a wonderful dessert to come and I’m trying to save room for a taste.”
“There is and you must. Babs is right, I always do have to diet after a visit to Graylings. She keeps me on bread and water at home. Don’t you, Babs?” Donald called across the table to his wife.
“As her lawyer I advise her not to answer that,” shouted Lawrence, who was sitting next to his sister-in-law. He was pretty well flown by now. Ludovic had been keeping the glasses filled with what was probably very good wine, although all Janet knew about wine was that it made her sleepy if she drank much and she was already having trouble keeping her eyes open. She motioned Ludovic away when he brought the bottle back to her.
Madoc was doing the same, she noticed. That was just as well. Dessert turned out to be a trifle so lavishly soaked in rum that the mere smell was enough to turn one’s head. It was a pity Squire didn’t carry his penchant for the good old ways far enough to keep a few wolfhounds under the table so there’d be a place to dispose of some excess food.
Donald ate his trifle with no fuss about calories. He seemed pleased with himself tonight, and Janet couldn’t help wondering if his self-satisfaction had anything to do with his having been able to snare a distinguished guest for Squire. It was hard for her to think of Madoc as a celebrity, but she supposed he was, after a fashion.
Squire at any rate was making the most of Madoc’s connections. “What a pity Lady Rhys had to dash off to London instead of coming up to join the party. David tells me she’s quite a personage in her own right.”
“Oh, she is,” Janet replied, feeling a bit fuzzy on account of the trifle. “Did you know she once sang a concert for the Queen Mother?”
“No! You must tell me all about it.”
“Madoc can do that better than I.”
“Then let’s move to where we can be cozy. May, if everyone’s finished, don’t you think it’s time we had our coffee?”
“If they’re not finished, they darn well ought to be.” May swung her parrot around to reveal a watch set into its rump. “It’s half past ten, egad. Or do I mean forsooth? Get your nose out of the trough, Lawrence. There doesn’t seem to be anything left to eat anyway. I move we take the coffee into the library, Squire. The Great Hall must be colder than Greenland’s icy mountains by now. All those in favor say aye. The rest keep quiet because nobody’s listening.”
That was true enough and had been for most of the evening. By and large, the Condryckes seemed more concerned to outshout each other than to engage in any real communication. May at her loudest couldn’t manage to collect everyone’s attention until Babs caught Janet’s eye and rose. Janet most gratefully followed her example, then Clara, Aunt Adelaide, and Val. Madoc shoved back his chair and managed to get next to Janet as they at last left the banqueting board.