Rhys Bowen - The Twelve Clues of Christmas

“From choice?” She sounded horrified.

“More from a sense of duty, I suppose,” I said. “She’s been awfully down since she had the baby and Binky begged me to stay on and cheer her up. He’s been rather at a loss for what to do for her, poor chap.”

“I’d have pushed her off a cliff long ago if I were he,” Mummy said.

“Mummy, you’re terrible.” I had to laugh. “Anyway, I had hoped that going down to London for Christmas might cheer her up, but you know Fig. She’s sure it’s cheaper to stay in Scotland rather than open up the London house. So we’re stuck up here. But what about you? What are you doing in London? I thought you’d be looking forward to a jolly German Christmas with Max.”

“Max is having the jolly German Christmas. I’m not,” she said. “He’s gone to spend the holiday with his aged parents in Berlin and he thought it wiser that I not accompany him, since they are very prim and proper and don’t know about me.”

“Oh, dear,” I said. “I thought he was anxious to marry you.”

“He still is,” she said, “but he thought this wasn’t the right moment to spring me on the old folks. And frankly I’m delighted to have a chance to spend Christmas in England for a change. I’m already looking forward to carols and Yule logs and flaming plum pudding and crackers.”

A wonderful picture floated into my mind—Mummy and I sharing Christmas with all the trimmings at a swank London hotel. Glorious food, glamorous parties, pantomimes . . .

“Are you at the Ritz?” I asked.

“At Brown’s, darling. I had this great desire to be horribly English for once and they are so lovely and old-fashioned. What’s more, they’ve conveniently forgotten that I’m not a duchess anymore, and one does so enjoy being called Your Grace.”

“You were the one who walked out on Daddy,” I reminded her. “You could still have been Your Grace if you’d wanted to.”

“Yes, but it would have meant spending half the year on those ghastly Scottish moors, wouldn’t it? I’d have died of boredom. At least now I’m having fun.”

With a great many men on all six continents, I wanted to add but didn’t. My mother was one of the first of the notorious bolters, having left my father for a French racing driver, an Argentinian polo player, a mountain climber, a Texas oil millionaire and most recently a wealthy German industrialist.

“So you’re going to be spending Christmas at Brown’s Hotel, are you? Or do you think you may come up to Scotland to visit us?” Of course I was angling for an invitation to join her in London, but I was too proud to come out and say it.

“Come up to Scotland? In winter? Darling, I’m very fond of you, but wild horses wouldn’t drag me to Castle Rannoch in winter. Perhaps you could pop down to London when I’m back in the new year and we’ll go shopping and do girlie things.”

“Back? I thought you said you were spending Christmas in England.”

“Yes, darling, but not in London. Don’t laugh, but I’m off to a village called Tiddleton-under-Lovey of all things. Isn’t it a divine name? I thought Noel was making it up when he told me. It sounds as though it comes straight from one of his plays, doesn’t it?”

“Noel? You mean Noel Coward?”

“Is there any other Noel, darling? Remember I mentioned earlier this year that he wanted to write a play for us to star in together? Well, he’s demanded that we hole up together over Christmas and work on the dialogue. Imagine, little moi in a play with Noel. Utter heaven. Of course he’ll hog the limelight and give himself the best lines, but who cares?”

“Will Max approve of your holing up with another man?”

She laughed. “Darling, it’s not another man. It’s Noel.”

“And what about your going back into the theater? Will Max approve of that?”

“Max can like it or lump it,” she said breezily. “I’m not Frau Von Strohheim yet, and anyway Max wants me to do anything that makes me happy. And I’ve been away from the theater for too long. My public still yearns for me.”

I could find no response to this except to wonder how a mother with such supreme confidence in her own wonderfulness managed to produce a shy and awkward daughter like me.

“Where is this Piddleton-under-Lovey?” I asked.

She gave another tinkling laugh. “Tiddleton, darling. Not Piddleton. In Devon. Tucked at the edge of Dartmoor, one gathers. Noel chose it because of its name, I’m sure. You know what a wicked sense of humor he has. But also because it was featured in Country Life as one of England’s most charming and quaint villages. He’s rented a thatched cottage on the village green and promises me roaring fires and hot toddy and all the delights the countryside has to offer.”

“It sounds lovely.” I tried not to sound disappointed.

“I’d invite you to join us, darling, but it really is a working holiday and Noel insists that he wants no distractions. He can be so intense when he’s creating. He’s already slaving away furiously in his London flat and naturally he’s left all the domestic details of this Tiddleton-under-Lovey business to me. I’m supposed to come up with a good cook who can produce plain old-fashioned English food and someone to look after us, which means, I suppose, that I’ll have to abandon Brown’s and go down to Devon ahead of him. I can’t see any staff I’d hire in London wanting to go down to Devon in the bleak midwinter, can you?”

If I’d known how to cook, I’d have volunteered for the job myself. But since my repertoire didn’t go beyond toast, boiled eggs and baked beans, I didn’t think I’d prove satisfactory.

“Anyway, I must toddle off, darling.” Mummy cut short my thoughts. “I’ve a million and one things to do. Should I order the hamper from Fortnum’s or Harrods, do you think? I seem to remember I was rather disappointed in Harrods last time—terribly bourgeois in their choices.” (This from someone who was raised in a two-up, two-down house in Barking where luxury consisted of an extra helping of chips on Saturday night.) “So have a lovely Christmas, won’t you, my sweet, and afterwards we’ll meet in London and I’ll treat you to a lovely shopping spree as a Christmas present. All right?”

Before I could say good-bye the line went dead.

Chapter 3

STILL CASTLE RANNOCH

Blizzard still continuing.

I came down to dinner with what I hoped was a confident and jaunty air. I was not going to let Fig and her mother know that I had overheard their conversation.

“Beastly day,” I said as I took my place. “Did any of you go out?”

“Absolutely not,” Fig said. “I have to be careful that I don’t catch a chill after all that I’ve been through.”

“Nobody in their right mind would go out in weather like this,” her mother added.

“I went for my usual walk,” Binky said in his jolly fashion, oblivious to the fact that he had just admitted to not being in his right mind. “It wasn’t too bad. Blowing a bit hard, but one expects a good stiff blow at this time of year. You didn’t go out riding, did you, Georgie?”

“Of course not. I would not expose Rob Roy to this weather, poor thing. But I did tramp around the estate a bit this afternoon before I was nearly buried in the blizzard. One does need some exercise, doesn’t one?” I gave Fig a swift glance. She frowned. “So have you decided what we’re going to do about Christmas?” I went on cheerfully. “Don’t you think it would be more fun in London? It’s so remote up here and nobody will come to visit.”