“It’s not funny, is it really?” I said, swallowing back the lump in my throat. “I mean, every day somebody dies. It’s as if a giant hand is hovering over us, waiting to snatch up the next victim.”

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

STILL DECEMBER 26, BOXING DAY

We reached Gorzley Hall and I gladly handed Snowflake back to her groom. She aimed a parting kick at me. Those who had not taken part in the hunt greeted us with enthusiasm, wanting to know if we’d killed a fox. Of course they hadn’t heard about the master and we had to tell them.

“Do this many accidents usually happen in this part of the world?” Mr. Upthorpe demanded. “I’d always thought the countryside was a quiet, boring sort of place. If I had this number of things going wrong in my factories, they’d shut me down.”

“I assure you that our corner of the countryside is usually most peaceful,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “Why don’t we all go up and change and then meet for sherry before lunch in the library?”

When Queenie had run a bath for me I had her return Bunty’s jacket before she could somehow ruin it. Then we went down for a late lunch.

“You’ll find we are eating simple meals today,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “It’s Boxing Day, you see. The servants are allowed to spend the day with their families.”

The simple lunch was quite adequate: a hearty soup, then more pasties and cold meats and game pies, followed by a large sherry-laden trifle. I would have liked to visit my grandfather to tell him about this latest occurrence, but Lady Hawse-Gorzley asked me to run a skittles tournament in the ballroom and thus keep everybody happily occupied until teatime.

“Dashed glad you’re here,” she said to me, drawing me closer to her. “Frankly, I rather wish that I hadn’t invited them for this long. Seemed like a good idea at the time, with the hunt and the Lovey Chase and the Worsting of the Hag and all that. But ten days of them—not only feeding them but entertaining them, too. It’s a bit much, isn’t it? And they are such a frightfully dreary bunch. No concept of entertaining themselves.”

I noticed that the colonel limped off for an afternoon snooze while Johnnie and the Sechrests had not reappeared after riding their own mounts back to their respective homes. However, the rest of them had a good cutthroat game of skittles and today made short work of the rest of the Christmas cake at teatime.

We were just finishing the last crumbs of food when Sir Oswald came in, still dressed in his “mucking out the pigs” outfit.

“Damned police fellow has shown up again,” he said. “Wants to talk to young Georgiana.”

“Me?” I think it came out like a squeak.