“Oh, yes, the servants always light the fires well before bedtime,” Bunty said.

Junior looked under the bed. “Hey, Pa, there’s a chamber pot under here.” He shrieked with laughter.

“It goes with the décor, honey,” Mrs. Wexler said. “It’s old world.”

“No, it’s there because the nearest lavatory is a long walk down the hall,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “One never knows.”

“You mean we don’t have our own bathroom?” Mrs. Wexler said, looking with big hopeless eyes at her husband.

“This house was built in 1400,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “In those days they weren’t very good about indoor plumbing. We are fortunate to have two on this floor—one at the end of this hallway and one down there at the other end.” She paused. “And I should probably get Bunty to show you how the geyser works. It can be temperamental.”

“A geyser? Don’t tell me your hot water shoots up from the ground like at Yellowstone?”

“Shoots up from the ground?” Lady Hawse-Gorzley looked bemused. “It’s a perfectly normal water-heating device. A little gadget above the bath. Ours just happens to be slightly temperamental, that’s all.”

“It’s not what we’re used to,” Mr. Wexler said.

“Of course not,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said brightly. “That’s why you came, isn’t it? For an old-fashioned English Christmas. There would be no point if it was just like your home.”

With that she marched away down the stairs, leaving them to stare after her.

“I guess you’ve upset a British aristocrat, Clyde,” Mrs. Wexler said in a low voice. “You know how highly strung they are.”

Lady Hawse-Gorzley was clearly ill at ease with the Americans all afternoon, trying to keep from them the news of three unexpected and unexplained deaths. She suggested that the younger ones go out and make a snowman, to take advantage of the snow—which produced mirthful laughter. Apparently it snowed all winter where they lived, so snowmen were not a novelty. So I was left to cheer them up. I started telling them stories about my cousins the little princesses and the good times we had together. Luckily they really lapped this up.

“Fancy that, Clyde. She went out riding with Princess Elizabeth and she says the princess can ride as well as any grown-up. And that little Princess Margaret—a real firecracker, from what she says. They’re going to have trouble with that one when she grows up.”

They seemed to perk up when tea was served. Apparently tea was a novelty to them and they all approved of the cakes and scones.

“We do dress for dinner,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said. “Just to warn you. Sir Oswald is very hot on keeping up standards.”

I thought this was a bad example, as Sir Oswald was still in his old Harris tweed jacket and faded corduroy trousers and had made no effort to be hospitable.

“Do some people sit down to dinner in their underwear in England, then?” Junior asked, making his sister giggle.

“No, but the lower classes do not change out of their day clothes. The better class of person usually dines formally in evening wear, even when we are eating alone. It’s the done thing,” Lady Hawse-Gorzley said.