The Santa Klaus Murder by Mavis Doriel Hay Page B

difficult to know what will upset him; it is generally the slightest thing. There is no denying that the children are frightened of him.
    Naturally Dittie’s affairs give me some anxiety, and each Christmas I am on the watch to see how things are going. David must be difficult to live with, and Dittie is not of the character to put up with that easily. My poor brother did not make things easier for Dittie by his reproachful way of referring to the fact that she and David had no children, which personally I believe to have been deliberate on Dittie’s part, owing to her fear that this hereditary insanity would show itself in them.
    On Christmas Eve I managed to get hold of Dittie alone for a moment. I had heard that Kenneth Stour—who has been abroad, I understand—was in England again, and I feared she might renew her undesirable connection with him and wished to warn her against such imprudence. The man is still unmarried and Dittie still feels for him—or imagines that she feels—an affection that she would certainly no longer cherish if she had married him. I thought it unwise that she should get herself talked about in this way, especially since it would displease her father gravely if it came to his ears, and of course we were all a little anxious about his will, concerning which he would never give any information.
    Dittie was very angry at what I said. She declared bitterly that she would be a different person now if she had been allowed to marry Kenneth—which may indeed be true, but not for the better. She said she could manage her own affairs and that Kenneth was the only person who sympathized with her and understood her. This alarmed me, because it is a sign of danger when a married woman says this about a man other than her husband. I pointed out that it is so much easier to sympathize with someone you do not have to live with.
    She told me—less bitterly but very unhappily, I thought—that I couldn’t understand. “The whole thing’s a mess. I can only see one way out of it, and that’s impossible—at present. Father would never understand. And then—I’m a coward.”
    Those words of Dittie’s I remember very well. The meaning is plain to me. Osmond had been worrying her again about why she had no children, and she was afraid to tell him the reason why she refused to have any.
    I urged her to discuss her troubles with me and accept my advice, but she only said, with that regrettable coarseness which I have noticed before, “Father shouldn’t have counted his grandchildren before they were hatched.”
    The conversation did not decrease my anxiety, but I could do no more. Dittie is very self-willed.
    The Christmas party was not made pleasanter by the inclusion in it of Osmond’s secretary, Miss Portisham. By treating her as one of ourselves he gave the girl ideas above her station and deceived himself into thinking her better than she is. Some unpleasant things have been said about my poor brother’s feelings for this girl, but I will not countenance this kind of gossip, though none of us could help being anxious about how much she would eventually wring out of my poor brother by her scheming and her affected pleasantness. I hope there is no need for me to point out that once this girl had achieved her avaricious purpose, it would be to her interest that my poor brother’s life should not be prolonged.

Chapter Five
    Christmas Day
    by Grace Portisham
    It was poor Sir Osmond’s especial wish that I should take part in the family’s Christmas Day festivities at Flaxmere, and naturally, being placed as I am and not wishing to hob-nob with the servants’ hall nor to sit by myself at such a festive season, I was only too glad to conform to his wishes. Miss Jennifer is always kind, though perhaps she doesn’t quite understand my tastes, but she certainly tries to make me feel at home. She has often remarked that