Lydia had enjoyed the resumption of old festive custom and also the additional importance conferred upon herself as a two days’ visitor from London, but she found herself viewing the familiar Christmas rituals from a new and more critical angle.
She was inclined to wonder how they would strike the aristocratic boarding-house in Bloomsbury, or even the fashionable “young ladies” at Madame Elena’s.
Surely it was an out-of-date custom to join hot hand to hot hand all round the table, and sing, “Auld Lang Syne” in voices made rather hoarse and throaty from food, and silently to pull each a cracker with either neighbour, hands crossed, and Uncle George saying, “One—two—three—all together, now—Go!”
Lydia felt mildly superior.
They adorned themselves with paper caps and crowns, Bob sheepishly self-conscious, Lydia critically so, and all the others merely serious. When no one could eat or drink anything more, Aunt Beryl said reluctantly:
“Well, then—shall we adjourn this meeting?” and they rose from the disordered table, now strewn with scraps of coloured paper from the crackers, dismembered twigs of holly, and innumerable crumbs.
“You gentlemen will be going for a walk, I suppose?” Aunt Evelyn suggested, as everyone hung about the hall indeterminately.
“That’s right,” said Grandpapa. “Get up an appetite for tea. And you’ll take little Shamrock with you.”
Little Shamrock, having been given no opportunity for over-eating himself, after the fashion of his betters, was careering round Uncle George’s boots with a liveliness that boded ill for his docility during the expedition.
“We’ll smoke a cigarette first, at all events,” said Uncle George gloomily, and he and Mr. Almond and Bob went back into the dining-room again.