Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie

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Book: Read Christmas Pudding and Pigeon Pie for Free Online
Authors: Nancy Mitford
Tags: Humour
pleasant. When’s the christening, Sally?’
    ‘Well, if the poor little sweet is still with us then we thought next Tuesday week (suit you?), but she’s most awfully ill today, she keeps on making the sort of noises Walter does after a night out, you know.’
    ‘D’you think she’s likely to live or not?’ said Paul. ‘Because if there’s any doubt perhaps I could use your telephone, Amabelle, to call up the jewellers and see if I’m in time to stop them engraving that mug. It’s such an expensive sort, and I don’t want it spoilt for nothing, I must say.’
    ‘I believe she’s expected to pull through. But tell me, Paul, how could you have it engraved, we haven’t even decided what her name’s going to be ourselves. I want Henrietta Maria and Walter wants Dora Mildred, and we don’t seem to be able to strike anything we both like.’
    ‘It’s being engraved Elspeth (after Mrs. Buchan) Paula (for obvious reasons) Monteath, from her loving godfather, Paul Frederick Fotheringay.’
    ‘Well, really, all the cheek! Walter, did you hear that?’
    ‘Yes, I did. I’ll offer you a double, Jerome. I think those names are O.K., don’t you? It saves trouble if someone settles them for us, because perhaps now we shan’t have to be quarrelling all day. Only I vote we use Paula, I’m not so wild about Buchanism myself.’
    ‘Thanks, old boy, a very delicate compliment, if I may say so.’
    ‘By the way,’ said Walter, ‘why Paula and not Pauline?’
    ‘Cheaper. The thing is, you pay for engraving by the letters. I say, I do hope she lives all right, Sally.’
    ‘So do I, you know. After all the trouble I’ve had, one way and another, it would be extraordinarily souring if she didn’t. However, nanny and the charlady between them are battling for her life, as they say in the papers, like mad, so I expect she will. The charlady knows all about it, too, she has lost six herself.’
    ‘Sounds a bit of a Jonah to me, but I don’t want to depress you. Anyway, I hope you won’t be sparing expense in this matter. Remember that I didn’t over the mug.’
    ‘One of your own, I suppose, with the name taken out?’
    ‘Not my name, that’s left in, you see. I had “From his loving godmother, Eliza Stratford” (the Countess of Stratford, carriage folk) taken out. That came after my name, and they’re putting the words “Elspeth Paula Monteath from her loving godfather” in front of it. Such a brainwave, don’t you agree? And who thought it all out for me? Dear little Marcella, bless her heart.’
    ‘We saw Marcella last night with that man Chikkie. She’s a nasty piece of work, if you like. Walter finds her so repellent that he says he can only suppose he must really be in love with her.’
    ‘I expect he is, too. Did you ask her to be Paula’s godmother?’
    ‘No, I did not.’
    ‘That lends her a certain distinction, doesn’t it? She must be the first person in London you haven’t asked.’
    ‘How careless you Protestants are of your children’s souls,’ said Jerome looking up from his game. ‘That poor little wretch was born months ago, and there she is, still wallowing in original sin, without mentioning the horrid risk she would run if she should die before next Tuesday week – I call it a shame. Double you, Walter. What does it feel like to be a mother, Sally?’
    ‘Childbirth,’ said Sally, ‘is an unpleasing process. It must be quite awful for the father who, according to Walter, suffers evenmore than the mother. I don’t quite understand about that, but of course I take his word for it. To be honest, I should like the baby a good deal better if she wasn’t the split image of Walter’s Aunt Lucy; all the same I am getting quite attached to her in a sort of way, and Walter’s so impressed by being a father that he’s actually looking out for a job. You know, motherhood is an enormous financial asset in these days; to begin with you get pounds and pounds for publishing a photograph

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