Read Online The Snow Globe by Judith Kinghorn - Free Book Online

empty glass in one hand, cigar in the other.
    â€œNo ice?”
    He didn’t deserve a response. She couldn’t offer him one. She stared back at that familiar smile: one craved a moment ago, craved every moment ago. She wanted to speak, wanted simply to say,
Oh, Daddy, tell me it isn’t true . . . please tell me . . .
Then her motherspoke: “Is everything all right, dear? You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.”
    Daisy did not look at her mother, could not look at her mother. And she couldn’t offer up any words in case they were the wrong ones. Words were now muddled, and
fancy woman
and
bastard
had built a monster.
    And then the monster spoke: “Dodo? Whatever’s the matter? It’s Christmas—remember? The season to be jolly . . . peace and goodwill and all that, hmm? Come here . . .”
    He put down his glass and moved toward her—cigar in mouth, arms outstretched. What happened next would become blurred with the passage of time, for some. And certainly Lily wasn’t to know and had always teased Daisy in that way, calling her “Daddy’s girl.” But right at that moment those two words were obscene to Daisy, an insult every bit as revolting as the man who was about to put his arms around her.
    When Daisy raised her arm, it was a swift, instinctive move. She gave no thought to the burning cigar, which caught and scorched the side of her hand before flying in an arc across the room and landing in her grandmother’s lap, causing the old woman to screech and jump from her chair—knocking over the heavily laden butler’s tray and colliding with Dosia, clutching a decanter of sherry. Daisy did not hear her own words, shouted—some might say screamed—at her father: “Don’t touch me!”
    In the commotion that followed, amidst the cacophony of three yapping dogs and Debussy, still, and louder and more dramatic than ever, Lily burst into tears: because scenes did not happen at Eden Hall, and because it was Christmas, and because—Daisysupposed—Lily didn’t and couldn’t understand. Then, after the mess of broken glass and spilled drinks had been cleared, after Mabel had asked someone to please turn off the wireless, after Noonie had been pacified with “just a small sherry, please,” after Lily had called Daisy a “stupid little fool” and
after Iris had told Lily, “Oh, do shut up; you know nothing anyway,” Howard quietly excused himself and went to his study, leaving the six women to ponder
their
hysteria.

Chapter Six

    At first, no one spoke. Iris sighed and fluttered her made-up eyes heavenward. Lily stretched out the fingers on her left hand, pouting sulkily at her diamond engagement and wedding rings. Noonie sniffed, took a sip of her sherry and turned to the empty chair next to her as though about to speak, but then stopped. And Dosia sat with her eyes closed, quietly humming “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.”
    â€œLeave it,” said Mabel—unusually curt, unusually loud—when the telephone rang and Iris leaped to her feet. “Please, leave it, dear,” she said again, quieter.
    Iris sat down.
    Mabel’s mouth twitched. It was Christmas, she reminded herself.
Christmas.
These things happened. There was no point in screaming, becoming hysterical—too many of her sex had succumbed to that, and where had it got them? She quickly glanced atDosia. It had—in a way—got them the vote, given them a voice. But the term
hysterical
—so derogatory, and so often used by men, so often used by her own father—had made Mabel confused about that other word,
passion
.
    Mabel looked over at Daisy, gazing once more into the snow globe on the table next to her, daydreaming again. But what on earth had made her attack her father like that? So out of character . . . She glanced again at Dosia, whose eyes remained