Then, as he descended the stair to the office, he caught sight of the mistletoe garland strung up over the door-frame.
Shame, regret, and a wistful longing he didn’t care to acknowledge washed over him in wave after wave and left him drowning. He couldn’t bear to look at the mistletoe, much less touch it. He’d take the garlands down tomorrow.
Perhaps he would feel better then.
Ephraim brewed his own tea, toasted his own bread, and fetched his own post and paper. Then he sat at his desk and kept his gaze firmly down upon it, lest he catch an errant glance at the mistletoe garlands which loomed over him all around, wilting beneath the weight of the memories they carried. No one called. No birds flitted past the window, the chill of the season driving them to roost in the eaves and not venture out. Dr Hitchingham had already gone to his son’s household, so Ephraim dined alone at the Red Lion and returned to his empty office with the wilting mistletoe garlands shuddering in the draught like so many ghosts.
They looked no better the next day. Ephraim resolved not to acknowledge them. Perhaps, as they wilted, they might transform beyond recognition, and then he could bear to see them long enough to toss them into the fire. Still no one called, and no birds braved the cold. Ephraim dined alone.
Christmas Eve dawned. The garlands had withered into something unrecognizable. Yet Ephraim still knew them for what they were. He could not take them down. Perhaps in another few days they might wilt off their nails altogether anddrop to the floor, where he could sweep them up like so much ash.
Ephraim had spent the last ten Christmases with Lofthouse. He’d hoped spending it with Mr Hull might spare him the pang of missing his former clerk. He’d intended to read Dickens aloud to Mr Hull, who he thought might enjoy it more than Lofthouse had. Now, however, as he brewed and drank his tea alone in his empty office, he supposed he might as well read it silently to himself.
Even as his eyes ran over the words on the page, he found his thoughts wandering. The words of Dr Hitchingham, which he’d tried to banish ever since he heard them, rang in his ears. He dreaded the dinner they would have when Dr Hitchingham returned from his son’s household. To be betrayed by his clerk was one thing. To admit to his closest friend how wrong he’d been regarding his clerk’s character felt like the very definition of adding insult to injury.
Yet Ephraim didn’t spend the holiday altogether alone. A bird deigned to visit his windowsill. Not one of the roosting sparrows, but the queer little grey puff with its black highwayman’s mask. It lingered for some time, hopping about the windowsill and peering keenly through the glass. Ephraim wondered if he ought to let it inside to enjoy a little warmth from his fire before it went on its way. But as he reached for the window-latch, it veered off and vanished into the fog, leaving him alone once more.
Christmas Day dawned as cold and grey as Christmas Eve. Ephraim wished he could dismiss the holiday with a “Bah! Humbug!” as Scrooge did. Though he didn’t want to bring the wrath of four ghosts down upon his head. If spirits did visit him, at least one must be Tolhurst, and while he bore the living man no ill will, he’d no wish to see his pallid corpse standing before him with blood pouring from his throat.
Yet what form the other spirits would take proved still more trying to Ephraim’s nerves. If one should be Felix and another Lofthouse…
The downstairs bell rang.
Ephraim dropt his book and jumped up from his seat in a fright. His hips creaked in protest and his back twinged.A Christmas Carolbounced off the desk and tumbled to the floor in a heap.
The bell rang again.
Ephraim coughed to dislodge his heart from his throat and made his way to the door.
When he opened it and peered down into the stairwell, what he beheld didn’t make him any less wary of ghosts. Two gentlemen had begun climbing the stair. One tall, the other short, both garbed in black, though the tall one wore a heavy hooded cloak. At the creak of the door opening, they raised their heads, and Ephraim saw two faces he never expected to glimpse again.
“Lofthouse!” Ephraim cried.
Lofthouse grinned—which quite astonished Ephraim, his smiles having always appeared few and far between in years past—and doffed his hat. “Happy Christmas, sir.”
Beside him, Butcher likewise smiled and turned down his hood to take off his feathered cap, but Ephraim hardly noticed. Instead his gaze fixed itself on Lofthouse’s countenance, more freckled than ever before and all the brighter for it, cheeks rosy and eyes bright with cheer, no longer the wan ghost of a youth who’d laboured in Ephraim’s office for so long.
So great was Ephraim’s excitement to see his prodigal clerk returned to him that he welcomed both Lofthouse and Butcher into the office without recalling what state he’d left it in not moments before. It came back to him in an instant, like breaking through the ice of the wash-basin on a winter morning, as hewatched Lofthouse’s glance flit between the wilted garlands still hanging over window, mantle, ceiling beams, and both door-frames, then to the book crumpled pages-down on the floor beside Ephraim’s desk.
Ephraim pretended very hard that the garlands didn’t exist. He approached his desk in a manner desperately designed to appear casual and picked up the book. A few brisk brushes of his hand smoothed out the pages. He set it down again and looked up to find Lofthouse still looking at the withered mistletoe. Butcher, at least, didn’t seem to notice anything amiss.
“Is Mr Hull about?” asked Lofthouse.
Ephraim’s heart dropped into the pit of his stomach like a stone plunging down a fathomless well. “He’s no longer in my employ.”
“Oh?” said Lofthouse, meeting Ephraim’s gaze again with a concerned look.
Ephraim hesitated. “I don’t mean to speak ill of your friend, but I discovered certain defects in his character which made him ill-suited to this office.”
Lofthouse raised his brows. “I’m sorry to hear of it, sir.”
Not half so sorry as Ephraim felt to speak it, but he managed a sympathetic smile nonetheless. “Make yourselves comfortable—there’s a third chair upstairs, won’t take me a moment to fetch it.”
“In the garret?” Lofthouse asked.
“The very one,” said Ephraim.
But before Ephraim could take a single step towards the second-storey staircase, Lofthouse shot a speaking glance at Butcher, who gave him a brisk nod in return and strode off upstairs.
