Miracle (20 page)

“What a sweet little girl you have,” she said as I rang up the sale, all friendliness now that she had gotten what she wanted. “You’re very lucky.”

“Yes,” I said, though I did not feel lucky.

I looked at my watch. Five past four. Gemma had already taken the train to Surrey, and I would not see her sweet face again this year, and even if I stayed after closing and put everything back as it had been, there were still all the hours of Christmas Eve to be gotten through. And the day after. And all the days after.

And the rest of the afternoon, and all the shoppers who had left their shopping till too late, who were cross and tired and angry that we had no more copies of
The Outer Space Christmas Carol
, and who had
counted
on our giftwrapping their purchases.

And Mr. Voskins, who came up to say disapprovingly that he had been very disappointed in the sales from the autographing, and that he wanted the shelves back in order.

In between, Yet to Come and I folded chairs and carried boxes of Sir S’s books to the basement.

It grew dark outside, and the crush of shoppers subsided to a trickle. When Yet to Come came over to me with his bony hands full of a box of books, I said, “You needn’t come back up again,” and didn’t even have the heart to wish him a happy Christmas.

The trickle of shoppers subsided to two desperate-looking young men. I sold them scented journals and started taking Sir S’s books off the literature shelves and putting them in boxes.

On the second shelf from the top, wedged in behind
Making Money Hand Over Fist
, I found the other copy of
A Little Princess.

And that seemed somehow the final blow. Not that it had been here all along—there was no real difference between its not being there and my not being able to find it, and Gemma would love it as much when I gave it to her next week as she would have Christmas morning—but that Sir Spencer Siddon, Sir Scrawl of the new hardbacks only and the Armentières water, Sir Scrooge and his damnable secretary who had not even recognized the Spirits of Christmas, let alone heeded them, who had no desire to keep Christmas, had cost Gemma hers.

“Hard times,” I said, and sank down in the wing chair. “I have fallen on hard times.” After a while I opened the book and turned the pages, looking at the colored plates. The little princess and her father in her carriage. The little princess and her father at the school. The little princess and her father.

The birthday party. The little princess huddled against a wall, her doll clutched to her, looking hunted.

“The little princess had a doll,” she’d said, and meant, “to help her through hard times.”

The way the little princess’s doll had helped her when she lost her father. The way the book had helped Gemma.

“I find books a great comfort,” I had told the Spirit of Christmas Present. And so had Gemma, who had lost her father.

“I’m going to have a good time in Surrey,” she had said, her voice trailing off, and I could finish that sentence, too. “In spite of everything.”

Not a hope, but a determination to try to be happy in spite of circumstance, as the little princess had tried to be happy in her chilly garret. “I’m going to have a good time,” she’d said again, turning at the last minute, and it was rebuke and reminder and instruction, all at once. And comfort.

I stood a moment, looking at the book, and then closed it and put it carefully back on the shelf, the way Gemma had.

I went over to the order desk and picked up the plum pudding. The book the girl had left for Sir Spencer to finish signing was under it. I opened it and took out the paper with her name and address on it.

Martha. I found the fountain pen, with its viridian ink, uncapped it and drew a scrawl that looked a little like Sir Spencer’s. “To Martha’s father,” I wrote above it. “Money isn’t everything!” And I went to find the spirits.

If they could be found. If they had not, after all, found other employment with the barrister or the banker, or taken a plane to Majorca, or gone up to Surrey.

Mama Montoni’s had a large Closed sign hanging inside the door, and the light above the counter was switched off, but when I tried the door it wasn’t locked. I opened it, carefully, so the buzzer wouldn’t sound, and leaned in. Mama Montoni must have switched off the heat as well. It was icy inside.

They were sitting at the table in the corner, hunched forward over it as if they were cold. Yet to Come had his hands up inside his sleeves, and Present kept tugging at his button as if to pull the green robe closer. He was reading to them from
A Christmas Carol.

“‘“You will be haunted,” resumed the Ghost of Marley, “by three spirits,”’” Present read. “‘“Is this the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?” he demanded in a faltering voice. “It is.” “I—I think I’d rather not,” said Scrooge. “Without their visits,” said the Ghost, “you cannot hope to shun the path I tread.”’”

I banged the door open and strode in.” ‘Come, dine with me, uncle,’” I said.

They all turned to look at me.

“We are past that place,” Marley said. “Scrooge’s nephew has already gone home, and so has Scrooge.”

“We are at the place where Scrooge is being visited by Marley,” Present said, pulling out a chair. “Will you join us?”

“No,” I said. “You are at the place where you must visit me.”

Mama Montoni came rushing out from the back. “I’m closed!” she growled. “It’s Christmas Eve.”

“It’s Christmas Eve,” I said, “and Mama Montoni’s is closed, so you must dine with me.”

They looked at each other. Mama Montoni snatched the Closed sign from the door and brandished it in my face. “I’m
closed!”

“I can’t offer much. Figs. I have figs. And frosted cakes. And Sir Walter Scott. ‘’Twas Christmas broach’d the mightiest ale, ‘Twas Christmas told the merriest tale.’”

“‘A Christmas gambol oft could cheer the poor man’s heart through half the year,’ “Present murmured, but none of them moved. Mama Montoni started for the phone, to dial 999, no doubt.

“No one should be alone on Christmas Eve,” I said.

They looked at each other again, and then Yet to Come stood up and glided over to me.

“The time grows short,” I said, and Yet to Come extended his finger and pointed at them. Marley stood up, and then Present, closing his book gently.

Mama Montoni herded us out the door, looking daggers. I pulled
A Christmas Carol
out of my pocket and handed it to her. “Excellent book,” I said. “Instructive.”

She banged the door shut behind us and locked it. “Merry Christmas,” I said to her through the door, and led the way home, though before we had reached the tube station, Yet to Come was ahead, his finger pointing the way to the train, and my street, and my flat.

“We’ve black-currant tea,” I said, going into the kitchen to put on the kettle. “And figs. Please, make yourselves at home. Present, the Dickens is in that bookcase, top shelf, and the Scott’s just under it.”

I set out sugar and milk and the frosted cakes I’d bought for Gemma. I took the foil off the plum pudding. “Courtesy of Sir Spencer Siddon, who, unfortunately, remains a miser,” I said, setting it on the table. “I’m sorry you failed to find someone to reform.”

“We have had some small success,” Present said from the bookcase, and Marley smiled slyly.

“Who?” I said. “Not Mama Montoni?”

The kettle whistled. I poured the boiling water over the tea and brought the teapot in. “Come, come, sit down. Present, bring your book with you. You can read to us while the tea steeps.” I pulled out a chair for him. “But first you must tell me about this person you reformed.”

Marley and Yet to Come looked at each other as if they shared a secret, and both of them looked at Christmas Present.

“You have read Scott’s ‘Marmion,’ have you not?” he said, and I knew that, whoever it was, they weren’t going to tell me. One of the people in the queue, perhaps? Or Harridge?

“I always think ‘Marmion’ an excellent poem for Christmas,” Present said, and opened the book.

“‘And well our Christian sires of old,’” he read,” ‘loved when the year its course had roll’d, and brought blithe Christmas back again, with all his hospitable train.’”

I poured out the tea.

“‘The wassail round, in good brown bowls,’” he read,” ‘garnished with ribbons, blithely trowls.’” He put down the book and raised his teacup in a toast. “To Sir Walter Scott, who knew how to keep Christmas!”

“And to Mr. Dickens,” Marley said, “the founder of the feast.”

“To books!” I said, thinking of Gemma and
A Little Princess
, “which instruct and sustain us through hard times.”

“‘Heap on more wood!’” Present said, taking up his book again,” ‘The wind is chill; but let it whistle as it will, we’ll keep our Christmas merry still.’”

I poured out more tea, and we ate the frosted cakes and Gemma’s figs and half a meat pie I found in the back of the refrigerator, and Present read us “Lochinvar,” with sound effects.

As I was bringing in the second pot of tea, the clock began to strike, and outside, church bells began to ring. I looked at the clock. It was, impossibly, midnight.

“Christmas already!” Present said jovially. “Here’s to evenings with friends that fly too fast.”

“And the friends who make it fly,” I said.

“To small successes,” Marley said, and raised his cup to me.

I looked at Christmas Present, and then at Yet to Come, whose face I still could not see, and then back at Marley. He smiled slyly.

“Come, come,” Present said into the silence. “We have not had a toast from Christmas Yet to Come.”

“Yes, yes,” Marley said, clanking his chains excitedly. “Speak, Spirit.”

Yet to Come took hold of his teacup handle with his bony fingers and raised his cup.

I held my breath.

“To Christmas,” he said, and why had I ever feared that voice? It was clear and childlike. Like Gemma’s voice, saying, “We’ll be together next Christmas.”

“To Christmas,” the Spirit of Christmas Yet to Come said, his voice growing stronger with each word, “God bless us Every One.”

C
ome, Bridlings,” Touffét said impatiently as soon as I arrived. “Go home and pack your bags. We’re going to Suffolk for a jolly country Christmas.”

“I thought you hated country Christmases,” I said. I had invited him only the week before down to my sister’s and gotten a violent rejection of the idea. “Country Christmases! Dreadful occasions!” he had said. “Holly and mistletoe and vile games—blindman’s bluff and that ridiculous game where people grab at burning raisins, and even viler food. Plum pudding!” he shuddered. “And wassail!”

I protested that my sister was an excellent cook and that she never made wassail, she made eggnog. “I think you’d have an excellent time,” I said. “Everyone’s very pleasant.”

“I can imagine,” he said. “No one drinks, everyone is faithful to his wife, the inheritance is equally and fairly divided, and none of your relatives would ever think of murdering anyone.”

“Of course not!” I said, bristling.

“Then I would rather spend Christmas here alone,” Touffét
said. “At least then I shall not be subjected to roast goose and Dumb Crambo.”

“We do not play Dumb Crambo,” I replied with dignity. “We play charades.”

And now, scarcely a week later, Touffét was eagerly proposing going to the country.

“I have just received a letter from Lady Charlotte Valladay,” he said, brandishing a sheet of pale pink notepaper, “asking me to come to Marwaite Manor. She wishes me to solve a mystery for her.” He examined the letter through his monocle. “What could be more delightful than murder in a country house at Christmas?”

Actually, I could think of a number of things. I scanned the letter. “You
must
come,” she had written. “This is a mystery only you, the world’s greatest detective, can solve.” Lady Charlotte Valladay. And Marwaite Manor. Where had I heard those names before? Lady Charlotte.

“It doesn’t say there’s been a murder,” I said. “It says a mystery.”

Touffét was not listening. “We must hurry if we are to catch the 3:00 train from Euston. There won’t be time for you to go home and pack and come back here. You must meet me at the station. Come, don’t stand there looking foolish.”

“The letter doesn’t say anything about my being invited,” I said. “It only mentions you. And I’ve already told my sister I’m spending Christmas with her.”

“She does not mention you because it is of course assumed that I will bring my assistant.”

“Hardly your assistant, Touffét. You never let me do anything.”

“That is because you have not the mind of a detective. Always you see the facade. Never do you see what lies behind it.”

“Then you obviously won’t need me,” I said.

“But I do, Bridlings,” he said. “Who will record my exploits if you are not there? And who will point out the obvious and the incorrect, so that I may reject them and find the true solution?”

“I would rather play charades,” I said, and picked up my hat. “I hope Lady Charlotte feeds you wassail
and
plum pudding. And makes you play Dumb Crambo.”