It was Christmas Eve, and there was a fire burning on the hearth, light warming up the delicate blues and whites of the painted Dutch tiles. A very small fire, granted, little more than a single coal; but then, it would be a waste to heat this whole draughty room when there was a perfectly good, very inviting bed, warmly draped with heavy velvet curtains, piled almost decadently with quilts and blankets. Why waste the coal when there are other ways of keeping warm at night? Better fires to keep burning?
And indeed, the light from the hearth, through a curtain tied back, was barely enough to illuminate the figures of the two young men kneeling on the bed, across from each other. And the fire must have been heat enough, as both wore only their breeches, loose at the knees and belt. Between them, a bottle of wine. It was not very good wine, granted, and they had begrudged even earthenware cups for pouring; but cheap drink can get one relaxed quite as well as fine brandy; and as it will then be gone and spent, why waste the coin? Why, when there rarer and richer liquors to drink of, when there are other intoxications waiting to be asked?
The elder could not be more than twenty-five; young, indeed, to own rooms and a business in London, even in partnership. And any man who saw these two now, skin gilded in the half-light, laughing and dangerous as they shared a mouthful of drink, would not recognize them as the ambitious, solemn young men of the counting-house. But as they had said, while it was indeed a shame that all the machinery of commerce was shut down to celebrate the birthday of a half-mad carpenter two thousand years ago and half a world away; well, if they must, then, take the day off, why it was only good business sense to exploit that time to the greatest extent possible.
That, then, was what they concentrated on: That passionate intensity which had let them succeed, despite all the all the lugubrious advising and solemn prognostications of doom from their elders, now they turned it on each other.
"This is the even-handed dealing of the world," said the elder of the two, solemn now, a fierce light in his eye, his hand lifted to trace along a cheekbone. "There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as pursuit--"
"Have I grown so much wiser, then?" said the other, leaning forward so that the bottle of wine teetered precariously in the circle of their limbs. "My nobler aspirations fallen one by one, all my hopes merged into one hope, one chance of being, beyond sordid, beyond reproach--"
The wine bottle was lifted, carefully placed on the floor beside the bed; it would be frugal to spill it; but neither man took his gaze off the other, mere inches apart. "What, then," said the elder, his voice nearly steady. "What is this guiding principle of yours, this master-passion?"
He raised a hand, pale, ink-stained, precise, across the curve of a bare chest; lean, perhaps, from asceticism rather than grace, but possesed still of a certain leashed beauty; and traced along a curving glint of firelight, light that burnished the skin like a new-minted coin. "A golden one," he breathed.
At some point, someone pulled the bed-curtain down, to keep out the cold outside.
Part 2: Christmas Ever After
"We were never lovers, to begin with. If you actually wish to hear this tale, that you will have to believe, to start with.
"True, we were inseparable, until he died; yes, neither of us was ever known to be with a woman; indeed, we shared finances and living quarters, and we used even each other's surnames interchangeably. That, however, was merely for the convenience of our business relationship.
"Business relationship, I said. He was, above all, a man of business. Nephew, if your addle-pated wife wants me to finish the story, she'd best either stop sniggering or pour me some more of that good scotch-- Thank you.
"Now. That's settled. Where was I? I moved into his rooms for sound financial reasons, of course. Two live more cheaply than one, and it saved us both money; if it also made it easier to ... confer, after business hours, what of it?
"Do try not to choke on your brandy, Niece, it burns, rather-- Oh! You noticed! Perhaps then you should stop laughing at your poor uncle-in-law, who is only attempting to partake of human company for once in his life! If I had been like you, Jacob would never have looked twice at me. Obvious differences in .. sex and so forth aside. No, it took deadly seriousness, determination, for us to get where we had, by then. You giddy young ones would have turned aside, long before.
"Holding everything in common; becoming partners in more than just the counting-house; well, it was only common sense; protecting our interests, you might say. It was a logical step. It saved a few pounds and immensely simplified the bookkeeping-- you should approve, Nephew, I know how passionate you are about letting the poor clerks have a rest.
"As for why neither of us married? Why, that is the simplest of all. Neither of us had any one to claim us at the start, and then the business occupied a great deal of time. It soon became habit to just stop looking toward anyone else, and so we never did. And so we never had anyone else.
"Belle? Aye, I suppose there was Belle. But that was a blessed long time ago; I'm curious that you even know about her; I'd not thought of her for years, myself, until just a few nights ago...
"You aren't going to say, hm? You know a deal more than you've any excuse to, already. Perhaps you'd offer me some more scotch then? A bit more? Ah, lovely. Yes, I suppose I could have married Bella. Had forty children and forty times more, a loud, busy house, working hard and late every day for no more gain than to put food in their mouths. Instead I went with Jacob, and together we built the partnership, a fortune and a legacy in our names. We took them on, all on our own, together. And I've never had cause to regret it. Sometimes, a man must simply make a choice.
"And it was a choice. I could have had Bella or Jacob, but not both. She made that clear. She thought he was a corrupting influence, our friendship far too close, unChristian, unnatural.
"No, not in that way! Just think, Nephew, I might have kept avoiding your company as I have these past fifteen years and more, and I would never have needed to learn that your wife is a voyeur and a pervert--
"No, that was not what she found objectionable in him. And being a fine, chaste-minded woman, from the time before all our youth were corrupted by pamphleteers and penny dreadfuls, I am sure such a thought never even occured to her, thank you. It was not even the plans for the counting-house which offended her; she had no objection to improving one's worldly fortune by patient industry. No, it was only one thing: and so I had no choice but to choose; and of late I have had reason to rethink many of my life's choices, and I cannot but believe that there, at least, I made the right one.
"What was this terrible thing she could not live with? Why, only and simply that Jacob Marley was a Jew.
"Oh, you didn't know? Not observant, perhaps, but not ashamed either, Jacob Marley. So you see, he did have a perfectly good reason not to keep Christmas. I suppose you thought all that time that we were just a pair of bitter old que-- misers?
"No, I don't know if it's true what they say about Jewish men! Why on earth would I? I've just been telling you I'd have no reason to. And if you're going to allude to such things, love, at least have the grace not to blush so prettily, hmm? No, I was speaking about why Jacob had no patience for Christmas. Although if this is how young people keep Christmas these days; ply their elders with drink until they are telling stories they would never have dreamed of speaking, a week ago, and then laugh at them, it seems a good enough reason to go back to Humbug--
"Oh, you do want me to stay! Very well then. So, we did not keep Christmas, but we did keep the counting-house. And perhaps we kept too much to each other, forgot that our little world was not the only one, but it is not as if the outside offered us anything, either, but turned backs and pursed lips. If there were also whispers about the sort of thing your wife seems to be obsessed with, why then it only gave us more reason to look only to each other. And so the years passed and the money rolled in, and we forgot why we had wanted it; the old men we had wished so desperately to impress were not so old any more, and we ourselves had become set in our ways, stubborn and unseeing. It could happen even to you, Nephew, if you do not watch for it-- do not look so bold! I was laughing and gay in my day, as well!
"And then Jacob saw fit to die on me. And at the last he made me promise to go on as I had, to not waste coin or grief or time in mourning him; the cheapest and simplest of funerals, and not to waste time weeping at the grave after, either. And I did as he wished, and simply let myself become even more twisted up in my loneliness and blindness and forgetting.
"What do you mean, but I do? I know Christmas was the day he died, I know it better than you, madame, seven years ago this year, but I have never visited his grave, that day least of all. I was seen there, last week? Oh, you misunderstand! That was not his grave I visited, but my own, my own in a dark and terrible future I was lead through by a visiting spirit.
"But you do not believe me! This is the tale you asked for, children. This is the reason I am sitting with you, here, why I have made another choice. Chosen to change. On Christmas Eve a week ago Jacob came back to me. A silvery, tormented spirit, wrapped in chains of his own forging, And he told me that as he had never reached out in life to his fellow man, never let his spirit reach beyond the confines of his own desires, so he was damned to wander in death, always trying to reach out but never able. And he warned me that this too would be my fate, unless I learned from his unhappy doom and changed my path. And so I did. And so I have chosen to be merry and giving and gay, to learn again to love the world and all the people in it, because he asked it of me, although always, always I will know that he is yet trapped in damnation.
"What, no laughing now? You think me mad, do you not? And perhaps I am ... yes, good evening to you, as well, Niece. May you at least sleep well.
"What did she mean, Fred? That if I have spoken Truth tonight, perhaps Jacob is not so damned as he thinks? 'If you have loved even one of My own, so you have also loved Me.' Women. I did warn you about her--
"Tell him? What am I supposed to tell him? He's dead, and damned, and I shall never see him again, and there is nothing I could say, at any rate. That I loved him and that is enough? I told you at the beginning, we weren't lovers-- Where are you going? Fine, I shall show myself out.
"'The only one thing in the world more ridiculous than falling is love is a Merry Christmas.' Bah--"