No sooner had they all sat down to dinner together than Dr Hitchingham began his interrogation.
“And where are you from, Mr Hull?” asked Dr Hitchingham.
“Norway,” Mr Hull replied candidly. “I hail from a clan of beekeepers.”
Ephraim blinked.
Dr Hitchingham raised his brows. “If I may be so bold as to ask, what brings a beekeeper to clerking in London?”
“I had the good fortune to attend school,” said Mr Hull, nothing daunted. “And having something of a wanderlust in my blood, I wished to put my education to good use in far-off lands. An acquaintance—Mr Lofthouse—mentioned there might be such a position available in Staple Inn, and so I came, and here I am.”
Ephraim wished he’d had even half Mr Hull’s courage in his youth.
Dr Hitchingham made a noncommittal sound. “And how do you find London?”
“Delightful,” said Mr Hull. “Vibrant and lively. Full of fascinating people.”
Ephraim caught a glance from Mr Hull at this last comment. For a moment he thought he saw a peculiar gleam in Mr Hull’s eye, but he told himself he must have imagined it.
After dinner, Dr Hitchingham shook hands with both Ephraim and Mr Hull and went on his way up the street to his lodgings over his practice. Ephraim and Mr Hull walked in the opposite direction back to their office. Dinners with his friend always proved a balm to Ephraim’s soul, but somehow tonight he felt still more fulfilled than usual. He supposed it waspride in his clerk, who had performed well in the face of Dr Hitchingham’s questions.
They’d gone halfway back to Staple Inn when a passerby stopped them beneath a street-lamp on the corner.
“Please, sir,” the man croaked. His left arm balanced him on a crutch; his right he held out palm-up. By the dim gaslight, Ephraim saw his gloves had worn away at the fingertips. “Alms for a poor sailor what’s lost his leg in the rigging?”
Ephraim hesitated. This wasn’t the first time such a person had approached him. He always gave them coin, of course—one could do little else, when there but for the grace of God went he—but Dr Hitchingham had chastised him for his weakness in this regard on many occasions. Ephraim resigned himself to appearing a weak fool in front of his handsome clerk.
But before he could reach for his purse, Mr Hull had already delved into his own pockets and withdrawn a coin to press into the beggar’s hand. It didn’t look like a ha’penny or any other piece Ephraim recognized. He assumed it came from Mr Hull’s native soil. It glinted gold in the light of the gas-lamp regardless, and the beggar thanked him warmly before scurrying on his way.
“Dashed good of you,” Ephraim said when the beggar had gone.
Mr Hull shrugged his left shoulder. “If they’re bold enough to ask, their need must be dire.”
“Indeed!” said Ephraim, equal parts astonished and delighted to hear his own feelings echoed by his handsome clerk.
~
Lofthouse had taken on valeting duties one by one over the course of months spent in Ephraim’s employ. Whether he did so to while away the tedious hours in a rather slow office or out of frustration with the admittedly doddering way Ephraim himself performed the same duties, Ephraim couldn’t say.
Mr Hull, in contrast, began his second morning as Ephraim’s clerk by bringing the hearth-fire back to life; making tea, sausage, and toast for breakfast; and laying out the morning post and paper on Ephraim’s desk—all without hesitation and without Ephraim asking. Ephraim only knew he’d arisen by the gentle tap-tap-tapping of his boot-heels on the staircase as he passed by his bedchamber door on his way down to the office proper.
“Mr Lofthouse told me how you prefer things done,” Mr Hull offered by way of explanation when Ephraim himself arrived downstairs to find all this done.
Ephraim, his brows still raised in surprise, conceded that was exactly the sort of thing Lofthouse would do.
Throughout the next few weeks, Ephraim and Mr Hull fell into a routine. Mr Hull performed his valeting duties each morning, sat at the desk across from Ephraim all day, went to dinner with him of an evening, and parted ways afterward. Sometimes Mr Hull went out again after dinner; Ephraim assumed to consort with his fellow clerks.
“Have you made friends in London?” Ephraim asked his clerk on a quiet afternoon a fortnight into his employment.
Lofthouse would have withdrawn from the question. Mr Hull, however, brightened.
Then he was off, telling Ephraim all about how he’d gone down to the Green Man and met almost every other clerk in Staple Inn. How they’d taught him all the popular songs, and how he’d taught them a few from his own country in turn, and how they’d met up for strolls in Hyde Park on their half-days, and how they planned to attend theatricals together when next they all had a night off.
Ephraim, astonished, listened intently and with great appreciation. Where Lofthouse had remained reticent andsecretive regarding how he spent his hours outside of the office, Mr Hull proved open and candid.
Which wasn’t to say Mr Hull didn’t have his own peculiarities.
For one, he said, “Good morrow!” rather than, “Good morning.” Ephraim didn’t mind this in the least. After all, Mr Hull was not a native speaker and had likely adopted the archaism as the nearest thing to the phrase in his own language. Ephraim found he rather liked the ring of it. To say nothing of his clerk’s enthusiasm in greeting him each day.
