A Christmas at Highbury by Michelle Cox

Author:Michelle Cox
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Woolton Press
Published: 2024-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Elsie was tempted to slip her arm around Mr. Ferguson’s, as the wind had severely picked up and threatened, she feared, to blow him completely over, but she didn’t dare lose her grasp on Tom. She had resorted to tucking the poor cat into her coat, but she still needed both hands to keep him secure.

“Is it much farther, Mr. Ferguson?” she shouted through the wind.

Whether he heard her or not, Elsie wasn’t sure, but he continued, nonetheless, to shuffle down the street, his body already bent, never mind the wind. Elsie, her eyes tearing from the cold, was beginning to regret her decision to follow this stranger out into the dark night. Perhaps he really had no home at all, she worried. Elsie followed him a bit further, wondering what to do, and was just about to call off the mission when he finally turned off Palmer onto Spalding. She felt a renewed tendril of hope that they might be headed for an actual destination after all, and that they were not aimlessly wandering. Elsie hoped it was near. Hadn’t he said he lived not far off the Square?

“Mr. Ferguson,” she called again. “Is this your street?”

The old man again didn’t answer but continued his slow shuffling. Finally, blessedly, he stopped in front of a three-flat at the very end of Spalding before it crossed Dickens. It was the corner building, shabby and exposed, and litter had blown and was clinging to the foundation. Mr. Ferguson approached the front steps, and Elsie wondered how he was going to make it up all those crumbling cement stairs, but he instead turned to the right and pushed open a rusted iron gate beneath. Gripping the thin iron railing—loose in some places—with one gnarled hand, he began to hobble down. He took each step slowly, one by one, until he reached the bottom. He pushed open the rotting door of the garden apartment and disappeared inside without so much as a backward glance at her.

Elsie paused and looked up and down the street. At this hour and in the cold, no one else was out . . . no one who might hear her cry for help if she needed it. She felt she should follow Mr. Ferguson into the dark apartment, but a warning bell was sounding. Her right leg began to shake a little. Ever since she had followed her old flame, Harrison Barnes-Smith, into his house and had then been subjected to his . . . his . . . advances, she was overly cautious now.

“Mr. Ferguson?” she called, pushing the gate open a little, as it had swung back with a screech after the old man had passed through. The front door remained open, however, but no light had been switched on. Only blackness spilled out. Where was this Irene he had mentioned wanting to get home to? Was she out? And why didn’t he switch on a light?

“Mr. Ferguson?” Elsie called again and wondered if maybe he had fallen over.

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