Marley was dead.
Of course, Mr. Tumnus knew nothing of this in Narnia. Marley was of a whole 'nother world, so that his life and demise were of no consequence or concern to the scarfed, little faun. He just sat in his hovel as he did every Christmas Eve-ning, drinking a hardy mug of warm cider by the fire, with only his cozy collection of old books to keep him company. This was as he liked it, for he was a bashful faun and prone to blushing in public. But death is not prejudice to such sentiments and will often barge in when one least expects it, such as in the case of the late Jacob Marley.
And when death comes, he brings with his hooded, scrawny self a great deal of surprises. The most difficult of which to get used to (or so I'm told) is when his subject finds himself suddenly available to more worlds than he originally thought existed. This revelation may take some time to get used to (usually around nine years or so) and on this particular Eve-ning, Mr. Tumnus, amidst his cozy collection of old books, was about to witness Mr. Marley's last chance to get used to it.
The little faun was on his third mug of cider and had just pulled a particularly holidaic volume of The Life and Letters of Silenus from the shelf. Its pages held the thin dust of a single year passed, as he read it traditionally on the annual Eve-ning, and he blew it away with a wet, cidery cough.
“What an enchanted night it was,” he read aloud to himself in a sort of mumbling comfort. “Warm, though snow dressed her; and light, though no moon shown...”
He was so deep in the words that he did not notice when his dancing fire began to whisk in and out of rhythm, and he was suddenly not alone. What did arrest his attention was the trudging and clinking of a man in chains, crossing behind him and coming 'round to his left. He shut the book quickly at the first sight of money boxes and feet sliding from the shadows into the firelight. These were strange to his mortal eyes, however, as they were neither solid nor clear, but mere vestiges unaffected by the light or matter around them. Nevertheless, he held the tome ready for striking and held his breath ready for screaming when the intruder should come into full view.
But the intruder never came into “full view,” for he proved to be just as greyish and transparent as the luggage he carried with him. He held chains, wrapped over shoulder and neck. They were lashed, too, about his waist, and ran on down to his ankles and across the floor like iron coattails. And along the chain links were fastened countless money boxes and padlocks, change purses and ink pens. The pale man looked miserable in countenance, with sparse white hairs sticking out here and there and a damp, white kerchief tied to hold up his loose jaw. He drug his feet heavily upon the floor and stood hunched by the weight of his burden. He stood between Tumnus and the fire, so that the faun could see through his bowels to the yellow flames. They stared at one another for several minutes, one sitting, one standing, both thoroughly confounded by the other. Tumnus broke the silence at last.
“Good Eve-ning, good Eve-ning,” said the faun. “Excuse me – I don't want to be inquisitive – but should I be right in thinking that you are a... ghost?”
“Ask me,” corrected the man. “Who I was.”
“Very well,” apologized the faun. “Who were you?”
At this point, the ghost paused in his breathing and furrowed his brow. He seemed stuck on some words and unable to proceed with them. “In life I was your partner...” he stopped himself short and wobbled his chin in frustration, like a squirrel who's misplaced his store. He stood motionless for several more minutes, staring at nothing just beyond the faun. Finally, Tumnus cleared his throat and set his book aside, certain now the man was no real threat.
“Can you sit down?” he asked, gesturing to a stuffed chair beside the mantel.
“I can.”
“Then, please, sit. I will get you hot drink, if you'd like.”
“No, thank you,” responded the ghost, sitting slowly into the chair. “That won't be necessary. I must be on my way in a moment, but a quick rest is nice.”
“On your way?” asked Tumnus, still unsure even of who this shadow was. “But where did you just come from and where must you be off to in such a rush?”