It was a cold and bitter Christmas Eve; the lamps along Chancery Lane glimmered like stars, and snow glistened on the pavement. Mr Deeds, solicitor and administer of oaths, was hunched over his ledgers and files.
Mr Deeds was a thin man with a pinched nose and a miserable disposition. His days were measured not by joy or kindness, but by completions, requisitions and the counting up of monies and fees. While merriment rang from the streets below, he muttered darkly at the ticking clock while the draft and cold crept beneath his office door.
“Christmas!” he huffed. “A day when no contracts are exchanged, no completions done and no monies made.”
His clerk, young Timothy Finch, ventured a timid smile. “But, sir, it is a season of goodwill. Don’t the deeds feel lighter at Christmas as we have done all we can to help people move?”
“Bah – humbug!” said Mr. Deeds. “Goodwill does not satisfy a lender nor the bank.”
It was just at that precise moment that a sudden chill swept through the room. The fire flickered and went out and all became cold and still.
Mr Deeds was just about to complain about the further expense and waste of billable time in having to remake the fire, when a figure appeared – transparent and rattling with parchment deeds, with mortgage offers bound in iron rings.
“I am the ghost of conveyancing past,” the figure said in a mournful tone.
Even though he had vowed never to think of his life before his office in Chancery Lane, Mr Deeds was borne away through fog and memory to a modest office long since vanished. There, he saw himself as a young articled clerk, bright-eyed and hopeful, staying late not for profit, but to help a widow secure her new home.
“You remember her, too – she wept with gratitude,” said the ghost. “And you felt rich beyond measure.”
Mr Deeds shifted uneasily. “The market was simpler then.”
The ghost vanished, only to be replaced by a second ghost: the ghost of conveyancing present. Robust and warm, he was clad in holly and humming with the rustle of active files.
He showed Mr Deeds the visions of homes recently completed: a family unpacking in laughter and putting up their Christmas tree, an elderly couple downsizing with relief, a first-time buyer clutching keys as though they were priceless treasure.
“This is your work,” the ghost said. “You carry more than paper and files – you carry dreams and futures.”
As the ghost of conveyancing present disappeared, in his place appeared a silent spectre, shrouded in black. The spectre wordlessly pointed to a lonely office where dust lay thick upon unopened files. On the door hung a notice: ‘Closed – Firm Dissolved’.
No cheerful wreath adorned this door.
“Is this my future?” cried Mr Deeds, falling to his knees.
Seeing how life could be and how it had changed, he closed the office and made his way home.
The next day, Christmas morning, Mr Deeds awoke with a start and jumped out of bed with the vigour of a much younger man. Throwing open the window, he called to a passing boy: “Boy! What day is it?”
“Christmas Day, sir!”
Then God bless us, every one!
Mr Deeds did not go to work that day, but closed his office. He raised young Finch’s wages and from that day forth, remembered why he did the job – to make dreams come true.
With apologies to Charles Dickens, and a merry Christmas to one and all.
This column is written by a real high street conveyancer who wishes to remain anonymous. Read more in Today’s Conveyancer every week.
