The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge (6 page)

But neither Scrooge nor the Spirit answered the question, and the boys went on talking and comforting poor Grimes on the loss of his grandfather, but their voices faded away until they sounded as the lowing of cattle on a distant hill on a summer's day, and then the room itself melted from before their eyes and the air around them grew cold as ice and they stood on a city street before the open doors of a parish church. On the opposite corner stood two dark figures, huddled in
conversation as the wind whipped around their ankles. Scrooge pushed Cratchit forward, and Cratchit slowly ventured to cross the street, but the spectre that accompanied them remained at the doorway of the church, unseen by the vicar who peered out from within, then checked his watch before disappearing back into that holy place.

Cratchit approached the two figures in the street and saw in one a reflection of his own face. “Is this me?” he asked, turning to Scrooge. But Scrooge, whose face seemed to have taken on the quality Cratchit would have expected in the visage of the spectre, if the spectre ever showed itself, only raised his hand and pointed to the pair. Cratchit took a step closer and listened.

“And why should I come to the funeral?” said the man whose face was hidden from Cratchit. He could tell from the voice that this was the younger of the two men, and that he was in the midst of a heated argument. “Did the old man ever come anywhere for me?”

“He came to the church when you were christened and again when you were married. It's only right that you see him to a Christian burial.”

“Humbug. I don't suppose he would have even come to the wedding if Uncle Scrooge hadn't insisted on closing the office for the day. Of course I went to Scrooge's funeral, for
he showed me no end of kindnesses from my earliest days. Scrooge was my grandfather, not the man lying in that church.”

“Your grandfather only worked so hard because he loved his family,” said the older man. “Think of all the things he made possible—your school, the university, your trip to the Continent. Do you think you could have had those things without him?”

“Funerals are for mourning,” said the young man, “and we mourn those we know. It is true that my grandfather was a great benefactor and for that I suppose I should and shall be grateful, but I did not know him. I shall come to the reading of the will, for that's what he would have wanted. But he'd know me for a hypocrite if I mourned him at a funeral. He was content to visit me only once a year—on Christmas—surely he'll understand if I wish to forego this visit.”

The young man turned and marched down the road, leaning into the cold wind and disappearing around the corner. When he was out of sight, the older man trudged across the street to the church door, paused for a moment, gazing down the street, then ducked into the church. Scrooge stood watching the spot where the young man had disappeared (for to him as well as to Cratchit, these shadows of the future were revelations), until he realised that Cratchit had followed the older man across the street and was even now peering in the door of the church to the gloom within.

Cratchit seemed about to step into the nave, when a hand from within pushed the door slowly shut, and Scrooge's partner was left staring at the weathered wood a few inches in front of him. In another instant he rounded on the Spirit, who still lurked nearby, and charged him in a fury, tears coursing down his face.

“Answer me, Spirit—am I the man who lies dead in that church? Am I?”

The finger pointed from the church to him, and back again.

“No, Spirit! Oh, no, no!”

The finger still was there. And before the finger, in the space between the spectre and the two men, there appeared a rapid series of pictures—whether they were visions shared by Scrooge and Cratchit or some conjuring of the spectre, the men never knew, but the images appeared as if a magic lantern were focused on some invisible wall, shifting from one slide to the next with dizzying speed. Scrooge knew not what he saw, but Cratchit recognised all his children and their families, all similarly neglected by their father or grandfather. And then the fashions changed, and Cratchit knew that he was peering into future generations of his family, and he saw in the faces of those whose parents and grandparents were yet unborn a coldness that came, he knew all too well, from a lifetime too focused upon labour. His blood ran through his
veins like the icy water of the Thames at Christmas as he saw his own neglect spinning out across generation after generation, and whilst the clothing and the surroundings of all those future Cratchits who took their turns in the frigid night air told of their worldly riches, there was always within their eyes something lacking—and Cratchit recoiled in horror as the heavy truth fell upon him. His descendants in their scores and hundreds understood the ways of wealth and money and even of philanthropy, but their hearts lacked the true wealth of love, of family, of Christmas joy, which, he now saw, might have been theirs all the year round.

“Spirit!” he cried, tightly clutching at its robe. “Hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?” Cratchit fell to his knees before the Spirit, and his sobs echoed in the empty street.

Scrooge, who knew full well the terror that came from the vision of one's own death—a vision of all the lost chances and wasted opportunities of a lifetime pressed upon a soul in a single moment—stepped forward to lay a hand on his partner's shoulder and stooped to whisper into Cratchit's ear, “All is not lost. These are but shadows; the child is but a babe. There is no need to see him only on Christmas Day.”

Though he did not turn his face away from the Spirit or
release his grip on those long black robes, Cratchit seemed to hear Scrooge, for he raised his face to where the spectre's eyes ought to have been and said, “I will honour Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year. I will be like brother and father and friend and teacher to the boy and to his sisters and to all my grandchildren, if you will but tell me that these shadows will be erased!” But as Cratchit pulled on the robes, the spectre pulled back, and each, for a moment, tugged with such strength that Scrooge thought the fabric must be rent asunder and he averted his eyes, for he had no wish to have the spectre's true form revealed. But he needn't have feared, for as Cratchit gave a final jerk to the ghostly garment, he was pulling on nothing more supernatural than the curtains at his own window, and Scrooge stood not in a cold empty street but by the open door, where the warm breath of a summer morning was beginning to blow into the
room.

 

S
crooge had but few moments to observe the change that overcame his partner as Cratchit looked around the room and his eye fell on the blue paper cover of the monthly installment of the novel he had been reading a lifetime ago, it seemed. Though tears still dampened his cheeks and his breath came in choking sobs, he nonetheless realised the import of where that booklet lay—not on the floor, where it had fallen when he had been startled by Scrooge's arrival, but on the table by his chair, where it had lain
before
he had begun his night's reading. Cratchit rounded on Scrooge, a smile breaking across his face.

“It is not thrown down!” cried Cratchit, pointing a shaking finger towards the table. “It is not thrown down upon the hearthrug.” With this, he snatched the booklet off the
table and clutched it in his hand with a violence that would likely have displeased the author. “It is here!” he cried, shaking the booklet at Scrooge. “I am here; the shadows of the things that would have been may be dispelled. They
will
be. I
know
they will!”

But even as Cratchit's tears of terror and remorse turned to tears of joy and resolve, Scrooge felt himself drifting away from the scene and all that had lain before him. The threadbare chair, the table bearing the extinguished lamp, the kitchen awaiting the arrival of Mrs. Cratchit, and the trembling figure on the floor faded away and the sound of Cratchit's sobs became the ticking of the clock on Scrooge's own chimneypiece. The same warm air drifted in at Scrooge's window, but as he threw up the sash and stuck his head out into the London morning, the old man found that the weather had broken, and the oppressive humidity of yesterday had given way to crisp, clean air, warmed by the summer sun but wrapped in the promise of cool autumn days to come.

“Hallo!” he shouted at a boy who made his way along the street below. “Can you tell me what day it is?”

The boy, who was not previously acquainted with Scrooge's eccentricities, cast a puzzled look upwards and, seeing no harm in the old man, shouted back, “Twenty-third of June, sir.”

“They've done it again!” cried Scrooge with glee. “The
spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of course they can.”

You may never have seen such a thing as a man who has passed four score years on this earth dancing a jig in his nightshirt on a summer morning, but I assure you it is a sight well worth seeing, and one that would have provided you with plentiful laughter had you been in Scrooge's apartment that morning to see it. And had you been there, you might also have understood the expression “in a twinkling,” for Scrooge's eyes never stopped twinkling in anticipation of the visits he planned to pay that morning.

As he hurried through the crowded morning streets after making himself presentable, even those who knew Scrooge well and were accustomed to his unseasonable greetings thought they detected an extra degree of enthusiasm in his bellows of “Merry Christmas!” and “Happy New Year!” He carried his walking stick only so he could swing it with gusto, wore a hat solely that he might tip it at every passing lady, patted the head of every child who ventured within his reach (and a few who tried, but failed, to give him a wide enough berth), and stuck his head in every shop he passed to remark on the fineness of the day, the fineness of the meat (or books, or pastries, or whatever was on offer), and the fineness of Christmas, which, by the way, he hoped would be merry for all.

Scrooge's first stop was Whitehall, where he expected to find his nephew perched on his stool and hard at work. However, though the morning had advanced past the point at which civil servants can generally be counted upon to be adding up columns of numbers for the good of England, Freddie's stool stood empty.

“Haven't you heard?” asked the clerk on the adjacent stool. “He talked as if it were all your idea.”

After wishing the fellow the merriest of Christmases, Scrooge enquired as to the nature of the idea attributed to him.

“Freddie's decided to run for Parliament,” said the clerk. “There were some in the office who found it quite a shock, I don't mind telling you; but many of us wondered what took him so long. I always knew he could do it.”

“Do what?” asked Freddie with a scowl, for he had just arrived at the door.

“Ah, there you are, nephew,” said Scrooge. “I had hoped I might have a chat with you this morning.”

“A chat?” replied Freddie sternly. “I should think there are more important things in this world than chatting with one's uncle.”

“And what might those be?” asked Scrooge, concerned with this unexpected standoffishness in his nephew's demeanour.

“Why, wishing him a Merry Christmas, for a start!” cried
Freddie, breaking into a smile and throwing his arms round his uncle. “And a Happy New Year, uncle, for it is a new year for me. A new year and a new life all beginning today, thanks to you.” Freddie pulled his uncle by the sleeve into a corner of the room hidden from the other clerk by a filing cabinet and whispered, “All those years ago, when you told us about being visited by those spirits—we all thought you'd gone a bit potty, you know. Most of the family still think so, though they'd never say it to your face. But, oh, uncle! What a night! What a revelation! I never understood before now.” And unable to think of what to say next, he again embraced his uncle with another “Merry Christmas,” hearty enough to be heard clearly by the clerk who put so much faith in Freddie's future.

If Scrooge had hoped to chat with his nephew, he found the chat rather one-sided, for it was nigh on impossible for him to squeeze a word into Freddie's unstoppable torrent of excitement. Like the surf in a winter storm came Freddie's ideas, one after the other, without a moment to catch one's breath in between whiles. He would propose this and he would do something about that; he had a plan for one problem and an idea about another. If Freddie had been made dictator of the empire at that very moment, I daresay the world would have been a much better place in a fortnight, but Scrooge
knew that even as a lowly backbencher Freddie could, and would, do much good, and he might well rise through the ranks to higher and more influential posts as the years went by. He smiled as Freddie spoke, but after a time Scrooge did not hear every word his nephew said, for he thought he might hear, faintly on the wind, another sound—the sound of chains falling to the ground, link by link. If Freddie accomplished one-twentieth of what he set for himself, Marley would certainly be a free man.

It took no small effort for Scrooge to extricate himself from the conversation, and it was only when Freddie realised that he was late for a meeting with a gentleman likely to back his candidacy that Scrooge was able to bid his nephew farewell and press on to his next destination.

Up Whitehall to Trafalgar, up the Strand and Fleet Street and into the City strode Scrooge, whilst a sea of Londoners parted in front of him, none quite sure how to respond to his wishes for a Merry Christmas. When he arrived at the bank, his request to see the Messrs. Pleasant and Portly was met with a blank stare by the clerk in the cage. Laughing at his own foolishness, Scrooge enquired after the bankers again, this time using their proper names, which he had somehow managed to remember (when he thought it over afterwards,
he suspected that Marley, who surely would have known, had whispered the names in his ear).

The clerk informed him that the two bankers he sought were engaged in a highly important conference with a highly important client and were not to be disturbed under any circumstances unless they were to receive a visit from one Ebenezer Scrooge.

“But I am Ebenezer Scrooge,” he said, laughing.

“He is, you know,” said the clerk in the next cage with a roll of his eyes. “Though I'm surprised he hasn't yet wished you a Merry Christmas, it being June.”

The first clerk, who was evidently new to the position, did not think Scrooge looked the sort of man for whom one ought to interrupt a highly important conference, but since two newly arrived customers were even then greeting Scrooge by name and being wished a Merry Christmas, there seemed to be no doubt about his identity, so the clerk led him away down a long narrow corridor and through a series of heavy oak doors until they arrived in a dim and stuffy anteroom.

“One moment, please,” whispered the clerk, who proceeded to stand by the largest oak door they had yet encountered for nearly a minute before he ventured a timid knock. This effort was met with utter silence.

“I'm sorry,” whispered the clerk. “Perhaps they didn't want to be disturbed after all.”

“Nonsense!” cried Scrooge, elbowing his way past the clerk and banging on the door with the handle of his walking stick. Before the clerk could restrain him, the door opened slightly and the scowling face of Mr. Portly appeared.

“I'm sorry, sir,” muttered the clerk, “I tried to . . .” But what he tried to do Mr. Portly never discovered, for as soon as Portly saw Scrooge, he swung the door open and grinned with delight.

“Mr. Scrooge, what a pleasure! What a delight. We'd no idea you would honour us so soon with a visit.” The befuddled clerk took this opportunity to make his exit, and Mr. Portly grabbed Scrooge by the hand and, shaking vigourously, pulled him into the inner sanctum in which the highly important conference was taking place.

The room might easily have contained Bob Cratchit's entire house; Freddie's family might have comfortably lounged in the fireplace; the table was as large as the stage of a West End theatre; and the woman who sat at the table (next to Mr. Pleasant, who now jumped from his seat to greet Scrooge by shaking the hand not claimed by Mr. Portly) wore a diamond ring that might, if pawned, have covered the weekly deposits in the bank with change left over for Sunday dinner.

“We're so pleased you've joined us, Mr. Scrooge,” said Mr. Pleasant, apparently loath to release Scrooge's hand until the old man was comfortably seated in a chair large enough that it might accommodate (and the thought occurred to all three men at once) the Ghost of Christmas Present.

“This is Mr. Scrooge,” said Mr. Portly, turning to the lady, who sat patiently at the far end of the table.

“Yes,” added Mr. Pleasant, as if she might not have heard (and she was, indeed, quite far away), “this is Mr. Scrooge.”

“It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Scrooge,” said the lady, with a slight nod of her head.

Scrooge was on his feet again as soon as Messrs. Pleasant and Portly dropped his hands, and he skipped around the table to where the lady sat so that he might offer a proper greeting. Taking a deep bow, he said, “The pleasure is all mine,” and then, looking her straight in her deep-set blue eyes, he added, “And may I take the opportunity of wishing you a very Merry Christmas.”

The woman's face, which had remained unmoved up to this point, now showed the slightest flicker of what might have been delight or amusement or both, and she said in a soft voice, “I thank you, sir, and a Happy New Year to you and your family. Mrs. Aurelia Burnett Crosse at your service.”

“Ebenezer Scrooge at yours. I do hope I'm not interrupting.”

“On the contrary, sir,” said Mrs. Crosse, “we were only just bemoaning your absence. Your arrival could not have been more propitious.”

“Mrs. Crosse is one of our very best clients,” said Mr. Portly.

“One of their very wealthiest clients, he means,” said Mrs. Crosse with a laugh. “I'm afraid, Mr. Scrooge, you'll find me quite inept when it comes to the old stricture against talking about money. I have quite a lot of it, and, as I'm sure your friends here will tell you, there are days on which I talk of little else.”

“You see, Mr. Scrooge,” said Mr. Pleasant excitedly, “after our . . .”

“Our adventure last night,” continued Mr. Portly.

“Yes,” said Mr. Pleasant. “After our adventure, we decided we would find a way to help some of those people we met and to . . .”