Tim Cratchit's Christmas Carol (5 page)

Reaching the narrow lane, Tim noticed that the gas lamp had been smashed, but he continued toward the building. A dim light, no more than a single candle, glowed in the front window. He stopped suddenly, his body frozen by an icy chill no north wind could hope to match. Inside the gloomy office he saw his father, looking as he had when Tim was a child. Bob Cratchit was seated at a high desk, scribbling frantically in a ledger. From deeper within the building, the grating of rusty hinges announced the opening of a door, and Scrooge himself stepped into view. He deposited a stack of papers on Bob's desk and turned away without a word. After Scrooge's office door slammed, Bob risked a glance at the clock on the wall, which read half past seven. He shook his head, seemingly frustrated at having to work late once again. Bob turned to the window, looked at Tim, and smiled sadly.

Tim nearly leaped into the air at the clatter of a horse's hooves on the cobblestones behind him. Spinning about, he saw a cab approaching. Tim shook his head vigorously and took a deep breath. He glanced back at Scrooge's former office. The building was dark, empty. The sign above the door read
JAMES WEBSTER, MERCHANT BANKER
.

“If I don't get more rest,” he said aloud, “I'll be going to Bedlam instead of home.”

“Pardon my saying, but you don't look like a candidate for Bedlam,” the cabbie said, his face ruddy from the cold. Tim gratefully climbed inside the vehicle. Driving the hallucination and all other thoughts from his mind, he focused his attention on the rhythmic clop of the horse and the sway of the cab. The driver had to wake him when they reached the house.

Chapter 4

T
ired as he was, once in bed Tim found that sleep would not come. The vision, or hallucination, whatever trick of his imagination had caused his mind to conjure up images of his father and Scrooge, troubled him. It had awakened memories of his youth, and they refused to let him rest. He remembered the cold, the hunger. But there was also happiness. The love of his parents, who worked ceaselessly and sacrificed selflessly for their children. His father, dead three years now, had worked long hours for a paltry wage, but always came home with a smile on his face and hugs for everyone. Mother was still strong despite so many hard years, still a source of endless comfort. His brothers and sisters, so tender toward him, even though their own lives were difficult, too.

Tim wondered if he was not happier then than he was now. He missed the closeness that his family had always enjoyed. His mother and siblings still lived in London, but he was so busy he rarely saw them.

It was not the end of his family's poverty that marked the beginning of his unhappiness, he mused. That was certain. Tim never forgot the delighted surprise the family shared that Christmas morning when the gigantic turkey arrived, the joy of that Christmas dinner when, for the first time, there had been more than enough food for every Cratchit. It had been the best Christmas of his life, and none since had surpassed it. Everyone had eaten their fill and more, unlike earlier Christmases when his mother had to allocate the portions carefully. He remembered the awe in his father's voice the next evening, when, having arrived home an hour earlier than usual, Bob announced that he was getting a substantial rise in salary.

The family ogre, mean and miserly Mr. Scrooge, became a good friend practically overnight. At least once a week he accompanied Bob home and shared dinner with the Cratchits. Sometimes Scrooge visited on a Sunday afternoon, spending much of the time talking with the children. And no grandfather could have been kindlier than old Scrooge as he spent day after day escorting Tim to the finest doctors in London.

Several days' effort brought Scrooge and Tim to the surgery of Harold Carter, a specialist in the study of diseases of the spine. Carter's examination brought the welcome news that Tim was not afflicted with spinal tuberculosis, an incurable ailment. Scrooge, having feared the worst, was visibly relieved. Carter sent them to a Harley Street colleague, who diagnosed Tim's illness as renal tubular acidosis, a kidney disease that led to a buildup of toxic chemicals in the blood. The physician told them of a treatment devised many years earlier by Percivall Pott, and prescribed regular doses of sodium bicarbonate and sodium citrate that would neutralize the harmful chemicals. He also assured Scrooge that within a few months Tim would be running and playing like any other boy. When that day finally came, a tearful Mr. and Mrs. Cratchit had turned to a beaming Scrooge and asked how they could repay him for such kindness.

“You owe me nothing,” Scrooge had said. “Tim is the one who will have to repay me.”

“How?” asked a perplexed Bob Cratchit.

“By remembering what was done for him, and trying to do his best, whatever path he chooses in life, to help others.”

The Cratchits had taken Scrooge's request to heart, and frequently reminded Tim of it, although Scrooge himself never uttered another word on the subject. Tim worked hard to demonstrate that Scrooge's confidence in him had not been misplaced, and he sought to win Scrooge's approval for everything he did, valuing it as much as that of his parents. Scrooge beamed with pride each time he received a report of Tim's accomplishments at school.

Tim's early exposure to the medical profession, and the powerful impression the doctors had made on him, led him to choose a career in medicine. One evening when Tim was fifteen, Scrooge called at the Cratchit house in Camden Town to discuss the boy's future. Recognizing that Tim's choice of career had not changed, Scrooge and Mr. and Mrs. Cratchit summoned him and explained his options. If he chose to be a surgeon, he would not have the prestige of a physician but would have valuable skills that were much in need. A physician examined patients and usually treated them with medications, a more gentlemanly occupation and one that brought higher financial reward.

“So, Tim, which kind of medical man would you rather be?” his father asked when the explanations were completed.

“Both,” Tim replied.

“But why?” inquired Mrs. Cratchit.

“Mother,” Tim answered in a soft voice, “I want to help people who need someone with both kinds of skills. You know what happened to Mrs. Forsythe and Mr. Brock.”

Mrs. Cratchit nodded. The cases of both their Camden Town neighbors still evoked sympathy, even though Mr. Brock had been dead for a couple of years and they had become accustomed to the sad sight of Mrs. Forsythe. The former had taken ill suddenly and, unable to afford a physician, sent for Mr. Latham, an elderly surgeon whose services could be had for cheap. Latham was among those who still opted to bleed his patients when he could not discern the cause of their illness, which was most of the time. He had bled Mr. Brock for nearly a week, until the once-healthy forty-five-year-old expired. Brock left behind a widow and four children, all of whom ended up in the workhouse.

Mrs. Forsythe, a widow in her sixties, had fallen down the stairs and broken her leg about a year after Brock's death. Although surgeons were the ones who set broken bones, Mrs. Forsythe knew full well what had happened to Brock and wanted nothing to do with Latham. “He'll bleed me right to death, he will,” she had asserted. So the neighbors summoned the only physician in that part of town—young, poorly trained Dr. Arnold. Unable to set the leg, he supplied liberal doses of morphine for Mrs. Forsythe's pain while urging her to have a surgeon set the broken bone. By the time she agreed, the broken right femur had begun to mend and Latham could not reset it without breaking it again, something he refused to do. Mrs. Forsythe now hobbled painfully about with her right leg two inches shorter than her left.

The Cratchits understood immediately, and explained the cases to Scrooge. He nodded.

“Very well, Tim,” he said. “It's quite a task, but you are up to it if anyone is. Let me make one suggestion. I think a year or two at university would better prepare you, both for your chosen career and for life in general. What do you say?”

Tim agreed, and the following January found himself at King's Cross Station, waiting for the train that would take him to Oxford. His parents, brothers and sisters, and Mr. Scrooge were all in attendance, with Mrs. Cratchit setting an example of stoicism in order to minimize the sadness they all felt at Tim's departure.

The two years Tim spent at Oxford were both painful and productive. Although he enjoyed and excelled at his studies, being away from his family for the first time filled him with an overwhelming loneliness. The university's rigid class structure made his situation worse. Because Scrooge paid for his education, Tim's place in Oxford's social hierarchy was a step above the scholarship students—“servitors” in the university's distinctive language but “commoners” to the sons of the nobility. Nevertheless, the students from noble families never accepted Tim. He did become friends with several students from poor families who were attending the university on scholarship, and together they weathered the storms of disdain from those who claimed to be their betters.

When his time at Oxford came to an end, Tim chose to study surgery in Edinburgh, the only place in Britain where proper professional training could be had. Then it was back to Oxford, with some reluctance, to train as a physician.

Tim never forgot the day that he received his license to practice from the Royal College of Physicians. After rushing home to tell his family, he hurried over to Mr. Scrooge's house to give him the news. One of Tim's fondest memories of the kind old man was of that day. Ill, frail, and much advanced in age, Scrooge sat wrapped in blankets like a mummy, took the document in a shaking hand, and read it carefully. He had to hold it within an inch of his nose to make out the words, and he began to weep with joy, tears flowing down his withered cheeks. Tim's first reaction was to worry that Scrooge's tears would stain the document, but he pushed the thought aside as his own eyes misted over.

“Tim,” Scrooge said in a hoarse voice, “I never had children—that was my own fault for spurning love—but I have tried to be like a father to you. Much that I did in my life I am not proud of, but in these latter years I have tried to make amends. I am not sure it was enough to erase the wrongs I have done. You remember what Shakespeare said?”

“ ‘The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with their bones,' ” Tim answered, quoting from the play
Julius Caesar
.

Scrooge nodded. “So true. Shakespeare understood human nature. And his words leave me fearful of how I will be remembered. Will ‘Scrooge' become simply another word for ‘miser'? For someone who knows no emotion but greed?”

Before Tim could offer him any reassurance, Scrooge, having taken a wheezing breath, resumed speaking.

“You don't need to say anything, Tim,” he said, his voice fading as he grew more tired. “It is not what you say now that matters. It is what you will do later. You are my legacy. In your achievements, in the good that you do, people will remember me. That is the thought that eases my mind now.”

The old man died a week later, as if he had awaited the completion of Tim's studies, and the opportunity to give those final words of counsel, before departing.

During his first years as a doctor, Tim had done old Scrooge proud. Tim's outstanding record as a student had marked him for a prosperous private practice on Harley Street, but the young physician-surgeon had shunned offers of partnership from several prominent medical practitioners. Instead, he had used the independence given him by an inheritance from Scrooge to work without pay among the poor of London. Renting a small office not far from his childhood home in Camden Town, Tim spent every morning treating the sick who lined up outside his door. In the afternoons, he traveled the streets of Whitechapel, the East End, and other impoverished London neighborhoods, calling upon the sick and injured.

Five years of such toil, however, took a toll. Occasionally Tim worked long into the night, forgot to take his own medication, and began to feel ill himself. He realized that unless he cut back on the hours he spent treating the poor, he would no longer be of any help to them. While he had been spending his time serving the poor, other physicians continued to press him to join them in their practice. The several cures Tim had pioneered for his patients, and the scientific articles he had published on topics such as the link between good health and proper nutrition, had enhanced his professional reputation. Finally, with his inheritance exhausted, Tim agreed to enter into partnership with two prominent Harley Street doctors. He would spend his mornings treating patients there, and the afternoons in his Camden Town office.

For a while, the arrangement worked well; Tim found that the income from his Harley Street patients enabled him to buy more medicines and supplies to treat those who could not afford to pay for their care. But he found himself spending more and more time on Harley Street. A growing number of wealthy patients clamored for his services, and it was not easy to refuse an appointment to an earl or a baroness. Two years after joining the Harley Street practice, Tim found his time fully occupied with his new patients. He shut his office in Camden Town, and seldom ventured among the poor any longer.

At some point Tim fell asleep, his thoughts blurring into dreams. One image chased another through his brain: riding to church on his father's shoulder, mixing chemicals in the university's laboratory, delivering a baby by the light of a single candle in a London alley late one chilly autumn night. These nocturnal tasks seemed to consume his energy, so that when he awoke at his customary hour of five o'clock, he felt exhausted.

“If I had any sense, I'd send a telegram to Dr. Eustace asking him to see my patients today,” Tim said to himself as he shaved. To do so, however, would only anger his partner, and besides, Ginny Whitson and Jonathan were coming to his office at noon. He looked longingly at his bed, then was struck by the thought that Ginny and Jonathan had no bed. Tim finished shaving and hurried to dress.