STAVE IV

The Last of the Three Spirits

When Scrooge awoke, he beheld neither the sleeping forms of Messrs. Pleasant and Portly nor the familiar surroundings of his own room, but only, drifting towards him through the stagnant air of a dimly lit street, a frighteningly familiar figure. When he had struck his bargain with Jacob Marley what seemed like days ago, Scrooge had known this moment would come, but he had tried, in the intervening hours, to push all thought of the third and final spirit from his mind, for facing that ghost was a horror he was loath to repeat.

Scrooge lowered himself onto one knee and bent his head down so that he saw only the black hem of the cloak that enveloped the ghost. “Greetings, Spirit,” he whispered. “Our time is short, and I know you to be a ghost of few words, so let us undertake with haste the task that brings you here.”

To this speech the Spirit made no response, but merely floated above Scrooge and sniffed the night air from somewhere deep within its mantle, as if it had not smelled the air of the outdoors for many a month and even the dank fumes of a hot summer night were refreshment to it.

Though Scrooge had followed this Spirit many years ago, and suffered no permanent injury for its company, his legs still trembled as he climbed to his feet, and his breath came stuttering to his lips as he muttered, “Lead on, Spirit. I have travelled far and laboured hard this night, and I would rest yet before morning.”

The Spirit raised a spectral hand from its cloak and pointed into the receding darkness of the street in which they stood. Taking this to mean that he should lead the way, Scrooge stepped past the ghost and felt a chill from the crown of his head to the tips of his toes. The heat of the night did little to comfort the old man, who wobbled down the street shivering, knowing full well the Spirit drifted just behind him.

Though he walked at a pace that might be expected from a man of his age passing through the streets in his nightclothes, the city seemed to fold in upon Scrooge with increasing rapidity, and it was no more than five minutes later that he found himself in a dark street of Camden Town, as shabby, dingy, damp, and mean a neighbourhood as one would desire to see. Before him was a familiar door and in another moment he found himself, and the awful Spirit, inside the door, observing the scene before the grate.

In a chair by the hearth sat a man who might have been fifty or seventy, for all the dim light showed of his features. As it happened, Scrooge knew the man’s age to the day, for he had marked Bob Cratchit’s birthday annually for the past twenty years. Bob sat with his back to his visitors, reading the latest monthly installment of some popular novel. Scrooge was not timid about disturbing his partner’s peace.

“How many times have I told you, Cratchit, to move from this four-room hovel to some abode in a cleaner quarter of the city?”

“Mr. Scrooge!” cried Cratchit, dropping his reading on the floor and jumping to his feet with a start. “I did not hear you come in. Is not the hour a bit late for you to be about in your nightclothes?”

Cratchit had, in fact, long suspected that Scrooge lived on the edge of sanity, and now it seemed that his partner had plunged into the abyss and would be making the journey to Bedlam at long last. But Scrooge was as sane as you or I and merely continued to reprimand his former clerk.

“And haven’t I told you that there’s no need to call me Mr. Scrooge, nor has there been any reason since you became my partner twenty years ago? I have a Christian name, and though it may not be a thing of beauty, I daresay if it was good enough for the vicar who doused me in holy water, it is good enough for Bob Cratchit.”

“Ebenezer,” said Cratchit, sliding sideways across the wall until he reached the poker and grasping that tool in case the need for a weapon arose, “I think it would be best if we took you home to get some sleep.”

“But then you always were a creature of habit,” said Scrooge, ignoring his partner’s suggestion. “You never could call me anything but Mr. Scrooge, you never could live anywhere but here, and you never did much like taking days off to visit your family. Except Christmas Day, of course.”

“Really, Mr. Scrooge,” said Cratchit, “I think . . .” But what Cratchit thought was forever lost, for at that moment he saw the dark figure lurking by the doorway, its skeletal hand now reaching out towards him in a slow, beckoning motion.

“We need to take a journey,” said Scrooge. “Come.” Cratchit let the poker clatter to the floor and came.

Through the streets of Camden Town and back towards the city the unseen trio made their way in silence. Though Scrooge knew they were travelling towards Christmas yet to come, he could not, from the weather, have guessed the time of year, for the air felt both cold and hot. What vapours came from the Spirit and what from the weather, he knew not. The night and the city seemed endless, and Scrooge had begun to despair that the Spirit would fulfill his mission, when at last they slipped the bonds of darkness and stood in a brightly lit nursery, where a young woman was serving tea cakes to three small children. There was a Christmas tree in the corner, decorated with gleaming ornaments, and beneath it a wooden locomotive brightly painted in green and gold.

“What did Grandmother mean,” said the youngest child, a little girl no more than four, “when she said she would take us to the seaside next summer?”

The eldest child looked, to Scrooge, to be a boy of about ten, and his two younger sisters looked to him with a gleam of admiration as he answered this question.

“That we shall have a glorious time together with her. You shall love the seaside,” he said. “There will be bathing machines and wooden spades, and ever so much sand to dig in.”

“But how do you know?” asked the older of the girls.

“Grandmother took me one summer,” said the boy. “We stayed at a lodging house near the bandstand, and at night we could hear the music and the sound of the waves on the shingle through the open window.”

“Goodness!” exclaimed Cratchit, with a flash of recognition. “I think it must be young Tim, my grandson. But how he’s grown. He can’t have gotten so tall just since Christmas.”

“These are the shadows of things yet to come,” said Scrooge. “Our guide has a special talent for revealing such things,” he added, giving a nod in the direction of the ghost, who towered behind them.

“Was Grandfather there?” asked the girl who had spoken before.

“Goodness, no,” laughed Tim. “Christmas morning—that’s all Grandfather is good for. You shan’t catch him making merry on the beach when there’s work to be done in that office of his.”

“What does Grandfather do in his office, anyway?” asked the girl.

“Something to do with money and numbers,” said Tim sagely. “You’re too young to understand.”

“It sounds dreadfully dull,” said his sister. “When I’m grown I shall play at the seaside with my grandchildren instead of working in a dingy old office.”

“So shall I,” said Tim forcefully.

“Which one is Grandfather?” asked the younger girl, speaking for the first time since finishing her cake.

“The one who brings the lovely presents on Christmas and laughs at the table with the grown-ups,” said Tim.

“I should prefer a playmate all the year round to the loveliest present at Christmas,” said the young girl.

“That’s why we have two grandfathers,” laughed Tim. “One to bring presents and one to be our friend!”

“But the young Mrs. Cratchit’s father doesn’t bring lovely presents,” protested Cratchit.

“Of course he doesn’t,” said Scrooge. “You do.”

“Do you mean to say,” began Cratchit, but he stopped in midsentence as he realised the full import of the conversation between his grandson and his future granddaughters.

A chill seemed to overtake the room, and the figures of the children became like gauze, until they dissolved away altogether and the two men found themselves again on a dim street with the silent Spirit. Neither Scrooge nor Cratchit recognised their surroundings as any part of London, but they followed the ghost through a tall stone arch into a courtyard from which a dozen or so doors led into the surrounding buildings.

Through one of these doors the trio somehow passed, and they soon found themselves in a tiny room where a single boy might conduct his studies. In this space, with its wooden desk, stool, and reading chair and by the light of a single lamp, six young men sprawled, lounged, lay, sat, and leaned. Somehow, though neither of the men could explain how afterwards, Scrooge, Cratchit, and the deathly Spirit found space to stand amongst the boys.

Outside, the snow was piled high and fell so thickly that the building opposite was barely visible. The wind rattled the windowpanes, but a fire leapt merrily in the grate and its cheeriness seemed to have lured the boys to this particular study.

“The worst thing about being trapped here for Christmas by the snow,” said a boy on whose knee an open (and ignored) book on Euclid perched precariously, “is that I will miss seeing my grandfather. He’s a right jolly bloke and fancies himself a sort of Father Christmas. He came to live at the country house when I was six, and he’s a great one for riding. Taught me everything I know about horses.”

“It’s true,” said another, who sat on the windowsill, his scrawny legs dangling almost to the floor. “I’ve been riding with Cartwright’s grandfather myself. He took me on my first hunt.”

“I remember it well,” said the boy who was evidently Cartwright. “Heathcote here got lost in the woods on the far side of the lake, and Grandfather had a devil of a time tracking him down.” This revelation led to a general outburst of laughter at Heathcote’s expense, but the boy in question laughed as hard as any of his cohorts.

“But he did track me down,” said Heathcote at last, “and he walked me all the way back to the lodge. I shall not forget his kindness.”

“I remember my grandfather teaching me draughts in the study at Alwood House,” said a boy who was propped up in the doorframe. “He would play with me for hours and I thought I was ever so clever because I always won. It wasn’t until I met an old man in the lane one day that I learned that Grandfather hadn’t lost a game of draughts in the pub for six years.”

“Mine read to me,” said the boy who lay on the floor, “before he died.” A stillness fell over the room at the mention of death, and Bob Cratchit eyed the dark Spirit, who lurked in the corner. “He read me Jane Eyre and Silas Marner, and I shall never forget, the last year he was with us, he sat with me by the fire on Christmas Eve and read The Rose and the Ring. He did the most marvellous voices, and I remember that just as Grandfather was reading the last lines of the story, the old clock struck midnight. I thought Mother and Father would be horrified if they knew how late we had stayed up.”

“What about you, Cratchit?” said the boy at the desk, who seemed to be the host.

A gangly youth who sat on the floor with his back against the wall stared at his boots with a stern expression for several seconds before answering. “Well, I suppose the best thing my grandfather ever did was send me to this school.”

“Moneybags, eh?” said Cartwright.

“It’s all very well,” said Cratchit. “I mean, I certainly can’t complain about the presents and the money for school, but it should have been nice to actually see the old man once in a while.” And then Cratchit tossed his head back and laughed a short scoffing laugh. “It’s a pity about your grandfather, Grimes, but be glad you knew him. I’m not sure I should recognise my grandfather if I passed him in the street. Nor he me.”

“Enough of this torture!” said Bob Cratchit, averting his eyes from his grandson’s face. “Show me no more of these shadows! I shall take the day off tomorrow, Mr. Scrooge, I promise. I shall take as many days off as you will give me, if only you tell me that there is some hope for changing these shadows. Is there hope? Is there? Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be, only?”

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.