The Ghosts of Christmas Past

by Andy Conway

  Her face close to his, intent on the wound. Their eyes met and she focused on him, holding his gaze. There was nothing but the intense electricity that passed between them, nothing else in the universe. And then she blushed a little and lowered her eyes, fidgeting with the cloth and pan.

  She bustled out and Fred listened to her steps down a passage and off to a room somewhere on the right. The creak of floorboards and the clatter of noise from a scullery.

  Mrs Hudson had a strange little sad sort of smile on her face. She was sitting on a chaise longue across from him. A jumble of props all around.

  “Where are we?”

  “We appear to be in the Theatre Royal,” she said. “Christmas Eve, 1842.”

  “None of this makes sense.” He stroked his head and felt it slick and wet. His head throbbed and his neck was made of steel, weighing heavy on his shoulders.

  “It’s not that Theatre Royal,” she said. “Well, it is. But not the one you know. Nor the one I remember.”

  He closed his eyes and groaned. Perhaps this was just a peculiarly vivid dream and he would wake soon.

  “You understand we’re in the wrong time?”

  He opened his eyes. She had said it right out loud, as if she were a radio presenter giving a running commentary on his nightmare. And back to square one. There was no escaping this or pretending it was a dream. He wasn’t going to wake up from this.

  “Has this happened to you before?” she asked.

  He shrugged and looked at the splodges of blood on his brogues. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “It has, hasn’t it?”

  He met her gaze. She could see it in his eyes: the thing he’d been dreading to admit, even to himself. It was happening again and with greater detail than it had ever happened. He was right in it.

  “But not to this extent,” she said. “Am I right?”

  He nodded. A violent spasm of pain. He stiffened and held his forehead, shuddering as the agony faded.

  She came across and sat next to him. He was on a chaise longue too. She patted his knee. “Don’t worry. We’ll muddle through somehow. This kind of thing happens a lot when you first find your... ability. You learn to control it.”

  “You mean we can go back to normal?”

  “Yes. If I can remember how. I’ve been forgetting things a lot lately. Sometimes I think, well, if I’m here, perhaps there’s a reason. You see this?” She dug in her handbag and pulled out a little pocket diary, sweeping it open with the bookmark ribbon.

  He focused on the page, frowning, the print blurred.

  “I wrote down this place and this year, you see? So I must have intended to come. I just can’t remember why I wrote it.”

  “This is 1842?” he said.

  “Yes, obviously.”

  He turned the diary over to examine the front cover. “And you’re from... two thousand and nineteen?”

  She nodded. “You’re from some time in the 1930s, I’m guessing.”

  “It’s 1934,” he said. “This is a dream. I’m going to wake up.”

  “Not yet. Perhaps we have to do something here. Perhaps we can’t leave until we’ve done it.”

  Belle stood in the doorway, staring at them.

  Mrs Hudson shoved her pocket diary into her handbag and snapped the brass clasp shut.

  Had she heard any of that? It seemed she’d just appeared in the room and not approached. No footsteps creaking up the corridor. The sure sign of someone who had been listening at the door.

  There was a blush of alarm on her face, the shamefaced bloom of one who has heard a terrible secret and now must pretend she knows nothing.

  — 5 —

  TIM CRATCHIT WALKED the gentlemen to New Street, running alongside the young man who was never to be called Charles Dickens, though they had not yet told him what he was to be called. The young man who wasn’t Mr Dickens had a long stride to him and was a good walker. The fat man who was Mr John Forster huffed and puffed a good twenty paces behind and several times called out for them to slow down.

  When he did, the man who wasn’t Charles Dickens would stand and wait and gaze up at the surrounding buildings or at passing people. He didn’t look at Tim, not once. He sneered, an unfriendly chap who didn’t care to be in this place at all. The fat man called John would catch up, wheezing and ask if they were nearly there yet, and then the man who wasn’t Mr Dickens would walk on and the whole thing would happen again.

  Tim trotted alongside him and told him at which corners to turn. Within a few minutes, they were on New Street, walking under the stone portico of the Hen and Chickens Hotel, at which the man gave a guffaw, and then they passed the grim facade of King Edward’s School, which, at night, always seemed to Tim like a haunted castle. He rushed on ahead, crossing Peck Lane and King Street, both of which led down to the Froggery — the dark place they couldn’t guess at from this stately street — and eventually he came to the main road that dissected New Street — Temple Street. The Theatre Royal sat there opposite the foot of Bennett’s Hill.

  “This is the theatre, sir,” Tim said.

  The man who wasn’t Charles Dickens paused and looked up at the white columns and arches of the front of house. “Look at this, John,” he called to the fat man. “A little hut like this is what counts as a Theatre Royal in this town.”

  “It looks grand enough,” said Mr Forster, gasping for breath.

  “The hotel is right here next door, sir,” said the boy.

  He thought the man who wasn’t Mr Dickens might say something bad about this building too, but he paused and took in the grand edifice, with its elegant pergola. He nodded and hummed and walked in.

  Mr Forster patted Tim on the head, said, “Thank you very much, lad,” and followed him in.

  That was it. His job was over. He clutched the coin in his trouser pocket, brought it out and examined it under the light, so shiny and new.

  The words Half Farthing under a crown and numbers 1842. Some flowers at the bottom. A rose, a thistle and a shamrock On the other side a plump girl’s face with a knot of hair tied up with ribbons. He edged the coin around to read the words Victoria D:G: Britanniar: Regina F:D:

  Gripping it tight in his fist, he turned down Lower Temple Street and walked over to the Froggery, along the mean cluster of shabby streets and lanes.

  His step quickened. His mother would be home before the hearth, preparing father his lunch before rushing out to Mrs Jowett’s to attend to the old lady. They would hide their disappointment at the half farthing.

  “Perhaps a penny,” his father had said. “Two esteemed gentlemen from London. Perhaps even a shilling!”

  “Don’t fill the boy’s head with such high hopes,” his mother had said, though she’d laughed and he could read the hope in her eyes as well as his father’s.

  That hope would be swallowed like a lump of bread that stuck in your throat and wouldn’t go down.

  A shadow leapt from the blackness and grabbed him by the collar.

  “Here, boy! Where you going?”

  Slogger Pike leered down at him and Tim recoiled at the stink of saveloy from his mouth, the debris of it on his teeth.

  “Home, Mr Pike, sir,” Tim said.

  “What have you got for me, boy? I’ve been waiting.”

  “They walked from the station. No cabs.”

  Tim writhed in his rough hands as he yanked him this way and that, checking his pockets.

  “What did they give you? Hand it over.”

  Tim opened his fist. “This.”

  “Half a farthing? Is that it?”

  “Yes, sir, Mr Pike.”

  He took the boy’s collar in his fist and pulled him close. Another blast of foul breath. “You lying to me, boy? He gave you more than that, rich knob like him.”

  “No, sir. A half farthing. That was all.”

  Tim gulped hard, knowing that Slogger Pike would do to him what he’d done to old Jacob Marley. What everyone said he’d done to old Marley.


  Pike shoved him away. “Why, the dirty old miser.”

  Tim rearranged his collar, his fingers feeling the hem. There was a tear. His mother would be upset and have to patch it up as best she could. The thought of her peering over his torn shirt in candlelight, sighing and simpering and straining her eyes, was too much to bear. Tears sprung to his eyes and he rubbed his face to wipe them away.

  “Who is he and what’s his business?”

  “Dickens, they called him. Someone important from London. A lady got him to sign a book. A book he wrote.”

  “A writer? What’s he doing here?”

  “Something about the theatre, he said, but there’s another man with him here to talk business with the print shop. That’s why they sent me to meet them.”

  “What kind of business?”

  “Something important, because my father is all a flutter about it. A big investment, he said.”

  “So they’ve money on them?”

  Tim gulped. He should say nothing of what he’d seen, but in Slogger Pike’s grip he had the urge to let everything tumble out of him, his tongue desperate to betray everyone in the world and befriend this man.

  “Come on, little Tim,” Slogger Pike said, suddenly friendly and soothing. “You can tell me.”

  “He dropped an envelope full of money. I picked it up for him.”

  “Money, eh? How much money? How many coins and what type? Did you see? Not half farthings, I hope.”

  “Not coins. Notes. About this thick.” Tim held up his thumb and forefinger in a C shape to indicate the width of the envelope, picturing it in his hand as he did so. “Heavy. Like a book.”

  Slogger Pike licked his lips. “You find out what you can about that money, you hear? You tell me everything.” He dug into his pocket and pulled out the shiny half farthing. “And here. This is yours. A little something for helping out old Slogger Pike. For being a good boy. You keep this.”

  Tim took the warm coin and shoved it in his pocket, while Slogger Pike brushed him down.

  “Now you go home, boy, but remember what I said. I want to know more about those gentlemen and that money. And when you know it, you come to the old Dungeon and let me know all about it.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  Tim turned and ran off down the mean street, muttering a silent prayer under his breath that he might reach home without seeing any more dark spirits.

  — 6 —

  “YOU POOR PEOPLE,” BELLE said. “I do so wonder how I can help you.”

  “You’ve already helped us,” the young man answered. “I think you might have saved us from certain death.”

  “I’ll get you some bandages. And you, dear lady, have lost your skirts. I must find you something to cover your legs.”

  The old lady looked down at her legs and seemed surprised to find that her coat only came down to just below her knees, exposing her stockinged calves and her strange fur-lined bootees. Belle reached for a blanket and threw it over the old lady’s lap. It covered her modesty enough. “The wardrobe,” she said. “I’ll find a dress from the wardrobe.”

  She pointed to the adjoining room, as if they knew where it was. She was flustered, embarrassed. This was all too much. Her eyes fell on the clock and her heart jumped. She would be late for Mrs Jowett and one could never be late for Mrs Jowett. Unpunctuality was the sin she would not countenance.

  The strangers sitting in her lounge looked up at her, so lost and forlorn: a half-dressed old lady who’d forgotten her clothes, and a handsome young man who’d been bashed on the head by Slogger Pike. Belle had saved them. She checked the swell of pride in her bosom. Was it pride? A warm, fuzzy feeling inside her at helping the young man. She didn’t know what it was, but she was certain it wasn’t pride, so it couldn’t be sinful.

  “I’m deeply sorry,” she said. “Please do not think me rude, but I have to leave.”

  The young man went to stand up, then groaned and slumped back on the chaise longue.

  “No, please, stay,” she said, perhaps a little too forcefully. “I have a most urgent appointment, but I shall return in an hour. Perhaps a little more than an hour.”

  “Are we all right to stay here?” the old lady asked.

  “Most certainly. I insist on it.” Belle reached for her cloak and clasped it around her neck, pulling the hood up over her head. “But please do excuse me for the moment.”

  The young man stood again as she went to the door, which was handsome of him. Belle found she was smiling. She paused at the door and said, “Please don’t leave.”

  She blushed as she stepped onto the street behind the theatre. She wasn’t sure why she had said that again and so forcefully expressed her desire that they should stay, but she knew now that she certainly did feel it, with all her heart, and not merely because the young man had evinced in her an overwhelming desire to protect him and tend to his poor head.

  Queen Street was safe now that it was nearly midday and the criminal elements had faded like insects crawling under stones. Belle crossed the muddy street, holding her skirts up as much as she could, and walked down the length of the street till the crossroads where Peck Lane divided Queen Street and changed it into Colmore Street, like a sword cutting a snake in half and creating two snakes. She turned down Peck Lane and entered the maze of streets that were known variously as the Froggery, or the Hinkleys, after two particular streets, the part standing in for the whole. Some called it the Rookeries also. The Froggery’s narrow streets were busy with life. A jumble of streets here at the foot of a hill, as if the new Town Hall had shoved out the poor and they had all tumbled down Pinfold Street to land in a heap at the bottom of the hill, like Jack and Jill.

  Like her strangers, Belle thought, turning. A man and a woman who had fallen down the hill, the boy with a broken crown. She hadn’t learned his name and now wondered if he might be called Jack. Should she mend his head with vinegar and brown paper?

  A strange sense of destiny fluttered in her heart.

  It wasn’t simply that the young man was handsome, nor that it was Christmas Eve and she felt some of the seasonal spirit that no one seemed to care about. There was something else. The old lady too. These strangers had awoken something in her: a sense that these unearthly visitors might solve the puzzle of her life on this very day.

  A cold wind bit at her cheeks as she came to Dudley Street. The air whispered the threat of snow. So many of the town’s wretched poor might be caught in the bitter cold.

  The Connexion chapel stood right on the corner of Peck Lane and Dudley Street, a gleaming beacon of hope at odds with the jumble of run-down tenements all around and the Dungeon that faced it on the opposite corner: the spikes on its wall and the grim grille on its gate that always made her shiver with dread.

  The gruff old bell of St. Martin’s church struck twelve as Belle rapped the old brass knocker of Mrs Jowett’s rectory house.

  Mrs Cratchit, the housemaid, let her in and took her cloak and Belle rushed to the drawing room, hoping the excitement of her morning visitors did not show on her face. She entered the drawing room only seconds after the twelfth toll of the bell.

  Mrs Jowett looked up from her chair and glanced at the clock above the mantel. Her grimace betrayed she was unhappy with Belle arriving three seconds late. But she said, “Ah, Miss Ruth. So punctual.”

  A man rose from the sofa and Belle paused, startled at the unexpected presence. An old man. So old he must have been forty or forty-five, in a grey suit that matched his grey face and greying hair. Ebenezer Swingeford, Mrs Jowett’s brother. A man she had seen only a few times He was immaculately turned out and well-dressed, but as genial as an icicle. His reputation around town was that of a ruthless businessman with no heart. A man she was glad she had managed to avoid.

  “Miss Ruth,” said Mrs Jowett, “you know my dear brother, Mr Swingeford.”

  The man bowed. “My pleasure, Miss Ruth.”

  Belle shook the man’s cold hand and took her seat. She s
aw it now. Mrs Jowett’s expression when she had arrived was not displeasure at her being three seconds late, it was the discomfort at the presence of this man, her brother. She had a ghastly pallor and her mouth had curled into a bitter gash.

  “Very pleased to make your acquaintance, Mr Swingeford,” Belle said. “And if I may, the greetings of the season to you.”

  “What’s that?” the man said.

  Belle wondered if he might be a little deaf. “I say a Merry Christmas to you, and to you too, of course, Mrs Jowett.”

  “Christmas?” said Mr Swingeford. “Bah.”

  Mrs Jowett allowed herself a wry smile. “You must forgive my brother, Miss Ruth. He does not partake of the joys of the season and I believe has never cared much for it. You shan’t expect him to attend your show this afternoon.”

  “Humbug,” he snarled.

  Belle thought he must be joking with his sister. No man could be so rude, surely?

  “You might think he has called to wish his only remaining family the greetings of the season, but no. I do believe he doesn’t even know what day it is.”

  “Indeed I do,” said Mr Swingeford. “It is the day before every man, woman and child in my employ takes it upon themselves to pick my pocket and expect a day’s pay for a day of idleness.”

  Mrs Jowett seemed pleased at this outburst, a glimmer of malice in her eye, as if she delighted in pushing her brother to condemn himself with his own tongue.

  Mrs Cratchit brought in a silver platter of cakes and poured tea, breathing heavily, as if she’d been running, the poor woman.

  “Mr Swingeford was on the verge of telling me the reason for his visit, when you arrived,” said Mrs Jowett.

  Mr Swingeford grunted, shoving a cream scone into his mouth, struggling to speak.

  “But you might be interested to know, or rather appalled,” Mrs Jowett continued, “that my brother has secured a controlling interest in the Theatre Royal. I fear today’s Christmas Harlequinade for the poor children of this neighbourhood might well be your last.”