by Andy Conway
“Ebenezer?” said Fred. “You’re kidding.”
“I am not, sir.”
“I apologize for bringing so much drama to your establishment, Mr Fezzwig,” Belle said, fiddling in her pouch and bringing out a coin.
The landlord took it. “It is your profession, dear Miss Belle. And though I am myself a mere amateur, I do rather enjoy a little drama from time to time.”
Mr Fezzwig went back to his business behind the bar and Belle rose, looking about her in panic as if she wasn’t quite sure she had everything. Like me, Mrs Hudson thought, so much these days she was looking all about her for that thing she had forgotten.
“I have little time,” Belle said. “He will discover the lie. I am an orphan and he will look up the records. He knows as much, he needs only the legal proof. His sister, Mrs Jowett, who is on the board of governors of the orphanage, will attest to it.”
“And what of it, Belle?” Mrs Hudson said. “Fiddlesticks to the old bully.”
“I shall be turned out. Jobless and homeless on Christmas Eve.” She got up and rushed out.
“Wait!” Fred cried.
But Belle was out of the door.
Fred stumbled to his feet and Mrs Hudson rose with him, downing the last sip of rum from her dainty glass.
“This is ridiculous,” Fred cried, laughing manically and waving his arm out to indicate it all, nearly knocking Tim over if the boy hadn’t ducked. “I don’t believe this is happening.”
Mrs Hudson pulled Fred closer and hissed, “This is what we’re here for, I’m sure of it now. It’s all something to do with Dickens.”
“Is this all some bad dream?” Fred hissed. “Charles Dickens, Tiny Tim, Christmas Eve, Cratchit, Fezziwig? A horrible old miser called Ebenezer who’s mean to everyone? And us: we’re the ghosts of Christmas Yet to Come. What’s going on?”
“I think we’re about to see how Charles Dickens gets his ideas,” Mrs Hudson said, leaning forward.
“You mean?”
“A Christmas Carol hasn’t yet been written.”
Fred gulped and swayed. “I don’t think I can cope with this.”
Mrs Hudson hutched up against him so he could put his hand on her shoulder. “Come on, Fred. We have to get Belle to help us.”
“Help us with what?”
“To find out why we’re here. It’s something to do with Dickens. It absolutely has to be. But if she’s more concerned with being thrown out onto the street, she won’t be so inclined to spend time on us.”
Fred shook her off. “Perhaps we’re here to help her. Have you thought of that?”
He stumbled out of the door to the bright light of New Street.
Mrs Hudson looked around and shivered. All alone. The boy, Tim, looked up at her, a frown on his face. “Come along, boy. I think you shouldn’t be here. Go home.”
“I can’t,” said the boy. “I work at Showell’s printing house.”
She guided him out to New Street and the boy dashed across to J.W. Showell, Printers & Stationers. Charles Dickens was in there and he held the key to all of this, she was certain.
Looking up and down the street, she worked out that she was standing pretty much before the Odeon Cinema. A place she’d stood many times before. Would stand many times, a hundred years from now. She turned and followed Fred, a distant speck, limping down the street, chasing Belle, and wondered for a moment if that was her purpose: to bring these two young people together. She shook her head and dismissed it. No, it was all about Dickens, she was sure of it. If only she could remember.
She hurried on after Fred, fearing if she was left alone for a minute she might forget everything and be lost forever.
— 12 —
BOB CRATCHIT RAN ACROSS New Street clutching the bundle of letters to his thumping breast, not caring if a coach-and-four hit him and ended his days. They were as good as ended anyways. Mr Swingeford had found cause to shout at him and Cratchit knew he was for the sack this very day. And on Christmas Eve too! How was he to break the news to his dear wife? He couldn’t hide it for the duration of the one-day holiday, that would be impossible. Not with tiny Tim also there to see it.
That thought curdled his already soured heart. His poor son would be the only man working in the household.
Cratchit pushed through the door to Showell’s and the bell chimed like it was announcing a funeral.
Mr Wilber, the foreman looked up from the counter desk, peering over his pince-nez spectacles, and back down at his ledger. Only he looked up again, startled at the sight of his assistant clerk.
“Are you all right, Cratchit? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Not a ghost,” said Cratchit, rushing to his desk and slicing open the mail with a silver letter opener. He had opened all the letters before realizing his hands were shaking. “It was Mr Swingeford. He caught me in the Hen & Chickens and thought I was a-drinking on company time.”
“But I sent you to collect the mail, dear boy.”
“That’s what I told him, Mr Wilber. Only I don’t think he believed me.”
Mr Wilber tugged at his cravat and adjusted his vivid flowery scarlet waistcoat, suddenly needing to breathe a little easier. “Well, I’ll certainly let him know it was the case.”
But Mr Wilber gazed off into the distance and the look of horror on his face attested to the fact the he would not enjoy having to tell Mr Swingeford any sort of fact that might confront the old miser.
Cratchit could hear chatter from the rear office. The two gentlemen from London. Vitally important business. A contract that might secure their futures for a good few years, perhaps. Only that business now seemed no longer any concern of Bob Cratchit’s. This business would continue without him.
“I’m so glad you didn’t choose that other printers down the street,” came one of the voices. Mr Dickens’ voice, he thought. “Cornish’s, was it? I don’t want my work published by anything with the name ‘Cheap Book Establishment’.”
Cratchit wondered why Mr Swingeford wasn’t here to discuss this business matter with the important guests. Did he deem it a trifling part of his wider portfolio?
Cratchit whispered to Mr Wilber at his side. “Has Mr Swingeford left this matter to old Mr Showell?”
Mr Wilber looked all around and shrugged at the mystery. “The very idea. You know as well as I do that Swingeford only kept the old chap on to keep the name above the shop front. Tradition and continuity, he said.”
Yes, Cratchit thought. The very idea that Swingeford would leave business in the hands of the kindly old gentleman who’d built the place. And yet, he’d shown no inclination to rush back across the road. And what had he been doing in the Hen & Chickens, anyway?
“Well, wherever he is,” Cratchit said to Mr Wilber, “he’s in a cold mood for some reason and I rather fear will be looking to sack someone today. I rather fear it might be me.”
“What was the matter with the...” Mr Wilber looked all around and behind just to make doubly, triply sure no one could overhear. “...old miser?”
“Who knows with that man?” Cratchit whispered. “Something or someone has slighted him and sent him in a terrible mood.”
“When a man like that has his ego bruised, he goes on the prowl looking for someone to sack.” Mr Wilber coughed and patted Cratchit on the back. “But I’m sure you’ll be safe, Cratchit. Not to worry.”
Cratchit felt quite sick and put a hand to his belly. He thought he might retch up the pudding his dear wife had left for his lunch. He was quite queasy. If this went on, he wouldn’t even eat his Christmas dinner tomorrow either. “Just what is it about Christmas that makes Ebenezer Swingeford so utterly miserable and determined to take it out on everyone around him? It seems a thoroughly objectionable existence. He can’t possibly enjoy his life, and all the money he makes doesn’t make him any happier. In fact, as the years go by and his fortune increases, he seems more and more angry at everything in the world.”
“Hmmm,” Mr Wilber si
ghed. “His wife died in childbirth, I believe. And the child too. Twenty year since. At Christmas. The mockery of it. That’s the story. He’s always hated the season ever since, they say.”
“Oh, I didn’t know. How terrible for him.” Cratchit felt quite guilty now on top of the queasiness.
The door opened and Tim came in. He stopped short, letting in the cold and seemed surprised to see them there, where they always were.
Cratchit sensed something behind and turned to see one of the London gentlemen standing in the door to the office.
“Oh, hello sir,” he spluttered.
Mr Wilber also turned and jumped with a little yelp, covering his mouth as if he could cram back in all the words he’d said.
“Anything we can help you with, sir?” Cratchit asked.
The young gentleman just smiled and stepped into the shop, strolling around and taking in the surroundings, the shelves of publications and pamphlets and displays of printing processes. “I’m just taking a look over the premises. They are in there discussing business. Dreadfully dull.”
“We didn’t see you in the door there, sir,” Mr Wilber said.
Cratchit wondered how much of their conversation the man had heard. This surely was the end of him.
“Not to worry,” the young man said. “I didn’t mean to loiter.”
Cratchit had rather thought the older, larger gentleman would be Dickens, not this young chap with his unruly hair and bright eyes. He seemed barely old enough to be a successful author. And yet he was possibly about his own age: thirty years.
Tim skulked in and rounded the gentleman, with a such a sullen, sulking look about him that it proper pained Cratchit in his heart. “Not to fear, tiny Tim. We’ll break for Christmas a little later, and it’s the theatre show tonight.”
“Oh and wait till you see my magic lantern show tonight, dear boy,” Mr Wilber said. “This year it is no mere interlude for the play. Oh no. This year, my slides and animations shall take place throughout the show, on a scale never before seen.”
He had talked about nothing else for weeks, thought Bob, so tiny Tim had undoubtedly heard of it. “Did you hear that, tiny Tim? What larks we’ll have tonight, and Christmas Day tomorrow, come what may.”
“I’m not so tiny, father,” Tim said.
“No, you’re a growing lad, that’s true,” Cratchit said. His son was no longer an innocent. The knitted brow of care was on his face. Life and its struggles had marked his boy. It was inevitable. And would be even more so if he were the sole breadwinner of the house.
“This boy is your son,” Mr Dickens said.
“Yes, sir. My boy works here.”
“Ah. He brought us from the station this morning, and brought us here too. I didn’t know.”
Cratchit wondered how Mr Dickens could know that Bob Cratchit was this boy’s father, and why it mattered. Mr Dickens stared at Cratchit with a curious look, fascinated and amused at something. He’d almost definitely heard them gossiping about their master and would most likely tell him. Bob Cratchit would be for the sack, most definitely. He was doomed.
Dickens reached out to the boy, as if to shake his hand. Puzzled, Tim held up his hands, black with ink. Dickens flinched and let out a surprised “Oh!” and stepped back.
This was the man who gave his son a half farthing, Cratchit thought. That was how the rich stayed rich. If you looked after the pennies, the pounds looked after themselves.
Tim bundled through the second door, his boots tramping through to the print room at the rear of the premises.
Bob Cratchit turned from the space where his son had stood. Perhaps in keeping the boy so close to him, he’d only hastened that loss of innocence.
Dickens thumbed a stack of anti-slavery pamphlets and hummed approvingly. “Very good,” he said, rubbing his cheek. He picked up a pamphlet on the history of the Bull Ring. “Law, do they still bait bulls here?”
He’d said ‘law’, like the Cockneys said ‘lord’, Cratchit noticed.
“Certainly not,” said Mr Wilber. “Haven’t for years. It was made illegal six years ago.”
“They did bait a bull in Birmingham Heath four years ago,” Cratchit said, and immediately thought he should have kept his mouth shut.
“How barbaric,” Dickens said.
“We have the theatre now,” said Mr Wilber. “To elevate the common man. You should see our Theatre Royal. Oh. Tonight! If you are staying, there’s a charming Harlequinade. I shall be treading the boards myself.”
Dickens grinned and examined Mr Wilber with new interest. “I know the theatre. In fact, I am due to see the performance.”
“Mr Dickens! Really? What an honour!”
Mr Wilber’s face had turned the colour of a great plum pudding and he looked ready to burst right out of his cravat.
“And you, Cratchit, is it? Are you also treading the old boards tonight?”
Again like a cockney, Cratchit thought. As if he’d come from low stock. Which sort of made sense. How could someone write of the poor so keenly, as he had with Oliver Twist, if he hadn’t been among them up close in the dirt and grime for at least some part of his life? And yet he seemed keen not to get his hands dirty. Hadn’t taken his gloves off. And he baulked at the sight of a young boy with black hands. As if there was something about a little ink that terrified him.
“Me, sir? Lord no, I’m far too shy a person to go onstage. I’ll be firmly seated in the audience, sir.”
“Yes, with your son, Tiny Tim, like you said.”
There was something most decidedly odd about Mr Charles Dickens. He floated around the shop, only half in the moment, and with a very peculiar way about him. If Cratchit had met any others he might have been able to verify if this was the same with all authors or whether it was peculiar to Mr Dickens.
Dickens waved his arm to the window and the gloomy view of New Street outside. “I’ve noticed that so few people seem to be celebrating Christmas. Why is that?”
“I’m afraid there’s not much call for it these days,” said Cratchit.
“They celebrate Christmas in the country, where everything is much simpler, but there is simply no time for it in the modern town,” said Mr Wilber. “We are a more sophisticated people than our bumbling country yokel cousins.”
“How sad,” said Dickens.
“Is it the same in London, sir?”
“I’m afraid it is. I wish it weren’t.”
The door swung open with such force that the bell clanged and almost fell from its hanging.
“Cratchit!” Mr Swingeford yelled. He pointed his cane as if it were a pistol and he might shoot poor Cratchit any second. “What was the meaning of your performance just now?”
“Nothing, sir, Mr Swingeford, sir. It was as explained to you by Mr Fezzwig, sir.”
“That libatious buffoon. Well, I won’t stand for it. Not on my time.”
“Mr Swingeford,” Mr Wilber muttered, “I sent Fred to fetch the post as he said.”
“Get out, Cratchit. Get out now.”
“What do you mean, sir?” Cratchit said. But he knew. The old miser had come to take out his earlier frustration. Whatever it was that had happened to him earlier today, Bob Cratchit was the man who was going to pay for it. He felt light, as if a trapdoor were opening under his feet and he was about to plummet, with only a noose around his neck to break his fall.
“Your services are no longer required.”
“But, sir, it’s Christmas.”
“A poor excuse for picking my pocket.”
At this moment, several people came rushing out from the back: Tiny Tim and Mr Showell along with Mr Forster, who filled the entire door frame.
“What is going on here?” Mr Showell shouted. “Oh, Mr Swingeford. It’s you.”
“Cratchit was seen drinking on the company’s clock today.”
“But I wasn’t, sir.”
“I have dispensed with his services forthwith.”
“You can’t do that.”
Everyone turned to the young gentleman.
“Who on earth are you?” Swingeford said.
“I’m Charles Dickens.”
Swingeford caught his breath, realizing this man was a client, an important client, not a mere customer.
“Are you telling me how to run my business, sir?”
“Certainly not, Mr Swingeford,” Dickens said. He touched his twitching cheek again. “You may run your business however you see fit, even one that employs child labour. But I may also run mine. And I may do business with whomever I sense runs a moral business on sound Christian principles. Come, Forster. Let us take our business to Mr Cornish down the street. Perhaps he treats his workers better.”
“But Charles,” said Forster, “I’ve just concluded our deal with Mr Showell here.”
“And now it’s unconcluded.”
“Now wait you,” said Mr Showell, in his creaking old voice. “Cornish is far too small an establishment for your needs. And my colleague Mr Swingeford was a little hasty just now with Mr Cratchit. Of course we shall not sack him. Not on Christmas Eve. Not if it’s true that he was not drinking.”
“I sent him to collect the post, sir,” said Mr Wilber.
“Humbug!” Swingeford cried, though he seemed more amused at the consternation he had caused than angered. “Not at Christmas.”
“Not any time, if you want my custom.”
Mr Swingeford smiled. It was a strange smile, as if he had never smiled in his life before and his facial muscles were not used to the contortion. “Mr Cratchit. I do accept your pleading, and Mr Wilber’s reference.”
Bob Cratchit felt the breath he didn’t know he was holding leave his body in one almighty expiration of relief.
“You, boy,” said Swingeford. “You must leave immediately.”
“Mr Swingeford! I protest!” Mr Showell cried.
“Our new business partner objects to the use of child labour. I will remedy that particular ill with immediate effect. Boy! Out!”
Tim looked at them all, each in turn, but no man said a word. He shrugged and slunk to the door and looked back as he went to the street. Cratchit feared his son might say something harsh to Mr Swingeford and burn all bridges between them, but the boy said nothing, merely cast back a look of utter spite. And the resentment was not aimed at his employer, Bob Cratchit saw quite clearly, but at his father.