The Ghosts of Christmas Past

by Andy Conway

  “What?” said Emily, confused, as if it were the most irrelevant, stupid question in the whole world to ask at this moment. “I don’t care about that. I care about my Tim and my family. That’s all I care about.”

  She shrieked and put her fist to her mouth.

  Belle took a chair and held her hands. “I know that, Emily, but it’s important, please. I beg you.”

  “My son’s important. My family’s important.”

  Bob Cratchit came forward and hugged his wife.

  “Emily, my dear, it’s all right. All of these nice people have come here expressly to help Tim. They’re going to rescue him. They’ve promised me. But Miss Belle and Mr Aldridge here also really need to know what’s happening with Mrs Jowett. Can you help them?”

  Emily gathered herself, sniffling, wiping her nose on the back of her hand. Bob Cratchit produced a handkerchief, which she screwed up into her fist.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Mrs Jowett was taken ill. The doctor is with her in the drawing room She’s been in an awful state all day, flittering about. Her brother upset her terrible when he visited this morning. She went out to shop for her Christmas gifts and seemed better, but then later was struck again at the theatre. It was dreadful. That’s why I’m here instead of at home. I fear it’s the palsy. Terrible thing.”

  “She made a terrible accusation,” said Ira Aldridge.

  Emily Cratchit wrung her hands and looked at the floor. “Indeed she did, Mr Aldridge. I heard her say it with my own ears.”

  “Why would she tell such a lie?” Belle asked.

  “I don’t know, Miss. But even as the words left her mouth, I could tell that...” Emily Cratchit lowered her voice, “... she was lying, and I could tell that she knew it was a lie. The only one who believed it was Mr Swingeford.”

  “But why?” Ira asked. “Why would this woman lie about such a thing? And would she not think I would sue her?”

  Emily shrugged. “Perhaps she’s ill. Perhaps it’s more than the palsy. There’s some awful game she’s playing with her brother and they seem to delight in spiting each other.”

  “Yes,” said Belle, “it seemed that way this morning. Something was going on between them, something from the distant past.”

  “But I don’t care about that anymore. She’s never shown any kind of care for others that I know of. It’s all right living in a chapel but...” She shook her head and grimaced, holding her words in.

  Fred said, “So Swingeford proposes to you, Belle, and his sister tells him you’re having an affair with Mr Aldridge. She seems desperate to destroy his marriage to you.”

  “She has almost destroyed mine in the process,” said Ira Aldridge.

  “It is a terrible calumny,” said Dickens, “and she ought to be confronted with it. One can’t go around telling such lies.”

  “You’ll get little sense out of her,” said Emily. “I don’t know that she might ever recover.”

  “You’re dealing with a mad woman,” said Fred. “It’s obvious.”

  “Well,” said Belle. “We’ll deal with her later. For now, though, we came for another reason.”

  “Yes,” said Dickens, “it’s time to put our plan into action. May we see the tower?”

  “The tower?” Emily asked.

  “It looks down on the Dungeon,” said Belle.

  “Yes, of course. Let me show you right up.”

  She went with Dickens, Fred and her husband, each taking their lanterns, and the others listened to them creep up the stairs till their footsteps faded.

  Mr Wilber, Mr Fezzwig and Ira Aldridge each put a heavy sack on the table.

  “I feel we should prepare for this,” said Fezzwig.

  “Prepare?” asked Mr Wilber.

  “I feel this might be the most important role I have ever undertaken.”

  Emily Cratchit returned alone. “Mr Dickens, here. I must be in a dream.”

  “A Midwinter Night’s Dream,” said Mr Wilber.

  No one laughed.

  “He starred in our Harlequinade tonight, you know, Mr Dickens” said Mr Fezzwig. “He acted alongside me.”

  “He’s always been a frustrated actor,” said Forster.

  “The theatre’s loss is literature’s gain,” said Mr Wilber.

  Belle stood. “Gentlemen,” she said. “It’s time.”

  They reached for the sacks on the table and began to unpack them.

  — 29 —

  TIM CRATCHIT HAD RUN through the dark streets, all the way down the hill to the Dungeon, so fast it seemed like he was Jack falling and breaking his crown. Except he hadn’t gone up the hill to fetch a pail of water, he’d gone to steal a load of money. And he hadn’t fallen with no Jill; he’d fallen in with Slogger Pike. There was no crown broken, but everything else was in pieces on the floor and would never be mended again.

  He’d broken it all. He was a criminal now, an outlaw. He was on this side of the divide in society, forever despised by respectable people.

  As soon as they had reached the Dungeon, Slogger Pike had said, “Gimme the chinks,” which didn’t make sense, as the money was all in papers, not coins.

  Tim handed over the wad of money and Pike flipped through it and leered, chuckling with delight. It was more money than Tim had ever seen and it seemed more money than Slogger Pike had ever seen too.

  Pike gave a special knock at the great wooden gate that was taller than two men and someone heaved a wooden block away on the other side.

  They pushed through to a cramped courtyard, stone steps leading up on both sides to a wall-walk against the parapet. It was like a castle. Upstairs at the back was the old guard house where Pike and his gang of boys lived, though there were cells too and Tim wondered if he would sleep in one tonight.

  He would wake on Christmas Day: a thief in a cell.

  By the light of a few lanterns, Tim was introduced to Pike’s gang, mostly a bundle of ruffian boys from the Froggery, boys he’d seen around the streets; pickpockets and scavengers, boys with no shoes and no family. This was their family. And this was his family now.

  He thought of his dear mother at home now preparing the house for Christmas. She would be distraught. He dearly wanted to be with her, but there was no walking away from this. Might Slogger Pike let him go, now that he’d handed over the money? Surely he’d be happy with that? But then, to walk out of this place without the money... he could never go back to his mother’s warm embrace. The die had been cast.

  Pike put the wad of money in a cupboard in the corner, perhaps the cupboard that had once contained the keys to the cells. He didn’t lock it. There was no lock. And who would steal from him, the man who’d murdered Jacob Marley so brutally?

  There was a girl named Polly, and it was clear she was Pike’s sweetheart. He sent her out to Miss Jagger’s Dining Rooms with a pound note to open an account. She returned a half hour later with a tray of warm pies and puddings.

  “You should have seen me,” she said, laughing. “No one dared stop me. I walked as bold as brass down Peck Lane with the tray on my head, like an Arab girl.”

  “You’re Pike’s wench,” Slogger Pike said. “Everyone knows that.”

  “That copper, Donaghy, gave me the evil eye, but I laughed in his face.”

  “Damn the peelers!” Pike yelled. “It’s us against them, Tim. But they’re too scared to come down here and make a fight of it.”

  “Kick one of them and they all get a limp!” one of the boys shouted.

  The phrase was taken up with glee and they sang it in a tuneless chant, punching their fists in the air.

  Kick one of them and they all get a limp!

  Kick one of them and they all get a limp!

  Kick one of them and they all get a limp!

  They devoured the hot food and one of the boys cried, “We’ve never eaten so well!”

  “You stick with Slogger Pike. You’ll eat like princes the rest of your days.”

  They devoured every last crumb, lick
ed their fingers and settled back, bellies swollen.

  “That’s a proper Christmas feast, and no mistake,” Polly said.

  Tim had to admit, he’d never felt so full. Much as his parents scrimped and scraped, even their Christmas meal was nothing to compare to this.

  Pike pulled the girl close to him and gave her a greasy kiss, slobbering like a St Bernard dog. The girl laughed and let him tongue her cheek. Her eyes were on Tim. He turned his face away, bewildered. It was that secret language the adults talked again — those unsaid words he didn’t understand.

  Then something banged the great door.

  The sound boomed all about the Dungeon. Everyone jumped and stilled their voices.

  As Polly was about to speak, “What was—” there came another great boom.

  And then a third.

  As if an artillery regiment had fired three great cannon shots at the door.

  Pike rushed to the window to take a peek at the courtyard. The boys crowded beside and behind him. He yanked the guard room door open and ran round the wall-walk to the spiked parapet that overlooked the street. Polly and the boys followed and so did Tim. They peered over the battlements to see who had knocked so loud.

  There was no one at the great wooden gate below, but a cloaked, black figure stood across the street in front of the chapel. A woman’s form, her features hidden by a hood.

  How had she knocked so loud, and from the other side of the street?

  She held a lantern at her knee, so it cast a pool of light at her feet.

  “It’s a girl,” said Polly.

  “Who are ya?” Pike called.

  The voice came across the snowy expanse. A young woman’s voice, innocent and frail. Familiar, though he couldn’t place it. “I’m the daughter of Jacob Marley.”

  Silence. Slogger Pike didn’t know what to say to that and seemed dumbfounded.

  Polly, gripped her shawl about her and looked proper spooked.

  “What do you want?”

  “Justice!” she cried in a low moan that resonated on the wind.

  Tim felt like a spider was crawling up his neck. He reached to scratch it, and it sent out a multitude of little spiders scurrying all over his skin.

  “Are you codding me?” Pike said with a malicious laugh.

  The laugh said that people didn’t last very long for codding Slogger Pike.

  No answer came. The black figure stood silent.

  “Settle her, Slogger,” said the oldest boy.

  “Shut up,” Pike snarled.

  The boys exchanged doubtful looks. Maybe they’d never seen their leader so uncertain. They’d never seen him challenged.

  “You better clear off, or I’ll settle ya, see.”

  The figure raised a hand and pointed a finger at him, accusing.

  Slogger Pike bellowed a laugh and it was joined by four or five more. All the boys and all the men in his gang.

  “Jacob Marley demands justice,” the ghost cried.

  “Ha! That old story,” said Pike. “No one could ever prove I did that!”

  “Jacob Marley can prove it.”

  “He’s dead, you old witch, and he ain’t coming back to tell anyone anythink.”

  “He’s told me what you did.”

  More laughter.

  “What you gabbin on about?” Pike yelled.

  “Till he gets justice, he’s doomed to wander through the world. He’s looking for you, Slocombe Pike. He’s looking for you!”

  More laughter, less riotous than before, because Pike himself was not laughing. The laughter died down, unsure of itself.

  “Marley knows what you did to him.”

  “Pah! Now off with yer. Or I cut you up like a Christmas goose.”

  “You will be visited by three ghosts tonight.”

  “What?” said Pike, with such genuine why me? amazement that Tim thought he heard the child in the man.

  Something familiar about this. Three ghosts shall visit. Where had he heard that?

  “Three ghosts that come for your soul, Slocombe Pike.”

  The figure raised the lantern so it lit her face in the shadow of the hood, revealing a pretty face, a young face, but ghostly and eerie, lit like that.

  It was Miss Belle.

  It wasn’t a ghost or a witch at all. What was she doing? He searched the faces of the other boys and of Slogger and none of them recognized her, that was clear.

  Of course. Three ghosts shall visit. That had been part of the play tonight, just as he’d left. He hadn’t been listening to most of it, but that was what Mr Wilber’s character had shouted from the stage. Three ghosts shall visit tonight.

  It angried up Slogger Pike’s blood. “I’ve had enough of this,” he snarled. “Do her, boys.”

  Tim felt a knot of fear rise in his throat and he wanted to be sick. Miss Belle against these ruffians. He hated to think what they might do to her.

  Tim and Polly watched the boys run down the stone steps and across the central courtyard. Pike heaved the wooden beam off the gate and ran out.

  Miss Belle was still there, the same dark figure in the same cloak, pointing a finger at them.

  Pike skidded to a halt. “What?”

  Why had she not run from him?

  And also, there was something not right about her. Her face hidden again, but her hand had aged. The finger pointing at Pike was not the finger of a young lady, it was the old wrinkled finger of a witch. She raised the lantern to her face again and revealed her aged face.

  “What is this, you hag?”

  Pike made fists and rushed towards her. He was going to hammer the old lady.

  Then a blinding beam of light shot at them. It was as if an accusing angel had torn the night sky apart and pointed a blaze of light from Heaven at them.

  They halted, shielding their eyes, blinking, blinded for the moment.

  And then something loomed out of the darkness behind her.

  It came from behind the chapel tower.

  A monstrous presence thumping out of the black night.

  They all stared.

  A great shape.

  Something gigantic.

  A great figure in a robe.

  A giant!

  It strode towards them from the black night, roaring, “Fee fie fo fum!”

  An ogre, a demon, a colossus.

  Tim watched aghast from the parapet, only half aware that Polly had gripped his arm and was squeezing for dear life.

  Pike and the boys scattered in the snow below, dashing back into the Dungeon’s courtyard.

  The giant stumbled after them. It was coming across the street, level with the parapet, coming right for Tim!.

  Polly screamed and fled. Tim followed her, darting around the wall-walk. They met Pike and the boys scrambling up the stone steps to the guard room. Tim glanced back in terror.

  A giant coming for them! And they’d left the gate wide open.

  The hem of its great robe came to the gate and Tim looked up to the spiked parapet wall where the giant’s great ogreish face peeped over the battlements.

  It roared, and it seemed like it roared with the force of a great trumpet.

  Pike, Polly and a dozen boys all somehow tumbled through the door at once, and Tim followed.

  Pike slammed the heavy door shut with a clang and peered through the grille.

  The shaft of light swept the courtyard, searching, and it sent a shiver right through Tim. What if Miss Belle really was a witch and had summoned these ghosts? But now he thought about it, the light really was shining from the tower of the chapel across the street, as if the chapel tower had turned into a lighthouse.

  A voice came booming from the courtyard. “Slocombe Pike!”

  A man’s voice, deep and sonorous. Not Miss Belle’s voice, and not the voice of that awful giant.

  “Come out and fight, Slocombe Pike!”

  American, it sounded.

  “Go and get him, Slogger,” Polly said.

  Pike gave a little w
himper and looked around for a weapon. He grabbed a cudgel, opened the guard room door and stepped out.

  Tim crept out behind him. The others were all whimpering in the corner.

  Standing in the centre of the courtyard in a pool of light was a pirate, brandishing a silver sword. An African pirate!

  “Which spirit are you?” Pike yelled, unable to hide the quiver of fear in his voice.

  “I am the ghost of Black Caesar!”

  The infamous pirate of the Caribbean! There he stood, but twenty feet away.

  Tim’s mother had read him grisly stories of Black Caesar’s exploits in a penny dreadful and said if he didn’t sleep, Black Caesar would come for him in the night and drag him away to serve as cabin boy on his pirate ship. And here he was in the flesh, finally come to steal Tim Cratchit away, just as his mother had promised!

  “Get gone!” Pike yelled. He gave his cudgel a practice swipe.

  Black Caesar flashed his silver sword around his head. It was a great big scimitar like a Turk’s. “You won’t! You’re a coward! I know the secrets of your heart. You cannot face a man in honest combat. All your life you’ve been a snivelling little chicken-hearted yellow belly!”

  Pike’s whimpering grew a little louder. He looked back to his boys and saw that he’d lost them. Polly put a crucifix to her lips and was praying.

  “Hush, wench!” Pike growled.

  “Lord save us from these spirits!” Polly wailed. “I’ll be good. I’ll be good the rest of my days, please, God, I promise!”

  It set off a wailing and a crying that spread through the boys — the youngest first, till it went right through to the oldest — and soon Slogger Pike was the unhappy nursemaid to a gaggle of screaming babies.

  He roared with rage, spittle flecking his rough chin and, brandishing the club with a scream that was more encouragement than bravery, set off down the stone steps to face the pirate.

  The beam of light moved from Black Caesar and flashed across to Pike coming down the steps. It hit his face and he recoiled, blinded for a moment, before pushing on to reach the courtyard below.

  The light went out, but Tim could still see the blobs of blue and yellow floating in his vision.

  Black Caesar was gone, leaving only the eerie snow to light the scene. Pike stood alone in the courtyard, looking around bewildered for his foe, the gate still wide open.