Dickens at Christmas (Vintage Classics)

by Charles Dickens

  ‘Why, what’s become of him?’ inquired the Doctor.

  The feather of a Bird of Paradise in Mrs Snitchey’s turban, trembled as if the Bird of Paradise were alive again, when she said that doubtless Mr Craggs knew. She was never told.

  ‘That nasty office,’ said Mrs Craggs.

  ‘I wish it was burnt down,’ said Mrs Snitchey.

  ‘He’s – he’s – there’s a little matter of business that keeps my partner rather late,’ said Mr Craggs, looking uneasily about him.

  ‘Oh-h! Business. Don’t tell me!’ said Mrs Snitchey.

  ‘We know what business means,’ said Mrs Craggs.

  But their not knowing what it meant, was perhaps the reason why Mrs Snitchey’s Bird of Paradise feather quivered so portentously, and why all the pendant bits on Mrs Craggs’s ear-rings shook like little bells.

  ‘I wonder you could come away, Mr Craggs,’ said his wife.

  ‘Mr Craggs is fortunate, I’m sure!’ said Mrs Snitchey.

  ‘That office so engrosses ’em,’ said Mrs Craggs.

  ‘A person with an office has no business to be married at all,’ said Mrs Snitchey.

  Then, Mrs Snitchey said, within herself, that that look of hers had pierced to Craggs’s soul, and he knew it; and Mrs Craggs observed to Craggs, that ‘his Snitcheys’ were deceiving him behind his back, and he would find it out when it was too late.

  Still, Mr Craggs, without much heeding these remarks, looked uneasily about until his eye rested on Grace, to whom he immediately presented himself.

  ‘Good evening, ma’am,’ said Craggs. ‘You look charmingly. Your – Miss – your sister, Miss Marion, is she –’

  ‘Oh, she’s quite well, Mr Craggs.’

  ‘Yes – I – is she here?’ asked Craggs.

  ‘Here! Don’t you see her yonder? Going to dance?’ said Grace.

  Mr Craggs put on his spectacles to see the better; looked at her through them, for some time; coughed; and put them, with an air of satisfaction, in their sheath again, and in his pocket.

  Now the music struck up, and the dance commenced. The bright fire crackled and sparkled, rose and fell, as though it joined the dance itself, in right good fellowship. Sometimes, it roared as if it would make music too. Sometimes, it flashed and beamed as if it were the eye of the old room: it winked too, sometimes, like a knowing patriarch, upon the youthful whisperers in corners. Sometimes, it sported with the holly-boughs; and, shining on the leaves by fits and starts, made them look as if they were in the cold winter night again, and fluttering in the wind. Sometimes its genial humour grew obstreperous, and passed all bounds; and then it cast into the room, among the twinkling feet, with a loud burst, a shower of harmless little sparks, and in its exultation leaped and bounded, like a mad thing, up the broad old chimney.

  Another dance was near its close, when Mr Snitchey touched his partner, who was looking on, upon the arm.

  Mr Craggs started, as if his familiar had been a spectre.

  ‘Is he gone?’ he asked.

  ‘Hush! He has been with me,’ said Snitchey, ‘for three hours and more. He went over everything. He looked into all our arrangements for him, and was very particular indeed. He – Humph!’

  The dance was finished. Marion passed close before him, as he spoke. She did not observe him, or his partner; but, looked over her shoulder towards her sister in the distance, as she slowly made her way into the crowd, and passed out of their view.

  ‘You see! All safe and well,’ said Mr Craggs. ‘He didn’t recur to that subject, I suppose?’

  ‘Not a word.’

  ‘And is he really gone? Is he safe away?’

  ‘He keeps to his word. He drops down the river with the tide in that shell of a boat of his, and so goes out to sea on this dark night! – a dare-devil he is – before the wind. There’s no such lonely road anywhere else. That’s one thing. The tide flows, he says, an hour before midnight – about this time. I’m glad it’s over.’ Mr Snitchey wiped his forehead, which looked hot and anxious.

  ‘What do you think,’ said Mr Craggs, ‘about –’

  ‘Hush!’ replied his cautious partner, looking straight before him. ‘I understand you. Don’t mention names, and don’t let us, seem to be talking secrets. I don’t know what to think; and to tell you the truth, I don’t care now. It’s a great relief. His self-love deceived him, I suppose. Perhaps the young lady coquetted a little. The evidence would seem to point that way. Alfred not arrived?’

  ‘Not yet,’ said Mr Craggs. ‘Expected every minute.’

  ‘Good.’ Mr Snitchey wiped his forehead again. ‘It’s a great relief. I haven’t been so nervous since we’ve been in partnership. I intend to spend the evening now, Mr Craggs.’

  Mrs Craggs and Mrs Snitchey joined them as he announced this intention. The Bird of Paradise was in a state of extreme vibration, and the little bells were ringing quite audibly.

  ‘It has been the theme of general comment, Mr Snitchey,’ said Mrs Snitchey. ‘I hope the office is satisfied.’

  ‘Satisfied with what, my dear?’ asked Mr Snitchey.

  ‘With the exposure of a defenceless woman to ridicule and remark,’ returned his wife. ‘That is quite in the way of the office, that is.’

  ‘I really, myself,’ said Mrs Craggs, ‘have been so long accustomed to connect the office with everything opposed to domesticity, that I am glad to know it as the avowed enemy of my peace. There is something honest in that, at all events.’

  ‘My dear,’ urged Mr Craggs, ‘your good opinion is invaluable, but I never avowed that the office was the enemy of your peace.’

  ‘No,’ said Mrs Craggs, ringing a perfect peal upon the little bells. ‘Not you, indeed. You wouldn’t be worthy of the office, if you had the candour to.’

  ‘As to my having been away tonight, my dear,’ said Mr Snitchey, giving her his arm, ‘the deprivation has been mine, I’m sure; but, as Mr Craggs knows –’

  Mrs Snitchey cut this reference very short by hitching her husband to a distance, and asking him to look at that man. To do her the favour to look at him!

  ‘At which man, my dear?’ said Mr Snitchey.

  ‘Your chosen companion; I’m no companion to you, Mr Snitchey.’

  ‘Yes, yes, you are, my dear,’ he interposed.

  ‘No, no, I’m not,’ said Mrs Snitchey with a majestic smile. ‘I know my station. Will you look at your chosen companion, Mr Snitchey; at your referee, at the keeper of your secrets, at the man you trust; at your other self, in short?’

  The habitual association of Self with Craggs, occasioned Mr Snitchey to look in that direction.

  ‘If you can look that man in the eye this night,’ said Mrs Snitchey, ‘and not know that you are deluded, practised upon, made the victim of his arts, and bent down prostrate to his will by some unaccountable fascination which it is impossible to explain and against which no warning of mine is of the least avail, all I can say is – I pity you!’

  At the very same moment Mrs Craggs was oracular on the cross subject. Was it possible, she said, that Craggs could so blind himself to his Snitcheys, as not to feel his true position? Did he mean to say that he had seen his Snitcheys come into that room, and didn’t plainly see that there was reservation, cunning, treachery, in the man? Would he tell her that his very action, when he wiped his forehead and looked so stealthily about him, didn’t show that there was something weighing on the conscience of his precious Snitcheys (if he had a conscience), that wouldn’t bear the light? Did anybody but his Snitcheys come to festive entertainments like a burglar? – which, by the way, was hardly a clear illustration of the case, as he had walked in very mildly at the door. And would he still assert to her at noon-day (it being nearly midnight), that his Snitcheys were to be justified through thick and thin, against all facts, and reason, and experience?

  Neither Snitchey nor Craggs openly attempted to stem the current which had thus set in, but, both were content to be carried gently along it, until its force aba
ted. This happened at about the same time as a general movement for a country dance; when Mr Snitchey proposed himself as a partner to Mrs Craggs, and Mr Craggs gallantly offered himself to Mrs Snitchey; and after some such slight evasions as ‘why don’t you ask somebody else?’ and ‘you’ll be glad, I know, if I decline,’ and ‘I wonder you can dance out of the office’ (but this jocosely now), each lady graciously accepted, and took her place.

  It was an old custom among them, indeed, to do so, and to pair off, in like manner, at dinners and suppers; for they were excellent friends, and on a footing of easy familiarity. Perhaps the false Craggs and the wicked Snitchey were a recognised fiction with the two wives, as Doe and Roe, incessantly running up and down bailiwicks, were with the two husbands: or, perhaps the ladies had instituted, and taken upon themselves, these two shares in the business, rather than be left out of it altogether. But, certain it is, that each wife went as gravely and steadily to work in her vocation as her husband did in his, and would have considered it almost impossible for the Firm to maintain a successful and respectable existence, without her laudable exertions.

  But, now, the Bird of Paradise was seen to flutter down the middle; and the little bells began to bounce and jingle in poussette; and the Doctor’s rosy face spun round and round, like an expressive pegtop highly varnished; and breathless Mr Craggs began to doubt already, whether country dancing had been made ‘too easy,’ like the rest of life; and Mr Snitchey, with his nimble cuts and capers, footed it for Self and Craggs, and half-a-dozen more.

  Now, too, the fire took fresh courage, favoured by the lively wind the dance awakened, and burnt clear and high. It was the Genius of the room, and present everywhere. It shone in people’s eyes, it sparkled in the jewels on the snowy necks of girls, it twinkled at their ears as if it whispered to them slyly, it flashed about their waists, it flickered on the ground and made it rosy for their feet, it bloomed upon the ceiling that its glow might set off their bright faces, and it kindled up a general illumination in Mrs Craggs’s little belfry.

  Now, too, the lively air that fanned it, grew less gentle as the music quickened and the dance proceeded with new spirit; and a breeze arose that made the leaves and berries dance upon the wall, as they had often done upon the trees; and the breeze rustled in the room as if an invisible company of fairies, treading in the footsteps of the good substantial revellers, were whirling after them. Now, too, no feature of the Doctor’s face could be distinguished as he spun and spun; and now there seemed a dozen Birds of Paradise in fitful flight; and now there were a thousand little bells at work; and now a fleet of flying skirts was ruffled by a little tempest, when the music gave in, and the dance was over.

  Hot and breathless as the Doctor was, it only made him the more impatient for Alfred’s coming.

  ‘Anything been seen, Britain? Anything been heard?’

  ‘Too dark to see far, sir. Too much noise inside the house to hear.’

  ‘That’s right! The gayer welcome for him. How goes the time?’

  ‘Just twelve, sir. He can’t be long, sir.’

  ‘Stir up the fire, and throw another log upon it,’ said the Doctor. ‘Let him see his welcome blazing out upon the night – good boy! – as he comes along!’

  He saw it – Yes! From the chaise he caught the light, as he turned the corner by the old church. He knew the room from which it shone. He saw the wintry branches of the old trees between the light and him. He knew that one of those trees rustled musically in the summer time at the window of Marion’s chamber.

  The tears were in his eyes. His heart throbbed so violently that he could hardly bear his happiness. How often he had thought of this time – pictured it under all circumstances – feared that it might never come – yearned, and wearied for it – far away!

  Again the light! Distinct and ruddy; kindled, he knew, to give him welcome, and to speed him home. He beckoned with his hand, and waved his hat, and cheered out, loud, as if the light were they, and they could see and hear him, as he dashed towards them through the mud and mire, triumphantly.

  Stop! He knew the Doctor, and understood what he had done. He would not let it be a surprise to them. But he could make it one, yet, by going forward on foot. If the orchard-gate were open, he could enter there; if not, the wall was easily climbed, as he knew of old; and he would be among them in an instant.

  He dismounted from the chaise, and telling the driver – even that was not easy in his agitation – to remain behind for a few minutes, and then to follow slowly, ran on with exceeding swiftness, tried the gate, scaled the wall, jumped down on the other side, and stood panting in the old orchard.

  There was a frosty rime upon the trees, which, in the faint light of the clouded moon, hung upon the smaller branches like dead garlands. Withered leaves crackled and snapped beneath his feet, as he crept softly on towards the house. The desolation of a winter night sat brooding on the earth, and in the sky. But, the red light came cheerily towards him from the windows; figures passed and repassed there; and the hum and murmur of voices greeted his ear sweetly.

  Listening for hers: attempting, as he crept on, to detach it from the rest, and half believing that he heard it: he had nearly reached the door, when it was abruptly opened, and a figure coming out encountered his. It instantly recoiled with a half-suppressed cry.

  ‘Clemency,’ he said, ‘don’t you know me?’

  ‘Don’t come in!’ she answered, pushing him back. ‘Go away. Don’t ask me why. Don’t come in.’

  ‘What is the matter?’ he exclaimed.

  ‘I don’t know. I – I am afraid to think. Go back. Hark!’

  There was a sudden tumult in the house. She put her hands upon her ears. A wild scream, such as no hands could shut out, was heard; and Grace – distraction in her looks and manner – rushed out at the door.

  ‘Grace!’ He caught her in his arms. ‘What is it! Is she dead!’

  She disengaged herself, as if to recognise his face, and fell down at his feet.

  A crowd of figures came about them from the house. Among them was her father, with a paper in his hand.

  ‘What is it!’ cried Alfred, grasping his hair with his hands, and looking in an agony from face to face, as he bent upon his knee beside the insensible girl. ‘Will no one look at me? Will no one speak to me? Does no one know me? Is there no voice among you all, to tell me what it is!’

  There was a murmur among them. ‘She is gone.’

  ‘Gone!’ he echoed.

  ‘Fled, my dear Alfred!’ said the Doctor, in a broken voice, and with his hands before his face. ‘Gone from her home and us. Tonight! She writes that she has made her innocent and blameless choice – entreats that we will forgive her – prays that we will not forget her – and is gone.’

  ‘With whom? Where?’

  He started up, as if to follow in pursuit; but, when they gave way to let him pass, looked wildly round upon them, staggered back, and sunk down in his former attitude, clasping one of Grace’s cold hands in his own.

  There was a hurried running to and fro, confusion, noise, disorder, and no purpose. Some proceeded to disperse themselves about the roads, and some took horse, and some got lights, and some conversed together, urging that there was no trace or track to follow. Some approached him kindly, with the view of offering consolation; some admonished him that Grace must be removed into the house, and that he prevented it. He never heard them, and he never moved.

  The snow fell fast and thick. He looked up for a moment in the air, and thought that those white ashes strewn upon his hopes and misery, were suited to them well. He looked round on the whitening ground, and thought how Marion’s foot-prints would be hushed and covered up, as soon as made, and even that remembrance of her blotted out. But he never felt the weather and he never stirred.

  PART THE THIRD

  THE WORLD HAD grown six years older since that night of the return. It was a warm autumn afternoon, and there had been heavy rain. The sun burst suddenly from among the cl
ouds; and the old battle-ground, sparkling brilliantly and cheerfully at sight of it in one green place, flashed a responsive welcome there, which spread along the countryside as if a joyful beacon had been lighted up, and answered from a thousand stations.

  How beautiful the landscape kindling in the light, and that luxuriant influence passing on like a celestial presence, brightening everything! The wood, a sombre mass before, revealed its varied tints of yellow, green, brown, red: its different forms of trees, with raindrops glittering on their leaves and twinkling as they fell. The verdant meadow-land, bright and glowing, seemed as if it had been blind, a minute since, and now had found a sense of sight where-with to look up at the shining sky. Corn-fields, hedge-rows, fences, homesteads, and clustered roofs, the steeple of the church, the stream, the watermill, all sprang out of the gloomy darkness smiling. Birds sang sweetly, flowers raised their drooping heads, fresh scents arose from the invigorated ground; the blue expanse above extended and diffused itself; already the sun’s slanting rays pierced mortally the sullen bank of cloud that lingered in its flight; and a rainbow, spirit of all the colours that adorned the earth and sky, spanned the whole arch with its triumphant glory.

  At such a time, one little roadside Inn, snugly sheltered behind a great elm-tree with a rare seat for idlers encircling its capacious bole, addressed a cheerful front towards the traveller, as a house of entertainment ought, and tempted him with many mute but significant assurances of a comfortable welcome. The ruddy sign-board perched up in the tree, with its golden letters winking in the sun, ogled the passer-by, from among the green leaves, like a jolly face, and promised good cheer. The horse-trough, full of clear fresh water, and the ground below it sprinkled with droppings of fragrant hay, made every horse that passed, prick up his ears. The crimson curtains in the lower rooms, and the pure white hangings in the little bed-chambers above, beckoned, Come in! with every breath of air. Upon the bright green shutters, there were golden legends about beer and ale, and neat wines, and good beds; and an affecting picture of a brown jug frothing over at the top. Upon the window-sills were flowering plants in bright red pots, which made a lively show against the white front of the house; and in the darkness of the doorway there were streaks of light, which glanced off from the surfaces of bottles and tankards.