Dickens at Christmas (Vintage Classics)

by Charles Dickens

  She faltered here, and stopped.

  ‘And which –’ repeated the stranger.

  ‘Which only one other person, I believe, could explain,’ said Clemency, drawing her breath quickly.

  ‘Who may that be?’ asked the stranger.

  ‘Mr Michael Warden!’ answered Clemency, almost in a shriek: at once conveying to her husband what she would have had him understand before, and letting Michael Warden know that he was recognised.

  ‘You remember me, sir?’ said Clemency, trembling with emotion; ‘I saw just now you did! You remember me, that night in the garden. I was with her!’

  ‘Yes. You were,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ returned Clemency. ‘Yes, to be sure. This is my husband, if you please. Ben, my dear Ben, run to Miss Grace – run to Mr Alfred – run somewhere, Ben! Bring somebody here, directly!’

  ‘Stay!’ said Michael Warden, quietly interposing himself between the door and Britain. ‘What would you do?’

  ‘Let them know that you are here, sir,’ answered Clemency, clapping her hands in sheer agitation. ‘Let them know that they may hear of her, from your own lips; let them know that she is not quite lost to them, but that she will come home again yet, to bless her father and her loving sister – even her old servant, even me,’ she struck herself upon the breast with both hands, ‘with a sight of her sweet face. Run, Ben, run!’ And still she pressed him on towards the door, and still Mr Warden stood before it, with his hand stretched out, not angrily, but sorrowfully.

  ‘Or perhaps,’ said Clemency, running past her husband, and catching in her emotion at Mr Warden’s cloak, ‘perhaps she’s here now; perhaps she’s close by. I think from your manner she is. Let me see her, sir, if you please. I waited on her when she was a little child. I saw her grow to be the pride of all this place. I knew her when she was Mr Alfred’s promised wife. I tried to warn her when you tempted her away. I know what her old home was when she was like the soul of it, and how it changed when she was gone and lost. Let me speak to her, if you please!’

  He gazed at her with compassion, not unmixed with wonder: but, he made no gesture of assent.

  ‘I don’t think she can know,’ pursued Clemency, ‘how truly they forgive her; how they love her; what joy it would be to them, to see her once more. She may be timorous of going home. Perhaps if she sees me, it may give her new heart. Only tell me truly, Mr Warden, is she with you?’

  ‘She is not,’ he answered, shaking his head.

  This answer, and his manner, and his black dress, and his coming back so quietly, and his announced intention of continuing to live abroad, explained it all. Marion was dead.

  He didn’t contradict her; yes, she was dead! Clemency sat down, hid her face upon the table, and cried.

  At that moment, a grey-headed old gentleman came running in: quite out of breath, and panting so much that his voice was scarcely to be recognised as the voice of Mr Snitchey.

  ‘Good Heaven, Mr Warden!’ said the lawyer, taking him aside, ‘what wind has blown –’ He was so blown himself, that he couldn’t get on any further until after a pause, when he added, feebly, ‘you here?’

  ‘An ill-wind, I am afraid,’ he answered. ‘If you could have heard what has just passed – how I have been besought and entreated to perform impossibilities – what confusion and affliction I carry with me!’

  ‘I can guess it all. But why did you ever come here, my good sir?’ retorted Snitchey.

  ‘Come! How should I know who kept the house? When I sent my servant on to you, I strolled in here because the place was new to me; and I had a natural curiosity in everything new and old, in these old scenes; and it was outside the town. I wanted to communicate with you, first, before appearing there. I wanted to know what people would say to me. I see by your manner that you can tell me. If it were not for your confounded caution, I should have been possessed of everything long ago.’

  ‘Our caution!’ returned the lawyer, ‘speaking for Self and Craggs – deceased,’ here Mr Snitchey, glancing at his hat-band, shook his head, ‘how can you reasonably blame us, Mr Warden? It was understood between us that the subject was never to be renewed, and that it wasn’t a subject on which grave and sober men like us (I made a note of your observations at the time) could interfere. Our caution too! When Mr Craggs, sir, went down to his respected grave in the full belief –’

  ‘I had given a solemn promise of silence until I should return, whenever that might be,’ interrupted Mr Warden; ‘and I have kept it.’

  ‘Well, sir, and I repeat it,’ returned Mr Snitchey, ‘we were bound to silence too. We were bound to silence in our duty towards ourselves, and in our duty towards a variety of clients, you among them, who were as close as wax. It was not our place to make inquiries of you on such a delicate subject. I had my suspicions, sir; but, it is not six months since I have known the truth, and been assured that you lost her.’

  ‘By whom?’ inquired his client.

  ‘By Doctor Jeddler himself, sir, who at last reposed that confidence in me voluntarily. He, and only he, has known the whole truth, years and years.’

  ‘And you know it?’ said his client.

  ‘I do, sir!’ replied Snitchey; ‘and I have also reason to know that it will be broken to her sister tomorrow evening. They have given her that promise. In the meantime, perhaps you’ll give me the honour of your company at my house; being unexpected at your own. But, not to run the chance of any more such difficulties as you have had here, in case you should be recognised – though you’re a good deal changed; I think I might have passed you myself, Mr Warden – we had better dine here, and walk on in the evening. It’s a very good place to dine at, Mr Warden: your own property, by the bye. Self and Craggs (deceased) took a chop here sometimes, and had it very comfortably served. Mr Craggs, sir,’ said Snitchey, shutting his eyes tight for an instant, and opening them again, ‘was struck off the roll of life too soon.’

  ‘Heaven forgive me for not condoling with you,’ returned Michael Warden, passing his hand across his forehead, ‘but I’m like a man in a dream at present. I seem to want my wits. Mr Craggs – yes – I am very sorry we have lost Mr Craggs.’ But he looked at Clemency as he said it, and seemed to sympathise with Ben, consoling her.

  ‘Mr Craggs, sir,’ observed Snitchey, ‘didn’t find life, I regret to say, as easy to have and to hold as his theory made it out, or he would have been among us now. It’s a great loss to me. He was my right arm, my right leg, my right ear, my right eye, was Mr Craggs. I am paralytic without him. He bequeathed his share of the business to Mrs Craggs, her executors, administrators, and assigns. His name remains in the Firm to this hour. I try, in a childish sort of a way, to make believe, sometimes, he’s alive. You may observe that I speak for Self and Craggs – deceased, sir – deceased,’ said the tender-hearted attorney, waving his pocket-handkerchief.

  Michael Warden, who had still been observant of Clemency, turned to Mr Snitchey when he ceased to speak, and whispered in his ear.

  ‘Ah, poor thing!’ said Snitchey, shaking his head. ‘Yes. She was always very faithful to Marion. She was always very fond of her. Pretty Marion! Poor Marion! Cheer up, Mistress – you are married now, you know, Clemency.’

  Clemency only sighed, and shook her head.

  ‘Well, well! Wait till tomorrow,’ said the lawyer, kindly.

  ‘Tomorrow can’t bring back the dead to life, Mister,’ said Clemency, sobbing.

  ‘No. It can’t do that, or it would bring back Mr Craggs, deceased,’ returned the lawyer. ‘But it may bring some soothing circumstances; it may bring some comfort. Wait till tomorrow!’

  So Clemency, shaking his proffered hand, said she would; and Britain, who had been terribly cast down at sight of his despondent wife (which was like the business hanging its head), said that was right; and Mr Snitchey and Michael Warden went up stairs; and there they were soon engaged in a conversation so cautiously conducted, that no murmur of it was audible above the clatter of plat
es and dishes, the hissing of the frying-pan, the bubbling of saucepans, the low monotonous waltzing of the jack – with a dreadful click every now and then as if it had met with some mortal accident to its head, in a fit of giddiness – and all the other preparations in the kitchen for their dinner.

  Tomorrow was a bright and peaceful day; and nowhere were the autumn tints more beautifully seen, than from the quiet orchard of the Doctor’s house. The snows of many winter nights had melted from that ground, the withered leaves of many summer times had rustled there, since she had fled. The honey-suckle porch was green again, the trees cast bountiful and changing shadows on the grass, the landscape was as tranquil and serene as it had ever been; but where was she!

  Not there. Not there. She would have been a stranger sight in her old home now, even than that home had been at first, without her. But, a lady sat in the familiar place, from whose heart she had never passed away; in whose true memory she lived, unchanging, youthful, radiant with all promise and all hope; in whose affection – and it was a mother’s now, there was a cherished little daughter playing by her side – she had no rival, no successor; upon whose gentle lips her name was trembling then.

  The spirit of the lost girl looked out of those eyes. Those eyes of Grace, her sister, sitting with her husband in the orchard, on their wedding-day, and his and Marion’s birthday.

  He had not become a great man; he had not grown rich; he had not forgotten the scenes and friends of his youth; he had not fulfilled any one of the Doctor’s old predictions. But, in his useful, patient, unknown visiting of poor men’s homes; and in his watching of sick beds; and in his daily knowledge of the gentleness and goodness flowering the by-paths of this world, not to be trodden down beneath the heavy foot of poverty, but springing up, elastic, in its track, and making its way beautiful; he had better learnt and proved, in each succeeding year, the truth of his old faith. The manner of his life, though quiet and remote, had shown him how often men still entertained angels, unawares, as in the olden time; and how the most unlikely forms – even some that were mean and ugly to the view, and poorly clad – became irradiated by the couch of sorrow, want, and pain, and changed to ministering spirits with a glory round their heads.

  He lived to better purpose on the altered battle-ground, perhaps, than if he had contended restlessly in more ambitious lists; and he was happy with his wife, dear Grace.

  And Marion. Had he forgotten her?

  ‘The time has flown, dear Grace,’ he said, ‘since then’; they had been talking of that night; ‘and yet it seems a long long while ago. We count by changes and events within us. Not by years.’

  ‘Yet we have years to count by, too, since Marion was with us,’ returned Grace. ‘Six times, dear husband, counting tonight as one, we have sat here on her birthday, and spoken together of that happy return, so eagerly expected and so long deferred. Ah when will it be! When will it be!’

  Her husband attentively observed her, as the tears collected in her eyes; and drawing nearer, said:

  ‘But, Marion told you, in that farewell letter which she left for you upon your table, love, and which you read so often, that years must pass away before it could be. Did she not?’

  She took a letter from her breast, and kissed it, and said ‘Yes.’

  ‘That through these intervening years, however happy she might be, she would look forward to the time when you would meet again, and all would be made clear; and that she prayed you, trustfully and hopefully to do the same. The letter runs so, does it not, my dear?’

  ‘Yes, Alfred.’

  ‘And every other letter she has written since?’

  ‘Except the last – some months ago – in which she spoke of you, and what you then knew, and what I was to learn tonight.’

  He looked towards the sun, then fast declining, and said that the appointed time was sunset.

  ‘Alfred!’ said Grace, laying her hand upon his shoulder earnestly, ‘there is something in this letter – this old letter, which you say I read so often – that I have never told you. But, tonight, dear husband, with that sunset drawing near, and all our life seeming to soften and become hushed with the departing day, I cannot keep it secret.’

  ‘What is it, love?’

  ‘When Marion went away, she wrote me, here, that you had once left her a sacred trust to me, and that now she left you, Alfred, such a trust in my hands: praying and beseeching me, as I loved her, and as I loved you, not to reject the affection she believed (she knew, she said) you would transfer to me when the new wound was healed, but to encourage and return it.’

  ‘– And make me a proud, and happy man again, Grace. Did she say so?’

  ‘She meant, to make myself so blest and honoured in your love,’ was his wife’s answer, as he held her in his arms.

  ‘Hear me, my dear!’ he said. ‘No. Hear me so!’ – and as he spoke, he gently laid the head she had raised, again upon his shoulder. ‘I know why I have never heard this passage in the letter, until now. I know why no trace of it ever showed itself in any word or look of yours at that time. I know why Grace, although so true a friend to me, was hard to win to be my wife. And knowing it, my own! I know the priceless value of the heart I gird within my arms, and thank God for the rich possession!’

  She wept, but not for sorrow, as he pressed her to his heart. After a brief space, he looked down at the child, who was sitting at their feet playing with a little basket of flowers, and bade her look how golden and how red the sun was.

  ‘Alfred,’ said Grace, raising her head quickly at these words. ‘The sun is going down. You have not forgotten what I am to know before it sets.’

  ‘You are to know the truth of Marion’s history, my love,’ he answered.

  ‘All the truth,’ she said, imploringly. ‘Nothing veiled from me, any more. That was the promise. Was it not?’

  ‘It was,’ he answered.

  ‘Before the sun went down on Marion’s birthday. And you see it, Alfred? It is sinking fast.’

  He put his arm about her waist, and, looking steadily into her eyes, rejoined:

  ‘That truth is not reserved so long for me to tell, dear Grace. It is to come from other lips.’

  ‘From other lips!’ she faintly echoed.

  ‘Yes. I know your constant heart, I know how brave you are, I know that to you a word of preparation is enough. You have said, truly, that the time is come. It is. Tell me that you have present fortitude to bear a trial – a surprise – a shock: and the messenger is waiting at the gate.’

  ‘What messenger?’ she said. ‘And what intelligence does he bring?’

  ‘I am pledged,’ he answered her, preserving his steady look, ‘to say no more. Do you think you understand me?’

  ‘I am afraid to think,’ she said.

  There was that emotion in his face, despite its steady gaze, which frightened her. Again she hid her own face on his shoulder, trembling, and entreated him to pause – a moment.

  ‘Courage, my wife! When you have firmness to receive the messenger, the messenger is waiting at the gate. The sun is setting on Marion’s birthday. Courage, courage, Grace!’

  She raised her head, and, looking at him, told him she was ready. As she stood, and looked upon him going away, her face was so like Marion’s as it had been in her later days at home, that it was wonderful to see. He took the child with him. She called her back – she bore the lost girl’s name – and pressed her to her bosom. The little creature, being released again, sped after him, and Grace was left alone.

  She knew not what she dreaded, or what hoped; but remained there, motionless, looking at the porch by which they had disappeared.

  Ah! what was that, emerging from its shadow; standing on its threshold! That figure, with its white garments rustling in the evening air; its head laid down upon her father’s breast, and pressed against it to his loving heart! O God! was it a vision that came bursting from the old man’s arms, and with a cry, and with a waving of its hands, and with a wild precipita
tion of itself upon her in its boundless love, sank down in her embrace!

  ‘Oh, Marion, Marion! Oh, my sister! Oh, my heart’s dear love! Oh, joy and happiness unutterable, so to meet again!’

  It was no dream, no phantom conjured up by hope and fear, but Marion, sweet Marion! So beautiful, so happy, so unalloyed by care and trial, so elevated and exalted in her loveliness, that as the setting sun shone brightly on her upturned face, she might have been a spirit visiting the earth upon some healing mission.

  Clinging to her sister, who had dropped upon a seat and bent down over her – and smiling through her tears – and kneeling, close before her, with both arms twining round her, and never turning for an instant from her face – and with the glory of the setting sun upon her brow, and with the soft tranquillity of evening gathering around them – Marion at length broke silence; her voice, so calm, low, clear, and pleasant, well-tuned to the time.

  ‘When this was my dear home, Grace, as it will be now again –’

  ‘Stay, my sweet love! A moment! O Marion, to hear you speak again.’

  She could not bear the voice she loved so well, at first.

  ‘When this was my dear home, Grace, as it will be now again, I loved him from my soul. I loved him most devotedly. I would have died for him, though I was so young. I never slighted his affection in my secret breast for one brief instant. It was far beyond all price to me. Although it is so long ago, and past, and gone, and everything is wholly changed, I could not bear to think that you, who love so well, should think I did not truly love him once. I never loved him better, Grace, than when he left this very scene upon this very day. I never loved him better, dear one, than I did that night when I left here.’

  Her sister, bending over her, could look into her face, and hold her fast.

  ‘But he had gained, unconsciously,’ said Marion, with a gentle smile, ‘another heart, before I knew that I had one to give him. That heart – yours, my sister! – was so yielded up, in all its other tenderness, to me; was so devoted, and so noble; that it plucked its love away, and kept its secret from all eyes but mine – Ah! what other eyes were quickened by such tenderness and gratitude! – and was content to sacrifice itself to me. But, I knew something of its depths. I knew the struggle it had made. I knew its high, inestimable worth to him, and his appreciation of it, let him love me as he would. I knew the debt I owed it. I had its great example every day before me. What you had done for me, I knew that I could do, Grace, if I would, for you. I never laid my head down on my pillow, but I prayed with tears to do it. I never laid my head down on my pillow, but I thought of Alfred’s own words on the day of his departure, and how truly he had said (for I knew that, knowing you) that there were victories gained every day, in struggling hearts, to which these fields of battle were nothing. Thinking more and more upon the great endurance cheerfully sustained, and never known or cared for, that there must be, every day and hour, in that great strife of which he spoke, my trial seemed to grow light and easy. And He who knows our hearts, my dearest, at this moment, and who knows there is no drop of bitterness or grief – of anything but unmixed happiness – in mine, enabled me to make the resolution that I never would be Alfred’s wife. That he should be my brother, and your husband, if the course I took could bring that happy end to pass; but that I never would (Grace, I then loved him dearly, dearly!) be his wife!’