The Very Name of Christmas

by Martiele Sidles

  The Very Name of Christmas

  by

  Martiele M. Sidles

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Jessica Bradshaw (on behalf of Martiele Sidles) on Smashwords

  Copyright © 2012 by Martiele M. Sidles

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.

  For my wonderful husband who gifted me with

  the time, the support and the determination

  to pen this Christmas tale and send it forth.

  *****

  The Very Name of Christmas

  CHAPTER 1

  REMINISCENCES

  The fire burned brightly on the iron grate, sending a cheery glow and warm ribbons of light into the gray corners of the room. The miniature ornaments of a small fir tree, hung with special care this particular Christmastime, gathered delicate shimmers of light from the fire and radiated their own charm. Slender white candles stood smartly on the graceful branches awaiting their turn to illuminate the celebration. A velvet-covered box containing a golden band lay in signal honor on the snowy white cloth draped at the base of the tiny tree, and a red-ribboned pine wreath offered its benevolent fragrance in honor of the festive winter season. Hot dark tea and a rich, knobby fruitcake sat on a little table next to a large crimson, ballooned-backed chair, ready to comfort and sustain. All these went unnoticed as the silence deepened languidly to utter stillness.

  Sombrous shadows remained beyond the windows of the room except in the eyes of the tall man seated quietly before the fire. His very stillness accentuated the hush that closed about him. While the cruel winds of a bitter December swept London's streets and buffeted the poor, the room was an oasis of ease and calm. The young man mused, oblivious to his comforts and immersed in his thoughts, moving slowly backward in his mind to a stark moment several days previous. As he shook his head to chase away the inner vision, a look of deep sorrow crossed his face. His eyes closed and his head slipped sideways to rest upon his hand. A great sigh escaped him, and then stillness, like an over-heavy cloak, settled once again. Outside church bells tolled the hours like a priest counting his beads.

  Sundry moments in time chased each other jerkily across his inner sight. He envisioned that recent day, empty and shadowed; time shifted drunkenly in his mind...

  Solemn groups of mourners hurried mutely past the large granite gravestone, seeking light, warmth and the sustenance of life and moved silently away while the minister pulled his woolen shawl closer about his black-clad shoulders, shook the hand of the tall young gentleman and vanished, crow-like, into the thick gray air. Drifting snow and the mournful moan of the wind swirled around the lone figure left standing near the newly filled grave.

  The young gentleman, bleak-visaged and hunched against the cold, stood silent and unmoving.

  Scrooge was dead. Decidedly, irretrievably dead, if one could believe the evidence of one's eyes and ears. One's heart, now that was another matter altogether, for Scrooge lived on there, ever the same, forever unchanged in his kindness, generosity and affection.

  Scrooge dead? How could this be? How could such emptiness be borne? This was unthinkable, intolerable!

  After many long moments, the young man bent slowly and placed a beribboned holly wreath against the gray marble stone whose inscription read:

  EBENEZER SCROOGE

  1785 - 1865

  BELOVED BENEFACTOR

  AND

  FRIEND TO ALL MANKIND

  The solemnity had weighted the young man's shoulders, but he leaned forward and spoke softly into the still air, "How very much I shall miss you, sir! I shall long for those times we spent together, you and I. How I shall miss your laughter and your comfortable way of finding and recognizing only the good in men, dismissing the bad with an understanding wink and a tolerant smile. I shall make you proud, sir, proud of your investment and proud of your Tim. I shall carry you with me always. I wish you joy in your new adventure and the deserved companionship of men and angels." He tucked the ribbons, a blaze of red and gold, securely around the wreath and patted it gently.

  Moving slowly from the graveside, stiff with the cold and unremitting sorrow, he turned briefly and looked back, then staggered. He would come here often, just as he had visited at the bedside during the last difficult, wasting weeks. Neither Ebenezer Scrooge nor his generosity would be forgotten! Never that! Never that!

  Tim's inner eye penetrated past the claw-like trees scraping the dun sky, past the ghostly white mist rising from Scrooge's final green-canopied bed and looked into warm, well-appointed chambers, remembering some weeks before that chill day. Uncle Ebenezer lay propped up on a snowy white mountain of pillows, smiling agreeably, his fine brown eyes crinkled in mirth, clutching a great thickness of cream-colored papers in his thin white hands.

  "Tim, my boy, come here to me and tell me about your nights in that charnel house you call a workplace." He held out his hand, eyes twinkling merrily.

  Tim moved forward, hand outstretched, smiling broadly and settling into his usual chair.

  "Uncle Ebenezer, what a thing to say!"Tim frowned sternly. It was always their first greeting whenever they met. "Tell me, boy, are you worth your hire? Are you involved with your fellows?" Scrooge continued, his eyes searching the somber young face before him. "Now, come, let me embrace you!" Tim bent to receive his embrace, mourning once again the frailness of Scrooge's withered frame and the opaque whiteness of his skin. No time, whispered his heart, so little time left!

  They chatted for over an hour when Scrooge leaned to place his frail hand once again on Tim's strong one.

  "We must talk, young sir," he said. "We must talk seriously about serious things. There must be no putting me off this time; you must listen with your heart, and you must hear me while I am still with you to give you such explanations as you require. You cannot escape me."

  Tim bowed his head.

  "Yes, sir. The time has truly come. I will listen with my heart and thank you kindly for the attention," he said. Green eyes sought gray.

  Scrooge smiled, wistfully for his love, and soon-to-be-loss, of the young man, and gratefully for the journey he knew he himself would soon take.

  "Well, sit up then, young sir, and mark my words. Attend me most carefully, for the stories I shall tell you will both enlighten and amaze you." Ebenezer Scrooge lifted his spectacles to his nose and looked over them, peering at Tim's face. What he saw both lightened his heart and troubled his spirit. Such a dear face, that of the son he had waited too late to hope for so wholeheartedly! When he beheld Tim's clear, untroubled gaze, he began to speak, quietly at first and then with great animation.

  For an hour he recounted his early life: a joyless childhood, the gruff father, his lovely sister and her son, joy in his love for Isabelle Fezziwig, delight in being fully alive to his world, and then on to the early steps on the road to the fullness of greed and the poverty of his soul. As his voice grew fuller and his emotion stronger, Tim began to worry about the exertion Scrooge was causing himself. Uncle Ebenezer must rest, must conserve his strength and thus continue to lengthen his days. Tim frowned, having lost the thread of the story, and then reached out to stop the rising and falling cadence of the old man's words. Ebenezer held up his hand, reached for a glass of barley water and drank thirstily, final
ly sinking back to cool pillows and closing his eyes.

  "A moment, please, young sir, a moment to compose myself."

  Tim sat quietly, waiting for the words to resume their steady flow.

  Scrooge patted the pillows higher behind him, sat up and again leaned forward, albeit more slowly this time but with greater purpose.

  "There is more," he said, "much more. Hear with your heart; let your mind roam free."

  Uncle Ebenezer began to relate the oddest tale Tim had ever heard: all about Christmas and spirits past, present and future; shining gifts and gravestones; Bob Cratchit and a handful of coal; a talking doorknocker; Marley draped in heavy chains; of clocks striking the hours of his destiny; someone stealing the bedclothes from around his lifeless body; a spectral tale of despair and hope, joy and sorrow, life and death. As the haunting story spun itself into ever more ghostly realms, Tim listened in dismay, afraid for the old man's sanity. Scrooge smiled, sighed and spoke sweetly of humanity and humaneness, of hope and peace, service and compassion, forgiveness and joy. He spoke of a debt, at first burdensome and then joyous, that he had owed his fellowmen and how tirelessly he had worked for uncounted years to repay it. He mentioned his prosperity: how he had used it to help ease the plight of the downtrodden; how, far from spending his capital, it had increased to such an extent that he found it impossible to spend it in his lifetime. Finally, he focused upon his consuming love for mankind and the way that love had filled the emptiness of his lesser self with the fullness of pure charity, producing a self greater than he had ever imagined possible. Scrooge's eyes shone with remembered joys.

  "I have had nigh on to twenty years to balance the ledger, and now, young sir, I leave it all to you, my fortune and my love. Use my fortune to bless and comfort, to succor and lift, and always remember to build others by removing that which destroys the finer instincts of mankind. Remove cold, poverty, hunger and thirst, and ignorance, always ignorance, mostly that. For after all, we are kindred travelers on the earth, bound by human compassion and need. Promise me! Promise me you will use it for the benefit of others, in my name and in your own. Promise me! It is the dearest desire of my life and the greatest wish of my soul." The old man's hands reached out imploringly to the younger man facing him.

  Scrooge sank back on his pillows, weak, shaking and spent.

  Tim moved to the bed and grasped the old man's hands, tears shining in his eyes, his response more from concern for Scrooge's well-being than in recognition of Scrooge's admonition.

  "Yes, sir, anything you say, sir. I will honor your wishes and do all you admonish me to do. Just calm yourself. All shall be as you wish throughout the days of my life."

  Scrooge smiled. Then kiss me, son of my heart, to seal our bargain. And then sit with me awhile. Take this gift, and stay by me now." With that he pressed a cool, square box into Tim's hand. Thinking only of Scrooge's comfort, Tim placed the gift on a table and kissed Ebenezer's pale cheek. As he sat by the bed, the lamp turned low, the shadows caused in Tim's mind by the old man's ravings were dispelled by the light. Scrooge closed his eyes and dozed. An hour passed. Two more followed. Tim slept lightly in the warm, quiet room but awoke and moved quickly to the bedside when he heard Ebenezer exclaim joyously, "Marley, my friend, how kind of you to come for me! And where is old Bob Cratchit? Oh yes, I did, and I have his promise. He is a good boy; he'll not fail us." A gentle smile touched Scrooge's face, highlighting the laughter lines, and then faded slowly away, as did the tired, contented spirit of old Ebenezer Scrooge, benefactor of humanity.

  Tim stood silently for a long moment, memorizing the countenance of his best and dearest friend, then dropped to his knees beside the bed, leaned his head on Scrooge's hand and wept bitter tears of pain and loss. Words tumbled over one another in his mind, words that time did not permit him to utter. Time took away; it never recompensed.

  "Thank you," he whispered, "Thank you. I will honor your name." Tim sent for Scrooge's doctor, informed the housekeeper and notified the undertaker. After arranging Scrooge's body in a seemly manner, and when he had done all else that was necessary, he returned home and placed Scrooge's gift, still wrapped and finally forgotten, on the mantle. There it rested still.

  And now he alone with Ebenezer at his final resting place.

  Heartstricken and lost, Tim shook his head slowly, became conscious of the cold and windy mist and turned reluctantly toward home. Eyes tear-filled and unseeing, he moved forward and stumbled over the slight rise of the ground that led to the street, almost falling in his despair. His limp became more pronounced when he was tired, preoccupied or disheartened. He steadied himself on a time-weathered railing and moved on. He knew that he must return to the hospital for a consultation with Sir Humphrey and for his own lecture on the "The Charitable and Proper Nourishment of the Poor," but he was tired, so very tired, from the cold, the bleakness of the day and the loss of his much beloved friend and mentor. Unseeing, his grief led him home.

  Time righted itself slowly. Back in his fire-lit drawing room, the young man's head sought the back of his cushioned chair, and he slept. The stillness grew heavier, and the fire glowed more softly, allowing small shadows to creep forward to curl about the chair and the sleeping man. The night had begun, and with its darkness came the darkness of a young man's soul.

  While he endures a troubled sleep, you must hear about the young man in this quiet, fire-lit room that you may know him and his heart. Timothy Cratchit is a young man of some seven-and-twenty summers: Tim to his friends, Timothy to his mother, Mr. Cratchit to his colleagues, a gentle physician to London's vast and unredeemed poor. He especially loves the children. He has unruly reddish-brown hair, unruly because he constantly runs his fingers through it when his questions and thoughts race ahead of his knowledge. Tall, lean and green-eyed, with a sensitive heart and a ready smile, he walks with a slight limp which does little to diminish his stature or his usually cheerful nature. The limp stems from a childhood infirmity, long since healed but never for a moment diminished in his heart or mind, not for want of gratitude but as a reminder of his good fortune and in honor of his own debt to his fellows. He is a charming, lively man of many talents and much kindness.

  Young Tim Cratchit has learned by his Uncle Ebenezer's sad experience, and later his joyous example, to keep close, loving ties to family and friends. His elder sisters and brothers and their families are devoted to this delightful fellow, and his widowed mother remains his staunch ally, especially since his father and confidant, Bob Cratchit, died the previous spring. Is it a wonder, then, that this loss of Tim's adopted Uncle Ebenezer, his second father, is so devastating to the young physician? Is it a wonder that he is weary in mind and body?

  A very good lad, he does all that is proper, spreading joy and happiness with his lively teasing and his fond nature. He has been careful to visit his friends and his family often, bringing toys for his nieces and nephews, sweets and ribbons for his sisters, books and papers for his brothers and brother-in-law. He has even been known to leave a few pound notes in the leaves of his mother's Bible. Tim visits her as often as possible and puts great care into regularly and carefully checking the progress of her consumptive illness. She is grateful for the attentions of her strong young son although she has recently become concerned for him.

  She, too, sees his leanness of spirit, and she fears for him although she cannot explain why. In recent weeks his visits have been less frequent, shorter when he does come, and more preoccupied beyond usually treasured family obligations. He is more anxious to depart, as evidenced by his inability to remain still for any longish period. He speaks less, sits more quietly than usual, and his pockets are empty of the sweets he always brought for the children. He rarely attends any conversation with more than a nod or a "Quite so," remaining in distracted silence for much of his visits. His sisters and brothers do not comprehend his distress and are at loss to know how to help him. They smile cheerfully, gather him up into their family circles and ask after his health,
which only brings another nod or a brief, inattentive smile.

  Kind of heart and agile of mind, young Tim has been working long, soul-grinding hours at Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, studying the diseases of the poor and agonizing over ways by which to elevate their lot and improve their living conditions. His own well-remembered poverty strikes him like a great fist each time his touches one of these children of want and neglect. Poverty had wounded him deeply, and its hold lingers in his mind. So many children are dying, and now Old Ebenezer's death has come to him too soon, bringing another, even sharper blow. Our gentle Tim is weary, his spirit wretched.

  He has certainly known that Ebenezer was ill and that he was very old, just eighty last spring, but it was still too soon. Ebenezer's time had run down like the small watch he had worn that had so fascinated the young crippled boy. Tim has wondered if time flees from him as well. "So little time, a phrase that propels him forward into his work, exhausting mind, heart and spirit. The days slip away like raindrops on misty spring windowpanes, and time races steadily onward. Tim has rested now a while and will soon awaken to a life without his Uncle Ebenezer. Poor boy! How much he yet will learn! How much he must hearken to words most kindly meant. Pity our young Timothy. Pity him!

  A red-cindered log clattered onto the grate, and young Tim stirred slowly, hearing a church bell ring out. "Too soon!" it seemed to say, "Too soon!" His eyelids fluttered briefly then closed. As he drifts off, he pictured his home and family on their seventh Christmas, the Christmas of 1843, wonderfully white and wintry.

  He first recollection arose up with startling clarity: a small, wooden crutch whose top was bound in strips of white cloth for his arm to rest upon, and the concerned, rosy face of his mother looking on, smiling as always, her gentle eyes shining with love.