A Christmas Carol 2: The Wedding of Ebenezer Scrooge

by Anne Moore

  'Well, yes,’ Scrooge admitted. ‘I do occasionally pass on little bits of knowledge that I've picked up over the years. But you do need to understand, Mr Fiddling, that I wouldn't claim to be a practicing Christian.'

  'The Roman Catholics don't think I'm one either,’ said Mr Fiddling. ‘And the Church of England people have their doubts. No, Mr Scrooge, the point is this. My little flock is interested in hearing different points of view. We have had a series of sermons this year about many aspects of life. We had a talk from a university man about the Roman and Greek gods, for instance. Very scholarly it was. And I'm sure we should find your views on life most enlightening.'

  Scrooge was sufficiently interested not to reject the idea out of hand. ‘But what would you want me to talk about?’ he inquired.

  'Choose your own subject, sir. You are a well-read and thoughtful man. You have been kind enough to show me your library, and I doubt that it has an equal outside the great houses of the nobility. I am content to leave the choice of the subject matter to your discretion. But perhaps, since you have told me that you are not a Christian, perhaps you should tell us what your religious views actually are.'

  After some thought, and a discussion with Charlotte, Scrooge accepted Mr Fiddling's invitation.

  So it was that, on a Sunday in late November, he found himself in the congregation of the Canal Road chapel, taking part in the lusty singing of a well-known hymn.

  Shortly afterwards Scrooge climbed the steps to the pulpit, and looked down on a modest assembly of perhaps sixty people. He knew most of them by sight: they were artisans, shopkeepers, and servants; the middle and lower ranks of society; solid, respectable folk, sober and reliable in their habits. They looked up at him expectantly.

  'My friends,’ Scrooge began. ‘Your pastor has invited me to speak to you. It is mighty brave of him, for he has no idea what I might say. But he did suggest that, since I do not consider myself a Christian, I might speak to you about my own views on life and death.

  'I have in my library a copy of an essay by Sir Thomas Browne, the seventeenth-century physician. Now Sir Thomas definitely was a Christian. He believed in the life everlasting, though not, interestingly enough, in the resurrection of the body. And in his essay, about the burial of the dead, Sir Thomas says this: Diuturnity is a dream and folly of expectation.

  'And what does he mean by that, you may wonder. As I do myself. What I think he means is that you cannot expect to live for ever. It will not be long, as he says elsewhere in his essay, before we too lie down in darkness and have our light in ashes.

  'That being the case, and since death may visit us at any time, it is useful—at least in my opinion—to have a set of principles upon which to live, and upon which, in due course, to die.

  'I have now almost completed my threescore years and ten, and I am not likely to learn much more about these matters than I know now, and so Mr Fiddling is right—this is not a bad time to pass on to you such opinions as I have formed. Let me begin then with some thoughts about how to live.

  'I can only speak from a personal point of view. I am not a professional philosopher, and barely an amateur one, but for my own selfish reasons I had to think hard, some twenty years ago, about how to conduct the rest of my life. I think I succeeded fairly well in that I have lived happily and contentedly since that time, and I hope and believe that I have done a bit of good in the world.

  'But it was not always so. I have to say that the first fifty years of my life were not very satisfactory. True, I was in good health, and I did well financially. But it was a cold, empty, dissatisfying life.

  'I had the chance to marry when I was young, and foolishly gave it up. Fortunately, the lady did much better for herself, and is happy with children and grandchildren. I myself, however, had no family and few friends. I had a business partner who was an even more solitary man than I, and when he died I was largely alone. Nobody cared for me. I was shunned. Even the very dogs in the street avoided me, as if I had bent down to pick up a stone. In business dealings I was almost feared.

  'I had my reasons, and what I thought of as justifications, for living as I did, but that way of living led me to isolation and loneliness. I had become bitter, and angry, and sour. All these feelings were made far worse by the time of year which now approaches—Christmas. It was a season which most regard as a time of goodwill, but it filled me with rage and fury. All those collecting boxes being rattled under my nose! Why should I give money, I asked myself, to the undeserving poor? Let them stew in their own juice.

  'I might have gone on in this way, and might have died without changing my life, as my business partner did. But I could sense the unhappiness and the miserable old age which lay ahead of me. And as I approached my fiftieth year I began to be aware that if I was to have any useful or rewarding times in the future I must make an effort to adopt a different attitude.

  'The turning-point came when, by pure chance, I met two young people. A boy and a girl. Both were homeless and poor. Both had been scratching a living on the streets. Prior to meeting these two young people, I had closed my eyes to the poor. If I thought about them at all, I considered that their fate was their own fault. They had made their bed, and they must lie in it. But when I got to know these two young folk better, I realized that what had happened to them was not because of their own mistakes or actions. And I realized too that things could be done, with money, to help those who were experiencing similarly hard times.

  'Fortunately, I had by that time a considerable fortune at my disposal. And when I began to think about how that money could be put to good use I had the guidance of two fine people to help me. You will not be surprised to learn that I refer to the Vicar of my local church in London, and his wife. It was through them that I came to meet the lady who has since become my own wife. And it is she who has kept me more or less sane and sensible ever since. I owe her a great debt, ladies and gentlemen, one that I am pleased to acknowledge publicly.

  'So it was that at the age of fifty I changed my life considerably, and for the better. I stopped trying to earn more and more money, and I began to think how my resources could be used to good purpose.

  'I left the city and moved to the country. I had been born in the country, but I had forgotten its ways. I had lost touch with the rhythm of the seasons. I had ignored the fact that we depend wholly on nature for our survival, for in the city men think that milk comes out of taps, and that bread is manufactured in factories.

  'Such then are my credentials—very thin—for advising you on how to live. My sole claim to wisdom derives from the fact that, with the aid of others, I transformed my life and attitudes. I became, I think a better person—certainly a happier one.

  'Do not misunderstand me. I do not believe in selling all you have and giving it to the poor. In my view that would be unproductive. But you should be generous with what you have, without being gullible and foolish.

  'Be thoughtful and kind if you can—and if you can't, apologize afterwards.

  'I advise you to live among others—to be a part of the community. Take pleasure from the natural world, for the works of man are ephemeral. Note the movement of the seasons. Celebrate the turning-points of the year.

  'Mark the great occasions: births, marriages, and deaths. For it is in this way that we give our lives structure and such meaning as it is possible to find.'

  Scrooge paused and took a sip of water.

  'And now, since diuturnity is indeed a folly of expectation, let me turn to the question of how to die.

  'The answer to that question rather depends of course, on what you believe about life after death. Sir Thomas Browne, who was a learned man, tells us that many of the ancients believed in reincarnation. He also pointed out that a belief in immortality occurs at all times and in all places, and is therefore natural. Not to have any hope of a future life would be, he argues, a bitter blow.

  'It seems to me, however, that the truth about our future existence, if we have one, is be
yond our grasp.

  'We appear to be living on a globe which floats in space. We cannot go far into the earth, or far above it. We do not know how this world began, or how it will end.

  'Human understanding, in this respect, can be compared with human strength. Most of us can walk a mile in twenty minutes or so. A fit young man can run a mile in five minutes. Similarly, some of us, the fast intellectual runners so to speak, have a glimmer of the meaning and purpose of human life—some shadowy glimpse of the truth about who made us, who we are, how we came to be here, and where we are going. But to understand all aspects of the mystery of creation we need to be able to run a mile in the single tick of a clock. And that we cannot do.

  'All we can do, then, in the absence of certainty about such mysteries, is form our own conclusions.

  'For my part, I see no reason to personify the forces of creation into sentient beings, or gods, who listen when we pray to them or pay attention when we make sacrifices.

  'As to the afterlife, I again see no evidence for the belief that there is one. True, the thought of eventually being reunited with those we have loved provides great comfort, but that is scarcely a sufficient reason for believing that it is likely to happen. My own view is that we come from nothing and nowhere, and we return to nothing and nowhere.

  'Our memorials may last a very long time, and the burial mounds of Wiltshire are testimony to that. But in the end they are ploughed flat by the forces of time. All is vanity, feeding the wind, and folly.

  'But wait, you may say. If there is no judgment after death, no heaven, and no hell, does it matter how you live? And my answer is, All the more so. If life here on earth is miserable, painful, and lonely, then what to the Christians might be a simple cause for regret, to be remedied in the hereafter, becomes to one like me an intolerable loss, one which all good men and women must strive to overcome.

  'Ladies and gentlemen, since you have been good enough to invite me to address you this morning, let me now summarize my views.

  'I recommend, as a rule of thumb for deciding how to conduct yourselves, the Christian sentiment that you should do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It is not, incidentally, an exclusively Christian precept. You will find it, I believe, embodied somewhere in all the major religions of the world—and it is there for the simple reason that it is a practical philosophy which generates, on the whole, satisfactory results.

  'I believe also in the threefold principle of the pagans. That is to say, I believe that whatever you do in this life, good or bad, returns to you three times over. This is a salutary thought to hold in one's mind when considering a course of action.

  'As for death—why, you should die with as much dignity as you can muster. Preferably at the end of a long life, surrounded by one's wife and children if that is possible, and by one's friends if it is not. If I were a praying man, that is the sort of end I would pray for.'

  Scrooge looked down at the faces in front of him. He saw interest and attention in all of them. Except the fat boy in the third row, who had fallen asleep. It was, he decided, time to conclude, before any others of the congregation followed suit.

  'Ladies and gentlemen—I think I have spoken long enough. And I thank you for the compliment you have paid me in inviting me here today.'

  CHAPTER 39

  In the summer of his twentieth year at Tanway, Scrooge celebrated his seventieth birthday; and he was in fine form for it. But as the autumn rolled on, he became conscious that he was no longer as young as he had been. His daily walk seemed to become more arduous, and he paused for breath more often than he had in the past.

  He remarked one day to Charlotte that he thought he was slowing down a little. ‘But you were never very quick to begin with,’ she told him. However, he noticed that she took a little more care of him thereafter; she began to dose him with a syrup prepared from the dried leaves of foxgloves; and once, when the weather had turned cold and he was late returning from a walk, she came out to meet him.

  So Scrooge came to his last Christmas. He had thought for some time that he might not see another, but he was not distressed. He had done what he needed to do.

  He had disposed of all his money except that which was required to provide a comfortable life in the country for himself and his wife. He had lived for threescore years and ten.

  Throughout England, and for that matter abroad, there were young men in posts which they would never have obtained if Scrooge's trust had not funded their education. There were women too, who as girls had lived like Sasha but had had their lives changed through Scrooge's funds, and were now living in good homes, as proud wives and mothers.

  Every night of the year, Marley's music halls provided harmless entertainment and laughter.

  In the hospitals, patients and doctors benefited from new wards and the best facilities.

  Elsewhere in the big cities, the homeless could find shelter for the night.

  Churches had been repaired, schools had been built, libraries had been stocked with books.

  Yes, Scrooge thought, it had been better to use the money in these and similar ways than to store it in some dreary bank.

  His one last concession to his old life had been to provide backing for a business in Pewsey which printed cards for people to send to each other at Christmas. Scrooge had the notion that this new-fangled custom (a German idea, some said) was going to become more and more popular. And so far the cards were selling very well.

  Christmas Day of that final year arrived, and with it came guests. It was a smaller gathering than in many years, but Scrooge didn't mind that. The Cratchits, for instance, were spending the day with their youngest son, Tim, and his wife; they were planning to come down to Tanway a day or two later.

  At lunch, Scrooge had Sasha sit next to him.

  Sasha was a mature woman now: powerful, well-built, and capable. The mark of the goddess, as Scrooge had long since learnt to call it, was strong upon her. Scrooge knew, without being told, that she had taken over from Charlotte as leader of the sewing circle, and he had no doubt that she carried out her duties with grace and authority. Her beauty dazzled his eyes.

  This year, as if to make the point that life continues, Sasha's daughter Sarah had produced her first child, and in the morning Scrooge had been allowed to watch her being fed.

  The Reverend Mr Green and his wife, with their three children, were also present.

  Scrooge ate sparingly at lunch, sat quietly afterwards, and let all the activity revolve around him. He knew that this would be his last such celebration, and he tried to take particular note of who was there and what was happening; but in the afternoon he dozed a good deal.

  On Boxing Day morning, at about eleven o'clock, he was conscious of a great pain in his chest, and when he awoke, in bed, they told him that he had collapsed while trying to climb the stairs.

  Scrooge himself doubted that he would see the new year in, but he managed it—just. And in those final few days everyone came to see him to say their farewells.

  'I saw death in the cards,’ said Mrs Molloy. ‘Just before Christmas. I thought he was coming for me, of course, but your wife told me I was wrong. I didn't believe her, though—I thought she was being kind.'

  Scrooge smiled. ‘You should know by now that my wife is never wrong.'

  The last to see him was Sasha. She came every day, but on the first of January they both knew that this would be the end.

  'There's to be no blubbing, Sasha,’ whispered Scrooge.

  She smiled. ‘No. I promise.'

  'Mr Cratchit blubbed.'

  'Yes, so I heard. Let the side down something shocking.'

  Sasha kissed him and squeezed his hand, and then she left.

  Shortly afterwards, Charlotte came into the room.

  When she was sure that nothing further could be done to make him comfortable, she sat down beside the bed. She took hold of his hand, just as Sasha had done.

  'I am going to sit with you a while, Ebenezer. For
soon you will fall asleep. And as you sleep, you will dream. It will be a special dream—one which is my last and best gift to you. In this dream you will meet once again a particular friend from the past.'

  'Do you think so?’ said Scrooge wonderingly.

  'Oh yes. I am sure of it.'

  Scrooge did sleep, and when he awoke he was astonished to find himself in London. On Queen Street, in Cheapside, to be precise, at the top of one of the lanes which led down to the Thames.

  Scrooge gazed around him, and took in the scene. It was late afternoon, almost dark, and midwinter too, for there was snow on the ground. The weather was bitter and cold, and his breath was white on the air. The snow that had been trodden flat underfoot was now polished ice, and it had been scattered with ashes to provide a footing.

  There were gas lamps in all the shops, casting a yellow light and long shadows as the people passed by. And what people there were! The streets were full of shoppers and sightseers, wearing long, dark, winter coats and boots, scarves around their necks, hats pulled well down over their ears, and with heavy bags in their hands.

  Scrooge stood for a moment, taking it all in.

  Then a voice from behind was raised in greeting. A thin, piping voice. A boy's voice.

  'What cheer, Mr Scrooge!'

  Scrooge turned round to see who was addressing him.

  'Why, Billy!’ Scrooge was astonished. ‘I thought you were dead!'

  'So I am!’ cried Billy. ‘And so will you be soon! But first we must go to the frost fair.'

  'The frost fair?’ said Scrooge. ‘Is it still open?'

  'Never closes!’ cried Billy. He seized Scrooge's hand and began to pull him down the lane. ‘Come on! Get a move on!'

  Scrooge followed as Billy led the way down the slippery, treacherous path to the river. They passed groups of young and noisy revelers, making their way home, and overtook slower and more cautious citizens who were still picking their way towards the lights and the noise.

  They reached the watermen's gangplank which led out on to the ice, and here Scrooge had to pay a toll for both himself and Billy. He groped in his pocket.