The Ghost of Christmas Past

by Rhys Bowen

  “And now you’ll be home alone here for Christmas?” Sid asked.

  “Not alone. With my family around me.”

  “We could still cancel our arrangement.” Sid shot Gus a glance.

  “Don’t be so silly,” I said. “Of course you must go. You know you want to see your old classmates. We’ll be just fine. We may entertain. Miss Van Woekem, for example. She loves to see Liam. And poor Mrs. Endicott. And we’ll all be back together in the New Year.”

  “Yes. Back together in the New Year,” Sid said and again she and Gus exchanged a glance.

  “Bridie should be home from school soon,” Sid said. “She’s been doing very well. You’ll be proud of her. And she’s grown too. We are so fond of her, in fact we’ll hate to lose her.…”

  “Why should you lose her?” I asked. “She’s only across the street. She can visit you anytime she likes.”

  “I spoke out of turn,” Sid said hastily.

  I looked from one face to the other. “What is it?” I asked. “Is something wrong with Bridie? She’s not sick, is she?”

  “No, never better,” Gus said, not taking her eyes off Sid’s face. “It’s just that … She’s had some news. We’d better not spoil it for her. She wants to tell you herself.”

  “Good news?”

  There was a pause. “Yes, I suppose you could say it’s good news,” Gus said. “Just not for us.”

  “Then for God’s sake tell me,” I blurted out. “Don’t keep me in suspense. If it’s bad news, I’d rather know. In fact I’d rather know in advance than hear it from Bridie’s lips.”

  “It’s her father,” Gus said slowly.

  “He’s been confirmed dead?”

  She shook her head. “Quite the opposite. Apparently he has been making good money working down in New Orleans and now he’s on his way back to New York. He’s coming to reclaim Bridie and take her back home to Ireland.”

  Three

  Of all the news I could have received, this was the most unexpected. It caught me like a punch in the gut, winding me so that for a long moment I couldn’t speak. Thoughts and images flashed around inside my head: little Bridie snuggling up against me as I brought her to America in the hold of a ship, the time she nearly died of typhoid, and then watching her become the big sister, learn to knit, play with Liam, rescue two orphan children.… She had been part of my life for so long now that I truly thought of her as my daughter. I couldn’t even picture life without her.

  “Why is he going back to Ireland?” I asked. “I thought he hated it there. The injustice. The oppression.”

  “I can’t tell you that,” Sid said. “You know he never was the greatest of letter writers.…”

  “You can say that again,” I said angrily. “How many years went by when the poor child didn’t know if her father was dead or alive, down there in Panama?”

  “It appears he was very sick for a long while,” Gus said, again looking at Sid for confirmation. “He had yellow fever and was in a hospital for months. Then his boy got some kind of tropical disease. But they both survived, and what’s more they prospered.” She turned to me. “We should be glad for her, Molly. She’ll be going back to her own family.”

  “But I’m her family.” I heard the catch in my voice. “We are her family. He can’t give her what we can.”

  “You don’t know that,” Gus said softly. “He may remarry, a kind and nice woman. He may have the money to send her to a good school and a university. She may be looking forward to a splendid life. We can’t begrudge her that.”

  I got up. “I should take my suitcase over to my house,” I said. “It’s in the way of your packing.”

  “We’ll come and help,” Sid said. As we walked to the front door she put an arm around my shoulder. “I know it’s a big shock, Molly. It was a horrible blow for us too. In fact we’d even discussed adopting her. You know how fond we’ve grown of her and we could afford the best of education. But we have to believe this is for the best.”

  “How can it be for the best?” I blurted out, amazed at my own vehemence. “Seamus is an uneducated lout. When he went off to Panama to build that canal he was quite prepared to put Bridie into service when she was just a little mite. How will he ever see that she deserves an education?”

  We picked up the heavy suitcase between us, pausing to smile as Liam struggled to carry the carpetbag. I have Liam, I told myself. I still have Liam. I will have more children. The doctor says so. But a little voice at the back of my head whispered that Daniel had been an only child. Mrs. Sullivan had told me once that she’d had such a difficult time with Daniel that doctors warned her against having any more children. Would Liam be an only child too?

  We carried the bags to my front door. I located the key, unlocked it, and stepped into a cold front hallway. I hadn’t been thinking that Daniel had been away and Bridie had been living across the street, the house had been unoccupied for some time. So of course there had been no stove or fires to keep the place warm. I fought to master my emotions, but the damp cold of that front hall felt like a mirror of the cold around my heart. “Look, Liam, we’re home again,” I said. “Mommy must light the stove and warm up the kitchen and then we’ll find all your toys.”

  Liam didn’t seem to care that the house was scarcely warmer than the street outside. He was already running ahead of me into the kitchen looking for his blocks. Sid gave me a worried glance. “Why don’t you come and stay the night with us?” she said. “It won’t warm up in here for ages. And you’ve no food in.”

  “If you’re sure I won’t get in the way of your packing,” I said. “It’s like an icebox in here. I’ll get the kitchen stove started right away and then I should go out and do some grocery shopping. If Daniel hasn’t been here for a while, there will be nothing in the larder. I’d better make a list.…”

  I could hear myself babbling on. Sid put a hand on my shoulder. “Plenty of time for that tomorrow,” she said. “You and I will get your stove going and Gus can put on the kettle at home. I know you’re still Irish enough to need your cup of tea!”

  Her kindness brought a lump into my throat. I kept my lips pressed together and nodded my thanks. In no time at all we had the stove going well and Sid also insisted on lighting fires in the back parlor and my bedroom. “We’ll bank them up tonight and you’ll be as warm as toast in the morning,” she said.

  I had just sat down at Sid and Gus’s kitchen table with a cup of tea and a slice of gingerbread in front of me when the front door opened and Bridie’s voice came down the hall. “Guess what, it’s snowing,” she called. “Do you think that means we might have a white Christmas after all? Do you think I’m too old to use Mrs. Sullivan’s toboggan? Because there is a good hill at the back of her garden and…” She came through to the kitchen, her cheeks red with the cold, her light blonde hair windblown. She froze when she saw me.

  “Molly,” she exclaimed. “What’s the matter? What are you doing back here? I thought Captain Sullivan was going to take me up to Mrs. Sullivan’s to join you.”

  “We’ve had a change of plans,” I said, keeping my voice even. “Mrs. Sullivan has gone to have Christmas with an old friend and we’re going to have a grand time here. Just our family.”

  “Oh.” I could see the disappointment in her eyes.

  “Come and let me give you a hug,” I said. “I swear you’ve grown an inch in a month.”

  “I have,” she said. “I’m the second tallest in my class. I’m taller than most of the boys.”

  “And Miss Walcott says you’re doing so well at school. I’m really proud of you.”

  Her smile faded and she nodded. “I’ll be sorry to leave,” she said. She turned away, staring out of the window, where snowflakes were now swirling. “Molly, I’ve had news from my father. He’s alive and well, after all this time. We thought he must be dead, didn’t we?”

  I was determined to play my part. “Alive and well? Isn’t that grand news?” I gave her a big smile. “And your
brother? Is he well too?”

  “He is. And they’re on a ship, on their way to New York. I’m going to see them in the New Year.”

  “I’m so happy for you, my darling.” I was still managing to smile, to sound excited. “You must be so pleased.”

  “No!” She blurted out. “I’m not pleased at all. I mean I’m glad my father and brother are alive but he’s coming to take me away, Molly. He says he’s made good money and he’s taking us back to Ireland. And I don’t want to go.”

  I was at a loss what to say now. Of course I didn’t want her to go either. “He’s your father, Bridie,” I said. “He must have been missing you terribly.”

  “No, he hasn’t. He didn’t write to me for ages. He just went and left me here, and if you and Mrs. Sullivan hadn’t taken me in, I’d be a servant by now.” Her face was flushed with anger.

  “He was a man left with two children to rear,” I said. “He did his best by going down to work on that canal, and he knew he couldn’t take you with him. But now you say he’s made money. He’ll buy you a fine house and send you to a good school.”

  She was shaking her head. “No, he won’t. And I don’t care about a fine house or a good school. I won’t be with you, and with Miss Walcott and Miss Goldfarb. You’re my family now. I don’t want to leave you.”

  “I don’t want to lose you either, my darling.” I enfolded her in my arms as she sobbed on my shoulder. I was crying too now. Sid and Gus, sitting at the table, were also crying. Everyone but Liam, who had picked up his stuffed dog and held it up to Bridie. “Here, Bwidie. Dog,” he said.

  * * *

  Sid and Gus tried to make it a jolly supper that night. Sid had been experimenting with some of the recipes from the Indian cookbook I had given her for Christmas the year before. She had made the curry a little too hot and each of us had to resort to the water glass while our eyes streamed.

  “I suppose it must be easier to take this in a hot climate,” Sid said as she swallowed a big gulp of water. “If you and I are really going to India next year, Gus, we must practice eating hot food so that we don’t look like complete novices.”

  “You’re really planning to go to India?” I asked.

  “You know how long we’ve been talking about it,” Gus said. “It’s been our dream for ages. And with Bridie gone we’ll be free to travel.”

  I felt as if I was on a slippery slope, plunging downward ever faster. No Bridie and now no Sid and no Gus. If they went to India, they’d be gone for months.

  The conversation had moved on. Sid was telling Bridie how much she’d enjoy Dublin. And it was only a short trip across the sea to England and she’d be able to visit London and Oxford and Bath and Stonehenge.…

  Bridie nodded as if Sid was telling her a fairy tale. Of course she knew as well as I did that Seamus was not the type of man who’d appreciate culture. He was a kind man, I reminded myself. He wouldn’t beat her like some fathers. But his idea of a good time would be several pints in his local pub—just like my own father, I thought. And it certainly wasn’t generally accepted in Ireland that girls should be educated. The moment they married they started having babies—one after the other. All except me.

  Gus got up to clear away our plates. “I’ve made a milk jelly for desert. I had a hunch we’d find that curry a little too hot.” She grinned at Sid as she went out to the icebox.

  She came back carrying a plate with the jelly turned out onto it, molded into the shape of a rabbit, which made Bridie smile. “It’s a pity Liam’s not still awake,” she said. “This was always one of his favorite things.”

  She had just started to serve when there came a loud hammering on the front door.

  “What in the name of goodness…” Sid demanded and went to open it.

  We heard her say, “Captain Sullivan. What a surprise.”

  “What has been going on at my house?” Daniel’s voice came loud and clear down the hallway to us. “I arrive home and find all the fires blazing away and nobody there. Has someone been living in our house, do you know?”

  “Welcome home,” Sid said evenly. “And if you’d like to come in, I think you’ll find the explanation sitting at our kitchen table. Only watch your step. I’m sorry, you find us in the middle of packing.”

  I held my breath as I heard Daniel’s progress down the hall and then he appeared in the kitchen doorway.

  “Molly!” he exclaimed, and I watched the color drain from his face. “What are you doing here? Is something wrong? My mother? Has she taken a turn for the worse? She’s not back in hospital, is she?”

  “Your mother is absolutely fine, Daniel,” I said. “In fact she’s feeling so well that she’s accepted an invitation to join a house party at a mansion on the Hudson. A very grand carriage came for her today. So we’re back in the city for Christmas after all.”

  He still cast a worried look around the kitchen. “And Liam. Where’s Liam? Where’s my boy?”

  “Will you calm down, Daniel?” I went over to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “Liam’s quite well, but was rather tired after a day of traveling and then seeing his aunts and Bridie again, so we fed him a boiled egg and put him to bed. I was planning on staying here tonight as I thought our house was too cold to sleep in.”

  “It certainly isn’t cold any longer,” Daniel said. “It’s like a Turkish steam bath in there now.”

  “All the same I think you should sleep over here tonight,” Gus said. “Your sheets will need airing out.”

  Daniel went to say something, but I cut in first. “You’re absolutely right. We don’t want any of us coming down with a chill from sleeping on damp and cold sheets, do we?” I turned to give Daniel an encouraging smile.

  “Have you eaten, Captain Sullivan?” Gus asked. “Sid has made a good curry and we’ve plenty left.”

  “Thank you. I ate on the train,” Daniel said.

  “Where were you coming from?” Sid asked. “Or is that confidential?”

  “Not at all,” Daniel said in that crisp and polite voice he used when addressing my friends. I think he always wanted to convey that he did not approve of their lifestyle choice. “I was only in our capital, discussing some matters of security with the president.”

  “With the president of the United States?” Bridie’s eyes grew large. “You know the president?”

  “I’ve had the honor of talking with him on occasion,” Daniel said. “I wouldn’t say that we’re bosom friends. But as he’s a Roosevelt, we do know some people in common. We grew up in the same part of the world after all.”

  “Your mother always refers to him as ‘dear Teddy,’” I said with a grin, “even though she probably only knew him as a friend of a friend.”

  “Quite possibly.” Daniel smiled now.

  “Some jelly, Captain Sullivan?” Gus asked. “I was just about to serve and I can tell that Bridie is dying to have some.”

  “Uh, not for me, thank you,” Daniel said. “But please don’t let me interrupt your meal. I think I’ll go across to our house and air out some sheets in front of the fire so that we can sleep in our own beds tonight.”

  He jerked a small bow to my friends. “Miss Walcott. Miss Goldfarb. I’ll see you in a little while, Molly. I’ll come and retrieve Liam when his bed is warm enough.” With that he left.

  I sat down again, feeling rather embarrassed and more than a little annoyed. I had expressed my wish to stay with Sid and Gus that night and he had overridden it. Hardly the happy reunion I had hoped for.

  We finished our dinner, had coffee, and sat talking until Daniel returned to carry Liam across to our house. We hardly exchanged a word as Liam, still half-asleep, was tucked into his own bed. As we went into our bedroom I could contain myself no longer. “You know, it was rather rude of you to overrule me and decide that we were going to sleep here tonight,” I said.

  “It wasn’t meant to be rude,” he said. “But this is our house, after all. You should realize I’d want to sleep in my own bed if at al
l possible, after having endured lumpy hotel mattresses. And to sleep with my own wife after what seems like an eternity. I certainly couldn’t do that in someone else’s house.”

  He came over to me and slipped his arms around my waist. “I’ve missed you every moment I was away,” he said. “It’s been a strange year, hasn’t it? So many worries. So many fears. And at last we’re together in our own house. In our own bedroom.” He was looking down at me tenderly. “I know it’s been really hard on you, but I’m going to do my best to make it up to you. I’ll make sure we have the best Christmas together, and we won’t think about what has gone wrong this year or worry about what might come in our future.”

  His attempt to kiss me was thwarted when I burst into tears. He recoiled, looking stunned and mystified. “Now what have I said?” he asked.

  “It’s not you,” I replied between sobs. “What you just said was lovely. Perfect. It’s just that everything seems to be going wrong. I thought we’d have Christmas together in the country with your mother and now she’s gone away. And then I thought that Christmas here with Sid and Gus would be just as nice. But they are going away. And then I found out that we’re going to be losing Bridie.”

  “Bridie? What do you mean?”

  “She’s just heard from her father, Daniel.” I was still fighting back sobs. “He’s alive and well and what’s more he’s made money. He’s coming to claim her in the New Year and take her back to Ireland with him.”

  “But that’s good news, surely.” Daniel still looked perplexed.

  “Not for me. I’m going to be losing a beloved child.”

  “But she’s not your child, Molly. You’ve done a wonderful job of taking her under your wing. God knows what might have happened to her if you and my mother hadn’t intervened. But her place is with her family. If you’d had to give up your child so that you could make enough money to guarantee her future, wouldn’t you be longing to see her? Wouldn’t you want her back again?”