It was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney as that dull petrifaction of a hearth had never known in Scrooge’s time, or Marley’s, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch there sat a gaunt Giant, wretched to see; who bore a guttering torch and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge as he came peeping round the door.
“Come in!” cried the Ghost. “Come in! And know me better, man!”
Scrooge entered warily, and eyed the Spirit suspiciously. Marley’s warning still echoed in his head, and while the first had hurt him, he wasn’t quite sure it also hadn’t been trying to help. The Spirit before him looked sinister enough, but would it help or hurt and considering the latter, could this loathsome creature be killed? Though the Spirit’s eyes were milky and pinched, Scrooge did not like to meet them per chance it could read the suspicious thoughts in his eyes.
“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” said the Spirit. “Look upon me!”
Scrooge cautiously did so. It was clothed in one simple deep green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its concave and wasted breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare and contorted with age; and on its head it wore no other covering than a sharp-leafed holly wreath, set here and there with sinister icicles and sickly berries. Its silver white curls were long and wild; lose at its unfavorable face, its malicious eye, its fisted hand, its quaking voice, and its ominous air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; the sword itself sheathed within it but the handle poked out, gleaming with rubies and diamonds.
“You have never seen the like of me before!” exclaimed the Spirit.
“Never,” Scrooge made answer to it.
The silence stretched. Fumbling for anything to distract from those terrible eyes, Scrooge gestured toward the feast. “Strange Spirit, you surround yourself with such temptations, but you don’t appear to enjoy them yourself. Does it not taste?”
“My hunger is sated and my thirst is slaked not by the delights of men.”
The Ghost of Christmas Present rose. The flame of his torch guttered dangerously low, and for a moment Scrooge feared he would be plunged into darkness with the creature.
“Spirit,” said Scrooge hastily cast about for a way to appease the ghoul, “conduct me where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.”
The Spirit smiled, its wicked teeth were pointed. “Touch my robe!”
Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.
Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the sickly glow, the hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little snow-storms.
The house-fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace, in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts’ content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.
For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball--better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest--laughing heartily if it went right, and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers’ shops were still half open, and the fruiterers’ were radiant in their glory. There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were pears and apples clustered high in blooming pyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers’ benevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people’s mouths might water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags, and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.
The Grocers’! Oh, the Grocers’! Nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint, and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people were so frank and fresh, that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.
But soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged, from scores of by-streets, lanes,
and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers’ shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker’s doorway, and, taking off the covers as their bearers passed, smelled deeply of their dinners and blessed them with his torch. The unhappy light seemed to gain strength from these administrations and the people headed on their way, no more cross or frazzled than they ought to be on such an occasion. Some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, spoke sharp words at one another but walked away grumbling with no further conflict to arise. And so it was! God love it, so it was!
In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners, and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker’s oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.
“Is there a peculiar consecration in what you sprinkle from your torch?” asked Scrooge.
“There is. My own.”
“Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?” asked Scrooge.
“To any being consumed over hearth and with kin. To a poor one most.”
“Why to a poor one most?” asked Scrooge.
“Because it is like a finely spiced stew that only wants for the right volume of salt. By the time they get home, the flavour will be ripe.”
“Spirit!” said Scrooge after a moment’s thought. “I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people’s opportunities of innocent enjoyment.”
“I!” cried the Spirit.
“You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,” said Scrooge; “wouldn’t you?”
“I!” cried the Spirit.
“You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day,” said Scrooge. “And it comes to the same thing.”
“I seek!” exclaimed the Spirit.
“Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family,” said Scrooge.
“There are some upon this earth of yours,” returned the Spirit, “who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us, and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.”
Scrooge promised that he would; but noted to himself that what was done in human hubris was never interfered with by the Spirit either. They went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker’s), that, notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and whether he crouched beneath a low roof or lofty hall, he quite resembled a watching gargoyle.
It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while musing such things, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew’s, and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit showing his pointy teeth through a terrible grin and looking at that same nephew with approving hunger!
“Ha, ha!” laughed Scrooge’s nephew. “Ha, ha, ha!”
If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blessed in a laugh than Scrooge’s nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I’ll cultivate his acquaintance.
It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that, while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. When Scrooge’s nephew laughed in this way, holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions, Scrooge’s niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends, being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.
“Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!”
“He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!” cried Scrooge’s nephew. “He believed it, too!”
“More shame for him, Fred!” said Scrooge’s niece indignantly. Bless those women! They never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest.
She was very pretty; exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled, surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made to be kissed--as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature’s head. Altogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory!
“And what, pray tell, is a humbug? Did he say?”
“He’s a comical old fellow,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “that’s the truth; and not so pleasant as he might be. Some years ago he was deep in his cups and I decided to ask him that very thing. His response, was so muddied with drink and cross language, I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.”
“I’m sure he is very rich, Fred,” hinted Scrooge’s niece. “At least, you always tell me so.”
“What of that, my dear?” said Scrooge’s nephew. “His wealth is of no use to him. He don’t do any good with it. He don’t make himself comfortable with it, besides the cold comfort of a cheap bottle. He hasn’t the satisfaction of thinking--ha, ha, ha!--that he is ever going to benefit Us with it.”
“I have no patience with him,” observed Scrooge’s niece. Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.
“Oh, I have!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “I am sorry for him; I couldn’t be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself always. Here he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won’t come and dine with us. What’s the consequence? A dodgy meal and equally suspect company.”
“Not fair!” Interrupted Scrooge’s niece, laughing. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they exclaimed upon the smell and diligence of the cooks, and their desire to consume the meal shortly.
“Well! I am very glad to hear it,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “because I haven’t any great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?”
Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge’s niece’s sister--the plump one with the lace tucker, not the one with the roses--blushed.
“Do go on, Fred,” said Scrooge’s niece, clapping her hands. “He never finishes what he begins to say! He is such a ridiculous fellow!”
Scrooge’s nephew revelled in another laugh, and, as it was impossible to keep the infection off, though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar, his example was unanimously followed.
“I was only going to say,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can’t help thinking better of it--I defy him--if he finds me going there in good temper, year after year, and saying, ‘Uncle Scrooge, how are you?’ If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that’s something; and I think I shook him yesterday.”
It was their turn to laugh, now, at the notion of his shaking Scrooge. But, being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the bottle, joyously.
After dinner they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew what they were about when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over it. Scrooge’s niece played well upon the harp; and played, among other tunes, a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the things that Ghost had shown him came upon his mind; he softened more and more towards the ghoul; and thought that perhaps its intentions had been honourable, if not welcome.
But they didn’t devote the whole evening to music. After awhile they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first a game at blindman’s buff. Of course there was. And I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and Scrooge’s nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping up against the piano, smothering himself amongst the curtains, wherever she went, there went he! He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn’t catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him (as some of them did) on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister.
She often cried out that it wasn’t fair; and it really was not. A shadow passed over the room when, at last, he caught her. In spite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape, then his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck, was vile, monstrous! A step too far it was and the young lady rebuffed him most assuredly, leaving no doubt of her opinion and thus when her words of reproval ceased, an awkward silence descended on the room.
Ebenezer Scrooge Page 6