Crisp and clean flecked the fresh-falling flakes in the pale wavering light of the feeble rising sun, its own mist-hazed rays rendered vain by the cold and bright-gleaming snow that heaped all about. The whiteclad streets were quiet, as if they too slumbered in content reverence following the now-passed feastday, and they were untroubled by the presence of man or woman at this early hour.
Nay. Not wholly untroubled, perhaps. For, passing swift over the fresh-fallen snow that lay undisturbed by her light tread was a simply clad woman, walking silent and unobserved down the quiet street. Her name was Natalya, and she was going to work.
To a modest apartment she came, and she passed silently within and up the stairs, giving scarcely a glance to the richly decorated hearth and the tables laden with bounty. Rather, she stepped swiftly up and into a bedroom of modest size, its window frost-glazed and its cozy interior warm. Here were her labours to begin, and she set about stoking the furnace in the room’s corner. There glowed still warm coals that had not wholly consumed themselves, and had staved off the chill of the long night just passed, and these she tended for a moment. But only a moment. For the room was warm and the coal generously heaped, and she had other business yet to attend to.
In the bed lay an old man, still and gripped in a deep sleep. So peaceful and content was his slumber that it seemed a pity to rouse him. Yet rouse him the young woman did, for she knew it to be past time for his awakening. So as she cast open the blinds and revealed the frost-glazed window, she said in a low voice, “Good morning, Mr Scrooge.”
The old man stirred and sat upright, rubbing at his eyes. With some surprise and a touch of alarm, he said, “Good mor…hey, hold now! Who the devil are you? You’re not my maid — where’s Susan?!”
“Miss Langley’s not coming in today, I’m sorry to say,” answered Natalya. “She met with some unforeseen and distressing news, and has asked that she might have the day off. But she wished that I might come in her stead.” She nodded, a smile dimpling her plain face. “You may call me Natalya, sir, or Nattie if you please.”
“Natalya,” repeated Mr Scrooge slowly. “Peculiar name. Continental, is it?”
“My mother came to England some years ago, yes,” replied Natalya. “You have a keen ear, sir.”
Scrooge grumbled an indistinct response, and made to roll over and retreat back into his slumber. But the glint of the pale sunlight caught his eye, and with a start he sat bolt upright once more. “Why, but it’s morning!” he cried accusingly.
“That it is, sir,” said Nattie mildly.
“But…but…but…” stammered Scrooge, his pale face blotching in confusion and anger. “Morning of the 26th, then?”
“That it is, sir. The occasion of St Stephen’s Day.”
Scrooge slumped back into his huddled blankets, a dark scowl marring his features. “Then I have quite missed Christmas dinner! Why, I must have slept full through it.” In a lower tone, he grumbled. “I do rather think Fred might have taken the trouble to rouse me, but there it is.”
“I believe, sir,” said the maid, “that your nephew did come calling, but thought it best not to disturb. It was my understanding that you had been poorly of late, sir, and on seeing you were asleep, he allowed you to rest.”
This news mollified Scrooge somewhat. “Did he, did he now? Well…if he came by, that’s well enough.” He wrinkled his nose in a probatory sniff, chuckling with delight. “And indeed, maybe he did well! For I do declare, I feel much better. Yes, much better indeed.”
Nattie murmured a, “Very good, sir,” and bustled about her work in the room, her mind elsewhere. Yet, for Scrooge’s part, he returned soon to his former glum mood, his brow furrowed in thought and a pensive sigh escaping his lips that even the most apathetic of servants could not help but mark.
“Is all well, sir?”
Scrooge rubbed at his eyes. “Well, well enough.” Yet clearly his troubles tarried, for he continued, “It’s just that…that one wonders, you know. One wonders what people may think of…of one. If old slights are ever really forgiven…or forgotten, as it were.”
“I’m afraid I don’t quite follow, sir,” said Nattie.
Scrooge laughed grimly. “I’m sure you don’t, my girl,” he said, and paused, a keen glint in his bright eye. “Tell me. Do you know who I am?”
Nattie smiled cheerily. “That I do, sir. You are Mr Ebenezer Scrooge, the kindliest and most generous and best-humoured man in all of London Town — or so folks say, sir.”
“‘So folks say,’ you say? An aptly made distinction, to be sure. And why, pray tell, do you suppose that folks say such?”
Nattie shrugged. “Why, sir. Because it is the truth, I suppose.”
But at this, Scrooge shook his head earnestly. “Nay, now, that was not so well said. I did not ask if it is true or false. I asked why it is said.”
“I am not sure that I follow, sir.”
Scrooge was now sitting upright in his bed, his lined face becoming hard and unreadable. “Then I will say it, in my own manner. For aye! it is not untrue, I am credited with being generous, and perhaps not unrightly so. Yet London lacks not for generous men. Why! I daresay that there are no fewer than a hundred men more generous than I in this very city, and a hundred hundred more across England! Yet, while they may receive some little credit here and there, none are so renowned for their charity as I! That, my girl, is the question. Why is it that I, Ebenezer Scrooge, am celebrated, where others who may well be equally (or more) deserving of praise are unrenowned?”
At this, Nattie was silent. But Scrooge could tell by her hesitation that she knew full well already, and was unwilling to answer. So, his tone now flat and cold, he pressed on. “Because I am not regarded for my generosity, but for my having been a miser. I am not praised for my warm heart, but for having once been cold. Wait! do not protest,” (his hand held up at Nattie making to speak), “for I know what you would say. Make no mistake, I do not deny that I am generous. But my wide regard is owed not to the generosity, but to that most sudden and unforeseen change wrought in my character but a few years ago.”
“A miracle of Providence, or so they say!” said Nattie.
“Perhaps,” answered Scrooge. “And perhaps not.”
He fell moody and silent once more, for a moment. “Well. Whether it were or not, ‘twas this very season that wrought it.”
“So have I heard,” said Nattie. “And so it is said that, if Mr Scrooge be the kindliest and most generous of all men throughout the year, his merriment and his charity be increased tenfold yet again upon Christmas Day.”
“An exaggeration, to be sure,” said Scrooge dismissively. “Perhaps what little I do is made all the more apparent to most during this festive season, yet it is hardly greater. And, again, to call me kindlier and more generous than other men is neither compliment to me, nor even is it to insult those many kindlier and better men. Nay, I tell you. It is no reflection upon who I am, but a condemnation of who I was, that leads folk to spread this silly and ill-deserved renown.”
“So you mean then to say, sir,” asked Nattie hesitantly, “that you resent your being celebrated not for that which you are now, but for he who you once were?”
This question caused Scrooge pause, and he leaned forward in his bed. “Perhaps,” he said thoughtfully. “But I think not, not in the main. No, no regard and no fame would I cherish better – or if it must be bestowed, that it be bestowed on those others equally deserving of it.”
“A noble sentiment, sir, and a surprising one,” said Nattie in wonder. “For I had always thought that no few generous men do their deeds that they may be thought all the better of by others.”
At this, Scrooge barked out a short and hollow laugh. “Well said, well said! Better said than you may have guessed, perhaps.”
There was some strange earnest in Scrooge’s voice that compelled Nattie to draw up a chair and sit, expectant and waitful. She said naught, but Scrooge required little urging to continue speaking, for it seemed that an ill mood was upon him and he had need to set forth his concerns.
“For is it not true, my girl? Was ever a good deed done without the doer hoping for their due credit?”
“Surely not, sir!” cried Nattie, her face shocked. “Oft, perhaps, but surely not always!”
“And yet I say it is so.”
“But what of kindnesses done in secret?” asked Nattie. “What of favours given without hope of their being repaid? What of the thousand minor goodly acts done without thought or wish for recognition each and every day by any single person?”
Scrooge smiled, and there was no warmth in it. “You do not heed my words,” he said. “For I did not say ‘recognition’ (though even the greatest-hearted of men is glad for it), I said ‘credit.’ And aye! credit may be recognition. But my trade is the lending of monies, girl, of balancing credit and debt one against the other. And again, I say, every good deed is done in the hope of credit gained, whether immaterial or material.”
“You must speak plainer, sir, for this talk of monies aids me little,” said Nattie.
“Consider,” said Scrooge, “those little niceties you spoke of. A familial smile given, a word of praise spoken, a concession granted. We all of us, even the cruelest of men, must of awhiles grant such small boons to our fellows.”
“Indeed, sir. And ever have I heard that in the small kindnesses as well as the great, Mr Ebenezer Scrooge is not to be matched by…”
But Scrooge held up a hand. “Nay, I do not seek your praise!” he groaned, and there was a despair in his voice. “The Lord Himself knows well enough that I do not lack for it. No! All I ask is this: Can you rightly say that any man, woman, or child has ever done some truly selfless deed in this fallen world?”
Nattie’s voice was firm, but quiet and sad. “I say they have, sir. I cannot, will not believe that every deed done be so cynically minded as you would have it. To be sure, many good works may be wrought for selfish reasons, yet many are those kindnesses performed without hope or prospect of reward…whether they be then rewarded or not.”
“‘Whether they be rewarded,’” repeated Scrooge thoughtfully. “Yet is this not the hope of all good-doers? That all goodnesses will be rewarded at the last? Is this not the very promise promoted for all good Christians to live their lives by? That thus will they attain salvation? And so they are selfless, for selfish reasons. Their charities are rooted not in any wish to aid others, but that they should gain an ultimate reward.”
“To be sure, that is the promise,” said Nattie. “But then, sir (and forgive me if I do not follow your line of thought), do you make the claim that salvation is unattainable? That to seek salvation is to be engaged in selfish conduct and, hence, is itself a wickedness?”
To this question, Scrooge frowned thoughtfully. “I say it is selfish,” he said. “Perhaps not unattainable. Yet perhaps…perhaps not so readily attainable as we cheat ourselves, also.” He stared straight ahead, his clouded eyes thoughtful and distant. “Tell me, Nattie. Do you know the Good Book well?”
The maid bobbed her head in answer.
“Then tell me, do you know these verses? ‘For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.’”
“I have heard them read aloud, sir, many a time.”
“And how do you understand them?”
Nattie smiled a little. “Why, but that is plain enough, sir. Not the least in light of your very words. ‘Tis faith that saves us, through the very goodness of God Himself.”
“Yes, very good!” said Scrooge. “Faith, not certainty. Trust and hope, rather than contract and bond.”
“Be that your trouble, sir?” asked Nattie gently. “Have you lost faith? ‘Tis said many have, in these unhappy modern days.”
“Lost it?” mused Scrooge. “I do not think it would be right to say so. No, no…say rather that it was taken from me. For if I had lost it, perhaps I might find it, and I surely would not know where it has gone. But my faith is not lost, but rather rendered futile. Impotent, through its own miserable certainty.”
“How do you mean, sir?” Nattie’s tone was troubled and uncertain, but gentle.
Scrooge’s voice, too, sank into a quiet thoughtfulness. “A Christmas miracle, I think you named it,” he said. “My late-found kindliness, I mean. You do not know how truly you spoke. For, many many years ago,” (and here his voice wavered and cracked, as if he himself knew not how to speak on the question), “On a Christmas-eve very much like this one just past, I had the strangest of revelations imaginable. Nay! do not ask me to speak further on it,” he added with a strangely wry laugh, holding up a hand at Nattie’s curious glance, “I could not do credit to the tale if I were to tell it. And, perhaps, if I did tell it well enough…you would not believe it.”
Scrooge shook his head slowly. “In any a case. This…revelation, we shall call it…led me to a single inescapable, dreadful conclusion. If I were to continue in my ways, I would be damned. And this was no mere feeling, no sudden impulse. This was and is a certainty, as sure as the sun’s rising.”
“A miracle, to be sure,” said Nattie, but still Scrooge stressed his point.
“A miracle? Perhaps! But if it was, what an ill-done miracle! For at first, I was heedless of its meaning, of its weight. I was joyous for the sake of having discovered joy anew, and that sufficed me. ‘Twas only later — in the months and years that followed this ‘miracle’ — that its true import became apparent to me.”
“For once upon a time, perhaps, I did have faith. A small, mean, unheeded faith, yet faith nonetheless. Yet I used it ill, I squandered it, and at what a cost! For now, I see its worth, only through its being denied to me! Now would I have faith, but find the imposition of surety in its place. It is a draught of my own mixing, I cannot lay blame at any other creature’s door for this misfortune! But this does not make the drinking of it less bitter.”
Nattie had been watching Scrooge closely, yet in confusion, through this despairing outburst. “Yet still I do not follow,” she said uncertainly. “To what end might this change have been wrought, if there truly be no hope for your salvation?”
Scrooge buried his head in his hands. “I know not to what end, not truly,” he groaned. “All I know is this: That my good deeds are rendered corrupt by my knowledge. Vain and trifling they are, false hopes of a failing man.”
An unhappy mood descended. A malaise seemed to have stricken Scrooge, who shivered and shook in his bed under the weight of long-brewing fears. Nattie rose, looked out the window to the snowy street below. At length, she said, “Would you pardon a question then, sir?” Scrooge voiced his assent, and Nattie went on. “For I fear I do not yet follow your tale. You say you do good because of this…this revelation, aye? And that the revelation itself renders the good of these deeds as naught?”
To these questions, Scrooge confirmed it was so.
“Then why,” continued Nattie, “why do good at all? Why have you not returned to your ill-favoured ways? For surely, if you are indeed damned, the easy and the comfortable road is the one to be taken? But perhaps I misunderstand.”
“No, you follow well,” replied Scrooge. But he did not answer the question immediately, for it seemed that he himself was weighing the problem carefully. Yet at length, he went on. “I suppose that, despite my doubts and fears, it is indeed because I cling to some small hope. Hope that my redressing the scales may yet be enough.”
Nattie said, her tone yet more perplexed, “Then if you have hope, I know not what sets you apart from any goodly fellow.”
“And I tell you again, the nature of that hope, of that knowledge, is of strange provenance,” said Scrooge darkly. “And in any case, it is not only hope that drives me, but fear.”
“Fear, sir! Fear and hope must be strange bedfellows, are they not?”
“They are,” said Scrooge. “Strange, yet not so unalike as you might dream. For what is fear, if it is not hope’s cousin? Both are anticipatory, both guide our action now that disaster may be averted in time to come. And it is fear, I say, not hope, that governs me.”
“Yet is that not true to say of many men?” asked Nattie quietly. “You spoke of damnation, sir. But what distinction lies there between the hope for salvation and the fear of damnation?”
“That many men pursue their hope, in a half-hearted and idle manner,” said Scrooge dismissively. “Yet for me, my fears are not ill-founded nor uncertain.” He chuckled. “Tell me, girl. Have you ever committed sin? Have you ever done an ill deed?”
Nattie fixed Scrooge with a thoughtful stare. “It is a strange question to put to a simple maid,” she said. “For who, in this fallen world, has not?”
Scrooge held up a finger. “A good answer!” he cried. “Yet it is not so strange a question as you would have it. For, if you believe, truly believe, in the words of Christ, is not the doing of sin not only the most foolish but also the most irrational act one could ever do? Yet the world is filled with believers who are at once counted sensible, and yet also are sinners, even if only on occasion. How can it be that such a gross contradiction is possible?”
“I think I follow your point, sir,” said Nattie. “You would have it that the belief, the hope, of many men is an idle and ill-realised thing. And that the evidence for this slovenliness is the dallying of ‘good’ folk in small wickednesses.”
“I would,” said Scrooge. “Indeed were it so for me, once upon a time.”
“Yet I do not yet follow why fear should govern you, where hope once failed,” said Nattie. “For as you said, are they not twins (if strange in their kinship)? How is it that your hope proved chancing in years past, and yet your fear is now sure?”
“It matters not,” said Scrooge, and there was a flash of anger in his voice. Yet even as his temper grew, his face suddenly blanched and he shrank back. “Nay, nay! Say rather, it is a small matter, and not easily explained.” In a smaller voice, he quavered miserably, “I do beg pardon for my anger. I did not mean offence. ‘Twas poorly said on my part.”
But Nattie seemed untroubled, for she was staring closely at Scrooge. “Is this it, then?” she murmured, half to herself. “You fear to do ill, lest it damn you. Is it so?”
It was boldly said, yet Scrooge did not resent the question nor shy from it. “I do,” he said. “All men should, perhaps. Yet I do. For think! girl. What a miserable chance it would be, to come to the end of one’s life and to look back upon it, and see how near one was to grace and how painfully short one fell. It is intolerable, truly intolerable! that such should occur. Hence, it is far better to be prudent, to take cares.”
“Yet still I do not understand the distinction you seek to make,” said Nattie.
“It is simple enough,” said Scrooge. “My goodnesses are done neither for charity, nor for faith, nor even for hope.” (At this, Nattie stirred as if disturbed, but she held her peace, and Scrooge continued his speech.) “They are done because I fear what evils may yet be visited upon me.”
“Surely it matters not,” replied Nattie. “Is not a good deed good, whether it be done for fear or hope?”
“I think not,” said Scrooge.
Nattie answered evenly, “And yet I say it may not matter at all, sir. Say that I were to pass by a grocer’s stall, even as I were seized with a most terrible hunger and, in the very pain of it, saw that the man had set before him a most tempting tray of apples. Now, I daresay I might think to snatch one of those apples on my way and been about it, if he were preoccupied with debate concerning the price and weight of his wares with a customer. But if it were merely the thought, and I passed on my way, I have committed no ill.”
“Ah,” said Scrooge, his eye glinting. “But then we come to the heart of the matter. Would you not take the apple because prudence bade you be cautious and not risk the chance, or because your conscience forbade it?”
“May a girl not feel both in the same moment?” she answered.
“She may. But what of it? For the conclusion remains the same — you have acted in this manner not wholly out of charity, but out of fear alike. And in any a case, your example holds not for me,” and Scrooge laughed bitterly. “For you, you merely wonder if the grocer would notice your theft. But I have been assured, promised, shown, that the grocer is always watching. That the grocer, however preoccupied he may seem, knows the account of my deeds. I do not filch his wares because I know I will be caught.”
“Then you are merely more sensible than most,” said Nattie. “To have such conviction sounds still to me like belief, though I grant that that belief may be blended with fear.”
“And yet still do those fears and my fear rule me,” said Scrooge despondently. “As they always will, till my dying day. Then, and only then, will I know aright if I have dodged damnation. And I see no good prospect for it.” He sighed heavily, and turned his head away, seemingly overwhelmed with his own confusion of thought.
For her part, Nattie tutted. “This is all rather gloomy talk for a Christmas-day,” she said. “This chatter of deathbeds and damnation ill-suits the season, I find.”
“I find it peculiarly well-suited,” said Scrooge. “For does not Christmas herald the death of sin?”
Nattie laughed merrily. “At that you have me, sir,” she said. “Yet still I find it disheartening, to hear you speak so. Come! Will you not cheer a young maid’s morn? Enough of the future, have you naught to say of merrier times gone by? For I know you to be a merry man, good Scrooge, despite this unhappy mood.”
Scrooge laughed at that, “‘Tis funny you should say so. For even that merriment is owed to this strange day.”
“To your revelation?” asked Nattie softly.
“Indeed.”
Nattie’s tone was now quiet, but there was an edge to her voice. “I continue to return in thought, again and again, to this revelation of yours,” she said. “It is plain that you are loth to tell me what might have passed, and I will not press you for it. Yet even without that knowing, there is a doubt I cannot shake concerning it.”
“Speak,” said Scrooge idly, still looking away. “I have no secrets concerning it. And whatever question you may have, I do not doubt I have considered it.”
“It seems to me a strange revelation,” said Nattie (at this, Scrooge barked out a short and unhappy laugh, but he did not interject), “that should have made not one whit of difference, if it is as you say. I have indeed heard report of Mr Scrooge’s manner in years gone by, and (pray forgive the impertinence, sir) I cannot say I doubt that such ill manner may well have led you to an ill end. What manner of revelation, then, was this, that it should have led you from misery to misery? You seem resigned to an unhappy lot, sir, yet was not your lot also truly unhappy before? Can it truly be that nothing whatsoever was gained by this revelation?”
“Perhaps not nothing,” said Scrooge. “Aye, perhaps you are right. Perhaps there is a kernel of hope that lives alongside the fear. But perhaps (and on this, too, have I thought), my revelation was not granted for the sake of my own benefit at all.” He laughed again, but it was soft and sad now, and if there was bitterness in it, it was not wholly bitter.
“Then for whose gain was it?” asked Nattie.
“Can there be any doubt? For that of my kin, my colleagues, my clients and my acquaintances. Is it not exceedingly likely that this is my lot? To grant some ease, some comfort, to those who once suffered on my account? Perhaps even to foster some charity in the hearts of others, that they need not err and suffer as I have erred. Perhaps, girl, that is my lot. To bestow upon others those treasures material that I love not; and (perhaps) even to guide them to gifts immaterial that I myself will never earn.”
“And is that not a goodly lot?” asked Nattie earnestly.
“Goodly, perhaps. But what does it matter?” spat Scrooge. “If all I have done is for naught on my account, what difference does it make?”
“Yet what man can say or guess otherwise, sir?” asked the maid. “What man truly knows the measure of his heart, or how it will be reckoned? And even if your punishment be not one mite reduced, have you not reduced the punishments of others, in this life at the least, and mayhap the next life into the deal? For think, sir. Think of all the hearts you have gladdened, all the quarrels averted, all the fears quelled, through your passing and simple kindlinesses. Is that not worth something?”
“Something, perhaps,” said Scrooge. “But do not speak to me of such reckonings and balancings, either. For here, too, am I left wanting. I may be a benefactor of some merit in these days, but truly I tell you, I was far more skilled (and practiced besides) as a miser. For every ill deed I once did, I know I must pay ten goodnesses now ere my debt be balanced. And I am not a young man. Soon, the ledger must be closed.” Scrooge closed his eyes, his body wracked with a deep and heavy sigh.
“So it is for many men, Mr Scrooge,” said Nattie. “Yet never did I hear that ‘too little, too late’ was inscribed in the Good Book. Is it not enough that your heart be changed now? Surely that, at least, is worth something.”
Scrooge shook his head. “It is too little, and too late,” he said firmly. “Consider the pattern of my years. My youth, plagued by disregard. The finest years of my life, marred by miserliness and unkindness. And now these, my twilit days, dogged by fear. Tell me, girl. What single one of these periods in my life does me the slightest credit? And when gathered into their whole, do they not seem even less than the sum of their meagre parts?”
“Simple is it to do discredit to one’s own works,” answered Nattie calmly. “I do not doubt that you do yourself an unkindness, sir.”
Scrooge laughed bitterly. “And if I do, what of it? Is an unkindness less unkind if it is inflicted upon oneself? Am I not, even now, ruining myself, heedless of my lessons learnt?”
“Such an unkindness may not be less unkind. Yet many are the forms of unkindnesses, and they are not all born of a mean heart,” said Nattie.
“And what may be an unkindness, if it is not unkind?”
“It may be thoughtless, or ignorant, or even well-meaning (if ill-judged).” And now Nattie fixed Scrooge with a keen eye. “But I do not guess you to be thoughtless, nor ignorant.”
Scrooge laughed bitterly. “Then make your guess.”
“I guess you afraid, Mr Scrooge.”
At this, Ebenezer Scrooge slapped his knees and laughed yet harder, though there was no mirth in his tone. “You guess me afraid, do you? But this is hardly an overbold assumption. For have I not spoken of all my wretched fears all this while? Is it not abundantly apparent that I am afraid of all those full-deserved unhappinesses that are doomed to dog me?”
Nattie’s tone was quiet, but firm. “No, sir. Say rather that you are afraid that you might deserve happiness.”
And at these words, Scrooge found himself struck dumb. Nattie continued, and her voice was changed. “Too little, too late, you claim. Yet you persist. Undeserving, you hold yourself. Yet you persist. Damned, you think yourself. Yet you persist. Persist in kindness, in generosity of spirit and your merry ways. This does not accord, Mr Scrooge. If, truly, you saw the end as clearly as you fear, why not desist? Why not take the easy road?”
“Nay. I do not doubt your fears, Mr Scrooge. I only doubt your love. But not your love for others. I doubt your love for yourself.”
“Bah! What is there to love in me…?” asked Scrooge, but the maid interjected.
“A kindly man, Mr Scrooge. A man who is himself loved, by many whom he meets. Nay! do not speak, I know what you would say. That their love is undeservingly spent, or that it suffices and you need not love yourself. But I tell you this, sir. You fear that you do not deserve such loves, in this life or in any other. It is not so. Aye, you have strayed, you have erred, you have done ill. Aye, you fear. But already, many years ago, you opened your heart to grace in this very room — but grace for others, care for their wants. The lesson is learnt, and learnt well. All that remains is for you to allow yourself that same grace.”
A strange silence descended upon the room. Nattie waited by the window, her face grave and sad. For his part, Scrooge had closed his eyes, his breath sighing and falling in thought, his head drooped. But where before he had been bowed and tensed as if under some great burden, now was his appearance peaceful, his manner calmed, and it seemed that many years of grief and toil had been lifted from him. At length, and he did not know how long the silence lingered, he looked up, and his eyes were filled with tears. “A strange meeting, this,” he said, and his voice was brisk and businesslike (though not unkindly). “Thank you, girl, for spending these past few minutes with so old and dull a fellow.”
He rubbed his eyes, sat up straight. “But now, we must conclude and be about our business. Fred, I daresay, will be expecting a call from me. It is high time for me to rise, to begin the day’s affairs.”
“Why,” said Natalya quietly, “but I do believe that you won’t be doing anything of the sort. For, Mr Scrooge, you have been dead these past sixteen hours.”
The room turned suddenly icy. Such a chill had Scrooge not felt in his quarters for many a year, when in unhappy days he had refused to spare an extra mite of coal to the hearth’s greedy mouth. In horror, he looked to his hands, and they were his hands. But even as he sprang from his bed in alarm, he found that his body did not spring with him, but remained reclined upon the bed, peaceful and sleeping. And as he sat, two gentlemen came in through the door.
“Wait!” cried Scrooge, his face aghast and pale. “I know this scene! I have marked it before, if in other manner.”
“You need not watch anew,” answered Natalya calmly.
At these words, Scrooge gaped for, so stricken was he by his newfound unlivingness, he had momentarily quite forgotten the presence of the maid. “You!” he said, and the word was both accusation and demand. “Who are you?”
“I am who I have said I am,” answered Natalya with a smile, and even in Scrooge’s desperate horror, that smile put him to a strange ease, as if within it were contained a thousand reassurances. “You, though, may call me by another name, my dear Ebenezer. A name more fitting to you and I alike, perhaps.”
“And what name is that?”
Natalya rose, and she was young and fair, like as a tree new-crowned in the living greenery of spring. “I am the Ghost of Christmas Evermore,” she said. “And now is come your time, Ebenezer Scrooge, to accompany me, even unto my realm.”
Scrooge did not answer at once. He stepped fully away from his bed, though (not least to avoid the discomfiting examinations of the men, who were now peering over the body he had until recently needed for many years) and glanced around the room, if briefly, for suddenly he realised that he may not be returning. When he did answer, his words were slow, probing. “I would have guessed,” said he, “that already I and all Christendom dwelt in your realm, my Lady.”
The Ghost laughed, and her laugh sang like silver bells. “It is not merely in charity that you have grown, Ebenezer Scrooge,” she said. “You are not mistaken. But this is but a shadow and a thought of my realm, and you are now invited to see it in all its beauty. Come!” And she stretched forth one fair hand in token.
Yet Scrooge did not come, not yet. “Why?” he asked, a doubt in his voice. “Why have you come to me, put these questions to me, my lady? For long have we have spoken this morn on my doubts and my fears alike. Yet I do not doubt that you knew already what I would say.”
The Ghost smiled, and there was a knowing and a joy in her smile that filled Scrooge with wonder. “I did,” she said. “I did not put you to the test that I might learn anything at all, dear Ebenezer. It was you yourself who needed to hear your answers, not I. Your chain was grown small, my friend. Small, but heavy. Now it is unbound.”
She seemed to grow and to overshadow the room. But her power and potency was not that of terror, nor of fear, but of warmth and care and a gentle melancholy
“What a terrible thing it was, to be Scrooge Repentant,” she said, and her voice echoed through the narrow room and seemed to ring far beyond it. “Burdened so with knowledge, with care and with kindness. Burdened with duty, and ever striving not to fail in that newfound duty, lest it be failed irredeemably – aye! and to feel the weight of that word, ‘irredeemable.’ To be Scrooge Reformed, a paragon of virtue, and yet to see a thousand small scrooges all about in the street, in the shops, in your very home. To pity their fate and yet be powerless to thwart it, lest you yourself fell into grave error. To ever feel the dreadful danger of falling anew into old habits, to heed every passing lapse in your own conduct.”
“Yet you have passed the test, my friend. You have triumphed. Come!”
A shiver ran through the air, and again the Ghost extended her hand. Still Scrooge hesitated, though.
“Speak!” said the Ghost. “If aught troubles you, tell me of it.”
Scrooge sighed unhappily. “Old Jacob,” he said. “I’ve often wondered what became of him. After…well, after last time I saw him, if you know what I mean. And I owe much to him, the bad and the good alike. If I might be able to put in a good word for him, however little it might mean…”
The Ghost smiled again, but it was a sad smile and filled with pity. “It has been marked,” she said. “His time is not yet come, my friend. But one day, maybe, it will. And your intercession on his part does his case no harm and great credit.”
Scrooge nodded his understanding, and thrust his hands into his pockets, as he glanced around his chambers for the very last time.
“Well,” he said. “Let’s be off.”
It is a bad thing, to be engaged in grief at Christmastide. But so it was over those cold days for Fred and his family, and no few people besides, for Scrooge had been a kindly man and his generosity and laughter had been a boon to many, rich and poor alike. None counted this sorrow strange – though once, long ago and in a time that never was, Scrooge’s end had brought no grief, but some mite of relief. Now, though, the grief of many in London was rendered all the greater by those mirths that of late had been enjoyed in the company of Ebenezer Scrooge.
Perhaps it was always doomed that grief and joy be mixed in some measure in old Ebenezer’s tale. Perhaps it had all made no difference, whether those joys born of Scrooge had preceded the griefs or followed them, for in any a case, both joy and grief had been, and had been because of Ebenezer Scrooge. Indeed, it may seem to some that that remarkable change of heart realised in Scrooge all those years prior had been for naught; that all the old man had achieved was to sink the bitter dregs to the bottom, that they be tasted at the end.
This, I suppose, is indeed one view of the matter. Perhaps, to some cold and blindly lofty mind, the account of Scrooge’s life and passing can be seen merely as an equation, a series of additions and subtractions that inevitably must balance to nil. Perhaps ultimately, all these strange events were in vain.
Perhaps.
For Scrooge was dead: and so it ends.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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