Mr. Dickens and His Carol
Page 22
Christmas might be saved after all.
*
Just outside the front gate, young Charley, Walter, and Frank piled out of the carriage noisily, followed by the two barking Newfoundlands, and even a cat. Dickens flew out the front door to greet them, his heart pounding out of his chest.
“Look! My children! It’s Flaster Floby! Chicken Stalker and Young Skull … And the dogs! Timberdoodle, Sniffery!”
The boys ran to meet him halfway up the walk, pulled at his pant legs, jumped into his arms, squeezed his neck, yelling the latest news of this and that and nothing that mattered and everything that did, while the dogs leapt around them and burrowed in the snow. Dickens lifted Frank into his arms—he was still just small enough—lightly pinched his pixie nose, and held him close.
“My boys, oh, my boys. How I’ve missed your shining faces,” he said, showering them with kisses. “And your sticky fingers, Frank,” he said, kissing each one in turn, down to the littlest. “And this, the tastiest one of all!”
Frank giggled and squirmed out of his father’s arms to run inside with his brothers, all throwing snowballs as they went. Mamie stepped from the carriage with her usual quiet dignity and walked to her father. She pulled out a plain velvet bag pulled tight with a golden cord, heavy in her delicate gloved hand. She held it out to him.
“All the pennies you’ve ever given me. For the starving children of India.”
Dickens took the bag, as he knew he must, then pressed it back into her hand. How lovely a girl she was, so much like her mother, and yet like no one he’d ever met. He put one hand on each side of her face and kissed her fair freckled forehead.
“My dearest Mild Glo’ster. How good you are, and true. I think you the kindest person I know.”
Katey appeared behind her sister, nose high in the air, the best snub she could muster.
“Oh, Katey. Will your dance card be full this evening? I was so hoping for a waltz.”
She folded her arms royally across her chest, turning her chin to the stars with an exaggerated huff.
“For a shilling, I will.”
“A shilling it is,” he said.
“Or a kiss.”
She met her father’s gaze. Her fern-green eyes matched the velvet of her carriage coat and bonnet.
“I shall give you two kisses,” he said. “And be glad for the bargain.”
Katey kissed one of his cheeks; Mamie the other. But the party couldn’t be kept waiting a moment more, least of all for them.
As the girls skipped inside, arm in arm, Dickens walked toward the carriage, where a radiant Catherine stood by, having at last disembarked and come home. She held their newborn son in her arms. The baby was wrapped tight and warm in a wool blanket, but his little face shone in the moonlight. It was like seeing him for the first time, all of them, with fresh eyes and a clear heart.
“Oh, Catherine…” he said, taking the baby in his arms for only the second time since the child had come upon the earth. But he found it hard to go on.
“What is Christmas without our party?” she said softly, with a smile to match.
Choked with feeling, he looked at her. “I know that of late I’ve pitied myself a poor man—poor in love, in riches, in prospects. But I’ve learned, in these days of your absence … that whatever I suffered was a poverty of my own vision.”
He raised his hand; she pressed hers to his. Their foreheads rested, one against the other.
“My dear Cate, forgive me for not seeing that I am rich in all ways … Wealthy beyond all imagining.”
Catherine shook her head and nodded, both at once. “We have all that we need,” she said, “right here.”
“We do,” he said, his voice faltering. “And we shall have such dinings, such dancings…” He was fighting tears, but losing.
“… such kissings-out of old years,” Catherine continued from memory, her own voice trembling, “and kissings-in of new as have never been seen in these parts before.”
Dickens smiled, filled with the memory of their first Christmas, and every one since then. “I guess Christmas begins in the heart after all.”
They leaned over their bundled newborn to kiss, warm and tender, the way only people who have loved each other a very long time can do.
When their lips parted, Dickens opened his eyes to find Catherine looking past him. The front door was open. Timothy stood in the foyer, by himself, watching the festivities from a distance. He seemed shy again, the boy he’d first met, who was afraid to speak, or had no one to speak to. Or had forgotten how.
Catherine’s face bloomed beneath her fur-trimmed bonnet. “You must be Timothy,” she called to him. The boy turned, surprised to hear his name on her lips. “Mr. Dickens wrote me all about you.”
She beckoned him toward them with a wave of her glove. Dickens watched the boy step away from the safety of the threshold, unsure, as if his own fate hung in the balance. He stopped at Dickens’ side and looked at the child in his arms.
“Wot’s its name?”
“It so happens we’re nearly out of names,” she said. “Shall I take you up, show you the extra bed, and we’ll choose one on the way?”
Catherine collected the skirts of her burgundy velvet in one hand and reached the other toward the boy. Timothy looked at her, incredulous at the offer of a kind hand and a proper bed all at once. He turned to Dickens, who blinked and nodded. He was a deserving boy, as all children are. But didn’t yet know it himself.
“Mustn’t keep Christmas waiting,” Catherine said.
Dickens watched him slip his hand into hers, the most natural thing in the world, and grip it tight as she led him inside. Of course he missed a mother’s touch.
How pleased Eleanor would be.
All the luggage unloaded, the carriage driver bade a good night and a merry Christmas to the household, which Dickens returned tenfold. As the bells on the horses jingled back the way they’d come, he stood on the walk outside the gate to cherish his first moment alone with his new son. He turned toward the house where, through the window, the Christmas party thrummed in all its splendor. Everyone, even Catherine and Timothy, gathered around the piano as Mamie played. All singing at once.
“Hark! the Herald angels sing Glory to the newborn King! Peace on earth, and mercy mild, God and sinners reconcil’d…”
It sounded brightly in his ears, a boisterous chorus of man and angels. He turned his face to the star-kissed winter sky, from which glittering snowflakes began to fall. He couldn’t have been happier had he been transported to Paradise. Here it was, in front of him now.
Charles Dickens was filled with the spirit of Christmases past, present, and all that were yet to come.
He pulled his son close, kissed his tiny brow, and whispered in his ear.
“God bless us. Every one.”
Author’s Note
This is a work of fiction. It is spun out of threads from the lives of Charles Dickens, his family and friends, and even a nemesis or two. It is meant as a playful reimagining of how the second most beloved Christmas story in the world (after the original) came to be. I have twisted, embellished, and reordered the facts (and even his children) to serve the plot. Nearly all the characters are based on real people, and the best lines, to be sure, are things they actually said. Also true is that Dickens was a literary rock star in his own time, that Martin Chuzzlewit was a flop, that his publishers threatened to “deduct from his pay,” that Dickens was overextended, and that his relatives—his father most of all (who did once go to debtors’ prison)—depended on him for money. A Christmas Carol was born out of financial necessity. Most of the rest I made up from whole cloth.
Apologies in advance to Dickens aficionados and scholars who might bristle at the liberties I’ve taken. Please trust that I did so with abundant good cheer, admiration, and affection for the man who is my subject. The book is, most of all, a fan letter—a love letter—to the “Inimitable Boz” himself that says, “I know you were a flawed man w
ho had a heart as big as the world. That you saw Christmas as a time to reconnect with our humanity and revel in even our smallest blessings. And that you lived with so much darkness, inside and out, but leaned—urgently, frantically—always toward the light.”
I hope this is a book about Dickens as much as it’s a book about all of us. I owe a tremendous debt to his biographers. But I’m keenly aware that a good biography tells us the truth about a person; a good story, the truth about ourselves.
That, I think, is what Dickens did best. This book is my tribute to his prodigious gift, written with full awareness that he is, and always will be, inimitable.
Acknowledgments
I owe a debt of gratitude to my agent, Emma Parry, and my editor, Caroline Bleeke, for taking this leap with me. Without them, nothing. But there are others who believed for so long: Stacy Ericson, who sparked the idea years ago; my long-time manager, Matt Luber, who championed the screenplay through some heartbreaking near misses with the big screen; David Kirkpatrick, who urged me to adapt it; Tish O’Hagan, Lynn Hofflund, and Kim Philley, who read countless drafts. Josie Fretwell and Elizabeth Tullis, who never lost faith. And I’d be remiss not to thank my once-husband, Michael Hoffman, whom I credit for most of what I understand about storytelling. He believed, too.
I will be forever grateful for our three children, who lived this book so much of their young lives (and even came to consider Dickens one of the family). They helped me understand what it is to be flawed, and still love fiercely.
I lost my wonderful mother, Beverly Silva Kunert, while deep in the final edits of the book. I had to imagine, at so many turns, the utter delight in her voice if I’d been able to pick up the phone and tell her even the smallest good news. I would not be a writer if it weren’t for her and my father, friend, and mentor, Mike Silva, who raised us to believe, above all things, in the power of words.
And to David Nevin, my Lydian stone, who makes every day feel like Christmas—all, and infinitely more.
About the Author
Samantha Silva is an author and screenwriter based in Idaho. Mr. Dickens and His Carol is her debut novel.
Vist her online at www.samanthasilvawriter.com, or sign up for email updates here.
Thank you for buying this
Flatiron Books ebook.
To receive special offers, bonus content,
and info on new releases and other great reads,
sign up for our newsletters.
Or visit us online at
us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
For email updates on the author, click here.
Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Part I
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Part II
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Part III
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Authors Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
MR. DICKENS AND HIS CAROL. Copyright © 2017 by Samantha Silva. All rights reserved. For information, address Flatiron Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.flatironbooks.com
Cover design by Julianna Lee
Cover photographs: man © Roy Bishop Arcangel; hat and coat © Diane Kerpan @ Arcangel; border © Amoret Tanner Alamy Stock Photo; city © iStock.com / Mammuth
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Silva, Samantha, author.
Title: Mr. Dickens and his carol: a novel of Christmas past / Samantha Silva.
Description: New York: Flatiron Books, [2017]
Identifiers: LCCN 2017028500|ISBN 9781250154040 (hardcover)|ISBN 9781250154033 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Dickens, Charles, 1812–1870, —Fiction.|Christmas stories.|GSAFD: Biographical fiction.|Historical fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3619.I544345 M7 2017|DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017028500
eISBN 9781250154033
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at MacmillanSpecialMarkets@macmillan.com.
First Edition: October 2017