by Jim Piecuch
“You misunderstand me, Doctor,” the old man said, having retained his calm and his slight smile during Jones’s outburst. “I am a friend of your other former partner, Dr. Cratchit.”
Jones sighed. “I apologize for getting angry, sir. I have no love for Dr. Eustace, though I always have admired Dr. Cratchit. He is a bright young fellow, and, if you do not mind my taking the liberty to say so, sir, he is wasting his talents by remaining with Eustace. He has skills far beyond what Eustace’s menagerie of hypochondriacs could possibly require.”
The old man nodded. “I am in absolute agreement, sir. That is why I have called on you today. I have heard talk that you are planning to retire soon, and came to learn if it was true, and if you would be selling your practice.”
Jones stroked his short white beard. He and his wife had discussed the possibility of his retirement many times, but he was certain that he had not mentioned it to anyone else. Then again, he could not be absolutely sure, and it was possible that his wife may have spoken of it to their children, or her friends. Still, how could it have reached the ears of this stranger?
“I am an old man, with much free time, and I see a great many people,” the fellow said, answering Jones’s unspoken question. “Where I heard this, I cannot say, but hear it I did.”
“Well, it is true enough,” Jones conceded. “Have you come on behalf of Dr. Cratchit?”
“No,” the elderly gentleman replied. “I admit I am acting on my own. As I said, I share your concerns about the young man. I thought a practice like this would be beneficial to him, as it would provide him a decent income while leaving him time for research and other pursuits.”
“The income is no more than decent,” Jones said with a laugh, “and there is free time aplenty. I will discuss this with my wife, and if I should decide to sell the practice, I will contact Dr. Cratchit.”
“Thank you, Doctor. A very merry Christmas to you, and to your wife and children,” the old man said warmly.
“And the same to you, sir,” Jones replied. “Allow me to turn off this last lamp and get my coat, and I will walk you out.”
Dr. Jones needed only seconds to complete those tasks. As he pulled on his coat, he looked about for the stranger. The old man had gone.
Tim dealt with each of the afternoon’s patients in his usual competent manner. By five, Tim had seen the last patient out the door. He yawned, but as the hour of his party drew closer, he found his energy increasing. He withdrew the ledger from the drawer of Beckham’s desk and recorded the afternoon’s transactions. Deciding to speed the encounter with Penrose, he wrote a summary copy of the week’s records, calculated Dr. Eustace’s portion, and counted out the requisite amount of cash.
Six o’clock came, with no sign of Penrose. Tim, looking out the window, saw Henry arrive with the coach. Five minutes passed, and still no Penrose. Ten minutes after six. Eustace’s clerk had not yet appeared. Tim knew that the arrogant fellow was purposely making him wait. He gathered his medical bag, the copy of the records, and the money he owed Eustace, locked up his office, and strode to his partner’s door.
Twisting the knob to open the door, Tim saw Penrose seated at his desk, perusing a newspaper. The clerk looked up, but, Tim noticed, did not glance at the clock.
“What are you doing here, Dr. Cratchit?” the clerk inquired with a formal inflection. “I thought I made it clear I was going to call on you.”
“You did, and you said it would be at six. It is nearly a quarter past,” Tim said, not trying to disguise his dissatisfaction.
“My, my!” Penrose said. “Perhaps there is a problem with the clock mechanism, and it did not chime to remind me. I will accompany you to your office now, Doctor.”
The clock chimed the quarter hour. Penrose’s jaw tightened, and his face reddened as he realized he had been caught in a lie. He leaped to the offensive before Tim could take him to task.
“Dr. Eustace was quite upset yesterday when you shut your office before the appointed closing time and rushed off in the company of some workman. He had to take two of your appointments, and that was a serious inconvenience, especially since he thought he had made it plain to you that you are only to treat proper patients.”
“As it so happens,” Tim told Penrose, “a building under construction collapsed yesterday. A building owned by one of Dr. Eustace’s patients, Mr. Benjamin Wilson. A workman was sent here to fetch a doctor.”
Penrose pondered this for a full minute, his clenched lips working over his teeth, giving his face a horsey appearance. Tim could see the uncertainty in Penrose’s eyes as the clerk struggled to reconcile this information with his desire to rebuke the errant Dr. Cratchit.
“If Mr. Wilson is Dr. Eustace’s patient, then he would certainly know that the doctor would not have time to deal with a few bruised workmen,” Penrose said at last.
“Then perhaps that is why I was the one summoned,” Tim suggested. He knew that he was not telling Penrose the full story, but there was no need to provoke either him or Eustace unnecessarily. If Tim kept the details murky, Eustace might think that Wilson had sent for him, and would let the matter pass.
“Possibly,” Penrose conceded. “You can explain it to Dr. Eustace yourself later. Now I will inspect your books.”
“There is no need to go to my office,” Tim asserted. “I have done all the calculations and here is the summary along with the amount due Dr. Eustace.” Tim placed the paper and the gold and silver coins on the clerk’s desk.
“I need to review your ledger,” Penrose insisted.
“Are you questioning my honesty, Mr. Penrose?” Tim asked.
The clerk blushed again. “No, Doctor.”
“You have a key to my office. You can review the ledger at your leisure,” Tim said. “If you find any discrepancies, you may notify me. Good night.”
Tim turned and walked out of the office toward his waiting carriage. Penrose stared after him, eyes narrowed and teeth clenched in silent rage. He waited until the lights of Tim’s carriage had disappeared, then ran to the neighboring office, unlocked the door, and opened Tim’s ledger. Three times he reviewed the figures, and each time they came out the same. There was indeed a discrepancy. In addition to the pounds and shillings, Tim had owed Dr. Eustace three and a half pence. Dr. Cratchit had rounded the amount up to the nearest shilling. He had overpaid by eight and a half pence.
Chapter 16
The bustle in the Cratchit household had begun an hour after Tim left for his office. After finishing their breakfast, William, Bridget, Ginny, and Lizzie set to work. While Lizzie dusted the dining room furniture and kept an eye on Jonathan, who watched her from a chair, William and Ginny carried every table in the house into the dining room. They placed two along the wall next to the two sideboards, which by themselves were too small to accommodate the food that would be placed there for the evening’s feast. The other tables were placed end to end parallel to the dining room table, which they had earlier moved from its central position in the room closer to one wall. As they positioned each table, Lizzie dusted it and covered it with a linen tablecloth. Bridget then positioned plates, silverware, glasses, and candlesticks atop each table. It was an efficient system and they made quick progress.
“I hope this isn’t too much work for you,” William said to Ginny after they had pushed the first table into place. “I don’t like making a lady work so hard. Unless she’s cooking my dinner, of course,” the gardener added.
“I don’t mind,” Ginny replied. “I’ve worked a lot harder.”
Jonathan was sitting up in his chair, his cheeks showing a ruddy tinge that Ginny could not remember having ever seen before. He still slept often, but he was clearly gaining strength. Ginny believed that having a warm bed to sleep in every night and nourishing meals were the cause of her son’s improvement. She had told Tim that, and he had agreed. “It’s a good thing, too,” he
had added. “If I do perform surgery on him, he’ll need all the strength he can get.”
Ginny refocused her attention on her work, which was difficult given William’s teasing. “This old table is pretty rough,” he said as they prepared to lift a battered worktable from Tim’s erstwhile laboratory. “Take care you don’t get a splinter in those dainty hands.”
“I don’t think I’d feel it if I did,” Ginny retorted, holding up her callused palms.
When William struggled a bit with the next table, a heavy piece of furniture that resembled a workbench, Ginny remarked that she was probably stronger than he was, since Bridget said that the most use his arms got was pushing himself out of bed after his frequent naps. William guffawed, and they continued their labors in the same spirit.
Once all the furniture was in position, and Bridget had laid out all of the dishes and utensils, William began humming a Christmas carol. Bridget, Ginny, and Lizzie joined in with the lyrics, and even Jonathan, feeling the excitement, added an occasional “la la la” that made all of them smile.
At ten o’clock the sound of carriage wheels on the outside pavement sent Lizzie running to the front door. Henry climbed down from the driver’s seat, opened the coach’s side door, and began handing the food purchased earlier to Bridget and Ginny, who had followed Lizzie to the door. The little girl gaped, eyes wide, at the abundance of food. A turkey, three large hams, several slabs of beef, strings of plump sausages, and an array of vegetables and fruits issued forth from the carriage as if poured from a cornucopia.
“I never seen so much food in my life!” Lizzie exclaimed. “Where did it come from?”
“We bought it and stored it in the back room of the carriage house, where the cold would keep it fresh,” Henry explained.
“Did you leave any so’s other people will have some for their Christmas dinners?” Lizzie asked.
“Of course we did,” Bridget reassured her. Lizzie continued to stare while the adults made repeated trips, arms loaded, to the servants’ pantry and kitchen. Finally, Henry took the last load—a wooden crate filled with bottles—and Lizzie shut the coach door. She was about to turn and follow when she caught sight of the postman strolling up the drive, a stack of letters in his hand. She took them, thanked the man, and went into the foyer. Glancing at the top envelope, she noticed that it bore an unusual stamp. That would normally have been an interesting distraction for her, but not today. She thrust the letters in her apron pocket, closed the front door, and rushed off to partake of the excitement in the kitchen.
Henry and William stoked the fires for the ovens while Bridget and Ginny prepared the turkey; Jonathan, tired from observing the morning’s activities, had been put in bed and was napping. Lizzie washed, peeled, and sliced vegetables, and the coachman and gardener joined in the work once the fires were blazing. They were all busily occupied when a woman’s voice called down from the doorway of the servants’ pantry.
“That can’t be Mrs. Cratchit already,” Bridget said. “She and Belinda weren’t supposed to come until noon.”
Henry pulled out his pocket watch. “It’s nearly half-past eleven,” he noted.
Bridget climbed the stairs and found that it was indeed Mrs. Cratchit and her daughter.
“We thought we’d come over early,” Mrs. Cratchit explained. “I figured you could use the help.” She was a plump woman of medium height, with shiny silver hair just long enough to be tied back behind her head. Although her face bore the lines of age and a lifetime of hard work, Mrs. Cratchit wore her usual bright smile and her dark brown eyes sparkled. Belinda was carrying a basket laden with bread and cold chicken for everyone’s noon meal. Like her brother Tim, Belinda was slim and blond. She was pretty in an understated way, and despite a steady stream of suitors, she remained unmarried, staying at the family home to care for her mother. An accomplished seamstress, Belinda had a small but successful business. She had plenty of time to sew, since Mrs. Cratchit’s good health and strong streak of independence meant that she really required very little care.
Both women wore their silk party gowns, but quickly tied on aprons and went to work. Mrs. Cratchit, who after raising six children knew how to prepare a large meal efficiently, slipped quickly into command. This was the routine every year, and Bridget welcomed the older woman’s ability to direct every aspect of food preparation and to remain unruffled no matter what unforeseen disaster might occur. As she worked and gave directions, she and Belinda introduced themselves to Ginny and Lizzie and learned how the wandering pair had ended up as Tim’s houseguests.
“That’s just like my Tim,” Mrs. Cratchit said. “He’s always willing to help someone in need. Except, of course, himself. How is he, Bridget?”
Bridget briefly updated Mrs. Cratchit on Tim’s situation. The older woman was already familiar with her son’s role at the building collapse the previous night, having heard the story from the Barrows. However, she raised her eyebrows when Bridget mentioned Tim’s interest in Jane and said that the young lady would be acting as hostess that evening.
“Now, that’s a surprise,” Mrs. Cratchit remarked. “If you’d told me he planned to work straight through tonight’s dinner, or had run off across London to tend to a sick patient, it wouldn’t have surprised me a bit. But a young lady! I’m very glad, and not least because he won’t have to dragoon me into being his hostess tonight. I hope she’s a nice girl.”
“I haven’t met her, but I would think she is,” Bridget said.
“Good,” Mrs. Cratchit said with a satisfied nod. “My two biggest fears for Tim, aside from worrying that he’ll work himself to death, are that he won’t find a decent woman to settle down with, or that if he does, it will be some upper-class lady who looks down her nose at people like us. I’m eager to meet this girl.”
With all the meats roasting and the vegetables ready for cooking, Mrs. Cratchit announced a break to eat. Everyone trooped upstairs and into the servants’ pantry after her, and they shared the contents of Belinda’s basket. Observing Lizzie’s grimace at the relatively small amount of food, Mrs. Cratchit remarked that if they ate too much at noon, they wouldn’t have room for all the food at dinner. Lizzie concurred, and tossed a half-eaten slice of bread back into the basket.
During the meal, Mrs. Cratchit asked Bridget how her and Henry’s wedding preparations were progressing.
“We really haven’t done anything except talk about it yet,” Bridget replied. “It’s been so busy for us, with Christmas and all, that we haven’t been able to find the time.”
Mrs. Cratchit fixed the girl with a serious gaze. “I know what it’s like to be busy,” she said softly. “But when two people are in love, they find time for the important things, and fixing a wedding date and talking to the minister are important. Now, unless my son is working your fingers and Henry’s to the bone, and we know he isn’t, something must be wrong. You two aren’t having second thoughts, are you?”
Bridget glanced at Henry, who shrugged. She turned back to Mrs. Cratchit.
“We don’t want to make any firm plans until we tell the doctor,” she said. “But we’re still worried about him, working so hard and all. He seems a bit better, now that he’s taken an interest in this young lady, but the last few days he’s been so busy and tired that we didn’t want to do anything to upset him. And Jonathan’s sickness really bothers him, and besides that, he’s had problems with Dr. Eustace.”
“I appreciate your concern for him,” Mrs. Cratchit replied. “And I think you’re doing the right thing. I didn’t know that he was having trouble with his partner, though I can’t say I’m surprised. I never liked the man.”
While the others cleaned up after lunch, Mrs. Cratchit asked Ginny if she could see Jonathan. The young woman led her to their bedchamber, where the sound of the door opening awakened the boy.
Ginny picked up her son and held him close. Mrs. Cratchit leaned over and kissed
Jonathan on the forehead. “What a cute little fellow!” she exclaimed. “Such a pity that he’s sick. What’s the problem, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Ginny nodded at the door and gently laid Jonathan on the bed. When the two women were in the hall, Ginny briefly explained about the tumor. “Dr. Cratchit says it’s bad,” she said, “and I think it’s worse than he lets on. He doesn’t want me to worry, but I can see he’s really troubled about it.”
“Has he been able to do anything for Jonathan yet?” Mrs. Cratchit inquired.
“No,” Ginny said sadly. “He studies his medical books, and has contacted a lot of other doctors for advice, and talks about an operation. I think he’s afraid to do it.” Her voice caught and she choked back a sob. “I suspect he thinks the operation—”
Tears spilled from Ginny’s eyes, and Mrs. Cratchit reached out to give her a consoling hug.
Ginny choked out the words at last. “I suspect he thinks the operation might kill Jonathan.”
“I know how you feel,” Mrs. Cratchit said. “I went through the same thing with Tim when he was a boy. My husband, Bob, and I could see him dying slowly in front of us. Don’t give up hope, Ginny. It’s Christmas, and there’s no better time for miracles.”
Ginny smiled weakly through her tears. “I’d like to believe that,” she murmured.
“I do believe it,” Mrs. Cratchit declared. “Because I’ve seen it. My husband slaved away for years for the meanest miser in London, a man named Scrooge. Bob worked seven in the morning to seven at night, never a day off except Sundays and Christmas Day, and every year Scrooge complained like the devil about paying Bob a day’s wages for Christmas when he did no work that day. One year he accused Bob of picking his pocket. Next day, we get a turkey delivered to our house for Christmas dinner. We had no idea who sent it, but it was a sight better than the scrawny goose we’d bought, which was all we could afford. The next day, Bob goes to work and Scrooge gives him a raise in salary, and soon after Scrooge starts carting Tim about London to different doctors, and got him well.”
