Dickens at Christmas (Vintage Classics)

by Charles Dickens

  Again Trotty heard the voices, saying, ‘Follow her!’ He turned towards his guide, and saw it rising from him, passing through the air. ‘Follow her!’ it said. And vanished.

  He hovered round her; sat down at her feet; looked up into her face for one trace of her old self; listened for one note of her old pleasant voice. He flitted round the child: so wan, so prematurely old, so dreadful in its gravity, so plaintive in its feeble, mournful, miserable wail. He almost worshipped it. He clung to it as her only safeguard; as the last unbroken link that bound her to endurance. He set his father’s hope and trust on the frail baby; watched her every look upon it as she held it in her arms; and cried a thousand times, ‘She loves it! God be thanked, she loves it!’

  He saw the woman tend her in the night; return to her when her grudging husband was asleep, and all was still; encourage her, shed tears with her, set nourishment before her. He saw the day come, and the night again; the day, the night; the time go by; the house of death relieved of death; the room left to herself and to the child; he heard it moan and cry; he saw it harass her, and tire her out, and when she slumbered in exhaustion, drag her back to consciousness, and hold her with its little hands upon the rack; but she was constant to it, gentle with it, patient with it. Patient! Was its loving mother in her inmost heart and soul, and had its Being knitted up with hers as when she carried it unborn.

  All this time, she was in want; languishing away, in dire and pining want. With the baby in her arms, she wandered here and there, in quest of occupation; and with its thin face lying in her lap, and looking up in hers, did any work for any wretched sum; a day and night of labour for as many farthings as there were figures on the dial. If she had quarrelled with it; if she had neglected it; if she had looked upon it with a moment’s hate; if, in the frenzy of an instant, she had struck it! No. His comfort was, She loved it always.

  She told no one of her extremity, and wandered abroad in the day lest she should be questioned by her only friend: for any help she received from her hands, occasioned fresh disputes between the good woman and her husband; and it was new bitterness to be the daily cause of strife and discord, where she owed so much.

  She loved it still. She loved it more and more. But a change fell on the aspect of her love. One night.

  She was singing faintly to it in its sleep, and walking to and fro to hush it, when her door was softly opened, and a man looked in.

  ‘For the last time,’ he said.

  ‘William Fern!’

  ‘For the last time.’

  He listened like a man pursued: and spoke in whispers.

  ‘Margaret, my race is nearly run. I couldn’t finish it, without a parting word with you. Without one grateful word.’

  ‘What have you done?’ she asked: regarding him with terror.

  He looked at her, but gave no answer.

  After a short silence, he made a gesture with his hand, as if he set her question by; as if he brushed it aside; and said,

  ‘It’s long ago, Margaret, now: but that night is as fresh in my memory as ever ’twas. We little thought, then,’ he added, looking round, ‘that we should ever meet like this. Your child, Margaret? Let me have it in my arms. Let me hold your child.’

  He put his hat upon the floor, and took it. And he trembled as he took it, from head to foot.

  ‘Is it a girl?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He put his hand before its little face.

  ‘See how weak I’m grown, Margaret, when I want the courage to look at it! Let her be a moment. I won’t hurt her. It’s long ago, but – What’s her name?’

  ‘Margaret,’ she answered, quickly.

  ‘I’m glad of that,’ he said. ‘I’m glad of that.’

  He seemed to breathe more freely; and after pausing for an instant, took away his hand, and looked upon the infant’s face. But covered it again, immediately.

  ‘Margaret!’ he said; and gave her back the child. ‘It’s Lilian’s.’

  ‘Lilian’s!’

  ‘I held the same face in my arms when Lilian’s mother died and left her.’

  ‘When Lilian’s mother died and left her!’ she repeated, wildly.

  ‘How shrill you speak! Why do you fix your eyes upon me so? Margaret!’

  She sunk down in a chair, and pressed the infant to her breast, and wept over it. Sometimes she released it from her embrace, to look anxiously in its face: then strained it to her bosom again. At those times: when she gazed upon it: then it was that something fierce and terrible began to mingle with her love. Then it was that her old father quailed.

  ‘Follow her!’ was sounded through the house. ‘Learn it, from the creature dearest to your heart!’

  ‘Margaret,’ said Fern, bending over her, and kissing her upon the brow: ‘I thank you for the last time. Good night. Good bye. Put your hand in mine, and tell me you’ll forget me from this hour, and try to think the end of me was here.’

  ‘What have you done!’ she asked again.

  ‘There’ll be a Fire tonight,’ he said, removing from her. ‘There’ll be Fires this winter-time, to light the dark nights, East, West, North, and South. When you see the distant sky red, they’ll be blazing. When you see the distant sky red, think of me no more; or, if you do, remember what a Hell was lighted up inside of me, and think you see its flames reflected in the clouds. Good night. Good bye!’

  She called to him; but he was gone. She sat down stupefied, until her infant roused her to a sense of hunger, cold, and darkness. She paced the room with it the livelong night, hushing it and soothing it. She said at intervals, ‘like Lilian, when her mother died and left her!’ Why was her step so quick, her eye so wild, her love so fierce and terrible, whenever she repeated those words?

  ‘But it is Love,’ said Trotty. ‘It is Love. She’ll never cease to love it. My poor Meg!’

  She dressed the child next morning with unusual care – ah vain expenditure of care upon such squalid robes! – and once more tried to find some means of life. It was the last day of the Old Year. She tried till night, and never broke her fast. She tried in vain.

  She mingled with an abject crowd, who tarried in the snow, until it pleased some officer appointed to dispense the public charity (the lawful charity; not that once preached upon a Mount), to call them in, and question them, and say to this one, ‘go to such a place,’ to that one, ‘come next week;’ to make a football of another wretch, and pass him here and there, from hand to hand, from house to house, until he wearied and lay down to die; or started up and robbed, and so became a higher sort of criminal, whose claims allowed of no delay. Here, too, she failed. She loved her child, and wished to have it lying on her breast. And that was quite enough.

  It was night: a bleak, dark, cutting night: when, pressing the child close to her for warmth, she arrived outside the house she called her home. She was so faint and giddy, that she saw no one standing in the doorway until she was close upon it, and about to enter. Then she recognised the master of the house, who had so disposed himself – with his person it was not difficult – as to fill up the whole entry.

  ‘Oh!’ he said, softly. ‘You have come back?’

  She looked at the child, and shook her head.

  ‘Don’t you think you have lived here long enough without paying any rent? Don’t you think that, without any money, you’ve been a pretty constant customer at this shop, now?’ said Mr Tugby.

  She repeated the same mute appeal.

  ‘Suppose you try and deal somewhere else,’ he said. ‘And suppose you provide yourself with another lodging. Come! Don’t you think you could manage it?’

  She said in a low voice, that it was very late. Tomorrow.

  ‘Now I see what you want,’ said Tugby; ‘and what you mean. You know there are two parties in this house about you, and you delight in setting ’em by the ears. I don’t want any quarrels; I’m speaking softly to avoid a quarrel; but if you don’t go away, I’ll speak out loud, and you shall cause words high enough to p
lease you. But you shan’t come in. That I am determined.’

  She put her hair back with her hand, and looked in a sudden manner at the sky, and the dark lowering distance.

  ‘This is the last night of an Old Year: and I won’t carry ill-blood and quarrellings and disturbances into a New One, to please you nor anybody else,’ said Tugby, who was quite a retail Friend and Father. ‘I wonder you an’t ashamed of yourself, to carry such practices into a New Year. If you haven’t any business in the world, but to be always giving way, and always making disturbances between man and wife, you’d be better out of it. Go along with you.’

  ‘Follow her! To desperation!’

  Again the old man heard the voices. Looking up, he saw the figures hovering in the air, and pointing where she went, down the dark street.

  ‘She loves it!’ he exclaimed, in agonised entreaty for her. ‘Chimes! She loves it still!’

  ‘Follow her!’ The shadow swept upon the track she had taken, like a cloud.

  He joined in the pursuit; he kept close to her; he looked into her face. He saw the same fierce and terrible expression mingling with her love, and kindling in her eyes. He heard her say, ‘Like Lilian! To be changed like Lilian!’ and her speed redoubled.

  Oh, for something to awaken her! For any sight, or sound, or scent, to call up tender recollections in a brain on fire! For any gentle image of the Past to rise before her!

  ‘I was her father! I was her father!’ cried the old man, stretching out his hands to the dark shadows flying on above. ‘Have mercy on her, and on me! Where does she go? Turn her back! I was her father!’

  But they only pointed to her, as she hurried on; and said, ‘To desperation! Learn it from the creature dearest to your heart!’

  A hundred voices echoed it. The air was made of breath expended in those words. He seemed to take them in, at every gasp he drew. They were everywhere, and not to be escaped. And still she hurried on; the same light in her eyes, the same words in her mouth, ‘Like Lilian! To be changed like Lilian!’

  All at once she stopped.

  ‘Now, turn her back!’ exclaimed the old man, tearing his white hair. ‘My child! Meg! Turn her back! Great Father, turn her back!’

  In her own scanty shawl, she wrapped the baby warm. With her fevered hands she smoothed its limbs, composed its face, arranged its mean attire. In her wasted arms she folded it, as though she never would resign it more. And with her dry lips, kissed it in a final pang, and last long agony of Love.

  Putting its tiny hand up to her neck, and holding it there, within her dress: next to her distracted heart, she set its sleeping face against her: closely, steadily, against her: and sped onward to the river.

  To the rolling River, swift and dim, where Winter Night sat brooding like the last dark thoughts of many who had sought a refuge there before her. Where scattered lights upon the banks gleamed sullen, red, and dull, as torches that were burning there, to show the way to Death. Where no abode of living people cast its shadow on the deep, impenetrable, melancholy shade.

  To the River! To that portal of Eternity, her desperate foot-steps tended with the swiftness of its rapid waters running to the sea. He tried to touch her as she passed him, going down to its dark level; but the wild distempered form, the fierce and terrible love, the desperation that had left all human check or hold behind, swept by him like the wind.

  He followed her. She paused a moment on the brink, before the dreadful plunge. He fell down on his knees, and in a shriek addressed the figures in the Bells now hovering above them.

  ‘I have learnt it!’ cried the old man. ‘From the creature dearest to my heart! Oh, save her, save her!’

  He could wind his fingers in her dress; could hold it! As the words escaped his lips he felt his sense of touch return, and knew that he detained her.

  The figures looked down steadfastly upon him.

  ‘I have learnt it!’ cried the old man. ‘Oh, have mercy on me in this hour, if, in my love for her, so young and good, I slandered Nature in the breasts of mothers rendered desperate! Pity my presumption, wickedness, and ignorance, and save her!’

  He felt his hold relaxing. They were silent still.

  ‘Have mercy on her!’ he exclaimed, ‘as one in whom this dreadful crime has sprung from Love perverted; from the strongest, deepest Love we fallen creatures know! Think what her misery must have been, when such seed bears such fruit! Heaven meant her to be Good. There is no loving mother on the earth who might not come to this, if such a life had gone before. Oh, have mercy on my child, who, even at this pass, means mercy to her own, and dies herself, and perils her Immortal Soul, to save it!’

  She was in his arms. He held her now. His strength was like a giant’s.

  ‘I see the spirit of the Chimes among you!’ cried the old man, singling out the child, and speaking in some inspiration, which their looks conveyed to him. ‘I know that our Inheritance is held in store for us by Time. I know there is a Sea of Time to rise one day, before which all who wrong us or oppress us will be swept away like leaves. I see it, on the flow! I know that we must trust and hope, and neither doubt ourselves, nor doubt the Good in one another. I have learnt it from the creature dearest to my heart. I clasp her in my arms again. Oh Spirits, merciful and good, I take your lesson to my breast along with her! Oh Spirits, merciful and good, I am grateful!’

  He might have said more, but the Bells; the old familiar Bells; his own dear, constant, steady friends, the Chimes; began to ring the joy-peals for a New Year, so lustily, so merrily, so happily, so gaily, that he leaped upon his feet, and broke the spell that bound him.

  ‘And whatever you do, father,’ said Meg, ‘don’t eat tripe again, without asking some doctor whether it’s likely to agree with you; for how you have been going on, Good gracious!’

  She was working with her needle, at the little table by the fire; dressing her simple gown with ribbons for her wedding. So quietly happy, so blooming and youthful, so full of beautiful promise, that he uttered a great cry as if it were an Angel in his house; then flew to clasp her in his arms.

  But he caught his feet in the newspaper, which had fallen on the hearth; and somebody came rushing in between them.

  ‘No!’ cried the voice of this same somebody; a generous and jolly voice it was! ‘Not even you. Not even you. The first kiss of Meg in the New Year is mine. Mine! I have been waiting outside the house, this hour, to hear the Bells and claim it. Meg, my precious prize, a happy year! A life of happy years, my darling wife!’

  And Richard smothered her with kisses.

  You never in all your life saw anything like Trotty after this. I don’t care where you have lived or what you have seen; you never in all your life saw anything at all approaching him! He sat down in his chair and beat his knees and cried; he sat down in his chair and beat his knees and laughed; he sat down in his chair and beat his knees and laughed and cried together; he got out of his chair and hugged Meg; he got out of his chair and hugged Richard; he got out of his chair and hugged them both at once; he kept running up to Meg, and squeezing her fresh face between his hands and kissing it, going from her backwards not to lose sight of it, and running up again like a figure in a magic lantern; and whatever he did, he was constantly sitting himself down in this chair, and never stopping in it for one single moment; being – that’s the truth – beside himself with joy.

  ‘And tomorrow’s your wedding-day, my Pet!’ cried Trotty. ‘Your real, happy wedding-day!’

  ‘Today!’ cried Richard, shaking hands with him. ‘Today. The Chimes are ringing in the New Year. Hear them!’

  They WERE ringing! Bless their sturdy hearts, they WERE ringing! Great Bells as they were; melodious, deep-mouthed, noble Bells; cast in no common metal; made by no common founder; when had they ever Chimed like that, before!

  ‘But today, my Pet,’ said Trotty. ‘You and Richard had some words today.’

  ‘Because he’s such a bad fellow, father,’ said Meg. ‘An’t you, Richard? Such a he
adstrong, violent man! He’d have made no more of speaking his mind to that great Alderman, and putting him down I don’t know where, than he would of—’

  ‘– Kissing Meg,’ suggested Richard. Doing it too!

  ‘No. Not a bit more,’ said Meg. ‘But I wouldn’t let him, father. Where would have been the use!’

  ‘Richard, my boy!’ cried Trotty. ‘You was turned up Trumps originally; and Trumps you must be till you die! But you were crying by the fire tonight, my Pet, when I came home! Why did you cry by the fire?’

  ‘I was thinking of the years we’ve passed together, father. Only that. And thinking you might miss me, and be lonely.’

  Trotty was backing off to that extraordinary chair again, when the child, who had been awakened by the noise, came running in half-dressed.

  ‘Why, here she is!’ cried Trotty, catching her up. ‘Here’s little Lilian! Ha ha ha! Here we are and here we go! Oh here we are and here we go again! And here we are and here we go! And Uncle Will too!’ Stopping in his trot to greet him heartily. ‘Oh, Uncle Will, the Vision that I’ve had tonight, through lodging you! Oh, Uncle Will, the obligations that you’ve laid me under, by your coming, my good friend!’

  Before Will Fern could make the least reply, a Band of Music burst into the room, attended by a flock of neighbours, screaming ‘A Happy New Year, Meg!’ ‘A Happy Wedding!’ ‘Many of ’em!’ and other fragmentary good wishes of that sort. The Drum (who was a private friend of Trotty’s) then stepped forward, and said:

  ‘Trotty Veck, my boy! It’s got about, that your daughter is going to be married tomorrow. There an’t a soul that knows you that don’t wish you well, or that knows her and don’t wish her well. Or that knows you both, and don’t wish you both all the happiness the New Year can bring. And here we are, to play it in and dance it in, accordingly.’

  Which was received with a general shout. The Drum was rather drunk, by the bye; but never mind.

  ‘What a happiness it is, I’m sure,’ said Trotty, ‘to be so esteemed! How kind and neighbourly you are! It’s all along of my dear daughter. She deserves it!’