Dickens at Christmas (Vintage Classics)

by Charles Dickens

  ‘Britain!’ said the Doctor. ‘Run to the gate, and watch for the coach. Time flies, Alfred.’

  ‘Yes, sir, yes,’ returned the young man, hurriedly. ‘Dear Grace! a moment! Marion – so young and beautiful, so winning and so much admired, dear to my heart as nothing else in life is – remember! I leave Marion to you!’

  ‘She has always been a sacred charge to me, Alfred. She is doubly so, now. I will be faithful to my trust, believe me.’

  ‘I do believe it, Grace. I know it well. Who could look upon your face, and hear your voice, and not know it! Ah, Grace! If I had your well-governed heart, and tranquil mind, how bravely I would leave this place today!’

  ‘Would you?’ she answered with a quiet smile.

  ‘And yet, Grace – Sister, seems the natural word.’

  ‘Use it!’ she said quickly. ‘I am glad to hear it. Call me nothing else.’

  ‘And yet, sister, then,’ said Alfred, ‘Marion and I had better have your true and steadfast qualities serving us here, and making us both happier and better. I wouldn’t carry them away, to sustain myself, if I could!’

  ‘Coach upon the hill-top!’ exclaimed Britain.

  ‘Time flies, Alfred,’ said the Doctor.

  Marion had stood apart, with her eyes fixed upon the ground; but, this warning being given, her young lover brought her tenderly to where her sister stood, and gave her into her embrace.

  ‘I have been telling Grace, dear Marion,’ he said, ‘that you are her charge; my precious trust at parting. And when I come back and reclaim you, dearest, and the bright prospect of our married life lies stretched before us, it shall be one of our chief pleasures to consult how we can make Grace happy; how we can anticipate her wishes; how we can show our gratitude and love to her; how we can return her something of the debt she will have heaped upon us.’

  The younger sister had one hand in his; the other rested on her sister’s neck. She looked into that sister’s eyes, so calm, serene, and cheerful, with a gaze in which affection, admiration, sorrow, wonder, almost veneration, were blended. She looked into that sister’s face, as if it were the face of some bright angel. Calm, serene, and cheerful, the face looked back on her and on her lover.

  ‘And when the time comes, as it must one day,’ said Alfred, – ‘I wonder it has never come yet, but Grace knows best, for Grace is always right – when she will want a friend to open her whole heart to, and to be to her something of what she has been to us – then, Marion, how faithful we will prove, and what delight to us to know that she, our dear good sister, loves and is loved again, as we would have her!’

  Still the younger sister looked into her eyes, and turned not – even towards him. And still those honest eyes looked back, so calm, serene, and cheerful, on herself and on her lover.

  ‘And when all that is past, and we are old, and living (as we must!) together – close together – talking often of old times,’ said Alfred – ‘these shall be our favourite times among them – this day most of all; and, telling each other what we thought and felt, and hoped and feared at parting; and how we couldn’t bear to say good bye –’

  ‘Coach coming through the wood!’ cried Britain.

  ‘Yes! I am ready – and how we met again, so happily in spite of all; we’ll make this day the happiest in all the year, and keep it as a treble birthday. Shall we, dear?’

  ‘Yes!’ interposed the elder sister, eagerly, and with a radiant smile. ‘Yes! Alfred, don’t linger. There’s no time. Say good bye to Marion. And Heaven be with you!’

  He pressed the younger sister to his heart. Released from his embrace, she again clung to her sister; and her eyes, with the same blended look, again sought those so calm, serene, and cheerful.

  ‘Farewell, my boy!’ said the Doctor. ‘To talk about any serious correspondence or serious affections, and engagements and so forth, in such a – ha ha ha! – you know what I mean – why that, of course, would be sheer nonsense. All I can say is, that if you and Marion should continue in the same foolish minds, I shall not object to have you for a son-in-law one of these days.’

  ‘Over the bridge!’ cried Britain.

  ‘Let it come!’ said Alfred, wringing the Doctor’s hand stoutly. ‘Think of me sometimes, my old friend and guardian, as seriously as you can! Adieu, Mr Snitchey! Farewell, Mr Craggs!’

  ‘Coming down the road!’ cried Britain.

  ‘A kiss of Clemency Newcome for long acquaintance’ sake! Shake hands, Britain! Marion, dearest heart, good bye! Sister Grace! remember!’

  The quiet household figure, and the face so beautiful in its serenity, were turned towards him in reply; but Marion’s look and attitude remained unchanged.

  The coach was at the gate. There was a bustle with the luggage.

  The coach drove away. Marion never moved.

  ‘He waves his hat to you, my love,’ said Grace. ‘Your chosen husband, darling. Look!’

  The younger sister raised her head, and, for a moment, turned it. Then, turning back again, and fully meeting, for the first time, those calm eyes, fell sobbing on her neck.

  ‘Oh, Grace. God bless you! But I cannot bear to see it, Grace! It breaks my heart.’

  PART THE SECOND

  SNITCHEY AND CRAGGS had a snug little office on the old Battle Ground, where they drove a snug little business, and fought a great many small pitched battles for a great many contending parties. Though it could hardly be said of these conflicts that they were running fights – for in truth they generally proceeded at a snail’s pace – the part the Firm had in them came so far within the general denomination, that now they took a shot at this Plaintiff, and now aimed a chop at that Defendant, now made a heavy charge at an estate in Chancery, and now had some light skirmishing among an irregular body of small debtors, just as the occasion served, and the enemy happened to present himself. The Gazette was an important and profitable feature in some of their fields, as in fields of greater renown; and in most of the Actions wherein they showed their generalship, it was afterwards observed by the combatants that they had had great difficulty in making each other out, or in knowing with any degree of distinctness what they were about, in consequence of the vast amount of smoke by which they were surrounded.

  The offices of Messrs Snitchey and Craggs stood convenient, with an open door down two smooth steps, in the market-place; so that any angry farmer inclining towards hot water, might tumble into it at once. Their special council-chamber and hall of conference was an old back-room up stairs, with a low dark ceiling, which seemed to be knitting its brows gloomily in the consideration of tangled points of law. It was furnished with some high-backed leathern chairs, garnished with great goggle-eyed brass nails, of which, every here and there, two or three had fallen out – or had been picked out, perhaps, by the wandering thumbs and forefingers of bewildered clients. There was a framed print of a great judge in it, every curl in whose dreadful wig had made a man’s hair stand on end. Bales of papers filled the dusty closets, shelves, and tables; and round the wainscot there were tiers of boxes, padlocked and fireproof, with people’s names painted outside, which anxious visitors felt themselves, by a cruel enchantment, obliged to spell backwards and forwards, and to make anagrams of, while they sat, seeming to listen to Snitchey and Craggs, without comprehending one word of what they said.

  Snitchey and Craggs had each, in private life as in professional existence, a partner of his own. Snitchey and Craggs were the best friends in the world, and had a real confidence in one another; but Mrs Snitchey, by a dispensation not uncommon in the affairs of life, was on principle suspicious of Mr Craggs; and Mrs Craggs was on principle suspicious of Mr Snitchey. ‘Your Snitcheys indeed,’ the latter lady would observe, sometimes, to Mr Craggs; using that imaginative plural as if in disparagement of an objectionable pair of pantaloons, or other articles not possessed of a singular number; ‘I don’t see what you want with your Snitcheys, for my part. You trust a great deal too much to your Snitcheys, I think, and I hope you may n
ever find my words come true.’ While Mrs Snitchey would observe to Mr Snitchey, of Craggs, ‘that if ever he was led away by man he was led away by that man, and that if ever she read a double purpose in a mortal eye, she read that purpose in Craggs’s eye.’ Notwithstanding this, however, they were all very good friends in general: and Mrs Snitchey and Mrs Craggs maintained a close bond of alliance against ‘the office,’ which they both considered the Blue chamber, and common enemy, full of dangerous (because unknown) machinations.

  In this office, nevertheless, Snitchey and Craggs made honey for their several hives. Here, sometimes, they would linger, of a fine evening, at the window of their council-chamber overlooking the old battle-ground, and wonder (but that was generally at assize time, when much business had made them sentimental) at the folly of mankind, who couldn’t always be at peace with one another and go to law comfortably. Here, days, and weeks, and months, and years, passed over them: their calendar, the gradually diminishing number of brass nails in the leathern chairs, and the increasing bulk of papers on the tables. Here, nearly three years’ flight had thinned the one and swelled the other, since the breakfast in the orchard; when they sat together in consultation at night.

  Not alone; but, with a man of about thirty, or that time of life, negligently dressed, and somewhat haggard in the face, but well-made, well-attired, and well-looking, who sat in the armchair of state, with one hand in his breast, and the other in his dishevelled hair, pondering moodily. Messrs Snitchey and Craggs sat opposite each other at a neighbouring desk. One of the fireproof boxes, unpadlocked and opened, was upon it; a part of its contents lay strewn upon the table, and the rest was then in course of passing through the hands of Mr Snitchey; who brought it to the candle, document by document; looked at every paper singly, as he produced it; shook his head, and handed it to Mr Craggs; who looked it over also, shook his head, and laid it down.

  Sometimes, they would stop, and shaking their heads in concert, look towards the abstracted client. And the name on the box being Michael Warden, Esquire, we may conclude from these premises that the name and the box were both his, and that the affairs of Michael Warden, Esquire, were in a bad way.

  ‘That’s all,’ said Mr Snitchey, turning up the last paper.

  ‘Really there’s no other resource. No other resource.’

  ‘All lost, spent, wasted, pawned, borrowed, and sold, eh?’ said the client, looking up.

  ‘All,’ returned Mr Snitchey.

  ‘Nothing else to be done, you say?’

  ‘Nothing at all.’

  The client bit his nails, and pondered again.

  ‘And I am not even personally safe in England? You hold to that, do you?’

  ‘In no part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,’ replied Mr Snitchey.

  ‘A mere prodigal son with no father to go back to, no swine to keep, and no husks to share with them? Eh?’ pursued the client, rocking one leg over the other, and searching the ground with his eyes.

  Mr Snitchey coughed, as if to deprecate the being supposed to participate in any figurative illustration of a legal position. Mr Craggs, as if to express that it was a partnership view of the subject, also coughed.

  ‘Ruined at thirty!’ said the client. ‘Humph!’

  ‘Not ruined, Mr Warden,’ returned Snitchey. ‘Not so bad as that. You have done a good deal towards it, I must say, but you are not ruined. A little nursing –’

  ‘A little Devil,’ said the client.

  ‘Mr Craggs,’ said Snitchey, ‘will you oblige me with a pinch of snuff? Thank you, sir.’

  As the imperturbable lawyer applied it to his nose with great apparent relish and a perfect absorption of his attention in the proceeding, the client gradually broke into a smile, and, looking up, said:

  ‘You talk of nursing. How long nursing?’

  ‘How long nursing?’ repeated Snitchey, dusting the snuff from his fingers, and making a slow calculation in his mind. ‘For your involved estate, sir? In good hands? S. and C.’s, say? Six or seven years.’

  ‘To starve for six or seven years!’ said the client with a fretful laugh, and an impatient change of his position.

  ‘To starve for six or seven years, Mr Warden,’ said Snitchey, ‘would be very uncommon indeed. You might get another estate by showing yourself, the while. But, we don’t think you could do it – speaking for Self and Craggs – and consequently don’t advise it.’

  ‘What do you advise?’

  ‘Nursing, I say,’ repeated Snitchey. ‘Some few years of nursing by Self and Craggs would bring it round. But to enable us to make terms, and hold terms, and you to keep terms, you must go away; you must live abroad. As to starvation, we could ensure you some hundreds a-year to starve upon, even in the beginning – I dare say, Mr Warden.’

  ‘Hundreds,’ said the client. ‘And I have spent thousands!’

  ‘That,’ retorted Mr Snitchey, putting the papers slowly back into the cast-iron box, ‘there is no doubt about. No doubt a-bout,’ he repeated to himself, as he thoughtfully pursued his occupation.

  The lawyer very likely knew his man; at any rate his dry, shrewd, whimsical manner, had a favourable influence on the client’s moody state, and disposed him to be more free and unreserved.

  Or, perhaps the client knew his man, and had elicited such encouragement as he had received, to render some purpose he was about to disclose the more defensible in appearance. Gradually raising his head, he sat looking at his immovable adviser with a smile, which presently broke into a laugh.

  ‘After all,’ he said, ‘my iron-headed friend –’

  Mr Snitchey pointed out his partner. ‘Self and – excuse me – Craggs.’

  ‘I beg Mr Craggs’s pardon,’ said the client. ‘After all, my iron-headed friends,’ he leaned forward in his chair, and dropped his voice a little, ‘you don’t know half my ruin yet.’

  Mr Snitchey stopped and stared at him. Mr Craggs also stared.

  ‘I am not only deep in debt,’ said the client, ‘but I am deep in –’

  ‘Not in love!’ cried Snitchey.

  ‘Yes!’ said the client, falling back in his chair, and surveying the Firm with his hands in his pockets. ‘Deep in love.’

  ‘And not with an heiress, sir?’ said Snitchey.

  ‘Not with an heiress.’

  ‘Nor a rich lady?’

  ‘Nor a rich lady that I know of – except in beauty and merit.’

  ‘A single lady, I trust?’ said Mr Snitchey, with great expression.

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘It’s not one of Dr Jeddler’s daughters?’ said Snitchey, suddenly squaring his elbows on his knees, and advancing his face at least a yard.

  ‘Yes!’ returned the client.

  ‘Not his younger daughter?’ said Snitchey.

  ‘Yes!’ returned the client.

  ‘Mr Craggs,’ said Snitchey, much relieved, ‘will you oblige me with another pinch of snuff? Thank you! I am happy to say it don’t signify, Mr Warden; she’s engaged, sir, she’s bespoke. My partner can corroborate me. We know the fact.’

  ‘We know the fact,’ repeated Craggs.

  ‘Why, so do I perhaps,’ returned the client quietly. ‘What of that! Are you men of the world, and did you never hear of a woman changing her mind?’

  ‘There certainly have been actions for breach,’ said Mr Snitchey, ‘brought against both spinsters and widows, but, in the majority of cases –’

  ‘Cases!’ interposed the client, impatiently. ‘Don’t talk to me of cases. The general precedent is in a much larger volume than any of your law books. Besides, do you think I have lived six weeks in the Doctor’s house for nothing?’

  ‘I think, sir,’ observed Mr Snitchey, gravely addressing himself to his partner, ‘that of all the scrapes Mr Warden’s horses have brought him into at one time and another – and they have been pretty numerous, and pretty expensive, as none know better than himself, and you, and I – the worst scrape may turn out to be, if he tal
ks in this way, this having ever been left by one of them at the Doctor’s garden wall, with three broken ribs, a snapped collar-bone, and the Lord knows how many bruises. We didn’t think so much of it, at the time when we knew he was going on well under the Doctor’s hands and roof; but it looks bad now, sir. Bad? It looks very bad. Doctor Jeddler too – our client, Mr Craggs.’

  ‘Mr Alfred Heathfield too – a sort of client, Mr Snitchey,’ said Craggs.

  ‘Mr Michael Warden too, a kind of client,’ said the careless visitor, ‘and no bad one either: having played the fool for ten or twelve years. However, Mr Michael Warden has sown his wild oats now – there’s their crop, in that box; and he means to repent and be wise. And in proof of it, Mr Michael Warden means, if he can, to marry Marion, the Doctor’s lovely daughter, and to carry her away with him.’

  ‘Really, Mr Craggs,’ Snitchey began.

  ‘Really, Mr Snitchey, and Mr Craggs, partners both,’ said the client, interrupting him; ‘you know your duty to your clients, and you know well enough, I am sure, that it is no part of it to interfere in a mere love affair, which I am obliged to confide to you. I am not going to carry the young lady off, without her own consent. There’s nothing illegal in it. I never was Mr Heathfield’s bosom friend. I violate no confidence of his. I love where he loves, and I mean to win where he would win, if I can.’

  ‘He can’t, Mr Craggs,’ said Snitchey, evidently anxious and discomfited. ‘He can’t do it, sir. She dotes on Mr Alfred.’

  ‘Does she?’ returned the client.

  ‘Mr Craggs, she dotes on him, sir,’ persisted Snitchey.