Dickens at Christmas (Vintage Classics)

by Charles Dickens

  ‘If you mean your marriage was a sacrifice, my good woman –’ said her husband.

  ‘I do mean it,’ said his wife.

  ‘Why, then I mean to say,’ pursued Mr Tetterby, as sulkily and surlily as she, ‘that there are two sides to that affair; and that I was the sacrifice; and that I wish the sacrifice hadn’t been accepted.’

  ‘I wish it hadn’t, Tetterby, with all my heart and soul I do assure you,’ said his wife. ‘You can’t wish it more than I do, Tetterby.’

  ‘I don’t know what I saw in her,’ muttered the newsman, ‘I’m sure; – certainly, if I saw anything, it’s not there now. I was thinking so, last night, after supper, by the fire. She’s fat, she’s ageing, she won’t bear comparison with most other women.’

  ‘He’s common-looking, he has no air with him, he’s small, he’s beginning to stoop, and he’s getting bald,’ muttered Mrs Tetterby.

  ‘I must have been half out of my mind when I did it,’ muttered Mr Tetterby.

  ‘My senses must have forsook me. That’s the only way in which I can explain it to myself,’ said Mrs Tetterby, with elaboration.

  In this mood they sat down to breakfast. The little Tetterbys were not habituated to regard that meal in the light of a sedentary occupation, but discussed it as a dance or trot; rather resembling a savage ceremony, in the occasional shrill whoops, and brandishings of bread and butter, with which it was accompanied, as well as in the intricate filings off into the street and back again, and the hoppings up and down the door-steps, which were incidental to the performance. In the present instance, the contentions between these Tetterby children for the milk-and-water jug, common to all, which stood upon the table, presented so lamentable an instance of angry passions risen very high indeed, that it was an outrage on the memory of Doctor Watts. It was not until Mr Tetterby had driven the whole herd out at the front door, that a moment’s peace was secured; and even that was broken by the discovery that Johnny had surreptitiously come back, and was at that instant choking in the jug like a ventriloquist, in his indecent and rapacious haste.

  ‘These children will be the death of me at last!’ said Mrs Tetterby, after banishing the culprit. ‘And the sooner the better, I think.’

  ‘Poor people,’ said Mr Tetterby, ‘ought not to have children at all. They give us no pleasure.’

  He was at that moment taking up the cup which Mrs Tetterby had rudely pushed towards him, and Mrs Tetterby was lifting her own cup to her lips, when they both stopped, as if they were transfixed.

  ‘Here! Mother! Father!’ cried Johnny, running into the room. ‘Here’s Mrs William coming down the street!’

  And if ever, since the world began, a young boy took a baby from a cradle with the care of an old nurse, and hushed and soothed it tenderly, and tottered away with it cheerfully, Johnny was that boy, and Moloch was that baby, as they went out together!

  Mr Tetterby put down his cup; Mrs Tetterby put down her cup. Mr Tetterby rubbed his forehead; Mrs Tetterby rubbed hers. Mr Tetterby’s face began to smooth and brighten; Mrs Tetterby’s face began to smooth and brighten.

  ‘Why, Lord forgive me,’ said Mr Tetterby to himself, ‘what evil tempers have I been giving way to? What has been the matter here!’

  ‘How could I ever treat him ill again, after all I said and felt last night!’ sobbed Mrs Tetterby, with her apron to her eyes.

  ‘Am I a brute,’ said Mr Tetterby, ‘or is there any good in me at all? Sophia! My little woman!’

  ‘’Dolphus dear,’ returned his wife.

  ‘I – I’ve been in a state of mind,’ said Mr Tetterby, ‘that I can’t bear to think of, Sophy.’

  ‘Oh! It’s nothing to what I’ve been in, Dolf,’ cried his wife in a great burst of grief.

  ‘My Sophia,’ said Mr Tetterby, ‘don’t take on. I never shall forgive myself. I must have nearly broke your heart, I know.’

  ‘No, Dolf, no. It was me! Me!’ cried Mrs Tetterby.

  ‘My little woman,’ said her husband, ‘don’t. You make me reproach myself dreadful, when you show such a noble spirit. Sophia, my dear, you don’t know what I thought. I showed it bad enough, no doubt; but what I thought, my little woman!’ –

  ‘Oh, dear Dolf, don’t! Don’t!’ cried his wife.

  ‘Sophia,’ said Mr Tetterby, ‘I must reveal it. I couldn’t rest in my conscience unless I mentioned it. My little woman –’

  ‘Mrs William’s very nearly here!’ screamed Johnny at the door.

  ‘My little woman, I wondered how,’ gasped Mr Tetterby, supporting himself by his chair, ‘I wondered how I had ever admired you – I forgot the precious children you have brought about me, and thought you didn’t look as slim as I could wish. I – I never gave a recollection,’ said Mr Tetterby, with severe self-accusation, ‘to the cares you’ve had as my wife, and along of me and mine, when you might have had hardly any with another man, who got on better and was luckier than me (anybody might have found such a man easily I am sure); and I quarrelled with you for having aged a little in the rough years you’ve lightened for me. Can you believe it, my little woman? I hardly can myself.’

  Mrs Tetterby, in a whirlwind of laughing and crying, caught his face within her hands, and held it there.

  ‘Oh, Dolf!’ she cried. ‘I am so happy that you thought so; I am so grateful that you thought so! For I thought that you were common-looking, Dolf; and so you are, my dear, and may you be the commonest of all sights in my eyes, till you close them with your own good hands. I thought that you were small; and so you are, and I’ll make much of you because you are, and more of you because I love my husband. I thought that you began to stoop; and so you do, and you shall lean on me, and I’ll do all I can to keep you up. I thought there was no air about you; but there is and it’s the air of home, and that’s the purest and the best there is, and GOD bless home once more, and all belonging to it, Dolf!’

  ‘Hurrah! Here’s Mrs William!’ cried Johnny.

  So she was, and all the children with her; and as she came in, they kissed her, and kissed one another, and kissed the baby, and kissed their father and mother, and then ran back and flocked and danced about her, trooping on with her in triumph.

  Mr and Mrs Tetterby were not a bit behind-hand in the warmth of their reception. They were as much attracted to her as the children were; they ran towards her, kissed her hands, pressed round her, could not receive her ardently or enthusiastically enough. She came among them like the spirit of all goodness, affection, gentle consideration, love, and domesticity.

  ‘What! are you all so glad to see me, too, this bright Christmas morning!’ said Milly, clapping her hands in a pleasant wonder. ‘Oh dear, how delightful this is!’

  More shouting from the children, more kissing, more trooping round her, more happiness, more love, more joy, more honour, on all sides, than she could bear.

  ‘Oh dear!’ said Milly, ‘what delicious tears you make me shed. How can I ever have deserved this! What have I done to be so loved?’

  ‘Who can help it!’ cried Mr Tetterby.

  ‘Who can help it!’ cried Mrs Tetterby.

  ‘Who can help it!’ echoed the children, in a joyful chorus. And they danced and trooped about her again, and clung to her, and laid their rosy faces against her dress, and kissed and fondled it, and could not fondle it, or her, enough.

  ‘I never was so moved,’ said Milly, drying her eyes, ‘as I have been this morning. I must tell you, as soon as I can speak. – Mr Redlaw came to me at sunrise, and with a tenderness in his manner, more as if I had been his darling daughter than myself, implored me to go with him to where William’s brother George is lying ill. We went together, and all the way along he was so kind, and so subdued, and seemed to put such trust and hope in me, that I could not help crying with pleasure. When we got to the house, we met a woman at the door (somebody had bruised and hurt her, I am afraid) who caught me by the hand, and blessed me as I passed.’

  ‘She was right,’ said Mr Tetterby. Mrs Tette
rby said she was right. All the children cried out she was right.

  ‘Ah, but there’s more than that,’ said Milly. ‘When we got up stairs, into the room, the sick man who had lain for hours in a state from which no effort could rouse him, rose up in his bed, and, bursting into tears, stretched out his arms to me, and said that he had led a mis-spent life, but that he was truly repentant now, in his sorrow for the past, which was all as plain to him as a great prospect, from which a dense black cloud had cleared away, and that he entreated me to ask his poor old father for his pardon and his blessing, and to say a prayer beside his bed. And when I did so, Mr Redlaw joined in it so fervently, and then so thanked and thanked me, and thanked Heaven, that my heart quite overflowed, and I could have done nothing but sob and cry, if the sick man had not begged me to sit down by him, – which made me quiet of course. As I sat there, he held my hand in his until he sunk in a doze; and even then, when I withdrew my hand to leave him to come here (which Mr Redlaw was very earnest indeed in wishing me to do), his hand felt for mine, so that some one else was obliged to take my place and make believe to give him my hand back. Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Milly, sobbing. ‘How thankful and how happy I should feel, and do feel, for all this!’

  While she was speaking, Redlaw had come in, and, after pausing for a moment to observe the group of which she was the centre, had silently ascended the stairs. Upon those stairs he now appeared again; remaining there, while the young student passed him, and came running down.

  ‘Kind nurse, gentlest, best of creatures,’ he said, falling on his knee to her, and catching at her hand, ‘forgive my cruel ingratitude!’

  ‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ cried Milly innocently, ‘here’s another of them! Oh dear, here’s somebody else who likes me. What shall I ever do!’

  The guileless, simple way in which she said it, and in which she put her hands before her eyes and wept for very happiness, was as touching as it was delightful.

  ‘I was not myself,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what it was – it was some consequence of my disorder perhaps – I was mad. But I am so, no longer. Almost as I speak, I am restored. I heard the children crying out your name, and the shade passed from me at the very sound of it. Oh don’t weep! Dear Milly, if you could read my heart, and only know with what affection and what grateful homage it is glowing, you would not let me see you weep. It is such deep reproach.’

  ‘No, no,’ said Milly, ‘it’s not that. It’s not indeed. It’s joy. It’s wonder that you should think it necessary to ask me to forgive so little, and yet it’s pleasure that you do.’

  ‘And will you come again? and will you finish the little curtain?’

  ‘No,’ said Milly, drying her eyes, and shaking her head. ‘You won’t care for my needlework now.’

  ‘Is it forgiving me, to say that?’

  She beckoned him aside, and whispered in his ear.

  ‘There is news from your home, Mr Edmund.’

  ‘News? How?’

  ‘Either your not writing when you were very ill, or the change in your handwriting when you began to be better, created some suspicion of the truth; however that is— but you’re sure you’ll not be the worse for any news, if it’s not bad news?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Then there’s some one come!’ said Milly.

  ‘My mother?’ asked the student, glancing round involuntarily towards Redlaw, who had come down from the stairs.

  ‘Hush! No,’ said Milly.

  ‘It can be no one else.’

  ‘Indeed?’ said Milly, ‘are you sure?’

  ‘It is not—.’ Before he could say more, she put her hand upon his mouth.

  ‘Yes it is!’ said Milly. ‘The young lady (she is very like the miniature, Mr Edmund, but she is prettier) was too unhappy to rest without satisfying her doubts, and came up, last night, with a little servant-maid. As you always dated your letters from the college, she came there; and before I saw Mr Redlaw this morning, I saw her. – She likes me too!’ said Milly. ‘Oh dear, that’s another!’

  ‘This morning! Where is she now?’

  ‘Why, she is now,’ said Milly, advancing her lips to his ear, ‘in my little parlour in the Lodge, and waiting to see you.’

  He pressed her hand, and was darting off, but she detained him.

  ‘Mr Redlaw is much altered, and has told me this morning that his memory is impaired. Be very considerate to him, Mr Edmund; he needs that from us all.’

  The young man assured her, by a look, that her caution was not ill-bestowed; and as he passed the Chemist on his way out, bent respectfully and with an obvious interest before him.

  Redlaw returned the salutation courteously and even humbly, and looked after him as he passed on. He drooped his head upon his hand too, as trying to re-awaken something he had lost. But it was gone.

  The abiding change that had come upon him since the influence of the music, and the Phantom’s reappearance, was, that now he truly felt how much he had lost, and could compassionate his own condition, and contrast it, clearly, with the natural state of those who were around him. In this, an interest in those who were around him was revived, and a meek, submissive sense of his calamity was bred, resembling that which sometimes obtains in age, when its mental powers are weakened, without insensibility or sullenness being added to the list of its infirmities.

  He was conscious that, as he redeemed, through Milly, more and more of the evil he had done, and as he was more and more with her, this change ripened itself within him. Therefore, and because of the attachment she inspired him with (but without other hope), he felt that he was quite dependent on her, and that she was his staff in his affliction.

  So, when she asked him whether they should go home now, to where the old man and her husband were, and he readily replied ‘yes’ – being anxious in that regard – he put his arm through hers, and walked beside her; not as if he were the wise and learned man to whom the wonders of nature were an open book, and hers were the uninstructed mind, but as if their two positions were reversed, and he knew nothing, and she all.

  He saw the children throng about her, and caress her, as he and she went away together thus, out of the house; he heard the ringing of their laughter, and their merry voices; he saw their bright faces, clustering round him like flowers; he witnessed the renewed contentment and affection of their parents; he breathed the simple air of their poor home, restored to its tranquillity; he thought of the unwholesome blight he had shed upon it, and might, but for her, have been diffusing then; and perhaps it is no wonder that he walked submissively beside her, and drew her gentle bosom nearer to his own.

  When they arrived at the Lodge, the old man was sitting in his chair in the chimney-corner, with his eyes fixed on the ground, and his son was leaning against the opposite side of the fire-place, looking at him. As she came in at the door, both started, and turned round towards her, and a radiant change came upon their faces.

  ‘Oh dear, dear, dear, they are pleased to see me like the rest!’ cried Milly, clapping her hands in an ecstasy, and stopping short. ‘Here are two more!’

  Pleased to see her! Pleasure was no word for it. She ran into her husband’s arms, thrown wide open to receive her, and he would have been glad to have her there, with her head lying on his shoulder, through the short winter’s day. But the old man couldn’t spare her. He had arms for her too, and he locked her in them.

  ‘Why, where has my quiet Mouse been all this time?’ said the old man. ‘She has been a long while away. I find that it’s impossible for me to get on without Mouse. I – where’s my son William? – I fancy I have been dreaming, William.’

  ‘That’s what I say myself, father,’ returned his son. ‘I have been in an ugly sort of dream, I think – How are you, father? Are you pretty well?’

  ‘Strong and brave, my boy,’ returned the old man.

  It was quite a sight to see Mr William shaking hands with his father, and patting him on the back, and rubbing him gently down with his hand, as if
he could not possibly do enough to show an interest in him.

  ‘What a wonderful man you are, father! – How are you, father? Are you really pretty hearty, though?’ said William, shaking hands with him again, and patting him again, and rubbing him gently down again.

  ‘I never was fresher or stouter in my life, my boy.’

  ‘What a wonderful man you are, father! But that’s exactly where it is,’ said Mr William, with enthusiasm. ‘When I think of all that my father’s gone through, and all the chances and changes, and sorrows and troubles, that have happened to him in the course of his long life, and under which his head has grown grey, and years upon years have gathered on it, I feel as if we couldn’t do enough to honour the old gentleman, and make his old age easy. – How are you, father? Are you really pretty well, though?’

  Mr William might never have left off repeating this inquiry, and shaking hands with him again, and patting him again, and rubbing him down again, if the old man had not espied the Chemist, whom until now he had not seen.

  ‘I ask your pardon, Mr Redlaw,’ said Philip, ‘but didn’t know you were here, sir, or should have made less free. It reminds me, Mr Redlaw, seeing you here on a Christmas morning, of the time when you was a student yourself, and worked so hard that you was backwards and forwards in our Library even at Christmas time. Ha! ha! I’m old enough to remember that; and I remember it right well, I do, though I’m eighty-seven. It was after you left here that my poor wife died. You remember my poor wife, Mr Redlaw?’

  The Chemist answered yes.

  ‘Yes,’ said the old man. ‘She was a dear creetur. – I recollect you come here one Christmas morning with a young lady – I ask your pardon, Mr Redlaw, but I think it was a sister you was very much attached to?’

  The Chemist looked at him, and shook his head. ‘I had a sister,’ he said vacantly. He knew no more.

  ‘One Christmas morning,’ pursued the old man, ‘that you come here with her – and it began to snow, and my wife invited the young lady to walk in, and sit by the fire that is always a burning on Christmas Day in what used to be, before our ten poor gentlemen commuted, our great Dinner Hall. I was there; and I recollect, as I was stirring up the blaze for the young lady to warm her pretty feet by, she read the scroll out loud, that is underneath that picture. “Lord, keep my memory green!” She and my poor wife fell a talking about it; and it’s a strange thing to think of, now, that they both said (both being so unlike to die) that it was a good prayer, and that it was one they would put up very earnestly, if they were called away young, with reference to those who were dearest to them. “My brother,” says the young lady – “My husband,” says my poor wife. – “Lord, keep his memory of me, green, and do not let me be forgotten!”’