by Jon Clinch
“You are cruel, Fan.”
“Mr. Marley is cruel.”
“He will think ill of you.”
“He will desire me the more.”
“And what then?”
“He shall not possess me. He shall never possess me.”
“Fan! This talk of possession. You speak as if you are some mere… commodity.”
“Then I speak for Jacob Marley, in whose view the earth itself exists only to be bought and sold.”
* * *
She blocks him at every turn. His invitations and entreaties vanish whole, lost in the well of her person as into a mineshaft. Nothing comes back, neither reply nor rebuff, not even an echo accidentally reflected in his direction by way of her brother.
He sends flowers. He sends sweets. He offers trips to museums, long walks, library visits, lakeside picnics, outings on the Thames. Nothing. He debases himself with the construction of letters that require him to assume within the crooked halls of his own brain the mental and emotional traits of a lovesick child. He finds the entire operation detestable and he wonders from time to time if she is worth it but in his heart he knows the answer. She is not, not by any means. Only the victory matters.
Regardless, she may as well be dead for all he hears. So he doubles and redoubles his efforts, his determined disposition growing cooler and cooler as the battle grows more heated.
On the rare moments when his attentions briefly falter, Mother Scrooge takes up the cause on his behalf. “I shan’t be around forever,” she says, and in those words her daughter hears, With every passing day, you’re less likely to find a match.
Fan is careful not to rise to the bait. “Why, Mother,” she says, setting down her needlework, “your health is splendid.”
“Nonetheless…” She shakes her head as if she knows something no one else knows. The hour and manner of her own demise, perhaps. She coughs pathetically.
“It’s not like you to dwell on such things.”
Her mother sighs, and on the last wisp of air that her lungs expel she confesses, “I’m only thinking of you.”
“And of how lonely I shall be when you are gone.”
“Fan! I never suggested…”
“Of course you did.”
“Perhaps a bit. But only because—”
“Because you’re thinking of me.”
“I am.”
“I know.” She does know, of course. So she takes up her needle and works quietly for a moment, considering. Then, softly but certainly: “While you’re thinking of me, you must remember that I would rather go to my grave a spinster than consort for a moment with Jacob Marley.”
And as difficult as it is, Mother Scrooge understands.
* * *
The turning point in Marley’s assault upon her arrives by way of a newsboy on the evening of Wednesday, March 25. The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act has made its passage through the Houses of Parliament and is now the law of the land. Damn his eyes, he has forgotten about it altogether. In his enthusiasm over pillaging Scrooge’s half of the firm, he has failed to insulate himself sufficiently from any number of more or less direct affiliations with the slaving business. In fact, in shielding himself from Scrooge’s oversight he has in some cases made his own connections more vulnerable to public discovery.
According to the newspaper, the trade must cease entirely upon March 1, 1808. Thus he has precisely eleven months and four days to build an edifice of deceit sufficient to shelter his various enterprises against the full power of the government. He is up to the task, of course, but he cannot accomplish it while maintaining his assault upon Fan’s stubborn heart.
Enough, then. First things first.
Seventeen
A three-year wait until the wedding will provide a decent and practical interval. Ebenezer has suffered some financial setbacks as of late, and he intends to recover before taking a wife. Belle, based upon the little that he has explained to her regarding the shifting balance of accounts at Scrooge & Marley, feels at least in part responsible for those setbacks, but there is also in her heart a kind of triumphal suffering, as if delaying the happiness of marriage to Ebenezer is the price she must pay for her abolitionist virtue.
By the end of May they have chosen a date. Belle is for announcing it right off, but Ebenezer fears that the news might overshadow the King’s birthday—or so he says, that silly goose, and who is she to dispute so charming a notion?—and therefore they wait until July. The occasion is a formal supper in the Fairchilds’ dining room, where the two families come together for what could only be the long-awaited announcement. Everyone goes along with the charade, for this sort of thing does not happen every day.
They make seven at a table for four. The Fairchild daughters, Belle and Daphne, have prepared the meal, and when the Scrooge family arrives Fan swoops in to help with the serving. Thus Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild, Mother Scrooge, and Ebenezer have only to make appreciative oohs and aahs as the dishes arrive one after another, and then to make room for the young ladies when the table is provisioned and the feast can begin. Fairchild provides the blessing, which notes the coming together of these two families in words direct enough to be suggestive yet vague enough to be denied should denial prove necessary. Belle is wildly blushing by the time he reaches “Amen.”
After an hour, everyone present has been interrogated as to his health and the weather has been thoroughly analyzed and nary a bite has been swallowed. So many marvelous dishes, gone cold in the service of breathless anticipation. Mrs. Fairchild presses the boiled potatoes upon Ebenezer for the fourth or fifth time despite the presence on his plate of several untouched examples, and he finally resolves to proceed.
He rises to his feet and clears his throat and takes a sip of port that goes down the wrong way, requiring him to clear his throat again, although with even less success this time around. The eyes of both families rest upon him as he gasps for air and dabs at his lips and blushes—at least as fiercely as Belle had blushed before.
“What’s on your mind, Ebenezer?” asks Fairchild.
Ebenezer puts down his napkin and takes up his glass once more. “It will come as no surprise,” he says, “most surely not to you, Mr. Fairchild, with whom I have consulted in detail upon the matter…”
Eyebrows ratchet upward all around. This is most assuredly the moment.
“… it will come as no surprise, as I was saying, that Belle…”
At the mention of her name she reaches out to take his hand, an action that unsteadies him to such a degree that a little wine spills from his glass onto the white linen tablecloth.
“Oh, goodness, Mrs. Fairchild, you must forgive my clumsiness…” The blood drains from his face and he stands transfixed, staring at the widening spill as he would stare at an adder coiled to strike.
“It’s nothing, Ebenezer.”
“It’s claret, Mrs. Fairchild, and I fear that it will leave an intractable stain…”
Belle releases his hand and takes her own napkin to the spill.
“Please, Ebenezer,” says her mother. “Go on.”
He sets down his wineglass rather than risk further catastrophe. His hands shake as he folds his napkin and unfolds it and folds it again. He takes a deep breath and then another, and finally he speaks: “Belle and I have… set a date for our marriage.” Amid joyous huzzahs from around the table—not the least from Mrs. Fairchild, whose linens and whose daughter both seem to be out of danger at last—he collapses back into his chair.
* * *
“I presume that I shall be your maid of honor?” says Daphne from across the table. Fan is of course her sole potential competitor for the prize, and she dares not so much as glance her way.
“I should say so,” says Belle.
“Unless you find a husband in the meantime,” Fairchild puts in.
“A husband who’s in a bigger hurry to wed than Ebenezer has been,” says his wife.
Belle comes to Scrooge’s defense. “Ebenezer has his
reasons,” she says, giving his arm a squeeze. “And I assure you that they are excellent ones.”
Scrooge lifts his hands and shows their palms, as if to fend off a storm of incoming praise.
“Perhaps I can clarify matters,” says Fairchild, drawing out his pipe. “I can tell you, with some delight, that Ebenezer has recently overseen his firm’s divestment of all properties having to do with a certain distasteful—and soon to be unlawful—activity.” He brings a flame to the bowl and puckers to nurse the tobacco’s ignition, an aggrieved look upon his face that holds his listeners hostage to any such delay as he may choose to enforce. Once the tobacco is burning satisfactorily, he proceeds. “He and I were at first of different minds regarding the issue, but in the interest of pursuing marriage to our Belle, he saw the light.” The irony of Fairchild’s disappearing into a plume of tobacco smoke at that very instant is lost on no one, but it goes without remark. “As a result, our Mr. Scrooge still has a few small improvements to make in his affairs before he is entirely comfortable taking on the responsibilities of marriage. It does not alter his intentions or dim his enthusiasm or diminish his ability to carry forward the great project of supporting Belle when I am finally laid to my rest, I can assure you of that.”
A look of alarm passes over Mother Scrooge’s countenance, and she cannot keep herself from interrupting. “Are you quite well, Mr. Fairchild?”
“I shall be well when the fates of both of my daughters are settled,” says he, with a pitying look at Daphne.
Belle, in the interest of rescuing her sister, raises her wineglass. “To Ebenezer!” she says.
“To Belle!” he counters.
“To Belle and Ebenezer!” say Mothers Scrooge and Fairchild, in one voice. It is almost as if they have rehearsed it. Quite possibly they have.
* * *
Mother Scrooge has a question for Fan on their walk home. “Do you see how Mr. Fairchild worries over the fate of his children?”
Her daughter laughs. “That has been his way forever and ever. The thought of his own absence from the world seems to fascinate him. Perhaps he believes the world will be a better place.”
“Bah. There is no harm in planning for the future. A parent has a duty.”
“Oh, Mother—it’s not planning, it’s an unhealthy fixation. Death was his theme when Belle and I were just children. It gave me nightmares.”
“A child starving to death is every parent’s nightmare. It certainly is mine—especially now that you have so thoroughly rebuffed Mr. Marley.”
“The post has been quiet, hasn’t it?”
“Very.”
“Thank heavens.”
“Be that as it may,” says Mother Scrooge, “you would be wise to befriend Daphne, now that Belle is taken. You will look better against an older woman who remains unattached than against someone your own age who has already succeeded.”
“Succeeded.”
“In making a match.”
“I want more than a match.”
“I don’t mean just any match.”
“You were in a hurry to pair me off with Mr. Marley.”
“Mr. Marley has funds.”
“Funds are more common than character.”
“There’s nothing common about either one.”
“I suppose not, Mother. But God willing, I shall find a match with a fair supply of both.”
1808
Eighteen
Years at sea have served not to roughen Captain Balfour but to smooth him, to soften his sharp edges, to polish his every surface until he has acquired the soft pale gleam of the carved whalebone knife that he carries in his pocket. He obtained the implement on some Polynesian adventure in the long-ago past when he was but a gunner’s mate, and although it is useful only for opening envelopes or cutting pages as he reads one of his beloved naval histories, he keeps it with him always.
Stationed now in London, he misses the sea but not overmuch. His skills are required here at home, or such is the opinion of his superiors, and he is long-habituated to following orders. There are ships to be outfitted in yards on the Thames and in Portsmouth and elsewhere, there are men to be recruited and trained, there are missions to be plotted for the advancement of the latest national policies. If he can serve the crown better by overseeing such activities than by commanding his trusty old ship, the Guardian, then so be it. He only hopes that after he has served a reasonable landbound term he may once again be sent to sea, that he may finish his service in the place where he is happiest.
“Thy will be done,” he accedes to the Almighty as he finishes uttering a prayer to that very effect—for in religious practice as in military life, he is accustomed to serving at the whim of some invisible superior. He opens his eyes and searches for a page in the hymnbook as the choir rises in the loft. Remote and enrobed and lit from above, they look to him like so many angels—especially the alto on the very right. (Is alto the term? Is that the lower of the two ladies’ parts? Yes, he is quite certain. Alto it is.) The girl has about her an ethereal quality, something that elevates her not just above the choir but above the congregation and indeed above mankind in general. The passion carried by her voice and the devotion written upon her face stir not just his soul but also his heart. And surpassing all of that—although Balfour would like to think himself beyond such lowly considerations—is her beauty. A man is a man, though, there is no use denying it. And a man’s passions are to be kept in check. In his years at sea he has often seen men succumb to their most bestial natures. He has witnessed and indeed punished iniquities so terrible that he is ashamed that the folds of his memory have carried them into this holy place. He of all people understands the vile lusts of men. But this is not that. Not by any means.
The hymn ends and a sermon follows and a freewill offering is taken. Balfour is still reassuring himself on the crucial point of his innocence when, prior to the benediction, the pastor invites the congregation to a reception for tea and cakes and good Christian fellowship. He makes a special point of welcoming visitors, and he does so with such warm feeling that Captain Balfour cannot help but follow orders.
* * *
By God, he’ll be keelhauled if the angel isn’t pouring tea. She is paired in the task with a yellow-haired girl of about her age who he recalls sat opposite her in the loft, the two of them brought together now in a contrasting pair of dark and light. They are making a game of their work and amusing themselves to no end, teasing with one parishioner after another, just as bright and merry as youth can make them. One particular gentleman—tall, bony, with a haunted look deep in his eye—attends to them both in a manner that suggests an attachment to one or the other, but Balfour cannot put his finger on the exact nature of it.
Puzzling over the possible connection he joins the line right behind the pastor, to whom he introduces himself. No, he explains by and by, he is new neither to the city nor to the faith, and although he has been long separated from both he intends to make the most of his return.
“How many years were you at sea?” says Reverend McPhail, a portly individual with a broad smile full of crooked teeth and an eager eye for the platter of cakes up ahead.
“Enough to miss it, and enough to be finished with it if that should be the King’s will.”
“Or God’s.”
“Or God’s,” says the captain, clapping the pastor on the back as if he has made a very fine joke. Should the Royal Navy’s chain of command go higher than King George III, Balfour hasn’t been informed of it. “We do as we’re told, don’t we, you and I?”
“True enough,” says McPhail, craning his neck a bit and looking ahead to see if Fan has brought some of her justly famed ginger biscuits. Sighting confirmed, he points to them and says to the captain, “You, sir, are in for a treat.”
“How so?” He looks where McPhail is pointing but can see only the girl.
“Miss Scrooge,” says the pastor, “has brought along the delectable fruits of her kitchen.”
“Mi
ss Scrooge? Now, which would she be?”
“The one with the teapot. The dark one. To be frank, the biscuits she’s brought will be the only items here worth eating.”
“I’ll have two, then.” Balfour inclines his head. “Now, that long-boned fellow. Would he be her—”
“Her brother? Yes indeed. You have a sharp eye, Captain Balfour.”
“Service on shipboard has honed my vision.”
“His name’s Ebenezer,” says McPhail. “He is affianced to her friend, the fair-haired girl. Miss Fairchild.”
“And who would Miss Scrooge be affianced to?”
“None yet.”
“I am shocked.”
“Surely you have seen more astonishing sights in your naval career?”
“Not that I can recall,” says Balfour.
“Typhoons? Hurricanes?”
“None more remarkable,” says Balfour.
“Pirates? Cannibal chieftains?”
“Never.”
“Vast seas of ice? Lush equatorial Edens?”
“I assure you, nothing can compare to so marvelous a notion as that girl’s being unattached.”
McPhail picks up a small plate and offers it to the captain. “Then the world is still alive with the potential for miracle,” he says, abundantly certain of his Lord and of himself.
* * *
He can be utterly charming, this Captain Balfour—warm as a tropical breeze and smooth as an unruffled lagoon at the first peep of sunrise. He is orderly in his habits, direct in his manner, sharp in his attire, and cleanly in his grooming. He possesses an easy smile that devastates the ladies, and he is handy with all of the current dances. (His repertoire further includes steps from societies as remote and exotic as those of Tahiti, the Canaries, and the Isle of Skye.)
Fan finds herself enchanted from the moment he compliments her ginger biscuits. From well before then, really. From the moment he came into view behind Reverend McPhail. She spilled his tea in pouring it, and in apologizing she spilled it again.
