by Jon Clinch
“On shipboard,” he says, “spilling twice from the same cup is said to bring bad luck.”
“Really?”
“Something like that.”
“What’s the cure?”
“My dear”—he fixes her with a concerned look—“there is no cure. There never is.”
“Who will it affect, then—me, or you?”
“We shall have to see for ourselves.”
“But how?”
“By remaining in close communication.”
He winks and takes his tea and biscuits and moves off, but not far. Then again, no distance would be quite far enough to discourage Fan, not after so captivating an introduction. He could retreat to the Azores and she would still find him.
“My goodness,” he says when she appears with a cup and saucer of her own, “perhaps I was mistaken about that bad luck business.”
“Do you think?”
“I may have gotten it backwards,” he says, setting down his cup and saucer on a nearby table. “To judge by the signs, my fortune seems to be improving by the moment.”
But Fan is not to be so easily had. She teases, “Then perhaps the ill luck is to be mine?”
Balfour looks stricken—truly and deeply stricken—by the notion that crossing paths with him should be anything but the most positive development for her.
“I’m only teasing, of course.”
He flattens a hand upon his chest. “Oh, thank God, Miss—”
“Scrooge. My friends call me Fan.”
“Then I shall aspire to the right to call you that myself.”
“And you are—”
He draws himself even straighter than usual, bringing his heels together and offering her a little bow. “Captain Harry Balfour, former master of the HMS Guardian, now stationed at Greenwich.”
“Not Portsmouth?” A girl both beautiful and bright, she knows a little about the Royal Navy.
“Portsmouth, Devonport, London—I come and go, depending upon my various duties.” That would seem to be the limit of what he will say on the matter, at least for now.
“And how are you finding life on dry land?”
“A bit cramped, if I may say.” With one finger he tugs at his collar. “It’s a large empire, but a terribly small country.”
“And will you be trapped here for long?”
“I shall stay as long as it suits King George,” he says, “although I fear that it shall be for quite a little while.” He takes the last biscuit from his plate and bites it in half. “And you? What about you, Miss Scrooge?”
“Fan.”
“Fan, then.”
“I’m afraid that my story compares poorly to the romance of a life at sea.”
“Let me be the judge.”
She does just that, offering up for him the plain facts of her plain life here in London. Her mother, her brother, her father long gone. Her reading and her needlework. Her fondness for singing in the choir in this church. She leaves out nothing but Marley, for Marley is no longer part of any life she knows. He is only the despised past. He is but a repeated mistake, not to be committed again.
“That all sounds perfectly homely,” says Balfour with a dreamy look, “particularly to a rootless old tramp like myself.”
“Perhaps we have expanded each other’s horizons, then.”
Balfour peers into his teacup, making certain that there is at least a single sip remaining, and then raises it in a toast. “To broader horizons!”
Fan clinks her cup against his, wondering if toasting to anything at all is appropriate here in the church parlor, but already forgiving him for his worldliness.
Nineteen
“What’s more,” says Fan, “he’s doing God’s work.”
“Forgive me,” Belle laughs. ‘Did you say ‘Chaplain Balfour’? I thought it was ‘Captain.’ Although I must admit that for a man of the cloth, he cuts a dashing figure.”
“You heard me, silly. Harry is no chaplain. He is, though, laboring at a cause very near to your heart.”
“And that would be?”
“Enforcement of the Slave Trade Act. The navy is terribly serious about it. They’ve two ships already in what they’re calling the West Africa Squadron—the Derwent and the Solebay. Harry has told me all about them. He only wishes he could be in charge of one and see some real action, instead of running things from behind a desk.”
“And you? What do you wish?”
“The desk suits me fine. What would you think if Ebenezer were out gallivanting along the African coast, confiscating ships, rounding up slavers, risking life and limb?”
“It sounds romantic.”
“It sounds perilous. And terribly solitary.”
“But Ebenezer is my betrothed, and Harry is… what?”
Fan wrings her hands. “Harry is important,” she says at last.
“You sound serious.”
“I am.”
* * *
Balfour’s charm has worked its magic, then, with little active intervention on his part. His life has been characterized by hard labor and intense focus and methodical accomplishment, and so along the way he has grown wary of good fortune—yet he finds himself fortunate now. Perhaps the universe has been saving up a store of good luck on his behalf, and has chosen to deliver it all at once. Anything is possible.
Lucky or otherwise, he is to meet Fan this evening at her brother’s place of business so as to join Ebenezer and Belle, those two famous lovebirds, for supper and a new drama at Covent Garden. He arrives early—he is forever arriving early—and he enters through the half-open warehouse door under the sign reading SCROOGE & MARLEY. He sees right away that this is clearly a place not meant for public visitation. The shelves are haphazardly arranged, poorly kept, dusty. Perhaps there is some system to be discovered beneath the disarray, but it escapes him.
Give me two days here with a proper crew, he thinks, and we’d establish order.
He has spied the office doorway—a darker blot in the lightless warehouse—and he is making for it when a figure appears from the mouth of an intersecting aisle. It is too tall and too broad to be Scrooge, and with a curiously threatening tilt of its head it introduces itself.
“Marley,” says the figure. “My name is over the door. And you would be?”
Balfour introduces himself, although such persuasive power as his charm and authority have over most people does not seem to affect Marley in the least. Perhaps it is a function of the darkness.
The figure may nod or may not. “The entrance is that way,” it says, thrusting a hand in the direction from which Balfour has come, back toward the half-open warehouse door and the street beyond. Having come this close, he is to exit and try again. “Private property, you see.”
“Of course,” says Balfour. “Understood.” Rules, after all, are rules.
When he’s made his way out and located the office entrance around the corner, he finds Scrooge waiting in the alcove.
“Forgive Marley,” he whispers.
“He hasn’t offended.”
“You’re too kind, Balfour. He has been… preoccupied.”
Preoccupied or not, the offender emerges now to welcome Balfour aboard according to his own particular lights. That is to say he ignores him utterly, pressing past the pair of them and onward into the depths of Scrooge’s cell. “May we have a word?” he asks his partner, crooking a finger.
Whatever transpires behind that closed door will remain a mystery to Balfour, but it goes on for several minutes. Enough time for Fan and Belle to arrive via carriage, and for the three of them to decide upon their dinner venue. Fan has heard about an intriguing new spot in the City—it’s called the Grasshopper, she believes—which she is eager to try. Any choice she might make in this line is perfectly fine with Balfour, who wants only for her to be happy.
The door finally swings open to reveal a tableau in which a smiling Scrooge stands holding the iron knob while his partner lingers in the shadows, slouched in a woo
den chair with an aggrieved look etched upon his face.
“Perhaps Mr. Marley would care to join us!” Balfour offers. “We may not be able to obtain another ticket for the theater, but I’m certain that the Grasshopper could provide an additional chair for dinner.”
Nothing from Marley.
“What say you, old man?”
Marley flinches at what he takes for a barb. Pleasantries aside, the very truth is that he does seem an old man, at least to himself. He shifts in his chair just enough to prove that he still lives. “Oh,” he says with a cruel smile, “I’m sure these ladies have seen enough of me—Miss Scrooge in particular. Isn’t that correct, Fan?”
Before she can answer, Balfour grins and barks out a jolly “Cheerio, then!” He thrusts an elbow toward Fan, which she seems relieved to grasp. And yet a seed has been planted, a question posed.
Balfour’s mind is racing as they gain the carriage. He certainly cannot ask Fan what the fellow might have intended by such a remark. He cannot ask any of them. Perhaps it is nothing at all, or close to nothing. Perhaps Marley has merely offended her—spoken coarsely, lost his temper, Heaven knows what—at some time in the past, and over the intervening period this subtle wrong has festered into a sore spot for both of them. He definitely seems the type to nurse a grudge of that sort. Marley lurching about in the darkness with his “Private property!” Marley charging wordless through the hallway and heaving the door shut against a visitor. He’s the type, most assuredly. The type that a wary individual would not want to anger, for Marley would never forget it.
In the end, before the moment is irretrievable, he finds a way to ask without quite asking. “For my part,” he says as the carriage turns onto the street wherein their destination lies, “I’m delighted that it’s just the four of us. For even if no one else has had enough of Mr. Marley, I for one certainly have.”
“Having enough of Mr. Marley is easily done,” laughs Fan, pointedly searching beyond the window for the sign of the Grasshopper.
“I wouldn’t say that,” counters Scrooge. “He is usually far more agreeable.”
Fan glares at him, but only briefly and beyond Balfour’s line of sight.
“As a rule, butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth,” says Belle.
Scrooge sighs. “I can’t say what’s gotten into him. As I told you, Harry, he’s been preoccupied. Overworked, I suppose, although exactly how I cannot tell. Our duties, you see, are quite separate.”
The carriage shudders and slows.
“In some ways,” he goes on, “Marley and I are mysteries to each other. As are all men, I suppose you could say.”
The carriage halts.
Balfour must ask now, or never. “Then why do you find him so distasteful, Fan? Is it that selfsame agreeableness? Do you perceive something feigned about it?”
“I perceive something feigned about every aspect of Mr. Marley,” she says, reaching for the latch.
Scrooge leans conspiratorially toward Balfour. “He has been known to pursue the lady, from time to time.”
“ ‘From time to time,’ you say?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“How odd.”
“Mr. Marley is odd,” says Fan, “and inconstant.”
Balfour shakes his head and addresses Scrooge with a smile. “Between you and me, Ebenezer, I should no more pursue your sister from time to time than I should elect to breathe from time to time.”
Fan’s grip pauses on the latch. “Am I being pursued, then, Captain Balfour?”
“Would I have a rival in the cause, Miss Scrooge?”
“I should say not.”
“Mr. Marley might think otherwise.”
“Mr. Marley would be incorrect.”
“Poor old chap,” he sighs. “Perhaps he has a heart after all. I believe you’ve broken it.”
“Good,” says Fan, as if the word is the vilest of curses. She turns the latch, and Balfour presses open the carriage door, and out they all tumble toward the waiting delights of the Grasshopper.
1810
Twenty
Fan’s wedding is to be in the high summer, Ebenezer’s in the fall. Hers will be crowded, his intimate. Hers will take place in the ornate chapel at the Royal Navy’s Greenwich Hospital, his in the lowly family church.
Two weddings in a single year. Mother Scrooge fears that the excitement will be her undoing. Ever philosophical, however, she consoles herself that should she fail to survive both, she will die having witnessed the superior one.
Ebenezer and Belle produce a surprisingly long guest list, considering. The entire membership of the church shall be invited, naturally, although which party any given parishioner may choose to align himself with—the Fairchilds or the Scrooges—is a matter not to be examined too closely. Beyond the church family, though, is where the surprises lie. Judging by the quantity of envelopes his mother must address in her slow, painstaking hand, Ebenezer would seem to be intimate with half of London’s population. She wonders if the church will hold so many souls.
A notable percentage of the invitations return unopened, however, and more still vanish into the mists and vagaries of the city and its environs without generating so much as a proper answer. “Your associates could profit from a lesson in the social graces,” she tells her son as she sorts through it all one Friday before supper.
“My associates?”
“Certain of them, at least.” She taps a judgmental finger on the list of delinquents, and then pulls open a drawer to produce the bundle of dead letters. “As for these, perhaps you could provide improved addresses.”
Ebenezer riffles through the lot of them. Badger & Son. Plummer & Snagsby. Merdle, Jaggers, Slumkey & Lightwood, Counselors at Law. These and the rest of the errant invitees would all seem to be Jacob’s contacts, one way or another. He shall look into them first thing on Monday, and issue fresh invitations right away. Heaven knows he would hate for anyone to miss the celebration on account of a clerical error.
But Jacob is nowhere to be found on Monday, as is more or less his usual habit. How silly and hopeful of Ebenezer to have thought otherwise. At midmorning he wraps his muffler around his neck and steps out into the icy winter street and locates a willing boy, a poor ragged thing needful of whatever kindness might be on offer, and for a shilling he sends him around to his partner’s known haunts. A whole bob, with the promise of another to keep it company if he is quick about it. Such is the outsized generosity of the groom in waiting.
“Bob, sir? That’s my name, sir.”
“Bob, is it? Just Bob and no more?”
“Bob Cratchit, sir.”
“Then we’ll make it two bob and then some. A half crown for the prompt recovery of the missing Mr. Marley.” And off the boy scampers, warm with hope on this cold winter morning.
The clock in the high church tower is tolling out a fogbound noon when he returns, abashed and disappointed, offering up his unearned coin in token of his uselessness. “Bah,” says Ebenezer, closing the boy’s filthy fist around the treasure and its fresh mate, two bob for young Bob. “You did your best.”
“Thank you, sir. You’re very kind.” Nonetheless he backs away with the timidity of a dog accustomed to the lash.
“You are certain that you knocked upon his door.”
“I did, sir.”
“And there was no answer.”
“There was none, sir.”
“You used the knocker, not your fist.”
“Oh, yes, sir. And ’twas a great grand knocker, too. I could barely lift it.” He mimes the struggle.
Ebenezer frowns to imagine him straining so, and fishes deep in the pocket of his waistcoat. “Then have another shilling for your trouble, child. And make certain you spend it on provisions.”
“For myself or for my brothers and sisters, sir? Or for my mum? My da is in Marshalsea, last I heard.”
“For every one of you,” says Ebenezer, emptying his pocket. The child could be pulling his leg, or so Jacob might insist,
but generosity reflects positively upon the giver nonetheless. “God bless you all.”
“You are too kind, sir.”
“Not by half. But if you truly believe so, you can return the favor by keeping an eye on the premises while I go and seek Mr. Marley myself.”
“Do you mean it, sir?” The child looks as if he has been invited to preside over affairs of state at Buckingham Palace.
“Absolutely.” Ebenezer takes the hard chair and drags it closer to the little grate, in whose depths a pile of ruddy coals hisses merrily away. “Have a seat right here,” he says, “and should any visitors arrive, advise them that I shall return directly.”
The boy hops into the chair, luxuriates for a moment in the radiant warmth of the stove, and promptly commences to snore. Ebenezer locks his desk and his cabinets, just in case, and then he takes to the street.
* * *
The knocker is indeed a ponderous thing, but Ebenezer does not require the use of it. He admits himself as his partner prefers him to do—through the basement entrance employed by the wine merchants, from which he makes his way through a series of narrow passages and back stairways to Marley’s chambers. He commits a wrong turn now and then—running square into a closet from which there seems to be no other exit, finding himself high atop a windblown turret he has never noticed before—for the layout of the place seems even more devilishly twisted now than he remembers. One could almost be persuaded that its complexities have multiplied under their own power, with the implacability of some fatal disease.
Nonetheless, with time and persistence he gains his destination. He knocks upon the door and finds it not quite fully latched, as if his partner has vacated his quarters in haste. He takes advantage of the condition, gingerly edging the door open. “Jacob?” he calls through the crack. And again, pressing it the slightest bit wider, “Jacob?” Nothing. The air coming from the place smells musty, disused, as if the apartments are the long-abandoned den of some beast, and he pulls the door to rather than breathe it in.
