A Regency Christmas Carol

by Christine Merrill

  The clock in the hall struck two.

  ‘Leave off having impure thoughts about the poor girl, for your work is far from finished.’

  Joseph sat bolt upright in bed at the sound of another unfamiliar voice, booming in the confines of the chamber. He had not even risked wine with supper, and had shocked his valet with a request for warm milk before bed. But now he wondered if perhaps it might have been better to forgo the milk and return to a double brandy in an effort to gain a sound and dreamless sleep. ‘Who might you be, and what makes you think you can read the contents of my mind?’

  ‘You are young enough, and healthy enough, and smiling at bedtime. If you are not thinking of a young lady then I do not wish to know what it is you do think on.’

  This night’s ghost wore a scarlet coat of a modern cut trimmed in gold braid. His buff trousers pulled tight across his ample belly as he laughed at his own joke. The brass of his buttons was gleaming as bright as the gold leaf upon the coach he must drive. But tonight it seemed to be even brighter than was natural, as was the coachguard’s horn he carried in his right hand as further indication of his job.

  ‘As to who I am, you may call me Old Tom, and know that I departed this life just a year ago, along the Great North Road. You would not have had to ask my name had you lived any great time in this country. All know me here. At least those who are not so high and mighty as to have no need of public conveyance.’

  Joseph snorted. ‘Although I have no real memory of you, I’ve heard of you—driving drunk and taking your passengers with you to the next life when you upset the coach. I must be running out of ideas. I am reduced to populating my own dreams with little scraps of facts that do not even concern me.’

  The driver laughed again. ‘You give yourself far too much credit, Joseph Stratford. Even if you think yourself clever with machines, you are rather a dull sort for all that, and not given to colourful imaginings.’

  ‘Dull, indeed.’ Joseph rather hoped the ghost was real. If it was not, it was proof that his own imagination was prone to self-loathing and insult. ‘If I refuse to believe in spirits it is a sign of a rational mind, not a slow one. For ghosts do not exist.’

  ‘If you do not believe in ghosts, then why are you sleeping in your clothing?’ asked the shade, drawing back the bedclothes to reveal Joseph still in shirt, trousers and boots.

  ‘Because I woke this morning near naked in a downstairs hallway. Ghost or not, the situation will not be repeated.’

  ‘Very well, then. You are not dull. More like you are so sharp you’ll cut yourself. You are willing to believe anything, no matter how unlikely, so that you don’t have to accept what is right before your eyes.’ Old Tom glared. ‘For your information, I was not drunk on the night I crashed. I did sometimes partake, when a glass was offered. Who would not, with the night air being chill and damp? But that night I was sober as a judge and hurrying to make up time. A biddy at the Cock and Bull had dawdled over her supper and left us to run late.’ He leaned closer and added in a conspiratorial tone, ‘And she will not leave off nagging and lamenting about the time, even now on the other side. Some people never learn, as you well know.’

  The ghost looked him up and down and laid a finger to the side of his nose, as though Joseph should learn something from the comment. Then he went on. ‘I was late, and pushing the horses to their limit, when a rabbit darted out from the hedge and right under ’em. It spooked the leader and he got away from me. Just for a moment. And that was that.’

  Joseph swung his feet out of bed and sat up to face the ghost. ‘An interesting tale, certainly. But there is no way to prove it, and nor am I likely to try.’

  ‘You would not believe it even if you found the truth,’ Old Tom replied in disgust. ‘You are cold as ice, Joseph Stratford, and just as solidly set. I gave you too much credit when I arrived. It is just as likely I found you warming your thoughts not with some beautiful lady but with fantasies of machinery and ledger books.’

  ‘So I have been told,’ Joseph said with bitterness. ‘Yet I have spent a portion of this day seeing to the wants of others, with no chance of personal gain likely to come of it.’

  ‘No gain at all?’

  He remembered the way he had phrased his offer to Barbara, as an effort to keep her father safely at home. ‘Very little gain. The majority of the good done will benefit others. After last night’s visitor, I made a change in my plans and invited Miss Barbara Lampett back to the manor house. There is my proof that I have learned something and rendered tonight’s lesson unnecessary. I am making an effort to help the daughter of my enemy.’ He gave a wave of his hand. ‘And so you may depart.’

  ‘Well, thank you, Yer Lordship,’ the ghost said with a sarcastic bob of his head. ‘But for your information it is I who will set the time of my departure, and not you. Before I can complete my final journey I have been called back for one task alone to make up for the carelessness of my end. I mean to do the job properly. When I leave here you will be well and rightly schooled.’

  The ghost shuddered for a moment, as though uncomfortable in his surroundings. ‘I’d have thought that if called to haunt I could have taken to the road, just as I did in life. Instead they sent me to this dreary place, colder than a moor in December.’

  Again Joseph was annoyed that his spiritual visitor seemed less than satisfied with surroundings it had taken him half a lifetime to afford. ‘This is the finest house in twenty miles, as you should know. The fire is lit, as are the candles. There is tea on the hob and brandy in the flask. Or perhaps you would like a shawl, like an old woman?’

  Tom snorted. ‘As if I could take pleasure in such, here on the other side. I am quite beyond feelings such as that.’ He shuddered again. ‘But I can see things you cannot. There is a cold coming off you like mist from a bog.’

  He raised a finger to point at Joseph. In an instant the friendly driver was gone, and before him Joseph saw only a tormented spirit with a dire warning.

  Then Tom smiled. ‘But I have been set to warm you up a bit. A hopeless task that is like to be. Now, come on. We haven’t got all night.’ The ghost reached out a hand. ‘Tonight you will walk with me, and if you are lucky you will learn to see the world as others do. At the least you will see what you are missing when you cannot take your nose from the account books and your feet from the factory floor. You will learn what people think of you. It should do you a world of good. Now, take my hand.’

  Joseph’s mind warred with itself, but the battle was shorter than it had been on the previous two nights. Whether real or imagined, Tom would not leave until he was ready to. And Joseph did not like being afraid of men—in this world or the next. So he reached out and grabbed the hand that was offered to him.

  To touch it was even worse than touching Sir Cedric the previous night. Old Tom’s hand was large and doughy, and thick with calluses from handling the reins. But it was freezing cold—like iron lying on the ground in December. The instant Joseph touched it his own fingers went as numb as if they’d died on his hand. And this, more than anything else, made him believe. His father might have been a memory, and Sir Cedric a walking dream. But in his wildest imaginings, he’d have conjured nothing like the feel of this.

  He withdrew quickly, and after a stern look from the ghost adjusted his grip to take the spectre by the coat-sleeve instead. That was cold as well, but not unbearably so.

  ‘The first stop is not far,’ the ghost assured him, as though aware of his discomfort. ‘Just beneath you, as a matter of fact.’ Then they seemed to sink through the floorboards until they stood in the first parlour.

  Though he’d thought that she had gone home with her parents, he found Anne sitting in a chair by the fire and weeping as though her heart would break.

  ‘There, there,’ he said awkwardly, reaching out a hand to comfort her.

  ‘Have you not yet learned what a pointless gesture that would be?’ Old Tom asked. ‘While you are with me she will not notice you.’


  ‘Perhaps she will.’ Joseph reached out to pat her shoulder, only to feel his hand pass through her as though she was smoke. He looked helplessly at the ghost. ‘Last night, it was not always so,’ Joseph argued, remembering the young Barbara.

  ‘And tonight it is,’ Old Tom said.

  Behind them, the door opened. Though he needn’t have bothered, Joseph stepped to the side to allow a man to enter the room.

  Robert Breton glanced into the hall, as though eager to know that he was not observed, and then shut the door behind him and went quickly to the seated woman and took her hand.

  ‘Bob?’ Joseph knew then that he must indeed be invisible, for never had he seen such a look on his friend’s face—nor was he likely to. The gaze he favoured Anne with was more than one of sympathy to her plight. It had tenderness, frustration and—dared he think it?—love.

  On seeing him there, Anne let her tears burst fresh, like a sudden shower, and her shoulders shook with the effort of silence.

  ‘Tell him,’ Breton said. ‘I have confronted him on the subject. He will not break off at this late date for your sake. He fears for your reputation even more than you do. If you do not end it for yourself, it is quite hopeless. I will not speak if you say nothing, no matter how much I might wish to. I have said more than enough already. You must be the strong one, Anne.’

  ‘And I never was,’ she answered, not looking up. ‘Perhaps if Mary was here…’

  ‘Then the lot would have fallen to her. Or it might never have occurred at all. But it does not matter,’ Breton said firmly. ‘She is dead and gone, much as no one wishes to acknowledge the fact. You cannot rely on her for help. You must be the one to speak, Anne.’

  ‘Speak what? And to whom? To your father? To me?’ Joseph took his place on her other side, as though he could make himself heard to the woman through proximity. But she said no more and, realising the futility of it, he looked up at the ghost. ‘What do you want? I will give it to you, if I can. I am not totally without a heart, you know.’

  ‘I think you can guess what she wants,’ the ghost said. ‘And why she does nothing about it.’

  ‘It is not as if I am forcing the union on her. She agreed to it. And what does Bob have to do with any of it?’

  ‘Not a thing, I expect, if it all goes according to your plan. He is a gentleman, is he not?’

  ‘But he is a man first,’ Joseph said. ‘If he wants the girl for himself, then why does he not say something?’

  The coachman laughed in response. ‘You make it all sound quite simple. I envy you, living in a world as you do—where there are no doubts and everyone speaks their mind. The woman he loves has chosen another. He has been bested by a richer man. He will step out of the way like a gentleman.’

  ‘But not before warning me to care for her,’ Joseph said glumly. Their conversation in the hall that morning made more sense to him now. ‘I cannot cry off now that there is an understanding. Unless she finds the courage to speak, we must all make the best of it.’ But now that he knew the mind of his would-be fiancée it would be dashed hard to pretend a respect where none existed.

  ‘Is this all, then?’ he asked of the ghost.

  The ghost smiled in a way that was hard and quite out of character with his jolly demeanour. ‘Did you think it was likely to be? Your sins, when added together, total more than just heartlessness to this poor, foolish girl.’

  ‘If you mean to brand me sinner, show me the proof of it so that I may go back to my bed. Take me away from here, for I have seen all you intended me to in this place.’ He did not wish to follow the ghostly coachman, and this might still be little more than an unsettling dream, but the sight of his friend and Anne together felt like a violation. If he could not find a way to change things, then the least he could do was allow the two who were suffering a moment’s privacy.

  ‘Very well.’

  Old Tom stepped forwards, and Joseph along with him. There was a rushing of wind, and in the time it took for his foot to fall he was stepping into another room, in another house. This place reminded him of his visit to his childhood home the previous night, though it was not so grim. It was sparsely furnished, and bare of ornament, but the kitchen where they stood was kept with the sort of earnest tidiness he expected of a home with a living wife and mother. A woman was busy at the hob. Her husband sat at the table, shoulders slumped and head bowed as though in prayer.

  ‘Who might this be?’ Joseph asked, for though the man’s face was familiar he could not attach a name to it.

  ‘If you had bothered to speak to him, or any other in this community, you would know him already.’

  ‘I know that he was waving a sledgehammer at me when last I saw him, just two days ago,’ Joseph said testily. ‘It did not put me in the mood for gaining a proper introduction.’

  ‘His name is Jonas Jordan,’ replied Old Tom, ignoring his retort. ‘He is the most skilled worker in the area, and might be your foreman should you and your mill survive long enough to hire him. And this is his family, preparing for the Christmas you and your kind have made for him.’

  The man had not moved from his place, though his wife now gathered the children for their meal, over-seeing the washing of hands and the setting of places. There were five of them. The youngest was a babe that was likely still at breast, and the oldest was too young to work.

  In this little house, on a narrow side road just off the high street, there were none of the smells he had come to associate with the season—neither burning Yule Log nor sizzling fat and fresh bread. The fire in the grate burned low with the meagre handful of coal that made it, so that the cold crept out into the corners of the room, and the children, who should have been boisterous, huddled together as though they had little energy to do else.

  ‘Mama,’ said the second youngest, ‘I am hungry.’

  Without a word, the woman brought out bowls and set them around the table. The children gathered to take their places. Then she ladled some thin porridge from the pot that sat by the fire, and reached for the jug that sat upon the table. She poured out water rather than milk. The children took it in silence and she looked on, worried. When she reached to set a bowl before her husband he pushed it away, without a sound, until it sat before her.

  She watched, her own supper untouched, as the children finished what they had. Then she shared the contents of the last bowl between them. She sat hungry, as did her man.

  ‘It would be more nourishing for the children to have a bowl with a good dollop of cream in it,’ Joseph said stupidly, knowing that there would be none of that in this house.

  ‘Perhaps if the lord of the manor had not sold off the herd that once grazed where the new mill stands they might have. It has been the nature, these many years, of the Clairemonts to keep the dairy and to graze the herd. All those who wished might come with jugs and buckets to take their share. But now they must send for milk from the next village. It is one more thing, along with all the rest, that this family cannot afford.’

  ‘So they are starving?’ Joseph said, doing his best to harden his heart. ‘They were just so before I arrived. It might well be because this very man stood up against the last master and burned his place to the ground.’

  ‘When men are pushed to the edge of reason by circumstances they act without thinking!’ The ghost shouted the words at him, as though even a spirit could be pushed beyond endurance. ‘Jordan and his family were hungry before. But they ate. He stayed at home with his babes the night the old mill burned. What has happened was no fault of his.’

  ‘Then when the new mill opens he shall have work,’ Joseph promised. ‘If that is the only reason you visit me, you have no reason to fear. I am bringing employment to the area.’

  ‘For some,’ the coachman said.

  ‘For as many as I need,’ Joseph answered him. ‘If it means so much to them, I will enquire with Clairemont about the dispersal of the herd and decide what can be done to reopen the dairy on different ground. It was never my i
ntention to cut people out of their places or make their children suffer.’

  ‘But neither did you make enquiries into their needs when you came here. I am sure if I asked you to quote figures about your building and your products you would know them, chapter and verse, without even opening a ledger. Yet this man, who will be your good right hand if you let him, might starve and die as a stranger to you.’ The ghost’s brow furrowed as though he were working a puzzle. ‘It is a wonder that the only way you can be made to look clearly at the suffering right before your eyes is to be dragged from your bed by a supernatural emissary.’

  The ghost was hauling him forwards, through a closed door towards God only knew what fresh nightmare, and Joseph pulled back, struggling in futility against his grip.

  ‘Very well, then. I see my present clearly,’ Joseph shouted back. ‘The people I need to work in my mill are starved to the point of hatred. My best friend betrays me. The woman who I would take to wife cannot be bothered to speak a word of truth to my face and set me free of the promise I made to her family. I have seen enough. I will do what I can. Take me back to my room.’

  ‘Not just yet. There is one more you must see.’

  Now they were in the home of his nemesis: Lampett.

  ‘Not here,’ he said to the ghost. ‘I get quite enough of what I am likely to find here without a ghostly visitation.’

  ‘And what is that?’

  ‘Abuse heaped upon abuse. Violence from the father, and scorn from the daughter.’ He thought of the previous evening. ‘It is likely she will see me, as she did last night. How will I explain myself to her?’

  The ghost crooked a smile. ‘She is grown into the sort of woman who is much too sensible to see ghosts. And she has given you more than abuse, if I have heard correctly.’

  ‘You mean the kiss?’ Joseph scoffed. ‘It was hardly a gift freely given. I took it from her, and then I tricked her into responding.’