Christmas Child: an absolutely heartbreaking and emotional Victorian romance

by Carol Rivers

  She gazed into his kind face, all round and full with good health – unlike the face she had left upstairs, with eyes closed that would never open again and lips sealed, never to take a breath.

  Suddenly the outpouring came; a flood of tears followed by great, gasping sobs that prevented any speech. In the same way she had comforted her employer, Terence comforted her and every now and then, offered a consoling pat.

  He pulled a crumpled rag from his apron pocket and pushed it into her hands. ‘Dry them cheeks now, little beauty. Mop ‘em up, but don’t stop weeping till you’re as empty as that fire grate. I didn’t stop for my Gladys, no. Must’ve been a whole week I bawled. Maybe more. And to think of vittles, even a nice pork chop, well, my stomach revolted at the prospect. It’s the weeping comes first, see? Then the hole. This great big, rotten black hole that gulps you up, mixes you round till you don’t know what time of day or night it is, not that you blooming well care about time.’ He sat back with his hands on his knees and sighed. ‘So Terence understands and is listening. The physician told me the tobacconist’s sad story, but there’s more to it I’m sure. Now, I know your departed employer was grieving the loss of his family. But the appearance of him, well, it shocked me!’

  Ettie mopped her eyes, smelling on the rag the wood sawdust that covered Terence’s shop floor and a whiff of the dripping he sold on his counter.

  ‘He couldn’t have eaten in days.’

  ‘How did he travel to England?’

  ‘He said a coach here, a carriage there. Then he went on foot to the Channel.’ A sob rocked her as she caught her breath. ‘And arrived back here, penniless.’

  ‘Penniless?’ repeated Terence with a frown. ‘Why this very business, his family’s fortune – a security that would enable him to travel like a king! Did you tell him about The Old Lady deposit?’

  Ettie nodded. ‘I did, but he grew angry at the mention.’

  ‘Why, that is very strange!’

  ‘In his confusion. he asked for the Pass Book.’

  ‘The temporary one?’

  ‘His thoughts were so entangled, I could make nothing of them. He spoke kindly of his mother, but grew furious at his papa. It was as if he …’ Ettie trembled at the memory of those blazing eyes fixed into nothingness, ‘as if he could see him in the room and hated him.’

  Terence leaned forward to mutter, ‘Now, now, dear girl, the poor man was off his mind.’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Ettie and dabbed her wet cheeks. She looked anxiously at the butcher. ‘What will happen now?’

  Terence drew in a deep breath. ‘The physician will certify him. The undertaker will bury him. And the living will mourn him.’

  Ettie remembered when the old bishop had died during Lent. The tabernacle and the altar, the holy pictures and statues were draped with deep purple cloths. The coffin stood overnight before the altar and in the morning all the orphans had crowded in, their eyes fixed on the ornate wooden box with gleaming brass handles. The nuns had sung hymns of great solemnity and the new bishop had conducted the Requiem Mass.

  None of them had known then it was the end of an era.

  But it was.

  Chapter 42

  The undertaker suggested the open casket should remain in the drawing room for seven days, which to Ettie, seemed an unnatural length of time.

  The old bishop had lain in his wooden box for just two days in the convent chapel. To Ettie, the recollection of this, though some years ago, seemed natural and in accordance with her beliefs. During Requiem Mass the nuns and congregation had filed past the coffin, solemnly bowing their heads and making the sign of the cross.

  The orphans were too small to view the marble-white features of the old man and had been ordered to remain seated on their pews. But Ettie had attended the benediction the previous day. Being taller in height she had paused at the coffin. She had never seen a corpse before but, in the company of the nuns, the old bishop had only looked a little pale and asleep.

  Not so Lucas. His bloated features revealed the full ravages of his suffering. Each time Ettie gazed on him, her heart broke again.

  It was with Terence’s help that she had dressed him in his best suit before he was removed to the drawing room, where it was said that mourners could visit. Another notice had been hung on the door:

  ‘Mr Lucas Benjamin has passed away and respects are welcomed. The funeral service is to be at Highgate Chapel, 14th September, at 11 o’clock precisely.’

  But there were few visitors. Just Mrs Buckle who dabbed her nose and kissed Ettie’s cheek reverently and Terence, who offered to keep Ettie company throughout. But she had politely refused. Discussing the loss only upset her more.

  Her prayers felt repetitive. The habit which had once seemed so essential to her life, now seemed redundant. The God she had begged to spare her family had turned a deaf ear. Even Rose, Lucas’s own mother, had remained aloof.

  The great hole that Terence warned her about, had opened up. She fell deep inside and prayers had no power in this endless pit.

  The only relief she found was in the nursery. Here she sat in Clara’s chair and recalled the joy that was lost. She saw Clara and the baby boy, his bright blue eyes like his father’s as he snuggled against Clara’s full breasts. She even at times – a little guiltily – imagined holding him in her own arms and soothing him.

  Each day she fell into dreaming; this angelic infant became as real to her as the children outside in Silver Street. His features were handsome; a small nose like Clara’s, and Lucas’s toothy smile, an abundance of golden curls and skin as soft and tender as a puppy’s.

  She rocked him in her arms, this child of her imagination. Perfectly formed and healthy, with no lesions or scars or deformity, he was perfect in every way.

  Perfect …

  It was here, the day before the burial service at the Highgate chapel, that Terence discovered her. Having given him a key, he let himself in and out, delivering the choicest cuts and little treats in order to sustain her.

  ‘My, my, what’s this?’ he asked in surprise as he entered the nursery.

  Ettie looked up, disappointed to be disturbed from her reverie. Her hands fell to her lap but she managed a small smile. ‘I didn’t hear you call.’

  ‘Many times I did,’ he said frowning. ‘Come, young beauty, you shouldn’t be in here all alone.’

  ‘I like it,’ she replied.

  ‘You may, but it ain’t healthy. Close this place up now, Ettie.’

  ‘But the baby …’

  ‘The baby and its mother and father are not present, my love. This room is as empty as your larder downstairs. Come with Terence now. And let’s fill its shelves.’

  Ettie didn’t want to leave. She felt safe, comforted. And that wooden box was downstairs, where a man lay; a man she could not bear to look at, to witness his suffering again.

  ‘Come now,’ Terence took her arm and hoisted her from the chair. ‘This lamenting will do you no good. Come with old Terence.’

  And so Ettie went, though reluctantly.

  ‘Promise me, that’s the end of that,’ Terence said unusually harshly as he sat her down at the kitchen table. ‘Promise me?’

  Ettie bowed her head. She was afraid of the pain that would surely flow into the pit and drown her if she could not sit in the nursery. All the same, she dutifully nodded.

  ‘We have a matter to discuss,’ said Terence who drew up a chair beside her. ‘I’ve an offer to make you. Though it will take some thinking on from your point of view.’

  Ettie did not feel like being made an offer of any sort; her head and heart were still attached to the nursery.

  ‘You are still very young and have a future ahead of you.’

  Ettie looked into the butcher’s steady gaze. ‘I have. Though where it is, I don’t know.’

  ‘These premises may stay open. They may not. Who do they belong to, I wonder?’

  ‘I can’t think,’ replied Ettie.

  ‘I advise you
to go through the house, my dear, for there must be papers to alert you as to what might be the outcome.’

  ‘The outcome of what?’

  ‘Dare I say it – death. If the business is sold and even if not, you can’t put no reliance on staying here. You do understand my meaning, young beauty?’

  Ettie was silent for her mind was clouded.

  ‘A new home will have to be found; a worthy one that fits your skills, for now, after all this time in business, you have learned many.’

  ‘As an assistant you mean?’

  ‘As a livelihood that deserves your attention.’

  ‘But where will I go, Terence, to find such a home?’

  In his usual calm manner, he smiled and raised a finger.

  ‘Terence has thought it all out. I have a spare room, nothing fancy, nothing frilly. But it’s yours while you decide. There may be a position in the paper. Or a shop in Soho that needs an assistant. You are educated, oh yes! And honest and trustworthy. Why there will be many opportunities I am sure.’

  Ettie felt her world slide, as though it was about to topple her yet deeper into the pit. This was where she belonged, the tobacconist’s house on Silver Street.

  ‘You understand me?’ Terence coaxed gently. ‘A change is in order. And I’ll help you in every way – yes, yes, no need to worry at all.’

  But Ettie didn’t feel worried; above all, she felt resentment raise its ugly head and bare its teeth.

  ‘Good girl,’ Terence praised with fatherly affection. He patted her shoulder as he always did, as if to say there was no problem he couldn’t solve. But Ettie knew deep inside that Terence was part of this new misery. Whenever she looked at him, whenever she thought of the butcher and remembered his kindness, she also thought of her loss.

  ‘Now,’ he said with a happy finality, ‘I’ve brought some bangers; good juicy ones an’ all. We’ll mash up the spuds and you’ll feel better, you’ll see, once they’re eaten.’

  But Ettie did not care about the bangers and spuds. She did not care about anything.

  Chapter 43

  Since Ettie had no money of her own to pay the burial costs, she used what she had stored away since their visit to The Old Lady. To keep things straight, she wrote the expenses in the accounts, just as Lucas had taught her.

  He had left no instructions on the matter, though Ettie had searched the house from top to bottom, as Terence suggested. Lucas had neither spoken of death in any respect nor where his parents might be buried. No legal representative was ever named, or parson or vicar, or church or chapel. She knew the finer details of his life and the tobacco that was his passion. But with regard to death and dying, Lucas it seemed, had denied its existence.

  Three pounds and ten shillings were dispersed to the beneficiaries. Ettie made two requests of the officials; the first that Lucas Benjamin’s last resting place might be amongst trees and pleasant greenery. The second, that if ever transported to England, the remains of his wife and son might join him.

  Ettie’s hopes were realized as the morning dawned with a soft breeze that blew bonfire smoke and crumpled brown leaves through the pretty wilderness spilling with wild flowers under the autumn trees. At least, Ettie thought, this miniature garden would be approved of by Lucas. He had written so beautifully of the mountains. He would surely approve of this sweet little dell?

  An unknown vicar conducted the service, remembering, at the graveside, to include the family names and brief history of the tobacconist of Silver Street. This stilted information, Ettie reflected, had been prepared from the notes that she had provided, in the absence of any other.

  The event attracted few mourners, though notices had been posted in the newspaper. The gentlemen whom Lucas had so loyally served, the acquaintances he had made and even Florence and Thomas – none of them attended.

  The coffin arrived, supported by four strong shoulders, one pair belonging to Terence, bareheaded, and dressed entirely in black to befit the occasion.

  The butcher played his part with elegance and helped to lower the coffin into the ground. When freed from its tethers, Ettie stepped forward to cast in a handful of earth from the gravedigger’s mound. The rich, moist soil lay fresh on the polished wood surface.

  Tears slipped gently from her eyes onto her Sunday best coat; the same coat she had last worn to visit The Old Lady. It was an innocent, happy time when she had believed the tobacconist of Silver Street, his wife Clara and their child, were soon to return from the towering mountains of Switzerland, to England.

  The day after the funeral, Ettie coaxed herself into the salon, intending to remove the notices that still hung from the door. But her fingers stilled as she drew the blinds.

  Her heart was not in it. To destroy the evidence of the tobacconist’s life and death was beyond her.

  Instead she took up the duster and began to clean the neglected room. Who would take care of these same shelves, polish the glass counter and keep Lucas’s secret safe behind the wooden panel, she wondered, when as Terence had warned her, the business was sold and she was dismissed from her duties? Who would care for the salon then?

  Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a tap on the door, where an elderly man stood, peering in. He was dressed formally in a long, dark coat and black necktie and carried a portmanteau.

  Was this some distant relative, she wondered? Or a business colleague who had just discovered the tragedy?

  Quickly she left her dusting and unlocked the salon door.

  ‘Good day to you,’ he said and removed his tall hat. Casting a beady eye over her shoulder he enquired, ‘Am I addressing one Miss Henrietta O’Reilly?’

  ‘Yes, sir, that is me.’ Ettie could not put an age on him, but thought that his salt and pepper dark hair, silvering at his whiskers might put him in Terence’s category. He was not very tall and quite stout and somewhat out of breath as he paused there.

  ‘I am Mr Pike, a representative of the attorneys at law, Shingle and Dover.’ His plump cheeks quivered a little but his small, dark button eyes were keen and fixed on Ettie. ‘I have some business to conduct in regard to the late Mr Lucas Benjamin.’

  Ettie stood back, alarmed. ‘But Mr Pike, I am just an assistant. I mean, I was …’

  ‘Indeed, I am acquainted with your circumstances, Miss O’Reilly, through correspondence with your late employer. May I come in? Better to be seated,’ said Mr Peck, increasing Ettie’s concern.

  ‘As you wish, sir,’ agreed Ettie hesitantly.

  She locked the door and led him along the passage to the kitchen. After the funeral she had closed off the other rooms, draping sheets across the furniture and drawing the drapes.

  ‘Please take a seat,’ she offered as Mr Pike opened his case. He placed a number of papers on the table, seeming a little uncomfortable amongst all the cooking paraphernalia.

  Ettie chose a chair at one end, Mr Pike the other. An offer of refreshment was not made, nor did the attorney request any.

  ‘First,’ he began, locking together his fingers, ‘my condolences on what must have been an unexpected outcome to your employment here. The steps you took on your employer’s behalf, post-mortem, are commendable.’

  ‘Thank you,’ replied Ettie curiously. ‘But how did you know Mr Benjamin has passed away?’

  ‘Once the death certificate is signed and funeral notices posted, the bank is impelled to act in a case like this.’

  Ettie looked blankly at the little man. ‘In a case like this?’ she repeated.

  ‘I am aggrieved to say a demand for repayment of the substantial debt incurred before the late person’s death, has been issued.’

  Ettie swallowed, unable to understand this statement. ‘Sir, there cannot be a debt. With the assistance of a friend, I delivered three hundred and thirty pounds, ten shillings and sixpence to the Bank of England. I have a temporary Pass Book to prove it.’

  The old man opened his portmanteau again and took out a small black book just like the one she been given
by the under manager.

  ‘This is the genuine Pass Book sent from abroad to my firm by the late Mr Benjamin. For the sake of clarity, I will allow you to examine it for yourself. Can you read?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I can.’

  ‘Please note, the debt was incurred initially by Mr Lucas Benjamin’s father. In short, it doubled and trebled until, before his death he took out another loan, this time against his home and business in order to offset the extraordinary costs of his wife’s foreign treatments.’

  Ettie took the Pass Book and opened it at the first browned page. There were many lines and columns of figures, all arranged neatly and accompanied by signatures. At the end of each page was a total, just as, in the same way, she had completed the salon’s accounts. The clear difference was, that as the months and years had passed, the figures ran into many hundreds of pounds.

  ‘You will see that for a while, the cash-flow problem was resolved somewhat, when Mrs Rose Benjamin took over the running of the business. However, this state of affairs did not reduce the overwhelming historical debt.’

  Ettie turned to the last page of the Pass Book and was shocked to see the many entries made of Lucas’s withdrawals, paid to the physicians in Switzerland.

  ‘You understand now, I hope, Miss O’Reilly?’ Mr Pike said with raised eyebrows. ‘With no hope of repayment, I am here to take possession of the properties that in law, are now owned by the Bank of England.’ He reached forward and lifted the book from her hands, sliding it carefully back into his portmanteau.

  ‘I must warn you that our receivers will be here at midday tomorrow to oversee the bank’s claim.’ He looked at her a little more kindly and said, ‘my advice would be to collect your belongings together and leave before their arrival. Have you a key?’

  Ettie sat dumfounded. This had all happened too soon. She had known the end had to come, but in such a manner?

  ‘Yes, I have a key.’

  ‘And cash? Is there any?’