Peter Cratchit's Christmas Carol

by Drew Marvin Frayne

  But I could see, with the wisdom of retrospection, how he might not believe that…

  “Augie, we must return to the ship. I have work to do.”

  “There’s no more work for ye there, lad. Just come away with me. Please.”

  Go with him, I thought, as if thinking would make the scene unfold in any other manner than that in which it was already ordained to end. Go with him.

  “Augie! What has come over you? Tell me this instant!”

  Ahh, that was me, the me I had become, the me I was, perhaps, born to be. Officious and arrogant. Thinking I could assert myself over anyone, even over the one I loved above all things.

  “Lad, please, I love ye—”

  “I insist you unhand me at once—”

  “They’ll kill ye!”

  This intelligence got my attention. “Augie, what are you talking about?”

  “They’re planning to hurl ye, once we leave port. Put ye overboard. Take the cargo for themselves.”

  “Augie, you’re speaking nonsense.” From a small distance I watched, helpless, as I turned from the man I loved.

  “Stop. Listen to me, please!” My younger self did as he asked. “I’m not speaking any hogwash here, lad. They’re going to scuttle the ship and claim all the goods for themselves.”

  I was shaking my head. “I don’t believe this.”

  “Ye must believe it, lad. Ye must!”

  “Augie, I’ve done good work on this trip. We’re bringing home plenty of fine goods. Whitby will be thrilled. And everyone will see the benefit of it!”

  “Aye, lad, everyone will get a few extra coins when we dock in London, while ye and Whitby get rich off the wares.”

  “Oh, so you begrudge me my success, too, now, Augie? Is that it? I worked hard for every crown I’m earning on this commission, harder than anyone else! I worked hard for it before we even left the dock, selling my arse and cock to that fatuous fool Whitby and his friends! I will not be denied now!”

  “Is that it?” Augie was yelling. “Gold, and silver, and crowns and shillings and the like. Is that all that matters to ye now? Well, devil take it all. That’s what I say!”

  “The gold I earn is not for me,” I spat. He knew this; many is the night I had shared my fears over the Cratchit family’s waning fortunes. “This money will preserve my family. It will keep them well. And it will start me on my way.”

  “I know, lad, I know,” Augie said, using a tone of voice that was meant to diffuse our flaring tempers. “And I am sorry for it, I am. I do not know how to save yer family. I am only trying to save mine.” For a moment, I considered what family Augie was referring to, before realizing that he meant me. “Selkie Cove,” he said. “Just past the Cornish point. That’s where they’ll do it.”

  “Do what?”

  “Scuttle the ship. Oh, they’ll clear out all the goods well beforehand, ye can reckon that. And themselves too. The newspapers will trumpet the miracle rescue of all hands by the brave townspeople. Except they’ll be in on it too.” Augie sighed and tried to explain. “It’s a spot that’s well known to a certain type of sailor, lad. Everyone blames the sudden tides or the rocks for all the wrecks. But we sailors know better.” Augie took my face in his hands. “Don’t ye see, lad? It’s out of yer control now. If ye go back, they’ll kill ye. They’ll have no choice.”

  I was sputtering, seeking some way out. “The captain will never allow—”

  “The captain is part of it!” Augie thundered. “He’s leading it! Didn’t he approach ye, lad? Didn’t he offer to make a deal with ye?”

  “Well, I—I mean, he spoke to me about some of his demands, about getting more money for himself and some ludicrous plan to misallocate funds—but that’s embezzlement, Augie, and I shut him down, right away, and told him in no uncertain terms what I thought of his morality!”

  “Aye, lad, and that would be what sealed yer fate.”

  “When he spoke to me, he said nothing of stealing the cargo, and certainly nothing of murder! He only wanted me to misrepresent the profit I have made on this journey.”

  “Aye, and to cut him in on whatever cream ye’ve skimmed off the top. That’s how all these commissions work, lad. That’s how the captains make their own.”

  “Well, I—I didn’t know!” I sputtered. “I don’t work that way. I don’t believe in such dishonesty!”

  “I know, lad, I know.” Augie’s eyes searched for my own, but I blinked them shut, refusing to let him see me. “Ye don’t know how the world can work. And I know ye’re not one for crooked ways. The captain knows this now too. So he made another deal. With the crew.”

  I felt fat tears roll down my cheeks. My nose had begun to run profusely. “I thought—I thought the crew liked me,” I said.

  “It doesn’t matter whether they like ye or not, if they see a chance to line their pockets with gold. That’s what gold does to a man. Turns him against his own self.” He paused. When he next spoke, his tone was gentler. “It’s not all of them, lad. But it’s enough.” I still refused to meet his gaze, so Augie pressed his face against mine. “That’s why ye cannot go back.”

  “We must, Augie, we—we will alert the local authorities. Have the captain and the crew arrested.”

  “The sultan’s men don’t care about some English merchant ship,” he said. “They’d just as soon take everything for themselves. And even if they didn’t, they can’t just arrest someone on yer word.”

  “Then—when we cross over into Spain, the Spanish authorities—they will have to offer help, by treaty…”

  “It’ll be too late by then, lad. They’ll hurl ye overboard the second we lose sight of the shore. Leave ye for the drink, or the sharks.”

  I finally opened my eyes. “But we must do something, Augie.” I was pleading now, scared.

  “We are, lad. Not all the men are against ye. They know about ye and me, and that ye love a common man.”

  “They know—know about us?” I should have expected this—it was hard to keep secrets on a ship, and Augie and I were not always the picture of discretion.

  “Of course they do. How could they not?”

  I was reeling—trying to find a solution that just wasn’t there. “Then—then they will fight for me. We can cast off the captain. Leave him here, in Tangiers, and any of the men who would join with him.” Another desperate thought. “You can be captain.”

  “A few may fight with us, if it came to that. Most will just keep out of it. It’s not enough.” Again, a gentle pause. “They won’t want to die for someone else’s gold. Not like this.”

  “We have to do something, Augie! Whitby—”

  “Whitby has his insurance, lad. Why do ye think he sends men like ye on these journeys? Ye’re dispensable to him. If something happens, he’s had no loss.”

  I was flailing, searching for something, some way out. “We can’t simply do nothing, Augie!”

  “No,” he said, gripping me by the arm and dragging me toward the boat. “We’re to get in that boat. Some of the lads and I visited the island earlier today. It’s a good place, empty and safe. We’ve left plenty of provisions and enough wood to make a shelter. When the captain comes looking for us, he won’t be able to find us. And ye will be safe.”

  My mind reeled. “Augie—I have a duty—”

  “What about yer duty to me, Peter?” he bellowed. “What about our duty to each other?” I had no response to what he said. “Get in the boat, lad.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Get in the boat, lad.”

  “Augie, no.”

  Augie moved to hoist me on his shoulders. “Ye will get in that boat, Peter Cratchit, by hook or by crook…”

  “No!” I thundered, louder than I had intended, louder, perhaps, than I had ever shouted in my life. “What about the promise you made me, Augie, the promise we made on these shores, the promise to never part from one another?”

  “I have not broken that vow all this year, lad. Come with me, and I won’t
break it now.”

  “Keep your promise and come with me, Augie, to the ship. We will figure something out.”

  At this he shook his head. “I cannot do that, lad. I cannot watch ye die.” His voice had grown small. “Don’t ask that of me, my little prince. Not after what we’ve shared.”

  “If I am to die, at least it will not be as a timorous mouse, cowering on an island in the middle of the sea! I will die as befits a man, doing his duty.” I spoke in anger, and rashness, and the foolish imprudence of youth. I meant naught of what I said, not one word. Augie was no coward. He had proven that to me time and again. And I had no plans to die defending Whitby’s luxury goods. I did not know what I intended to do, to be honest.

  But I said it.

  And they were the last words I ever said to Augie.

  And these were the last words he ever spoke to me.

  “I’m taking the boat and rowing over, lad. If ye change yer mind, get one of the locals to ferry ye over for a coin.” Here he paused. “I’ll be waiting.”

  And what did I do? Did I run into his arms, as I most fervently wished? Did I tell him I loved him and kiss his face one hundred times, as I most fervently wished I could do now? Did I let the man I love save me?

  “I did none of those things,” I said, more to myself than to the spirit by my side. “I stormed off and went back to the dock. But the Belisama was already gone. Either the captain was a greater coward than Augie thought, or perhaps he had more morality than we believed. He did not wish me dead; leaving me behind in Tangiers was enough for his purpose.”

  “And so you sought out the man you loved,” the spirit said. As he spoke, the tableau around us dissolved one last time, and I found myself pulled from the tropical climes of Morocco and left standing in a foul London tavern in midwinter.

  I felt great spasms rise in my throat. I would not cry. “Yes. There was no other decision to be made.” Angrily, I slammed my hand ferociously against the mantle of the fireplace. “There should have been no decision to make in the first place.”

  “And?” the spirit said, prodding the rest of the story out of me. But it must surely know how this tragic tale ended already.

  Still, I answered its question. “I went to the shoreline, to find some local man to ferry me to the island. But no man would brave the trip, for a wintry squall had risen up, the kind that comes on quickly in those wild parts of the world. All night I kept vigil, standing in a doorway for morning’s first light. And then—”

  “Yes?”

  “And then, in the morning, there arose such a clatter at the shore. And some local fishermen told the tale of the great, red-faced, red-haired man they had pulled from the ocean.”

  “Dead.”

  “Dead.” I inhaled sharply; I had already shed too many tears over this old story. “Spirit,” I said, rounding on the ghost, “why must you torment me with visions of my sins? If you seek recompense before I die, I have made my penances every day since, and will continue to do so until you take my soul from this earthly plane and into the next. What more do you seek from me?”

  “I seek nothing from you, Peter Cratchit.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “I came as I am always bid—at the request of another.”

  “Who? Who wishes to torture me thusly?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “Enough!” There was a pewter tankard on the mantelpiece. In my mad frenzy I grabbed it and hurled it against the wall. It clattered to the floor with a hollow, thudding sound. “No more, I beg you! Begone, spirit!” I remembered suddenly the old man’s story and grabbed a nearby extinguisher-cap in both hands. “Begone, I say!” As Scrooge had before me, I placed the extinguisher-cap on the head of the old-young man who resembled my former friend.

  The extinguisher-cap covered the topmost form of the spirit, but its light still streamed brightly. “Would you douse my light so hastily?” the spirit asked me.

  “The devil take your light!” I shouted, using the full force of my body to push the extinguisher-cap down upon the spirit. There was a moment of determined resistance and then—nothing. I was alone, alone in the tavern, out of breath and gasping for air, on my hands and knees on the floor, but alone.

  And then, behind me, a sound, soft at first, but growing louder, a humming sound, dulcet and sweet. There was music in the sound, music of the sort to stop my tears and soothe my breast. And then I heard a voice speak words that have been familiar to me for many a year:

  “Come in! Come in, and know me better, man!”

  Wiping my face, I rose to my feet and turned, expecting to see the hulking figure of the Ghost of Christmas Present. But there was no jolly giant awaiting me, perched atop a mound of mince pieces, suckling pigs, juicy oranges, and twelfth cakes. There was no spirit awaiting me perched upon such fine things, a bacchanal in green robes bordered with white fur. No, the ghost who awaited me was someone quite different altogether.

  It was my own Uncle Scrooge.

  Three

  The Second Ghost

  I WAS TWENTY years of age when I boarded the Belisama. Having finally left the full flourish of my teenaged years behind, I thought myself a man, master of a ship. I was one year on board, one year of loving Augie, one year of journeys and bargains and battles and betrayals. And it has been another year since, another year of working my way from port to port on board various ships, another year of crossing perilous miles and walking untold lengths to return to the city of my birth, another year of living in squalor and filth and selling what was left of myself to earn my daily bread. One full year of mourning Augie, and being tormented by his shade, one year of failing to save my family, one year of simply going through the motions of daily living. And in all that time, in the entirety of the three hundred and sixty-five days that made up that whole year, I never wept, not once. There were plenty of tears shed, for Augie, for my family, for my failures, plenty of recrimination and wet eyes and self-damnation. But I never wept, not once, not one damn time.

  But now, here, bearing witness to the miracle of my own Uncle Scrooge before me once more…I wept. Yea, I wept and fell into his arms almost straightaway, collapsing against the old man’s shoulder. Every sense and moment of defeat and disillusion burst forth from my countenance, every sensation of what had been lost and would never be recovered gushed from my eyes, every iota of pain and anguish in my being poured from me. So yes, I wept hard, bitter tears, and my uncle, my Uncle Scrooge, held me as I did.

  “Peter,” Uncle Scrooge simply said, clutching me tightly in his grasp. “My poor boy.”

  He was not the wizened, pale invalid I remembered so vividly from the end of his days. This was the Scrooge of my boyhood—skinny, yes, even gangly, but lively and robust and energetic. “I’m so sorry, Uncle,” I said between moans as I sobbed bitter tears against his shoulder.

  “My boy, my boy,” Scrooge was saying, still holding me tightly and rubbing his palms across the blades of my shoulders. “Sorry for what?”

  His simple question left me momentarily dumbstruck, and despite myself, I grew silent. “I do not know, Uncle,” I finally replied, and, indeed, I did not know, a sensation that resulted in some kind of half sob, half laugh, and a gentle, consoling smile from Uncle Scrooge.

  “Peter, my boy,” he said again, wiping my cheeks with his fingers. “Such pain you’ve known.” He took my hand in his. Yes, this was the Uncle Scrooge of my heady boyhood days. He was even dressed for Christmas, in a maroon vest made of crushed velvet and a sprig of mistletoe on his lapel. “Come. We have much to do this day.” And without another word, Scrooge led me out of the tavern and into the world beyond its door.

  And what a world it was! This was not the dingy street outside that dingy tavern, nor was it the dankest, darkest portion of the night! It was morning, a shining glorious morning, the giddiest morning of them all—Christmas morning. And we were no longer on some side street in the poorest part of Camden Town, but right in the heart of merry old L
ondon itself.

  “But—but how did we get here, Uncle Scrooge?”

  But the old man only laughed. Taking me by the hand, he marched me down the street. Wondrous sights and sounds assailed my eyes and ears! Everywhere people called out to one another—“Merry Christmas!” and “Glad tidings to all!” and even a premature “Happy New Year!” or two. There had been some snow the night before, but only enough to dust the city in white powder, as if each building were now coated in a generous supply of icing sugar. This dismayed the mobs of scampering boys, who lacked true substance for a Christmas snowball fight. But each and every shop window seemed straight out of a Christmas wonderland. The fruiterers’ stands were especially radiant. Pyramids of apples and pears stood proudly next to bunches of red and green grapes, fitting colors, indeed, for this time of year. I saw heaps of filberts and, next to them, the dazzling yellow and orange of citrus fruits. My mouth watered at such sights. At the grocers, men and women lined up, awaiting wrapped parcels, and I heard the clacking sound of large tea and coffee tins being opened, and closed, and re-opened once more. I saw shy girls staring at bundles of mistletoe, and a sturdy matron happily clutching a parcel of figs and French plums almost as plump as she was.

  And the smells! The faint scent of citrus stuck in my nostrils, and the yeasty smell of fresh bread came out of every bakery and every home on the street. But it was the perfume of roasted chestnuts that truly threatened to overwhelm all of my senses. That lush, earthy aroma, so evocative of this time of year, of happy Christmas tidings…even as a boy, my father would always secret home enough chestnuts so that we may each have one upon a Christmas Eve, still warm from being kept safe in his coat pocket. Even the city itself smelled faintly clean and new, as if the lightly-fallen snow was enough to wash away the degradation and stagnation of so many past eons.