A Vampire Christmas Carol (20 page)
Read A Vampire Christmas Carol Online
Authors: Sarah Gray
38
T
he phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing, and withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were.
he phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing, and withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were.
She was expecting someone, and with anxious eagerness, for she walked up and down the room, started at every sound, looked out from the window, glanced at the clock, tried, but in vain, to work with her needle, and could hardly bear the voices of the children in their play.
At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried to the door, and met her husband, a man whose face was careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was a remarkable expression in it now, a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress.
“I know this man,” said Scrooge. “Do I not? He is somehow familiar, and yet I cannot recall his name.”
The man sat down to the dinner that had been boarding for him by the fire, and when she asked him faintly what news (which was not until after a long silence), he appeared embarrassed how to answer.
“Is it good,” she said, “or bad?”—to help him.
“Bad,” he answered.
“We are quite ruined, then.”
“No. There is hope yet, Caroline.”
“If he relents,” she said, amazed, “there is. Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened.”
“He is past relenting,” said her husband. “He is dead.”
She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke truth, but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry, but the first was the emotion of her heart.
“What the half-drunken housekeeper whom I told you of last night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a week’s delay, and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me, turns out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill, but dying, then.”
“To whom will our debt be transferred? Not vampires, I pray. Mrs. Mutter’s sister’s debt was transferred to a vampire on Fleet Street, and he and his missus take blood from her each week for the interest owed. I cannot imagine how he will demand the principal.”
“I don’t know who it will be transferred to. Not vampire, I pray, although they do say that their foul fangs sink deep into the underbelly of the city and into the highest citadel, even to the palace itself. But before that time we shall be ready with the money, and even though we were not, it would be a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor, even a vampire, in his successor. We may sleep tonight with light hearts, Caroline.”
Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children’s faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter, and it was a happier house for this man’s death. The only emotion that the ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of pleasure.
And then, just at Scrooge turned away, he recalled suddenly from where he recognized the man. “I know him, I do!” he told the spirit excitedly. Then his face fell and his pleasure of the moment went with it. “I spoke with him today.”
The phantom waited, and though Scrooge could not see his face beneath the black hood, he felt the specter’s black eyes upon him, boring into him.
“I . . .” Scrooge hung his head, tears filling his eyes. “His . . . his name is William . . . William something. William Dodd,” he recalled, wiping at his eyes. “I threatened to send him on his way to debtor’s prison if he did not make payment upon his bill to me.”
The phantom continued to stare.
“O Spirit, let me see some tenderness connected with a death,” said Scrooge. “Or . . . or that dark chamber, which we left just now, will be forever present to me.”
39
T
he ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet, and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit’s house, the dwelling he had visited before, and found the aunt and the children seated round the fire.
he ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet, and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit’s house, the dwelling he had visited before, and found the aunt and the children seated round the fire.
Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him. Cratchit’s sister-in-law and her nieces were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet.
“And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them.” Peter hesitated. “And so the Great Scion will not have—”
Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he and the spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on?
Because young Peter’s voice choked and would not spill forth.
The aunt, Maena, laid her work upon the table and glanced at one of the girls. “Enough tears for him,” she said impatiently.
“The color hurts my eyes,” said the one called Martha.
Scrooge wondered what had become of her employment, but did not ask, for who was there to question? The specter would not answer him, and the Cratchits were unaware of his presence.
“Ah, poor Tiny Tim,” said another.
“They’re better now again,” said Martha, blinking the moisture from her eyes. “It makes them weak by candle-light, and I wouldn’t show weak eyes to my father when he comes home, for the world. It must be near his time.”
“Past it rather,” Peter answered, shutting up his book and wiping at his eyes. “But I think he has walked a little slower than he used to, these few last evenings, Martha.”
They were very quiet again. At last Martha said, and in a steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once, “I have known him to walk with—I have known him to walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed, even on the nights they were not followed by bloodsuckers seeking fresh prey.”
“And so have I,” cried Peter. “Often.”
“And so have I,” exclaimed another. So had all.
“But he was very light to carry,” Martha resumed, intent upon her work. “And his father loved him so, that it was no trouble. No trouble at all.”
“No trouble at all,” repeated several Cratchits.
“Enough with this maudlin talk!” Cratchit’s sister-in-law threw down her sewing and rose from her chair. “You would think a child had never died! I’ve news for you all. They die every day. It is not so great an event. It is not as if he was an only child.” She stomped from the room to climb the staircase.
“She has not been very understanding,” whispered one of the Cratchit children.
“I do not think Aunt Maena feels the same loss we do,” observed Peter, watching his aunt take her leave. There was a suspicious tone to his voice. “She was the one who cared for him, and yet how is it that she did not notice how ill he was?”
“Hush such talk!” Martha whispered. “There’s Father at the door. You wouldn’t want him to hear.”
She hurried out to meet him, and Bob in his comforter—he had need of it, poor fellow—came in. His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried to help him at once, pouring his tea and tucking his ragged comforter around him. Then two young Cratchits got upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against his face, as if they said, “Don’t mind it, Father. Don’t be grieved.”
Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed of Martha and the girls. They would be done long before Sunday, he said.
“Sunday. You went today, then, Robert,” said his eldest daughter, Martha.
“Yes, my dear,” returned Bob. “I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you’ll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child,” cried Bob, into his cup of tea. “My little child to whom we had all weighed such great hopes upon.”
He broke down all at once. He couldn’t help it.
“There, there, Father,” whispered Martha, getting to her feet to lean over him and wrap her arm around his thin shoulders. “It’s not your fault. You’re not to blame.”
“But everyone at the VSU, they were certain our Tim would grow up to be second to the Scion. And now—” He sobbed into his hands.
“Perhaps I can be the Scion’s man, Father,” offered Peter.
“I fear this means the prophecy will never be fulfilled,” muttered Bob into his hands, not seeming to know, any longer, that his children were even there. “Gone is the hope. Gone is the hope,” he repeated. Then he leaped from his chair near the hearth and hurried up the stairs, leaving behind his comforter.
Scrooge and the spirit followed.
Bob Cratchit entered the room above, which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set close beside the child’s body already laid out for his burial, and there were signs of someone having been there, lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed himself, he kissed the little face. He sat there for several minutes to compose himself, kissed the child again, and returned below to join his family.
They drew about the fire, and talked, the girls working still. There was no sign of Maena. Bob told his family of the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge’s nephew, whom he knew well from the Vampire Slayers Union, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing that he looked a little—“just a little down you know,” said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. “On which,” said Bob, “for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard, I told him. ‘I am heartily sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit,’ he said, ‘and heartily sorry for your good family.’ By-the-by, how he ever knew that, I don’t know.”
“Knew what, Father?” questioned Martha.
“Why, that you were a good family,” replied Bob.
“Everybody knows that,” said Peter, attempting to make a feeble jest.
“Very well observed, my boy,” cried Bob. “I hope they do. ‘Heartily sorry,’ he said, ‘for your good family. If I can be of service to you in any way,’ he said, giving me his card, ‘that’s where I live. Pray come to me.’ Now, it wasn’t,” said Bob, “for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful. He knew Tiny Tim well from the union meets, and I suspect that in his heart he will miss him as we all will. Not just because of the future we hoped he might bring, but for the person he was today.”
“I’m sure Mr. Scrooge’s nephew’s a good soul,” said Martha. “You have said that he often spoke to you in the counting house.”
“A good soul, a fine man. You would be surer of it, my dear,” returned Bob, “if you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn’t be at all surprised—mark what I say—if he got Peter a better situation.”
“Only hear that, Peter,” said the eldest daughter.
“And then,” cried one of the girls, “Peter will be keeping company with someone, and setting up for himself.”
“Get along with you,” retorted Peter, grinning.
“It’s just as likely as not,” said Bob. “One of these days, though there’s plenty of time for that, my dear. But however and when ever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim—shall we—or this first parting that there was among us.”
“Never, Father,” cried they all.
“And I know,” said Bob, “I know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how mild he was, although he was a little, little child, we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it.”
“No, never, Father,” they all cried again.
“I am very happy,” said little Bob, putting on a brave smile. “I am very happy to have you all.”
Martha kissed him on his cheek, then the little girls kissed him, then the boys threw themselves to him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from God.
“Specter,” said Scrooge, dabbing at his eyes. “Something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead.”
40
T
he Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as before—though at a different time, he thought, indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the future—into the resorts of businessmen, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.
he Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as before—though at a different time, he thought, indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were in the future—into the resorts of businessmen, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.
“This court,” said Scrooge, “through which we hurry now, is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be, in days to come.”
The spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.
“The house is yonder,” Scrooge exclaimed. “That which is Marley’s but is now mine, vampire cellar and all. Why do you point away?”
The inexorable finger underwent no change.
Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The phantom pointed as before.
He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering.
A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by houses, overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation’s death, not life choked up with too much burying, fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place.
The spirit stood among the graves and pointed down to one. Scrooge advanced toward it, trembling. The phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.
“Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” said Scrooge, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that
will
be, or are they shadows of things that
may
be, only?”
will
be, or are they shadows of things that
may
be, only?”
Still the ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.
“Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,” said Scrooge. “But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me.”
The spirit was immovable as ever.
Scrooge crept toward it, trembling as he went, and following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge.
“Am I that man who lay upon the bed?” he cried, falling upon his knees, his nightdress tangled around his bony limbs.
The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.
“No, Spirit. Oh no, no.”
The finger still was there.
Then a figure appeared at Scrooge’s feet, a woman thrown prostrate upon the grave, her arms spread wide. She sobbed, making great gulping sounds, struggling to take each breath, she was so overcome by emotion. “Ebenezer,” she cried. “My Ebenezer. I cannot believe you are lost. I cannot believe we could not save you and now you are doomed to walk the earth as Jacob walks it, enrobed in those awful chains. It’s my fault. My fault you were not saved!”
She turned her face, pressing her cheek to the ground, and Scrooge knew her at once. It was Belle! It was his Belle, and she cried for him! For his death!
“Belle . . . ,” Scrooge murmured, wishing he could reach out to her, knowing he could not. “It is not your burden,” he told her, a sob rising up in his throat for, at that moment, he was as wrought over Belle’s broken heart as he was his own doomed fate. “It is my fault, dear Belle. Mine and mine alone. Please do not cry. Do not mourn for me, for I cannot stand it. To know you loved me all these years, and I was blind. So blind.”
“How will I go on, knowing you are gone,” she went on. “Knowing I failed you?”
“You see,” exclaimed Ebenezer. “There is someone who weeps for my death. Don’t you see, Spirit—” He looked up to where the spirit had been, but it was gone. In its place stood Wahltraud, King of the Vampires, and his Queen Griselda.
Ebenezer cried out in fear and stumbled to his feet, for these two frightened him more than would a dozen copies of Ghosts of Christmas Yet to Come.
Belle faded from his vision.
“What are you doing here?” Scrooge demanded, shaking in his slippers. “Can you not even give me peace in my death?”
Somehow he felt his present body becoming one with his future self. The lines seemed to blur, not just between the future and the present, but with the past as well. He didn’t quite understand what was happening, but the entire evening had been without complete understanding, had it not?
The vampire queen smiled and glided toward him, a truly beautiful and frightening creature. “It does not have to be this way,” she said in a voice as silky as the lining of any good coffin. She turned to Wahltraud and he smoothed her hair, petting her as if she were a kitten. “Do you wish to tell him or shall I, my dear?”
“Oh, you must tell him, my love,” crooned Wahltraud, still stroking her. “He is, after all, your pet.”
She smiled up at him, a smile that revealed long, ivory fangs, and then she returned her attention to Scrooge, her voice taking an edge. “You heard what she said, that one? Regarding your fate?” She gestured with a slender, pale hand. “You will be doomed to walk the earth eternally, neither dead nor alive, dragging those dreadful chains, agonizing over each link, regretting what cannot be altered.”
Scrooge threaded his fingers together, gripping his hands. “My fate is to be the same as Jacob Marley’s,” he said. “Worse.”
“Worse by many stone,” the queen assured him with a smile.
“A terrible fate,” intoned the king.
Scrooge shook his head in disbelief, his eyes closed. He wanted to tell them this was all their fault, the king’s and queen’s . . . the vampires’. But he knew the truth. Time and time again while they might have offered temptation or tribulation, it was he who had made the final choice. No one had ever physically forced his hand.
“A wretched fate, indeed,” said the queen. “But one you can still avoid.”
Scrooge looked up, his hands still clenched in prayer. “I . . . I can? You mean these events can still be altered?” He glanced back at the spirit, who was fading with every passing moment, and somehow Scrooge knew that once the ghost was gone, Scrooge’s fate would be sealed. “How?” he begged, turning back toward the vampires.
I hesitate to interrupt, dear reader, at such a pivotal moment in this tale, but I must question why, after all Scrooge had witnessed, he would turn to Queen Griselda and King Wahltraud. Were you Ebenezer Scrooge, would you not place your trust in the spirit (no matter how frightening he might seem) sent to guide you, rather than the vampires that have spent your full life contributing to your undoing?
I apologize for my digression. Back to the story. . . .
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