Cratchit’s Carol, Part 4: A Ghost Enfleshed

Part 1: VERSE THE FIRST: MY DEAR UNCLE SCROOGE. November 30

Part 2: VERSE THE SECOND: CHRISTMAS UN-MERRIED. December 6

Part 3: VERSE THE THIRD: SPIRITS! Memory’s Ghost. December 12

Part 4: SPIRITS! Continued: A Ghost Enfleshed. December 19

Part 5: SPIRITS! Continued: The Lady. December 22

Part 6: VERSES THUS ENDED, WE PROCEED TO THE CHORUS: December 24

I was alone again. A breeze shifted the curtains on the window ever so slightly. When one has become accustomed to the fantastic, a quiet room is almost shocking. I yet held the holly cane the Spirit had given me. It assured me I had not been dreaming, or at least, if I was, I had not yet awakened.

The clock sung out again, and to my bewilderment rang only twice. Distantly, and at first so easily dismissed with the ordinary sounds of night that I nearly didn’t notice it, I heard the sound of a locomotive.

“I’ve never noticed that I could hear the train from here,” I thought.

But the sound did not pass into the distance, but rather it grew louder. The high-pitched whistle pierced the air with its scream, and I could hear the rhythmic chudding of the engine. The floorboards beneath my feet began to tremble. The sound was now so close I felt a panicked need to step out of its way, though it remained only a sound. Had I screamed (and I may well have screamed), I should not have been able to hear the sound of my own voice.

Suddenly all became blindingly white. The train was speeding from my bedroom wall as if from a tunnel, and I was staring into its shining eye. I gasped in terror, about to be run down by the phantom locomotive.

I felt my body tumble in the darkness, as if caught in a crushing, crashing tide. At last I felt myself come to a sudden stop, resting on my hands and knees, the cane clattering to the floor at my side. Somehow I was not dead. I felt a rhythmic jerking beneath me, and when I opened my eyes I saw the plush patterns of a wine-coloured carpet. It was as if the locomotive had swallowed me whole like Jonah’s whale, and I sat now in its luxurious belly.

I climbed shakily to my feet with my cane to steady me and looked about. Snow fell outside, speeding past like shooting stars in the night. I stared out the window for a long time, entranced. I could just make out a line of hills in the distance, the first faint red glow of dawn peering out from behind them.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said a voice from behind me.

“Breathtaking,” I said.

I turned for a moment to see who had spoken to me. No one was there. I supposed that the stranger had walked away, but then I heard his voice again.

“We praise you, Good Lord, for the first rays of sun with which you bless the earth and awaken us to your beauty. Capital job, Master Father Sir!” the voice said jovially.

I knew exactly where the man should have been, just a foot or two in front of me by the sound of his voice, but the car was as empty as Christ’s tomb.

“You’ve trouble seeing me?” asked the Voice.

“I’m afraid so,” I said, still peering around for some sign of him.

“Never fear. Your eyes will open soon enough.”

“Are you the next Spirit that is to visit me?”

“I am the Spirit of Christmas Present,” said the Voice. “And I have much to show you, if you will see it. Follow me!”

“I’m afraid I’ll have some difficulty with that,” I confessed. “You see...”

“I do see!” The voice said with a chuckle. “But you don’t! Follow my voice and the seeing will come.”

I stepped tentatively toward the Voice, which now came from the direction of the south end of the train car. It was a saloon car, complete with a great mahogany dining table with places set for at least a dozen guests. The scent of something delicious was in the air, though the plates and their accompanying seats were empty. The train slowed, and came to a wheezing stop with a light thud.

“Here we are,” said the Voice, and I realised that he was right in front of me. “A perfect place to start. Christmas Eve Day, just a few hours ago.”

He saw my quizzical look and answered it. “‘Present’ is a broad term around here,” and I could hear his smile as he said so.

I thought that I could now perceive the faintest outline of something in the air of a human shape. The morning sun seemed to cast the slightest line on the Spirit’s nearly transparent figure. I could see that he was small of frame, and his hair was tousled, gilded with the golden rays of morning. He stepped toward the sun, opened the train car’s door, said, “Come along, then!” and stepped out of the train.

“Spirit? I think I’ve lost you again.”

“It’s all right. I’m still here. I shan’t leave without you. Just squint a little.”

Sure enough, I could just make out his figure, highlighted in the morning sun. “Take a step now,” he said. “Don’t worry. You’re with me!”

I stepped down from the train, and found that having stepped out that I could see my visitor more clearly now, though he yet had the translucency of window sheers. I looked down at my feet. There was cobblestone beneath me. One foot, however, had found purchase in a small pat of horse-dung.

“Oof! Hard luck, that!” said the Spirit.

I proceeded to scrape my shoe against the stone. “Where have you brought me now, Spirit?” I asked.

“Have a look!” he said.

We weren’t at any station I knew of, but instead in the middle of a London street. The train in its entirety was gone. At first, the street seemed strangely empty, until I began to hear the sounds of a market, of Whitecross Market. The market stalls along the narrow street themselves began to appear as if unveiled. Boxes began to fill themselves with fruit and vegetables of every sort. Hanging fowl and meats took shape as if drawn from a magician’s hat. These objects then began to dance around as if carried about by phantoms. This carried on for several minutes before I began to discern, quite faintly, a small multitude of figures like the Spirit himself: transparent except for the sunlight that fell upon their shoulders and cheeks. In this manner I could see them, very faintly, carrying on as at any street market. Street sellers barking out their wares, a housewife in her thick shawl with a market-basket in her arm, and the snow softly falling on her ghostly golden shoulders. I heard the whining tones of little boys selling onions before I could make them out, wriggling as they were through the grown-ups of the market.

“I’m in a city of ghosts!” I proclaimed.

I felt a sudden jolt, as if bumped by a big man, and it took me a moment to realise that this was exactly what had happened. A large ghost wearing a tremendous top hat and a grand moustache grabbed me by the shoulders. I looked up at the spectre with my mouth agape.

“So sorry, dear sir!” said he. “Very clumsy of me! Merry Christmas to you!” He doffed his hat and at once he was on his merry way.

Before this instant, I’d always thought, if I thought about ghosts at all, that they couldn’t do things like bump into strangers, let alone wish a stranger a Merry Christmas. I thought they only went about moaning and walking through walls and clattering invisible chains.

The Spirit laughed. “Uncommonly happy for ghosts, are they not?”

Astonished, I questioned the Spirit, “They can see me?”

“Of course they can! You’re here, aren’t you?” he said. “They can see you and bump you  and pick your pocket if they wished. I told you I was the Ghost of Christmas Present, and that’s exactly what I mean to teach you to be.”

“To be a ghost?”

“No, you darling imbecile!” he laughed. “To be present!”

The Spirit put his arm around my shoulder. “Let’s start right here, shall we? The very market you visited this morning. There’s enough kindness and tragedy taking place here to write a thousand serial stories for the Times.”

I could now make out that the Spirit was dressed in what appeared to be a pauper’s robe. His robe, while not ragged, was certainly well-worn, and there were patches on the elbows. His feet, peering out from beneath the frayed hems of his garment, were bare, and I could yet see the cobblestone through them as if they were made of stained glass.

“Why don’t we begin with the man you bumped into?” he said. “The Top Hat. Do you see him over there at the fruit stand?”

“Erm... Yes. Yes, of course,” I said, but I could hardly make him out except for the glint of sunlight on the velvet of his great hat, and what almost appeared to be a floating, faceless moustache.

The man became faintly clearer as I squinted. He was filling his arms with apples as red as rubies, and as he turned from the stand he looked wealthy indeed. His face, a little more solid to my eyes now, was wide with a beaming smile, his cheeks as ruby red as the apples in his arms. Father Christmas himself never looked so jolly. Though I had never laid eyes upon him before, his eyes struck me as immediately familiar. His smile, complemented by the curls of his carefully waxed moustache, broadened further as he marched almost gleefully over to a dirty corner and squatted down to address someone. I could see no one there, however, not even a shadow or glint as with the other people of the market. He remained for several moments as if listening, and seemed to introduce himself to more than one person, though again, I saw no one at all.

But someone must have been there, for he handed the unseen recipient an apple, which seemed to float in the air, apparently held by someone’s hands. The man walked on a little further, and crouched down again as if addressing someone else whom I could not see. He handed two more apples to two more invisible hands. They were youngsters, it seemed, for it looked as if he tousled a little boy’s hair, though the child remained completely invisible to my eyes.

“Spirit, I can see Top Hat clearly enough. In fact I believe he’s getting clearer to my eyes. Why can I not see who he’s addressing?”

The Spirit did not answer.

“Watch the man for a moment more,” he said at last.

The man repeated this process of crouching as if to greet an unseen friend, smiling and handing out his apples till he had no more to give. He approached a woman selling silk flowers. She, too, was less visible to me than the others, but it was plain that she was poor. He purchased a silk rose and smiled kindly as he paid her.

“The silk rose,” said the Spirit, “is for his wife.”

“How lovely,” I said. “Does he always buy her a Christmas rose?”

“Yes,” the Spirit said softly. “Though she has been dead these last six years.”

I stared at the man who seemed so full of joy. I watched him walk about the market, the silk rose now adorning his suit pocket. I realised also in that moment that there was no trace of phantomry about him now. He was as solid to my eyes as the pavement beneath my feet. I’d thought he was a rich man by his bearing and his grand moustache, but then I noticed the elbows of his jacket. They weren’t quite worn through, but soon would be. Here and there a stitch stuck out from the buttons of his waistcoat. His magnificent top hat shone with a little more wear than would that of a wealthy man. I remembered the look of my father’s coat, always threadbare but worn with the dignity of a true gentleman. His smile never left him, and yet in his eyes I thought I saw something else which hearkened the memory of Bob Cratchit: a touch of sadness.

The Spirit seemed to know my thoughts.

“You do see sadness there, Tim. But make no mistake, his joy is real, too. He’s poured his grief into it like a wineskin and it has made his heart all the bigger.”

I stared at the man as he walked out of sight, still the very picture of joy, and all the richer for being adorned with that touch of sadness.

A thought started to form in my mind.

“Spirit,” I asked, “I could hardly see the silk flower woman, and I couldn’t see the children the man gave the apples to at all. But I at least can make out the rest of the people here. Why can I not see the others?”

“Oh, but you can see them,” he said, “if you wish to.”

I bowed my head. I knew it was true.

“What must I do,” I asked, “to see them?”

“I’m afraid,” said the Spirit, “you must let the sadness in.”

Suddenly I felt as if a cannon-ball had dropped onto my chest, and the accompanying emotion surprised me: rage.

“But I cannot bear any more sadness!” I shouted, striking the pavement with the holly cane. “What has my life been but a letting in of sadness? How have I not borne more than my share of sadness? Have I not given my very soul to the letting in of sadness? Who has wept more for the children at the ragged school? Who has matched my tears for innocent little Ambrose Swidger? Who on earth has let sadness in as I have?”

As the words left my mouth, I knew the answer.

“The Christ Child of Christmas is also the Man of Sorrows of Good Friday, Tim. He let the sadness of our entire, wretched humanity unto himself and in that terrible garden he wept blood as red as holly. Yes, you must bear your share of sadness, and it may be more than your fair share. But you were never meant to bear it alone. It’s not just The Poor you must learn to see, Tim, but your neighbour. The neighbour God himself has given you who desires to bear your burden with you. If you don’t learn to see your neighbour, soon you won’t really see anyone at all, and neither will you be seen. You’ll be a ghost, a spectre in the truest sense.”

I looked again where the children sat huddled, and at last I saw them, if still somewhat indistinctly, as through a glass. Their clothing was dirty and torn, and they were playing. They had fashioned a ball from discarded bits of various items from the market, and were kicking it back and forth in a little game. As my tears fell, they became clearer still.

I turned to the Spirit, and at last I saw him, too. His face practically gleamed with health, and for the first time I saw that his eyes were green as a Christmas tree, and full of life.

“You are no ‘spirit’ at all, are you sir?” I asked. “I mean, you’re… Well you’re… alive, aren’t you?”

“More alive now than when I was alive!” He exclaimed exuberantly. “And I’ve been given the happy responsibility of watching over this Christmas as its Spirit, its liveliness you might say. And a very special Christmas it is indeed.”

The lines about his eyes indicated a man in his forties, one who had known hardship, for the lines were deep and many. But they were gentle lines, curling naturally into thoughtful, joy-filled eyes, like arrows pointing to the heaven in his eyes. His brown hair was dishevelled, and fell round about a tonsure that I only now perceived. The pauper’s robe I’d noticed earlier, patched and worn, seemed to glow at every seam. Though I had never seen his face before this night, I felt I recognised him.

“One of the great advantages of being alive as I am alive, Tim,” he continued, “is being able to see truly. To see more clearly than ever I could before.”

He sat down on the kerb, looking every inch a beggar.

“Come sit, and see as I do, just for a moment.”

I sat next to him, and together we looked out on the busy market. That’s when I spied myself for the second time that night. It was my self from this very Christmas Eve morning. I was giving coins to the confectionist, and scowling. As I watched this Tim walk off, I noticed how hunched he had become, like an old man. I heard the confectionist wish him a Merry Christmas, but he took no notice.

A moment later, something remarkable happened. Well, another remarkable thing happened. The fat confectionist no longer looked as he had before. That is to say, he looked precisely the same, yet… glowing! The perspiration on his pate, which I had so despised before, now glimmered like a golden halo, something simultaneously comic and sublime. His mutton chop beard was pure gold, and his eyes were so full of brightness they seemed to throw light like the beams of a lighthouse upon the people around him. In a word, he was as glorious as Jupiter.

As I cast my gaze around the market, each person I saw rivalled the confectionist in glory. I saw the red-baubled woman I’d seen before, the one I’d heard screeching for cheaper plum cakes. I might have mistaken her for Hera with a pomegranate on her glorious crown, with a voice that, to speak truly, still was shrill, but was endowed with the urgency and warmth of a loving mother. Mothers abounded in that market, now that I could see them, and they walked about like Diana and Venus with children like cherubs in tow. When I settled my eyes on this goddess or that god, I felt I knew them completely. My heart knew them completely. I knew their pain as I saw their glory. But it was the street children who burned brightest of all, like seraphs full of fire and innocence. Tears filling my eyes, I asked my companion, “How… How can we not see this? How is it we do not know our… our glory?”

My companion said nothing.

It was then that I saw her. She should have been unrecognisable, shining like the sun, but I knew her immediately: Miss Micklewhite. How can I describe a beauty no human eye has seen? For it was not just her form or her face, breathtaking as they were to behold, but her very self that I could see: a heart burning within her with a holiness bright as white flame.

She was buying toffee treats.

She was buying strawberry flavoured toffee treats and I wept for her beauty.

“What’s her name, Tim?”

“Miss Micklewhite,” I whispered.

“What’s her Christian name, Tim?”

“Why, it’s….” I thought for a moment, and was astonished.“God have mercy, I haven’t the least notion!”

And I wept more deeply.

“This is a woman who could be your wife, Tim. That is, if you felt she was worthy to share your burden. Or worthy to be addressed as anything other than ‘Miss Micklewhite’.”

“She’s worthy of everything I could give,” I said.

“I’m glad you see that,” said my guide. “Perhaps you should begin by learning her name.”

“Perhaps I should,” I said softly.

“Come,” said my companion at last, “It’s time to go.”

I began to hear the distant whistle of a train. The sound drew closer, so close I could feel the rumble of the locomotive in the ground beneath my feet. But I did not turn my eyes from Miss Micklewhite.

I should have been shocked at the ghost train standing there in the middle of Whitecross Street, but I was not. The same door from which I’d disembarked now opened before us, and I followed my guide into the train car.

It wasn’t empty this time. Of course it wasn’t empty. It never had been. I looked about the saloon car, and there were a dozen faces gathered around the mahogany table, looking back at me, each one as beautiful and as full of joy as my companion. As they looked upon me, I felt known, just as I had known the people in the marketplace.

“Who are they?” I whispered.

“You are not the first to give your heart as you do, Tim. You’re not the first to feel empty in the endeavour. You are not the first and you will not be the last. These are just a few of the ones who have gone before you, the ones whose prayers have kept you when you thought you were most alone.”

My voice choked in my throat, until at last I murmured, “Hullo, everyone. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas!” They exclaimed in unison.

I sat down on a velvet-covered chair at the table, the holly cane across my lap, and looked on their faces. Old men young as school boys. Young women with eyes as beautiful as Cinderella and as wise as Cinderella’s godmother. The lines on each face positively glowed with glory, and I saw in every line each narrow and winding road they had walked. It seemed I could see and even feel each wound they had suffered, and how each scar had somehow made their hearts more capacious. It seemed I sat for hours and listened to each one tell me their story, but it may be that each one simply looked me in the eye and smiled.

With a wheeze and clunk, the train came to a halt.

“This is your stop,” said my companion.

“Thank you,” I told him, and stepped down from the door. “And, Spirit? Could you and your friends here say hello to a Mr. Bob Cratchit?”

“You’re welcome, and we shall,” he said, smiling. “Expect one more visitor, very soon. Peace and All Good to you, Tim.”

I watched the train gather steam until it huffed and puffed its way through the bedroom wall. As the smoke cleared, I found myself alone again in the stillness of a quiet night, and sat down on my empty bed. I had now been present at a Christmas long past, and witnessed the one in front of me with the eyes of the angels themselves.

But what of what was yet to be?