Mr. Darcy's Christmas Carol (6 page)

The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.

“Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said Darcy, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, “but I see something strange and not belonging to yourself protruding from behind your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?”

“It might be a claw, for what little flesh there is upon it,” was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. “Look here.”

From the folds of her dress, she brought forth two children, a boy and girl, wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, and miserable. They knelt down at her feet and clung upon the outside of her garment.

“Darcy, look down here!” instructed the Ghost.

Their appearance was that of horrible and dreadful monsters. Yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, and wolfish devils that glared out of menacing eyes. Their stained and shriveled hands looked ready to pinch and pull, and tear him into shreds.

Darcy started back, appalled. “Spirit, are they yours?” Darcy asked.

“They are yours,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, fleeing from their father. This boy is Fear. This girl is Pride. Beware of both of them and all of their degree, for much good is prevented when they work together. But most of all beware this boy. For he will take over your life, and you will live in his shadow, instead of he in yours,” warned the Spirit, stretching out her hand towards Rosings, as they were among the hedgerows now.

“See what happens when fear and pride take over a life.”

Darcy and the Spirit were now in the dining room of Rosings. Lady Catherine sat at one end of the long table, her daughter about half way down, next to Mrs. Jenkins. Anne sniffed and coughed her way through dinner. Lady Catherine ignored her and kept a running monologue.

“Lady Catherine, the staff was wondering if they could have the rest of the evening off,” the butler interrupted.

“They already have half a day tomorrow. That is sufficient; any more is taking advantage of my generosity and I will not allow that.”

“Yes, ma'am,” the butler bowed out. Lady Catherine continued her monologue, criticizing and advising on everything from Mr. Collins's sermon, to the lack of cleanliness in both stables and mangers (how on the earth the Savior was allowed to be born there, she had no reason, she only knew that she would have planned the event much better), to the presumptions of servants, through dinner and into the drawing room afterwards.

Darcy felt like covering his ears to end the monotonous sound of Lady Catherine's voice.

The mantel clock struck twelve.

Darcy looked about him for the Ghost and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of his father and, lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn site. The drawing room vanished around Lady Catherine, and as she stood, her chair vanished, fog seemed to cover the ground, and in the blink of an eye she changed.

Christmas Future

Now Lady Catherine was draped in a black gown, with a hooped skirt and bodice cut low, exposing too much bony bosom. Her head was ringed by sausage curls, looking grotesquely girlish against a face that seemed to consist of little more than flesh covering bone. There was no life in her face. There was no life in her eyes. She seemed to glide towards him in a most unnerving manner.

He felt her come beside him, and her mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread.

“Am I in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?” asked Darcy.

The Spirit answered not but pointed onward with its hand.

“You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,” Darcy pursued. “Is that so, Spirit?”

The Spirit inclined her head. That was the only answer he received. It was doubly chilling, this lack of voice in the body of one usually so verbal.

Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Darcy feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, observing his condition, and gave him time to recover.

But Darcy was all the worse for this. It filled him with a vague uncertain horror to know that there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him.

“Ghost of the Future!” he exclaimed. “I fear you more than any specter I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear your company and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?”

She gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.

“Lead on!” said Darcy. “Lead on! The night is waning fast and time is precious to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!”

The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Darcy followed in the shadow of her dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along.

They scarcely seemed to enter the room, for the room rather seemed to spring up about them and encompass them of its own accord. But there they were, in the heart of Bingley's London mansion.

The Spirit stopped beside one little chair. Observing that the hand was pointed to the room's occupants, Darcy advanced to listen to their talk.

“No,” said Mr. Hurst, now a great fat man with a monstrous chin, “I do not know much about it either way. I only know she's dead.”

“When did she die?” inquired Louisa.

“Last night, I believe.”

“Why, what was the matter with her?” asked Caroline.

“God knows,” said Mr. Hurst, “a fever of some sort.”

“I hope that it is not contagious?” asked Louisa.

“I haven't heard,” said Mr. Hurst.

“It's likely to be a very cheap funeral,” said Caroline, “for upon my life I do not know why anyone would want to go to it. I suppose we must make some show of support for her family? I have a black dress I have never worn—the workmanship was too shoddy, but it will do for her.”

“I do not mind going, as long as lunch is provided,” observed Mr. Hurst.

“Well, it is the most uninteresting way for you to pass the day,” said Caroline. “But I will go and comfort the sisters. That way, I can see for myself that she is truly gone!”

Their conversation then turned to another subject altogether. Darcy looked towards the Spirit for an explanation.

The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons meeting. Darcy listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie here.

He knew these men, also.

“How are you?” said Sir William.

“How are you?” returned Mr. Phillips.

“Well!” said Sir William. “I am sorry to hear of your loss. Heaven has received another angel?”

“So I believe,” returned Mr. Phillips. Not wishing to speak of it, he changed the subject. “Cold, isn't it?”

“Seasonable for Christmas time.”

“Something else to think of. Good morning!”

Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their parting.

Darcy was at first surprised by the conversations; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be.

Darcy tried to think of anyone immediately connected with himself who might also be the subject of both conversations. Caroline and Mrs. Hurst kept much different company than Sir William and Mr. Phillips. The only common connection was Jane, and by extension, the Bennet family. The loss of Jane would devastate Bingley, the loss of a relation would wound Elizabeth grievously, and the loss of Elizabeth was not a thought Darcy was willing to contemplate.

He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed on which, beneath a sheet, there lay someone covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language.

The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy, though Darcy glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon the bed and on it was the body of a woman.

Darcy glanced towards the Phantom. Her steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the mere motion of a finger upon Darcy's part, would disclose the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it, but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the specter at his side.

“Spirit!” he said. “This is a fearful place. Let us go!”

Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head.

“I understand you, I know what you wish,” Darcy returned, “and I would do it if I could. But I cannot, Spirit. I have not the power.”

Quiet and dark, beside him stood false Lady Catherine, with her outstretched hand. Her eyes were looking at him keenly. They made him shudder and feel very cold.

The Phantom spread her dark dress before her for a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, they were before his house in Mayfair. His carriage pulled up and a somewhat older self exited. Darcy noticed that his face was careworn and depressed, though he was still quite young.
How odd it is to see oneself in but a few years time. It is like in a mirror, but a flawed one,
he thought as he and Lady Catherine made their way inside. He watched himself vanish upstairs.

The door to a parlor opened, and Caroline Bingley stood there. Not Bingley, Darcy noted, for she fiddled with a wedding ring. Darcy knew with an awful certainty that he was the husband. His stomach roiled in shock. “How can this be?” he demanded of the Spirit.

He turned to view this wife of the future. She walked up and down the room and wondered how everything she had ever coveted had been in her grasp, and somehow she had lost it all or perhaps dreams had never met her preconceived expectations. How Darcy knew all this was unclear, but the knowledge came to him like the vision before him.

Caroline started at every sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock; and tried, in vain, to settle. That she was expecting him and was waiting with anxious dread was obvious. At length the long-expected footsteps were heard on the stairs. She faced the door and met her husband.

“Madam,” he ground out, but could say no more. It was clear that he was furious. He began to pace the room in a vain effort to relieve some of the anger. Finally, stopping before Caroline, he began to question her in a harsh voice, “Why, Caroline? Why did you not summon me earlier? Why must I learn from your brother that my son was ill? And what do I find when I arrive at your home? That not only was he very ill, but dying.”

“That is not true.”

“It is true. Our marriage has long been over, but I am still his father. You stole what time I could have spent with Charles by keeping his illness from me. I do not believe I can forgive you for that.”

“Darcy, it was not like that. I did not know the seriousness of his illness at first…”

“But when you did, you still kept quiet. I do not believe you intended to inform me at all. I expect you planned to send a note stating
‘Charles cannot come to Pemberley this spring. He is dead. Madame Bertine's bill has not yet been paid, could you see to it?'
”

“That was vicious,” Caroline felt her own anger rising over the heart-stopping grief. “I will not justify my actions now. I am Charles's mother; I did what I thought best for him. Now I wish to see my son.”

Darcy block her way, “No, you cannot see him. Not now. I will not have you contaminate the room where he lies.”

Caroline felt shattered. All the dreams and fantasies she had still cherished of what it meant to be Mrs. Darcy broke to pieces like fragile glass. It angered her; in fact, everything angered her: her shattered schemes, the illness that ate away at her son, the man before her. Caroline looked him in the eye and spoke quietly, “You wish to know why? I was jealous. You called for her in your sleep, not once but many times. You should have married her when you had the chance. My disposition does not take well to being second best, so that my regard for you diminished as my jealousy grew. But I triumphed over her, because I had your child. A feat she could not accomplish. I am his mother, Darcy, and I did everything within my power to see that he would be well again. I had no wish to bring you and your ghost back into my life at such a trying time. Now, I am going to attend
my
son.” With these words she left him alone. The slam of the door echoed in Darcy's ears.

Darcy seated himself before the fire and lingered there for some time before he went upstairs into his child's bedchamber above. The Spirit and Darcy followed. The room was lighted cheerfully and hung with the trappings of Christmas. Thankfully, Caroline was no longer there. A chair was set close beside the child. His other self sat down in it and gently reached for the child's hand while Darcy and the Spirit watched from the opposite side of the bed. When he had composed himself, Darcy looked down on the little face. It was a face that he had never seen before, yet it seemed intimately familiar and dear. He felt a lump rise in his throat and his eyes were suddenly scratchy and wet.

The child looked up at Darcy, “Papa, I wanted to go home for Christmas.”

“Next year, my boy, when you are well again.”

“Can I have a puppy and a pony?” he asked.

“Without a doubt. And what will you call them?”

“Chestnut and Pudding,” came the reply after some thought.

“Very good names, I am sure, but which is for the pony and which is for the puppy?” Darcy asked.

“How will I know until I see them?” young Charles reasoned. The Spirit laid a bony hand on the child's brow, and he began to cough. Darcy watched as his older self and Caroline took turns looking after the boy. Days seemed to pass before his eyes. Every so often the Spirit touched the child and his conditioned worsened. Finally, Darcy could take no more and cried out, “Cease tormenting the child.”

The Spirit looked at Darcy and grinned. She laid an emaciated hand on the child's chest and the breathing ceased.

“No!” both Darcys cried in unison.

The future Darcy broke down. He couldn't help it. Over the last several days he had watched his son die before his very eyes and felt totally helpless.

Darcy turned angrily on the Spirit and spoke through gritted teeth. “How could you? I did not want the child to die. Am I to blame for his passing now?”

The Spirit remained silent, as if his questions were of no account. Instead, she moved them into the study to witness another form of death.

His other self sat behind a desk. A pale Caroline, dressed in severe black, sat across from him and asked him faintly, “What is it that you wish of me?”

“I will make the funeral arrangements,” Darcy answered in a choked voice. “After it is over, I wish you to leave. I do not care where you go. You will be attended to, wherever it is you settle. If I never see you again it will be too soon, Caroline!”

“Then I will leave your life for good. Strange how it is only now that I realize how much time I have wasted on what might been.” And she walked out of the room.

“Spirit, I wish to leave here now.” She nodded in agreement. He was grateful when he and the Spirit left the scene and went into the small kitchen of some unknown house.

Sitting by a fireplace was a grey-haired man, nearly seventy years of age, smoking his pipe.

Darcy and the Phantom came into the presence of this man; a woman came into the room, carrying a bundle, but she had scarcely entered when another woman came in too and a man in black closely followed her.

“What is the world coming to, Joe?” Mrs. Dilber asked the old man. “The missus is dying and her brother won't come, even though she asks and asks!”

“That's true, indeed!” said Mrs. Launders. “No man is more stubborn than he. Disowned the missus when she married the master, God keep his soul. He wasn't good enough for their fine bloodstock.”

“Nor was he rich enough neither,” said the man in black.

“No, indeed, Henry! Not good enough for the likes of him,” said Mrs. Dilber.

“He will be the worse for the loss of a sister,” Henry informed them.

“Indeed!” said Mrs. Dilber in complete agreement.

“He wanted to keep 'em apart, the master and the missus. He is a wicked old screw,” pursued the woman. “Why isn't he more natural? If he was, he'd be here to look after his sister when she is struck with Death. Instead she is all alone, except for us.”

“It's the truest word that ever was spoke,” said Mrs. Dilber. “It will be a judgment on him.”

“I hope he does get his just deserts,” said old Joe, stopping in his task and looking up at them.

“Me too,” returned the woman. “I ain't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about looking for him, but if he does come my way, well then, I shall certainly give him what for.”