…it's not like life's such a veil of tears

It's just full of thoughts that act as souvenirs

For those tiny blunders made in yesteryears

That comprise Jacob Marley's chain.

—Aimee Mann, "Jacob Marley's Chain"

For Blunders Made in Yesteryears

Marley was dead to begin with. There was no doubt whatever about that. One moment, he'd been walking down the street, his mind in his ledgers and accounts. The next, he'd felt a sudden pain in his chest, collapsed, and expired.

A crowd quickly gathered about the body, dragging it aside, in part to prevent other passersby from tripping over the grisly stumbling block and in part because laying hands on said corpse afforded its bearers ample opportunity to rifle through its pockets. By the time a police officer arrived on the scene, the corpse had been divested of its watch and chain, its snuff box, five pounds, two shillings and sixpence, and a silk handkerchief, the fabric threadbare and pattern faded from many washings.

"Cor," an astonished voice exclaimed. "Why it's Mr. Marley!"

At that, the officer turned to the speaker. "Am I to understand that you know the deceased, sir?" he asked.

Flustered, the man doffed his cap. "Well, I don't rightly know him, Constable, to be sure. More like know of him. But yes, that's Mr. Jacob Marley; I'd stake me boots on it."

The constable peered down his nose at the state of the footwear in question and privately thought that it was no great wager. Aloud, though, he said only, "And I trust you'll be willing to attest to that statement in writing?"

Marley, of course, knew nothing of these events. After all, he was dead. Dead as a doornail, in fact—not that there was anything particularly dead about doornails. The tableau unfolding on the Lambeth street below him was almost of no consequence. To be sure, as Jacob Marley shuffled off the mortal coil, he spared a passing glance over his shoulder at the body on the cobbles and recognized it as his own, but felt only a vague, passing distress as he felt himself borne upward.

He looked down to find himself still in the frock coat and trousers he'd donned this morning. Interesting. It must be owned that he had never dwelled overmuch on the concept of the immortal spirit, nor on whether such spirits went about clad in earthly garments or in white sheets as though they'd absconded with some housewife's laundry. He supposed that it was gratifying to realize that a ghost wore clothing at all, for as a young child in Sunday school (before he'd dispensed with such humbuggery once and for all), he'd once asked what need a spirit had for it and been soundly chastised for his impudence. Such thoughts, though, were fleeting as he continued to ascend, a course set for a bright light in the heavens. A thin smile spread Jacob Marley's lips as he prepared to meet the reward his diligence and fairness had earned him.

"There must be some mistake," he declared. "I've done nothing to warrant such a sentence. I've committed no crime; in fact, I've adhered to the strictest letter the law in all my dealings."

"Precisely," the grey-robed figure intoned solemnly. "And when the law permitted you to loan money at usurious rates, you did not balk at doing so."

"One in my profession learns quickly to assess the likelihood of their clients defaulting on the terms of their agreement. The rate I charged was commensurate with the risk that I assumed. It was simply a matter of business."

"Business?" the grey-robed judge intoned. "Mankind was your business! The common welfare was your business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were all your business. The dealings of your trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of your business!"

From somewhere in the distance, Marley heard the drag of heavy metal on wood and a clinking and a clanking that chilled his unbeating heart.

"I never thought—" He began to protest. "That is to say, I never intended to be…"

The clanking was drawing nearer now and he realized that there was an audience in the courtroom. He thought he recognized some of the spectators, too. Why there was Widow Tanner, who had died five years ago. He'd had her husband sent to debtor's prison and she'd gone with him, caught a chill, and never recovered. Tragic, of course, but he couldn't have known. And there was Michael Stong. He had paid back his loan, though he'd apprenticed his two sons to sweeps and one had died when an unthinking housemaid had lit the fire beneath the chimney he'd been cleaning. Stong had never been the same afterwards, though Marley had scoffed when word had reached him that the man had died of a broken heart. At least he'd died with his accounts settled and his affairs in order, hadn't he? For the first time, Marley saw that Stong had his arm about a small boy, of perhaps six or seven years. There were a fair number of children in the gallery, in fact, they quite outnumbered the adults. Marley didn't recognize their faces, but he knew. These were the offspring of those to whom he'd advanced capital, and who had suffered most when their parents couldn't repay. So many! So… many.

The doors of the courtroom burst open with an icy blast and six men straining beneath the weight of a heavy chain—was it but one, or were there several?—walked in. Marley had a premonition as to why they were appearing now and a chill that had nothing to do with the gust of wind that accompanied these newcomers bit through him. Surely not. Surely he was mistaken. Surely so harsh an instrument couldn't be meant for—

"Mercy!" he gasped, as the men hauled their clanking burden closer. "Please. Please, I didn't know—"

"The plight of your fellow man?" the judge asked sarcastically. "Well, how could you, O man of the worldly mind? So meticulous in your financial accounts and so derelict in everything else."

"What else was there?" Marley asked in honest confusion.

"A great deal," came the pitiless retort. "It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen and travel far and wide. And as your spirit went not forth in life, Jacob Marley, it is condemned to do so after death." The judge rose to his feet and fixed Marley with a terrible stare. "Yes, Jacob Marley," he said, "you are hereby doomed to wander through the world and witness what you can no longer share, but might have shared on earth and turned to happiness!"

A raucous cheer was heard from the gallery. Some of the youngest children laughed. Those a bit older clapped their hands and stamped their feet with glee. All spectators old and young now leaned forward with dreadful anticipation as the chain-bearers came forward.

"It is the further judgment of this court," the judge continued, "that you continue to bear your deeds upon you through eternity. From this moment forward, you will bear the chain you forged in life, link by link and yard by yard. Deed by deed," the judge added, "did you create it and now, day by day shall you wear it as you go forth to walk the earth."

If the judge had more to say, it was drowned out by the catcalls and jeers of the spectators, the clank and rattle of cold iron, and the numbing rush of terror as strong hands gripped him and held him fast so that the chains and fetters might be affixed.

Alive, Marley never ventured outside London. In fact, he'd spent all the days of his adulthood in the neighborhood of his counting house, his feet never straying from the route between domicile and place of business, save for the few vital necessities he'd been wont to procure at the shops and stalls along that path. He'd never seen the point of looking further afield, having been of the opinion that people were the same the world over, just as flawed and mean and foolish in Rome or Paris or New York as they were in London. Only their language and clothing differed and those variances were scarcely good reason to leave one's familiar surroundings and gawk at them.

Now that he was dead and doomed to wander the earth, though, he took it all in. The fjords of Norway and the Swiss Alps; the grandeur of Rome and the elegance of Paris, the mossy forests of Japan's Yakushima Island and the shining waters of the Nile. He marveled at it all and yearned to walk freely on the streets and along the beaches. But time was fleeting and, despite having an eternity ahead of him, he was dragged away too soon from each stopping point.

At first, he'd tried calling out to the people he saw, hoping that one might procure a file or chisel to free him from his fetters. He'd learned quickly that he could not be seen or heard by any of the living. He was far from the only doomed spirit, of course. His paths crossed those of other condemned souls frequently. But these had long since forgotten the lives they had led. For them, there was only restlessness and sorrow.

Marley wondered how long it would be until he, too, became that wretched. He looked over his shoulder at the yards and yards of iron chains trailing him and wondered whether he was closer than he knew.

Curiosity, and a need to recall the sole connection who had remained to him in life eventually pulled him away from his new haunts and back to his old…

At the time of his death, Jacob Marley could not have named a single relation or friend, but if pressed, he might have admitted that his business partner Ebenezer Scrooge came closest to the latter. Marley's will had listed him as the sole assign and as his business partner, the sole residuary legatee. At the time, Marley had thought it a shrewd move. Perhaps, one could not take one's wealth to the afterlife with him, he'd reasoned, but one could protect it from being lost in some abyss of mismanagement and waste.

In retrospect, Marley acknowledged, it would have been better to have let the capital go. Perhaps then, he would not have mismanaged his priorities, wasted his life and been lost to this abyss of torment.

As he peered through the window, he saw his erstwhile partner squinting at his balance book while totting up stacks of coin on the desk.

How often in life, Marley reminisced, had he done the same? And for a moment, he forgot his predicament and smiled at the familiarity of it all. Then he looked down and beheld his ethereal form and the fetters that were no lighter for all that they were ephemeral and his smile dropped. His doom was his burden and Ebenezer—

—Ebenezer would one day certainly face the same fate that had now engulfed him. Marley flinched as though the realization had been a physical blow. Ebenezer's lot would, if anything, be even worse. After all, how many more links had his erstwhile partner added to his own chain these past years? And the man didn't even realize his peril.

Marley's chains clanked as he brought up a hand to cover his eyes for a moment. He had not, he acknowledged, been a particularly good friend to anyone, but he and Ebenezer Scrooge had always shared a certain harmony of purpose. That harmony, however, was at least partly responsible for leading Ebenezer down the same road that he, Marley, had come to the end of. Was Scrooge already condemned, waiting only to exhale his last breath before facing the same punishment? Or was there still hope while he lived? And if there was hope, then perhaps, with a proper warning, he could…

Marley's face set with purpose and he took to the air. In the years since his sentencing, he'd never attempted to return to that place of judgment, but now he pictured it firmly in his mind and willed himself there. He wasn't certain it would work; he was doomed to wander the Earth and that courthouse was almost certainly located elsewhere. But presently, he found that instead of floating through mist and cloud, he was stumbling and sliding on polished marble. Walls of dark paneled wood surrounded him on all sides, and while he could see neither lamp nor candle, there was evidently some source of illumination. He was in a corridor, not a courtroom, but in the distance he saw figures hurrying and he fancied that they were clad in the same grey robes as the judge who had condemned him.

"Wait!" his voice was a croak as he hurried after them as fast as his fetters would permit. "Please…"

And then, a voice—stern, but not unkind—spoke from behind him. "Third door on the left, Mr. Marley. The judge will meet with you in his chambers."

The judge hadn't aged a day in the half-dozen years and more since Marley had last beheld him. He peered down his nose at his supplicant and Marley felt more like a prisoner in the dock now than he had on the day his sentence had been handed down. Finally, he said, "So you ask to spare him from punishment."

"I do, Your Worship," Marley said. "He is ignorant of the consequences of his actions. It's scarcely fair to penalize him."

"So you hold ignorance of the law to be a valid excuse, do you?" The judge's tone was casual, but Marley swallowed hard all the same.

"Clearly this court finds otherwise, or I would not have been condemned to my fate," he said carefully. "But if there's a chance for my former partner to avoid the same sentence, I'd like to give it to him."

"And you think that telling him what lies in store would be sufficient to awaken feelings of remorse in him? Do you believe that such knowledge would convince him to mend his ways?"

The judge seemed to be considering his request, but Marley had entertained too many desperate individuals seeking his aid in life to think that he had a truly sympathetic ear. Still, those hours and days and months and years of sitting in judgment on each petitioner had taught him that those in power much preferred an ugly truth to a pretty dream. "I think that it would take more than that," he admitted. "If I could speak with him, perhaps my warning would frighten him. Perhaps, he would dismiss it as a dream or a-a spot of indigestion. But no, I don't believe that it would create a lasting impression."

"Then what do you suggest?"

Was that a note of sympathy he detected, or merely curiosity? Marley swallowed again. "He was a different man once," he said. "Careful with his finances, yes, as might be expected of one who began with little and accumulated more through careful investment and thrifty habits. Fool that I was, I encouraged those traits, seeing in him a kindred spirit I could mentor."

"Such is already known," intoned the judge. "Every chain begins with the forging of a single link."

"Does it ever happen that such links, once forged and fastened, might be struck from the chain?" Marley demanded. "Or does remorse mean nothing?"

The judge was silent for a moment. "While there is life, there is hope," he said finally. "But with a chain as long and ponderous as he has forged, such a hope is faint indeed. But I ask again, Jacob Marley, what is it that you suggest?"

The truth was that he'd only meant to plead for a few moments when he might speak with his former partner and be seen and heard, but he realized now that it wouldn't suffice. Seven years ago, had such an apparition appeared to him, would he have heeded its warning? Marley knew that he would not have done so. And in seven years, how much more cold and cynical had Ebenezer grown?

"He won't see the error of his ways unless he can be brought to see the ways in which he came to error," Marley whispered. "If he could be reminded again of who he used to be, if he could see the people he dismisses now as fools and mendicants and realize how much fuller their lives are without money than his is with it, if he could be shown what awaits him if he does not mend his ways—"

"This place of judgment is not for mortal eyes," the judge interrupted.

"Then let him see what awaits him in the world he leaves behind! Like me, he shall leave no wife, no child, no friend… A lonely grave with none to mourn… Even if he won't be alive to see it, he will care."

The judge nodded slowly. "On Christmas Eve, the veil between the world of the spirits and that of the living thins out. On that evening, you will be able to communicate with him and he will hear you."

Marley blinked. "And I'll be able to show him what he needs to see?"

"No," the judge returned. "Such is not your domain. No. The deeds of mortals forge more workings than chains and fetters. They also give birth to spirits. Those spirits, those of his past, his present, and his future, will come to him on that same night."

"Why did they never come to him before?" Marley asked, curious, but also somewhat peeved. "For that matter, why was I never confronted by 'em?"

"You were," the judge replied, "as you would have known, had you but opened your eyes to see them. Or had anyone on this side of the veil cared enough to advise you to. In that, his predicament is ever so marginally better than your own. Go to him, then," the judge continued. "On the twenty-fourth of December, three evenings hence. Speak to him then and he shall hear. Tell him of the chance he shall be given and inform him, as I bid you, of the night and of the hour on which he may expect his ghostly visitors…"

Three mornings later, Jacob Marley watched with tears in his eyes and an uncharacteristically broad smile on his face as Ebenezer Scrooge raced through the streets of London in his nightshirt and slippers, wishing a Merry Christmas to all and sundry as he scattered largesse amongst a disbelieving populace. The man was transformed. Somewhere over the next few hours, he somehow managed to procure a green furred gown and a holly wreath. Now armed with a veritable cornucopia of good food and drink, he made his way to his clerk Cratchit's home—a man Marley remembered had been as kind-hearted as he was honest, as honest as he'd been industrious, and as industrious as he'd been unappreciated. Today, the latter circumstance was no more.

Marley would have lingered longer, but already, his curse was dragging him onward. Still, as he surrendered to the strong wind pulling him away, he felt as though a great weight had been lifted from him. It wasn't until he took one last parting glance over his shoulder and realized that some ten feet of chain—complete with ledger books and keys—had, in fact, been lifted, or rather, dropped from him. So astonished was he that his jaw gaped open, despite the ragged bandage wrapped about him from crown to chin that generally prevented such occurrences. Perhaps, just perhaps, his doom was not as eternal as he'd believed…

This time, despite the judge's stern visage, something in his eyes seemed just a trifle softer. "It is the province of this court to administer justice, Mr. Marley," he intoned mildly. "Is it your contention that your sentence was unjust? Or unearned?"

Marley shook his head. "It was not," he admitted. "But even if it is too late for me to make amends, there are others for whom there is yet time. Scrooge is far from unique. If I can help them…"

"Then you think that your own penance might be reduced?"

Marley drew himself upright, ignoring the clank of his fetters as he did. "It already has been," he said. "Something I neither expected nor sought, though I'm certainly grateful for it. But this isn't about me. I had my chance to improve in life and failed. My concern is for those whose chances have not yet run out. At the very least," he said, with a hint of his old acerbity, "it would be a far better use for my time than jingling and jangling about the earth, unseen by any save those in similar circumstance to my own."

The judge looked at him silently for so long that Marley thought he must have overstepped. He had no idea whether in this otherworldly court, he might be charged with contempt, but he rather feared he might be about to learn the answer. And then, the judge smiled.

"It would indeed, sir," he nodded. "It would indeed."

"Then, it is permitted to—?"

The judge sniffed. "Come now, Mr. Marley. Do you truly believe that your former partner is the only soul we've ever endeavored to reach? Sadly, there are few in your situation who are able to not only acknowledge the errors they made in life—mind," he continued sharply, "I do not speak of acknowledging the reason for their sentence; a well-trained parrot could repeat your judgment and sentence and still not comprehend the reasons for either. To understand clearly how one erred is one part; to go one step farther and look up from one's lamentations and tribulations to seek to save another, well! As rare as it is for one such as you to meet the former criterion, to meet the latter is rarer still. It is that particular sensitivity that tells me you might just be qualified for the task you are suggesting."

Marley scarcely dared trust the wild hope surging within him at the judge's declaration.

"It's no easy road," the judge cautioned. "The souls you mean to undertake the saving of… I believe you'll find most of them to be far more recalcitrant than your former partner."

"Most, but not all," Marley replied.

"No, not all. Still, I daresay you'll find the work discouraging."

"A good deal less so than these past seven years have been."

"True," the judge replied. "Well!" He took his quill from the inkpot and inscribed several lines on a thick sheet of vellum. "You are to take this to the second floor, first room on the right after you ascend the stair. They'll sort you out. Determine the role that suits you best. I rather think you'll make a fine vessel for a Spirit of Christmas Future, but that's not my decision." The judge's smile held a touch of genuine sadness when he added, "This is no mitigation of sentence, Mr. Marley. To put your best efforts into redeeming a man or woman, only to watch in dismay as they fail may be a crueller fate than had you never bothered to try. And your successes will be few and far between."

"But there will be successes, Your Worship," Marley stated.

"Rare."

"But successes, still."

This time, the judge's smile reached his eyes. "Seven years in your current state and you can demonstrate an optimism and faith you seldom showed in life. Well! I daresay you'll need it for this next adventure…"

Notes:

1. Thanks to Kathy and Debbie for the beta!
2. The judge's line about the thinning veil is taken from The Man Who Invented Christmas (2016), shooting script page 23.
3. "Jacob Marley's Chain" written and performed by Aimee Mann (Downtown Music Publishing, 1993).