Again a change. Four years later, Camden Town; the new home of my family. This was the place I had known as my playground and schoolyard. There were crowds and crowds of people half-naked and fowl and dark and destitute and yet… and yet… for me it had been normality to be, as a necessity to become a normality.
Fan and I glided along the thoroughfare unnoticed as baker called to butchers, merchants sang out and every other sound of man melded Into one. Carts where being pushed and what not, the smell of bread, the crunch of snow under boots as they hurried along. Sheets hung upon clothes lines strung from window to window. For the first time, the angel Fan seemed to frown. "I do not see you anywhere Ms. Cratchit." She marked. I felt a small hint of a smile tug at my lips. "And you would not miss, I am sure of it!" I explain, I knew exactly where I would find myself.
"Look for a book mongers cart, and I will not be far off to be sure."
And so it was! There on the corner was a jolly book seller with large spectacles, bald-headed and a song humming from his lips as he dusted off his merchandise. And under his cart was a small girl laying upon her stomach from out of view; kicking her legs and reading. The little thief! She…or rather I would often lay under that cart when the book seller was not suspecting and drink the content out of a book as if it were water, return the book to its cart and never even think to pay for the privilege, clever little scamp.
There was a special smile on the face of my seven year old self; one that came with a blush alongside of it. It was a special book. "What are you reading?" Fan asks me.
I only turn away from my younger self slightly to address the spirit next to me, as not to miss any of the enjoyment my younger self was taking in reading. "I do believe I am reading about the little cinder-girl there; the one who wins the heart of the prince. The pretty, lucky cinder-girl." I said with a laugh.
As I said this my younger self turned the page and gasped loudly only to clap a hand over her mouth, with glittering eyes.
I begin to chuckle and felt I owed an explanation to Fan and narrated. "The Prince has just asked the pretty cinder-girl to be his wife and princess! Ha, ha I knew the end but it always somehow took me by surprise and I always gasp! It is involuntary! And the book seller always found me out!"
And so, once again it was! The fat book seller heard the gasp and looked under his cart angrily. He waved his dusting cloth and yelled out "shoo- shoo! Off with you, the little bugger! Off! Off I say!"
Out I came, curtsied and bolted off in the direction of the counting house! It was lunch hour and that was when I would always play the wickedest trick on my father, especially when it snowed. I would go up to the stairway that led up to the shop above the counting house (which was empty) and dust off all the snow from that railing onto my dad when he would come out the door. He would scowl, laugh, march up the stairs in a false threat and then scoop me up and kiss me and kiss me.
My younger self had assumed her station and was at the ready for her victim. From mine and Fan's vantage point on the ground we could see who was truly coming out the door. Not the clerk and father I knew but the employer with a beautiful blonde lady just behind him, laughing. I half wanted to sing out to my younger self in warning not to do it but it would have done neither of my-selves or young Mr. Scrooge and his Belle any good. And so I watched. And what a horrible and funny thing to witness.
Out stepped the young businessman with a cool nature; obviously in the mindset of wooing and being suave by the way he carried himself, young Mrs. Belle; in all of her middleclass beauty and refinement was all aflutter by the effort as she blushed. "Belle I shall count the hours until I can kiss your lips and question you over supper." He crooned in a silken voice.
"Oh do not be late my Ebenezer as you were last time, swear it!" she came closer to him and pressed up against him tenderly in the door way. "And do let poor Cratchit have a break soon." She added with pleading eyes. She went to kiss him and he stepped out the door slightly and due to my younger self down came a downpour of cold white powder, blanketing the young Romeo. Some ice must have gotten into his collar somehow because he did a little jig and tore at the back of his neck making the strangest noises. Belle giggled, I laughed, I think that Fan even smiled. But not my younger self, not young Mr. Scrooge who was now humiliatingly white and certainly not my father who was mortified from behind his quill and not Mr. Marley who was only slightly amused.
My younger self ducked down behind the railing as Mr. Scrooge got to his feet with a glint of murder in his eyes as he made a circle. "Show yourself! Whatever devilish little imp did this! whatever wicked pixie or awful sprite ye are show yourself to me and I will give you something to laugh at!"
Luckily young Mrs. Belle begun to dust him off and sooth him saying "oh never mind it Ebenezer" and then kissed his shivering lips lovingly. They were a handsome couple. They seemed to radiate all the things that love was meant to be, or new love at least; patient, hungry but yet mild, warm and lovely. Vulnerable. They truly looked at home with each other and happy. I smiled.
There was something sweet that I found in vulnerability, maybe because my lot hardly allowed for it. At this thought I rejoined the scene. Mr. Marley by now had jointed past Scrooge and had reminded him that their business was that of an indoor nature and that when he would return from luncheon that he might be so kind to leave the outdoors where it belonged.
When the three left my father ceased me by the arm tightly, a bit tighter than he had meant for sure. "What are you doing? What were you thinking?" he rambled frightfully looking around. My younger self trembled at the sudden mood change and sternness, father had always been the mild one and never gave me anything but jovial banter; which always made mum; ever the dictator, upset that dad "took sides". But now, my dad had a look of authority and an almost fear. "Do not come back here again! Why aren't you at home?"
"Mum doesn't want me there." The words panged me as my younger self shook her head. Such words, "did not want" but it was not to be faulted upon the ones that spawned me that I felt unwanted oh no, it was the dealings of my own mind. After all they had never said it outright. After all mum was a washerwoman trying to deal with two soon to be three colicky babes and a husband that was overworked, underpaid and overwhelmed and I was old enough to entertain myself. Even if it meant loneliness.
Dad bent down and clasped my shoulders and looked into my eyes with a keen sense of understanding. "I know you are lonely and it tears at my heart love, it truly does! But I cannot be your playmate and still put food upon the table, do you understand me Martha? Do not simply hear what I say girl but understand it!"
My younger self nods trying her best to take the words to heart and not pine for the way things used to be when we had money. "Do not think that because your mum and I are forced to provide instead of play that we do not love and yearn to play. It is out of a much deeper love for you and your siblings that we must make this choice." He says. I remember wondering even then that moment could there not be a balance of both? Work and play? Love and duty? Industry and togetherness? In later years I would discern the answer for myself that the two would never and could never mix and that; if money meant loneliness and false pretenses be it needing to gain or wanting to gain, that I would spit at it and run the other direction. Being secure enough not to need and knowledgeable enough not to want. A happy-medium that I would not be willing to surpass in either way. For I had seen pure wealth and pure poverty and neither appealed. Honestly, the risk of heartache all together to me was a waste.
"Poor girl." I said softly to Fan. "So very hopeful to be noticed but not yet cynical, no not yet." I sigh and Fan turns me towards me towards another road and pointed down it. This was not but a year later. Mad Sal's, the alehouse that was the place. I had nearly forgotten it! What a racy place, what a fine jolly house! I spent most of my time sitting outside that establishment if I was not at the hospital conversing with some of the patients. It seemed the two best places to be; both held different cures for different life aliments. At the hospital I held somber discussions with the elder who imparted on me knowledge and life lessons that my parents might not have been able to teach in their busyness. I delighted in elder people, some of them had no family or friends and ended up loving me very much. I delighted in their stories and took them to heart. It kept me grounded and I think gave me a sense of purpose; though many of my friendships there ended in loss and heartbreak and I would be alone again. It taught me the value of life and kindness. It surprised many of the nurses that I took so much joy in visiting sickly strangers for as young as I was, and they called me a great help for I didn't mind doing any task that I was presented. In fact, I was asked a great many times to take to becoming a nurse professionally…but no, that was not my calling.
But at Mad Sal's I learned all the things you ought not learn! I learned how to be a child! There I learned by observation how to do a jig, how to sing naughty little songs that I hardly understood, crude jokes, how to sport. The world of Mad Sal's was like a strange fantasy land. It was colorful! It was bright! It was merry and warm! It was everything that life wasn't. I laugh to think of it. Many a time I came home with a song I had heard from there on my lips and found a bar of soap in my mouth shortly after and dad after gasping, rolling on the floor howling with laughter. "Where in the world did you learn such a song Martha?" they both would ask.
But rejoining the scene in front of Mad Sal's one of the windows of the upstairs rooms opened onto the street, making my younger self look up from where she sat on a bank of snow. A little blonde head popped itself out and looked down with an angelic face and spoke in horrific English. She was my age, eight. "Oy, you down ere, girly?"
My eyes nearly watered at the sound of her voice, I had loved her so. "Ida!" I said aloud. "Ida Smith." I step forward to get a better look at her, she had a front tooth missing and three more baby teeth to go, she had red cheeks that were still babyish and pinchable but the rest of her was in total proportion and fair ready to blossom prettily into womanhood, where I was an awkward, dark gangly thing. I was a Cratchit.
"Who?" my younger self asked, getting up and looking round before pointing to herself. "Me?"
Ida snorted. "No! the other sod sittin outside! Of course I means you silly begger!" she exclaimed leaning more out the window. "Do you knows 'ow to read?"
"What?" my younger self blinked having never heard such awful diction in her life, especially addressed at her.
The blonde girl snorted again impatiently as I rocked on my heels nervously. "I says do you knows ow to read? Like hand writin and things!"
My younger self rang her hands shyly and stuttered. "I um- well…"
"Well can you read or not?" she demands.
"Yes, I can read. I can read books, handwriting is a little harder but I can try. I'm self taught you see-"
Ida was uninterested and clearly showed it by waving her hand. "Don't needs your life story, I just needs to know if you can read!"
My younger self got a little irritated and put hands upon hips. "And I told you yes I do!"
Ida got tickled at my sudden passion and laughed holding out a scrap of paper. "My mum got a hat from a fancy man, I want to knows what the notes says."
My young self cocked her head like a puppy and shifted her eyebrow. "Should you be doing that?" I asked. Ida only shrugged without a care in the world. "No, but I never does what I'm tolds to do! Life woulds be no fun if I did." She paused and mused a little before saying. "Say, would yous like to be my best chum? I don't have a best chum, and you look like you don't ave a best chum-"
"What makes you think I don't have a best friend?" asked my younger self indignantly and I laughed.
Another careless shrug. "Because you talk like 'hat! All prim like." she said matter-of-factly before wiggling in anticipation. "So do you want to be best chums or not?"
My young self half wanted to be obstinate because of her blunt, dead-on accusation that I had no friends but the better half of me, the smarter half that was so intrigued by the idea and offer agreed to the friendship with no hesitation. Ida clapped her hands excitedly and beckoned me up. "Come on up then! I'm Ida Smith, Sal's girl!" she introduced with a theatric hand to her forehead. Always grand, My Ida.
My younger self curtsied. "Martha Cratchit."…I smiled.
"Meet me on the stairs Martha, we can goes up to me mum's room and you can reads this note to me and we can be jolly, good chums forever and always!"
Forever and always… Fan marked the tears in my eyes and I relayed to her that they were tears of joy and sadness. My friendship with Ida Smith had been the only thing that had ever come to me simply and easily. It had been as easily done as it was said. We were best friends from that moment on and shared in everything, we may have had nothing but we had each other, and that was enough. She made me smile, she made me laugh, she listened to me. and together we dreamed extravagant dreams. The daughter of a dancehall girl and the daughter of a clerk. Poor as church mice and yet; with each other, rich as kings.
Fan and I watched my younger self go inside and weasel through the crowd until I met Ida on the steps leading to the private rooms. We shook hands and then hugged, then shook hands again, unsure of which was the appropriate measure of two best friends just met. Before we went up she pointed down at two young men who were having lunch together, unsmiling, they were familiar to me and very much older than Ida and I. "See the handsome one there?" Ida asked seriously, my younger self looked and crinkled her nose; if I had to have deciphered which between my father's dreadful employers was "the handsome one" I would have honest to God said Mr. Scrooge and then kicked myself for weeks for having admitted it. "Yeah?"
"That's Mr. Marley!" Announced Ida declaring her preference. "He is rich, he is handsome and I'm going to marry him! But you can ave the other one, Ebenezer I thinks his name is." She said this as a rule. My younger self made a face of pure disgust. "I would rather end up a spinster." I spat, and with that being accomplished Ida dragged me away. Where we were to dream after I read her mother's note and trying on her hat of becoming fine milliners in our own hat shop with the name of Cratchit and Smith on the door.
Years passed together. Patiently working on our industry and practicing at our future trade; she at my house as Belinda watched us silently or me at Mad Sal's as we listened to shanties. It mattered little where Ida and I were only that we were together and working toward future goals and dreams.
grasp of business concepts and was a quick study at arithmetic once I got my hands upon a tutor; which was my father in his free hours; which were not many. A born businesswoman, he called me.
When we were fourteen and the time came to take the first steps in our plan, we went to the shop of Mrs. Julia Hogan; Camden Town 32nd Street to become if not prentices, workers. And so the scene for that day appeared before us. Ida and I standing together side by side in our best attire looking nervous. Standing at attention, hands folded as Mrs. Hogan in all of her portliness examined us and then looked back at our examples of work and then at us again.
By the looks in our eyes Ida and I desperately wanted to hold hands as if we were facing judgement day, or a bride and groom at the alter who only had each other to cling to. A gut wrenching feeling! An awful feeling.
Ida had indeed grown in grace and beauty. Shapely, feminine and always an angel, no trace of child left in her. Yet; I noted, perhaps for the first time, that my younger self at age fourteen; that my face was thinning; my cheekbones acquiring some definition, my lashes heavy and black and my figure hinting at a shape other than a spindle.
Mrs. Hogan eyed us again and said. "Give me the pitch again that you will give when a client walks through the door, you and then you."
Ida went first.
"Ello gove or Misses or Miss, take your hat and fix it up for ya? Buyin a new one? Whatever you needs we can do it right quick we can. Ave a good day and don't be a stranger! Pop in anytime!" Ida then turned her head towards my younger self and scowled. "Ah shit I made a bleedin mess of it didn't I? Christ the lord!" she swore to herself.
Mrs. Hogan was silent. It was my turn. I stepped forward coolly and swallowed.
"Hello and welcome sir or madam; what may we do for you today? Thank you for your business and have a very pleasant afternoon, come again soon."
Mrs. Hogan raised her eyebrows and crossed the room. When her back was turned finally Ida and I clasped hands. We both prayed that the others strength would make up for the others weakness. Ida's hats were so much better than mine… Mrs. Hogan turned and pointed at me. "I'll take you as my prentice." Then at Ida. "But not you." My heart dropped.
My younger self begun to sputter and plea that she had made the wrong choice and that I would not be parted from my friend but Ida grabbed me, thanked Mrs. Hogan, said I would start in the morning and dragged me out the door. "What the hell are you doing you mad clodhopper? You got a apprenticeship straight off!" I ripped myself away from her grip and looked into her eyes. She was hurt but not as hurt as I that we did not both get a situation.
My younger self spoke passionately to Ida. "This is our dream Ida! Ours! You cannot expect me to go it alone!"
"I don't!"
"Then let me quit and let us keep looking!"
"No Martha!" Ida shot before she draped her arm around me and led me down the street as tears leaked from my eyes. She soothed me. "Now, now Martha; stop that cryin love, just because we are not starting out in a shop together doesn't mean we wont be in a shop together later. Our own shop like we always said! I will still look for a situation I will, as a milliner! This isn't the end."
But she never did. Every place she went to turned her away. She ended up a prostitute and show girl at her own mother's establishment, while I slaved away for Mrs. Hogan; who would often out of cruelty, accuse me of stealing small amounts of money and whip the palms of my hands with a horse whip and then had me turn them over and do it again till my knuckles and palms bleed, making my hands hard to use and then after return the money I was accused of stealing back into the drawer from her pockets…. Oh sometimes my hands would just shake and shake…by sixteen I had very little feeling in them at all. Some people are just mean spirited, but she paid well. That was where Mr. Scrooge and Mrs. Hogan differed; Mr. Scrooge was a miser but he never set out to harm purposefully, Mrs. Hogan was simply mean beyond reason.
I was so thankful when she agreed to hire on Edna; sometimes my hands would hurt and tremble so bad that I needed help threading the needle. Thanks to fingerless gloves and frequent visits to the hospital or Ida tending to them, my parents were never burdened to the knowledge of how awful my employer was. though, I think mum knew one night when my hand seized up one night and a dropped the pot while serving supper and I wept that night in the confines of mine and Belinda's room. She kissed me often after that, spoke to me more gently, told me how proud and grateful she was for me.
I often worried that Ida, in her profession would suffer cruelties; but to my greatest relief no. she told me that her clients were always more older in nature, somber and lonely. The regulars, she called them, they were always warm to her. She loved her place at Mad Sal's, she felt home there, because it was her home. Mad Sal's never changed. She often implored me to leave my apprenticeship; but I could not… I had such respect for ladies of that profession because I could never be brave enough to withstand it and still hold my head high….but that was why Tom had fallen in love with Ida before he ever was engaged to me.
The mist swirled and changed the scene again. We were outside of Mrs. Hogan's shop. Mrs. Belle and Young Mr. Scrooge walking down the thoroughfare as it rained. Mrs. Belle was in a mourning gown, Mr. Scrooge holding their umbrella as they walked side by side. Neither looked happy, neither had the glow of love about them.
Fan and I watched.
"Have I ever sought release?" Asked young Mr. Scrooge.
"In words? No. Never." Answered Ms. Belle as tears gleamed in her eyes.
"In what, then?"
"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us, tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!"
He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in spite of himself. But he said with a pained look in blue eyes," You think not?"
"I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered, "Heaven knows. When I have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl - you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you once were."
He was about to speak; but with her head turned from him, she resumed.
"You may - the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will - have pain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen."
She left him, and they parted.
I then addressed Fan who was at my side as her brother remained outside the milliner shop watching his love go. "He did feel pain in it…" I say with parted lips. "Watch."
He placed his hand upon the shop door, lingered as his lip trembled, bowed his head and entered the shop slamming the door as hard as he could. It made my fourteen year old self who was manning the shop alone jump as the door crashed shut.
I went up to the desk and met him. I had not been surprised to see my father's employer, Edna told me he would be in that day. For a moment, my younger self did not recognize him. He was silent, pale and stared off into the distance as if looking anywhere else would have provoked him to tears. "May I help you?" I asked and still he said nothing.
"I…I was…having a hat made for my wed-wedding in…in a few months." He managed very softly before looking around and blinking his eyes. Putting his fist to his lips. "I need it no longer, can you please return my money to me." he begun to sob, actually sob.. my younger self gasped silently. I had never seen a man cry before. It was a large shock to be sure but to see the man I had only known as heartless show the most clear expression of heart…
I went and got the money and never took my eyes from him. He had sunk down to putting his elbow upon the counter and burying his head in his hand. "Belle, oh Belle." He whispered brokenly. I went to his side and said very softly. "Here's the money sir."
He could only manage a nod and to hold out a shaking hand as I dropped it in. my younger self had parted lips and looked very much torn by this. my first instinct was to comfort any hurting creature but Scrooge had been a different animal to me all my life like a hungry bear, dare I risk getting my arm chewed?
Hesitantly my younger self put her hand upon his shoulder. Fingers first, slowly, than a flattened palm. He did not roar, he did not bite. It was as simple as one human being consoling another one of God's own; marvelously strange as it was to think of him as such back then. His body racked with sobs. I bit my lip. "It will be alright sir." I whisper helpless to do anything else. He endeavored to touch my wrist but then withdrew and simply relented.
I led him over to a chair and sat him down so that he might collect himself. I marveled at it; he was human. No one would have thought it. I wondered what had made him decide to let on to his secret? Perhaps that to him I was a stranger and that I was so little that he assumed I would never let on. But nevertheless he in his own way sought comfort and I gave it.
It was a distant sort of comfort, but comfort no less. I had turned the shop sign to close so that he was secluded, made a pot of tea and now leaned against the arm of the chair opposite him in silence. He sipped away as the small shop fire crackled. His face was stern and set. He glanced up and then back down. "You're a queer little creature." He marked after a quick examination of me. "Too tall to be an elf, yet too odd looking to be a mortal woman. A pixie, I would say." He says this with a hint of bitterness. I was even and calm in my reply.
"If it pleases you that I should be a pixie sir, then I will be a pixie."
He scoffs. "Women, always the pleasing lot." He rolls his eyes. "Do you have a name?"
"Does my name really matter to you at present?" he might have run away or took out a vendetta on my father if I told him.
"No, not really." He dropped the matter with honesty which I admired, then leant forward and spoke more to himself, putting his cup down and pressing his palms together. "I do not understand Belle." Was how he begun. "Everything I did was for her so that she could be the wife of a rich man like Mrs. Fezziwig. These things do not simply happen overnight. I did nothing wrong!"
A small, involuntary noise came from my throat and his head shot up irately. "You obviously have thoughts to the contrary." He reasons. "Sing out then; pixie, let me know it. What say you?" He challenged. I blinked startled and then calmly poured him more tea. "I didn't say anything." I remind him.
"What think you then!?" he demanded. I sat down and looked him square in the eyes, with no fear; a trick I had learned from my father when he was straight with me. Look straight into the eyes, fear nothing and speak true when someone asks, no matter who it is.
"I was just thinking, why would a woman want to be like another woman when she is herself?"
It was his turn to blink. He placed an impatient hand upon his knee. "What? What! Do you speak to me in riddles now? I am at the crisis of my life and you speak to me in riddles?!"
I put my hand up to assure him. "Peace! Peace, hear me! I mean to say that maybe your good lady did not wish to live the life of Mrs. Fezziwig; whoever that is and wished to lead her own life." he said nothing at this which told me he still did not follow and I huffed. "Maybe you were enough!" I finally said bluntly, and go to poking the fire which I might add was the only light in the shop. "Some women just want a man to love them good and proper. I think sir that maybe you wanted the life of Mrs. Fezziwig, not her. some women; like me, have an aversion to that kind of lifestyle because they fear the loneliness of a husband trying too hard to maintain it or the hardship of losing it all. I think that perhaps having an abundance of money that one refuses to spend is a replacement for insecurity that one refuses to confront."
He snorted, musing on every aspect of what he was saying, prolonging the sentence. "An aversion to wealth- I've never heard anything so ridiculous in my life! Everything you say is a humbug! I am quite secure in who I am."
"Are you?"
"Yes!" he growled getting to his feet. He pointed at me. " The problem does not lie within me! Your sex doesn't know what it wants! Our whole damn race doesn't know what it wants!" he grabbed his coat and started towards the door. "And look at you! You and Belle are just alike! Some sorry idiot is going to play for your heart and give you his in the process only to have you rip it to shreds upon a whim of indecisiveness. I am better off without Belle and whatever fool falls for you is better off without you hanging upon his coattails bearing a hundred of his fat-faced little children! Complaining if there is not enough money to support them and yet wailing bloody murder if a husband is late for dinner yet prosperous." He begun to grumble then. " make our fortune in good season! An aversion to money! Humbug!" he slammed the door and I ran out it to watch him go.
My younger self laughed to herself; pleased to have shaken him, pleased for the conversation… and pleased to have made him mortal. Yet all the while hoping that he had not truly broken with his love. It had been a secret pleasure of mine that I had even kept from Ida, I had talked to Mr. Scrooge and not been fined.
Ida… ida… I had forgotten Ida…
The scenes flew by. Happy scenes of her singing at Mad Sal's, me laughing, her and Tom being in love. getting engaged. Scenes of Tim being born and becoming sick. Scenes of me crying upon Ida's bed as she stroked my hair because we needed money for a doctor for him and neither employer would give a raise and mother and I had both resorted to prostitution. Scenes of how my every aspiration of love, being respectable and owning our own shop died off and seeing myself become more and more guarded.
Scenes… so many scenes…until…. One of my last flowers of happiness withered away… the final chance meeting between me and Mr. Scrooge before that fateful Christmas.
I looked at my friend standing in her coffin; cold and lifeless against the alley wall. I clutch my shawl and shuttered under the dimly lit place as the lamps swung eerily, listening to the awful sounds of London's seedy underbelly. I studied her face as if to cherish these precious last moments. My dear friend. My only friend. Snow begun to sprinkle lightly and my lip started to quiver both from the cold and a fresh bout of tears. She was in her favorite gown, my gown, my best gown. and even so the gown was still not fine; not fine enough for her sweet soul.
The man in the wagon looked back at us with a look of pity as he gathered up the reigns. "Fine looking woman." He says and I nod silently. "Yes, yes she was." I breathe slowly as wind suddenly picks up and blows her golden hair into her face. My lips part with a sob as I go to gently to tuck it back behind her ear. "Oh Ida." I sigh wanting to say more but the words fail me. I felt quite alone in the world. Quite alone.
The morgue owner called out to the cart driver asking if he was going to take "the last two" as if they were merely things and not people. the driver answered back that he had no room and that he would come back. I stepped back as the whip cracked and the cart rolled away. I thought about Tom, and my agreement with Ida to take her place and marry him, as if that would somehow fill the void that was now in our hearts due to her loss. I did not love him, I had never loved anyone, not in that way. But I could love him, for Ida's sake I was willing to try; perhaps if I went through the motions love would come. It felt so wicked for a last request, to cling to all that was left of her through marriage. To always be compared, to be second best to the man who had idolized her. What a sad, sad day; a lady, the truest lady I had ever known and having nothing to leave to her fiancé and friend but each other, and I was for sure nothing in gain compared to Ida.
The cart left with a rattling and rivaled to me that Ida and I were not as alone as I thought. I gasped as I beheld not two coffins over the refined face of one of England's most esteemed creditors, Ida's first love and deepest crush, Jacob Marley. They were together in death and what a cruel twist of fate it was. I was half expecting him to lunge out of his box and chase me off with a poker as he had done in life when Ida and I were young and we would wait outside the counting house, just so Ida could catch a glimpse of him. I was glad Tom was not there, else some sort of strange jealousy may have befallen him. It was like an awful Shakespeare play, no one seemed to love the right person. I began to tremble and step back, his eyes, his piercing eyes.
But as I stepped I noticed another party. Not in a box; but looking quite as dead and motionless as if he were. His hands folded in front of him as he stared at his partner. I looked after him for a very long time, wondering if or when he would give heed to my existence. After a few long moments past I spoke, feeling a sort of pity and empathy, I imagined Mr. Marley had been his only friend, and vice versa seeing as there was no other mourners. "I am so sorry for your loss." He didn't reply and I endeavored to try again. "When did he pass on?" I wondered if he recalled our last meeting, he didn't seem to.
"This morning." Mr. Scrooge replied bluntly, his eyes unwavering from Marley's. I had been surprised that he had announced at all. I looked down at my feet and tried to think of an endearment to be polite, then I looked back up at Ida. "My friend held him in high regards, she had always thought him handsome." I paused and swallowed, it was a strange way to try and both seek and offer comfort, but I knew not other than to try. "He um…he never married?"
"No." Scrooge grunted. "He saw marriage for what it was, a fools game. Marriage and love is the biggest loss a man can suffer. A good man of business he was Marley, up until he decided to die, which leaves us at a huge loss. A cheap funeral he said and that's what he's got." I felt my lip twinge at the lack of emotion in his tone and said flatly. "a burial at sea would have cost less." At this he cast a glance at me before looking back. "I did not think of that."
I took in a breath of my own and fixated my eyes on Ida again as I welcomed this course conversation as apposed to silence. "As for me, this is not what I wanted for her at all. Had I had the means, she would have a fine coffin, with flowers as far as the eye can see."
"A waste of money, for one who is dead." He mused. "She would not know the difference."
"I will know it!" I shot impatiently and then dropped my eyes in shame. "And know it I shall for the rest of my life." I should have insisted that she had taken apprenticeship at a shop. she might have made a fine milliner and cheated death. "You are her soul mourner then?" Mr. Scrooge asked rather stiffly. "No, her fiancé waits for her at the cemetery; he was quite too broken for this part."
The creditor scoffs and says. "He should be grateful, no bastard children to worry about. Bastards are quite common in her line of work, I would know I have enough fathers come to ask me for money, mothers too sometimes."
I stare at him hardly. "Is that all you see death as? Be it funeral or mourners, husbands left with children or wives? All it is- is an expense to you? An inconvenience? A days wages lost?"
Amused he cocks an eyebrow. "You deny that death isn't all these things?" I face him head on, thinking as I spoke. "No I do not deny the expense, nor the inconvenience, but it is where my inconvenience is born from as apposed to yours that I heartily deny!"
He leans upon his cane and tilts his head. "it is not in my nature to suffer fools, especially the like as little as yourself, but you speak so fervently that I find myself heartily interested to hear what you say to me next. Please, tell me where our inconveniences are spawn from."
I purse my lips at this as my chest tightens with frustration. "Why would I oblige you when you have manage to insult me twice in one brief passage, calling me little and stupid?"
"You mistake in your memory." He corrects tilting his head to the other side. "I did not call you stupid, I said that you were foolish."
I snort. "And one is less insulting than the other?"
Scrooge nods "foolishness can be abolished with a change of mindset, stupidity takes an education to cure, if such a pandemic can be."
He had stirred my passions and I crossed my arms. "And I suppose a learned man such as you can endeavor to change my mindset? Besides, it is not the uneducated that suffer the pandemic of stupidity, it is those unwilling to learn."
"Such as I?" Mr. Scrooge challenged and I shrugged. "You said it not me." I answer.
He smirks at this. "You do not owe me money I suspect that much about you." He notes, I look at him questioningly. "You have not endeavored to kiss my arse with words as most do; yet you are smart enough not to spew at the mouth in case of future encounters. Yet pray wont you insult me one more time to gain equal playing ground and so I might ask again where our inconveniences are spawn from."
"I told you, I will not oblige you-"
"Come now, you said yourself that stupidity it spawned from a lack of wanting to learn and we have establish that foolishness is a set of one's mind. As not to make myself look the idiot in this situation implore you to impart upon me your ideals of inconvenience; you as not to look a fool should change your mindset on telling one who wishes to be educated by you. Should you not?"
I did a double take of him who stared at me evenly, I had met my match and could not argue with the terms we both had set forth. He had cornered me with my own ideology; boldly and forthright but not harshly or condescendingly; though he looked down upon me I knew it was not because of my sex or rank. No indeed he looked down upon all living creatures as the same, he did not discriminate; man was no different from woman to him, nor rich from poor… something to be admired in a man, even if it is in bitterness that you see equality in purest form.
I relented with my pride put out of shape. "You feel the inconvenience strictly from your purse, whereas mine is felt from the heart, that I no longer will see her sweet face or confide in her my inner most thoughts."
"You think that I will not miss Marley?"
I did not look at him and say honestly. "By your countenance and by your reputation I know you will not, your money will not allow for it. You will put on the proper mourning airs of a gentleman and then when the time has passed moved on as if he had never been." The cart was coming back.
He smacks his lips together, had I looked I would have seen the slightest traces of a wound that I had made in his eyes. He cleared his throat and straightened. "Astute to claim me so heartlessly so bluntly and forthright." He starts and then looks at Ida. "but at least Marley left something behind in business, so the world will at least know he had been. The ones who do not contribute like your sorry creature there has left no mark upon the world at all, so it would have been better if she had never been. It is better to me rid of her lot and leave the ones who prosper so that the world might be less despairing."
I was infuriated and spun on my heels to face him, my black cloak swooshed behind me. "Damn you to hell if you weren't already going there!" I spat.
Everyone was silent. The cart was loaded and the driver beckoned us to follow behind. Mr. Scrooge and I walked in perfect tandem of each other. Side by side but at a distance. Hands folded, slowly. Silently. I kept looking at his profile as he looked straight ahead. I remembered when he had wept in front of me and suddenly felt sorry. I pondered if being stoic was not a sign of grief as anger had been for me. I stepped towards him and whispered with all my heart. "I'm sorry, I did not mean it."
He casts a look down into my eyes. "I know it. I forgive you."
We kept walking until we passed a flower seller and I implored the wagon to stop. It was two flowers for three shillings, I only had two. After a few moments Mr. Scrooge; in a move out of character stepped forth and gave the last shilling. When I pressed him on it, he said that the cart would not move without me and that he was in a great hurry but I thought to the contrary that it had been a gesture of a rare act of kindness.
When the time came for parting in the cemetery I placed one of the flowers in his hand. "For Mr. Marley." I said, my hand lingered and he looked into my eyes, before I put my hood up and beginning to walk in the opposite direction where Ida was to be put to rest.
"I know you from somewhere." He called after me. "won't you tell me who you are?"
My younger self turned her head slightly and with parted lips requested. "Make up a name for me."
He obliged. "Emma."
To Fan I repeated the sentiment with great attachment, not knowing how I could have ever forgotten.
"Emma…"
I hope everyone has a blessed and wonderful Christmas
Mad Sal's is a place at the SF Dickens Fair you have to be 18 and up to get in because of the racy themes and I finally got to go this year and waltz at Fezziwig's it was so fun
I really really like how this turned out sad though it is, I look the bittersweet encounters with Scrooge, somewhat forgotten, I think I did ok. I'm trying to Martha hints of Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennet. and by fair is my first "unwholesome and not spo sweet" oc
the next stave takes place the day and year after "A Christmas Carol" prefect fore New Years, yikes oughta to be interesting to see how to keep "new Scrooge" in character and what qualities to keep from "old Scrooge" ... opened to ideas
