Chapter 7
Author Note: Everything familiar belongs to either Julian Fellowes or Charles Dickens.
The phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came, Mary bent down upon her knee, for in the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery. It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which was trimmed with dyed wool, a dark green colour. This robe concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing visible but one outstretched hand. But even this was difficult to distinguish and separate it from the darkness that surrounded the creature. Shivering, Mary felt that it was tall and stately beside her, and that its mysterious presence filled her with a solemn dread. The Spirit neither spoke nor moved.
"Are you the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come?" asked Mary, anxious. The Spirit answered not, but pointed downward with its hand.
"You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen." Mary pursued. "Is that so, Spirit?"
It was hard to tell, but it was as if the phantom had nodded. That was the only answer she received.
Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Mary feared the silent shape so much that her legs trembled beneath her, and she found that she could hardly stand when she prepared to follow this Spirit. The Spirit paused a moment, as if observing her trepidation. But Mary was all the worse for this. It thrilled her with a vague uncertain horror, to know that beneath the dusky garment there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon her, while she could see nothing but a spectral hand and the cloak.
"Ghost of the Future!" she exclaimed, "I fear you more, than any spectre I have yet met. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another woman from what I was, I am prepared to follow with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?" she asked, teeth chattering.
It gave her no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.
"Lead on," said Mary. "Time is precious to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit." she whispered. The Phantom moved away as it had come towards her. Mary, truly spooked, followed in the shadow of its cloak.
Soon they were on the busiest streets of the city, amongst the merchants, who hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets. They conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and so forth, as Mary had seen them often. The Spirit stopped beside one group of business folk. Seeing that the hand was pointed to them, Mary advanced to listen to them.
"No," said a great fat man with a rather plain face. "I don't know much about it, either way. I only know she's dead."
"When did she die?" inquired another.
"Last night, I believe."
"Why, what was the matter with her, Tufton?" asked a third. "In all truth, I thought she'd never go."
"God knows." said the plain-faced man, Tufton, with a yawn.
"What has she done with her money?" asked a stout, red-faced woman.
"I haven't heard," said Tufton, yawning again. "Left it to her company, perhaps. She hasn't left it to me. That's all I know." he remarked. This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.
"It's likely to be a very cheap funeral." said the same speaker. "I don't know of anybody that would go to it. Suppose we volunteer?"
"I don't mind going - if a lunch is provided!" observed the stout-faced woman. "But I must be fed. Actually, I'll make one." she chuckled.
"Well, I'll offer to go, if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't her most particular friend, for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye." an average-height blue-eyed brunette lady said, who was markedly different from the rest of the group. This snippet of conversation struck Mary - she knew the last speaker. With her changed attitude from the Ghost of Christmas Present's visit, she could almost agree, and call Mabel Gillingham a friend. But why had the phantom made her overhear that whole conversation? She looked towards the Spirit for an explanation. The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to three people meeting - two women and a man. Mary listened again, thinking that the explanation was here. She and the Phantom came into the presence of the three strangers.
Strangers to Mary at least, as a sour-faced woman with a heavy bundle, which looked to be laden with valuables, came into a shop.
"You couldn't have come to a better place, Vera!" said the man, removing his cigarette from his mouth. "Come in, please do! Miss O'Brien, make our guest comfortable." he said in an oily voice. The woman who had already been in his shop - a Miss O'Brien - gave a twisted smile. The woman who entered threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool, and looking with a bold defiance at the other two.
"What became of your visit, Vera?" said O'Brien. "Every person has a right to take care of themselves. She always did."
"That's true, indeed," said Vera. "No woman more so."
"Who's worse off losing things like these? Not a dead woman, I suppose."
"No indeed, Thomas." said O'Brien, laughing. "Open the bundle." she crowed. Thomas did so, and there was a mixed reaction on his face.
"What do you call this lot?" pondered Thomas. "Bed-curtains?"
"Ah!" returned Vera, laughing and leaning forward on crossed arms. "Bed-curtains. And I took them down, rings and all, with her lying there!"
"Wait a second..." Mary murmured, indignation and fear in her voice in equal measure, but she was caught off-guard by another remark.
"Oh, the blankets are still warm. That's lovely." slithered Thomas.
"Of course they're warm. The only warmth she ever had!" Vera cackled.
"She isn't likely to catch cold without them, I dare say." O'Brien added.
"I hope she didn't die of anything catching?" asked Thomas.
"Don't you be afraid of that." returned Vera. "I'm not so fond of her company that I'd loiter around for such things. Ah, look at that nightgown. It's the best she had, and a fine one too. They'd have wasted it at the mortuary." she laughed, raspy. Mary looked at the Phantom, aghast. The cloaked figure seemed to shrug. Mary's revulsion remained on her face.
"What you would say was 'wasting it'?" asked Thomas greasily.
"Putting it on her to be buried in, to be sure." replied O'Brien, chuckling. "Someone was barmy enough to do it, but I took it off again." Vera sneered.
"But Vera, did you spare a thought for me? What would old Thomas have, to remember her by, hmmm? Ever think I might want the dressing gown?"
"She can't look uglier than she did in that one." Vera replied with a twisted glee in her voice. Mary listened to this conversation in horror. As the trio sat grouped about the old possessions, she viewed them with a loathing which would have only been worse, if they were marketing the corpse itself.
"Ha, ha!" laughed Vera, "This is the end of it. She frightened everyone away from her when she was alive, to profit us when she was dead!"
"Sp-spirit, I-I'm st-starting to think that these strangers might be talking about me." a frightened Mary stammered in a horrid realisation. The icy phantom shrugged, as if it was up to Mary's imagination and conscience to decide to that. Maybe the strangers were speaking of her, but maybe not.
The scene had changed, and now she almost touched a bed. A bare, uncurtained bed, on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay something covered up. The room was too dark to be observed clearly, though Mary glanced round it impulsively, anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, fell straight upon the bed, and on it, unwept and uncared for, was the body of a blind man - shocked, Mary saw it was not regular blindness, but rather blindness that was of a grim consequence.
"Left alone, with no-one to care." the brunette sighed. "Let me see some tenderness connected with a death," said Mary "or that dark room and the strangers' conversation will haunt me forever." she gasped. The Ghost guided her through several streets familiar to her feet. As they went along, Mary looked here and there, but it all a haze, until the haze dropped, and she was standing in front of William Mason's house. Mary sighed in relief.
"Oh, the Masons'. Thank you, Spirit, for bringing me somewhere familiar."