A Christmas Carol, the Chimes & the Cricket on the Hearth Read online

  The Fairies were prodigiously excited when they showed her, with the Baby, gossiping among a knot of sage old matrons, and affecting to be wondrously old and matronly herself, and leaning in a staid, demure old way upon her husband’s arm, attempting—she! such a bud of a little woman—to convey the idea of having abjured the vanities of the world in general, and of being the sort of person to whom it was no novelty at all to be a mother; yet in the same breath, they showed her, laughing at the Carrier for being awkward, and pulling up his shirt collar to make him smart, and mincing merrily about that very room to teach him how to dance!

  They turned, and stared immensely at him when they showed her with the Blind Girl; for, though she carried cheerfulness and animation with her wheresoever she went, she bore those influences into Caleb Plummer’s home, heaped up and running over. The Blind Girl’s love for her, and trust in her, and gratitude to her; her own good busy way of setting Bertha’s thanks aside; her dexterous little arts for filling up each moment of the visit in doing something useful to the house, and really working hard while feigning to make holiday; her bountiful provision of those standing delicacies, the Veal and Ham Pie and the bottles of Beer; her radiant little face arriving at the door, and taking leave; the wonderful expression in her whole self, from her neat foot to the crown of her head, of being a part of the establishment—a something necessary to it, which it couldn’t be without; all this the Fairies revelled in, and loved her for. And once again they looked upon him all at once, appealingly, and seemed to say, while some among them nestled in her dress and fondled her, “Is this the wife who has betrayed your confidence!”

  More than once, or twice, or thrice, in the long thoughtful night, they showed her to him sitting on her favourite seat, with her bent head, her hands clasped on her brow, her falling hair. As he had seen her last. And when they found her thus, they neither turned nor looked upon him, but gathered close round her, and comforted and kissed her, and pressed on one another, to show sympathy and kindness to her, and forgot him altogether.

  Thus the night passed. The moon went down; the stars grew pale; the cold day broke; the sun rose. The Carrier still sat, musing, in the chimney-corner. He had sat there, with his head upon his hands, all night. All night the faithful Cricket had been Chirp, Chirp, Chirping on the Hearth. All night he had listened to its voice. All night, the household Fairies had been busy with him. All night, she had been amiable and blameless in the glass, except when that one shadow fell upon it.

  He rose up when it was broad day, and washed and dressed himself He couldn’t go about his customary cheerful avocations—he wanted spirit for them—but it mattered the less, that it was Tackleton’s wedding-day, and he had arranged to make his rounds by proxy. He had thought to have gone merrily to church with Dot. But such plans were at an end. It was their own wedding-day, too. Ah! how little he had looked for such a close to such a year!

  The Carrier expected that Tackleton would pay him an early visit; and he was right. He had not walked to and fro before his own door, many minutes, when he saw the Toy Merchant coming in his chaise along the road. As the chaise drew nearer, he perceived that Tackleton was dressed out sprucely for his marriage, and that he had decorated his horse’s head with flowers and favours.

  The horse looked much more like a bridegroom than Tackleton, whose half-closed eye was more disagreeably expressive than ever. But the Carrier took little heed of this. His thoughts had other occupation.

  “John Peerybingle!” said Tackleton, with an air of condolence. “My good fellow, how do you find yourself this morning?”

  “I have had but a poor night, Master Tackleton,” returned the Carrier, shaking his head: “for I have been a good deal disturbed in my mind. But it’s over now! Can you spare me half an hour or so, for some private talk?”

  “I came on purpose,” returned Tackleton, alighting. “Never mind the horse. He’ll stand quiet enough, with the reins over this post, if you’ll give him a mouthful of hay.”

  The Carrier having brought it from his stable and set it before him, they turned into the house.

  “You are not married, before noon?” he said, “I think?”

  “No,” answered Tackleton. “Plenty of time. Plenty of time.”

  When they entered the kitchen, Tilly Slowboy was rapping at the Stranger’s door; which was only removed from it by a few steps. One of her very red eyes (for Tilly had been crying all night long, because her mistress cried) was at the keyhole; and she was knocking very loud, and seemed frightened.

  “If you please, I can’t make nobody hear,” said Tilly, looking round. “I hope nobody an’t gone and been and died if you please!”

  This philanthropic wish, Miss Slowboy emphasised with various new raps and kicks at the door, which led to no result whatever.

  “Shall I go?” said Tackleton. “It’s curious.”

  The Carrier, who had turned his face from the door, signed to him to go if he would.

  So Tackleton went to Tilly Slowboy’s relief; and he, too, kicked and knocked; and he, too, failed to get the least reply. But he thought of trying the handle of the door; and as it opened easily, he peeped in, went in, and soon came running out again.

  “John Peerybingle,” said Tackleton, in his ear. “I hope there has been nothing—nothing rash in the night?”

  The Carrier turned upon him quickly.

  “Because he’s gone!” said Tackleton; “and the window’s open. I don’t see any marks—to be sure, it’s almost on a level with the garden : but I was afraid there might have been some—some scuffle. Eh?”

  He nearly shut up the expressive eye, altogether; he looked at him so hard. And he gave his eye, and his face, and his whole person, a sharp twist. As if he would have screwed the truth out of him.

  “Make yourself easy,” said the Carrier. “He went into that room last night, without harm in a word or deed from me, and no one has entered it since. He is away of his own free will. I’d go out gladly at that door, and beg my bread from house to house, for life, if I could so change the past that he had never come. But he has come and gone. And I have done with him!”

  “Oh!—Well, I think he has got off pretty easy,” said Tackleton, taking a chair.

  The sneer was lost upon the Carrier, who sat down, too, and shaded his face with his hand, for some little time, before proceeding.

  “You showed me last night,” he said, at length, “my wife; my wife that I love; secretly—”

  “And tenderly,” insinuated Tackleton.

  “Conniving at that man’s disguise, and giving him opportunities of meeting her alone. I think there’s no sight I wouldn’t have rather seen than that. I think there’s no man in the world I wouldn’t have rather had to show it me.”

  “I confess to having had my suspicions always,” said Tackleton. “And that has made me objectionable here, I know.”

  “But as you did show it me,” pursued the Carrier, not minding him; “and as you saw her, my wife, my wife that I love”—his voice, and eye, and hand, grew steadier and firmer as he repeated these words: evidently in pursuance of a steadfast purpose—“as you saw her at this disadvantage, it is right and just that you should also see with my eyes, and look into my breast, and know what my mind is upon the subject. For it’s settled,” said the Carrier, regarding him attentively. “And nothing can shake it now.”

  Tackleton muttered a few general words of assent, about its being necessary to vindicate something or other; but he was overawed by the manner of his companion. Plain and unpolished as it was, it had a something dignified and noble in it, which nothing but the soul of generous honour dwelling in the man could have imparted.

  “I am a plain, rough man,” pursued the Carrier, “with very little to recommend me. I am not a clever man, as you very well know. I am not a young man. I loved my little Dot, because I had seen her grow up, from a child, in her father’s house; because I knew how precious she was; because she had been my life, for years and years. There’
s many men I can’t compare with, who never could have loved my little Dot like me, I think!”

  He paused, and softly beat the ground a short time with his foot, before resuming:

  “I often thought that though I wasn’t good enough for her, I should make her a kind husband, and perhaps know her value better than another: and in this way I reconciled it to myself, and came to think it might be possible that we should be married. And in the end, it came about, and we were married.”

  “Hah!” said Tackleton, with a significant shake of his head.

  “I had studied myself; I had had experience of myself; I knew how much I loved her, and how happy I should be,” pursued the Carrier. “But I had not—I feel it now—sufficiently considered her.”

  “To be sure,” said Tackleton. “Giddiness, frivolity, fickleness, love of admiration! Not considered! All left out of sight! Hah!”

  “You had best not interrupt me,” said the Carrier, with some sternness, “till you understand me; and you’re wide of doing so. If, yesterday, I’d have struck that man down at a blow, who dared to breathe a word against her, to-day I’d set my foot upon his face if he was my brother!”

  The Toy Merchant gazed at him in astonishment. He went on in a softer tone:

  “Did I consider,” said the Carrier, “that I took her—at her age, and with her beauty—from her young companions, and the many scenes of which she was the ornament; in which she was the brightest little star that ever shone, to shut her up from day to day in my dull house, and keep my tedious company? Did I consider how little suited I was to her sprightly humour, and how wearisome a plodding man like me must be, to one of her quick spirit? Did I consider that it was no merit in me, or claim in me, that I loved her, when everybody must, who knew her? Never. I took advantage of her hopeful nature and her cheerful disposition; and I married her. I wish I never had! For her sake; not for mine!”

  The Toy Merchant gazed at him, without winking. Even the half-shut eye was open now.

  “Heaven bless her!” said the Carrier, “for the cheerful constancy with which she has tried to keep the knowledge of this from me! And Heaven help me, that, in my slow mind, I have not found it out before ! Poor child! Poor Dot! I not to find it out, who have seen her eyes fill with tears, when such a marriage as our own was spoken of! I, who have seen the secret trembling on her lips a hundred times, and never suspected it, till last night! Poor girl! That I could ever hope she would be fond of me! That I could ever believe she was!”

  “She made a show of it,” said Tackleton. “She made such a show of it, that to tell you the truth it was the origin of my misgivings.”

  And here he asserted the superiority of May Fielding, who certainly made no sort of show of being fond of him.

  “She has tried,” said the poor Carrier, with greater emotion than he had exhibited yet; “I only now begin to know how hard she has tried, to be my dutiful and zealous wife. How good she has been; how much she has done; how brave and strong a heart she has; let the happiness I have known under this roof bear witness! It will be some help and comfort to me, when I am here alone.”

  “Here alone?” said Tackleton. “Oh! Then you do mean to take some notice of this?”

  “I mean,” returned the Carrier, “to do her the greatest kindness, and make her the best reparation, in my power. I can release her from the daily pain of an unequal marriage, and the struggle to conceal it. She shall be as free as I can render her.”

  “Make her reparation!” exclaimed Tackleton, twisting and turning his great ears with his hands. “There must be something wrong here. You didn’t say that, of course.”

  The Carrier set his grip upon the collar of the Toy Merchant, and shook him like a reed.

  “Listen to me!” he said. “And take care that you hear me right. Listen to me. Do I speak plainly?”

  “Very plainly indeed,” answered Tackleton.

  “As if I meant it?”

  “Very much as if you meant it.”

  “I sat upon that hearth, last night, all night,” exclaimed the Carrier. “On the spot where she has often sat beside me, with her sweet face looking into mine. I called up her whole life, day by day. I had her dear self, in its every passage, in review before me. And upon my soul she is innocent, if there is One to judge the innocent and guilty! ”

  Staunch Cricket on the Hearth! Loyal household Fairies!

  “Passion and distrust have left me!” said the Carrier; “and nothing but my grief remains. In an unhappy moment some old lover, better suited to her tastes and years than I; forsaken, perhaps, for me, against her will; returned. In an unhappy moment, taken by surprise, and wanting time to think of what she did, she made herself a party to his treachery, by concealing it. Last night she saw him, in the interview we witnessed. It was wrong. But otherwise than this, she is innocent if there is truth on earth!”

  “If that is your opinion”—Tackleton began.

  “So, let her go!” pursued the Carrier. “Go, with my blessing for the many happy hours she has given me, and my forgiveness for any pang she has caused me. Let her go, and have the peace of mind I wish her! She’ll never hate me. She’ll learn to like me better, when I’m not a drag upon her, and she wears the chain I have riveted, more lightly. This is the day on which I took her, with so little thought for her enjoyment, from her home. To-day she shall return to it, and I will trouble her no more. Her father and mother will be here today—we had made a little plan for keeping it together—and they shall take her home. I can trust her, there, or anywhere. She leaves me without blame, and she will live so, I am sure. If I should die—I may perhaps while she is still young; I have lost some courage in a few hours—she’ll find that I remembered her, and loved her to the last! This is the end of what you showed me. Now, it’s over!”

  “Oh, no, John, not over. Do not say it’s over yet. Not quite yet. I have heard your noble words. I could not steal away, pretending to be ignorant of what has affected me with such deep gratitude. Do not say it’s over, till the clock has struck again!”

  She had entered shortly after Tackleton, and had remained there. She never looked at Tackleton, but fixed her eyes upon her husband. But she kept away from him, setting as wide a space as possible between them; and though she spoke with most impassioned earnestness, she went no nearer to him even then. How different in this from her old self!

  “No hand can make the clock which will strike again for me the hours that are gone,” replied the Carrier, with a faint smile. “But let it be so, if you will, my dear. It will strike soon. It’s of little matter what we say. I’d try to please you in a harder case than that.”

  “Well!” muttered Tackleton. “I must be off, for when it strikes again, it will be necessary for me to be upon my way to church. Good-morning, John Peerybingle. I’m sorry to be deprived of the pleasure of your company. Sorry for the loss, and the occasion of it too!”

  “I have spoken plainly?” said the Carrier, accompanying him to the door.

  “Oh, quite!”

  “And you’ll remember what I have said?”

  “Why, if you compel me to make the observation,” said Tackleton; previously taking the precaution of getting into his chaise; “I must say that it was so very unexpected, that I’m far from being likely to forget it.”

  “The better for us both,” returned the Carrier. “Good-bye. I give you joy!”

  “I wish I could give it to you,” said Tackleton. “As I can’t; thank’ee. Between ourselves (as I told you before, eh?), I don’t much think I shall have the less joy in my married life, because May hasn’t been too officious about me, and too demonstrative. Good-bye! Take care of yourself.”

  The Carrier stood looking after him until he was smaller in the distance than his horse’s flowers and favours near at hand; and then, with a deep sigh, went strolling like a restless, broken man, among some neighbouring elms; unwilling to return until the clock was on the eve of striking.

  His little wife, being left alone, so
bbed piteously; but often dried her eyes and checked herself, to say how good he was, how excellent he was! and once or twice she laughed; so heartily, triumphantly, and incoherently (still crying all the time), that Tilly was quite horrified.

  “Ow, if you please, don’t!” said Tilly. “It’s enough to dead and bury the Baby, so it is, if you please.”

  “Will you bring him sometimes to see his father, Tilly,” inquired her mistress, drying her eyes; “when I can’t live here, and have gone to my old home?”

  “Ow, if you please, don‘t!” cried Tilly, throwing back her head, and bursting out into a howl—she looked at the moment uncommonly like Boxer; “Ow, if you please, don’t! Ow, what has everybody gone and been and done with everybody, making everybody else so wretched? Ow-w-w-w!”

  The soft-hearted Slowboy tailed off at this juncture into such a deplorable howl, the more tremendous from its long suppression, that she must infallibly have awakened the Baby, and frightened him into something serious (probably convulsions), if her eyes had not encountered Caleb Plummer, leading in his daughter. This spectacle restoring her to a sense of the proprieties, she stood for some few moments silent, with her mouth wide open; and then, posting off to the bed on which the Baby lay asleep, danced in a weird, Saint Vitus manner52 on the floor, and at the same time rummaged with her face and head among the bedclothes, apparently deriving much relief from those extraordinary operations.

  “Mary!” said Bertha. “Not at the marriage!”

  “I told her you would not be there, mum,” whispered Caleb. “I heard as much last night. But bless you,” said the little man, taking her tenderly by both hands, “I don’t care for what they say. I don’t believe them. There an’t much of me, but that little should be torn to pieces sooner than I’d trust a word against you!”

  He put his arms about her neck and hugged her, as a child might have hugged one of his own dolls.