Tim Cratchit's Christmas Carol Page 12

  “I have plenty of time and nothing of more importance to occupy me,” the man said. “It is required of everyone to go forth among his fellow men, and assist them when one can.”

  “That’s very kind of you,” Ginny said, thinking that the man must be a vicar, or some other sort of religious devotee.

  “Think nothing of it. In the morning you must go to Dr. Cratchit. I know for certain that he will help you, and Jonathan.”

  “How do you know about Jonathan?” Ginny inquired.

  “As I said, I’m a friend of Dr. Cratchit, and well informed of his affairs.”

  Ginny looked at her sleeping child. She realized with surprise that the conversation had not awakened either Jonathan or Lizzie.

  The man unbuttoned his overcoat, removed a thick wool blanket from underneath it, and handed it to Ginny.

  “Regrettably, I cannot offer you shelter tonight, or I would gladly do so,” he said. “But my abode is far away. This will help to keep you warm until morning, and this”—he removed a sovereign from his coat pocket and gave it to her—“will pay for a cab to Dr. Cratchit’s house.” The gentleman’s words were mildly spoken, yet so compelling that Ginny knew she would follow his instructions.

  “All right, sir,” Ginny said. “We’ll go to the doctor’s house tomorrow, if I can find it.”

  “I’ve written down the doctor’s address. Just give it to the driver.” He placed a slip of paper in her hand.

  “Thank you, sir, thank you so much,” Ginny said.

  The man reached out, pulled the blanket back, and patted Jonathan’s head. “Everything will be all right, you’ll see. Merry Christmas.”

  “Merry Christmas to you, sir,” Ginny replied with fervor, unfolding the new blanket and covering herself and the children. When she looked up, the kind old man was gone. She turned and stared down the alley, looking first toward the street, then toward the brick wall where the alley came to a dead end. The man seemed to have vanished. Ginny realized that she had forgotten to ask his name. She would find out from Dr. Cratchit, and write him a letter of thanks. The doctor had not been able to identify him when Ginny had mentioned him at their first meeting. Now, however, she had a clue. When he had extended his arm to caress Jonathan, the old man’s immaculate white shirt cuff had extended beyond the sleeve of his overcoat. Ginny had noticed the initials inscribed on his gold cufflink. The letters read E.S.

  Chapter 11

  Like an explorer picking his way across a bog pocked with pools of quicksand, Tim trod cautiously up the walk to his office door. He glanced back toward the street, expecting Dr. Eustace’s carriage to appear at any moment. The last thing he wanted was to start the day with another confrontation. Usually he arrived at the office hours before his partner, but today he was running late.

  Worried about Ginny and Jonathan, he had found it difficult to fall asleep the previous night. Images of the pair huddled in a doorway in the cold kept him awake well after he had heard the hallway clock chime midnight. He had awakened an hour later than usual, and then his drive to the office had been delayed by an overturned wagon blocking the road.

  Tim reached his office door and slipped inside without encountering Dr. Eustace. The day was a relatively quiet one, which allowed him too much time to contemplate once again what might have happened to Ginny and Jonathan. He had heard nothing from the people he had asked to look for them, although that was not surprising given the difficulty of locating two people among the multitude of London’s poor. How many women were wandering about with a child? Thousands in St. Giles, thousands more in Whitechapel and other impoverished neighborhoods. The likelihood of finding Ginny and Jonathan, even if Tim had a hundred people searching, was minuscule.

  Ushering a patient out the front door, Tim spotted a messenger hurrying down the street. The day was cool but not unpleasant, so Tim waited on the top step in the hope that the boy was carrying a telegram for him. Perhaps it was a message from someone who had found Ginny, or a reply to one of his inquiries about Jonathan’s condition.

  The messenger—a boy about twelve—stopped in front of the building, tried to read the name on the door of Eustace’s office, couldn’t decipher it at that distance, and then spied Tim. He walked briskly toward him in the hope that Tim was the intended recipient of the telegrams he carried.

  The boy looked down at the envelopes clutched in his right hand, holding them a few inches from his stubby nose. “Dr. Cratchit?” he asked.

  “Yes, that’s me,” Tim answered. The messenger walked briskly to the bottom of the steps, stopped, and extended his arm with the two envelopes. Tim noticed that he was squinting. This young fellow needs spectacles, he thought, but decided not to mention it. Such a remark might cause the boy embarrassment.

  “Telegrams for you, Doctor.” Tim took the envelopes and gave the boy a shilling.

  “Thank you, sir,” the lad said, touching his hand to his cap as he eyed the gratuity with a mixture of surprise and pleasure.

  “Merry Christmas,” Tim said.

  “And the same to you, sir,” the messenger replied, pivoting on his heel and scurrying down the walk to his next destination.

  Back in his office, Tim sat at his clerk’s desk and opened the first of the two telegrams. It was from another of his London colleagues, the last of that group to answer, and had no help to offer. The physician pronounced Jonathan’s condition fatal. Treatment a waste of time, the terse message read.

  The contents of the second telegram were slightly more encouraging. It was from Hamish Baird, who had been Tim’s primary instructor in surgery many years earlier. Prognosis not good. Perhaps not hopeless, Baird had written. Letter to follow. Tim felt just a shade more optimistic about Jonathan. Even the slightest chance of helping the boy was better than consigning him to a slow and painful death. Before Tim could ponder the matter further, his next patient arrived.

  While Tim’s afternoon passed quietly, affairs in the Crompton household were in turmoil. Mrs. Crompton had insisted that her husband take the afternoon off from work and take her Christmas shopping. Archibald Crompton had reluctantly consented, and arrived home expecting to eat his noon meal and then venture out for an afternoon pursuing his wife’s ever-changing whims through London’s most fashionable and expensive shops. He arrived in the dining room to find a plate of bread next to a dish of butter. A cold cup of tea sat beside them.

  “Before you say one word about the meal, you will just have to make do,” Mrs. Crompton declared as she charged in from the servants’ pantry. “I had to dismiss that worthless lout of a cook you hired on Monday. She can’t fry an egg!”

  “She came highly recommended by the Pembertons,” Crompton said evenly. He knew it was useless to debate the issue. If Queen Victoria sent over the royal chef, his wife would find something to complain about. He sat down, cut a slice of bread, covered it thickly with butter, and took a bite. His failure to make a more overt challenge to his wife’s decision left Mrs. Crompton momentarily speechless.

  “Where is Jane?” he asked, taking advantage of her silence to inquire.

  “At the butcher shop and the grocer’s,” Mrs. Crompton replied.

  Through a mouthful of buttery bread, Crompton said, “I thought she might be shopping for a new dress for Saturday.”

  “You have the manners of a dockworker,” Mrs. Crompton sniffed. “People of our class do not talk with their mouths full.” She hesitated a moment, studying her husband’s face as he crammed another bite of bread into his mouth. Observing her expression, Crompton braced himself. Something was coming, and he had a pretty good idea what it was.

  “Our daughter is not going to that dinner party, and that’s all there is to it,” Mrs. Crompton announced at last. “It will ruin her reputation to go to the home of a bachelor and act as hostess.”

  Archibald Crompton pushed his chair back from the table and looked at his wife, w
ho had picked up his cup of tea, gulped it down, and was now waving the porcelain cup like a battle flag. His first thought was to say that he had forgotten something at work and make a dash for the door, but he felt compelled to stand up for his daughter. With a deep sigh, he addressed his wife.

  “Be reasonable, dear,” he began, as if reason might have the least impact on Mrs. Crompton’s attitude. “Dr. Cratchit is a gentleman and a highly respected medical man. We will be there. The doctor’s family will be there. What can you possibly be worried about?”

  Mrs. Crompton waved the cup even more furiously, sending the remaining droplets of tea spattering across the white linen tablecloth. One of her cats, which had somehow found its way back into the house suspecting that the cup might contain milk, leaped onto the table. Finding no milk, the long-haired feline seized upon the butter as the next best option and pounced onto the dish. The cat took a large bite, apparently found the butter unsatisfactory, and tried to spit out the greasy gobbet. Succeeding at last, it then raised its hindquarters, lowered its face, and began wiping its mouth on the tablecloth.

  Mrs. Crompton watched the scene in horror. Recovering from her shock, she ran shrieking into the servants’ pantry, emerging a moment later with a broom. Waving it furiously, she charged the cat. Realizing that it had outstayed its welcome, the agile feline evaded the swinging broom and leaped to the floor. It ran through the open door of the servants’ pantry with Mrs. Crompton in hot pursuit. The closed back door blocked the cat’s escape, and it turned, hissing, one paw raised with claws exposed to defend itself. Quickly sizing up the situation, Mrs. Crompton reached for the knob and threw the door open. The cat, seeing this opportunity, chose flight over fight. Mrs. Crompton took a final swipe at it as it retreated down the back steps, then she slammed the door shut.

  Returning to the dining room, Mrs. Crompton was greeted by peals of her husband’s laughter.

  “Oh, it—is funny, is—it?” she asked, pausing between words as she panted from her exertions.

  “Last week those cats were your ‘precious babies,’ and if I had done what you just did, you’d have broken a vase over my head.” Archibald Crompton chuckled. “Now you’ve got no use for them. Ha!”

  “That was before I learned I was allergic,” she replied, having caught her breath. “Anyway, do not change the subject. We were talking about Jane and why she should not attend Dr. Cratchit’s party. As I was trying to tell you, Jane is very naïve. She does not understand the ways of the world. That doctor might try to lure her into some kind of romantic entanglement that would be beneath her.”

  “Beneath her?” Archibald Crompton asked incredulously. “How would it be beneath her to become engaged to Dr. Cratchit, assuming that they do decide they want to be married? He has a prosperous practice and is well regarded by all who know him.”

  “Jane can do better,” his wife declared.

  “No one who courts Jane will ever be good enough in your opinion,” Crompton said, thumping his fist on the table as he reached the limit of his ability to tolerate his wife’s carping. “Every time a decent man has so much as smiled at Jane, you’ve frightened him off with your criticism. Are you really protecting her, or are you just trying to keep her tied to you, tied to our home? If you have your way, she’ll end up as a worn-out old maid, not that it matters to you, so long as she’s doing your bidding.”

  “I’m simply trying to train her to keep house properly, so she won’t be taken advantage of by lazy servants,” Mrs. Crompton retorted. “And I don’t want to keep her here forever. I want her to get married, to someone who will take care of her properly. Her marriage will determine whether she can enjoy the life of leisure and luxury that is appropriate for her.”

  “Have you ever used any of the leisure that our marriage provides you to ask your daughter what she wants?”

  “Jane does not know what she wants,” Mrs. Crompton asserted. “Left to herself, she is likely to choose the wrong husband, someone beneath her station.”

  “You may mean well,” her husband conceded, “but it’s Jane’s life, and you mustn’t keep forcing her to conform to your views. In any case, we shall honor Dr. Cratchit’s invitation—all three of us.”

  Mrs. Crompton groped for ammunition to continue the battle. After a moment’s thought, she returned to the fray.

  “We know nothing about this man’s family. Where does he come from? For all we know, he arose out of the dregs of London, and that makes him unsuitable for Jane. And reflects poorly on us as a result, don’t forget.”

  “Like it made me unsuitable for you?” Archibald Crompton asked. “You well know that my grandfather was a humble brickmason, and my father a shopkeeper. When I took over the business I invested wisely in the China trade, and profited by it. I don’t recall you asking if I was the descendant of an earl once you learned that I had an ample bank account.”

  Mrs. Crompton’s face reddened; the truth of her husband’s words stung. Seeing he was gaining the upper hand for one of the few times in their many arguments, Crompton drove home his point.

  “Since we are discussing families, why not yours as well? Your father was quite the prominent barrister before he started spending more time at the card tables and gaming houses than at the Inns of Court. And what kind of dowry did you bring to our marriage? Not a farthing! As I recall, it was I who had to come up with near ten thousand pounds to keep old Dad out of debtors’ prison and avoid a public scandal.”

  Rendered speechless by her husband’s unexpected outburst, Mrs. Crompton stomped out of the dining room. Archibald Crompton was not worried about his wife making any further effort to keep Jane from attending the party. If she did, he had one weapon left in his arsenal—the threat to refuse to pay the numerous bills that she incurred at the dressmaker’s and all of the other shops where she spent much of her time and much of his money. But, he thought, it would not come to that. His wife would show up at the dinner party with a cheery smile and flatter Dr. Cratchit shamelessly. She had a remarkable talent for that kind of acting. Should she ever bankrupt him, he thought, she could easily find work on the stage.

  As if confirming her husband’s thoughts, Mrs. Crompton returned to the dining room a few minutes later. All trace of her anger had vanished.

  “Well,” she asked Archibald, “are you going to sit there all afternoon, or are we going shopping?”

  Chapter 12

  Tim, having no appointments after three o’clock, was tempted to go home early. Yet he dared not leave the office empty; if a patient should arrive with a real or imagined emergency and he was absent, Dr. Eustace would certainly learn of it and let loose another storm of wrath.

  Unwilling to waste the rest of the afternoon in idleness, Tim spent the remaining hours studying anatomical charts, calculating exactly where the nerves and blood vessels were located in relation to Jonathan’s tumor. He diagrammed the size and location of the tumor on a sheet of onionskin paper, then superimposed it on the charts of the circulatory and nervous systems. All of this information would be essential should he decide to operate on the boy. The more Tim pondered Jonathan’s case, the more he believed that surgery offered the only hope of improvement. Unfortunately, it was just as likely to end in paralysis, or even death.

  Tim jotted several pages of notes, and had just leaned back in his chair when he heard the first chime of six o’clock. Emerging from the office a few minutes later, he found Henry waiting at the curb. The coachman greeted him with an unusually bright smile. Tim almost asked him why he was so happy, considered that it might have something to do with Bridget and therefore was none of his business, and settled for a simple “Good evening.”

  At home Tim learned the reason for Henry’s cheery demeanor. Tim walked inside to find Ginny Whitson setting the dining room table, while Bridget sat by the fire cradling Jonathan in her arms. The housekeeper greeted him with a smile, her green eyes glowing with delight.
She knew how worried Tim had been about the missing pair.

  “Good evening, Bridget,” Tim said, “and Miss Whitson, I’m very glad to see you and Jonathan. I’ve been trying to find you and have been very concerned.”

  “That’s what the gentleman said,” Ginny replied, without interrupting her work. “He found us last night and gave me money for a cab and told us where you lived. I got the first cab I could find in the morning and came right over.”

  “Who was this gentleman?” Tim asked.

  “The same kind old man who directed me the day I was looking for your office. White hair and a long nose and pointy chin. I don’t know his name, but I saw his initials on his cufflinks. E.S.”

  Smart woman, Tim thought. Very observant. He ran through a list of his friends and acquaintances in his mind, trying to match the initials. The only person he could think of, and who might be charitable enough to search for Ginny and Jonathan on a cold winter night, was the Reverend Ethan Strong, vicar of his parish, St. Joseph’s. Although he had not told Strong about Ginny and Jonathan, the priest spent a fair amount of time ministering to the poor and might have learned about them from someone in the network Tim had activated. Strong was in his midfifties—Tim did not consider him old—but to Ginny, who was not much older than twenty, he might well have seemed elderly. And while the priest did not have a pointy chin, his nose was certainly prominent. Tim would ask him about the matter on Sunday.

  His musings were interrupted when the door to the serving pantry opened with a clang. Tim was amazed to see a young girl, clearly a street urchin although she had obviously been cleaned up, carrying a serving tray. Apparently the door had started to swing shut after she pushed it open, hitting the tray and knocking the cover loose, which had caused the noise. The girl was wearing one of Bridget’s frocks, pinned up at the bottom to shorten it, but the skirt still dragged on the floor, forcing the girl to walk carefully. Arriving at the table, she slid the tray across it.