Christmas Carol Read online

  “There is no poorhouse anymore,” said Mrs. Marks in her sternest voice. “Good heavens, girl, haven’t you got any sense at all?”

  “I’ll be out on the streets,” Hettie cried. “I’ll be homeless. I’ll never find another job. I ain’t fit for nothin’ but kitchen work. You told me so yourself, Mrs. Marks, and it’s true. It’s true!”

  “Hush now, Hettie.” Nell put her arms around the weeping girl. “I’ll take care of you. I said I would. We’ll find some kind of work to do. Well start looking on Tuesday, soon as Boxing Day’s over.”

  “Why is Hettie so upset?” Carol asked Lady Augusta.

  “For the same reason you were upset yesterday,” Lady Augusta responded, “and for the reasons I explained to you earlier. Hettie knows how slim her chances of finding employment are. How is a semiliterate young woman to find work in today’s harsh world? Nor will she have a home after Marlowe House is closed up and sold when my estate is settled.”

  “There are social services available for people like her,” Carol said.

  “Perhaps. I am inclined to think that what Hettie needs is a caring mentor rather than an overburdened social worker.”

  “Nell said she would help.”

  “Nell’s situation is not much more hopeful than Hettie’s.” Lady Augusta paused for a moment, gazing at the scene of the two young servants in a tear-drenched embrace while Crampton and Mrs. Marks looked on as if uncertain what they ought to do or say.

  “I know Crampton and Mrs. Marks have worked for your family since the end of World War II, so they at least must be pretty well fixed,” Carol said. She was trying unsuccessfully to shake a growing sensation of uneasiness and guilt generated by the scene she was witnessing. She told herself that none of the misfortune she saw before her was her fault, nor could she be expected to do anything about it.

  “I regret to say that neither my father nor I ever paid our servants adequately,” Lady Augusta replied to Carol’s comment. “Both Crampton and Mrs. Marks remained with me out of a combination of loyalty and inertia, and perhaps also because they did not wish to be separated from each other. Now, they are left with whatever they have been able to save out of their wages and the small bequests I made to them in my will.”

  “But they are all four decent, hardworking people,” Carol cried. “Can you foresee their futures? What will happen to them?”

  “Crampton and Mrs. Marks will pool their resources and retire together,” Lady Augusta replied. “Nell and Hettie will try to find work, but there are almost no more establishments like mine left these days, where a girl could begin as a scullery maid and slowly work her way up to cook or housekeeper or lady’s maid. Hettie and Nell will have to move into another line of work.”

  “But if Hettie can’t read well,” Carol protested, “then she’s right. She won’t find a good job.”

  “There is always one kind of work available to a desperate young woman. An ancient profession. Neither Hettie nor Nell is homely. With some paint on their faces and some bright, tight-fitting clothes—”

  “No!” Carol cried. “Don’t even suggest such a thing, not with all the terrible diseases people can be infected with these days. Prostitution would be an almost certain death sentence for them. Even if they should survive, what they would have to do each day and night would still break their hearts and their spirits. They don’t deserve that.”

  “If no one will help them, they will have little choice.” Lady Augusta shrugged her velvet-clad shoulders. The movement sent a spray of pure, icy glitter dancing from her diamond earrings across the faces and the worn clothing of the four people in the servants’ dining room. Only Carol saw that supernatural light or heard Lady Augusta’s next, seemingly careless words. “With workers in the social system too busy to spare more than a thought for two badly educated, jobless girls, what can you expect?”

  “You are trying to make me feel personally guilty about something that isn’t my fault,” Carol said, angrily fighting against her own emotions. Deliberately, she turned her back on the scene in the servants’ dining room, as though not seeing it could block it out of her mind. “If Hettie’s situation—and Nell’s—is anyone’s fault, then it is yours, Lady Augusta. You are the one who took advantage of them, who didn’t pay them properly, or make any provision for their futures so they would have a little money to fall back on when you died.”

  “Very true,” said Lady Augusta, her nod of agreement sending another shower of light into the room. “I will never cease to regret my miserly actions. I know now, as I did not know during life, that we are all responsible for the helpless among us. Unfortunately, I am no longer in a position to assist Hettie and Nell. You, however, might do something, if you care enough to make an effort in their behalf.”

  “How do you expect me to do anything for them when I’m no better off than they are?” Carol shouted at her. “Take me out of here. I’ve seen enough.”

  “Not quite,” said Lady Augusta. “There is more. Turn around, Carol. Watch and listen.”

  While Lady Augusta and Carol argued unseen and unheard, Nell had succeeded in calming Hettie and had coaxed her to sit down at the table again. Crampton stood in his place at the head of the table, pouring an amber liquid into four glasses from the bottle that Lady Augusta claimed held her best brandy. These glasses Crampton passed around to the women.

  “I would like to offer a toast or two,” Crampton said, lifting his glass. “First, to the blessed holiday.”

  “To the holiday,” echoed Mrs. Marks, drinking with him. The two younger women sipped at the brandy as if they didn’t much care for it.

  “And now,” said Crampton, “I ask you to drink to the memory of our late employer. To Lady Augusta.”

  “To Lady Augusta.” Mrs. Marks swallowed another mouthful of brandy and Crampton refilled her glass and his own.

  “Lady Augusta,” cried Nell.

  “Lady Augusta.” Hettie tipped back her glass and drank.

  “Nicely done,” said Lady Augusta, smiling her approval of the toast.

  “Mindful of the improbability that we will all be together for much longer,” Crampton went on, “I would now like to offer a toast to the entire household staff. We have worked well together, I think, and I can honestly say that I will miss those of our little group who plan to move on to other positions.”

  “Very well put, Mr. Crampton,” said Mrs. Marks. “A sentiment suitable to the holiday. A toast to the four of us.” Thus bidden, they all drank.

  “I want to make a toast, too.” Nell was on her feet, glass in hand. “We can’t forget Miss Simmons. To her health!”

  “To Miss Simmons,” said Hettie, bravely trying not to start crying again.

  “Custom dictates that the butler should propose the toasts,” Mrs. Marks declared, sending a disapproving glare toward each of the young women.

  “In the name of the holiday,” remarked Crampton, reaching for the brandy bottle again, “I will drink to Miss Simmons’s good health. This is not a time for pettiness, Mrs. Marks. You and I both know that the grand old days of this house are long gone. Let us participate in our last Christmas here with generosity in our hearts.” With that, he refilled glasses all around, and everyone drank to Carol’s health.

  “It is time to go,” Lady Augusta said to Carol. “We have another visit to make tonight, and the hour grows late.”

  “What will happen to them?” Carol whispered, her eyes and her thoughts still lingering on Nell and Hettie. “What could I possibly do to help them when I need help myself?”

  “Unless the shadows I foresee are modified by kind and loving hearts,” Lady Augusta told her, “the future prospects for all four of my former servants are unpleasant. However, the time for action is not yet. First, there is more for us to see.”

  Before Carol could offer any excuse to stay where she was, the scene around her changed. With Lady Augusta by her side, she was propelled out of Marlowe House and into the streets of London by the same r
emarkable process that earlier had moved her in the blink of an eye from her bedroom to the kitchen. Though it had been nighttime while she was observing the servants’ Christmas dinner, Carol saw that it was now bright daylight.

  “It is the afternoon of this year’s Christmas Eve,” Lady Augusta explained, as if she could read Carol’s mind. “As in the servants’ quarters at Marlowe House, so here, no one we pass will be able to see or hear us. You cannot be permitted to change the present until you yourself are changed.’

  “What if I don’t want to change?” asked Carol with grim resistance.

  “That is but the last vestige of your old self speaking,” said Lady Augusta. “You are too intelligent not to change once you know all you are meant to know.”

  “I wish you would stop talking in riddles,” Carol muttered. “I already know more than I want to know, and everything I’ve learned has only made me more unhappy than I was before you came back from the dead.”

  “I have not come back,” remarked her companion. “The Lady Augusta whom you once knew is dead for all eternity.”

  “So is Nicholas.” The words slipped out before Carol could stop herself.

  “Nicholas,” Lady Augusta repeated, her eyebrows raised. “Carol, you disappoint me. Surely your experience with me has taught you that the spirit never dies.”

  “You just said yourself that you are dead. So is Nicholas dead.” Carol shook her head in disgust at what appeared to her to be a senseless conversation. “Lady Augusta, you are speaking in riddles again.”

  “No, I am telling you a simple truth, which you are still too blind, and too impatient, to comprehend. Ah, here we are.”

  They had reached an old church located not far from Marlowe House.

  “I know this place,” Carol said. “It’s Saint Fiacre’s Church. The rector read your funeral service.”

  “The Reverend Mr. Lucius Kincaid,” said Lady Augusta. “He is a fine man.”

  “Really? I didn’t notice.” Carol grimaced, remembering the rector and his fashionably dressed wife. “He accosted me at your funeral and tried to get a donation out of me.”

  “And of course you refused.” Lady Augusta sounded amused. “So would I have refused, once upon a time. I know better now.”

  As she had previously observed, while she was with Lady Augusta, Carol was able to pass through walls or move along streets in the same way as her companion and with no effort on her own part. Thus they moved through Saint Fiacre’s Church, which was solidly built of ancient stones, and out the back to a tiny garden dedicated to the patron saint. In one corner of the garden stood a statue of Saint Fiacre, leaning on his shovel while he contemplated the winter-bare flower beds at his feet.

  “Poor old St. Fiacre.” Carol paused to look more closely at the statue. “After so many centuries, who can be sure what crisis in your life sent you off into the wilderness to live as a hermit? I have done something similar myself, so I had no right to criticize you the other day. I am sorry for what I said about you.”

  “I am glad to hear you speak kindly of him,” said Lady Augusta. Then she added more sharply, “However, your regrets cannot help St. Fiacre now. You would be wiser to save your concern for the living.”

  An instant later Carol and Lady Augusta passed through the stone garden wall and into a brightly lit, though shabby and unappealing, hall. This appeared to be a building of great age, for the plaster of the high ceiling was smoke-blackened and the walls were cracked and in need of a fresh coat of paint.

  A series of metal tables was set up in the middle of this hall. Paper cloths decorated with Christmas motifs covered the tables and cheap metal folding chairs were drawn up to them. A few red and green bells were hung in the doorways, the ceiling being too high for such decorations. An artificial tree stood to one side, its ornaments of macaroni sprinkled with multicolored sparkles, painted clay angels with lopsided wings, and bright chains made of construction paper loops all attesting to the loving industry of Sunday school students.

  “Where are we?” Carol asked. “I smell turkey again.”

  “This is the enterprise for which the Reverend Mr. Kincaid solicited your donation,” Lady Augusta responded. “While you refused him, others did respond. Six turkeys were given just yesterday. At the Christmas season the public responds most generously, though these good people need help all year long.”

  “Help for what? Is that a buffet table set up at the back of the hall? Is this a party? If so, where are the guests?”

  “They will be invited to enter in a few minutes,” said Lady Augusta. “Welcome to Saint Fiacre’s Bountiful Board, Carol.”

  “It’s a soup kitchen,” Carol said, finally understanding. “The people who run this place are feeding the poor.”

  She now became aware of a great bustle of activity in a room off the back of the hall. By the smells coming from it, Carol deduced that this was the kitchen. Out of this kitchen now filed a little band of people, some of whom Carol recognized. The similarity to the servants’ procession and feast at Marlowe House was unmistakable, for the same spirit of Christmas cheerfulness in the face of harsh economic reality permeated both events.

  As Carol and Lady Augusta watched, the Reverend Mr. Kincaid and his wife appeared, each carrying a cheap aluminum tray heaped with slices of roast turkey. Two elderly ladies hurried into the hall with pans of stuffing. More volunteers brought in the rest of the meal. Even three small Kincaids—distinguishable by their close resemblance to their blond, bhie-eyed mother—had been pressed into service, each child bringing some portion of the feast to the buffet table.

  Three or four men who were present tended to the lighting of alcohol burners under the trays of food, which were intended to keep the food hot. The men then took up positions in front of the table as if they were standing guard to prevent the expected rush of hungry folk from upsetting the table and setting the hall on fire. The elderly women stationed themselves behind the platters and bowls of food, serving spoons in hand.

  “Now,” said the Reverend Mr. Kincaid to his helpers, “I do believe we are ready to open the doors.”

  “Thank heaven it is warm enough for people to wait outside without freezing,” remarked Mrs. Kincaid. “There is always so much confusion until everyone has a plate.”

  Mrs. Kincaid was for this occasion clad in a bright red ankle-length skirt and an equally bright green turtleneck sweater. Each of the little Kincaids wore a red or a green garment, and all were freshly scrubbed and neatly brushed. The Reverend Mr. Kincaid regarded his family with justifiable pleasure.

  “How grateful I am to have all of you by my side,” he said to his wife, who responded by laughing and kissing his cheek. The elderly ladies who were waiting to dish up the meal smiled and nodded their approval at this sign of domestic bliss.

  “Mrs. Kincaid sure doesn’t worry about spending money for clothing,” Carol noted to Lady Augusta in a sour tone. “I’ll bet she could make a sizeable donation to this soup kitchen if she weren’t so concerned about fashion.”

  “You know nothing at all about the Kincaids’ situation, Carol.” Lady Augusta sounded remarkably sad, considering the joyful atmosphere in the hall. “Clergymen do not earn large salaries, especially those who accept assignments to parishes once fashionable but now fallen upon hard times. In Lucius Kincaid’s case, he turns more than a tithe back to the parish so that he can carry out his charitable work.

  “Abigail Kincaid buys almost all of her clothing, and her children’s clothing, from rummage sales. She cleans and patches and irons every piece of clothing herself. What she cannot buy in that way, she sews. If she and her children appear to be dressed in the latest style, perhaps it is because she has inherited her fashion sense from ancestors who were once almost as poor as she is today. It may also be that she imagines a good appearance on her part will cheer her hardworking husband and thus bolster his self-esteem and happiness. You might be interested in knowing more about Mrs. Kincaid.”

  “Sh
e does sound like an admirable woman,” Carol admitted. “From what you have told me, it seems I judged her too hastily.”

  “And misjudged her husband, too.” Lady Augusta broke off, watching the activity in the hall. The front doors of the building were now thrown open and a line of people surged forward toward the buffet table. Carol stared in amazement as a steady stream of men, women, and children, black, white, and East Indian, were served plates of food and shown to places at the tables in the middle of the hall. There was no pushing or shoving. Everyone was polite, but the sheer mass of hungry people did create the confusion Mrs. Kincaid had mentioned.

  “I had no idea there were so many poor people in this area of London,” Carol remarked. “A lot of them are old, and some are just teenagers or little children.”

  “The poor we have always with us,” noted Lady Augusta.

  “That’s hardly an original thought,” Carol said, adding, “Tell me more about Mrs. Kincaid. From what I’ve seen while we have been standing here, it looks to me as though she is the one who organizes these meals.”

  “You are correct,” said Lady Augusta. “Her husband is the spiritual force behind their efforts to feed the poor, but it is Abigail Penelope Kincaid’s practical mind that arranges and directs these affairs so well that they never degenerate into chaos.”

  “Penelope?” Carol stared at Mrs. Kincaid, noticing familiar features she had missed in her first scrutiny of the woman.

  “I wondered how long it would take you to see the family resemblance,” said Lady Augusta. “Like you, Mrs. Kincaid is a descendant of Lady Penelope Hyde, and thus is your distant cousin. Very distant, I must admit. But then, all the world is related, if you care to trace ancestors back far enough.”

  “I never would have guessed if you hadn’t told me. I wasn’t really seeing her that first time we met. I was too involved with my own feelings to pay attention to her or to hear what she was saying to me.” Carol bit her lip, watching Abigail Kincaid take the plate of an old woman at the buffet table and offer the woman her arm to lean upon as, with a smile and a cheerful word, she helped the woman to find a seat at one of the dining tables.