Christmas Carol Read online

  “No, I’m going out on the town.” Her tone was so sarcastic that Crampton’s eyebrows flew upward at the sound.

  “I beg your pardon, Miss Simmons?” Disapproval was implicit in the butler’s voice.

  “Of course I’ll eat in my room. Don’t I always?” When she first arrived at Marlowe House, Carol had been expected to dine each evening in the formal dining room with her employer, but after Lady Augusta had taken to her bed during her final illness, Carol had asked for a tray to be brought to her own room so she could eat there. It was the easiest way she could think of to give herself an hour or so of privacy at the end of her busy and frequently upsetting days with her irascible patient.

  Leaving the drawing room, Carol started up the wide, curving staircase. As her hand skimmed along the banister, it seemed to her that the polished wood vibrated beneath her fingertips. Of course, it was just foolish imagining on her part. She was overtired and suffering from the inevitable letdown that came after a funeral. Not to mention the letdown of knowing that Lady Augusta had not chosen to remember her companion’s five and a half years of honest service with a bequest.

  “It didn’t have to be a lot of money,” Carol muttered, reaching the top of the main stairs and walking along the hall toward the smaller flight of steps that led to the uppermost levels of Marlowe House. “A hundred pounds, two hundred at the most. Ye gods, that would only have been five hundred dollars or so, and everybody knows she was fabulously wealthy. She could have let me know that she appreciated all I did for her.”

  A low, cynical laugh came from the direction of Lady Augusta’s suite of rooms. Carol paused for a moment or two, standing at the closed door. All was silence.

  “Now I’m hearing ghosts,” Carol said aloud. “There is no one in that room. I know it.” Nonetheless, she opened the door. Within, the curtains were drawn, so the room was dim and shadowy. Carol fumbled for the light switch and found it, and electric bulbs glowed in the crystal chandelier that hung in the center of the ceiling. “Just as I thought. No one is here. Nor in the bathroom, either. Nor in the dressing room.” Carol moved from bath to mirrored dressing room and back to the bedroom, still talking to herself.

  “Lady Augusta was the kind of personality that impresses itself on everything around it and hangs on after death. That’s what I’m reacting to. Tomorrow I’ll tell Nell to open the windows in here and do a thorough cleaning to get rid of the last traces of the old girl, including that awful lavender perfume of hers.”

  Carol started for the hall, then paused. Though she knew it was impossible because she had just searched the suite, a prickling sensation between her shoulder blades warned that there was someone else in the bedroom with her. She spun around, but the room was still empty. From somewhere a cold draft blew across her ankles and she caught a whiff of lavender fragrance. Quickly she turned off the light, stepped into the hall, and shut the door firmly behind her. Then she hurried to the end of the hall, where the stairs to the upper floors were. She refused to look back as she went upward toward her own room.

  It had once been a governess’s room, and thus fell into an indeterminate status between outright servants’ quarters and a chamber that might have been given to an insignificant guest when Marlowe House was overcrowded. The room was at the front of the house, and a pair of windows allowed Carol a view of the square, which in summer was pleasant enough with trees, grass, and a flower garden, all confined within a wrought-iron fence. At the moment a small fir tree in the center of the square was decorated for Christmas. Its colored lights shone merrily through the early evening fog and drizzle. The weather was more like Halloween than Christmastime. It was a fine night for ghosts, if Carol had believed in them. She did not. There was little Carol did believe in anymore. She closed the curtains against the cheerful holiday display.

  Nell, the chambermaid, had already been in to start a fire in the old fireplace to take the chill off the room. The flames threw dancing shadows across the ceiling and the walls. It was a simple room, with an old-fashioned four-poster bed that had once boasted frayed velvet hangings. The dust and the musty odor of the antique fabric had periodically sent her into fits of sneezing, so Carol had personally removed the hangings shortly after her arrival at Marlowe House. Besides the bed, the room also contained a chest of drawers, a desk and chair, and an upholstered wing chair next to the fireplace. A floor lamp, a footstool, and a small table, all of them set next to the wing chair, completed the furnishings. The bathroom was three doors down the hall.

  Carol did not care that the room was bare of pretty objects, that the bed looked naked without its hangings, or that the old Turkish carpet and the green bedspread were both threadbare. She could think of no good reason to spend her hard-earned money on frivolous decorations. The Spartan bareness of her room suited her repressed spirit—though she would not have said she was repressed. Carol thought of herself as sensible in the face of adversity.

  Having no further obligations for that evening, she changed from her plain, dark dress and low-heeled pumps into a flannel nightgown and a warm bathrobe.

  “Here’s your dinner, Miss Simmons.” Nell appeared with a tray. “Oh, are you ready for bed so soon? I wish you would come down to eat with the rest of us. It’s ever so much more pleasant in the kitchen, and warmer, too. You’ll freeze way up here all alone.”

  “No, I won’t.” Carol motioned to her to put the tray on the table next to the wing chair. “That will be all, Nell.”

  “You oughten to be alone so much.” Nell took no offense at the similarity of Carol’s tone to the way in which Lady Augusta had always spoken to the chambermaid. Nell’s youthful warmth could not be diminished by anyone else’s coldness, and her broad, rosy face showed her concern for Carol. “Especially not tonight, you shouldn’t be up here by yourself. Not after the funeral and all.”

  “I’m tired. I want to be left alone.”

  “All right, then, if you’re sure. But tomorrow, you ought to come to the kitchen and join our plans. We’re hopin’ to make a nice little Christmas feast while we’re all still together, and you’re invited, of course. Well, good night, miss. Sleep tight now.”

  “Good night, Nell.” As Lady Augusta had often remarked, Nell did not know her place in the household hierarchy. According to Lady Augusta, Nell’s most improper friendliness was a sign of the degenerating times. In Lady Augusta’s day, servants had known their places and stayed in them. If she could have heard Nell’s invitation, Lady Augusta probably would have declared that no lady’s companion should have been invited into the kitchen to share a Christmas feast concocted by servants. While not entirely agreeing with Lady Augusta’s undemocratic attitudes, Carol had no interest in holiday celebrations of any kind, whether above or below stairs.

  Carol sat down before the fire, put her feet upon the low stool, and took from her dinner tray a bowl of steaming soup. Mrs. Marks was an excellent cook, seeming to find challenge rather than discouragement in the tight budget which Lady Augusta allowed her. Carol spooned up rich chicken broth with thin slices of mushroom in it and wondered if the staff was eating as well as she. Lifting the domed metal cover over her dinner plate, she discovered a healthy portion of the chicken itself, with peas, diced beets, and a small pile of rice. A wedge of apple tart completed the meal, along with a large pot of tea.

  “Foolish extravagance.”

  Had she spoken aloud? Surely not. But there was no one in the room except herself to make such a remark. Save for the crackling of the fire, all was silent. The kitchen was too far away for any noise from that area to disturb her.

  Or for anyone to hear her if she called.

  Telling herself that she was indeed overtired as well as overstressed, Carol disregarded the odd little shiver that ran down her spine. She re-covered the plate of chicken to keep it warm, and resumed eating her soup. She certainly had good reason to be nervous, but not about being upstairs alone in a big old house. Her future prospects were enough to scare anyone. Should
she look for a new job in London, or should she spend precious money to fly back to New York and try to find employment there? As Lady Augusta’s companion she had taught herself to type, and she had devised a rudimentary version of shorthand so that she could tend to her employer’s scanty correspondence, but she did not think either skill would be much help to her in the world outside Marlowe House.

  Why in heaven’s name didn’t all parents insist that their daughters learn early in life how to do some kind of useful work? Carol’s mother had been too busy with social life, and her father too preoccupied with business and with earning vast sums of money, to pay much attention to their child, and so Carol had drifted through her girlhood and teen years with neither goals nor ambition. All that was required of her by her parents was that she look pretty, be polite, and not embarrass them. Being possessed of light brown hair with a natural curl to it, clear gray eyes, a nicely rounded figure, and a rather quiet personality, she had never caused them any trouble.

  “And I’m paying for all of that now,” she muttered, staring into the soup bowl. “Until six years ago this week, my life was just one long vacation. Now look at me. Oh, how I wish I had a million dollars! No—ten million. Out of all the money Dad made for himself and others, that wouldn’t be much.”

  What would you do with it if you had it?

  “What? Who said that?” She nearly spilled her soup when she sat up straight to look around the familiar room. Of course, there was no one to be seen. She hadn’t heard the words. It was just the wind, sighing down the chimney. Carol sat back again, pulling the lapels of her bathrobe closer to her throat. She dipped her spoon into the soup bowl. If she didn’t finish it soon, the soup would be cold, not to mention the chicken and vegetables still awaiting her on the tray.

  The wind? Half an hour ago, the night had been still and foggy with a gently drizzling rain. On such a night, how could there be wind whistling down the chimney? Or rattling her bedchamber door as it was doing now? Carol paused, soup spoon suspended halfway between bowl and lips, wondering about the sudden meteorological change. The wind howled again, shaking the windowpanes and making the faded old curtains billow into the room.

  And then Lady Augusta stood before the fireplace. At first, the figure Carol saw was semi-transparent. Gradually Lady Augusta became more substantial, though Carol noted that the firelight cast no illumination upon her. Whatever this apparition might be, it was a creature of shadows, not of light. Whether it was real or whether she was only imagining it, Carol could not tell. Fascinated but not yet frightened, she stared at the figure.

  Lady Augusta looked much as Carol remembered her from their first days together five and a half years previously, when her employer had been old but not yet ravaged by illness and the approach of death. Her gray hair, which was surprisingly thick for a woman of more than 70 years, was pulled into her customary knot at the back of her head. She was clothed in pale lavender chiffon robes that flowed and drifted around her as if blown by a gentle breeze.

  “Good evening, Carol.” Lady Augusta’s voice was the same as Carol remembered, yet there was a slight difference to its timbre, a muting of its usual sharp querulousness.

  “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be dead.” Carol’s hand shook, spilling chicken broth onto her robe. The soup was now entirely too cold to eat, so she put the bowl on the tray, then looked back at the spot where Lady Augusta had appeared. She was still there.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts,” Carol said, keeping her voice hard and steady. “Go away.”

  “If you do not believe in me, then I am not here,” Lady Augusta replied with indisputable logic. “If I am not here, then I cannot go away.”

  “All right then, you’re a figment of my imagination or a message from my subconscious mind. Tell me what I ought to know and then leave.”

  “That is precisely what I intend to do.” To Carol’s further amazement, Lady Augusta now sat down directly across the fireplace from Carol’s own seat, in a spot ‘where there was no chair. Lady Augusta simply bent her ghostly ectoplasm and sat, disposing her lavender robes about her as if she were in her elegant drawing room, taking her place upon one of the silk-upholstered sofas. When she was finished, the hem of her gown still rippled in the non-existent breeze. She leaned against the back of the sofa that was not there. To Carol, the effect was most unsettling.

  “What—what do you want?” Carol did not sound as assured as she intended, because her voice cracked. She swallowed hard and tried again. “Are you really a ghost, or am I dreaming?”

  “Make up your mind, Carol. Am I a figment of your imagination or a dream? Is your unconscious mind trying to tell you something? Am I a ghost? Or am I real? I cannot be all of those possibilities at once.” Lady Augusta inclined her head, awaiting Carol’s answer.

  “You have forgotten another possibility,” Carol said. “Your sudden appearance in my bedroom could be a nasty trick that’s being played on me. Perhaps you are a holographic projection of some kind.”

  “Who would do such a thing to you?” asked Lady Augusta. “The servants? They are too unimaginative. Besides, they like you, although why they should I do not know. You are almost as unfriendly to them as I was. No, Carol, in your heart of hearts you know that I am real.”

  “But are you really dead?”

  “Oh, yes.” Lady Augusta smiled. Carol could not recall ever seeing her smile while she was alive. Before Carol could recover from this new amazement, Lady Augusta continued. “Death is a most remarkable sensation. In some respects it is quite delightful. I no longer feel physical pain and that is a great relief to me.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. I know your last few days were awful.”

  “There is something far more dreadful than physical pain,” said Lady Augusta.

  “I can’t think what that might be,” Carol remarked absently. One part of her mind was still assessing the ghostly appearance of her visitor in an attempt to discover exactly how this remarkable trick was being played on her. For the life of her, she could not think how it was done, but then Carol was not well informed on the subject of electronics technology. Nor, as Lady Augusta pointed out, did she know of anyone who might have reason to do such a thing to her.

  “Pay attention, Carol.” Lady Augusta had raised her voice a notch, and Carol jerked her thoughts back to what the ghost was telling her. “As I was saying, worse than any physical pain is the unbearable anguish of knowing that I never fulfilled the true purpose of my life. I let youthful disappointments harden my heart against life and love, as you also have done.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” Carol cried, grabbing at the arms of her chair and holding on tight. “You never bothered to ask about my life before I came to work for you. You were too glad to have a companion who was willing to take the job for cheap wages to make any fuss over who I might be.” Carol shut her mouth on the additional complaint she wanted to make, about the way in which she had been treated in Lady Augusta’s will.

  “You poor, foolish girl,” said Lady Augusta, shaking her head sadly. “Of course I had your past investigated. Do you think that I, mistrustful character that I was in life, would take the chance of hiring someone who might rob me or murder me in my bed? Really, Carol, you are entirely too naive and, like your father, you are much too weak-spirited to fight back when life deals you a bad blow.”

  “Don’t you dare insult my father! He was an honest man!”

  “Indeed he was, and he regrets his suicidal weakness now.”

  “Now? Have you met my father? In that— that—wherever you are?”

  “Where I am,” Lady Augusta responded, “all motives are understood, all excuses pardoned, though earthly mistakes must be exonerated. Yes, I have been in contact with your father, and I know everything there is to know about your youthful life. I do wish you had not allowed that selfish young man to take such terrible advantage of your affection for him. He did not value you properly, you know.”

&
nbsp; “Shut up! Just shut up!” Carol was out of her chair, standing over Lady Augusta as if to threaten her. “I won’t talk about Robert.”

  “Of course you won’t. You learned through sad experience what a mistake it was to allow him so much of your heart. Robert Drummond’s affection was not for you as a person but for your father’s money and power. No man has ever loved you for yourself.”

  “Stop this!” Carol was shaking with rage. The mere mention of Robert Drummond’s name was enough to chill her blood, as though the shadow of his old betrayal could still cast its blight over her life.

  “I see that I have distressed you,” said Lady Augusta. “Perhaps I was wrong to raise the subject at all. Some of my former tactlessness remains with me, I fear. I must work on improving that particular trait. Dear girl, do please sit down and stop looking as if you would like to murder me. What do you think you could possibly do to hurt me now?”

  Still angry, and unappeased by what amounted to a rare apology from her late employer, Carol put out her hand to grab at Lady Augusta’s arm. Her hand went right through Lady Augusta’s seated figure. With a frightened gasp Carol snatched back her hand, which felt as if it had been plunged into ice water.

  “You can’t be real,” Carol insisted.

  “I am real,” her ghostly visitor countered, “but real in ways that you will not be able to comprehend for many years yet. Sit down, Carol, and allow me to explain why I have been sent to you.”

  “Sent?” Carol sat without taking her eyes off Lady Augusta.

  “As I was saying, I wasted my life on earth in miserliness, and in anger and willful misunderstandings, when I might have known love and spent my wealth in bringing happiness to others.”

  “Sure,” Carol replied with considerable cynicism. “I know all about it. If you have money and you are willing to spend it, everybody loves you. I found that much out before I turned twenty-one. But it’s not real love. People just pretend, the way Robert did, because they are hoping to get their hands on your money. I admired you, Lady Augusta, because you never let that kind of parasite take advantage of you.”