Christmas Carol (20 page)

Lucius Kincaid’s sermon was brief. There was
little, he told his listeners, that needed to be said beyond the
beautiful prayer book service for that most blessed of nights. He
read the Gospel in a deep and resonant voice, and said the prayers,
and then he sent his little congregation home with his blessing.
Afterward, Carol stood shivering in the dark and empty church.

“Lady Augusta?” Her companion was gone. Carol
was alone.

“Lady Augusta, where are you?” Carol cried.
“This is no time to play games. You can’t expect me to find my way
back to Marlowe House by myself in the middle of the night.” She
turned around twice, searching for Lady Augusta, only to discover
that she was still alone in an empty church.

Then, suddenly, without any sense of having
crossed the city blocks that lay between house and church, she
found herself back in her own room. The fire Nell had built up
earlier in the evening had burned down into cold ashes, and Carol’s
waiting dinner was also cold. Shivering violently now, Carol
stripped off her clothes and found her warm flannel nightgown.
Pulling it on, she got into bed, but she could not stop
shaking.

“It’s not from fear,” she said to herself,
“because I am actually beginning to get used to being transported
all over creation by a ghost. No, Lady Augusta left me to freeze in
that unheated old church. Does she want me to die? What good would
my death do for her in her quest to earn the place she wants in the
afterlife? I thought the idea was to change me, not to kill me.

“Maybe,” Carol decided after a few more
minutes of thought, “just possibly, Lady Augusta was called away.
Perhaps she had to make a report on her progress with me. I hope
the People Upstairs tell her to give up her mission and leave me
alone.” On that fantastic thought, Carol slipped into a deep sleep
from which she did not awaken until Nell arrived with her breakfast
tray.

The following afternoon found Carol back at
Saint Fiacre’s Church. This time she came to it on her own two
feet, but once there she discovered that she could not go inside.
The doors were locked, perhaps as a precaution against the group of
half-dozen or so unsavory-looking men who were loitering
nearby.

“They look as if they’d steal the very
candlesticks off the altar,” Carol said to herself. “I’d better
keep moving or one of them may hit me over the head and snatch my
purse.”

Keeping an eye upon the men until she was out
of their sight, she walked around the corner of the church to the
street behind it. There she found the entrance of the hall where
she and Lady Augusta had observed the Christmas Eve dinner being
served. This door was open and there were signs of activity, with
people carrying bags of groceries into the building. Carol thought
she recognized a few of the workers from the previous night. Since
a glance at the morning paper before leaving Marlowe House had
assured her that this was the day before Christmas Eve Day, Carol
decided the people going into the hall must be starting the early
preparations for the meal.

She wanted to join them, but again something
stopped her from entering the building. It was not a physical
barrier this time. She simply could not bring herself to walk
inside the hall and introduce herself, to apologize to the Reverend
Mr. Kincaid and his wife if they were there, and then to offer her
help.

“There really isn’t anything I can do for
them,” she said. “I would only get in the way. And I would be
embarrassed after I was so nasty to them the last time we talked.
Besides, I’m not sure I could meet Penelope’s descendant without
saying something that would make her think I am stark, staring
mad.”

Carol knew perfectly well that these were
only excuses, yet she turned away from the hall and from Saint
Fiacre’s Church. Once more she walked through the busy streets of
London, scarcely noticing the holiday decorations or the people who
hurried past her on their Christmas errands. Her thoughts were all
turned inward, and they were not comfortable. To her hopeless
longing for Nicholas now was added a fearful concern for the
welfare of Hettie and Nell, and guilt over the way in which she had
treated the Kincaids on the day of Lady Augusta’s funeral.

One reason why she was feeling depressed, she
decided as the afternoon wore on toward tea time, was because she
hadn’t been eating properly. She needed a decent meal, but Lady
Augusta had prevented her from eating dinner for two nights, and
she would very likely do the same thing tonight.

“Oh, Lord, I wonder what horrors she has in
store for me this time?” Carol muttered.

Still, compared to her other recent trials,
food seemed a minor problem that she could easily resolve. Before
returning to Marlowe House, she stopped in a pub to eat a large
roast beef sandwich and drink a pot of strong tea. Thus fortified
against Lady Augusta’s unknown plans for the evening to come, she
continued along the darkening streets until she reached the far
side of the square where Marlowe House stood. The day had been
cloudy, and now fog was drifting between the buildings and into the
square. The lights of the Christmas tree in the middle of the tiny
park shone with a peculiar haziness.

Usually, there were at least a few people
walking in the square and several cars parked. in front of the
houses. On this evening Carol saw neither cars nor people, and it
was remarkably quiet. The noises of city traffic beyond the square
were apparently muffled by the ever-thickening fog.

As she started along the path that cut across
the square, her footsteps crunching on the gravel sounded loud in
comparison to the growing silence around her. When she reached the
decorated fir tree she stopped, thinking she heard someone just
behind her. She spun around, but no one was there. The silence was
deeper now, and somehow more menacing. Carol thought the fog was
thicker, too. In fact, the fog was making it difficult for her to
breathe, and she could hear the pounding of her own heart.

In the gloom she could just make out the
shape of Marlowe House directly ahead of her. There were no
welcoming lights in the windows, or at the front door, nor even a
hint of the electric bulb she knew ought to be glowing at the
servants’ entrance, but Carol was familiar with the way into the
house.

“I will probably trip getting down those
steep side steps,” she muttered, moving forward again. “I’ll have a
few words with Crampton as soon as I get in. Just because Lady
Augusta is gone, there is no excuse for him not to turn on the
lights. The house looks deserted, and that’s bad security.

“Oh, good heavens.” She stopped on a sudden
thought and stood squinting through the mist. “What if they’ve all
gone off somewhere to a movie or shopping? Am I going to have to go
into that big old place all by myself? Perhaps I ought to go
through the front door. The light switch in the main hall will be
easier for me to find than the one downstairs. But why did they
turn off every light in the house?”

The words were barely out of her mouth when
the lights on the Christmas tree behind her went out. The fog was
now remarkably cold and wet. Carol could feel beads of moisture on
her face.

“A fuse must have blown,” she decided. “I
refuse to be frightened. There is nothing unusual about a fuse
failing. I’ll report it to Crampton and he will know who to call
about repairing it. At least the street lamps are still on, not
that they’re doing much good in this pea soup fog.”

The street lamps went dark.

Carol caught her breath, telling herself to
stay calm.

“It must be a general blackout,” she said
aloud. She took a cautious step in the direction of Marlowe House.
“If he is at home, Crampton will light the candles right away. I’ll
just work my way down the steps as carefully as I can and. then
bang on the servants’ door and someone will hear me and let me
in.”

The thought of Nell’s pleasant face, or even
Mrs. Marks’s sour one, was encouraging. The night was unbelievably
dark, and the fog made it easy to imagine there was someone, or
something, waiting just a few steps away to clutch at unwary
pedestrians. Most unnerving of all was the total absence of sound.
Carol could still hear nothing except her own breathing.

“You’d think somebody would be outside
walking around, trying to figure out what’s wrong,” she muttered.
“Why isn’t there a policeman? For that matter, why aren’t there any
burglars taking advantage of the situation? At this point, I think
I might welcome a nice, friendly burglar, as long as he was
carrying a flashlight.”

Stepping carefully, she kept moving. She
thought she was still heading toward Marlowe House, but she could
not be absolutely sure. She was vaguely aware of a large, solid
shape ahead of her, and this she assumed was her destination. Or
perhaps it was one of the other houses.

“It doesn’t matter if I find the wrong house.
I know them all, and once I reach one, I should be able to get home
without any trouble.”

For all her attempts to stay calm, the
silence and the darkness were beginning to wear away her courage.
Never had Carol experienced such a terrible and frightening
blackness, or so profound a silence. She did not understand what
was happening. She knew there were people living in the other
houses around the square, so there should have been candlelight by
now, or the glow of flashlights. There ought to be voices
questioning the loss of electricity. Fighting the urge to hurry, to
try to flee toward a familiar place where she would be safe, she
felt with one toe, searching the ground in front of her, and then
with the other toe.

She was certain the temperature had dropped
by at least ten degrees. Her hands were freezing and the mist on
her face seemed turned to ice.

“I thought I was cold last night,” she said,
“but it was nothing compared to this. I hope the gas is still on so
I can make a pot of tea.” She knew she was talking to herself out
loud so she wouldn’t start screaming or crying. If she admitted to
herself how frightened she was, she would not be able to control
her descent into complete panic.

By the feel of the ground beneath her feet
she could tell when she came to the end of the gravel walk and
reached the paved street. She kept moving, walking cautiously,
knowing that now she did not have very far to go. The comforting
bulk looming in front of her was closer, proof that soon she would
be warm and safe inside Marlowe House.

Something moved. A shape detached itself from
the darkness and came toward her. Carol could make out a faint
difference between the shape and the black night.

“Who is it?” she called. Immediately she was
ashamed of the quavering of her voice. She tried again. “Are you a
policeman? Or someone who lives in one of these houses? Do you
happen to have a flashlight?”

“If I were a neighbor with a flashlight,
would I be walking around in the darkness?”

“Lady Augusta!” Carol nearly fainted with
relief at hearing a familiar voice. Then she got angry. “What do
you mean frightening me like that? Are you responsible for this
blackout? If you are, turn on the lights at once. Have you thought
about the harm you could cause? There will be automobile accidents,
and people stuck in elevators, and others wandering around lost and
possibly hurting themselves in the dark.”

“This is an improvement,” Lady Augusta
interrupted. “Only a day or two ago, you would have been worrying
about your own inconvenience. I assure you, the other citizens of
London will notice nothing amiss.”

“Is this darkness supposed to be for my
enlightenment?” Carol demanded.

“You are growing more witty, too.”

“Why have you chosen to appear outside the
house, instead of in my bedroom?”

“But you do persist in asking the wrong
questions.”

“Perhaps that is because you are driving me
crazy. At least I’ve had something to eat this time. What’s your
plan for tonight?”

“I intend to show you the future,” Lady
Augusta said. “As it will be if you do not take steps to change
it.”

“What future? Next month? Next
Christmas?”

“I began by showing you the past as it was
one hundred and seventy-five years ago,” said Lady Augusta. “On
this night you will see Marlowe House as it will be one hundred and
seventy-five years in the future.”

“You expect me to change what will happen a
hundred and seventy-five years from now? That’s impossible,” Carol
scoffed. “I’m not important enough to make any difference at all to
the future. Especially not if I decide to go back to New York to
look for work.”

“Your decision whether to leave London or to
stay will make a difference,” Lady Augusta pointed out.

“You may not feel the cold,” Carol said, “but
I am freezing. Could we go inside where I can get warm? I would
also like to see you while we argue about this.”

“You will not find it warm in Marlowe House.
However, I can arrange for a bit more light.”

Carol sensed a motion from the dark shape
that was Lady Augusta. Around the shape a faint white glow
appeared. By its light Carol could see Lady Augusta’s face and
hands. Both were pale as ashes. There were dark circles beneath
Lady Augusta’s eyes, and her face and hands were much thinner than
on her previous appearances, as if the flesh were wasting away from
her bones. Under a black scarf thrown loosely over her head, her
hair was a dirty shade of gray-white, hanging in lank strands
around her face. She wore a long, plain black robe with a heavy
gray shawl wrapped over it.

“You do not find my appearance pleasing.”
Lady Augusta sighed. “Neither do I. Nonetheless, it is suitable for
what I must show you tonight.”

“Is the future so grim?” Carol asked. She
thought, but did not say, that Lady Augusta looked ready to attend
a funeral.