Amanda Grange: A Darcy Christmas

Georgiana promised that she would, and Darcy smiled at her. The church was reached in a twinkling. Darcy and Georgiana, the long ends of her white scarf dangling in the wind, went into the church. The church bells rang out twenty-four times, in honor of its being Christmas Eve. The telling of the Christmas story never failed to stir Georgiana. During the service she prayed that her Christmas wish for Darcy might be granted in some way. The choir burst into song as her prayer ended. She left the church renewed in spirit, sure that her prayer would be answered.

Darcy and Georgiana feasted on a merry meal with their uncle and aunt, newly arrived in town from Bath. After dinner, Darcy beguiled the rest of the evening with friends at his club (and partook a bit more freely of the good cheer offered by these comrades than he was used to) while his sister remained with her relations. Darcy would join them on the following day for Christmas dinner.

Eventually, Darcy went home. It was an old house, but well lived-in. The yard was so dark that even Darcy, who knew its every stone, was forced to grope about with his hands. The fog and frost hung about the old, black doorway of the house.

There was nothing at all particular about the lion-headed knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is a fact that Darcy had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place and that he had as little of what is called fancy about him. But let it also be borne in mind that Darcy had thought much of his father on this day, since the mention of his five-years dead parent that afternoon, and that he still mourned the loss of that revered personage. It should not be so surprising then that Darcy, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change became not a knocker, but his father’s face.

George Darcy’s face was before him. It was not in impenetrable shadow, as the other objects in the yard were, but had a cheerful light about it. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Darcy as his father often used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up upon its ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That, and its livid color, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the face and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression.

As Darcy looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again. He blinked and then traced the lion’s head with fingers, feeling only cold iron beneath them. To say that he was not startled or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy would be untrue. Shaking his head, he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted the candle that was waiting for him.

He did pause, with a moment’s irresolution, before he shut the door. He did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Old Mr. Darcy’s backside sticking out into the hall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he closed it with a bang.

The sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above and every cask in the cellars below appeared to have a separate peal of echoes all its own. Darcy was not a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door and walked across the hall and up the stairs, slowly too, for his candle cast eerie shadows as he went.

There was plenty of width to the old flight of stairs—a coach-and-six could drive up it with room to spare. A hearse also could have done it easily enough, which is perhaps the reason why Darcy thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom.

Up Darcy went, wondering if he perhaps he was drunk. He had not thought so, for he had never truly overindulged. Yet it could explain the strange tricks his eyes were playing on him. Yet before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms, which had once been occupied by his deceased parent, to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that.

They were a cheerful suite of rooms, consisting of a sitting room and bedroom, and each was as it should be. The logs were at the ready, which Darcy quickly ignited into a large fire in the grate; the pitcher and basin were ready for use; and the decanter of brandy was upon the table, just as his valet left it before he and the rest of the servants quit the house to visit their own families and friends for the evening’s celebrations. Nobody was behind the curtains; nobody was underneath the sofa; nobody was under the bed; nobody was in the closet; nobody was in his dressing gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall.

Quite satisfied, he closed his door and locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat and jacket, leaving his waistcoat on but unbuttoned, and shrugged into the dressing gown before sitting down in front of the fire to take his glass of brandy.

It was a very good fire indeed, nothing to it on such a bitter night. He sat close to it and brooded; the brandy remained untouched. The fireplace was an old one, built long ago, and carved all round with designs to illustrate the Scriptures. There were hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet only the face of his father, five years dead, remained in Darcy’s thoughts.

“Nonsense!” said Darcy, and walked across the room. After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, which hung in the room and communicated to the servants in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

This might have lasted half a minute or a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun: together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below, as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the cellar. Darcy then remembered having heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains.

The cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.

“It is nonsense still!” said Darcy. “I will not believe it.”

His color changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the flames leaped up and just as quickly fell again.

His Father’s ghost! The same face, the very same. George Darcy in his favorite jacket, usual waistcoat, breeches, and boots. The chains he drew were clasped about his middle. One was very long and was made (for Darcy observed it closely) of gold studded with precious gems while the other was shorter, hardly seeming to clasp about his waist and was wrought in thick iron. His body was transparent, so that Darcy, observing him and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.

No, he did not believe it, even now. Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before; he was still incredulous and fought against his senses.

“What do you want with me?” inquired Darcy

“Much!” George Darcy’s voice, no doubt about it.