Amanda Grange: A Darcy Christmas

“It is.”

“I—I think I would rather not,” said Darcy.

“Without their visits,” said the Ghost, “you cannot hope to shun the path you now tread. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one.”

“Could I not take them all at once and have it over, Father?” hinted Darcy.

“Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and for your own sake, remember what has passed between us.”

When it had said these words, the specter took its wrapper from the table and bound it round its head, as before. Darcy knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when the bandage brought the jaws together. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arms.

The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the specter reached it, it was wide open.

It beckoned Darcy to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Old Mr. Darcy’s Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Darcy stopped, not so much in obedience as in surprise and fear, for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air: incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret, wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The specter, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge and floated out upon the bleak, dark night. “Hear them, Fitzwilliam! Listen to their cries, for any one of them could be you!” said Old Mr. Darcy. “Look upon them!”

Darcy followed to the window, desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.

The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Old Mr. Darcy’s Ghost; some few were covered completely in chains. Darcy had personally known many during their lifetime. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron chain attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a doorstep. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had forever lost the power to do so.

Whether these creatures faded into mist or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and the night became as it had been when he walked home.

Darcy closed the window and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say “Humbug!” but stopped at the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose, he went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.

When Darcy awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of the bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavoring to pierce the darkness with his eyes when the chimes of a neighboring church struck the four quarters, so he listened for the hour.

To his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve, then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have gotten into the works. Twelve!

He glanced at the clock that rested on the mantel. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve and stopped.

“Why, it is not possible,” said Darcy, “that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It is not possible that anything has happened to the sun and this is twelve at noon!”

The idea being such an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing gown before he could see anything, and even after that could see very little. All he could make out was that it was still very foggy and extremely cold. It was a great relief that there was no noise of people running to and fro or making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off day and taken possession of the world.

Darcy went to bed again, thought about it over and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavored not to think, the more he thought of his father’s Ghost. It bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after much mature inquiry, that it had all been a dream, his mind flew back to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked through: Was it a dream or not?

Ding, dong!

“A quarter past,” said Darcy counting.

Ding, dong!

“Half past!” said Darcy.

Ding, dong!

“A quarter to it.” Darcy suddenly remembered that the Ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was past; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.

The quarter was so long that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.

Ding, dong!

“The hour itself,” said Darcy triumphantly, “and nothing else!”

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and a hand drew the curtains of his bed aside. Not the curtains at his feet nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. Darcy, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them.

It was a not a stranger’s figure. Her hair was white, as if with age, swept up with loose tendrils falling, curls framed the face that had not a wrinkle in it, and a tender bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and feminine, her hands the same. Her feet, most delicately formed, were encased in delicate white slippers. She wore a gown of the purest white and round its high waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. She held a branch of fresh green holly in her hand; and, in singular contradiction of this wintry emblem, had her dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about her was that from the crown of her head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible.

Darcy looked at it with increasing steadiness.

“Mama?” Darcy said somewhat indistinctly, for the face resembled that of Lady Anne Darcy. “Are you the Spirit whose coming was foretold to me?” asked Darcy.

“I am!” The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.

“Who are you?” Darcy demanded.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“Long past?” inquired Darcy

“No. Your past,” replied the ghostly Lady Anne, her hand reaching out to brush a curl off Darcy’s forehead.

“Mama,” Darcy repeated softly. “Are you truly here?”

The ghost seemed about to nod, hesitated, then shook her head and repeated, “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“What brought you here?” Darcy asked, greatly disappointed.

“Your welfare!” said the Ghost.

“I am very much obliged,” Darcy thanked her.