The Very Name of Christmas

By Martiele Sidles

The long-awaited epilogue to Charles Dickens's immortal tale, A Christmas Carol:

It is a gray and bitter winter evening in Queen Victoria's London. Dr. Tim Cratchit stands near the resting place of his beloved mentor, Ebenezer Scrooge. Tim owes his health, his medical education and his current life to his "Uncle" Ebenezer. Exhausted, cold and grieving, Tim turns toward his lodgings. "This isn't the end of Uncle Ebenezer's good works for the poor children of the city," he whispers out loud. "He has given me the way and the means to further his charitable endeavors. I SHALL find the path to save these children and improve their health for generations; I SHALL push back the darkness for these little ones! I shall do it all, alone if need be!"

He walks stiffly from the gravesite, his limp very evident. "Mankind IS our business!" he mutters. "So little time, so little time, no time to waste." As he moves to the street toward home, unthinking he turns instead towards the Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital. Unconsciously, his pace increases and his limp disappears. Head down, hunched against the cold, he hurries to his work, forgetting the freezing cold, his meeting with flat-mate Dr. Babbington, and his promised dinner with his beautiful fiancee, Julianne. The descending darkness closes in and he is lost to human view.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Martiele Sidles
• Release date: May 22, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476366845

Martiele Sidles

Martiele Sidles received her bachelor’s degree in English literature and world history in the turbulent ’60′s, and her master’s degree in communications when her daughters were growing up in the ’80′s. A devoted fan of Charles Dickens, she wakened very early one morning determined to discover what had happened to Tiny Tim. She lives in Southern California with her husband and her roses. This is her first book.

Book preview

The Very Name of Christmas

by

Martiele M. Sidles

SMASHWORDS EDITION

PUBLISHED BY:

Jessica Bradshaw (on behalf of Martiele Sidles) on Smashwords

Copyright © 2012 by Martiele M. Sidles

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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For my wonderful husband who gifted me with

the time, the support and the determination

to pen this Christmas tale and send it forth.

*****

The Very Name of Christmas

CHAPTER 1

REMINISCENCES

The fire burned brightly on the iron grate, sending a cheery glow and warm ribbons of light into the gray corners of the room. The miniature ornaments of a small fir tree, hung with special care this particular Christmastime, gathered delicate shimmers of light from the fire and radiated their own charm. Slender white candles stood smartly on the graceful branches awaiting their turn to illuminate the celebration. A velvet-covered box containing a golden band lay in signal honor on the snowy white cloth draped at the base of the tiny tree, and a red-ribboned pine wreath offered its benevolent fragrance in honor of the festive winter season. Hot dark tea and a rich, knobby fruitcake sat on a little table next to a large crimson, ballooned-backed chair, ready to comfort and sustain. All these went unnoticed as the silence deepened languidly to utter stillness.

Sombrous shadows remained beyond the windows of the room except in the eyes of the tall man seated quietly before the fire. His very stillness accentuated the hush that closed about him. While the cruel winds of a bitter December swept London's streets and buffeted the poor, the room was an oasis of ease and calm. The young man mused, oblivious to his comforts and immersed in his thoughts, moving slowly backward in his mind to a stark moment several days previous. As he shook his head to chase away the inner vision, a look of deep sorrow crossed his face. His eyes closed and his head slipped sideways to rest upon his hand. A great sigh escaped him, and then stillness, like an over-heavy cloak, settled once again. Outside church bells tolled the hours like a priest counting his beads.

Sundry moments in time chased each other jerkily across his inner sight. He envisioned that recent day, empty and shadowed; time shifted drunkenly in his mind...

Solemn groups of mourners hurried mutely past the large granite gravestone, seeking light, warmth and the sustenance of life and moved silently away while the minister pulled his woolen shawl closer about his black-clad shoulders, shook the hand of the tall young gentleman and vanished, crow-like, into the thick gray air. Drifting snow and the mournful moan of the wind swirled around the lone figure left standing near the newly filled grave.

The young gentleman, bleak-visaged and hunched against the cold, stood silent and unmoving.

Scrooge was dead. Decidedly, irretrievably dead, if one could believe the evidence of one's eyes and ears. One's heart, now that was another matter altogether, for Scrooge lived on there, ever the same, forever unchanged in his kindness, generosity and affection.

Scrooge dead? How could this be? How could such emptiness be borne? This was unthinkable, intolerable!

After many long moments, the young man bent slowly and placed a beribboned holly wreath against the gray marble stone whose inscription read:

EBENEZER SCROOGE

1785 - 1865

BELOVED BENEFACTOR

AND

FRIEND TO ALL MANKIND

The solemnity had weighted the young man's shoulders, but he leaned forward and spoke softly into the still air, How very much I shall miss you, sir! I shall long for those times we spent together, you and I. How I shall miss your laughter and your comfortable way of finding and recognizing only the good in men, dismissing the bad with an understanding wink and a tolerant smile. I shall make you proud, sir, proud of your investment and proud of your Tim. I shall carry you with me always. I wish you joy in your new adventure and the deserved companionship of men and angels. He tucked the ribbons, a blaze of red and gold, securely around the wreath and patted it gently.

Moving slowly from the graveside, stiff with the cold and unremitting sorrow, he turned briefly and looked back, then staggered. He would come here often, just as he had visited at the bedside during the last difficult, wasting weeks. Neither Ebenezer Scrooge nor his generosity would be forgotten! Never that! Never that!

Tim's inner eye penetrated past the claw-like trees scraping the dun sky, past the ghostly white mist rising from Scrooge's final green-canopied bed and looked into warm, well-appointed chambers, remembering some weeks before that chill day. Uncle Ebenezer lay propped up on a snowy white mountain of pillows, smiling agreeably, his fine brown eyes crinkled in mirth, clutching a great thickness of cream-colored papers in his thin white hands.

Tim, my boy, come here to me and tell me about your nights in that charnel house you call a workplace. He held out his hand, eyes twinkling merrily.

Tim moved forward, hand outstretched, smiling broadly and settling into his usual chair.

Uncle Ebenezer, what a thing to say!Tim frowned sternly. It was always their first greeting whenever they met. Tell me, boy, are you worth your hire? Are you involved with your fellows? Scrooge continued, his eyes searching the somber young face before him. Now, come, let me embrace you! Tim bent to receive his embrace, mourning once again the frailness of Scrooge's withered frame and the opaque whiteness of his skin. No time, whispered his heart, so little time left!

They chatted for over an hour when Scrooge leaned to place his frail hand once again on Tim's strong one.

We must talk, young sir, he said. We must talk seriously about serious things. There must be no putting me off this time; you must listen with your heart, and you must hear me while I am still with you to give you such explanations as you require. You cannot escape me.

Tim bowed his head.

Yes, sir. The time has truly come. I will listen with my heart and thank you kindly for the attention, he said. Green eyes sought gray.

Scrooge smiled, wistfully for his love, and soon-to-be-loss, of the young man, and gratefully for the journey he knew he himself would soon take.

Well, sit up then, young sir, and mark my words. Attend me most carefully, for the stories I shall tell you will both enlighten and amaze you. Ebenezer Scrooge lifted his spectacles to his nose and looked over them, peering at Tim's face. What he saw both lightened his heart and troubled his spirit. Such a dear face, that of the son he had waited too late to hope for so wholeheartedly! When he beheld Tim's clear, untroubled gaze, he began to speak, quietly at first and then with great animation.

For an hour he recounted his early life: a joyless childhood, the gruff father, his lovely sister and her son, joy in his love for Isabelle Fezziwig, delight in being fully alive to his world, and then on to the early steps on the road to the fullness of greed and the poverty of his soul. As his voice grew fuller and his emotion stronger, Tim began to worry about the exertion Scrooge was causing himself. Uncle Ebenezer must rest, must conserve his strength and thus continue to lengthen his days. Tim frowned, having lost the thread of the story, and then reached out to stop the rising and falling cadence of the old man's words. Ebenezer held up his hand, reached for a glass of barley water and drank thirstily, finally sinking back to cool pillows and closing his eyes.

A moment, please, young sir, a moment to compose myself.

Tim sat quietly, waiting for the words to resume their steady flow.

Scrooge patted the pillows higher behind him, sat up and again leaned forward, albeit more slowly this time but with greater purpose.

There is more, he said, much more. Hear with your heart; let your mind roam free.

Uncle Ebenezer began to relate the oddest tale Tim had ever heard: all about Christmas and spirits past, present and future; shining gifts and gravestones; Bob Cratchit and a handful of coal; a talking doorknocker; Marley draped in heavy chains; of clocks striking the hours of his destiny; someone stealing the bedclothes from around his lifeless body; a spectral tale of despair and hope, joy and sorrow, life and death. As the haunting story spun itself into ever more ghostly realms, Tim listened in dismay, afraid for the old man's sanity. Scrooge smiled, sighed and spoke sweetly of humanity and humaneness, of hope and peace, service and compassion, forgiveness and joy. He spoke of a debt, at first burdensome and then joyous, that he had owed his fellowmen and how tirelessly he had worked for uncounted years to repay it. He mentioned his prosperity: how he had used it to help ease the plight of the downtrodden; how, far from spending his capital, it had increased to such an extent that he found it impossible to spend it in his lifetime. Finally, he focused upon his consuming love for mankind and the way that love had filled the emptiness of his lesser self with the fullness of pure charity, producing a self greater than he had ever imagined possible. Scrooge's eyes shone with remembered joys.

I have had nigh on to twenty years to balance the ledger, and now, young sir, I leave it all to you, my fortune and my love. Use my fortune to bless and comfort, to succor and lift, and always remember to build others by removing that which destroys the finer instincts of mankind. Remove cold, poverty, hunger and thirst, and ignorance, always ignorance, mostly that. For after all, we are kindred travelers on the earth, bound by human compassion and need. Promise me! Promise me you will use it for the benefit of others, in my name and in your own. Promise me! It is the dearest desire of my life and the greatest wish of my soul. The old man's hands reached out imploringly to the younger man facing him.

Scrooge sank back on his pillows, weak, shaking and spent.

Tim moved to the bed and grasped the old man's hands, tears shining in his eyes, his response more from concern for Scrooge's well-being than in recognition of Scrooge's admonition.

"Yes, sir, anything you say, sir. I will honor your wishes and do all you admonish me to do. Just calm yourself. All shall be as you wish throughout