A Pepysian Christmas Carol...Part I...

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A Pepysian Christmas Carol...

"Cromwell was dead…To begin with. You must believe that Cromwell was
dead and his head exhumed and on a pike or there can be nothing
wonderful in the story I am about to relate."

"Did Pepys know Cromwell was dead? Of course, how could he otherwise?
His fate, his whole fortune, once tied to Cromwell’s Commonwealth had
changed completely with the Lord Protector’s timely demise. The would-
be Roundhead, dabbler in republican thought and principles had sunk
deep beneath the waves not long after Cromwell’s passing… Though the
great Oliver’s memory was not entirely lost to Pepys, how could it be
when he saw the poor fellow’s rotting head each day? I mention the
macabre fact of the Protector’s display only so there should be no
doubt that the great man was indeed dead.

But seeing Oliver’s noble, profaned head each day brought no noble
thoughts or hopes of his younger days to Pepys, it was merely a head
on a pike to him.

Oh, but a tight-fisted, controlling hand at the Naval Office was Sam!
A grasping, scraping, clutching, but remarkably efficient and
brilliantly innovative old sinner, he!

The cold grown within him...(“Cold?!” Sam blinks, reading in Heaven,
instinctively looking for shawl and phyick)...had shriveled his
features and voice, stiffened his gait, croaked harshly out in
voice... (“Bess?! Did I sound hoarse to you then?!” clears throat.
“Do I sound all right now?!” “Sam’l...You’re long dead, darling.”
“Well, still...”)...Though it did nothing to his excellent taste in
fine clothes.

Despite constant dashing to the doctor’s on the slightest chill as to
the physical side, spiritually external heat and cold had no effect on
Pepys. The foulest weather could not hinder his purpose nor make him
relent...No fierce rain less subject to appeal.

The gladsome looks that had once greeted him everywhere were no more.
Old friends of the past sighed and shook heads at him as he passed
without a nod. Beggars avoided him, children instinctively dodged his
fashionable yet effective boots...Even the blind’s men’s dogs would
tug their owners away from his intent, scowling path.

But did Sam care? Not a whit. Such avoidance by the scorned world of
his youth he now relished, perceiving it to maximizing his efficiency
and thereby his profit, as well as being proof of his elevated social
standing. Nothing was to be gained by bootless association with such
types. Though as he liked to coldly joke to himself, some pleasure
was had by booted contact with a few in his callous, busy way.

***
One day...Of all the good days in the year...Christmas Eve...Sam was
busy in his office, tallying the past accounts of the Navy...It was
biting cold weather and the people passing outside could be heard
stamping their feet on the pavement to warm them...In the office, his
clerks in their mittens and old woolies trying to take the pain out of
their chapped chilblained fingers...(Credit to dear Cumgranosalis for
this line)... As, painfully scratching along in their books, they all
in turn eyed the miserable flicker of flame among the few coals in the
fireplace.

The door of Sam's closet was open that the great man, now after years
of vicious, bitter infighting with his colleagues, sole ruler of the
roost, might keep his eye upon all his clerks, who in their dismally
dark and chilly room beyond, were feverishly copying hundreds of
letters and documents, led from a dank corner cell, counted by Pepys
as a generously bestowed office, by his able chief clerk, one Will
Hewer.

Now the fire in Pepys’ office was miserable and that of the great
outer office, niggardly...But the fire in Hewer’s tiny chamber, door
open to the outer office at all times, was a single feeble coal. But
Will dared not replenish it anymore than his subordinates, for the
coal-box was in Sam’s room and so surely as the chief clerk or any
other came in with a shovel, so surely would the master have felt it
necessary for them to part. Therefore he, like his fellows, bundled
himself as best he could and tried to warm his hands by candle...Which
being a young man of limited imagination, he failed.

“Merry Christmas, brother!! God save you!!” a woman’s cheerful voice.
Sam, startled as his stunned clerks looked to see where a handsome,
dark-haired woman in her contented late thirties stood, bright roses
from the cold outside on her cheeks, her dress plain and sturdy yet
with an elegant touch somehow briefly reminding Sam, as he looked her
over with a icy frown, of...Someone... It was the voice of Sam’s
sister, Paulina, Pall by nickname...

“Take it outside, sister! This is a place of business, what the devil
do you mean storming in here...?”

“And...?” Pall, with mischievous grin, glowing from her fast walk,
waiting expectantly for completion of her brother’s yearly rant.

Not bad at all...Why does her brother call her plain? One of the
clerks eyeing her briefly out of a corner cubbyhole...

“What? Oh, yes...Bah, humbug.”

She grinned more merrily, shaking head..Samuel... “Christmas a humbug,
brother? Come on, you don’t mean it and you know it.”

'I do,' said Sam. 'Merry Christmas?! What right have you to be merry?
What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.'

'Come, then,' returned the sister gaily. 'What right have you to be
dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough.'

Pepys having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said,
'Bah!' again, and followed it up with 'Humbug!'

'Don't be cross, brother.' said the sister.

'What else can I be,' returned Pepys, 'when I live in such a world of
fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas. What's
Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a
time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time
for balancing your books and finding them barely so? If I could work
my will,' said Sam indignantly,'We’d go back to the fanatiques’ way of
banning the silly celebrations and having every idiot who going about
with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips, declared a Papist, hanged, drawn
and quartered, then boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a
stake of holly through his heart. He should!’

'Samuel! You know the King loves Christmas!' pleaded the sister,
looking nervous. 'As does our father.'

Ummn... ‘Well, a king must set the religious tone for the State. And
Father is a foolish old man who can be forgiven his weaknesses. But
everyone else who celebrates here is probably a Papist.’

‘Sam!’

‘Sister!' returned the brother, sternly, 'You and the King keep
Christmas in your own ways, and let me keep it in mine.'

One of the King's spies among the clerks carefully noting the remark
for his report on the Naval Office...Not one that would land Pepys in
the Tower as it suggested unflinching devotion to duty but definitely
another nix on the knighthood, the King prefering a little gaiety
among his courtiers.

'Keep it!' repeated Pall, sighing. 'But you don't keep it. Not even
with your aged father and family.'

'Let me leave it and you alone, then,' said Pepys. 'Much good may it
do you. Much good it has ever done you!'

'There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which
I have not profited, I dare say,' Pall shook her head. 'Christmas
among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time,
when it has come round -apart from the veneration due to its sacred
name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that-
as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only
time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women
seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think
of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the
grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And
therefore, brother, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver
in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good;
and I say, God bless it!'

The clerks in the tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately
sensible of the impropriety, Hewer moved to silence them, poking his
fire as he rose, and extinguishing the last frail spark for ever.

'Let me hear another sound from you gentlemen!' cried Sam, '...and
you'll all keep your Christmas by losing your situation! You're quite
a powerful speaker, ma’am,' he added, turning to his sister. 'I wonder
you don't go into Parliament.'

[spoiler-there will be a few]
'Are you still smarting over that loss, Samuel? Oh, now, don't be
angry, brother. Come! Dine with us tomorrow at Jane Turner’s. Father
will be there and longs to see you. As do dear Jane and
Theophilia...Though The’d never admit it.'

Pepys said that he would see her and them all-yes, indeed he did. He
went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see
them in that extremity first.

'But why?' cried Sam's sister. 'Why?'

'Why did you get married against my wishes?' asked Sam.

'Because I fell in love.'

'Because you fell in love!' growled Pepys, as if that were the only
one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. 'Good
afternoon!'

'Nay, brother, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why
give it as a reason for not coming now?'

'Good afternoon,' said Sam.

'Brampton was left to Father in his life you know that. As for me and
my dear husband we want nothing from you. Sam, I ask nothing of you,
why cannot we be friends?'

‘Good afternoon,' said Pepys. ‘Hewer! My sister is leaving.’

'I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never
had any quarrel, to which I have been a party.’

Ummn...She paused... ‘Well, since I left working for you and Bess, I
mean. Anyway, I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll
keep my Christmas humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, brother!'

'Good afternoon.' said Sam.

'And A Happy New Year!'

'Good afternoon!' said Sam."

***
"His sister left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding.
Stopping in the outer office to bestow the greeting of the season on
the clerks, who, cold as they were, were warmer than Sam; for all
returned them cordially.

‘There’s a fool’s lot,’ muttered Pepys. ‘My clerks, averaging fifteen
shillings a week, some with wives and family, talking about a merry
Christmas. I’ll retire to the new lunatics hospital at Bedlam."

The lunatic Hewer, in letting Sam’s sister out, had let two other
people in. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now
stood, with their hats off, in Sam’s office. They had books and papers
in their hands, and bowed to him.

‘Mr. Pepys, I believe,’ said one of the gentlemen, smiling at him.

‘I see you’ve forgotten me, sir. It’s been some time since we met in
person. I am Thomas Povey.’

Crap…Sam frowned. A bad penny will turn up…

‘Yes of course, Mr. Povey. It has been a while.’

[Spoiler]


‘Yes. You’ve been rather difficult to reach by post, Pepys.’ Povey
sighed…But waved a hand at Pepys’ frown. ‘But I’m not hear to discuss
the Tangier treasury today.’

Phew…

‘Little to discuss, Povey.’ Sam hastily noted. ‘The job’s been of no
profit to me except in fulfilling my duty to the King.’

Hewer gagged a bit, listening…Having the latest five hundred pounds
profit raked in sitting on his desk. The other clerks eyeing each
other.

‘Strange. In my worst year…’ Povey gave a hard look but shrugged.
"Well, save that for now…So you’re running the whole show these days,
I see. Batten, Penn, and Minnes all gone now?"

‘Sir William Batten has been dead these seven years,’ Pepys replied.
‘He died seven years ago, this very night.’

And his damned wife never did repay me what he owed me…Frown at the
memory.

‘And Penn and Minnes followed in their due course.’

‘A pity, I always enjoyed Sir John’s commentary on Shakespeare. Well,
we have no doubt his and the Sir Wills famous liberality are well
represented by their surviving associate,’ said the other gentleman,
presenting his credentials.

At the ominous word, liberality, Sam frowned, and shook his head, and
handed the credentials back.

‘At this festive season of the year, Pepys,’ said Mr. Povey, taking up
a pen, ‘It is more than usually desirable that we should make some
slight provision for the Poor and destitute, particularly our gallant
ex-seamen, who suffer greatly at the present time. In your position
you are well aware that many thousands are in want of common
necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts,
sir. Not to mention those wounded or suffering from post-traumatic
stress from the Dutch war.’

‘Are there no prisons?’ asked Pepys.

‘Plenty of prisons,’ said Povey, laying down the pen again.

‘And the workhouses.’ demanded Sam. ‘Are they still in operation?’

‘They are. Still,’ returned the other gentleman,’ I wish I could say
they were not.’

‘They are in full vigour, then?’ said Sam.

‘Both very busy, sir.’

Povey eyeing Hewer in his cell who shrugged…

‘Oh. I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had
occurred to stop them in their useful course,’ said Pepys. ‘I’m very
glad to hear it.’

‘Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of
mind or body to the multitude…’ returned Povey, ‘A few of us are
endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and
means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all
others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. Considering
these include many who’ve done the King and your office good service…
Not to mention allowed you to make considerable profit… What shall I
put you down for?’

‘Nothing!’ Pepys replied.

‘You wish to be anonymous?’ the other gentleman tried.

‘I wish to be left alone,’ said Sam. ‘Since you ask me what I wish,
gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas
and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the
establishments I have mentioned-they cost enough; and those who are
badly off and can no longer be of service must go there.’

‘Many can’t go there; and many would rather die. Men who’ve bled for
this Nation, Pepys.’

‘If they would rather die,’ said Sam, ‘They had better do it, and
decrease the surplus population. Besides-excuse me-I don’t know that
or that all have shed blood.’

‘But you might know it,’ observed Povey. ‘And considering you’ve never
shed blood…’

‘It’s not my business,’ Sam returned. ‘Human resources in the Navy are
handled by Mr. Howe at the Duke’s office at Whitehall. It’s enough for
a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other
people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!’

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the
gentlemen withdrew. Sam resumed his labours with an improved opinion
of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.

‘Hewer? You see how I handled those two clowns?! That Povey…Still and
ever a coxcomb for all his culture.’

Ummn… ‘Box those Tangier profits and run them up to my banker’s at
once. Soon as you’re sure Povey and his friend have left the grounds.’

‘Yes, sir.’"

***

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that men and boys ran
about with flaring links, proffering their services to go before
horses in carriages, and conduct them on their way. The cold became
intense. In the main street, at the corner of the court, some men
repairing the water pump had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round
which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their
hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-
plug being left in solitude, its overflowing sullenly congealed, and
turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the shops where holly
sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale
faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a
splendid joke: a glorious pageant, with which it was next to
impossible to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale
had anything to do. The Lord Mayor of London was giving orders to his
fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household
should; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings
on the previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the
streets, stirred up tomorrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean
wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.

Foggier yet, and colder. Piercing, searching, biting cold. The owner
of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as
bones are gnawed by dogs, stooped down at the Naval Office’s keyhole
to regale all with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of

'God bless you, merry gentleman.
May nothing you dismay!'

Sam seized his famed slide ruler with such energy of action, that the
singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more
congenial frost.

At length the hour of shutting up the Office for the Christmas holiday
arrived. With an ill-will Sam dismounted from his stool, peered
through the peepholes he long ago cut into his office wall and noting
to himself with a sigh that the failing light would after all require
the expenditure of lighting candles for any additional time squeezed
out, went to the door to the outer office and tacitly admitted the
fact to the expectant clerks and Hewer in his cell, who instantly
snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.

Pepys frowning at the poor example as the other clerks likewise raced
for the door.

[spoiler]


'You'll all want all day tomorrow, I suppose?' said Pepys as the
halted clerks eyed each other. ‘You, Edwards?’ he eyed Tom Edwards,
his boy turned apprentice clerk, husband to his once favorite ex-maid,
Jane Edwards nee Birch.

Damnit, don’t wuss on us...the other clerks including Hewer, eyeing
the hapless Tom...

'If quite convenient, sir.'

'It's not convenient,' said Sam, 'And it's not fair to the King. If I
was to stop you each half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-
used, I'll be bound?'

Poor Tom observed that it was only once a year...Those clerks who were
not under Sam’s gaze and close enough to the door, slipping out...

'A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of
December!' said Sam, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. 'But since
it is the King’s decision, I suppose you must have the whole day. Be
here all the earlier next morning. Hewer, you...Hewer?'

Damn...Was he first out the door?

Tom promised that he would, and Pepys walked out with a growl,
ignoring the clerk’s attempt to offer his Jane’s best wishes. The
office was closed in a twinkling, and Tom, with the long ends of his
white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no great-
coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys,
twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home
to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blindman's buff.

[Spoiler, of sorts]

Sam took his melancholy dinner alone in his usual melancholy tavern;
and having beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's-book and
some office letters, went home to bed. He still lived in the chambers
which had once belonged to both himself and his deceased wife,
Elisabeth. Once both his and her pride and joy, they were now a gloomy
suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, so blocked
from the sun now, by a reconstruction of Sir John Minnes’ home,
completed posthumously, (and Sam thought, with deliberate malice) that
one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a
young house, playing at hide.and.seek with other houses, and forgotten
the way out again. It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for
nobody lived in it now but Pepys and only a single cleaning and
laundry woman ever came to him. The yard was so dark that even Sam,
who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog
and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it
seemed as if Winter sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.

Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the
knocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact,
that Pepys had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence
in that place; also that Sam Pepys, who’d once dismissed ‘A Midsummer
Night’s Dream’ as a ‘silly, insipid play’ had as little of what is
called fancy about him as any man in the city of London,. Let it also
be borne in mind that Sam had not bestowed one thought on Oliver
Cromwell, since a dinner party [spoiler] years ago where all and
sundry present had admitted and paid tribute to Cromwell’s skill and
genius in toppling a throne. And then let any man explain to me, if he
can, how it happened that Pepys, having his key in the lock of the
door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate
process of change-not a knocker, but Cromwell's face.

Cromwell's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other
objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad
lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at
Sam as he remembered Oliver used to look, sternly with a proud
bearing. 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 colour, 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 Sam looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.

To say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious
of a terrible sensation to which it had not been entirely a stranger
from infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had
relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.

He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door;
and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected to
be terrified with the sight of Cromwell's body 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 said 'Pooh, pooh.' and closed
it with a bang.

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

You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six up a good old
flight of stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean
to say you might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it
broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall and the door towards
the balustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that,
and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Sam thought he saw
a hearse drawn on before him in the gloom. Half-a-dozen bonfires out
of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so you may
suppose that it was pretty dark with his dip.

Up Pepys went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap, and
Sam liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his
rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of
the face to desire to do that.

Sitting-room, bed-room, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody
under the table, nobody under the chair, a small fire in the grate,
spoon and bowl ready, and his little saucepan of gruel (Sam feared a
cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the
closet, nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a
suspicious attitude against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-
guard, old once fine, now worn, shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand
on three legs, and a poker.

Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-
locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against
surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and
slippers, and his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take his
gruel.

It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was
obliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract
the least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The
fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and
paved all round with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the
Scriptures. There were hundreds of biblical figures to attract his
thoughts; and yet that face of Cromwell, so long dead, came like the
ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile
had been a blank at first, with power to shape some picture on its
surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would
have been a copy of old Oliver's head on every one.

'Humbug!' said Sam, 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, a disused bell,
that hung in the room, long ago purchased to call his and his wife’s
maids to their tasks, now neglected and forgotten. 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 wine cellar. Sam then
remembered to have 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's humbug still!' said Sam. 'I won't 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 dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, 'I know him!
Cromwell's Ghost!' and fell again.

The same face, the very same....Cromwell as he’d seen him in his
prime, in his plain uniform, his hair cut close, the collar of office
about his neck.

The chain the figure he took to be Cromwell drew was clasped about his
middle. It was surprisingly short, and wound about him like a tail,
and it was made (for Sam observed it closely) of swords, chains,
ledgers, bills to Parliament, and deeds referring to lands in Ireland,
all wrought in steel. His body was transparent; so that Pepys,
observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two
buttons on his coat behind.

Sam had often heard it said that Cromwell had no bowels, but he had
never believed it until now.

No, nor did he 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 neck, which wrapper he
had not observed before, he was still incredulous, and fought against
his senses.

'Now, sir.' said Sam, caustic and cold as ever. 'What do you want with
me?'

'Much.'-Oliver's commanding voice, no doubt about it.

'Who are you?'

'Ask me who I was.'

‘Ok...Who were you...As if I don’t know.’

‘In life I was Oliver Cromwell, leader of the Parliamentary forces,
Lord Protector of England.’

Hmmn...Sam couldn’t repress a natural slight burst of pleasure in
spite of his growing fear. I mean, to have the greatest figure in
English history since Elizabeth I make a personal appearance. Not a
bad tribute to...

‘You might ask me if I could sit down, sirrah.’ Cromwell’s ghost eyed
Sam.

‘Can you sit down?’

‘Why no, I just enjoy getting the idiots I’m obliged to visit to ask
me. Of course I can!’

‘Do it, then.’

A frown but the ghost sat in the chair opposite Pepys, eyeing him.

‘Work for the young Stuarts in the Naval Office, do you?’

‘Why yes.’ a rather pleased Sam.

My rep even reached the afterlife?

‘And vain as they told me, I see.’ Cromwell shook his head. ‘Not
surprised to find the former Lord Protector of England popping up from
beyond the grave in your bedroom are you?’

‘Well, it’s only natural...You were one of my heroes.’ Sam noted.

‘One?!’ Cromwell glared. Then eyed his host shrewdly.

‘You don’t believe in me?’

‘I don’t.’

‘Why do you doubt the evidence of your senses?’

An unfortunate choice of topic as the ghostly Cromwell learned to his
misfortune, Sam spending the better part of the next hour expounding
on his health and various maladies which might have led him to
experience such visualizations. Stepping from the room at one point
to fetch his prized stone box...

‘...and this very week I was again costive and bound,’ Sam continued,
Cromwell sighing, hands to his head. ‘So you may very well be the
result of my latest course of...’

With a sudden jerk, Cromwell pulled his head off, the napkin round it
falling to the floor, and holding the head in hands, glared with it at
the terrified Pepys.

‘Little nobody hypochondriac clerk of the worldly mind! Do you believe
in me or not?!’

'I do,' said Sam. 'I suppose I must, though if you wouldn’t mind,
I’d very much like to fetch my old colleagues from the Royal Society
to examine this phenomenon.’

‘I’ve no time for that and it’s rather late to trouble your friends.
Though if they were still friends enough to you to come my visit would
hardly be necessary.’


‘Oh? But why do spirits walk the earth, and why should they come to
me?'

'It is required of every man,' the Ghost returned, 'that the spirit
within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and
wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do
so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world-oh, woe is
me!-and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth,
and turned to happiness.'

The spectre raised a horrible cry, and shook its chain and wrung its
shadowy hands.

‘But you, sir...You were a great man of action and affairs. You are
fettered,' said Sam, trembling. 'Tell me why?'

'I wear the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost. 'I made it
link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will,
and of my own free will I wore it.’

‘Tis’ rather short to cause you distress.’

‘Moron! It is symbolic. It merely represents my punishment and
suffering. Is its pattern strange to you?'

Pepys trembled more and more, but managed to eye the proffered chain
carefully. Hmmn...

‘Seems to deal a lot with Ireland.’ he noted. ‘

‘Indeed.’ Cromwell sighed. ‘The land of my greatest crimes...’

‘Oh?’

‘Seems the Almighty is not all that concerned with our choice of
religion.’ the ghostly Oliver nodded. ‘Much to my surprise it was my
zeal in tormenting and killing Papists that landed me in trouble
rather than cutting off ole Charles’ head.’

Sam blinked. Then I’ve backed the right horse in siding with the
Duke?, he thought hopefully.

‘It’s the deeds not the creed that counts with Him, Pepys.’ Oliver
frowned. ‘And your standing is not looking too good these days.’

***

'At this time of the rolling year,' the spectre said, 'I suffer most.
Why did I walk through crowds of captured fellow-beings with my eyes
turned down, and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the
Wise Men to a poor abode of a babe certainly not of their faith? Were
there no biblical passages whose light would have conducted me to
tolerance and understanding?'

Sam was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate,
and began to quake exceedingly.

Rather wish I’m been a bit more tolerant of those Jews that time I
took...I went to see them, he thought.

'Hear me!' cried the Ghost. 'My time is nearly gone, thanks to your
hour-long monologue on your bowel movement problems..'

'I will,' said Pepys. 'But don't be hard upon me. Don't be flowery,
sir! Pray!'

'How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may
not tell. Obviously they’ve some good reason upstairs for sending me
about to some obscure bureaucrat like you.'

It was not an agreeable idea. Sam shivered, and wiped the perspiration
from his brow.

'These visits are no light part of my penance,' pursued the Ghost.
'Certainly humbling to my pride, at least. Anyway, to get to the
matter, I am here to-night to warn you, that you have yet a chance and
hope of escaping your fate. A chance and hope of someone dear’s
procuring, Samuel.'

'You were always a hero to me, sir, even after the Restoration, if
only in the closet of my heart.' said Sam. 'Thankee.'

'Don’t thank me, I had nothing to do with it. I’m but the messenger.
You will be haunted,' resumed the Ghost, 'by a number of Spirits.'

Pepys' countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's head had.

'Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, sir?' he demanded, in a
faltering voice.

'It is.'

'I-I think I'd rather not,' said Sam.

'Without these visits,' said the Ghost, 'you cannot hope to shun the
path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow, when the bell tolls One.'

'Couldn't I take them all at once, and have it over, sir?' hinted
Pepys. ‘Much more efficient.’

***
“The Ghost frowned. ‘Expect the others to follow as they like. And
you might remember they’re going out of their way to help you.’

So Heaven wants Samuel Pepys, Sam couldn’t resist thinking a tad
proudly. Nice to know my diligence has won me a little...


‘Though if it were up to me or them, we probably wouldn’t waste the
time.’ the Ghost glared, clearly reading Sam’s mind. ‘Look to see me
no more, you little no one, and look that, for your own sake, you
remember what has passed between us!'

When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the
table, and setting its head at last back on its neck, bound the
kerchief round the neck, as before. Sam, not particularly caring to
watch, 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 arm.

The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took,
the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached
it, it was wide open. It beckoned Sam to come towards it, which he
did. When they were within two paces of each other, Cromwell's Ghost
held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Pepys stopped. From
the cold and dark night outside now came the most mournful cries of
woe, lamentation, and regret. The Ghost, floating out, listened a
moment and then joined in.

Sam 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 Oliver's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments
or corporate bodies?) were linked together. None were free and all
seemed attracted, even fixed on scenes of human misery and
wretchedness which spread before him on the ground below. One old
fellow, sobbing piteously at the plight of a seaman’s widow and her
dying infant on a doorstep, dragging a large chest from which the
phantom tossed incorporeal and therefore useless coin at the poor
woman, he suddenly recognized with shock as none other than the late
Sir George Carteret himself

The misery with all the spirits was, clearly, that they sought to
interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for
ever.

Hmmn...Must be an awful punishment backing it up if Sir George is so
reduced...Sam thought.

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.

Sam closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had
entered. The locked 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 dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the
hour, much in need of repose; went straight to bed, without
undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.

When Pepys awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed, he could
scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of
his chamber. He was endeavoring to pierce the darkness with his ferret
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 by the watch when he went to bed. The clock
was wrong. An icicle must have got into the works. Twelve?

"Why, it isn't possible," said Sam, "that I can have slept through a
whole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything
has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon."

The idea being 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 could
see very little then. All he could make out was, that it was still
very foggy and extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people
running to and fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably
would have been if night had beaten off bright day, and taken
possession of the world. This was a great relief, because "three days
after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Samuel Pepys, esq. or his
order," and so forth, would have become meaningless if there were no
days to count by.

There being no immediate remedy, Sam went to bed again, and thought,
and thought, and thought it over and 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. Cromwell's Ghost
bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after
mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again,
like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented
the same problem to be worked all through, ‘Was it a dream or not?’

Pepys lay in this state until the chimes had gone three quarters more,
when he remembered, on a sudden, 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!’

‘A quarter past,’ said Pepys, counting.

‘Ding dong!’

‘Half past!’ said Sam.

‘Ding dong!’

‘A quarter to it,’ said Pepys.

‘Ding dong!’

‘The hour itself,’ cried Sam, 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 the curtains of his bed were drawn.

The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not
the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to
which his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn
aside; and Pepys, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found
himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as
close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at
your elbow.

It was a strange figure -- like a child: yet not so like a child as
like a young woman, viewed through some supernatural medium, which
gave it the appearance of having receded from the view, and being
diminished to a child's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its
neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had
not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms
were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were
of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were,
like those upper members, bare. Its figure, Pepys noted, was quite
lovely, though shrouded a bit by its draping dress of the purest
white, and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of
which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its
hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its
dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it
was, that in its arms it held a large, well-bound book from which
emanated the light with illuminated the room; and which was doubtless
the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher
for a cover, which it now held under its arm.

‘Ho there you...Spirit, whatever. That’s my ...’ Sam paused, seeing
the face clearly...Oh...

He examined the diminished figure as carefully as he could without
staring too long...Oh, yes. I know those...Ahem...The Spirit frowned
at him and he hastily raised eyes.

‘Bess...? Are you the Spirit, whose coming was foretold to me? And
what the devil are you playing with my Diary for..?’ asked Pepys.

Was wondering where the damned thing had got to. Intended to have
Hewer burn it.

‘I am the Spirit you were told of.’

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

‘Come now. Who are you really, and what are you?" Pepys demanded.

"I am the Ghost of the Past.’

‘Long Past?’ inquired Pepys: observant of its dwarfish stature.

‘Your Past.’

‘Right. ’

Perhaps, Pepys could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have
asked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit blanket the
Diary in its cover .

‘What!’ exclaimed the Ghost, ‘Would you so soon put out, with your own
hands, the light it gives? Is it not enough that you, who created this
source of Light, are one of those whose passions made this cover, and
have forced me through whole trains of years to hide it and keep its
spirit so smothered!’

‘My Diary a source of Light?’ Sam beamed.

‘Not every passage, Sam’l.’ a frown. ‘But some...’

He caught the familiarity in the Spirit’s naming. ‘Bess? Is it
really you?’

‘As much as I am a large part of your past, Sam’l. Yes. But I
compromise more than Elisabeth’s spirit.’

He then made bold to inquire what business brought it..her? there.

‘Your welfare,’ said the Ghost.

Pepys expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that
a night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end.
The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately:

‘Your reclamation, then. Take heed.’

It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the
arm.

‘Rise. And walk with me.’

It would have been in vain for Pepys to plead that the weather and the
hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and
the thermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but
lightly in his slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had
a cold upon him at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's
hand, was not to be resisted.

Definitely Bess somewhere in there, he thought, eyeing the Ghost. She
always had the grip of a blacksmith.

He rose: but finding that the Spirit made towards the window, clasped
his robe in supplication.

‘Bess, remember I am mortal,’ Pepys remonstrated, ‘and liable to
fall.’

‘And having read your Diary, a part of me ought to let you.’ the
Spirit frowned. ‘Bear but a touch of my hand there,’ said the Spirit,
laying it upon his heart, ‘and you shall be upheld in more than this.’

Another faint smile as it...she touched him. ‘You ought to know I’d
never let harm come to you.’, offering a hand which at last, a bit
reluctantly, he took.

[spoiler]

‘You even trusted me with your gold a few times, Sam’l.’ the Spirit
grinned.

As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon
an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had
entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness
and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter
day, with snow upon the ground.
***


"Good Heaven!" said Pepys, clasping his hands together, as he looked
about him. "I spent my summers in this place. I was a boy here. Bess,
that’s my Uncle John Pepys." he pointed at a tall, distinguished-
looking man striding by them.

The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been
light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense
of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air,
each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and
cares long, long, forgotten.

‘Your lip is trembling,’ said the Ghost. ‘And what is that upon your
cheek?’

Pepys muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a
pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.

‘You recollect the way?’ inquired the Spirit.

‘Remember it!’ cried Pepys with fervour -- ‘Bess, I could walk it
blindfold.’

‘Strange to have forgotten it for so many years,’ observed the Ghost.
‘Go on, then.’

‘But...’ Sam eyed the Spirit...Intently seeking his lost Bess’ face
within the young/old face of the Ghost... ‘Aren’t you coming, Bess?
There’s so much I always wanted to show you here.’

‘Another must conduct you for now, Sam’l. But I have seen it, many
times through your eyes.’

‘You’re leaving...?’ an anxious catch...

‘I’ll be here...And with you...But another must help you retrieve this
part of the past. Go, he’s awaiting you.’

He hesitated, but as she...it smiled gently upon him, he finally,
sighing, but feeling a rather curious eagerness, set out along the
road, recognizing every gate, and post, and tree; until a little
market-town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and
winding river. Some cows now were seen trotting towards them, some led
by maids, others with maids upon their backs, who called to other
girls and boys in passing country gigs and carts, driven by farmers.
All these young ones were in great spirits, and shouted to each other,
until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air
laughed to hear it.

‘These are but shadows of the things that have been,’ said a voice
beside him which he recognized at once. ‘They have no consciousness of
us.’

‘Jack? Jack Cade?’ Sam turned to look at the hearty, smiling figure
of a handsome young man in his twenties..

‘You think you don’t believe it, Pepys.’ a broad grin as the young
Jack Cade shook his head at him. ‘You solemn old dowser, you look
like a bishop. What’s with that damned foolish thing on your head?’

***

The jocund travelers came on; and as they came, Pepys knew and named
them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them. Why
did his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past? Why
was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry
Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and-bye ways, for their
several homes? What was merry Christmas to Pepys? Out upon merry
Christmas! What good had it ever done to him?

‘The school is not quite deserted,’ said the Ghost. ‘A solitary child,
neglected by his friends, is left there still.’

Pepys said he knew it. And he sobbed.

They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and soon
approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercock-
surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a
large house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were
little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken,
and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables;
and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass. Nor was it
more retentive of its ancient state, within; for entering the dreary
hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found
them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in
the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself
somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to
eat.

They went, the Ghost and Pepys, across the hall, to a door at the back
of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare,
melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and
desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire;
and Pepys sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten
self as he used to be.

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice
behind the paneling, not a drip from the half-thawed water-spout in
the dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one
despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty store-house door,
no, not a clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Pepys with
a softening influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self,
intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in foreign garments:
wonderfully real and distinct to look at: stood outside the window,
with an ax stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden
with wood.

‘Why, it's Ali Baba!’ Pepys exclaimed in ecstasy. ‘It's dear old
honest Ali Baba. Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas time, when yonder
solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for the first
time, just like that. Poor boy. And Valentine,’ said Pepys, ‘and his
wild brother, Orson; there they go. And what's his name, who was put
down in his drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don't you see
him? And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he
is upon his head. Serve him right. I'm glad of it. What business had
he to be married to the Princess.’

To hear Pepys expending all the earnestness of his nature on such
subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying;
and to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise
to his business friends in the city, indeed.

‘There's the Parrot.’ cried Pepys. ‘Green body and yellow tail, with a
thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is!
Poor Robin Crusoe, he called him, when he came home again after
sailing round the island. ‘Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been,
Robin Crusoe?’ The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was
the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the
little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Hallo!’

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual
character, he said, in pity for his former self, ‘Poor boy!’ and cried
again.

‘I wish,’ Pepys muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking
about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff: ‘but it's too late
now.’

‘What is the matter?’ asked the Spirit.

‘Nothing,’ said Pepys. ‘Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas
Carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him
something: that's all.’

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did
so, ‘Let us see another Christmas!’