大象传媒

A Midsummers' Carol - Part Five
by Clint Driftwood

Read the story from the beginning

This Dickens parody was the winner in the prose section of our Summer Parodies competition, and was originally contributed to the Fantasy Archers topic on The Archers .

Aldridge ran to the window and closed it as quickly as he was able; he nearly tore the moth-eaten curtains from their hangings as he drew them, such was his haste to cover the window and block out then night. Then wiping the perspiration from his brow he went to the bedroom door and finding it to still be locked, he turned, stumbled to his bed and fell upon it in a swoon.
When he woke the room was in darkness. He judged that he must have slept for quite some time for the candles to have burnt away. He had just decided to get up and strike a light so he might see the time on his watch when, the grandfather clock in the hall downstairs began to chime. He counted the strikes, one through six then ten and then twelve he totalled before it ceased.
"This is not right," he thought, "It was well past two when I went to bed, there is no way that I could have slept through a whole day, the clock must be wrong."

His mind jerked back to Crawford聮s Ghost. He in lay in the pitch black of his bedroom wondering if it had really happened or if it had all been a horrid nightmare. As soon as he convinced himself that it was a nightmare he would think of a reason to the contrary. The more he pondered the more confused he became in his mind. The Grandfather clock in the hall below began to chime again, and he remembered that Crawford聮s Ghost had foretold the coming of the first spirit at the hour of one. Aldridge cowered beneath his bedclothes.
Then, the covers started to move. Aldridge gripped them tightly, they were being drawn backwards by some unseen force. He shut his eyes in fear and held on all the more but try as he may he could not resist the force. Back- back they were pulled and by his grip he was pulled with them to a sitting position.

"Look upon me!" a voice commanded him. It was a most curious in voice, not sounding as belonging to male or female, man or woman, girl or boy.
"I dare not," cried Aldridge "For my sanity聮s sake."
"Then look upon me for your soul's sake" returned the voice."

Slowly Aldridge opened his eyes; there before him stood a figure, it glowed yellow from head to foot as if it were clothed in sunlight. It seamed to Aldridge as if it had a rosebud for lips and the deepest blue forget-me-not聮s in place of eyes, and a tunic woven from new mown hay. Though he could not be sure, as he could not focus on it for more then a second without it seemed to change form slightly the more he concentrated on it.
"Are you the spirit whose coming was foretold to me?" Aldridge asked.
"I am." replied the Spirit; Aldridge thought that its voice now resembled the song a mountain stream, running fresh and clear. "Who are you?" Aldridge enquired in a civil tone, not wanting to have a repeat of the wailing that he incurred when he spoke out of place to Crawford聮s ghost.
"I am the ghost of midsummer聮s past." The Ghost answered.
"A long time passed?" Aldridge asked.
"No-Your past." replied the Ghost.
"But my past is spent and cannot be altered." Aldridge suggested.
"Your welfare then" the Ghost replied, "Rise up and walk with me."
"Bu-but Sir-Madam-whatever you are," stammered Aldridge, "I am sorry but I cannot tell your gender or age, I have no notion of how to address you politely."
"Sir," explained the ghost, "I have no gender as you know it, I am a result of your life, and every person that you ever encountered. I am as a record of the diaries of many people, a record of how every meeting you chanced to have with everyone you ever met in your life affected him or her through their eyes as well as yours. As for age, I can be as old as you are now or as young as you were at birth or any age in-between. Now rise and walk with me, my time here is limited."

Aldridge did as he was asked and the Ghost took his hand, it was a gentle grip but fast as a vice, the ghost led him to the outside wall of his bedroom.
"Wait!" cried Aldridge.
But to no avail, he was pulled towards the wall, which dissolved as they met it, and the next instant they were on a country road in the bright light of a summer聮s day.
"I know this place!" Aldridge exclaimed, "I was a boy here."

Aldridge all at once became aware of a multitude of scents and feelings that seemed to come to him on the breeze, long forgotten emotions rose up inside him and a tear came to his eye.
"What is it that is on your cheek?" enquired the Ghost.
"It is nothing," Aldridge dismissed, adding, "Now take me where you will."
"Do you know they way?" asked the Ghost.
"Know the way?" Aldridge almost yelled, "I could walk it with my eyes closed."
They walked along the road, Aldridge聮s heart leapt with joy as he remembered every bush, every gate, and every tree, pointing them out to the ghost and naming them. Presently a group of boys came towards them on horseback
"I know him," shouted Aldridge excitedly, pointing at the leader, "That聮s young Sam Lewis, Ho! There Sam, wait up won聮t you?"
"He is unable to hear you," said the Ghost, "These are but shadows of things that have past, and we have no influence here."

The scene then changed, Aldridge then saw a small boy all alone in a schoolroom, and he knew him also.
"You know him?" asked the Ghost, "And you know also that all the school have left for summer holidays and he is abandoned here by friend and family?"
"I do Spirit," Aldridge replied, and began to weep, seeing himself as he used to be.
"I wish." Aldridge sighed.
"What do you wish?" returned the Ghost.
"I wish that I had known then, what I know now- and stood up to my stepfather. I was young and innocent then, not wise in the ways of the world or of immoral men. If you can call what he was a man?" speaking those words made Aldridge weep all the more.
"He sent me away to board here. I know now, to have me out of his way. My dear sister was so happy when she was allowed to visit me here, I thought it was because she loved me so, that she dreaded going back. But now I know it was because of the cruel things our stepfather did to her. She did not tell me at that time, she was three years older than I, and she knew I, being younger, would not have understood or the reason why she killed herself. She told me in a letter that she left in the care of a solicitor to be handed to me upon my coming of age. My mother knew and could do nothing because he threatened to have her committed to an asylum, and when my sister ended her own life, my poor mother tried to tell others what had been happening. But she raved so much in her grief for her child and her hatred of that man; it was so easy for him to persuade a doctor to sign the documents. I was here at this school and knew nothing of it." Aldridge now became inconsolable.

"But Sir," asked the Ghost, "Do you not yourself toy with your secretary and other women in a similar fashion?"
Aldridge, with tears streaming down his cheeks looked up at the Ghost and through his sobs whispered, "I did not realise, Spirit forgive me."
"It is not my place to forgive you, forgiveness must first be earned and if it is judged fitting, be granted to you from another quarter." said the Ghost; its voice, this time showing no emotion.
"Enough then Spirit," begged Aldridge, "Return me to my bed."
"I cannot, Brian Aldridge," the Ghost replied, "There is more that you must witness before my time with you is done."

Part Six, in which Aldridge sees his lost Jenny Darling

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