Miss Marley: A Christmas ghost story - a prequel to A Christmas Carol. Rebecca Mascull

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СКАЧАТЬ more coins were they allowed entry. There they had stringy beef and vegetables boiled to mush and they mopped every drop of gravy from the plates with hunks of stale bread, washed down with mugs of bitter ale. The other diners, huddled over their food in the smoky gloom, paid them no mind at all.

      Tucked up in bed that night, stomach complaining at the unaccustomed bounty instead of cramped with emptiness, Clara didn’t notice the coarseness of the sheets or the suspicious stains on the pillows, or feel the rough floorboards against her feet. They had a home again, a roof and four walls. With an address, they could get work.

      ‘Tomorrow will be better,’ murmured Jake with a satisfied belch, teetering on the edge of sleep.

      Clara tried to stifle the cough, so as not to disturb him, but it overcame her in waves that left her gasping.

      He held her close. ‘And we shall get you something for that.’

      In the morning, after a breakfast of tea with milk, and bread with butter (butter!), they joined the thronging streets. The crisp winter air smelled of roasting chestnuts, horse manure, coal smoke and holly. The sharp scent of pine rose from the bowers that decked every corner. Blurred sunlight was making some headway against the choking fog which had lain across the city for days. A biting wind blew a few wisps of snow which caught in Clara’s eyelashes. She pulled the shawl tighter around her neck.

      Jake shouldered his way through the hawkers and vendors, the coffee merchants and flower-sellers, the boot-blacks and card tricksters to the street doctor with his tray of wares.

      They waited for an old woman to leave with her paper parcel, then Jake asked, ‘How much for the cough drops?’

      The street doctor eyed him and Clara with interest. ‘Depends on what type of cough you got: dry or wet, chesty or wheezy, bloody or not.’

      At that, Clara erupted in a spasm which had her clutching at Jake’s arm.

      ‘Dry and chesty,’ pronounced the doctor, ‘that’ll be a shilling.’ He extracted some lozenges from his tray and wrapped them in a twist of paper.

      Clara’s eyes widened at the price. The poorest, who couldn’t afford proper doctors, sought the street doctors’ remedies. But this was not cheap.

      ‘What’s in ’em?’ asked Jake.

      ‘Mouse foot, herring bone, some parsley and rose water.’ He showed his teeth to Clara. Then he guffawed at Jake’s expression. ‘Don’t be alarmed, my boy. I can’t be giving away my secret formula, now can I?’ He clapped his shoulder with a wink.

      ‘And this works?’

      ‘Yes, my boy, never had any complaints, now if you don’t mind—’ His eyes focused on an old man with a giant boil on his nose.

      Jake moved off, muttering, ‘Never had any complaints because they’re all dead.’

      Clara tugged at his sleeve. Around the corner, she popped one of the lozenges into her mouth. It was revolting, like mint-flavoured tar, and she almost spat it out, but it had been so costly that she persevered. She felt a slow warming in her chest, a gentle easing of her lungs.

      ‘If you’re ready,’ said Jake, ‘we’ll now find work.’

      Clara took his hand. Jake always had a plan. He was so determined that they would regain a good life that she thought he might bring it about through the sheer power of his will.

      In the end, it took a week for them both to find situations, neither of which were ideal. But it was a start. Clara was helping out on a second-hand clothes stall, where she was at least able to replace her rags. It meant standing on her feet all day, trying to entice the passers-by, who mostly wanted to sell rather than acquire. Mrs Turner, who recognised Clara’s commercial potential, dressed her hair in ribbons, and costumed her in the best wares to attract customers. It almost made Clara feel like a lady again.

      Jake had started on a fish stall, gutting and skinning all day. He reeked of it when he returned, stumbling with exhaustion. ‘Tomorrow will be better,’ he would gasp, before collapsing in their only chair.

      At the end of their first month, they sat on the bed in the glow of the candle, counting their earnings. The fire belched smoke with each gust of wind that shook the panes, but thanks to the street doctor’s remedy and the relative warmth of the room, Clara’s cough was now just a slight wheeze.

      Jake kept all their coins in the yellow leather purse, tied around his neck. It never left his person, not even while he slept. Now it was open on the bed, coppers and even a few gold coins gleaming in the light. He pushed his hands through the pile with a giggle of pure boyish delight which softened the hard line of his jaw, and then returned it to the purse and tucked it into his shirt.

      ‘This is our future. We shall never, ever be poor again. You have my promise.’

      That night, as Clara dozed against Jake’s shoulder, it was the first time that a new life felt within her reach. Although she had never doubted Jake when he said things would get better, it had been such a long time since Hampstead Street, and Mother and Father and Dorothy, that it had started to take on the dimensions of a dream, indistinct and unreal.

      She wondered what Uncle Robert would make of them, if he could see them now. He would pass them by on the street without recognition, she was sure of it. So quick was he to wash his hands of them, it had seemed mere days between Father’s funeral and Uncle Robert leading them through the workhouse gates. After the first month there, hands bleeding from the carbolic of the laundry room, stomachs griping from the terrible food, feet frozen when bigger children stole their shoes, Jake determined that anything else would be preferable. He watched, and waited, and noticed that the driver of the milk wagon sometimes neglected to shut the gates properly when he made his dawn delivery. They slipped out one frosty spring morning, with nowhere to go.

      It was frightening to flee across the crunchy grass, hand in hand, but also exhilarating after the past month of unceasing labour and casual beatings from the staff and other children. The trees were budding, and warmer weather was on the way, but it was still a shock, an enormous shock, to huddle under railway arches and in stinking alleys. As Jake said every night, when Clara cried and her cough became worse and worse, ‘At least we are free. And things will get better. I promise you, I will find a way.’ His words were her anchor, the only safe thing in the storm around them.

      Clara heard the noise first. The room was in darkness, but the thin curtains allowed a seam of moonlight to spill across the bed. Jake was breathing softly beside her alongside the window. At first she thought it was another rat. Some of them were as big as terriers. But then a shadow blocked the moonlight and whoever it was began patting all over Jake’s person.

      ‘Wha—?’ He woke with a gasp.

      ‘Where is it?’ said a Scottish voice. ‘I know it’s here somewhere. I’ve looked everywhere else. Give it up, my boy.’

      With a cluck of triumph, Mrs Clayburn snipped the purse from Jake’s neck and turned to the window to inspect her prize. ‘Now where’d a couple of snipes like you be gettin’ a sum like this? Not cleanin’ fish, I’ll wager.’

      Jake went to snatch it from her, but for a large woman she was surprisingly quick.

      ‘Give it back!’ he shouted, and made a lunge, which left him tumbled on the floor. ‘You thief! I’ll call the police!’

      ‘Police, СКАЧАТЬ