5th Annual DL Holiday Bonus: A DL Christmas Carol

[DomaDragoon]

{Now, this will require a bit of explanation, for all that the bonus could have been summed up in the opening paragraph. In 2005, I got the great idea to do a DL version of the Christmas Carol. So, in October of that year, I started.

However, as I'm fairly sure you're all familiar with, I have a teeny tiny problem with staying focused on one thing at a time. Thus, it was never completed beyond what you see below and a full cast list (which I have since lost somewhere in the big pile 'o papers I've got in my room). And after two years, I'm fairly certain I'll never work on it again. So, here we go.}

_ _ _

Mahley was dead, to begin with. There can be no doubt whatsoever about that. His burial was registered by the state, and signed by the pastor, the county clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Gobi signed it. And Gobi’s name was as good as gil for anything he chose to give it to.

Mahley was as dead as a door-nail.

Now, I don’t mean to say that I personally know how dead a door-nail feels like. It’s a figure of speech, much like the statement that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. While apples are good for you, the only way they’re going to keep the doctor away is if you throw them at him or her. That’s beside the point. You will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Mahley was as dead as a door-nail.

Gobi knew he was dead? Of course. How could it be otherwise? Gobi and he were partners for countless years. Gobi was his only executor, his only administrator, his only partner, his only friend, and his only mourner at the funeral. Even then, Gobi was not particularly mournful at the sad event. He was a stoic manillo of business on the day of the funeral, and solemnized it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Mahley’s funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Mahley was dead. He was passed on. He was no more. He was expired, stiff, bereft of live. He was an ex-Mahley. This is a very important point that must be completely understood before we move on. If we had no idea that Hamlet’s father had shuffled off the mortal coil before the play began, there would be nothing remarkable in seeing him take a walk at night, and thus the reactions that are set off by that event would seem to be without cause. Thus, one final time before we begin, it must be said. Mahley was dead.

Gobi never painted out Old Mahley’s name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the office door: Gobi and Mahley. The firm was known as Gobi and Mahley. Sometimes people new to the business called Gobi Gobi, and sometimes Mahley, but he answered to both names, so long as it was business related. It was all the same to him.

Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand in the changepurse. Gobi, a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever brought out generous fire; secret and self-contained and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his features, nipped his gills, shriveled his cheek, stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days of summer, and didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had no influence on Gobi. No warmth could warm him, no wintry weather could chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no pelting rain less open to prayer. The heaviest rain and snow and hail and sleet could boast of an advantage over him in only one respect. To look at them, at times, was a thing of beauty, something that could not be said for Gobi.

No man ever stopped him in the street to say, “My dear Gobi, how are you?” No beggars implored him for even the smallest trifle, no passers-by ever asked him for the time, no traveler stopped Gobi to ask for the way to anywhere. Even the dogs of the blind seemed to know him, for when they saw him coming on, they would tug their owners into doorways and up courts, and then would wag their tails as if to say, “No eye at all is better than an evil eye, a-e-i-o-u!”

But what did Gobi care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, sneering at all human sympathy to keep it at bay, was the lifeblood of Gobi’s existence.

Once upon a time (as all good tales are wont to begin), on Christmas Eve, Gobi sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather outside, and Gobi could hear the people in the court outside, wheezing along and shuffling their feet just to keep them warm. The clock had only just announced three ‘o the clock, but it was quite dark already, and candles were already flaring up in the windows of the neighbouring offices in a vain attempt to loosen the hold of darkness upon the city. The dim fog came rolling in through every cranny and keyhole, and was so dense in the courts that, though there was no more than ten stout strides across the way, one would have to struggle just to see that the houses opposite the way were more than mere shades.

The door of Gobi’s counting-house was open that he might keep a shrewd eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond was copying letters. Gobi’s room kept a very small fire, but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t replenish it, for Gobi kept the coal-box in his own room; and it was well surmised that should the clerk come in search of more warmth, he would find nothing but the harsh cold of the streets. Hunching his jacket further close to him, he tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

“Merry Christmas, Uncle! It’s me, your nephew!” cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Gobi’s nephew, Justin, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first notice of his approach.

“Bah!” said Gobi. “Humbug!”

Justin had so heated himself with rapid walking, even in the fog and frost, that he was all in a glow. His face was ruddy and flushed, his eyes sparkled, and he had the stupidest grin on his face.

“Christmas a humbug, uncle?” cried Gobi’s nephew. “You can’t mean that, can you?”

“I do,” said Gobi. “Merry Christmas? What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough.”

“Well, then, what right have you to be mopey? What reason have you to be a fuddy-duddy? You’re rich enough.” Justin replied, happily.

Gobi, having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said “Bah!” again, and turned back to his ledgers.

“Please don’t be angry,” said the nephew.

“What else can I be,” said Gobi brusquely, “when I live in a world of fools? Merry Christmas! What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money, finding yourself older but no richer and certainly no wiser, balancing your books and having every item in ‘em presented dead against you? If I had my way, every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips for all to see should be boiled with his own gravy, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart!”

“Uncle!” said Justin, astonished.

“Nephew!” mocked Gobi. “Keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.”

“Um, but you don’t keep it.”

“Then let me leave it alone,” said Gobi. “Much good may it do you, if it’s ever done anything for you.”

“There are lots of things that have done me good without giving me what you’d consider profit, uncle. Like adventures. Those are fun, and my wife comes along, and most of the time we don’t end up finding anything. That doesn’t make it any less fun. Christmas is fun, too. It’s the only time I can think of that everyone, except those old cranky people, seem to think of people below them as people and not garbage or monkeys. It brings people together and makes them happy. And even if it’s never made me a penny, or increased my standing with businessmen, I believe that it has done me good, and will keep on doing me good, and I say hooray for Christmas!”

The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded, then became immediately aware of the impropriety, and took to poking the fire in a vain attempt at coaxing a second spark out of it.

“One more sound out of you,” said Gobi, “and you’ll have a nice pink slip under the tree this Christmas!”

“Oh, come on, uncle. Don’t be angry. Come eat with us tomorrow,” said Justin.

Gobi remarked in great vivid detail what exactly he would do before he would see him.

“But why?” cried Justin.

“Why did you get married?” said Gobi.

“Because I fell in love.”

“Because you fell in love!” growled Gobi, as if that were the only thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. “Good day, sir!”

“You never came to see me before I got married. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?”

“Good day, sir,” said Gobi.

“I don’t want anything, I don’t ask for anything; why can’t we be friends?”

“Good day, sir,” said Gobi.

“C’mon. We’ll have turkey.”

“Good day, sir,” said Gobi.

Finally, the clerk walked up to Justin and pointed out that Mister Gobi wasn’t going to change his mind, and he was trying rather obviously to get Justin to leave.

“Oh. Well, I’m sorry you feel like that. As far as I know, we’ve never had any fights or angry words or dead puppies between us. But I’ve come in the spirit of Christmas, and I’ll keep my Christmas humour to the last. So, Merry Christmas, uncle!”

“Good day, sir!” said Gobi.

“And a happy New Year!”

“Good day, sir!” yelled Gobi.

His nephew left the room without an angry word. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, still found the warmth to return them cordially.

“There’s another fellow,” muttered Gobi, who had overheard the previous exchange, “my clerk, with fifteen hundred potch a week, and a wife and family to support, talking about a merry Christmas. I’ll wind up in Bedlam.”

This lunatic, in letting Gobi’s nephew out, had let two other people in. They were serious gentlemen, pleasant to look at, and now stood with their helms off in Gobi’s office. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.

“Gobi and Mahley’s, I believe,” said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. “Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Gobi, or Mr. Mahley?”

“Mr. Mahley has been dead for seven years, seven years tonight in fact,” Gobi replied.

“We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner,” the gentleman said, presenting his credentials.

It certainly was, for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word ‘liberality,’ Gobi frowned, shook his head, and handed the credentials back.

“At this festive time of the year, Mr. Gobi,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should do something for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly in these days. Many thousands are in want of common necessities; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”

“Are there no prisons?” asked Gobi.

“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, his eyes downcast in memory.

“And the Soylent System Workhouse and Barbecues? Are they still in operation?”

“They are.”

“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Gobi.

“Both very busy, sir.”

“I see. I was afraid from what you had first said that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Gobi. “I’m very glad to hear it.”

“Since they barely manage to support the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are trying to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. We choose this time above all others because this is when want is keenly felt, and abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”

“Nothing,” said Gobi.

“You wish to be anonymous?”

“I wish to be left alone,” said Gobi. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I help to support the establishments I mentioned – they cost enough at any rate – and those who are badly off must go there.”

“Many cannot go there; and many would rather die,” the gentleman pointed out.

“If they would rather die, then they should get on with it and decrease the surplus population. Besides – excuse me – I don’t know that.”

“But you might know it,” said the gentleman.

“It is not my business,” Gobi returned. “It’s enough to understand one’s 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. The second one nudged the first and grumbled, “I knew I should have done the talking, Cecil.” As the two gentlemen argued out the door, Gobi resumed his labours with an improved opinion of himself.

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran around with flaring torches, offering their services to go before groups of travelers and conduct them on their way. The cold became intense. In the main street, some prinnies were repairing the gas-pipes, and had lit a great fire in a brazier, around which young children were warming their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The hydrant being left in solitude, its over-flowings sullenly congealed, and turned to harsh 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.

Foggier yet, and colder. Piercing, searching, nipping, biting cold. If the good Lord Granas had but nipped the Evil Spirit’s nose with a touch of such weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared forth to success. A young girl stooped down at Gobi’s keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of:

‘Althena bless you, merry folk!
May nothing you dismay!’

Gobi seized his spear 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 arrived. With an ill-will Gobi dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant clerk, who instantly snuffed his candle out and put on his hat.

“You’ll want all day tomorrow, I suppose?” said Gobi.

“If it’s convenient, sir.”

“It’s not convenient,” said Gobi, “and it’s not fair. If I was to dock your pay even in the slightest for it, you’d think yourself ill-used, I’ll bet?”

The clerk smiled faintly.

“And yet,” said Gobi, “you don’t think me ill-used, when I pay a day’s wages for no work.”

The clerk pointed out that it was only once a year.

“A poor excuse for picking a Manillo’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December!” said Gobi, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. “But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning.”

The clerk promised that he would; and Gobi walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, wrapping his jacket fiercely around him, slid down a slide on Pepper Street at the end of a lane of children, and then ran home as hard as he could pelt.

Gobi took his dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers and his banker’s book, he trod home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, filled with bookshelves of half-read tomes that Gobi had never gotten around to getting rid of. It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Gobi, the other rooms all being let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Gobi, who knew every cobblestone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and frost hung thick about the black old gateway of the house.

Now, it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the front door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact that Gobi had seen it twice daily during his residence in that place; a fact that Gobi had very little of what some would call fancy about him; a fact that Gobi had thought nothing of Mahley since his last mention of him that afternoon. Then let any man explain to me, if they can, how it happened that Gobi, with his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker not a knocker, but Mahley’s face.

Mahley’s face. It was not in impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal light about it. It was not angry or pleased, but looked at Gobi as Mahley used to look: slightly bored with his hair tussled up on his ghostly forehead. It was 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 Gobi 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 situation to which it was a stranger, would be untrue. But he turned his key sturdily, walked in, and lit his candle. He did pause before he shut the door, and he did look cautiously behind it first. But there was nothing on the back of the door but the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he said ‘Pfft!’ and closed it with a bang.

The sound resonated through the house like thunder. Every room above, and every cranny in the cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. Gobi was not one to be frightened by echoes. He locked the door, and waked across the hall and up the stairs; slowly, too: trimming his candle as he went.

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

Sitting-room, bedroom, equipment room. All as they should be. Nobody hiding under the table; nobody lounging on the sofa; a small fire in the hearth; nobody concealed under the bed sheets; nobody in wait in the closet; nobody in his dressing gown; no living soul in the house save himself.

Quite satisfied, Gobi closed his door and locked himself in; double-locked in fact, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he put on his gown and slippers, and his nightcap, and sat down before the fire.