Darcy 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 Old Mr. Darcy’s Ghost; some few were covered completely in chains. Darcy had personally known many during their lifetime. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron chain attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a doorstep. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had forever lost the power to do so.
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.
Darcy closed the window and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. It was locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the 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 conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose, he went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the instant.
Chapter 2
Christmas Past
When Darcy awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of the bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavoring to pierce the darkness with his 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 when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have gotten into the works. Twelve!
He glanced at the clock that rested on the mantel. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve and stopped.
“Why, it is not possible,” said Darcy, “that I can have slept through a whole day and far into another night. It is not possible that anything has happened to the sun and this is twelve at noon!”
The idea being such 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 even after that could see very little. All he could make out was that it was still very foggy and extremely cold. It was a great relief that there was no noise of people running to and fro or making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if night had beaten off day and taken possession of the world.
Darcy went to bed again, thought about it 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 of his father’s Ghost. It bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after much mature inquiry, that it had all been a dream, his mind flew back to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked through: Was it a dream or not?
“A quarter past,” said Darcy counting.
“Half past!” said Darcy.
“A quarter to it.” Darcy suddenly remembered 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.
“The hour itself,” said Darcy 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 a hand drew the curtains of his bed aside. Not the curtains at his feet nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed. Darcy, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them.
It was a not a stranger’s figure. Her hair was white, as if with age, swept up with loose tendrils falling, curls framed the face that had not a wrinkle in it, and a tender bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and feminine, her hands the same. Her feet, most delicately formed, were encased in delicate white slippers. She wore a gown of the purest white and round its high waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. She held a branch of fresh green holly in her hand; and, in singular contradiction of this wintry emblem, had her dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about her was that from the crown of her head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible.
Darcy looked at it with increasing steadiness.
“Mama?” Darcy said somewhat indistinctly, for the face resembled that of Lady Anne Darcy. “Are you the Spirit whose coming was foretold to me?” asked Darcy.
“I am!” The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.
“Who are you?” Darcy demanded.
“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”
“Long past?” inquired Darcy
“No. Your past,” replied the ghostly Lady Anne, her hand reaching out to brush a curl off Darcy’s forehead.
“Mama,” Darcy repeated softly. “Are you truly here?”
The ghost seemed about to nod, hesitated, then shook her head and repeated, “I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”
“What brought you here?” Darcy asked, greatly disappointed.
“Your welfare!” said the Ghost.
“I am very much obliged,” Darcy thanked her.
“And your reclamation. Take heed of what you shall see!” She put out her hand as she spoke and clasped him gently by the arm. “Rise and walk with me!”
It would have been in vain for Darcy 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 shirtsleeves. The grasp, though gentle, was not to be resisted. He rose, but finding that Lady Anne made towards the window, clasped his waistcoat in supplication.
“I will fall,” Darcy remonstrated.
“I would not let such a fate come to pass. 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!”
As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either side. 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 Heavens,” Darcy exclaimed. “It is Pemberley.”
Lady Anne gazed upon him mildly. Her gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to Darcy’s sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odors floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts and hopes and joys and cares long, long forgotten.
They walked along the drive, Darcy recognizing every gate and post and tree. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with a young Fitzwilliam (perhaps five or six years old) and his cousins, Edward and Frederick upon their backs, who called to their parents, riding in country gigs. Both parties were in great spirits, and shouted and laughed to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music that the crisp air laughed to hear it.
