Polly found herself playing not only Scrooge’s lost love, Belle, but also the eldest Cratchit daughter, one of the businessmen soliciting a charitable donation from Scrooge (in a false mustache and sideburns), the boy sent to buy the turkey (in a cap and knee pants), and the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come.
How appropriate, she thought. She hadn’t realized till now that the play was about time travel, and that Scrooge was a sort of historian, journeying to the past and then back to the future.
And he had altered events. He’d given Bob Cratchit a raise, he’d improved the lot of the poor, he’d saved Tiny Tim’s life. But in A Christmas Carol, there wasn’t the possibility that what he’d done would have a bad effect. In Dickens, good intentions always resulted in good outcomes.
And none of his characters had deadlines.
They can occupy the same time twice, Polly thought enviously, watching the rector playing the young Scrooge and Sir Godfrey playing the elder in the same scene.
When Sir Godfrey wasn’t onstage, he was berating Miss Laburnum for her failure to secure a turkey for the Christmas-morning scene.
“There are simply none to be had, Sir Godfrey,” she said. “The war, you know.”
Or he was shouting at Viv (Scrooge’s nephew’s wife) and Mr. Simms (the Ghost of Marley) for their inability to learn their lines.
“I suppose you don’t know your lines for the tombstone scene either, Viola,” he growled at Polly when she missed a cue.
“I haven’t any lines,” Polly reminded him. “All I do is point at Scrooge’s grave.”
“Bah, humbug!” he said, bellowed at Tiny Tim (Trot) to get her cane out of the way, and started them through the Scrooge-confronts-his-own-death scene.
“Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,” he said, quailing from the pasteboard tombstone, “answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that will be, or are they shadows of things that may be only?”
I don’t know, Polly thought.
The war still seemed to be on track. Liverpool, Plymouth, and Manchester had been bombed, Victoria Station had been hit, and the British had counterattacked the Italian forces in North Africa, all on schedule.
But would they stay that way? Or would Marjorie—who’d sent Polly from Norwich, where she was doing her training, a card saying, “Wishing you anything but a Jerry Christmas!”—save the life of someone who would make a decisive error at El Alamein or on the HMS Dorsetshire?
“Spirit!” Sir Godfrey shouted. “Lady Mary! Viola! Kindly remember this is a holiday play, and you are the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, not Dark Unyielding Doom. I realize the thought of performing in Piccadilly Circus is grim, but if you look like that during the performance, you’ll terrify the children. This is a comedy, not a tragedy.”
I haven’t seen any proof of that, Polly thought. But she attempted—both onstage and off—to put on a face more in keeping with the season. Like everyone else was doing in spite of their facing a future which was just as uncertain as hers and civilian casualties which were mounting daily. The contemps entered wholeheartedly into the Christmas spirit, pinning decorations to their blackout curtains and greeting one another gaily with “Happy Christmas!”
And preparing presents to give each other. “I went in to Miss Laburnum’s room just now to borrow her iron,” Eileen reported, “and caught her trying to cover up something on her writing table. I think she’s making us Christmas gifts.”
“Or she’s a German spy,” Polly said, “and you caught her writing messages in code.”
Eileen ignored that. “What if we’re still here on Christmas, and she gives us a gift and we haven’t one for her? We must get something for her and for Miss Hibbard and Mr. Dorming … oh dear, do you think Mrs. Rickett will expect a gift?”
“She won’t be here. I heard her tell Miss Hibbard she’s going to her sister’s in Surrey for the holidays.” Polly started to say she doubted any of them would expect gifts in light of all the government admonitions to have a “frugal Christmas” to assist the war effort, and then thought better of it. Planning gifts might keep Eileen from fretting about Mike. “What about Theodore?” she said instead.
“Oh, yes, I must definitely get Theodore and his mother something,” Eileen said, making a list. “I know we can’t spend much money because we’ve got to save for our train fares to the drop, but I should send a gift to Alf and Binnie as well. Speaking of which, do you think you could steal some Christmas paper at work to wrap them in?”
“Gladly, if it will make us run through our supply sooner,” Polly said. “You’d best do your shopping soon, or the shops will be sold out.”
Which was true. Townsend Brothers’ shelves were becoming barer and barer, and Polly spent half her time bringing out ancient, dusty stock from the storeroom to sell in place of the stockings and gloves she was out of— old-fashioned garters and bed jackets and Victorian nightgowns. Customers snapped them up.
Both Townsend Brothers and Oxford Street were jammed with shoppers, parents bringing children to see Father Christmas, and elderly women soliciting donations for the Air-Raid Distress Fund, the Minesweepers Fund, and the Evacuated Children’s Fund. In front of bombed-out John Lewis’s, Victory bonds were being sold from the back of a lorry. Banners went up on government buildings proclaiming Not a Merry Xmas but a Happy Xmas— Devoted to the Service of Our Country, and Christmas trees went up in the shelters. Mistletoe hung from the tunnel arches, the canteen was swathed in fir branches, and WVS volunteers handed out sweets and toys and tickets to pantomimes.
One of them gave two tickets for Rapunzel to a mortally offended Sir Godfrey, “because you like plays and things.” He promptly gave them to Polly. She gave them to Eileen to pass along to Theodore and his mother.
“But they’re for Sunday the twenty-ninth, and she works Sundays,” Eileen said. “And I can’t take Theodore because we won’t be here. What do you think I should do? Give them to someone else?”
do? Give them to someone else?”
No, Polly thought, because if Mike’s still not here by the twenty-ninth, you’ll definitely need something to keep your mind off things.
