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

Mother’s death, things changed with the dizzying speed of a carnival ride. The Inspector of Nuisances arrived the next day to inform them that the pox rendered their house uninhabitable until it had been cleansed top to bottom with sulphur, along with all their possessions. The public disinfectors would arrive in the morning, he said, and the Marleys would need to vacate the premises until they had completed their task.

      Red-eyed with shock and grief, Father had simply nodded and said, ‘Of course. Of course, at once.’

      Uncle Robert had been so kind then, taking them all in to his more modest house, sitting up late every night with Father. They all simply existed in a frozen cocoon of grief. Father’s answer to everything, without question or reflection, was, ‘Of course, at once.’ So when Uncle Robert proposed some business investments, as a way for Father to get back on his feet, his reply was the same.

      Clara did not understand the nature of these investments, but it wasn’t long before loud arguments could be heard between Father and Uncle Robert, emanating from behind Robert’s study door.

      They were back living in the sulphurous house on Hampden Street, minus many of the furnishings which Uncle Robert had kindly sold for them, when a police constable arrived one day, asking for Father. Dorothy explained that he was at work, but the constable informed them that he had not been at his place of business for almost a month. It appeared that the constable’s duty was to take Father to the Coldbath Fields Prison, where he was to be incarcerated as a debtor.

      The constable returned later that day, demeanour entirely changed, clenching his cap in his hands. When Dorothy answered the door, he said, ‘I’m very sorry to tell you that we have located a … person whom we believe to be Mr Edmund Marley.’ And he produced Father’s top hat, stained with river mud. Dorothy fainted right there on the brass doorstep that she polished every day.

      It seemed that he had drowned somewhere near Putney Bridge. Some mudlarks, out early to meet the low tide, had found him. What made Clara cry longest and hardest was the image of him, flailing in the foamy brown water, still wearing that hat. He was never without that hat. She had to think of him falling, not jumping. The inquest, perhaps out of kindness to his two white-faced orphans, returned an open verdict.

      She sniffled again now, and felt Jake stroke her hair. She sought the comfort of the dream, as she did every night. In her old bed, in the room with the white lilac wallpaper, Mother is sitting beside her on the counterpane, stroking her hair, humming a tuneless lullaby. The pillow is soft under her head, a copper bed-warmer toasty on the sheet by her feet. She is content. Safe and content.

      A commotion around a bend in the alley shattered her into wakefulness. Jake was already on his feet, running towards the direction of the sound, blade in hand.

      When she caught up to him, panting and blurry with sleep, Jake was standing over the man slumped against the wall. The red of the blood splashing onto the white cravat at his neck matched his garnet waistcoat and britches. In the flickering lamplight from the street, he reached out a hand. ‘Help me,’ he gurgled.

      Hand to her throat, she exclaimed in horror, ‘Jake, what did you do?’

      ‘Quiet. I did nothing, I found him like this. Those who done it are gone, I saw them scarper, that way.’ His blade was clean but his eyes were wild.

      She knelt beside the man, whose plump cheeks were already losing their ruddy sheen. Blood pumped steadily from the wound in his neck. There had been a series of garrottings in the neighbourhood. A special police squad had even been formed to try to deal with them.

      ‘Help me,’ the man repeated, a bloodied hand on her arm. His eyes, unseeing, swept her face.

      ‘We need to sound the alarm!’ she said. There was so much blood, but not enough light to see where it was coming from. It pooled at her feet, glossy black.

      Jake knelt beside her and shook the man’s shoulder. ‘What’ll you give us?’

      ‘They took—’ gasped the man. ‘They took my purse. Please, I—’

      Pity vied with disgust in Clara’s mind. He was as fat as a Christmas turkey, his bulging waistcoat stained with gravy and port. His rattling breath was rich with it. He was obviously on his way home after a fine dinner when he was attacked. The taste of pig’s foot and rotten vegetables rose in her throat.

      ‘You have another one, don’t cha?’ said Jake. ‘Quick now, give it to me, and help is on the way. Come on, not much time left.’

      The man scrabbled vaguely at his crotch. Clara scuttled backwards, but Jake undid the man’s belt and fished around in his underclothes until his hand emerged clutching a purse. Butter-yellow leather, it bulged with coins which clinked softly.

      ‘Ha!’ Jake kept his voice low, eyes flitting in all directions. ‘I knew it. Let’s go.’ And he pulled Clara roughly to her feet.

      ‘But what about—?’

      ‘Nothing to be done for him’ Jake said, with a wave of his hand. ‘He is a goner. And besides,’ he said, as he pulled her along, ‘he’d have stepped over our dead bodies to get to his carriage.’

      The man made a gurgling sound, and Clara turned her back.

      So began their new life.

Chapter 2

      Their first room was hardly more than a cupboard. It smelled of damp, and the winter gales sent icy fingers to rattle the window frame, but there was a small coal fire and a bed. Clara had her first wash in nine months from the cracked jug on its stand in the corner, and felt like a princess.

      The landlady, a Scot called Mrs Clayburn, clearly had grave reservations about even allowing them over the threshold, but when Jake held out a palm full of coins, she had a change of heart, muttering, ‘I’m a martyr to my charitable nature.’ She reminded Clara of a pigeon; totally grey, from her unwashed bonnet to her puffy bosom and down to her dingy slippers, glittering black eyes like shards of flint.

      After a room and a wash, their next mission was a meal. They found a pub nearby, the Ox and Plough, where they made a similar impression on the landlord. Only when Jake produced 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,