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

lend to people like us, working people, who just need a hand. You and I could repay a small loan, if the interest were low enough. Is it not worth some consideration?’

      He was leaning back again, staring at the ceiling. She could almost hear the gears in his mind working. All he said was, ‘Hmm, I shall sleep on it.’

      She took her place beside him, tingling with a hopeful trepidation.

Chapter 3

      ‘Housewives, who’d have thought it?’

      Two months later, and Jake was counting their takings for the day. True enough, and contrary to what Clara had expected, almost all of their customers were women, desperate for housekeeping money. The condition was that they leave an item of value – a pocket watch, a locket, a silver comb – returned when they repaid the loan. Their new room on Shelby Street (complete with lock on the door) was becoming cluttered with the collateral, and their landlord, Mr Teckman, had already decreed that they must find a place of business or vacate the room.

      Given the nature of their clientele, it made most sense for Clara to front the operation, with Jake keeping the books. At first, people couldn’t believe that such young people were able to run a business, and they had a few unfriendly exchanges with the established competition. They were robbed twice, but then hired protection in the form of Max, a former boxer, and were left in peace.

      ‘Mrs Ketteridge is late. Their loan was due last week,’ said Jake with a yawn, tired eyes blinking at the ledger. He still put in a full day’s work on the fish stall. ‘She needs a visit.’

      ‘Oh, Jake, but it’s nearly Christmas.’ She put aside the sock that she was darning. Both of them wore socks that were more hole than sock and their feet were always freezing. Clara’s idea of paradise was warm feet. The fire sputtered but she daren’t put on more coal until morning. ‘Can’t we leave her until New Year? Her baby is ill and—’

      Jake looked up sharply and put aside his quill. ‘Christmas? Do we get a day off? No, we do not. Then why should our customers get to make merry at our expense? We lent them the money in good faith. The least they can do is repay us in kind. And on time.’ He shut the ledger and rubbed his eyes, smearing his cheek with ink. ‘You mustn’t get involved with them and their problems. Mark me, they will drag you down.’

      It gave him the look of a small boy again, and she smudged the ink away with her handkerchief. But he was becoming a man. A businessman, and a good one. All his energy, body and soul, was devoted to the goal of bettering themselves. He was doing it for her, for both of them, so they would never be hungry or cold again. She knew that and appreciated how hard it was. But still, there were times when it seemed that his heart had turned to copper.

      This is temporary. The struggle is so hard. When things get easier, he’ll turn back into the warm, caring individual than I know so well. I am sure of it.

      ‘I will visit her tomorrow. Now sleep, brother.’

      ‘Max will go with you. It’s not safe on your own.’

      Clara set off in heavy rain the next morning with the hulking, snuffling figure of Max by her side. As wide as he was tall, he cleared a path for her through the crowds. The snow had turned to dirty slush, which splashed her legs every time a carriage drove past. A sandwich board man passed her, advertising soap. Their steps turned off into the cramped, filthy alleys of the slums. Here were no fine carriages, no hawkers of sweets; just the smell of sewage and cabbage, the flutter of dingy washing overhead, and the sound of crying babies.

      Clara didn’t dare share with Jake that she not only was involved with their customers’ problems, but she knew them intimately. Mrs Gilvin had terrible gout that forced her to give up work as a flower-seller, with six mouths to feed, including a perpetually drunken husband. Mrs Bainbridge’s husband had worked on one of the river barges. He drowned one night when he was drunk, after running up debts with a very nasty money-lender known for smashing the kneecaps of his delinquent clients. Mrs Lee had had three children in four years, all of whom developed the whooping cough, yet she had no money for the doctor. And then there was Mrs Ketteridge. Three of her four children had died of malnutrition, and it looked like the last one was going the same way. Her house had been flooded again by the annual Thames overflow. They had nowhere else to go, so were living in the damp, mouldy remains of the house. Clara had not told Jake that Mrs Ketteridge had left no item of collateral for her loan.

      Clara stepped over an open sewer, the corner of her shawl over her nose, to arrive at her door during a welcome break in the downpour.

      ‘Wait outside,’ she instructed Max.

      Mrs Ketteridge – Lila – was sweeping the floor, with her baby, Elsie, swaddled in a dirty blanket in her arm. The walls of the house were stained to a height of two feet from the flooding. When she saw Clara, her lined face went the colour of Elsie’s blanket. She leaned the broom against the wall, just as it started to rain again.

      ‘You’d better come in,’ she said.

      The smell of river mud and decay was overwhelming. Little light penetrated the filmy windows, whose frames were all stuffed with wads of paper. The sputtering fire in the corner created more steam than heat. A rapid series of sneezes emanated from Elsie’s blanket.

      ‘There, little one,’ cooed Lila. ‘That’s better, ain’t it?’

      ‘How are things, Lila?’ Clara asked, dreading the answer. ‘Has Dick managed to find work?’

      Lila’s husband had been nearly blinded in a foundry accident six months previously. Since then, he had struggled to stay with anything for long.

      ‘There’s word of needing vegetable porters in the market.’

      These sturdy fellows carried heavy baskets of produce on their heads. It was hard to imagine little Dick Ketteridge managing one of those, but he was game for anything. This was why, despite the lack of collateral, Clara had agreed the loan. Dick and Lila were fighters. Despite the awful hand they had been dealt, they were not giving up. Dick was sober. Lila did the best she could to make a home. They deserved a break.

      And here she was, about to pull the rug from under them.

      This could so easily have been me and Jake. Had we not found that dying man in the alley that night, everything could have been different. Money changes all. And we will never be without it again.

      ‘You know why I am here …’ she began, making a determined effort to be the businesswoman Jake needed her to be.

      Dick came in then, feeling his way around the familiar contours of the room. ‘Lila,’ he said, ‘do we have a visitor?’

      ‘It’s Clara Marley,’ she said without emotion, ‘come about the loan.’ Elsie started to sneeze again.

      ‘Lila tells me there might be work for you in the market,’ said Clara, trying to find some shred of hope to discuss.

      ‘Aye,’ he said with a sigh, resting beside the fire. ‘I reckon so. Pass me the wee one, Lila, let me warm her.’ And he took Elsie in his arms. ‘Should be able to pay you back in full next week.’

      ‘Next week?’

      ‘Aye,’ he said, ‘I reckon so. With a bit of luck. How’s my lucky girl?’ He kissed Elsie’s forehead.

      Clara did a rapid calculation of the extra interest they would need to charge for that week. And what Jake would say about the delay.

      ‘You know, the loan came due last week. There will be more interest to pay.’ She kneaded her cold fingers. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just business.’

      Lila looked helplessly from her to Dick.

      ‘You’ll have it all next week,’ said Dick, raising his filmy eyes. ‘Dick Ketteridge pays his debts. I’m asking you to believe me, which I know isn’t how things work in your business. I’m asking you