Read Online Mr. Darcy's Christmas Carol by Carolyn Eberhart - Free Book Online

it?” cried Bingley.
    â€œMr. Darcy!”
    â€œMama, it certainly is not!” cried Elizabeth. However, there was much admiration for Mrs. Bennet’s answer and only a few objections. Mr. Bingley was one who did object.
    â€œIt is not so, my dear Mrs. Bennet. He encouraged me to go after a most precious gift,” said Bingley, looking at Jane, “and it would be ungrateful of me not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready for our hands,” he said as footmen carried trays of wine around the room. “I say Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you, Darcy, wherever you are!”
    â€œMr. Darcy!” the guests cried.
    â€œA Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, Mr. Darcy,” said Elizabeth softly.
    Darcy had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart that he would have pledged the unconscious Elizabeth in return if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by Elizabeth and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.
    The Spirit took Darcy to foreign lands where young soldiers read letters from their faithful ladies back home. They stood beside sick beds, where husbands attended their wives and vice versa; they saw couples in poverty; they saw struggling men and their patient wives who held greater hopes, and couples whose hopes had been fulfilled and now lived in riches.
    It was a long night, if it were only one night and Darcy had his doubts of this, because the Christmas holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together. It was strange too, that while not seeming to melt, the candles on the Ghost’s head grew shorter and shorter. Darcy had observed this change, but never spoke of it until they left a children’s Twelfth Night party, when, looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that the lights were almost out.
    â€œYour candles are almost burnt out; do you not need new ones?”
    â€œThese are the only candles that I need. When they are gone, I am gone.”
    â€œAre spirits’ lives so short?” asked Darcy.
    â€œMy life upon this globe is very brief,” replied the Ghost. “It ends tonight.”
    â€œTonight!” cried Darcy.
    â€œTonight at midnight. Hark! The Time is drawing near.”
    The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.
    â€œForgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said Darcy, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, “but I see something strange and not belonging to yourself protruding from behind your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?”
    â€œIt might be a claw, for what little flesh there is upon it,” was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. “Look here.”
    From the folds of her dress, she brought forth two children, a boy and girl, wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, and miserable. They knelt down at her feet and clung upon the outside of her garment.
    â€œDarcy, look down here!” instructed the Ghost.
    Their appearance was that of horrible and dreadful monsters. Yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, and wolfish devils that glared out of menacing eyes. Their stained and shriveled hands looked ready to pinch and pull, and tear him into shreds.
    Darcy started back, appalled. “Spirit, are they yours?” Darcy asked.
    â€œThey are yours,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, fleeing from their father. This boy is Fear. This girl is Pride. Beware of both of them and all of their degree, for much good is prevented when they work together. But most of all beware this boy. For he will take over your life, and you will live in his shadow, instead of he in yours,” warned the Spirit, stretching out her hand towards Rosings, as they were among the hedgerows now.
    â€œSee what happens when fear and pride take over a life.”
    Darcy and the Spirit were now in the dining room of