A Mother's Story

Reflections on my 29th annual reading of A Christmas Carol

The issue is dedicated to my Mom.

Since 1996, I have read A Christmas Carol every year between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I look forward to my reading every year and as I look back on nearly 50 years of life, this practice emerges as one of the foremost decisions in my life. I say that without exaggeration. My reading marks the time in my calendar – indeed it informs me of the coming of the Christmas season. At this point, I don’t know what I would be without my yearly reading; I don’t know who I would be.

Some years, I read with a theme in mind – I want to peer into Dickens’ views on certain issues. In 2022, I looked into the book’s views of business. Last year, I read without any topic in mind; I wanted to see what would arise from the ghostly vapors. This year, my 29th reading, I paid special attention to a few of the peripheral characters of the story.

Of course, Ebenezer Scrooge stands head and shoulders above all others as the main character of this story. Jacob Marley, the Three Spirits, and Bob and Tiny Tim Cratchit all played critical roles. A tier below them, Fred, Fan, Belle, Fezziwig, and Mrs. Cratchit also enacted important moments in the telling, or re-telling, of Scrooge’s story.

Other characters kept appearing, flitting into the narrative, and passing out like a shadow or a whisper. They garnered only a scene, or even simply a line, from Dickens’s wordy pen. Scrooge’s schoolmaster, for instance:

“A terrible voice in the hall cried, “Bring down Master Scrooge’s box, there!” and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments of those dainties to the young people: at the same time sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of “something” to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not. Master Scrooge’s trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens like spray.”

The little scene conveyed Scrooge’s gladness at departing the school and the schoolmaster’s presence. And so we can assume with decent confidence the contours of Scrooge’s view of his time at the school, and his opinion of its master. But that’s it. We know nothing of Scrooge’s studies there, or the source of Scrooge’s distaste for the schoolmaster. Did the schoolmaster berate or beat Scrooge? Or did Scrooge simply fear all older officious people? We can only wonder.

During his apprenticeship with Fezziwig, Scrooge had a fellow apprentice, Dick Wilkins. When the Ghost of Christmas Past shows a long-past Christmas Eve party hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig, Scrooge belted out:

“Dick Wilkins, to be sure!” said Scrooge to the Ghost. “Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!”

We know nothing of Dick’s fate: any other role he played in Scrooge’s life; how he spent his days after his apprenticeship; whether he turned out like Marley and Scrooge or made wiser decisions. We know nothing, except that Scrooge know’s something, and offers the lament, “Poor Dick”.

One more of these minor characters caught my attention: Scrooge’s father. He appears only in speech. Scrooge’s little sister, Fan, mentions him, when she arrives to pick Scrooge up from school, as viewed with the Ghost of Christmas Past. Here is Fan’s and Scrooge’s exchange:

““I have come to bring you home, dear brother!” said the child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. “To bring you home, home, home!”

“Home, little Fan?” returned the boy.

“Yes!” said the child, brimful of glee. “Home, for good and all. Home, forever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like heaven. He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you’re to be a man!” said the child, opening her eyes; “and are never to come back here; but first we’re to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world.”

“You are quite a woman, little Fan!” exclaimed the boy.”

This is all we learn of their Father. The Ghost of Christmas Past doesn’t show us scenes of Scrooge and his Father together, and seemingly doesn’t show Scrooge either. We discover no further insights into his Father, his Father’s character, family life, ethics, behavior, beliefs, attitudes – nothing.

Fan’s line left me wondering: “Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like heaven.” What was life like in their home before the Father became kinder? How did home life change? What was the Father like?

I found myself pondering what made the Father become so much kinder. Did he take a good, hard look at his life? Did his unkindness go too far one day, and it prompted a re-evaluation? Above all, I speculated – did the Three Christmas Spirits visit Scrooge’s Father too?

All these wonderings led me to a curious realization. Not once is Scrooge’s Mother mentioned, seen, or discussed. Not at all. Never in this story of Scrooge’s reclamation.

Why? Why did Dickens leave her out?

Here I enter the arena of gross conjecture, the flimsiest house of Christmas cards ever built.

Dickens gives us fine examples of Mothers – especially Mrs. Cratchit, Fan, Belle and Mrs. Fezziwig. The book strongly suggests their charges – the Cratchit children, Fred, Belle’s daughter and other children, and Mrs. Fezziwig’s three daughters – all turn out well in life. Maybe not well financially, but well morally. The children all seem like happy, fine people. As one example, Dickens wrote about Fred:

““[I]t was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his nephew’s, and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability!

“Ha! ha!” laughed Scrooge’s nephew. “Ha, ha, ha!”

“If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blessed in a laugh than Scrooge’s nephew, all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I’ll cultivate his acquaintance.”

….

“He’s a comical old fellow,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “that’s the truth; and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.”

“I’m sure he is very rich, Fred,” hinted Scrooge’s niece. “At least you always tell me so.”

“What of that, my dear!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “His wealth is of no use to him. He don’t do any good with it. He don’t make himself comfortable with it. He hasn’t the satisfaction of thinking—ha, ha, ha!—that he is ever going to benefit Us with it.”

“I have no patience with him,” observed Scrooge’s niece. Scrooge’s niece’s sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.

“Oh, I have!” said Scrooge’s nephew. “I am sorry for him; I couldn’t be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims! Himself, always. Here, he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won’t come and dine with us.”

….

“I was only going to say,” said Scrooge’s nephew, “that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can’t help thinking better of it—I defy him—if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after year.””

After being upbraided by Scrooge earlier in the day, Fred pitied him and committed to visiting his uncle, in good cheer, every year, even if rebuked continually. I had the distinct belief that Fred turned out so generous, happy, and content in large measure to his mother’s influence: Scrooge’s sister, Fan.

Dickens was too good a writer to accidentally leave out Scrooge’s Mother. He was too savvy a constructor of narrative to randomly have the children of good mothers turn out well. No, no, I believe Dickens meant to tell us something about the nature of Mothers — and what we can expect absent a Mother’s influence. A child may do well by the world’s standards. Scrooge possesses surfeit wealth and business esteem in the City of London. But he is about to lose his soul. That is what is at stake without his Mother.

I do not believe it is by chance that Dickens planted this lesson about the importance of Mothers in his most famous Christmas tale. Yes, Christians on this Holy Day celebrate the birth of Christ the Savior. We should never for a moment forget the joy, pain, and suffering of Christ’s Mother. And the unfathomably beautiful reaches of her influence — even on the Son of God.

Merry Christmas! As Tiny Tim said, God Bless Us, Every One!

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