Free A Regency Christmas Carol by Christine Merrill Page B

some many years before on the ear of the young boy who sat there.
    ‘S…sorry, Father.’ The young Joseph fumbled with the shuttle.
    The man who stood over him could barely contain his impatience. ‘Sorry will not do when there is an order as big as this one. I cannot work the night through to finish it. You must do your share. Sloppy work that must be unravelled again the next day is no help at all. It is worse than useless. Not only must I do my own part, I must stand over you and see to it that you do yours. You are worse than useless.’
    ‘I was too small,’ Joseph retorted, springing from the bed and flexing his muscles with a longing to strike back. ‘My arms were too short to do the job. All the bullying in the world would have made no difference.’
    ‘He cannot hear you,’ the ghost said calmly. ‘For the moment you live in my world, as much a spectre to him as he is to you.’
    ‘It was Christmas. And it was not fair,’ Joseph said, trying to keep the childish petulance from his voice.
    ‘Life seldom is.’
    ‘I made it fair,’ Joseph argued. ‘My new loom is wider, but so simple that a child can manage it.’ The weavers of Fiddleton and all the other places that employed a Stratford loom would not be beating their children at Christmas over unfinished work.
    But the ghost at his side said nothing, as though Joseph had done no kindness with the improvement. Heheld out his hand again. ‘Do you need further reminders of your past?’
    Without thinking, Joseph shook his head. The past was clear enough in his own mind without them. It had been hard and hungry and he was glad to be rid of it. ‘I made my father eat his words before the end,’ Joseph said coldly. ‘He died in warmth and comfort, in a bed I bought for him, and not slaving in someone else’s mill.’
    ‘Take my hand and come away.’ Sir Cedric sounded almost sympathetic, his voice softer, gently prodding Joseph to action.
    Joseph turned his back on the vision and reached for the arm of the spectre, laying his hand beside the ghostly white one on the stick he held. The fingers were unearthly cold, and smooth as marble, but very definitely real to him in a way that the man and boy in the corner were not. ‘Very well, then. Whatever you are, take me back to the manor and my own bed.’
    There was a feeling of rushing, and of fog upon his face, the sound of the howling winds upon the moors. Then he was back in his own home, walking down the main corridor towards the receiving rooms in bare feet and a nightshirt.
    ‘What the devil?’ He yanked upon Sir Cedric’s arm, trying to turn him towards the stairs. ‘I said my bedroom, you lunatic. If my guests see me wandering the house in my nightclothes, they will think I’ve gone mad. All my plans will be undone.’
    If this was a ghost that escorted him, the least itcould do was to be insubstantial. But Sir Cedric was as cold and immovable as stone. Now that they were joined Joseph could not seem to pull his hand away. He was being forced to follow into the busiest part of the house, which was brightly lit and brimming with activity, though it had been empty when he’d retired.
    ‘Don’t be an idiot, Stratford. Did I not tell you that I am a spirit of the past, and that you might pass unseen through it?’ The ghost sniffed the air. ‘This is the Christmas of 1800, if I have led us right. It is the same night when we saw you clouted on the ear. Well past my time, but the holiday is much as I remember it from my own days as lord here, and celebrated as it has always been. The doors are open to the people of Fiddleton. Tenants and villagers, noble friends and neighbours mix here to the joy of all.’
    The ghost gave a single tap of his stick and the ballroom doors before them opened wide. The same golden glow Joseph had seen before spilled through them and out into the hall, as if to welcome them in.
    This is how it should be.
    The thought caught him almost off guard, as though the