A CHRISTMAS CAROL : ACT FOUR
Adapted for Reader’s Theater
by M Ryan Taylor
from the novel by Charles Dickens
Copyright © 2008 by M Ryan Taylor
Permission to copy for home or classroom use granted.
Please contact M Ryan Taylor for rights to perform publicly.

SCENE ONE : THE GHOST OF CHRISTMAS FUTURE

(the phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approaches, shrouded in a deep black garment, which conceals its head, its face, its form)

SCROOGE

I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come? (the Spirit points onward with its hand) You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened, but will happen in the time before us. Is that so, Spirit? (the Spirit inclines its head slightly) Ghost of the Future! I fear you more than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose s to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me? (the Spirit again points onward with its hand) Lead on! Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!

SCENE TWO : THE EXCHANGE

(the phantom moves away as it had come and Scrooge follows - the city seems to spring up about them, and encompass them - they are at the exchange, merchants hurry up and down and converse in groups - the Spirit stops a little knot of business men and points to them)

MERCHANT #1

No, I don’t know much about it, either way. I only know he’s dead.

MERCHANT #2

When did he die?

MERCHANT #1

Last night, I believe.

MERCHANT #3
(taking a wad of snuff from a large snuffbox)

Why, what was the matter with him? I thought he’d never die.

MERCHANT #1
(yawning)

Heaven knows.

MERCHANT #4

What has he done with his money?

MERCHANT #1

I haven’t heard. Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn’t left it to me. That’s all I know. (they all laugh)

MERCHANT #4

It’s likely to be a very cheap funeral, for upon my life I don’t know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer?

MERCHANT #2

I don’t mind going if a lunch is provided. But I insist I must be fed. (another laugh)

MERCHANT #1

Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all, for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I’ll offer to go, if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I’m not at all sure that I wasn’t his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak whenever we met.

SCROOGE

Spirit, I see this is the hour I have in times past frequented the exchange, but another man stands in my accustomed corner; may I take this as a sign, the fruit of my change, my new-born resolutions carried out?

SCENE THREE : THE PAWN SHOP

(the Spirit again moves onward, pointing ahead with its hand - Scrooge follows and of a sudden they are in a dingy pawn shop, the owner of which is smoking a pipe - two women and a man enter, eyeing each other suspiciously - after a moment they all burst into laughter)

CHARWOMAN

Let the charwoman alone to be the first! Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the undertaker’s man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here’s a chance! If we haven’t all three met here without meaning it!

OLD JOE

You couldn’t have met in a better place. None of you are strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop. Ha, ha! We’re all suitable to our calling, we’re well matched. (the charwoman throws her bundle on the floor, and sits down in a flaunting manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at the other two)

CHARWOMAN

What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber? Every person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did.

LAUNDRESS

That’s true, indeed! No man more so.

CHARWOMAN

Why then, don’t stand staring as if you was afraid, woman; who’s the wiser? We’re not going to pick holes in each other’s coats, I suppose?

LAUNDRESS

No, indeed! We should hope not.

CHARWOMAN

Very well, then! That’s enough. Who’s the worse for the loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose.

LAUNDRESS
(laughing)

No, indeed.

CHARWOMAN

If he wanted to keep ‘em after he was dead, the wicked old screw, why wasn’t he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he’d have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself.

LAUNDRESS
(laughing)

It’s the truest word that ever was spoke. It’s a judgment on him.

CHARWOMAN

I wish it was a little heavier judgment, and it should have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I’m not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves, before we met here, I believe. It’s no sin. Open the bundle, Joe.

UNDERTAKER
(producing a small package)

No, let me go first. Mine is the smallest.

OLD JOE

Two seals, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch . . . of no great value. (he hands the undertaker a few coins) That’s your account, and I wouldn’t give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who’s next? (the laundress lays her horde down) Sheets and towels, a little apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and . . . boots? Here you go. I always give too much to ladies. It’s a weakness of mine, and that’s the way I ruin myself. That’s your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made it an open question, I’d repent of being so liberal and knock off half-a-crown.

CHARWOMAN

And now undo my bundle, Joe.

OLD JOE

What do you call this? Bed-curtains!

CHARWOMAN

Bed-curtains!

OLD JOE

You don’t mean to say you took ‘em down, rings and all, with him lying there?

CHARWOMAN

Yes I do. Why not?

OLD JOE

You were born to make your fortune, and you’ll certainly do it.

CHARWOMAN

I certainly shan’t hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as He was, I promise you, Joe. Don’t drop that oil upon the blankets, now.

OLD JOE

His blankets?

CHARWOMAN

Whose else’s do you think? He isn’t likely to take cold without ‘em, I dare say.

OLD JOE

I hope he didn’t die of anything catching? Eh?

CHARWOMAN

Don’t you be afraid of that. I an’t so fond of his company that I’d loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah! you may look through that shirt till your eyes ache; but you won’t find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It’s the best he had, and a fine one too. They’d have wasted it, if it hadn’t been for me.

OLD JOE

What do you call wasting of it?

CHARWOMAN

Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure. Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If calico an’t good enough for such a purpose, it isn’t good enough for anything. It’s quite as becoming to the body. He can’t look uglier than he did in that one. (Joe pays her) Ha, ha! This is the end of it, you see! He frightened every one away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!

SCROOGE

Spirit! I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is this!

SCENE FOUR : THE BED CHAMBER

(Scrooge now stands by a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet, lays a body) Phantom. Why do you point so? I see what you want of me. How easy it would be to do, I long to do it; but I have no more power to withdraw the veil than I have to dismiss you. (to himself) If this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly! (he turns toward the ghost) Spirit! this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go! (still the ghost points with an unmoved finger to the head) I understand you and I would do it, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have not the power. (he falls to his knees) If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion caused by this man’s death, show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!

SCENE FIVE : A HOME

(the Phantom spreads its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, reveals a room by daylight, where a pacing mother and her children were)

CAROLINE
(wringing her hands)

Where can he be? Where can he be? (a knock is heard and the husband enters) What news? (he looks down at his feet) Is it good? or bad?

YOUNG HUSBAND

Bad.

CAROLINE

We are quite ruined?

YOUNG HUSBAND

No. There is hope yet, Caroline.

CAROLINE

If he relents there is! Nothing is past hope, if such a miracle has happened.

YOUNG HUSBAND

He is past relenting. He is dead. What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a week’s delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me; turns out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill, but dying, then.

CAROLINE

To whom will our debt be transferred?

YOUNG HUSBAND

I don’t know. But before that time we shall be ready with the money; and even though we were not, it would be a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!

SCROOGE

What’s this? All you can show me is pleasure at this man’s death? Let me see some tenderness connected with a death, or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just now, will be forever present to me.

SCENE SIX : THE CRATCHIT HOME

(the ghost bids Scrooge follow and leads him to Bob Cratchit’s house, the mother and the children seated round the fire, Peter is reading to the solemn group)

PETER

‘And He took a child, and set him in the midst of them . . .’

SCROOGE

Why does he not go on? (Mrs. Cratchit lays her needlework down)

MRS. CRATCHIT

The colour hurts my eyes.

SCROOGE

Where is Tiny Tim!

MRS. CRATCHIT

They’re better now again. It makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn’t show weak eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It must be near his time.

PETER

Past it rather. But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother.

MRS. CRATCHIT

I have known him walk with–I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed.

PETER

And so have I. Often.

ALL THE CRATCHIT CHILDREN

And so have I.

MRS. CRATCHIT

But he was very light to carry, and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door! (she rises and helps him with his coat, etc.)

BOB
(looking over the needlework on the table)

You are industrious. It looks like you’ll be done long before Sunday.

MRS. CRATCHIT

Sunday? You went today, then, Robert?

BOB
(looking over the needlework on the table)

Yes, my dear. I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you’ll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. (Bob breaks down all at once and crys) My little, little child! My little child! (the family draws about him) Mr. Scrooge’s nephew, extraordinarily kind man, I’ve scarcely seen him more than once, noticed I was a little down you know, he inquired what happened to distress me. On which, for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you ever heard, I told him. ‘I am heartily sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit,’ he said, ‘and heartily sorry for your good wife.’ By the bye, how he ever knew that, I don’t know.

MRS. CRATCHIT

Knew what, my dear?

BOB

Why, that you were a good wife."

PETER

Everybody knows that!

BOB

Very well observed, my boy! I hope they do. ‘Heartily sorry,’ he said, ‘for your good wife. If I can be of service to you in any way,’ he said, giving me his card, ‘that’s where I live. Pray come to me.’ Now, it wasn’t for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt with us.

MRS. CRATCHIT

I’m sure he’s a good soul!

BOB

You would be surer of it, my dear, if you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn’t be at all surprised–mark what I say!–if he got Peter a better situation.

MRS. CRATCHIT

Only hear that, Peter.

BELINDA

And then Peter will be keeping company with some one, and setting up for himself.

BOB
(grinning)

Get along with you!

BOB

It’s just as likely as not, one of these days; though there’s plenty of time for that, my dear. But however and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim–shall we–or this first parting that there was among us?

ALL THE CRATCHIT CHILDREN

Never, father!

BOB

And I know. I know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how mild he was; although he was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it.

ALL THE CRATCHIT CHILDREN

No, never, father!

BOB

I am very happy. I am very happy!

SCROOGE

Spectre, something informs me that our parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead? (the scene disolves into a graveyard)

SCENE SEVEN : THE GRAVEYARD

SCROOGE

Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point, answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only? (the ghost points downward to the grave by which it stands) Men’s courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead. But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me! (the spirit is immovable, and Scrooge creeps toward it and read the name) Ebenezer Scrooge!? Am I that man who lay upon the bed? (the finger of the spirit points from the grave to him, and back again) No, Spirit! Oh no, no! Spirit! hear me! I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this exchange. Why show me this, if I am past all hope! (the hand begins to shake) Good Spirit, your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me, by an altered life! (the hand trembles fiercely) I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone! (he reaches out to the spirit and upon touching it the phantom collapses into a bedpost)

END OF ACT FOUR