The first revelation concerns 9-year-old Worm’s reaction to learning for the first time what Christmas is supposed to be about. Former brothel owner, now somewhat reformed and serving as the meticulous bookkeeper to Hester Monk’s Portpool Lane Clinic, Squeaky Robinson tells an abridged version of the Christmas story to Worm to distract the boy from his worry about a woman he’s just seen apparently being abducted by two ruffians. Worm’s reaction to Squeaky’s story is sweetly realistic: he longs to believe, but he has trouble putting a miraculous story into the context of his life.
Worm’s life has been hard; he does not remember having a father and dimly remembers his mother but with little warmth. Even so, he longs to have a family and retains idealistic views of what that is supposed to mean. Perry very subtly brings Worm to the “revelation” that family can be the people who care the most about you, in his case, Squeaky and Mrs. Claudine Burroughs, a wealthy lady who volunteers at the clinic and helps out with its funding. This revelation might have been tied back to the Christmas story at the novel’s end for a more rounded ending and a stronger statement; it could have been done with a very subtle touch, at which Anne Perry usually excels.
Squeaky Robinson comes to the revelation that he must help Worm realize his hopes and dreams; that it is imperative that Worm not be let down. He knows that Worm may very well suffer disillusion when they find out the truth about the woman he has seen, but Squeaky makes himself get involved and thereby redeems a long-ago choice when he regrets not having acted for another. Squeaky realizes the importance of his role toward Worm as mentor and father-figure, although he doesn’t think in those specific terms.
An additional revelation comes at the climax of the mystery story concerning the apparently-abducted woman. She is the daughter of a pewter smith who fell in with thieves and who helped steal a fortune in gold. One of the others forced him to jump into the Thames, killing him, and his daughter wants revenge, which she thinks is justice. When Worm and Squeaky get involved, Worm brings her to realize that if she contrives the thieves’ and murderer’s deaths, she will have compounded the wrong instead of righting it. This is not spelled out heavily, and since it comes in the fiery climax, it might be missed, but it is plain that she draws back from her plan because of Worm. And then after all, Fate takes over and the criminals are killed by their own choices.
That Worm is the catalyst is a great choice on the part of the author: this Christmas story has an innocent child effecting character-building choices among the adults around him.
As always, Anne Perry’s writing is a cut above most other authors writing today. Her characterizations are always deep, interesting, and consistent. In the scene where Squeaky is telling Worm about Christmas, the interchange between Squeaky, reluctantly getting deeper than he wanted into religious matters, and Worm, asking question after question as children do, is brilliant.
She is the master of the setting, mid-Victorian London a little over ten years after the Crimean War. Her writing style is beautiful. Her descriptions of the Christmas celebration that Squeaky and Mrs. Burroughs create for Worm and the clinic are charming and evoke the Dickensian world of A Christmas Carol. This may constitute one more revelation, but it is a very obvious one and is not overtly stated: that in giving someone else happiness, they create happiness for themselves. Descriptions of London streets, fog, the rime on snow-slick cobblestones, the sounds, the cold, and the smells are all evocative of that same world.
The author’s moral views are always apparent, although here they seem to get just a bit redundant and lean toward becoming didactic. Squeaky worries repeatedly about what will happen to Worm if he becomes disillusioned by who and what the mystery woman is. His doubts about the wisdom of their undertaking continue right up to the climax. Worm worries about hurting the feelings of Squeaky or Mrs. Burroughs, and he worries repeatedly about the woman, although his latter worry must be repeated or we wouldn’t get the sense of its vital importance to Worm. I found myself skimming a line or two when they started in on the same thoughts, expressed differently each time. I think to clarify this issue, I may have to go over the book and pick things out and analyze more closely to see if I’m being fair. Until then, you simply get the warning that other readers (on Goodreads) have mentioned the same problem.
Despite my minor quibble, I highly recommend this book.
