A Christmas card sent in 1951.
"Christmas Meeting" is a short ghost story by the British author Rosemary Timperley. It was first published in the November 1951 issue of the British magazine Truth. It has been republished multiple times since then in various short story collections, including the 1983 anthology Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories.
The story concerns an unlikely meeting between a middle-aged woman and a young man who are both spending Christmas Day alone one hundred years apart.
Plot[]
The story's unnamed narrator is a middle-aged woman who lives in a rented room in a boarding house. Her rent is slightly reduced because her room is also used as a storage room for some of the many books that belong to her landlady's husband.
For the first time in her life, the narrator is spending Christmas Day entirely on her own. She feels, however, a sense of community with other people around the world who are spending the day alone as well as with those who spent it alone in the past and will spend it alone in the future. A strangely dressed young man walks into her room. He apologizes, saying he thought the room was his, and makes to leave. He then asks if the narrator is spending the day alone and if he can talk to her. He is invited in by the narrator. The young man says his name is Francis Randel and he is a writer. He is working on a book that will include a mixture of his poetry and his diary entries. He says that he has not returned home for Christmas because he finds the presence of his family frustrates his artistic endeavors. He also says his family do not approve of his attempt to make a living as a writer. The narrator says she thinks the conversation is getting a bit too gloomy for Christmas Day and goes to make some coffee for herself and her guest. When she returns, she finds that the young man has gone.
The narrator finds a book in her room written by Francis Randel. It was published in 1852. It contains poetry and diary entries. The narrator looks at the diary entry for Christmas Day 1851. Francis Randel writes that he came home to find a strange woman in his room. He had a pleasant conversation with her until she suddenly vanished. He concludes that she must have been a ghost, although he did not feel the least bit frightened by her. The diary entry is followed by a publisher's note which states that Francis Randel died on Christmas Day 1851. The unknown woman was the last person to see him alive.
See also[]
- "Harry", another short story by Rosemary Timperley included in Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories