by Rebecca King
Thomas sighed and didn’t answer for several long moments. Instead, he took a long draught of his wine before slamming the goblet down onto the littered surface of his workbench with a resounding bang. He stared at it as if contemplating filling it again.
Rosemary crossed the room to pour herself a drink only to find the jug empty. ‘I’ll go and fetch some more.’ But when she picked up the tin that they used to keep the housekeeping money in, Rosemary realised that it didn’t rattle like it should. It was empty. Further, there weren’t any notes she could use instead of coins in the tin either.
‘Leave it,’ Thomas ordered, his voice dull and lifeless.
‘Are we out of money?’ Rosemary asked quietly, feeling sick with dread. ‘Tell me, father. I know that business has been quiet of late, but you have work to do, don’t you?’
She studied the littered workbench her father used. All sorts of springs, tiny hands, and clock making paraphernalia littered the surface of the large bench, which ran across the back wall of her father’s workroom. It was unusual that her father wasn’t hunched over it, lost in the intricacies of a new clock he was making, or repairing a customer’s watch. Today, he seemed to have little interest in his life-long passion, and that only added to Rosemary’s fear that her father was keeping secrets from her and that something was terribly wrong.
‘I have had a couple of orders for my new clocks cancelled,’ Thomas announced.
‘Oh? Does that matter? The new watches will sell, won’t they?’ Rosemary peered into the shop and knew that they would. While the walls were full, Rosemary knew that the clocks adorning three sides of the shop rarely stayed in place for long.
Beyond the huge front bay windows pedestrians passed by the shop as they hurried about their daily business. Many would pop in to repair or replace their timepieces and when they didn’t, there was plenty of people who travelled to visit the shop to buy the clocks. Further, many more orders arrived by post, and were dispatched to customers the same way. She knew that even if the pedestrians didn’t pop in, other custom would keep the business profitable.
The more Rosemary contemplated the rhythmic ticking of the clocks and listened to the background noise of the busy main street beyond it, she realised that none of the pedestrians had come into the shop recently.
‘Business is bad, isn’t it?’ She asked flatly, seeing no reason not to tackle the subject head on.
‘We are going to have to leave,’ Thomas informed her so bluntly that Rosemary whirled to face him.
‘What? We have weathered worse situations than this,’ Rosemary cried, shocked at the idea that her father wasn’t just experiencing a fit of the melancholies. He meant what he said. ‘Remember the Great Storm of ‘24? We got through weeks of knee-deep snow and didn’t have a customer for two months on account of nobody being able to get through the snowdrifts. We survived then. We can survive a little dip in business now, can’t we?’
‘This is different, Rosemary,’ Thomas sighed, looking more and more despondent. ‘I am old. I need a change.’ He wiped his slightly oily hands on a dirty rag and threw it onto the bench behind him. He didn’t even bother to glance over his shoulder when something fell off the shelf above the bench and scattered fob-watch hands all over the rest of the equipment.
It was such uncharacteristic behaviour for him that Rosemary scowled. Her father was particular about how his bench was kept. She wasn’t allowed to touch anything on it. Despite looking cluttered to her, her father always insisted that it was ordered, and nothing should be moved. Now, he didn’t care that something had just created a mess in the middle of his workspace.
‘We don’t have any money, or customers, and you want to change your life and move house,’ Rosemary repeated dully. She tugged her shawl tighter about her shoulders and held it firmly in place by crossing her arms. ‘Why? Why now? What do you know that I don’t? Why shouldn’t I go to the tavern to fetch some more wine? Yes, the tin is empty, but I can get some money from the housekeeping tin in the kitchen upstairs, can’t I?’
‘No.’
‘Why not,’ Rosemary challenged. She knew that people were gossiping about them but couldn’t see any reason why they had to hide indoors like frightened rabbits.
‘Because we have money but we have to keep it so we can move,’ Thomas snapped.
‘Why should we move?’ Rosemary demanded.
‘Because of this.’ Thomas yanked the back door open, which led to a small yard behind the shop, and pointed to the small bundle someone had left on the doorstep.
Rosemary stepped closer, and immediately realised that it was a dead badger. ‘Who left it there?’ she whispered, feeling sick when she saw the blood stains on the white fur.
‘Whoever wants us out of here,’ Thomas replied firmly. ‘You must have noticed what has been going on of late.’
When Rosemary looked at him, she saw shadows in his eyes. ‘Has someone said something to you?’
‘I heard from Humphrey Brindley that there are rumours going around about us,’ Thomas informed her.
‘I know, but what are they saying?’ Rosemary pressed when her father didn’t seem inclined to want to go into detail. ‘Look, you had better tell me because I need to go to the grocery for some food. If you have found out what they are saying, I have a right to know what it is and by whom, if only so I know who to avoid.’
‘Everyone is talking,’ Thomas admitted darkly.
‘About what? We haven’t done anything,’ Rosemary cried. She pointed to the badger on the doorstep. ‘Are they talking about that? That’s not us. We didn’t do that.’
When her father didn’t answer, Rosemary looked at him and saw that he was holding a note out to her. Even before she took it off him, she saw that it was tainted with a red stain: blood from the badger. It was what he had hastily shoved into his pocket a moment ago. Rosemary gingerly opened it and read the words: ‘Get Out’. They had been hastily scrawled by someone who could barely write given how uneven the letters were.
‘Why? What have we done?’ Rosemary cried, scrunching it back into a ball and shoving it onto the workbench beside her.
‘Humphrey has said that word is going around we have sold faulty watches. Apparently, rumour has it that I am conning people by selling clocks that don’t work or giving supposedly repaired watches back that are inferior to the watches my customers left with me,’ Thomas sighed. ‘It’s rubbish of course, but you know what gossips are like. So, of course, nobody is inclined to bring their watches to me to be repaired.’
‘But your customers come from miles around,’ Rosemary replied. ‘Surely the spiteful gossip hasn’t spread to other parts of the country already, has it?’
‘No. No, not yet,’ Thomas replied. ‘However, it won’t be long before it does.’
‘Advertise then. Put an advertisement in the newspaper,’ Rosemary cried.
‘We need to move,’ Thomas whispered. ‘It is only going to get worse if we stay here.’
‘You want to move before it does.’
‘We have enough money put aside to be able to move. The stock we already have has value. If we move somewhere far away from here, we can set up shop again and sell what we have without needing to purchase anything else. We can advertise when we have moved, and advertise our relocation at the same time, can’t we?’ Thomas said, trying his hardest to sound positive.
‘But why should we move just because some spiteful gossips decide to target us?’ Rosemary argued. ‘How dare they do this to us? We haven’t done anything to them. Who would do this to us, father? Why? Whatever for? It doesn’t make any sense that they should choose now to target us.’
‘I have no idea who it is,’ Thomas replied. ‘I was hoping you might be able to tell me.’
‘Me?’ Rosemary was horrified and incensed that he would hint that she might have been the reason why something so heinous was going on. ‘I have hardly been out of the house. You know I have been working on cleaning upstairs. How could I have anyt
hing to do with this?’
‘Have you fallen out with someone?’ Thomas pressed.
‘No,’ Rosemary snapped. ‘But you said that the gossip going around is about you selling watches that don’t work or are inferior. Have you done something to upset someone?’
‘Not intentionally, and no, before you ask, I have not been doing what they claim. While I don’t want to leave here, it is looking like we have no choice. If we stay, we are going to be out of business in a month and will end up using the money we have saved on trying to stay in business. We have to leave before this gets any worse.’
‘So, we are going to allow the fiends to get away with lying about us? We are going to allow them to bully us out of the village?’ Rosemary cried, horrified that her father was prepared to accept defeat so easily. ‘Don’t you have a moral duty to do everything you can to protect your reputation? You have spent many years working long into the night to build up the fine reputation you have. Why should you allow it all to just disappear because of some spiteful gossips? Why shouldn’t you stand your ground? This is gossip, father, created by nasty people who are intent on damaging you, most probably because they are jealous that they can’t do what you do. Why else would someone be so mean and spiteful?’
‘This is not just some mean gossip, Rosemary. Whoever is doing this has already caused serious damage to my reputation,’ Thomas warned. He held his hands out, palms upward. ‘This place needs fixing. You said yourself that the front windows are rotten. The frames need replacing. You have been spring cleaning upstairs, but you cannot polish rotten floorboards. They need repairing and re-waxing. Then we have the doors, two of which are warped and need replacing as well. Even if the business wasn’t slow, I don’t have the time to fix it all. If I am honest, I don’t have the interest in fixing this place.’
Together, they looked around the dingy walls, the dull windows, and the uneven floors, before looking askance at each other, as if silently questioning how they had managed to allow the place to get as poorly maintained as it was.
‘Now, we don’t have the money to fix things even if we wanted to,’ Rosemary replied with an understanding nod.
‘I cannot spend my time making things that won’t sell and spend the precious supply of money we do have on fixing this place. The money must go on feeding us and keeping us warm in the winter. It has to go on paying off the debts we have, not creating more debts trying to improve this place.’ Thomas dug into his pocket and removed the latest pile of bills he had received that morning. He held them out to her. His face was grim when she cautiously took them off him.
Rosemary reluctantly read them, and with each one she opened felt her stomach dip just that little bit more.
‘The grocery, the bakery, the butchery, all need paying. Then we have wood and coal to purchase if we are going to stay here all winter. We are also going to have to do something about fixing the holes in the doors, but we have very little income,’ Thomas sighed.
‘What do we do?’ Rosemary whispered. ‘Can we move? Can we really afford it?’
‘Not without selling this place. Given the state it is in, it is not worth much,’ Thomas admitted. ‘Not unless we repair it. Because of the gossip circulating about us right now, I doubt anybody would want to buy this place off us now even if we tried to sell it, but we can try.’
Rosemary felt as if she was staring down into a deep crater. She knew that one wrong step would plunge them into poverty and destitution so severe that neither of them would ever recover from it. ‘Well, I am not going to be forced out of the only house I have ever called home because of some spiteful gossips. I don’t care what is being said about me. We can advertise in a newspaper out of the county. You have a wonderful reputation for being one of the finest clock makers in the land. We can survive if we have a few customers, surely to goodness.’
‘But we have to live here. What do we do if we cannot go to the bakery or butchery? How do we eat? It is going to cost more if we have to travel to another town to fetch what we need,’ Thomas argued. ‘And it will become incredibly difficult to survive in the winter.’
‘What do you want to do? Do we just pack up and go and rent somewhere, or what? What do we do with this place while it is empty? The villagers know it belongs to you. If they want to destroy us, and they know this building is empty, they could burn it, or ruin what is left of it while we are not living here and able to protect it. It will be vulnerable, father. If someone is sick enough to put a badger on our doorstep then we are foolish to leave the property empty and vulnerable to attack.’
Rosemary reached out to slam the door closed on the dead badger and noticed fine scratches on the edge of the door. Two large score marks in the peeling paint were in the middle of the upper part of the door so that anybody who entered the workroom would be able to see them. The score marks stood out as they had been cut so deeply into the paint that the wooden door beneath the paint was visible.
‘Who would do this?’
Thomas sighed. ‘Someone extremely sick, who poses a serious risk to us.’
‘We can report it to the magistrate,’ Rosemary announced.
‘But he can’t guard the property all the time,’ Thomas argued.
‘How long have you known about the gossips damaging us?’ she asked after several moments of quiet contemplation.
‘I first noticed a drop in business a few weeks ago. I initially thought nothing of it but then people I have known all my life have started to behave differently toward me. There is now a distant wariness about them, an awkwardness, that is worrying. Although I have known them for years, they are now reluctant to do anything more than nod briskly at me. It is like we are strangers. Where once we used to stop and chat, they now duck their heads and hurry off. Some have even crossed the street to avoid having to talk to me. They have been told something vile about us, I don’t doubt. Then, a couple of days ago, the last time I went to the tavern to fetch more wine, I saw Mr Grimes. He was looking at his fob watch and muttering that it wasn’t working properly. I know that Mr Grimes would have ordinarily told me that he was going to drop it into the shop to be repaired, but when he looked at me, he shoved it quickly back into his pocket and seemed embarrassed.’
‘He hasn’t brought it here,’ Rosemary finished, and sighed heavily when her father shook his head.
‘He doesn’t want me to repair his watch for him. Mr Grimes has been one of my customers for many years, but now can’t bring himself to speak to me,’ Thomas hissed.
‘All of the villagers are the same with me,’ Rosemary whispered.
‘Someone somewhere is spreading spiteful gossip about us, Rosemary. Nobody is talking to me so I cannot find out who it is, or what is really being said. While Humphrey Brindley has told me what he knows, he doesn’t mix with the locals very much and so cannot tell me about everything that is going on,’ Thomas announced.
‘I can find out,’ Rosemary offered helpfully, although how she was going to go about it was beyond her.
‘No. I think that we have to contemplate what to do for our benefit, not everybody else’s. Given our situation, I have started to wonder if it is time for us to move on and try to find somewhere better to live. After all, even if we do keep our customers who don’t live in this area, the money they bring in still won’t be enough to fix this place.’
There was a melancholy sadness in her father’s voice that left Rosemary in no doubt he was overwhelmed by how much was now standing against them. She wished there were something she could do to alleviate his anxiety, but without money they were well and truly stuck.
CHAPTER THREE
The hour was still early when Rosemary crept out of the house. She closed the door behind her with a quiet click and shuddered in disgust when her gaze fell to the doorstep where the badger had been left. Thankfully, Thomas had moved it, but its presence had lingered with them both for hours after her father had disposed of it. With a shiver, Rosemary gathered her cloak around her and hurrie
d down the alley beside the shop which led to the main street. Shops were still opening but very few people were up and about. That suited Rosemary’s purpose perfectly today because she wanted to avoid as many people as possible.
‘Good morning,’ Mr Rindle, the villager’s one and only grocer, called gaily when he heard the tinkling of the bell above the shop doorway behind him. But when he turned to look at his new customer, his face hardened.
Rosemary clutched her basket with tighter fingers when she watched his expression change to one that was cold and unwelcoming. An awkward tension fell between them. Rosemary was reluctant to break it, and only did so to tell the man why she was there. Otherwise, she would have been greatly relieved never to have to speak to the man at all.
‘I have come to pay the bill,’ Rosemary announced dully, tipping her chin up and glaring coldly back at him. In her basket was a list of provisions she needed to get through the next few days, but she wasn’t going to buy them from this shop. In fact, she wasn’t ever going to buy anything from Rindle’s Grocery again.
Mr Rindle removed the ledger from beneath the counter and slammed it onto the counter before him. He rifled through the pages but, before he could tell her how much she owed him, Rosemary dropped the note she carried onto the ledger. Mr Rindle snatched it up and quickly shoved change at her. Rosemary didn’t utter a word as she picked the coins up and turned to leave. There wasn’t much that could be said. Words failed her. She wanted to ask him all sorts of questions, the first of which was why was he being so horrible? Until about a month ago, he would have amiably chatted to her. Today, it was clear that she wasn’t welcome in his shop. The man just wasn’t impolite enough to say so aloud.
Rosemary didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of knowing his awful attitude worried her, but she couldn’t leave the shop without saying anything to him. With her hand on the doorknob, she turned to glare at him. ‘You can cancel our regular order. We shall not buy goods from here again. My father and I have lived in this village for years. My father’s father lived here for many years before that. I would have at least expected people to be fair and get facts before they act as judge, jury and executioner.’ She turned to yank the door open only for Mr Rindle’s reply to stop her.