And run we did, without a word of comment or argument from her; though not all the way, or anything like it, because we were staying about a couple of miles off in a sort of apartment house owned by a retired school-teacher named Mrs Ardale.
In theory, I could have afforded something rather better, but the big hotels were either out of action just then or in some way unsuitable. In the end, I had just gone to the Post Office and enquired, and they had told me about Mrs Ardale at once. It seemed a queer way to organize a honeymoon, especially when we are supposed to have only one honeymoon in each lifetime, but Ursula and I were like that from the first — and for some time still lying ahead. In any case, between us the idea of a honeymoon was a bit of a joke, as it often is in these times; but, for Ursula and me, a tender joke, which is perhaps not so usual. Mrs Ardale, by the way, was a divorcee, unlikely though that seems. She never stopped mentioning the fact. She also wore a very obvious chestnutty wig, though Ursula said her own hair was perfectly all right when one was permitted to catch a glimpse of it. I never took to Mrs Ardale, but she certainly kept the place very clean, which was important to Ursula, and food at that time was much of a muchness everywhere, or, rather, little of a littleness. Mrs Ardale used to serve us crabs caught in the lake. Not every day, of course.
Later, we moved on to a less satisfactory place, high above Ullswater. It was a bit of a shack in every way, but, fortunately, Ursula seemed not to mind much, possibly because she was now really getting into her athletic stride, small though she was. She was often a long way ahead of me at the crest of the fell, and she could swim like one of those slender, swift fish that never seem to undulate (or are they really fish?). But it was when we hired a dinghy and went sailing that I felt almost embarrassed by my uselessness and general ineptitude. Ursula always looked so competent, and she always seemed to have exactly the right clothes for whatever we were doing, simple though they were. I myself both look and feel better in business clothes — clothes for ordinary life in town. But I reflected that the hire-dinghies could hardly be at their best from a handling point of view after five years of total war and with no tackle yet available for repairing them; and, in any case, I have never seen myself as any kind of sportsman, nor has my health seemed to suffer from it. I liked my darling to be so spry and agile when we were on holiday together. I never minded in the least being shown up by her, though many would have said it would be bad from a business point of view. But at that time it could hardly have mattered, as I was still with Rosenberg and Newton, and not yet self-employed.
Which, needless to say, was why, when we settled down again, we started buying a house in the same suburb, the place where I had always lived. Also, old Newton, young Jacob's partner from his father's time, was able to help us a lot there: not only with getting a really good mortgage, but with getting a really good house too, and quite reasonably cheap, as he was in a position to put a little quiet pressure on the man who was selling. The property business is full of aspects like that, and it is useless to deny it. It always has been, and doubtless it always will be, until we mostly become cave-dwellers again, which may be soon. It was a remarkably good thing to have old Newton behind one when one was looking for a suburban house about twelve months after the second world war, especially as he was in local politics, which the Rosenbergs, father and son, always made a point of avoiding.
But Ursula would have done well in one of those caves. I could imagine her, small though she was, in a bearskin, and nothing much else; and coping with all that might arise far better than I can cope with even a luxury hotel, and terribly sweet and attractive all the time, often unbearably so. As it was, she settled down as if she had lived in this steady-as-she-goes suburb all her life. This suburb. This house. We had given more than three weeks to our honeymoon, world scarcity or no world scarcity. Speaking for myself, I could have gone on like that with Ursula for ever. I have a conscience, but few strong ambitions, as I have said. Oh, I can see Ursula's deep blue eyes now — as they were then — on our honeymoon — and afterwards.
But as soon as we were well and truly in, Ursula brought out no fewer than three more clocks. They were additional to the original cuckoo clock, and, I suppose, to the soft-speaking traveler's clock also. As it happens, I was never told at the time what became of that one. When I enquired, putting in a good word for the quietness, Ursula simply replied that "it was a once-for-all clock for a once-for-all purpose, darling," and smiled at me knowingly, or mock-knowingly.
"That was a clock I really liked, darling," I replied, but she said nothing in return, knowing perfectly well that, even then, I did not really like any of the others.
The truth was, from first to last, that one could not talk at all to Ursula about the clocks. About many other things, including some that were beyond my own scope, as I am no intellectual; and at almost any time: but never about them — about the clocks. One's words seemed to slip off her pretty, perfect body, her prettily chosen, freshly ironed dress, and then to dissolve on the carpet around her pink or yellow high-heeled shoes. I have in mind the grey carpet with the big, bold chains of flowers on which I last saw her standing and saying her listless goodbye when I set out to consult Dr Tweed.
I have said that one could not talk on the subject to Ursula. I suppose it would be truer to say that I could not. That, before long, was just the point. Perhaps there was another who could.
But, then, what normal, ordinary person — English person, anyway — could like those particular clocks; or at least so many of them? A single decorated clock, possibly — if the person cared for things of that general type — as I admit many seem to — though fewer perhaps than formerly. I am fairly sure that, at the best, the quantity of souvenirs brought back to Britain from the Black Forest by the public at large is nothing like what it was when the Prince Consort was alive and setting the vogue, with real trees at Christmas as well. And now it is years after the end of the second world war.
The clocks that Ursula brought into the house were not all grotesque in themselves: not all of them were carved into grinning gnomes, or giants with long teeth, or bats with wings that seemed to have altered their positions from time to time, though never when one was looking (or, once more, never when I was looking) — though some of them were, indeed, carved in those ways. It was more the overall uncouth monotony of the clocks that palled: that, more than the detail work applied to any one of them. As time passed, Ursula brought in more and more clocks, until, long before the end, I was almost afraid to count how many. I own it. I am not in the least ashamed of it, and what went on to happen, showed that I had no reason to be.
The clocks were so evenly brown — dark brown. When there was coloured detail, and often there was a mass of it, the colours were never bright colours. Or rather they were, and, at the same time, they weren't. I have often thought that the sense of colour is not strong in Germany. Of course, no one country can expect to have everything, and the last thing I wish to do is introduce an element of rivalry. I detest all things like that.
The coloured decoration of the clocks reminded me of fungus on a woodland tree, and there are many who find fungi not only fascinating but actually beautiful. One can eat many of them, if one has to, and sometimes I felt exactly that about the coloured clock decorations. They looked edible — upon compulsion. I imagine that the people who thought up the style in the first place based it upon what they saw in the vast, dark forests around them. The fungi, the teeth, the wings, the dark or shiny brownness. Even the shrieking and calling of the hours and the quarters might have been imitated from the crying of extinct, forest fowl. When there was a chorus of it in the same house, the effect was very much of a dark glade in which some unfortunate traveller had been deserted — or had merely lost his way.
This house is a fair-sized structure for these times, and the clocks were distributed about it very evenly, there being seldom more than three in any single room, and often only one. I fancy (or perhaps I know) that Ursula wanted there
to be no room in our house without one of her clocks in it. Distribution was important. It is true that it dispersed the quarterly chorus, but, on the other hand, it positively enhanced the forest glade impression, especially if one were alone in any of the rooms. First, one creature would shrill out, and then, almost instantly, another and another, all at different distances in the house, and with very different cries, and another and another and another; some, one was aware, made of wood, usually carved crudely but elaborately, others made of tin or sheet steel, some made even of plastic. Of course we in the construction business have good reason to be grateful for the coming of plastic, but I like it to keep its proper place, and not set about devouring every other material in the home, as it is very apt to do.
As will be imagined, clocks often spoke simultaneously, but what I found particularly eerie was the sequence of sound that arose when two or more of them not so much coincided as overlapped. This effect, in the nature of things, was seldom repeated in precisely the same form. Clocks only harmonize to that degree when a team of scientists has been at work on the design and setting up (if even then). In this house, the normal tiny variations in the time-keeping led to sounds that were unpredictable and often quite disturbing. And this was true even though most of our clocks spoke but once, however frequently they did it. Not all, however: Ursula had found some expensive pieces in which the bird sang a whole song. One of these vocalists was golden all over, from tail to beak; and lived in a golden schloss with a tiny golden deathshead upon every pinnacle of it. Another was a shrunk-down bird of paradise with variegated feathers, though whether the feathers were real or not I am unable to say. There would seem to be problems in finding feathers like bird-of-paradise feathers except that they had to be one-tenth, perhaps, of the size. What I can testify is that our wee friend squawked as loud as his full-grown cousin can possibly have done in the forest deep.
How could Ursula afford such treasures? Where did she find her clocks, in any case? Only once, to the best of my belief, did she return after her marriage to Germany. That was when she went with me on our little trip around the region where we had met and had become such friends. And, as far as I am aware, she did not then range even near to the Black Forest.
The answer to my two questions appears to have been that a seller of clocks visited our house when I was not there; and that his terms were easy, though in one sense only.
I am reasonably sure that these visits went on for a long time before I had any inkling of them. Needless to say, that state of affairs is common enough in any suburb; matter mainly for a laughter session, except for those immediately affected.
I used merely to notice when I came home, that the clocks had been moved around, sometimes almost all of them; and that every now and then there seemed to have been a new acquisition. Once or twice it was my ears that first told me of the newcomer, rather than my eyes. The mixed-up noise made by all the different clocks had odd effects upon me. I felt tensed up immediately I entered the house; but it was not entirely disagreeable. Far from it, in fact. The truth seemed to be that this tensing up brought me nearer to Ursula than at other times, and in a very real and practical way, which many other husbands I am acquainted with would be glad to have the secret of. For example, we were never quite the same together when we were elsewhere, even when we were together in her own homeland. Then it was more like brother and sister, as I have said; though fine in its own way too. What is more, my response to the clocks could vary almost 100 per cent. Sometimes the real din they made could drive me quite crazy, so that I barely knew what I was doing or even thinking. At other times, I hardly noticed anything. It is difficult to say anything more about it.
Then I began to observe that divers small repairs seemed to have been done. For a long while I said nothing. Ursula could not be made to talk about her clocks, and that seemed to be that. One shakes down even to mysteries, when so much else in a relationship is right, as it was in ours. But on a certain, important occasion, there were two things at the same time.
This house offers a completely separate dining-room (as well as a third sitting-room which I tried for a time to use as a kind of sub-office), and in this dining-room Ursula had set up a clock made like a peasant hut, with imitation thatch, from beneath which Clever Kuckuck peeked out every half-hour and whistled at us. (We were spared the other two quarters — with this particular clock.) During a period of time before the evening in question, it had become obvious that something was wrong with Kuckuck. Instead of springing at us with his whistle, he seemed merely to sidle out, quite slowly; to stand there hunched to one side; and rather to croak than to shrill. He was plainly ailing, but I said nothing; and he continued to ail for a period of weeks.
Then on that evening I heard him and I saw him as he spoke up at the very instant I entered the dining-room. He was once more good as in the factory.
I truly believed my comment was spontaneous and involuntary.
"Who's fixed Old Cuckoo?" I asked Ursula.
She said nothing. That was as usual on the particular topic, but this time she did not begin serving the broth either. She just stood there with the ladle in her hand, and I swear she was shaking. Well, of course she was. I know very well now.
I think it was this shaking, combined with her rather insulting silence (accustomed though I was), that made me behave badly, which I had almost never done before. Perhaps never at all. I think so. Never to anyone.
"Well, who?"
I am afraid that I half-shouted at her. It is well known that seeing a woman in a shaky state either softens a man or hardens him.
As she just went on silently shaking, I bawled out something like "You're just going to tell me what's going on for once. Who is it that looks after these clocks of yours?"
And then — at that precise moment — a voice spoke right behind me. It was a new voice, but what it had to say was not new. What it said was "Cuckoo"; but it said it exactly like a human voice, speaking rather low, not at all like one of these infernal machines.
I wheeled round, and there at the centre of the dining-room sideboard, staring at me, stood a small clock in gilt and silver that had not been there even at breakfast that morning, or, as far as I knew, anywhere else in the house. It was covered with filigree which sparkled and winked at me. It was also very fast. I knew that without having to consult my watch or anything else. Ursula, as I have said, never seemed to bother very much about whether her clocks showed the right time or not, but I had become so conscious of time — at least, of "the time" — that for most of it I knew what it was as if by a new instinct.
At this point, Ursula spoke. Her words were: "A man comes from Germany. He knows how to handle German clocks." She spoke quietly but distinctly, as if the words had been rehearsed.
I am sure I stared at her; probably even glared at her.
"How often does he come?" I asked.
"As often as he can manage," she replied. She spoke with considerable dignity; which tended of itself to put me in the wrong.
"And what about you?" I asked.
She smiled — in her usual, sweet way. "What about me?" she rejoined.
And of course I could not quite answer that. My own question had been too vague, perhaps also too idiomatic for a foreigner; though I knew myself what I meant.
"It is necessary that he should come regularly," Ursula continued. "Necessary for the clocks. He keeps them going." She was still smiling, but still shaking also, possibly more than before. I fancy that what had happened was that she had made a big decision: the decision to disclose something to me for the first time. She was bracing herself, nerving herself, consciously drawing upon her hold over me.
"Oh, of course it would never do," I said, sarcastically taking advantage of her, "it would never do if all the clocks stopped at the same time."
And then came the greatest astonishment of that important evening. As I spoke, Ursula went absolutely white and fainted.
She dropped to the floor with a crash, a
n extremely loud crash for so small a person. And there is something else to be sworn to, if anyone cares. I swear that the small filigree clock with the soft, human voice said "Cuckoo" again at this point, although two or three minutes only could have passed since it had spoken before.
I looked up the Homelovers' Encyclopaedia and did not take long to bring Ursula round again. But it was, naturally, impossible to return to the same subject. And, what is more, Ursula from then on developed a new wariness which was quite obvious to me — perhaps meant to be obvious, though that was hard to tell. But now I am fairly convinced that the evening when I made Ursula faint was the turning point. It was then that I really muffed things; missed my chance — possibly my only chance — of coming frankly to terms with Ursula, and helping her. Of helping myself, also.
As it was, Ursula's rather too obvious wariness had a bad effect on me. I feel that if a wife has to have a big secret in her life, she should at least make a successful job of concealing it from her husband completely. It is generally agreed to be the kind of thing a woman should be good at. But no doubt it is particularly difficult when the husband and wife are of different nationalities.
What I found was that the absence of change in Ursula's behaviour towards me in any other respect (or, at least, of visible change) only made things worse. I could no longer be completely relaxed with her when all the time I was aware of this whole important topic which we never mentioned. I felt myself beginning to shrink. I seemed to detect a faint patronage in her caresses and her affection. I felt they were like the attentions paid to a child before it is of an age to come to grips with the world on its own: sincere, of course; deeply felt, even; but different from the attentions bestowed on an equal.
Cold Hand in Mine: Strange Stories Page 25