The Clockmaker's Daughter

by Kate Morton

  Storm clouds were gathering in the east, and Ada hoped that it would rain. Great, drenching rain, just as the carriages were arriving with her parents’ guests. She sighed heavily as she turned over each line of her mother’s unexpected proposal in her mind, searching the words for hidden meaning. England. The faraway land of her parents’ childhood, the realm of the mysterious and legendary ‘Grandmother’, the homeland of a people Shashi’s father called the monkey bottoms …

  Shashi switched to Punjabi. ‘You are very quiet, pilla. Make no mistake, my ears are enjoying the peace, but I have to wonder, has something happened to hurt your snout?’

  Ada hadn’t yet finished her considering, but she heard herself blurting out a report of the conversation regardless. She drew breath as she finished. ‘And I don’t want to go!’

  ‘Stubborn little mule! Such a fuss about a trip back home?’

  ‘It is their home, not mine. I don’t ever want to go to England and I intend to tell Mamma so as soon as we get back from the markets.’

  ‘But, pilla’ – the setting sun had balanced itself on the horizon and was leaching gold into the sea, which carried it back towards the shore in ripples – ‘you are going to visit an island.’

  Shashi was wise, for while Ada had no interest in ‘England’, she was exceedingly excited by islands and she had forgotten, in her vexation, that England happened to be part of one in the middle of the North Sea: an hourglass-shaped island, shaded pink, all the way at the top of the map. There was a globe in her father’s study, a large cream-coloured sphere in a dark mahogany grip, that Ada spun sometimes when she was permitted entrée into the cigar-scented domain, because it made a wonderful clicking noise that sounded like a giant swarm of cicadas. She had spotted the island called Great Britain and commented to her father that it did not look particularly ‘great’ to her. He had laughed when she said that and told her that looks could be deceiving. ‘Within that small island,’ he’d said, with a hint of personal pride that made Ada unaccountably flustered, ‘is the engine that drives the world.’

  ‘Yes, well,’ she conceded now, ‘an island is good, I suppose. But Britain is an island of monkey bottoms!’

  ‘Pilla!’ Shashi stifled a laugh. ‘You must not say such things – certainly not close to your mother and father’s ears.’

  ‘Mother and father are monkey bottoms!’ Ada blustered hotly.

  The delicious risk and irreverence of referring to her dignified parents in such a way was a spark that lit a flame, and Ada felt her commitment to being cross begin to melt. A surprise of laughter threatened. She took her aaya’s free hand and squeezed it hard. ‘But you must come with me, Shashi.’

  ‘I will be here when you return.’

  ‘No, I will miss you too much. You must come with us. Mamma and Papa will say yes.’

  Shashi shook her head gently. ‘I cannot come to England with you, pilla. I would wilt like a plucked flower. I belong here.’

  ‘Well, I belong here, too.’ They had reached the bottom of the hill and the line of palms that grew along the coast. The dhows bobbed mildly on the flat sea, their sails down, as white-robed Parsees gathered along the shores to begin their sunset prayers. Ada stopped walking and faced the golden ocean, the dying sun still warm on her face. She was infused with a feeling for which she did not have a name, but which was exquisitely wonderful and painful at the same time. She repeated, more softly now, ‘I belong here, too, Shashi.’

  Shashi smiled at her kindly but said nothing further. This, of itself, was unusual, and Ada was troubled by her aaya’s silence. In the space of an afternoon, it seemed that the world had tilted and everything had slid off-centre. All of the adults in her life had broken like once-reliable clocks that had started showing the wrong time.

  She’d had that feeling a lot lately. She wondered whether it was something to do with having recently turned eight. Perhaps this was the way of adulthood?

  The breeze brought with it the scent of salt and over-ripe fruit, and a blind beggar held up his cup as they passed him. Shashi dropped him a coin and Ada took a new tack, saying airily, ‘They can’t make me go.’

  ‘They can.’

  ‘It wouldn’t be fair.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Not a bit.’

  ‘Do you remember the story of “The Rat’s Wedding”?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Was it fair that the rat who had done no wrong ended with nothing but a singed bottom?’

  ‘It was not!’

  ‘And what about “The Bear’s Bad Bargain”? Was it fair that the poor bear did everything asked of him but ended up with no khichri and no pears, either?’

  ‘Certainly not!’

  ‘Well then.’

  Ada frowned. It had never occurred to her how many of the stories Shashi told contained the moral that life was not fair. ‘That bear was bevkuph! Stupid. I would have punished the woodman’s wife if I were him.’

  ‘Very stupid,’ Shashi agreed, ‘and I know you would have.’

  ‘She was a liar.’

  ‘She was.’

  ‘And a glutton.’

  ‘Mmm, speaking of gluttons …’ They had reached the edge of the busy market place and Shashi led Ada by the hand towards her favourite snack stall. ‘It seems to me that we need to feed that little snout of yours. I cannot have complaints while I select the fruit.’

  It was hard to stay cross with a warm, fresh, salty chakkali in hand, with the songs of the Parsees drifting up from the water, with candles and hibiscus flowers floating on the sea and dotted around the market stalls, in a world that had turned orange and mauve with the dusk. In fact, Ada felt so happy that she couldn’t quite remember now what she’d been so annoyed about. Her parents wanted to take her on a little trip to visit an island. That was all.

  Mamma required the fruit back quickly, so they didn’t have as long as usual for Shashi to spend picking over each stall to find the best papaya and muskmelons, and Ada was still licking the last of her chakkali as they started the walk home. She said, ‘Will you tell me about Princess Aubergine?’

  ‘Again?’

  ‘It is my favourite.’ Truthfully, Ada liked all of Shashi’s stories. Indeed, she would have relished story time even if Shashi chose only to read from one of Ada’s father’s diplomatic papers; what she really loved was lying with Shashi, whose name meant ‘moon’, as the last of the day’s light dissolved into the stars of the night-time sky, listening to the enchanting sound of her aaya’s voice, the soft breathy clicking of the Punjabi words with which she wove her tales. ‘Please, Shashi.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘Please!’

  ‘Very well. If you help me carry the fruit to the top of the hill I will tell you tonight of Princess Aubergine and her clever trick upon the wicked queen.’

  ‘Now, while we walk instead?’

  ‘Bāndara!’ said Shashi, pretending to swat Ada’s ear. ‘Little monkey! What do you take me for to ask such a thing?’

  Ada grinned. It had been worth a try, even though she’d known that Shashi would say no. Ada knew the rules. The best storytellers only ever spoke by dark. Many times, as they lay together at night when it was too hot to sleep, side by side on the platform at the top of the house, with the window wide open, Shashi had told Ada about her girlhood in the Punjab. ‘When I was your age,’ she would say, ‘there were no stories between sunrise and sunset, for there was work to be done. Not for me a life of pleasure like yours! I was busy making fuel cakes all day so that there was something to burn at night, while my mother sat at her spinning wheel and my father and brothers drove the bullocks in the fields. In the village, there was always work to be done.’

  Ada had received this little lecture many times before and although she knew it was only intended to highlight the idleness and indulgence of her own life, she did not mind: there was a magic to the way Shashi spoke about her home that made such tales every bit as wondrous as her ‘Long ago …’ stori
es. ‘All right, then,’ she said, taking the smaller basket and hooking it over her arm. ‘Tonight. But if I beat you home, you will tell me the tale of Princess Aubergine twice!’

  ‘Monkey!’

  Ada started running, and Shashi gave a whoop behind her. They ran together, each laughing as much as the other; and when Ada glanced sideways at her aaya’s face, taking in her kind eyes and wide smile, she knew that she had never loved anyone quite so much. If Ada were asked, ‘In what does your life lie?’ – as the wicked queen asked of Princess Aubergine in order to discern her weakness – she would have had to confess that it lay in Shashi.

  And so, on that hot afternoon in Bombay, Ada Lovegrove’s ill temper disappeared with the day’s sun. And when she and Shashi reached the house, its terrace now swept clean, candles flickering in glass jars along the verandah, the scent of freshly cut grass on the warm evening breeze and the sound of piano music drifting out through the open windows, Ada experienced a swelling sense of ecstatic completeness so overwhelming that she dropped her basket of fruit and ran inside to tell Mamma that yes, she consented, she would accompany them on the trip to England.

  But Ada’s parents had not been truthful.

  After a tortuous journey through the Suez Canal, during which Ada had spent the entire time heaving overboard or lying abed with a damp cloth on her forehead, they’d had a week in London, and a second week touring Gloucestershire – Mamma remarking to the point of delirium on the glory of spring and how little of the ‘seasons’ they saw in India – before arriving one day at a twin-gabled house on the bend of an upper reach of the Thames.

  The clouds had begun to darken as their carriage wound south through the village of Burford, and when it took a turn in the road before Lechlade, the first rain began to fall. Ada had been resting her face on the edge of the carriage window, watching the wet fields sweep by and wondering what it was that made the colours of this country appear as if they had been washed in milk. Her parents, meanwhile, had been unusually quiet since they’d bidden farewell to Lady Turner, their host, but this was something Ada noticed only on reflection.

  They passed a triangle-shaped green in the middle of a very small village, and a public house called The Swan, and when they reached a stone church and cemetery the carriage turned into a winding lane with edges that fell away into the verge, making the journey exceedingly bumpy.

  Finally, when they had gone as far along the lane as they could go, their carriage cut between a pair of iron gates which were open within a tall stone wall. A barn-like structure stood to one side, overlooking a stretch of very green grass that ran as far as a line of willows beyond.

  The horses came to a full stop and the driver leapt down from on high to open Mamma’s door. He held aloft a large black umbrella and helped her from the carriage.

  ‘Birchwood Manor, ma’am,’ he said in a dour voice.

  Ada’s parents had spent a great deal of time telling her about the people and places that they were going to see when they were in England, but she could not think that they’d mentioned friends who lived in a house called Birchwood Manor.

  They followed a flagstone path with roses planted on either side and when they reached the front door were met by a woman with shoulders that hunched forward, as if she had spent her whole life hurrying to get where she was going. Her name, she announced, was Miss Thornfield.

  Ada noted with mild curiosity how different she was from the other ladies that they had visited during the week, with her scrubbed face and severe hairstyle, before realising that this woman, although not wearing a uniform, must be the housekeeper.

  Ada’s parents were being scrupulously polite – Mamma was always reminding Ada that a true lady treated servants with respect – and Ada followed suit. She smiled daintily and stifled a yawn behind her closed lips. With any luck, they would be taken to meet the lady of the house, be offered tea and a slice of cake (something, she had to admit, the English did very well indeed), and be on their way within the hour.

  Miss Thornfield led them into a dim passage, through two halls and past a stairwell, to arrive at a room that she called ‘the library’. A sofa and pair of worn armchairs stood at the centre of the room, and shelves laden with books and other objets d’art lined the walls. Through the window at the back of the room was a garden with a chestnut tree at its centre; beyond it, a meadow with a stone barn. The rain had stopped already and weak light was breaking through soft clouds: even rain wasn’t really rain in England.

  It was at this point that proceedings took a further turn for the unexpected: Ada was instructed to wait while her parents were served tea elsewhere.

  She frowned at her mother as they were leaving – it was always wise to register disapproval – but in truth she did not mind the exclusion. Adults, Ada had found during this family trip to England, could be rather dull companions, and at a glance the library was full of curiosities that would be far more pleasant to explore without a chaperone reminding her not to touch.

  As soon as the adults were gone she began her inspection, pulling books from shelves, lifting the lids from odd-looking pots and delicate bonbonnières, investigating framed wall hangings that included collections of pressed feathers, flowers and ferns and careful cursive annotations in fine black ink. Finally, she came to a glass display case that housed a number of variously sized rocks. There was a lock, but Ada was pleasantly surprised to find that the top lifted easily and she was able to reach inside, turning the rocks over one by one, noting the curious markings, before realising that they were not rocks at all but fossils. Ada had read about fossils in the copy of Wood’s New Illustrated Natural History that her father had ordered from London for her seventh birthday. They were the leftover markings of ancient life forms, some of them no longer existent. Mamma had read to Ada from a book by Mr Charles Darwin during lessons back home in Bombay, so Ada knew all about the transmutation of species.

  On the glass shelf below the fossils was another rock, this one smaller and roughly triangular in shape. It was deep grey and smooth, carrying none of the telltale spiral markings of the fossils. There was a neat hole through one corner and faint linear etchings, mostly parallel, on its side. Ada took it out and turned it over carefully in her hands. It was cold in her palm and holding it gave her a strange feeling.

  ‘Do you know what that is?’

  Ada gasped, fumbling not to drop the stone in her shock.

  She spun around, seeking the owner of the voice.

  There was no one on the sofa or chairs and the door was still closed. Movement at her peripheral vision made Ada turn her head sharply. A woman appeared from a nook to the left of the fireplace that Ada had not noticed when she first entered the room.

  ‘I didn’t mean to touch,’ she said, closing her fingers tighter around the smooth stone.

  ‘Why ever not? I should have thought such treasures would prove irresistible. And you haven’t answered me: do you know what that is?’

  Ada shook her head, even though Mamma was forever telling her that it was rude to do so.

  The woman came near enough to take the stone. Up close, Ada could see that she was younger than she’d first appeared – Mamma’s age, perhaps – though not like Mamma in any other way. The woman’s skirt, for one thing, was as dirty at the hem as Ada’s got when she had been playing in the chicken run behind the kitchen garden in Bombay. The pins in her hair had been put in quickly, too, and not by a proper lady’s maid, as they’d wriggled out in many places, and she wore not a jot of paint or powder on her remarkably freckled nose.

  ‘It is an amulet,’ the woman said, cupping the stone in the palm of her hand. ‘Thousands of years ago, it would have been worn around someone’s neck for protection. That’s what this hole is for’ – she twisted her smallest finger as far in as it would go – ‘twine of some sort; it rotted away long ago.’

  ‘Protection from what?’ said Ada.

  ‘Harm. In all its many forms.’

  Ada could tell
when adults were being truthful; it was one of her special powers. This woman, whoever she was, believed what she was saying. ‘Where does one find such a thing?’

  ‘I found it years ago, in the woods beyond the house.’ The woman slipped the stone back onto its shelf within the glass cabinet, withdrew a key from her pocket and turned it in the cabinet’s lock. ‘Though there are those who say it is the amulet that finds its owner. That the earth knows best when, and with whom, to share her secrets.’ She met Ada’s gaze. ‘You are the girl from India, I suppose?’

  Ada answered yes, that she had come to visit England from her home in Bombay.

  ‘Bombay,’ said the woman, seeming to taste the word as she said it. ‘Tell me. What does the sea smell like in Bombay? Is the sand of the Arabian Sea granular or stony? And what of the light: is it truly much brighter than ours?’

  She indicated that they should sit and Ada obliged, answering these questions and more with the wary compliance of a child who is not accustomed to adults showing genuine interest. The woman, beside her now on the sofa, listened carefully and made occasional small noises signalling surprise or satisfaction, sometimes a mix of both. Finally, she said, ‘Yes, good. Thank you. I will remember everything you have told me, Miss … ?’

  ‘Lovegrove. Ada Lovegrove.’

  The woman reached out her hand and Ada shook it as if they were a pair of grown women meeting in the street. ‘It is good to meet you, Miss Lovegrove. My name is Lucy Radcliffe and this is my—’

  The door opened just then and Ada’s mother swept into the room on the wave of effervescence that she carried with her everywhere. Ada’s father and Miss Thornfield were close behind, and Ada jumped to her feet, ready to leave. But ‘No, dearest,’ said her mother with a smile, ‘you are to stay here for the afternoon.’

  Ada frowned. ‘Alone?’