The Clockmaker's Daughter

by Kate Morton

  For the first time ever, as she stood in the grove of ivy, surrounded by the hum of cemetery stillness, Elodie saw clearly that she and her mother were two different women. That she did not have to remain the smaller handprint within the larger one forever. Lauren had been talented and beautiful and a tremendous success, but it occurred to Elodie that the biggest difference between them was none of those things. It was their approach to life: where Lauren had lived fearlessly, Elodie always guarded against failure.

  It struck her now that maybe she needed to let go a bit more often. To try and, yes, occasionally to fail. To accept that life is messy and sometimes mistakes are made; that sometimes they’re not even really mistakes, because life isn’t linear, and it comprises countless small and large decisions every day.

  Which wasn’t to say that loyalty wasn’t important, because Elodie believed strenuously that it was; only – maybe, just maybe – things weren’t as black and white as she had always believed. As her father and Tip kept trying to tell her, life was long; being a human wasn’t easy.

  And who was she to judge, anyway? Elodie had spent most of yesterday at a wedding reception venue, nodding politely while well-intentioned women bamboozled her with talk of various types of bonbonnières and why she didn’t ‘want to go that way’, as all the while she’d been longing to get back to Birchwood Manor and to an Australian man who seemed to think she would believe he was employed by the museum.

  She had wondered yesterday, when she first showed him Caroline’s photograph, why she was over-sharing in such an uncharacteristic way. She had convinced herself that it was simply a result of her weariness and the emotion of the day. It had seemed a reasonable theory, and she had almost believed it until today, when he came around the corner from the meadow.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked, appearing now at her side.

  ‘I am more okay than I thought I would be.’

  He smiled. ‘Then judging by that sky, I reckon we probably ought to think about getting out of here.’

  The first rain – big, fat drenching drops – fell as they were leaving the churchyard, and Jack said, ‘I never imagined that it would rain like this in England.’

  ‘Are you kidding? Rain is what we do best.’

  He laughed, and she felt a jolt of something very pleasant. His arms were wet and she was overcome with an irresistible urge, a need, to reach out and touch his bare skin.

  Without a word, and although it made no sense, she took his hand and together they started running back towards the house.

  IX

  It is raining and they have come inside. Not a light shower but the beginning of a storm. I have been watching it build out there all afternoon, beyond the head of the river, over the distant mountains. There have been many storms in my time at Birchwood Manor. I have become used to the changed, charged atmosphere as air is drawn towards the front.

  But this storm feels different.

  It feels like something is going to happen.

  I am restless and infused with anticipation. My thoughts skip from here to there, picking through the stream of recent conversation, turning over this stone and then that one.

  I have been thinking about Lucy, who suffered so terribly after Edward’s death. It gladdens me to learn that she told Leonard at last that I was not a faithless lover; I care little for the opinions of those I did not know, but Leonard mattered to me and I am relieved he knew the truth.

  I have been thinking of Pale Joe, too. For so long, I craved to know what became of him – how pleased I am, how proud, to hear of what he achieved; that he took his kindness and influence, and his steely sense of justice, and put them to work. But, oh, how cruel it is to have fallen from his life when I did!

  And I have been thinking of Edward, as always, and that stormy night spent here, in this house, so many years ago.

  I miss Edward most on stormy nights.

  It was his idea that we should come here for the summer, to his house, his beloved twin-gabled house on the river, before travelling on to America. He told me his plan on the evening of his twenty-second birthday, as candlelight danced across the night-darkened walls of his studio.

  ‘I have something for you,’ he said, to which I laughed, because it was his birthday and not mine. ‘Yours is next month,’ he said, waving away my half-hearted protest, ‘that’s near enough. Besides, we do not need reasons to surprise one another, you and I.’

  I insisted nonetheless that I should be allowed to give him my gift first, and held my breath as he began to unwrap the brown paper.

  For a decade I had been doing just as Lily Millington advised: keeping a small portion of my spoils each week in a hidden place. At first, I did not know what I was saving for, only that Lily had told me to do it, and in truth it did not matter, for there is a security to be gained from saving that transcends purpose. As I got older, though, and my father’s letters continued to counsel patience, I made myself a promise: if he did not send for me by my eighteenth birthday, I would buy myself a ticket to America and travel there alone to find him.

  I would be eighteen in June 1862 and had saved almost enough for a single ticket; but since I’d met Edward, my thoughts for the future had shifted. When I saw Pale Joe in April, I asked him where one should go to procure a leather gift of the highest quality, and he sent me to his father’s supplier, Mr Simms on Bond Street. It was there, in that shop, which smelled of spice and mystery, that I placed my order.

  Edward’s face when he unwrapped the satchel was worth every ill-gotten, squirrelled-away, secret penny. He ran his fingertips over the leather, taking in the fine stitching, the embossed initials, and then he opened it and slipped his sketchbook inside. It fitted, as I had hoped it would, like a hand into a glove. Immediately, he put the strap over his shoulder, and from that day until the last, I did not see him without the satchel that Mr Simms had made to my instructions.

  He moved closer then to where I was standing by the bench of art supplies, his proximity causing my breath to catch, and from the pocket of his coat he took an envelope. ‘And now,’ he said softly, ‘the first half of my gift to you.’

  How well he knew me, how well he loved me, for within the envelope lay two tickets on a ship making the Atlantic crossing in August.

  ‘But, Edward,’ I said, ‘the cost—’

  He shook his head. ‘Sleeping Beauty was beloved. The exhibition was a great success, and it is all down to you.’

  ‘I did little!’

  ‘No,’ he said, suddenly serious, ‘I could not paint without you now. I won’t.’

  The tickets were made out in the name of Mr and Mrs Radcliffe. ‘You will never have to,’ I promised.

  ‘And when we’re in America, we will find your father.’

  My mind was racing, planning ahead, picking a pattern through the bright new possibilities, considering the best way to extricate myself from Mrs Mack and the Captain, to avoid letting Martin know until the last, when it came to an abrupt stop. ‘But, Edward,’ I said, ‘what about Fanny?’

  A slight frown line appeared between his eyes. ‘I will let her down gently. She will be all right. She is young, and pretty, and wealthy; she will have other suitors begging for the chance to marry her. She will understand in time. It is another good reason for us to go to America: the kindest thing for Fanny. It will allow distance for the dust to settle, for her to spin whatever story she prefers.’

  Edward never said a word that he did not believe with all his heart, and of this, too, I know he was convinced. He took my hand in his and kissed it, and when he smiled at me, such was his power of persuasion, I believed that what he said was true.

  ‘And now,’ he said, his smile widening as he took from the bench a large parcel, ‘the second half of your gift.’

  With his free hand, he led me to the cushions on the floor and placed the present – surprisingly heavy – upon my lap. He watched keenly, almost jittery with anticipation, as I started to unwrap it.

  When I
reached the last layer of paper, there, within the shroud, was the most beautiful wall clock that I had ever seen. The box casing and face were both made of finely crafted wood, with Roman numerals inlaid in gold, and delicate hands with tapered arrows.

  I brushed the palm of my hand across the smooth surface, the lustre cast by a nearby candle picking out the grain of the wood. I was overwhelmed by the gift. Living with Mrs Mack, I had not acquired a single possession of my own, let alone an object of such beauty. But the clock was precious beyond its material value. Its bestowal was Edward’s way of demonstrating that he knew me, that he understood who I really was.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he said.

  ‘I love it.’

  ‘And I love you.’ He kissed me, but as he withdrew his brows shifted. ‘What is it? You look as if you’ve just been handed trouble.’

  And that is precisely how I felt. Almost as soon as I had received the clock, my thrill was replaced by a great covetous need to protect the precious gift; there was no way I could take it near the Seven Dials without Mrs Mack putting a price upon it. ‘I think that I should hang it here,’ I said.

  ‘I have another idea. In fact, there is something important that I must talk to you about.’

  Edward had mentioned the house by the river before, and I had observed the way his expression changed, a look of longing coming upon his face, which would have made me envious had we been speaking of another woman. But as he told me now of his need that I should see his house, there was something else underlying his features: a vulnerability that made me want to take him in my arms and soothe whatever distant trial such talk evoked. ‘I have an idea for my next painting,’ he said at last.

  ‘Tell me.’

  And that is when he relayed to me what had happened to him when he was fourteen years old: the night in the woods, the light in the window, his certainty that he had been saved by the house. When I asked him how a house could save a boy, he told me the ancient folk tale of the Eldritch Children that he had learned from his grandfather’s gardener, about the queen of the fairies, who left the land on the bend of the river blessed and any house that stood upon it lit.

  ‘Your house,’ I whispered.

  ‘And yours, now, too. Where we shall hang your clock so that it can keep count of the days, the weeks, the months, until we return. In fact –’ he smiled – ‘I thought we would invite everyone to Birchwood for the summer, before we leave for America. It will be a way of saying goodbye, although they will not know it. What do you say?’

  What could I say but yes?

  There was a knock at the door then, and Edward called out, ‘Yes?’

  It was his littlest sister, Lucy, whose glance swept the room in an instant, taking in Edward and me, the new satchel on his shoulder, the paper wrapping on the floor, the clock. Not the tickets, though, for at some point, though I did not see it happen, Edward had managed to conceal them.

  I had noticed before, the way she watched. Always observing, taking mental notes. It got on the nerves of some – Edward’s other sister, Clare, had little time for Lucy – but there was something about her that reminded me of Lily Millington, the real Lily: an intelligence that made me fond. Edward, too, adored her, and was forever feeding her hungry mind with books.

  ‘What do you say, Lucy?’ he said now, with a grin. ‘How do you fancy spending summer in the country? At a house on the river – perhaps even a little boat?’

  ‘At … the house?’ Her face lit up even as she darted a look in my direction. I noted the invisible emphasis upon the words, as if they were a secret.

  Edward laughed. ‘The very same.’

  ‘But what if Mother—’

  ‘Don’t you worry about Mother. I’ll take care of everything.’

  And when Lucy smiled at him, a look of rapture came upon her face that changed her features completely.

  I remember everything.

  Time no longer binds me; my experience of time is no longer bound. Past, present and future are one. I can slow memories down. I can experience their events again in a flash.

  But the months of 1862 are different. They gather speed, no matter what I do to stop them, rolling like a coin let go at the top of a hill, picking up pace as they hurtle towards the end.

  When Edward told me about the Night of the Following, the trees of Hampstead wore only the merest of buds. The branches were all but bare and the sky was low and grey; yet, once the tale was told, the summer of Birchwood Manor was already upon us.

  PART THREE

  THE SUMMER OF BIRCHWOOD MANOR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Summer, 1862

  It was Lucy’s first time on a train and for the half-hour since they’d left the station she had sat very still, trying to decide whether or not she could feel the velocity impacting on her organs. Edward had laughed when she asked if he was worried, and Lucy had pretended she was joking. ‘Our organs are safe from the railways,’ he’d said, taking her hand and giving it a squeeze. ‘It’s the wellbeing of the countryside we should be concerned about.’

  ‘Better not let Fanny hear you say that.’ This was Clare, who had a habit of listening in. Edward frowned when she said it but didn’t answer. Fanny’s father’s role in encouraging the spread of train lines across the surface of Britain did not sit well with Edward, who believed that nature should be valued for itself, and not in terms of the resources it yielded to those inclined to exploitation. It was not an entirely easy opinion to hold – as Thurston enjoyed pointing out – for a man who intended to marry into railway money. Mother’s friend, Mr John Ruskin, went a step further, warning that the push of the railway lines into every hidden corner of the globe was a human folly. ‘A fool always wants to shorten space and time,’ he had announced when he was leaving the house in Hampstead the other day. ‘A wise man wants to lengthen both.’

  By and by, Lucy stopped thinking about her organs, and the vandalism of the countryside, and found herself becoming distracted instead by the sheer marvel of it all. At one point, another train travelling in the same direction swept onto an adjoining line and when she looked across and into the other carriage it appeared stationary beside her. There was a man sitting adjacent and their eyes met and Lucy fell to thinking about time and motion and speed, and began to glimpse the possibility that they weren’t actually moving at all – that it was the earth instead that had started to spin rapidly beneath them. Her knowledge of the fixed laws of physics suddenly loosened and her mind exploded with possibilities.

  She was overcome with a fierce desire to share her ideas, but when she glanced across the carriage table to where Felix Bernard and his wife Adele were sitting, her excitement fizzled flat. Lucy knew Adele a little, because before she had married Felix, she used to come to the house to model for Edward. She was in four of his paintings, and for a time had been one of his favourites. Lately she had ambitions to be a photographer herself. Adele and Felix had argued about something at Paddington station and were now at odds, Adele pretending engrossment in the English Woman’s Journal, Felix properly engrossed by the inspection he was carrying out of his new camera.

  Across the aisle, Clare was making eyes at Thurston, a common enough state of affairs ever since he’d asked her to model for his new painting. Everybody said that Thurston was very handsome, but he reminded Lucy, with his strutting gait and heavy thighs, of one of Grandfather’s prize racehorses. He was not returning Clare’s attentions but was focused instead on Edward and his current model, Lily Millington. Lucy followed his gaze. She could understand why they drew his attention. There was something about the way they were together, as if unaware of everybody else in the carriage, that made Lucy want to watch them, too.

  Finding no one available with whom to share her thoughts, Lucy kept them to herself. She decided it was probably for the best. She was eager to make a good impression on Edward’s friends, and Clare said that such pronouncements, about energy and matter and space and time, made her sound as if she belonged i
n Bedlam. (Edward, of course, said the opposite. He said that she had a good brain and that it was important she should use it. What hubris it was, he said, that mankind should think to halve the powers of the human race by ignoring the minds and words of the female half of it.)

  Lucy had pleaded with Mother that she might have a governess or better yet be sent to school, but Mother had only looked at her concernedly, felt her forehead for fever, and told her that she was a strange little thing and would do well to put such foolish thoughts aside. Once, she had even called Lucy in to see Mr Ruskin, who was having tea in the parlour, and Lucy had been made to stand by the door as he instructed her gently that a woman’s intellect was not for ‘invention or creation’, but for ‘sweet ordering, arrangement and decision’.

  Thank God for Edward, who kept her well supplied with books. Lucy was currently reading a new one, The Chemical History of a Candle, which contained six of the Christmas lectures for young people that Michael Faraday had given at the Royal Institution. It offered an interesting enough description of candle flames and combustion, carbon particles and the luminescent zone, and it was a gift from Edward, so Lucy was determined to appreciate each word; but, truth be told, it was a little basic. She’d had it on her lap since they left Paddington, but couldn’t bring herself to open it now, letting her thoughts rest instead upon the summer ahead.

  Four whole weeks at Birchwood Manor with Edward as chaperone! Ever since Mother had said that, yes, she could go, Lucy had been counting down the days, crossing them off on the calendar in her bedroom. She had it on good authority that other mothers might have minded their thirteen-year-old daughter spending the summer in company with a group of artists and their models, but Bettina Radcliffe was utterly unlike any of the other mothers that Lucy knew. She was a ‘bohemian’, according to their grandparents, and since Father died had become expert at attaching herself to the travel plans of others. She was spending July on a tour of the Amalfi Coast, ending in Naples where her friends, the Potters, had set up house. Far from worrying that Lucy might be morally corrupted, Mother had been exceedingly grateful to Edward when he suggested that his youngest sister should join him and his friends at Birchwood Manor for the summer, as it meant she would be spared having to endure the grudging largesse of the grandparents. ‘Which is one less thing to worry about,’ she’d said airily, before returning excitedly to her packing.