The Clockmaker's Wife

by Daisy Wood

  THE CLOCKMAKER’S WIFE

  Daisy Wood

  Copyright

  HarperCollinsPublishers

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

  Copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

  Cover design © Caroline Young, HarperCollinsPublishers 2021

  Cover photographs © Joanna Czcogala/Trevillion Images (woman), Roy Bishop/Arcangel Images (steps), George W Johnson/Getty Images (Big Ben), Shutterstock.com (planes)

  Daisy Wood asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

  Source ISBN: 9780008402303

  Ebook Edition © July 2021 ISBN: 9780008402310

  Version: 2021-02-22

  Dedication

  To Philip, with love and gratitude

  Author’s note

  Big Ben – as the Great Clock at the Palace of Westminster has come to be known – is recognised around the world, a landmark that draws tourists like a magnet and tells Londoners they’re home. During the Second World War, however, the clock held an even greater significance. In prison camps, cellars, attics and back rooms all over Nazi-occupied Europe, people secretly tuned into wireless broadcasts from the BBC – and for most of the war, the chimes of Big Ben were used to announce the nine o’clock evening news. People everywhere were encouraged to pray for peace as they listened, and this sacred moment was known as the Silent Minute. The great bell represented freedom and better times to come; as long as it tolled, at least one country resisted oppression.

  The Clockmaker’s Wife is a work of fiction. As far as we know, there was no conspiracy to destroy Big Ben on New Year’s Eve in 1940; certainly, no evidence has ever been found. The Houses of Parliament had been bombed in September of that year and were to be more seriously damaged in May 1941, when the Commons Chamber was destroyed by incendiaries, but these episodes were incidental rather than targeted. Yet such a plan isn’t inconceivable. St Paul’s Cathedral had only been saved by a miracle a couple of nights before, when over a hundred thousand bombs were dropped on the ancient City of London. The Palace of Westminster was similarly vulnerable, and the loss of such a beacon of hope as the clock tower would have been a terrible blow to morale.

  Despite this imaginative leap, I have tried to ground the plot and setting of my novel in historical reality. When I began dreaming up the story, renovation work to the clock tower was already under way and a visit in person was impossible. Yet I was lucky enough to experience the next best thing: a talk at the Houses of Parliament by one of the guides, Catherine Moss. She and her colleague, Lindsay Schusman, know all there is to know about Big Ben and I’m extremely grateful to them both for their help, so generously given. At the time of writing, these renovations are still some way from completion, but the results will surely be spectacular. I’ve come to think of Big Ben as an old friend, and a trip up the clock tower is top of my wish list when the world returns to some kind of normality.

  I wrote much of this novel during months of lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. It’s been a strange time, and one can’t help noting the similarities and contrasts with wartime Britain as we currently battle a more insidious, invisible enemy. Researching London during the Blitz has left me overwhelmed by the extraordinary courage of so many ‘ordinary’ people, men and women just like Nell and Arthur, and in awe of the sacrifices they made to ensure the freedom of generations to come. I couldn’t help thinking of my own grandmother, the original Daisy Wood, who lost her brother during the First World War and brought up her daughter, my mother, during the Second. How I wish I could talk to her now!

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s note

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Keep Reading …

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  London, April 1939

  ‘Not much further,’ Arthur calls down to Nell, who is labouring up the stone spiral staircase behind him. She’s wearing new shoes that have rubbed a blister on the back of her heel, and it’s been a long day, but she knows how much this visit means to Arthur so she perseveres. He’s rightly proud of his work, maintaining the clocks at the Palace of Westminster, and she knows it’s taken some negotiation with the Keeper of the Clock for permission to show her the greatest one of all: the huge turret clock that Nell in her ignorance used to call Big Ben. Arthur had quickly put her right. Big Ben, she knows now, refers to the vast bell that strikes the hours, rather than the clock itself.

  She’s learned a lot about this clock since meeting Arthur – or rather, she would have learned a lot, if she weren’t so distracted by his steady brown eyes, gazing intently into hers, by the hollows under his cheekbones and the bluish stubble around his jaw, by that mysterious male presence that takes the words out of her mouth and the breath from her lungs. Sometimes they can talk for hours and it seems as though they’ve known each other for years; more often, she simply stares at the way his curly hair springs up from his forehead or the curve of his beautiful mouth and wonders how long she’ll have to wait until he’s kissing her. She thinks about him all the time. He’s on her mind from first thing in the morning until last thing at night, and people have begun to notice. The headmistress has had to have sharp words with Nell about leaving her personal life at home.

  So now she smiles back at Arthur and tells him she’s fine, slips off her shoes and limps after him in her stockinged feet. First, he takes her to the clockmakers’ room, where their tools and equipment are stored. Technically, Arthur is employed by Saunders, an external company of clock and watchmakers, rather than the Palace of Westminster. Yet the Palace is where he and his colleagues spend most of their time, winding, adjusting and maintaining the hundreds of clocks that mark the hours as Parliament goes about its business. And also when it’s in recess, of course. There are two other clockmakers apart from Arthur: Ralph Watkinson (whom he likes) and Bill Talbot (whom he doesn’t).

  Their
room is low-ceilinged, with short windows beneath the overhanging dials above. Arthur shows her the workbench where his tools are neatly arranged, ready for the morning.

  ‘Sure I’m not boring you?’ he asks, and she hastens to reassure him. ‘You are a dear girl to be so interested,’ he says, blushing a little, and his flush deepens when she catches sight of her photograph in pride of place on the shelf, self-conscious in pearls and an evening gown. Dropping his eyes, he exclaims over her lack of shoes and binds her bleeding heel with his handkerchief, taking such care that she melts under his touch. She’s longing for him to kiss her when he straightens up, but instead he unlocks the door to an inspection hatch and shows her the weights running up and down the central shaft of the tower. She can just make them out, far below in the gloom. There are three weights, he explains, controlling the three gear trains by which the Great Clock operates: the striking train driving the hammer which drops against Big Ben, the chiming train that controls the quarter bells, and the going train that powers the clock hands. The striking and chiming trains are wound back up by electric motor when they reach the bottom of the shaft, Arthur says, but the going train has to be wound by hand, three times a week.

  ‘Goodness.’ Nell could listen to him talk all evening – although, to be perfectly honest, she pays more attention to his dimples than she does to the gear trains. He wants to share his great passion with her, and she knows this is a significant moment. Who would have thought the workings of a turret clock could be so romantic?

  Arthur takes Nell’s hand and leads her through the gallery behind the four huge dials. Dusk is falling and the light bulbs behind each clock face are blazing; people on the ground over three hundred feet below will be looking up to check the time as they hurry to meet friends or lovers, or head home after work. Nell peers up at the milky glass. She can’t see through to the Roman numerals on the other side, but Arthur tells her they are over two feet high, and the minute hand is fourteen feet long. The scale is awe-inspiring.

  After this excitement, they go up another flight of stairs to see the clock mechanism itself, an intricate arrangement of wheels, cogs, levers and ratchets laid out on a flatbed frame. The machinery was made in Victorian times; a work of art, combining beauty and precision. Nell’s face is beginning to ache from all the smiling when a tremendous racket starts above their heads, the smaller bells ringing out the quarter hour. She and Arthur put their hands over their ears, beaming at each other. I do love you, she thinks, and wonders when she’ll find the courage to tell him. Probably not tonight. He seems in a strange mood: preoccupied, distracted, distant. He’s probably tired after a day’s work, and of course he’s worried about the current state of affairs on the Continent, along with everyone else. They had a long conversation about that alarming little man Hitler the other night. Arthur’s parents are German but they moved to England before he was born – which, as things have turned out, was just as well.

  At last the Westminster Chimes die away and the fly fans high up in the room come to a noisy, clattering halt.

  Falling well and truly under the spell of this extraordinary place, Nell hurries after Arthur, up another flight of stairs to the belfry where Big Ben hangs in state; a caged beast behind an iron fence, with the quarter bells arranged around him like planets orbiting the sun. She leans over the wire-mesh barrier to lay her hand against his great scarred side and stand for a moment, drinking in the quiet atmosphere. Arthur, however, is in a hurry. He wants to show her the Ayrton light, which is lit when either House of Parliament is sitting after dark. Frowning, he looks at his watch and hustles her towards the open metal staircase as though they’re late for an appointment.

  ‘Hope you don’t mind heights,’ he says, bounding up the first few steps without looking back. Nell follows, trying to ignore the open iron latticework beneath her feet and the wind that steals under her crimson coat, freezing her stockinged legs. When they climb out onto the balcony running around the lantern, she’s glad of Arthur’s hand to hold, and gladder still when he puts his arm around her shoulders and draws her close, inhaling the scent of her hair, which she rinsed in lavender water, just in case this situation might arise. They gaze out over London, quiet in the deep blue haze of evening. The dolphin streetlamps along the Embankment are shining like strings of pearls as the sinking sun outlines fleecy clouds in pink and gold; the lights of barges heading towards the docks gleam like fireflies on the water. Nell can see as far as Tower Bridge in one direction and Lambeth Bridge in another, spot the golden angel glinting on the memorial outside Buckingham Palace, and glimpse Nelson standing proud on his column at Trafalgar Square. The cars crossing Westminster Bridge look like Matchbox toys from this height, and the roar of the traffic is muted. She and Arthur are completely alone, with this extraordinary scene laid out before them.

  The sight of his serious face casts a shadow over her happiness. Now, at last, she understands why he’s brought her here. ‘War’s coming, isn’t it?’ she asks, so quietly that she might be talking to herself. ‘You want me to see the city before everything changes.’

  ‘I think it’s inevitable, sadly,’ he replies. ‘And sooner rather than later.’

  Now a terrible fear clutches her heart. ‘Please don’t tell me you’re leaving. Are you about to say goodbye?’ Ridiculous tears spring to her eyes; she’ll blame them on the wind. He looks away, biting his lip. ‘Don’t go,’ she begs, abandoning all trace of dignity. ‘You needn’t, Arthur, not till they send for you. Let other men play the hero.’

  He takes her hand. ‘I have brought you here for a reason, but it’s not that,’ he says, gazing into her eyes. ‘We haven’t known each other long, dearest Nell, but it’s been long enough for me to have fallen head over heels in love with you. Let’s make a home and grow old together. We might never be rich but I swear, I’ll move heaven and earth to make you happy. Oh, damn, I meant to do this properly.’ He starts patting his pockets. ‘Where is it? I’m sure … Ah, yes, here we are.’

  He produces a small black box and, sinking to one knee, opens and offers it up to her. ‘Nell Roberts, I’m only a humble clockmaker, but would you do me the honour of becoming my wife?’ When she doesn’t reply instantly he repeats, with the merest hint of desperation, ‘Will you marry me, darling girl?’

  Laughing and crying at the same time, lost for even the simplest of words, Nell helps Arthur to his feet. Her expression is all the answer he needs. He takes the ring from its velvet bed and slips it on her finger and then, at last, he kisses her; the most magical kiss there has ever been or will be again. At that very moment the world explodes as the bells beneath their feet begin to chime, followed by a few seconds of silence before the mighty hammer drops and Big Ben rings out in celebration. Arthur’s timing is impeccable – naturally.

  Chapter One

  London, November 1940

  Nell looked at the clock for what felt like the hundredth time. Arthur had never been home as late as this before. It was almost eight o’clock. What on earth could have happened? The bombers had been coming earlier and earlier – almost as soon as it was dark, sometimes – but so far the night had been quiet and the alert hadn’t sounded, so he couldn’t have been caught up in a raid. She went to the front room and pulled aside the blackout blind to look out. It was dark and quiet, the moon only a fingernail paring and a solitary searchlight roaming the clouds. She could make out the bulk of a couple of barrage balloons, bobbing and swaying from their moorings like vast tethered animals. The street was empty, apart from a couple of ARP wardens standing on the corner, playing their torches over the house that had been bombed a couple of months before. Rumour had it that a tramp had moved in, though no one had actually seen him. Nell dropped the blind; those men could spot a chink of light at fifty paces.

  Sighing, she walked back down the hall, edging past the pram. The liver she had queued an hour to buy had been drying out in the oven since half past six; Arthur would probably break a tooth if he tried to eat it now. Upstai
rs, Alice gave a drowsy, half-hearted wail. Nell stood for a moment to listen, holding her breath, but the baby seemed to have settled down so she carried on to the kitchen, to find the largest mouse she had ever seen – could it even have been a rat? – running across the floor. She couldn’t help screaming, and then of course Alice woke up and screamed too, and the house was in uproar when Arthur’s key turned in the lock.

  ‘Arthur! Where have you been?’ she cried, clutching her sobbing baby, on the verge of tears herself. ‘I was so worried! Supper’s ruined and we’ve nothing else to eat except a tin of corned beef that I was saving for the weekend. I was trying so hard to make everything lovely but the house is infested with vermin and it’s all too ghastly for words.’

  ‘You poor thing. Here, give Alice to me.’ Gently, Arthur scooped up the baby and walked her up and down, humming under his breath. Alice buried her damp face in his shoulder, hiccupped a couple of times and fell asleep.

  ‘But you haven’t even had time to hang up your things.’ Full of remorse, Nell took off his hat while he shrugged his arms out of his coat so she could relieve him of that, too. His clothes were cold and damp, and smelt of soot. ‘Oh, I’m the worst wife in the world!’ she burst out. ‘I’m meant to change and put on fresh lipstick before you come home and here I am, nagging like some awful harpy. Can you forgive me?’

  He smiled. ‘As long as you can forgive me for being so late. And, darling, I wouldn’t mind if you came to the door in sackcloth and ashes.’ He kissed the top of her head. ‘Why don’t you make a pot of tea while I put Alice back in her cot and then we can decide what to do about supper and vermin.’

  She shouldn’t have mentioned the mouse, Nell realised, putting the kettle on to boil. Arthur might use that against her in their ongoing debate – it wasn’t an argument, not yet – that was becoming increasingly heated as the bombing continued.