The Father Clock
By Titus Daniel Gee
He was a butler.
Reggie, the barman at the Boot and Billiard, had seen enough of them to know. They came to the door, scanned the dark tables and then hauled some slumming gentleman out to his waiting auto. The white gloves made it right obvious, of course, but Reggie could have spotted them anyway by the stiffness in their backs and the expression of thinly veiled distain. Reggie glanced at the corner furthest from the door. As expected, the table was occupied by a pile of garments at once far more expensive and far dirtier than the average for the room. In front of his lordship were three empty bottles, the third gripped in a bare hand that protruded from the rumpled silks and stained linens. He'd be the one. Reggie looked back at the door, but the butler was gone. Someone nearby made a tiny, cultured ahem and said in a voice probably intended to be jovial and familiar,
"Excuse me, eh . . . chap, but would you have any sherry?"
Reggie nearly fumbled the glass he had been polishing. The butler was sitting in front of him, his gloves neatly folded on the bar, hands in his lap. When the glass was safely back in its rack, Reggie tried on a smile.
"Eh. Sherry. Right, sir. Comin' right up."
Glass clinked on the bar. The butler drank carefully, but steadily with the eagerness of a man determined to take the short road to drunkenness. Reggie hardly had the bottle back in its place when the butler motioned for another. After he poured the third glass, Reggie left the bottle on the bar. The butler drank half, then heaved a sigh and seemed to relax a little. He took off his cravat and undid the top of his shirt. Reggie, who had nothing else to do and anyhow had always been the curious type (a good trait in this profession), leaned on the bar next to the bottle.
"Here now," he said, "aren't you a butler?"
"I prefer manservant, or household manager," said the butler, "but yes that is my profession."
"'Ere to fetch someone off, then? Drag 'em out?"
"Oh no."
So far there was no thickness in the butlers voice.
"I've no one to drag just now, I'm afraid."
"Unemployed, eh?" said Reggie, "It's 'ard times all 'round, innit?"
"Yes," said the butler, "unemployed," and his eyes no longer rested on Reggie "again, after merely two years."
And then, as though he had come to this place for no other reason (and perhaps that was so), the butler began to tell his tale, all the time looking past Reggie's shoulder, pausing only to sip his sherry or motion for another glass. He said,
"My employer, Mr. Barrington, introduced me to his clock before anything else. It was of the grandfather variety, though he had the odd habit of leaving off the 'grand.' 'Geoffrey, have you dusted the father clock?' he might say. I rather felt the clockmaker had forgotten the grand as well. But Mr. Barrington never let on – at least not that day – so neither did I.
"He gave me meticulous instructions on the care, maintenance, cleaning, setting and winding of the instrument. Met me at the door and led me straight to it. There I stood in the main hall at the foot of the stairs with my traveling gloves still on and my valise in my hand for at least a quarter hour, maybe half. And once he had finished with the clock, he waved vaguely around the room and said … I remember it perfectly. He had one of those deep, gruff voices you hear on retired military men, you know." Here the butler imitated the voice – quite well, actually.
"'My study is up there,' indicating the stairs, 'and my bedroom. Yours is in the back. The kitchen, there. Dining room. Library. Sitting room. Two guest bedrooms. I'm sure you can find your way to the root and wine cellars if necessary. Try to keep things tidy between visits from Mrs. Marks.
"'Ought to be self-explanatory. You did have excellent references. You shall have the evenings free unless I have something pressing for you, and of course, the clock must be set and wound at precisely eleven o'clock each night. I retire at eleven thirty and rise at five forty-five. Now, I must be back to my work. If I should need anything, you will hear my call. Otherwise, please make yourself at home.'
"And with that, he ascended the stairs where he stayed the rest of the day, leaving me to discover the exact location of my quarters 'in the back' and to make the acquaintance of the staff I would now be overseeing.
"It was small for an estate house or 'country cottage' as the Barrington's probably called it, but very well fitted out with all the finery in velvet, silver and brass that the ruling classes require for their personal comfort, and with the slight agedness that is so common in the homes of old families whose golden years are somewhat past them. Mr. Barrington was the only son of his father, you see, both parents gone and a retired widower himself. I never asked but I suppose he must have spent some time in the military. He had the manner about him. Not the kind of man who goes on being called 'General Barrington' or 'the colonel' or what not, but it was more than the voice. He would sometimes stop to speak to me about one thing or another, standing straight with one arm folded up behind his back, you see, laying it out as though I were an inferior officer. The first time was just days after I started with him. I was dusting the clock, carefully following all his intricate instructions, when he happened past on his way to his study. He had a tea cup in his other hand, the one he didn't hold behind his back. He stood there like that for a long time, making me sweat a little, I thought, seeing if I was as good as me references and could remember his impromptu tutorial of earlier in the week. But now I think of it, I imagine he was just thinking about the clock for then he said," the imitation grew more exaggerated as another glass of sherry disappeared.
"'My father bought this clock at a Bazaar in Istanbul, though how it came to be there I'll never know. An early French piece such as that. It's not a remarkable piece, really, but it was the first holiday of his retirement and he had been three months in the Middle East. So, perhaps it reminded him of home, civilization you know. In any case, he doted on the thing in his latter years. Had it packed in straw and shipped back home.
"'He insisted that every original part be recovered in the restoration, but he needn't have worried. They all worked perfectly down to the last gear and pin. The clock smith merely polished the brass, so to speak. Father puttered about during the whole process, making a nuisance of himself I am sure, and insisted on setting it the first time with his own hand.
"'He lived another thirty years, after that and hardly traveled again. That is, until just before the end.' A wistful expression crossed Mr. Barrington's face, then, as he thought about his dead father. 'No,' he said, "the old man was happy here at home. Punctual as a cuckoo bird he was. Opened his eyes at five every morning and the first thing he did was wind his clock. He took 21 minutes to dress, 42 if he was taking a bath, and 18 and a half minutes to eat his breakfast. If he said he was coming to dinner at 6:15 pm, I would pour his drink at 6:14 and a half.
"'The clock became his hobby, you might say. The library must have a hundred books on the subject – the style, the historical context, the intricate mechanisms. Father could talk for hours on the subject, and frequently did, dragging callers into the hall to point out some detail he thought was significant.'
"He paused then, as though to compose his next thought. I got on with my dusting, eager as I was to be finished for the day. But after a long time looking, not at my working hands but straight through the crystal clock face as though it were a window to another time, he turned without another word and went upstairs.
"It was a quiet, orderly household. The master had his routines and kept them, not meticulously like his father, but with the casual punctuality of old habits. He played the part of the retired gentleman, spending his days riding or reading and his evenings at the gentleman's club or calling or entertaining. He returned home each night promptly at 10:30 pm, drank a scotch in the library – sometimes asking me to join him – and often supervised the winding of the clock at precisely 11 pm before beginning his nightly ritual of turning in.
"Mrs. Grim, the cook arrived at 5:00 each morning to start breakfast and stayed until dinner had been cleared up. Mrs. Marks came on the off days to clean with her two girls. Mr. Gudger, the groom and gardner had been with the place since the senior Mr. Barrington was master of the house, and there was Thomas, the driver, whose apartment was above the garage. On the whole, they needed little guidance from me – only the occasional encouragement to keep at the details that can be so important to an estate. I quickly settled in to the somnolent routine.
"There were, of course, the occasional excitements. Lord Warfield threw himself a birthday ball one Saturday night just six months after I started. I remember it clearly – that is, I remember what happened after the ball. Only time we were ever late.
"His Lordship is a verbose sort of man. A regular chatterbox, if I may be so bold, and quite fond of my employer's company. I had gone along to look after the birthday present, a large box. I remember wrapping it, but can't quite recall what was inside. In any case, Mr. Barrington sent for me to bring his coat at quarter past ten. I sent for Thomas to bring the auto around and took my station near the front door just a moment before Mr. Barrington arrived in the hall. Lord Warfield was with him, obviously in the midst of recounting some favorite reminiscence. Mr. Barrington spared me a longsuffering look. His Lordship followed us all the way out to the car, even stood at the open window, leaning in to say goodbye with one parting anecdote. By the time we had disentangled ourselves, it was nearly a quarter to eleven.
"Thomas made a valiant effort at the wheel, but the poor roads conspired with an untimely train to delay us further. Eleven o'clock ticked past before the caboose came into view. Mr. Barrington had his watch open in his hand and he sat forward in his seat, peering through the windscreen and urging Thomas to yet greater speeds. Low groans of exasperation escaped him.
"Naturally, I echoed his tension and prepared myself as we pulled through the great iron gates of Barrington hall. It was 11:09. Thomas pulled up to the front door and I leapt from the backseat, holding the door for Mr. Barrington. He dashed past me, fumbled the key into the lock and disappeared inside before I had reached the top of the stairs. The keys still dangled from the lock and I made myself stop and retrieve them. It took a great effort to act steadily. The sound of the clock filled the front hall, despite the tap of Mr. Barrington's shoes on the polished wood. The tick was loud and much too fast. It drowned all other sounds. I have never heard a timepiece tick that way, like the pulse of a man in the grip of panic – out of control and accelerating with every second. There was madness in the sound, a dreadful building of momentum that made me want to scream or flee or both together. Mr. Barrington reached the clock and flung back the door. The room went quiet.
When I joined him at the foot of the stairs, there was sweat on his brow and his breathing was heavy. He had one hand on the banister for support. The tick was quiet now, perhaps a little fast yet, but slowing. Mr. Barrington mopped his brow with a handkerchief.
"'How unusual, don't you think?' he said, 'Never heard a clock get faster when it was winding down.' He moved toward the library, waving me to follow.
"It would not be the last time the ticking of that clock seemed unusual to me. It had a wandering tick, sometimes faster sometimes slower. I often heard the pace change or even stutter as I walked across the room. It was a marvel that it could keep time at all, to listen to it. But it did, perfect time and never off by the slightest so far as I could tell.
"In the library , Mr. Barington was pouring a bourbon. He handed it to me and poured a double for himself.
"'Of course,' he said, 'I have never been late before, not in fifteen years." He drained his glass and poured another. 'That is, not since the first time, but I never heard it wind down then, did I?' He sat down and took a steadying sip.
"'Father had decided to travel again. I was against it, but he was never one to be thwarted once his mind was set. As it happened, I was unengaged at the time and he asked me to look after the estate while he was away – which is to say, he wanted me to wind his precious clock. Said it was unhealthy to let it die and start it up again. That's the word he used "unhealthy," as though it were some kind of pet that needed to be fed and walked. He said he didn't trust the help to do it properly without supervision. He went on and on about the blasted thing. Made me swear to wake up every morning at 5:00 and wind the clock no sooner or later than 5:05 precisely. Then he left for the continent. I've no idea what I did here for a fortnight, must have occupied myself somehow. All I remember now is waking every morning and setting the damn clock.
"'Then one night Old Walter, your predecessor, may he rest in peace, rousted me from a sound sleep to tell me father had had a fall and was in hospital at Dover. Walter drove me to the ferry in the coach, that was before Thomas and his auto, you understand. I got to the hospital by 5:30 that morning. The doctors told me he had been all piss and vigor when they brought him in, but he'd gone suddenly south not half an hour before. They didn't know why or what they could do about it. He was awake when I came into his room. He looked terrible, looked old for the first time in my life. And there was shock in his eyes when he saw me. That hurt a bit – as though I wouldn't visit my own father in hospital. I sat down beside him and took his hand. He looked at me with those hurt eyes, maybe it was the illness. I don't know. All he said was "Did you wind the clock?" and then he closed his eyes. He never opened them again, just breathed slower and slower, shallower and shallower. Half an hour later he was dead. The doctor said with the traveling and the fall it was just too much for his heart.'
"Silence reclaimed the study for a very long moment, Mr. Barrington staring into the past and me waiting with my now empty glass in my hand, waiting to see if he had finished. I could hear the now steady tick of the father clock from the hall. Finally, he gave a shake as though shrugging off the memory and looked at me a mite sheepishly.
"'Naturally,' he said, and I got the feeling he was actually talking to me for the first time since he had begun, 'Naturally, when I got home I went straight to the clock. It had stopped of course. It said 6:00 when it was just exactly 11:00 pm by my watch. So I set it and wound it up.' Mr. Barrington stood up. 'Perhaps now,' he said, 'you can understand some of my own . . . shall we say, eccentricities? Goodnight Geoffrey.' And he went to bed.
"I canceled Mr. Barrington's engagements for the following week. We stayed home – he walking in the garden or riding; I seeing to the tidiness of things that rarely became untidy and reading in the library which he had put at my disposal. The next week he cancelled again, and I spent much of my time taking telephone calls from concerned acquaintances. The third week, the phone calls tapered off.
"During all this time, I rarely had opportunity to wind the clock. When I arrived in the hall at 10:58 each evening, Mr. Barrington would be standing in the great hall or sitting on the stairs, waiting. When eleven had properly chimed, he would set the mechanisms to their work once more, admonish me to diligence in my daily dusting, and go off to his nightly ablutions.
"Then one night, perhaps Wednesday of that third week, I came through the hall at 3:00 in the morning on my way to the kitchen for some milk. The almost-but-not-quite-steady tick echoed as usual in the wooden room.
"I didn't even notice him at first, he was standing so still. It was the tick that first drew my attention. It seemed off in some way, as though it were slowing slightly on one tick and then hurrying the next to catch up – over and over again. I turned and saw Mr. Barrington standing in front of it, one hand spread flat against the glass of the face, the other pressed against his chest. I shuffled a step toward him in my dressing slippers, but stopped. Suddenly, I felt the interloper into some intimate moment. A memory washed over me. I was a boy of 15, walking in the park when, I stumbled upon a pair of lovers. They were sitting on a bench, holding hands and staring deep into each other's eyes. The young man had just said something tender and the echo of it hung in the air. They took no visible notice of my presence, but my heart told me that the sweet whisper would hang there, unanswered so long as I remained, and that if I stayed too long the spell might shatter altogether and the moment would be lost forever, the tender whisper gone into oblivion. Now, the echo of that whisper filled the great hall, or perhaps it was the whisper itself, hidden in the echoes of the eerie ticks – words. Words just beyond comprehension; words not intended for me.
"Mr. Barrington's head moved – right in time with the tick it turned just slightly toward me. Then again. Still I could not see his face, but suddenly I wanted very much not to see it, or for it to see me. I was taken by the ridiculous fancy that it would not be Mr. Barrington's face at all, when that head turned, but something else. Perhaps the unfamiliar features of his dead father now fifteen years in the grave – or worse, some inhuman reflection of the clock's own face. Foolishness, of course, but in that moment, as the head ticked another fraction toward me, I was certain I was looking at the backside of madness itself and should I see its face I would be lost beyond recovery.
"I fled the room with all the speed of terror – into the kitchen and down the servant's hall to my chamber, where I sat until dawn chiding myself for a fool and waiting for the sun to come and set the world to rights.
"By the light of morning Mr. Barrington was quite himself and never gave any sign that he had seen me in the night. Of course, I said nothing.
"Things eventually got back to normal. Mr. Barrington resumed his social calendar, only heading home a bit earlier than before. They were good days really, quite some of the best I've had. For all his wealth and breeding, Mr. Barrington was a simple man with few needs and fewer demands. Some days I hardly saw him. Other times he would call me into his study and engage me in conversation for hours at a time. Not that I minded; the man had as intriguing a mind as I have come across since my university days"
The butler finished yet another glass of sherry, and Reggie filled the glass again. His shift was ending, but the story of the clock had caught hold of him. The butler, Geoffrey, sat a long time, swirling the liquor in his glass. Reggie tried to think of some way to get him going again, but before the barman could speak the butler continued.
"I dare say, I was happy. Perhaps for the first time since childhood, I was perfectly content. Until Yesterday.
"Bloody yesterday." He said it awkwardly, as though unfamiliar with profanities, but with as much vehemence as Reggie had ever heard laid upon the words.
"I had the day off you know. Mr. Barrington gave me the holiday to visit my sister Anna on her birthday. I was to be free until the following morning, in case it went late – as of course it did.
"It was a splendid party. Even now I can't say otherwise – absolutely splendid, and Anna radiant with all the attention. When the cab dropped me back at Barrington Hall just before 1:00 a.m., I was feeling warm, expansive and more than a mite tipsy as well, humming my way up the stairs and through the door. My voice sounded loud in the utter silence of the front hall.
"It caught in my throat and the silence reclaimed its place, leaving the house feeling vacant, hollow. Still it took me a moment, standing there straining my holiday ears to realize the reason.
"There was no ticking.
"The near constant metronome of my life for the past two years was missing.
"I rushed through the darkness toward the far end of the hall. Mr. Barrington would never let …
"But then I saw him – or rather what had been him." The butler drained his glass and heaved a sigh.
"He was lying on the stairs in his night clothes with his head pressed against the landing, cocked hard with one ear against his shoulder – next to the silent clock and just as still. Sobriety found me quite suddenly.
"He was dead. I knew without checking but I checked anyway. His right arm was trapped under the body, the left flopped out across the landing with its stiffening fingers curled around the base of his father's clock.
"I turned him over. His right hand clutched the alarm clock from his bedroom. His eyes were open, seeming to stare up at the tall, narrow, wooden cabinet. I pried the alarm clock from his fingers. It was still running, its own tiny ticks no longer muffled by the mass of the corpse that had covered it. It said 1:00 am. The father clock read 11:54. And then, because the silence was beginning to beat at my brain and because by all appearances it had been the very last thing on Mr. Barrington's mind just like his father, I opened the cabinet, pushed the hands around and set it going again, imagining in that moment that the erratic ticking matched the shocked and mournful beating of my own heart, tick for beat – as though that mindless machine were able to feel the tragedy as well. Then I called the police.
"Mrs. Grim told me this morning that the master had taken the flu rather suddenly in the afternoon. Hardly touched his dinner and then went straight to his bedroom for a lie down. We found the bedclothes strewn across the floor into the study, where a sheaf of papers littered the carpet, one crumpled by a single bare foot print pressed distinctly in the center of it.
"I can imagine how it must have been, the master wakes from the foggy sleep of influenza, brought around by the habit of so many years. His body knows what time it is. He picks up the alarm clock, turns its key and peers at the face. He is late! But wait, Geoffrey, he thinks. But no. Geoffrey is away – toasting young Anna and eating too much. Mr. Barrington thrashes out of bed and stumbles in to the study. He tries to steady himself at the desk, but his hand slips on a stack of papers that scatters on the floor so he slips as he staggers toward the door, still determined to honor his dead father by winding his clock. Instead he tumbles headlong down the stairs to smash his head on the landing.
"And I wonder . . .
"Did it kill him right away? Was he dead already or unconscious and dying when the clock finally ticked its last or did he lie there until the end, unable to move except to curl the fingers of his left hand around the edge of his precious clock? Did he weep when it finally faded into silence and feel as though he had failed his dying father yet again? Did he hear that accusation in his fading ears 'Did you wind the clock?' Or did, and this is the most chilling really, did they expire together – heart and mainspring counting out their last in perfect unison?" Geoffrey shuddered and stared into his empty glass, sitting now beside its empty bottle. Reggie leaned on the counter beside them and looked at nothing, his eyes a little wide, caught in the spell of the tragedy, he played back those dreadful moments by proxy in his own imagination. To shudder hardly seemed sufficient.
Then the butler climbed to his feet and Reggie looked up. The old boy looked terrible.
"Oh my," said Geoffrey without quite looking at him, "I feel horrid." He pressed a hand to his temple. "Have you got the time," he said
Reggie looked at his watch, "1:40 a.m."
"If only I had gone home early," said the butler then he put his regloved hands on top of his head as though to keep it on his shoulders and staggered into the night.
Sunlight glinted on a row of polished glass. Reggie put his hand out to block the glare and squinted at the thin-lipped bobby scribbling in a little notebook on the bar.
"Tha's right, 'course I'm sure," said Reggie "One-for'y in the mornin'. I remembe' cause I says to meself as 'e walks out the door, I says, ''E's late to wind his bloody clock.'
"An' I guess 'e was."