The Dean's Watch

  While she spoke she had been swiftly picking up the scattered umbrella and sticks and restoring the passage to rights. Now she gently took the Dean’s cloak from him, hung it with his top hat upon a peg and ushered him into the kitchen.

  When she had him there, divested of the shabby cloak, she saw that his clothes were of fine black broadcloth such as gentlemen wear. He wore white bands beneath his chin, over his waistcoat, and his hands were very clean. She thought he looked like a Beak and for a moment of dreadful terror she wondered if Job, who had disappeared, had done anything. With a blanched face she looked up at the Dean and saw her own terror reflected in his eyes.

  “It is the Dean, it is Doctor Ayscough,” said Isaac, who was recovering himself. “Another chair, Polly.”

  The relief was so intense that color flooded into Polly’s face and still looking at the Dean she smiled, her eyes shining. Only the Dean, not a Beak. Then she picked up a duster from the dresser and carefully dusted a chair for him. “Please to sit down, sir,” she said, and she was still smiling at him. She knew she should not be smiling at the gentry, but she had taken him to her heart in the passage; she remembered the splendid anger and could not help herself. The Dean thought he had never in his life received a sweeter, warmer welcome than from this child. He was trembling with anxiety lest he do something, say something, to frighten her or Peabody and break this dream that seemed to him a most fugitive thing, like a soap bubble. He was inside it now but the least clumsiness on his part and he would be outside.

  “I hope I do not come at an inconvenient hour, Mr. Peabody,” he said. “Would you, may I, will you permit me to share your meal with you?”

  He was so obviously scared that Isaac could not help realizing that he was in the extraordinary position of having to set the greatly feared Dean at his ease. Courage came to him and a queer emotion which he did not until afterwards recognize as that compassion which Doctor Ayscough had once before aroused in him, and he managed to say that it was an honor, to explain that Emma was out and that in her absence they were having late tea in the kitchen instead of the parlor.

  “I prefer the kitchen,” said the Dean, accepting a large cup of strong sweet tea from Polly. “Mr. Peabody, was there not a boy here? I thought I heard young voices chiming together when I came in.”

  “It was Job,” said Isaac. “Polly, where’s Job?”

  “He might be in the scullery with the cat,” said Polly. “Job, are you there?”

  There was a movement and the Dean, looking up, saw Job standing in the doorway with a large black cat dangling from his arms. He liked boys and some of them in his schoolmastering days had actually come to know it. Instantly he liked Job, though he did not identify him with the chimney sweep of years ago. He liked the square thin face with the high cheekbones, the defiant sensitive mouth and wary, dark eyes, one of which had been blackened by a blow. The boy’s clothes were ragged and smelled strongly of fish; which was possibly why the cat was purring so contentedly. But his black brows were drawn together and he was obviously not intending to advance farther than the scullery door.

  “That’s your chair, Job,” said the Dean, nodding toward the chair on the other side of Isaac. “If you do not come back and finish that piece of cake I shall not be able to forgive myself that I called upon Mr. Peabody at this unprecedented hour.”

  The Dean had never yet been disobeyed by a boy, and did not expect to be. Job came across the room and slid into his chair, but he could not lift his eyes from his plate. He had recognized the old man instantly and was terribly upset. That great figure of his dreams had through the years become so exclusively his own that it had been a profound shock to find him here in this house, to find he was the Dean of the city, a man to whom Job Mooring could in the world of reality mean nothing whatever. It was obvious that he meant nothing to the Dean because he did not remember him. The man of his dreams would have remembered him. Yet there could not be two men. One of them must be false, and the man sitting on the other side of the table was real enough. It was the great figure of his dreams who was false, and if he was false so was Job’s world. A depth of anguish opened inside him, and fear. Bereaved of his chief strength and consolation he seemed to have lost himself. It was his first experience of the frightening sense of lost identity.

  The Dean was aware, suddenly, of danger, and almost in the same moment he perceived a robin beside his cup and saucer. It was as though someone nudged him and pointed it out. With a sudden exclamation he perched his eyeglasses on the summit of his nose and picked it up. It was shaped out of a rough bit of wood, its breast and wings colored perhaps with the juice of wild berries. It was an earthy thing, not the robin of a Christmas card but like one of the birds that a craftsman of William de la Torre’s day had carved under the miserere seats in the choir, a wild and living creature that had been not so much carved from wood as liberated from it. The Dean turned it around and around in his big ugly hands, silent in delight, for he loved birds. He remained absorbed in it until Polly put a chaffinch by his plate. Then he put the robin down and picked up the chaffinch with reverence. Then he peered shortsightedly around the table. There was a mouse beside the jam pot and a snail by the bowl of dripping. There was a willow wren of shy and slender elegance but no lark. The Dean turned to Isaac. “There’s no lark. Ah, but you put the lark on top of Miss Montague’s Lyre clock. Mr. Peabody, I am dumb in the presence of your genius.”

  The Dean was astonished at Isaac’s delight. His seamed old face was flushed, his eyes sparkled and the rubicund point of his button nose was a point of fire. The delight seemed excessive for a few words of appreciation. “Not me, sir,” said Isaac. “Job.”

  The Dean was not sure that he heard aright and he leaned forward with his hand behind his ear, as forgetful of the nuisance the deaf can be as he had already been forgetful, when he helped himself to a large piece of bread and butter, that he could never fancy food on a sermon Sunday. “Eh?” he asked.

  “Job made them,” said Isaac, raising his voice. “That boy there. Job Mooring.” The Dean turned his gaze on the boy, his hand still absent-mindedly behind his ear, his sad eyes kindling. “Job Mooring,” he repeated. “Job Mooring.”

  The reiteration had an extraordinary strength about it, like the grip of his hand on Job’s shoulder long ago. It gave back the lost identity and Job lifted his head and looked straight across the table at the Dean. It was years before he was to realize that a sense of identity is the gift of love, and only love can give it, but for the rest of his life he was to remember this moment and be able to recall at will the tones of the harsh deep voice, the kindling in the eyes. It was the moment when life began for him, real life, the life of spirit and of genius which his world had foreshadowed. Years later, when silence was called for him and he rose to make his first speech as Master of the Clockmakers’ Company, he was suddenly back again in the city in the fen country, hearing his name spoken by the old Dean. He sat tongue-tied, his face white but as vividly alive as white flame.

  “The boy must be your pupil, Peabody,” said the Dean after a moment or two. “Your apprentice?”

  “No sir,” said Isaac. “I never set eyes on Job till today, except just that one time when I saw him looking in through my shop window at the cuckoo clock. During divine service this morning I found that mouse by the coal scuttle. Then Job, he came in this afternoon, knowing my sister was out, and Job and Polly they showed me what he’d made for her. No, sir, I’ve no apprentice, though many’s the time I’ve thought I’d find one handy. Could you fancy some dripping, sir? It’s good beef dripping.”

  The Dean helped himself and said, “Are you apprenticed, Job?”

  Job nodded speechlessly and Polly spoke up for him. “To Albert Lee the fishmonger, in Swithin’s Lane by the North Gate. Him what has that stall in the market, sir.”

  “I know Swithin’s Lane,” said the Dean thoughtfully. “And I’ve noticed the shop. Do you like gutting fish, Job?”

  “No, sir,
” whispered Job.

  “Have you ever been in the Cathedral?”

  “No, sir.”

  “One day perhaps you will let me show you the carvings there. Have you ever seen a watch like this?”

  He unfastened his watch from its chain and handed it across to Job. “Mr. Peabody, will you show him how to open it? I would like him to see the watch cock.”

  Isaac’s bald head and Job’s dark one were bent together over the watch. Job held it, his brown fingers trembling a little, while Isaac explained the mechanism, pointing out the great beauties of this loveliest of all watches, mentioning with pride that he had been an apprentice not far from the workshop where this watch had been made. Job’s face grew wholly absorbed in wonder, like the face of a child seeing its first candle. Isaac’s had a great tenderness and as he talked he watched Job as though he knew every thought, and was aware of every tremor, in the mind and body of a boy who sees a perfect piece of mechanism for the first time in his life. To hold a marvelous new thing is to a boy as though he held the world, and to touch or take it from him can drive him to frenzy. Isaac was oblivious of everything except the boy and the watch. The boy was oblivious of everything except the watch. The Dean turned to Polly but she was absorbed in the boy. Sooty was in front of the fire, one leg erected like a lamppost, intent upon washing his hindquarters.

  The Dean sat back in his chair and was content to be forgotten. He felt suddenly exhausted, yet thankful. So far it seemed he had not blundered, and he had confidence that he would not, for it seemed to him that the thing was not in his hands, and had not been from the moment he had entered Angel Lane. Although his Cathedral was dedicated not only to Michael but to all the angels, he had never thought very much about them. Legends, miracles, guardian angels, holy wells, relics and demons had been somewhat lumped together in his scholarly mind as irrelevancies to the great truths of his faith. But now he had a strange sensation that those walls of which he had been aware, thinking of them as the soap-bubble walls of a dream, were not so fragile as he had thought. The odd thought came to him that four people and a cat were held within the containing wall of eight great wings. Not even the cat would leave this room until the wings chose. He reminded himself that he was unusually tired tonight.

  Polly was the first to remember the presence of the distinguished visitor, but not for his own sake. Her eyes were full of a pleading so fierce that it startled him. He smiled at her, and she recognized the extraordinary contortion of his facial muscles as the assurance of understanding it was meant to be, and smiled back. Then Isaac remembered where he was and Job sighed deeply, closed the watch and gave it back to the Dean. His lips moved but no sound came.

  “Would you like to be a clockmaker, Job?” asked the Dean.

  “Yes, sir,” said Job hoarsely, and then suddenly he pushed his chair back and dived for the scullery. They heard him dragging at the back door and Isaac called out, “Stop, Job!” and Polly ran after him. But it was too late. He had banged the back door behind him and they heard him running down the street. Isaac and Polly were in distress but the Dean remained unperturbed. Job would not have got through the retaining wall had not a wing been deliberately raised to let him through.

  “You see, sir,” said Polly, “Dobsons apprenticed Job to fish. He’s got two more years to run. He thinks he can’t get free of Albert Lee not for two years, sir, and Albert knocks him about something cruel.”

  “If he was apprenticed to me,” said Isaac eagerly, “I could make that boy such a clockmaker as we haven’t had since Tompion’s day.”

  “If you by yourself try and take Job from the fish you’ll be had up before the Beak and put in quod,” said Polly. “Likely you’ll be hanged.”

  “I do not entirely understand the legalities of apprenticeship,” said the Dean, “but I feel sure that Mr. Peabody’s wishes could be met without quite such disastrous consequences to himself as you envisage for him. I feel sure that were it made worth his while Mr. Lee would be willing to relinquish Job. I will consult Mr. Havelock, our Cathedral solicitor. I will do so tomorrow. Will you be content to leave the matter in our hands, Mr. Peabody?”

  “I shouldn’t like to put you to any trouble, sir,” said Isaac unhappily. “Nor to any expense. It wouldn’t be right, sir.”

  “There’s Job to be considered, Mr. Peabody,” said the Dean. Isaac took his pipe from his pocket and twisted it about in his fingers, a habit of his when he was worried. His great domed forehead was wrinkled and his little beard wagged distressfully. “I like boys,” the Dean went on, “and since I retired from schoolmastering it has been little in my power to serve them.”

  Isaac yielded. “Thank you, sir,” he said, “and I give you my word that I’ll do my best for the boy.”

  “May I smoke a pipe with you before I go, Mr. Peabody?” asked the Dean. “I see that you smoke yourself.”

  “Turn your chairs to the fire,” said Polly in a maternal tone, “while I clear.”

  The two men obeyed her. Their feet stretched to the comfortable warmth, their pipes alight, the cat between them, they arranged that Isaac should wind the Deanery clocks a little later every Saturday morning, to allow for a short instruction in horology, and that one day in the near future the Dean should visit the shop to choose a Christmas gift for Mrs. Ayscough. Then they talked clocks. Beside the kitchen mantelpiece hung a large wooden clock with a slow and solemn tick. Its big round dial was of wood, painted black, with gilt numerals, and below it was a plain wooden trunk to hold the pendulum.

  “Compared to that ruffled courtier the Michael Neuwers, or to that dryad the Lyre clock, it’s like an old woodsman, a peasant,” said the Dean. “But I like its honest ugly face. What is its age, Mr. Peabody?”

  “Getting on for a hundred years,” said Isaac. “It’s a Parliament clock. When William Pitt put a tax on clocks and watches, so that only the rich could afford ’em, the tavern keepers put these clocks in the taverns so that poor men could tell the time. There was vileness for you, sir! Taxing clocks and watches! A wicked man, that Pitt.”

  “Also a great man,” said the Dean.

  Isaac growled savagely. “Great! A man that brings clock and watchmakers nearly to ruin? The watches that were broken up! Men couldn’t afford to carry ’em. Enough to break your heart. Watch cocks torn out and made into necklaces! Dreadful! But he’s an honest old clock, my Parliament. Keeps good time.”

  While they talked Polly’s quick light footsteps went backward and forward between kitchen and scullery. Then came the tinkle of washing up and little snatches of song, accompanied by the deep rumbling of one of Sooty’s organ fugues. Michael struck, echoed by the Parliament clock and the Time and Death clock, but neither man paid any attention. Two oddities as they were, accustomed like the white blackbird to the loneliness of eccentricity yet never quite reconciled to it, they found in each other’s oddness a most comforting compatibility.

  Isaac was so at ease that he forgot that his companion was the Dean, but the Dean did not quite forget that Isaac was the clockmaker, a poor man as his world counted poverty, and his heart glowed. Presently Polly came in and sat down near them, just behind Isaac, and because it was Sunday, when she was not allowed to do any sewing, for once she sat with her hands in her lap. The Dean, as he talked to Isaac, was very much aware of her in her spotless white Sunday apron and a big mobcap that nearly obliterated her small, bright-eyed face. She sat very still as though to be able to do so was a pleasure that she held in her folded hands upon her lap, and though she held herself upright she was yet entirely relaxed. She was happy, he realized, for she had transferred the problem of Job’s future from her own shoulders to his, and she had entire trust in him. This for the Dean was a familiar situation, but the burden in this case was not a heavy one and he could share her quietness. He might have been there for another half hour had not Emma entered upon them. They had not heard her come. They only knew she was there because a shadow fell upon them, sad and strange.

  Em
ma knew the Dean quite well by sight, for he had sometimes taken the chair at meetings which she attended, and she had a great respect for him. Could she have entertained Doctor Ayscough in the parlor it would have been the proudest day of her life. But it was Isaac who was entertaining him, in the kitchen in his shirt sleeves and smoking a pipe; and that little hussy Polly was with them, daring to sit down in the presence of her betters. And upon the dresser was a collection of cheap little wooden toys. These things Emma saw as though in a clear picture, as it is said the drowning see their past life passing before them, and then she was submerged in a dark wave of jealousy and shame, and the picture began to disintegrate. Sooty leapt for the mantelpiece, Polly for the scullery. Isaac scrambled to his feet trying to hide his pipe, his hands trembling as he looked desperately about him for his coat. The Dean rose, his tall black figure seeming to Emma to fill the whole room, knocked out his pipe and bowed to her. Isaac stammered something and he held out his hand and Emma, drowning, caught at it.

  The Dean knew she was drowning and held her hand in a firm grip until she had a little recovered herself. As he greeted her he was aware of much; of Isaac’s fear of his sister and her contempt of him, of the despair in this woman’s mind and her loveless rectitude. “Your brother is going to provide me with a clock for my wife’s Christmas gift,” he said. “It will be a great privilege to possess an Isaac Peabody clock. We are proud of your brother in the city. We are very proud that so fine an artist lives amongst us. May I bid you good night, Miss Peabody, and my thanks for the happy hour I have spent in your home. Much obliged.” He was in the passage now and she heard him talking to Isaac. “Will you convey to the little Polly my grateful thanks for the excellent tea? Havelock shall attend to that matter of the boy. Good night. Much obliged.”