Timepiece

  He walked with a limp, which increased with his age. The adult spectators of his daily march called it a Negro shuffle, ignorant of the Spanish bullet still lodged in his inner left thigh, a souvenir from the Spanish-American War.

  Lawrence had belonged to the Negro Twenty-fourth Cavalry, a “buffalo soldier” so named by the Indians who feared the black soldiers, convinced that their black, “woolly” hair and beards were evidence that they were mystical beings: half men, half buffalo. He had come to Utah when the Twenty-fourth was transferred to Fort Douglas, cradled on the east bench of the Salt Lake Valley, and remained behind when, four years later, the cavalry was re-stationed in the Philippines.

  Lawrence’s entry into clock repair was happenstance. He had been the army’s supply and requisition clerk, and, naturally gifted with his hands, had a knack for repairing rifles, wagons, and whatever the post required fixing. On one occasion, he repaired a pocket watch for one of the officers, who, in appreciation, made Lawrence a present of a manual on clock repair and nicknamed him “the horologist,” a title Lawrence clung to, as it made him feel scientific.

  Salt Lake City had few horologists, and as word spread of Lawrence’s expertise, civilians began bringing him their timepieces as well.

  When he left the cavalry, his clientele followed him to his new shop. His clock-cleaning-and-repair business grew into a trading post of sorts, as people left notes of clocks they wanted to acquire or sell, and estate auctioneers found Lawrence to be a good wholesaler of their wares.

  David met Lawrence through the purchase of a Black Forest cuckoo clock and instantly liked the man. There was a calmness in his motion; the temperament of one suited to repair the intricate. “Slow hands,” David called it. But there was more. There was something comfortable in his manner that reminded David of earlier days. Growing up in the womb of the Eureka mine, David had worked and lived with black men, listened to their stories of injustices and enjoyed their company. In the depth of a mine, all men were black, and he had learned to appreciate people for their souls. The two men spent hours talking about clocks, California, and the cavalry.

  Though both were fascinated by clocks, they were so for vastly different reasons. Where David saw immortality in the perpetual motion of the clocks’ function, Lawrence was fascinated by the mechanism itself, and for hours on end, he would lose himself in a brass clockwork society—a perfect miniature world where all parts moved according to function. And every member had a place.

  As the falling sun stretched the remnant shadows of the day, David rapped on the door of Lawrence’s shack.

  “Lawrence?”

  A soft, husky voice beckoned him in.

  David stepped inside. Lawrence sat on a cot in the corner of the darkened room, a single candle cast flickering slivers of light across the man’s face. In his hand was a smoldering pipe, which glowed orange-red.

  “Sit down,” he said. “Sit down.”

  The dwelling consisted of one room divided by function: the living quarters toward the east and the shop toward the west, separated by a plethora of clocks and a heavy table covered with clockwork, candles, and dripped wax.

  Lawrence was proud of his humble furnishings: a small, round-topped table, splintered and worn in parts with odd-lengthed legs to hold it steady on the shack’s unlevel floor. Around the table were three chairs, each of different manufacture. His bed was a feather mattress set on a home-built wooden frame and covered with the thick wool army blankets and roll he had slept on for nearly forty years. In the corner of the room, a potbelly stove sat on a stone-and-concrete platform. Where the room wasn’t illuminated by the stove, it was lit by kerosene army lamps that hung from the rafters.

  There were no windows, though they would have been unusable, as Lawrence had stacked firewood across the outside wall of his home.

  David sat down on one of the chairs near the round table. “I brought the money for the pocket watch.” He laid a wad of bills on the table.

  “Thank you.”

  “Who was that woman I passed on the way around?”

  “Big woman? Tha’s Miss Thurston. The preacher’s wife.”

  “What did she want?”

  “Same thing she always wants.”

  “Which is?”

  “Wantin’ to get me out to the colored church.” Lawrence shook his head in wonder. “Woman gets talkin’ and soon ain’t talkin’ to me no more, but like she preachin’ to a congregation. Gets herself all riled up about sinners and heathens and their sorry souls. I think it must make her feel good. Like she talked some sense into me.”

  “Did she?”

  Lawrence frowned. “Don’t rightly know what to reckon of it all. S’pose there is a heaven, I wanna know what kinda heaven it be. Is it a heaven for white folks? Or is it a different heaven for colored folk and white folk? What you make of it?”

  David shrugged. “I am not an expert. I have only been to church on a few occasions. It seems to me that people who spend their lives dreaming about the gold-paved streets and heavenly mansions of the next life are no different than those who waste their time dreaming about it in this life. Only with a poorer sense of timing.”

  Lawrence responded in low, rumbling laughter reserved for when he found something particularly amusing. He clenched down on his pipe. “Never thought of it that way,” he replied.

  “The way I see it, it’s not about what you are going to get, it’s about what you become. Divinity is doing what is right because your heart says it’s right. And if that puts you on the wrong side of the pearly gates, seems you would be better off on the outside.”

  Lawrence took in a long draw on his pipe. “You could’ve been a philos’pher.”

  Just then, in the dancing radiance of the candles, David noticed something he had never seen before, despite his many visits. Across the room, amidst the squalor of metal springs, and the shells and corpses of clocks, was what appeared to be a shrouded sculpture slightly protruding from beneath a cloth sheet.

  “What is that in the corner? Under the cloth?”

  Lawrence lowered his pipe. “Tha’s my angel. Jus’ this mornin’ had some help and we brought her up from the cellar.”

  “Angel?” David walked over to the piece.

  “Real Italian marble,” Lawrence said.

  David pulled a floor clock back from the sculpture and lifted the drape, exposing a stone sculpture of a dove-winged angel. Its seraphic face turned upward and its arms were outstretched, raised as a child waiting to be lifted. David ran his fingers over its smooth surface.

  “This is a very expensive piece. Probably worth a hundred dollars or more. Is it new?”

  “Had it for nearly six years, jus’ never take her out of the cellar.”

  David admired the sculpture. “How did you come by this?”

  “Right after I left the cavalry, I did some work for a minister. Fixed his church’s steeple clock. Took me ‘bout the whole summer. Problem is, before I got done, the church treasurer run off with all their buildin’ money. So the minister asks me if I won’ take this angel for payment.”

  David stepped away from the statue, rubbing his hand along its surface once more.

  “Why didn’t you sell it?”

  Lawrence shook his head. “Don’t need nuthin’.” “Nuthin’ you can buy.” He tapped his pipe against the table, looking suddenly thoughtful. “Way I figgur, black man got no r’spect in this life. So I was thinkin’ when I die, they put this angel here on my grave. Somebody walks by, even white folks, see that fine angel. ‘Looks like real Italian marble,’ they say. ‘Mighty fine. Mus’ be someone real important has that kinda monument. Mus’ be a rich man or a military officer,’ and they go on like that.” Lawrence’s eyes reflected red from the smoldering pipe, but seemed to glow beneath their own power. “Black man don’ get much r’spect in this life.”

  David looked at Lawrence and nodded slowly as the night’s silence filled the humble shack.

  CHAPTER FIVE

&
nbsp; The Presumption

  “MaryAnne came into the office today. I was surprised to see her, as it was her Sabbath. I was much too forward and I fear I have frightened her. I am clumsy with romance.”

  David Parkin’s Diary. May 13, 1908

  David disliked suits and never wore them on Sunday when he came in to the office to work alone. He was intent over a stack of papers on his desk when MaryAnne’s presence startled him.

  “Miss Chandler. What brings you here?”

  “I did not finish my letters.”

  David stood. “Monday is soon enough.”

  “I did not want to fall behind. You have been so very busy.”

  David smiled, pleased for her concern.

  “I think I would be worried if you could keep up.” He walked over to her. “Thank you, Miss Chandler, but go on home and rest. We have a full week ahead.”

  She put her hands in her coat pockets.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Just then, a Westminster chime denoted a quarter of one. Both looked at the clock.

  “I have not had supper, Miss Chandler. Would you care to join me? Perhaps at the Alta Club?”

  MaryAnne smiled. “Thank you, Mr. Parkin, but if I am not needed, I should be off to church.”

  David nodded. “Yes. Of course. I suppose that I should go on home as well. Catherine is expecting me.”

  MaryAnne looked at him as if she had just been informed of some terrible news. She knew of no women in David’s life. She tried to dismiss the thought and turned to leave, then paused at the doorway.

  “May I ask you something, Mr. Parkin?”

  “Of course.”

  “Who is Catherine?”

  “Catherine is my housekeeper.”

  MaryAnne appeared relieved and turned to go, but David stopped her.

  “Any other inquiries, Miss Chandler?”

  She smiled playfully. “Now that you ask, I have wondered what makes a man collect clocks? And so many of them at that.”

  David studied her face, then leaned forward as if to reveal some great secret.

  “It is because I need more time.”

  MaryAnne met his eyes and, for the first time in David’s presence, laughed. It was a beautiful, warm laugh and David found it nourishing and laughed in turn.

  “You have a wonderful laugh, Miss Chandler.”

  “Thank you.”

  “The truth is, I have wondered the same.” He walked over to a cuckoo clock and lifted a brass pine-cone-shaped weight. “I am sure there are those who think me mad. As a boy, I had a penchant for collecting things. When I turned twenty-one, I received the first clock of my collection. It was my father’s pocket watch.” He suddenly stopped. “May I get you some tea? Peppermint?”

  “Yes. Thank you.” She started to rise. “I shall get it.”

  “Miss Chandler, please, sit down. I can manage.” He brought the tea service over to his desk, poured two cups of tea, handed one to MaryAnne, then sat down on the arm of a nearby chair.

  “I only drink peppermint tea. It’s the one habit I borrowed from the English.”

  “Peppermint tea is an American concoction.”

  “Oh. Then I must just like it.”

  MaryAnne laughed again.

  “I lived in Santa Rosa, California, at the time—when I turned twenty-one,” he clarified. “It was the year my father died. It was also the same year that I first donned a pair of eyeglasses and acknowledged the creeping vines of age that entwine our lives.”

  MaryAnne nodded.

  David looked back at a row of clocks. “I have wondered if I am deluding myself with these, that I am buying time—surrounding myself with man-made implements of immortality.” He looked back at MaryAnne. “Whatever the reason, my fascination has grown into a full-blown obsession. My home is besieged with them.”

  “I would like to see—” MaryAnne stopped herself midsentence at the realization that she had just invited herself to a man’s home.

  “I would like to show you,” David answered. He sat back in his chair and slowly sipped his tea. “I am curious, Miss Chandler. Do you like it here?”

  “Here?”

  “At my company.”

  “Very much, I think. More so than my other employment.”

  “You do not seem to socialize much with the other secretaries on the floor.”

  “You do not employ me to socialize.”

  David smiled. “The proper answer,” he replied. “You work hard for nobility.”

  MaryAnne gazed at him. “Are you teasing me?”

  He quickly set down his cup, anxious that he might have offended her again. “No. Not at all.”

  She took a sip of tea to hide her smile, then cradled the cup in her hands.

  “I have always had to work hard, Mr. Parkin. My father left England because he had been disinherited for marrying my mother—a common woman of whom my grandparents disapproved. We had little when we arrived in America and less when my father passed away. As soon as I was able, I had to assist in my family’s support. My mother passed on two years ago. So I am alone now.”

  “Have you any siblings?”

  “I have a brother. But he returned to England more than six years ago. He sent money for a while—when times were better.”

  David quietly digested the information, then rested his chin on the back of his clasped hands. “May I ask you something of a personal nature?”

  She hesitated. “. . . Yes.”

  “Are there men in your life?”

  “Men?”

  “Suitors.”

  She hesitated again, embarrassed. “There are a few I cannot seem to discourage.”

  “That is your goal? With men?”

  “With these men. I know them too well to marry them, Mr. Parkin.”

  David nodded, then set down his tea. “Miss Chandler, I would prefer that you not call me Mr. Parkin.”

  “What would you have me call you?”

  “David. Please call me David.”

  She considered the request. “I do not think I would feel comfortable in front of my coworkers.”

  David sighed. “I would not want you to feel uncomfortable, Miss Parkin.”

  “Miss Parkin?”

  His face turned bright crimson as he suddenly realized his slip. “Miss Chandler,” he stammered.

  Suddenly the amusement faded from MaryAnne’s eyes. She turned from him and stood.

  “I must go.”

  “Must you?”

  “It would be best.”

  There was an uncomfortable lull.

  “I am sorry, MaryAnne. Perhaps I seem like your last supervisor who wanted you to sit on his lap.”

  “No, I did not mean . . .”

  “My intentions are honorable. I would never seek to take advantage. . . . It is just . . .”

  MaryAnne stared at him with anticipation. He turned away from her gaze.

  “I have never met anyone quite like you. I am nearly thirty-four and have no real lady friends. Not that there are not interested females. Unfortunately, there are too many.” He frowned. “They are attracted to money and status and cannot see my faults for my wealth. Though I have no doubt that marriage would open their eyes. His voice softened. “I feel very comfortable in your presence.”

  MaryAnne glanced briefly into his eyes, but said nothing.

  “I am very sorry, Miss Chandler, I have made you uncomfortable. Forgive me. I shall not broach the subject again.”

  MaryAnne looked down. “Mr. Parkin, there are just things that—” She stopped herself midphrase. “I think that I must go now.”

  She slowly walked over to the doorway, followed by David’s sad stare. She stopped and looked back at him.

  “Good day, Mr. Parkin.”

  “Good day, Miss Chandler.”

  Catherine pushed the drawing room door open with her shoulder and entered carrying a silver tray with a sterling tea service. The drapes were drawn tight and David sat on a haircloth love seat, staring
into the crackling fire that provided the room’s only illumination.

  For Catherine bringing tea to the drawing room was a familiar ritual, established years before David had purchased the house; in a sense, Catherine had come with the house. Her former employer, the mansion’s previous owner, fleeing the cold Salt Lake City winters for the refuge of the southern Utah sun, had left behind Catherine, his young housemaid, and Mark, his footman, to consummate the sale of the property, then seek employment elsewhere. When David arrived, he found the house larger than he imagined and emptier than he expected. As he was now alone, he entreated the two to remain. They gladly accepted and quickly became part of his family. The first year, David had tried to persuade Catherine to call him by his first name, without success, and he eventually abandoned the undertaking.

  “Excuse me, Mr. Parkin, I brought some tea.”

  David turned, his trance seemingly broken. “Oh. Thank you.”

  She left the service on a bird’s-eye-maple parlor table next to his chair.

  “Mr. Flake brought the French clock. I had him leave it in the parlor.” She turned to leave, then stopped. “Are you well, sir?”

  He sighed. “I am well enough, I suppose. Thank you for asking.”

  She turned again to leave.

  “Catherine.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “May I ask you something?”

  “Certainly.”

  “As a woman . . . you being a woman . . .”

  Catherine looked at him blankly.

  “I meant . . . Oh, I sound foolish. How shall I ask this?” He appeared flustered with his inability to communicate his question. “What kind of man am I?”

  Catherine looked confused. “I do not know how to answer that.”

  “I mean . . . do women, would a woman, find me attractive?”

  “You are very handsome.”

  “I do not mean quite that. I mean . . . am I the kind of man a woman would want to marry? Or am I too long alone? Am I too rough? Do I say the wrong things?” His brow furled. “I need not ask that.” David looked down. “I suppose it is no secret that I am fond of MaryAnne. Everyone seems to know it but her. Or perhaps she does not wish to know. Have you met MaryAnne?”