Page 23 of The Clockmaker's Cottage
‘What are you hoping to get out of him?’ she asked. ‘He’s famously tight-lipped about everything, especially the feud with his brother.’
Theo leaned back in his chair. ‘It’s only rumoured it was a feud. People like a scandal. It might just be that they decided not to work together anymore.’
‘If that was the case, wouldn’t they have released a statement to that effect at the time? Instead, they never said a word. You must have picked up some sort of whispers in the circles you move in.’
Theo hesitated and Pippa noticed a flicker of something in his eyes.
‘Oh my God, you do know something, don’t you?!’
Theo remained tight-lipped.
Pippa moved her chair closer to him and stared at him. ‘Tell me.’
‘I know nothing, and I doubt Horace will go airing his dirty laundry in public, not at his time of life, but I’m looking forward to sharing the stage with him.’
‘Are you going to ask him about this place? After all, this was his family home.’
‘I’m sure it’ll come up in the conversation.’
‘I’ve not had time to look over all the clocks, but none of them appear to be working, and they’ve all stopped at different times. Do you think that’s a sign?’
‘A sign of what, that the batteries have run out? Or that someone hasn’t wound them since the seventies?’
Undeterred, Pippa turned to him, eyes bright. ‘What if they all stopped for a reason?’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Like I just said, some probably ran out of batteries, others a lack of winding.’
‘No, I mean what if something happened here? Something emotional. Something… seismic.’ She swept her arms wide in emphasis. ‘What if every clock stopped in response to a moment?’
Theo made a noise halfway between a scoff and a laugh. ‘Right. A moment so powerful it reached across different makes, models, and mechanisms, and prompted them to all then quit at different times in protest?’
‘Exactly,’ she said, warming to her theme. ‘What if someone died in here… suddenly… and the energy of it stopped the clocks? Or someone left… heartbroken, leaving only a farewell letter and the silence of fifty clocks frozen in time? Or it could have been a betrayal! Which brings me back to wondering why Walter and Horace stopped speaking…’
Theo raised a hand. ‘And so we return to the soap-opera theory of horology.’
Pippa narrowed her eyes at him. ‘This, coming from the man who lectures about the metaphysical symbolism of timepieces in eighteenth-century literature.’
‘That was one guest lecture, and it was titled “Temporal Anxiety and the Male Psyche”, not “Mystic Clocks and How They Feel About You”.’
She ignored that. ‘I just think there’s something poetic about it. All these clocks, once working in harmony, now frozen. Like a chorus gone silent. Something broke the rhythm, I’m sure of it.’
He leaned back in his chair and gave her a long look, then said flatly, ‘Yes. It’s called neglect, and, like I’ve already said, a dead battery.’
Pippa let out a sigh of pure theatrical disappointment. ‘God, you’re so literal.’
‘And you’re so allergic to Occam’s razor.’
‘Excuse me, I restore clocks for a living. I know full well that most broken mechanisms are just that: broken. But sometimes…’ She stood up and walked out of the kitchen towards the grandfather clock, placing a hand gently on its case. ‘Sometimes there’s a feeling. Like the clock’s holding something.’
Theo cocked an eyebrow. ‘If it’s holding anything, it’s a spider and decades of dust.’
She turned and gave him a sweet smile. ‘Which is why I’ll be the one fixing it.’
‘By all means, Cinderella. Bring your tools and talk sweetly to it.’
‘Don’t pretend you’re not intrigued,’ she said, pulling her gaze back to the clocks. ‘I know you. You’re dying to take this grandfather clock apart and see what it’s hiding.’
Theo stood and collected his plate. ‘I’m dying to eat my breakfast in peace without a running monologue fromA Christmas Carol. You’re giving proper Jacob Marley energy this morning.’
