by A. M. Howell
Helena’s ears were ringing from the voices, whispers, shouts and sounds of time relentlessly ticking onwards from the working clocks. Her hand still gripped the place where Orbit had been standing just a few minutes before. She closed her eyes. Mr Westcott had Orbit. She felt so lost and alone. What was Mr Westcott going to do with him?
Footsteps running down the stairs. More voices, urgent now.
“He’s put the parrot in its cage, taken it downstairs and is summoning a hansom cab,” cried Stanley.
“Helena. Helena. Please open your eyes,” urged Florence.
Tears bunched behind Helena’s eyelids. Mr Marchington would probably be along any minute to collect the remainder of their possessions. She had let her father down in the worst way possible. His disappointment would be so hard to bear.
“Please, Helena. You have to come with me,” said Florence.
Helena flicked her eyes open.
Florence was kneeling in front of her, her hair wild, her eyes even wilder.
“Orbit,” Helena croaked.
“I know. We need to follow Father, get Orbit back,” said Florence.
“What do you mean follow him? He’s gone.” Helena’s shoulders slumped. “Orbit will be so frightened.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea to go chasing after Mr Westcott,” said Stanley, his eyes glassy with worry.
“It’s the only idea I have,” said Florence, leading Helena downstairs and past the stopped clocks, which seemed to stare at her in disbelief.
But she and her father had not let them stop. That part was not their fault. Someone had deliberately taken the winding keys. Someone was playing the most dreadful game. But why?
Florence opened the front door and pulled Helena onto the doorstep, Ralph close at their heels.
“Hey.” The voice came from the right, at the bottom of the steps. Terence Marchington.
Florence dropped Helena’s hand and clattered down the steps until she was facing him. “You,” she said breathlessly.
Terence looked down, scuffed the toe of his boot on the pavement. He looked up again, thrust something towards Florence.
Florence took a step backwards to avoid him.
“Look…I’m sorry. It’s just that…” Terence thrust his hand out again. “Take it,” he said.
Something fluttered in his palm. A small piece of paper. Florence reached forward and took it from him.
Helena and Ralph walked down the steps and stood next to Florence. The paper in Florence’s hand was jagged at the edges, as if it had been ripped from a ledger.
Florence’s eyes lit up.
“My pa’s things!” Ralph exclaimed, throwing Terence a grateful smile. “I just hope it’s not too late.”
“Please don’t tell my father or Miss Westcott I have given you this. I will get in terrible trouble,” said Terence, sniffing.
“What has my aunt got to do with this?” asked Florence sharply.
“Miss Westcott…she also wanted me to give her the address where Mr Fox’s things were being kept – she gave me some coins to try and get the information. I was going to help, but I was scared of what my father would do.” Terence wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “His walking stick is long and thin and bleeds the backs of my knees.” He sniffed again.
It had been Miss Westcott in the carriage that day – dropping coins into Terence’s palm. Sympathy for the boy weighed down Helena’s shoulders.
“The night I came with my father to take the Foxes’s things was terrible. Those little girls crying. I was so angry at Mr Westcott and what he had done. I knew if Bertie was still alive, he would have been cross too. I wanted to do something…that would make Mr Westcott as angry as I felt.”
“So that’s why you threw stones at our house?” said Florence.
Terence nodded.
“Seeing Ralph today…hearing how his ma and pa would end up in the workhouse, I thought better of it. I miss Bertie so much. I know he would have wanted me to help,” said Terence. “I found the key to the premises on Mill Road in my father’s office. We can go and collect the Fox family’s things now.” He bit on his bottom lip. “I would also like to apologize for being so beastly to Mr Westcott, after he returns from Grantchester.”
Helena’s jaw dropped.
“Grantchester – how did you know he was going there?” asked Florence, her face paling.
Terence shrugged. “Heard him tell the hansom cab driver. He had your parrot with him – making a terrible racket it was,” he said, nodding at Helena.
Stanley sidled over to speak with Ralph and Terence, to hatch a plan to hire a horse and cart and collect the things from Mill Road as soon as possible.
“Grantchester,” said Helena, a memory bursting into her head like a firework. She turned to face Florence. “The hotel manager said…he said…your aunt had taken the lease on a cottage there. Is it far?”
Florence’s eyes were wide and owl-like. “It’s a village no more than three miles from here. Near to where Bertie’s accident happened.”
“Then we must go at once. Maybe your father is taking Orbit to your aunt,” said Helena, the memory of the decorations on the horrible hats in Katherine Westcott’s hotel room looming over her like a dark cloud. She turned, ran a short way down the street, waved frantically at a passing hansom cab. It slowed to the kerbside. Helena didn’t wait for the driver to hop down from his seat at the rear, she opened the curtain pulled across the front of the cab herself. “Get in,” she shouted to Florence. “We must follow him!”
Florence looked at her uncertainly.
“Come on, Florence. We don’t have any time to waste.”
Florence climbed in and Helena followed, banging on the cab’s trapdoor ceiling to alert the driver above. “To Grantchester,” she yelled. The horse set off at a fast trot. Helena peered back towards the house, her fingers tingling as she saw Stanley, Ralph and Terence looking after them open-mouthed.
“I don’t understand,” Florence said as the carriage bumped them along. “Why would my aunt rent a cottage near to where Bertie…died?”
“There are many questions I should like to ask your aunt,” Helena said grimly, hanging on to her seat as the carriage lurched round a bend. They sat in silence, as buildings were eventually replaced by a narrow country lane. The fields on each side were as flat as an iron, the wheat crops bristling in the wind. Helena tapped on the roof of the cab, urged the driver to hurry. She drew in a sharp breath of relief when the first whitewashed cottages of Grantchester village appeared ahead of them. The horse clattered past a pub, the sound of a fiddle and bursts of laughter spilling from the open windows. Was Mr Westcott taking her precious Orbit to his sister? The use of birds for hat decorations was becoming widely frowned upon. Before she had died, Helena’s mother had told her of a spirited lecture she had been to in London, given by Emily Williamson. She had helped found The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, an organization that stood up to horrible fashions and protected birds and their feathers from being used to decorate ladies’ clothes and hats. A wave of sickness washed over Helena and she slumped back in her seat. The thought was too terrible to even contemplate – Orbit’s beautiful, glimmering feathers attached to one of Miss Westcott’s horrid hats.
“Look,” said Florence, leaning forward. A lamp on a stationary hansom cab flickered. “Could it be my father’s cab?”
Helena banged on the roof once more, yelled for the driver to stop, as Florence fumbled in her pockets for some coins. While Florence paid their driver, Helena jumped down from her seat and looked around for the driver of the other stationary cab. The horse was tied to a tree at the opening to a small lane. Perhaps he had gone to the pub they had just passed? As their own driver pulled away, the sound of horse’s hooves receded, leaving nothing but the quiet of a village evening. The odd bedraggled chicken pecking and clucking on the grass verges. The sound of children’s voices from inside small thatched cottages. The smell of woodsmoke drifting from chimneys.
Helena gingerly pulled back the heavy curtain at the front of the stationary cab and looked inside. Something glinted on the floor. The yellow ribbon and tiny gilt mirror Florence had attached to Orbit’s cage. Helena picked them up and squeezed them in her fist. So, Mr Westcott was nearby – which meant her parrot was too. She peered down the unlit lane. Wind rustled the bushes and hedges. They were thick with summer leaves and would make excellent hiding places. A shiver rolled through her.
“Maybe we should go back for Stanley?” Florence whispered, chewing on a thumbnail.
“No. Your father has Orbit. He can’t be far from here.” Helena began to walk down the lane into the lengthening shadows, a pinch of worry for the disappearance of her own father accelerating her breathing. Florence’s breaths came sharp and fast behind her. The lane suddenly narrowed, until there was only room for them to walk in single file. Helena pressed on, gritted her teeth. Orbit standing in Mother’s cupped hands. His beak nibbling at her wedding ring, the gold glinting in the sun that beamed in from the window. Helena shook her head, let the memories flutter away. Her parrot could not be lost.
“Wait, Helena. This…this path leads to the river,” said Florence.
Helena turned and looked at her friend. Florence’s lips were thin, her cheeks pallid. “Please, Florence. Please be brave. I won’t let anything happen to you.”
Florence sucked in a wobbly breath and shook her head. “I…I can’t. I haven’t been back here since…Bertie…since he…” She paused, looked at the ground.
Helena swallowed. Was this the right thing to be doing – forcing Florence to confront her memories in this way? “Your father is nearby – and Orbit. Please… Florence. I’m scared too. I can’t do this on my own. I need your help.”
Florence was breathing through her mouth, her breaths raspy. She squeezed her eyes shut for a few seconds and bunched her hands into fists. Flicking her eyes open again, she gave Helena a tentative nod.
Helena threw Florence a thankful smile, then pressed on, pushing past a bramble which snagged her skirts, climbing over a mossy wooden stile and into a field which was fading from green to grey. Something glinting and liquid and wavering ahead of them, like mercury. The river.
The squawk when it came was unlike any squawk Helena had ever heard before. It was high and spirited, seemed to be at one with the wind, which sang through the branches of the trees. Orbit! Something else was glinting in the dull evening light, something golden. A lone figure was sitting beside Orbit’s empty cage, head in hands. Helena looked at Florence in horror and began to run.
“Father,” exclaimed Florence breathlessly.
Mr Westcott was sitting on a fallen tree trunk near the riverbank. His head was tipped to the sky – to Orbit’s cries as he swooped and sang.
“Squawk-squawk-squawk,” Orbit cawed from up high.
Helena felt as if her heart was bleeding. How were they going to get him down?
“Father,” Florence cried again, coming to an abrupt halt a short distance from the river’s edge, beside some blush-red poppies shivering in the breeze.
“Florence?” Mr Westcott stood up, his arms limp by his sides. “Miss Graham? I am so sorry. Your beautiful parrot…”
“You took him,” Helena said, white-hot anger boiling inside her veins as she strode towards him. “You were going to give Orbit to your sister and now he’s gone, and we’ll never get him to come down.”
“Why did you take Helena’s parrot, Father?” asked Florence, her voice coiled with unhappiness. “It was not her fault that the clocks stopped.”
Mr Westcott sat down on the log again with a thump, rubbed at his cheeks. A caterpillar-like shudder rolled across his stooped shoulders. He looked sorrowful and small and lost, not a bit like the mottle-faced man who had swept Orbit off Helena’s shoulder. “I am sorry. I was just so angry that the clocks had stopped again and that the bird was flying in the house. I was not going to hurt the creature. I brought him here to the river so I could think. But the cage door opened, and he flew away.”
Helena’s throat constricted. She glanced at the cage, saw the small padlock was missing. Her parrot had escaped. Mr Westcott had not set him free.
“Squawk-squawk-squawk,” cried Orbit.
Helena stared into the gloaming sky, saw a swooping shape above. Her fingers tingled with longing to cradle her bird in her hands, feel the affectionate nibbles of his beak.
“But why bring Helena’s parrot to the place where Bertie’s accident happened?” asked Florence, her voice mingling with the whispers of the river and the rustling reeds.
“I often take a carriage here in the evenings – it is the only place where my thoughts seem less muddled,” Mr Westcott said sadly.
A thought spiralled into Helena’s head. The occasions she had seen Mr Westcott climbing into a carriage late at night. He had been coming to visit the place his poor son had drowned.
Mr Westcott groaned, his chin trembling. “If only Mother’s clock hadn’t stopped when she died…maybe things would have been different.”
Helena frowned, thought of the family portrait in Mr Westcott’s study – his mother and father, him and his sister Katherine, standing next to the longcase clock with the moon-faced pendulum bob.
“But what has Grandmother’s clock got to do with anything?” asked Florence, giving the river a cautious glance before sidling closer to her father.
Thoughts were spinning in Helena’s head, binding together like a spider’s web.
The spilled salt in Mr Westcott’s study. His annoyance when Katherine put up her umbrella in the house. His upset at his sister’s hat of peacock-feather eyes. His insistence that Orbit should not fly in the house. All of those things were rumoured to bring bad luck.
How could she not have seen it? Her father had spoken before about people’s strange superstitions over watches and clocks. He had once told her of a man who brought a small carriage clock belonging to his cousin into the workshop. The clock had struck twice, then stopped, was thought to be broken. The man had later written to Helena’s father, asking him to sell on the clock, saying under no circumstances would he have it in his house. His cousin had died exactly two days after the clock had struck twice – a bad omen and not a coincidence in the man’s eyes. Helena’s father had laughed, said he had never heard anything so absurd.
Helena’s legs wobbled. She plonked down on the grass next to the log. “Your father is superstitious about the clocks stopping, Florence.”
“What?” asked Florence incredulously. “Is this true, Father?”
“Yes,” said Mr Westcott, giving Helena a sidelong glance. “I was ten when my mother took her last breath. She died five minutes before midnight. Her favourite clock had stopped that same day. It is a well-known superstition that if that happens there will be death in the family. And then…and then…my father died soon after…” His words trailed off to nothing as he stared at the inky river. A burst of silvery laughter from a punt a short way downstream hung in the air. Small coloured lanterns strung around the punt illuminated ladies dressed in white, men in black coat-tails and bow ties. “Look, a parrot,” a person from the punt shouted, and a cheer rose into the air like a balloon. Orbit. Helena folded her arms around herself to try and quell the shakes rattling her body.
“But how can a stopped clock have any bearing on whether a person’s heart stops beating or not? A clock is a mechanical thing. A heart is flesh and blood,” said Florence. She sat on the log, shuffling along until she and her father were elbow to elbow.
Mr Westcott sighed a shuddery sigh. “It was a fear my father instilled in me. When he died so soon after my mother – I believed it must be true. And then Bertie died, and my world fell apart all over again, and I became obsessed with the thought that the clocks might stop…I couldn’t risk losing anyone else.”
Florence glanced up at her father, her eyes wide.
Helena bit hard on the inside of her cheek.
“Your mother was
so unwell, so broken when Bertie died. After she left for Europe, I thought the only thing to do was to keep the clocks ticking at all costs,” Mr Westcott said, pressing a hand to his lips. “And then she would return, better.”
Orbit swooped low to the water then spiralled up into the air, his wings swishing.
Mr Westcott stood up and walked to the river’s edge, looked across the water into the thickening dusk, towards the students on the punt. He turned to face Florence, his eyebrows pulling together. “Your mother was due to come home, Florence. I kept it from you and your aunt Katherine – as I was so anxious not to jinx her return. I felt lighter than I had done for a long time, the day I went to meet her at the train station. Except she was not there. When I came home, the clocks had stopped. I thought…it was a sign. That your mother had been taken from me too, just like everyone else I’ve ever loved. I was so distraught, I instructed Mr Fox to leave immediately. I had to keep the clocks ticking myself, which was not at all good for my nerves, until I appointed Mr Graham. Inserting a clause in his and Mr Fox’s contracts that the clocks must not stop seemed imperative. I believed it was the only way to prevent further tragedy and another death…”
“Oh, Father,” said Florence, jumping up to take his hands in hers.
The look of earlier caution she had given the river had vanished, replaced with an anguish that made Helena dizzy.
“When I am surrounded by the ticks and tocks and chimes and strikes, I can think of little else but the clocks and my fears for your mother. Yet…now…standing here…it seems nonsensical and slightly…absurd,” Mr Westcott said. He clasped Florence’s hands tightly. “Aunt Katherine believes I am ill. I think maybe she is right. I am so sorry, Florence.”
“But you are not mad, Father,” said Florence fiercely. “That’s what I was trying to tell you at the house. You are just rather…sad, I think. That Bertie is gone, and Mother is not here.”
“Yes…I think I am rather,” Mr Westcott said giving Florence’s hands a squeeze. “I fear the worst, Florence. I fear your mother may never come home to us.”
