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A few minor errors, attributable to the printer, have been corrected.
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THE CLOCK AND THE KEY
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THE CLOCK AND
THE KEY
BY
ARTHUR HENRY VESEY
AUTHOR OF “A CHEQUE FOR THREE THOUSAND”
“A PEDIGREE IN PAWN,” ETC.
[Illustration: colophon]
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1905
------------------------------------------------------------------------
COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
_Published February, 1905_
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO
=M. B. L.=
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THE CLOCK AND THE KEY
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CHAPTER I
Our gondola, far out on the lagoon, hardly moved. But neither Jacqueline
nor I, under the red and white striped awning, cared much, and Pietro
even dared to light a cigarette.
Silver-gray dome, campanile, and spire gleamed through the golden haze
that hung over the enchanted city. A great stillness was over all–only
the ripple of Pietro’s lazy oar, and faintly, very faintly, bells
chiming.
“I have dreamed of it,” said Jacqueline. “Only the dreams were such
futile things compared with the reality. I close my eyes. I open them
quickly. I am afraid it will all be blown away, vanish in a single
moment. But there it is, your dear, dear Venice–the green garden away up
there; the white Riva, basking in the sunlight; the rosy palace; and the
red and orange sails, drifting slowly along. We shall return to the
Piazza presently, and St. Mark’s will be there, and the pigeons, and the
white palaces. Oh, there is not a false note to destroy the perfect
charm of Venice, not one.”
I aroused myself. While Jacqueline had been intoxicated with the beauty
of Venice, I had been intoxicated with the beauty of Jacqueline. I must
say something, and something prosaic, or I should be forgetting myself.
“Oh, favored of the gods,” I murmured, “to be dead to unpleasant sights
and sounds. And yet, not in Paradise, not even in this Paradise, are
they quite shut out. Look, there is a penny steamer making its blatant
way from the Molo to the Giudecca. And that far-off rumble is the
express crossing the long bridge from Mestre. And, whew, that’s the
twelve-o’clock whistle at the Arsenal. There you have three notes of
progress and civilization in this city of dead dreams and dead hopes.”
Jacqueline turned in her seat and looked at me curiously.
“My dear Richard, will you answer me one question?”
“Gladly, if it is not too difficult. But don’t forget, Jacqueline,
Venice is not exactly an intellectual center.”
“Then tell me, please, why it is that when you were in New York, hardly
two months ago, you talked so charmingly of your Venetian skies and
still lagoons that you quite made me long for them. But now, when I am
at last under one of your wonderful skies and on your wonderful lagoon,
instead of helping me to love it all, and sympathizing with me, you
insist on the horrible things that clash–things I would so gladly forget
for the happy moment.”
“Because,” I answered gravely, “I must not allow myself to forget that
one happy moment is not a lifetime.”
“Really, I don’t understand you.“
She looked at me frankly–too frankly–that was the trouble. I hesitated.
In spite of the flimsy excuses her aunt had suspiciously erected, I had
brought Jacqueline alone with me here to tell her why I must not allow
myself to love her; and, I may add, to hear her laugh to delicious scorn
my reasons. And yet I hesitated. Sometimes I felt she cared for me. But
if I answered her question truthfully, I risked a cruel awakening.
“Do you know how long I have been living in Venice?” I asked presently,
with apparent irrelevance.
“Three years, is it not?”
“That is a long time to be dreaming and loafing, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” Her eyes looked gravely out on the lagoon.
“And it seems to you hardly a manly, strenuous life for a man of–shall
we say–thirty years of age, to spend three years rocking himself to
sleep, as it were, in a gondola?”
“No,” she laughed nervously; “hardly a strenuous life.”
“Such a life as that,” I persisted, “must contrast rather unfavorably
with the lives of men you know in New York, for example?”
“I suppose one may spend one’s life well even here in Venice.”
I laughed rather bitterly.
“One gets up at ten,” I murmured. “One has coffee in bed, and dawdles
over the papers. A gentle, gentle walk till twelve–to the garden,
perhaps–oh, you can walk miles in Venice, though most tourists think
not. At twelve, breakfast at Florian’s on the Piazza. A long smoke,
perhaps a row to the Lido and a swim, if it is summer. At five another
long smoke and incidentally a long drink on the Piazza again, and the
band. At seven, dinner at the Grundewald, a momentous affair, when one
hesitates ten minutes over the menu. Then another long smoke out in the
lagoon, under the stars, with the lights of Venice in the distance, and
in the distance, too, the herd of tourists, splitting their gloves in
ecstasy over the efforts of the tenor robusto under the balconies of the
Grand Hotel. And then, wicked, dreamless slumber. The next morning, the
same thing over again.”
Jacqueline gasped. She looked at me with a curious intentness, and I was
uneasy under her gaze. I knew she was noting quite ruthlessly that I was
getting fat.
“It is difficult to keep quite fit in Venice,” I pleaded.
“And you really have done that for three years,” she said at last,
almost in admiration. It was as if I were a strange animal doing clever
tricks.
“For three years, barring flights to New York and London in January and
February, and a few weeks in the Tyrol during July and August,” I
answered steadily.
“And you really like it?” she asked, still wonderingly.
“I can never imagine myself liking it again. I have despised myself
since last Tuesday.”
“Since last Tuesday!” she echoed, and then blushed. It was on Tuesday
that Jacqueline and her aunt had arrived in Venice. “But you are not
answering my first question.”
“I am answering it in a roundabout way,” I replied dreamily. Then quite
abruptly, “You didn’t know me until I was at Oxford, did you?”
“No.”
“I was sent to Eton when I was a sickly, timid little chap of fourteen.
I had had a lonely life of it in New York. My mother was so afraid I
should have a good time like other boys, and shout and play and talk
with an American accent, that she chained me to a priggish English
tutor, who took me for solemn walks in the park for recreation. I was
hardly any better off than the pale-faced little idiots you see marching
about Rome and Palermo two by two, dressed up in ridiculous uniforms of
broadcloth, and carrying canes–not so well off, for there are many of
them, and only one slovenly priest. But my keeper had me all to himself.
Think of it, I never held a baseball in my little fist. Imagine that
kind of a youngster set down in the midst of half a thousand lusty young
English schoolboys, and an American at that.”
“Poor little homesick boy,” she murmured. “And then?”
“Just five years of being shunned and moping and long solitary rows on
the river, and dreams bad for a boy of my years–just a long stretch of
that sort of thing, that was my life at the public school.
“At Oxford it was pretty much the same. I pulled through in a listless
sort of fashion and got my degree. But the habits of boyhood told now. I
found it harder than ever to get into things. I found myself more and
more the mere spectator of life–not a happy existence, nor a good
foundation for an American to begin the duties of life with.”
“I should think not,” said Jacqueline severely. If she had pity for the
lonely little boy, she had no mercy for the man. “And so because you
idled through college and liked it, you came here to Venice to idle away
the rest of your life?” she asked with some scorn.
“Well, it was hardly so deliberate as that,” I said patiently. “No, I
went back to America, and for the first time came face to face with my
father. At least it was the first time that he had taken the trouble to
speak to me in a heart-to-heart sort of way. You know my father well, so
I needn’t expatiate on his virtues.”
Jacqueline smiled. But no malice hovered on her lips as on mine.
American women are supposed to demand much of their husbands and
fathers. But at least they respect the husbands and fathers who toil
that they may play. So she answered primly:
“I have always found your father a most interesting man, I know he loves
you in his way. That you have so little ambition is the bitter
disappointment of his life. He has often spoken of you to me.”
“Yes, yes,” I said hurriedly, “no doubt he loves me in his own fashion.
But we hardly understand each other. The morning after I landed from
England, after I had taken my degree, he called me into his office and
asked me without any preliminaries what I thought I was fit for. I told
him that I really hadn’t any idea. He thumped his great fist on his desk
and roared: ‘So far, young man, your mother has had her turn. She’s
mammied you, and made a fool of you with your English education and
English accent. Now it’s my turn. Go back to Germany. Stay there two
years and come back a chemist. I want you to help me in the factory.’
“I never dreamed of opposing him. I was rather relieved to get out of
his presence. So I took the check that he handed to me, and shook him
dutifully by the hand. ‘Good-by,’ he said, ‘and when I say a chemist, I
mean a good chemist. If you aren’t that, you needn’t bother to come back
at all.’ The next morning I engaged passage for Bremen.”
“The rest I know about,” said Jacqueline looking at her watch.
“I dare say, only I should like you to understand it from my point of
view. I went to Berlin. My name was entered on the roll of students of
the university. I drank a lot of beer, but I studied very little
chemistry. At the end of my two years’ probation, I began to think with
apprehension of my father’s parting words: ‘And a good chemist, or you
needn’t trouble to come back.’
“And then, one day, when I was quite at a loss what to do, I received
word that my mother had died suddenly. She left me a small fortune.
“I dreaded more than ever to return to my father. Why should I? I began
to ask myself. Why should I? echoed my one friend.
“This friend was a wizened, eccentric, boastful little man, but with an
undying enthusiasm for the rare and the beautiful. He spoke cunning
words to entice me: ‘Your father’s idea of a successful life is one of
work and yet more work–of tasks and habits that bind one more and more
inexorably as the years go on. This is not success at all, but the
direst failure. A life made up of habits and tasks that safely steer one
through one’s existence, minute by minute, is a life with all the
excitement and keen delight and ecstasy left out. To live such a life is
to be a machine and no man.
“‘Come,’ he said, ‘with me to Venice. I will show you how to live. Why
should you go back to America and the hideous? There are millions of
fools to labor doggedly–to keep the world a-going–why should you be
dragged into the ranks of the slaves to the lash? There are thousands to
agonize and strive, to create the beautiful–and to fail, terribly. Why
should you be dragged into the ranks of those slaves to an ideal? There
are hundreds to make the world better. Why should you be a slave to
conscience? But there are so few to make a fine art of living. Be one of
them. Enjoy perfectly. Enjoy wisely. Life may be for you something so
rare and beautiful that the horrible and the vulgar shall not exist for
you.’ I listened to him. I came to Venice. Here I am.”
“There is something rather fine about it all,” said Jacqueline
wistfully. “But there’s sophistry somewhere. And it seems brutally
selfish.”
“Sophistry! Selfish! How subtle the sophistry and selfishness I alone
can tell. Dear Jacqueline, I had left one thing out of my calculations
in building this fool’s paradise.”
“And that?” Jacqueline looked troubled. I know she pitied me.
“I had forgotten that one may love.”
I leaned over toward her. Regardless of Pietro, who, I knew, was
squinting through the red and white striped awning, I took her hand.
“Dear Jacqueline, do you think that it is too late for me to begin
again?”
Jacqueline was silent. She withdrew her hand gently. I had felt it
tremble in mine.
“Do you see now that I am answering your question?” I asked. “When I was
in New York, and knew at last that I should always love you, I had to
keep reminding myself that _this_ was my world. I had set before myself
an ideal. I must be faithful to it. So, now, when you are in Venice, I
have tried to remind myself just as strongly that you come from the
world of the penny steamboat and factory–a workaday world–a relentless
world. In that world men tear and rend one another for a name, for a
position. Each one is for himself, ruthless of others, unscrupulous
often. Each one strives madly for something that is just out of his
reach. That is the world you come from. I have reminded myself of it
over and over. But it’s no use. I can’t keep silent. I must speak.
Jacqueline, I love you.”
She sat motionless. Her eyes looked out on the lagoon. Then she clasped
her knees, and looked at me with a curious intentness. When she did
speak, it was so slowly, so decisively that her words sounded like an
inexorable fate.
“My dear Richard, you are an extraordinary man. You are one of the rare
specimens who hold a perfectly impossible ideal. When you fail to attain
that ideal, you frankly abandon yourself to materialism–a materialism
that smothers you. You have not even attempted to play the man. It is
incredible that you should deliberately lay yourself down to loll on a
flowery bed of ease for three years. Your very last words about my poor
world show how great a gulf is fixed between you and me. Yes, I am of
that world. I glory in it. But you sneer at the very qualities you lack.
That is so easy, and, forgive me, so weak. You call my poor world
ruthless. But often ruthlessness, yes, and unscrupulousness even, go
with strength. The man I love must have a touch of this relentlessness
you despise. Better that he be unscrupulous than weak. And as for
patience, surely to be greatly patient is to be greatly strong. But you,
my dear Dick, you area piece of bric-à-brac, you and your ideals. You
should be under a glass case. You are too _précieux_ for the struggle in
the world you shrink from. Return your love? Impossible. You have done
nothing to deserve it.”
I could not speak. She had told me the truth. Presently she looked at
me. Then she touched my arm lightly.
“I have hurt you,” she pleaded.
“Well, why not?” I answered roughly. “It is the truth. But, Jacqueline,
is your answer quite final? If I plunge into this struggle–if I show you
that I too can strive and achieve things for the woman I love, if not
for myself, will you let me tell you again that I love you?”
“Can the leopard change his spots?” she asked lightly.
“That remains to be seen. Let me prove to you that I am not merely the
dilettante that you see on the surface. If I have not cared to succeed
before, perhaps it was because there was nothing or no one to work for.
If I show you that I really have those qualities that you demand and
think I lack, will you let me tell you again that I love you?”
“What could you do to show that?” asked Jacqueline softly.
“I could go back to New York to-morrow. I could join my father in
business.”
“To New York to-morrow!” she said in dismay.
“Yes,” I cried joyously. I had caught the note of dismay.
“But I dare not advise you to do that. I could not take that
responsibility unless I loved you. I do not love you. But if you are not
fitted for business, you would surely fail.”
“Would you discourage me in the attempt to do what you have condemned me
for not doing?” I asked with impatience.
“It may be that here in Venice is a task.”
“In Venice? Impossible.”
“You told me the other day that you had once thought of writing up the
legends of Venice. You said they had really never been done well. Why
not attempt that?”
“Oh, that!” I exclaimed discontentedly.
“And why not?”
“It must be an entire change of life–of habits and ambition and tastes.
Why not attempt something big while I am about it?”
“My dear Richard,” insisted Jacqueline gently, “it makes no difference
how obscure one’s task is. It may be even a useless task, only one must
show patience and strength in the performance of it.”
“Jacqueline, you are giving me hope.”
She held up her gloved hand, smiling.
“No, I give you no hope. Nor do I give you reason to despair. I do not
love you, now. I could not love such a one as you. Whether I could love
you if you were different–if you had ambition and stamina–I can not
tell.”
“I shall yet make you love me, Jacqueline.”
Our eyes met for one instant, then hers fell before my steady gaze.
“Will you please tell the gondolier to row faster? I shall be late for
luncheon, and I have an appointment at three.”
“Then I sha’n’t see you this afternoon?”
“Perhaps. If you care to accompany my aunt and myself on a little
expedition.”
“I shall be delighted. And where?”
“To an old Venetian palace on the Grand Canal. We are to inspect it from
garret to basement. A dealer in antiquities is to take us there. He is
to buy the contents of the palace as they stand. You know my aunt, Mrs.
Gordon, is never so happy as when buying some useless piece of
bric-à-brac.”
“Beware of the dealer in bric-à-brac here in Venice. He is a Jew, your
dealer–be sure of that.”
“Oh, no, he is not. Aunt and I know him well. He is an American.”
“His name?”
“St. Hilary. He has an immense shop on Fifth Avenue.”
“St. Hilary!” I exclaimed, “and he is here in Venice!”
“Do you know him?”
“Why, this St. Hilary is the man I told you of,” I answered slowly, “who
first charmed me into coming to Venice. He is responsible for my wasting
these past three years. I feel a grudge against him for that. He owes me
some reparation. Yes; I shall be interested in seeing your palace with
St. Hilary as guide. When shall I meet you?”
“Outside Florian’s, on the Piazza at three. But you have not yet aroused
your gondolier.”
I poked Pietro with my walking-stick. Pietro flung away his cigarette
and bent to his oar. The gondola, like a thing of life, leaped joyously
toward the Molo.