It stood on a stone shelf built out from the wall as high as one could
reach.
“Tut, tut, a broken-down clock,” cried St. Hilary contemptuously.
“Nothing could be more useless and uninteresting,” and he blew out the
candle.
We trooped into the sala again.
“And now, Duke, having thoroughly explored your house beautiful, even to
the recesses of the hidden and mysterious chamber, I’m quite prepared to
make you an offer at your convenience.”
“There is all the time in the world for that, Mr. St. Hilary,” replied
the duke impatiently. “The ladies have not yet chosen their souvenirs.
What gift will you honor me by accepting?” He turned to Jacqueline.
She hesitated, and looked at Mrs. Gordon.
“My dear Jacqueline,” encouraged her aunt, “I am sure Mr. St. Hilary
will not make his offer much less for anything that you might choose.”
“No,” said the dealer, making figures in his note-book, “I have quite
decided on the sum. Let me recommend to your notice this faience
pitcher. I assure you it is rare. You can see for yourself that it is
beautiful.”
“If it is really of no value in itself,” said Jacqueline, disregarding
St. Hilary’s pitcher, “there is nothing that appeals to me more than
that steel box. Mr. St. Hilary’s story has quite touched my
imagination.”
“It is already yours. And now what will madame choose?”
“Could I examine that decrepit old clock in the hidden room again? I
happen to be making a collection of clocks.”
“Then you can make no mistake about this superb specimen in Sienna
marble,” urged the dealer.
“But, like Jacqueline,” smilingly protested Mrs. Gordon, “I prefer
something that has a touch of mystery about it. And that old clock, shut
up in the darkness there, one knows not how many years, ought to have a
history.”
“But it is so very, very old,” cried old Luigi deprecatingly. “It has
not gone for two hundred years.”
“That hardly makes it less interesting,” I said dryly. “Let us see the
clock by all means.” The reluctance of both St. Hilary and Luigi had
struck me as being rather strange.
“Your Excellency surely does not mean to give it away? It is an heirloom
of the family,” expostulated old Luigi obstinately.
“I have told you to bring it out,” commanded the duke.
Very reluctantly the old man entered the little chamber.
“It is too heavy,” he cried from within. “I can not lift it.”
Duke da Sestos and myself went to his assistance. Together we carried it
to the sala and placed it on the center-table. The slight jar set a
number of bells ringing in musical confusion.
Certainly it was unique–at least I had never seen anything like it.
Imagine an oblong box of bronze, about as long as one’s arm, and
three-quarters as high. Around three sides of this box ran a little
platform, heavily gilded. Immediately above this platform were twelve
doors, three at either end, and six at the face. It was almost bare of
ornament, except that on the top had been three figures. The heads and
arms of all three were now broken off.
“Its very simplicity and ugliness interest one,” cried Mrs. Gordon with
enthusiasm. “And those twelve doors certainly mean that it is an
automaton, do they not, Mr. St. Hilary? One can imagine the stiff little
figures that appear, each at its hour, and at their respective
doors–kings with their crowns of gold, ginger-bread Virgins, prelates
with their miters, and armored knights. Each figure in its hour does its
devoirs, I suppose, and disappears again.”
“At every shake of the table,” said Jacqueline, “its bells clang
angrily. You might think it was offended at being disturbed after its
long sleep of two hundred years.”
“Yes,” confessed the duke, looking at the clock thoughtfully, “it awakes
a fantastic note that will strike in the fancy of the most dull. Think
what stories of love and intrigue it has listened to! What deeds of
revenge and hate it has looked down upon! At what hours of agony and
ecstasy have those bells not chimed? What death-knells to hopes, what
peals of love and happiness!”
Jacqueline had been turning the clock slowly around. Suddenly she sank
on her knees to examine it more closely, and read aloud:
Se mi guardi con cura,
Se mi ascolti con attenzione,
E se, nell’ intendermi, tu Sei cosi acorto com’ io lo sono nel dirti–
T’ arridera la Fortuna.
“Will you translate it for me, please?”
“‘If you guard me carefully, if you listen to me diligently, if you are
as clever in understanding me as I am in telling you, Fortune will smile
on you,’” translated the duke.
“The delicious braggart!” cried Mrs. Gordon delightedly. “Now what do
you think that brave promise means, Mr. St. Hilary?”
“Pooh, pooh, madame! It promises too much to mean anything. ‘Early to
bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy and wealthy and wise.’ ‘Time
is money’–there are a score of proverbs as vague and as meaningless.”
“Oh, but you mustn’t cast any aspersions on my dear clock. Perhaps Luigi
can read the riddle more cleverly. Do you know if there is any legend
connected with the clock?”
The old man hesitated.
“Come, come, speak up,” said the duke roughly.
“Ah, yes, your Excellency,” replied the old man. “But I implore you not
to sell or give away the clock. You will always regret it. Good luck
goes with the clock, your Excellency.”
“But the motto,” urged Mrs. Gordon. “Has it any meaning?”
“Yes, yes, signora. It means that each hour brings its own gift, if one
can only understand. One may never suffer, not hunger nor cold, not
poverty nor disappointment, if one can only read the secret of each
hour. For at every hour something wonderful is told. And the clock is a
charm against the Evil One. My father told me, and his father told him.
Yes; we have guarded it carefully in that quiet room. It has stood there
as long as I can remember. And now your Excellency will give it away!
Misfortune will come; I know it.”
“Be still, imbecile. Madame, shall I have the clock taken to my launch
for you?”
“Oh, don’t deprive the old man of his charm against the evil eye, aunt,”
said Jacqueline lightly, half pitying, half mocking the old servant’s
distress.
“I would remind Miss Quintard that it is I who am deprived of the charm,
if there is any, and not Luigi,” laughed the duke.
“I would be the last one to bring you ill fortune,” jested Mrs. Gordon.
Then very slowly, “But I intend to bring you good fortune, not to take
it away from you.”
“I am hoping precisely for that,” said the duke gravely, and looked at
Jacqueline.
Jacqueline was still kneeling before the clock.
“How I should like to know what you really mean, foolish legend,” she
said wistfully.
I leaned on the table and stooped toward her.
“If one were to run down that legend, it would require patience and
perseverance enough to satisfy even you, would it not, Jacqueline?” I
asked lightly.
She smiled, but seeing that I was half in earnest, became serious.
“Yes,” she said slowly, “I believe it would.”
“Then, Jacqueline, when I begin my legends of Venice, shall I take up
first the legend of this old clock?”
“Do,” she said carelessly. “Aunt would thank you, I know.”
I walked over to the window, and looked gloomily without. I had hoped
Jacqueline was in earnest when she suggested that I should write a book
on the legends of Venice. But now that I wished to take her desire
seriously, she was evidently inclined to laugh at me.
“Will you clap your hands for the servant in my launch to come up?”
asked the duke. “I wish him to carry the clock down for Mrs. Gordon.”
“One moment, please,” said St. Hilary. “I am collector enough to
understand Mrs. Gordon’s enthusiasm. But being a dealer as well as a
collector, I cannot allow this enthusiasm to interfere with my
pocket-book. I know, Mrs. Gordon, you would never forgive me if I did
not say that my sneers at the value of the clock were the pretense of
the dealer who depreciates a thing that he may get it the cheaper. The
clock, madame, is a valuable antique. The value of the things in this
palace will be lowered considerably if it is not included in its
contents.”
There was an awkward pause. The duke reddened with anger.
“In that case,” said Mrs. Gordon, greatly embarrassed, “I could not
dream, of course––”
“Mr. St. Hilary,” said the duke coldly, “the clock is not for sale to
you at any price. Madame, you will not offend me by refusing?”
Mrs. Gordon gazed at her niece in perplexity.
“You would find it rather difficult to carry it about with you in
Europe,” said Jacqueline lamely.
“Yes, I am afraid I should,” declared Mrs. Gordon with alacrity.
“If you will entrust the task to me, I shall be charmed to have it
packed and sent to America for you,” volunteered St. Hilary. He seemed
eager to atone for his ill-timed remarks of a moment before.
“But Mr. Hume tells me he is going to write a book on the legends of
Venice,” interrupted Jacqueline. “A moment ago, aunt, he suggested that
he might be able to discover one about this very clock, and I encouraged
him to try. Why not let Mr. Hume take care of it during our travels?”
I professed my willingness joyfully, and though it was evident that
neither the duke nor St. Hilary welcomed Jacqueline’s suggestion, the
clock was soon placed in a gondola I summoned.
To its chimes the fortunes of da Sestos and myself were to dance
merrily.