Читать книгу The Clock and the Key - A. H. Vesey - Страница 6

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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.