Hattie and Grandfather Clock

From the moment she could think, Hattie Gardiner knew she was a special child. This was not because her mother and father were fabulously wealthy, in a town where most people were poor. Rather, Hattie knew she was special because everything was easy, too easy. A timid child, pale and dark eyed, Hattie seemed strange to other children and did not make friends easily which was in itself odd. Everything else she tried to do she picked up with an almost supernatural ability, whether it be learn a language or play the piano, or figure out complex mathematical problems. Hattie was a special child, born with a gift and the knowledge that one day she would be very, very important indeed.

The problem was that Hattie grew bored so easily. Three weeks of learning the flute had been enough to overtake her tutor's talents and so she'd decided she'd learned enough about that subject and became hungry for another interest to devour.

One day she and her mother were in the city and they passed a Clockmakers. Hattie was immediately struck by the array of various gold and silver pocket watches, the small ornate carriage clocks and in the centre a large display, a clock without any face. She could see all the workings inside and became enraptured, hypnotised. She watched the little cogs turn other little cogs that turned others and smiled, this complex clockwork dance would be her new obsession.

Her mother knew only too well that Hattie had taken a shine to something new and asked if she would like a clock. Hattie said no, that she wanted to build a clock, she wanted books. The clockmaker was amused by the seven year old's serious question about the best available literature for a young woman, such as Hattie, to learn the secrets of his craft. The old man explained that he had been taught by a master, but that there were such books as to steer her in the right direction. A list of three books was written up, handed over and then subsequently purchased from a nearby booksellers specialising in such technical works.

Hattie was pleased to have something new to read but it soon became apparent that she needed a clock. Not a working clock, that would be no good but rather a broken clock, one she could make as good as new. In her mind she knew exactly what she was looking for and so went on many trips round the city and beyond, looking for her perfect broken clock. She came away disappointed several times. It was only when her parents took up the fashions of their friends’ bohemian outlook that she found exactly what she had been looking for all along. It was in the dusty market of second hand goods -known as peasants market- that she first spotted it. It was a tall thing, easily bigger than herself stuck behind two rolls of carpet which separated two different traders. She pointed it out immediately and after a quick examination to make sure it needed work, it was hers. It was an old thing, the glass protecting the hands was broken, almost gone. The wood was chipped, scratched and even burned a bit, all its former lustre had been stripped through years of neglect. She loved it. Her parents called it a Grandfather Clock, she liked the term, having never heard it before and so took home her Grandfather Clock, to make work, to make anew.

Her analysis of the inner workings of the clock soon made it clear that some springs were broken, some wheels missing and rusted, the stop pins were gone, and the striking barrel cracked in several different places. She realised it was a simple matter of replacing these parts and after having written a list with exact specifications, her parents purchased all the parts she needed to fix the Grandfather Clock.

After carefully fixing all the broken parts she turned the key to wind the clock and was dismayed to find that it still did not work. Frustrated by her failure she set about taking the entire workings apart, just to see if there was something she missed. There was nothing she could find. Puzzled by this Hattie put the clock together carefully hoping that it would work but sadly it remained motionless. The hands did not move, the wheels did not turn, the bells did not chime.

Hattie knew the fault was hers somehow and so for her eighth birthday she had her parents purchase a smaller clock, which she took apart and put together again with no difficulty. She did the same with a pocket watch her father had abandoned and it worked. Once she was confident that she knew how clocks and watches worked, she set to work on her old Grandfather Clock.

It did not work.

Hattie was extremely unsatisfied with this state of affairs but soon was making a tidy sum fixing the clocks and watches of her parents, her extended family and their friends. Her expertise in clock repair was prodigious and soon Hattie was well known throughout the area as the person to ask if one needed one's timepiece fixed. She did it for free, though her parents made sure that those who asked for the repair at least gave her a modest amount for her work. By the time she was ten years of age she had fixed hundreds of clocks and unknown to her, had made a few hundred pounds.

Hattie could not have cared less, all she wished to do was fix the broken old grandfather clock and so far that skill escaped her. She became obsessed, even going so far as to roam antique shops and write letters to the original manufacturer of the grandfather clock, in order to find other versions of hers, then break them and fix them. None of this proved a problem, which did not improve her mood. She became irritable in her teenage years, with a haughty but sensitive manner which, while not uncommon for children of those few years, left her without friends or other interests. Her parents often tried to convince her to throw the old Grandfather clock out, but she refused, saying time and time again that she would fix it if it was the last thing she did. She grew detached from society, neglected her manners and family until most people considered her a bit eccentric.

To encourage her to return to society her parents purchased a small shop for her, Gardiner's Clock and Watch Repair for her twenty-first birthday. She understood well enough what they were trying to do and to assuage their worries she indeed began running her own business. Despite her eccentricities and her obsession with Grandfather Clock her business became quite successful.

For a time she was happy, as people brought her new and old timepieces of various eras which captivated her and her thirst to repair clocks. She kept Grandfather Clock in her bedroom and would only attempt to repair it once or twice a week. By this point the only original pieces of Grandfather Clock was it's ugly old case and the clock face. Everything else had been reworked, replaced and re-engineered, yet the blasted thing just refused to work. She was exasperated but knew that there were so many clocks to fix that one day she would find the secret, find what mysterious thing was missing and finally she would make Grandfather Clock work once more.

Several attempts at courtships ended poorly, mostly because her suitors became bored with her being more interested in an ugly worm-eaten, charred old clock than them. Hattie did not mind, finding interpersonal relationships so simplistic as to be beneath her talents. She did, however, become a renowned expert in the fixing of clocks, even being invited to fix the clocks of the great and the good. Members of European Royalty were amongst her clients and even the great clockmakers of Germany and Switzerland knew her name. She even appealed to some of them to help her with her quest to fix Grandfather Clock. A few confident souls tried but left as baffled and frustrated as she as to why the clock would not work.

Her thirties and forties flew by and she was amazed by the acceleration and miniaturisation of technologies of clock-making, she kept up with the latest trends during the war and afterwards until she was as skilled in her sixties with the digital technology that was emerging as she was with the old brass wheels and springs. She grew old, grew frail, sold her shop and retired to a small house in the country which was comfortable, modern, except for her old Grandfather Clock.

She wiled away her autumn years once again attempting to fix the clock to no avail. Alone and tired she began to lose her sense of perspective, she would wander around her town with rags on, with oily fingers and filthy nails, wild hair and a vicious tongue. Children of the area were both scared of her and told to avoid her.

One night, drunk and driven mad by her obsession she decided to destroy the clock, to tear it apart with her bare hands but succeeded only in breaking the cabinet glass and lacerating three of the fingers of her left hand. As she sat weeping, she heard the strangest but most exciting sound. The clock began to tick, only for a few seconds, but there was no mistaking it. She watched the second hand move from one section to the next, in slow time. Where she had been despondent now she had become invigorated. The solution that had eluded her all her life was so simple that she laughed through the night, only stopping when exhaustion took her into the arms of sleep. She awoke with regained enthusiasm and was steadfast in her motivation. The clock would be fixed, all it needed was fuel.

After weeks of gruelling work, the hands were moving and the pendulum underneath swung like a metronome. On her bed she laughed, clapped her hands and when the clock stuck the hour and gave a deep sombre chiming said “finally.”

Grandfather Clock agreed. “Finally.”

It did not seem a remote surprise to her that Grandfather Clock had a voice. “I knew I could fix you.”

“And you did. And you have my thanks.” Grandfather Clock replied. Its voice was deep, masculine, oily and alarmingly sardonic.

“Your thanks?” Hattie said becoming angry. “I spent my life trying to repair you. I lost my youth, abandoned my friends and family, neglected my romances and denied myself children and all I have for this is your thanks?”

“What else did you expect?”

“Something, anything, I did not expect it to take so long. You took my time from me, I'm not long for this world.” Hattie shouted, tears running down her.

“And soon you shall stop.” Grandfather Clock replied matter-of-factly.

“I don't want to stop, I want to live, to carry on, I want to be a child again.” Hattie begged.

“This is what you want?”

“Yes, at least.” Hattie said.

“At least.” The clock chuckled.

No one ever knew what happened to Hattie Gardiner, though the consensus was she had lost her mind and wandered into the woods or river and died. Her body was never found by the police who investigated her disappearance. When they broke into her home they found no clues as to where she would have gone. They found only a house in an absolute mess, Clock parts, tools and the partial remains of several local children who had gone missing were scattered all over the place, except her immaculate bedroom. In that haven they found a very old broken Grandfather Clock and, laying on the old woman’s bed, an eerie looking life-sized doll that bore an uncanny resemblance to the pale, dark-eyed seven year old girl that appeared in several black and white photographs on her dresser, always with her precious Grandfather Clock.