Behind the Clock.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLIX, Issue 4, 22 January 1913, Page 60

Behind the Clock.

By

DERWENT MIALL.

i. THIS is a sad story, but if the lesson it holds for all womankind is somewhere taken to heart, it will not have been written in vain. James Buffin had a large elock on his dining-room mantelpiece. it was modelled upon the cheerful lines of a mausoleum; the sort of clock, in fact, that is often presented to Sunday-school superintendents, curates, and elderly employees of business houses, when they have been a long time in one place without doing any particular harm. Not that James’ clock was a testimonial —he had never deserved anything like that. A too-adhesive label on the back of it still bore the inscription “Lot 203,” which certainly suggests that he may have picked it up in a saleroom. But— Heaven knows why—James Buflin prized his clock, and every Saturday night, just before going to bed, he wound it up, and meddled with the regulator in the vague hope of doing some good to its works. It was in front of this timepiece that his daughter Violet—who had just been promoted to long frocks —was standing one fateful afternoon, as she read a much-creased letter in the sprawly handwriting of George Plimpley. Violet had been forbidden to have anything more to do with the I’limpleys, under penalty of being sent—long skirts notwithstanding—to be “finished” at some conventional establishment in France. For James Buflin, since a certain “deal” in which he had not shown his usual business acumen, always spoke of Plimpley senior as “that old thief”; and he hated the very sight of George. George it was. however, who wrote like this to Violet: "I have kissed your darling letter a thousand, thousand times, and am ten thousand times more resolved than ever that they shall never part us. Oh! my sweetest own ” But perhaps you, too, will hale George if I quote any more.

Poor Violet had scarcely time to read her George's letter through more than live times when a step sounded outside, and the door-handle turned.

With every sign of terror end confusion upon her fresh young face, she tried to thrust the incriminating missive into her pocket. In that moment her girlhood ended.

Not till then had she fully realised that woman’s estate has its sorrows as well as

its privileges. Iler new hobble-skirt had no pocket! — or, if it had. it was so placed that it could not possibly be found. To be discovered with a crumpled paper in her hand might be dangerous. There was no fire: the letter must be hidden somewhere in the room.

Quick as thought Violet slipped it behind the clock. And then James Buflin came in, with a tiresome business friend, who stayed to tea, and supper, and whist. Violet had to go to bed before he left, and all this time the dining-room was occupied. She was too nervous to come downstairs in the dark. So George’s letter remained behind the clock. 11. The following morning—it was Wednesday—Violet was down with influenza. Not until Thursday was she well enough to realise her position. Unless George’s letter could be reclaimed before Saturday night, when James Buffin would move his clock to wind it —for the key went into a hole in its back—her doom was sealed, She would inevitably be sent away to the convent school. It was all inexpressibly sad. The Bullins and the Plimpleys were two of the most respected families -at Fodder’s End—■ whn h. as yon know, is a high toned Garden I itj- suburb. In this modest sphere both James Buffin and Mr. Plimpley were ruoeessful men although, perhaps, no man ran be said to have achieved success, in the full sense of the word, who is still subject to the risk of cold mutton for dinner and a matrimonial alliance between the two families would have been appropriate. But -there was that feud. VJolet thought of it as she lay in Led. and thought how the discovery of George's letter would Intensify It. There wai no one in the house in whom she

could confide, and the only girl friend she could trust—Amy Pinhorne —was not tall enough to lift papa’s clock. At last, she decided that only George himself could help her. She would write —in fact, she did write—to her dearest Amy, enclosing a letter for her to give to George. George was strong enough to lift the clock, and, she hoped, brave enough to call at the house, some time when papa was out. He would lie shown into the diningroom; he would be alone for a minute or two, and he could sneak the letter from its hiding-place. Violet’s temperature dropped two degrees, and she took her beef-tea with some approach to equanimity after the letter to Amy Pinhorne had been dispatched. HI. There was a headlong directness about George Plimpley that made him a terror at tennis tournament and whist drive; and also, said the voice of detraction, at Cinderella dances —but this by the way.

It was characteristic of him that he entered the Buffins’ house, not by the

front door, but by the French window of the dining-room, early on Saturday.

It was the shortest route to the clock. In the hushed room the young man paused one moment to listen, a poised figure of arrested resolution. Then, with lithe and cat-like tread, he went to the mantelpiece, and lifted the gloomy timepiece, destined so soon to be wound, in his strong young hands. He bumped it down again six inches out from the wall, found the letter, pocketed it, and once more raised the elock, to replace it in statu quo.

And at that moment James Buffin stood in the window!

With the clock still uplifted in his hands, George turned his head, and regarded the horror-stricken man. James Buffin advanced into the room unsteadily.

“So you’re trying to steal my clock!” he said hoarsely. “I didn’t think any man could be so wicked!”

George was about to reply that no man would be so foolish, till he reflected that this was no occasion for levity. Somehow, he had got to explain his conduct without betraying Violet’s secret. Very meekly, very carefully, he put the clock back in its place. "Trying to steal iny clock!” repeated James Buffin, with bated breath; “and in broad daylight, too!” “Nun-nun-no,” stammered poor George. “Oh, no! Mr. Buflin. I was just lifting

it to see—to see if it was heavier than the one we have at home.”

He smiled feebly; but the miserable pretence of laughter died out of his eyes, as James Buflin pointed to the open window. "Go!” ho said, sharply. "I have said hard things of your father, and I shall never forgive him. But I should not like even him to know that a son of his tried to steal mv elock.”

And George, after a moment's reflection, saw that, for Violet’s sake, he must accept this condemnation; and he went.

But Violet was sent to the convent school after all; for James Buflin <tid not want her to boos posed even io ilw rink of a chance meeting with George.

So two young hearts were separated—perhaps for ever. And the moral? Is it not to be found in thss? The whole tragie business was due to the fact that Violet had no pocket in her dress. So woman’s cry should be, not “Votes for Women,” but “Pockets for Women”—practicable pockets.

For* after all, you never know when you may be placed in Violet’s sad dilemma. Savages are poeketless; but, so long as women are content to be the same, they remain, where George’s letter was, behind the clock.