Quare felt himself losing the reins of his temper. He looked to Mr Symonds, but the man appeared to be engrossed in contemplation of the horological profundity just revealed to him. Perhaps, Quare thought, he was considering how best to work it into a sermon. At any rate, the task of dealing with this unpleasant little man had now fallen to him.
‘I ask you again to wait your turn,’ he said as politely as he could manage. ‘And to refrain, if you would, from upsetting Miss Symonds’ – this with a significant look in Emily’s direction.
The grotesque creature swivelled its body to regard the young lady in question, who burst into tears. ‘My pardon,’ he said, though there was nothing apologetic in his tone, ‘if my appearance has upset you, Miss Symonds.’ And here he sketched a bow, or something redolent of a bow; Quare could not decide if he meant the gesture to be as much of a mockery as it appeared, or whether his deformities, and the sticks and braces meant to correct them, rendered his movements, regardless of the intent behind them, naturally – or, rather, unnaturally – graceless and parodistic. ‘I am but as God made me.’
Mrs Symonds seemed to have no difficulty in deciding the question. ‘Come, Emily,’ she said, throwing an arm about her daughter’s shoulders and shepherding her, sniffling behind a handkerchief, from the shop, all the while staring daggers at Quare, as though he were somehow responsible. ‘Henry,’ she called from the doorway, at which Mr Symonds emerged from his trance.
‘Ah, yes, dear,’ he said, giving Quare a distracted smile. ‘I trust the clock will present no difficulties, Mr Quare?’
‘None at all,’ Quare affirmed. ‘It will be ready on Monday.’
‘So soon?’ queried the vicar. ‘I would not have you working on the Lord’s day, Mr Quare, not on my account or any man’s.’
‘We keep the sabbath in this shop, vicar,’ said Quare.
‘I am glad to hear it,’ said Mr Symonds and turned to the dwarf, who was watching this exchange with unconcealed impatience, lips twitching in his eagerness to speak. ‘Good day to you, sir.’
‘And to you, vicar,’ he growled. He did not even wait for the man to exit the shop before importuning Quare again, once more accompanying his words with a thump of his stick. ‘Now, Mr Quare, if it would not be too much trouble – your master, if you please.’
As if on cue, Mr Halsted poked his bald head through the door leading from the workshop. ‘What is that c-confounded noise, Da—’ He broke off upon catching sight of the dwarf. ‘G-good g-gracious,’ he stammered, stepping into the room, his ruddy complexion blanching to the paleness of a sheet. ‘As I live and b-breathe. M-master M-magnus.’
‘How are you, Halsted?’ the man inquired. ‘Glib as ever, I see.’
Quare’s master had a fierce stammer that emerged whenever he was flustered or excited; the neighbourhood street urchins mocked this impediment ruthlessly, both behind his back and, the better to elicit it, to his face, but Quare had not thought to find such cruelty in an adult.
Making a visible effort, Mr Halsted calmed himself, or tried to – with scant success, however. ‘Daniel, this g-gentleman is one of the g-great masters of our g-guild, come all the way from L-London, or so I imagine.’
‘You imagine correctly,’ said Master Magnus. ‘And a damned uncomfortable journey it was, too, with more bumps and jolts in the road than are to be found even in one of your utterances, Mr Halsted.’
‘I am sorry to hear it. M-mayhap you will take refreshment here. My home is yours. Daniel, c-close the shop. Oh – my apprentice Daniel Quare, m-master. A m-most promising young m-man. Mr Quare, M-master M-magnus.’
‘An honour, sir,’ said Quare, and meant it: though he was only fifteen, it had long been apparent to him that Dorchester was a backwater, horologically speaking, and that the only place for an ambitious and talented young man like himself was London. The journeymen who passed through town had whetted his appetite for years with stories of the great guild hall of the Worshipful Company and the masters who ruled it, led by Grandmaster Wolfe. Halsted had his own tales to tell, for he had travelled to London for his investiture as a master of the guild, and had returned twice, for brief periods, in the years since Quare had become his apprentice, lodging each time at the guild hall, and each time coming home full to bursting with the wonders he’d seen and experienced there. Now one of that august company stood before him in the flesh. And not just anyone, but Master Magnus – or Mephistopheles, as the journeymen had called him – a man they had variously termed a genius, a terror, a monster, a freak of nature, and whom Master Halsted, in hushed tones, as if he feared being overheard even at such a distance, had once compared to a spider in its web. Quare studied the man with fresh interest, wondering what secrets he could impart, what lessons he could offer; Quare had already absorbed everything Halsted could teach him, and his horological skills now outstripped those of his master. ‘I apologize for not recognizing you at once, Master Magnus.’
‘And how should you recognize a man you have never seen?’ came the sharp inquiry.
‘Why, your reputation precedes you, sir,’ Quare answered, ignoring Halsted’s cautionary glance. ‘The journeymen who stop by our shop on their travels speak of you as a man of great learning and application.’
‘Do they now?’ mused the master. ‘Are you quite sure, Mr Quare, that it is not the size of my body, rather than the size of my intellect or accomplishments, that precedes me?’
Quare saw too late the trap he had fallen into, for in fact the journeymen who had recounted Master Magnus’s accomplishments with awe had also spoken fearfully of his temper and sensitivity to any perceived insult or slight on account of his size or other handicaps.
‘C-close up the shop, now, Daniel, as I t-told you,’ Halsted interjected, coming to Quare’s rescue.
This Quare moved to do, blushing fiercely as he came around the counter.
‘To what do we owe the p-pleasure of your visit, master?’ Halsted continued, seeking to shift the conversation to safer ground. ‘If you had but n-notified me that you were c-coming, I would have received you with m-more ceremony.’
‘Bah, I require no ceremony, Halsted, as you should know very well.’
‘Still, I feel sure, after your long and d-difficult journey, that some refreshment would not c-come amiss. C-come into the k-kitchen, sir, and do me the honour of meeting m-my wife … and, of c-course, my other apprentice, James G-grimsby.’
‘A cup of tea would suit me very well,’ Master Magnus admitted.
Halsted conducted the older man through the door that led to the workshop and, beyond it, the kitchen, while Quare closed up the front of the shop. By the time he had joined the others, Master Magnus was seated at the kitchen table in a chair that accommodated him as well as it would have done a child of ten – less well, in fact, for his metal-caged legs did not bend at the knees but instead stuck out parallel to the floor. His chin barely overtopped the table, where a steaming cup of tea was set on a saucer, beside a plate of biscuits and butter; it did not escape Quare’s notice that Mrs Halsted was using her good china. His walking sticks were propped against the edge of the table, close to hand.
Standing opposite him on the far side of the table were Mr and Mrs Halsted, along with Grimsby. Halsted and his wife regarded their visitor with some apprehension, nervous smiles plastered on their faces, as if he were not entirely tamed and might be set off by a wrong word or gesture, while the freckled, red-headed Grimsby, who had listened, along with Quare, to tales of mad Master Mephistopheles from the journeymen who lodged with them on their way through town, gawped in open-mouthed astonishment. Everyone, save Grimsby, turned to Quare as he entered the room.
‘Mr Quare, thank the Almighty,’ said Master Magnus. ‘Sit you down, sir.’ His gesture encompassed the entire kitchen. ‘All of you, sit, please. You are making me feel like a baboon on display at Covent Garden. And Mr Grimsby, pray close your mouth, lest what little wit you possess escape entirely.’