Character Showcase - The Watchmaker, the Brothers Glede, and Vetus Amicus

 The Glede brothers run a small, extremely cluttered shop called “Vetus Amicus”. They somewhat optimistically refer to this establishment as an antique and repair shop, but the locals consider it more of a junk or pawn shop.

Archie, the elder brother, was born with what he calls “crooked bones”, which have only continued to become more twisted over time. Consequently, he does not get out of the shop much these days, but in addition to managing the premises and repairing old, broken and discarded items, he was once hired to make death masks. A macabre business, some might say, but he always rather enjoyed a good deathwatch vigil and has attended so many of the dead and dying— bringing with him the rolled-up plaster bandages and a big pot of goose fat in an innocent-looking doctor’s bag— that this line of work is, in fact, the source of his curious nickname.

“Send for The Watchmaker,” sounds less morbid, even relatively benign, to those who, in their final moments, might overhear the whispered summons.  

His masks, made soon after death, were responsible for recording a moment in time, be it by the bedside of a beloved family patriarch; by the cradle of a cherished child, or by the scaffold at the execution of a condemned prisoner. Occasionally, his services were required to make a mask of some poor soul’s last grimace as they lay upon a mortuary slab— an anonymous murder victim that the authorities hope might one day be identified.

Archie keeps copies of his favorite masks, displayed on the walls around his workroom as souvenirs. These days, of course, the commemorative death mask has gone somewhat out of fashion, but he is occasionally sent for still, although his increased lack of mobility makes him less swift than he once was in answering the summons.

It is now thirty years since their father died, leaving Archie “The Watchmaker” and his younger brother Fred to manage the little shop in this narrow alley, and to look after each other. Which they do, in their own way and to their best of their abilities. Archie likes to think he is the brains of the operation, while Fred is the brawn, or the charm— whichever is required. In their family there was only enough money to send one son to school, so the physically stronger of the two lads stayed at home to help with the heavy work, while the smaller, weaker boy was sent away for an education.

If Fred resents this fact, he never shows it. In fact, he has no respect for “book learnin’” and considers a man’s experiences and his natural wits to be of greater importance.

Fred has no appreciation for antiques, or for the satisfaction his elder brother finds in delicate, time-consuming restoration work. Fred thinks only of how to make money and the quicker the better. To that end there was always some scheme afoot and it is seldom on the right side of the law. Fred is never one to miss an opportunity and, as their father would have said, he can convince a tiger to wear spots.

An old tin pot, in Fred’s hands, is a newly unearthed treasure that he could sell to the gullible for five pounds. But he always knows his customer; knows how to make himself appealing. Whatever works best on that particular punter.

Of course, in their line of trade, the Glede brothers know everybody’s secrets, particularly their financial problems. They know who is flush with money to spend and who is near destitute, selling the family treasures or pawning their jewels to pay gambling debts. They know who is looking for special cadeaux for a new lover— or lovers— and who is eager to part with a former paramour’s tokens of affection. And in such secrets, there is opportunity and money to be made.

But unlike Archie, Fred cannot be entirely content with the little bits and pieces that come their way through the shop door. Every so often he spreads his wings and heads off, intent on finding bigger and better things, but he always comes home again in the end, to the shop and to Archie. There, he keeps his head down for a while, as if he’s been up to no good. Archie doesn’t ask. The best way to handle Fred is never to ask questions.

Lately, however, Fred seems to be in a good mood. He’s even taking a sweetheart out to the music hall on her evenings off. More than one sweetheart actually, Archie suspects.

So life among the ruins of “Vetus Amicus” has been peaceful of late. Archie hopes it will stay that way. But there is something in the air— a sense of foreboding that the elder brother cannot seem to shake off.

As he works in the shop late at night, he catches a shadow in the corner of his eye, and watches it run about the piles of old pots, toys and books. He has told himself that it must be a mouse that keeps tipping things over in the dark and making a long-buried music box suddenly play a few notes of its tune.

After all, some of those items must have been there since his father’s time, or even earlier. Archie has lived in the dust and the gloom for many years, looking after all these lost “treasures” and talking to the faded china and porcelain ladies whose faces he refreshes with his delicate paintbrush.

Perhaps he’s been talking to inanimate objects in the dark for too long and now he’s seeing ghosts. He really ought to have a clear out, clean the grime off those windows and let the light in.

But if he does, who knows what he might find?

 

Take a journey through the Glede brothers' trove of secrets in A DEADLY SHADE OF NIGHT (A Bespoke Novel iii) COMING SOON.

(Image: Give us a Taste by John George Brown 1831-1913)