The Aviary (22 page)

“How exciting!” Clara said. “Mama, you must let me go.”

“We shall see,” said Harriet.

Clara smiled. “I’d like to show Daphne my room.”

“All right. Run along,” said her mother. “And, uh, have fun.”

Clara nudged Daphne as soon as her mother was out of sight. “She has never told me to have fun. I feel as if I’ve woken up in a new world.”

“What happened?”

“I took a walk to see Miss Lentham,” Clara said with a touch of pride, “and I got caught!”

“You naughty, daring girl,” Daphne said, giving Clara’s braid a playful yank. “You went, and the sky didn’t fall. I knew it would be all right.”

“You don’t know the half of it.” Clara told Daphne the story of her parents and how her father was convinced he
was Elliot Glendoveer. She also confided why her mother had kept her in the house.

“See,” Daphne said, “if you hadn’t gone out and been caught, you’d never have learned about your father. Now if only we could prove that he truly was Elliot.”

“Or
is
Elliot,” Clara said. “The birds believe he is still alive, and they’re also convinced he’s my father. They want me to find him because, somehow, finding him will break the spell. At least that’s what Frances said.”

Daphne put her fingers to her temples. “This is all too much for my little head. What do you mean by ‘breaking the spell’?”

Clara had Daphne take a seat on the bed and told her at length all she had learned from George Glendoveer’s diaries. “I don’t have the whole story, but I believe that George Glendoveer had some sort of ancient book of incantations he used to transfer the souls of his children and keep them in these birds. I showed Miss Lentham some of the hieroglyphics, and she helped a little.”

Daphne wrinkled her nose. “What did you make of Miss Lentham?”

Clara folded her arms. “From your description, I expected someone a little more pleasant.”

“But she’s so enthusiastic about the Glendoveers. Did she help?”

“She did help at first.” Clara shuddered. “I did not make a good impression. In fact, we ended up quite angry with each other.”

“You, brawling with Miss Lentham? I’m trying to imagine it.”

“I couldn’t help it. Miss Lentham said terrible things about Mrs. Glendoveer. And what’s worse, she practically worships Woodruff Booth and takes him at his word about everything, when I’m convinced that he is a liar!”

“Our nice Mr. Booth? Are you sure?”

“He says in his letter how Mrs. Glendoveer was fond of him, but I know from George’s diaries that it isn’t true. Why would he say that unless he had something to hide?”

Daphne crossed her eyes. “Clara, you are making me crazy. You hold on to this shocking news until I have no more time to listen. Now I must go.”

Clara smiled. “But we have tomorrow, Daphne. All morning long. Isn’t that miraculous?”

“It is going to be my favorite summer,” Daphne stated. “I know it already. Walk me to the gate, will you?”

Clara walked with Daphne, and said goodbye. On her way back to the house, she felt the sun on her shoulders and in her heart. Mrs. Glendoveer’s favorite yellow roses were in bloom and spicing the air. In celebration of her first morning as a free girl, she decided to enter at the front door.

From the front yard she could look out at Lockhaven Bay sparkling in rare sapphire blue under the cloudless sky and the Pincushion Islands glowing an exuberant green. When she faced the house, however, all its flaws were revealed by the dazzling sunlight.

Clara had never examined the front of her home at leisure. The moss from the rainy season had left splotches like dead seaweed on the shingles. The splintered windowsills needed scraping, and the awning over the front steps had drizzled rust for so long that the marble below was stained orange.

It hurt to say so, but Clara’s first thought was
How hideous it is!
She remembered Daphne and her mother standing here with their basket of food on the day of Mrs. Glendoveer’s funeral and wondered how Mrs. Aspinal ever consented to let her daughter come over and play. The memory made her hurry inside.

In the foyer, the bright sun shone through the chinks in the shutters like swords piercing the darkness. The carved wooden panels on the wall with their flowers, boughs, and birds made Clara sad, because she knew the love that had once imbued this house with beauty.

She roused herself with the conviction that she was the one who had been chosen to bring it back.

“Clara!” cried Ruby from over the banister. “Tell your mother that the tub upstairs is leaking and I need help bringing the linens down to the line. I’d do it myself but I’m dripping at the hem like a thundercloud.”

“Yes, Ruby,” Clara said, startled out of her reverie. When she confronted her frazzled mother looking up from the washboard, face misted over with steam, she almost couldn’t bear to tell her.

“Mama, Ruby says the tub is leaking—”

“Leaking?” her mother asked. “Onto the floor?”

“I think so. She said her hem was soaking and that she needed help bringing the linens down.”

Her mother pinched the bridge of her nose with a wet hand, and Clara felt sorry. “Let me help her,” Clara said. “You have too much to do right here.”

“There is always too much to do,” her mother said. “And I don’t say this because I’m not up to the work.…”

“I know, Mama,” Clara said.

“But if this wretched house would only stop breaking down, we might make improvements instead of constantly staving off emergencies.”

Clara brought a chair over to her mother and had her sit. “I’m making you tea. You’re exhausted, and you can afford to put your feet up for a moment while I help Ruby.”

“No, Clara, I cannot afford it,” she said, hopping up. “We are going upstairs with a mop and bucket, carrying down the bed linens, and hanging them on the line, and then you and Ruby and I will sit and talk.”

“Yes, Mama,” Clara said. The old Mama was back—the one with two deep lines between her eyes and a set jaw.

Ruby and Clara gave the sheets a final rinse while Harriet dealt with the water upstairs. The three of them stretched the wet linens over the line and were waterlogged by the time they were finished.

“Look at us,” said Ruby. “Three drowned rats.”

“Let’s each take a garden chair into the sunshine,” said Harriet, “and have a chat while we dry out.”

In view of the aviary, Ruby wrung out her hem and sat, spreading her skirt wide. Clara shucked her damp boots and rested her stocking feet on the grass. Her mother examined the puckered skin on her fingers, looked up, and said simply, “We can’t go on like this.”

“I agree,” said Ruby. “We should send the wash out—the household linens at least. Why not? Give ourselves a bit of a break. Goodness knows there are projects enough around this old place to keep us on our toes until the last trumpet.”

Clara placed her hand on Ruby’s arm. “I don’t think that is what Mama means.” And then, “What do you mean, Mama?”

“What do I mean?” Her mother gave in to a rueful laugh. “I’m such a mule. You know that, Ruby.”

“Indeed, I do,” Ruby said. “A mule bred from a blinkered workhorse, is what I’d say. Stubborn and—”

“Yes, and all the rest of it,” she said. “That’s why it took me so long to figure it out. Life here for us is, and will remain, impossible. Providence has finally got through to me.”

Clara frowned. “You don’t think God made the upstairs tub leak, do you?”

“No,” her mother said, shaking her head. “It was that little girl. Daphne.”

Clara felt a surge of dread. “What did Daphne do? You said yourself she was lovely.”

“She is a perfect picture. But perhaps you didn’t notice
the look on her face when she saw me bent over the washtub in my old poplin? Because I did.”

Clara did not know where her mother was leading. “I think you must have misread her.”

“No, Clara. She has probably never seen her mother at such work. Would you agree, Ruby?”

“Harriet is right,” Ruby said. “The Aspinals probably have a laundress and a cook and a hired girl or two to do the cleaning. Not to mention a gardener—”

“What does that matter?” Clara demanded. “Do you think Daphne cares about such things? Why, if she did, she never would have climbed our front steps to seek me out.”

Her mother looked pained. “It isn’t Daphne, dear. It’s this place. Maids of all work don’t run their own mansions. The house and grounds are quite unmanageable for a staff of two. We don’t have the skill to repair the place ourselves, and we don’t have the funds to hire out.”

Harriet took a breath. “And if you are now to go out in public, Clara, it is proper that I also go out and make myself known in the community as your mother. As it stands now, I miss church every Sunday. So you were quite right last night when you suggested that we might have gone on to live someplace where we would fit in. We cannot fit in here.”

“But this is our home,” Clara said. “It belongs to us.”

“Not for three weeks,” said Ruby.

“And even then we won’t have the enormous amount
of money required to fix the house. But if we sold it, we could buy our own small home—something lovely for the three of us. We could start over in a new place where you could go to school and make appropriate friends.”

Clara knew that there could be no more suitable friend for her than Daphne Aspinal. But when she saw Ruby nodding in agreement, she held her tongue.

“Ah!” said Ruby. “The buyer. You’ve heard from him again?”

“I have. He won’t be discouraged. It’s rather incredible the lengths he has gone to, trying to acquire this place.”

“Is he offering more money?” Ruby asked.

“Not only that,” Harriet said, “but he is also offering to buy everything in the house, as is. ‘From cellar to attic,’ is how Mr. Merritt-Blenney put it.”

“Who is it?” Clara asked. “Who wants to buy?”

“I don’t know, Clara. He insists on anonymity.”

“But surely you’ve heard something. Has he sent you a letter? Where is he from?”

“I’ve no idea.” She shrugged. “All the correspondence comes through the gentleman’s lawyer in Rhode Island.”

Clara felt as though she had been slapped awake. “Oh no!” she said. “Mama, you cannot sell. I know the man! It must be Woodruff Booth!”

At the sound of the name, the birds in the aviary darted from perch to perch, squawking.

“Woodruff Booth?” said Ruby. “I think I remember Mrs. Glendoveer mentioning him long ago.”

“She despised him, is why,” said Clara, her voice rising. “Mrs. Glendoveer believed he was responsible for the deaths of her children!”

Arthur the Grackle sounded his ear-splitting cry, and the others responded in a chorus of gabbling.

Her mother drew back. “Clara, how do you know about Mr. Booth? And why do you imagine he’s the buyer?”

“Miss Lentham keeps him informed about the Glendoveers, and she sent him word of Mrs. Glendoveer’s passing. And he lives in Rhode Island. Plus, I read about him in George Glendoveer’s diaries. Mrs. Glendoveer would never have sold him this house. She banned him from it! I beg you. Promise you won’t sell.”

Ruby came over and drew Clara to her. “Now, now. Nobody’s selling nothing yet, little girl. Am I right, Harriet?”

“I can’t accept offers until we’ve passed the deadline in the will,” she said. “But after that, it may be in our best interest—”

“But what about the birds? Where shall they stay?”

Her mother lowered her voice. “I can’t answer anything until I’ve met with the man’s representative. He’s offered to meet with both Ruby and me on the nineteenth, and I intend to ask him all my questions then.”

“You aren’t going to sell them with the house, are you?” Clara cried. “You can’t! Ruby, don’t let her.”

“But, Clara—”

Clara slipped from Ruby’s grasp and ran across the damp lawn to the aviary, snagging her stocking on a twig and
falling forward on her elbows. She wanted only to see the birds and reassure them. But when Ruby caught up to her and lifted her from the ground, she saw that her sleeve was torn and streaked with blood. As she was led back to the house, Clara turned and saw the Glendoveer children lined up on the big bare branch, and swore she would set them free before they would ever be the captives of Mr. Woodruff Booth.

That evening, Clara showed her mother George Glendoveer’s diary in hopes of convincing her that selling the home to Woodruff Booth would be against Cenelia’s wishes. But Clara’s mother saw things differently.

“It appears that Mr. Glendoveer was quite fond of Mr. Booth,” Harriet said. “Look here: he says that he believes his wife has wrongly accused him.”

“But that isn’t the whole story.”

“From what I read, the Glendoveers agreed to disagree about him. And Mr. Booth offered a reward for the children’s return. If anything, I feel for George Glendoveer, losing his best friend at a time when friends were in short supply.”

“But why would Mr. Booth then lie in his letter to Daphne and say they were all great friends?”

“Perhaps he wants to dwell on happier memories of their association. He seems most forgiving.”

Clara stiffened, frustrated by her inability to make her mother understand. “I have more proof,” she said. “But I don’t think you’ll listen to that either.”