The Aviary

As a young child, Clara Dooley had felt that the Glendoveer mansion contained the whole world. George Glendoveer had been a famous magician and illusionist, and he and his wife, Cenelia, filled their home with curiosities from around the globe. Even the construction of the house owed its beauty to the arts and crafts of far-flung places: intricately carved woodwork with birds and flowers from Germany, Italian murals that made the ceilings into night skies scattered with stars, glowing Persian carpets in the shades of peacock feathers.

Clara, however, had never seen the house in its prime. Mr. Glendoveer had long since passed away. Mrs. Glendoveer was aged and frail. Many parts of the house were shuttered and closed. But Clara had lived there so long that she looked past the gloom and decay. Her mother,
who cared for Mrs. Glendoveer, and Ruby, who cooked for them all, filled the rooms with their bustling energy. It was a circumscribed world, but for Clara it had seemed just enough.

Now, at nearly twelve, Clara felt she was outgrowing more than just the small desk that had been set up in Mrs. Glendoveer’s bedroom for her studies. The room, with its elegant Chinese paper and French green enamel stove and shelves of foreign bric-a-brac, seemed to tease Clara. Because of her weak heart, she was not allowed to attend school—or run or play or exert herself in any way. And though there was a large rose garden in back where she might take the air, she hated attracting the attention of the birds in the mansion’s outdoor aviary.

The enormous black iron cage, almost as big as Clara’s own room, was backed up against the corner garden wall and sheltered under a pergola with a tattered roof. At the sight or sound of a human being, the birds inside would flutter and scream as if they were on fire, grasping at the bars with their sharp claws.

Judging from the noise, anyone nearby would have thought there were at least a dozen birds, but Clara knew there were only five—a mynah with a saffron mask surrounding blood-red eyes, a white, sulfur-crested cockatoo, a noisy black grackle, a fearless yellow kiskadee, and a terrified foam-green honeycreeper who pulled at his own feathers. Many times Clara wished for the birds to disappear so that she could roam the garden in peace. But
strangely, old Mrs. Glendoveer loved the birds as much as Clara feared them.

This late afternoon when Ruby brought out the birds’ feed, their piercing cries snapped Mrs. Glendoveer awake. She wore such a look of anxiety that Clara leapt up and took her hand until the squawking subsided. “Everything’s all right,” she said, looking into the woman’s pale blue eyes. “I’m sorry they gave you a start.”

Mrs. Glendoveer’s voice quavered. “It’s gotten worse since I can’t get down to feed them myself. They’re lonely, poor things. And they’re getting so old too. It’s a pity they don’t have a Clara of their own to keep them company.”

Mrs. Glendoveer talked about the birds to Clara the way a mother might tell stories about her precocious children. The cockatoo, for instance, could pick a lock. The mynah would nest only in the pages of old books and newspapers. Even the common grackle was gifted. “Better than a watchdog,” she would say as he screeched to bring down the heavens.

When all was calm, Clara perched again on the edge of the bed and leafed through an old volume with color pictures of sea animals separated by the thinnest sheaves of tissue paper. She pointed to a scarlet-shelled creature covered with horns. “When I get well,” she said, “I’m going down to the sea and gather a bucket of shells just like these. And I’ll line them up here so you can see them when you wake up from your nap.”

“Dear,” said Mrs. Glendoveer, “you’ll have to go to
Indonesia for those, I’m afraid. It’s a prickly sort of urchin that grows only in warm water. Can you imagine what it’s like to step on one?”

Clara didn’t know what kind of water was in the sea that glittered in Lockhaven Bay. She could catch a glimpse of something that looked like a pool of mercury on the horizon, but she’d never been to the shore. “What lives in our sea, then?” she asked.

“Nothing too colorful,” Mrs. Glendoveer said. “The ocean here in Maine is gray and ill tempered. I’m glad that my window faces south, so I don’t have to gaze on it every day.…” She shuddered. “I prefer the garden. Thank goodness for all those sturdy old roses George planted. I believe that we have everything here a contented person could possibly need.”

Yet Clara was not content. She fervently hoped that there was a doctor right now creating a cure for weak-hearted children so she could go out into the world. In the meantime, she must try to follow the precepts offered in
Advice for Young Ladies
, a pretty little book buried on the reading room’s shelf:

Whenever she felt twinges of envy watching her mother go out the door with a market basket slung over her arm,
she reminded herself that her yearning could only cause her own suffering, and redoubled her efforts to become the “antidote” to her own ills. And when she talked about her future, Clara was sure to include the phrase
When I get well
, intent on banishing clouded forecasts from her heart and mind.

The only doubtful habit she still clung to was a twice-daily ritual at the window seat, spying on the neighborhood children on their way to and from school. “I’ll quit tomorrow,” she’d say. But invariably the urge proved irresistible, and Clara permitted herself to fantasize that she was among those children, burdened with their books and overcoats, rushing along with
somewhere
to go.

“Clara!”

She hurried down the hall, looked over the banister, and saw Ruby, red in the face as always, blotting her upper lip with her apron.

“Your ma says come to tea,” Ruby called.

“Four o’clock already?” Clara skipped down the stairs and put her arm through Ruby’s. “You’re so warm, Ruby dear. Too warm.”

“Need to have a sit-down. Your mother! Thank goodness our Harriet has the tea habit, or we’d be on our feet from dawn till dusk.” She shrugged cheerfully. “Could be worse, I guess. Could have a husband. At least I’ve got a free hour or two before bedtime to prop my feet up. Never a night off with a husband.”

Clara had known Ruby since she was a baby, and she loved her. Ruby’s every physical detail—from her graying hair afrizz at the temples to her small red nose and prim cherub’s mouth—was endearing as well as soothingly familiar. Clara’s mother, Harriet, was originally hired by Mrs. Glendoveer as a nurse and companion, but she was a worker and a perfectionist and soon gave all her time to the maintenance of the vast, crumbling house, marshaling Ruby into joining her in a disciplined and ceaseless round of chores.

The kitchen smelled of nutmeg and was hot and steamy almost beyond comfort, which told Clara they were to have rice pudding. Her mother had already set the table with sugar and cream, bowls, cups, and a china pot. “You two pour while I fetch more cordwood,” she said.

“Look at the size of these spoons!” said Ruby, shaking her head. “Your ma’s been off to the broker again. She had to choose between the teaspoons and the soup spoons, and it nearly broke my heart.”

“The broker?” said Clara.

“The pawnbroker,” Ruby said. “Twice in the same month too.” She went quiet as Clara’s mother came back in through the kitchen door. Clara made up her mind to look up
pawnbroker
in the dictionary as soon as she finished her tea.

“Great goodness,” Clara’s mother said as she nudged the door closed behind her with her foot. “You could hear a pin drop out there. It’s quite unsettling.”