The Aviary (19 page)

“Was he quite ill?” Clara asked.

“Yes. In his way.” She lifted an eyebrow above the rim of her spectacles. “These were nervous ailments. Sudden fears. He agonized before entering a room full of people, for instance, and would often just return home. Or he would become paralyzed at the prospect of crossing a bridge. The worst of his terrors, however, involved birds. He became housebound, deathly afraid of crows, gulls, or purple martins flying overhead. He felt they might attack him.”

“Do you know why?”

“I suspect he was too highly refined, just as thoroughbred horses are often the most skittish. In any case, he went to take a cure in Switzerland, where he not only underwent hypnosis but also learned the art himself. He came away quite cured, and that is when he joined the Great Glendoveer.”

“Wasn’t he afraid of Mr. Glendoveer’s birds?”

“Yes, terribly,” stated Miss Lentham. “That is how they met. Mr. Booth considered it the ultimate test of his Swiss cure to sit in a closed theater with birds flying over the crowd. So he went to see the Great Glendoveer and was enchanted by the spectacle. And since he now had mesmerizing powers of his own, he asked if he might try his
luck on the stage. And, of course, Mr. Booth was a stellar addition to the bill, even though he never quite conquered his ornithophobia.”

“Ornithophobia,” repeated Clara. “Is that a fear of birds?”

“Exactly. He told me he had to perform self-hypnosis for at least an hour before every show.” Miss Lentham patted her hair. “It is one thing to be a man afraid, and quite another to conquer that fear day after day. I daresay Mr. Booth was a man of great courage after all.”

Clara nodded in agreement. “I know he was a close friend of George Glendoveer’s. But do you know how he got along with Cenelia Glendoveer?”

Miss Lentham’s voice grew sharp. “The
wife
?”

“Yes. Mrs. Glendoveer.”

“That Cenelia …” Miss Lentham shook her head. “I mustn’t blame her, and I try to be sympathetic because who knows how any of us might behave in the midst of such horror.”

“Of course,” said Clara. “But what did she do?”

“Mrs. Glendoveer let it be known that she believed Mr. Booth had spread rumors about her family. I heard she even tried to alert the press. No one printed anything against Mr. Booth, of course. They considered the woman’s condition and thought better of it.”

“What rumors did she think he spread?”

“Every time the paper quoted someone anonymously, Cenelia supposed it was actually Mr. Booth. And there
were some awful rumors about the Glendoveers’ motives, to which I myself strenuously objected.” Miss Lentham sniffed. “You won’t find two better defenders of that family than Mr. Booth and myself.”

Clara felt there certainly could be no more passionate defender of Mr. Booth than Miss Lentham. “Pardon me if I don’t understand,” Clara said, “but surely George Glendoveer would be able to help his wife see reason? That is, if Mr. Booth truly had been such a help …”

“Mr. Booth is beyond reproach,” stated Miss Lentham.

“I’m sure he is,” Clara said soothingly, “but why would anyone suspect him, especially Mrs. Glendoveer, who knew him so well?”

Miss Lentham leaned on her cane. “I know only what Mr. Booth confided to me. The Booth family had disowned him at the time, and Cenelia came to the conclusion that he was in dire need of cash. Which makes no sense, if you consider the ample reward he offered for the children’s return. If you ask me, it was Mrs. Glendoveer spreading rumors about Mr. Booth and not the other way round.”

Clara had no idea how to reply. The idea of Mrs. Glendoveer spreading rumors, attempting to ruin a good friend’s reputation, was unbelievable.

Miss Lentham lifted her chin. “It has been an inestimable honor to have been of assistance to Mr. Booth since he left Lockhaven. If the authorities had been inclined to listen to the ravings of Cenelia Glendoveer, he might have found himself wrongfully imprisoned. Because of my
interest in the Glendoveers and my expertise on the matter of the kidnapping, I told him I’d report to him any significant news, gossip, or threat that I perceived against him. And in return, he has given me his friendship.”

With difficulty, Clara kept her anger at bay. “But, Miss Lentham,” she said, “surely there can’t be anything more about which to inform Mr. Booth.”

“On the contrary,” said Miss Lentham. “As long as that woman was alive, Mr. Booth had no idea whether she would turn against him again. An angry old woman with diminished faculties—who knows what evidence she had secreted up there in that old house, either circumstantial or manufactured?”

Clara could no longer keep the vehemence out of her voice. “Manufactured, you say? You think Mrs. Glendoveer would invent false evidence?”

Miss Lentham banged her cane on the floor. “I say what I mean.”

“And so do I!” said Clara. “You have called me morbid. What shall I call you who would malign a deceased woman this way?”

At this, Miss Lentham stood at attention, quivering with suspicion like a deer that has heard a twig snap in the woods. Her lip crawled up, exposing her ivory teeth. Slowly, she pushed her glasses up on her nose and bent so far forward Clara feared she’d pitch over.

“All right, my dear,” she rasped. “Who are you
really
?” Her withered hand reached out to snatch Clara’s arm.

Horrified, Clara leapt back.

“Who sent you?” Miss Lentham demanded.

“No one; I’m no one!” Clara escaped the building as fast as she could, clutching the book of poems to her chest. The rows of houses blurred past, and she did not pause until a stitch in her side stopped her three blocks up the street. She put one hand to her ribs and kept climbing the hill.

“Home,” she panted. “Oh, let me be home!”

Clara, head reeling with new questions about Woodruff Booth, was still clutching the volume of
Virgil Poems
when she crept up the alley to the back of her house. She wondered how Frances would react, hearing about the threatening behavior of Miss Lentham. But before she would ask anything of the mynah, Clara planned to slip the book into the aviary, hoping the sight of this favorite volume of poetry would be a cheerful surprise for her. However, she was stopped in her tracks by the sound of someone behind her throwing open the kitchen window.

“Clara. Elizabeth. Dooley.”

Her mother’s voice was still and even—which was how she always sounded at her most outraged. Clara hunched her shoulders, afraid to look around.

“In the house. Now.”

Dragging her feet, Clara went up the back stairs, past
the mudroom, and into the kitchen, where her mother stood. On the table beside her mother was a picture in a frame—Mrs. Glendoveer’s mourning picture. Rolled up on top of that was the poster with the picture of the Glendoveer children. George Glendoveer’s papers lay nearby with Mrs. Glendoveer’s scrapbook, as well as the velvet jewel boxes Clara had found in the boiler room.

“You’ve been in my drawer,” said Clara.

“Yes,” she said. “And where have you been?”

There was no use lying. “I’ve been to the Lockhaven Historical Society.”

Harriet took the book from Clara’s hands and leafed through it. “Latin poetry?”

“A lady there gave this to me. It was a favorite of Frances Glendoveer’s. I left the house to find out more about
them,
” Clara said, pointing to the table.

She watched her mother sink into a chair.

“Why are you so afraid of my finding out about them? Why is Mrs. Glendoveer’s family such a secret? I want to do as you ask—always. But I don’t understand why.”

“You don’t need to understand,” said her mother. “I have your best interests at heart. You must trust me.”

“But I’ve tried, Mama. I’ve struggled.”

“You are not the only one who has struggled!” her mother said, gaining color. “With the exception of the people living in this house, I am alone in the world. Do you think I’ve chosen this life for my own selfish motives? Don’t you know that
you
are what is most precious to me?”

“I know that’s what you say,” Clara answered. “But then
I see the ways you keep me in the dark and lock me away from everyone and everything, and I—”

Clara broke off, but as her mother regarded her sternly, she felt a weight inside her shift—as if she were forcing aside something heavy. “I have to wonder if you
do
love me.”

Her mother’s eyes grew soft and round, the way a child’s might during a harsh scolding.

“Don’t say that.”

But Clara could not stop the words that were now coming in a rush. “You won’t tell me about my father, and so I am forced to wonder if you are hiding that he was a bad man. Other times, I wonder if it is
you
who are hiding from something terrible, and then I fear that I may not know you at all—”

“Clara!”

“And you tell me I’m weak, though I don’t feel it in my body. But I have to believe it because you say so! And so I do grow weak—inside. If I want truth, I have to skulk and pry to find it. Oh, Mama, don’t you see? I no longer trust or believe you. It is a horrible thing!”

Her mother stood. “Enough!” she shouted. “No more of this. We’re finished.” She pointed to Clara’s room, refusing to look her in the face.

Clara stood in the quiet, waiting for her mother to acknowledge her once more. When it became apparent that she would not, Clara turned on her heel.

“Poof,” she said, just loud enough for her mother to hear. “She disappears.”

In her room, Clara kept thinking that when she came out, her freedom would be even more stifled. She would never be left alone again, and then what would she do?

The sun’s light moved the shadows across the wall. Clara heard Ruby come in chattering, and then heard a sudden change in her voice. What would Ruby make of Clara now, knowing how deceitful she had become?

She lay back on the coverlet and did not cry. Instead, she thought of how far apart she and her mother had grown. Clara berated her mother for hiding the truth, but Clara had secrets too. Even if she hadn’t promised the Glendoveer children her silence, she could not imagine her mother believing the true identity of the birds.

Clara fell asleep and didn’t dream. When she awakened, the sun had set and the dark shape of her mother stood over her.

“Mama?”

“Yes, dear,” she said.

“How long have you been here?”

“A long time. I’ve been doing some serious thinking.” She lit the lamp, and Clara could see that her mother had been crying. She moved closer, sat on the bed, and smoothed Clara’s hair. “Now,” she said softly, “shall I tell you about your father?”

Clara sat up and pulled her knees to her chest. She guessed that Ruby had had a part in her mother’s new willingness to talk. Not wanting to miss a word, she listened intently.

Her mother took a handkerchief from her sleeve and smoothed it on her lap. “I want to start by saying he was not a bad man. That is so important for you to know.”

“I’m glad you told me,” Clara said.

“Nevan Dooley was his name. I met him when he was in the hospital down the coast. I was a nurse’s assistant, and he was a carpenter. He’d fallen from a rafter and broken his leg.”

Though she knew nothing about him yet, Clara cringed at the thought of her father being hurt. “It’s good you were there, then,” she said.

Her mother smiled vaguely. “That’s what we both thought. Nevan and I grew fond of each other. He was nothing like me, you see. He was very soft, Clara. And sweet. The type who picks a spider up on a newspaper and takes it outdoors.”

Clara had seen her mother deal rather mercilessly with spiders, and this bit of news charmed her. “You fell in love while he was in the hospital?”

Her mother looked at her hands and found she had twisted her handkerchief round and round. “I was alone, forced to work as my parents were both gone. And his own childhood had been so bleak and full of cruelty. He had run away from his father and spent his life traveling and working, never settling down.”

“What about his mother?”

“He remembered her as kind, but she died when he was five.”

“What awful luck!”

“Yes. It was awful luck all around, and we wanted to change it. We thought, why should we both be alone? We can make our own family.” She glanced at Clara. “When young and in love, we are wishful people.”

“But you did make a family for a while. That’s why I’m here.”

“Yes, that’s why. And we were happy. He was a good deal older than I was, but he was strong and a hard worker. We had a snug cottage that he repaired from the floor to the roof, and I thought that when you came, our happiness would be complete.”

Clara saw her mother falter, and she worried what might come next. “And then I came,” she said, “and what happened?”

Harriet took Clara’s hands in hers. “Nevan was excited about having a child, but it was also a strain on him. He started having dreams with odd glimpses of his past, or so he believed. Shortly after you were born, he saw an old advertisement for the Great Glendoveer’s traveling show—something tacked up in a shed somewhere. And that’s when he became convinced that, somehow, he was the missing Glendoveer baby.”