Chapter 7
CHAPTER
TARRYTOWN
Elsa and Ivy had not spotted the Eurasian eagle-owl in Central Park over the weekend, but arriving at Elmhurst this morning at dawn rewarded her with sightings of migrating waterfowl on the Hudson. She also found Tatiana on her knees in the Italianate garden.
“Why, Elsa!” The gardener wiped her hands on a kerchief. “I didn’t expect to see you this time of day.”
Elsa smiled. “I figured I’d get an early start, but I should have accounted for the fact that the mansion would still be locked. Between you and me, I’m delighted to have a good reason to simply enjoy the morning for a bit.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re locked out, if only for a chance for a quick visit. You don’t mind if I keep planting these bulbs?”
“Not at all. You’re getting the bed ready for spring?” Elsa hoped that meant she’d still be here next year.
“I normally save this task for next month, but since I have no idea where Danielle and I will be by then, I thought I might give it a try early. If it doesn’t work, I won’t be around next spring to know it.
If it does, whoever is here will enjoy them.
” A sad smile curved her lips. “Truth is, I’m plain restless.
And right now I’d rather plant something than rip out weeds.
There’s something so hopeful about sowing for the next season, isn’t there? ”
Elsa understood that, even though she’d never been a gardener herself.
While Tatiana dug holes and planted the bulbs, they spoke of nature’s seasons, of dormancy and promise, of bird migrations, and of finding a home.
“Speaking of which, have you been able to speak to anyone from the county yet?” Elsa asked.
“About staying on after the ownership of the estate transfers?”
“Not yet.” The older woman sighed. “I did send a letter to the executor of Mrs. Van Tessel’s will, though. My hope is that he’ll be able to tell me our home is safe, as per her wishes, regardless of what Mr. Spalding does with his inheritance.”
“That’s a good place to start,” Elsa agreed. “Please let me know what you learn from him, won’t you?”
Tatiana told her she would.
The sun peeked above the trees, turning the river into a golden mirror, and Elsa returned to the house.
By a quarter past ten, Elsa had been extracting data from field notebooks in the dining hall for more than three hours. It was time to move her legs, even if just a little. So she climbed the stairs and headed for Birdie’s bedchamber to search the dressing room for more field notebooks.
If she learned more about Sarah in the process, well, she couldn’t help that.
The dressing room walls were covered with framed portraits of a baby, similar to the sketches she’d found in Birdie’s diary.
The bottom drawer of the bureau held a stack of watercolors that were matted but unframed.
Some depicted the baby featured in the framed portraits, but others showed a toddler or a child, always with her face turned away from the artist. Elsa wondered if these were true representations of Sarah, too, or if they’d been painted only from Birdie’s imagination.
Fighting a sense of melancholy, Elsa shut them all back into the drawer and stood. Hatboxes lined a shelf that ran the perimeter of the dressing room. Standing on the tips of her toes, she reached up and pulled down an out-of-place object. The blue macaw made her heart skip a beat.
As much as she wished she had seen Zeus on Saturday, this find was even more rare.
No wonder she hadn’t seen it before. The Cyanopsitta spixii appeared to have been mounted on a grapevine encircling one of the four bed posts, but the vine had broken, with a portion still clutched in the bird’s feet.
Holding that piece of vine, she carried it back into the bedroom and brought it to the light spilling through the window.
Commonly called a Spix’s macaw, this grey-headed blue parrot from Brazil was one of the rarest birds in the world.
The museum didn’t have a specimen yet. Hardly any institutions did.
When German naturalist Johann Baptist von Spix discovered it in 1819, he noted its rarity, then promptly shot it and brought it home to Munich.
The beautiful bird had only become rarer since then, a coveted status symbol among collectors who paid tens of thousands of dollars for a single specimen.
Mr. Chapman and the rest of the ornithology department would jump for joy at this acquisition. This was one bird she wouldn’t wait to bring back to the museum. She didn’t want to risk anyone taking or accidentally damaging it.
“Oh! Kittens! I didn’t see you there!” A wide-eyed teenager stood in the doorway to the bedchamber, a delicate hand to her chest. Blond hair was piled on her head and secured with a beaded green headband that matched her drop-waist dress.
Elsa smiled at her. “I’m sorry if I’ve startled you. You must be Mr. Spalding’s daughter? I’m Elsa Reisner, here to collect the birds for the American Museum of Natural History. I’m very sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you. Father told us you’d be here. I’m Jane. Pleased to meet you. I meant to come up over the weekend, but other plans got in the way.”
“Right. I heard your father tell a cousin named Hugh he could return on Saturday to look through everything.”
“Oh yes, he was here. I understand from my brother, Wesley, there was quite a row between him and my father, but that doesn’t surprise me.
They’ve never gotten along. And now Father is busy, and so is Granny, and I simply don’t concern myself with Hugh’s whereabouts whatsoever.
So I came up with Wesley. My driver is here, too, of course.
He’s packing up the china on my mother’s orders.
” She drifted to the jewelry box and swirled a finger through the contents.
“How nice. I always thought I’d like to have an older brother,” Elsa offered.
“Oh, honey, this one’s no treat.” Jane tried on a ring.
“I mean, he’s twenty-seven, so ten years older than me.
We didn’t have many years together before he moved out.
He does enjoy rebelling against our father, though, and that is entertaining to watch.
” Giggling, she took off the ring and held an earbob to her ear, admiring the effect in the mirror. “That’s him now. You hear him?”
Elsa cocked an ear toward the door, listening. “The piano music? It’s lovely!”
“That’s what he thinks.” Jane laughed easily.
“He composed it himself when he was a student at Juilliard—although it had a different name back then. The Institute for Musical Art, I think. At any rate, he paid a piano tuner extra to come out over the weekend, and now playing it is all he wants to do while he’s here.
He’s found his treasure. I’m still looking.
” Dropping the earbobs in the jewelry box, she spun around and faced Elsa.
“Am I talking too much? Mother says I do, but I like you, Elsa. I make a point of making friends everywhere I go. It livens things up so much. Don’t you think? ”
“One can never have too many friends,” Elsa replied. “Although I’m afraid I’ll be quite a bore while I’m here, since my time is to be spent cataloging the birds.”
She brightened at the mention of birds. “My father says the aviary is missing. I didn’t think anything of it when I heard it mentioned at the reading of the will, but Father says it’s very valuable, which surprised me since it was left to the gardener’s daughter.
Are you looking for that, too? Is that what you were doing in here? ” Her eyes narrowed by a few degrees.
“I’m keeping an eye out for it, but my main priority is the work for the museum.” Elsa lifted the Spix’s macaw as evidence. With a few more words, she excused herself.
Cradling the macaw in one arm, Elsa used the railing as she made her way down the steps and followed the sound of that beautiful piano music. She’d rather meet the young Mr. Spalding now before she resettled into a new groove with her work. When she entered the music room, the melody dropped away.
A young man looked up from where he sat on the piano bench. Smoothing his shoulder-length brown hair behind his ears, he stood and half bowed in her direction. “Elsa Reisner, I presume. I’m Wesley Spalding.”
She came forward and introduced herself, though he seemed to already know why she was here. “I’ve just met Jane. She tells me you went to Juilliard. You’re a composer?”
He withdrew a lighter and pack of Chesterfields from a khaki suit jacket draped over a chair. “That’s right.” He lit the cigarette and inhaled.
Shifting the macaw in her arm, she took a step back from the smoke. Maybe it would blow out the window without irritating her overly sensitive lungs.
“But since that has failed to generate a respectable income,” Wesley continued, “I’ve gone back to school for a second go. I’m studying economics now at Columbia.” He took another drag on the Chesterfield.
“Oh! That’s quite rare to have an affinity for two such wide-ranging subjects.”
Wesley laughed through his nose, and smoke puffed from his nostrils. “Don’t be fooled. My one talent is piano. The only reason I’m pursuing economics is so I can afford my rent.”
“I see. I’m sure it will be a comfort to have this piano, though.” Smoke caught in her throat, and she cleared it. Wary of staying much longer, she let him know she’d be working mostly in the dining hall for now and took her leave.
Wesley’s music followed Elsa to the dining hall.
She would wrap and pack the Spix’s macaw into her satchel later, but for now she couldn’t resist keeping it visible.
It rested on the table near her while she worked on transcribing notes from another of Linus’s field notebooks into her own neat chart.
Because she’d been bringing his notebooks home to work on in the evenings, too, she felt near the end of this stage.
Unless more notebooks could be found, there remained just one more to examine.