Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls

by Claire Legrand

  “So rude,” Victoria said, straightening her coat with a snap. “Maybe Mrs. Cavendish will be more polite.” She walked to the end of the street, stopping right at the Home’s gate. The gray brick wall disappeared into the woods on either side. There wasn’t a buzzer or anything.

  “How do I get in?” Victoria muttered.

  The gate clicked open.

  Victoria glared at the gate as she passed through. “It’s just the wind,” she told herself.

  The stone drive wound from the front gate through a huge, freshly cut lawn of black trees and bright white flowers and lamplight. On occasion, Victoria saw a black bench glistening with raindrops, or a rope swing hanging from a tree branch.

  “If any of those dirty orphans touch me, I’ll tell Father to give Mrs. Cavendish a citation,” she said. The thought of her father punishing people and putting things in order cheered her heart. She looked back over her shoulder and saw the gate standing open, far away, with lamps on either side like two yellow eyes.

  The Home was gray brick like the wall, three stories tall, and slender from back to front but wide from side to side, with a black roof and black trim and great columns along the porch. Behind the Home, Victoria saw two small cottages and towering tangled gardens. Rows of windows spilled soft light onto the grass.

  Victoria knocked on the front door with a huge brass knocker shaped like a rose. No one answered. She sighed and crossed her arms.

  “If one more person doesn’t answer their door for me . . . ,” said Victoria.

  “Looking for someone?”

  Victoria whirled to see Mr. Alice at the bottom of the front steps. He held a hoe this time.

  “I wanted to speak with Mrs. Cavendish,” said Victoria.

  Mr. Alice smiled. “Of course. Right this way.”

  He led Victoria around the house, up a smaller set of steps to a door with an awning over it. A paper doll hung in the window and swung happily as Mr. Alice opened the door.

  “Someone wants to see you, Mrs. Cavendish,” said Mr. Alice. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “Of course not,” said a woman at the stove, her voice soft and kind and clear. She was stirring something in a shiny metal pot. It smelled so delicious that Victoria’s mouth started watering.

  “Hello, Mrs. Cavendish,” said Victoria, stepping into the clean, white kitchen. “I’m—”

  “—Victoria,” said Mrs. Cavendish, setting down her spoon and turning around. “Of course. I know you.”

  “You do?” said Victoria, staring, for Mrs. Cavendish was really quite pretty and not at all what Victoria had expected. She had dark brown hair that curled at her chin and bright blue eyes and red lips.

  Mrs. Cavendish smiled. “I make a point of knowing all the children in the area. Professional interest, you know.”

  Victoria remembered when Mr. Alice had said exactly that. “Oh. Right.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Well,” said Victoria, but she couldn’t find her words. The delicious smell of supper, Mrs. Cavendish’s lovely smile, and the warmth of the kitchen made her sleepy and fuzzy. She frowned. “I don’t remember. Hold on.”

  “Perhaps you’d like a candy while you think?” said Mrs. Cavendish. She opened a jar of yellow candies by the stove, pulled out two, and folded them into Victoria’s hand. Her fingers were warm. “They’re butterscotch. My own special recipe.”

  Victoria popped one in her mouth. It immediately began to melt, thick and warmly sweet on her tongue.

  She popped the other in her mouth too.

  The texture was chewier than butterscotch usually was. And juicier.

  Laughter drew her attention through the kitchen door to the hallway beyond. She heard children running and saw vague shapes that she couldn’t quite get a fix on. A paper plane floated through the door and landed at Victoria’s feet.

  Mrs. Cavendish picked it up and put it on the counter. “Can I get you anything else? I’d invite you to stay for supper, but we have so many mouths to feed here.”

  Mrs. Cavendish smiled. “I make a point of knowing all the children in the area.

  Professional interest, you know.”

  Victoria blinked, struggling to remember why she had come. “No, I think I’m all right. I should go. I’m sorry I bothered you.”

  “Such pretty curls,” said Mrs. Cavendish. She came closer to Victoria and pet her hair with long, warm fingers. “You’re a good girl, aren’t you, Victoria? You always do as you’re told.”

  Victoria couldn’t look away from Mrs. Cavendish’s kind blue eyes. They drew her in like jewels. “I like to be the best.”

  “Yes, of course.” Mrs. Cavendish smiled. “And the best way to do that is to do just as you’re supposed to. Right?”

  “Yes. I’ve always thought so.”

  “Your parents love you very much, Victoria.” Her stroking fingers sent warm, curling rushes down Victoria’s back.

  Victoria thought about that. Love was not something she and her parents ever talked about, but it seemed the proper thing to say. “Yes, and I love them.”

  “Such a good girl. Now run along home.” Mrs. Cavendish went to the cupboards on the far wall to get some jars. “We’re about to eat supper. Mr. Alice, if you would?”

  Mr. Alice took his hoe and walked down the hall toward the laughter.

  As Victoria turned to leave, she saw the paper plane on the counter. The sight of it woke her up a bit, like snapping out of a half dream right before falling asleep. She checked to make sure no one was looking, grabbed the plane, and stuffed it in her skirt pocket.

  “Thank you for the candy,” she said over her shoulder, hurrying outside.

  Once out of the Home’s light, she ran toward the gate as fast as she could, staying in the trees to muffle her footsteps.

  Ahead of her, the gate seemed to be closing, but it was probably a trick of the wind. Victoria ran faster and managed to get out before the gate clicked shut. The storm chased her home.

  Beatrice met her in the foyer.

  “You’re late for supper,” Beatrice said. She seemed terrified as she took Victoria’s coat and helped her out of her muddy shoes. “Go change and clean yourself up.”

  “Is that Victoria?” said Mr. Wright, from the dining room.

  Victoria raced upstairs. Once alone in her bedroom, she pulled out the paper plane and unfolded it.

  Thick red letters scrawled across the paper read:

  HELP US.

  AT SUPPER THAT NIGHT, VICTORIA TRIED TO explain to her parents why she had been late.

  “I told you, I was taking Mr. Tibbalt’s dog home,” she said, over and over. “He got out.” But her parents didn’t seem to believe her. It was a silent dinner. When Beatrice refilled their drinks, the clinking ice cubes were the only sounds in the dining room. Every now and then, Mrs. Wright would pat her lips with her napkin. Mr. Wright cut his meat into squares. Neither of them looked at their daughter.

  Victoria went to bed early, claiming that her head hurt. She shut herself away in her room and turned off all her lights. Her academic report still lay on the floor. Distracted, she put it on her desk so she would remember to get her parents’ signatures on Monday morning.

  She put on her pajamas and got into bed. Then she pulled out the crumpled paper plane from beneath her pillow. She unfolded it and read the words by the light of the storming moon:

  HELP US.

  Help who? And from what? Was there something in the Home that the orphans didn’t like? It could have been a joke, she supposed—but thinking that didn’t get rid of the uneasy feeling in her belly. And there was still the question of where Lawrence had gone. She could not—would not—believe that nonsense about him visiting his grandmother. No, Lawrence was somewhere else and could quite possibly need her help too. The only problem was, she had no idea where to start searching for him. He could be anywhere, he could be hidden away. She stared at the note in her hands. Someone had flown it into Mrs. Cavendish’s kit
chen so that Victoria would see it. Someone wanted her to help. And maybe helping whoever “us” was would lead her closer to Lawrence.

  As quietly as possible, Victoria found the key in her MISCELLANEOUS box and hid the paper in the drawer with the keyhole. Then she put the key at the very bottom of not the MISCELLANEOUS box but the PENS box. Ignoring the boxes’ labels went against all her principles, but she couldn’t risk her parents finding that paper, although she couldn’t have said why, exactly.

  She climbed back into bed, lay down, and folded her hands over her stomach. As the storm rumbled outside, never quite beginning, Victoria thought about everything that had happened till she fell asleep with a frown on her face.

  In the morning, as she did every morning, Victoria awoke with a plan.

  This time, however, it was a different sort of plan from her usual ones.

  It was a plan of investigation.

  It was also a plan of deception.

  Victoria swallowed down her fear as she wrote the note to her parents:

  Dear Mother and Father,

  I’m sorry for the short notice, but I have to miss ballet class today, and I also won’t make lunch. I’ve got to work on a paper for my History of the World class. Professor Alban expects ten pages, but I want to turn in twenty and really impress everyone. I need to go to the library. So that’s where I’m going. I’ll be home for supper.

  Sincerely,

  Victoria

  The house was quiet when Victoria crept downstairs at eight o’clock, which was unusual because Mrs. Wright got up early on Saturdays to drink her diet drinks and do her stretches before brunch. Victoria was used to coming downstairs on Saturdays and seeing her mother all twisted up in knots in the exercise room.

  But this Saturday, Victoria could hear her toes curl in her shoes, the silence was so complete. Her parents’ bedroom door stood closed. The air thrilled between night and day, between bad things and good things. Victoria hated that feeling, and any between feelings, for that matter. Things should be one or the other, not somewhere in the middle, and lately, everything was very in the middle. For example, Victoria felt like she could hear the walls holding their breath, watching her. It was a ridiculous, very in the middle sensation.

  Her skin broke out in goose bumps. Victoria glared at them. “Stop that,” she told her arms, and marched outside.

  Outside, the streets glistened. Storm clouds sat fat, black, and heavy all along the sickly yellow sky. Victoria wondered if they would ever break or if they would just keep spitting bits of rain forever when no one was looking. She tightened her grip on the umbrella beneath her raincoat and tried not to think about how it felt like the trees were watching her.

  Town Square on a Saturday morning was a glorious place. Everywhere whirled shining silver cars, gliding doors, trickling fountains, and stylishly dressed Bellevillians clicking their heels and flashing their smiles at everyone in crisscrosses between shops, salons, and banks. Everything smelled of clean, crisp money.

  Victoria breathed easier once the crowds pulled her into their clockwork. In the midst of these gleaming, happy people, there were no strange men with rakes, missing Lawrences, or bowls of bugs. She heard whispers about how “well, you know, rather large,” so-and-so had gotten, about losing this-many pounds, surgeries for wrinkles and unfortunate spots, and catalogs of pretty things to help get one’s life in order.

  In order.

  It was a beautiful word.

  Victoria smiled and walked with renewed purpose, her shoes clicking up the marble steps of the library. This is how things are supposed to be, she thought.

  “Well, then. Hello, Victoria,” said Mr. Waxman, the librarian. He stepped in front of her and blocked her way with a wide, white smile. “What can we do for you today?”

  Victoria paused to think because for some reason she couldn’t quite remember why she was here. The shiny gear-turns of Town Square had, for a moment, made her forget why she had come. After all, how could anything be wrong in the midst of all that gleaming perfection?

  “Well, I’m—” Victoria started to say, but then she saw how Mr. Waxman looked rather like the Prewitts, with their bright, frozen eyes and that too-happy smile. The realization woke Victoria out of her Town Square trance. A rush of cold swept around her, even though the library doors had closed.

  In a flash, she remembered the red, scrawled words: “Help us.” In another flash, she saw Lawrence’s yawning, gray-eyed face. He would be yawning, so early on a Saturday.

  Yes. Yes, that’s why she had come here. A note like that required investigation. It was a very between sort of note. A missing friend also required investigation. And there was no better place to begin an investigation than the library. It was all about order and answers and things filed in labeled boxes; it was the farthest thing from between.

  “I’ve just come to do research for a school paper,” Victoria said at last. Her heart jumped to hear the lie. She wasn’t used to this business of lying to grown-ups. Children who won trophies and made the honor roll did not lie to grown-ups.

  Mr. Waxman’s face relaxed a tiny bit. “Well. Well, I suppose that’s fine, isn’t it? How responsible of you.”

  He stepped out of the way, his eyes bright and still. He licked his lips.

  “Just as long as you don’t take anything that isn’t yours,” Mr. Waxman said as Victoria walked away. “We have to behave, don’t we?”

  Victoria smiled politely and walked away as fast as she could without seeming suspicious. Her heart turned frantic somersaults, the happiness she’d felt outside long gone. Mr. Waxman’s eyes followed her into the stacks of books, just as the Academy professors’ eyes had watched Lawrence.

  “Calm down, Victoria,” she said to herself. “You’re just seeing things.”

  She poked around in the reference section, pretending to look through encyclopedias. After a half hour, she decided it was safe to move.

  What she really wanted was in the Records Room— newspapers. They seemed the most logical place to start an investigation.

  Victoria crept across the first floor. She stopped here and there to flip through books and scribble things in her notebook. The library seemed too quiet even for a library. Sharp, invisible sensations, like reaching fingers, scratched at Victoria’s heels. She tried to hold her head high as she walked, but she felt like all the books had eyes and would report on her to Mr. Waxman.

  Finally, she reached the Records Room. She slipped in and closed the door. The room was empty, small, cold, and dim. She looked back over her shoulder, through the frosted window of the door. Beyond it, the library shone white.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she reminded herself, tugging her raincoat straight. She found a computer in the corner and sat down, refusing to hide behind it like part of her wanted to. She took out her notebook and typed in respectable research topics like “Aborigines” and “the Declaration of Independence” and “zoology.”

  “Just in case,” she murmured. “One can’t be too careful.”

  Then, looking around once more just to check, she searched for the Belleville Bulletin. It was an old newspaper because Belleville was an old town.

  Victoria paused, her fingers hovering above the keyboard. She wasn’t really sure what she was looking for, exactly. Usually when she came to the library, it was for an assignment, with a checklist of items to complete. But this time, it was different; this time, she didn’t quite know what the assignment was.

  Think, Victoria, she scolded herself, and she did, combing over her memories of the last few days:

  1 Orphanages that employed strange, bulging-skinned men with rakes.

  2 People who smiled so wide and perfect it was like they were ready to pop out of their skins.

  3 Roaches with ten legs that stung you.

  4 Missing children.

  Ah.

  Victoria started with the latest issue and searched for missing children. She found a lot of things, sadly, because sometimes the Bulleti
n ran stories from other, bigger newspapers. But she didn’t see anything about Lawrence, Jacqueline Hennessey, or Donovan O’Flaherty. And she found nothing about strange roaches or perfect smiles, except for an advertisement for the Prewitts’ dental practice, which made her shiver and frown and hunch over the keyboard with renewed determination.

  She also searched for the Cavendish Home for Boys and Girls, and Mrs. Cavendish herself.

  “What’s her first name?” Victoria wondered aloud, but she didn’t know. The more she thought about it, the more she realized how very little she knew about the Cavendish Home. It had been there forever, and yet Victoria couldn’t recall anyone in town ever talking about it, which seemed stranger and stranger the more she thought about it. Orphans were children without parents, and wouldn’t people talk about Belleville parents dying and their children being sent to the Home? Wouldn’t people be shocked and upset, and perhaps visit the children with flowers and candy and condolences? And did these orphans all come from Belleville, or did Mrs. Cavendish bring in children from Grandville and Uptown and the poor towns in between?

  Victoria shook her head. She did not know the answers to these questions. She had never even thought to wonder these questions before. And isn’t that odd, Victoria? she asked herself. Isn’t it odd that you wouldn’t wonder?

  What Victoria did know, however, was that when she had stood in Mrs. Cavendish’s kitchen, in the warmth of the cooking stew, with the orphans laughing just down the hall, she’d forgotten why she went there in the first place. It was almost like a spell from the fairy stories Victoria had always thought so silly. In that kitchen, Mrs. Cavendish was all Victoria knew—till she found the paper plane that held the message “Help us.”

  The Bulletin didn’t include many things about the Home, other than a few blurbs about festivals, tours, and generous donations from Mrs. Cavendish to the library, the Academy, and the hospital.

  Victoria frowned. “Well, that’s nice of her,” she said. She remembered Mrs. Cavendish’s pretty face, clean dress, and red lips. The memory made her smile before she could stop herself, only the smile didn’t seem like her own. It felt like someone had hands on her face, forcing her lips gently back.