The summer was brought to an early end when a strange man broke into the house. One summer Birdie and Edward went to Birchwood Manor together, intending to spend one last summer with Edward’s friends before they went to America. Mack an obscene amount of money to get her to agree to allow Birdie to work as a model for Edward.
Mack, Birdie met Edward Radcliffe, a painter, and member of the artists’ group the Magenta Brotherhood. It was not until the day she died that Birdie learned her father had not abandoned her but had been killed by a horse. Her father left her in London with a woman who made Birdie pick pockets to earn her keep. She calls herself the clockmaker’s daughter. Birdie describes her life from her earliest memories up until the point she became a spirit and was left behind in Birchwood Manor. Birdie’s story is interspersed with sections narrated by a third person narrator who describes the lives of people who have come in contact with Birdie’s spirit. This novel is structured as a frame story in which Birdie tells her story, beginning with the unfortunate circumstances that led her to be in the care of Mrs. Birdie’s spirit inhabits the house as she waits for someone to learn the truth about her and her identity as well as the real story behind the disappearance of an heirloom blue diamond, a theft for which she was blamed. The house serves as a refuge for a variety of characters bowed down by the injustice of life including one of the main characters, Albertine “Birdie” Bell, a teen girl who loses her life there. According to lore, a light can sometimes be glimpsed in the attic window of Birchwood Manor, indicating the presence of these children and symbolizing their mother’s promise of protection. Birchwood Manor is built on land said to have been blessed by a Fairy Queen after a human couple protected her children from harm. In the novel The Clockmaker’s Daughter, author Kate Morton leads her reader through nearly 200 years of the history of Birchwood Manor sharing the impacts the house, and the spirit that lives inside that house, have had on the lives of the residents.
The following version of the novel was used to create this study guide: Morton, Kate.
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