A Drowned Maiden's Hair

by Laura Amy Schlitz

  The writing of this book was made possible, in part, by a grant from the F. Parvin Sharpless Faculty and Curricular Advancement Program at The Park School in Baltimore, Maryland.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

  Copyright © 2006 by Laura Amy Schlitz

  Cover photographs: copyright © 2011 by Rubberball/Corbis (girl);

  Copyright © 2011 by Nicoolay/iStockphoto (rose border)

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.

  First electronic edition 2010

  The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

  Schlitz, Laura Amy.

  A drowned maiden’s hair : a melodrama / Laura Amy Schlitz.

  — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: At the Barbary Asylum for Female Orphans, eleven-year-old Maud is adopted by three spinster sisters moonlighting as mediums who take her home and reveal to her the role she will play in their seances.

  ISBN 978-0-7636-2930-4 (hardcover)

  [1. Orphans — Fiction. 2. Spiritualists — Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.S34714Dro 2006

  [Fic] — dc22 2006049056

  ISBN 978-0-7636-3812-2 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-0-7636-5215-9 (electronic)

  Candlewick Press

  99 Dover Street

  Somerville, Massachusetts 02144

  visit us at www.candlewick.com

  “O Mary, go and call the cattle home,

  And call the cattle home,

  Across the sands of Dee.”

  The western wind was wild and dank with foam,

  And all alone went she.

  The western tide crept up along the sand,

  And o’er and o’er the sand,

  And round and round the sand,

  As far as eye could see.

  The rolling mist came down and hid the land:

  And never home came she.

  “O is it weed, or fish, or floating hair —

  A tress of golden hair,

  A drownèd maiden’s hair

  Above the nets at sea?”

  Was never salmon yet that shone so fair

  Among the stakes of Dee.

  They row’d her in across the rolling foam,

  The cruel crawling foam,

  The cruel hungry foam,

  To her grave beside the sea.

  But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home,

  Across the sands of Dee.

  On the morning of the best day of her life, Maud Flynn was locked in the outhouse, singing “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

  She was locked in because she was being punished. The Barbary Asylum for Female Orphans was overcrowded; every room in the wide brick building was in use. There were few places where one could imprison a child who had misbehaved. The outhouse was one such place, and very suitable for the purpose, because the children hated it. Though the janitor scrubbed it clean every day, it stank; the single window was high and narrow and let in just enough light to show that there were spiders. Maud boasted that she was not afraid of spiders, but she was no happier than anyone else when she sat on the high bench, feet dangling, and wondered whether any of the itches she felt were spiders creeping over her skin.

  She finished the first verse of the song and began on the chorus. The outhouse was chilly, and singing warmed her blood. It also served to advertise — to anyone who might be passing by — that the spirit of Maud Flynn had not been broken. Maud had a hazy idea that the Battle Hymn had something to do with war and slavery. She felt that by singing it she was defying authority and striking a blow against the general awfulness of the day.

  Two maiden ladies, the Misses Hawthorne, were coming to the Barbary Asylum to adopt a little girl of eight or nine years: Maud was eleven and therefore ineligible. The three girls who might be chosen — Polly, Millicent, and Irma — had been given what Maud considered unfair privileges. They had taken hot baths the night before, though it was neither Wednesday nor Saturday, and their hair had been put up in rags for curls. The newest of the blue houndstooth uniforms had been washed, mended, and starched, so that they might appear to advantage. As a result, the three little girls were as curly, clean, and splendid as the Asylum’s scant means could make them, and they put on airs — Maud told them so — that were perfectly sickening. Maud’s hair was thin and wispy; under no circumstances would it curl.

  So Maud began the day in a frenzy of jealousy, and the proximity of the three candidates only served to inflame her further. Maud was small for her age, so small that she shared the third-grade desks with Polly, Millicent, and Irma: she had tweaked Millicent’s curls and kicked Polly when Miss Clarke was reading the morning prayer. Irma was out of reach, but Maud made herself as disagreeable as she could, glaring across the aisle and snorting when the younger girl made a mistake in arithmetic. During the history lesson, Maud disrupted the class by swinging her feet back and forth, so that the toes of her boots scraped against the floor. It was not a loud noise, but it was irritating. When Miss Clarke told her to stop, Maud gazed at the teacher with half-shut eyes and went on swinging her feet.

  That had been too much. Miss Clarke was neither cruel nor even very strict, but she could not allow a child to defy her before the whole class. She swooped down the aisle and seized Maud by the forearm. Maud’s heart pounded. She knew she had gone too far, and punishment was bound to follow. She hoped she would not cry before the others.

  When Miss Clarke took the key to the outhouse off the nail, Maud almost laughed with relief. She did not like being locked up in a dark smelly place, but she had been locked up before; she knew she could bear it. She also knew that her imprisonment would be brief. Sooner or later, some child would need to use the outhouse, and Maud would be set free. She braced herself against the yanking of Miss Clarke’s arm and raised her chin defiantly. One of the schoolroom windows looked out toward the yard. If any of the girls were watching her, they would see her go down fighting.

  All that had happened an hour ago. Maud shifted on the wooden bench and hugged her arms. Outside, it was windy; inside, it was drafty and very damp. When Maud stopped singing, she began to shiver. She wondered if the Misses Hawthorne had arrived yet and which of the girls they would choose. Probably they would take Polly; Millicent was prettier, but her father had been a drunkard; Irma, mysteriously, had never had a father at all. Maud did not understand this, but she knew that the girls’ fathers would be held against them. No doubt Polly Andrews would be chosen: Polly, it was said, came from a good family; Polly was a dutiful little girl, conscientious about her chores, and the best speller in the Asylum. Maud ground her teeth. She detested Polly. She opened her mouth and started the chorus again, letting her voice ring out like a trumpet. “Glory, glory, hallelujah —!”

  “Little girl!” chimed a voice from the other side of the outhouse door. “Little girl, why are you singing in there?”

  Maud froze. The voice was unfamiliar. The idea that a stranger was listening was somehow frightening. She stared at the crack of light that framed the door. She did not breathe.

  “Little girl,” coaxed the voice, “don’t stop! Go on with your song!”

  Maud considered the voice. It was high without being shrill, with a queer lilt of music in it. Maud, who had heard very few beautiful voices in her life, had no hesitation in judging it beautiful. After a moment, she ventured, “Who are yo
u?”

  “I’m Hyacinth,” answered the voice, clear as a bell. “Who are you?”

  Hyacinth. Maud had an idea that a hyacinth was a flower — not a common flower like a daisy or a rose, for which anyone might be named, but something more exotic. She analyzed the voice again and decided it sounded young, but grown-up. Inside her mind a picture of a young lady took shape, her hair just up: rosy cheeks and a white lacy dress and a pink parasol with fringe around the edges.

  “Who are you?” repeated the voice. “Why were you singing?”

  “I’m locked in,” said Maud.

  “But why are you locked in?”

  Maud ran through a number of possible answers and discarded them all. “It’s cold,” she stated, “and singing warms me up. That’s why I was singing.”

  She listened for an answer and heard, instead, the sound of the key in the lock. The crack of light widened, the door opened, and Maud tumbled out, blinking like an owl in the spring sunshine.

  She saw, with disappointment, that the stranger was not young at all. In fact, she was old: her hair was white, and her skin was lined. At second glance, Maud’s disappointment was less acute. The stranger was erect and dainty, like an elderly fairy. She wore a plum-colored suit made of some lustrous fabric that had a pinkish bloom to it; her waist was snow white and frothy with lace. At the collar, there was a gold brooch studded with amethysts and moonstones. Maud had an instinct for finery: the lace, the jewels, and the purplish cloth were all things to be coveted. She felt a surge of fury. She had no such things, and no chance of getting them.

  “Who locked you in?” asked the stranger. “Was it some hateful big girl?”

  Maud grimaced. She could tell from the phrase “big girl” that the stranger had made a common error. “I’m a big girl myself,” she informed the stranger. “I’m eleven.”

  “Eleven!” The lady named Hyacinth clasped her hands. “You aren’t, really!”

  Maud clenched her teeth. “I am,” she asserted, rather coldly. “I’m small for my age, that’s all.”

  The lady had stopped listening. She was staring at Maud almost fiercely, as if something had just occurred to her. “Eleven,” she repeated.

  “I am,” argued Maud. “Ask Miss Kitteridge.”

  The lady drummed one set of gloved forefingers against the back of her other hand. “And what is your name?”

  “Maud Mary Flynn,” said Maud, baffled by the way the lady flew from subject to subject.

  “And you’re eleven years old?”

  “I told you I was,” flashed back Maud.

  The lady startled her by laughing. Her laughter had the same musical quality as her voice. Halfway through the laugh, one gloved hand pinched Maud’s chin, tilting her face upward. Maud flinched, though the touch was soft. She caught a whiff of violets.

  “You sing very prettily, Maud Mary Flynn.”

  “Thank you,” said Maud, with dignity. She had always suspected that her voice was good, though no one had told her so. She glanced over her shoulder at the schoolroom window. If Miss Clarke looked out and saw her, she would be in trouble.

  “Poor child!” The strange lady had changed again; now her voice was tender, with only a faint hint of mockery. “Locked up in that nasty cold place without any coat! You ought to tell the teacher that the others locked you in.”

  “She already knows,” said Maud. Once the words were out, she wished she could take them back.

  “She knows and she didn’t stop them?”

  Maud fished for a lie but was unable, on such short notice, to find one. “She was the one who locked me in.”

  “Do you mean” — Hyacinth sounded indignant — “do you mean she locked you in there, with no coat, on purpose?”

  Maud nodded.

  “For what reason?”

  Maud stole a glance at the lady’s face. “I was swinging my legs during class. My boots made a noise against the floor.”

  “Is that all?” Hyacinth asked in disbelief. “How unjust! You poor little thing!”

  Maud felt her eyes fill with tears. She knew that her bad behavior had not been limited to swinging her feet. She knew that she had all but forced Miss Clarke to punish her. And yet — under Hyacinth’s pitying eyes — she did feel like a poor little thing. It was an intensely pleasurable feeling — close to embarrassment, and yet agreeable. Speechless with surprise, she raised her face to the Hyacinth-lady, who reached out and stroked the salt water from her eyes. The gray gloves were soft as the skin of a peach.

  “Maud Flynn!” Hyacinth bent down as if she were about to tell a secret. Her voice lowered to a thrilling whisper. “Maud Flynn, what if I were to take you away from this horrid place? What if you were to come home with me and my sister Judith and be our little girl?”

  Maud’s eyes widened. “You’re Miss Hawthorne,” she exclaimed in a whisper. “You’re the ones —” She remembered in the nick of time that the Misses Hawthorne wanted a child of eight or nine years of age, and shut her mouth.

  “Yes, I am Hyacinth Hawthorne,” agreed the stranger. “Would you like to come home with me? I promise Judith and I won’t shut you in the necessary-house. We haven’t one. Our house has all the modern improvements.”

  Maud could not speak. She clutched the hand that was offered her and followed Hyacinth Hawthorne away from the outhouse.

  The office of Miss Kitteridge, Superintendent of the Asylum, was a cramped room at the front of the brick building. Maud had been sent there whenever her behavior went beyond what Miss Clarke could tolerate, and she hated every inch of the room. She also hated Miss Kitteridge, who sat beneath an engraving of Jesus blessing the children of Judea. Under the picture was a woolen sampler, with the words “Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me” cross-stitched in red and black. When Maud was a little younger, she had thought that the caption referred to Miss Kitteridge: any child who came unto Miss Kitteridge, Maud figured, was bound to suffer.

  Miss Kitteridge was a tall woman with a yellow pompadour and a deceptive air of fragility. Maud’s eyes darted over her and settled on the other woman in the room. The other Miss Hawthorne — her sister Judith, Maud supposed — appeared twenty years older than her sister. Her face was stern and her costume sober: a rich, red-brown silk — a good dress, Maud judged, but plain.

  Miss Kitteridge sighed. Her sentences often began and ended with a sigh; she always spoke as if she were not quite strong enough to finish a whole thought. Maud was not misled by this. She knew Miss Kitteridge was not too weak to be cruel.

  “A most respectable family,” said Miss Kitteridge, as if it were a complaint. She was speaking, then, of Polly Andrews. “I think you will find —”

  “Judith,” interrupted Hyacinth, “I’ve found our little girl.”

  She spoke serenely, as if she had no idea that she was breaking into the conversation. Maud felt the same peculiar weakness in her stomach that she felt when Hyacinth called her a poor little thing. She fitted one knee behind the other and curtsied to Judith Hawthorne. She knew her dress was wrinkled and her stockings were sagging. She wished she had thought to pull them up.

  Judith Hawthorne turned to her sister. “Miss Kitteridge has been telling me that there are several little girls the right age for us —” she began, but Hyacinth interrupted a second time.

  “But there is no need to see any of them,” she parried sweetly. “This is Maud, and she will do splendidly.”

  Miss Kitteridge cleared her throat. “Maud is too old,” she said, fixing Maud with a baleful blue eye. “Maud is eleven. You specifically requested a child of eight.”

  “Maud is perfect,” contradicted Hyacinth. “Look how tiny she is, Judith. And she has a lovely singing voice.”

  Maud glanced anxiously at Judith. The older woman’s face was disapproving, though her disapproval was directed at Hyacinth rather than Maud. “Miss Kitteridge has gone to a considerable amount of trouble to prepare three other children —”

  This time it was Miss Kitteri
dge who interrupted. “The other little girls are the right age,” she said plaintively. “You wanted a younger child.”

  “That was before I met Maud,” countered Hyacinth.

  “Of course, if you’ve taken one of your fancies to Maud, there is nothing more to be said,” stated Judith, who sounded, nevertheless, as if she thought a good deal more might be said.

  Miss Kitteridge looked baffled. Maud could read her thoughts: it was beyond her wildest imaginings that anyone might take a fancy to Maud Flynn. Maud was not pretty; her manners were pert and displeasing; even her posture suggested what Miss Clarke called “sauce.” Maud almost sympathized with Miss Kitteridge: she was baffled herself.

  “Maud Flynn is not suitable,” Miss Kitteridge said. Her nostrils twitched as if she were smelling something nasty. “Even if you wanted an older child, I would not recommend her.”

  “Why not?” demanded Hyacinth.

  Maud’s heart sank.

  Miss Kitteridge did not answer at once. She straightened the papers that lay before her. Then she glanced at Maud, and the corners of her lips tightened maliciously. “Maud Flynn is a troublemaker,” she said. “She has no respect for her elders. She is conceited and untruthful.” She tapped the edges of the paper together. “She makes up boastful stories and tells them to the other girls. She shirks her share of the chores. I would like” — her voice changed from disapproving to mournful — “to state that every child in the Barbary Asylum is a credit to the institution, but I cannot speak well of Maud Flynn.”

  Maud clenched her teeth and lifted her head. She had never hated Miss Kitteridge more. She stared at the sampler, willing herself not to cry. The black crosses turned to blots.

  “You seem very certain.” It was Judith Hawthorne who spoke, and her voice was dry. Maud pricked up her ears. Something in the way those four words were spoken gave her hope. Judith Hawthorne did not like Miss Kitteridge telling her what to do.

  “Poor Maud!” said Hyacinth. She sounded amused, as if none of what Miss Kitteridge said was of any importance. “Are you really such a wicked little thing?”