A Drowned Maiden's Hair

by Laura Amy Schlitz

  Maud tiptoed to the door. She put her hand on the knob, which turned noiselessly. The carpet under her bare feet muffled her footsteps. She found the staircase and descended to the second floor.

  The corridor was dim. It was hung with a wallpaper so dark that Maud couldn’t tell if it was purple or brown. One of the doors along the corridor was closed. Maud halted, pressing her thighs together. She was almost certain that it was the door she wanted, but she was afraid to touch the doorknob. It would be horrible if someone — Judith or the unknown Victoria — was inside and she opened the door while the older woman was using the Improvement.

  As she stood nerving herself, she heard a voice from below. It was a female voice, unfamiliar and raised in anger.

  “I never thought you would go through with it! If I had dreamed you were in earnest —”

  Maud had an impulse to run back to her bedroom and hide. She cast a look of longing at the door to the water closet.

  “Don’t be such a hypocrite! You knew perfectly well —”

  The voices quieted, almost as if the speakers sensed she might be listening. Maud could not catch the words. Then one of the voices rose again. This time she recognized it: Judith’s low-pitched, somewhat raspy voice was distinctive.

  “What is the point, if we don’t do it properly?”

  “The point is that we shouldn’t do it at all.”

  “You forget that this is not a question of what we should like or not like —”

  “I believe it is.” The response came back quickly. “For Hyacinth, I really think it is. She thinks of it as a sport.”

  Hyacinth’s voice, quick and girlish, cut in. “It was you who began it —”

  “And I repent of it —”

  The voices lowered again. Maud could not sort them out. At last she heard, “a child of that age —!” They were talking about her. She stepped close to the balustrade, leaning toward the sound.

  “— can’t believe you would subject a child —”

  “For heaven’s sake, Victoria!” It was Judith’s voice again. “Children are working in coal mines, blacking boots in the street! For that matter, the Asylum where the child was living —”

  “Where she ought to be living still —”

  “She doesn’t think so.” Hyacinth’s voice was sharp, the consonants very crisp. “Ask her. She’d rather be here, I promise you.”

  “You’d have taken her, too,” Judith argued. “I admit I was of two minds, Victoria, but the child did everything but get down on her knees to us. Of course, she’s under Hyacinth’s spell, but even so — I couldn’t have refused her, and you’re a deal more tenderhearted than I ever was. And you must admit that Hyacinth has an instinct. If she thinks the child —”

  Once again the voices fell. Maud strained to hear. She had all but forgotten her discomfort. She wondered confusedly if Victoria meant to have her thrown out in the streets or sent to work in the coal mines. If Hyacinth and Judith adopted her, could their sister throw her out?

  Victoria spoke again. “If you take her to the Cape, I will not go with you. I will not continue with this —”

  Hyacinth interrupted. She was evidently furious; her voice was lowered to a hiss. Maud could not decipher her words. A door slammed. Maud jumped. Before she knew it, she had turned the door handle and was inside the water closet. No one was there. Quickly, soundlessly, she closed the door, grateful for a place to hide.

  Later that morning, Maud spent a good ten minutes making her bed. She stroked the sheets and swatted the pillows. She dressed carefully, rolling the waistband of her petticoat so that it wouldn’t hang crookedly. She was stalling, giving the Hawthorne sisters time to make peace before she saw them again. While she was combing her hair a second time, the door opened, and a woman came in.

  Maud supposed the woman must be Victoria. She was, Maud judged, the plainest of the Hawthorne sisters. She was dumpy, though her corsets trussed her fat into tidy mounds. She wore spectacles, which made her eyes appear misty and overlarge. It was clear that her hair had once been red, and the reddish streaks amidst the gray looked peculiar. Maud made up her mind that if she ever had to be an old woman, she would have snow-white hair, like Hyacinth’s.

  “Good morning, Maud,” said the woman. She sounded surprisingly cordial. “How neatly you’ve made your bed!”

  Maud, remembering the words she had overheard, eyed her skeptically. This was the sister who thought she belonged back at the Asylum. Then she reminded herself that she was being perfectly good. She lowered her eyes modestly. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “I am Victoria Hawthorne. You may call me Aunt Victoria. I was wondering” — Victoria’s voice was a little uncertain — “if you’d like a bath before breakfast.”

  Maud felt suddenly dirty. Her eyes strayed to the mirror, where she saw a face as plain as Victoria’s own: wide bony forehead, deep-set eyes, a crooked mouth with frown shadows at the corners. She wondered if she smelled bad. She had noticed a sour reek when she pulled her dress over her head, but she hoped it was only the dress.

  “I drew the water for you. Hyacinth said you weren’t used to modern conveniences, and the boiler is a little dangerous, so I thought you might like some help —”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.” Maud trailed behind Victoria to the second floor, where she beheld the second Improvement in the Hawthorne home: the bathroom.

  It was resplendent. In fact, it was so fine, so luxurious, that Maud forgot her grievance against Victoria and her hunger for breakfast. There was a huge white tub, with lion’s paws at the corners. The water for the bath poured out of a rust-stained lion’s mouth. Victoria tipped a handful of sweet-smelling granules into the palm of her hand. “Bath salts,” she explained, and sprinkled them over the water. “Of course, it’s wrong for a child to use scent, but I thought for your first day . . . They’re only lavender.”

  Maud inhaled appreciatively. The gift of bath salts confirmed her worse suspicion — she must smell bad — but she was grateful for the treat. She waited until Victoria was gone before she stripped off her clothes, threw them on the floor, and squatted down to bathe. The water was warm, and no one had bathed in it before her. There was no one else’s scrubbed-off skin making a scum on the top of the water. Maud picked up the big sponge and squeezed water down her chest. The soap was translucent, golden as honey, and smoky sweet. Maud scrubbed until even her armpits smelled good. She emerged from the bath cleaner than she’d ever been in her life.

  Pulling on her dirty clothes was a shock. Maud shuddered like a cat in the rain, trying to touch her dress with nothing but the tips of her fingers.

  Victoria was waiting at the bottom of the stairs. “Come to breakfast,” she said, and seemed pleased when Maud said, “Yes ma’am.” At breakfast, Maud realized, she would see Hyacinth. At the thought, her pace quickened, and she tripped down the stairs so rapidly Victoria took a step backward.

  The breakfast room was nearly empty. Judith Hawthorne sat before a crumb-spotted plate, drinking a cup of tea. Beside her was a place setting of clean china. “Where’s Hyacinth?” demanded Maud.

  “Hyacinth has a sick headache,” Victoria answered.

  “Hyacinth generally has a sick headache when she hasn’t had her own way,” Judith said dryly.

  Maud looked at her uncertainly.

  Victoria pulled out a chair, indicating Maud’s place at table. “I’m afraid we weren’t quite sure what you would like for breakfast,” she said apologetically. “What did you have at the Asylum?”

  “Oatmeal,” said Maud, airing a long-held grudge.

  “Oh, dear.” Victoria surveyed the breakfast table as if it worried her. “None of us are very fond of oatmeal, I’m afraid. We generally have toast and bacon and marmalade — or jam. In the future, we could manage oatmeal, but for this morning, do you think you could eat a little toast and bacon?”

  Maud had no doubt about it. Now that food was within reach, she realized that she was ravenous. She acc
epted the toast with fingers that trembled with hunger and sawed at her bacon with such force that the knife squeaked against the plate. “I hate oatmeal,” she said around a mouthful of toast. “At the Asylum, half the time the milk was sour, and there were always lumps. We used to pick them out — the oatmeal lumps, I mean — and line them up on the table to see who had the most. I remember one time —” She recalled the beautiful day she had collected the hard, spitty lumps and hidden them in Miss Kitteridge’s muff. It occurred to her, midsentence, that this was not a good story to share with grown-ups.

  “Maud,” Judith said sternly, “don’t talk with your mouth full.”

  Maud nodded hard and resumed eating. Luckily neither of the Misses Hawthorne seemed eager for her to finish the story. She spread a second piece of toast with marmalade, which she had never tasted before and which she found very good. After devouring the toast, she dragged the bacon dish across the tablecloth, only to discover that it was empty. The Hawthorne ladies were staring at her, appalled by her table manners. Maud shrank back against her chair. “I’m sorry,” she said in a small voice.

  “You appear to be rather hungry,” remarked Judith.

  “It is more — usual,” Victoria said, “to ask to be served. We don’t, as a rule, drag the plates across the table. It wrinkles the cloth. There isn’t any more bacon, I’m afraid, but Muffet — oh, here she is! I asked Muffet to make more toast!”

  Maud’s head turned quickly. A swarthy, middle-aged woman had come into the room. She wore an apron and a printed housedress that was so short that it showed the tops of her boots. Her dark hair had been cut short like a man’s, and she had a shadowy line above her lips: a mustache. Maud stared at her, repelled.

  The woman continued to limp toward the table. A queer sound came from her closed mouth. The sound was wholly unlike anything Maud had ever heard and seemed to be connected, in some way, to the woman’s left foot. Every time the foot touched the floor, the woman uttered a cry. The noises ranged from creaking to guttural, with no two sounds alike.

  Judith took the saucer of toast and placed a slice on Maud’s plate. Victoria said, “Thank you, Muffet,” and jerked her head toward the door. The woman turned with a cry like a foghorn and stalked away.

  “What’s wrong with her?” whispered Maud, after the bulky shape had vanished from the doorway. “Why does she make those noises?”

  “She’s deaf,” Judith explained. “She can’t hear. And she can’t speak.”

  Victoria moved the marmalade to one side. “Once the knife has been used to cut the bacon, dear, it mustn’t go back in the marmalade — let me give you a little with the jam spoon. . . . I don’t know why Muffet makes those noises, but it isn’t her fault. She isn’t aware that she makes those sounds.”

  “She makes all that noise and she doesn’t know it?”

  “No, how would she? She can’t hear.”

  Maud shook her head in confusion. “Is there something the matter with her foot?”

  “I don’t know.” Victoria looked a little sad. “She’s always limped, ever since I’ve known her. There’s no way of asking her what the trouble is.”

  “If she works for you, how do you talk to her?”

  “We don’t,” answered Judith. “Muffet knows her duties. If we have to give an order, Victoria acts it out or draws a picture.”

  “I thought a deaf person would be quiet.”

  “Perhaps some are. Muffet isn’t. Come to think of it, her name isn’t Muffet. That’s just one of Hyacinth’s foolish nicknames.” Judith’s lips were tight with disapproval.

  Maud remembered how Hyacinth had dubbed her Maudy. “Why does Hyacinth call her Muffet?”

  “She’s very much afraid of spiders,” replied Victoria. “Her real name —” She stopped in mid-sentence. “Gracious, how dreadful of Hyacinth! It’s been so long since we called her anything but Muffet, I can’t remember her real name.”

  Maud wasn’t listening. Her memory had reached back in time, bringing to mind a green book with shiny pages. She saw herself, very small, curled up against her mother, while an Irish voice lilted, Along came a spider, and sat down beside her — and frightened Miss Muffet away! She had forgotten that book of nursery rhymes. Now she remembered the cow on the front, a fawn-colored cow that flew over the moon with all its hooves stuck out. One corner of the book cover had been sucked into a curve instead of a point. Samm’l had done that. Maud’s brow knotted. She didn’t want to think about Samm’l. Automatically she reached for the last piece of toast.

  “‘May I have more toast, please,’” Victoria prompted her.

  “May I have more toast, please, ma’am,” Maud echoed, in a voice that Miss Kitteridge would not have recognized.

  “Certainly.” Victoria put a little more marmalade onto her plate. Maud chewed in silence until the last crumb was gone. Then: “If Hyacinth has a headache, does that mean I can’t see her?”

  “Not cannot, may not,” corrected Victoria.

  “Does that mean —” began Maud again. Victoria and Judith were looking at her with something like pity. “I wouldn’t be noisy,” Maud promised. “I’d just say how sorry I was.”

  “She wouldn’t like that,” answered Victoria. “I’m sorry if you’re disappointed, dear, but there are times when it’s best to leave Hyacinth to herself.”

  It was not so very difficult, Maud found, to be perfectly good. During the next two days, she practiced taking small bites at the table and doing meekly what she was told. She said “yes ma’am” and “no ma’am,” and folded her clothes when she took them off. Judith showed her over the house, paying special attention to the passages that led to the back staircase. “If you hear the doorbell or any voice that isn’t familiar, you must tiptoe, quick as you can, to the back stairs. Then sit down, take off your shoes, and carry them with you. Go upstairs in your stocking feet.”

  Maud agreed to do this. With a straight face, she demonstrated how stealthy she could be. She did not ask questions. Later Victoria showed her through the third-floor rooms, most of which were empty. One large room, which had been the nursery, contained Victoria’s old dollhouse, an elaborate building almost as tall as Maud herself. To Maud’s surprise, Victoria seemed quite willing to share her dollhouse with Maud. The old woman became quite animated as she took out tiny chairs and tables and wiped them clean with her handkerchief. The dolls, Victoria explained, had all been lost, but Maud might rearrange the furniture as much as she liked. Maud thanked her dutifully. Just in time she realized it would not be tactful to say that she saw no point in moving around little bits of furniture.

  The hardest thing about Maud’s first week in her new home was that Hyacinth remained in her room. Judith and Victoria were adamant: Hyacinth was unwell, and she wished to be left alone. Maud could not see her. Maud said, “Yes, ma’am,” but her obedience was flawed. More than once, she tiptoed to the door of Hyacinth’s room and listened for sounds from within. There were none. The silence made her uneasy, as if a Hyacinth that could remain so still were somehow a different Hyacinth.

  On the third day, the boxes arrived from the department store. Maud stripped off her asylum clothes with glee. Once clad in her red wool dress, she made up her mind: Hyacinth must see her new finery. She would slip up the back stairs when she was supposed to be walking in the garden. There were three stunted daffodils by the brick wall; she would steal them and smuggle them up to Hyacinth.

  Her plan worked perfectly. She plucked the flowers, slipped indoors without anyone seeing her, and tiptoed upstairs. Without knocking, she turned the doorknob and stepped inside Hyacinth’s room.

  It was white and shining, like a palace. There were lace curtains at the windows and a lace canopy over the bed. The crystal chandelier was lit, though the day was only slightly overcast. Four mirrors, surrounded by gold cupids and rosettes, tossed the light back and forth, reflecting one another’s reflections. Hyacinth, in a pale blue bed jacket, rested against the pillows. Her finger against the sa
tin counterpane looked faintly pale and tapering as icicles. The mirrors multiplied her fingers: ten, twenty, eighty — all still.

  “Maud!” Hyacinth’s eyes flew open. She sat up and leaned forward, hands held out. “Maud, you darling child! You came to see me!”

  Maud was flooded with happiness. Judith and Victoria had been wrong. Hyacinth did want to see her. “I brung you these,” she said, losing her grammar in her eagerness. Shyly she held out the daffodils, with their mud-splashed trumpets.

  “Have you been out in the garden, then?” demanded Hyacinth, as if the garden held some incomparable treasure. “Do you like it?”

  “Yes,” lied Maud. “I’ve been missing you, though.”

  “Have you?” Hyacinth took the flowers and held them two inches from her nose. “I’ve missed you, too, but I do have such dreadful headaches — and Victoria gets cross with me because I don’t eat anything.” She waved her hand toward the untouched tray beside her bed. “I hope you don’t miss me too terribly badly.”

  “I do,” vowed Maud.

  Hyacinth laughed, and then sighed. “That’s a pity, really. I shall have to go away soon. I have a friend in Cape Calypso who is very low-spirited. She expects me to come for a visit. But never mind. You’ll soon grow fond of Judith and Victoria.”

  Maud wrinkled her nose. “I like them,” she conceded, “but they aren’t you. Can’t you take me with you?”

  “Certainly not,” reproved Hyacinth. “For one thing, you haven’t been invited, and for another, you ought to settle down here. Besides, Mrs. Lambert . . .” She broke off as if she had just lost interest in Mrs. Lambert. Her smile shone out, bright as a diamond. “What about your bedroom — do you like it? Do you like having your own room, or are you lonely, sleeping all by yourself?”