A Drowned Maiden's Hair

by Laura Amy Schlitz

  Maud felt her throat tighten. “I’m not Mary,” she croaked. “That isn’t my real name. I lied to you before.”

  A faint frown appeared between Mrs. Lambert’s brows. “Never mind. We’ll worry about that later. Let me look at you. Poor lamb, you’re dreadfully cut and bruised! And there are splinters that ought to come out. Perhaps you should see a doctor. Dr. Knowles will be here this mo —”

  “I need to see Muffet,” Maud broke in. “Our hired girl. The deaf woman,” she added, wanting to stop Mrs. Lambert before she said anything else that was nice.

  Mrs. Lambert brightened. “Then you’re Maud! Oh, now I see! Anna wrote your name — she even drew me a picture — but of course I didn’t know —”

  “Who’s Anna?” asked Rory.

  “Anna. The Hawthornes’ deaf servant,” explained Mrs. Lambert. “They call her Muffet, but she wrote down that her name was Anna. She’s been greatly distressed — she thinks the child died in the fire.” She held out her hands to Rory. “Thank you for bringing Maud here. You will excuse us, won’t you? I must take her to Anna at once.”

  Maud didn’t hear Rory’s answer. Mrs. Lambert had captured her hand and was whisking her back through the lobby, up the grand staircase. Heads turned and voices murmured, but Mrs. Lambert paid no attention. Maud had to trot to keep up with her.

  “Anna suffered a bad fracture,” Mrs. Lambert said in a low voice. “The doctor said both bones in her right leg must have been broken at one time and never set properly — perhaps never set at all. When she tried to go back into the building last night, one of the firemen seized her. She struggled with him on the stairs, and the bone just snapped. The pain must have been dreadful — she fainted — so you must be very careful not to jolt her.”

  They had come to a pair of double doors. Mrs. Lambert turned the key in the lock and led Maud inside.

  Maud had a brief impression of a vestibule, smaller than the great lobby downstairs but decorated in the same style. There were painted cupids on the ceiling and columned archways leading to different rooms. Mrs. Lambert led her into a room that overlooked the ocean.

  Muffet lay asleep, covered with a sheet. Her eyes were deeply shadowed, the eyelids reddened from weeping. Maud could see that her right leg was encased in some contraption that kept it immobile. She felt suddenly frightened. She didn’t want Muffet to look like that — so shrunken and sad, with that cruel-looking thing on her leg.

  Mrs. Lambert took Muffet’s hand. She rubbed Muffet’s palm between her fingers and thumb. “Anna,” she said urgently. “It’s good news. Wake up.”

  Muffet blinked. Her eyes went past Mrs. Lambert to Maud. Her sleep-stiffened face underwent a change: every feature lifted and blossomed with joy. She held out her arms, whimpering like a wounded dog.

  Maud forgot about not jolting the bed. She ran into Muffet’s arms and Muffet caught her. The hired woman emitted a squeal of anguish but didn’t let go. She dragged Maud into her lap, squeezing so hard that Maud cried out with pain as well as happiness.

  Maud shut her eyes and burrowed into Muffet’s nightgown. She gave herself up to the comfort of being rocked and held. Tears stole out from under her eyelids, but she wasn’t ashamed. Muffet wouldn’t laugh at her. Maud nestled closer, drawing in the warm kitchen smell that was distinctly Muffet’s. She wanted to stay there forever.

  But she did have to breathe. Reluctantly she lifted her face. Muffet was beaming. Mrs. Lambert had stepped away and stood in the door frame, watching them with misty eyes.

  Muffet stuck out her hand imperiously. It was Mrs. Lambert who read her intention and stepped forward to give Muffet pencil and paper. Maud watched as the hired woman scrawled MAUD IN FIRE.

  Maud nodded vehemently. She took the tablet and drew the steps. She drew herself climbing them, with wavy lines to indicate smoke. She wrote MAUD GO SEE MU ANNA IN FIRE. “I tried to find you,” she said earnestly, hoping that Muffet would be able to read the truth in her eyes. “When the fire came, I tried to find you, but you weren’t in the house.”

  Muffet fingered Maud’s torn dress. She sniffed loudly. You smell of smoke. She examined Maud critically, running her fingers over every scraped patch of skin, every scab and splinter. Maud waited for the diagnosis. When Muffet finished, she nodded, and though the nod was grim, Maud relaxed. It’s not so bad. You’ll live.

  The hired woman took up her pencil. She sketched two small pictures: one of Maud in a bathtub, and the other of Maud sitting before a plate, spoon in hand. She wrote, MAUD GO IN BATHTUB. MAUD EAT. — and passed the tablet to Mrs. Lambert.

  Mrs. Lambert laughed. “Very well, Anna. I’ll manage it. You sleep.” She pillowed her head on her arms, raising her eyebrows to emphasize the command. She reached for Maud’s hand. “Come. I’ll look after you. She really must sleep. The doctor gave her a sleeping draft last night, but she was so distraught, it did very little good. We didn’t understand.” A faint line appeared between her brows. “None of us understood why she was so upset. Of course, the others didn’t know you were in the house.”

  They had come back to the vestibule. Maud pulled her hand out of Mrs. Lambert’s. She glanced at the other archways. Any minute now, Hyacinth and Judith might appear and swoop down on her like a pair of harpies. She cleared her throat. “They knew I was in the house.”

  Mrs. Lambert shook her head. “No. They couldn’t have. Why, I was there when the fireman asked. He asked if there was anyone in the house, and Hyacinth —” Her voice trailed off. Maud saw the dawning horror in her face.

  “Hyacinth knew,” Maud said in a muffled voice. “She left me there.”

  “Left you —? That’s impossible! No one would — Where were you?”

  “In the map cupboard. That’s what we call the place inside the mantel — the fireplace in the parlor’s hollow. I was hiding.” Maud averted her eyes. “Mrs. Lambert,” she confessed, “I was Caroline.”

  “Caroline?” The whisper hung in the air like a ghost. Mrs. Lambert touched her fingers to her lips. Her face was white.

  Maud swallowed. For the past six months it had been drummed into her that any indiscretion on her part would result in Mrs. Lambert’s understanding the plot against her. The minute Mrs. Lambert knew of Maud’s existence, she would spring to the conclusion that it was Maud who was impersonating her dead child. But Mrs. Lambert had suspected nothing. Maud was going to have to explain the whole thing. In the midst of remorse and fear, Maud felt a pang of regret for what she was about to forfeit: the hot bath, the good food, and Mrs. Lambert’s coddling.

  “Rory says I have to tell you the truth. Mrs. Lambert, I was Caroline in the séances. Hyacinth taught me how to be her.”

  “You?” Mrs. Lambert stared as if Maud were the most appalling creature she had ever seen. “Then — it wasn’t true? Caroline never spoke to me? It was all a lie?” Her whole body swayed and sagged, as if she were a marionette and her strings had been cut. She fell to her knees. “Oh, dear God!”

  “I’m sorry,” Maud said inadequately. “I wish I hadn’t.” She wanted to put her arms around the grieving woman, but she didn’t dare. “Mrs. Lambert, I’m really, really sorry. I’ve never been so sorry in my life. Please don’t —” She looked at the ceiling, desperate to find words that would make things better. The painted cupids went on scattering rose petals. “Mrs. Lambert,” she went on awkwardly, “you shouldn’t have offered all that money to see your daughter after she was dead. Someone was bound to try to trick you —” Her voice died away. Whatever the right thing to say was, it wasn’t that.

  “Are you saying this is my fault?” Mrs. Lambert glared through her tears. “Are you saying it’s my fault that people like you prey upon me — offer me comfort and then snatch it away? Oh, God!” She covered her face and curled forward, weeping.

  Maud hunkered down beside her. She was reminded of the evening on the shore, when they knelt together to make the sand crocodile. With all her heart, she wished she had told the truth then. She spoke again,
without thinking. “Mrs. Lambert, what did you say that day?”

  Mrs. Lambert uncovered her face. “That day?”

  “The day Caroline drowned.”

  Mrs. Lambert swallowed. To Maud’s surprise, she answered, speaking in a hoarse and hurried whisper, as if this were her only chance to be rid of the thing that haunted her. “That morning, I — I wanted to pack. We were about to go home. It was the fifteenth — the seventeenth was Caroline’s birthday. I had a surprise party planned for her, but there was still so much to do.”

  Maud waited.

  Mrs. Lambert wiped the tears from her face. “I wanted Caroline — to help me pack — just her little things — but she wanted to go to the ocean one last time. And she wanted to ride the merry-go-round. She wouldn’t help and she teased me so. I have — a dreadful temper. People don’t expect it, because I’m patient — most of the time. But that day I lost my temper and I told her to go. I emptied my purse and let the coins fall to the floor and told her to take them. I told her” — her voice sank — “that I would be better off without her. I only meant the packing!” Her eyes were dazed with pain. “I meant I would be better off packing!”

  Some instinct told Maud to answer matter-of-factly. “She prob’ly knew that,” she commented. After a moment, she ventured, “She prob’ly knew she was making you mad, too. When I make people mad, I always know.”

  “Oh, she knew.” Mrs. Lambert’s mouth twisted. “She knew. I made her promise she wouldn’t go into the water — only to the carousel — but when she was at the door, she taunted me. She tossed my purse into the air and caught it and said, ‘For once, I’m going to ride as long as I want! And you can’t stop me!’ And I said, ‘I don’t want to stop you. It’s worth the money to get rid of you. Go!’”

  She put her hands back over her face.

  Maud said cautiously. “Is that all?”

  Mrs. Lambert gave a hysterical little laugh. “Yes, that’s all. I told my child I would be better off without her. I told her I wanted to be rid of her — and she granted my wish. She drowned. Isn’t that enough?”

  Maud hesitated. “Mrs. Lambert, I really am sorry.” She twisted her fingers. “I know you feel bad, but why do you keep doing this?”

  “Doing what?”

  “This.” Maud waved her hands back and forth, as if to indicate Mrs. Lambert’s weeping, her abject position on the carpet. “I don’t know what you call it, but you’re making yourself feel worse. I don’t think Caroline would like it.”

  At the sound of her daughter’s name, Mrs. Lambert went rigid. She drew herself up, resuming her height, her status as an adult, her position in the world. “What do you know about Caroline?”

  Maud quailed. All at once she saw what Caroline had been up against. Mrs. Lambert was sweet and generous and slow to anger, but once roused, she was iron and ice. Maud mirrored the woman’s actions. She got to her feet and braced herself.

  “I know a lot about Caroline. Hyacinth made me learn about her. She made me memorize a whole list about Caroline — and I pretended to be her — and I dreamed about her almost every night. That’s how I knew she walked on the jetty.” She broke off, confused. Had she dreamed that Caroline fell from the jetty? Or was it she who fell? Fragments of her dreams surfaced and scattered like sea foam on the shore. It was no longer clear what she had dreamed and what she had imagined.

  “I believed that,” Mrs. Lambert said in a low voice. “It helped me to believe that. I wanted to think her death was an accident — that she didn’t kill herself because of what I said.”

  “Her death was an accident,” Maud shot back. “Caroline wasn’t the sort of silly fool who’d kill herself because her mother was mad at her. She wouldn’t! Even if she felt bad when she left you, she’d have cheered up when she rode the merry-go-round. You can’t be unhappy on the merry-go-round.”

  A flicker of surprise passed over Mrs. Lambert’s face. Maud had raised an argument that had not occurred to her. Sensing her advantage, Maud pressed on. “Anyway, she told me she didn’t die on purpose.”

  It was a mistake. “She told you?” Mrs. Lambert flung back. “Are you trying to make me think you’re a medium after all? That it wasn’t all a fraud — that you weren’t trying to cheat me out of my money?”

  “No. I —” Maud paused a minute. “We —” She tried to find some justification for what she had done. “It’s the family business,” she stammered. “That’s what Hyacinth taught me. There’s a mortgage on the house in Hawthorne Grove, which means we might lose it — even Aunt Victoria wanted the money for the mortgage, though she didn’t like lying. That’s why she left.” She realized she was straying from the point. “The things I did during the séances — like giving you that shell — and playing the glockenspiel — Hyacinth and Aunt Judith taught me them. But I did dream about Caroline. I guess because she was a little girl too. And the dreams seemed real — except her hair was brown. In the dreams, she didn’t have golden hair.”

  “Caroline didn’t have golden hair,” Mrs. Lambert said dismissively.

  “Yes, she did,” contradicted Maud. “She had golden curls. I had to wear a wig when I was her.”

  “Don’t tell me what color my daughter’s hair was! Her hair was brown.” Mrs. Lambert touched her own flaxen hair. “Caroline took after her father.”

  Maud stood stock still. Once again, Hyacinth had made a mistake. She had heard about Caroline’s beautiful curls and assumed that the child inherited her mother’s coloring. Maud’s mouth fell open. If the Caroline in her dreams had brown hair, then she was the real Caroline. “Mrs. Lambert!” she cried out. “Mrs. Lambert, listen to me! I have to tell you —”

  The corridor doors opened. Hyacinth stood before them.

  She had been out walking. She wore Mrs. Lambert’s narrow skirt and a shirtwaist of starched linen. Both showed signs of hasty alterations, but Hyacinth wore them serenely, without a hint of self-consciousness. She also wore Mrs. Lambert’s hat — and she wore it at the exact angle that the milliner had envisioned. It was very flattering.

  Maud fixed her eyes on Hyacinth’s face. She expected the woman to reveal some sign of emotion: fear, anger, relief. But Hyacinth betrayed no hint of feeling. Her face was like the face of an elegant doll. Her eyes were bright and still.

  Neither Maud nor Mrs. Lambert moved. “You have a little caller, I see.” Hyacinth nodded in Maud’s direction. “Will you introduce me?”

  Maud could not speak. She turned to see if Mrs. Lambert was deceived.

  Mrs. Lambert appeared as composed as Hyacinth. “There’s no need. I believe you know Maud well.”

  Hyacinth tilted her head to one side. “I don’t know what the child has been telling you, but I’ve never seen her before in my life.”

  The words broke the spell that held Maud captive. Her skull contracted; her ears pounded. “You do so know me!” she shrilled. “You’re a liar! You’re a liar and a cheat and you don’t love anyone!”

  She leaped forward. Hyacinth recoiled, but Maud was upon her, clawing at her clothes, hauling and striking. She snapped her jaws together and kicked out savagely. Her bare toes throbbed with pain — she had hurt Hyacinth. She shrieked again, a berserker cry of triumph. She kicked — raised a hand to strike — and felt a stinging slap. Hyacinth was up against the doors and fighting back. She twisted a handful of Maud’s hair — Maud gasped with pain. All at once, Maud felt an arm around her chest and another around her waist. Mrs. Lambert seized her, lifting her into the air.

  “Enough!” Mrs. Lambert’s tone of voice was one that Maud had never heard. She half carried, half dragged Maud to the nearest chair and flung her into it.

  Maud subsided, breathing hard. She looked around the room, trying to catch up on what had just happened. Hyacinth’s sleeve was torn and there were three scratches on her cheek. Maud had drawn blood. Mrs. Lambert’s face was scarlet with effort and temper. She pointed to a half table beside the wall, on which stood a marble clock.

  “Mi
ss Hawthorne, it is ten past eight. I will give you two minutes to leave this hotel. After that, I will call the management and have you thrown out. If you resist, I will call the police.”

  Hyacinth staggered and caught hold of the back of a chair. She jerked her head toward Maud. “Are you quite sure you believe her? You see what she is.”

  “I see what you’ve made of her.” Mrs. Lambert lifted one hand, drawing Hyacinth’s attention to the clock. “Your time grows short, Miss Hawthorne. Let me repeat myself. I want you out of this room. Dr. Knowles says your sister and your servant have serious injuries. Because of that, I will suffer them — and the child — to remain here, at my expense, until they can walk. You, however, will go. Immediately.” Her tone made it clear she would brook no denial. For the first time, Maud understood that Mrs. Lambert was a woman who was accustomed to being obeyed. “As soon as your sister is fit to travel, I will send her to join you. After that, both of you will keep your distance. If you don’t, I will take you to court. Do you understand?”

  Hyacinth was trembling. She began to say something and changed her mind.

  “Do not count upon my silence.” Mrs. Lambert’s voice held a deadly quiet. “I have no intention of keeping this to myself. I am not ashamed of what I wanted, and I am quite willing to expose you.”

  Hyacinth’s eyes met Maud’s. She hissed a single word: “Traitor!” Then she spun on her heel and went out. She left the doors ajar; Mrs. Lambert flew to the doors and locked them. Her face was contorted with disgust.

  Maud cowered in the armchair. She flattened herself against the cushions, wondering what was going to become of her. She knew that it was the worst possible moment to ask for anything, but she sensed that there would be no other time. “Mrs. Lambert, Muffet’s innocent.”

  Mrs. Lambert did not even look at her. She swept past Maud as if she had not spoken.

  The days Maud spent at the Hotel Elysium were among the most miserable she had ever known. In the midst of luxury, she was plagued by guilt, grief, and dread. She was also bored. Both Judith and Muffet slept for hours during the day, and Mrs. Lambert shunned her. She had no books. She spent two days stitching together her ruined dress so that she could escape outside, only to find it was no use. Cape Calypso had lost its power to charm her. The boardwalk smells that had teased her appetite struck her as faintly nauseous; the crowds of well-dressed tourists made her feel shabby and forlorn. When she tried to make a sand castle, she thought of the crocodile she had made with Mrs. Lambert. She abandoned the castle to the waves.