Laura Schlitz: A Drowned Maiden's Hair

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.”