A Drowned Maiden's Hair (17 page)

Maud tried to obey. Another drop of sweat crawled down her back. She could smell herself — a musky, sweetish smell, like a sweating horse. She wrinkled her nose fastidiously.

Rap!

Maud heard a gasp, and then Judith’s voice: “Is there a spirit present?”

Rap!

Mrs. Lambert cried out. “Caroline?”

There was a pause. Maud listened for the tinkle of the prisms of the chandelier. She heard Mrs. Lambert repeat, “Caroline?”

“The chandelier’s moving,” said Hyacinth in a low voice. “The candles are going out.”

“The planchette!” Mrs. Lambert sounded as if she were about to cry. “The planchette is moving — but I can’t read! It’s too dark!”

“Caroline Lambert!” Judith’s voice rang out authoritatively. “Caroline Lambert, are you here?”

Rap!

“Caroline, please —” Mrs. Lambert’s voice was infinitely pleading. “Please — if you are here, speak to me! Don’t leave — oh, don’t —” Her breath caught. “I can’t read in the dark! Oh, God! My dear one, wait, only wait —”

“Light another candle,” Judith commanded, and Maud heard a chair scrape back.

“It began with an L, I think,” Victoria said breathlessly. “Perhaps she means to spell out
love
—”

“Do you think so?” Mrs. Lambert said. Her voice rose hysterically. “Do you think it could possibly be?”

Maud heard the
scritch
of a match, followed by the thud of a candlestick on the table. “Now,” whispered Mrs. Lambert. “Caroline, come back!”

Silence. Maud waited.
People don’t believe when things happen too fast,
Hyacinth had said. Maud understood that to give Mrs. Lambert only a taste of her daughter’s presence was excellent technique: it increased the rich woman’s faith in Hyacinth and fed her longing for her child. What Maud hadn’t understood was that the technique was harrowing. She could hear the woman sobbing, and she felt a prickle of discomfort that had nothing to do with the heat of the cupboard. Maud knew what it felt like to cry that hard, so that every muscle seemed to jerk and her breath caught in her throat. She swallowed.

“Caroline,” begged Mrs. Lambert, “are you there? Please!”

“The planchette is moving,” Victoria assured her. “
L-O-
”

“Ssssh,”
Hyacinth cautioned her sister. Maud caught the resentment in her hiss. It wasn’t part of Hyacinth’s plan that Caroline should spell out
love.
Victoria was improvising.

There was another loud
rap!

“The table —” Judith gasped. “The table —”

The table was rising into the air, and Maud knew how. Judith had wedged one foot under the lion-claw legs and was hoisting it up, steadying it with her palms. There was a loud clomp as she let it fall. Candle, candlestick, and planchette were supposed to hit the floor. Hyacinth gasped, “The planchette!” and “The candle’s out!”

Judith raised her voice to a shout. “Caroline Lambert, are you here, in this room? If you are here, rap once for yes and twice for no.”

Those words were her cue. Maud fished the seashell from the bottom of the ice bucket. Cautiously, she pushed open the door and stepped out of the cupboard. The freshness of the air made her smile in spite of herself. After the map cupboard, the parlor seemed spacious, cool, and bright. She could see the pale rectangles of the two stained-glass windows and the bulky shapes of the women near the table.

Maud glided forward, her stocking feet noiseless against the carpet. She took a brief moment to get her bearings. Mrs. Lambert was where Hyacinth had assured Maud she would be. Hyacinth was ransacking the room for another candle in the chest by the window, and making as much noise as she could over it. Victoria was reciting the Our Father. “And lead us not into temptation —”
Now,
thought Maud, and headed for Mrs. Lambert. She placed her hand against the woman’s cheek. In a soft, piteous voice, she whispered, “Mama?”

Mrs. Lambert gasped. Blindly she reached for that small, chill hand — but Maud was quick, as Hyacinth had told her she must be. She pushed the shell across the table and stepped straight back. Mrs. Lambert groped wildly at the air. Maud retreated toward the cupboard and pivoted to dart inside.

Ouch.
She had left the panel ajar and collided with it in the dark. Maud ducked into the map cupboard and pulled the door shut. Once inside, her hands went to her face. A warm wetness coated her fingers, running down her chin and into her mouth. She reached down to wipe her hands and stopped, fingers flexed. Her good dress, with the lace . . . ! But already the blood was soaking through the bodice of her dress. Grief for lost finery gave way to panic. Maud whimpered, close-mouthed.

Faint as the noise was, it frightened her. Mrs. Lambert would hear. The séance would be ruined and Hyacinth would be furious. Maud pressed her bloody fists against her lips. The blood tasted like pennies.

It’s only a nosebleed.
The words floated into her mind, and all at once she was back in the Asylum. Irma had tripped on the ice and bloodied her nose. Maud had watched, repelled and fascinated, while Irma shrieked and Miss Clarke fished two dirty handkerchiefs from the bosom of her shirtwaist. “It’s only a nosebleed,” Miss Clarke had said. “People don’t die of nosebleeds.” Maud seized upon the memory gratefully. With it, came another, less comforting: “People can die from loss of blood, though, can’t they, Miss Clarke?” She couldn’t recall the answer. Her fingers fluttered toward her nose — the blood was still gushing forth. She wondered how much she had lost.

Outside the door, the lights were on. Victoria and Hyacinth were trying to comfort their client.

“— if she was here, why wouldn’t she stay? I felt her — I felt her hand. But why wouldn’t she speak to me? And why did she leave the seashell? What does it mean?”

“Hush.” Victoria sounded close to tears herself. “Now that she has come, she will surely come again.”

“She didn’t sound like herself.” Maud tensed at the criticism. “She sounded frightened. Oh God, what have I done, that she should be afraid of me?”

“Eleanor, take comfort,” Hyacinth said tenderly. “The important thing is that she was here tonight. All of us sensed her presence.”

“Her little hand was like ice,” wailed Mrs. Lambert. “It even felt wet. Dear God! She is buried; the salt water should be dry by now —”

Ice! Maud stopped listening. She fumbled for the lump of ice in the pail. She lifted it, dripping, and pressed it against her injured nose. Cold water joined the river of blood and tears. She wondered if she was going to faint. She imagined herself falling down in a pool of blood. Perhaps Hyacinth would see the blood oozing from under the mantel and come to her aid. Maud imagined Hyacinth flinging open the door and catching her up in her arms.

But Hyacinth did not come. Maud sagged against the wall of the map cupboard in a stupor of pain and stickiness and heat. Outside the door, the Hawthorne sisters continued to soothe their wealthy client. Mrs. Lambert must have a glass of sherry or a cup of tea. Mrs. Lambert must not go home by herself — Victoria must accompany her. Hyacinth would call the next day to make sure that she was well. . . . The leave-taking seemed to go on for hours. When at last Victoria and Mrs. Lambert had departed and the door of the map cupboard opened, Maud stumbled out so eagerly that she almost fell.

The light in the room was dazzling. The room looked bright and tidy and civilized. Hyacinth and Judith were staring at her.

“Goodness gracious!” cried Hyacinth. “What on earth —?”

“Had a dosebleed,” mumbled Maud, clasping the ever-diminishing block of ice to her face. “I wocked indo de door —”

“Great heavens!” Even Judith’s sangfroid was ruffled. The look on her face told Maud just how grotesque she must look.

“For heaven’s sake! The poor child will bleed all over the carpet,” said Judith, while Hyacinth sympathized, “Oh,
poor
Maud!” But there was something wrong with the way she said it, and she didn’t rush forward to clasp Maud in her arms. Maud understood why — no sensible woman would want bloodstains on her best tussore silk — but Hyacinth’s aloofness was the last straw. Maud opened her mouth and wailed as if she were three years old.

“Take that wig off her and help her into the kitchen,” ordered Judith. “She’s better off bleeding on the linoleum. It’s a mercy she didn’t black her eye, walking into that door. Gracious, child, don’t cry!” The last three words were more command than comfort, but they were spoken with unwonted kindness. “It’s only a nosebleed, after all. Do calm down.”

“I
am
calm,” sobbed Maud. She felt that under the circumstances, she had been heroically calm. She hadn’t ruined the séance; she hadn’t cried out when she hurt herself; she had waited patiently while the Hawthorne sisters cosseted Mrs. Lambert. Now she was through with being calm. She wanted to cry until she felt like stopping, and she wanted Hyacinth to take care of her.

“Who would have thought the child had so much blood in her?” marveled Hyacinth. She advanced within an arm’s length of Maud and plucked off the wig. Then she turned her toward the back hall, steering with the tips of her fingers. “I don’t blame you for crying, you know — it’s too gruesome. I thought I heard a bump when you went back in the closet. It’s providential you didn’t cry out. I’m sure Mrs. Lambert didn’t notice a thing.”

Maud hunched her shoulders. She was sick of hearing about Mrs. Lambert.

Muffet was in the kitchen. Maud, who had a hazy sense that it was the middle of the night, noted this with surprise. The hired woman was seated at the kitchen table, playing a game of solitaire. Even in her agitated state, Maud wondered who had taught Muffet to play cards. Then the woman looked up. She stood up, darting a fierce look at Hyacinth. Three steps and Maud was buried in Muffet’s arms.

It seemed that nosebleeds, like solitaire and gardening, were among the things that Muffet understood. Maud was not aware of Hyacinth’s leaving or of exactly what was happening to herself. She only knew that one moment she was bleeding down the front of Muffet’s apron and the next she was seated at the kitchen table in nothing but her petticoat, with a wet rag on the back of her neck. The white dress was soaking in cold water, and Muffet was holding Maud’s nostrils shut with one hand and wiping the blood off her chin with the other. The horny, callused hands were soft as feathers.

Maud gave a shudder of relief. The wet dishtowel felt good against her skin. It was good to feel the space of the kitchen all around her. She looked up at Muffet, meaning to signal gratitude. The hired woman had never looked grimmer. Maud’s forehead puckered. She couldn’t think of anything she had done to make Muffet angry.

Muffet pressed Maud’s fingers around the sore nose, directing Maud to keep her nostrils shut. Then she got up and fetched pencil and paper. Maud watched as the drawing took shape.

It was a drawing of Maud in her white dress. Then another figure emerged. It was a spider, and not a spider; it wore a stylish shirtwaist and had an elegant, pointed face. Maud emitted a cry of recognition and surprise. Somehow Muffet had drawn a spider that was also Hyacinth. And the spider was reaching out one of its legs, striking the little girl.

Maud looked to Muffet, perplexed. Then she understood. “No, Muffet!” She shook her head emphatically. “No. She didn’t hit me.”

Muffet pushed the pencil and writing pad toward Maud.

Maud sighed. Muffet knew she couldn’t draw. Still, she managed a stick figure with a wide skirt. She drew a rectangle and added a circle on one side for the doorknob. “I walked into the door, that’s all.” She pointed to the door and stood up, miming the collision. Then she remembered that
door
was one of Muffet’s words. She printed carefully, MAUD WALK INTO DOOR.

Muffet cupped her hands around Maud’s cheeks, forcing Maud to look her in the eye.
Are you telling the truth?

Maud nodded. With the pencil, she underlined
DOOR.

Muffet nodded in return. Then she went to the icebox. She poured a glass of milk and opened a tin of anise cookies. She put the glass and the cookies in front of Maud and tapped her left hand lightly, giving her permission to let go of her nose.

E
arly the next morning, Maud was awakened by a series of thuds.

It was not yet dawn. The light was dim. Maud sat up and ran her fingers over her hurt nose. It was sore, but the blood caked inside her nostrils was dry. It was not pain that had wakened her, but noise. Another thud sounded from the other side of the wall.

Someone was in the next room, where the boxes and trunks were kept. Lamplight flickered in the open doorway. Maud slid out of bed and peered inside. Victoria, fully dressed in hat, gloves, and traveling suit, stood between two suitcases. Muffet, clad in her nightgown and barefoot, faced her. At the spectacle of Muffet, Maud rubbed her eyes. The hired woman’s nightdress was elaborately pintucked and adorned with scarlet ribbons. At one end of this confection were Muffet’s feet — short, square, with thick ankles — and at the other was Muffet’s face, which was wearing an obstinate expression.