A Drowned Maiden's Hair (29 page)

“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.

“Miss 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.

T
he 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.

The hotel seemed charged with silence. Judith was low spirited, suffering, the doctor said, from shock and burns. When Maud spoke to her, she answered in monosyllables. Maud realized that she had become something far worse than a secret child: she had become a child who was ignored.

She was desperately lonely. She spent hours sitting beside Muffet while she slept, and she tried to make friends with the hotel servants. From eavesdropping, she learned that Victoria’s cottage had been condemned. It had not been insured, and there was no money to fix it. Mrs. Lambert hired a team of salvage men to pack up objects that could still be used. The men brought four trunks of smoky-smelling goods to Judith’s room in the Hotel Elysium.

Maud rummaged through the trunks. She found Muffet’s photograph album, her own parasol, and a tangle of garments from the laundry basket. Most of Judith’s dresses had burned. Maud’s clothes had survived, though they were streaked and dingy with smoke. There were no books in the trunks — Maud supposed the books, like the kitchen utensils, had been left behind in the boarded-up house.

She found nothing that belonged to Hyacinth. Hyacinth’s room was at the back of the house; there should have been clothes from her wardrobe and trinkets from her dressing table. Maud could only conclude that Hyacinth had gone through the house before the salvage corps. She could picture Hyacinth stealing up the back stairs, savoring the danger; she imagined her sifting through knickknacks and mementos, filling a shawl with brooches and bracelets and rings. She had been very thorough. There was not a single piece of jewelry in any of the trunks. Even Maud’s rosary had been taken away.