A Drowned Maiden's Hair (24 page)

Maud was greatly relieved the following morning, when she found her dresses back on their hooks. The striped dress lay at the foot of her bed. Maud flew to the hired woman with her arms held out. Muffet returned the embrace, but her eyes were skeptical. Maud knew that when she returned that evening, Muffet would be lying in wait, alert for any sign that Maud had disobeyed.

On that night, Maud realized that Mrs. Lambert was following her.

She didn’t expect to see Mrs. Lambert away from the Amusement Park. Maud was building a sand castle when she saw the rich woman approaching. Even at a distance, Maud recognized her. No one else would wear such a ravishing hat at such an awkward angle. Mrs. Lambert’s skirt was fashionably narrow, and her high-heeled boots were the worst possible footwear for walking on sand. Her parasol lurched as she strove to keep her balance. She was risking a turned ankle with every step.

It occurred to Maud that nothing would be easier than to run away from her. Oddly enough, it would be too easy — Maud couldn’t bring herself to do it. She bent over her castle and pretended she was invisible.

“I saw your castle from the boardwalk,” Mrs. Lambert said breathlessly, “and I wanted to see up close. May I?”

Maud sat back on her haunches and spread her sandy hands, as if to say, “Go ahead and look.” She recognized Mrs. Lambert’s excuse for the ploy it was. She had made a study of sand castles during the past week, and she knew that her own were rather crude.

“It’s very nice,” Mrs. Lambert said.

Maud bowed her head. Mrs. Lambert’s slow progress down the beach had given her time to think. She had made up her mind that she wouldn’t speak more than a word or two. The last thing she wanted was for Mrs. Lambert to become familiar with the sound of her voice. She was glad that Rory wasn’t there to wring another thank-you out of her.

Mrs. Lambert surprised Maud. She cast herself down on her knees, stabbing her parasol in the sand. Shocked, Maud reviewed her clothes. A shirtwaist adorned with minute tucks; a starched linen skirt, immaculate boots and gloves.
Good
clothes, Maud thought — not clothes for groveling on the sand. She was even more surprised to see the rich woman remove her hatpins, her hat, and her gloves.

“Did you ever make a crocodile?”

“What?” blurted out Maud. She blushed for herself. It was horribly rude to say “what.” Hyacinth would be appalled.

“Sand crocodiles,” explained Mrs. Lambert. “My — I used to make them. I’ll show you.” Already the ungloved hands were scooping the sand into a mound. Mrs. Lambert was kneeling in the sand, playing like a child.

Thrown off-guard, Maud watched. She saw that Mrs. Lambert’s crocodile was a beast of some size — the mound taking shape was as long as she was, with a sinuous curve at one end that must be the tail.

“You can’t make many animals in the sand,” Mrs. Lambert told her, as if Maud had asked, “because of the necks. Most animals have heads that stick up, but a crocodile lies flat on the ground.”

“Um,” said Maud, and began to help with the mound.

“The eyes are the hard part. You can mold little balls of very wet sand and put them on top of the head, but generally it’s better if you find two pebbles the same size.” Mrs. Lambert looked directly into Maud’s eyes. “Could you find me two round pebbles, perhaps? And a shell with a curved edge?”

Maud nodded and got to her feet. Still perplexed, she headed down to the water. It was another opportunity to escape. She could run away before Mrs. Lambert noticed she was gone. She turned to look over her shoulder. Mrs. Lambert was sculpting the back leg of the crocodile. Her hair was coming undone; flaxen wisps unfurled in the breeze. Maud began to search for pebbles.

By the time she found two the same size, three of the crocodile’s legs were finished. Maud held out the pebbles and the shell. “What’s the shell for?”

“Scales,” answered Mrs. Lambert. She demonstrated, sinking the edge of the shell in the sand, making a curved line. Then she handed the shell back to Maud. Maud squatted down to continue the pattern.

She went on scaling the crocodile as Mrs. Lambert nestled the pebbles into the eye sockets. Now that the beast had eyes, it looked alive. An idea came to Maud. She picked up a water-rotted stick and held it out.

“What’s that for?” asked Mrs. Lambert.

“Teeth,” mumbled Maud.

“Ohhh,” Mrs. Lambert said appreciatively. She began to break the stick into inch-long pieces, pressing them into the crocodile’s jaws. Satisfied that she was doing a good job, Maud resumed making scales. When the crocodile was scaly from nose tip to tail tip, Maud sat back on her heels and watched Mrs. Lambert. She was applying the finishing touches — poking the left nostril, which was shallower than its mate, pinching a finer claw on the left foreleg.

“Why are you following me?”

During the making of the crocodile, Mrs. Lambert had relaxed. Maud’s question caught her off-guard. “I hope I haven’t frightened you.”

Maud shook her head.

A faint flush stained Mrs. Lambert’s cheeks. She looked younger, bareheaded.
She’s bashful,
thought Maud. She had come to think that Mrs. Lambert was foolish, or a little mad. Now she saw that the woman was shy.

“I — noticed you.” Mrs. Lambert was almost stammering. “I used to have a little girl, so I notice little girls — especially the ones the same age as my daughter.”

“I’m eleven,” Maud said rashly.

“I wondered,” Mrs. Lambert went on, “if you were — all right. I’ve seen you playing in the water by yourself — always at night — and it’s worried me. It really isn’t safe for you to bathe by yourself. And I’ve been afraid — because you said your mother was dead — that you didn’t have any home.” The last words came in a rush. “That’s why I’ve been watching you. I’ve been worried that you had no one to look after you.”

Maud uttered an “oh” of pure surprise. She had never imagined that anyone could think she was a street child, like Oliver Twist or Ragged Dick the Bootblack. Her eyes fell to the striped dress she had sewed. It was worse than she thought if it made people think she had no home.

“There are places for children who need someone to look after them,” Mrs. Lambert continued. “Some of them aren’t very nice, but some are good places. There’s a small orphanage just outside Cape Calypso — it’s very friendly, and the children have toys and ice cream and regular outings — I know the people who run it and —”

At the word
orphanage,
Maud rebelled. “I don’t need an orphanage,” she flared. “I have a home. I live with — my father. So there!”

“I see,” Mrs. Lambert said. She looked unconvinced.

“Yes,” Maud said firmly, “with my father. And my little brothers — I have to look after them, because I’m the oldest and” — triumphantly — “that’s why I only come out at night. All day long I have to stay home and look after my brothers because they’re babies — and my father works all day in —” She hesitated only a second. “In a canning factory.” She did not know if there was a canning factory in Cape Calypso, but she knew about canning factories; the girls at the Barbary Asylum often ended up at the canning factory. “So he doesn’t get home until late, see, and when he does, he tells me to go out and get some fresh air. But I can’t bring my brothers with me, because they’re too little. They’d drown,” finished Maud, and grimaced at the word.

“How old are they?”

“They’re little,” Maud said recklessly, “and their names are Dick and Oliver.”

“And your name?”

Maud hesitated. Some instinct led her to hold back her first name. “Mary,” she said, skipping to her middle name. Then she bit her tongue. Caroline’s middle name was Mary, too. “Mary Fagin.”

Mrs. Lambert brushed her palm against her skirt and offered her hand. “Mine is Mrs. Lambert.”

Maud didn’t want to take her hand. She plucked at her dress. “You prob’ly think I’ve only got this one dress, but that’s not true. I have lots of dresses — real pretty dresses — but I wear this one in case I might want to bathe. It’s kind of — a bathing dress. I sewed it myself. My mother made me. She was teaching me to sew.”

Mrs. Lambert nodded. A shadow had passed over her face. “Then — your mother died only a little while ago?”

Maud’s stomach knotted. She wished she had run away earlier, when it was possible. Already she had talked too much. She had not made any fatal errors — not yet — but she dared not trust herself. It had been over a week since she exchanged spoken words with anyone, and she wanted to go on talking.

She saw a drop of moisture fall on the sand, turning the ivory grains to amber. Mrs. Lambert’s eyes were overflowing. “I’m so sorry.” She fumbled in her bosom for a handkerchief and offered it to Maud. Maud handed it back. She wasn’t the one crying, after all.

Mrs. Lambert gave a little gulp of laughter. “I’m afraid — I cry — very easily — since my daughter died.” She wiped her eyes. “What was your mother like?”

No one had ever asked Maud what her mother was like. She had even been told that she couldn’t remember her mother. It was true that her memories were hazy and few. What she remembered best was lying in bed and listening for her mother’s footsteps. If they made one sound, her mother was happy and it would be a happy day. Another sound, and it was a workday, when her mother flew from one task to another so energetically that Maud could not keep up with her. She remembered snatching at her mother’s skirts, trying to capture her attention.

“She was a schoolteacher before she married my father,” Maud said slowly. She was sure about that. She had been told. “And she used to read to me. Mother Goose and fairy tales.” She squeezed shut her eyes, trying to see the book with her mother’s thumbs at the sides. “And one day I just started reading — I was four years old, but I knew how. She told everyone I was clever. She was proud of me.”

Mrs. Lambert was smiling. Maud cast her mind back a second time. Her memories included scoldings as well as fairy tales — Maud had an uneasy knowledge that her mother’s love had been fierce as well as tender. All the same, she never doubted that her mother had loved and prized her.

“We had red geraniums,” she said tentatively. She remembered the peppery smell. “There were . . . pots of them and I used to water them and she used to tell me when to stop.” The image came clear: a red-brown pot with a bead of water swelling to a bulge at one side. She had been blissful, watering the flowers while her mother stood by. “I think she thought I was pretty.”

“I’m sure she did,” Mrs. Lambert said simply.

Maud felt a lump in her throat. Something about those four words pierced the scorn that she felt for the rich woman.
She’s nice,
Maud thought unwillingly, and her heart sank. She didn’t want Mrs. Lambert to be nice. “What was your little girl like?”

“Caroline?” Mrs. Lambert spoke the word very gently. She gazed out over the waves, as if expecting to see Caroline out to sea. “Caroline was very bold. That was one of the things I loved about her — that she was so free and candid and brave. I was such a timid child. My father and mother were strict, and I was always afraid of doing something wrong. But Caroline was fearless.”

Maud squinted into the sunset. The blue of the sky was turning violet, with streaks of mauve and tangerine. The green of the ocean had darkened. “How was she brave?”

“Oh, in so many ways! For one thing, she was never shy — she always thought everyone would like her, so of course, they did. All kinds of people — and she liked them. She made friends with a beggar-man who lived in the street. He was very dirty and he smelled of beer, but Caroline thought he was funny; she would sit on the steps and talk to him for hours, if I didn’t stop her. She was brave in other ways, too. One time there was a snake in the cellar stairwell — the servants were frightened to death of it. It was over a yard long, but Caroline said she’d read about black snakes in her animal book and they weren’t poisonous. She marched right down the steps and picked it up with her bare hands. I nearly fainted.”

Against her will, Maud was impressed. She knew she would never pick up any snake, poisonous or not. “I guess that was brave,” she said grudgingly.

“People said I spoiled her.” Mrs. Lambert spoke as if she had forgotten Maud. “I suppose I did. I didn’t want to break her spirit, and heaven knows there was money for the things she wanted. After her father died, she was often naughty. I sometimes think she misbehaved on purpose, to keep from missing him too much.”

Maud pricked up her ears. “What did she do that was bad?”

“She was very willful,” Mrs. Lambert said reluctantly. “She was used to having her own way, and when I didn’t give in, she teased and coaxed. She never gave up. I found her — difficult.” Once again she took her handkerchief from her bosom. She pressed it over her lips and held it there, as if she were stifling her own cries.

Maud combed the sand with her fingers. She knew Mrs. Lambert was about to cry, and when she cried, Maud guessed, she would cry hard. Maud wished she wouldn’t. It was embarrassing when grown-ups cried. After a few moments, she changed her mind. Mrs. Lambert was trembling; her body was rigid; she was suspended halfway between self-control and wild grief. Watching her hang in the balance was unnerving. Maud ventured, “Was she pretty?”

The words broke the stalemate. Mrs. Lambert let out her breath. Tears brimmed from her eyes, but she wiped them away in a perfectly sensible manner. “Very pretty. She was rather vain about all that.”

Maud had expected more loyalty from Caroline’s mother. “Vain?” she echoed.

“A little,” Mrs. Lambert said judiciously. “She loved pretty clothes — dainty, frilly things — and she was vain of her hair. She wasn’t patient — she hated standing still — but she let me comb out her ringlets every morning, because she loved having such beautiful curls.” Mrs. Lambert smiled at Maud’s shocked face. “I try to remember her exactly as she was. If I were to forget, that would be like losing her again, don’t you see?”

Maud thought about this. It went against what Hyacinth had told her. It seemed that Caroline Lambert had not been an angel child after all.

“Rory Hugelick used to say —” Mrs. Lambert paused. “You’ve met him, he’s the man who takes tickets at the carousel. . . . Rory used to say that Caroline was as vain as a peacock and as brave as a lion.” Her smile faded. “Only that was the trouble, you see. Caroline was never afraid of anything. She never believed that anything bad could happen to her. She wasn’t allowed to go bathing by herself — I was strict about that — but she disobeyed me and she drowned.” Her voice was suddenly harsh. “We must take care that doesn’t happen to you. You mustn’t go bathing alone.”