A Drowned Maiden's Hair (5 page)

“Not
cannot, may not,
” corrected Victoria.

“Does that mean —” began Maud again. Victoria and Judith were looking at her with something like pity. “I wouldn’t be noisy,” Maud promised. “I’d just say how sorry I was.”

“She wouldn’t like that,” answered Victoria. “I’m sorry if you’re disappointed, dear, but there are times when it’s best to leave Hyacinth to herself.”

It was not so very difficult, Maud found, to be perfectly good. During the next two days, she practiced taking small bites at the table and doing meekly what she was told. She said “yes ma’am” and “no ma’am,” and folded her clothes when she took them off. Judith showed her over the house, paying special attention to the passages that led to the back staircase. “If you hear the doorbell or any voice that isn’t familiar, you must tiptoe, quick as you can, to the back stairs. Then sit down, take off your shoes, and carry them with you. Go upstairs in your stocking feet.”

Maud agreed to do this. With a straight face, she demonstrated how stealthy she could be. She did not ask questions. Later Victoria showed her through the third-floor rooms, most of which were empty. One large room, which had been the nursery, contained Victoria’s old dollhouse, an elaborate building almost as tall as Maud herself. To Maud’s surprise, Victoria seemed quite willing to share her dollhouse with Maud. The old woman became quite animated as she took out tiny chairs and tables and wiped them clean with her handkerchief. The dolls, Victoria explained, had all been lost, but Maud might rearrange the furniture as much as she liked. Maud thanked her dutifully. Just in time she realized it would not be tactful to say that she saw no point in moving around little bits of furniture.

The hardest thing about Maud’s first week in her new home was that Hyacinth remained in her room. Judith and Victoria were adamant: Hyacinth was unwell, and she wished to be left alone. Maud could not see her. Maud said, “Yes, ma’am,” but her obedience was flawed. More than once, she tiptoed to the door of Hyacinth’s room and listened for sounds from within. There were none. The silence made her uneasy, as if a Hyacinth that could remain so still were somehow a different Hyacinth.

On the third day, the boxes arrived from the department store. Maud stripped off her asylum clothes with glee. Once clad in her red wool dress, she made up her mind: Hyacinth must see her new finery. She would slip up the back stairs when she was supposed to be walking in the garden. There were three stunted daffodils by the brick wall; she would steal them and smuggle them up to Hyacinth.

Her plan worked perfectly. She plucked the flowers, slipped indoors without anyone seeing her, and tiptoed upstairs. Without knocking, she turned the doorknob and stepped inside Hyacinth’s room.

It was white and shining, like a palace. There were lace curtains at the windows and a lace canopy over the bed. The crystal chandelier was lit, though the day was only slightly overcast. Four mirrors, surrounded by gold cupids and rosettes, tossed the light back and forth, reflecting one another’s reflections. Hyacinth, in a pale blue bed jacket, rested against the pillows. Her finger against the satin counterpane looked faintly pale and tapering as icicles. The mirrors multiplied her fingers: ten, twenty, eighty — all still.

“Maud!” Hyacinth’s eyes flew open. She sat up and leaned forward, hands held out. “Maud, you darling child! You came to see me!”

Maud was flooded with happiness. Judith and Victoria had been wrong. Hyacinth did want to see her. “I brung you these,” she said, losing her grammar in her eagerness. Shyly she held out the daffodils, with their mud-splashed trumpets.

“Have you been out in the garden, then?” demanded Hyacinth, as if the garden held some incomparable treasure. “Do you like it?”

“Yes,” lied Maud. “I’ve been missing you, though.”

“Have you?” Hyacinth took the flowers and held them two inches from her nose. “I’ve missed you, too, but I do have such dreadful headaches — and Victoria gets cross with me because I don’t eat anything.” She waved her hand toward the untouched tray beside her bed. “I hope you don’t miss me too terribly badly.”

“I do,” vowed Maud.

Hyacinth laughed, and then sighed. “That’s a pity, really. I shall have to go away soon. I have a friend in Cape Calypso who is very low-spirited. She expects me to come for a visit. But never mind. You’ll soon grow fond of Judith and Victoria.”

Maud wrinkled her nose. “I like them,” she conceded, “but they aren’t
you.
Can’t you take me with you?”

“Certainly not,” reproved Hyacinth. “For one thing, you haven’t been invited, and for another, you ought to settle down here. Besides, Mrs. Lambert . . .” She broke off as if she had just lost interest in Mrs. Lambert. Her smile shone out, bright as a diamond. “What about your bedroom — do you like it? Do you like having your own room, or are you lonely, sleeping all by yourself?”

“I like it,” Maud asserted. “I never had wallpaper before.”

“And Muffet.” Hyacinth’s eyes danced. “What do you think about Muffet?”

Maud decided to take a risk. “She has a mustache,” she said cautiously, and was rewarded with a ripple of laughter from Hyacinth.

“Yes, hasn’t she? She looks like a blacksmith in petticoats. She really is a terrible-looking old thing — but such a good cook, and so devoted to Victoria.” Hyacinth fetched an exaggerated sigh. “And our modern improvements — do you like using them? Do you like pulling the chain in the water closet?”

Maud giggled uncontrollably. Imagine a grown-up who knew that water closets were funny and admitted it. “I love pulling the chain,” she said. “And the bathtub with the lion’s mouth.”

“I knew you would be happy here,” Hyacinth said triumphantly. “Come and sit on the bed and let me look at you. Gracious, how pretty you look! We were quite right to choose that dress.”

Maud sat down sidesaddle. “It’s good, isn’t it?” she said earnestly. “And look at my boots.” She pointed her toes. “They’re shiny.”

“Lovely,” agreed Hyacinth. “You have dear little feet. Only you must have your hair cut. Are Judith and Victoria taking good care of you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” responded Maud. “They’ve been teaching me the secret things — like going upstairs when the doorbell rings. And Victoria changed the curtains in my room for thicker ones; they’re called brocade and they’re pinkish red.” She paused for a moment. “I guess if the curtains were too thin, people might be able to see someone moving around inside . . . or if I lit a candle. Judith warned me about that. She says I can have all the blankets I want, but no fire.”

She waited for Hyacinth to answer. Perhaps Hyacinth would drop some hint as to why it would be so bad if light shone from the third-floor window.

“Maud!” Hyacinth squeezed her hand. “Have you ever seen my jewel box?”

“No,” replied Maud. “How would I have seen your jewel box? I’ve only known you five days.”

Hyacinth pinched her so that she yelped. “It’s over there on the chest of drawers — the red Chinese box. Go and get it, and we’ll dress ourselves up in every jewel in the box. We’ll play at being queens.”

Maud giggled with happiness. She ran to the chest of drawers and scooped up the jewel box, eager to be a queen.

Dear Hyacinth Hawthorne,
Aunt Victoria said since I was missing you so much, I ought to write you a letter. When I say Aunt Victoria, I mean your sister. She said from now on I should say Aunt Victoria and Aunt Judith —

Maud leaned her chin on her fist and thought about her two new aunts. In the past two weeks, she had learned that Aunt Judith was the sort of adult who wanted to be left alone and that Aunt Victoria was inclined to preach. Aunt Victoria seemed to feel that Maud ought to be improved. She didn’t scold, but she nagged. Maud had yes ma’amed her way through a number of gentle little talks about ladylike manners, tidy habits, and doing her duty. Her resolve to be perfectly good was beginning to fray at the edges.

— but she said I shouldn’t call you Aunt Hyacinth because you mightn’t like it. She said she was tired of me calling her “ma’am” all the time.

Maud dipped her pen in ink. She thought it ungrateful of Victoria to tire of “ma’am” when she was working so hard to be polite. On the other hand, she was tired of it, too.

  
I miss you very much.

Maud searched the ceiling for something else to write. She thought of writing
I wish you hadn’t gone
or
Why do you have to stay with Mrs. Lambert instead of me?
but she didn’t dare.

Thank you for the book you sent me about Little Lord Fauntleroy. I read it twice. His mother, that he called Dearest, reminded me of you, because her voice sounded like little silver bells.

There, that was good. Hyacinth would be flattered by the comparison.

I liked how Fauntleroy rode that pony even though he never rode before.

Maud paused, considering the perfection of Lord Fauntleroy. The storybook hero was so perfect that the adults around him spent every spare minute comparing notes on just how perfect he was. Lord Fauntleroy had golden curls and lace collars. If he had been an orphan, he would have been adopted immediately. Maud sighed with envy.

I have a lot of time for reading since I don’t go to school. At first I read all the time but then Aunt Victoria said I should have a timetable. So now I dust the first floor every morning before anyone would come to the house and then I read and do arithmetic and help Muffet set the table. And then I have to sew, which I hate because it’s boring —

Maud stopped and crossed out the second half of the sentence, cross-hatching the lines so that it was no longer legible. Ladies, Aunt Victoria informed her, were sparing with the word
hate.
Victoria had also complained that Maud was too fond of the words
boring, stupid,
and
horrid.
Maud was puzzled as to how Victoria knew this, since she took care to guard her tongue in Victoria’s presence. Maud felt, in fact, that she was growing downright mealymouthed.

— which is tedious except it will be a summer dress with stripes. Of course I like the dresses you bought me better. I let Aunt Victoria cut my hair the way you wanted. Anyway, I have to sew and then read history or geography and walk in the garden. The plants are all dead.

Maud reread the last sentence, which was not complimentary. But what did Hyacinth expect? She had told Maud that the garden was large and lovely, but it wasn’t lovely at all. It was full of stickers, and the tall hemlocks cast so much shade that there was still snow on the ground. The hour that Maud spent outdoors was the dullest hour of the day. Victoria, however, insisted. Children needed fresh air and exercise.

Maud changed the period at the end of her sentence to a comma and continued on.

— but I suppose something might bloom if the weather ever gets warm. Thursday we had sleet. Aunt Victoria says it’s too cold for April.

Maud scratched her nose with the end of her pen. She wondered if Hyacinth Hawthorne had any idea how cold it was in her third-floor bedroom. There were no stoves, and Maud was not allowed a fire in the grate. During the recent cold snap, the only way to get warm was to climb into bed. Sometimes it took her a long time to stop shivering, even under the blankets.

I’ve started reading
Oliver Twist.
It’s so creepy, because that undertaker made the boy sleep among the coffins. Even Miss Kitteridge never made us sleep among coffins, though that might have been because she didn’t have any. That day when you said Miss Kitteridge was dreadful and took me away from the Barbary Asylum was the best day of my life, because before that —

Maud stopped short. There was no point in writing about, or even thinking about, the worst day of her life.

before that —

Maud stared at the unfinished sentence. She recalled Hyacinth saying
poor little thing!
in that sweet, piteous voice. Tears welled up in Maud’s eyes. She concentrated on hearing the echo of Hyacinth’s voice, reliving that moment of sympathy.

because before that, I never met you. You are like my fairy godmother.

The rest of the empty page yawned before Maud. She eyed the clock, wishing it were time for supper. She knew there would be scalloped potatoes; she had helped Muffet peel and slice them. She dipped her pen in ink, determined to finish the letter.

Aunt Victoria says I do a good job dusting and that my table manners are improving. I do not wolf my food as bad as I did. Yesterday when I was getting the silverware for dinner, I heard Muffet. She was backing up so fast she banged the table. There was a great big spider on the floor. With its legs it was as big as a tablespoon, the round part I mean, not the handle. Muffet was so frightened she was crying. I never saw a grown-up person as scared as that. I felt sorry for her so I stamped on it hard and it was horrid because it made a disgusting smear on the floor. But Muffet stopped crying and she ran to me and put her hands on my arms. I thought she was going to shake me but she didn’t. I think what she meant was she was glad I killed it. Then last night we had Floating Island and that is my favorite pudding. I didn’t think she would know what I like to eat because she can’t hear, but I guess Aunt Victoria is right and being deaf doesn’t mean she’s stupid.