A Drowned Maiden's Hair_ A Melodrama - Laura Amy Schlitz [1]
So Maud began the day in a frenzy of jealousy, and the proximity of the three candidates only served to inflame her further. Maud was small for her age, so small that she shared the third-grade desks with Polly, Millicent, and Irma: she had tweaked Millicent’s curls and kicked Polly when Miss Clarke was reading the morning prayer. Irma was out of reach, but Maud made herself as disagreeable as she could, glaring across the aisle and snorting when the younger girl made a mistake in arithmetic. During the history lesson, Maud disrupted the class by swinging her feet back and forth, so that the toes of her boots scraped against the floor. It was not a loud noise, but it was irritating. When Miss Clarke told her to stop, Maud gazed at the teacher with half-shut eyes and went on swinging her feet.
That had been too much. Miss Clarke was neither cruel nor even very strict, but she could not allow a child to defy her before the whole class. She swooped down the aisle and seized Maud by the forearm. Maud’s heart pounded. She knew she had gone too far, and punishment was bound to follow. She hoped she would not cry before the others.
When Miss Clarke took the key to the outhouse off the nail, Maud almost laughed with relief. She did not like being locked up in a dark smelly place, but she had been locked up before; she knew she could bear it. She also knew that her imprisonment would be brief. Sooner or later, some child would need to use the outhouse, and Maud would be set free. She braced herself against the yanking of Miss Clarke’s arm and raised her chin defiantly. One of the schoolroom windows looked out toward the yard. If any of the girls were watching her, they would see her go down fighting.
All that had happened an hour ago. Maud shifted on the wooden bench and hugged her arms. Outside, it was windy; inside, it was drafty and very damp. When Maud stopped singing, she began to shiver. She wondered if the Misses Hawthorne had arrived yet and which of the girls they would choose. Probably they would take Polly; Millicent was prettier, but her father had been a drunkard; Irma, mysteriously, had never had a father at all. Maud did not understand this, but she knew that the girls’ fathers would be held against them. No doubt Polly Andrews would be chosen: Polly, it was said, came from a good family; Polly was a dutiful little girl, conscientious about her chores, and the best speller in the Asylum. Maud ground her teeth. She detested Polly. She opened her mouth and started the chorus again, letting her voice ring out like a trumpet. “Glory, glory, hallelujah —!”
“Little girl!” chimed a voice from the other side of the outhouse door. “Little girl, why are you singing in there?”
Maud froze. The voice was unfamiliar. The idea that a stranger was listening was somehow frightening. She stared at the crack of light that framed the door. She did not breathe.
“Little girl,” coaxed the voice, “don’t stop! Go on with your song!”
Maud considered the voice. It was high without being shrill, with a queer lilt of music in it. Maud, who had heard very few beautiful voices in her life, had no hesitation in judging it beautiful. After a moment, she ventured, “Who are you?”
“I’m Hyacinth,” answered the voice, clear as a bell. “Who are you?”
Hyacinth. Maud had an idea that a hyacinth was a flower — not a common flower like a daisy or a rose, for which anyone might be named, but something more exotic. She analyzed the voice again and decided it sounded young, but grown-up. Inside her mind a picture of a young lady took shape, her hair just up: rosy cheeks and a white lacy dress and a pink parasol with fringe around the edges.
“Who are you?” repeated the voice. “Why were you singing?”
“I’m locked in,” said Maud.
“But why are you locked in?”
Maud ran through a number