A Drowned Maiden's Hair_ A Melodrama - Laura Amy Schlitz [54]
Victoria’s face puckered despairingly. “She’ll wake the whole house!” In her perplexity, she turned to Maud. “What is the matter with her? She’s never behaved so before. Whenever we go traveling, I begin packing, and she understands what I want. What’s possessed her?”
Maud had no intention of entering into a quarrel between grown-ups. “Why are you going away?”
Victoria looked back to Muffet. The hired woman had finished putting her clothes away. Now she thumped back to bed — her limp was more pronounced than usual — and climbed in with the air of a woman who meant to stay there. As she settled herself between the bedclothes, her feet kicked the suitcase off the bed. The message was clear.
“It’s no use,” Victoria said helplessly. “She won’t come. I’ll have to go without her.”
Maud felt a little sorry for Victoria. She went to retrieve the empty suitcase. “Where are you going?”
Victoria went back to the box room. Once the suitcase was back in place, she spoke to Maud. “I hear you hurt yourself last night. How do you feel this morning?”
Maud touched her sore nose. “S’better,” she said cautiously. She didn’t want to fend off any sympathy that might be coming her way. “It still hurts, though.”
Victoria nodded briefly. Her hair had come loose during the quarrel with Muffet, and her hat listed to one side. She tried to tuck her hair back into place. “I’m leaving Cape Calypso. I’m going back to Hawthorne Grove.”
“Why?”
“Because —” Victoria took a deep breath and started over. “After the séance last night, I went back to the hotel with Mrs. Lambert. We talked together for a long time. Maud, I felt so sorry for her! She poured out her heart to me. She can’t get over Caroline’s death. She goes over and over it in her mind, thinking what she ought to have done that last day. . . . Do you know what she told me? She goes to the merry-go-round almost every day. She watches the children circling on their horses and thinks that if only she’d gone with Caroline the day she died . . . Sometimes she thinks Caroline will be there, riding the merry-go-round with the other children, and she’ll be able to reach out her hand and say, ‘Come home!’ And Caroline will slide off her sea monster and come. She won’t be dead any longer.”
Maud felt a prickle of superstitious dread. She didn’t like the idea of Caroline coming back from the grave. It would be one thing if there had been some mistake and Caroline were still alive, but the drowned girl’s body had been found. People who were dead ought to stay dead. Maud said flatly, and perhaps brutally, “That’s stupid.”
“Perhaps. Only if Mrs. Lambert had followed her that day —” Victoria spread her hands in a plea for understanding. “That’s all she can think about, Maud — the impossible chance that she might see her child again. Last night, she thanked me. She thanked me, Maud. She thinks Caroline appeared last night because of me — because I’m such a powerful medium. She holds me responsible.” Tears began to flow down Victoria’s cheeks. “And if she holds me responsible, I must hold myself responsible. I can’t do this any longer. It’s too cruel. I can’t stand by while Hyacinth torments her and takes her money.”
“Did you tell Hyacinth that?”
“Hyacinth? No.” Victoria took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes. “What’s the use of talking to Hyacinth?” She broke off. “Never mind Hyacinth. The point is I won’t do it. I’m going back to Hawthorne Grove.”
Maud summed it up. “You’re running away.” She spoke as if Victoria were one of the children at the Barbary Asylum.
Victoria flinched. “Yes,” she said, “I’m a coward, I know. I’ve no faith that I can withstand Hyacinth if I stay here.” She cast a resentful glance over her shoulder. “Only Muffet won’t go with me.”
Maud considered Muffet