A Drowned Maiden's Hair_ A Melodrama - Laura Amy Schlitz [55]
“What if I come with you?” The words slipped out before Maud made up her mind to say them. She didn’t know if she wanted to go with Victoria.
“I can’t take you with me,” Victoria answered in a voice that struck Maud as surprisingly harsh. “I have no legal right. I’m not your guardian. Hyacinth is.”
“Oh.”
“I can’t take you,” Victoria repeated, as if Maud were refusing to take no for an answer. “I was against adopting you. Hyacinth went behind my back. I don’t have the power to take you away from her. And if I did, you wouldn’t agree. I was never your ‘Dearest.’” The last word cut like a whip. Then Victoria’s face crumbled. “Oh, Maud, forgive me! It’s just that — all my life —” Her mouth wobbled. The elderly woman looked like a baffled child. “I’ve always tried to be good. Surely to be good is to be lovable? But no one has ever cared for me. And Hyacinth — Hyacinth never tries to be good and yet . . . The house in Hawthorne Grove belongs to her, did you know that? Our father left the estate to Hyacinth. Judith and I live there on her charity.”
Maud felt a pang of sympathy. She knew all about charity. She searched for words of comfort. “But this house is yours,” she pointed out. “Isn’t this your house? Not Hyacinth’s?”
Victoria slumped down on the nearest trunk. She reached up and removed the pins from her hat. Slowly, mechanically, she took off her hat and placed it in her lap. Then she began to re-knot her hair.
“It’s true. This house is mine, to my shame. It’s the fruit of my wickedness.”
Maud was tired of standing. She dropped down at Victoria’s feet and looked up expectantly, as if waiting to be told a fairy tale. Something about the posture made Victoria laugh, though her eyes were full of tears.
“Years ago, Maud, I used to dream of the dead. Judith says it’s all nonsense, but I did, Maud, I did! I had a gift, you see. People would tell me about their loved ones, and I would dream of them. . . . It wasn’t the kind of heaven you read about in books, with harps and cities of gold. But there were trees and rocks and the river — and oh, the light! The colors in my dreams weren’t like earthly colors. The light shone through them, like stained glass. And in my dreams, I would talk to the dead and see their happiness, and then I could tell the people left behind that all was well. I comforted them. It really was a gift, but I suppose I grew conceited.” Victoria toyed with the veil on her hat. “And then there was Mr. Llewellyn. He owned this house. His son died young — consumption. He used to send little Tom to the ocean, in the hopes that it would cure his lungs — but it was no use. After Tom died, Mr. Llewellyn used to come and ask me if I would dream of Tom, and I did dream and I told him — but it wasn’t enough. You see, in the dreams, I just saw Tom — he didn’t speak. And Mr. Llewellyn wanted him to say something.”
“So you made things up,” Maud said matter-of-factly. She felt that she might have done the same thing.
“No — yes. It wasn’t just that. You see, Maud, Mr. Llewellyn owned a cotton mill, and he used child laborers. Little children — some of them younger than you — I visited him at the mill, and they almost broke my heart. They were so frail and dingy and crooked, and I thought it was a shame.” Victoria’s head was up now. “It was dreadful, Maud! He loved his son — but he couldn’t see that those poor factory waifs were children, too. He saw nothing wrong with forcing them to work ten hours a day for two dollars a week, and I couldn’t help myself. I told him” — she gulped — “I told him Tom came to me in a dream. I told him Tom wanted him to build a school for those children and pay them for learning their lessons. And he did. He built the school. The children worked half a day, and the rest of the time they studied and played.”
Maud clapped her hands, tickled by the idea that decorous Victoria had thought of such a scheme. “But that was good!