A Drowned Maiden's Hair_ A Melodrama - Laura Amy Schlitz [67]
She had the satisfaction of seeing the pity in Mrs. Lambert’s eyes turn to astonishment. She caught hold of her damp skirts and sketched a curtsy, pointing her grubby toes. “Thank you,” she repeated. “I enjoyed the ride — tremendously. Good-bye.” With one violent twist, she jerked herself free of Rory’s hands and sprinted for the safety of the crowd.
In the dreams, Caroline’s hair was brown, not golden. The girl was kneeling beside her, patting the sand of Maud’s newly built castle. Caroline’s head was bent, and her curls tumbled down, concealing her face. They were glorious curls: lush, tangled, silky, the sort that Maud had envied all her life. But they were not golden. They were the color of molasses — several shades lighter than Maud’s sparse locks, but distinctly brown.
“I almost drowned today,” Maud told Caroline. She groped in the sand, searching for the shell she used as a spade.
Caroline handed it over. “You didn’t drown,” she contradicted. “You got water up your nose. I’ve had that lots of times.”
Maud shut her lips tightly. It was just like Caroline to contradict her. Caroline thought nothing important could happen to anyone but herself.
“It’s an awful feeling,” Caroline said kindly, “getting water up your nose. Did you cry?”
“No,” denied Maud, doubly annoyed because Caroline hadn’t realized she was being snubbed.
“I always cry,” Caroline confided, as if there were nothing wrong with that.
“You’re a crybaby,” Maud said disagreeably. She looked up from the sand castle. It was early morning, and the gulls were swooping over the water, gleaning for food. There was no one on the beach but the two children. The freshness of the morning reminded Maud that she never left the house by day, which in turn told her she was dreaming. “I don’t see why you’re always bothering my dreams,” she told Caroline.
Caroline didn’t answer.
“Why don’t you haunt your mother’s dreams?” demanded Maud. “She’d like that, probably. I don’t want you.”
“I can’t,” replied Caroline. “She’s too miserable.”
“She’s miserable because you drowned,” Maud said accusingly.
“Yes, but I didn’t do it on purpose.” Caroline pulled one leg up to her chest and fingered a scab on her knee. Her petticoats were snow white and frothy with lace — real lace, Maud thought savagely. What a waste.
“I wish you’d tell her about my shoes and stockings,” Caroline said.
Maud frowned at her sand castle. “I don’t know about your shoes and stockings,” she retorted. “Why should I tell her about your shoes and stockings?”
She waited for Caroline to reply. Then she saw she was alone. The sand lay around her in smooth hills. There were no marks, no footprints — not even a hollow where Caroline had been sitting.
Maud twitched in her sleep. The sheet she held to her throat was moving. Someone was pulling it away from her. Maud opened her eyes and saw that the someone was Muffet. It was early morning and the hired woman was glaring at her. Maud sat up, blinking. Even half-asleep, she grasped that she was in trouble.
Muffet pointed to the window. Before it was a chair, draped with the striped dress Maud had worn the night before. Maud had placed it there to dry. Muffet stumped over to the dress, held it up, and rubbed the fabric between her thumb and fingers. Sandy, the gesture proclaimed. Wet. You’ve been down to the ocean.
Maud groaned. She pressed the heels of her hands against her eye sockets and racked her brains for an answer. She wondered if she could persuade Muffet that, even though she never left the house by day, it was all right if she played outdoors at night. It wouldn’t be easy. Of all the people in the household, Muffet was the most difficult to mislead. It was really too much, Maud thought with a stab of self-pity, the number of lies she had to keep track of now that she lived with the Hawthorne sisters.
Muffet had not finished stating her case. She marched over