A Drowned Maiden's Hair_ A Melodrama - Laura Amy Schlitz [81]
Maud interrupted. “I know you didn’t mean it,” she said warily. “It’s all right.”
“I ought to have gone with you — I shouldn’t —” Mrs. Lambert’s words were lost again. “Over and over . . . I’ve thought that was why —”
Maud remembered the script. “Dear Mama, there is nothing to forgive! If ever you spoke a cross word to me, I have forgotten it. Where I live now, Mama, all is forgiveness. All is love.”
She finished the line, biting down on her lower lip to complete the v in love. Her consonants were exquisite.
“Then,” Mrs. Lambert said bitterly, “you didn’t drown yourself because of what I said?”
Maud was startled into saying, “No!” in her own emphatic voice. She made haste to correct herself, assuming the ethereal tones she had learned from Hyacinth. “Of course not, dear Mama.”
“Stop calling me that!” Mrs. Lambert almost shrieked. “God forgive you, Caroline Mary, if you torment me now!”
Maud quailed. The grieving mother had become a fury; her voice coiled and struck like a cobra.
“How could you, Caroline? How dare you disobey and go into the water? You promised me — that very morning you promised — that you wouldn’t bathe alone. And for spite — for very spite! — you lost your life and broke my heart, so that I will never mend, never love —”
Maud’s reaction was instinctive. An adult had lost self-control and was castigating her. She forgot she was not Caroline and cried out desperately, “I didn’t!”
“You drowned yourself —”
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” Maud pleaded.
Improbably, Mrs. Lambert laughed. Her laugh was a weird blend of hysteria and genuine mirth. “Oh, Caroline! What am I going to do with you?”
“I’m sorry,” Maud apologized. “But I didn’t. I didn’t drown myself. It was an accident.”
“But they found your shoes and stockings on the shore,” argued Mrs. Lambert. “You meant to break your promise to me. You took off your shoes and stockings.”
Shoes and stockings. Those were the words that Caroline had spoken. Maud felt herself grow cold. Her mind went back to the dreams: Caroline, barefoot, on the shore, Caroline stretching out her hand toward the jetty . . . All at once the words came easily, as if they were words Maud had learned by heart.
“I didn’t take off my shoes to go in the water. I took them off to walk on the jetty.”
Silence. The silence was so protracted that Maud wondered if the room outside the map cupboard was empty. At last Mrs. Lambert echoed, “The jetty?”
“I wanted to walk on the jetty,” said Maud. “But it was slippery, so I took off my shoes and stockings.” She remembered Caroline’s boldness and added provocatively, “You never said I couldn’t walk on the jetty.”
“The jetty!” repeated Mrs. Lambert. “Oh! Caroline, you foolish girl! Didn’t you know how dangerous that was?”
“I slipped,” admitted Maud. “But I didn’t do it on purpose.”
Mrs. Lambert was weeping again. Her sobs were less violent. They sounded like sobs of relief. “Oh, my dear!”
“I’m sorry,” Maud said meekly.
A rap from the table distracted her. Rap, rap, rap! Judith cried out, “Hyacinth! Eleanor — Hyacinth’s stopped breathing!”
Maud pricked up her ears. They were about to begin the second part of the séance: her materialization.
“No, she’s breathing,” Mrs. Lambert contradicted. “I can feel her breath against my fingers.”
“Yes, but she breathes so faintly!” Judith said. “There is danger in this. Her trance is so deep! We must stop. Hyacinth, wake up! My sister — wake up, wake up!”
Three cries of “wake up” meant that Mrs. Lambert had her back to the map closet. Maud pressed against the door and stepped out. Over by the table was a dark triangle — the two women bending over the collapsed Hyacinth. Maud took an extra moment to push the door panel back in place. She left it open by an inch. Then she whispered, “Mama?”
Mrs. Lambert turned. She glimpsed the white-clad figure in the dark. Almost imperceptibly the room brightened; Judith had raised the wick of the kerosene lamp, allowing a little more light. Mrs. Lambert lunged forward, arms outstretched.
Maud fell into them. “Mama,” she whispered as Mrs. Lambert clutched her.