A Drowned Maiden's Hair_ A Melodrama - Laura Amy Schlitz [95]
“But that’s nice,” Maud said. “Don’t you think that’s nice of her?”
“Nice!” hissed Judith. “It’s easy for her to be nice, with her money! Noblesse oblige, that’s how she thinks of it!”
“What’s no-bless bleege?”
“Noblesse oblige,” repeated Judith bitterly. “It’s French. It means that Mrs. Lambert thinks she has to behave better than other people, because she has so much money.”
Maud didn’t know what was wrong with that, but she didn’t say so. She could see that Judith’s pride was in shreds. Judith had been born wealthy and respectable, a Hawthorne of Hawthorne Grove. Now she was forced to accept charity.
“What about Muffet?”
“Mrs. Lambert’s looking after Muffet. I suppose it’s just as well. Victoria and I can’t afford a servant who doesn’t do any work.”
“Muffet works,” Maud began indignantly, but Judith squelched her.
“With a fractured leg?”
“I forgot,” said Maud. She leaned back against the cushions and stared out the window once again. She felt a little better. After all, she had managed to convince Mrs. Lambert that Muffet was innocent. It was the only thing in the world she had done right. She had betrayed first Mrs. Lambert, and then Hyacinth, whom she had loved best of all — but she had been faithful to Muffet. Mrs. Lambert, Maud trusted, would take care of Muffet until she was back on her feet. Noblesse oblige, thought Maud, and she thanked her stars that Mrs. Lambert was nice.
The smell of the Barbary Asylum had not changed. In the past, Maud had not been aware of it; she had lived in the stench as a fish lives in water, without knowing it. Now she wrinkled her nose. Cabbage and bland boiled dinners, sour milk, mice, dirty diapers, mildew, wool uniforms that were never washed, sweaty little girls who washed far too seldom. Maud knew that in no time at all the smell would be part of her.
The Asylum’s ugliness was unchanged. The linoleum was still cracked; the rooms were still painted in flaking mustard, olive green, and a color that was referred to as “cream” but more closely resembled bile. The vivid chromos of biblical subjects were as flyspecked as before. The embroidered “Suffer the Little Children” was perhaps a little dustier. As for Miss Kitteridge, her mouth, always small, seemed to have grown smaller. The Superintendent’s lips were thinner and meaner than ever. It was a mouth that might have been designed for the sole purpose of whining.
Miss Kitteridge complained that it was a great disappointment to see Maud again. The Asylum was so overcrowded that any addition to the population was a burden, and, of course, Maud Flynn had never been what she might call an asset to the community. That was what the Superintendent said, but her lips twitched as if she were struggling to hold back a smile. That tiny half smile made Maud feel sick; she knew that Miss Kitteridge was savoring her disgrace.
“I believe I warned you,” Miss Kitteridge reminded Judith. “I told you the child was saucy and deceitful —”
Judith’s eyes strayed to the clock. “Miss Kitteridge —”
“Maud Flynn was the very last child I would have chosen for such a select home,” lamented Miss Kitteridge. “I said so at the time. It would have been better for everyone —”
Judith interrupted a second time. “Please be quiet.”
Judith was being rude toward Miss Kitteridge. Immensely cheered, Maud raised her head.
“The trouble with Maud Flynn,” announced Judith, “was not that she was deceitful, but that she was not deceitful enough. When all is said and done, she is fundamentally honest — and she has a heart. I am returning her, not because she failed us, but because we failed her.”
Maud’s hand stole into Judith’s. Miss Kitteridge’s face was a study. She was both enraged and baffled. Unable to think of a telling response, she sniffed. “I’m afraid I don’t quite understand you, Miss Hawthorne.”
“I suppose not,” Judith replied. “It doesn’t seem to me that your intelligence is of a