A Drowned Maiden's Hair_ A Melodrama - Laura Amy Schlitz [97]
It was the tales of finery that had ensnared Polly Andrews. Maud had come to the conclusion that Polly wasn’t such a bad little thing; she simply lacked the gumption to misbehave. Even now, the younger girl went on trying to fill the potato basket, while Maud sat on the steps and watched.
“You might as well stop,” Maud advised her. “Just about every potato in that bin is rotten.”
Polly gave up. She sat on the step next to Maud. “Maud,” she said wistfully, “is it true that when you were adopted you wore velvet dresses every day?”
“No,” Maud said, with gentle condescension, “not velvet. Not in the summer. Mind you, if I’d’a stayed, I’d have had ’em. But silk’s what you wear in the summer. Tussore silk and marquisette.”
“And satin?” breathed Polly.
“Satin is silk,” Maud informed her. “Silk’s the kind of thread, and satin’s the way they weave it.”
Polly looked a little lost. “You had lace dresses, though, didn’t you?”
“Don’t say dint,” Maud counseled her. “Did-ent. It’s more refined. I had five or six lace dresses — I forget exactly how many — and not that tatty stuff Miss Kitteridge wears, either. Valenciennes.” Maud caressed the word with Hyacinth’s best French accent. “Valenciennes lace, that’s the kind I had.” She closed her eyes, as if envisioning a storehouse of lacy gowns. Polly sighed with envy.
A door slammed. There was the sound of approaching footsteps. Maud and Polly leaped to their feet and made a great show of sorting through the potato bin.
A tall girl in brown gingham came down the stairs. “Maud Flynn, you’re wanted in Miss Kitteridge’s office.”
“Oh,” said Polly, in terror.
Maud wiped her hands on her skirt. “Don’t worry,” she told Polly. “She can’t kill me. I won’t tell her you didn’t do any work, either.”
Polly looked indignant. “I like that! You’re the one who didn’t work, Maud Flynn!”
“That’s what I said,” Maud said. She made a hideous face at the potato bin. Polly giggled and copied it, sticking out her tongue. There was no doubt about it. Maud was a bad influence on Polly.
“Hurry up,” snapped the older girl.
Maud followed the girl up the stairs, mentally preparing for battle. The door of Miss Kitteridge’s office was shut. Maud hesitated, squared her shoulders, and turned the knob.
Miss Kitteridge was not in the room. A woman in a light wool suit stood with her back to the door. Maud looked past her to a short, square figure in a plum-colored jacket and a hat lavishly trimmed with artificial cherries. Maud gasped with joy and cried out. “Muffet!”
She leaped forward. Muffet shoved a crutch under her arm, pivoted in her chair, and got to her feet. Maud knocked over the crutch and hugged her with all her strength.
When she looked up, she saw Muffet grinning. The hired woman took her arms away from Maud and began to gesticulate, her fingers moving rapidly. Maud turned to look behind her and saw that the second woman was Mrs. Lambert.
Mrs. Lambert had changed. She was no longer in half-mourning, and her hat was pinned on properly. Moreover, she no longer looked at Maud with accusing eyes. There was laughter in her face as she answered Muffet’s flying fingers with gestures of her own.
“What’s that?” Maud asked, watching Muffet’s hands. “What’s she doing?”
“She’s talking,” Mrs. Lambert answered. “She says you’ve lost weight and your hair wants washing. She’s not happy about it.”
Maud turned to Muffet for confirmation. The hired woman plucked at Maud’s brown gingham and made a face. Maud couldn’t read what she said with her fingers, but she gathered that Muffet didn’t think much of the uniform.
“There’s a language for deaf people,” Mrs.