A Drowned Maiden's Hair_ A Melodrama - Laura Amy Schlitz [98]
Maud could well believe it. She bestowed a glowing smile on Muffet. Muffet pointed toward the floor. Pick up my crutch. You knocked it over.
Maud stooped to obey. Muffet sat back down, holding the crutch in the crook of her elbow as if it were a scepter.
“Her leg is healing,” Mrs. Lambert said. “Properly, this time.”
Maud feasted her eyes on Muffet. Someone had persuaded her to lengthen her skirts so that the tops of her boots didn’t show. Her clothes fitted as if they had been made by a good dressmaker. If it weren’t for all the cherries on her hat, she would have looked quite stylish. “You’ve taken good care of her.”
“I love Anna,” Mrs. Lambert said simply. “She takes care of me, too. She’s teaching me to draw.”
For some reason, the simple statement brought a lump to Maud’s throat. Muffet lifted her hands and signed again.
“She says I ought to tell you,” Mrs. Lambert said to Maud, “that you are to come home with us.”
Maud raised a startled face. “Why?” She remembered her wretched stay at the Hotel Elysium and stammered, “Where?”
“Home,” repeated Mrs. Lambert. She added apologetically, “I have several houses. There’s one in Boston and another in Washington. I thought Washington would be best for the present, as Anna is going to attend school there.”
“What will Miss Kitteridge say?” For the first time, it struck Maud as odd that Miss Kitteridge was not present. “Where’s Miss Kitteridge?”
“I told her we wished to speak privately,” Mrs. Lambert said composedly. “I have offered — and she has accepted — a large donation for the Asylum. I don’t wish to sound arrogant, but Miss Kitteridge will say whatever I want her to say.”
Maud cupped her fingers around her thumbs and hid her hands behind her back. She knew she ought to feel elated. “But — that day at the Hotel Elysium —”
“I was very angry with you. Yes.” Mrs. Lambert swept aside the papers on Miss Kitteridge’s desk and sat down on it. “As I told you, I have something of a temper.”
Maud nodded fervently.
“There was so much I didn’t understand that day. When you talked to me, Maud, you spoke of the ‘family business’ and referred to Judith and Victoria as your aunts. That’s one of the reasons I offered them an allowance — I thought they had a child to provide for. I told Judith that some of the money I gave her should be used to send you to school.”
Maud’s mouth opened in a silent O.
Mrs. Lambert answered her unspoken question. “Judith never told me she planned to bring you back here. We spoke very briefly. She was mortified when I offered her money — I admit I didn’t offer it very graciously. The next morning she took you away. I thought you’d gone back to Hawthorne Grove. I had no idea you were an orphan.”
Maud looked back at Muffet. The hired woman was following the conversation intently. From time to time, Mrs. Lambert accompanied her speech with a gesture or spelled out a word. Muffet caught Maud’s eye and nodded meaningfully.
“After you were gone, Anna asked for you, and I had to tell her you weren’t there. I was sure she’d fracture her leg again, trying to get up so that she could hunt for you. She was furious when I kept pushing her back into bed. We had a dreadful quarrel without speaking a word.”
Maud could imagine. “I’ve fought with her like that.”
“Then Rory Hugelick came to see me. That day when he brought you to the hotel, I forgot all about him — I left him in the lobby. But he came back. He wanted to make sure you’d told me the truth.”
“I did,” Maud insisted, aggrieved. “After the fire, everything I told you was true. Even about Caroline.”
At the sound of her daughter’s name, Mrs. Lambert’s face softened. “I know that now. Since that night, I’ve had my own dreams of Caroline. I believe what you told me that morning.”
Maud shivered. So Caroline had left Maud’s dreams to inhabit her mother’s.
Muffet interrupted with one of her odd noises. The short, square fingers moved restlessly.