“Rory says I have to tell you the truth. Mrs. Lambert, I was Caroline in the séances. Hyacinth taught me how to be her.”
“You?” Mrs. Lambert stared as if Maud were the most appalling creature she had ever seen. “Then — it wasn’t true? Caroline never spoke to me? It was all a lie?” Her whole body swayed and sagged, as if she were a marionette and her strings had been cut. She fell to her knees. “Oh, dear God!”
“I’m sorry,” Maud said inadequately. “I wish I hadn’t.” She wanted to put her arms around the grieving woman, but she didn’t dare. “Mrs. Lambert, I’m really, really sorry. I’ve never been so sorry in my life. Please don’t —” She looked at the ceiling, desperate to find words that would make things better. The painted cupids went on scattering rose petals. “Mrs. Lambert,” she went on awkwardly, “you shouldn’t have offered all that money to see your daughter after she was dead. Someone was bound to try to trick you —” Her voice died away. Whatever the right thing to say was, it wasn’t that.
“Are you saying this is my fault?” Mrs. Lambert glared through her tears. “Are you saying it’s my fault that people like you prey upon me — offer me comfort and then snatch it away? Oh, God!” She covered her face and curled forward, weeping.
Maud hunkered down beside her. She was reminded of the evening on the shore, when they knelt together to make the sand crocodile. With all her heart, she wished she had told the truth then. She spoke again, without thinking. “Mrs. Lambert, what did you say that day?”
Mrs. Lambert uncovered her face. “That day?”
“The day Caroline drowned.”
Mrs. Lambert swallowed. To Maud’s surprise, she answered, speaking in a hoarse and hurried whisper, as if this were her only chance to be rid of the thing that haunted her. “That morning, I — I wanted to pack. We were about to go home. It was the fifteenth — the seventeenth was Caroline’s birthday. I had a surprise party planned for her, but there was still so much to do.”
Maud waited.
Mrs. Lambert wiped the tears from her face. “I wanted Caroline — to help me pack — just her little things — but she wanted to go to the ocean one last time. And she wanted to ride the merry-go-round. She wouldn’t help and she teased me so. I have — a dreadful temper. People don’t expect it, because I’m patient — most of the time. But that day I lost my temper and I told her to go. I emptied my purse and let the coins fall to the floor and told her to take them. I told her” — her voice sank — “that I would be better off without her. I only meant the packing!” Her eyes were dazed with pain. “I meant I would be better off packing!”
Some instinct told Maud to answer matter-of-factly. “She prob’ly knew that,” she commented. After a moment, she ventured, “She prob’ly knew she was making you mad, too. When I make people mad, I always know.”
“Oh, she knew.” Mrs. Lambert’s mouth twisted. “She knew. I made her promise she wouldn’t go into the water — only to the carousel — but when she was at the door, she taunted me. She tossed my purse into the air and caught it and said, ‘For once, I’m going to ride as long as I want! And you can’t stop me!’ And I said, ‘I don’t want to stop you. It’s worth the money to get rid of you. Go!’”
She put her hands back over her face.
Maud said cautiously. “Is that all?”
Mrs. Lambert gave a hysterical little laugh. “Yes, that’s all. I told my child I would be better off without her. I told her I wanted to be rid of her — and she granted my wish. She drowned. Isn’t that enough?”
Maud hesitated. “Mrs. Lambert, I really am sorry.” She twisted her fingers. “I know you feel bad, but why do you keep doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“This.” Maud waved her hands back and forth, as if to indicate Mrs. Lambert’s weeping, her abject position on the carpet. “I don’t know what you call it, but you’re making yourself feel worse. I don’t think Caroline would like it.”
At the sound of her daughter’s name, Mrs. Lambert went rigid. She drew herself up, resuming her height, her status as an adult, her position in the world. “What do you know about Caroline?”
Maud quailed. All at once she saw what Caroline had been up against. Mrs. Lambert was sweet and generous and slow to anger, but once roused, she was iron and ice. Maud mirrored the woman’s actions. She got to her feet and braced herself.
“I know a lot about Caroline. Hyacinth made me learn about her. She made me memorize a whole list about Caroline — and I pretended to be her — and I dreamed about her almost every night. That’s how I knew she walked on the jetty.” She broke off, confused. Had she dreamed that Caroline fell from the jetty? Or was it she who fell? Fragments of her dreams surfaced and scattered like sea foam on the shore. It was no longer clear what she had dreamed and what she had imagined.
“I believed that,” Mrs. Lambert said in a low voice. “It helped me to believe that. I wanted to think her death was an accident — that she didn’t kill herself because of what I said.”
“Her death was an accident,” Maud shot back. “Caroline wasn’t the sort of silly fool who’d kill herself because her mother was mad at her. She wouldn’t! Even if she felt bad when she left you, she’d have cheered up when she rode the merry-go-round. You can’t be unhappy on the merry-go-round.”
A flicker of surprise passed over Mrs. Lambert’s face. Maud had raised an argument that had not occurred to her. Sensing her advantage, Maud pressed on. “Anyway, she told me she didn’t die on purpose.”
It was a mistake. “She told you?” Mrs. Lambert flung back. “Are you trying to make me think you’re a medium after all? That it wasn’t all a fraud — that you weren’t trying to cheat me out of my money?”
“No. I —” Maud paused a minute. “We —” She tried to find some justification for what she had done. “It’s the family business,” she stammered. “That’s what Hyacinth taught me. There’s a mortgage on the house in Hawthorne Grove, which means we might lose it — even Aunt Victoria wanted the money for the mortgage, though she didn’t like lying. That’s why she left.” She realized she was straying from the point. “The things I did during the séances — like giving you that shell — and playing the glockenspiel — Hyacinth and Aunt Judith taught me them. But I did dream about Caroline. I guess because she was a little girl too. And the dreams seemed real — except her hair was brown. In the dreams, she didn’t have golden hair.”
“Caroline didn’t have golden hair,” Mrs. Lambert said dismissively.
“Yes, she did,” contradicted Maud. “She had golden curls. I had to wear a wig when I was her.”
“Don’t tell me what color my daughter’s hair was! Her hair was brown.” Mrs. Lambert touched her own flaxen hair. “Caroline took after her father.”
Maud stood stock still. Once again, Hyacinth had made a mistake. She had heard about Caroline’s beautiful curls and assumed that the child inherited her mother’s coloring. Maud’s mouth fell open. If the Caroline in her dreams had brown hair, then she was the real Caroline. “Mrs. Lambert!” she cried out. “Mrs. Lambert, listen to me! I have to tell you —”
The corridor doors opened. Hyacinth stood before them.