It was not until the train left the station that Judith spoke. She took out her handkerchief and wiped her cheeks. “Maud,” she said in an undertone, “do you think you could creep down and unbutton my boot? It’s very tight.”
Maud slid down to the floor. She crawled under Judith’s skirt, which smelled like charcoal, unbuttoned the boot, slid her hand up to Judith’s garter, and released the stocking. Judith flinched at her touch.
Maud slithered back into her seat. “I don’t think anyone saw.”
“Thank you,” whispered Judith.
Maud nodded. She was grateful even for ordinary courtesy.
“Maud,” ventured Judith some minutes later, “I have something to say to you. You know I’m taking you back to the Asylum, don’t you?”
Maud’s last hope died. “Yes.”
“It seems cruel to you, I suppose.”
Maud set her teeth and turned her head away.
Judith sighed deeply. In the past week, she had aged ten years. Her cheekbones looked sharper and her neck more wrinkled. Even her voice had lost its rasp; it was dull and weary. “Victoria was right all along. She said we had no business bringing a child into our world. The night of the fire —”
The words hung in the air. Judith couldn’t seem to finish the sentence. Maud wasn’t going to help her.
“Do you hate me?” Judith asked. She sounded as though she really wanted to know, as if Maud had the right to say yes.
Maud swallowed. “I don’t know. I hate Hyacinth.”
“You should.”
Maud fixed her eyes on the hot green world outside the window. The train was passing a cornfield that seemed to go on for miles: tall green cornstalks, hung with tassels. Maud could smell them. As if it were a thing of years gone by, she remembered how sweet the corn tasted, served with butter and salt. A week ago, she shucked corn with Muffet on the back porch. She remembered the sound it made when she ripped back the outer leaves and the way the sheathings turned from dull green to moonlit white. She liked to break a few kernels off with her thumb and eat them raw.
She was lost in the memory of shucking corn when Judith spoke again. “Maud, I am deeply ashamed.”
Maud raised her eyes, startled.
“I never wanted you.” Judith spoke the words dispassionately; she wasn’t trying to be unkind. “When Hyacinth first thought of adopting a child, I thought it was a mistake. I knew it would be a bother and an expense. But I meant to do my duty by you. I wanted you to have a decent home. I told myself that it might be wrong to teach a child the things we taught you, but you would have clothes and books —” She shook her head. “That’s all nonsense. It was horribly wrong. Our home was never decent.”
Maud began, “It was better than —” but Judith cut her off.
“It wasn’t,” she said flatly. “If the Barbary Asylum was on fire, someone would try to get the children out.”
Maud bent her head and crossed her arms over her chest. She wished Judith would shut up about the fire. It seemed to her that being left inside the burning parlor was proof of the thing she feared most: she was simply less valuable than other children. There was nothing Judith could say that would make her feel better. Unfortunately, Judith seemed to feel she owed Maud an explanation. She went on doggedly.
“When the lamp fell,” she continued, “I saw the fire catch my skirt. The flames fastened onto it like teeth.” She shuddered. “Eleanor Lambert grabbed the tablecloth and tried to smother them, but the tablecloth caught fire, too. Hyacinth was screaming. I thought I was about to die. That was all I could think of — the fact that I was going to die.”
Maud’s mind went back to her own journey, up the attic stairs.
“Afterward, once we were outside, I felt the — the burning. The pain. The doctor says it could have been much worse. The skin will heal in time but —” Judith stopped. “I didn’t think of anything but myself. That’s God’s own truth, Maud. I forgot all about you. I don’t know whether that makes it better or worse.”
Maud didn’t know either.
“Then the firemen came, and one of them asked if there was anyone else inside the house, and Hyacinth said ‘No one.’ That’s when I remembered you, and I fainted. I woke up in Mrs. Lambert’s carriage. Hyacinth was with me. She told me she was sure you would get out — that she would go behind the house and search for you.” Judith shook her head again. “I’m sorry, Maud. I don’t expect you to forgive me.”
Maud dug her fists into her armpits. She felt she was expected to say something, but she didn’t know what it should be. She was grateful to Judith for trying to apologize, and she knew it would be generous to say she forgave her. Lord Fauntleroy would probably forgive her. The trouble was that she couldn’t say the words. Even though she understood what Judith was saying, the words wouldn’t come.
She sat without speaking while the train covered several more miles. Then she twisted to look into Judith’s face. “If only you wouldn’t take me back to the Asylum,” she begged, “if I could just stay with you and Aunt Victoria. Couldn’t I? Hyacinth’s gone away. Can’t I stay with you?”
Judith left no room for argument. “No.”
“Why not?” Maud’s voice rose to a wail. A man across the aisle turned to frown at them.
“Oh, Maud, there are so many reasons! For one thing, there’s Hyacinth. The house in Hawthorne Grove is hers — you know that — and she’ll never forgive you for telling —”
“I’ll never forgive her,” Maud said fiercely.
Judith shrugged. “Why should you? I wouldn’t. But you wouldn’t be safe under the same roof. She’d hurt you. She already has.”
Maud unclenched her fists and laid her hands in her lap. She knew that Judith was right. She wondered if Hyacinth had gone back to Hawthorne Grove. Somehow she didn’t think so. Hyacinth had been so excited about the rich ladies in Philadelphia. Probably she was with them.
“I guess you can’t pay the mortgage now. Will you — are you and Aunt Victoria going to have anywhere to live?”
Judith’s mouth worked. “We have a little money,” Judith said shortly. “Mrs. Lambert spoke to me last night. She — she offered us a small allowance.”
An allowance was money. “Why?”
“She said,” Judith reported, “that you told her about the mortgage. She said she understood we were desperate for money.” The rasp was back in her voice. “She said she was willing to provide us with the means to live respectably, as long as we stop having séances. If we continue as spiritualists, the allowance will be taken away. Otherwise she’ll give us enough to live.”
“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.