Her heart was pounding.
On the south side of the house, she heard the Kelly girl calling, “Bridget! Yoo-hoo!” and she went swiftly through the dining room and into the sitting room where she looked through the window, standing back a bit, not wanting to be seen, not wanting Maggie to think she was spying on her. Maggie put down the brush and pail and walked to the fence where the Kelly girl was waiting for her. She watched as they talked, servant to servant. The Kelly girl giggled. Lizzie watched. She could not go out to her; she could only wait.
She went into the front parlor, found the envelopes her stepmother had left, found as well the handwritten list of addresses, and directed them for her, leaving them in a neat little pile on the table. She went back into the sitting room. She sat in her father’s chair, picked up an old magazine, and leafed through it. She looked through the newspaper. The clock ticked loudly. The sitting-room windows were closed, Maggie had undoubtedly let them down before going outside for her water; the house was suffocatingly hot with all the windows closed. Maggie was tossing water up onto the closed windows now. She did not want her to think she was watching her every move. She rose abruptly and went out into the kitchen to test her flats again. They were still not ready; on a day like today, she would do better to set them out on the sidewalk.
On the counter under the windows, she noticed a scrap of paper with an upturned water glass holding it down like a paperweight. She lifted the glass, looked at the paper. It was a note from Dr. Bowen’s daughter, directed to Emma, expressing sorrow at having missed her before she’d left for Fairhaven, but promising to call again when next she passed through. She put the note under the glass again, trying to recall when Emma would be home? She could not remember. Maggie was outside the dining room now, splashing water onto the windows. She went into the dining room and rapped on one of the closed windows. Maggie looked in at her. She raised the window.
“Come in here!” she whispered.
Maggie said nothing.
“Do as I say!”
Maggie glanced over her shoulder toward the back yard. She nodded, almost to herself, and put down the water pail. In a moment the screen door opened and clattered shut again. She did not come completely into the dining room. She stood in the open door connecting with the kitchen.
“Did you hook the screen door?” Lizzie said.
“Yes.”
“Who is he?” she said.
“I don’t know who you mean.”
“Your beau.”
“I have no beau.”
“Don’t lie to me!”
“He’s... no one.”
“He’s someone.”
“I scarcely know him.” Maggie shrugged. “He comes by sometimes. He talks to me.”
“About what?”
“Things.”
“What things?”
“Idle chatter,” Maggie said, and shrugged again.
“Tell me what he says.”
“He... he’s asked to call on me.”
“And what have you said to him?”
“I told him he couldn’t.”
“You’re lying again!
“I swear it’s what I said!”
“Then why does he keep coming here?”
“I cannot say.”
“Cannot? Or will not?”
“I told him not to, I swear I did.”
“Then why was he here again last night? He was here, wasn’t he? You heard him, didn’t you?”
“I heard him, yes.”
“Then why did you lie to me earlier?”
“I didn’t want to upset you. I didn’t want you to think...”
“Think what?”
“That I was listening for him.”
“You were, weren’t you?”
“No, I swear it! But he made such a frightful racket...”
“Yes, and what was he clamoring for, Maggie? A bit of Irish pussy?”
“Miss Lizzie, please, I must wash the windows, please, oh, please,” she said, and turned away suddenly and walked swiftly through the kitchen. Lizzie followed her at once, running after her, catching her at the screen door as Maggie was unfastening the hook. She caught her by the wrist. The hook fell loose from her hand.
“Come with me,” she whispered.
“Mrs. Borden will...”
“Never mind Mrs. Borden!”
Still holding her by the wrist, she pulled her back into the kitchen, and then into the sitting room, words spilling from her mouth as she dragged her through the rooms, “Mrs. Borden, is it? Afraid of Mrs. Borden then? And what will Mrs. Borden say when I tell her our sweet Irish virgin, pure as the driven snow, oh yes, oh my, has been hanging on the fencepost like a cat in heat,” aware of the uncurtained windows, aware of the neighbors, but refusing to let go of her wrist, “idling with strange men when she should be doing the work she’s paid for, what will Mrs. Borden say to that?”
Her heart was beating fiercely. In the front entry, as they approached the stairwell, Maggie tried to pull away. She gripped her wrist more tightly (“You’re hurting me,” Maggie whispered) and pulled her toward the stairs, the words still pouring forth in a torrent, helpless to stop the words, wanting to tell her of what she’d almost done yesterday, but instead spewing threats she knew she could not possibly enforce, “Would you like to lose this job, Miss, join the town’s Chinamen perhaps, wash the laundry of the millworkers, have the toughs and brawlers pawing you like the slut you are,” bitter accusation, “or have they already done so, have you peddled pussy on a stick like a common tart,” solemn reprimand, “for shame, for shame, Miss, confess yourself to God for the harlot you’ve become,” the door to the spare room closed, just as her stepmother had left it, “Mrs. Borden indeed, we shall fill her ears with more than dirty windows, shan’t we? Young men loitering about for a glimpse of our fair Maggie’s limbs, or have you already shown him more? Has he lingered there at your maiden well, Miss Puss, get in there!” she said, and hurled her through the open door into her bedroom, snapping her out like a whip so that she staggered into the room, almost falling. Lizzie closed the door behind them.
“If you run, I shall come after you,” she said.
“I shan’t run,” Maggie said.
“Undress,” she said.
“Miss Lizzie...”
“Take off your clothes, do as I say!”
“Miss Lizzie, please. Your mother will be back.”
“She’s only just left.”
“I saw her go at a little past nine.”
“Then look at the clock, Miss Puss. What time do you read on it?”
“Twenty after.”
“Has she had time to do her marketing and return?”
“What if your father...?”
“He’s never back till ten, ten-thirty.”
Maggie sat on the edge of the bed. Her eyes darted. To the closed door. To the shuttered windows. There was fear on her face. And something else. Something Lizzie knew well.
“We have time,” Lizzie said, and smiled.
They undressed swiftly, aware that this suspended moment was a stolen one, a theft repetitive of all the others over the past five months and more, burglars both, their bodies glistening with sweat, virtually naked to each other now, though Maggie still wore her underdrawers open at the crotch and Lizzie wore like a chastity belt the paraphernalia of her monthly visitation. “I have fleas,” she whispered, and Maggie murmured, “Aye,” the Irish lilt of it, “You must not touch me there,” and Maggie murmured “Aye” again and spread her legs to her, and pulled her down to her and over her, and their lips met.