Maud Plunkett Timeline and Summary

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• Maud and Dennis sip drinks together in a bar on the island; they are silent and distant from one another.
• She sees Helen pass by and notices that her ex-maid is wearing a yellow dress that she stole from Maud.
• Maud hates the wet season on the island and misses Ireland.
• She keeps herself occupied by saving the bulbs from her garden, working on her bird quilt, and playing the piano.
• Dennis can't stand the music and closes the piano lid on her—Maud is pretty upset by this and retreats to her room to cry.
• Dennis follows and joins her on the bed.
• Maud tours the island with her husband. Though she admires the scenery, there is much that she hates about it: the mildew on everything, insects, and American tourists.
• Dennis's obsessive research makes Maud wonder if his old head wound is flaring.
• Maud reflects on her life on the island and how she romanticized it before seeing it. She laments the loss of Helen as a maid.
• Dennis makes her memorize parts of Breen's "history" of the island and recite it back to him.
• She hears her husband's theory about the island's Homeric associations.
• Maud contemplates the bright reds and yellows in the flora outside her window—it reminds her of death.
• Helen comes to visit her and ask for money, and although she is furious, Maud gives in.
• When the narrator is in a pub in Dublin, he hears a song that Maud played on her piano in St. Lucia.
• Something is wrong with Maud; she is sleepy and surrounded by pillows.
• Maud goes to church while Dennis walks around the island; afterward, they stop for bread on the way home and flirt a bit in the car.
• But on the way into the house, Maud avoids the garden because it smells like death.
• Maud dies of cancer while re-reading the love letters Dennis sent her.
• Her coffin is draped with her bird quilt.
• She appears at the door of Ma Kilman's shop and calls to Dennis. They ride together in the car for a while.