The Doll Factory

by Elizabeth Macneal

  Silas roams the aisles of whirring steam presses, mesmerized by the rhythmic champing of their jaws, the slam of the anvils, just like the black machines of the pottery factory. As a child he longed to jam a stick into their filthy mouths. What place can such mechanisms have here? They may show the advance of industrialization, but what is advancement if they churn out only identical typeset journals, identical heraldic china, identical bobbins of cotton, neat and symmetrical though they are? If this is the modern age, he wants nothing to do with it. At least, he reassures himself, a machine could never inhabit his particular skill, could never gut or stitch or articulate or stuff a creature.

  As he hurries to see his puppies, he passes along the lurid galleries – blue and yellow and green girders – stacked with cabinets of creatures. Taxidermy elks, a sleeping orang-utan, a pair of stuffed Impeyan pheasants entitled Courtship. (He could lead Iris to this, ask her which pair it reminds her of; she would giggle, touch his arm and call him a wicked thing.)

  He scans up and down, worrying that perhaps his companions have been lost, damaged, forgotten – but then he lights on them. There they are: tiny, intricate, perfect. He is seized by a hot wave of pride. He remembers the ring of the bell all those months ago, Albie holding the conjoined pups out to him, how he pictured them in his museum – and now here they are, just as he imagined, pelt and skeleton displayed side by side in glass cages, raised on stone plinths. He made them. He glued each carpal, each vertebra together. He stuffed the skin, tended carefully to each stage as to a suckling infant. This is all he has dreamed of – hundreds and thousands of people admiring the skill of his labour. He stands between the cabinets, watching as the crowds stop, pause, stare at his work. He can scarcely resist nudging them and telling them that he is the great mind behind it all.

  ‘Remarkable,’ a man in a silk tailcoat says to a female companion. ‘Quite remarkable. Perhaps he could make you a little something for your cabinet.’

  Silas wishes Iris were here to witness it all. Without her approval, his success feels unreal. He cranes into the crowd, hoping that she will appear soon and forge her way to him. She will be a little flustered, but when she sees him she will smile, perhaps dip a curtsey (is that what respectable ladies do? Or is it only the upper classes? He should take closer note), and then he will read to her with impressive fluency from the printed card underneath his specimens, to prove his education.

  ‘Conjoined puppies, articulated and stuffed. The design and execution are the sole work of the exhibitor, Mr. Silas Reed, and form part of an extensive collection of curiosities developed by Mr. Reed over a period of twenty-three years.’

  But as the day ticks on, as morning turns to afternoon, and the building grows hotter and hotter, the quiverings of doubt intensify. He should have learned from last time – she will not come to him, even if she claims that she is interested. His achievements will never be enough for her. He does not impress her. She keeps herself cool, detached, at a distance from him. He has waited for more than five hours for her.

  She has not come.

  He steadies his breath, trying to remain calm. He knits his hands together to avoid smashing the glass case of his puppies, to keep from tearing the pelt, crushing the tiny skeleton. They mean nothing – little more than foolish knick-knacks. What are they compared to her? Could she not even have been courteous enough to reply to his correspondence, to return the ticket which cost him so dear? She is a lying, ungrateful bitch of a woman.

  This was her last chance, and she has not come.

  Rose

  ‘I received the most peculiar letter yesterday,’ Iris shouts to Louis, over the roar of coaches. It is the afternoon of the opening of the Great Exhibition, and the traffic is a jam. Rows of broughams are at a standstill, horses stamping and whinnying, coachmen yawning and flicking their whips. Wheels creak. Two men are bellowing, their sleeves rolled up as a prelude to fisticuffs, but Louis hurries Iris past the fray, crossing to the west pavement of Regent Street. Her hand rests in the nook of his elbow. ‘It arrived when you were at Millais’s – I meant to say, but I forgot all about it.’

  ‘Forgot what?’ he asks.

  ‘The letter.’ She sighs. ‘Occasionally I like to talk of things other than the Academy.’ Louis is all nerves; tomorrow is the private view at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, and they will see where his painting is hung and hear the first rumblings of critics.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says, and he squeezes her hand. ‘Who was it from?’

  ‘I really couldn’t say. It had a ticket in it.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘The Great Exhibition.’ She shrugs. ‘It must have cost a bit. But it said that I’d asked for a ticket when I’ve done no such thing.’ She realizes she is rambling, that Louis is looking at her strangely. ‘Oh, ignore me. I’m sure it’s quite harmless.’

  ‘Is this your way of telling me I have a rival? Should I dig out my duelling pistol?’

  ‘Oh, certainly,’ she says. ‘He talks far less about the Academy, I’m sure.’

  It is enough of a prompt to start Louis back on his favourite topic. ‘I would be surprised if it’s on the line, but maybe a little above it, or below – and the chances of it being in a decent room . . .’

  But she isn’t paying attention. Because they are walking closer, ever closer to Mrs Salter’s Doll Emporium. She flinches at the staring eyes of the dolls in the window, recollects painting most of them. This is where she suffocated for years, a spider trapped in amber. Her world has changed so much that it feels strange to see that there is no difference in the shop. The green paint is perhaps a little more blistering, one of the dolls is new, but apart from that it is exactly as it was, a perfectly preserved relic.

  Through the paned windows, she can see her sister’s bent head, the copper curl of her hair.

  ‘I have to go in. I have to see her.’

  ‘Are you sure? She’s ignored all of your letters, after all,’ Louis says. ‘Perhaps—’

  ‘She mustn’t see you – it will only aggravate her.’ Iris hands Louis her parasol, and pauses for a moment, conscious of her lack of corset, her loose hair about her shoulders. The bell on the door clatters as she walks in. Mrs Salter is not there.

  Her sister looks up. Iris stands with the sun behind her, the rays lighting the dust motes, and she can see Rose perfectly. She doesn’t realize at first that Rose is blinded by the light, that she does not recognize her.

  ‘Can I help you, ma’am?’

  ‘I – I—’ Then Iris catches the blank roll of her sister’s left eye, the other struggling to adjust in the dim candlelight. ‘Rose?’ Iris says, and her sister’s face changes.

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Please, sister,’ she says, and she walks towards her, her feet catching on the worn ply of the carpet.

  ‘Well, have you come to torment me? Have your laugh – see if I care.’

  ‘What? No – I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Iris says.

  ‘Why can’t you leave me alone?’

  ‘I miss you.’ She takes a seat beside Rose, where she used to sit. Her dress snags on the familiar splinter, her back resting into the chair that almost seemed moulded for her. It is as if time has creaked to a standstill, and she feels the skeins of the old web constrict around her. She tries to breathe more deeply.

  ‘What are you sewing? Dead or alive?’

  Her sister does not reply, but Iris notes that her hands shake with each stitch.

  ‘Where’s Mrs Salter?’

  ‘On an errand. She’s looking for a new apprentice. The one after you didn’t last.’

  ‘I – I think of you often, Rose.’

  Her sister is silent, and then bursts out, ‘How could you do it?’

  ‘Do what?’

  Rose puts down her sewing. ‘How could you do it to Mama and Father, to me?’

  ‘You know it wasn’t like that.’

  ‘How was it, then? I should be used to being abandoned by now.’ Her
laugh is a hollow cough. ‘And this artist – this man. I imagine that he fucks you—’

  ‘Rose!’ Iris says, and she could not picture her sister saying such words, did not even know she had the vocabulary.

  ‘Well? Does he?’

  Iris looks down. ‘Please—’

  Rose laughs. ‘I knew it. He will discard you, you know, once he’s had his fill.’

  ‘He will not,’ Iris snaps. ‘He loves me.’

  Neither speaks, and Iris traces the spiral on a knot of wood. She tries again. ‘I want you to know, I didn’t leave to hurt you. I love you.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd.’

  ‘Of course I do! Can you doubt it? You are my sister. I think of you all the time.’

  ‘Stuck here.’

  ‘Yes, stuck here,’ Iris says. ‘You want the truth? You don’t need to be here. There are other ways, other means.’

  ‘Disgrace, you mean? I am far too pocked for that.’

  ‘Not disgrace,’ Iris says, and she has to link her hands to avoid embracing her sister. ‘I can help you.’

  ‘Save your charity,’ Rose says. It is only then that Iris realizes what the smell in the room is, beneath the must of wallpaper and the scent of sugar: disappointment. The air is sour with it. Mrs Salter hiding behind pills and potions in an attempt to heal her own misery. And Rose. Bitterness that gnaws at her, bitterness at her dreams being snatched away in a single letter, bitterness at her loss of beauty and prospects. And every day, Iris’s face shining back at her as a mirror of who she once was, or could have been. Iris feels such a tenderness for her sister that she has to grip the edge of the table.

  ‘I know you hate me for it,’ Iris says, and Rose looks away. ‘But I didn’t leave you – I left this life. I left this grind, this misery, Salter – the drudgery of it. I left it to paint. Don’t you remember how much I wanted to be an artist, how you wanted it for me too? Remember when we visited the National Gallery?’

  Rose’s hair is draped forward and Iris can’t read her expression. She hears her own voice echo in her head, whiny and insistent, but the questions spill out, questions she has tamped down for years. ‘Why did everything change? What did I do wrong? I know you had your illness, and your – your disappointment – but it wasn’t my fault. I would have helped you, been a friend, but you shut me out and—’

  Rose turns to her, her good eye flaring. ‘Oh, very good, Iris. Very well performed.’

  Iris stares. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You were always jealous of me. Always comparing yourself to me.’

  ‘I wasn’t! You—’

  ‘And in the moments you weren’t envious, you saw me as pitiful, pathetic.’

  ‘No,’ Iris says, though she feels a queasiness within her.

  ‘And to say it wasn’t your fault! After you ruined everything for me.’

  ‘How? I don’t know—’

  ‘Don’t lie to me.’

  ‘Really, Rose, I have no idea—’

  ‘You wrote to him.’

  ‘Wrote to whom?’

  ‘Charles.’

  It takes Iris a moment to remember that Charles was the name of her gentleman. ‘What can you mean? When?’

  Rose gestures at her ravaged face. ‘When I sickened. You told him of it. There you were, jealous, jealous, jealous! Worming your way in, befriending him, and how else did he hear it? You told him about my illness. And you even had the nerve to hand me his letter! You destroyed my one chance of happiness. If I could only have told him, perhaps he would have—’

  Iris cuts her off. ‘But I never wrote to him. I swear it – I thought it was a billet-doux. I had no idea.’

  ‘How else did he discover it?’

  ‘I – I couldn’t say.’ She presses closer. ‘I don’t know. But you must believe me.’ She frowns. ‘How long have you thought this of me? Why did you say nothing?’

  Rose is silent.

  ‘I would swear all I own on it. Can you really believe it of me? I wept too, remember.’

  Rose keeps her eye on the little corset in front of her. ‘But I thought – I always thought . . .’

  ‘No.’ Iris shakes her head. ‘No. If anyone wrote to him, it wasn’t me. He just gave me the letter and left. I said you were suffering from a rheum, nothing more.’

  ‘I – I see.’ Rose jabs herself with the needle and puts down her work. ‘Please, I need a little time. To think.’

  ‘Let me help. I can help all today, Mrs Salter will not mind it.’ Iris cannot bear it; she jabbers on. ‘Do you remember our plans for the shop? When I drew the brooches we would make, and it was going to have a blue awning and hundreds of lamps.’

  Her sister’s head is lowered. Iris can’t see her face, and she longs to stroke her hair – her hair that she brushed each morning with the badger brush, the tangles that she teased out.

  ‘We were going to be mistresses of it together. We said we didn’t want any dreadful husbands. Do you remember?’

  Iris rubs Rose’s tear which has dropped on to the desk.

  ‘We had such plans, the two of us.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Rose says.

  ‘I am too. Can’t I stay?’

  Rose shakes her head. ‘Not now.’

  Iris stands, and starts to walk to the door. She can’t stop talking, can’t stand the silence which yawns between them. ‘I’ll leave in a moment – but first, just know that I’m saving for your shop, and I can help you with it. I know you don’t want his money, but I’ll make it from selling my own paintings. We can set it up together, but you can be mistress of it – I’ll be a mere shop girl. I’m better at drawing than ever I was, and I can make all sorts of little portraits in oils . . .’ She is about to turn the handle when she looks back, and her sister’s eye is on her. She has a look of such anguish that Iris feels it like a fist in her chest.

  Rose murmurs something.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Will you meet me sometime?’

  And Iris nods.

  Blade

  The top-hatted men nod their greetings to each other, and for once, Albie does not note their behaviour to imitate later. He’s used to feeling as though he can bob up against anything which pushes him down, like a piece of flotsam in the churn behind a river wherry, but now he is sinking. He runs less. He sings less. He’s always tired.

  He is sporting two purple eyes and a nose the colour of jaundice, and he’s slept badly ever since Silas appeared at his and his sister’s window and rapped it twice. Just a warning, just a gesture to say his threat was true. It’s been enough to stifle Albie’s conscience, and any dreams he has of cautioning Iris are undercut by the thought of his sister, her throat slit like a pig’s. He thinks of her, naked on her bed counting out pennies from her night’s work, her crooked smile, the way she tucks her legs into his when her labour’s over and they can sleep at last.

  He’s settled on the next best thing: he’ll track Silas like a shadow, watch every interaction with the utmost care. He’s following a man who’s following someone else in turn – it almost feels like a jest, as if the whole of London is involved in a ludicrous spying chain. But this is no tomfoolery, and if Silas tries to hurt Iris, he’ll have Albie to reckon with. He’s learned from his childish attack on the man, and he dipped into his teeth fund to purchase a blade in the rag-and-bone shop. It lies tight in his pocket, wrapped in cotton like a bandaged limb.

  ‘The Academy’s finest show yet,’ someone says, but Albie has no idea what the great stone building in front of him stands for, and frankly doesn’t care. He sees the streets as dangers and shapes to be dodged – as falling masonry or thrashing carts or whips waiting to lick his cheek.

  His eyes follow Silas as he elbows through the crowds, holding out a piece of paper. Albie runs his tongue over his smooth gums. It soothes the fear which sits in his chest, that tightens his throat.

  He knows that the paper means the same as the ticket at the Great Exhibition yesterday: that Albie can go no further.
He’s just a snivel of a wretch with a bruised-up face. He hopes, at least, that if Iris arrives too, she is safe in that fine society, that Silas wouldn’t harm her before all these swells.

  He rubs his forehead. Surely Silas will be in there for hours, as he was yesterday at the Great Exhibition? Hours and hours Albie had waited, and he’d almost missed him in the fray. It means – it means this might be the moment he was too scared to snatch yesterday. Albie’s got time, and if he finds something wrong in the man’s shop, a sign that he’s planning to hurt Iris, then he can lead the constable right there, and Silas’ll be hanged for it. Then his sister will be safe, and Iris too. He’s sure Silas has been hiding things – bad things, evil things – and it’s only in the last two weeks that he has opened the lid of fast-boiled panic.

  He scampers off, away from the grand pillars of Trafalgar Square. His left leg still hurts from when Silas shoved him, so he runs like a wonky tin toy, his ankle bowing outwards.

  Academy, academy, academy, he repeats, dancing out of the way of an omnibus piled high with clerks, ignoring the cry of the coachman.

  Academy, academy, academy.

  He glances about him, a quick left and a right, and then ducks into Silas’s alleyway. The buildings around him are as tall as ships, their windows broken. Smoke buffets from one of them. The alley is dense with cinder heaps and dust, a paste that thickens against Albie’s feet. Silas’s shop is at the end, leaning into the street, two floors high and as rickety as an aged sot.

  Albie chokes a little as the smell of decay hits his nose. He sees a mouldy creature, the flesh pulsing with wasps and maggots as they work the meat down to the skeleton. The jaw looks like that of a fox. He must get inside, away from it. He breathes through his sleeve. And he must be quick too – what might Silas do if he found him?

  He shakes the door, but of course it is locked. He looks up, notices that Silas has left the top window ajar. It is little bigger than a chimney pot, but Albie’s used to scaling walls, to squeezing through the narrowest of gaps if it means a jape or a shortcut. He can climb better than a cat, even with the pain in his limbs. His feet are as tough as paws. His sister used to joke that his bones were made of folding card, that he’d be the best housebreaker in the metropolis if only he were less honest.