by Rumer Godden
‘No, it was mine,’ said Emily. ‘I wanted the chairs more than you did. How funny. I want things so hard, Charlotte, that I don’t think what I am doing. I don’t want them so much now,’ said Emily.
‘Then we shall have ordinary ones?’ asked Charlotte.
‘No,’ said Emily firmly and shortly.
‘Then what will you do?’
‘I don’t know what I shall do,’ said Emily, ‘but not this,’ she said.
Mrs Innisfree was surprised to see them when they called at her house next morning. She seemed more surprised and pleased when Emily laid the pound note and the shilling on the table.
‘After all,’ said Charlotte, ‘we are not blind and if we don’t get paid for Tottie, the children who are blind will get more money.’
‘Certainly they will,’ said Mrs Innisfree, and she looked at Emily who had put down the pound note and the shilling and who could not trust herself to speak.
‘Emily,’ said Mrs Innisfree, ‘you wanted those chairs badly didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ said Emily ‘but Charlotte likes the dolls’ house just as much as I do.’
‘It was your idea to get those chairs?’
‘And the couch and the table and the runner,’ put in Charlotte.
‘Well – I saw them first,’ said Emily.
‘Emilys usually see things first,’ said Mrs Innisfree gently. ‘And it is usually they who have the ideas. I am like Emily; it was my idea to pay you for Tottie, but of course it is far nicer that you yourselves have decided to lend her to me. Now I have another idea,’ said Mrs Innisfree.
(You must remember that while this was happening Tottie was packed away in her box under her paper and had no idea of it at all. You must keep remembering that.)
‘I want,’ said Mrs Innisfree, ‘to see those old chairs and that old couch. The ones that were in the dolls’ house when it came.’
‘But – they are all torn and unstuffed.’
‘But the wooden part, the legs and arms and frames?’
‘That is still there,’ said Charlotte.
‘They should be as good as new, if they were as good in the first place as I think they were. As good as the Wigmore Street ones,’ said Mrs Innisfree. ‘Go and get them now,’ she said.
‘What now? Straight away?’ asked Charlotte, but Emily’s eyes gleamed.
‘Straight away,’ said Mrs Innisfree. ‘I might be able to do something with them if they are as I hope.’
‘Are they?’ asked Charlotte an hour later when she and Emily had come back.
‘Are they what?’
‘As you hoped?’
‘Yes, they are,’ said Mrs Innisfree.
The sofa and chairs stood on the table in her drawing room. ‘Look,’ she said, and with her scissors she ripped off what Emily had left of the stuffing, the torn bits, and dirty old cotton; soon the chairs and sofa were bare down to their seats. ‘Look,’ said Mrs Innisfree, ‘the wood is good, quite solid. Do you see, Emily, the little legs are turned. They are scratched and discoloured, but the good work is there. Do you see that when things are beautifully made, how beautifully they last?’
‘These don’t look as if they had lasted,’ objected Charlotte. ‘They look fit to throw away.’
‘That is because you haven’t looked into them. Wait and see,’ said Mrs Innisfree. She opened a drawer and took out two pieces of sandpaper and rubbed them against each other. ‘That’s to smooth them a little because they are too rough – they must not scratch the wood too deeply’ She picked up a little chair and began to rub its leg.
‘But – you are taking all its polish off.’
‘And the dirt and scratches. Now you and Charlotte rub them, and when they are quite clean and smooth we shall take them to a man I know who is a French polisher, and we shall ask him if he will help us. I think he will,’ said Mrs Innisfree.
‘But – would a real French polisher polish them?’
‘He might, if we can make him interested,’ said Mrs Innisfree. ‘People will do anything if they are interested.’
‘But what about the seats and arms and backs? They were all cushioned before.’
‘They can be cushioned again.’
‘But with what? Mother says that nowhere, anymore, anywhere, can you buy stuff like that they were cushioned with,’ said Emily.
‘Have you seen this?’ asked Mrs Innisfree, and she picked up a footstool that was standing by the table and showed it to them. Its top was of embroidery, flowers, worked very finely, in the same mice stitches that Tottie had talked about, stitches like the sampler, only finer.
‘This is called petit-point. Have you ever seen a chair like it?’ asked Mrs Innisfree. ‘A tapestry chair?’
‘Oh!’ said Emily. ‘Oh! You mean—’
‘Yes. What could be better than tiny tapestry chairs and couch?’ asked Mrs Innisfree.
‘Dolls’ tapestry would have to be very, very fine,’ said Emily slowly. ‘Could anybody work it?’ she asked doubtfully.
‘I have worked it so that it was very fine indeed.’
‘It would be beautiful,’ breathed Charlotte. ‘But we couldn’t do it, not Emily, nor I. It would take us years and years to learn. Our great-grandmother could have done it. Perhaps there was some use in working samplers,’ said Charlotte mournfully. ‘Now who – who – who –’
Mrs Innisfree had not answered. She had opened a drawer and was taking out a roll of fine canvas and a box of silks.
‘You!’ said Emily and Charlotte together. ‘You! You mean you would work it for us?’
‘It would not take me very long,’ said Mrs Innisfree. ‘I think I could do it. Anyway I could try. Suppose you stay to lunch with me and then we could choose patterns and colours. Of course we shall need an upholsterer as well as a French polisher,’ said Mrs Innisfree, ‘but I have another friend who would do that for us. I think it will be far nicer and of course far cheaper,’ she said with a sideways look at the children, ‘than the little set in Wigmore Street that you wanted to buy.’
‘What a great deal we are learning about things,’ said Emily, ‘all these beautiful old things.’
‘But you mustn’t think it is only the old things that are beautiful,’ said Mrs Innisfree. ‘We can do as good work nowadays if we have the same patience.’
‘Yes – patience!’ said Charlotte. Truth to tell, her hand was aching very much from the sandpapering, but she went on rubbing.
They had lunch with Mrs Innisfree. What did they have? They had plaice, which is fish, and green peas and mashed potatoes, and a cherry tart from Mrs Innisfree’s bottled cherries.
After lunch they looked through the patterns and silk and chose a small pattern that was part of a larger pattern; it was moss rosebuds in crimson and pink, with green leaves, on a cream background. ‘And we must have this copper colour for the stems,’ said Mrs Innisfree, ‘and I shall use this peacock blue for the shading.’
‘Can you shade so tiny?’ asked Emily.
‘I think I can,’ said Mrs Innisfree.
‘I think you can do anything,’ said Charlotte, and that evening she said to Emily, ‘Do you know, Emily, Mrs Innisfree reminds me of Tottie.’
‘Of Tottie?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can a real person remind you of a doll?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Charlotte, ‘but Mrs Innisfree does.’ She thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps it’s because Tottie never breaks or gets spoilt. I miss Tottie,’ said Charlotte.
They had asked to peep at Tottie before they left Mrs Innisfree, and how surprised Tottie was to see their faces bending over her.
‘Is this all a bad dream?’ asked Tottie of herself. ‘Am I at home again?’ But as soon as Charlotte lifted her up she saw that she was in a strange room and that the box still lay on the table. ‘It isn’t a dream,’ cried Tottie in Charlotte’s hand. ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’
‘Why does she look so unhappy?’ asked Charlotte.
‘A pound and a shilli
ng! A guinea. After a hundred years,’ said Tottie.
‘She looks – angry,’ said Emily. Both of them could feel Tottie wishing, but they could not understand why she should wish, and they put her back into the box and covered her up with tissue paper.
‘When does she go to the Exhibition?’ she heard Emily ask, just before they put on the lid.
‘To the Exhibition! To the Exhibition!’ said Tottie in a cry so loud that every knot and grain of her felt twisted, but, of course, not a sound came out of the box.
Chapter 8
Marchpane had been seen by someone at the cleaners who had taken her address and written to the great-aunt’s relations to ask if Marchpane too might not come to the Exhibition.
The great-aunt’s relations said yes.
Marchpane was delighted.
Chapter 9
When Tottie was next taken out of her box she found herself in a large cold room that had long tables, covered with blue cloth, against each wall, and a number of ladies all busy unpacking dolls.
Tottie had never seen so many ladies and so many dolls, particularly so many dolls. There was every kind of doll: baby dolls, little girl dolls, boy dolls, lady and gentleman dolls, soldier dolls, sailor dolls, acting dolls, dancing dolls, clockwork dolls, fairy dolls, Chinese dolls, Polish, Japanese, French, German, Russian. There was a white wax doll with exquisite white china hands, and a Dutch fisherman with a basket on his back, and a Flemish doll in market clothes, and her cook sitting down with her basket. There were Japanese dolls with blank white faces, and Chinese dolls whose faces were as alive as snakes, with painted snaky eyebrows and long noses; they were dancers and ceremonial dolls with satin trousers and red-painted shoes. There were two little German dolls with yellow fringes and gentle brown eyes and peasant clothes, and a Polichinelle, very old, with his legs drawn up and a carved, frightening, evil face. There was every kind and sort of doll and they filled the room, each standing in its place and showing what kind of doll it was. Some of them were very handsome and imposing; all of them, without exception, were far, far larger than Tottie.
She felt small and shy and longed to go home. ‘But I can’t go home,’ said Tottie. ‘I shall never go home again,’ and her secret trouble filled her so strongly that, if wood could have drooped, Tottie would have drooped. ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ cried poor little Tottie, and she thought of them all at home: Mr Plantaganet, Birdie, Darner, Apple; when she thought of Apple she felt as if she must break into splinters, but of course, being made of such good wood, she gave no outward sign.
A lady took her up in her hand. ‘Where shall we put this darling little thing?’ she asked. ‘Look. She goes with this sampler.’
‘What a charming idea,’ said another, but Tottie did not think it was in the least bit charming.
‘A farthing doll!’ said another lady. ‘Why I should think she must be unique.’
Tottie did not know what ‘unique’ meant (if you don’t, go and look it up in the dictionary), for all she could tell it might be something rude, and she wished she could hang her head, but of course a wooden neck will never, never bend and so she stayed, staring as woodenly as possible, straight in front of her. The ladies took her and set her up on the centre of one of the long tables, with the sampler behind her and two square cards and one longer one in front of her. From Tottie’s point of view, these cards were upside down, so that she could not read them. They looked like this:
On the table opposite Tottie were four dolls under a glass-domed cover. Next to her, on her right side, was a wax doll with a satin dress, and on the other side a walking doll dressed in blue satin with a bustle behind and white flounces. She held, tiptilted, a blue parasol, and in the other tiny hand, a fan.
‘Who – who are those in the case?’ asked Tottie.
‘They were Queen Victoria’s dolls when she was a child,’ said the wax doll.
‘O-ooh!’ said Tottie. She remembered Queen Victoria of course.
‘La! We’ave been put in one of ze best positions, is it you say? in ze room,’ said the walking doll.
‘Why does she talk like that?’ asked Tottie in a whisper of the wax doll.
‘She is French,’ said the wax doll. ‘She is very proud.’
The walking doll held her tiptilted parasol and her fan and glanced at Tottie. ‘What ees it you are made of?’ she asked. ‘Pardonnez-moi, but la! I do not recognize ze substance.’
‘I am made of wood,’ answered Tottie with dignity.
‘Wood? La! La! La! Tee-hee-hee.’ Her laughing sounded as if it were wound up. ‘Tee-hee. La! La! I thought doorknobs and broom ’andles and bedposts and clothes-pegs were made of wood, not dolls.’
‘So they are,’ said Tottie. ‘And so are the masts of ships and flagpoles and violins – and trees,’ said Tottie.
She and the walking doll looked at one another and, though the walking doll was quite ten inches taller than Tottie, Tottie did not flinch.
‘I am made of keed and porcelain,’ said the walking doll. ‘Inside I ’ave a leetle set of works. Wind me up and I walk.’
‘Walk, walk, walk,’ cried the other dolls.
‘Merci! Je ne marcherai pas que si ça me chante,’ which means she would not walk unless she wanted, but of course she could not walk unless someone wound her up.
‘I once knew a kid doll,’ said Tottie. ‘I did not like her.’
‘Who is talking about kid dolls?’ came a voice from the opposite table. ‘Who did not like kid dolls?’
‘I don’t,’ said Tottie firmly though, at the sound of that voice, she felt as if instead of being wood all through, she might have been made hollow inside.
‘And who are you?’ said the voice.
‘It is a leetle object,’ said the walking doll, ‘that ’as found its way in ’ere. La! It is made of wood.’
‘Of wood?’ said the voice. ‘Once I knew a little doll made of wood and I did not like her at all!’
‘I ’ave nevaire see one,’ said the walking doll.
‘They were sold in the cheaper shops. A shilling a dozen or four for a penny. The children, silly little things, would waste their money on them.’
‘La! Children! Merci. Je ne mange pas de ce pain là. ’Orrible leetle creatures. Je les déteste.’
‘Silly little things! Little creatures! Those are children they are talking of!’ said the wax doll, shocked. Her voice, after the others, was meltingly soft. ‘How dare they!’ said the wax doll. ‘They don’t deserve the name of “doll”. But tell me about those things you were talking of – the ships and flagpoles. It must be good to be made of something hard,’ said the wax doll.
‘It is,’ said Tottie. At the moment all the good wood in her was standing firmly against the things the voice and the haughty doll had said. Tottie knew that voice. She looked across at the other table and she saw whom she had expected to see. She saw Marchpane. Marchpane saw her.
‘Oh, it’s you,’ said Marchpane.
‘Yes,’ said Tottie.
‘Strange!’ said Marchpane. ‘I thought you would have been broken or thrown away long, long ago.’
‘No,’ said Tottie.
‘What is it they used to call you?’ asked Marchpane. ‘Spotty, Dotty. Surely it was Dotty.’
‘Tee! Tee-hee! Tee-hee!’ giggled the walking doll. ‘Tee-hee-hee! Tee-hee!’
‘My name is Tottie,’ said Tottie. ‘It always has been.’
‘I couldn’t be expected to remember,’ said Marchpane. ‘There were so many of you.’
‘Not in our family,’ said Tottie. ‘I was the only one.’
‘She is the only one now,’ said the wax doll. ‘The only one of her kind in the Exhibition. I heard them say so.’
For some time there had been whispers going on among the dolls and now the walking doll was listening. ‘La! Is it possible?’ she asked. ‘Non. Non. Je m’en doute.’
‘What is it?’ asked Marchpane.
‘Dey say that some of the dolls ’ere are to be sold, sold
out of their families.’
‘What? Sold by your own family?’
‘Sold!’
‘Sold!’
‘Sold!’ ran the whisper among the dolls.
‘La! Quel malheur!’ said the walking doll. ‘My museum would nevaire part with me.’
‘Nor mine,’ said Marchpane quickly.
‘Nor mine,’ said the wax doll, but she said it with a fluttering sigh.
You notice that Tottie had said nothing all this time. This was Tottie’s secret trouble. Yes, Tottie thought that Emily and Charlotte had sold her to Mrs Innisfree. If you look back to page 50 of this book you will see why. ‘We pay for some of the dolls,’ Mrs Innisfree had said. ‘I should like to pay you for Tottie.’
‘How much would you pay?’ Charlotte had asked. Oh, Charlotte! ‘Would you pay a whole pound?’
Tottie shuddered when she remembered that.
‘We should pay a guinea,’ said Mrs Innisfree.
Of course Tottie did not know that Emily and Charlotte had given the guinea back to Mrs Innisfree. She thought she was sold and would presently be sold again. She was filled with shame.
‘It must be there on those cards,’ thought Tottie. ‘Only they can’t read them because they are upside down and Marchpane is too far away on the other table. But soon they must know!’ thought Tottie.
‘La! I am glad I am not standing next to such a one,’ said the walking doll.
‘But you are. You are,’ thought Tottie. She wished she could sink through the table.
The other dolls were longing for the Exhibition to open. Marchpane, of course, was eager for the people to come and admire her, and so was the haughty doll. The wax doll was excited. She had been packed away in a box so long. ‘Do you think there will be any children?’ she asked with longing in her voice.
‘Children? I hope not!’ said Marchpane.
‘I ’ope zey will not touch,’ said the haughty doll.
‘They had better not touch me,’ said Marchpane. ‘That must certainly not be allowed.’
‘But – were you not meant to be played with?’ asked the wax doll. ‘I was. I was.’
‘La! You are un’appy?’