The Doll Factory

by Elizabeth Macneal

  She watches him turn over the envelope, the paper caught in a slant of midday sun. The Royal Academy stamp is on the back: a metal brand sunk into hot wax.

  ‘Oh, do open it,’ Iris says.

  He plays with the edge, bites his lip, puts it down on the sideboard, and then picks it up again.

  They both stare at it.

  ‘I’m certain you’ve been accepted,’ Iris says.

  ‘But after last year – the critics – perhaps even because I signed it “PRB” that will be enough to irk them—’

  ‘Then I will,’ Iris says, and seizes the envelope.

  ‘Private correspondence of a gentleman!’ Louis says, but he does not stop her. ‘Oh, put me out of my misery. What does it say?’

  Iris slits it with a knife, the paper creasing in her hand. ‘Dear Mr. Frost,’ she reads falteringly.

  ‘Oh for heaven’s sake, give it here,’ Louis says, snatching it. His eyes knock from line to line.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘They’ve accepted it.’

  ‘Then why do you look so miserable?’

  ‘I don’t know. So much still rests on where it’s hung. And the critics—’

  ‘I thought you said you didn’t care a fig for their opinion.’

  ‘Well,’ Louis says, folding the paper, ‘I may say I don’t, but show me an artist who doesn’t mind if horrid things are said about his work.’ He starts to smile. ‘I suppose it is good news.’

  ‘You suppose? Oh, to think of your painting in the Royal Academy!’

  ‘You’ll be on display, too. You’ll be famous – you’ll throw me over for next season’s Turner or Constable.’

  ‘Without question.’ She picks up the letter. ‘But I will be there, won’t I? It will be me – heavens, to think of everyone visiting me in my prison.’ Centuries from now, when she is long gone, the painting could still exist. Next year she will make her entrance, and be the creator not the muse behind the work which might endure. She only needs to find an idea, and then she can begin.

  There is a rap on the door, and Louis runs for it. ‘Millais – have you heard?’

  Millais has had all three of his paintings accepted – The Woodman’s Daughter, The Return of the Dove to the Ark and Mariana. Louis pulls him into an embrace. ‘I feel sure that this is the year when the establishment will recognize us – when we will become lauded, when Dickens will be forced to gorge on his own vitriol – Le jour de gloire est arrivé! Perhaps even Ruskin will take note.’

  Louis leads them into the sitting room and takes a bottle of green chartreuse and three plump cigars from the sideboard. Millais attempts to decline, but Louis forces a glass into his hand, pours three generous measures, and knocks his against Iris’s. ‘To the day of our glory,’ he says, and Iris coughs a little on the sweetness.

  It reminds her of the last time she drank with Louis. It does not take much to bring back that night – just the sight of his hands, his waist.

  ‘We must go to the Dolphin,’ Louis says.

  ‘I’ll stand you a drain of pale,’ Millais says.

  ‘I’ll stand you a drain of pale.’ He turns to Iris. ‘You must join us.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ Louis says, reaching for her gloves and bonnet. ‘Do you have better things to do? A soirée to prepare for, or the opera—’

  Iris stares at him. How easy it must be to be a man, not to think of these things. ‘To a tavern with two unmarried—’

  ‘Nonsense. Besides, we are your chaperones.’

  ‘You? You aren’t married and – nor am I. I would be considered a—’ And she wonders if she is of the class where such things should even be a concern. A shop girl turned model. What is enough to be ruined?

  ‘I didn’t think you cared for the sensibility of prigs.’

  ‘I appreciate her concerns,’ Millais says.

  ‘Thank you,’ Iris says, and she clutches the glass so tightly that she thinks it might crack. Then she adds, as if trying to gather in the respectability which seems to slip further from her grasp each day, ‘Mr Millais.’

  Louis frowns. ‘Am I to be Mr Frost too, now?’

  ‘You must go without me.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ Louis says, and he looks at her askance. ‘I shouldn’t have pressed it. I’m perfectly content to stay here, and stare at the dado.’

  There is another knock on the door. ‘That must be Hunt,’ Louis says. ‘I feel sure that Valentine’s Rescue will be accepted, and yours, Millais – all three will be on the line.’

  Iris is standing closest to the door, and she says, ‘I’ll play butler.’

  The babble of their talk drifts through the sitting-room door as she unfastens the latch.

  But she does not find Hunt on the threshold.

  A child blinks at her. He has a cowlick of blond hair, his large eyes as round as plums. He wears a rumpled sailor suit, his face held in the remarkably adult expression which she recognizes from other wealthy children. She almost laughs – he looks as stern as a schoolmaster.

  ‘Good morning,’ she says, bending down so that their eyes are level. ‘How can I help you, little gentleman?’

  ‘Where the ship came in –’ he wrinkles his forehead – ‘the docks, that is, they said they’d send my trunk here. But is – is my father here? Mama is sick. She sent me on the steamer with Aunt Jane and I didn’t like it a jot. My aunt is paying for the cab and she walks inter-intermin-ably slow—’

  ‘Your father?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, and she hears the hallway door open behind her.

  ‘Papa!’ the child shouts, and all the gravity on his little face vanishes as he pushes past her and hurls himself at Louis.

  Enquiries

  7 Gower Street

  APRIL 12TH

  Dear Mr. Reed,

  I have attempted to visit you in your premises on several occasions but have been unable to determine your visiting hours.

  I am looking for a lapdog as a prop for a painting, much like the pair of greyhounds with which you furnished me for Isabella. Ideally a Blenheim, Yorkshire or similar. I wonder if you have anything suitable either currently, or if you could secure a specimen within the month? Would two guineas suffice?

  Do write to me at your earliest opportunity.

  Yours,

  J. E. Millais

  The Factory

  APRIL 17TH

  Iris,

  I was sorry to see you depart in such a hurry – I would be grateful for a chance to explain my situation etc.

  Yours,

  L.

  The Factory

  APRIL 18TH

  Iris,

  I trust you received my last missive, and that you are in good spirits. I must admit to some concern that I have not had a response from you or that you did not attend your painting this morning – will you be up to a sitting tomorrow as planned? There is a matter which I would like to discuss with you, of some import. I would also like to apologize if I have caused harm in any way.

  Yours,

  L.

  Briefly –

  Your landlady says you are taking a walk but I can see your candle is burning. I do not like to accuse a matron of dishonesty, so I will allow her the benefit of my doubt, and would like you to be aware of the hazards of lit candles left unattended etc. etc.

  You were missed in the studio today – Guinevere is barely surviving without the fodder of your discarded pictures.

  6 Colville Place

  APRIL 19TH

  Iris,

  Your silence alarms me.

  I would be grateful for the opportunity to speak to you and address a pressing situation.

  I hope you will enjoy the bag of your favourite caramel truffles.

  Yours,

  L.

  Claude

  Silas has learned Iris. He has learned her habits: the sucking of the end of her hair, the smoothing of a ragged rosette on her chest. She sleeps in a women’s boarding house, and her chambe
r is the top-left window. He knows this because he sees the candlelight pour from those panes a few moments after she enters the building every evening.

  She enjoys toffee truffles, which she buys from a vendor on Tottenham Court Road. He eats them too in order to feel closer to her, even though the sweetness is sickly and furs his teeth. Until today, she has spent entire days in Colville Place, and he tries to swallow any thoughts of what she is doing. Occasionally an image will force its way past his filter, and he pictures Louis thrusting himself into her white body, the chime of her laughter, her hot panting. But he puts these thoughts aside because they are lies. He knows that she will be his, that she is his.

  He remembers when he thought the same of Flick; now she seems little more than a lark, a distraction from the real beauty which lay in wait for him years later. He was so kind to that girl, and she so ungrateful! He put aside pounds and pounds given by those wealthy Stoke hags in exchange for his skulls; every companion he parted with was for her. It was so that they could escape it all together, make their way to London. He forgave her dalliance with the heir to the pottery factory. But she scorned him, railed at him when he showed her his collection.

  With Iris, he will master himself better. There are days when he feels a sapping of control, when he thinks that his love is a madness, that Iris does not love him, not really. But an emotion this strong can only be reciprocated. He must wait silent, quiet, hidden, until she is ready to come to him. He does not yet have a plan, but it doesn’t worry him: his plot for Flick hatched so naturally and unexpectedly that he is sure one will occur to him soon.

  And in all this time, he has been too busy looking after Iris to spend long in his curiosity shop. He has not been into his cellar for over two weeks. It all feels so hollow, so meaningless – what is the point of a Lepidoptera window? It has never been where his interest lies, so why should he care about it? And so he has discarded it, the wings Albie collected turning to dust. A few months previously, if he was away, the urchin would leave him markers that he had been there, that he had a treasure. But there is nothing now. He wonders if the boy has grown bored of this work too.

  The only communication he has received is from Millais, a letter which Silas scanned slowly, spelling out the words, and then crumpled into the grate. He could have laughed at Millais’s naivety – as if he has the patience to make him knick-knacks for his paintings at a time like this!

  And then – another sign from Iris.

  She is in Regent’s Park, a few flaking daffodils still out in the meadows. Silas can see her sitting by the lake. He prefers her seated: she looks more fragile, less tall. It is only a shame that she is wearing a high-necked dress which conceals her collarbone.

  For the first time, she did not visit Louis this morning and he can tell from the drift of her shoulders that she is sad. It makes him ache to see her shredding blossoms one by one from a fallen branch, the pink oval petals falling about her. She sits there for over an hour, her head bowed, and he longs to approach her, to touch her back and comfort her, to taste the little tears that drip from her pretty chin.

  ‘You will look after me, won’t you? You, who is so caring,’ she will say.

  The wind teases a curl loose from her bonnet. Every so often, she raises her hand to tuck it back in, but a few moments later it falls free. She stares downwards, and her face is pale, her eyes lacking their usual liveliness. He wonders what saddens her. Perhaps Rose has fallen ill. He should watch the doll shop to check.

  A spaniel bounds across to her. Silas usually hates lapdogs. He has heard of the way these pampered rats are treated – meals of boiled liver, sponge baths of egg yolk, satin-lined baskets to sleep in, velvet mittens to protect their paws. Their owners show more compassion to these beasts than to men on the street – was he not raised on hunger and fists? While the factory owner’s daughters dressed up their ratty hounds and wheeled them through the yard in prams!

  But he shrugs off these thoughts when he sees the look on Iris’s face. She holds out her hand to the dog, and it is the first time today that he has seen her smile. The dog licks her, noses her wrist, and she tickles his white belly.

  There is no misunderstanding this signal. It is as clear as if she bellowed it. Do not neglect your work! she says, with each stroke of her hand on its fluffed pelt. This is the hound for Millais.

  And he is touched by her consideration for his trade; another way they are akin. Kindness matching kindness.

  Are you sure? he asks her in his head. Are you sure it is this one?

  And she answers by laughing as the dog dances on its hind legs.

  Back at his house, Silas reads snippets of The Lancet for advice on chloroform. This is his chance to experiment. For the last five years, he has cut out each mention of the sedative from the periodical with slender silver scissors, never knowing when he might need them. He opens his drawer, takes out the ragged stack of paper, and studies them carefully. He lifts the wick of his candle.

  Volume 51, 1848: ‘Chloroform – its ben-e-fits and its dang-dang-gers – dangers.’

  When he tried to purchase the chemical two years previously, it was new and difficult to source. Now he is more hopeful. He visits a chemist he has not called on before, catching an omnibus to Farringdon. He feels a strange security in these establishments: he usually loves marvelling over the china jars stuffed with rattling pills, the drawers of powders with metal shovels, the wooden skeletons in the corner, and the neat rows of boxes and tins and bottles behind the counter. Today, however, he barely looks around. His manner is brusque, businesslike.

  ‘I’m here for a bottle of chloroform,’ he says to the chemist. ‘The doctor sent me. My wife will soon be ready for her lying-in.’

  ‘Very good, sir,’ the chemist says. ‘The popularity of the drug – it is said that even the Queen might try it with her next child. Mrs Dickens was all praise for the method. Hoping for a son, I take it, sir?’

  ‘What?’ Silas blinks. ‘Oh, no. A girl.’

  The chemist turns, scanning the shelves with his finger. Silas raps the counter with his nails, a sharp tattoo. ‘Here we are, sir. You’ll only need a small bottle, I would have thought. Just the one dose?’

  ‘I’ll take two bottles,’ Silas says.

  The chemist pauses. ‘Do be mindful, sir. There are still dangers. I would not want your wife to encounter any ill effects.’

  ‘I’m quite sure. I’ll be careful. But there’s no telling if there’ll be further complications after her lying-in. I’m sure you understand.’

  ‘Very good, sir. Despite our advanced age, there can always be difficulties,’ the chemist says, and hands Silas two little glass bottles, their mouths stoppered with cork.

  And the rest is easy. He just needs to watch, to wait. The spaniel slips in the same puddle every morning, coating its shanks and pink collar in muck, to the vexation of the maidservant. Its name is Claude. It lives at 160 Gloucester Place, and has a squashed, piggy face. The creature is white except for mackerel stripes on its legs and a liver-coloured patch on its back. It yaps at spiders. A careless scullery maid walks it at dawn on a velvet ribbon – she yawns loudly, chatters with other maids in the park, and does not clean up after its messes, but leaves them for the pure collectors to gather up.

  After three days, he knows he is ready. The footsteps of the languid maidservant are plodding next to the ratty scuttle of the dog at her feet. He waits beside the trees. He has brought meat scraps as an additional lure.

  The sun is up and the dew sparkles like mouse eyes. There are no swells in the park this early, just servants congregating in groups, picking fatigue out of their eyes, and keeping a vague watch over their mistresses’ lapdogs.

  The servant unties the ribbon, and the dog runs free, snorting around the undergrowth. It sniffs the backside of a greyhound – he laughs to think of its spoilt owner kissing the beast on the nose after that – and then the spaniel begins its laps. It totters down to the brink of the lake, dips a paw
into the water, and then scurries back. It weaves behind a tree, barks at nothing, and then trots into the woods. Silas finds it on its haunches, its turd smoking in the cool morning air.

  ‘Here, precious,’ he whispers, holding out the scraps.

  Its snout twitches. It is young, little more than a puppy; it will be just what Millais wants. Iris chose it well. It starts to feast on the meat, its docked tail wagging from side to side like the pendulum of a machine.

  It is the work of a moment. Silas takes the vial from his pocket, seeps the liquid on to his handkerchief, and clamps it over the dog’s face. He adds more drops, one every five seconds. The experiment takes longer than he thought it would, perhaps a couple of minutes. Silas worries over this. The dog whines a little, then is drowsy and limp.

  Now that the dog is sedated, he smothers it. He can only tell it is dead because of the muting of its pulse, the cessation of the rasping breath from its squashed nose.

  He tucks the little beast into his coat and leaves the park. He has done it for Iris, and she ought to be pleased.

  Taint

  The Factory

  APRIL 20TH

  Iris,

  I beg a moment of your time. I know that the arrival of my son will have come as a surprise, even a fright, to you. I am sorry. At the time, I did not see a matter of such privacy and delicacy either to be of great import, or to be an appropriate topic to raise. I was mistaken.

  I would like to explain myself, imperfectly, and to reassure you that this does not affect your position as my model and “apprentice”, if you will. I am married in name alone; Sylvia and I have lived apart for a number of years. My name does not carry any taint; indeed, nobody in London (aside from the Brotherhood) is aware I am anything other than a rather shabby bachelor. I will understand if, following an explanation of my situation, you decide to quit my employ (though the art world of 1852 onwards will be the lesser for it, and Guinevere may never recover her wits); but I beg you not to reach a decision before I have had the chance to speak with you.