by Sylvia Waugh
CHAPTER 22
A Problem to Solve
“STOP IT, ALL of you! Stop it now! I don’t care how much the things in that house might be worth. I am not interested. All I know is that either those Mennyms were in terrible trouble when they left, or they are totally inconsiderate and too rich to care. Whatever the case, I want nothing at all to do with anything that has ever belonged to them. I certainly don’t want to make a profit out of them. The house is mine. Only the house. And I don’t want to see it again until it is completely empty.”
Jennifer was furious. She had listened to the family going hammer-and-tongs over the contents of Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove for the past hour, and she had had enough.
“All right, Mother,” said Lorna, “you’ve made your point. But those things are all yours. Mr Dobb said they were – yours to dispose of as you think fit. None of us would want to make a profit out of Aunt Kate’s dolls. To sell them would be a violation. But the rest of the stuff has no claim on your sympathy. Things are just things. And if they are worth money, you have a better right to that money than anybody else.”
Jennifer sighed.
“Just at this moment,” she said, “I would like nothing better than to call in some charity workers and ask them to clear the house, furniture, ornaments, pictures, carpets, the lot.”
“What about the dolls?” said Lorna. “We can’t give them to just any old charity without knowing that they are going to be cared for. They were important to Aunt Kate, and she was family, and the house was originally hers.”
“You feel so strongly about it,” said Jennifer, “you see to it. You’d certainly make a better job of it than I would.”
Lorna looked at her mother sharply. Was she being sarcastic? But no, not entirely. There was obviously a measure of sarcasm in her words, but it did not contradict her meaning. She really would be just as pleased to let Lorna take the reins. It was something Tom had thought possible when they discussed it the night before.
“If Lorna wants to take over, let her. She’ll know what she’s doing. And she’s very concerned to do the right thing.”
“Would you not rather . . .?” began Jennifer.
“If necessary, I’ll see to things, but on the whole, I think I’d prefer not to. We don’t want your mother saying I am taking too keen an interest in the family fortune. That house is yours, not mine.”
“What’s mine is yours, Tom Gladstone, and you should know that by now.”
It was eventually settled that Lorna and Albert should take on the task of finding a good home for the dolls and then emptying the house of all its other contents.
“I won’t tell you what to do with anything,” said Jennifer. “All I ask is that you don’t discuss it with me, or in front of me. I don’t want to hear anything else about that house until it is completely empty. There’s no hurry. And whatever you do will be right by me.”
“In the meantime,” said Tom, “I think we should put this house up for sale. Then we’ll have cash to spare for new furniture when the time comes.”
Jennifer was more than pleased to pass on the responsibility to the others.
“I’ll look after Matthew any time,” she said. “If you have anything to see to, just bring him to me. That’s what grannies are for!”
The word ‘granny’ reminded Jennifer that there was another grandmother to be considered. Elsie must not be ignored. And Jennifer remembered how pleased she herself had been when Albert gave her the jug from Comus House. The only value Jennifer could recognise in objects was the sentimental one.
“There is just one thing,” said Jennifer. “Your grandmother might want some keepsake from Brocklehurst Grove. She did visit there when she was very young. Let her choose anything she would like.”
So it came about that Albert Pond returned to Number 5 Brocklehurst Grove. He entered the street and did not recognise anything about it. He looked up at the statue of Matthew James Brocklehurst and had no memory of ever having noticed it before. Nothing about Number 5 gave any signals. Albert suffered no sense of déjà-vu. It was a house that had once been the home of a family called Mennym and that now belonged to his mother-in-law. That was all.
He and Lorna went in at the front door, and at that point they both had the feeling that the spirit of the place hung heavy in the air.
“It is rather spooky,” said Lorna.
“That’s because of the furniture,” said Albert. “It is full of other people’s memories, or so we believe. It is all a matter of imagination really. Jennifer has it to an extreme. But we all have it to some degree. It’d be strange if we didn’t.”
Lorna was anxious to show Albert the dolls.
“We can look at the rest of the house later,” she said. “But first you must see Kate’s People.”
Albert smiled. They went up the two flights of stairs to the top landing. The stair carpet was vaguely familiar, but then stair carpet always is. Lorna led the way to the Doll-Room.
“There,” she said, as they went inside, “what do you think of them?”
Albert looked round at the dolls wonderingly. They were all nicely seated now, not lurched to this side or that. Elsie and Anna had arranged them well. Looked at myopically, they could almost be real people. Kate’s People was what they would always be now, for every member of the Gladstone family, and for whoever their new owner might be. Though ‘owner’ seemed an odd word. Perhaps ‘keeper’ would be better, like the keeper of a motor car. Or, better still, ‘guardian’.
Albert looked at each doll in turn.
“They’re portraits,” he said as he looked at Sir Magnus. “They have to be.”
“Portraits?” said Lorna.
“Likenesses,” said Albert, “probably based upon Kate’s own family, or maybe on her lodgers. That would account for the Mennyms being so concerned about them.”
“They weren’t concerned enough to take them along with them,” said Lorna.
Albert was looking at Vinetta, seated between Poopie and Wimpey, with one arm round each of them.
“Maybe the Mennyms thought the dolls belonged here – if not in this house, then at least in this country. They might have returned to Denmark, for all we know,” said Albert. “There’s no use speculating. We’ll never be sure of anything.”
Then he turned at last and looked full in the face of Pilbeam. An inexplicable shock went through him, a turmoil of feelings, the uppermost he wrongly identified as pity. Like Lancelot looking on the Lady of Shalott, he felt called upon to say how beautiful she was.
“She could be modelled on an ancestor of yours,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Lorna. One hand rested gently on Pilbeam’s arm. “She has your colouring.”
“I don’t think so,” said Lorna. “I take after the Gladstones. That’s not Kate’s side of the family. I don’t suppose she ever knew any of them.”
Then she laughed at herself. For one brief moment she had felt jealous, jealous of an old cloth doll!
“We’d better go now,” she said. “I’ll have to get Matthew home to bed. We’ll come again later in the week. It is a problem, but we’ll find a solution somehow. But now that you’ve seen them, Albert, you have to agree that Aunt Kate’s wishes must be honoured. A home for her people – that’s the job we’ve taken on. And we have to do it properly.”
Albert smiled nervously. Marriage had given him more self-assurance, but he still had moments when he wished devoutly for a quiet life.
CHAPTER 23
Greater Dolls
LORNA WENT TO Heatherton Hall.
She had rung up beforehand and requested an interview with the director of the Theme Museum without knowing exactly what the ‘theme’ was. Heatherton Hall was a new museum in an old building. It was built in Palladian style, very formal, very eighteenth century, set well back from the highway in a wooded park. Lorna found its telephone number in the Yellow Pages and, since it was just five miles north of Castledean, she thought it would be a good place to try. A the
me museum – might it not welcome a family of rag dolls?
“Miss Summerbell will see you at nine-thirty on Tuesday, if that is all right with you. She can give you half-an-hour before the gallery opens,” said the young man on the other end of the line after he had consulted the lady her subordinates privately called Minerva, after the armour-clad goddess of wisdom.
“Thank you,” said Lorna. “I’ll be there.”
At nine-twenty-five, Lorna drove into the huge carriageway that led up to the mansion. It was an icy cold day, but dazzlingly bright. She stopped the car at the wall beneath two massive stone staircases that led up from each side of the façade to a palatial front entrance. Suddenly Lorna, usually so self-possessed, began to feel shy. What was she going to say to the director?
She restarted the car and drove round the side of the house following the sign that said Visitors’ Car Park. Nothing venture, she thought later as she pushed open the heavy glass door . . .
“I’m afraid the galleries are not open yet. There is a notice on the door outside,” said one of the girls behind the desk in the entrance hall.
“I’ve come to see the director,” said Lorna.
“Do you have an appointment?” said the girl, glancing down at the book on the desk.
“Yes,” said Lorna. “My name’s Lorna Pond. I rang up two days ago.”
“Take a seat,” said the girl, gesturing towards a long wooden form fixed to the far wall. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
The minute was at least five, and felt like twenty-five.
When the girl came back she was followed by a young man who came towards Lorna, hand outstretched in greeting.
“Mrs Pond,” he said. “We spoke on the telephone. My name is Andrew. Miss Summerbell won’t be free for another ten minutes or so, but she’s asked me to show you a little of the gallery, if you like. We’ll have time to see some of the exhibits on the ground floor.”
“Thank you,” said Lorna. “That should be interesting.”
They went through a set of double doors into a corridor panelled with large panes of glass. Behind each wall of glass was a room, fully furnished and apparently lived-in.
The first room had the name JANE AUSTEN inscribed in discreet little letters on a metal plaque fixed to the centre base of the glass frame. Through it, Lorna saw the Pump Room at Bath. It was an exact replica – the long windows, the columned walls and the high-arched apse where stood the great clock. Gentlemen in frock-coats and ladies in high-waisted dresses were in the act of walking up and down, or sitting cosily by each other to observe the company. These were all dolls, of course, but such dolls! One almost expected them to resume walking and talking at any minute.
The next room was occupied by Forsytes, sitting round the drawing-room at Timothy’s place in the Bayswater Road. All eleven chairs were there, and the sofa, the tables, the cabinet and even the grand piano. Most of the seats were occupied. The dolls that sat very upright on them were well-dressed, wealthy Victorian ladies and gentlemen, all looking conscious of their own importance. And every doll appeared to be on the point of relaying some juicy bit of gossip. Galsworthy would have smiled to see them.
In the third room sat Sherlock Holmes, the bowl of his pipe tucked in his right hand, looking from hooded eyes at a mysterious lady visitor. His friend, Dr Watson, stood with one arm stretched up to rest on the ornate mantelpiece above the handsome fireplace. The room was complete with pictures, books, ornaments and all the carved and decorated furniture of the period. The woman was deeply distressed, holding to her eyes a lace-edged handkerchief. Holmes was just about to speak . . .
Lorna followed her guide without a word. Andrew gave her a commentary as they went.
At the end of this corridor they came to the strangest room of all. It was well-lit, but draped all in black, its only occupant being a very large mirror, framed with a narrow band of ebony. Lorna could not help but see herself in it, her outdoor clothes looking bulky and incongruous.
“This room, as you see, is labelled Fin de Siècle,” said Andrew, looking rather sheepish, feeling the need to explain something that he clearly regarded as peculiar. “That means ‘end of the century’. Miss Summerbell sees it as symbolic. It speaks of our aridity; dryness, lack of inspiration.”
His smile showed that he was conscious of speaking in quotation marks. In a more comfortable voice he added, “I like the mirror though. If we look at the contemporary world, we are bound to see ourselves.”
Lorna looked at the room and tried to imagine it filled with furniture from Brocklehurst Grove, and with Kate’s People seeming to live in it. At once she felt sorry for the rag dolls, and for their long-dead maker. Wonderful they might be, but in a place like this they would stand out as the work of a gifted amateur. Lorna felt increasingly embarrassed.
“I’m afraid there’s not time to show you more,” said Andrew, looking at his watch. “Miss Summerbell will be ready to see you now.”
Then he led the way back to the entrance hall. Lorna had just time to notice, briefly, an ‘interior’ to the other side of the Fin de Siècle room that was really an ‘exterior’ depicting Mr Pickwick and his friends departing from Dingley Dell on a frosty morning, ready to go skating, old Wardle leading the way and poor Mr Winkle looking ‘exquisitely uncomfortable’. The next window showed the parlour at Haworth Parsonage with the sisters seated around the table, Emily deeply engrossed in her own writing, Charlotte leaning towards Anne to show her something in a book she is holding. At any moment, it seemed, the fingers would turn the page.
A room labelled E. M. FORSTER was still being prepared, signs of a courtroom in an Indian city, dust covers on various boxes and pieces of furniture, but no figures yet. The room next to it was not even labelled, but long ladders and cloth covers showed that it too was being made ready for an exhibit.
From the wide corridor, Andrew led Lorna into a narrow passage, along to a room with DIRECTOR written in large gold letters on a bevelled glass door. He tapped at the door.
“Come in,” said a contralto voice.
“You can go in,” said Andrew, holding the door ajar for her. He almost felt like warning her about the overpowering lady she was about to meet, but that would have been a breach of loyalty.
“Good morning, Mrs Pond,” said Miss Summerbell as Lorna entered. “I’m sorry I had to keep you waiting. Do take a seat.”
Lorna sat down on the low chair placed strategically a few yards away from a large and very solid desk. The chair was so low that she was obliged to look up at the very large and solid director seated on the throne behind it. Lorna recognised the technique, and was more amused than impressed. But she was uneasy nevertheless. It was impossible not to be impressed by the Theme Museum’s lifelike array of dolls.
“I believe you have a proposition to make,” said Miss Summerbell, looking very earnestly down at her visitor, as if taking her seriously was paying a compliment.
Before Lorna could open her mouth, Miss Summberbell gave a sweep of the hand, and went on, “I think I should warn you, before you begin, that I see people week after week making suggestions for creating a display in the Fin de Siècle. They fail to see that the room is already complete. It is not even as if there were no other rooms for which they could make suggestions. My Fin de Siècle salon seems to make people very uneasy! So if . . .”
It was Lorna’s turn to interrupt. Embarrassed she might be, but by the situation she’d got herself into, not by the disdainful manner of the museum’s self-important director.
“Nothing of the kind,” said Lorna coldly. “I had not even seen that room until today. But now that I have seen it, and the rest of the exhibits in there, I feel I owe you an apology for wasting your time. I had some dolls to offer you, life-sized dolls, but they would not fit in here.”
Miss Summerbell’s eyes gleamed. She was not about to throw away a donation without knowing what it was. The museum space was by no means full yet. She leaned across the desk and in a much mor
e intimate voice said, “Let me be the judge, Mrs Pond. Tell me about your dolls. Why do you think they wouldn’t fit?”
“They are rag dolls, not models,” said Lorna. “If this were a handicraft museum, they might have a place here.”
Miss Summberbell looked intrigued.
“You have seen only one wing of the first floor, I believe,” she said. “Even that is still in process of being completed. There are other floors. This is a new museum. There will be other themes. How did you come by the rag dolls? Provenance is important.”
“They were made over half-a-century ago by a member of my family,” said Lorna.
“I think perhaps I should at least see them,” said Miss Summerbell. “You really do want to part with them?”
Lorna was taken off guard and said simply, “Yes. We do.”
“There are certain conditions,” said Miss Summerbell, becoming businesslike. “We cannot pay for them. We are not allowed to offer money for any outside contributions . . .”
“It’s not like that,” said Lorna quickly, and she was about to explain that her mind was made up that this museum would not be right for Kate’s People. It was too grand a place by far. But Miss Summerbell ignored her. For anyone to interrupt the director of Heatherton Hall was very unusual. This young woman had already dared to make one interruption. She could not be permitted to make another. Miss Summerbell went on speaking as if Lorna had never opened her mouth.
“. . . and if you donate them you relinquish all rights to them forever. They may be displayed, or stored. We are not allowed to sell them, but if they are not suitable for this museum, they can be passed on to another. And if they become infested in any way, or too damaged to repair, we have the right to dispose of them.”
