by Janet Lunn
“Stupid dreams! You had them too.” Elizabeth was outraged. Her face was beginning to show angry red. “You saw the house too and you saw,” she paused triumphantly, “you saw Hester. And you know it was Hester. And when I said Hester, and William came up the stairs, you screamed. You did, and I heard you.”
Jane started, “I don’t even know anyone called Hester,” she said lamely.
Someone said, “Ha!” For an instant Jane could have sworn it was the doll, then she looked angrily at Elizabeth.
“Well I don’t,” she said defensively.
“I don’t either,” said Elizabeth looking fixedly at her disgruntled sister, “but Amelia does.”
“Amelia does?” Jane turned her back to Elizabeth and the doll. “How do you know who Amelia knows? Dolls don’t know people anyway. The whole business is just plain silly.”
“And how do you know anyhow who I mean when I say Amelia?” and this time Jane knew it was Elizabeth who said, “Ha! Ha!”
“Well, I don’t know. I have no idea at all.” Jane was as angry as Elizabeth now.
“Oh yes you do!” Elizabeth grabbed Jane’s arm. “Yes you do. You just don’t want to admit it because … because it was my idea. You’re just plain hateful.” Elizabeth was shaking with rage. “You don’t like anything that’s interesting or exciting or different at all.”
“I don’t like what’s silly,” said Jane coldly, “and I don’t see for the least minute why I should be one bit interested in dreams. What’s so wonderful about dreams anyway? They aren’t real. You can’t prove them.”
This seemed the ultimate insult for Elizabeth. The one thing Jane could say to make her want to do something wild and murderous.
“Prove it,” she screamed. “Prove it. Prove it! PROVE IT! Is that all you can ever say – ever? You can’t prove baseball either. Or swimming. Or John A. MacDonald or two and two, but you don’t think those are stupid or say prove it to Miss Andrews.”
“At least,” retorted Jane, spitting out each word with great care, “you can see baseball and John A. MacDonald is in the books and two and two. But your dreams, they’re just plain crazy. I wouldn’t be one bit surprised if you’re crazy. You and your dreams. I don’t see at all how I can be twins with someone who’s just plain crazy.” She walked carefully and deliberately past Elizabeth’s nose as though she didn’t know Elizabeth or Elizabeth’s nose were in the room. She pulled her bathing suit out of the bureau drawer and began to change into it.
“I hate you!” screamed Elizabeth. “I hate being your twin and I hate you. I really truly, absolutely and positively hate YOU!” In her rage she picked up the first thing at hand and hurled it at Jane, who was just starting down the stairs. It was the doll. It landed halfway down where the stairs made a sharp turn. There it stayed, upside down, until Elizabeth crept out of bed much later and retrieved it. She brought it into bed with her then and murmured soothing words to it until finally she fell asleep and dreamed she was with Amelia aboard the sailing ship she had seen out on the lake. The dream was sad.
Jane went with Joe for a quick swim in the dark, but found herself too angry and unhappy to take any pleasure at all from the treat. She slunk into her bed and lay there awake for hours. She couldn’t take her mind off the little house or the doll – or Hester. Of course she knew who Hester was, Hester with the brown dress, the puffed sleeves, and the fat brooch. She shivered. She didn’t like Hester – and Hester didn’t like her either. “That’s ridiculous,” she whispered into the night. “Who’s Hester? How does Hester know me or I know Hester? It’s a silly dream. Nothing to do with me. Anyway Hester belongs to the doll, not me. The doll belongs to Hester. Hester belongs to the doll … the doll belongs to Hester … Hester belongs to the … the doll belongs to …” and she fell asleep. And dreamed of Hester.
Untwins
The fight wasn’t over the next day – or the next – or the day after that. The twins couldn’t remember a fight that had lasted so long or been so dreadful. They went around for days in silence and hurt and anger. Usually their fights were about something definite, something that happened, but this one was about being twins. It started with the doll, of course – or maybe it was Hester – but it wasn’t about that. It was about being twins, being different but locked together by shared thoughts, feelings – and now dreams. They wanted to break that lock. They wanted to so badly they could barely speak.
“Mama, are Liza and Jane untwins?” William asked and the family decided maybe that’s what they were, untwins.
Feeling sorry and hoping to make things more comfortable in the family, Mama suggested that one of them move to the attic room. Neither twin, knowing how much the other loved the tower room, would do this.
So Jane went off every morning down the beach to the high diving pool. Two days in a row she brought home a girl named Polly, who lived a couple of streets away, and ignored Elizabeth strenuously.
Elizabeth did more or less the same thing. She didn’t dive. She puttered around, found the local library, and got to know Miss Porcastle, the librarian. She tried dress making for the doll, but after three unsuccessful attempts she left it with its half-made clothes in the window seat. Although she couldn’t actually put it right out of her head, she shoved it into the background and concentrated on historical novels under the cherry tree.
Papa tried to show his sympathy by taking them for a walk, but neither wanted his sympathy.
It was the doll that ended the fight – which was only fair since it was the doll that had begun it.
Elizabeth went upstairs at noon, a day or so after the nighttime walk, to get away from Mama’s cross scolding. Someone had been at Mama’s sewing, and since Elizabeth had lately shown some interest in sewing, Mama had questioned her closely about it. Indignantly Elizabeth had denied all knowledge of the mess. Hurt, she had gone upstairs to her own room. As she often did these days, she went to the window seat to tell Amelia all about it. Amelia wasn’t there. She looked in the space inside the window seat. The doll wasn’t there either, nor in the closet, nor on the chair, nor any other place in the room.
Back to the window seat she went in panic, to have another look. From the window she could see Jane coming up the garden walk. Forgetting they were untwins, not sharing things, not speaking at all, she raced down the stairs and slammed through the kitchen door.
“Oh, Jane,” she cried, nearly running her sister down, “it’s gone.”
Without stopping to ask what, Jane looked up toward the window.
“No it isn’t,” she said. “There it is.”
Elizabeth whirled round on her heel, looked up where Jane was pointing. There was Amelia, face down into the pigeon hole, hanging by one foot from the window ledge above.
The twins stared at each other, their fight forgotten.
“How did you know?” Elizabeth asked.
“I don’t know. I just knew what you were looking for and I knew where it was clear as day.”
“The doll …” Elizabeth was about to say triumphantly, the doll told you, but she cut off the words before she could say them. Elizabeth had learned something.
“I wonder how it got there,” she said.
“Maybe Porridge took it. Maybe he thought it was to eat – you know, like the peanut butter sandwich.”
From high up in his pigeon hole Porridge regarded them out of his unblinking eyes.
“I’ll bet that’s what he did,” said Elizabeth, somehow relieved.
From behind them William said, “Maybe Porridge wants your doll for his babies to play with.”
Jane and Elizabeth burst out laughing.
“Oh, William,” Jane said, “he birds don’t have babies,” but when Jane went upstairs and leaned out of the window to rescue Amelia, she looked down into the nest and William was right. Porridge had babies.
“Maybe he – or I guess it’s she – did want it for her babies,” she said breathlessly when she was back beside the cherry tree, the doll clutched safely in h
er hands.
The twins looked at each other warily. Jane said quickly, “I’llbefriendsifyouwill,” which was a make-up-after-a-fight formula they had been using, almost since they had started talking real words.
And Elizabeth quickly gave the expected answer, “Guessitwasn’tallyourfault,” and solemnly they shook hands. To cover their embarrassment they sat down under the tree to talk about Porridge and her babies.
To Find a House
All that afternoon, Jane and Elizabeth sat under the cherry tree in the back garden. William watched them curiously for a brief while and then went off to find his cars. Joe came by and threw a handful of sand at them on his way from the beach. Patrick passed on his way from cleaning the coach house, and the puppy, following Pat, decided he liked the shade of the cherry tree and squeezed in between the twins.
Jane had learned something from the fight, too. She had made up her mind – suddenly, on her way upstairs to rescue Amelia – to go along with Elizabeth’s ideas. Being untwins was too painful. She was going to try, really try, to see things Elizabeth’s way. And if Elizabeth wanted to start a crazy hunt for the things in the dreams, she was going to do it and she wasn’t going to say a word about how stupid it was. If it killed her, she promised herself, she would do it – and she felt much better for deciding.
“OK,” she said, “maybe you’re right about the doll. Maybe there IS something about it. Maybe we SHOULD do something.”
Elizabeth was overjoyed. “Oh Jane, there is, there really is. Listen,” she sat up on her heels and wound the ends of her hair around her fingers with excitement. “What I think is that long ago when Amelia was new she was Hester’s doll and lived in that house.”
Jane shivered.
“I know what you mean,” Elizabeth put her hand on Jane’s arm. “There’s something about Hester, isn’t there? Something not nice. But she’s part of it and we have to think about her. It was her house.”
“I’d rather think about the doll.”
“She wants us to find it.”
“What?”
“The house.”
“Who does?”
“The doll, stupid.”
“Oh, Elizabeth,” Jane began and stopped herself, remembering her pledge. “Well,” she said hastily, “if it’s true and the doll wants us to find the dream house, how do we do it? If she’s as old as she looks, she must be hundreds of years old. We can’t go back hundreds of years just like that and find it – and where was it anyway? Toronto isn’t hundreds of years old. Remember in history last year we took Toronto. It’s a lot newer than lots of places. What if the house was in England or France or somewhere?”
“Oh, no. It couldn’t have been. It must have been here.” Elizabeth was emphatic.
“Why?”
“Because the doll’s here. We found it here. It has its dreams here.”
Jane swallowed carefully the part about the doll having dreams and said, “It could have come from somewhere else.”
“But it found us here. It wasn’t just an accident, us going into that shop. It found us here because here is where it wants us to look for its house.”
“All right,” said Jane. There didn’t seem to be much point in arguing.
“What do we do,” she asked, rolling over on top of the happy puppy snuggled in between them, “hire a time machine? Or will the doll take care of it? If we hire a time machine, Claverhouse,” she murmured into the dog’s white fur, “we’ll take you, too, OK?”
Elizabeth looked suspiciously at her sister, “You don’t need to make fun,” she said.
“Wasn’t really,” Jane jumped up and so did the dog, looking hopefully for someone to romp with. “I just don’t entirely see how we’re going to manage it, that’s all – get down Claverhouse.”
There was a look of triumph in Elizabeth’s eyes. “Why do you call that dog Claverhouse?” she asked.
“I don’t know, just came to me that it would be a good name.”
“I think Hester had a dog named Claverhouse.”
This was almost too much for Jane. She was sure Elizabeth had made that up, but having made up her mind to do a thing, Jane was not one to give up easily. Hastily she changed the subject; “Really, Eliza, we can’t find a house and a girl from long ago times. It isn’t possible.”
“We’ll have to go house hunting,” answered her sister imperturbably. “We’ll go into town and look at all the houses. There can’t be many exactly like Hester’s.”
Mama was pleased the next morning when the twins asked if they could go uptown. “I’m glad to have you out of the way,” she said, “not messing in my kitchen or my sewing things.” (That’s the second time, thought Elizabeth and promised herself to speak to William.) She gave them an errand to do in the wool shop on Temperance Street and threatened them with horrifying consequences if they were not home on time.
They went upstairs, put on their matching red and white striped dresses (“People are always more helpful when we dress alike,” said Elizabeth. Jane snorted but obeyed.), and off they went to the streetcar to look for Hester’s house.
At first they saw nothing that resembled the house in their dream. Then they saw a row with white peaks in the front but too tall, and then nothing. On they went for a mile or so, peering from this side of the streetcar and then that, expecting at any moment to see their house (at least Elizabeth did) – and then Elizabeth saw it. She was sure she did. It was thin and little, old, with dirty paint, but still, unmistakably, a little red brick house with a white wood lace peak at its front. Jane leading, they hurried off the streetcar. Jane didn’t know what to think seeing the house really standing there. She started across the street.
“Wait,” Elizabeth hadn’t moved. “It’s not right,” she said sadly.
“Don’t be silly.”
“No, it isn’t,” Elizabeth shook her head. It was a deep disappointment to her but she knew she was right.
“You mean because it’s so shabby?”
“No, I know it would have to be old-looking now. No, it isn’t that – something else and it hasn’t got the butter-and-eggs. I guess they’d die after a while, too.” This house not only had no little white and yellow flowers by its doorstep, it had nothing but soot and dirt clinging to every part of it. “No.” said Elizabeth again, “I know what it is. It’s the lace. The lace is wrong.” She pointed toward the house’s peaked trim. “Our house has two circles or something. This one has a tulip. See?”
Jane did. Where the white wood trim came together to form its point it curled around at the bottom in the shape of a tulip.
“Ours has roses, I think,” she said.
“Yes, roses,” agreed Elizabeth thoughtfully, “roses, I’m sure. Oh, dear! Well we’ll have to get on the next streetcar and look some more. Have we got any more money?”
“Enough for that, I guess,” and they got on the next streetcar and resumed their watch. Jane on one side of the car, Elizabeth on the other.
This time it was Jane who saw the house, but before rushing off the streetcar they both looked at its white peak. Alas, the lace trim had a design in fern shape, no flower petals of any kind. Then Elizabeth saw another little house, and another. Jane saw a whole row – all shabby, all old, but none with the double rose design they remembered from the dream. By the time the streetcar had run all across town, they had seen twenty-seven single houses with white wood lace peaks and nine whole rows of them.
“It’s sort of like the tinderbox story,” said Elizabeth disconsolately, “with the X on one door and then X’s on all the other doors in town. We’ll never find it.”
“Why didn’t we ever see any houses like this before?” Jane leaned her tired head back on the car seat, wishing she were home going swimming.
“I don’t know. Maybe it’s because we were never looking for one. I never noticed anyone else’s broken leg before I broke mine, but the first day I went out with a cast I saw five.”
“Funny,” said Jane but she didn’t
sound as though she meant it. “I guess we’ll go home now.”
“I guess so,” said Elizabeth. “We can try again tomorrow and maybe we should bring the doll.”
“What for?”
“To help remember, stupid.”
Jane groaned inwardly but closed her eyes and said no more. It wasn’t until they were within one stop of their own street that they remembered Mama’s errand. They had to go all the way back to town for it and were forty minutes late getting home.
Their mother was cross, not only because of their being late, but because she had discovered her dressing table in a complete hash of jewelry, lipstick, and cologne.
“Look,” she said, “I don’t know what’s got into you girls. You’ve never been like this before, never. If you want my needles, cloth, lipstick, hairpins – anything – just ask. I was patient those days you were so unhappy but I’ve spoken to you several times now – this is just too much.”
“But we didn’t. We …”
“No buts. Who else in the family would bother with jewelry and make-up like that?” and she sent them to their room without dinner.
Hot, tired, and put out by this injustice, the twins posted themselves at the windows hoping to see someone who would get them something to eat. While they waited they went over their afternoon and decided it hadn’t been a total waste of time. They had learned one thing: Toronto was full of their kind of house. They were looking in the right place.
“Tomorrow we’ll take Amelia.” Elizabeth reached inside the window seat to get the doll out. “Boy,” she said, “what a mess. Why did you dump all these things in here?” She pulled the doll out from under a jumble of paints and tennis shoes.
“I didn’t.” Jane was indignant. And then she saw Joe through the back window.
“Joe,” she hissed.
“What?” He shouted up.
“Shh!”
“What is it?” – a loud whisper.
“Come here a minute, but please be quiet.”
