The Dolls’ House (6 page)

The great-aunt’s relations said yes.

Marchpane was delighted.

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?’

‘I am shut away in a box. Away from children, and it is children who give us life,’ said the wax doll.

‘And tumble one about and spoil one,’ said Marchpane, and the walking doll shuddered to the tip of her parasol.

‘Isn’t that life?’ asked Tottie.

‘I want children,’ cried the wax doll. ‘I-I –’ She stopped. It had been on the tip of her tongue to say, ‘I wish I could be sold.’ She wished she dared
to say this aloud, but wax is not very brave stuff and so she remained quiet.

Tottie wished the Exhibition would never open. ‘But it will,’ thought Tottie, ‘and then – then – someone will buy me. I shall be sold and when the Exhibition closes
I shall go away to a new home. Oh!’ cried Tottie. ‘Oh Apple! Darner! Birdie! Mr Plantaganet! My little home! Oh! Oh! Oh!’ But no sign of grief showed on her wooden face. She stood
as firm as ever.

‘Is it true,’ said one of the dolls, ‘that this Exhibition is to be opened by a queen?’

‘Queen Victoria?’ asked the wax doll, looking at the dolls in the glass case. Tottie whispered to her that Queen Victoria had been dead long, long ago.

‘Forgive me,’ said the wax doll. ‘I have been shut away so long.’

‘A queen?’ said Marchpane with great satisfaction. ‘How right and proper. She will be sure to notice me. They always do,’ she said, though Tottie was sure she had never
seen a queen before. ‘I am so glad I have been cleaned.’

‘I always stay clean,’ said Tottie. ‘Wood can be washed and be none the worse.’

‘So can scrubbing brushes,’ said Marchpane tartly. ‘I am afraid Her Majesty will have rather a disagreeable surprise,’ said Marchpane. ‘She can’t have been
told that there are farthing dolls in this Exhibition. Why, I don’t suppose,’ said Marchpane, opening her china-blue eyes wide, ‘that she knows that such things exist.’

‘Even queens can learn,’ said Tottie quietly.

Every evening, when the Exhibition room was shut, a child came to look at the dolls.

‘A child! A child! A child!’ The whisper would go through the room because so many of the dolls through being rare and precious had been for a long while put away in boxes or kept on
shelves or in museums. They had not been near children for so long. They yearned toward this little girl who crept in to look at them. None of them yearned more than the wax doll.

The child was thin, with poor clothes, and she kept her hands behind her as if she had been told not to touch. She went from one doll to the other and stared with eyes that looked large in her
thin face.

‘La! You would think she ’ad nevaire see a doll before!’ said the walking doll.

‘Perhaps she hasn’t, as close as this,’ said Tottie. ‘Dolls are scarce now and very expensive.’

‘Quite right. They should never be given to children to be played with,’ said Marchpane.

The wax doll looked at the child as if her heart would melt. ‘Little darling!’ she said. ‘How good she is! How gentle! See, she doesn’t even touch.’