The Doll House Read online

  However, this is not an architectural dissertation, and as the actual topography of the house offers little pertinence to the story, we move on.

  The distance between the car and front step was a perambulation of but a moment; an alarmingly intense creak resounded when Lympton limped up the short steps and set foot on the porch. Was it merely the old grey planking, or Lympton’s robust body weight? That said, our friend did not crash through the planking as he half-feared he might, and he knew that even if he did, he would crawl out and continue his plight for Lancaster Patten’s final masterpiece, if necessary, on hands and knees. The queerest knocker stared back at him from the vermiculated six-paneled front door: mounted on the door’s center stile was an oval of tarnished bronze depicting a half-formed face. Just two eyes, no mouth, no other features. It seemed morose, even foreboding. This oddment of detail might be suspected of a narrator’s creative indulgence, to proffer a literary “tactic” of something like “foreshadow” or “symbology,” and for any reader hoping for thus, lo, I must disappoint, for here, I am very afraid, the door-knocker is nothing but a door-knocker.

  Just as Lympton would rap on the door via the knocker’s brass rung, his hand froze.

  He heard a voice, a woman’s voice, smothered from somewhere within the mansion. And the words sounded like Latin, along the lines of “Pater Terrae, Pater Aeris.” Lympton had long since transferred his Latin into the hopper of forgetfulness. It confounded him: Why insist that school children be versed in a language that’s been of absolutely no active utility for five hundred years? The question might be regarded as a good one. But…

  Pater? He flexed his memory. Father? Or is patri father? But terrae must be “earth,” right enough? And aeris? More “flexing” of memory that hadn’t been called upon in decades. Then—

  Aeris, he remembered. Air.

  This must mean, if he’d heard it properly, something semblant of “father” or “patriarch” of the “air.”

  What absolute codswallop.

  His hand returned to the knocker-rung but, again, something intercepted his volition, not a sound this time but a sight.

  The sight, confined to only a glimpse in the small oblong pane of the side-light, was a nude woman.

  There could be no doubt, in fact, that the figure was female, because no male sported breasts akin to these (at least Lympton hoped not, though he’d heard of such outré things in the east. The laboring-men in the shipyards frequently talked of nut-brown women on exotic islands with hourglass figures and bosoms as perfectly feminine as any they’d seen; yet those same laborers swore, too, that penises hung where vaginas ought to be, and large ones at that, while there was just as much shipyard talk of the rat that could speak—but, it is the reader’s pardon of which I must beg, for this is all digression.)

  Yes, breasts just larger than a grapefruit and just smaller than a melon. Centered on each was a nipple erect and plump as a raspberry bon-bon. What a pleasing thought it is, Lympton said to himself, to imagine such a bosom in my face, and such luxuriant nipples in my mouth, and with this, a familiar throb took reign of his loins.

  The astute reader will likely note the contradiction. Did not Mr. Lympton just disregard a similar set of breasts (Mary’s)? Breasts just as firm and plump and stout-nippled at these? The answer is not far to seek. Mary’s breasts represented the aforementioned “sauce” of monotony while these he’d just espied in the tiny window were all delectable spice.

  Finally, Lympton engaged the brass knocker, which rang out in a series of unexpectedly flat thuds, a symptom, perhaps, of the day’s growing warmth and humidity. He expected the door to be opened by a comely young woman who’d just slipped a robe about her in haste; but imagine our protagonist’s surprise when the door was answered by a short, gaunt man with stooped shoulders, dressed in the clothes of, say, a field worker. Yet no man this elderly and frail could work in any field. Large, sunken eyes; a thin, hollow-cheeked face, and bald pate were the features that most imposed upon Lympton. In spite of this rather emaciated cast, the man carried with him a cheerful nimbus, and with this, Lympton with immediacy found his host to be an exceedingly interesting subject of study.

  But where was the girl?

  Lympton introduced himself and meant to state his business as pithily as possible but the bent old man interrupted, “Ah, kind, sar, might I be hasty in hoping that ’tis my advertisement that calls ye hither?”

  What an unrepresentative accent! Lympton guessed it to be part tongue of Old Dunnich with an admixture—there could be no doubt—of Colonial Yankee. How terribly unique! But Lympton knew that at such an occasion he must maintain an absolutely stoic demeanor. “Yes, the posting for the dolls’-house which claims to be an original Patten, from Britnell’s emporium catalogue.”

  “Wal, kind sar, Septimus Brown I am called, and I bid thee enter, for associations of J.W. Britnell shall always enjoy passport here,” and then the dreadfully thin man stepped back to make way for Lympton’s girth.

  Inside, Lympton quite expected a shambles to match that of the exterior. Not so. The image that returned to his vision was a clean wood-floored foyer opening The tall sash rear windows commanded the expanse of woods, yet into the center of this expanse extended what seemed to be, or very likely was, a footpath.

  Lympton assumed that the place was once filled with antiques but they’d all been sold for medical costs, and he assumed correctly, for next his host said, “A sad sight now, I must say, sar. We were onct filt with treasure, and though this house has been a shop of repute for two centuries, I’m afraid it ‘tis no more. Bad fartune has forced us to sell me relics and farniture from old times, to make recompense to the medical man.” Lympton’s first impulse was to make a sentimental reply, the likes of “I’m much sorry to hear this,” or “Please except my heartfelt empathy,” but none of that would do.

  In his mind, like a gnat that won’t depart, remained the infinitesimal image of the mystery woman’s naked breasts. “Us?” Lympton queried.

  “Sar?”

  “I believe you said ‘us’; bad fortune forced ‘us’ to sell your property.”

  “Aye, sar, that be myself and my dear poor daughter—”

  “Ah, I thought I heard a woman’s voice. Speaking Latin, was it?”

  “Aye, sar, perceptive ye be! She likely was telling her afternoon prayers, for a girl of great reverence she is. Ye’ll never miss her at church nor yet chapel at sarvice-time, no, sar. I reckon she just left out back, to ‘a-go blackberryin’ up near Davis Hill.”

  Lympton’s bulbous face filled with creases. He doubted that he could find this explanation of absence credible. What, the tart was naked in this very room just minutes ago and now, minutes later, I’m expected to believe she’s out picking berries? But what call gave him right to contest his host?

  Yet what reason could be found in Mr. Brown’s circumvention of the truth?

  The image of those superlative breasts Lympton was forced to dispel. Never mind that now. I’m here about—

  “To be blunt, Mr. Brown, I’m here about the doll-house and I’ve little time to tarry. May I see it?”

  “Of carse ye can,” the old man crackled and wheezed a laugh. “Right this way!” and with this, Brown, with rather palsied steps, navigated his guest across a large parlor where more high windows afforded a demesne of upward sloping grasslands abutted by the belt of woods. But this room, evidently the largest on the floor, stood nearly denuded of all worthwhile effects. Blank squares against dingy wallpaper revealed the former spaces of paintings now sold. Shelves and sconces too stood empty. Lympton tried to imagine how such a place appeared in its prime.

  To the left, a kitchen equipped by the best appurtenances that the nineteen century could afford but hardly the twentieth: a pot-bellied stove, heavy butcher’s block table, a stone fireplace hung with pot-hooks, etc. To the right, a gutted study whose shelves stared back sadly bookless. Everything, Lympton realized, Everything’s been sold off, poor bugger.<
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  “’Tis me special room where I’m takin’ ye, sar,” Brown’s voice creaked. He jingled a ring of keys. It was at the end of a long dark hallway where the door stood, and it was with some effect that Brown opened it.

  Lympton limped in behind the proprietor, then could only stand still with an outward gaze. As this was his host’s special room, Lympton quite expected a modern day antiquer’s version of the vault of King Croesus, or the treasure chambers of the Hall of St. Jolette. Nothing of the kind, however, awaited beyond the door. Similar to his glimpses into other rooms, this one existed in staringly white walls, carpetless floor, and shelves and caddies offering little or nothing to the spectator. However, one feature of the room (its zenith, if you will, and Mr. Brown’s call in referring to it as special) overtook Lympton akin to a highwayman on a nighted country road. Indeed, were a mere image able to shout, this one did: it bellowed into Lympton’s face as well as his sensibilities.

  Resting on a stout kneehole table, quite six feet in length, was a doll’s-house whose details and intricacies surpassed that of any specimen he owned or had ever seen. Indeed, the model reflected the extravagances of the Gothic Style so redolent of the end of the seventeen century. Minuscule faux compositions comprised the lower storey: perfect replicas of wrought field stones; while the split slats of the timbers of the day rose to erect the upper storeys. Hand-cut tin shingles not a half-inch wide covered the various formations of the roof, hundreds upon hundreds of such shingles. Every window, every embrasure, indeed, every element of the doll’s-house existed in a state of pinpoint perfection, even the peak of the lone octagonal turret…

  So complete was Lympton’s awe, that several speechless minutes transpired before he became aware of the obvious. Yes, if the reader will believe me, it was then and only then that Lympton realized this “grand manor” of a doll’s-house was an imitation in miniature of the house in which he now stood, before the toll of time and slip-shod additions had reduced it to its current state of disrepair. Lympton stared at the intimation. “Mr. Brown, I can fathom one reason and one reason alone why Patten would craft a duplicate of this very house, and that would be—”

  “Aye, good sar, ‘tis the very home of Lancaster Patten himself, and the seat of my ancestors as well.”

  Lympton’s eyes widened.

  “Though I’m sartain a properly schooled gentleman as yourself be possessed of a quicker intelligence than my own, yes, ’tis a bit of Patten’s blood that flows in mine old veins for he whar my great grandsire five times over. ’Twas when his only daughter, Eugenia Patten, wed a Dunnich man, he being Mortimer Brown, my lineal forebear, whose likeness hangs here,” and then Brown extended a crabbed hand toward an age-tinged oil portrait in ornate framework. The image of a weasel-eyed man wearing Piccadilly Weepers occupied the frame, and to this Lympton paid no mind. No painting of Lancaster Patten is known to exist but perhaps…

  “Might there be, then, in your possession, sir,” Lympton began, “a portrait of Patten himself?”

  “Nay, sar, none was ever made. The artistic temperament, perhaps, but in the days such as Patten’s, those grim olden days of the Witch-Fever, ’twas considered ill-omen to agree to such renderings, for such they believed that a carse might be placed upon them.”

  No matter that. Lympton was regaining his composure in the aftermath of this forcible yet ecstatic shock to his collector’s system. He knew he must curtail his enthusiasm, lest his billfold suffer.

  “So, kind sar, does the dolls’-house strike ye’re fancy?”

  Simmer down, boy, Lympton thought. The truth was, he was hard pressed not to shiver with delight. He knew at once that this piece of work must be made his own, but he’d be blasted if he paid the old codger much for it. “It’s an interesting piece, I suppose, but I’m sorry to say your asking price is dreadfully inflated. May I see the inside? And didn’t your advertisement make mention of a signature and inscription, in Patten’s own hand, no less?”

  “That it did, sar, and if you’ll please…”

  Brown stepped aside to a wall that was featureless save for the placement of an old seven-foot-tall Longcase clock, (the precursor to the famed Grandfather Clocks by that excellent man, William Clement). Beside this latter was a capstan around which was tied a length of sisal rope.

  Lympton had not noticed this before.

  The rope proceeded from the capstan to a series of pulleys in the ceiling, the obvious function of which was—

  At this precise moment, the Longcase clock struck the hour, or so it would seem. It was just noon yet the clock chimed but three times, then, after the passage of several seconds an accompanying tune issued from the ancient behemoth of a time-piece, and—

  My word! quoth Lympton to himself, with more than a smidgen of distaste.

  This tune (indeed, if it even deserved the designation) resounded in a series of timed chimes as of a music-box of the “pinned-cylinder” type, yet never in Lympton’s experience had he heard a tune so, so diabolic. Could the simple music of chimes reflect darkness in the listener’s head? Could notes of such an unelaborate nature cause fear and revulsion, and inject into the hearer’s mind nightmare visions of cataclysmic destruction, walls of flames behind which shrieking faces twitched, and cavalcades of gaunt and grinning demons engaged in activities too noxious for description? Yet all of this and more (and worse) assailed Lympton’s sensibilities such that he visibly cringed. Even the delicious image of the woman’s breasts earlier glimpsed through the sidelight was wiped away to sink in a smoking, bubbling tarn of human waste.

  “For the love of!” Lympton began, then pressed palms to ears. “It’s nauseating! Make it stop or I’m leaving this minute!”

  The old man finnicked worriedly at the device, and either succeeded in turning it off, or it stopped on its own. “A score of apologies, sar, for ‘tis true, the clock’s melody is not a pleasing one. Nor is the clock an accurate one, so I’m afraid. Every hour, regardless of the true time, it strikes three.”

  Lympton still had not quite recovered from his upset. He had to wait for the collision of Charonian images to melt from his head, and he could have sworn he had suffered an olfactory hallucination as well: a stench just as execrable, just as pernicious as the images that had, indeed, “raped” his mind. Tinges of the stench seemed momentarily to adhere to the insides of his nostrils, and they were of a nature which shall not be described.

  “What good is a time-piece that tells the wrong time!” Lympton raised his voice. He was still quite addled by the experience of the “tune.”

  “And where is the sense of a dealer housing an item that makes such, such ghastly music? The wood yard is where it belongs!”

  The old man’s voice creaked calmly as he explained, “I’ve not a word to disagree with thee, sar, not a single word”—he pronounced “word” a ward—“but the clock remains in my inventory for a pair of reasons. One being that it is a rare piece of its own accard, a genuine Fromanteel music-clock, sar.”

  Lympton immediately recognized the renowned name but acted as though he didn’t. “The second,” he said impatiently, “the second reason you have this hideous thing here?”

  “’Twas owned by Lancaster Patten himself”— here Brown covered his mouth and coughed once, hard, then proceeded—”and likewise it is said that he penned the chime-tune we just now heard. ’Tis a ghastly tune, aye, as ye’ve rightly obsarved, and though I can’t speak to the authenticity of Patten personally composing the tune, I must wonder. Did ye know that Patten is reputed to have been one with—how do I say?—un passionné de l’occulte?”

  Lympton frowned. There was, indeed, much second-hand information affirming that Patten was an enthusiast of diabolism, but Lympton had virtually no use for such conjecture. “Yes, Mr. Brown, I’ve read of that claim and much else, and I know codswallop when I see it. I do not, nor have I ever, believed in God or Satan, nor devils and angels, nor in necromancers, nor warlocks. All I believe in is what my eyes do see, and righ
t now? They see this dolls’-house. Please raise the front of it.”

  “Aye, sar. ’Twould be a pleasure,” and the old man resumed the task of reeling the pullied rope.

  Even before the removable front had been fully raised, Lympton knew that the replica would have to be relocated posthaste to his own collection room, even if he had to do away with Brown with his bare hands. Brown tied the rope off on a catch, leaving Lympton to stare into the masterpiece as if into infinite depths. Some twenty chambers faced him, each detailed to a degree of accuracy and quality the likes of which he’d never before witnessed. Lympton was nearly dizzy with the spectacle and its fineries.

  Sitting room, dining room, various parlors, studies, vestibules, etc., were all in evidence upon all three storeys of the elaborate structure, and all accurately revealed in the appurtenances, decor, and style of the reign of William and Mary. Higher were bed-chambers, of course, complete with fireplaces, floor-coverings, and four-posters fabricated to the most minute detail. Stairwells led this way and that, some curving away to be swallowed by the innards of the house. Hallways, too—those proceeding front to back—seemingly disappeared to lead to rooms which were inaccessible to the eye. When Lympton scurried round to the back, he saw (as he hoped) windows that revealed such rooms as were inaccessible. Every window, in fact, divulged some new delight.