The Lotus House (2 page)

This particular birthday was momentous because of one special birthday present — the doll’s house. Letty herself had not possessed many treasures as a child; in India they had travelled too often from place to place, and at Kensington there was too little space. Like so much else at the Lotus House, the family toys and games
became archetypal for her. There was the rocking-horse, off which she often had to be dragged protesting; there was the huge box of wooden bricks; there was the musical box with its magical brass discs; there was the boys’ sacrosanct model railway with its trains, carriages and trucks, its signals and points and home-made stations, with which the little girls were only allowed to play as a special mark of favour and under strict supervision; and, best of all, there was Selina’s doll’s house. It was a family present: the twins had been working at it in secret for weeks, cleverly constructing it from old orange-boxes. Edward had painted it, the parents had given the furniture and Rosamund the inhabitants. But the peculiar charm of this particular doll’s house, for Letty at any rate, was that as far as it was possible the amateur craftsmen had made it a small replica of the Lotus House itself.

On that birthday morning the three children stood in a row and gazed at the little house. There was the door with its pillars either side and the three windows of the dining-room and study, and above them the correct number of bedroom windows and the dormer attic ones in the roof. Old Mrs Sanderson remembered that she had continued to look at it silently while Mary danced about and clapped her hands, and Selina knelt down in front to open it and look inside. Edward had painted the rooms the right colours, white and green for the drawing-room and dark red for the dining-room, but the boys were quite apologetic that the back of the house was just a blank wall and that there was no balcony and no rooms behind the dormer windows in the roof. But there was quite enough reality to satisfy Letty and she remembered how Selina kept on saying, “But I don’t want it any realler,” and when Rosamund offered to dress the mother and father and little girl dolls like the parents and herself (for she had not had time to dress them properly and they just had their tiny arms and legs thrust through bits of material to
make them decent), Selina had frowned: “No, no, Ros, they are Mr and Mrs Golightly and their little girl is called Wilhelmina Rose.”

“Where on earth did you get those names from?” laughed Rosamund, and she had hugged Selina hard so that her hair, that still wasn’t very used to staying up, tumbled all over her shoulders (old Mrs Sanderson seemed to see her more clearly now than the child Letty had done). So Mr and Mrs Golightly and Wilhelmina Rose became the focus of a whole series of adventures. In due course a cook arrived, a Dutch doll, affectionately known as “Cooksie”, whose bark was worse than her bite, and an old gentleman in a black velvet suit who was Mr Golightly’s father. He had been an engine-driver until Bimbo bit off his legs one day — an accident transformed into a terrible railway disaster — after which he had to spend all his time in bed.

There was no end to the Golightly adventures that Selina invented, each one wilder than the others. How they laughed at them! Old Mrs Sanderson smiled and sighed. Was that birthday visit the only winter one, then? No, of course not, there was that later one when the ponds on the heath were all frozen and Edward had taught her to skate. She remembered how proud she had been because he praised her for learning so quickly — all in one day — and how, intoxicated by the magic of it, she had gone on and on gliding faster and faster, until the extraordinary orange sun had set and the brilliant winter stars had appeared. Oh, yes, she remembered that winter visit too, but still it was the earlier one she remembered best, and how she had stood there in front of the doll’s house “surprised by joy”.

When Letty was twelve her parents came home to England and claimed her, and actually she had never gone to the Lotus House again nor seen any of the family. It now seemed incredible to old Mrs Sanderson that this
should have been so, but it had come about quite naturally and inevitably. First, she was sent to boarding-school and her father and mother expected her to spend her holidays with them, though neither parents or daughter were particularly happy or at ease with each other. Sadly, though they loved each other, they were not capable of bridging the gap left by four crucial years of separation. As for the Lotus House, Letty wondered sometimes if her mother had not been jealous at her constant references to her visits there. At any rate she sensed a total lack of interest and soon gave up talking of them. She and Mary wrote for some time but new interests crowded in, and then just before the 1914 war broke out her father had died after a riding accident, and the original link between the two families was severed.

Her father’s death and the cataclysm of the war marked the end of the world of Letty’s childhood. Her friends dispersed, the girls to join the V.A.D. or to take up other forms of war work, the young men to the front. She herself was left with an ailing and bewildered mother and a much reduced income. They moved to a tiny flat in Bournemouth, recommended for her mother’s health. She heard from her old governess, Miss Marchant, with whom she still exchanged an annual letter, that Edward and Bob had both been killed, and that when peace came Jack had emigrated to Australia. Rosamund, who had joined an amateur acting group entertaining the troops, had made a runaway marriage with a Canadian soldier. Beyond that — a blank. She had thought of writing again to Mary but the interval from childhood to maturity had been too long, and with the war in between besides, what could she say? Perhaps if she had written, thought old Mrs Sanderson looking down on the dim picture of the Lotus House in her paper, the memory of those early times would not have remained so clear. Perhaps indeed she had not really wanted to write, lest it might blur that
bright image with the stark realization of change.

Her mother lingered on year after year, as lifelong invalids often do, and after she had died Letty made a late unromantic marriage with the doctor who had attended her. He was a widower who needed a housekeeper and a congenial companion, and she wanted financial security. Both liked and respected each other and this had ripened into affection, but she could not pretend that his sudden death shortly before retirement had left her shattered. She missed him but, for the first time in her life, she felt free and independent. She decided she would leave Bournemouth, which she had never liked. London drew her and she began in a desultory way, for there was no hurry, to look at house agents’ advertisements. Thus it came about that she was staring down at the picture of the Lotus House, which, in its turn, seemed to be staring reproachfully up at her. How long she had been looking at it she did not know, but now she made a careful note of the agent’s address.

“I might do worse than find a flat somewhere in that neighbourhood,” she said to herself. “It would be better than settling right in London itself, I think, and while I am about it, I might at least go and see the old place again — not of course with any thought of buying it, but I needn’t tell the agents that. Perhaps they can give me news of the family, obviously none of them can be living there now. Oh, dear, how long ago it all seems.”

A week later she was asking for the key of the Lotus House at the agents. “No, I do not wish to be accompanied there, thank you,” she said firmly as she put the key into her bag, “I know the way quite well.”

MRS SANDERSON WENT
resolutely along streets that were familiar by fits and starts. The memories of childhood were patchy and of course there were many changes, though the chief landmarks — the station, the church, the concert hall — remained the same and she had no difficulty in finding her way. A general smartening and sophistication was apparent, two or three big ugly self-service stores had sprung up, and squeezed between them were numerous rather pathetic little boutiques, far too many, she thought, to be profitable. Here and there, though, like a vivid flashback, an old friendly shop-front appeared — the fish shop where the little girls had been half frightened and wholly fascinated by the fishmonger, who looked exactly like a giant fish himself, white and flabby, with pale protruding eyes and large sticking-out ears like fins. There was the confectioners, too, of blessed memory, now called the Honey Pot, where she and Mary and Selina used to spend their pennies and where one day they had actually each been presented with a whole bar of Fry’s chocolate cream from a damaged package. Such unlooked-for benevolence could never be forgotten. And, yes! there was the tiny corner shop which, for some unknown reason, sold an extraordinary mixture of greengrocery and Japanese vases and toys. This was the child Letty’s favourite shop of all. You went
in through a bead curtain, in itself a beautiful and exotic attraction, and there were the piles of cheerful oranges and apples and blue-and-white china ginger jars, and Japenese dolls with round black heads and pretty kimonos and gaily painted parasols and, hanging down from the low ceiling, circles of painted glass pendants that tinkled softly in the draught from the open door. The children bought magic packets of floating flowers here that looked like shrivelled bits of paper, but when you got them home and shook them out into a tumbler of water, they turned into lovely tinted blossoms — “lotus flowers”, they always firmly called them.

Mrs Sanderson crossed the road to reach the little shop; the traffic was frightening — it was like crossing a deafening tumultuous river, the ceaseless roar and rush of the roads was the greatest change of all from her childhood memories. But she got across in safety and peered into the bow windows of the shop. It still sold fruit and vegetables and the name over the door, Joseph Budgeon, was still the same, though of course the old man who had kept it must have died long ago, and there was no sign of any Japanese goods as far as she could see. She decided to go in and buy some apples and find out who kept the shop now. The thought occurred to her, too, that she might possibly discover more of the recent history of the Lotus House and of what had happened to the family than the agents had been able to tell her, which had been very little indeed — only that the sale was in the hands of a solicitor acting for the present owner, who lived in Australia. The property had only lately come into his hands on the death of his father, so the agents believed. She supposed that this must be Jack’s son. She went up the two steps into the shop that she remembered so well. The bead curtain had vanished and everything seemed tidier, and there was a very neat small middle-aged woman behind the counter. Letty made her purchase and
then said, “I used to come into this shop when I was a little girl, a long time ago now, but the name over the door is the same.” There was a question in her voice and the woman answered it at once.

“That’s my old uncle’s name. Fancy that now, there aren’t many left that remember him. You were living in these parts then?”

“No,” said Letty, “but I often visited here. I’ve not been here since I used to stay at the Lotus House.”

“Well, I never,” said the woman, “to think of that. It’s up for sale now, is the Lotus House, but who’ll buy it I can’t think; it’s in a bad state. You see, after the two ladies left it, it was empty for a long while and it was damaged a bit from the blitz too; not badly, but neglected, that’s what it was, and then it was let for offices. But if you’re a friend of the family, you’ll know all this, I expect.”

“No,” said Letty, “I lost touch. When did the ladies leave? Did you know them?”

“Not to say well,” said the woman, “but after I came here to look after my old uncle and the shop, I remember them coming in sometimes, and when they were leaving for Australia (their brother sent for them, you see), they came in to say goodbye to Uncle. ‘We’ll be coming back again to the Lotus House,’ said Miss Selina, she was the delicate one, you know. I remember her saying it well; ‘Oh, we’ll be coming back quite soon,’ but they never did.”

Letty took up her bag of apples. There seemed nothing else to say, but she looked round the shop rather sadly.

“Your uncle used to sell Japanese curios,” she said, “I don’t suppose you have any left?”

“We stopped that during the war,” said the woman, “but I kept a few, not for sale but my uncle being so fond of them — they’re in this cupboard.” She opened the door of a little corner cupboard, and Letty saw a doll and
a ginger jar and a black and gold box and some faded paper packets.

“Oh!” she exclaimed, “Are these the magic flower packets?”

The woman laughed. “Did you love them too? Here, would you like a packet for old time’s sake?”

“Of course I would,” said Letty, “it’s sweet of you.” She slipped the little packet into her handbag and, cheered and touched, she faced the hazards of the road again. She went up a little side street she remembered, to escape from the noise. The houses here had all been drab cheap little Victorian dwellings, but they were now much smartened up with pink, yellow, and blue doors and window-boxes, and cars parked outside the minute front gardens. Old Mrs Sanderson hurried past them for she suddenly felt acutely apprehensive. At the end of the little by-way, she turned a corner, and there facing her was the Lotus House.

It looked even more grim and desolate than it had done in the advertisement. A large FOR SALE board was fixed to the broken-down fence which she read painstakingly through from beginning to end, though she knew it all before.

“Why have I come?” she said to herself. “Whyever have I come? It was a stupid thing to do, but all the same, now I’m here it seems foolish to go away without having a look round.”

She decided to explore outside first, and crossing the shaggy brown turf of the neglected lawn she crept along the overgrown side path. The first shock was that the vegetable and fruit garden had turned into a council house development, beyond the ragged winter hedge and a dividing fence. Then the cedar tree had gone, or almost gone, for a great stump remained, but round this the snowdrops were all out, not in drifts where the sun had penetrated the dark branches as she had remembered
them, but in a huge open carpet. Then with a wave of relief she saw that the wisteria was still clinging to the stairway and the balcony. The conservatory had gone with its vine and camellias, and in its place was a hideous garage, and all the rest of the garden that remained was a wilderness of rough growth, but the snowdrops and the wisteria had given her resolution to turn the key in the front door and enter the house itself. She needed then all the courage she could muster. Rooms had been divided by matchboard partitions, woodwork now scratched and defaced was painted a dark, dull green, window panes were cracked, boards were loose, old newspapers and wrappers strewn about the floor. Grimly, Mrs Sanderson looked into every room, and climbed the echoing stairs to the attics. These were less desecrated than the rest, they had probably never been used by the firm which had rented the house. The bars still protected the windows of the old night nursery and the faded Mother Goose frieze actually remained beneath the ceiling. It seemed to Letty Sanderson that she had been walking and standing and climbing stairs for a long while, so she sat down on an empty wooden box in the corner, and stared through the nursery bars at the fading February sky until it was too cold and dark to stay there any longer — much too cold and dark and dismal.

She returned the key to the agents just before they closed. “I will look at the flats you have recommended tomorrow,” she said, “I shall not need this key again.” The agent was not surprised. But when on the third day of Mrs Sanderson’s property viewing (she was staying at a small guest-house in the neighbourhood), she asked for the Lotus House key once more, his eyebrows went up quite noticeably. “He obviously thinks me a little mad,” said Letty Sanderson to herself, “well, I suppose I am, but I just feel I can’t go away without seeing the old place again. I expect by the time I move here it will either have
been sold or demolished.” She had found the flat she wanted the previous day, quiet, sunny and very convenient.

As on the earlier visit she wandered round the garden of the Lotus House first. There were pale buds showing on the old lilac bushes by the stables, now converted into more garages; she picked a bunch of snowdrops and braced herself to enter the house again. She remembered that last time she had not penetrated to the basement. This, of course, had belonged to the servants’ world, and as they reigned there supreme, the children had only visited that particular region as guests or invaders. There was a huge lift in the passage worked by a pulley for conveying the substantial meals and massive crockery to the dining-room, and the boys would sometimes be coaxed into working this with one or more of the little girls inside. But it was a game frowned upon by Cook — “It’ll break one of these days, Master Bob, and then who’ll get the blame?”

Old Mrs Sanderson crept down the basement stairs. The fixed dresser with its empty hooks and drawers and the old-fashioned grate, rusted over, were the only objects left in the big empty kitchen — the scullery, which she never remembered seeing before, had a vast stone sink and a copper for boiling clothes in one corner—beyond was a huge larder with slated shelves and a tiled floor. It all looked terribly dusty and deserted but there were no signs of alien office occupation here, and in the butler’s pantry along the passage were two iron bedsteads, a rug, a basketwork chair and a calendar for 1941 hanging on the wall.
It
must
have
been
used
as
an
air-raid
shelter,
thought Letty Sanderson.
Perhaps
Mary
and
Selina
slept
here
on
those
two
beds.
She could not imagine it — two middle-aged spinster ladies huddling beneath the bedclothes with the bombs dropping all round. No,
Mary and Selina were safe upstairs in the night nursery, with the friendly trains puffing and blowing at the end of the garden. She left the pantry and went out into the passage again and there was the old lift still there. She peered into it and saw at its further end a square object done up in sacking. There was plenty of light coming in from the window on the garden side of the passage, and she bent down to look more closely. A corner of the sacking was torn, and what looked like a painted miniature chimney was sticking out sideways. Letty caught her breath and stared, then dragged the object towards her and pulled hard at the sacking; it tore a great rent and revealed a tiled roof and a tiny dormer window. There was no doubt about it — it was Selina’s doll’s house.

Her first thought was
How
could
they
have
left
it
here?
Then she remembered that of course they expected to come back and thought it was quite safe ill they returned. “And so it has been and so it is,” said Letty Sanderson. When all the rest of the furniture had been sold up and the office staff had moved in, nobody had bothered about the old lift, indeed it was obvious they had not bothered with the basement at all. With a good deal of effort Letty dragged the doll’s house into the open and pulled off more of the sacking. To her joy it seemed quite undamaged. She managed to open it and found even Mr and Mrs Golightly and Wilhelmina Rose and the grandfather and the Dutch doll cook still at home among their furniture, disarranged but otherwise not showing much signs of wear. Mr Golightly’s father had fallen out of bed but seemed pink-cheeked and well. Absurdly old Mrs Sanderson could have cried for joy. She knelt down on the cold dirty stone floor and began to put everything to rights until it grew too dark to see clearly. Then she carefully covered up the doll’s house with the sacking again and went home. It was too late to return the key that evening,
and when she got back to her hotel room she had a sudden panic that she had left it in the door of the house. She dived in her handbag and it was there all right, but in feeling for it her hand closed on the packet of Japanese flowers that the kind little woman had given her from the corner shop and which, until now, she had forgotten. “They won’t be any good I expect, after all these years,” she said, but she filled her toothglass with water and emptied the packet into it and, lo and behold! the magic still worked, the wrinkled paper expanded into pretty shapes and floated gaily in their small pond. Letty stared down at them. “Lotus flowers,” she murmured to herself, “they must be a portent,” but she had known all the way back that the sunny convenient flat would after all never be hers. She was going to buy the Lotus House and make it blossom into a home again.

But Mr Donovan, her family solicitor, was horrified at the idea. “An old neglected property, much too large, really Mrs Sanderson, I don’t advise it, I don’t advise it at all.”

Mr Donovan’s father had managed all Letty’s parents’ business, and he had had charge of hers now for many years, and she had the greatest respect for him, but she had expected disapproval and was not too cast down by it. “I intend to convert it into flats, Mr Donavan,” she said, “and to live in one of them myself. It is going cheaply, you know; don’t you think it would ultimately pay me?”

“It’s going cheaply because it needs so much spent on it,” said the solicitor. “You will find it is not at all cheap in the end. It would be a hazardous speculation at the best, but for anyone your age, if you will forgive me, it is a great responsibility — I don’t like it, I don’t like it at all.”