The Lotus House (10 page)

When she reached the top landing she thought she heard a noise coming from the back room and she knocked on the door. No one answered so she opened the door and looked in. The room smelt very queer. She took a step inside and saw that Mr Stacey
was
there. He was lying on his bed with his eyes shut. This did not surprise her for, although part of her knew quite well that he was not the doll’s house grandfather on his bed in the top room of the little house, any more than Miss Cook was ‘Cooksie’ in the kitchen; yet as she had felt a compelling need to identify the doll’s house parents with her own parents, and their dolly daughter with herself, the others had to follow suit: so it seemed somehow natural for the top-floor gentleman to be on his bed in the day time. And now, disturbed by her knocking and entry, Aubrey opened his eyes and saw a girl in a school uniform
standing inside his room and gazing at him, and all at once the rage and disgust he had been suppressing for so long took over.

He stretched out his hand and beckoned to Harriet. “Come over here,” he whispered. The whisper sounded hoarse and strange and his hand was trembling. This, and the fact that he did not ask her what she wanted but seemed to have been waiting for her, frightened Harriet, she did not know why. But all the same his eyes were so compelling that she took a step or two towards him.

Man and child both stared at each other as if mesmerized. It had been a grey, sultry day of low cloud, but now the setting sun suddenly blazed out, and threw the shadow of the old nursery bars across the white coverlet of Aubrey’s bed — his gaze deflected on them for a minute, and at once, as if released, Harriet called out, “No, no!” Aubrey’s arm dropped. “Go away,” he shouted, “go away at once,” and Harriet turned and went.

After she had gone Aubrey staggered over to his basin and was very sick, then he lay down again and fell into a series of half-waking nightmares. He was always conscious of being in his room and lying on his bed, but from a corner of the room came the sound of his own voice chanting relentlessly and monotonously the
Rime
of
the
Ancient
Mariner.
Presently there seemed to be a huge white bird flying round and round the ceiling and beating against the window, trying to escape. He knew at once it was the albatross and that soon he would be forced to kill it. More horrible still, as it flew it turned a child’s face towards him — Hassan’s, then Harriet’s as she had looked at him from the door — but then, before he had even fired the inescapable shot, the body of the bird began to disintegrate and dissolve and the room was full of white feathers, cold feathers, snowflakes falling upon his bed and heaping themselves upon him. And now the
voice from the corner changed to his mother’s reading aloud from Hans Andersen. “In the midst of the empty endless hall of snow was a frozen lake and in the centre of this lake sat the Snow Queen when she was at home. Little Kay was quite blue with cold and his heart was already a lump of ice.”

This
can’t
be
a
dream,
thought Aubrey,
or
I
could
not
remember
the
words,
yet he knew that it was his mother who was the Ice Queen and he was little Kay. He felt very cold — he was lying uncovered and it was now night and the room was full of a white light, so that the shadow of the nursery bars still showed. He pulled the bedclothes over himself and another verse of Coleridge’s mighty poem quoted itself to him:

“The moving moon went up the sky and nowhere did abide,

Softly she was going up and a star or two beside.” Warmth began to steal over him and he drowsed off once more and again a voice was speaking. This time it was Mrs Sanderson showing him the room. “This was the old night nursery. I have slept here many a time long ago — it still seems to me the safest place in the world.”

After this he awoke thoroughly, got up and undressed and washed. The little volume of Coleridge lay on the floor in the corner where he had tossed it. He picked it up and replaced it carefully on his shelves. Then, knowing himself for the first time capable of both crime and redemption, he lay down and slept, this time deeply and dreamlessly, till late morning.

ON THE MORNING
of the concert, Harriet woke to see an unclouded square of pale wintry blue through her window. She was glad, not that it mattered all that much for a concert if the sun were shining, but grey skies and rain would not have felt right. She was too excited to eat her breakfast. Andrew, who was anxious over the outcome of an experiment, had gone off early to his laboratory and Margot was hastily looking over her post. She always felt slightly aggrieved when Andrew left the house first and she had everything to see to, including getting Harriet off for school.

“What’s the matter with you?” she said, becoming aware of the untouched food. “You’ve just messed about with your egg — I hate waste.”

“It’s because of the concert,” said Harriet.

“Oh, I’d forgotten, it’s today, is it?”

“But you’re coming?” said Harriet, suddenly consumed with anxiety.

“Yes, of course,” said Margot, “what time is it?”

The time was engraved on Harriet’s heart, it was also on the invitation card which she had proudly brought home some time ago and which now lay among the pile of papers which Margot kept in a fruit bowl on her desk, but she was glad her mother had asked so that she could tell her once again. “It begins at half-past two and performers’
parents are having the first two rows kept for them.”

“What a godless hour,” said Margot. “Well, if you won’t eat a proper breakfast you won’t, I suppose, so hurry up now and be off.”

“You won’t be late?” Harriet couldn’t help asking.

“Don’t fuss, I’m not Andrew,” said Margot.

During that morning she had a phone call from a young sculptor, Crispin Keylock, whose work they were showing at her shop.

“It’s awfully short notice but could you possibly lunch with me today? I’m feeling good this morning — I’ve just finished a presentation portrait bust and want to celebrate, and I’m off tomorrow to France, which makes too long a gap before I see you again.”

Margot hesitated. “That would be lovely, but I’ve got to be at my daughter’s school concert by 2.30,” she said.

“How ghastly for you, but how admirable. We’ll make it early then, shall we? I’ll fetch you at noon.” The lunch
was
early but it was also absorbing and delightful, and when Margot thought to look at her watch it was already nearly 3 o’clock.

“You should have reminded me,” she said.

“You could hardly expect that, I’m human after all,” he replied, “and now, as I suppose you’ve got the afternoon off, what about that new film at the Curzon?”

While watching the film Margot managed to stifle any compunction as to the concert, but when she was driving home afterwards she felt the need to justify herself. “She’ll soon get over it. I’ll take her out at the weekend if I’m free, anyway she may even have been relieved, playing in front of one’s family Andrew always said is an ordeal worse than playing to strangers, she’s probably done much better without me.”

Harriet had spent the morning in a daze but it did not seem to matter, for allowances were made. She played
her piece once through again to Miss Johnson, who said it went very well. At dinner time she found she was suddenly very hungry. Then there was an interminable period of doing nothing in particular, until at last it was time to watch for the parents and friends to arrive.

“Oh, there’s Mummy and Dad,” called out Susan Phillips, who was playing a recorder solo just before Harriet. Then more and more mums and dads arrived and were hailed with joy.

“My mother is more pretty and wonderful than any of them,” said Harriet to herself. “When she comes everyone will look at her, they always do. Miss Johnson said I played well this morning and I shall play better this afternoon and everyone will clap me and Mummy will clap too.”

Presently she began to be anxious, the front rows of reserved seats were filling up fast. They all had little tickets on them and Harriet knew where Margot’s seat was, towards the centre of the second row. Soon it was the only empty one and she felt, inside her, something ticking away very quickly. Then Miss Johnson herded them all together into the little classroom at the back of the big hall and the concert began. There was Barbara and Tessa’s duet, and next Susan’s solo, and then it was Harriet’s turn. As she crossed the stage to the piano she could see that there was still one empty seat where her mother should have been. She sat down and began to play, but her fingers felt like heavy lumps and she couldn’t see the music properly, everything was blurred. She hadn’t really needed the music either, because she could play the piece perfectly well without, but now she couldn’t remember it at all. She stumbled on to the end and the audience clapped kindly and loudly, though she did not hear them.

“Why, Harriet,” said Miss Johnson, “you must learn not to give way to stage fright so badly as that!” and then, looking at her more closely, she added: “Never mind, it
was a pity, but it can’t be helped now.”

Harriet said nothing. No one saw her slip away, they were all too busy. She did not ask for leave to go home and no one stopped her. When she got there she found Andrew in the sitting-room, immersed and frowning over his papers.

“Where’s Margot?” said Harriet. Although when she had been playing she had had to blink and blink away her tears, now she did not want to cry any more.

“Hasn’t come home yet,” said Andrew, not looking up, “and look here, be a good Harriet and don’t bother just now, will you?”

She went through the little kitchen that led to the landing. By the kitchen door Margot, with her usual efficiency, had put up a rack to hold all the household tools. Harriet took the hammer from its place and went downstairs again. Presently Mrs Sanderson, coming in from a visit, saw that her bedroom door was open and heard an odd sound of splintering wood.

Burglars,
she thought at once, and went intrepidly to confront them. What she saw was Harriet hacking Selina’s doll’s house to pieces.

“Harriet!” she shouted.

Harriet dropped the hammer in the middle of the wreckage and turned to face her.

“It’s the bomb!” she cried in a curious shrill voice, “it’s the bomb and it’s killed them all dead!” Then she burst into sobs and rushed past Letty out of the room.

Aubrey Stacey was coming home and just approaching the gate when he saw Harriet running towards him. On seeing him, she swerved away off the path into the road straight in front of an oncoming tradesman’s van. The van pulled up with a screech of brakes but it had caught the child, who fell backwards against the curb. Aubrey ran forward as the driver of the van was getting out. He looked very pale.

“You saw it, sir,” he said, “I hadn’t a chance of missing her.”

“Yes,” said Aubrey, “it wasn’t your fault.”

“What happened to the other child?” asked the man.

“There wasn’t another child that I could see,” said Aubrey.

The man looked puzzled. “I saw her,” he said, “she caught at this one to pull her back – if it hadn’t been for her, I’d have gone right over her.”

“Well, this isn’t the time to argue,” said Aubrey kneeling down by Harriet. “She’s breathing all right, stay here. I must go and phone for a doctor and an ambulance,” and he rushed into the house.

Mrs Sanderson was still standing in her room gazing at the wreck of the doll’s house when she heard Aubrey calling for her. After that it was all hurry and confusion, phone calls and interviews with the doctor and the police. Aubrey bore witness to the fact that the van driver was not to blame. He stuck to his story of another little girl but she was never traced. Harriet lay in a coma at the hospital. She had a broken leg but that was not serious, the doctor, however, could not yet pronounce on the extent of injury to her head.

At the Lotus House where she had been so unobtrusive, so shadowy a little presence, she was now inescapably important. All, in various degrees felt guilty, though each kept this to themselves. Letty blamed herself for shirking the implications of those overheard doll’s house conversations; could she have helped without appearing interfering in what was not her business? She did not know, but she had not tried; and how could she have not followed a desperate sobbing child out of the house! Aubrey Stacey believed that Harriet, whom he had scarcely seen since she had visited his room, had swerved into the road to avoid him. Janet Cook unwillingly recalled the scene in the garden about the kittens.
I
suppose
it
wouldn’t
have
hurt
to
have
kept
one,
she thought. Andrew cursed himself for not having remembered that it had been the day of the concert and that Harriet ought not have have been coming home at that hour, nor Margot to have been at work, and why did he have to tell the child to go away — she was never any real nuisance.

But what Margot felt was the absence of feeling. She had refused to discuss the concert with Andrew. “I had an expected engagement crop up,” she said, “and when it was over it was too late.”

Andrew, taking it for granted that it was a business matter she could not have avoided, or thought she could not, refrained from pressing her or reproaching her in any way. To judge others was almost pathologically alien to him; besides he imagined with sympathy that she must be remorselessly judging herself. They drove to the hospital every day and sat by Harriet for a short while. A week after the accident there was little or no change; she sometimes moaned and clutched her hands but did not open her eyes or show any consciousness of their presence. One day as they got up to go, Margot saw Andrew lean over and very gently put back a strand of the straight heavy hair from the child’s forehead. A sudden strange pang of envy consumed her. “He knows how to love, but I don’t, I never have.”

During that troubled week everyone concerned knew a part, but not the whole truth about the accident. Miss Johnson, who assumed it had happened on the way back from the school, believed that upset by the fiasco of her performing at the concert, the child had been terribly heedless of the traffic. Aubrey, unaware of why she was rushing from the house, rightly guessed she had dashed into the road to avoid him, though he was wrong in her reasons for so doing — she would have done so whoever it had been.

Miss Cook’s theory was that Harriet must have been escaping from an attack by one of those dreadful estate boys. Andrew and Margot both suspected that her mother’s failure to turn up at the concert was somehow responsible, but they were ignorant as to the destruction of the doll’s house. Letty, only too conscious of this, was anxious to keep it secret. Harriet’s bomb had done its work thoroughly: there was no possibility of repair. Letty found a few little pots and pans and two bent fireplaces among the debris. The bodies of Mr and Mrs Golightly Royce, the grandfather and Cooksie looked as if they had been stamped upon: only Wilhelmina Rose Harriet had escaped all injury. She was found under a chair where she had fallen clear of the house. Letty had picked her up and laid her away in her handkerchief drawer. She had then consigned the wreckage to the dustbin sack, she could not bear to look at it. She trusted that Dian with her habitual lack of interest in objects above the floor level, would not comment on the doll’s house’s disappearance. Ignorant on her part of the fiasco of the concert, she wondered continually what could have caused this whole disastrous crisis.

In the days that followed she felt wretchedly depressed. Harriet’s bomb seemed to have shattered not only the doll’s house but much else. It was time to stop playing Happy Families, she thought, and to put away the useless cards. The beloved image of the Lotus House was itself menaced, it was after all no more now than a lodging for five unhappy people — no, six counting herself. The darker symbolism of its name struck her for the first time — the Lotus House — the house of delusive dreams. Were all the memories she had cherished only the bitter-sweet myth of childhood?
Stop
telling
your
stories,
Selina,
stop,
stop.
Through
what
struggles
and
suffering
may
you
and
all
your
family
have
had
to
pass
to
the
final
defeat.
“We’ll
be
coming
back,”
you
said,
but
you
never
came
back.

She was alone in her sitting-room; the short winter daylight was fading and the fire had sunk to a dull glow, but she did not move, but sat on in the darkness. At last she got up to put on the light. “The past is gone now beyond recall,” she said, speaking aloud as if addressing the great empty room. But the dark bulk of the house she felt all around her seemed to answer defiantly, “Yet the past is here now, beyond oblivion.” As she drew the long curtains, a child’s laugh sounded faintly from the dark garden.
The
children
are
playing
late
on
the
estate,
she thought,
their
mothers
let
them
stay
out
in
the
cold
and
dark
at
all
hours
nowadays.

Ten days after the accident Harriet opened her eyes for the first time. There was no one at hand but a nurse, who hearing a slight movement bent at once over the bed. Harriet was staring into space with an unmistakable look of horror, she murmured something almost indistinguishable and shut her eyes again.

“She spoke, you say — did you hear what she said?” asked the doctor.

“I’m not sure,” said the nurse, “but it sounded like: ‘I’ve killed them all dead’.”

“A nightmare,” said the doctor, “those wretched TV films all about murders, and children
will
watch them. We must get her mother here at once. Meanwhile, stop with her, nurse, hold her hand and talk to her, anything soothing that comes into your head.”