The Dollhouse

Chapter 17

"LYDIA never used to be like this."

"I just can't stand here any longer, Percival. We need to properly punish your daughter!"

"I know, I know. I don't understand where these outbursts are coming from. I don't know if this is still her acting out over Christine, or..."

"Running wild with boys, by the sound of it..."

I could hear snatches of conversation through the floorboards below.

We had driven home in dead silence, with just the bump and rumble of the engine to keep us company. I knew that I was really if for it when my father's knuckles whitened from his clutch on the steering wheel.

A thousand excuses and stories had already ran through my head. The whole time my whole body throbbed like a drum, worried sick. The principal's office hadn't been so bad, because my friends had been equally culpable. But now that I was alone...

The Dollhouse was looming in shadows by the afternoon. They were cast over the lawn, stretching long across the rose-littered grass. Birds who were perched on the balconies flew away as the car pulled up.

I stared at the sugar pink and mint green until the colors started to blur.

"I wasn't - I didn't mean -"

"I don't really care, Lydia," my father said, delivering me to the hands of his wife. Arabella wrapped her grip of thorns around my wrist, her nails digging in. Never had Daddy acted this way towards me before.

Neither of them bothered to yell at me. In a way, it was more frightening. A black feeling consumed me as Arabella dragged me up the stairs. I thought she was going to lock me in my room - at least I could read or write poetry to wallow in misery. But she paused in the corridor.

"In here," she turned the knob of the spare room. The door edged open as the light sparked to life, the bulb swinging from the ceiling and illuminating the piano. The rows of dolls flickered into view.

"Excuse me?" I said.

No way did I mean to sound as disrespectful as I did. But the sight of those porcelain she-devils were enough to make a girl nervous.

That left me with an unfriendly room and the scrape of a lock. As my stepmother locked the door behind me, I found myself sliding down the frame in defeat.

The lid of the piano was cloaked with dust. The whole room had  feeling of age. Cramped and desolate, crumbling under the roof of a creepy estate.

"I'm not trying to be insensitive about your ex-wife," I strained to catch Arabella's upper-class whisper. "But it's been months and months now. You said it was Violet who would prove a handful. If either of them act like this way again I don't know if I can tolerate them in my house any longer."

"I bought her a bloody cat, didn't I? It's not my fault that Christine had no self-discipline to not drink herself to death. But look, I don't want my girls being sent off–"

"My house," she insisted.

I heard a series of indignant spluttering.

The scene of the argument was painted like a picture in my head. I could see my father's characteristic manner of sitting still like a mannequin, a tactic he often adopted during confrontation. He probably thought that made him appear like the rational one.

Arabella was most likely brandishing her finger in accusation. I had now probably seen every sign of disapproval she could exhibit. "Don't you forget where our money came from," Her haughty voice exclaimed. The clink of cutlery slammed down into the sink downstairs. "My inheritance. My house."