I have the house all to myself these days. How quiet it all is! I leap at my own shadow. I anticipated peace and quiet, curling up in the rocker with the poetry of Percy Bysshe Shelley introduced to me by the mistress.
It came to me, in a breath of wind down through the chimney like a whisper from the past, that this house was not always so quiet. There is a sense of tragedy here.
I climbed from the rocker and traversed into the bedroom. I felt cold and shaky from my daring, knowing that my lady would never approve of my doings. The mistress is very secretive about certain things.
In my lady's bedroom is an antique cupboard half-rusted shut. She has told me that once we are moved she will make it my apartment. It is just my size, the top shelf ideal for my bunk, the middle shelf for my things and the bottom fits my cast-iron stove and other furnishings. However my lady has never actually shown me my apartment or fitted me in the bunk.
It is to be my own soon. Surely it is not wrong for me to open the door and glimpse inside?
Yet through the beautiful punchwork the light shines, and I can see that the cupboard is not empty.
My heart starts beating quickly. Even though my lady has never indicated that there is anything of value in the cupboard I sense that what I am about to see will alter my perception of my home forever.
With effort I open the rusted door. I peer into the gloom for a moment, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the shadows. Why, was there some mistake? This cupboard has not been prepared for me at all. It is crammed full of things, packed floor to ceiling with random items in just my size. But these things are not mine! They were not selected for me. My aching heart longs to believe that these were gifts she set aside for me, but I cannot swallow my own lies.
There is a microscope set for a student scientist. There are exotic feathers. In a cedar trunk are gowns, beautiful gowns that show signs of wear and much age. There is a framed photograph of a beautiful girl in a wedding gown. Her dead-black hair frames an oval face of luminescent beauty. My heart is seared by her mysterious looks. I drop the framed photograph and step back.
What happened here? Where is she now? I am seized by a sense of panic. I have no one to talk to! I am the only doll left in this house. Marguerite and the others have been sent to the farm already. I am alone, and I am so afraid. Suddenly the quiet void in which I dwelled is replaced by a constant susurration of sinister whispers. The girl's face appears again and again in my mind.
I climb back onto the rocker, trying to focus my mind on something besides this torrent of unanswerable questions. It will be days yet before my lady returns. I don't know what I shall do or say. She mustn't know that I have trespassed, that I have rummaged through trunks and boxes never meant for my eyes.
But. who was she? Or they? For surely not all of those items were meant for the beautiful girl.
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