Page 92 - sons-and-lovers

though not so fond. So she laid the doll on the sofa, and
covered it with an antimacassar, to sleep. Then she forgot
it. Meantime Paul must practise jumping off the sofa arm.
So he jumped crash into the face of the hidden doll. An-
nie rushed up, uttered a loud wail, and sat down to weep a
dirge. Paul remained quite still.
‘You couldn’t tell it was there, mother; you couldn’t tell it
was there,’ he repeated over and over. So long as Annie wept
for the doll he sat helpless with misery. Her grief wore itself
out. She forgave her brother—he was so much upset. But a
day or two afterwards she was shocked.
‘Let’s make a sacrifice of Arabella,’ he said. ‘Let’s burn
her.’
She was horrified, yet rather fascinated. She wanted to see
what the boy would do. He made an altar of bricks, pulled
some of the shavings out of Arabella’s body, put the waxen
fragments into the hollow face, poured on a little paraffin,
and set the whole thing alight. He watched with wicked sat-
isfaction the drops of wax melt off the broken forehead of
Arabella, and drop like sweat into the flame. So long as the
stupid big doll burned he rejoiced in silence. At the end be
poked among the embers with a stick, fished out the arms
and legs, all blackened, and smashed them under stones.
‘That’s the sacrifice of Missis Arabella,’ he said. ‘An’ I’m
glad there’s nothing left of her.’
Which disturbed Annie inwardly, although she could
say nothing. He seemed to hate the doll so intensely, be-
cause he had broken it.
All the children, but particularly Paul, were peculiarly

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