Further Notes...

Eric’s been sick for a long time now. It probably started when he was eight years old, and since then he’s grown to know the doctors and hospitals and more cities on the Eastern Seaboard than any boy should have.

His older sister’s in high school now, depressed, depressive, and neglected in her brother’s need. This weekend she’s in the hospital for a change, along with mom and dad, and Eric’s spending the night with his uncle George who lives in downtown Charleston. The house is hung with a disused mustiness of long bachelorhood and obsessive collection. To Eric, it’s dirty, cluttered, stifling. For long he’s been the center of attention, and consolations have spoiled him, but at his uncle’s house there’s no internet, no television, not even a plug with three prongs to charge his laptop.

His uncle is not a luddite, simply a man out of time, truly traveling, so preoccupied by his forays into the mind of the past that he’s blithely unconcerned with the here and now. Perhaps when it has stood the test of time, he could afford it the big picture, but for now he thrill sin the minutiae of history, the valueless and priceless accidental detritus which makes the word of history real under the flesh of his finger tips. Uncle George is in daily communion with bygone days, but not a very suitable nursemaid.

The doll technically belonged to Eric’s sister, or she was it’s intended recipient in the will. However she’d never taken strongly to the thought. She’d been rather repusled when she first saw her uncle’s promised gift. Certainly his clothes were dainty and delicate, far exceeding her 20th century fantasies of Victorian little lords – His extravagant silk blouse and brilliant azure pantaloons would have put him quite at home among Sargent’s royal family portraits. The bloom of his cheeks, the limpid blond locks, the depth of his eyes apparently lost in thought just for a moment before piercing you with rapt attention, these she found uncanny and disturbing in a way that softly strangled the first impression of delight. Her uncle’s over protective grasp was not challenged at that time and indeed he was too preoccupied by his memories of the doll’s own story to notice much of his niece’s reticence.

He’d come to buy some certain nick-nacks being sold by a certain elderly lady who suddenly seemed determined to personally dispose of much of her estate. The nursing home was built in the modern flimsy imitation of Georgian, the rooms small and reminiscent of motels. The old lady’s tin of chocolates hid a layer of miniatures, which she offered to Uncle George much to the embarrassment of her eldest daughter. Her husband’s ancestor had carried a few things to war when he donned the Confederate grey, and carried them and a Union musket ball in his thigh back from the battle of Yorktown. Once business concluded, Uncle George had asked about the doll half in jest, thinking of his then new young niece. He knew little of dolls, but had been immediately struck by the quality of the molding and clothing. The lady declined, and surprised him with a appraisal of more than three times higher than any Uncle George had ever heard for a doll.

He was even more surprised the next week to find himself summoned their ancestral home by the eldest daughter, and offered the doll for sale at a pittance. With little reluctance he accepted, but strangely disquieted, decided that he owed face to face confirmation from the owner, and so directed his taxi to the nursing home, where he learned that the old lady had passed away the day before.

Of course Eric knows none of this, and I don't think it's very relevant to the telling of the story just yet - I'm just wool gathering you see. Perhaps we'll knit something out of it in the end, perhaps not. Nonetheless it should be obvious that amusements for children, even older ones, are very limited in Uncle George's house so it was inevitable that Eric should encounter the doll...