This chapter was inspired by the song 'Dollhouse' by Melanie Martinez and it was requested by an anonymous user on my Tumblr account. It was supposed to be a drabble…

This is set in the 1880s and it deals with an abusive family through the eyes of a child.

Dollhouse

Gilbert laughed and darted around his father. He swung his brother behind him and ran between the servants and his nursemaid.

"Gilbert," his father reprimanded sternly. "Behave."

He skidded to a stop and straightened his cap with impatient fingers. He grinned sheepishly.

"I will. Jus' excited, s'all."

"And enunciate, child."

He cleared his throat.

"Yes, Father."

Gilbert watched the servants stream past them with boxes and chests and piles of linens before redirecting his attention to the cobblestone street. It was lined with neat, trimmed houses and gas lanterns. Men and women and even other children bustled around them. He had never seen anything like it. It was amazing.

They had lived in a country estate since Ludwig was a baby and he had no memories of the city. It was bigger than he had imagined. Brighter.

He might even make a friend.

His father clapped him on the shoulders and steered his sons towards the garden as a blonde woman approached him. She giggled and it tinkled like the jewellery around her wrists. She held out her hand and introduced herself.

Gilbert shrugged and pulled Ludwig through the hedges.

"He has t' do grown up things," Gilbert murmured when Ludwig whined and reached for their father. "He needs t' talk to th' neighbours an' stuff an' he won' want us messin' it up."

Ludwig stared at him with big blue eyes and Gilbert sighed.

"C'mon, we'll find somethin' better t' do."

It was almost a week before he actually met their neighbours. His father invited them over for dinner and he had to wear his second nicest suit. It was boring. Tedious. The man lingered over his nursemaid and the woman jingled when she slapped his hand with a forced smile.

Their son was almost his age but he sneered and thumbed his nose at his parents. Gilbert balked. His father would have cuffed him for that.

But it was their daughter that caught his attention.

Her name was Madeline and she was the loveliest girl he had ever seen.

"Madeline!" He exclaimed as he climbed over their fence and tossed his stitched, leather ball to her. She squealed and dropped her dollies to catch it. He grinned. "Sorry, sorry, I didn' mean t' scare you."

She carefully smoothed the ruffles, sashes, and ribbons of her dress and adjusted her bonnet.

"It's alright," she said softly. She said everything softly, actually. He had to strain to hear her. "I was simply… Startled."

"Sorry," he said again. He settled beside her with his knees drawn up against his chest. He studied her askance.

"Were you looking for my brother?"

Gilbert cocked his head to the side and frowned.

"No, I was lookin' for you."

Madeline blinked.

"Why?"

"I wan' t' play with you."

"You want to play with a… Girl?"

"I s'ppose. I jus' wan' t' play with you."

And the way that she smiled at him made his stomach clench.

Gilbert started asking Madeline on all of his adventures. He asked her to fight pirates and discover lost cities and vanquish dragons. And every time he asked, she smiled, and he thought that he was going to melt.

She ran after him and giggled and twirled with her hands in the air but she refused to scramble up rocks or jump in puddles. She kept her dresses clean. She was fastidious.

It was a Tuesday when Madeline accidentally slipped in the mud and he thought that she would fall apart. Her eyes had brimmed with tears and her lip trembled and her mother shrieked when he dropped her off with dirt and grass clippings on her pinafore.

"What have you done?"

"I was running and I tripped…"

Her mother gasped in indignation.

"Why were you running?!"

"We were playing…"

"Little girls should be seen and not heard, Madeline."

"But I'm not…!"

Her mother pulled her into the house and slammed the door before Gilbert could apologise and, the next time he saw his friend, she was coloured with bruises and a faint, whistling cough.

"Father," Gilbert started carefully, warily, as he bounced Ludwig on his knees. "Is there somethin', erhm, wrong with our neighbours?"

His father looked up from the documents on his desk and stared at Gilbert over the top of his eyeglasses.

"… Yes," he allowed eventually. "Why do you ask?"

"I don' know, it's jus'…"

"Enunciate."

"It's just that Madeline is very shy and her mother is very harsh and she always smells like cooking sherry. I don't like her."

"Ah."

"And her father is never there and, when he is, his sentences run together and he frowns at his wife and disappears into the kitchen after the servants. That's strange, right?"

"A bit."

"I mean, Mother died when Ludwig was born but you never frowned at her. I'd remember."

His father smiled sadly as Gilbert jostled Ludwig and kissed his rosy cheeks.

"No, I loved your mother very much."

"Then… Do her parents not love each other anymore?"

"Perhaps…"

"Why not? That doesn't make any sense. They're married."

"Sometimes… It is harder to be married than it should be. It does not always make sense. Unfortunately."

Gilbert wrinkled his nose.

"I think that I'm in love with Madeline," he admitted quietly, flushing, "but I want to love her forever and ever and always. Do you think that I could?"

His father chuckled and walked across the den towards his sons. He ruffled his hair. Gilbert pouted.

"I think that you can do anything you put your mind to, Gilbert. Anything. And if you love Madeline, I think that she is the luckiest, ah, girl in the world."

Gilbert continued to call on Madeline but he decided to sit down and play with her dollies instead. He brought tin soldiers and clay marbles and a carved wooden horse. She wore new silk dresses and newer bruises. She was drowning in ribbons.

He had never seen anyone look as relieved as she did when he showed up with that bag of marbles. She looked so grateful.

It was a small price to pay.

They could make their own fun.

"How come your father and mother never talk?" Gilbert asked one afternoon as they laid out tin soldiers and paper dolls. Madeline worried her lip.

"They do," she whispered anxiously. "When they think that Alfred and I are asleep. They talk. Loudly."

"Tha's strange."

She seemed surprised.

"Is it?"

Gilbert scratched the back of his head.

"Well, yes," he fumbled for the words. "My father and mother never did tha'."

"You don't even have a mother," Madeline scoffed.

"I did. But she died…"

"It must be nice," she muttered under her breath. He growled and knocked over their toys.

It was the first and last time that Gilbert ever pushed her.

He apologised two days later.

"How come your father never married again?"

"I don' know." Gilbert shrugged. They were sitting on the swing in the garden. "Father said tha' he loved Mother too much t' get married again. We have a nursemaid instead. 'S not th' same thin' as a mother, though."

Madeline untied her bonnet and fiddled with it.

"Do you think… Do you think that your mother would have been sad if she knew that she had two sons?"

Gilbert raised an eyebrow.

"Why would she have been sad? Ludwig was th' prettiest baby I've ever seen. Absolutely."

Madeline clenched her hands.

"So she would have loved him anyway…?"

"I love him. I'm sure Mother would have loved him too."

He did not understand why Madeline started crying but he rocked the swing gently and hugged her until she stopped.

She did not come outside the next day or the day after that.

Alfred would play with Gilbert when his sister was too sick to venture outside but he always seemed haunted. He kept glancing at the window and the drawn curtains as if he were ashamed. Nervous.

"Why are y' scared?"

Alfred flinched like Madeline used to when he surprised her.

"I'm not scared of anything."

"Liar. Everyone is scared of somethin'. I'm scared of tonic and tha' red book with those pic'ures in it and th' shed in garden. I'm scared of lot's o' stuff."

Alfred snorted and shuffled his feet awkwardly. He looked back at the window.

"… I might be scared of the kitchen…"

"… Why? Wha' happens in th' kitchen?"

"I don't know but sometimes, uhm, she screams and screams and screams."

Gilbert was only allowed to see Madeline when she was sick if her mother escorted him to her bedroom. She would tut and flap her hands and jingle but Gilbert swallowed his irritation for a chance to see Madeline.

Her curls were limp. Her eyes were swollen and her lips were chapped.

And she smiled at him anyway. Like always.

"If I married Madeline, she would live wit' me. Righ'?"

"Enunciate."

"Right?"

His father lowered his newspaper as the nursemaid tried to stifle her laughter.

"Yes, that's generally how it works."

"And then I could keep her safe, right?"

"… As her husband, you would be expected to."

Gilbert sat up straighter.

"I'm going to ask her to marry me, then. Today."

"Y' migh' have t' wait a couple of years yet, babby," his nursemaid smirked. "Yer not of the marryin' age."

His father pinched his nose and sighed.

"Margaret," he chastised. "Enunciate. Please."

"Ah, never y' mind that, sir." She patted his hand. "We're talkin' 'bout true love 'ere. 'S much too importan' t' be worryin' 'bout proper diction an' th' like. Y' know tha'."

Gilbert interrupted his father before he could respond. He cringed.

"And I know we're too young to be married but I don't think I'm too young to ask. I just want to, uhm, reserve a place. In case."

"Tha' jus' migh' do it."

He found Madeline sitting on the swing in the garden with windswept ribbons and curls and a black eye.

"Gilbert," she said softly, warmly, even though her wrists were wrapped in bandages. "I've missed you."

"So… I've been thinkin'…"

"About…?"

"Do you wan' t' get married?"

She slipped from the swing in a cascade of ruffles and blinked up at him. She squeaked.

"What?"

"I'm askin' you t' marry me." He knelt down and dusted off her pinafore. "Only if you wan' t', of course."

She reached out for his wandering hands and he could have sworn that she was going to cry again. She tenderly kissed his knuckles. He blushed.

"Gilbert… I'm flattered but… There are things you don't know about me."

"I know enough."

"No," she shook her head, "you don't."

"Then tell me."

"I can't. I would get in so much trouble."

"You're always in trouble," his voice cracked, "I jus' wan' t' protect you."

"I know."

"I love you. I'm sure of it."

She choked.

"I love you too."

"Then why?"

"Gilbert…"

"No, tell me. Why?"

"I can't!"

"Tell me!"

"Gilbert," she sobbed, "I'm a boy."

"… What?"

He was torn between pulling her close until she stopped crying and shaking her until the answers fell out.

"I'm a boy! Mama wanted a little girl, she always wanted a little girl, but the doctor said she was too sick to try again. So she made me a girl! And I have to pretend, I have to. I have to be good. I'm sorry but she made me promise. It's a secret. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

Gilbert collapsed beside her, no, him.

"You're a boy," he repeated, awed. It sounded outlandish. Just liked everything else about her, no, his family. "Why're you wearin' a dress?"

"Mama buys them for me."

"But…"

"Oh, Gilbert, you can't tell anyone! You can't! No one else knows!"

"I… Won't…" Even though he thought that he should. "I didn' mean t'…"

He had always known that something was wrong with their neighbours, they were dark and twisted and strange, but he wished that he had figured it out sooner. He wished that he could have spared Madeline the weight of such an enormous burden. He should have seen it. He should have known.

Madeline hung her, no, his head. His, his, his. He was a boy.

"I'm sorry I lied…"

Gilbert reached out unthinkingly when Madeline hiccupped and twirled a ribbon around his finger. He adored Madeline even if 'she' was a 'he'. And he still wanted to protect him.

He needed even more protecting than before.

"I don' think I care. Tha' you're a boy, I mean. I think… I think I still wan' t' marry you."

And Madeline stared at Gilbert like he had never seen him before.

It broke his heart.

"Even though I'm a boy…?" He whispered wretchedly into his sleeves. Gilbert scooted closer and gathered Madeline up in his arms. He gave into the instinct to shelter him from the rest of the world.

"It doesn' matter t' me. Not really. I still love you."

"Forever and ever?"

"And always."

Author's Notes:

This is fucked up. Also, screw pronouns.

I like to think that perhaps they sat down together and picked out a 'boy' name for him a couple of days later. I like to think that they picked out 'Matthew'.

There is a lot of dialogue in this chapter and you have to read between the lines because the abuse is seen through the eyes of a neighbour and child. The song had a cheerful tune and twisted lyrics. I feel like this is one of those pieces that you might read, read again, and then fall asleep thinking about it. I know I am going to be thinking about it for awhile…

I like writing Gilbert with a lisp but it also amused me to imagine that he might have picked it up from his nursemaid. (A 'wee babby' is Irish slang for 'young child'.) And I did not necessarily have any characters in mind when I was writing the parents or such but I am sure that several characters could fill those roles. His mother was abusive on so many levels but his entire family was just as perverse and cruel. They fell apart. And they ruined each other as they fell.