**Written for Fanfic100**

Playthings

040. Sight.

Emily had never seen a china doll before. When she had been a little girl in Yarmouth, they had played with the shells and sand of the beach; or perhaps one or two lucky girls, who had a kind mamma, had dolls made out of cloth. Emily had had no mamma, and so had had no doll.

They were in Paris, and she had stopped, in wonder, by a window in which stood a little porcelain woman, with trunk and trousseau, clothed in such finery as Emily had never seen on any real woman of her acquaintance, and certainly not in miniature, made for a plaything. As she looked, she heard a laugh behind her, and felt an arm around her waist. "What, you want one? I shall buy her for you, if you like." She wasn't sure she did want the doll, but she let him buy it for her. It felt strange to purchase the little woman in the window with money – indeed, it seemed scarcely fair to play with her, Emily sometimes thought – even though he smiled when she said this, and called her silly. But she had never had a doll, you will remember. She didn't really know what to do with one, other than admire it.

/

Perhaps it was a comfort to her when it was smashed. He had threatened to do it often enough, in all their previous arguments, knowing she cared for it, until she was sick of the sight of it. During their very last fight, Emily had been quite wild – mad, half-possessed – and in a passion, she picked up the doll and threw it, hoping it would hit him in the face. It broke against his shoulder, like the foam of a wave, and he simply sneered, and said he ought to have known better than to purchase such fine things for poor rough girls who could not appreciate them.

No. Emily could not appreciate it, because she had never had a doll – and she realized, now, she'd never wanted one. The sand, and the shells, and the sea, had been enough for her, once.