by Rumer Godden
Miss Flower was terribly alarmed. ‘You heard what she said,’ cried Miss Flower, and if she could have wrung her little plaster hands she would. ‘Never be furnished! Oh, we’re only dolls. What can we do?’
‘Wish,’ said Miss Happiness. She was still smiling. Perhaps that was because her smile was painted on her face, but it made Miss Flower angry.
‘What’s the good of wishing?’
‘You never know,’ said Miss Happiness.
You never know. Sometimes when things seem farthest off they are quite near. Next morning Melly came to school with a small bundle. She put it on Nona’s desk. ‘Mother sent you this,’ she said.
The bundle was wrapped in a piece of soft paper. Inside were scraps and pieces and snippets of silk, satin and taffeta, in pink and scarlet, blue and lemon colour, white, green, purple and mauve.
‘But . . . but . . . how did she get them?’ asked Nona.
‘Well, she does make hats,’ said Melly, and laughed at Nona’s face. ‘These are bits left over. And she says if your mother will let you come to tea she, my mother, will help you with the cushions and quilts. She’s a very good sewer,’ said Melly.
Nona hardly knew if she were standing on her head or her heels. To go to tea with Melly; to make the quilts and cushions; to have this heap of soft and beautiful stuffs! ‘What is the matter with Nona?’ asked Father, who happened to be looking out of the window as Nona and Belinda came back from school. ‘She looks as if she were dancing on the pavement.’
Then, at the beginning of the holidays, it was Easter.
Nona had not kept Easter before. She had never seen Easter eggs or Easter rabbits or chickens. ‘Your own father has sent me some money from Coimbatore,’ said Mother, ‘to buy you all Easter eggs. Ten shillings for each of the others,’ she told Nona, ‘a pound for you.’
‘A pound!’ said Belinda, her eyes round.
‘Is that twenty shillings?’ asked Nona. She was trying to do a sum in her head.
‘You could buy an enormous huge great Easter egg for that,’ said Belinda. ‘One of those huge chocolate ones with chocolate and chickens inside.’
‘Oh no!’ cried Nona.
‘No?’
‘Please, please no,’ – in her agitation Nona could hardly speak – ‘I don’t want an Easter egg.’
‘Not want an egg for Easter?’
‘No. At least, only a tiny one, about sixpence.’
‘Well, what is it you want?’
‘Four tea sets,’ said Nona, ‘and two table mats.’
‘What extraordinary things to want.’
‘I want them,’ said Nona certainly.
On Easter Sunday, as they were coming back from church, Melly came up the road to the gate. She was carrying a package tied with yellow ribbon. ‘Why, Nona! She has brought you another Easter egg!’ but it was a queer shape for an Easter egg, for the package was long and thin. Before Nona opened it she knew what it was, and her fingers began to tremble. ‘It’s your pencil box.’
‘Not mine,’ said Melly. ‘It’s the same as mine. Mother bought it in London in the same shop. Happy Easter,’ said Melly, and ran off.
Happy Easter!
‘In Japan we have the New Year Festival,’ said Miss Flower, ‘when fathers and mothers dress the children in their best clothes and take them to visit the shrines and give them money.’
‘Lots of money,’ said Miss Happiness.
‘That is something like this,’ said Miss Flower.
‘But I like Easter,’ said Miss Happiness, and she said, ‘We have the Star Festival, of course, and the Boys’ Festival, when the boys have paper carp fish and play games.’
‘But I like Easter,’ said Miss Flower, and she said, ‘We have the Doll Festival, when the festival dolls are brought out and the little girls put them up on steps covered with red cloth.’
‘I think this is a doll festival day,’ said Miss Happiness, smiling.
Indeed, it seemed to be, for the Japanese dolls’ house was almost finished at last. The pencil box stood against the wall; the quilts were rolled up on its bottom shelf. Nona had been to tea with Melly on two or three Wednesday afternoons when the hat shop was shut, and after tea they had sewed quilts and pillows, pale pink for Miss Flower, while Miss Happiness had blue.
On the Tuesday after Easter, Nona had hurried over breakfast and run all the way to the shops in case the tea sets were sold, but they were still in the window and she had been able to buy all four.
‘Four tea sets?’ Belinda had asked.
‘So that I can get four bowls.’
‘And waste all the cups?’
‘I have to,’ said Nona sadly.
‘Christopher Columbus!’ said Belinda, just like Tom.
Nona put the cups, the jugs and all but one teapot on one side, but the four sugar bowls and all the plates and saucers and the one teapot she arranged on the top shelf of the pencil box; with its green leaves and pink flowers the china looked Japanese.
Japanese people eat their food with polished sticks called chopsticks: Nona cut pine needles into inch lengths to make some, and they were put beside the china. From the table mat shop she chose two mats in fine cream-coloured bamboo; they almost covered the floor when they were put down. On the matting were cushions made from Mrs Ashton’s bright silks; Nona set them round the low table.
‘It must be ready now,’ said Belinda, but Nona shook her head.
Tom helped to make a lamp from an empty cotton reel.5 He ran a flex up through it with a tiny electric bulb and Nona made a paper shade to fit it. She cut a strip of stiff paper, painted it deep pink and joined it into a circle with sticky-tape. ‘And I’m going to model a lantern in clay, like the Japanese stone lanterns, for the garden,’ she said.
‘What garden?’ asked Belinda.
‘The garden I am going to make.’
Every Japanese house has a firebox.6 Nona made hers from a matchbox, painted dark brown and filled with shining red paper from a Christmas cracker. Tom put another of his tiny bulbs in it and joined the flex to the lamp. When it was lit the firebox seemed to glow.
‘Now we need a scroll,’ said Nona, ‘and I must put flowers in the niche.’
‘Well, put some,’ said Belinda, but Nona said, ‘I have to learn about them first.’
‘Learn about flowers? Pooh! What is there to learn? Oh Nona, you are so slow.’
‘Please leave Honourable Miss Nona alone,’ wished Miss Happiness and Miss Flower. ‘Leave her. She is doing things in the Japanese way.’7
Flowers, in Japan, can have meanings: pine branches are for strength; plum blossom means new hope; irises are used for ceremony; while the peony is the King of Flowers.
‘Irises and peonies are too big for a dolls’ house,’ said Anne.
Of course they were too big, but now, in April and May, as Mother and Anne had told Nona, there were wild flowers everywhere in the grass and along the hedges and in the fields and woods just outside the town. Nona had never seen anything as lovely and every day she discovered something else; wild violets did for irises and wood sorrel or anemones made white peonies, while eyebright looked like doll’s-house lilies. In front of the Japanese dolls’ house she made a path of sand and bordered it with cowries, tiny shells she had brought from Coimbatore. At the foot of the steps she put two little china-blue egg-cups, the kind that are like tubs, and filled them with lady’s-slipper. Then she begged a big old meat tin from Mother and put it on the window-sill beside the house; she covered it with a layer of earth and moss. Following the pictures of Japanese gardens in Mr Twilfit’s big book, she arranged a path with flat stones, and a little heap of pebbles to hold the shell that Anne had given her. The shell was filled with water and made a pool, and by it Nona planted some tufts of grass to look like bamboos, and tiny flowers to look like bushes. ‘Japanese gardens have to look natural, like hills and lakes and streams,’ she said, and she made a stream of bits of broken looking-glass set in the moss, and by it she set the clay
lantern she had modelled. Miss Lane had let her fire it in the school kiln and it had a gloss on it like stone. It looked like a toadstool with a hole in the hood. When a bit of birthday cake candle was put in, it shone over the garden at night, ‘and it’s quite safe,’ said Nona. ‘The clay won’t catch on fire.’ The garden was beautiful, ‘but I do wish I had some trees,’ said Nona.
‘There aren’t trees as small as that,’ said Belinda.
There was no scroll yet, but in the niche Nona put a vase of flowers. For the vase she used her ivory thimble, and for flowers she chose a scarlet pimpernel – ‘That’s a peony, the King of Flowers’ – and with it were stalks of grass – ‘Dolls’-house bamboo,’ said Nona. ‘Bamboo means luck.’
‘Yes. Yes!’ breathed Miss Flower.
It was finished. ‘They can move in tomorrow,’ said Nona.
‘Tomorrow!’ Miss Happiness felt as if all of her were warmed by the firebox, but Miss Flower felt as if she might crack. ‘I shan’t close my eyes all night,’ she said. They could not close in any case, but she meant that she would not sleep.
‘Our house!’ said Miss Happiness. ‘Tomorrow we move into our house.’
‘Yes!’ Then Miss Flower stopped. ‘We haven’t moved in yet. Suppose . . . suppose something were to happen and prevent . . .’
‘But what could?’ asked Miss Happiness.
Miss Flower did not know, but all at once she felt cold.
‘Can I have a feast?’ Nona was asking.
‘You can ask some people to tea,’ said Mother.
‘Can I ask Mr Twilfit and Miss Lane and Mrs Ashton and Melly? And you and Father and Anne and Tom – and Belinda of course?’
‘I’m not coming,’ said Belinda.
‘Why should Nona have people to tea?’ asked Belinda, and kicked the corner of the table leg. ‘It’s not her birthday.’
‘Now, Belinda . . .’
Belinda kicked the corner of the table leg again.
‘If you do that,’ said Mother, ‘you can go upstairs at once.’ Then she put her hand on Belinda’s shoulder and said gently, ‘Belinda. Nona has worked so hard. Don’t spoil it’; but Belinda shook Mother’s hand off, kicked the table leg harder than ever, and ran upstairs.
It was no wonder that Miss Flower trembled.
Chapter 6
The dolls were to have a feast too. ‘A tea party,’ said Nona.
‘A tea ceremony,’ said Miss Flower.
Belinda’s dolls’-house food was a cardboard ham glued on a plate, some plaster fish glued on another and a plaster pink and white cake. ‘That won’t do at all,’ said Nona, and she went to see Mr Twilfit to find out about a Japanese feast. In the end a beautiful little feast was set out on the low table: a bowl of rice made of snipped-up white thread – nothing else was fine enough; a saucer of bamboo shoots made of finely chopped grass; a saucer of pink and white sugar cakes made from crumbs of meringue cut round; and some paint-water tea. ‘Green tea?’ asked Belinda.
‘Japanese people drink green tea.’
‘Huh! You know everything,’ said Belinda, who was in a very bad temper. ‘Everything!’ she said. ‘But there’s one thing you don’t know.’
‘What is that?’
‘Wait and see,’ said Belinda, and she looked angry and pleased at the same time.
The dolls were dressed in new kimonos; Father had given Nona an empty cigar box and she kept their clothes in that. Mrs Ashton had made Miss Happiness a white kimono embroidered with a tiny pattern of leaves, over an under-dress of pale yellow silk, and with a sash of blue. Miss Flower’s was coral pink over an under-dress of delicate violet colour, and her sash was pale green. Their hair was brushed and their socks and sandals had been painted. Tom had carefully patched the chip on Miss Flower’s ear with some white paint and repainted Miss Happiness’s shoe. ‘We look quite new,’ said Miss Happiness.
‘Is it really going to happen?’ asked Miss Flower. Even though she was dressed she could not quite believe it.
‘It really is,’ said Miss Happiness.
In the dolls’ house the house lamp and the firebox were switched on, and the lantern was lit. In the real house the front door bell rang, and ‘It really is,’ said Miss Flower.
Everyone brought presents. Melly had a packet of water flowers, the Japanese paper flowers that uncurl into brightly coloured patterns when you drop them into water. ‘You can put one or two in the shell for water lilies,’ said Melly.
Mrs Ashton brought a tiny paper sunshade she had once found in a cracker. ‘It’s from Japan,’ she said.
‘Quite right,’ said Miss Happiness and Miss Flower.
Miss Lane had brought her present in a matchbox; it was a length of paper three inches long and an inch and a quarter wide – if you measure with your ruler you will see how big it was. Top and bottom it was held on two matchsticks that Miss Lane had sandpapered smooth and fine; the paper could roll up on them, and on the paper, in fine, fine painting, was some white plum blossom and a bird; the bird was no bigger than a pea. There was some writing too, but so small that to read it you almost needed a magnifying glass, and Nona cried, ‘It’s my poem!’
My two plum trees are
So gracious
See, they flower
One now, one later.
‘Who could have done it?’ asked Belinda.
‘It looks like a fairy but I think it was Miss Lane,’ said Nona.
‘A scroll! A right size Japanese scroll!’ said Miss Happiness.
‘But shouldn’t the writing have been Japanese?’ asked Miss Flower doubtfully.
‘Not in England. That wouldn’t have been polite,’ said Miss Happiness, and Miss Flower was satisfied.
Nona hung the scroll in the niche. ‘Soon I must make you a new one,’ said Miss Lane. ‘This one is for spring but you should change them with the seasons.’ Miss Happiness and Miss Flower gave two doll’s nods, which means they nodded though you could not see them, and said, ‘Quite right.’
Anne had made two pleated fans, no bigger than your finger nail. ‘It says they should wear fans for the tea ceremony,’ said Anne.
‘Very right,’ and Miss Happiness and Miss Flower were glad when the fans were tucked into their sashes.
Tom had made two tiny pairs of wooden clogs of the kind Japanese ladies use to walk in in the mud, fastened with a loop of scarlet cotton. ‘O Honourable Tom!’ said the dolls.
All the presents were beautiful but the best of all was Mr Twilfit’s. He had brought two trees. ‘Are those trees?’ asked Belinda. ‘Real trees?’
‘A pine and a willow,’ said Nona looking at the labels. She sounded dizzy, as indeed she was, for how many people have heard of or seen a pine tree ten inches high and a willow only seven? ‘But – they’re real, alive!’ cried Nona.
‘Quite real,’ said Mr Twilfit, his eyebrows going up and down.
‘I didn’t know,’ said Miss Flower with great respect, ‘that there was anything like that in England.’
‘England is indeed a most honourable country,’ said Miss Happiness.
‘They are grown for people who make sink gardens,’ said Mr Twilfit. ‘Dwarf gardens in sinks or basins.’ Everyone was so enchanted that he was beginning to feel shy and his eyebrows grew still. ‘Better plant ’em,’ said Mr Twilfit abruptly, and he turned away to look at the house. As he looked he forgot to be shy and his eyebrows began to go up and down again. ‘The President couldn’t have made it any better,’ he said to Tom.
The best of a dolls’-house garden is that it takes only five minutes to plant a tree. Nona planted the pine by the shell, the willow by the stream. They made the garden look exactly like the gardens in the book.
Then Nona turned to the dolls. She made them bow to the company – which means all the people there – and said, ‘Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, will you come into your home?’ but before they could be made to walk up the path bordered with shells and past the tubs of lady’s-slipper, Belinda spoke:
‘
Not Miss Flower,’ said Belinda. ‘She’s mine.’
‘Belinda! Belinda! You’re not going to spoil it?’
‘Yes I am,’ said Belinda.
Mother had taken Belinda to the playroom to talk to her. Belinda stood hard and angry by the table; her cheeks were red and her eyes very blue and bright. She argued with Mother.
‘On the parcel it said “The Misses Fell”. You said Anne was too old for dolls and we could have one each. You said so,’ argued Belinda.
‘But that was long ago,’ said Mother.
‘Miss Flower’s mine,’ said Belinda. ‘You can’t take her away from me.’
‘It’s just that you don’t want Nona to have her,’ said Mother sadly. ‘Oh, Belinda! Belinda!’
‘I don’t care,’ said Belinda.
‘That’s true,’ said Mother. ‘You never cared or thought about Miss Flower or wanted her.’
‘I want her now,’ said Belinda, and she took Miss Flower and threw her into her own dolls’ house and slammed the door.
Belinda ate her tea very quickly. Her cheeks were still red, her eyes an even brighter blue. She talked a great deal and said funny things to make everyone laugh, but it was an odd thing that nobody laughed at them except Belinda. No one else really talked and nobody ate very much. Nona ate nothing at all and her face looked white and sick with disappointment; Belinda saw Melly steal a hand into hers, and ‘Can I have another meringue?’ asked Belinda; and when she put it into her mouth she laughed and blew the sugar crumbs all over the table.
‘I think we will go into the drawing-room,’ said Mother. ‘Belinda, you had better finish your tea alone.’
In the dolls’ house the lantern threw a soft light into the house where the front was open and the screens had been slid back to show the garden; the lantern made a reflection in the looking-glass stream and gave the tiny trees real shadows.
Miss Happiness knelt on her cushion in front of the table set ready for the tea ceremony, but she did not touch any of the tea; opposite her was the blue cushion, empty, and a little empty bowl.
‘Oh, why couldn’t Miss Belinda have taken me?’ mourned Miss Happiness. That would have been dreadful enough, but she was stuffed fuller than Miss Flower and her plaster had not been chipped. ‘Miss Flower wanted the house even more than I did,’ mourned Miss Happiness. ‘She was always frightened.’ If dolls could have tears I am sure they would have rolled down Miss Happiness’s plaster cheeks. ‘Oh, I’m afraid!’ cried Miss Happiness. ‘I’m afraid that Miss Flower will not be able to bear it. I’m afraid she will break.’