Miss Happiness and Miss Flower

by Rumer Godden

  There was certainly not a sound or movement in Belinda’s dolls’ house; not the smallest doll rustle.

  When tea was over the guests quietly went home. ‘Shan’t we play any games?’ asked Belinda, astonished.

  ‘We would rather not play with you,’ said Anne.

  ‘Because you’re a little rotter,’ said Tom.

  Belinda put out her tongue at him, which was not at all pretty for it still had crumbs of meringue sticking to it.

  ‘You had better go upstairs,’ said Mother.

  Nona put out the lantern, and switched off the lamp and the firebox. She washed the bowls and platters and put them away. Then she unrolled the blue quilts – the pink ones stayed in the pencil box cupboard – and gently she laid Miss Happiness down and covered her up. Miss Happiness looked very small and lonely in the big room and when Nona slid the paper screens shut they made a s-s-s-sh like a sigh.

  Belinda sang and danced all the time she was going to bed; it was odd then that the house should have felt so silent. Tom and Anne had gone to their rooms to do their homework; usually they did it with friendly calls from room to room, but now they shut their doors. Nona had got into bed without a word and lay with her face turned to the wall. Downstairs in the drawing-room Father and Mother talked in low tones. ‘What a fuss about a doll,’ said Belinda.

  No one answered. She half thought of going to the dolls’ house and taking Miss Flower out and throwing her at Nona, but ‘I’ll be darned if I will,’ said Belinda.

  Saying ‘be darned’ like Tom made her feel very big and important and she shouted and gargled as she did her teeth.

  The house still stayed quite silent.

  Belinda always went to sleep as soon as her head touched the pillow; only once, long ago, when she had had a cold, she had woken up in the night with a sore throat and stuffy nose. She had not got a cold now but there seemed to be something the matter.

  She tossed and turned and twisted. She heard Anne and Tom go to bed, and then later – hours and hours, thought Belinda – Mother and Father came up.

  ‘I can’t go to slee-ep,’ called Belinda. It did not sound loud, it sounded like a bleat, but Mother did not come in or give Belinda a glass of hot milk as she had that other night. Mother went into her room and shut the door.

  Belinda was so surprised that she got out of bed and padded in her bare feet to Mother’s door and knocked. Mother opened it a crack. ‘I can’t go to slee-ep,’ wailed Belinda.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Mother and shut the door.

  Then Belinda felt something queer in her eyes and in her chest, as if something hot and aching were gathering and coming up. Quietly she went back to bed and burrowed under the clothes, but up the aching came until it spilled over; it was wet and splashed down on her pillow. It was tears.

  ‘It’s no good crying.’ How often Belinda had said that to Nona, but sometimes it is good. As the tears soaked into Belinda’s pillow the hard angry feeling seemed to melt away, and ‘I’m sorry,’ sobbed Belinda, ‘sorry.’ But she did not cry herself to sleep, she cried herself awake, perhaps more awake than she had ever been in her life.

  It is lonely for a little girl to lie awake in the dark when everyone is sleeping, and then Belinda remembered she was not the only one who was alone.

  Miss Happiness was alone in the Japanese dolls’ house, and what of Miss Flower? Miss Flower was worse than alone in Belinda’s dolls’ house. Belinda had thrown her in and slammed the door. I threw her quite hard, thought Belinda. Did she break? And suddenly Belinda was more miserable than ever, so miserable that she could not stay in bed any longer; she had to see what had happened to Miss Flower. ‘What did I do to Miss Flower?’ asked Belinda, and more tears ran down her face. She got out of bed and tiptoed into the playroom.

  When the dolls’-house door banged shut on Miss Flower I think she fainted. That was just as well, for when Belinda found her she was lying on her back with one foot in the air, her head under a broken chair and her hand in the dolls’-house wastepaper basket in which there was an earwig. Her kimono and hair were covered with dust, and the chip had opened again under the white paint into a trickle of plaster, but Miss Flower knew nothing until she felt a gentle hand come in and lift her. It was so gentle that she thought it was Nona’s; she never dreamed it could be Belinda.

  Very gently Belinda lifted Miss Flower, put her leg straight, dusted her hair and clothes and shook the earwig off on to the carpet. Then she stood holding Miss Flower in her hand and wondering what to do next. Suddenly she tiptoed into Nona’s room, where the Japanese dolls’ house was shut and dark on the window-sill.

  As Belinda slid the screen walls back they did not make a s-s-sh like a sigh, but a s-s-sh as if there were a secret – as indeed there was; for carefully, with two fingers, Belinda opened the pencil box cupboard and took out the pink quilts; carefully she unrolled them – and how clumsy her fingers were, though she tried to be careful. She unrolled the quilts beside Miss Happiness, and carefully put Miss Flower in and covered her. Then she slid the screens shut and tiptoed back to bed.

  She was quite comfortable now and she went to sleep at once.

  Chapter 7

  It was a very strange thing. When Belinda had gone to bed nobody had seemed to like her. Now in the morning everybody liked her very much.

  Nona came running into her room. She looked a new Nona now with her eyes shining and her hair flying, her cheeks pink. She jumped on Belinda’s bed and in a moment they were hugging one another. ‘I never thought we would do that!’ said Belinda.

  Mother came and gave her a kiss. Father ruffled her hair on his way to the bathroom and at breakfast everyone seemed to take her part.

  ‘I had Miss Happiness and Miss Flower. It wasn’t fair,’ said Nona.

  ‘We should have seen Belinda wasn’t left out,’ said Anne.

  ‘I’ll make you a Japanese dolls’ house if you like,’ said Tom, but as the days went on Belinda did not really want a Japanese dolls’ house, though she liked playing now and then with Nona’s. ‘But I wish there were something for me,’ said Belinda.

  It was summer now. They all wore thin clothes and sun hats, went bathing and ate ice cream. The shops were full of cherries, then of peaches; perhaps it was the peaches that gave Nona her idea.

  Miss Happiness and Miss Flower spent much of their time in the garden and took it in turns to carry the paper sunshade. Nona put clover for chrysanthemums in the flower vase in the niche – chrysanthemums are Japan’s own flowers – and planted them in the egg-cups by the steps. The tiny willow tree blossomed.

  Miss Happiness and Miss Flower had summer kimonos of pale blue, and Anne wove them two flat hats of yellow straw. Mr Twilfit, Mrs Ashton and Melly often came to visit them. Miss Lane sent a scroll for summer, with a lotus flower and a butterfly. In the evenings the garden lantern shone pale in the dusk. ‘How beautiful it is,’ said Miss Happiness, and Miss Flower had a moment of being frightened; her chip had been painted over again but she still could not forget the night in the dusty dolls’ house. ‘Miss Nona has opened our travelling box again. Why? Why?’ she asked; but Nona was only studying the piece of paper that said ‘I send you Miss Happiness, Miss Flower and Little Peach.’

  ‘Mother, did you ever write to Great-Aunt Lucy Dickinson?’ asked Nona.

  ‘Why! I forgot!’ said Mother.

  ‘Could a letter get to America fast?’ asked Nona.

  ‘Of course it could, by air.’

  ‘If I write to Great-Aunt Lucy Dickinson, will you help me to buy the stamp? It’s a secret,’ said Nona.

  The stamp cost one shilling and threepence, nearly two whole ninepences. This is the letter Nona sent:

  ‘Dear Great-Aunt Lucy Dickinson,

  Miss Happiness and Miss Flower are well. We have made them a new house, but where is Little Peach? He wasn’t in the box. Please send him.

  From your loving niece, Nona Fell.

  P.S. When you answer please put “Privit”.�
��

  That was how she spelt ‘private’; as you know, she had not been at school very long. She wanted the answer marked ‘private’ so that no one else would open it. Then she added something else:

  ‘P.P.S. Please send him quickly.’

  After Nona had posted the letter she began to look in the shops to see how big the peaches were.

  It was three weeks later, a hot sunny morning, and they all had peaches for breakfast.

  ‘Christopher Columbus!’ said Tom. ‘Is it someone’s birthday?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mother, and Nona giggled.

  Miss Happiness and Miss Flower were at breakfast too. They had paint-water tea on their table, tomatoes which were berries and white cotton rice; they ate with new pine needle chopsticks. There were fresh trefoil flowers in the vase – trefoil looks like dolls’-house yellow chrysanthemums – and everything was extra fresh and tidy. ‘Is it a birthday?’ asked Tom.

  Miss Happiness and Miss Flower had their heads bent over their rice, but their glass eyes looked as if they were twinkling.

  The biggest peach was Belinda’s. It was so big that it looked as if it were spilling over her plate. ‘Hey, I ought to have that one!’ said Father.

  ‘It’s Belinda’s,’ said Mother, and Nona gave another giggle.

  Mother showed Belinda how to slip her knife in to slit it, but as Belinda touched it, the peach seemed to wobble, then came in half. Belinda’s eyes grew rounder and rounder; for there, in the middle of the peach, was a boy doll baby.

  ‘A Japanese boy doll baby,’ said Miss Happiness and Miss Flower.

  He was little and fat, perhaps two inches high, wearing nothing at all, but with black hair – there was a piece of paper over it to protect it from the peach juice but Belinda snatched it off. His eyes were black glass slits and he had a smile just like Miss Happiness.

  Belinda stared and stared. Then, ‘How?’ she cried. ‘How?’

  ‘Never mind how,’ said Mother, and Nona said, ‘Who is it?’

  With her eyes like bright blue saucers Belinda whispered, ‘It’s . . . It’s Little Peach.’

  Notes

  Names. The names of Japanese girls always end in ‘ko’.

  ‘Happiness’ can be translated as ‘Sachi’, so her name in Japanese would be ‘Sachiko’.

  ‘Flower’ is ‘Hano’, so Miss Flower’s name would be ‘Hanoko’, or, with the title ‘Miss’, ‘Hanoko san’.

  Star Festival. In Japanese this is called ‘Panabapar’ and is held in the evening of the seventh day of the seventh month.

  As Nona said, it is in memory of two lovers separated on earth. Their spirits are in two stars and on this night they are allowed to meet across the Milky Way.

  The wish papers are sold in the shops; they are of soft paper coloured yellow or red or green and are twisted up and hung on the good luck bamboos. Often children just brush the words ‘River of Heaven’.

  Kneeling. No Japanese girl of good manners would remain standing when there were elders or guests present. She would also kneel to serve tea or food.

  The cushions are flat, stuffed with wadded cotton, almost like little eiderdowns.

  Haiku. The haiku is a tiny verse form in which Japanese poets have been working for hundreds of years. They have only seventeen syllables (a syllable is a word or part of a word that makes one sound: for instance, ‘shut’ is one syllable, ‘sha-dow’ is two); as you can imagine they are very difficult to write and to translate.

  As Miss Lane said, there are different haiku for different times of year (though on the scrolls a proverb or a single word is often used instead of a poem). In case you want to make up haiku or use them on scrolls, I give four different ones for Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter:

  Spring:

  My two plum trees are

  So gracious . . .

  See, they flower

  One now, one later.

  Summer:

  What a peony . . .

  Demanding to be

  Measured

  By my little fan!

  Autumn:

  Cruel autumn wind

  Cutting to the

  Very bones . . .

  Of my poor scarecrow.

  Winter:

  Three loveliest things

  Moonlight . . . cherry-

  Bloom . . . Now I go

  To see silent snow.

  But you may like to make up your own.

  Firebox. Each Japanese room has one of these, called a hibachi. They are lacquered wood outside, earthenware lined, and they glow with a few pieces of charcoal in a bed of ashes. The doors slide open and you can warm your hands or boil a kettle for tea or rice. Very often in real houses the fireboxes are sunk in the floor.

  Flower Arranging. Japanese girls of good family spend some months in learning how to arrange flowers, for Japanese flower arrangement – Ikebana – is an art.

  In one side of every room is the tokonoma or niche. It is a place of honour as the fireplace is in Western homes. Its floor is raised higher than the rest of the room and it is here that the flowers are placed, only one or two, with twigs and leaves arranged in a pattern . . . and every flower or branch has its meaning.

  The Lamp. The house lamp was made from a cotton reel. Tom stained the empty reel dark brown to make the stand, then ran a flex up through the hole in the reel; a small size bulb fitted into the top, and Nona made a shade of tracing paper and joined it into a circle with sticky-tape. Tom cut a groove round the top of the cotton reel on which it could stand, and the lamp was done.

  Endnotes

  1. See note: Names, here.

  2. See note: Star Festival, here.

  3. See note: Kneeling, here.

  4. See note: Haiku, here.

  5. See note: The Lamp, here.

  6. See note: The Firebox, here.

  7. See note Flower Arranging, here.

  RUMER GODDEN was one of the UK’s most distinguished authors. She wrote many well-known and much-loved books for both adults and children, including The Dolls’ House and The Story of Holly and Ivy. The Diddakoi won the Whitbread Children’s Book Award in 1972.

  She was awarded the OBE in 1993 and died in 1998, aged ninety.

  GARY BLYTHE is a successful illustrator best known for The Whale Song, which won the prestigious Kate Greenaway Award, and I Believe in Unicorns by Michael Morpurgo. He lives in Merseyside.

  Also by Rumer Godden

  The Diddakoi

  The Story of Holly & Ivy

  The Dolls’ House

  The Fairy Doll

  Little Plum

  For older readers

  The Greengage Summer

  The Peacock Spring

  My thanks are due to Edmund Waller, who designed the Japanese dolls’ house described in this book, and who with his brother Geoffrey, aged twelve, made it; to Fiona Fife-Clark, aged eleven, who furnished it, painted the scrolls and lampshade and sewed the dolls’-house quilts and cushions; to Miss Anne Ashberry and Miss Creina Glegg, of Miniature Gardens Ltd, Chignal-Smealey, Essex, who made its garden and grew the tiny trees; to Miss Stella Coe (Sogetsu Ryu) for her advice over the meaning of flowers in Japanese lore and for reading the book; and finally and especially to Mr Seo of the Japanese Embassy, for his valuable help and advice and for the loan of books.

  First published 1961 by Macmillan

  This edition published 2008 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  This electronic edition published 2011 by Macmillan Children’s Books

  a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

  Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR

  Basingstoke and Oxford

  Associated companies throughout the world

  www.panmacmillan.com

  ISBN 978-1-447-21013-9 EPUB

  Text copyright © Rumer Godden 1961

  Illustrations copyright Gary Blythe 2006

  The right of Rumer Godden and Gary Blythe to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work has been
asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Visit www.panmacmillan.com to read more about all our books and to buy them. You will also find features, author interviews and news of any author events, and you can sign up for e-newsletters so that you’re always first to hear about our new releases.