by Rumer Godden
‘I don’t know,’ said Charlotte. ‘I have a funny feeling.’
‘Well, you are very silly. She is perfectly beautiful. She must be our best doll.’
‘But –’ began Charlotte, and then she said in a low voice, ‘Do you think we ought to have a best doll, Emily? Do you think it is kind to the others? They were here first.’
‘No, they were not,’ said Emily. ‘Marchpane was Great-Great-Aunt Laura’s doll.’
‘Well, Tottie was our great-grandmother’s doll,’ said Charlotte, and then she gave a cry. ‘Oh, Emily, look! Tottie has dropped the Christmas pudding bowl down on the floor and it has rolled right under the kitchen table.’
Chapter 16
They brought Marchpane into the dolls’ house.
Tottie stood by the kitchen table, stiff and hard. ‘It was nearly I, and not the pudding, that fell,’ thought Tottie. ‘I fell once, for joy, but I shall not fall for fear of Marchpane. Trees, good trees, don’t fall down in storms,’ said Tottie.
Charlotte picked up the pudding basin and, as it was lunch time, she untied the muslin and turned out a morsel of real plum pudding onto a plate. ‘I wish I could give you a sprig of holly small enough to stick in it,’ said Charlotte kindly.
Emily brought Marchpane into the kitchen first. ‘You should remember each other,’ she said to Tottie.
‘We remember each other,’ said Marchpane and Tottie. Tottie had never looked more wooden. Marchpane’s eyeballs gave a sudden click.
‘You jerked her,’ said Emily to Charlotte.
‘No I didn’t,’ said Charlotte.
‘Of course, they first knew each other years and years ago,’ said Emily. ‘They must know secrets about each other that we don’t know.’
‘We do,’ said Tottie. Marchpane said nothing at all.
Presently Emily took her into the sitting room and sat her on the couch by Mr Plantaganet, and then she shut the front of the dolls’ house and went away to lunch.
When Mr Plantaganet saw Marchpane sitting opposite him with her golden hair and blue eyes and white clothes, he was quite dazzled. He dropped his newspaper and stared with both his dark glass eyes.
‘Don’t do that,’ said Marchpane sharply.
‘Don’t do what?’
‘Stare and stare and stare,’ said Marchpane. ‘It’s very rude.’
‘I am sorry,’ said Mr Plantaganet politely ‘but I can’t help staring.’
‘I suppose they are fixed,’ said Marchpane, looking at him.
‘Fixed?’
‘They don’t open and shut?’
‘Open and shut?’
‘Your eyes,’ said Marchpane. ‘Take them off me at once.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Mr Plantaganet still more politely ‘my eyes are not on you. They are in me.’
‘Faugh!’ said Marchpane. ‘You should be in the hall, not sitting in a chair. If you sit at all, it should be in the kitchen.’
‘Excuse me,’ said Mr Plantaganet again as he grew more and more bewildered. ‘Why should I be in the hall and kitchen? Why shouldn’t I sit? I’m jointed.’
‘Are you not the butler?’ asked Marchpane. ‘There used to be a butler, I’m sure.’
‘The figure of a butler,’ Mr Plantaganet corrected her. ‘He is gone to dust. I don’t know what a butler is,’ said Mr Plantaganet, ‘but I know I am not one. I am a postmaster, and, besides, I am the master of this house. Do you know that carol?’ he asked, ‘“God bless the Master of this House, God bless the Mistress too”? Well, I am the master and Birdie is the mistress.’
‘That she certainly is not,’ said Marchpane.
‘Oh yes, she is,’ said Mr Plantaganet positively.
‘She isn’t. I am,’ said Marchpane.
‘You?’ asked Mr Plantaganet. ‘Oh no! How could you be? I have never seen you before and I have seen Birdie. Do you know who I thought you were? I thought you might be the fairy off the Christmas tree. Birdie is always talking about her. Are you the fairy off a Christmas tree?’
‘A fairy?’ said Marchpane scornfully. ‘I am real. Far more real than Birdie.’
‘Does Birdie know that?’ asked Mr Plantaganet anxiously.
There was a sudden bump, bump, bump, on the other side of the wall.
What is that?’ asked Marchpane.
‘That is Apple.’
‘Apple?’
‘The little boy doll. Our little boy. He belongs to us.’
‘Does he?’ asked Marchpane thoughtfully.
There was a light sound of rustling from upstairs.
‘What is that?’ asked Marchpane.
‘That is Birdie.’
‘It is too light,’ objected Marchpane, ‘to be an anyone.’
‘Birdie is light,’ answered Mr Plantaganet.
‘I am heavy,’ said Marchpane.
Mr Plantaganet did not answer. The rustling sound came again.
‘What is she doing?’ asked Marchpane.
‘I expect she is dusting the paper chains with her feather broom,’ said Mr Plantaganet.
‘Paper chains? With a feather broom? What a very odd thing to do! What did you say her name was?’
‘Birdie.’
‘It does sound like a bird rustling,’ said Marchpane.
Mr Plantaganet thought of that and it seemed to him that Marchpane was right and Birdie was, truthfully, very like a bird, a small light bird with thin legs and bright eyes. ‘One that goes for short flights,’ thought Mr Plantaganet. ‘One that collects bits of things to make its nest.’ Yes, Birdie in her bedroom, busy with her private affairs, twig after twig, was very like a bird building its nest.
‘It’s an aggravating noise,’ said Marchpane.
‘I like to hear her,’ answered Mr Plantaganet, and his voice sounded as if he were smiling.
‘I wish you would stop her.’
‘Oh no,’ said Mr Plantaganet. ‘I shouldn’t like to disturb her.’
‘I shall disturb her!’ said Marchpane.
‘But – you wouldn’t. You couldn’t,’ cried Mr Plantaganet in alarm.
‘Why not?’ asked Marchpane.
‘It – it is cruel to disturb a bird in its nest,’ said Mr Plantaganet. That was not what he had meant to say but it seemed to say that he wanted even better than the words he had meant to use.
‘Faugh!’ said Marchpane and the blue glass balls of her eyes seemed to glare. Mr Plantaganet felt quite frightened. ‘Oh!’ yawned Marchpane. ‘I do wish Emily and Charlotte, or whatever their names are, would come and put me in my own room.’
At that, a thought came into Mr Plantaganet’s mind. A horrible thought. To make quite sure he went, in his mind, through the whole dolls’ house, through the kitchen and hall, sitting room, and the upstairs pink room and blue room. Then he looked at Marchpane. ‘Excuse me,’ said Mr Plantaganet timidly, ‘but – er – which is your room?’
‘The one with the pink carpet of course,’ said Marchpane.
‘But that is Birdie’s. She chose it. That is Birdie’s nest.’ He meant to say ‘room’ but he was so upset that he was confused and again ‘nest’ seemed to suit Birdie even better than ‘room.’ That is Birdie’s nest-bedroom.’
‘If you really want to know,’ said Marchpane in her flat, heavy voice, ‘the whole house is mine.’
‘Wh-a-t?’ cried poor Mr Plantaganet. He could not believe his little porcelain ears. ‘But it’s our house. Ours. That we dreamed of – that we wanted – that we wished for,’ said Mr Plantaganet.
‘I can’t help what you did for it,’ said Marchpane, yawning. ‘It is mine. Mine, and really,’ said Marchpane, yawning again, ‘I can’t live in it with all these people, bumping and rustling and having silly ideas that it is theirs. I must tell Emily and Charlotte,’ said Marchpane, and she yawned still once again.
‘Oh, don’t say that. Don’t say that,’ cried poor little Mr Plantaganet.
‘But I do say it,’ said Marchpane.
‘But – you don’t understand. This
is our house. It is full of us. It was for us. We were on the hearthrug when the letter came. We saw Emily and Charlotte clean it and make it new again and we helped them by wishing. We wished so hard – you don’t know. We waited for the curtains and the blankets on the beds and the couch and chairs. You don’t know. Now I shall go every day to the office and come back again . . . And this Christmas was so beautiful. You don’t know,’ panted Mr Plantaganet, ‘oh, truly truly you don’t know.’
‘What you don’t know, and had better know,’ said Marchpane, ‘is that I was here, here in this dolls’ house, long, long years ago. Long, long before any of you.’
‘Not before Tottie you weren’t’ said Mr Plantaganet, and as he said it his eyes grew steady and his voice grew suddenly firm. ‘Tottie has been here as long as you have. Why, she remembers your coming. She has been here longer.’
‘Tottie! A farthing doll!’
‘A farthing, or a penny, or sixpence, or a pound, she has been here longer. Tottie is Tottie. She always is and she always had been. Tottie! Tottie! Tottie!’ called Mr Plantaganet.
At that moment Charlotte opened the front of the dolls’ house and picked up Tottie.
‘I don’t see,’ said Charlotte, ‘why you should be left all alone in the kitchen while she sits on one of your chairs. You shall come into the sitting room, Tottie,’ and she sat Tottie down on the couch next to Marchpane. ‘There,’ said Charlotte to Marchpane, and shut the dolls’ house front again.
‘Did you hear what she said?’ whispered Mr Plantaganet to Tottie as soon as Charlotte had gone. In his agitation he had lost his manners, but Tottie had not lost hers.
‘How strange it must seem to you to be back,’ she said to Marchpane. (‘Yes, I heard,’ she said quietly to Mr Plantaganet.)
‘Did you hear what she said about Birdie, and our house, our dear, dear house? Oh, Tottie! Oh, Tottie! I feel as if we were in danger,’ said Mr Plantaganet.
‘We are in danger,’ thought Tottie, but she did not say it aloud because she knew Marchpane must not know they were in the least frightened. Instead she thought of all the bravest things that were made of wood: the bowsprits and figureheads of ships, for instance, that have to drive into the sea and meet the waves: or their masts; of the stocks of rifles and of guns; of flagstaffs that fly flags high up in the air, and of her tree. ‘I am made of the same stuff as they,’ thought Tottie. ‘Wood. Good strong wood. After all, nothing very strong is made of kid.’ She smiled at Mr Plantaganet and he felt as though she had reached out and patted his hand and said ‘Courage.’ She smiled at Marchpane and said again, ‘How strange for you to be back.’
‘Not nearly as strange as for you,’ said Marchpane.
‘Why?’ asked Tottie.
‘One hardly expected you to last for so long.’
‘Why?’ asked Tottie.
‘Cheap material, shoddy stuff.’
‘Wood is neither cheap nor shoddy,’ said Tottie, and again she thought of the bowsprits, the gun stocks, flagstaffs, trees, and she smiled.
‘Don’t you mind what she says?’ asked Mr Plantaganet.
‘No, I don’t mind because it isn’t true,’ said Tottie. ‘I can remember the day they brought you here,’ she said, turning to Marchpane. ‘When Laura brought you here. Those two little girls!’ she said. ‘Sometimes I think Emily and Charlotte are they all over again.’
‘Funny how people don’t last,’ said Marchpane, yawning. ‘But I am tired. Don’t talk to me about them. I am not interested in little girls.’
‘Not – interested – in – little – girls!’ said Mr Plantaganet, shocked.
‘No. Not in Laura, nor her sister, nor Emily, nor Charlotte, nor any of them,’ said Marchpane distinctly.
‘But they are alive! It is only they who make us live.’
‘Faugh!’ said Marchpane rudely.
‘Marchpane doesn’t like to be played with,’ said Tottie quietly.
‘Not like to be played with? Then what is she for? Why was she made? I should sooner be broken,’ said Mr Plantaganet, ‘or thrown in the toy cupboard, then never be played with at all.’
‘Well, I shouldn’t,’ said Marchpane.
‘You are not a doll,’ cried Mr Plantaganet; he had forgotten to be frightened. ‘You are a thing.’ And then he remembered and cried, ‘Oh, what are we going to do, Tottie?’
‘We must wish,’ said Tottie openly; she was no longer trying to be polite to Marchpane. ‘We must wish and we must never stop wishing for a moment.’
‘I can wish too,’ said Marchpane. ‘I am heavier than you!’
‘To be heavy doesn’t mean to be strong,’ said Tottie.
‘I am very strong.’
‘Nothing, nothing,’ said Tottie, ‘nothing can be stronger than good plain wood.’
Chapter 17
‘Charlotte,’ said Emily, ‘we must take Birdie and Mr Plantaganet out of the pink bedroom. We need it for Marchpane.
‘But,’ began Charlotte, ‘you gave it to them.’
‘Well, where is she to go? Would you put her in the attic?’
‘N-no, but where are they to go?’
‘Marchpane will need that big bed all to herself,’ said Emily. ‘They must go in with Tottie and Apple.’
‘There isn’t room.’
‘Then they must go in the attic.’
‘There isn’t even a bed, Emily.’
‘There is a cotton-reel box,’ said Emily. ‘They must sleep in that. We can make it quite pretty for them.’
So, instead of their room and their brass, painted bed Birdie and Mr Plantaganet were put to sleep in the attic in a cardboard box with J. Coats Ltd., Manchester, on its side. Emily did not take much interest in it, but Charlotte made a mattress of cotton wool and tried to nick round the edges of blankets, but her hands were small and clumsy. ‘Oh dear! It doesn’t look nice,’ said Charlotte.
There was not even time to warn Birdie. Emily turned all her clothes and her apron out of the cupboard and cut down the paper chains. ‘Marchpane doesn’t go with paper chains,’ said Emily, and she swept them all into the attic before anyone could say a word of warning to Birdie.
‘What will she do? What will she say? My poor Birdie,’ cried Mr Plantaganet. ‘She will never understand.’ But, oddly enough, Birdie understood only too well.
‘Of course,’ said Birdie, ‘she couldn’t sleep in a cotton-reel box, could she? Her eyes open and shut and her hair is yellow like mine, only it’s real –’
‘Yes,’ said Mr Plantaganet. ‘When I first saw her I thought she was a Christmas tree fairy.’
‘Did you?’ asked Birdie and, for the first time, her voice sounded wistful. ‘I suppose – I am never – anything like a Christmas fairy?’ There was silence, and then Birdie said in her own brisk light voice, ‘After all, I came from a cracker box, why shouldn’t I sleep in a cotton-reel box?’ The words ‘cracker box’ and ‘cotton-reel box’ began to knock one another gently in her head. ‘I came from a cotton-reel box. Why shouldn’t I sleep in a cracker box? Cotton box, cracker box, cracker-reel box?’
‘You are getting muddled,’ said Mr Plantaganet, ‘and remember, Birdie, don’t go into her room.’
Birdie could not remember. She was always being found in Marchpane’s room, still thinking it was hers.
‘Don’t you like my pink carpet?’ she would ask Marchpane.
‘My pink carpet,’ said Marchpane.
‘No mine,’ said Birdie. ‘Certainly Emily and Charlotte gave it to me.’
‘It wasn’t theirs to give.’
‘Isn’t everything theirs?’ asked Birdie in astonishment.
‘Faugh! Get out of my room.’
‘My room,’ cried poor Birdie.
‘My room, my carpet, my bed. Get back to your cotton-reel box.’
‘She is cruel,’ said Mr Plantaganet, trembling. ‘She is cruel. I hate her.’
‘Don’t waste time hating,’ said Tottie. ‘You must wish. I wish. We must wish.’ But the wish
ing showed no sign of changing anything, or perhaps Marchpane was wishing harder. Emily was now doing everything for Marchpane, nothing for the Plantaganets, though Charlotte tried to prevent this.
‘Charlotte is on our side,’ said Tottie.
‘Yes, but Emily isn’t, and Emily is the one who does things, far more than Charlotte.’
‘Emily has the ideas, she thinks of things and does them while Charlotte is far behind. If you go ahead like that, sometimes you must go wrong. Think if you were ahead, walking, on a road by yourself, and there were not any signposts,’ said Tottie. ‘Sometimes you must make a mistake. It is easy for the one to come behind and say, “This was wrong, that was wrong.” They only know it was wrong because Emily went there first. They know the right way. They don’t have to choose. Emily often chooses wrong things,’ said Tottie, ‘but I know Emily. She has plenty of sense. We must be patient, and go on wishing. One day Emily will find out she is wrong.’
‘She will find out that Marchpane isn’t the beautiful doll she seems? That she is a thing?’ asked Mr Plantaganet.
‘Yes, she will.’
‘You are – certain, Tottie?’
‘Certain,’ said Tottie in her most wooden voice.
Chapter 18
Perhaps Marchpane was very powerful or Emily had less sense than Tottie thought; at all events, she showed no sign of changing and things grew worse and worse for the Plantaganets.
‘I know,’ said Emily one day. ‘Let us pretend they are the servants. They can sleep in the attic and stay in the kitchen. Let them be Marchpane’s servants.’
‘Oh no! Emily oh no!’ said Charlotte, shocked. ‘How can they be? They are themselves. Marchpane is more like their aunt or their stepsister.’
‘She isn’t like a sister,’ said Emily, and that was certainly true. ‘She is a lady. A great lady. I don’t want them in the sitting room with her.’
‘Why shouldn’t they be in the sitting room?’
‘They are so ordinary. So like ordinary people.’
‘Then I like ordinary people.’
‘Yes, but they don’t go with Marchpane.’ Emily had her way, and the Plantaganets were told to keep in the kitchen.