“But how will you get it home?” asked Miss Bianca, on second thought. “We know you mean to travel with the poet —”
“Far sooner under my own steam!” cried Nils.
“What, through all those dreadful oceans?” exclaimed Miss Bianca, aghast — and almost regretting her offer. “Please don’t think of it, dear Nils!”
“Why, I can think of nothing else!” cried Nils. “Just hand me over the ship’s papers, send a wire to Lloyd’s telling them of the change of owners, and I shall be the happiest mouse alive!”
So Miss Bianca let him have his way. She felt he deserved it. — Also she felt she would never really understand Norwegians!
2.
The farewell between the poet and his three rescuers was very touching. (As Nils had foretold, the poet made his own arrangements for getting home. He fell in with a Norwegian captain, with whom he was going to travel back to the port, and there sign on as supercargo, no questions asked.) The night before he left he met Bernard and Nils and Miss Bianca, by appointment, outside the Moot-house door.
“Little Miss Bianca,” said he, stooping tenderly down, “as soon as I get back to Norway, I shall write a poem about you.”
(Of course Nils had to translate.)
“Can I really deserve such honor?” exclaimed Miss Bianca modestly. “When all I did was but any mouse’s duty? Yet I thank you from all my heart, and from all my heart wish you well.”
With extreme delicacy, the poet but laid a finger, caressingly, on her head. Miss Bianca allowed her whiskers but to brush it. They still understood one another!
“As for you,” continued the poet, to Bernard, “no stouter soul e’er breathed! I shall never forget your heroism, which it is quite beyond me to thank. And as for you,” he added, to Nils, “all I can say is, look me up in Oslo, and we’ll make a proper night of it!”
Then he tried to hug them all, which was manifestly impossible, and overcome by emotion turned hastily away.
“Farewell, dear poet!” called Miss Bianca.
“Farewell!” he called back over his shoulder. “Farewell, and God bless you all!”
Bernard and Miss Bianca then accompanied Nils to the Embassy boating water to see him off too. He couldn’t take Miss Bianca’s famous chart with him because it was already hanging in the Moot-house, but he assured them he remembered the route backwards. (“Finest chart I ever set eyes on!” declared Nils.) Wearing his new sea boots, he stepped joyfully on board the speedboat; shook hands with Miss Bianca, slapped Bernard on the back, and with his usual cry (which we will not here repeat), blazed away, headlights flaring, towards the Mediterranean, the Bay of Biscay, and the North Sea.
Afterwards it all seemed very dark and quiet.
There was a long pause.
“And where shall you go, Miss Bianca?” asked Bernard in a low voice.
Miss Bianca hesitated. She was actually staying for the moment with Madam Chairwoman — who brought her breakfast in bed each morning, who couldn’t spoil her enough! — but she obviously couldn’t stay with Madam Chairwoman forever.
“Really I don’t know,” murmured Miss Bianca. “For the last six months, everything has been so extraordinary . . .”
“If the most devoted affection,” began Bernard, “even though limited within a Pantry —”
At which moment he was interrupted by a loud voice from overhead.
“Why, if it isn’t Miss Bianca!” cried the voice. “The Boy’s Miss Bianca, that he’s so a-fretting for! So she was left behind!”
A big hand reached down and scooped her up. Holding her carefully in his palm, one of the Embassy footmen was now displaying her to an Embassy housemaid. (They had met for a tender interview by the boating water.)
“Let alone the reward offered,” added the footman, “I’ve always had a kindness for the Boy! — I’d be glad to send her back to him anyways! As it is, five golden guineas for us, and off by Bag she’ll go — the little beauty!”
From that callous yet altruistic palm Miss Bianca looked down at Bernard.
“Did you hear?” she called softly.
“I heard,” said Bernard.
“Fretting for me! Ah, it’s not for my Porcelain Pagoda,” called Miss Bianca, “that I quit you, dear Bernard! Pray believe me! It is but Fate, that casts our lots so far apart! I must return to the Boy!”
“I always thought you would,” said Bernard bravely. “I always knew it, in my bones. Farewell, dear Miss Bianca!”
“Farewell, dearest Bernard!” called she.
The footman carried her into the Embassy. What a welcome there awaited her! Amid universal rejoicing cream cheese was at once set out in a silver bonbon dish; the new Ambassador offered one of his own silk handkerchiefs to furnish her with temporary sheets; and a place was immediately booked for her in the next Bag to Norway.
So ends the heroic tale of Bernard and Nils and Miss Bianca.
Nils, after innumerable adventures, reached Norway in safety; and met the poet again in Oslo, where they went out to dinner and the theater and supper afterwards. The poet kept his word and wrote a beautiful poem about Miss Bianca, which was printed in several anthologies.
Bernard became Secretary of the Prisoners’ Aid Society, and had a useful, respected and happy career.
Miss Bianca, reunited with the Boy, and once again domiciled in her Porcelain Pagoda, was happy too. It was really the life that suited her best.
But they none of them ever forgot each other, or their famous adventures in the Black Castle.
THE END
MARGERY SHARP (1905–1991) published fifteen novels for adults before writing The Rescuers (1959), her first book for children. Born Clara Margery Melita Sharp in Salisbury, England, she spent part of her childhood in Malta before returning to England for high school. By the time she graduated with honors in French from the University of London, she had already begun publishing short stories; her work would later become a fixture in such American and British magazines as Harper’s Bazaar, Ladies’ Home Journal, Good Housekeeping, and Punch. Several of Sharp’s novels were serialized and a number became successful films, including Cluny Brown (screenplay by Ernst Lubitsch) and Britannia Mews (written by Ring Lardner, Jr.); the Rescuers series eventually numbered nine volumes and inspired two animated feature films from Disney.
GARTH WILLIAMS (1912–1996) illustrated nearly one hundred books for children, including Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White, A Cricket in Times Square by George Selden, and the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. Born in New York City to English artist parents, Williams lived in New Jersey, France, and Canada before moving to England in 1922. He had plans to be an architect but ultimately studied painting, design, and sculpture at the Westminster Art School and the Royal College of Art. Having returned to the United States after World War II, Williams found work at The New Yorker, where he met E. B. White just as the latter was finishing Stuart Little. Williams also wrote and illustrated several books of his own, including The Chicken Book: A Traditional Rhyme, The Adventures of Benjamin Pink, Baby Animals, and The Rabbits’ Wedding.
THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK
PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS
435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
www.nyrb.com
Copyright © 1959 by Margery Sharp; renewed © 1987
Illustrations copyright © 1959 by Garth Williams
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Louise Fili Ltd.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sharp, Margery, 1905–1991
The rescuers / by Margery Sharp ; illustrated by Garth Williams.
p. cm. — (New York Review Books children’s collection)
Summary: Miss Bianca, a white mouse of great beauty and self-confidence, travels with the ambassador’s son to Norway on behalf of the Prisoner’s Aid Society in a perilous mission to rescue a poet imprisoned in the dreadful Black Castle.
ISBN 97
8-1-59017-460-9 (alk. paper)
[1. Mice—Fiction. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction.]
I. Williams, Garth, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.S5315Re 2011
[Fic]—dc22
2011009962
ISBN 978-1-59017-571-2
v1.0
For a complete list of books in the NYRB Classics series, visit www.nyrb.com or write to:
Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
The Rescuers Page 9