The Dolls’ House (12 page)

‘Isn’t that Darner?’ asked Tottie in the kitchen.

Marchpane went on watching, watching with her smile.

‘It is Darner,’ said Mr Plantaganet, and he dropped his newspaper.

‘Emily!’ said Charlotte suddenly. ‘Something is happening in the dolls’ house.’

‘Tcha!’ said Emily. She was not liking the dolls’ house at present. They could hear the musical box, ‘Tinkle. Tinkle. Tinkle. Tinkle.’ ‘Nonsense. What could
happen?’ asked Emily.

‘I smell singeing,’ said Charlotte, sniffing. ‘Emily, did you light the birthday candle?’

‘Prrick! Prrick! Prrrrrickkckckckck!’ barked Darner so loudly that Birdie heard him clearly over the music.

‘Darner. Tinkle. Darner. Tinkle,’ fluttered Birdie, while Marchpane smiled. ‘What am I to do?’ cried Birdie. ‘Which is it? Is it which?’

‘P-R-I-C-K!’ barked Darner.

As the candle caught the edge of Apple’s fringe and he screamed, as Tottie and Mr Plantaganet tumbled in at the door, and Emily and Charlotte swung open the dolls’ house front, the
sound of Apple’s scream tore the sound of Darner’s barking and the tinkling music out of Birdie’s head. She had one thought, and she threw herself at the lamp.

‘Birdie! Back! Back! Back!’ cried Mr Plantaganet.

‘Birdie! Let me!’ screamed Tottie. ‘Birdie, you are made of celluloid, remember!’

‘Celluloid!’ said Birdie in her light calm voice, and the lightness of the real candle was in her face. Light as she was, she threw herself between Apple and the lamp, and Apple fell
off the chair face downward on the carpet and put out the spark of fire in his wig.

There was a flash, a bright light, a white flame, and where Birdie had been there was no more Birdie, no sign of Birdie at all, only, sinking gradually down on the carpet beside Apple, floated
Birdie’s clothes, burning, slowly turning brown, and going into holes; last of all, the fire ran up the pink embroidery cotton of her apron strings and they waved up in the air, as they used
to wave on Birdie, and then were burnt right up.

‘Tinkle. Tinkle. Tinkle,’ said the musical box.

Marchpane smiled.

‘But where did Birdie go?’ asked Charlotte.

‘She was celluloid. That is highly inflammable,’ said Father.

‘What is “highly inflammable”?’

‘It burns up in a flash, leaving nothing behind it.’

‘Birdie left nothing behind,’ said Charlotte sadly.

‘But what happened? What happened? I still don’t understand what happened,’ said Mr Plantaganet.

‘Apple was standing on the chair far too near the lamp. You must have put him there, Charlotte,’ said Emily.

‘I didn’t,’ said Charlotte.

‘Don’t be silly, Charlotte,’ said Emily. ‘And his wig must have caught fire. That was what we smelled singeing; and we opened the front so quickly that we tumbled Tottie
and Mr Plantaganet over, and Birdie was standing too near, though I have warned you, Charlotte, and they tumbled her over so that she fell against the lamp and knocked Apple over, and was burned
herself.’

‘She gave her life for Apple,’ said Charlotte.

‘What a good thing it was only Birdie,’ said Emily, but she did not say it very certainly.

‘She gave her life for Apple.’

‘I suppose she did in a way. I suppose – if you like to call it that.’

‘She gave her life for Apple.’

‘Don’t go on and on, Charlotte.’

‘Tottie tumbled in at the door,’ said Charlotte, ‘and Mr Plantaganet did too. I put them in the kitchen. I didn’t put them in the doorway, although you say I did. I
didn’t put them there nor Apple on the chair, nor, nor – Birdie near him. The only one who never moved,’ said Charlotte loudly, ‘was Marchpane.’

‘Yes, Marchpane,’ said Emily slowly.

‘I should like to take her up by a pair of tongs,’ said Charlotte, ‘and drop her in the fire.’

‘Oh, Charlotte. She is far too beautiful.’

‘She isn’t beautiful at all,’ said Charlotte. ‘She is nasty and she smells nasty too. She isn’t beautiful.’ A thought struck her. ‘Emily,’ she
said, ‘wasn’t Birdie beautiful when she went up in that flame? Like a fairy, like a beautiful kind of silver firework.’

‘Birdie would have liked that,’ said Emily, and she sounded like the old Emily who knew so well what all the Plantaganets liked. ‘Oh, Charlotte!’

‘Yes, Emily?’

‘I – wish . . . ’

‘Yes, Emily?’

‘I wish the dolls’ house was like it was – before Marchpane.’

‘Yes, Emily.’

‘Suddenly,’ said Emily, ‘I don’t like Marchpane very much.’

‘Nor do I,’ said Charlotte decidedly.

‘I didn’t like the way – she sat there – when Apple – when Birdie –’

‘Nor did I,’ said Charlotte.

‘I’m sorry now,’ said Emily. ‘I wish – but what are we to do with her, Charlotte? She is too valuable and beautiful. We should never be allowed to throw her away.
We must do something with her.’

‘She must go out of the dolls’ house,’ said Charlotte. ‘She must go out at once.’

Marchpane sat all this time on the couch, staring in front of her with her smile on her face, as if she had not heard a word, as if she were something stuffed in a glass case.

Perhaps it was that that put it into Charlotte’s head. Charlotte who so seldom had ideas. This was Charlotte’s idea, not Emily’s, or perhaps it was Tottie’s, for it came
to Charlotte like a voice, and it might have been Tottie’s voice. It was Tottie who knew how Marchpane had liked being at the cleaners, and at the Exhibition. Cleaners. Exhibition. The
thought came clearly into Charlotte’s head.

‘I know,’ said Charlotte. ‘We must give her to a museum.’

Marchpane enjoyed being in the museum. She was in a glass case, between a lace collar and a china model of a King Charles spaniel. She was dusted very carefully twice a week
and a number of people came to look at her. Sometimes young men and girls came to the museum to make drawings, and Marchpane was always quite sure, no matter what they drew, that they were making
drawings of her. Every day she increased a little more in conceit, and the glass case made her safe from ever being played with.

Towards six o’clock, just after tea, Charlotte brought Mr Plantaganet back from the post office and put him in his chair in the sitting room and gave him his paper. Emily
brought Tottie in from shopping; she had found Tottie a raffia shopping basket the size of a nut, and she made Tottie hang it up with her cloak in the hall. Then she went in to sit with Mr
Plantaganet. Apple was upstairs. He had been sent to bed early by Tottie so that he could not play with the lamp. Charlotte still said she had not put him on the chair, and Emily had lately given
up saying that she had. Apple was safely in bed, tucked up in his patchwork quilt so that only his round head showed. Emily had clipped his burnt fringe straight with nail scissors and his plush
had not been hurt at all. Darner lay quietly snugly in his kennel.

‘Shall we let them have a little music?’ asked Emily and she wound up the musical box. It went ‘tinkle, tinkle’ and Darner stirred in his dreams.

Mr Plantaganet could not tell one of its tunes from the other. ‘I have to have words,’ said Mr Plantaganet. ‘Words help me to know what it is. Like those carols, Tottie. Do you
remember them?’ And he began to hum ‘God Bless the Master of This House’. ‘Do you remember them, Tottie?’

‘I remember everything,’ said Tottie, listening to the music.

‘Yes, I suppose you must, and for so long,’ said Mr Plantaganet. ‘Such a long time, Tottie.’

‘Yes,’ said Tottie.

‘Things come and things pass,’ said little Mr Plantaganet.

‘Everything, from trees to dolls,’ said Tottie.

‘Even for small things like us, even for dolls. Good things and bad things, but the good things have come back, haven’t they, Tottie?’ asked Mr Plantaganet anxiously.

‘Of course they have,’ said Tottie in her kind wooden voice.

‘Good things and bad. They were very bad,’ said Mr Plantaganet.

‘But they come and pass, so let us be happy now,’ said Tottie.

‘Without Birdie?’ asked Mr Plantaganet, his voice trembling.

‘Birdie would be happy. She couldn’t help it,’ said Tottie.

And Birdie’s bright tinkling music went on in the dolls’ house and, on her hat that still hung in the hall, and on her feather broom, and on her bird and on her parasol, the colours
and patterns were still bright.

R
UMER
G
ODDEN
was born in England but brought up mainly in India. She became one of the UK’s most
distinguished and successful authors and wrote many well-known and much-loved books for both adults and children, including
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.

C
HRISTIAN
B
IRMINGHAM
studied illustration at Exeter College of Art. Since his graduation in 1991 he has established himself as
one of the most outstanding children’s book illustrators of his generation. He has been shortlisted for the Mother Goose Award, the Kurt Maschler Award, the Kate Greenaway Medal and the
Smarties Book Prize. Among his highly acclaimed picture books are
The Night Before Christmas, Sleeping Beauty
and
The Classic Tales of Hans Christian Andersen.
His line illustrations
are well-known from many best-selling novels by Michael Morpurgo.

Also by Rumer Godden
and published by Macmillan

The Story of Holly & Ivy

Miss Happiness and Miss Flower

The Fairy Doll

Little Plum

The Greengage Summer

With thanks to the Lilliput Museum of Antique Dolls and
Toys, Brading, Isle of Wight – C.B
.

First published 1947 by Michael Joseph

This edition published 2006 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