by Rumer Godden
Chapter 3
Miss Flower could not help being anxious about the house. ‘Will Miss Nona know that a Japanese house should have walls that slide open like windows?’
‘Paper windows,’ said Miss Happiness.
‘That it should have a little garden to look at?’ said Miss Flower. ‘Does she know about quilts, not beds? Chopsticks, not spoons and forks? Cushions, not chairs?’
‘You know she knows about cushions,’ said Miss Happiness.
‘But bowls, not cups?’
‘Hush, she is studying.’
Miss Flower tried to hush but she could not help a small whisper. ‘It takes so long to study. If we could tell her . . .’
‘We can’t.’
‘What can we do for Honourable Miss?’
‘We can wish,’ said Miss Happiness, and they wished. Perhaps Belinda felt the wishing more than Nona, for, ‘Is she going on reading for ever?’ asked Belinda.
It really seemed as if Nona would go on reading for ever, but one snowy afternoon Mr Twilfit knocked at the door. He had brought a book. ‘Not another book!’ said Belinda.
‘Hush, Belinda,’ and Mother asked Mr Twilfit to come into the drawing-room where they all were; but Belinda would not hush.
‘She has read and read,’ said Belinda, ‘and she still doesn’t know how to make a Japanese house.’
‘I do know,’ said Nona, and they all looked at her.
‘Well, how?’
‘I don’t exactly know how but I know what it should be like.’
‘Well?’
Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, who had been brought down on their cushions, held their breaths.
‘Japanese houses are up off the ground,’ began Nona, ‘so the house should stand on stilts – or up on a box, I thought, with little wooden steps. Some of the walls should be plain, but the other walls should slide like windows; they should be rather like picture frames but with plain paper crisscrossed with wood. Some of the inside walls should slide too, but they are plain.’
‘Yes,’ breathed Miss Happiness and Miss Flower.
‘The roof should be tiles, dark blue or grey . . .’
‘Yes. Yes.’
‘Inside, there should be a little hall for taking off shoes. Japanese people don’t wear shoes in the house. The rooms should be almost empty, with matting on the floor, if we could get it fine enough,’ said Nona. ‘Lots of homes nowadays do have chairs and sofas and beds but most still have cushions to sit on, and they would have cupboards with sliding doors, or else chests, where they keep rolled-up quilts or mats for beds.’
‘Yes,’ said Miss Happiness and Miss Flower.
‘They would have a firebox – I don’t know exactly yet what that is – and in the room there should always be a niche, an alcove for a scroll – that’s a Japanese picture – and, by it, a vase of flowers, very few flowers,’ said Nona.
‘Yes. Yes,’ cried Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, and ‘Bravo!’ said Mr Twilfit.
‘Nothing else?’ asked Belinda. ‘No tables or chairs?’
‘A very little table just off the floor.’
‘It will look very bare.’
‘Japanese houses are bare.’
‘That is their beauty,’ said Mr Twilfit, and his eyebrows worked up and down as he looked at Nona. ‘You’ll see,’ said Mr Twilfit. ‘It will be all right once you have got the bones.’
‘Do houses have bones?’ Nona and Belinda asked him together.
‘The foundations, the floors, walls and roofs are the bones. How will you get those, hey?’ asked Mr Twilfit.
‘They could be carpentered,’ said Nona.
‘You can’t carpenter,’ said Belinda.
‘No, but . . .’
‘But?’ Once again they all looked at Nona.
‘Tom can,’ said Nona with a rush.
‘I don’t make girls’ things,’ said Tom.
‘Of course they are more difficult and delicate,’ said Mr Twilfit, and he asked Mother, ‘Was it Sir Winston Churchill or the President of the United States who made that beautiful dolls’ house for his sister?’
‘I don’t believe they did,’ growled Tom under his breath.
‘And of course,’ said Mr Twilfit – his eyebrows were busy – ‘you would need to be a really good carpenter.’
‘I’m making a model galleon,’ said Tom.
‘And that’s horribly difficult,’ said loyal Belinda, but Mr Twilfit shook his head.
‘That’s a model from a plan,’ he said, ‘Quite, quite simple, you only have to follow it. A Japanese dolls’ house wouldn’t have a plan. I don’t suppose anyone has made one – not in this country. The plan would have to come out of your own head. A boy could hardly be expected to do that.’
‘I don’t see why not,’ said Tom, but Mr Twilfit still shook his head.
‘How would you raise it?’
‘Make a plinth,’ said Tom. ‘Like a box upside down,’ he explained quickly to Belinda before she could ask him what a plinth was.
‘Then the grooves for the sliding walls, they would have to be so very small . . .’
‘I could make them,’ growled Tom.
‘And the frames to hold the paper screens. For a dolls’ house they would have to be so very thin. How could you join them?’
‘I could,’ growled Tom.
But Mr Twilfit still shook his head. ‘It would be very difficult,’ and, as he stood up to go, he said to Nona, ‘You had better save up and we’ll see if we can find a proper carpenter.’
Tom scowled at Mr Twilfit – a scowl is a face you make when you dislike someone – and spoke across him to Nona. ‘I’ll make it for you,’ said Tom and under his breath he said to Mr Twilfit, ‘You’ll see.’
‘Nona, would this box be big enough?’
‘Nona, if I make this two feet long . . .’
‘Would this paper be thick enough for the screens?’
‘Nona, I found this shell . . .’
A strange thing had happened. Suddenly it was as if everyone in the house were helping to make the Japanese dolls’ house. ‘Everyone except me,’ said Belinda. ‘I won’t help.’
Perhaps it was Nona’s reading aloud, or Mr Twilfit’s interest, or the plan that Tom had drawn from the pictures in the books, ‘or because of our wishing,’ said Miss Happiness and Miss Flower, but all the family seemed to be running backwards and forwards to Nona, asking Nona questions, bringing things to Nona. ‘Except me,’ said Belinda and kicked the table.
‘Belinda, you’re not jealous of Nona?’
‘Of course I’m not jealous,’ said Belinda scornfully. ‘I’m not even interested in Japanese dolls.’ That was not quite true; she very often thought about Little Peach. He would have been like Peach Boy in the story, thought Belinda. To think about him took away the feeling Belinda was beginning to have, a feeling of being left out. ‘I wish Little Peach had come,’ said Belinda.
Chapter 4
‘Have you chosen the site?’ asked Father. (‘You see, even Father is joining in,’ said Belinda.)
‘What is a site?’
‘The plot or place where you build.’
‘I’ll build it on my work-table,’ said Tom.
‘But it can’t stay there,’ said Nona.
‘No jolly fear,’ said Tom.
‘Besides, it has to have a garden.’
‘If it has a garden, it should be near a window. Plants need light and air,’ said Mother.
‘Plants?’ Until that moment Nona had not thought of a garden with real plants. ‘Where should we find them?’ she asked.
‘In the fields and woods.’
‘Could we take them?’
‘Of course. They’re wild.’
In Coimbatore flowers grew on trees or creepers or else in the gardens. ‘You mean little flowers growing around loose?’ said Nona amazed. She seemed to see a dolls’-house-size garden full of flowers of dolls’-house size. ‘Could we make it on my window-sill?’ she asked. ‘Coul
d that be the site?’
‘Well, I had thought of an old table . . .’ said Mother.
‘Please.’
‘Oh, let her, Mother.’
‘Very well.’
It seemed to Belinda that everyone was spoiling Nona. Belinda kicked the door as she went out.
At the cabinet-makers’ Tom found a piece of rosewood. It was dirty and chipped, ‘but it’s real rosewood,’ said Tom, and when he had sandpapered it smooth it was a deep, soft rose-brown colour. ‘It will do for the top of the plinth,’ said Tom. ‘I shall make it a base.’
‘But what next?’ asked Miss Flower; she still could not help feeling anxious.
Next was a visit to the wood shop. ‘A wood shop?’ asked Nona. She had never heard of one.
‘You can buy pieces of wood, all lengths and sizes, narrow bits and wide ones. I hope you have some money,’ said Tom.
Nona had the ten-shilling note, the half-crowns, shillings, sixpences and pennies she had shown to Mr Twilfit. She had her ninepence a week pocket money saved up as well. ‘Will that be enough?’ she asked Tom.
‘Come and see.’
‘Come? How?’ Tom was getting his bicycle out. ‘You mean on the back? With my legs hanging down?’ said Nona in horror.
‘Of course not. That isn’t allowed,’ said Tom. ‘I’ll ride very slowly and you can run beside me.’
‘Run? In the street? I couldn’t,’ said Nona.
‘O.K. No wood,’ said Tom. ‘I’ll get on with my galleon.’
The rosewood floor stood on Nona’s window-sill; Miss Happiness and Miss Flower stood near it.
‘Bicycles go so fast,’ said Nona.
Miss Happiness and Miss Flower appeared not to hear.
‘Tom whizzes in and out, between buses and cars.’
They still seemed not to hear.
‘Japanese people are horribly brave,’ said Nona.
They did not contradict her, and Nona came and stood by Tom’s table. ‘O.K., I’ll come,’ she said.
The wood shop was a most wonderful place. There were big blocks and planks of wood, tiny delicate mouldings, thin strips, narrow bits and wide ones; there were chair legs and stool tops, every kind of corner and grooving, and handles from great front door ones down to the smallest dolls’-house size. There were sheets of wood of every kind, stains and paints, screws and hinges.
What did Tom buy? ‘A terrific great lot of wood,’ Nona told the others when she got home. She thought it wonderful that Tom knew what to ask for and that the shopman knew what he meant. ‘Because I didn’t,’ said Nona.
It was all packed up and Tom tied the long bits of wood to the cross-bar of his bicycle; the screws and nails and pots of stain and glue and paint he put in his pockets. ‘But you’ll have to carry the rest,’ he told Nona.
‘And run?’ asked Nona faintly.
Tom looked at her. ‘Belinda would,’ he said.
‘O.K.,’ said Nona and picked up the parcel.
When you build a real house there is the sound of bricks being piled, of the concrete mixer, of wood being sawn and hammered, of lorries and shouts. The sound of a dolls’ house being made is different; there is a tap, tap, tap from a little hammer, the shirring of sandpaper, the whirring noise of the fine drill as Tom made his drill holes; but the building noises made by Tom meant as much to Miss Happiness and Miss Flower as the sound of your real house being built could mean to you. Nona had taken them and their cushions into the playroom so that they could see.
‘What is he doing now?’ whispered Miss Flower.
‘He is making the corners.’
‘And now?’
‘He is making the hall.’
‘And now?’ asked Miss Flower.
‘He is making the two side walls.’ And then one day Miss Happiness cried, ‘Oh, Flower . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘He is making . . . a niche.’
‘A niche? For our scroll and flowers? Oh, Happiness!’
Tom and Nona had argued about that niche. ‘But I told you,’ said Nona. ‘It’s a most important part of a Japanese room.’
‘Be darned if you did,’ said Tom.
‘But I did. A niche like a little alcove. I did.’
It took Tom four days to think out how to make that niche, but at last he found a way. It was fitted into one of the side walls, making a small alcove in it. ‘We’ll make it a separate little roof,’ said Tom, ‘and a low floor inside.’
‘Oh, Tom, you are clever,’ said Nona.
‘Honourable, clever Mr Tom,’ said Miss Happiness and Miss Flower.
Tom planned to make an entrance hall. He divided the front of the house into one big window and a small hall. ‘A shoes-off place,’ said Miss Happiness.
‘It should have sliding screens inside and out,’ said Nona.
‘Christopher Columbus!’ said Tom. He might well have said it, for they were small and finicking to make, but he made them.
The windows were made of frames, latticed like the sliding screens, on hinges that Tom took off two old cigar boxes of Father’s. They swung back so that Nona could open the front of the doll’s-house when she wanted to play.
Now the front of the house was finished, and the side walls and the niche were painted, and fixed against the end pillars. Soon, from pillar to pillar, Tom would fix the heavier beams that would hold the roof.
‘But what about the screens?’ asked Nona. ‘The sliding screen doors in the back wall and for the hall?’
‘I’ll make them,’ said Tom. He sounded tired.
‘But when? When?’
‘Christopher Columbus!’ said Tom. ‘Can’t I ever have a day off?’
To make the sliding screens was most difficult of all. ‘I need six hands,’ he said. At last he had put in the two back screens with their paper lattice and the plain and latticed screens for the hall; and it was a wonderful moment when Tom and Nona could slide them all backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. ‘Let Mr Twilfit see that!’ said Tom.
Now the walls were up, and the house only needed the roof ‘to have all its bones,’ said Nona, remembering what Mr Twilfit had said; but before the roof could be made, something happened that Nona had forgotten about. The something was school.
‘I can’t go,’ said Nona.
‘Anne goes, Tom goes, Belinda goes. Of course you must go.’
‘No thank you,’ said Nona, but it was no use saying ‘No thank you’, as this was one of the times children were not asked; and one morning Nona had to take off her red velvet dress, her white socks and silver bangles, and dress herself in a tunic and blouse like Anne’s and Belinda’s, a dark blue coat and a cap with a badge. Then, carrying a case that held a new pencil-box, a ruler and her money for lunch, she walked with Anne and Belinda to school.
She came home in tears. ‘I knew she would,’ said Belinda. ‘She cried all day.’
‘You mustn’t cry here,’ the teacher, Miss Lane, had told Nona.
‘It’s here I want to cry,’ said Nona, and she did. Belinda was ashamed, but Belinda did not know how terrifying the big strange new building seemed to Nona. There seemed to be hundreds of girls and so much noise and bustle that it made her head swim. They, too, laughed at the way she spoke, and the little girl she sat next to, a pretty little girl with long golden curls, would not speak to her. By the time they reached home Nona was sick with crying and Belinda was so angry her cheeks were bright red.
Mother led Nona to the fire and took off her coat and cap and gloves. She gave her some hot tea and brown bread and butter; Belinda had some too, and by and by they both felt better.
When they had finished, Mother took out her sewing. The fire was warm, the sound of the needle going in and out was quiet and calm. Nona felt tired but she did not cry any more. She sat on the rug and leant against Mother’s knee.
‘You’ll have to go again tomorrow,’ said Belinda.
Then Mother said, ‘Why not take Miss Happiness and Miss Flower to school?’
> ‘They wouldn’t be allowed,’ said Belinda at once.
‘How could I take them?’ asked Nona. ‘In my pocket?’
‘No, in your head,’ said Mother, and before they could argue she said, ‘If you took them in your pocket that would be breaking the rules, and you mustn’t do that, but you could take them in your head.’
‘How?’ but a watery smile came on Nona’s face.
‘You say Japanese pictures are scrolls, with painting and writing?’
Nona nodded.
‘In school you can learn how to write beautifully and to paint.’
‘Can I?’
‘You read to us that in Japanese houses they have matting on the floors. You could learn to weave mats on a loom.’
‘Like Anne?’
‘Certainly Anne learned to weave at school. Then you can learn to sew. There are all those quilts and cushions to make and the dolls need new kimonos. Miss Lane teaches you to sew nicely. Even Belinda is learning to make tiny careful stitches.’
‘I’m not,’ said Belinda.
‘Do you hear the honourable lady?’ whispered Miss Flower.
‘Kimonos, quilts, cushions,’ said Miss Happiness, her eyes shining.
‘Tiny careful stitches!’ and together they both sent a fresh wish to Nona: ‘O Honourable little Miss Nona, please go to school. Oh, go to school!’ And Nona began to think that perhaps school might not be so very dreadful, particularly as Tom said, ‘I’ll work for you every Saturday until the house is finished.’
It took a long time. ‘Saturday after Saturday,’ grumbled Tom. Half-term came and went and still the house was not done. ‘Children are so slow!’ groaned Miss Flower.
That was the first and only time Miss Happiness got cross. ‘Slow? They are wonderfully quick,’ she cried. ‘Quick and kind and clever. Don’t you ever let me hear you say things like that again,’ cried Miss Happiness, and her little glass eyes flashed.
‘We must do the roof,’ said Tom one Saturday, and he said, ‘In a real house when that is done a bough is put in the chimney and the builders are given beer.’
‘Do you like beer?’ asked Nona.
‘Ginger beer,’ said Tom.
