The Dolls’ House

by Rumer Godden

  ‘Did it open?’

  ‘No, it didn’t open, but it had lace curtains too, and there was a fireplace and a fire of shining red gelatine paper. There was a sofa covered in red velvet and two chairs to match, and a table and a piano; its notes were paper notes glued on. On the table,’ said Tottie slowly, ‘was a lamp with a white china shade; it would really light if you used a birthday cake candle.’

  ‘We should have to be careful of Apple with that candle,’ said Birdie suddenly, and they all stared at her because that was such an unusually clear thing for Birdie to say.

  ‘You are right to be afraid of fire,’ said Tottie. ‘You are celluloid, Birdie, and that would flare up in an instant if you went anywhere near fire.’

  ‘You would, you know,’ said Mr Plantaganet. ‘Better not go near the candle, Birdie.’

  ‘I?’ asked Birdie, surprised. ‘I was thinking of Apple.’

  ‘Also on the table,’ said Tottie, ‘there was a vase of wax roses; they were modelled in wax and they were no bigger than a thimble.’

  ‘Like the pudding basin,’ murmured Mr Plantaganet.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tottie, ‘and in the sitting room there was a golden cage and inside the cage was a bird.’

  ‘A bird?’ asked Birdie. ‘A-ah! Did it sing?’

  ‘No, it couldn’t sing,’ said Tottie, ‘but it was there.’

  ‘It could sing,’ said Birdie, and her eyes seemed to shine. ‘I know how it sang.’ Scraps and pieces of all the songs she had ever heard knocked together gently in her head with bird songs, chiefly sparrow because she had heard little else, being a London doll; she could not sing any one of them but they all ran together and seemed to make a chain of song in her head such as might be sung by a bright toy bird. ‘A-ah! sighed Birdie. Music, delicate clockwork musical-box music, was what Birdie liked to hear.

  ‘Upstairs,’ said Tottie, ‘there were two bedrooms. One had a pink flannel carpet and one had a blue. There were beds with nicked-round blankets, and there was a white tin bath with taps, and there was a cot with bars.’

  ‘Would it do for me?’ asked Apple.

  ‘It would be a good fit,’ said Tottie gravely. ‘There was a jug and basin and a pail to match them, for carrying the water downstairs.’

  ‘Very thoughtful,’ said Mr Plantaganet. ‘Did the taps on the bath really run?’

  ‘Yes, if you put the water in the tank behind the bath,’ said Tottie.

  Mr Plantaganet nodded. Apple was thinking about the cot. Birdie was thinking about the bird in the birdcage.

  ‘Occupied, of course?’ said Mr Plantaganet suddenly.

  ‘Occupied?’ asked Tottie.

  ‘I mean there are other dolls living in it, of course?’

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ said Tottie. ‘Maybe it has gone, been sold or broken up. I don’t know where it is now,’ said Tottie sadly. ‘That Laura, Great-Great-Aunt Laura, had a little girl, but the little girl is a great-aunt herself now. Why, she is Emily and Charlotte’s great-aunt. Maybe she has given it away or given it up. I don’t know.’

  ‘But dolls lived in it then,’ said Mr Plantaganet. ‘You lived in it once. Did other dolls live there with you? Don’t you remember them?’

  ‘I remember one,’ said Tottie slowly. ‘Yes, I remember her,’ said Tottie, very, very slowly.

  ‘Why do you say it like that? What was her name?’

  ‘Her name was Marchpane.’

  ‘What a funny name. What does it mean?’

  ‘Marchpane is a heavy, sweet, sticky stuff like almond icing, very old-fashioned,’ said Tottie. ‘You very quickly have enough of it. It was a good name for her,’ said Tottie slowly.

  ‘But what was she like?’ asked Mr Plantaganet.

  ‘What was she like?’ asked Birdie.

  ‘What was she like?’ asked Apple.

  ‘She was valuable,’ said Tottie. ‘She was little and heavy.’

  ‘What was she made of? I am made of celluloid,’ said Birdie, and ‘celluloid’ knocked in her head against other words like it – ’cellophane’, ‘cellular’, ‘celanese’. Now she did not know which she was made of, but any of them seemed to describe her well.

  ‘I like you to be made of celluloid,’ said Mr Plantaganet quickly as if he were afraid that what Tottie said might hurt Birdie, but Birdie did not mind.

  ‘Marchpane was made of kid and china,’ said Tottie.

  ‘Kid? What is kid?’

  ‘It is a kind of leather, white leather,’ said Tottie. ‘Her body was made of it and stuffed with sawdust and jointed; her joints worked more smoothly than mine. Her head was china, and her eyes were china too. Her hair was real, in a plait that they pinned round her head. You could plait it and unplait it.’

  ‘Was it yellow?’ asked Birdie.

  ‘Yes,’ said Tottie mournfully.

  ‘Is there – much – difference between real and unreal? I wouldn’t know,’ said Birdie.

  ‘Well – ye-es,’ said Tottie as gently as she could.

  ‘Did her clothes take on and off?’ asked Apple, who hated to have his clothes taken off.

  ‘She was in wedding clothes,’ said Tottie. ‘They took off and they were all white.’

  ‘White? I shouldn’t like that,’ said Birdie more cheerfully. ‘I like pink and red and yellow and blue.’

  ‘But they were beautiful. They were stitched with tiny featherstitching.’

  ‘Is there a stitch called featherstitching? Oh, I should like that!’ said Birdie, forgetting Marchpane.

  ‘And they were edged with narrowest real lace.’

  ‘Prr-ickkk!’ said Darner suddenly. They looked at him in surprise. They all looked round for the danger and could not see any.

  ‘Were those curtains real lace curtains?’ asked Mr Plantaganet. ‘Those curtains in the house?’

  ‘I shouldn’t suppose so,’ said Tottie. ‘Real lace is very expensive.’

  ‘If it were my house,’ said Mr Plantaganet, ‘I should have real lace curtains. Nothing less,’ said Mr Plantaganet firmly. ‘Think! To live in a house like that.’ His eyes, that Emily now kept quite free from dust, shone (being glass, they shone quite easily). ‘Not to live in a shoe-box any more.’ His voice changed as he said that; he sounded as if he were shut in the dark toy cupboard again.

  ‘I could get out of my cot,’ said Apple suddenly. ‘I would. I could climb through the bars and Emily and Charlotte would think I had rolled out.’

  Birdie was thinking about the bird, her songs, her hat, its feather, featherstitching, the feather broom.

  ‘And when they had finished playing with us,’ said Mr Plantaganet, ‘they would shut up the front and we should be alone, quite private in our own house.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tottie. ‘I had forgotten how good that can be.’

  She had forgotten Marchpane as well.

  Chapter 3

  It was late autumn.

  How do dolls know when it is autumn? The same way that you do. They smell the London autumn smells of bonfires, of newly lit chimneys, of fog and leaves soaking in the wet. When they go out they see that Michaelmas daisies are out in the Park and chrysanthemums are in the flower shops and violets have come back on to the street flower-sellers’ trays. The grownups talk of the first winter colds, and winter coats, and the difficulties of central heating, and the children begin to think of parties and dancing class and even Christmas.

  It was also, of course, much colder. It was cold in the shoe-boxes in the colder weather; their cardboard sides were thin and too low to keep out draughts, and Mr Plantaganet began to suffer. He was delicate little doll and he looked quite drawn with cold. Emily was knitting Tottie a cloak in red wool. ‘I do wish she were knitting a muffler or a little waistcoat for Mr Plantaganet instead,’ said Tottie. She could go no further than wishing. Dolls cannot tell anything, but often their wishing is as strong as telling. Have you never felt a doll’s wish? I am afraid Emily did not feel Tottie’s; she finished the cloak and tried it on and T
ottie looked very well in it. Mr Plantaganet remained cold, a little miserable, a little neglected, and draughty in the shoe-box.

  Then it happened, in that very autumn, that Emily and Charlotte’s great-aunt died, the very great-aunt who had been the little girl of that Great-Great-Aunt Laura who had owned the dolls’ house and gathered the shells at the seaside. Her relations and friends found a dolls’ house in the attic, an old dolls’ house on which the cream paint was dirtied and hung with cobwebs, but on which painted ivy could be seen. It had a green front door with a knocker and six steps going up to it, exactly as Tottie had described.

  ‘Fancy this being here,’ said the friends and relations.

  ‘What shall we do with it?’

  ‘It could be sold,’ they said. ‘It is really as good as new.’

  This was not quite true, for it was dusty and thick with dirt; the butler had gone quite to dust, the velvet of the sofa and chairs was rotten and ripped, the shells had come off the pictures in places, and the lace curtains were torn.

  ‘Still, it would fetch a good price,’ they said.

  ‘I don’t think it ought to be sold,’ said one relation who perhaps had more heart than the others. ‘It was played with by Great-Aunt, perhaps by her mother. Are there no little girls in the family who might like to play with it now?’

  There were two little girls. There were Emily and Charlotte.

  The letter came at breakfast when the Plantaganet family were on the hearthrug where Charlotte had arranged them, pretending it was a park. When Mother read the letter they listened with all their ears, except Apple, whom Charlotte had incautiously put to play up on the fire irons. He was sliding dangerously near the dirty coals. Tottie was watching him from the corner of her eye.

  ‘Can we have it, Mother?’ begged Emily and Charlotte.

  ‘Oh, can we?’

  ‘Can we?’ begged the Plantaganet family, except Apple.

  ‘You had better ask Father.’

  ‘Can we, Father?’

  ‘Can we?’

  ‘Can we?’

  ‘Can we?’ begged the Plantaganets.

  Apple was getting nearer and nearer to the coal.

  ‘We had better take it,’ said Father. ‘And then we can advertise it in the newspapers and get twenty-five pounds.’

  ‘Do we need twenty-five pounds?’ asked Mr Plantaganet, but Tottie told him Father was only teasing.

  ‘I wish he wouldn’t only tease,’ said Mr Plantaganet. Mr Plantaganet could never tell when Father was teasing. ‘Ought Fathers to tease?’ he asked wistfully. ‘Perhaps I am not a proper sort of Father.’ He very much wanted to be a proper sort of everything. ‘A house!’ said Mr Plantaganet, forgetting Father. ‘I suppose it is that house, Tottie?’

  ‘I should think it must be,’ said Tottie in her calming, calm wood voice. ‘An old dolls’ house that belonged to Great-Great-Aunt Laura. What else could it be?’

  ‘That – that dream house?’ said Mr Plantaganet.

  ‘You didn’t dream it, I told you of it,’ said Tottie, who was strictly truthful; she could see Mr Plantaganet was getting into a state.

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ said Mr Plantaganet. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Yes, you can,’ said Tottie, ‘easily Now Father has said “Yes,” it is going to happen.’

  ‘No more shoe-boxes!’ said Mr Plantaganet, with a catch in his voice. ‘And it has been awfully cold in those shoe-boxes sometimes, hasn’t it, Tottie?’

  ‘Yes, but that’s all over now,’ said Tottie. ‘At least, soon it will be over. Apple! Apple! Take care!’

  ‘That little doll is nearly in the coal,’ said Father, and he touched Apple with his foot.

  Charlotte picked him out of the fender just in time.

  ‘And Birdie will have her birdcage, and Apple will have his cot, and Darner his kennel.’

  ‘And you will be able to wish Emily and Charlotte to shut the front when they have done playing with us, and I am sure they will,’ said Tottie. ‘And we shall live there happy ever after.’

  ‘Yes. Oh yes! Oh YES!’ said Mr Plantaganet, and he said to himself, ‘No more shoe-boxes. No more dark toy cupboards. No more dark at all; we shall have the little lamp and even if they forget the candle, with a lamp it is easy to pretend that it is light. Red walls,’ whispered Mr Plantaganet, ‘taps that really run (if you fill the tank first), wax roses in the vase, nicked blankets on the beds.’

  His eyes looked as if they might break their glass. No doll can cry tears, they have to keep their tears in, but Mr Plantaganet’s eyes looked as if they held tears of joy. Did you know people could cry for joy as well as for sorrow? They can, and dolls would too sometimes if they could.

  ‘Happy ever after,’ said Mr Plantaganet. ‘Happy ever after, Tottie.’

  As I told you, they had forgotten Marchpane.

  Chapter 4

  When the dolls’ house arrived, Marchpane was not in it.

  She had been sent to the cleaners.

  That was very bad for Marchpane. The cleaners took such care of her that it went to her head which, being china, was empty, which is a very dangerous kind of head to have. Mr Plantaganet had one too, and it had been filled with his gloomy thoughts of dark toy cupboards and boys who drew moustaches, but now it was more happily filled with thoughts of the dolls’ house. Marchpane’s was filled with thoughts of Marchpane; and at the cleaners she thought how wonderful Marchpane was: how valuable Marchpane was: how beautifully Marchpane was made: what elegant clothes Marchpane had, with what small exquisite stitching. ‘I am a beautiful little creature, really I am,’ thought Marchpane. ‘I must be worth a fabulous amount of money. No wonder they are so careful of me. They can hardly be careful enough. I am so very important,’ said Marchpane. There was no one to contradict her and her thoughts of Marchpane grew larger and larger till you would have thought her little head was hardly big enough to contain them.

  The cleaners took off her fine-sewn wedding clothes and washed and cleaned them exquisitely so that they were whiter than snowdrops or snow. Then they cleaned Marchpane herself all over and she was whiter too, but they cleaned her with petrol, and after it, I must confess, she smelled strongly and nastily of petrol: in fact, ever afterwards, she had a faintly nasty smell (which was quite right, because she was nasty).

  The cleaners redressed her, and replaited her hair, which they had cleaned until it looked like golden floss; then, having politely asked permission first, they put her on the counter of their shop, with a card:

  Mid-nineteenth-century doll, as cleaned by us.

  Marchpane stood on the counter and everyone who came into the shop looked at her and admired her. Marchpane liked being looked at and admired more and more, though she thought of course it was only her due, and that the people were very lucky to have a chance to see such an elegant and beauteous doll as Marchpane.

  Chapter 5

  Charlotte and Emily, the Plantaganet family, had been busy.

  The dolls’ house was exactly as Tottie had described it, but . . .

  ‘Oh dear!’ said Mr Plantaganet, and if the corners of his mouth had been made to turn down, they would have turned down.

  ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! O-oh dear!’

  On the dolls’ house, and in it, were years and years of dust and grime and cobwebs and mold and rust. The children and the Plantaganets looked at the tattered chair and sofa covers, at the torn old curtains, at the sea-shells fallen off the picture frames, at the remains of the butler. The blue tin stove was rusty and so was the bath, the mangle was stuck, some of the kitchen chairs were broken and the nicked-round blankets were grey with mildew. ‘Oh dear! Oh dear!’ said Mr Plantaganet.

  ‘Stop staying “Oh dear!”’ said Tottie sharply.

  ‘But what shall we do? What can we do?’

  ‘We can wish,’ said Tottie still sharply because, truth to tell, she was feeling worried and anxious herself. Could the children, would the children, be able to put it in order? That was the question
in Tottie’s mind.

  ‘It’s dusty. It’s dirty. It’s horrible!’ cried little Apple.

  ‘Is it?’ asked Birdie anxiously. She could not herself see anything more than the birdcage and the bird. They were so wonderful to Birdie that she could not see anything else, and, being two things of the same kind, she did not feel the thoughts of them knocking together in her head.

  ‘Is it dusty and dirty, Tottie?’ asked Birdie.

  ‘Wish! Wish! Wish!’ said Tottie, and every knot and grain of her seemed to harden. She came from a tree.

  ‘What shall we do? What can we?’ said Mr Plantaganet.

  ‘Don’t bleat. Wish,’ said Tottie hardly, and her hard voice made the word sound so hard and firm that even Mr Plantaganet took heart and they all began to wish. ‘Wish that Emily and Charlotte can put our house in order and make it good again. Go on, all of you. Wish. Wish. Wish,’ said Tottie.

  At that moment, among the Plantaganets appeared hands, Emily and Charlotte’s hands, lifting them on to the mantelpiece out of the way where they could see. Then those same hands began to strip the dolls’ house.

  ‘What did I tell you?’ said Tottie.

  ‘But – they are not making it, they are taking it all away.’

  ‘Taking it all to pieces.’

  ‘Taking it all away.’

  ‘Wait and see,’ said Tottie. ‘Wait and see.’

  Emily and Charlotte and their mother took everything out of the dolls’ house; they took the carpets up from their tintacks and with the carpets came layers of dust. They did not look like carpets but pieces of crinkled old grey flannel. Birdie hid her face in her hands. ‘I wanted the pink one and there isn’t a pink one,’ she said.

  ‘Wait and see. Wait and see,’ said Tottie.