Miss Happiness and Miss Flower (6 page)

‘First it must be furnished,’ said Nona. ‘I need scraps of cotton and silk.’

‘You haven’t got any,’ said Belinda.

That was only too true. The pieces in Mother’s scrap-bag were bits of flannel and oddments from old cotton dresses. There was some velveteen, but velveteen is thick and heavy for a small
doll. ‘I need thin bright silk in different colours,’ said Nona.

‘Well, you can’t have it.’

‘I know I can’t,’ said Nona mournfully. She had spent that week’s ninepence on extra things for Tom. ‘And I need a lamp and a low table, and the book says Japanese
people keep their quilts in cupboards with sliding doors. How can I . . .’ Nona broke off and sat quite still. ‘A cupboard with sliding doors,’ she whispered.

‘Nona, I’m talking to you,’ said Mother. ‘I’m asking you if you want any more pudding?’ These days Nona often had more pudding, but now she did not
answer.

‘Nona. Are you dreaming?’ Yes, Nona was dreaming – of Melly’s pencil-box.

It was a new pencil-box of plain light wood. It had a compartment down the middle and, most fascinating of all, it had a roll top of slatted wood that rolled back as soon as you touched it.
‘It would make a perfect little cupboard,’ dreamed Nona, ‘empty and standing on its side. Perfect!’ And then a daring thought came to her: I wonder if Melly would swap it?
– Nona had not been in school very long but already she knew all about swapping. Swap, but for what? It would have to be something very beautiful. After lunch Nona went slowly upstairs and
pulled out her drawer; next morning when she went to school she wore her silver bangles.

‘Oh, how pretty!’ said Melly.

Nona had seen Melly looking at the bangles and had pulled the cuff of her blouse back so that they would show more as she let her hand lie on the desk. They clinked gently against one another
and their silver shone above the wood of the desk. ‘You like them?’ whispered Nona.

Melly nodded, and her curls bobbed. Nona slid off the bangles and when Miss Lane was busy she passed them to Melly. ‘
Very
pretty,’ whispered Melly, looking at them.

‘You can put them on if you like.’

Now that they had spoken Nona could not think why she and Melly had not spoken before.

Perhaps Mother had been right and Melly was shy; she blushed as she slid the bangles on. They looked beautiful on her pink and white wrist, and ‘Very,
very
pretty,’ whispered
Melly.

Nona felt an ache in her heart; she had had her bangles almost since she was a baby and they reminded her of Coimbatore, but she had the dolls to think of now. ‘I’ll swap them if you
like,’ said Nona.

Melly’s grey eyes widened. ‘But . . . they’re silver!’ she said.

‘Yes, but I’ll swap them.’

‘For what?’

‘For your pencil-box,’ said Nona lightly, but her heart was beating.

‘Melly Ashton, Nona Fell, are you talking?’ asked Miss Lane, but the two heads, Nona’s dark one and Melly’s with its golden curls, were bent over their desks, and their
pens scratched away. Yet, if Miss Lane had noticed, she would have seen that Melly’s pencil-box was on Nona’s desk and Nona’s bangles were on Melly.

Standing on its side in the Japanese doll’s-house the pencil-box did look like a real cupboard. ‘The quilts shall go in the bottom – when I have the
quilts,’ said Nona. ‘The bowls in the top – when I have the bowls.’ The rolltop slid backwards and forwards like a real cupboard.

‘It might have come from Japan,’ said Miss Flower, and Miss Happiness said, ‘It has “Made in Japan” stamped on it. I saw it.’

‘Nona, you are to go into the drawing-room. Mother wants you,’ said Anne.

‘You have done something,’ said Belinda. ‘Mrs Ashton is there.’

‘Who is Mrs Ashton?’ asked Nona.

‘Melly’s mother,’ said Anne.

‘What have you done?’ asked Belinda.

Mrs Ashton was sitting on a chair by the fire when Nona came in. In her hand she held the bangles.

‘They’re quite valuable,’ she was saying to Mother. ‘Real silver. I’m sure you wouldn’t want Nona to give them away and I couldn’t possibly let Melly
accept them.’

‘But I didn’t give them,’ said Nona. ‘I swapped them.’

‘Swapped them?’

‘For Melly’s pencil box.’

‘A
pencil box
?’ Both the mothers stared at Nona as if she were ill.

‘But you could buy a pencil box for a shilling or two, you silly child.’

‘Not that one,’ cried poor Nona. ‘There isn’t another one like that. Oh, don’t you see? That’s the only one that will do.’

Mrs Ashton was very like Melly, with the same golden hair and grey eyes, the same smile. Nona had spoken to Melly, and now she found courage again. ‘If you would come upstairs,’ she
said, ‘I could show you,’ and she slipped her hand into Mrs Ashton’s. It was the first time Nona had put her hand into anyone’s since she had left Coimbatore.

Mrs Ashton looked at Mother, who nodded. ‘Show me,’ said Mrs Ashton.

‘But Mother will make you give it back,’ said Belinda. ‘You needn’t think she won’t.’ And sure enough, ‘You must give it back,’
said Mother.

‘But Mrs Ashton wasn’t cross,’ said Nona.

‘All the more reason,’ said Mother.

‘And Melly didn’t mind.’

‘But you are not allowed to swap things at school, not expensive things,’ said Mother. ‘I’m sorry, Nona, but you must keep the rules.’

Very slowly Nona took the pencil box out of the house.

‘It is right and proper,’ said Miss Happiness with a sigh. ‘She must keep the rules.’

Miss Flower did not answer. She was too sad.

Indeed it seemed that the dolls’ house was not getting on at all. On the way to school Nona and Belinda passed a shop where, in the window, four dolls’-house tea
sets in delicate flowered china were set out. ‘What about those?’ asked Belinda.

‘It’s bowls, not cups, I need,’ said Nona.

‘There’s a sugar bowl.’

‘Only one.’ Each set had two cups, a teapot, a milk jug and a sugar bowl.

‘You could knock the handles off the cups,’ said Belinda cheerfully.

‘And give them something chipped!’ said Nona. She knew without being told that Miss Flower would not like that. ‘Anyway, they are four shillings and sixpence each,’ she
said.

Another shop had table mats in fine, fine bamboo. ‘Like dolls’-house matting,’ said Nona, ‘and Japanese houses always have matting on the floor.’ But the mats were
a shilling each, ‘and I should need two,’ said Nona. In the same shop as the tea sets was a round dolls’-house table in dark wood. ‘If Tom cut the legs shorter it would look
Japanese. Oh, I don’t know where to begin!’ said Nona, and pressed her face against the glass of one shop, then another. In the end she bought the table, and Tom, with his smallest saw,
cut the legs down for her so that the table was only an inch from the floor. It was just right for a Japanese table, but it looked bleak and plain in the empty room. ‘It will
never
be
furnished,’ said Nona.

Miss Flower was terribly alarmed. ‘You heard what she said,’ cried Miss Flower, and if she could have wrung her little plaster hands she would. ‘Never be
furnished! Oh, we’re only dolls. What can we do?’

‘Wish,’ said Miss Happiness. She was still smiling. Perhaps that was because her smile was painted on her face, but it made Miss Flower angry.

‘What’s the good of wishing?’

‘You never know,’ said Miss Happiness.

You never know.
Sometimes when things seem farthest off they are quite near. Next morning Melly came to school with a small bundle. She put it on Nona’s desk. ‘Mother sent you
this,’ she said.

The bundle was wrapped in a piece of soft paper. Inside were scraps and pieces and snippets of silk, satin and taffeta, in pink and scarlet, blue and lemon colour, white, green, purple and
mauve.

‘But . . . but . . . how did she
get
them?’ asked Nona.

‘Well, she does make hats,’ said Melly, and laughed at Nona’s face. ‘These are bits left over. And she says if your mother will let you come to tea she, my mother, will
help you with the cushions and quilts. She’s a very good sewer,’ said Melly.

Nona hardly knew if she were standing on her head or her heels. To go to tea with Melly; to make the quilts and cushions; to have this heap of soft and beautiful stuffs! ‘What
is
the matter with Nona?’ asked Father, who happened to be looking out of the window as Nona and Belinda came back from school. ‘She looks as if she were dancing on the
pavement.’

Then, at the beginning of the holidays, it was Easter.

Nona had not kept Easter before. She had never seen Easter eggs or Easter rabbits or chickens. ‘Your own father has sent me some money from Coimbatore,’ said Mother, ‘to buy
you all Easter eggs. Ten shillings for each of the others,’ she told Nona, ‘a pound for you.’

‘A
pound
!’ said Belinda, her eyes round.

‘Is that twenty shillings?’ asked Nona. She was trying to do a sum in her head.

‘You could buy an enormous huge great Easter egg for that,’ said Belinda. ‘One of those huge chocolate ones with chocolate and chickens inside.’

‘Oh no!’ cried Nona.

‘No?’

‘Please, please no,’ – in her agitation Nona could hardly speak – ‘I don’t want an Easter egg.’

‘Not want an egg for
Easter
?’

‘No. At least, only a tiny one, about sixpence.’

‘Well, what is it you want?’

‘Four tea sets,’ said Nona, ‘and two table mats.’

‘What extraordinary things to want.’

‘I want them,’ said Nona certainly.

On Easter Sunday, as they were coming back from church, Melly came up the road to the gate. She was carrying a package tied with yellow ribbon. ‘Why, Nona! She has brought
you another Easter egg!’ but it was a queer shape for an Easter egg, for the package was long and thin. Before Nona opened it she knew what it was, and her fingers began to tremble.
‘It’s your pencil box.’

‘Not mine,’ said Melly. ‘It’s the same as mine. Mother bought it in London in the same shop. Happy Easter,’ said Melly, and ran off.

Happy Easter!

‘In Japan we have the New Year Festival,’ said Miss Flower, ‘when fathers and mothers dress the children in their best clothes and take them to visit the shrines and give them
money.’

‘Lots of money,’ said Miss Happiness.

‘That is something like this,’ said Miss Flower.

‘But I like Easter,’ said Miss Happiness, and she said, ‘We have the Star Festival, of course, and the Boys’ Festival, when the boys have paper carp fish and play
games.’

‘But I like Easter,’ said Miss Flower, and she said, ‘We have the Doll Festival, when the festival dolls are brought out and the little girls put them up on steps covered with
red cloth.’

‘I think this is a doll festival day,’ said Miss Happiness, smiling.

Indeed, it seemed to be, for the Japanese dolls’ house was almost finished at last. The pencil box stood against the wall; the quilts were rolled up on its bottom shelf. Nona had been to
tea with Melly on two or three Wednesday afternoons when the hat shop was shut, and after tea they had sewed quilts and pillows, pale pink for Miss Flower, while Miss Happiness had blue.

On the Tuesday after Easter, Nona had hurried over breakfast and run all the way to the shops in case the tea sets were sold, but they were still in the window and she had been able to buy all
four.

‘
Four
tea sets?’ Belinda had asked.

‘So that I can get four bowls.’

‘And waste all the cups?’

‘I have to,’ said Nona sadly.

‘Christopher Columbus!’ said Belinda, just like Tom.

Nona put the cups, the jugs and all but one teapot on one side, but the four sugar bowls and all the plates and saucers and the one teapot she arranged on the top shelf of the pencil box; with
its green leaves and pink flowers the china looked Japanese.

Japanese people eat their food with polished sticks called chopsticks: Nona cut pine needles into inch lengths to make some, and they were put beside the china. From the table mat shop she chose
two mats in fine cream-coloured bamboo; they almost covered the floor when they were put down. On the matting were cushions made from Mrs Ashton’s bright silks; Nona set them round the low
table.

‘It must be ready now,’ said Belinda, but Nona shook her head.

Tom helped to make a lamp from an empty cotton reel.
⁵
He ran a flex up through it with a tiny electric bulb and Nona made a paper shade to fit it. She
cut a strip of stiff paper, painted it deep pink and joined it into a circle with sticky-tape. ‘And I’m going to model a lantern in clay, like the Japanese stone lanterns, for the
garden,’ she said.

‘What garden?’ asked Belinda.

‘The garden I am going to make.’

Every Japanese house has a firebox.
⁶
Nona made hers from a matchbox, painted dark brown and filled with shining red paper from a Christmas cracker.
Tom put another of his tiny bulbs in it and joined the flex to the lamp. When it was lit the firebox seemed to glow.

‘Now we need a scroll,’ said Nona, ‘and I must put flowers in the niche.’

‘Well, put some,’ said Belinda, but Nona said, ‘I have to learn about them first.’

‘Learn about flowers? Pooh! What is there to learn? Oh Nona, you are so slow.’

‘
Please
leave Honourable Miss Nona
alone
,’ wished Miss Happiness and Miss Flower. ‘Leave her. She is doing things in the Japanese way.’
⁷

Flowers, in Japan, can have meanings: pine branches are for strength; plum blossom means new hope; irises are used for ceremony; while the peony is the King of Flowers.

‘Irises and peonies are too big for a dolls’ house,’ said Anne.

Of course they were too big, but now, in April and May, as Mother and Anne had told Nona, there were wild flowers everywhere in the grass and along the hedges and in the fields and woods just
outside the town. Nona had never seen anything as lovely and every day she discovered something else; wild violets did for irises and wood sorrel or anemones made white peonies, while eyebright
looked like doll’s-house lilies. In front of the Japanese dolls’ house she made a path of sand and bordered it with cowries, tiny shells she had brought from Coimbatore. At the foot of
the steps she put two little china-blue egg-cups, the kind that are like tubs, and filled them with lady’s-slipper. Then she begged a big old meat tin from Mother and put it on the
window-sill beside the house; she covered it with a layer of earth and moss. Following the pictures of Japanese gardens in Mr Twilfit’s big book, she arranged a path with flat stones, and a
little heap of pebbles to hold the shell that Anne had given her. The shell was filled with water and made a pool, and by it Nona planted some tufts of grass to look like bamboos, and tiny flowers
to look like bushes. ‘Japanese gardens have to look natural, like hills and lakes and streams,’ she said, and she made a stream of bits of broken looking-glass set in the moss, and by
it she set the clay lantern she had modelled. Miss Lane had let her fire it in the school kiln and it had a gloss on it like stone. It looked like a toadstool with a hole in the hood. When a bit of
birthday cake candle was put in, it shone over the garden at night, ‘and it’s quite safe,’ said Nona. ‘The clay won’t catch on fire.’ The garden was beautiful,
‘but I do wish I had some trees,’ said Nona.