The Dolls’ House by Rumer Godden Page A

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.’

Chapter 22
    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.

Chapter 23
    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;