Read Online The Dolls’ House by Rumer Godden - Free Book Online Page A

chairs for us,’ said Emily.
    ‘Are the couch and chairs really coming, Tottie?’ asked Mr Plantaganet. ‘We have been wishing and wishing. I have never really stopped wishing,’ said Mr Plantaganet.
‘But it was you who got them for us, Tottie,’ he said.
    ‘Dear Tottie, but I should have been quite content with cotton reels,’ said Birdie.
    ‘Oh, Birdie dear!’ said Mr Plantaganet impatiently. Sometimes he found it hard to be patient with Birdie.
    Apple was not there. He had a plan, unknown to Tottie, that he might climb up to the dolls’ house chimney. He thought he might climb up the ivy, it looked so real, but of course it was
painted too flat and the paint was far too slippery.
    Emily made Tottie a cotton-wool cap and a cotton-wool muff to go out in, as it was beginning to be bitterly cold. ‘But we are cosy in the dolls’ house,’ said Mr Plantaganet.
The whiteness of the cotton wool looked pretty with Tottie’s glossy black hair and painted cheeks; she shone with happiness. Birdie did not want a cap or a muff. She wanted a feather boa.
    ‘What’s a boa?’ asked Apple, forgetting the ivy.
    ‘It’s a long scarf, but made out of feathers, and it is round all the way down,’ explained Tottie.
    ‘Like a caterpillar?’ asked Apple, who had seen a caterpillar in the park.
    ‘Yes, a caterpillar would make a very good boa for Birdie,’ said Tottie.
    ‘If it were made out of feathers,’ said Birdie. ‘But it’s not.’
    Tottie was carried along to Mrs Innisfree’s on the palm of Charlotte’s hand. Charlotte had on a red woollen glove, Tottie had on her red woollen cloak, her cap and muff. They went
well together.
    It was a clear, pale, cold sunny day; the bare branches of the trees in the Park stood out against a clear pale sky. The cold touched Tottie’s cheeks and the sunlight made them
glisten.
    Emily and Charlotte were talking of Christmas, and Tottie was suddenly reminded of a little sunshade, a parasol, not made, like the walking doll’s parasol, from satin, but of paper from a
cracker. ‘I saw one long ago,’ said Tottie. ‘It was gay as a little paper wheel. How Birdie would love that,’ thought Tottie. ‘How I should like to give her one for
Christmas. She would like it better than the feather boa, but you don’t see them nowadays. I wish . . . ’ said Tottie, sitting on Charlotte’s hand; ‘and for Apple a marble.
A marble would make him a good ball, and for Darner a tiddlywinks plate, a nice big purple one. And for Mr Plantaganet? I wish they would think of getting him a toy post office,’ thought
Tottie. ‘Then he could go to business; if he went to business every day he would be very happy. I wish and wish they would get him a toy post office.’
    When they arrived in Mrs Innisfree’s house, Tottie forgot even about Christmas and Christmas presents. There, on the table in Mrs Innisfree’s drawing room, were the couch and
chairs.
    Emily did not recognize them.
    Charlotte did not recognize them.
    Tottie did not recognize them.
    Their wood, having been carefully sandpapered, had been polished by Mrs Innisfree’s French polisher until it shone with a real furniture dark wood shine of its own. Then the petit-point seats and arms and backs had been fastened over new cushions. Mrs Innisfree had worked the cream background and the tiny roses and leaves; she had even worked their shadings,
though the flowers were scarcely bigger than knots or dots.
    ‘Oh!’ cried Emily.
    ‘Oh!’ cried Charlotte.
    ‘Oh!’ cried Tottie. ‘Oh! It was worth going to the Exhibition.’
    ‘Even the Queen’s dolls’ house,’ said Emily, ‘hasn’t a better set than that.’
    ‘Yes, that is perfectly right,’ said Tottie. She felt now she knew something about queens.
    Mrs Innisfree put down on the table two pairs of fine white lace curtains, each curtain six inches long. ‘I saw the piece of lace,’ she said. ‘It was the right width and just
the right length, and there is