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The Rescuers
Margery Sharp
Bianca and Bernard, agents for The Prisoners' Aid Society of Mice, rescue prisoners and outwit villains in this enchanting story, made world-famous by the Walt Disney film.The Prisoners' Aid Society of Mice discusses the proposed rescue of a Norwegian poet from the terrible Black Castle. Miss Bianca, the pet white mouse belonging to the Ambassador's son, is sent to Norway on a mission to recruit the bravest Norwegian mouse she can find. She finds Nils, and brings him back triumphantly. Then she, Nils, and Bernard, a pantry mouse who falls in love with her, set off for the Black Castle. They set up home in a mousehole in the Chief Jailer's room, and narrowly avoid the jaws of Mamelouk the cruel Persian cat. Eventually they trick the cat and the jailer, and get into the prisoner's cell. A dramatic rescue via an underground river, and they are all free – and the Nils and Miss Bianca medal for bravery is struck in the mice's honour!
Copyright (#ulink_c1b3808b-c55a-5170-a525-f6ffe1e24ca6)
First published in Great Britain by William Collins Sons and Co Ltd in 1959
This edition published by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2016
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd,
HarperCollins Publishers
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Text copyright В© Margery Sharp 1959
Why You’ll Love This Book copyright © Anne Fine 2010
Cover illustration В© Emilia Dziubak 2016
Cover design В© HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, 2016
Margery Sharp asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007364091
Ebook Edition В© 2016 ISBN: 9780007390700
Version: 2016-05-20
CONTENTS
Cover (#ucf4f95e2-74cc-50a0-a8fc-53a855a49d43)
Title Page (#ud711b1a3-b6c8-5880-9636-7614594ad2d7)
Copyright (#u6da887ec-2439-5f28-9389-c9e7600e7887)
Why You’ll Love This Book – by Anne Fine (#u0f19b21a-da0d-50fb-85a9-39bf0485ccb2)
Chapter One – The Meeting (#u820cd776-65f3-565b-a581-5ea8702c05fd)
Chapter Two – Miss Bianca (#u1ed89dc7-d2a6-55e4-bca0-8e02e6629162)
Chapter Three – In Norway (#u54df80a2-9fe4-59dd-963c-ae2f7ba1fb9c)
Chapter Four – The Voyage (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Five – Marching Orders (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six – The Happy Journey (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven – The Black Castle (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight – Waiting (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine – Cat and Mouse (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten – The Message (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven – The Other Way Out (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve – The Great Enterprise (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen – The Raft (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen – The End (#litres_trial_promo)
Postscript by Nicholas Tucker (#litres_trial_promo)
Keep Reading … (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Why You’ll Love This Book (#ulink_6c7947f3-54ee-5085-a6dc-e0a0b0d9141f)
by Anne Fine (#ulink_6c7947f3-54ee-5085-a6dc-e0a0b0d9141f)
If there’s a more enchanting story than The Rescuers, I’ve yet to read it. For fifty years now it’s been delighting children – along with any adult wise enough to snatch the chance to share it.
Yet it’s as fresh today as it has ever been. How could readers fail to warm to a book so full of comedy and heart? We meet three of the most heroic mice in literature: delicate Miss Bianca, who selflessly abandons her pampered life in a porcelain pagoda to journey over rough seas and barren lands to the hideous Black Castle from which no prisoner has ever escaped.
Along with her on this terrifying errand of mercy go two steadfast companions: kind, loyal Bernard from the kitchen pantry (already honoured for Gallantry in the Face of Cats); and Nils, a fearless Norwegian sailor who’s never happier than when braving storm-tossed waves in his sturdy sea boots.
How these resourceful mice set about their adventure is a wonder. For though Miss Bianca means well, she is unable to confess that Nils has taken her idle doodle of a garden party hat for an accurate map of the waterways they must traverse. (Luckily, Miss Bianca’s refined manners and sprightly grace serve her better in her encounters with the head jailor’s cat, the fierce, yet somewhat dim, Mamelouk.)
This is a book which, once discovered, is read over and over. Each detail enchants and fascinates: the deliciously comfortable walnut-shell chairs in the committee room of the mice’s Prisoners’ Aid Society; the desperate message from the dungeons, cunningly stuck with black treacle to Mamelouk’s fur; even the flowery poems that Miss Bianca feels compelled to write at moments of high emotion.
Right from the start, The Rescuers was hailed as a classic. Since then, Margery Sharp’s short masterpiece has enthralled, amused and enriched the reading lives of young people everywhere.
Don’t miss it!
Anne Fine
Anne Fine has won a host of literary prizes both here and abroad, and from 2001–3 she was the Children’s Laureate.
Visit her website at www.annefine.co.uk (http://www.annefine.co.uk)
Chapter One (#ulink_b18720be-1dbf-5a8f-a275-706e48231266)
THE MEETING (#ulink_b18720be-1dbf-5a8f-a275-706e48231266)
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,” cried the Chairwoman Mouse, “we now come to the most important item on our autumn programme! Pray silence for the secretary!”
It was a full meeting of the Prisoners’ Aid Society. Everyone knows that the mice are the prisoner’s friend – sharing his dry breadcrumbs even when they are not hungry, allowing themselves to be taught all manner of foolish tricks, such as no self-respecting mouse would otherwise contemplate, in order to cheer his lonely hours. What is less well known is how splendidly they are organised. Not a prison in any land but has its own national branch of a wonderful, worldwide system. It is on record that long, long ago a Norman mouse took ship all the way to Turkey, to join a French sailor-boy locked up in Constantinople! The Jean Fromage Medal was struck in his honour.
The secretary rose. The chairwoman sat back in her seat, which was made from beautifully polished walnut shells, and fixed her clever eyes on his greying back. How she would have liked to put the matter to the meeting herself! An enterprise so difficult and dangerous! Dear, faithful old comrade as the secretary was, had he the necessary eloquence? But rules are rules.
She looked anxiously over the assembly, wondering which members would support her; there were at least a hundred mice present, seated in rows on neat matchbox benches. The Moot-house itself was a particularly fine one, a great empty wine cask, entered by the bung, whose splendid curving walls soared cathedral-like to the roof. Behind the speakers’ platform hung an oil painting, richly framed, depicting the mouse in Aesop’s Fable in his heroic act of freeing a captive lion.
“Well, it’s like this,” began the secretary. “You all know the Black Castle …”
Every mouse in the hall shuddered. The country they lived in was still barely civilised, a country of great gloomy mountains, enormous deserts, rivers like strangled seas. Even in its few towns, even here in the capital, its prisons were grim enough. But the Black Castle!
It reared up, the Black Castle, from a cliff above the angriest river of all. Its dungeons were cut in the cliff itself – windowless. Even the bravest mouse, assigned to the Black Castle, trembled before its great, cruel, iron-fanged gate.
From a front seat up spoke a mouse almost as old and rheumatic as the secretary himself. But he wore the Jean Fromage Medal.
“I know the Black Castle. Didn’t I spend six weeks there?”
Around him rose cries of “Hear, hear!” “Splendid chap!” and other encouragements.
“And did no good there,” continued the old hero gravely. “I say nothing of the personal danger – though what a cat that is of the Head Jailer’s! – twice natural size, and four times as fierce! – I say only that a prisoner in the Black Castle, a prisoner down in the dungeons, not even a mouse can aid. Call me defeatist if you will—”
“No, no!” cried the mice behind.
“—but I speak from sad experience. I couldn’t do anything for my prisoner at all. I couldn’t even reach him. One can’t cheer a prisoner in the Black Castle—”
“But one can get him out,” said the chairwoman.
There was a stunned silence. In the first place, the chairwoman shouldn’t have interrupted. In the second, her proposal was so astounding, so revolutionary, no mouse could do more than gape.
“Mr Secretary, forgive me,” apologised the chairwoman. “I was carried away by your eloquence.”
“As rules seem to be going by the board, you may as well take over,” said the secretary grumpily.
The chairwoman did so. There is nothing like breeding to give one confidence: she was descended in direct line from the senior of the Three Blind Mice. Calmly sleeking her whiskers—
“It’s rather an unusual case,” said the chairwoman blandly. “The prisoner is a poet. You will all, I know, cast your minds back to the many poets who have written favourably of our race – �Her feet beneath her petticoat like little mice stole in and out’ – Suckling, the Englishman – what a charming compliment! Thus do not poets deserve specially well of us?”
“If he’s a poet, why’s he in jail?” demanded a suspicious voice.
The chairwoman shrugged velvet shoulders.
“Perhaps he writes free verse,” she suggested cunningly.
A stir of approval answered her. Mice are all for people being free, so that they too can be freed from their eternal task of cheering prisoners – so that they can stay snug at home, nibbling the family cheese, instead of sleeping out in damp straw on a diet of stale bread.
“I see you follow me,” said the chairwoman. “It is a special case. Therefore we will rescue him. I should tell you also that the prisoner is a Norwegian. Don’t ask me how he got here, really no one can answer for a poet! But obviously the first thing to do is to get in touch with a compatriot, and summon him here, so that he may communicate with the prisoner in their common tongue.”
Two hundred ears pricked intelligently. All mice speak their own universal language, as well as that of the country they live in, but prisoners as a rule spoke only one.
“We therefore fetch a Norwegian mouse here,” recapitulated the chairwoman, “dispatch him to the Black Castle—”
“Stop a bit,” said the secretary.
The chairwoman had to.
“No one more than I,” said the secretary, “admires the chairwoman’s spirit. But has she, in her feminine enthusiasm, considered the difficulties? �Fetch a mouse from Norway’ – in the first place! How long will that take, even if possible?”
“Remember Jean Fromage!” pleaded the chairwoman.
“I do remember Jean Fromage. No mouse worthy of the name could ever forget him,” agreed the secretary. “But he had to be got in touch with first, and travelling isn’t as easy as it used to be.”
How quickly a public meeting is swayed! Now all the chairwoman’s eloquence was forgotten; there was a general murmur of assent.
“In the old days,” continued the secretary, “when every vehicle was horse-drawn, a mouse could cross half Europe really in luxury. How delightful it was to get up into a well-appointed coach, make a snug little nest among the cushions, slip out at regular intervals to a nose-bag! Farm carts were even better; there one had room to stretch one’s legs, and meals were simply continuous! Even railway carriages, of the old wooden sort, weren’t too uncomfortable—”
“Now they make them of metal,” put in a mouse at the back. “Has anyone here ever tried nibbling steel plate?”
“And at least trains were speedy,” went on the secretary. “Now, as our friend points out, they are practically impossible to get a seat in. As for motorcars, apart from the fact that they often carry dogs, in a motorcar one always feels so conspicuous. A ship, you say? We are a hundred miles from the nearest port! Without a single mail coach or even private carriage on the roads, how long would it take, Chairwoman, to cover a hundred miles in a succession of milk floats?”
“As a matter of fact,” said the chairwoman blandly, “I was thinking of an aeroplane.”
Every mouse in the hall gasped. An aeroplane! To travel by air was the dream of each one; but if trains were now difficult to board, an aeroplane was believed impossible!
“I was thinking,” added the chairwoman, “of Miss Bianca.”
The mice gasped again.
Everyone knew who Miss Bianca was, but none had ever seen her.
What was known was that she was a white mouse belonging to the ambassador’s son, and lived in the schoolroom at the embassy. Apart from that, there were the most fantastic rumours about her: for instance, that she lived in a porcelain pagoda: that she fed exclusively on cream cheese from a silver bonbon dish: that she wore a silver chain round her neck, and on Sundays a gold one. She was also said to be extremely beautiful, but affected to the last degree.
“It has come to my knowledge,” proceeded the chairwoman, rather enjoying the sensation she had caused, “that the ambassador has been transferred, and that in two days’ time he will leave for Norway by air! The Boy of course travels with him, and with the Boy travels Miss Bianca – to be precise, in the Diplomatic Bag. No one on the plane is going to examine that; she enjoys diplomatic immunity. She is thus the very person to undertake our mission.”
By this time the mice had had time to think. Several of them spoke at once.
“Yes, but—” they began.
“But what?” asked the chairwoman sharply.
“You say, �the very person’,” pronounced the secretary, speaking for all. “But is that true? From all one hears, Miss Bianca has been bred up to complete luxury and idleness. Will she have the necessary courage, the necessary nerve? This Norwegian, whoever he is, won’t know to get in touch with her, she will have to get in touch with him. Has she even the necessary wits? Brilliant as your plan undoubtedly is, I for one have the gravest doubts of its practicalness.”
“That remains to be seen,” said the chairwoman. She had indeed some doubts herself; but she also had great faith in her own sex. In any case, she wasn’t going to be led into argument. “Is there anyone,” she called briskly, “from the embassy here with us now?”
For a moment all waited; then there was a slight scuffling at the back as though someone who didn’t want to was being urged by his friends to step forward, and finally a short, sturdy young mouse tramped up towards the platform. He looked rough but decent. No one was surprised to learn (in answer to the chairwoman’s questioning) that he worked in the pantry.
“I suppose you, Bernard, have never seen Miss Bianca either?” said the chairwoman kindly.
“Not me,” mumbled Bernard.
“But you could reach her?”
“I dare say,” admitted Bernard – shuffling his big feet.
“Then reach her you must, and without delay,” said the chairwoman. “Present the compliments of the meeting, explain the situation, and bid her instantly seek out the bravest mouse in Norway, and dispatch him back here to the Moot-house.”
Bernard shuffled his feet again.
“Suppose she doesn’t want, ma’am?”
“Then you must persuade her, my dear boy,” said the chairwoman. “If necessary, bully her! – What’s that you have on your chest?”
Bernard squinted self-consciously down. His fur was so thick and rough, the medal scarcely showed.
“The Tybalt Star, ma’am …”
“For Gallantry in the Face of Cats,” nodded the chairwoman. “I believe I remember the incident … A cat nipped on the tail, was it not, thus permitting a nursing mother of six to regain her hole?”
“She was my sister-in-law,” muttered Bernard, flushing.
“Then I can’t believe you’re not a match for Miss Bianca!” cried the chairwoman.
With that (after several votes of thanks), the meeting broke up; and Bernard, feeling important but uneasy, set off back to the embassy.
At least his route to the Boy’s schoolroom presented no difficulties. There was a small service lift running directly up from the pantry itself, used to carry such light refreshments as glasses of milk, chocolate biscuits, and tea for the Boy’s tutor. Bernard waited till half-past eight, when the last glass of milk went up (hot), and went up with it by clinging to one of the lift-ropes. As soon as the flap above opened he nipped out and slipped into the nearest shadow to wait again. He waited a long, long time; he heard the Boy put to bed in an adjoining room, and a wonderful rustle of satin as the Boy’s mother came to kiss him goodnight. (Bernard was of course waiting with his eyes shut; nothing draws attention to a mouse like the gleam of his eyes.) Then at last all was still, and forth he crept for a good look round.
In one respect at least rumour had not lied. There in an angle of the great room, on a low stool nicely out of floor draughts, stood a porcelain pagoda.
Chapter Two (#ulink_a24e608f-1e2c-5783-a55a-ee567a6323f1)
MISS BIANCA (#ulink_a24e608f-1e2c-5783-a55a-ee567a6323f1)
IT WAS THE most exquisite residence Bernard had ever seen, or indeed could ever have imagined. Its smooth, gleaming walls were beautifully painted with all sorts of small flowers – violets, primroses and lilies-of-the-valley – and the roof rose in tier upon tier of curly gilded eaves, from each corner of which hung a golden bell. Round about was a pleasure-ground, rather like a big birdcage, fenced and roofed with golden wires, and fitted with swings, seesaws and other means of gentle relaxation. Bernard’s eyes felt as big as his ears as he diffidently approached – and he himself felt a very rough, plain mouse indeed.
“Miss Bianca!” he called softly.
From inside the pagoda came the faintest of rustling sounds, like silk sheets being pulled over someone’s head; but nobody appeared.
“Don’t be afraid, Miss Bianca!” called Bernard. “I’m not burglars, I am Bernard from the pantry with a most important message.”
He waited again. One of the golden bells, as though a moth had flown past, tinkled faintly. Then again there was a rustling, and at last Miss Bianca came out.
Her loveliness took Bernard’s breath away. She was very small, but with a perfect figure, and her sleek, silvery-white coat had all the rich softness of ermine. But her chiefest point of beauty was her eyes. The eyes of most white mice are pink: Miss Bianca’s were deep brown. In conjunction with her snowy head, they gave her the appearance of a powdered beauty of the court of Louis the Fifteenth.
Round her neck she wore a very fine silver chain.
Bernard took two steps back, then one forward, and politely pulled his whiskers.
“Are you calling?” asked Miss Bianca, in a very low, sweet voice.
“Well, I was—” began Bernard.
“How very nice!” exclaimed Miss Bianca. “If you wouldn’t mind swinging on that bell-pull, the gate will open. Are there any ladies with you?”
Bernard muttered something about the chairwoman, but too hoarsely to be understood. Not that it mattered: Miss Bianca’s beautiful manners smoothed all social embarrassment. As soon as he was inside she began to show him round, naming every painted flower on the porcelain walls, and inviting him to try for himself each swing and seesaw. “Pretty, isn’t it?” she said modestly. “Though nothing, I believe, compared with Versailles … Would you care to see the fountain?”
Bernard nodded dumbly. As yet he hadn’t even noticed the fountain; it was in fact a staggering six inches high, made of pink and green Venetian glass. Miss Bianca sat down on a hidden spring, and at once a jet of water shot up out of the pink rosette on top. “There is a way of making it stay,” she explained, “but I’m afraid I know nothing about machinery!” She rose, and the jet subsided. Bernard would have liked to have a go himself, but he was only too conscious that time was passing, and that as yet his message was undelivered.
Indeed it was hard to know where to begin. It was such a jump from Venetian glass fountains to the Prisoners’ Aid Society. Moreover, though he no longer thought Miss Bianca affected, in fact he liked her very much, he couldn’t for the life of him see her doing anything more strenuous than swinging on a gilt swing. And the turn the conversation next took fairly curled his whiskers!
“I see you’ve been decorated,” said Miss Bianca politely. (She was naturally familiar with medals, and orders and ribbands.) “May I ask what it is for?”
“Gallantry in the Face of Cats,” muttered Bernard. First to his chagrin, then to his astonishment, she burst into musical laughter.
“In the face of cats? How very droll! I dote on cats!” laughed Miss Bianca. “Or rather,” she added sentimentally, “on one particular cat … a most beautiful Persian, white as I am myself, belonging to the Boy’s mother. I used to play in his fur; I’m told we made rather a pretty picture … Alas, he is no more,” sighed Miss Bianca, “but for his sake all cats will ever be dear to me!”
Bernard was absolutely speechless. He didn’t disbelieve Miss Bianca; he could, just, imagine some pampered lap-cat fat enough and drowsy enough to have lost all natural instincts. But what an appealing thought – a mouse going out into the world alone, on a mission of danger, not afraid of cats!
“My poor playfellow! Ah me!” sighed Miss Bianca tenderly.
“Look here, you’ve got to promise—” began Bernard; and gave up. There was a dreamy look in her eyes which warned him, though he didn’t know much about women, that it was the wrong moment to run cats down. Instead, he attempted to console her.
“You’ve got all this,” he pointed out, looking round at the swings and the seesaws and the fountain.
“And how trifling it seems!” sighed Miss Bianca. “How trifling it must seem, especially, to you, compared with the real and earnest life of a pantry!”
Bernard drew a deep breath. Now or never, he thought!
“Would you like to do something real and earnest too, Miss Bianca?”
She hesitated. Her lovely eyes were for a moment veiled. Then one small pink hand crept up to finger the silver chain.
“No,” said Miss Bianca decidedly. “I’m so fond, you see, of the Boy. And he is so attached to me, how many times have I not heard him call me his only friend! I feel so long as I do my duty to the Boy, my existence, however frivolous it may appear, is in fact quite earnest enough.”
“That’s one way of looking at it,” said Bernard glumly. (They should have sent the chairwoman, he thought, not him. The chairwoman could talk about duty quite wonderfully.) “All the same,” he persisted, “you’re not with the Boy all the time. You’re not with him now, for instance.” (There was considerable point in this; it is at night that mice most want to be up and doing, and are most bored by inactivity.) “Actually, now that you’ve no longer your, h’m, playfellow, I really don’t see how you occupy yourself.”
“Well, as a matter of fact,” said Miss Bianca modestly, “I write.”
Bernard gaped. He had never met a writer before! Though he was terribly afraid of wasting time, he couldn’t help asking What.
“Poetry,” confessed Miss Bianca.
How Bernard’s heart leapt!
For so was the Norwegian prisoner a poet!
What a wonderful, fortunate coincidence! The very thing to make Miss Bianca change her mind! Without giving himself time to think, and without any transition, Bernard blurted it all out – all about the Prisoners’ Aid Society, all about the great enterprise, all about Miss Bianca’s part in it, all about everything.
The result was exactly what might have been expected. Miss Bianca fainted clean away.
Desperately Bernard slapped her hands, fanned her face, leapt to the hidden spring, turned on the fountain, with incredible agility leapt again and caught a drop of water before it subsided, sprinkled Miss Bianca’s forehead. (Oh for the chairwoman, he thought!) Seconds passed, a long minute, before the dark eyelashes fluttered and Miss Bianca came to.
“Where am I?” she murmured faintly.
“Here, in your own porcelain pagoda,” reassured Bernard. “I am Bernard from the pantry—”
“Go away!” shrieked Miss Bianca.
“If you’ll only listen quietly—”
“I won’t hear any more!” cried Miss Bianca. “I don’t want anything to do with you! Go away, go away, go away!”
Greatly daring, Bernard caught both her hands and pressed them between his own. The action seemed to steady her. She stopped trembling.
“Dear, dearest Miss Bianca,” said Bernard fervently, “if I could take your place, do you think I wouldn’t? To spare you the least inconvenience, I’d walk into cat baskets! But I can’t travel by Diplomatic Bag, I can’t get to Norway in twenty-four hours. Nor can anyone else. You, and you alone, can be this poor chap’s saviour.”
At least she was listening, and at least she didn’t push Bernard away. She even left her hands in his.
“And a poet!” went on Bernard. “Only consider, dear Miss Bianca – a poet like yourself! How can you bear to think of him, alone in a deep dark dungeon, when one word from you—”
“Is that really all?” whispered Miss Bianca. “Just one word?”
“Well, of course you’ve got to say it to the right mouse,” admitted Bernard honestly. “And to find him I dare say you’ll have to go into pretty rough quarters. I tell you my blood boils when I think of it—”
“Why?” whispered Miss Bianca. “Why does your blood boil?”
“Because you’re so beautiful!” cried Bernard recklessly. “It’s not fair to ask you to be brave as well! You should be protected and cherished and loved and honoured, and I for my part ask nothing better than to lie down and let you walk on me!”
Miss Bianca rested her head lightly against his shoulder.
“You give me such a good opinion of myself,” she said softly, “perhaps I could be brave as well …”
Poem by Miss Bianca, written that night
“Though timid beats the female heart,
Tempered by only Cupid’s fires,
The touch of an heroic hand
With unaccustomed bravery inspires.”
M.B.
Chapter Three (#ulink_767dc9aa-7908-5c0c-ae96-bcd1025f53a2)
IN NORWAY (#ulink_767dc9aa-7908-5c0c-ae96-bcd1025f53a2)
THREE DAYS LATER, Miss Bianca was in Norway.
The journey, as usual, had given her not the least trouble. She travelled as usual in the Diplomatic Bag, where she amused herself by reading secret documents while the great aeroplane flew smoothly and swiftly over mountain and forest, river, and finally, sea. (To be accurate, there was a slight bumpiness of the mountain part, but Miss Bianca was too absorbed in a very Top Secret to notice.) Precisely twenty-four hours after departure she was reinstalled in her porcelain pagoda in the Boy’s new schoolroom in Oslo, the capital of Norway.
It was then her mission really began; with, in Miss Bianca’s opinion, far too much left to her own initiative. She was simply to seek out the bravest mouse in Norway! Without the slightest idea where he was to be found – or indeed where any mice were to be found! For Miss Bianca’s life had been so remarkably sheltered, she really didn’t know anything at all about how other mice lived. Except for Bernard, she had never even spoken to one.
Except for Bernard … Miss Bianca’s thoughts flew to him so readily, she felt quite angry with herself. Now that the excitement of their midnight meeting was past, she couldn’t help recognising that good and brave as Bernard was, he was also completely undistinguished. Yet how kind and resourceful, when she fainted! How understanding, when she came to, of all her doubts and fears! And how lost in admiration, how absolutely overcome, when she finally accepted her heroic task!
“I must be worthy,” thought Miss Bianca. And mentally added – “Of the Prisoners’ Aid Society.”
So the very first night in her new quarters, she set out.
No one knew she was so slim that she could squeeze between the gilded palings of her pleasure-ground. Certainly the Boy didn’t know it. But she could.
The door of the new schoolroom didn’t quite fit. In the morning no doubt someone would see to it; in the meantime, Miss Bianca slipped under. Outside, immediately, she still felt pretty well at home – all embassies being much of a muchness. There was first a broad corridor, then a broad landing, then a grand staircase leading down to a great grand entrance hall. (Miss Bianca, who had an eye for carpets, even recognised everywhere familiar patterns.) But she hadn’t so far encountered any other mouse. “The pantry!” thought Miss Bianca – remembering Bernard again. “But where on earth are the pantries?”
However sheltered, all women have certain domestic instincts. Miss Bianca was pretty sure she ought to get lower down.
She also knew about service lifts. Passing from the entrance hall into the dining room, and observing a gap in its panelling (left open by a careless footman), up Miss Bianca ran to investigate. There inside, sure enough, were the proper ropes. “Obviously connected with the pantry,” thought Miss Bianca, climbing on. When after two or three minutes nothing happened, she boldly ran down – quite enjoying the easy exercise, and quite confident of finding herself in a pantry below.
Actually this particular service lift ran straight down to the embassy cellars. Which was fortunate as it turned out, though Miss Bianca didn’t immediately think so.
For what a sight, as she emerged, met her eyes!
Remember it was well after midnight, it must have been nearly two o’clock in the morning, the hour at which mice feel themselves most secure. In the embassy cellar there was evidently some kind of bachelor party going on. At least fifty Norwegian mice were gathered there – singing and shouting and drinking beer. The most part wore sea boots and stocking caps; some had gold earrings in their ears, some a patch over one eye. Some had a wooden leg. It was in fact the most piratical-looking party imaginable, and how any one of them ever got into an embassy, Miss Bianca really couldn’t imagine.
Never had she felt more uncomfortable. It is always trying to enter a room full of strangers – and such strangers! What a racket they made! The singing and shouting almost deafened her ears, there wasn’t a moment of repose. (Miss Bianca had frequently assisted, from the Boy’s pocket, at diplomatic soirées. There, always, was a moment of repose; in fact sometimes the moments ran into each other and made hours of repose.) Even if she shouted she couldn’t have made herself heard, and Miss Bianca had never shouted in her life! She stood utterly at a loss, trembling with dismay; until at last a mouse nearby turned and saw her, and immediately uttered a long, low whistle. It was vulgar, but it did the trick. Head after head turned in Miss Bianca’s direction; and so spectacular was her fair beauty, silence fell at last like a refreshing dew.
“Forgive me for joining you uninvited,” said Miss Bianca nervously, “but I am a delegate from the Prisoners’ Aid Society, seeking the bravest mouse in Norway, on behalf of a Norwegian poet imprisoned in our parts.”
Simply as she spoke, it was with a touching grace. Several mice at once cuffed each other for want of respect to the lady. Several tankards were kicked under benches. One of the soberest of the seafarers, who looked as though he might be a petty officer, stepped forward and touched his cap.
“Anyone from the Prisoners’ Aid, ma’am,” he said forthrightly, “finds all here ready and willing at the first tide. Just pick your chap, and he’ll put himself under orders.”
“How splendid!” said Miss Bianca, greatly encouraged. “Though how can I pick, stranger as I am? You must tell me, who is the bravest.”
“All of ’em,” replied the petty officer. “All our lads are brave equally. Look about for yourself, ma’am, and count the Tybalt Stars!” (There was one on his own chest, with clasp.) “Some may look a bit rough to a lady – pipe down there, you by the bar! – but as to being brave, each and all rate A1 at Lloyd’s.”
Miss Bianca still felt any decision quite beyond her.
“Won’t you choose for me?” she begged. “Of course it should really be a volunteer – but if you could give me any indication—”
The petty officer simply reached out a hand and clapped it on the nearest shoulder – only then looking round to see whom he’d got.
“You, Nils!” he snapped. “You a volunteer?”
“Aye, aye, sir,” said Nils.
“Not a family man, or anything of that sort?”
“Not me,” said Nils. (Several of his friends round the bar roared with laughter.)
“Willing to put yourself under this lady’s orders?”
“Please, under the orders of the Prisoners’ Aid Society!” cried Miss Bianca.
“All comes to the same thing,” said the petty officer. “You just tell Nils what to do, ma’am, and Nils he will do it.”
With that, as though no more had been settled than who was to run into the next room, all returned to singing and shouting and standing each other rounds of beer, and Nils and Miss Bianca were left alone.
She looked at him attentively. He was indeed rough to a degree. His sea boots smelt of tar, and his stocking cap had obviously never been washed since it was knitted. But he had good steady eyes, and he appeared quite unperturbed.
As simply as possible, Miss Bianca outlined the situation. She hoped he was taking it all in – he was so very unperturbed! Also, he would keep humming softly under his breath.
“You’re quite sure you understand?” she said anxiously. “How you travel in the first place I must leave to you—”
“Why, by ship – o’ course,” said Nils.
“I believe the capital is some distance from the nearest port,” warned Miss Bianca.
“Ship and dinghy, then,” said Nils. “Wherever there’s towns there’s water – stands to reason – and wherever there’s water, there us Norwegians can go.”
“How resourceful you are!” exclaimed Miss Bianca admiringly. “As to reaching the Black Castle itself, for that the chairwoman will have a plan. You must get in touch with her immediately, at the Moot-house.”
For the first time, Nils looked uneasy.
“Could you let me have a chart, ma’am? On shore I’m a bit apt to lose my bearings.”
“Certainly,” said Miss Bianca. “If you will give me the materials, I’ll do it now.”
After a little searching, Nils produced from one of his boots a paper bag and a stump of red chalk. (He found several other things first, such as half a pair of socks, a box of Elastoplast, a double-six of dominoes, a ball of twine and a folding corkscrew.) Miss Bianca sat down at a table and smoothed the bag flat.
At the end of ten minutes, all she had produced was a sort of very complicated spider web.
The Moot-house was in the middle – that was quite clear; but the rest was just a muddle of crissВcross lines. Miss Bianca felt so ashamed, she rapidly sketched a lady’s hat – just to show she really could draw – and began again.
“Hadn’t you best start with the points of the compass, ma’am?” suggested Nils.
Miss Bianca, alas, had never even heard of compass points!
“You put them in,” she said, turning the paper over. Nils took the chalk and marked top and bottom, then each side, with an N, an S, an E and a W. Then he gave the chalk back, and Miss Bianca again put a dot in the middle of the Moot-house – and again, out of sheer nervousness, drew a lady’s hat round it. (The garden-party sort, with a wide brim and a wreath of roses.) Nils studied it respectfully.
“That I’d call clear as daylight,” said he. “You should ha’ set your compass first.” He laid a finger on one of the roses. “Them, I take it, would be duckponds?”
“Oh, dear!” thought Miss Bianca. She knew perfectly well where the Moot-house stood – Bernard had explained everything so clearly – but she just couldn’t, it seemed, put her knowledge on paper. And here was good brave Nils preparing to set forth with no more guide than a garden-party hat!
“Yes,” said Miss Bianca recklessly. “Those are duckponds …”
An idea was forming in her mind, an idea so extraordinary and thrilling, her heart at once began to beat faster.
“All the same,” added Miss Bianca, “I think it will be wiser to return with you myself, and conduct you to the Moot-house in person.”
What on earth induced her to make such a mad, unnecessary offer? Her own personal mission was creditably accomplished, no one expected any more of her, upstairs in the Boy’s new schoolroom a luxurious porcelain pagoda waited for her to come back to it. As the Boy waited for her – or would wait, how anxiously, should she quit his side! Miss Bianca’s eyes filled with tears as she thought of him. But she thought also of someone else: of Bernard from the pantry.
It has often been remarked that women of rank, once their affections are engaged, can be completely reckless of the consequences. Duchesses throw their caps over the windmill for grooms, countesses for footmen. Miss Bianca, more discerningly, remembered Bernard’s modesty and kindness and courage. “Did I call him undistinguished?” she chided herself. “Isn’t the Tybalt Star distinction enough for anyone?” To make no bones about it, Miss Bianca suddenly felt that if she was never to see Bernard again, life in any number of porcelain pagodas would be but a hollow sham.
Thus, since obviously Bernard couldn’t come to her, it was she who had to rejoin Bernard; and fortunately duty and inclination coincided.
“Which I take very kindly,” Nils was saying. “Can you be ready, ma’am, by the dawn tide?”
“What!” exclaimed Miss Bianca. Her thoughts hadn’t carried her quite as far as that!
“It so happens there’s a cargo boat,” explained Nils. “Nothing like cargo boats for picking up a passage upon! And not so many bound your ways neither – we should take the chance! In fact, in my opinion, we should start for the docks straight off.”
“Heavens!” thought Miss Bianca. Yet in one way it made her decision easier. The thought of seeing the Boy again, possibly for the last time – of running up on to his pillow and breathing a last farewell in his ear – was already almost unnerving her. “Better not,” she thought, “I might break down …” She rose, smiling.
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