Porcelain Pagodas and Dirty Pillows: Margery Sharp’s great study in Taste, Service, and Adventure

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From Golden Swings to Cold Dark Icicles: the Pendulum Bravery of the World’s Most Refined Mouse

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Miss Bianca’s Life: a study in rough adventure, cold barren wastelands and strife, and Ornate and Resplendent luxury

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Miss Bianca’s abilities in adventurous homemaking

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The love of luxury, second only to Love of Lost children: Miss Bianca’s life

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Miss Bianca’s life: One moment on a garden chair, the next riding on the back of an elephant!

~ by Chloe Zou

It was the most exquisite residence Bernard had ever seen, or indeed could 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 curly gilded eaves, from each corner of which hung a golden bell. Round about was a pleasure ground, rather like a big bird-cage, fenced and roofed with golden wires, and fitted with swings, seesaws and other means of gentle relaxation. 

~The Rescuers by Margery Sharp

The Porcelain Pagoda is the home of the ermine white mouse, Miss Bianca, with her famous silver chain! That was the start, before she went on so many adventures that changed her perspective around her, but after each, she would arrive back home (maybe sailing, or elegantly hopping off an early morning postal truck) a different mouse. Back in the comforts of her home, she might just compose a few new lines to add into her growing collection of poems, inspired by the many different feelings she had gained from adventure.

Miss Bianca, such a unique mouse, in both looks and personality, came straight from Margery Sharp’s very own imagination. Sharp, born right near the end of January, 1905, spent her childhood in the island country of Malta (where there were beautiful turquoise waves, and castles the color of sand – in fact they looked just like sand castles that had grown many times in size!), and soon became a professional writer. Along with the boatloads of books she wrote for adults, she is also the author who wrote the famous series: The Rescuers, which in my mind, and maybe yours too, would be a series that represents the entire genre of juvenile fiction. Not just that, she is also someone that really helped develop the mice adventure stories. Just think of some of the mice adventure books that you were sure to see in a local library, some of which you have probably read too! Geronimo Stilton is one (I know a close friend of mine quite enjoyed those books when she was younger)! Or another one that might pop into your mind: Despereaux, the tale of a fighter mouse! Can you see now, what an accomplished author Margery Sharp really is?! For an essay focusing on identifying and defining the genre, see here for my older classmate at MWLS: Miss Jamie Pan! Please see here: https://mrwattsliteraryservices.com/jamie-pan/

In the first book, The Rescuers, (which is what the Disney film is named) Miss Bianca takes on a new perspective as she voyages and gets seasick on a boat with Nils, the sailor mouse, who probably spends more time on a boat in the middle of the ocean than actually on land. “No doubt it’s because you’re a race of seafarers,” she said, “that your wives are left so much alone. Marrying a mouse in a good shore situation, such as a Pantry, for instance, would no doubt be very different. At least he would remain at one’s side, in however modest a dwelling.” Here you can see that maybe Miss Bianca is talking about homes in general to maybe comfort her own homesickness, for after all, this is her first time away on such an adventure. This is really the first time where she has not been the center of attention, and it makes her reflect on all the things in her life that she has taken for granted: life in her breathtaking porcelain pagoda (it took away Bernard’s breath!), all the little things like cream cheese in a bonbon dish, or the silver chain that she always wore around her neck… before they all seemed like necessary items. But now? Maybe not. 

You can see Miss Bianca as she adapts to life outside her Porcelain Pagoda with little golden bells and golden swings, but that doesn’t mean that she suddenly downgrades a lot. She can’t take her Porcelain Pagoda with her but she can make her home away from home quite elegant and comfy too! For example, the little hole where Miss Bianca, Bernard and Nils took shelter away from Mamelouk was definitely not as elegant as the Porcelain Pagoda, but they still made it neat and organized and comfy: “…the entrance passage, which ran direct angles from the wainscot, quite two and a half inches long, and there was their lobby, where were kept Bernard’s cudgel, Nil’s sea boots and cutlass, and Miss Bianca’s valise.” This lobby was no doubt kept clean by the scruffy, brownish mouse Bernard. “Beyond, between the wainscot and the original granite, and from the stove to the outer wall, stretched a quite commodious apartment.” Leave it up to these three mice to find a “commodious apartment” inside the dark and dreary walls of the Black Castle. “Bernard clearly divided it with match-boarding – the sitting room floor was quite littered with empty matchboxes – to make Miss Bianca a bedroom by the stove, a slightly larger one for himself and Nils at the other end, and a parlor for general use in between.” Perhaps the reason that Bernard is putting in so much work into this hole in the wall is because he has visited Miss Bianca in her Porcelain Pagoda, and wants to make her feel at home.

As you can see, this hole in the wall might not have been a paragon of perfection like the Porcelain Pagoda, but it was enough for shelter in the Black Castle. 

And now! On to the second book, where Miss Bianca takes on a daring mission to the Diamond Palace to save a small little girl named Patience. She happens to be the eponymous hero of the book, Miss Bianca (haha)! Now isn’t that funny, how this word “eponymous” just happens to almost sound like it has the word mouse at the end, “eponymous[e]”: it is almost like Margery Sharp knew this and meant for it to happen! 

“She had worn it even in the Black Castle; each time she had fingered it, what beautiful memories came flooding back! – of her Porcelain Pagoda, with its swansdown cushion; of Ambassadorial dinner parties, when it was so much admired; best of all, of the boy himself, her kind protector and playmate”. Here as Miss Bianca fingers her exactly one-inch long silver chain right before she throws it out the carriage window for Bernard to find, you can see how much Miss Bianca really misses her stunning Porcelain Pagoda, even if she puts on a cheerful front for poor, little Patience. After all, it is hard to leave your home and go somewhere new, especially if that new place was the Diamond Palace, the fancy place that yet just gave off a cold feeling, making anyone want to turn back. This might also be the reason that Miss Bianca has a more intense homesickness at the Diamond Palace, sleeping as she does on Patience’s pillow. The Palace in a way is grander than a Pagoda could ever be , but this Palace is dreadful. Perhaps her longing for the Porcelain Pagoda where she might just sit down and get inspired to write a few lines of poetry is increased – but the only way to truly find out would be to ask her yourself. Patience and Miss Bianca were sadly without a decent place to rest – only the little attic, with a little bed that was covered in a bunch of diamonds (rock crystals), which as you can imagine was not comfortable, kind of like Smaug in The Hobbit who slept on his bed of gems, jewels, and gold.

The courageous and poetic Miss Bianca has had two successful rescues so far (she’s on a roll!), which has helped her to grow into a lady-like mouse who has a wide knowledge of things outside of her Porcelain Pagoda. In The Turret (which is the third book in the series, though you probably guessed!), Margery Sharp has changed things up a bit; Miss Bianca is resigning from her position as Madam Chairwoman and the prisoner that she is rescuing just happens to be the not-so-innocent consigliere Mandrake from the previous book! As she keeps watch one night in the turret, she does not have much homesickness, especially since she will return to her Porcelain Pagoda in the early morning. But now, observing Mandrake, a hairy, dirty prisoner, eating his porridge, which, incidentally, has the filthy toenails of his troglodytic guard mixed in, she uses her free time to write a poem, using Mandrake as her inspiration. 

      Mandrake! Thou name once dreaded, now more meet

  For scornful pity, than for righteous rage! 

      How shall I ever get thee on thy feet,

  To lead to some receptive orphanage?

Now, on to the fourth book of the series, Miss Bianca in the Salt Mines, where once again the poetic Miss Bianca must leave the comforts of her Porcelain Pagoda, with the “furniture hand-carved from sweet-smelling cedarwood”… and go to a dark and dreary place, where no mouse should be, the… (wait, drumroll please!) Salt Mines! In the Salt Mines, Miss Bianca is in some ways luckier than before since there are little houses (even a Pagoda!) made out of salt by earlier prisoners, perfect for the mice to live and take shelter in. In fact some of them were quite elegant:

East to West, across the square in which Bernard and Miss Bianca stood amazed, the dome of a mosque confronted the pillars of a Greek temple: north to south, a pagoda and a French chateau. Each edifice adjoining was equally individual: a Swiss chalet, something that looked like the Forum at Rome, a hunting lodge from the Black Forests, a charming Florentine Villa, and even an igloo.

But even though great shelter is offered …Miss Bianca’s yearning for home is not cured. As Miss Bianca stands amazed in the square, looking at some super elegant houses, could part of her possibly be imagining herself back at the Porcelain Pagoda, wishing that she was inhaling the smell of that sweet cedarwood, instead of being stuck in a dark salt mine with big icicles hanging from the ceiling, and basically no way out?

In the fifth book, Miss Bianca in the Orient, ahhhh even the name gives off a regal feel, does it not? Margery Sharp has once again decided to change it up a bit – Miss Bianca has never traveled this far before on a rescue mission, and she is going to the other side of the world! Plus, this might be the most comfortable trip so far, as they fly there on a Pan-AM 747, not a dangerous train that could go off the tracks at any second, or the horse drawn wagon clomping towards the Black Castle. And to make it even better, it is beautifully resplendent place, which Miss Bianca named “Chez Cockatoo” which is meant for a pair of cockatoos instead of a mice, but that doesn’t mean Miss Bianca can’t relax at her temporary home, enjoying a vacation until almost the last second, either. Her days in the Orient are actually quite relaxing and stress free, at least for most of the time, she probably doesn’t even have much homesickness. In fact, she even gets to fulfill a long time dream of hers, meeting a peacock! But, who knows if she was homesick or not? Unless we were to ask the little white mouse Miss Bianca herself, we would really never know, only to guess. 

The oddest place to live yet! Under a Shakespeare book! In the sixth book of the Rescuers series, Miss Bianca in the Antarctic, Miss Bianca and Bernad do just that. Stranded in the cold Antarctic where there were “awful, towering mountains, such as Mount Erebus” after successfully rescuing the Norwegian poet (who we all know and love from the first book of the series) they were truly lost – abandoned to the ice and snow. Even Miss Bianca with nary an idea of how to get back, only knows that they must take shelter, which is how they ended up under the Complete Works of Shakespeare, Leopold Edition in the first place. It’s easy to see that this time, poor Miss B and Bernard are offered probably the worst living situation yet, without even a proper building. But at least this book had around 1,000 pages that offered decent insulation and even a carpet that was really the poet’s “soft, leather bookmark”. I’m sure as Miss Bianca sat there between the pages 566 and 567, about to fall asleep with the fear of freezing to death, and composing yet another poem:

O Bard of Avon! Neath they sheltering wings

(Or pages printed with immortal verse),

Behold a true admirer of thine art

Preserved from death by freezing, if not worse

…she was more homesick than ever before. 

Next, onto the next place that they take shelter in, in Antarctica! Yes! You heard me right, in this book Miss Bianca and Bernard aren’t just stuck with one horrific shelter, but multiple! In fact, three, though the last one really isn’t much of a shelter – this time, it is a snow castle, made for them by a polar bear! Yep, a polar bear in the Antarctic! I know you have only heard of them in the Arctic, but have you ever heard of the polar bear exchange program? This family of polar bears was part of it and moved to the Antarctic for a stay! Encased in walls of snow, Miss Bianca and Bernard, though relatively comfortable, had no way to escape. The walls of snow, which were too unstable to even hold the almost weightless Miss Bianca would not hold long enough for either of them to escape – and to make matters worse, the polar bear cub named Humbert, would return everyday to make new walls for his “fairies”. This snow castle is quite comfy as it was, where “Miss Bianca sank exhausted a little natural sofa or chaise-lounge at once formed beneath her form, and wherever Bernard flopped he was practically in a sleeping bag.” But still they did not want to stay, and with the help of some Adelie penguins they managed to escape, which is how they ended up at their next so-called shelter.

A large oyster shell for Miss Bianca, and the snow for Bernard where he turned quite stiff, until the earthquake! This rather large oyster shell might have been the best shelter so far here in the Antarctic, which was “layered first with dried moss (to give spring like a spring-mattress), then with eider duck down (for warmth without weight).” In fact, so comfy that right as Miss Bianca woke, she imagined herself “back between the silk sheets of her own Porcelain Pagoda” though of course she wasn’t. But this could be another sign of how much she wants her home, and how much she wishes she were there instead of one of the coldest places on earth! 

You might be wondering, earthquake? How did an earthquake happen in the Antarctic? Well, it turns out that all you need is an Emperor penguin that you have gotten very irritated and agitated. The rest just happens! In Miss Bianca in the Antarctic – Miss Bianca had just become FED UP with the horrible Emperor penguin and his disgust towards the Adelie penguins, and how he seems to show absolutely no emotion for poor Bernard… when Bianca exploded at him. Now keep in mind that Miss Bianca as we all know is very tactful and does not have a history of blowing up like this, but this time she was VERY, VERY annoyed, which was why she said…”Why, such as being enslaved by a cruel tyrant! Better far to be blown sky-high whilst still at liberty, as I’m sure the most feckless Adelie would agree! As I too, would sacrifice all hope of ever seeing my dear Boy again, or Bernard, or any member of the MPAS, sooner than become your stool-pigeon! So stamp!” She needs him to start an earthquake with his foot?? Here as you can see this is probably the most emotional that Miss B will ever get, at least that we know of (so far in the 7-book in the series, I, for one, have not witnessed this depth of unbridled passion?). After her explosive rant, that black, leathery Emperor penguin does indeed raise one of his big feet and STAMPS, pausing after to look at Miss Bianca, giving her one last chance to apologize and take back what she said, as he did have a liking for her, but no, Miss Bianca does not take it (are we surprised?), and he stamps again… sending the Adelie penguin, Bernard who finally wakes, and herself all flying into the air. At least they get to feel what it is like to fly! Most of us don’t get to have that feeling!

This might seem like the end for these two mice, but they are extremely lucky as they fall into the Antarctic sea down below. Instead of suffering their cold, cold fate, they land “upon the rim of a red-and-white wreath frozen almost to red-and-white coral, and floating just like a life-belt”. Then before Miss B and Bernie, once again plummet into the dark blue ocean that would seal their fate as two martyrs on a mission, with a picture of them hanging in the Moot Hall… “Bernard instantly made good his footing on the next petal-it took his weight. Reaching out to steady Miss Bianca, he found both their weights born quite easily, by the stalwart chrysanthemums!” That answers how they landed safely after the earthquake that flung everyone up into the air, but how exactly did they get from a red and white wreath in the middle of an almost-frozen sea, back to the warm and safe Porcelain Pagoda in the Ambassadors schoolroom? Well, it turns out that there was a helicopter above, and just as the helicopter captain was about to make a U turn in the air, to head back for home, the mechanic saw this red and white wreath, seeing it as a red and white buoy, which does look quite similar, and convinced the captain to let him down to get it. The captain, unsure at first, agrees after realizing “At least we will have something to show for our pains”. Which is how the dynamic duo go from one, being the Emperor penguins pet almost, and two, being frozen stiff like a board, to, three, a wreath in the middle of the sea, to, finally and gloriously, four, a helicopter heading back to the warm Porcelain Pagoda. 

At their arrival they had some getting used to, after being in the Antarctic for quite a bit of time. Miss Bianca’s thoughts were: “How strange it seemed to Miss Bianca, after their desperate desperate adventures in the wholly-public-transportless Antarctic wastes, to find herself suddenly plunged back into all the old ways.” And Bernard “Evidently Bernard had taken the plunge more quickly-without noticing so to speak.” Either way, they were back home again!!! Miss Bianca to her Porcelain Pagoda with shiny golden bells, and Bernard to his bachelor quarters in the cigar cabinets!

Miss Bianca isn’t faced with the torture and danger of living in some freezing cold and snowy place, or a dark and dreary place, or a place full of rock crystals in the seventh book (Miss Bianca and the Bridesmaid), but dangers are still there, even back home in the comfort and elegance of her Porcelian Pagoda. All in all, this book starts off quite elegantly and perfect, with not a problem to be seen. Instead with only wedding cakes three tiers high and a beaaauuutiiiffuull dress for the bridesmaid to wear. But that’s when problems start. There is no bridesmaid to wear the dress! She has gone missing! And according to the eleven dolls (the bridesmaid herself took the twelfth) in the cabinet, all dressed in some national costume, Dowdy still holds a terrible grudge against all little girls and probably put some terrible spell on poor Susan (the bridesmaid). After hearing the last of what the dolls had to say, Bianca and Bernard instantly set out to the main drain to look for her, where they encountered many dangers. The main drain you ask? Well, according to the dolls, after Dowdy’s not so great past, which included being dropped into a muddy river and then almost burnt to death, they suspected that she would cast a spell on Susan somehow related to muddy rivers. And you see, there weren’t any real muddy rivers around, but there was the main drain which was as close to a muddy river as they could get, sending the dynamic duo frantically to the main drain in search of the bridesmaid, for without a bridesmaid how could a wedding go on?

In the main drain, unfortunately Miss Bianca and Bernard encountered a rain of plaster from above. They were directly underneath it when it all started falling, piece after piece, if they hadn’t found that little itty-bitty cranny well… a much worse future would have awaited them. Now if only the workmen had done their jobs properly, and made the ceiling of the main drain strong, strong enough to hold up the ground (graveyard) above and not just pasted it with plaster than the disastrous avalanche might not have happened. 

Fortunately that cranny, which as Bernard put it, is a “stone toothpaste-tube” is really a little path way to a much bigger area, which used to be a crypt, and where Miss Bianca (who was on the very edge of fainting), and Bernard were greeted by the beautiful sound of All Things Bright and Beautiful being sung by marble angels. Taking shelter there for just a little bit, as the majestic marble angels talked and invited Miss Bianca to come and sing along (Miss Bianca kindly declined as the thought of poor Susan was still on her mind) Bernard and Miss B set out on their way once again, continuing through the main drain, onto what they thought was the end. Miss B and Bernie come upon the night-watchman’s little shelter, and get their hopes up that perhaps Susan has already been found, but sadly their only find is a water rat. Here I learned that not all water rats need to be on a lake, in some cases, their need for water is satisfied quite enough as long as they are in a drain, as the drain still has some little thing to do with water. 

Devastated that Susan and Dowdy are not here in this shelter, safe and warm, Miss Bianca and Bernard start their treacherous journey back, with their hearts deflated and not much hope left. On through the main drain once again, where they encounter the mountain of plaster waiting for them, as they try and find a way through. They go through a heart pounding hike, back through the main drain, and up the iron ladder, then up the Embassy’s celler, and finally up to the Embassy’s basement and beyond. Whoo! That was a long hike!

The dynamic duo, faint with exhaustion, went to the Embassy kitchen to get a “sugar-bowl” where they saw… the one and only: DOWDY, sitting on the cook’s “own special rocking chair” warming her toes by the “dying fire”. That little creep! How could she?

Still this twelfth doll is smug as could be, as she answers the question “WHERE IS SUSAN?” with “Wouldn’t you like to know?” Such a remark sends Miss Bianca and Bernard (especially Bernard), who are already quite close to the edge, straight on over and into a frenzy. You can see so when Bernard says “I – I’ll bite your nose off” and “You’ll look less privileged still when I’ve had a go all the same”. Here, Miss Bianca jumps in (being the tactful mouse and lady that she is) before Bernard could do any real harm. 

“‘Good gracious!’ repeated Dowdy. “It wasn’t any dream of going fishing I put into the little silly’s head”.  Sadly that means that Miss Bianca and Bernard’s time spent in the main drain, as it was related to water was basically a waste. Dowdy, the evil wooden doll, continues: “… just of slipping through a narrow door into a beautiful orchard! Only instead of course it was a door into a black cupboard, fortunately only to open from the outside, after I’d pushed it to and heard the lock snick!” Dowdy is a really cruel one! After the ambassador’s people searched cupboard after cupboard one after another all over again, Susan was finally found, where she was met by relief and hugs and kisses from both the bride and the Ambassadress. Now the wedding can go on! And what a wonderful one it was!

Over these seven books, where we followed Miss Bianca and Bernard go from one successful mission to another, as we followed them get older and wiser, we have seen these two characters develop, and me, for one, have grown to love them. We have also seen Margery Sharp develop too, going from relatively straight forward plots, to more twisted ones, with main drains and revenge-filled dolls, to flying in a comfy plane and elephants, to a freezing continent, to an earthquake, on and on and on. But now the story of these two are over. There are technically two more books also categorized as part of the series, but those are about Bernard, and that would take an entirely new essay to follow his developments as a hero. Here, we are following the dynamic duo, and for them this is their last story.

Miss Bianca is retiring to her Porcelain Pagoda, where I am sure she has many more years of sitting on the boy’s shoulder as he grows into a brilliant young person, and eating cream cheese out of a bon bon dish, and of course, slipping under those beautiful pink, silk sheets.

And Bernard, or as I have grown to call him, Bernie: I am sure he will have a wonderful life in his bachelor apartment, and will definitely visit Miss Bianca, possibly every day, as I am sure he will never cease to worry about her, and to love her. Bernie, in my mind, will continue to be the practical, and worrisome mouse that he is, pacing the grounds of his apartment in the Ambassador’s old cigar cabinet and keeping Miss Bianca pampered with his love. 

Here, we come to an end, and, just like Margery Sharp says it: “And on what better note to end this last tale of Bernard and Miss Bianca?”, I shall say: and on what better note to end this beautiful piece of writing about our beloved heroes Bernard and Miss Bianca?