“The Rescuers Revisited”
August 20, 20005

Writer Margery Sharp has written dozens of books for children and adults alike. She’s written a smattering of plays. Some of her works have been turned into movies, such as Cluny Brown (1946), Julia Misbehaves (1948; adapted from The Nutmeg Tree), The Forbidden Street (1949; adapted from Britannia Mews) and The Notorious Landlady (1962; adapted from the short story “The Tenant.”) Yet despite her successful writing career she would have been quickly forgotten by the public at large upon her death in 1991 (at the age of 86) if she hadn’t written a series of children’s novels collectively known as the “Miss Bianca” series.

In all there are nine books in the series, and in 1977 Walt Disney Productions loosely adapted the first two books as The Rescuers and later released The Rescuers Down Under (1991) featuring characters inspired by the “Miss Bianca” series. It is through the Disney movies that most people come to know the world of Miss Bianca, her faithful companion Bernard, and the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society. The Disney movies are fun, and capture, to a point, the depth and charm of the books. But the books are different and deeper, just as action packed, but with more subtle characterizations. Though most people are unfamiliar with the books, I’d like to explore them here, particularly the relationship between Miss Bianca and Bernard.

The relationship over the course of the nine books can be described as having roughly three phases. In Phase 1, Bernard recruits Miss Bianca to the MPAS cause, and over the course of the first three books Miss Bianca, inspired by the innate heroism of Bernard, discovers and asserts her inner, heroic self, and sets herself and the MPAS on a new course, one of boldly rescuing prisoners and actively righting wrongs. Phase two covers the middle four books, and in this phase, we watch as Miss Bianca continues the course she determined, but we also watch as Bernard becomes less of an inspiration and more of a sidekick, in some cases even a comic foil for Miss Bianca. In Phase 3, which I believe was cut short by Margery Sharp’s unfortunate death, we see the re-emergence of the heroic Bernard, as he steps from Miss Bianca’s shadow and begins to show the world his great worth and experience in the wake of Miss Bianca’s retirement. Phase 3 covers the last two books of the series, and as I will try to show, in the very last paragraphs of the very last book in the series, Margery Sharp was sowing the metaphorical seeds for the marriage of Miss Bianca and the triumph of Bernard.

Miss Bianca is described as a white mouse with fur as soft as ermine and wide, brown-like-topaz eyes. Her eyes are unusual for a white mouse, who mostly have pink eyes. She wears a silver chain about her neck, a gift from her Boys’ mother, the Ambassadress. Miss Bianca has a special relationship with the Boy, she’s not his pet, but his constant companion and best friend. The Boy keeps Miss Bianca in a gilded cage, formerly for parakeets, called the Porcelain Pagoda. At the start of the first book Miss Bianca is already famous as a rich and kind mouse, but also as an aloof and mysterious mouse. She enjoys diplomatic immunity by way of her special relationship to the Boy and the Boys’ father, the Ambassador.

Bernard is a stout brown mouse, with common features and a modest nature, but a stalwart heart. His whiskers, described as his best feature, are short but firm. Bernard is a common mouse, who instantly falls for the high-class, unattainable Miss Bianca. Bernard is a member of the MPAS (known as the PAS or Prisoners’ Aid Society in the first book, the M, for Mouse, was added in subsequent volumes.) The MPAS is dedicated to aiding prisoners, their main objective being that of befriending and cheering them. Every nation on earth has a branch of the MPAS. The MPAS was founded over three hundred years ago when:

“…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 honor.” (Sharp I)

Since that time the MPAS has been dedicated to befriending and cheering unfortunate human prisoners. But the new Madame Chairwoman of the local MPAS has bigger, bolder plans. She wants to go beyond comforting and cheering and befriending the prisoners. She’s made of stouter stuff than that. (It’s stated that she traces her lineage to the senior of the Three Blind Mice.) Her audacious plan is to rescue a prisoner.

It should be understood that the country that this branch of the MPAS calls home is not a very nice country at all. Over the course of the nine volumes there is ample evidence as to the kind of country it is. In the first volume, The Rescuers (1959), we are confronted with a poet, consigned to solitary confinement in the worst prison imaginable, the Black Castle, for writing “free verse.” (A play on words naturally.) In the second book, Miss Bianca, we learn of the Diamond Duchess, who keeps a little girl as a servant merely to cause the girl pain. In fact, this girl is the most recent of a long line of girl servants, some of whom died of malnutrition, abuse, or were even mauled to death by bloodhounds. (Sharp II) There are several clues given in the book to indicate that the country we are talking about here is an Eastern Bloc country, circa 1955. (Disney Pictures seems to feel, and I agree, that we’re talking about Hungary, and not just because Ava Gabor did Miss Bianca’s voice.)

But no matter how bad the country they live in is, “Mice are all for people being free.” (Sharp I) So the Madame Chairwoman of the MPAS sends Bernard to recruit Miss Bianca to help in the freeing of the Poet from the Black Castle. The MPAS needs Miss Bianca because of her diplomatic immunity, her ability to quickly travel places common mice might have trouble negotiating. When Bernard approaches Miss Bianca with the audacious plan, Miss Bianca faints.

Bernard spends time helping to bolster Miss Bianca’s courage, even as he feels that she’s a treasure to be protected. Miss Bianca has “…the appearance of a powdered beauty of the court of Louis the Fifteenth.” (Sharp I) She’s so unaccustomed to the world she doesn’t have a fear of cats, the only one she’s ever known was her friend, a pampered, well-fed Persian, a pet to the Ambassadress. It is because of Bernard’s courage and stout heart, and out of a desire not to disappoint him, that Miss Bianca decides to accept the mission. Over the course of their adventures in the Black Castle Miss Bianca and Bernard become good friends, and though Bernard wishes they could be more, it’s obvious that Miss Bianca is from a different social class altogether. That, and her devotion to the Boy, keeps them apart.

The second book, Miss Bianca (1962), goes even further in separating Miss Bianca and Bernard. In this book Miss Bianca plans a rescue without Bernard’s help at all. Set some five or six months after the first book, Miss Bianca is now the Madame Chairwoman of the MPAS, and Bernard the secretary of the same organization. And though Miss Bianca is famous for her exploits at the Black Castle, the contribution of Bernard is all but forgotten. Still, Bernard is too big a mouse to worry about such small things as credit and fame. He is endlessly devoted to Miss Bianca, and it’s getting a little sad.

Miss Bianca tries to rescue a little girl named Patience from the Diamond Duchess, a monster of unbelievable proportions. The girl is kept merely to satisfy the Duchess’s sadism, and as was mentioned before, the girls who previously held her position all came to bitter ends. Miss Bianca plans the rescue entirely with the MPAS Ladies Guild; no men need help. The plan goes awry, and ultimately Miss Bianca and Patience are running through the woods tracked by vicious, killer bloodhounds. Only the timely intervention of Bernard, sword in hand, saves the day.
Miss Bianca gives Bernard his due, and admits that the rescue would have gone better had he been allowed to help from the beginning. Bernard, for his part, is so whipped he merely expresses gratitude at Miss Bianca’s safe return.

In the third book, The Turret (1963), Miss Bianca sets out to rescue Mandrake, the hideous manservant of the Diamond Duchess. This is the man who procured the little orphaned girls for the Duchess to abuse and murder. This was an evil man, but Miss Bianca, convinced that in order to reform a man must be free, is determined to give Mandrake the chance to reform. This is a decision so unpopular that Bernard and the MPAS refuse to help, and Miss Bianca must conduct the entire rescue by herself and in secret, with only the help of a young mouse boy-scout troop and a race-horse named Sir Hector. The relationship between Miss Bianca and Bernard was strained almost to the breaking in this adventure, but in the end Miss Bianca treated Bernard “…with all her old affection, and he spent most evenings at the Porcelain Pagoda.” (Sharp III)

In books four, five, six and seven (Miss Bianca in the Salt Mines (1966), Miss Bianca in the Orient, (1970) Miss Bianca in the Antarctic (1971) and Miss Bianca and the Bridesmaid (1972)) Miss Bianca and Bernard always adventure together, but Bernard is now fixed as Miss Bianca’s sidekick. When he shines, it’s always in her shadow.

When Miss Bianca and Bernard set off for the Salt Mines to rescue “Teddy-Age-Eight” they are accompanied by a pair of mouse professors, the otherwise unnamed Professor of Mathematics and a professor of geology named Professor Caerphilly. The mouse professors provide comic relief but they also act as a chaperone for Bernard and Miss Bianca, much as the character Nils did in the first book. A long stretch of the book is set in a prisoner-crafted mouse-scale collection of famous buildings and each mouse in the rescue party takes a different domicile for his or her own. Miss Bianca makes herself at home in a miniature Italian Villa, the professors shack up in an igloo, and Bernard decides to claim the hunting lodge as his own.

Bernard’s move into the hunting lodge is a declaration of his virility, and like everything Bernard does, it’s done to impress Miss Bianca. Apparently the long stretch of time spent deep underground in the salt mine plays on the minds of the rescuers, and soon all save Miss Bianca go slightly crazy. In a strange play for Miss Bianca’s affections Bernard composes a simply awful poem. Miss Bianca is forced by her natural honesty to slightly criticize Bernard’s efforts. Rejected again by Miss Bianca, Bernard finds the nearest body of water, and tries to drown himself in it.

This attempt at suicide is played for laughs, as the high salt concentration in the underground lake makes the water too buoyant for Bernard to drown in. But it’s not the last time Bernard would have suicidal thoughts when confronted with the limits of his relationship with Miss Bianca. Several times in the next few books Bernard would think of ending his own life, though this is the only time in the series Bernard would act on those feelings.

Despite Bernard’s brush with uselessness and suicide he is still helpful and decisive in the rescue of Teddy-Age-Eight from the salt mines. He attacks the train guard with courage. And it’s his strength and stamina that carries the rescue party through many a trial, including the long trip down the stairs into the mine, and the long swim across the buoyant lake to the small island where the boy was imprisoned.

In the next book, Miss Bianca in the Orient, Bernard would be decidedly more useless. Miss Bianca and Bernard race to an unnamed country in “the Orient” to save a young page boy sentenced to be crushed to death by elephants at the next full moon by a cruel woman ruler known as the Ranee. Upon arriving in the country Miss Bianca and Bernard mistakenly learn that there is no boy and so, therefore, no rescue. As Miss Bianca enjoys life in the Ranee’s court, Bernard joins a polo team, the Princely Orchids. When the time comes for an actual rescue to take place, Miss Bianca plans and carries out the entire rescue mission, leaving Bernard to play mouse polo, which apparently means sitting on the tail-end of a horse and biting it’s hindquarters. Bernard becomes the comic relief, and isn’t allowed even a minute of heroism.

Bernard fares a little better in the next book, Miss Bianca in the Antarctic. This book, arguably the worst in the series, has our adventurers heading to the Antarctic to rescue, once again, the poet from the first book. It seems the poet had joined a scientific expedition to the south-pole, (why a poet is needed on a polar expedition is never explained) and has been left behind in some sort of disaster. Bernard and Miss Bianca have gone beyond the need of even the appearance of a chaperone, Bernard has become such a joke by this time that pairing him up with Miss Bianca in a romantic way would be unthinkable. The book makes the mistake of rescuing the poet by chapter three, leaving the rescuers the job of rescuing themselves for the rest of the book. It also places Bernard and Miss Bianca a short helicopter ride away from the south pole, when earlier books place their country of origin squarely in Eastern Europe. Add in an Emperor Penguin with the power to cause earthquakes and a pair of Polar Bears (in the Antarctic!) and you can see why this is considered to be the worst in the series.

This entry also has one of the oddest moments in the series. Miss Bianca reveals a power previously only hinted at in the series, the power of “thought transference.” She apparently has the power to project suggestions into the minds of humans, and uses this ability on a helicopter pilot to help effect the poets rescue. It’s a power thankfully not overused, but it’s fraught with weird implications. In the second book Miss Bianca is certain there is no such thing as witches and black magic, and pooh-poohs the idea when brought up. Sure there’s no such thing as magic, just mind controlling white mice.

I remember reading The Rescuers as a kid, and I remember reading Miss Bianca in the Antarctic, but most of all I remember not reading Miss Bianca and the Bridesmaid, the seventh book in the series. There was no way I would be caught reading a book with that title at age twelve. Fortunately, it’s pretty good as books in this phase of the series go. Bernard fares much better, being more of an equal partner than sidekick to Miss Bianca.

The book takes place the day before a big wedding for the Ambassadors niece, and all the action takes place within the embassy that Bernard and Miss Bianca call home. The bridesmaid has gone missing the night before the wedding, and our heroes take to the sewers to locate her. The mystery is competently done, I was surprised by the solution of the question as to what happened to the girl. I was also surprised by the addition of living toys to the fantasy world of the “Miss Bianca” series. In tracking down the missing bridesmaid Miss Bianca interviews a collection of dolls, all of whom can talk and, at the stroke of midnight, move freely about. (A possible inspiration for Toy Story?) The villain of thee piece is an ugly, evil little doll, a victim of toy abuse, that vows revenge against the first child it sees. For a series that earlier stated with conviction that there was no such thing as magic, this is a bit of a departure.

As we approach the third phase and final two books of the “Miss Bianca” series there’s an interesting change of focus. Margery Sharp was obviously tiring of writing the book series, and in the seventh book she ends with this bit:

“And on what better note to end this last tale of Bernard and Miss Bianca and the M.P.A.S.?” (Sharp VII)

She was tired of writing these books, and wanted to retire the characters. But like a lot of series writers, such as Arthur Conan Doyle, L. Frank Baum and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Margery Sharp was compelled, either by fans, finances or her own muse, to continue the series. Having so effectively closed the series some years earlier Margery Sharp resorts to verbal trickery worthy of the slipperiest politician. The eighth book of the series, Bernard the Brave (1977), begins thusly:

“It may be remembered that at the end of Miss Bianca and the Bridesmaid the author said that was the very last tale of Bernard and Miss Bianca and the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society, and so it was. This story is about Bernard on his own, for surely his unexampled bravery deserves a book to itself.” (Sharp VIII)

The relationship between Bernard and Miss Bianca undergoes its’ final transformation beginning with this book. Whereas at first Bernard was a stalwart, willing and true hero, we have seen that as Miss Bianca asserted herself in the course of the series Bernard became first a sidekick, and ultimately a bit of a joke. Bernard was such a wreck he contemplated and even attempted suicide, due to his feelings of romance and inadequacy towards Miss Bianca.

Suddenly though, the focus of the series has changed, and Bernard the hero begins to reassert himself. He charges at thee chance to perform a rescue on his own, and though Miss Bianca worries about Bernard, off on his mission, she has every confidence in Bernard’s ability to succeed. Having finally learned the rules of thee game of rescuing from Miss Bianca, Bernard trusts in his pluck, positive attitude and “the luck of the mice.” Bernard succeeds in his mission brilliantly, and Miss Bianca is impressed. How impressed? For the first time there is a hint of romance in the air, and not just on Bernard’s part.

“…their whiskers slightly yet thrillingly touched. But Miss Bianca was too wise to let the thrilling moment prolong itself.” (Sharp VIII)

Which begs the question: Why can’t Bernard and Miss Bianca finally be a romantically involved couple and get married? Margery Sharp provides happy ending postscripts for even the most minor characters in her books, and they usually involve getting married to handsome helicopter pilots or handsome villagers in the case of young women. She never provides a similar ending for her two heroes.
Miss Bianca: “…though we can never be more than best, best friends…” (Sharp VIII)

Earlier in the series, in Miss Bianca, it is stated that the majority of mice felt that the only person of suitable greatness to make a match with miss Bianca was the great mouse and founder of the MPAS, Jean Fromage, over three centuries dead. Is Miss Bianca really too good for any living mouse, even Bernard?

Miss Bianca (to Bernard): “…why not come live in the Porcelain Pagoda…,” (Sharp VIII)

Where, we are assured, they will never be more than best, best friends, but Miss Bianca will assume at least some of the duties of being Bernard’s wife, specifically Miss Bianca offers to do Bernard’s laundry. Does this make sense? She’s too good to marry the guy but will do his laundry? Does she simply feel so bad about Bernard’s unrequited love for her that she feels this is the best she can offer him? Could it be that even now, after Bernard has so convincingly proven his worthiness, that Miss Bianca is still unable to commit to a romantic relationship with him? And though I have reason to doubt the answer is yea, as we shall see, I still have to ask: Is Miss Bianca gay?

Bernard: “If we can never be more than best, best friends, I’ll go back to my flat in the cigar cabinet.” (Sharp VIII)

And so it is Bernard who rejects Miss Bianca’s offer. Bernard doesn’t want a relationship built on pity. He wants Miss Bianca’s love. The Bernard of the earlier books would have been foolish enough to accept her offer. The Bernard at the end of this book is older, wiser, and more able to deal with the limitations of his relationship.

Book nine in the “Miss Bianca” series is the last. Published in 1978, a year before Margery Sharp’s death, Bernard Into Battle is roughly half as long as her previous efforts. It’s also one of the most action-packed and violent of the series.

Picking up a few months after the previous volume, we find Miss Bianca still in retirement, and Bernard itching for more adventures. Having shown his mettle Bernard is now bored by his daily routine of being the Secretary of the MPAS and stamp collecting. He longs for more challenges, and soon, like a Chinese curse, he gets exactly what he wished for. The manhole cover in the basement of the embassy has been left ajar. With the Ambassador, the Boy, the Ambassadress and most all the staff away on holiday, it’s up to the mice, led by Bernard, to defend the embassy against an invasion of disease spreading sewer rats.

Miss Bianca’s devotion to the Boy is no less strong, but the Boy is beginning to outgrow her. There have been signs of this throughout the books. In the previous book the Boy goes away with Miss Bianca to recuperate from complications due to the mumps, but soon takes to skiing with friends his own age, leaving Miss Bianca mostly by herself. In this book the Boy leaves Miss Bianca behind when he goes on vacation, a first in the series, and openly asks for another “pet” a dog named Tinker. Miss Bianca accepts her diminished role in the Boy’s life with grace and understanding, of course. But the curious effect is that this takes away her last and only excuse against a relationship with Bernard.

When the rats attack, headed by a massive rat named Hercules, it’s Bernard who rallies the armies that repel the invasion. Arming the population of mice with pen nibs attached to matchsticks, they fight a battle on the cellar stairs that is truly epic. Bernard has a mouse-scale sword from a previous adventure, that though never mentioned in the text, is plainly seen in the illustrations that accompany the book. Like a miniature Braveheart marshalling the troops, Bernard leads the mice to victory over the rats.

It’s an achievement worthy of Jean Fromage. It’s an epic example of heroism. At the end of the book the Boy gets his dog, Bernard is a hero, and Miss Bianca is free of any excuse. She even drops into subservient language when speaking to Bernard. At the end of the book she says, “You are right, as always, dear Bernard,” (Sharp IX) referring to events within the book but might the statement also cover things Bernard has said about their relationship?

I believe that if Margery Sharp had lived a few more years she would have written a tenth and final “Miss Bianca” book. In that book, which could be seen as the conclusion of the “Bernard” trilogy, I believe we would have finally seen the wedding of Miss Bianca and Bernard. I think we might even have had a glimpse of their children, who would carry on the work of the MPAS into our present day.

Alas, Margery Sharp never did write another book, so my beliefs and theories are nothing more than supposition based on a close reading of the texts, and careful observation of the relationships of the characters. But there is, I believe, a hint of proof in what I’m saying. The last paragraph of the last book in the series talks about the Boy finally getting the dog he so wanted.

“Tinker (the dog)…wasn’t…well bred…-a cross, in fact, between a poodle bitch and sire unknown- but very intelligent and affectionate…His gentle manners with ladies (inherited from his mother), endeared him to Miss Bianca at once, while his gameness in face of any danger (inherited from sire unknown), gave Bernard a good opinion of him too, and thus they all settled down together in peace and friendship, of which both Bernard and Miss Bianca were glad, having by this time had their fill of excitement!” (Sharp IX)

If in the tenth book of the “Miss Bianca” series we were to be introduced to the son of Miss Bianca and Bernard, it would be hard to find a better description of their child than the words used to describe the Boy’s dog. Possessing the best traits of both Miss Bianca and Bernard, such a creature would be a formidable hero indeed. Is it possible that Margery Sharp was writing metaphorically here, or that these ideas, coming as they do at the end of the book, were ideas that in better circumstances might be used in a sequel?

Out of print for far too long, and only known widely by the two Disney movies, the “Miss Bianca” series is worthy of some serious reconsideration. They books are well written and smart. Like the best children’s literature the series contains humor and situations aimed at adults as well as children. The deftness of the characterizations, even in the lesser outings in the series, delight the reader with their wit. This was a great series that I am happy to have revisited.