Books: A Little Princess
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Frances Hodgson Burnett >> A Little Princess
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15 A Little Princess
by Frances Hodgson Burnett
A LITTLE PRINCESS
Summary: Sara Crewe, a pupil at Miss Minchin's London school, is
left in poverty when her father dies, but is later rescued by a
mysterious benefactor.
CONTENTS
1. Sara 2. A French Lesson 3. Ermengarde 4. Lottie 5. Becky 6.
The Diamond Mines 7. The Diamond Mines Again 8. In the Attic 9.
Melchisedec 10. The Indian Gentleman 11. Ram Dass 12. The Other
Side of the Wall 13. One of the Populace 14. What Melchisedec
Heard and Saw 15. The Magic 16. The Visitor 17. "It Is the Child"
18. "I Tried Not to Be" 19. Anne
A Little Princess
1
Sara
Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick
and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted
and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-
looking little girl sat in a cab with her father and was driven
rather slowly through the big thoroughfares.
She sat with her feet tucked under her, and leaned against her
father, who held her in his arm, as she stared out of the window
at the passing people with a queer old-fashioned thoughtfulness
in her big eyes.
She was such a little girl that one did not expect to see such a
look on her small face. It would have been an old look for a
child of twelve, and Sara Crewe was only seven. The fact was,
however, that she was always dreaming and thinking odd things and
could not herself remember any time when she had not been
thinking things about grown-up people and the world they belonged
to. She felt as if she had lived a long, long time.
At this moment she was remembering the voyage she had just made
from Bombay with her father, Captain Crewe. She was thinking of
the big ship, of the Lascars passing silently to and fro on it,
of the children playing about on the hot deck, and of some young
officers' wives who used to try to make her talk to them and
laugh at the things she said.
Principally, she was thinking of what a queer thing it was that
at one time one was in India in the blazing sun, and then in the
middle of the ocean, and then driving in a strange vehicle
through strange streets where the day was as dark as the night.
She found this so puzzling that she moved closer to her father.
"Papa," she said in a low, mysterious little voice which was
almost a whisper, "papa."
"What is it, darling?" Captain Crewe answered, holding her
closer and looking down into her face. "What is Sara thinking
of?"
"Is this the place?" Sara whispered, cuddling still closer to
him. "Is it, papa?"
"Yes, little Sara, it is. We have reached it at last." And
though she was only seven years old, she knew that he felt sad
when he said it.
It seemed to her many years since he had begun to prepare her
mind for "the place," as she always called it. Her mother had
died when she was born, so she had never known or missed her.
Her young, handsome, rich, petting father seemed to be the only
relation she had in the world. They had always played together
and been fond of each other. She only knew he was rich because
she had heard people say so when they thought she was not
listening, and she had also heard them say that when she grew up
she would be rich, too. She did not know all that being rich
meant. She had always lived in a beautiful bungalow, and had
been used to seeing many servants who made salaams to her and
called her "Missee Sahib," and gave her her own way in
everything. She had had toys and pets and an ayah who worshipped
her, and she had gradually learned that people who were rich had
these things. That, however, was all she knew about it.
During her short life only one thing had troubled her, and that
thing was "the place" she was to be taken to some day. The
climate of India was very bad for children, and as soon as
possible they were sent away from it--generally to England and to
school. She had seen other children go away, and had heard their
fathers and mothers talk about the letters they received from
them. She had known that she would be obliged to go also, and
though sometimes her father's stories of the voyage and the new
country had attracted her, she had been troubled by the thought
that he could not stay with her.
"Couldn't you go to that place with me, papa?" she had asked when
she was five years old. "Couldn't you go to school, too? I
would help you with your lessons."
"But you will not have to stay for a very long time, little
Sara," he had always said. "You will go to a nice house where
there will be a lot of little girls, and you will play together,
and I will send you plenty of books, and you will grow so fast
that it will seem scarcely a year before you are big enough and
clever enough to come back and take care of papa."
She had liked to think of that. To keep the house for her
father; to ride with him, and sit at the head of his table when
he had dinner parties; to talk to him and read his books--that
would be what she would like most in the world, and if one must
go away to "the place" in England to attain it, she must make up
her mind to go. She did not care very much for other little
girls, but if she had plenty of books she could console herself.
She liked books more than anything else, and was, in fact, always
inventing stories of beautiful things and telling them to
herself. Sometimes she had told them to her father, and he had
liked them as much as she did.
"Well, papa," she said softly, "if we are here I suppose we must
be resigned."
He laughed at her old-fashioned speech and kissed her. He was
really not at all resigned himself, though he knew he must keep
that a secret. His quaint little Sara had been a great companion
to him, and he felt he should be a lonely fellow when, on his
return to India, he went into his bungalow knowing he need not
expect to see the small figure in its white frock come forward to
meet him. So he held her very closely in his arms as the cab
rolled into the big, dull square in which stood the house which
was their destination.
It was a big, dull, brick house, exactly like all the others in
its row, but that on the front door there shone a brass plate on
which was engraved in black letters:
MISS MINCHIN,
Select Seminary for Young Ladies.
"Here we are, Sara," said Captain Crewe, making his voice sound
as cheerful as possible. Then he lifted her out of the cab and
they mounted the steps and rang the bell. Sara often thought
afterward that the house was somehow exactly like Miss Minchin.
It was respectable and well furnished, but everything in it was
ugly; and the very armchairs seemed to have hard bones in them.
In the hall everything was hard and polished--even the red cheeks
of the moon face on the tall clock in the corner had a severe
varnished look. The drawing room into which they were ushered
was covered by a carpet with a square pattern upon it, the chairs
were square, and a heavy marble timepiece stood upon the heavy
marble mantel.
As she sat down in one of the stiff mahogany chairs, Sara cast
one of her quick looks about her.
"I don't like it, papa," she said. "But then I dare say
soldiers-- even brave ones--don't really LIKE going into battle."
Captain Crewe laughed outright at this. He was young and full
of fun, and he never tired of hearing Sara's queer speeches.
"Oh, little Sara," he said. "What shall I do when I have no one
to say solemn things to me? No one else is as solemn as you
are."
"But why do solemn things make you laugh so?" inquired Sara.
"Because you are such fun when you say them," he answered,
laughing still more. And then suddenly he swept her into his
arms and kissed her very hard, stopping laughing all at once and
looking almost as if tears had come into his eyes.
It was just then that Miss Minchin entered the room. She was
very like her house, Sara felt: tall and dull, and respectable
and ugly. She had large, cold, fishy eyes, and a large, cold,
fishy smile. It spread itself into a very large smile when she
saw Sara and Captain Crewe. She had heard a great many desirable
things of the young soldier from the lady who had recommended her
school to him. Among other things, she had heard that he was a
rich father who was willing to spend a great deal of money on his
little daughter.
"It will be a great privilege to have charge of such a beautiful
and promising child, Captain Crewe," she said, taking Sara's
hand and stroking it. "Lady Meredith has told me of her unusual
cleverness. A clever child is a great treasure in an
establishment like mine."
Sara stood quietly, with her eyes fixed upon Miss Minchin's
face. She was thinking something odd, as usual.
"Why does she say I am a beautiful child?" she was thinking. "I
am not beautiful at all. Colonel Grange's little girl, Isobel,
is beautiful. She has dimples and rose-colored cheeks, and long
hair the color of gold. I have short black hair and green eyes;
besides which, I am a thin child and not fair in the least. I
am one of the ugliest children I ever saw. She is beginning by
telling a story."
She was mistaken, however, in thinking she was an ugly child.
She was not in the least like Isobel Grange, who had been the
beauty of the regiment, but she had an odd charm of her own. She
was a slim, supple creature, rather tall for her age, and had an
intense, attractive little face. Her hair was heavy and quite
black and only curled at the tips; her eyes were greenish gray,
it is true, but they were big, wonderful eyes with long, black
lashes, and though she herself did not like the color of them,
many other people did. Still she was very firm in her belief
that she was an ugly little girl, and she was not at all elated
by Miss Minchin's flattery.
"I should be telling a story if I said she was beautiful," she
thought; "and I should know I was telling a story. I believe I
am as ugly as she is--in my way. What did she say that for?"
After she had known Miss Minchin longer she learned why she had
said it. She discovered that she said the same thing to each
papa and mamma who brought a child to her school.
Sara stood near her father and listened while he and Miss Minchin
talked. She had been brought to the seminary because Lady
Meredith's two little girls had been educated there, and Captain
Crewe had a great respect for Lady Meredith's experience. Sara
was to be what was known as "a parlor boarder," and she was to
enjoy even greater privileges than parlor boarders usually did.
She was to have a pretty bedroom and sitting room of her own; she
was to have a pony and a carriage, and a maid to take the place
of the ayah who had been her nurse in India.
"I am not in the least anxious about her education," Captain
Crewe said, with his gay laugh, as he held Sara's hand and patted
it. "The difficulty will be to keep her from learning too fast
and too much. She is always sitting with her little nose
burrowing into books. She doesn't read them, Miss Minchin; she
gobbles them up as if she were a little wolf instead of a little
girl. She is always starving for new books to gobble, and she
wants grown-up books--great, big, fat ones--French and German as
well as English--history and biography and poets, and all sorts of
things. Drag her away from her books when she reads too much.
Make her ride her pony in the Row or go out and buy a new doll.
She ought to play more with dolls."
"Papa," said Sara, "you see, if I went out and bought a new doll
every few days I should have more than I could be fond of. Dolls
ought to be intimate friends. Emily is going to be my intimate
friend."
Captain Crewe looked at Miss Minchin and Miss Minchin looked at
Captain Crewe.
"Who is Emily?" she inquired.
"Tell her, Sara," Captain Crewe said, smiling.
Sara's green-gray eyes looked very solemn and quite soft as she
answered.
"She is a doll I haven't got yet," she said. "She is a doll
papa is going to buy for me. We are going out together to find
her. I have called her Emily. She is going to be my friend when
papa is gone. I want her to talk to about him."
Miss Minchin's large, fishy smile became very flattering indeed.
"What an original child!" she said. "What a darling little
creature!"
"Yes," said Captain Crewe, drawing Sara close. "She is a
darling little creature. Take great care of her for me, Miss
Minchin."
Sara stayed with her father at his hotel for several days; in
fact, she remained with him until he sailed away again to India.
They went out and visited many big shops together, and bought a
great many things. They bought, indeed, a great many more things
than Sara needed; but Captain Crewe was a rash, innocent young
man and wanted his little girl to have everything she admired and
everything he admired himself, so between them they collected a
wardrobe much too grand for a child of seven. There were velvet
dresses trimmed with costly furs, and lace dresses, and
embroidered ones, and hats with great, soft ostrich feathers, and
ermine coats and muffs, and boxes of tiny gloves and
handkerchiefs and silk stockings in such abundant supplies that
the polite young women behind the counters whispered to each
other that the odd little girl with the big, solemn eyes must be
at least some foreign princess--perhaps the little daughter of an
Indian rajah.
And at last they found Emily, but they went to a number of toy
shops and looked at a great many dolls before they discovered
her.
"I want her to look as if she wasn't a doll really," Sara said.
"I want her to look as if she LISTENS when I talk to her. The
trouble with dolls, papa"--and she put her head on one side and
reflected as she said it--"the trouble with dolls is that they
never seem to HEAR." So they looked at big ones and little ones--
at dolls with black eyes and dolls with blue--at dolls with
brown curls and dolls with golden braids, dolls dressed and dolls
undressed.
"You see," Sara said when they were examining one who had no
clothes. "If, when I find her, she has no frocks, we can take
her to a dressmaker and have her things made to fit. They will
fit better if they are tried on."
After a number of disappointments they decided to walk and look
in at the shop windows and let the cab follow them. They had
passed two or three places without even going in, when, as they
were approaching a shop which was really not a very large one,
Sara suddenly started and clutched her father's arm.
"Oh, papa!" she cried. "There is Emily!"
A flush had risen to her face and there was an expression in her
green-gray eyes as if she had just recognized someone she was
intimate with and fond of.
"She is actually waiting there for us!" she said. "Let us go in
to her."
"Dear me," said Captain Crewe, "I feel as if we ought to have
someone to introduce us."
"You must introduce me and I will introduce you," said Sara.
"But I knew her the minute I saw her--so perhaps she knew me,
too."
Perhaps she had known her. She had certainly a very intelligent
expression in her eyes when Sara took her in her arms. She was a
large doll, but not too large to carry about easily; she had
naturally curling golden-brown hair, which hung like a mantle
about her, and her eyes were a deep, clear, gray-blue, with
soft, thick eyelashes which were real eyelashes and not mere
painted lines.
"Of course," said Sara, looking into her face as she held her on
her knee, "of course papa, this is Emily."
So Emily was bought and actually taken to a children's
outfitter's shop and measured for a wardrobe as grand as Sara's
own. She had lace frocks, too, and velvet and muslin ones, and
hats and coats and beautiful lace-trimmed underclothes, and
gloves and handkerchiefs and furs.
"I should like her always to look as if she was a child with a
good mother," said Sara. "I'm her mother, though I am going to
make a companion of her."
Captain Crewe would really have enjoyed the shopping
tremendously, but that a sad thought kept tugging at his heart.
This all meant that he was going to be separated from his
beloved, quaint little comrade.
He got out of his bed in the middle of that night and went and
stood looking down at Sara, who lay asleep with Emily in her
arms. Her black hair was spread out on the pillow and Emily's
golden-brown hair mingled with it, both of them had lace-ruffled
nightgowns, and both had long eyelashes which lay and curled up
on their cheeks. Emily looked so like a real child that Captain
Crewe felt glad she was there. He drew a big sigh and pulled his
mustache with a boyish expression.
"Heigh-ho, little Sara!" he said to himself "I don't believe you
know how much your daddy will miss you."
The next day he took her to Miss Minchin's and left her there.
He was to sail away the next morning. He explained to Miss
Minchin that his solicitors, Messrs. Barrow & Skipworth, had
charge of his affairs in England and would give her any advice
she wanted, and that they would pay the bills she sent in for
Sara's expenses. He would write to Sara twice a week, and she
was to be given every pleasure she asked for.
"She is a sensible little thing, and she never wants anything it
isn't safe to give her," he said.
Then he went with Sara into her little sitting room and they
bade each other good-by. Sara sat on his knee and held the lapels
of his coat in her small hands, and looked long and hard at his
face.
"Are you learning me by heart, little Sara?" he said, stroking
her hair.
"No," she answered. "I know you by heart. You are inside my
heart." And they put their arms round each other and kissed as
if they would never let each other go.
When the cab drove away from the door, Sara was sitting on the
floor of her sitting room, with her hands under her chin and her
eyes following it until it had turned the corner of the square.
Emily was sitting by her, and she looked after it, too. When
Miss Minchin sent her sister, Miss Amelia, to see what the child
was doing, she found she could not open the door.
"I have locked it," said a queer, polite little voice from
inside. "I want to be quite by myself, if you please."
Miss Amelia was fat and dumpy, and stood very much in awe of her
sister. She was really the better-natured person of the two, but
she never disobeyed Miss Minchin. She went downstairs again,
looking almost alarmed.
"I never saw such a funny, old-fashioned child, sister," she
said. "She has locked herself in, and she is not making the
least particle of noise."
"It is much better than if she kicked and screamed, as some of
them do," Miss Minchin answered. "I expected that a child as
much spoiled as she is would set the whole house in an uproar.
If ever a child was given her own way in everything, she is."
"I've been opening her trunks and putting her things away," said
Miss Amelia. "I never saw anything like them--sable and ermine
on her coats, and real Valenciennes lace on her underclothing.
You have seen some of her clothes. What DO you think of them?"
"I think they are perfectly ridiculous," replied Miss Minchin,
sharply; "but they will look very well at the head of the line
when we take the schoolchildren to church on Sunday. She has
been provided for as if she were a little princess."
And upstairs in the locked room Sara and Emily sat on the floor
and stared at the corner round which the cab had disappeared,
while Captain Crewe looked backward, waving and kissing his hand
as if he could not bear to stop.
2
A French Lesson
When Sara entered the schoolroom the next morning everybody
looked at her with wide, interested eyes. By that time every
pupil-- from Lavinia Herbert, who was nearly thirteen and felt
quite grown up, to Lottie Legh, who was only just four and the
baby of the school-- had heard a great deal about her. They knew
very certainly that she was Miss Minchin's show pupil and was
considered a credit to the establishment. One or two of them had
even caught a glimpse of her French maid, Mariette, who had
arrived the evening before. Lavinia had managed to pass Sara's
room when the door was open, and had seen Mariette opening a box
which had arrived late from some shop.
"It was full of petticoats with lace frills on them--frills and
frills," she whispered to her friend Jessie as she bent over her
geography. "I saw her shaking them out. I heard Miss Minchin
say to Miss Amelia that her clothes were so grand that they were
ridiculous for a child. My mamma says that children should be
dressed simply. She has got one of those petticoats on now. I
saw it when she sat down."
"She has silk stockings on!" whispered Jessie, bending over her
geography also. "And what little feet! I never saw such little
feet."
"Oh," sniffed Lavinia, spitefully, "that is the way her slippers
are made. My mamma says that even big feet can be made to look
small if you have a clever shoemaker. I don't think she is
pretty at all. Her eyes are such a queer color."
"She isn't pretty as other pretty people are," said Jessie,
stealing a glance across the room; "but she makes you want to
look at her again. She has tremendously long eyelashes, but her
eyes are almost green."
Sara was sitting quietly in her seat, waiting to be told what to
do. She had been placed near Miss Minchin's desk. She was not
abashed at all by the many pairs of eyes watching her. She was
interested and looked back quietly at the children who looked at
her. She wondered what they were thinking of, and if they liked
Miss Minchin, and if they cared for their lessons, and if any of
them had a papa at all like her own. She had had a long talk
with Emily about her papa that morning.
"He is on the sea now, Emily," she had said. "We must be very
great friends to each other and tell each other things. Emily,
look at me. You have the nicest eyes I ever saw--but I wish you
could speak."
She was a child full of imaginings and whimsical thoughts, and
one of her fancies was that there would be a great deal of
comfort in even pretending that Emily was alive and really heard
and understood. After Mariette had dressed her in her dark-blue
schoolroom frock and tied her hair with a dark-blue ribbon, she
went to Emily, who sat in a chair of her own, and gave her a
book.
"You can read that while I am downstairs," she said; and, seeing
Mariette looking at her curiously, she spoke to her with a
serious little face.
"What I believe about dolls," she said, "is that they can do
things they will not let us know about. Perhaps, really, Emily
can read and talk and walk, but she will only do it when people
are out of the room. That is her secret. You see, if people
knew that dolls could do things, they would make them work. So,
perhaps, they have promised each other to keep it a secret. If
you stay in the room, Emily will just sit there and stare; but if
you go out, she will begin to read, perhaps, or go and look out
of the window. Then if she heard either of us coming, she would
just run back and jump into her chair and pretend she had been
there all the time."
"Comme elle est drole!" Mariette said to herself, and when she
went downstairs she told the head housemaid about it. But she
had already begun to like this odd little girl who had such an
intelligent small face and such perfect manners. She had taken
care of children before who were not so polite. Sara was a very
fine little person, and had a gentle, appreciative way of saying,
"If you please, Mariette," "Thank you, Mariette," which was very
charming. Mariette told the head housemaid that she thanked her
as if she was thanking a lady.
"Elle a l'air d'une princesse, cette petite," she said. Indeed,
she was very much pleased with her new little mistress and liked
her place greatly.
After Sara had sat in her seat in the schoolroom for a few
minutes, being looked at by the pupils, Miss Minchin rapped in a
dignified manner upon her desk.
"Young ladies," she said, "I wish to introduce you to your new
companion." All the little girls rose in their places, and Sara
rose also. "I shall expect you all to be very agreeable to Miss
Crewe; she has just come to us from a great distance--in fact,
from India. As soon as lessons are over you must make each
other's acquaintance."
The pupils bowed ceremoniously, and Sara made a little curtsy,
and then they sat down and looked at each other again.
"Sara," said Miss Minchin in her schoolroom manner, "come here
to me."
She had taken a book from the desk and was turning over its
leaves. Sara went to her politely.
"As your papa has engaged a French maid for you," she began, "I
conclude that he wishes you to make a special study of the French
language."
Sara felt a little awkward.
"I think he engaged her," she said, "because he--he thought I
would like her, Miss Minchin."
"I am afraid," said Miss Minchin, with a slightly sour smile,
"that you have been a very spoiled little girl and always
imagine that things are done because you like them. My
impression is that your papa wished you to learn French."
If Sara had been older or less punctilious about being quite
polite to people, she could have explained herself in a very few
words. But, as it was, she felt a flush rising on her cheeks.
Miss Minchin was a very severe and imposing person, and she
seemed so absolutely sure that Sara knew nothing whatever of
French that she felt as if it would be almost rude to correct
her. The truth was that Sara could not remember the time when
she had not seemed to know French. Her father had often spoken
it to her when she had been a baby. Her mother had been a French
woman, and Captain Crewe had loved her language, so it happened
that Sara had always heard and been familiar with it.
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