Books: A Little Princess
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Frances Hodgson Burnett >> A Little Princess
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"Oh, Sara," she cried out, "I am glad you have come. Melchy
WOULD sniff about so. I tried to coax him to go back, but he
wouldn't for such a long time. I like him, you know; but it does
frighten me when he sniffs right at me. Do you think he ever
WOULD jump?"
"No," answered Sara.
Ermengarde crawled forward on the bed to look at her.
"You DO look tired, Sara," she said; "you are quite pale."
"I AM tired," said Sara, dropping on to the lopsided footstool.
"Oh, there's Melchisedec, poor thing. He's come to ask for his
supper."
Melchisedec had come out of his hole as if he had been listening
for her footstep. Sara was quite sure he knew it. He came
forward with an affectionate, expectant expression as Sara put
her hand in her pocket and turned it inside out, shaking her
head.
"I'm very sorry," she said. "I haven't one crumb left. Go
home, Melchisedec, and tell your wife there was nothing in my
pocket. I'm afraid I forgot because the cook and Miss Minchin
were so cross."
Melchisedec seemed to understand. He shuffled resignedly, if not
contentedly, back to his home.
"I did not expect to see you tonight, Ermie," Sara said.
Ermengarde hugged herself in the red shawl.
"Miss Amelia has gone out to spend the night with her old aunt,"
she explained. "No one else ever comes and looks into the
bedrooms after we are in bed. I could stay here until morning if
I wanted to."
She pointed toward the table under the skylight. Sara had not
looked toward it as she came in. A number of books were piled
upon it. Ermengarde's gesture was a dejected one.
"Papa has sent me some more books, Sara," she said. "There they
are."
Sara looked round and got up at once. She ran to the table, and
picking up the top volume, turned over its leaves quickly. For
the moment she forgot her discomforts.
"Ah," she cried out, "how beautiful! Carlyle's French
Revolution. I have SO wanted to read that!"
"I haven't," said Ermengarde. "And papa will be so cross if I
don't. He'll expect me to know all about it when I go home for
the holidays. What SHALL I do?"
Sara stopped turning over the leaves and looked at her with an
excited flush on her cheeks.
"Look here," she cried, "if you'll lend me these books, _I'll_
read them--and tell you everything that's in them afterward-- and
I'll tell it so that you will remember it, too."
"Oh, goodness!" exclaimed Ermengarde. "Do you think you can?"
"I know I can," Sara answered. "The little ones always remember
what I tell them."
"Sara," said Ermengarde, hope gleaming in her round face, "if
you'll do that, and make me remember, I'll--I'll give you
anything."
"I don't want you to give me anything," said Sara. "I want your
books--I want them!" And her eyes grew big, and her chest
heaved.
"Take them, then," said Ermengarde. "I wish I wanted them--but
I don't. I'm not clever, and my father is, and he thinks I ought
to be."
Sara was opening one book after the other. "What are you going
to tell your father?" she asked, a slight doubt dawning in her
mind.
"Oh, he needn't know," answered Ermengarde. "He'll think I've
read them."
Sara put down her book and shook her head slowly. "That's
almost like telling lies," she said. "And lies--well, you see,
they are not only wicked--they're VULGAR. Sometimes"--
reflectively--"I've thought perhaps I might do something wicked--
I might suddenly fly into a rage and kill Miss Minchin, you know,
when she was ill-treating me--but I COULDN'T be vulgar. Why
can't you tell your father _I_ read them?"
"He wants me to read them," said Ermengarde, a little
discouraged by this unexpected turn of affairs.
"He wants you to know what is in them," said Sara. "And if I
can tell it to you in an easy way and make you remember it, I
should think he would like that."
"He'll like it if I learn anything in ANY way," said rueful
Ermengarde. "You would if you were my father."
"It's not your fault that--" began Sara. She pulled herself up
and stopped rather suddenly. She had been going to say, "It's
not your fault that you are stupid."
"That what?" Ermengarde asked.
"That you can't learn things quickly," amended Sara. "If you
can't, you can't. If I can--why, I can; that's all."
She always felt very tender of Ermengarde, and tried not to let
her feel too strongly the difference between being able to learn
anything at once, and not being able to learn anything at all.
As she looked at her plump face, one of her wise, old-fashioned
thoughts came to her.
"Perhaps," she said, "to be able to learn things quickly isn't
everything. To be kind is worth a great deal to other people.
If Miss Minchin knew everything on earth and was like what she
is now, she'd still be a detestable thing, and everybody would
hate her. Lots of clever people have done harm and have been
wicked. Look at Robespierre--"
She stopped and examined Ermengarde's countenance, which was
beginning to look bewildered. "Don't you remember?" she
demanded. "I told you about him not long ago. I believe you've
forgotten."
"Well, I don't remember ALL of it," admitted Ermengarde.
"Well, you wait a minute," said Sara, "and I'll take off my wet
things and wrap myself in the coverlet and tell you over again."
She took off her hat and coat and hung them on a nail against
the wall, and she changed her wet shoes for an old pair of
slippers. Then she jumped on the bed, and drawing the coverlet
about her shoulders, sat with her arms round her knees. "Now,
listen," she said.
She plunged into the gory records of the French Revolution, and
told such stories of it that Ermengarde's eyes grew round with
alarm and she held her breath. But though she was rather
terrified, there was a delightful thrill in listening, and she
was not likely to forget Robespierre again, or to have any doubts
about the Princesse de Lamballe.
"You know they put her head on a pike and danced round it," Sara
explained. "And she had beautiful floating blonde hair; and when
I think of her, I never see her head on her body, but always on a
pike, with those furious people dancing and howling."
It was agreed that Mr. St. John was to be told the plan they had
made, and for the present the books were to be left in the attic.
"Now let's tell each other things," said Sara. "How are you
getting on with your French lessons?"
"Ever so much better since the last time I came up here and you
explained the conjugations. Miss Minchin could not understand
why I did my exercises so well that first morning."
Sara laughed a little and hugged her knees.
"She doesn't understand why Lottie is doing her sums so well,"
she said; "but it is because she creeps up here, too, and I help
her." She glanced round the room. "The attic would be rather
nice--if it wasn't so dreadful," she said, laughing again. "It's
a good place to pretend in."
The truth was that Ermengarde did not know anything of the
sometimes almost unbearable side of life in the attic and she
had not a sufficiently vivid imagination to depict it for
herself. On the rare occasions that she could reach Sara's room
she only saw the side of it which was made exciting by things
which were "pretended" and stories which were told. Her visits
partook of the character of adventures; and though sometimes Sara
looked rather pale, and it was not to be denied that she had
grown very thin, her proud little spirit would not admit of
complaints. She had never confessed that at times she was almost
ravenous with hunger, as she was tonight. She was growing
rapidly, and her constant walking and running about would have
given her a keen appetite even if she had had abundant and
regular meals of a much more nourishing nature than the
unappetizing, inferior food snatched at such odd times as suited
the kitchen convenience. She was growing used to a certain
gnawing feeling in her young stomach.
"I suppose soldiers feel like this when they are on a long and
weary march," she often said to herself. She liked the sound of
the phrase, "long and weary march." It made her feel rather like
a soldier. She had also a quaint sense of being a hostess in the
attic.
"If I lived in a castle," she argued, "and Ermengarde was the
lady of another castle, and came to see me, with knights and
squires and vassals riding with her, and pennons flying, when I
heard the clarions sounding outside the drawbridge I should go
down to receive her, and I should spread feasts in the banquet
hall and call in minstrels to sing and play and relate romances.
When she comes into the attic I can't spread feasts, but I can
tell stories, and not let her know disagreeable things. I dare
say poor chatelaines had to do that in time of famine, when their
lands had been pillaged." She was a proud, brave little
chatelaine, and dispensed generously the one hospitality she
could offer--the dreams she dreamed--the visions she saw--the
imaginings which were her joy and comfort.
So, as they sat together, Ermengarde did not know that she was
faint as well as ravenous, and that while she talked she now and
then wondered if her hunger would let her sleep when she was left
alone. She felt as if she had never been quite so hungry before.
"I wish I was as thin as you, Sara," Ermengarde said suddenly.
"I believe you are thinner than you used to be. Your eyes look
so big, and look at the sharp little bones sticking out of your
elbow!"
Sara pulled down her sleeve, which had pushed itself up.
"I always was a thin child," she said bravely, "and I always had
big green eyes."
"I love your queer eyes," said Ermengarde, looking into them with
affectionate admiration. "They always look as if they saw such a
long way. I love them--and I love them to be green--though they
look black generally."
"They are cat's eyes," laughed Sara; "but I can't see in the
dark with them--because I have tried, and I couldn't--I wish I
could."
It was just at this minute that something happened at the
skylight which neither of them saw. If either of them had
chanced to turn and look, she would have been startled by the
sight of a dark face which peered cautiously into the room and
disappeared as quickly and almost as silently as it had appeared.
Not QUITE as silently, however. Sara, who had keen ears,
suddenly turned a little and looked up at the roof.
"That didn't sound like Melchisedec," she said. "It wasn't
scratchy enough."
"What?" said Ermengarde, a little startled.
"Didn't you think you heard something?" asked Sara.
"N-no," Ermengarde faltered. "Did you?" {another ed. has "No-
no,"}
"Perhaps I didn't," said Sara; "but I thought I did. It sounded
as if something was on the slates--something that dragged
softly."
"What could it be?" said Ermengarde. "Could it be--robbers?"
"No," Sara began cheerfully. "There is nothing to steal--"
She broke off in the middle of her words. They both heard the
sound that checked her. It was not on the slates, but on the
stairs below, and it was Miss Minchin's angry voice. Sara sprang
off the bed, and put out the candle.
"She is scolding Becky," she whispered, as she stood in the
darkness. "She is making her cry."
"Will she come in here?" Ermengarde whispered back, panic-
stricken.
"No. She will think I am in bed. Don't stir."
It was very seldom that Miss Minchin mounted the last flight of
stairs. Sara could only remember that she had done it once
before. But now she was angry enough to be coming at least part
of the way up, and it sounded as if she was driving Becky before
her.
"You impudent, dishonest child!" they heard her say. "Cook
tells me she has missed things repeatedly."
"'T warn't me, mum," said Becky sobbing. "I was 'ungry enough,
but 't warn't me--never!"
"You deserve to be sent to prison," said Miss Minchin's voice.
"Picking and stealing! Half a meat pie, indeed!"
"'T warn't me," wept Becky. "I could 'ave eat a whole un--but I
never laid a finger on it."
Miss Minchin was out of breath between temper and mounting the
stairs. The meat pie had been intended for her special late
supper. It became apparent that she boxed Becky's ears.
"Don't tell falsehoods," she said. "Go to your room this
instant."
Both Sara and Ermengarde heard the slap, and then heard Becky run
in her slipshod shoes up the stairs and into her attic. They
heard her door shut, and knew that she threw herself upon her
bed.
"I could 'ave e't two of 'em," they heard her cry into her
pillow. "An' I never took a bite. 'Twas cook give it to her
policeman."
Sara stood in the middle of the room in the darkness. She was
clenching her little teeth and opening and shutting fiercely her
outstretched hands. She could scarcely stand still, but she
dared not move until Miss Minchin had gone down the stairs and
all was still.
"The wicked, cruel thing!" she burst forth. "The cook takes
things herself and then says Becky steals them. She DOESN'T!
She DOESN'T! She's so hungry sometimes that she eats crusts out
of the ash barrel!" She pressed her hands hard against her face
and burst into passionate little sobs, and Ermengarde, hearing
this unusual thing, was overawed by it. Sara was crying! The
unconquerable Sara! It seemed to denote something new--some mood
she had never known. Suppose--suppose--a new dread possibility
presented itself to her kind, slow, little mind all at once. She
crept off the bed in the dark and found her way to the table
where the candle stood. She struck a match and lit the candle.
When she had lighted it, she bent forward and looked at Sara,
with her new thought growing to definite fear in her eyes.
"Sara," she said in a timid, almost awe-stricken voice, are--are-
-you never told me--I don't want to be rude, but--are YOU ever
hungry?"
It was too much just at that moment. The barrier broke down.
Sara lifted her face from her hands.
"Yes," she said in a new passionate way. "Yes, I am. I'm so
hungry now that I could almost eat you. And it makes it worse to
hear poor Becky. She's hungrier than I am."
Ermengarde gasped.
"Oh, oh!" she cried woefully. "And I never knew!"
"I didn't want you to know," Sara said. "It would have made me
feel like a street beggar. I know I look like a street beggar."
"No, you don't--you don't!" Ermengarde broke in. "Your clothes
are a little queer--but you couldn't look like a street beggar.
You haven't a street-beggar face."
"A little boy once gave me a sixpence for charity," said Sara,
with a short little laugh in spite of herself. "Here it is."
And she pulled out the thin ribbon from her neck. "He wouldn't
have given me his Christmas sixpence if I hadn't looked as if I
needed it."
Somehow the sight of the dear little sixpence was good for both
of them. It made them laugh a little, though they both had
tears in their eyes.
"Who was he?" asked Ermengarde, looking at it quite as if it had
not been a mere ordinary silver sixpence.
"He was a darling little thing going to a party," said Sara. "He
was one of the Large Family, the little one with the round legs--
the one I call Guy Clarence. I suppose his nursery was crammed
with Christmas presents and hampers full of cakes and things,
and he could see I had nothing."
Ermengarde gave a little jump backward. The last sentences had
recalled something to her troubled mind and given her a sudden
inspiration.
"Oh, Sara!" she cried. "What a silly thing I am not to have
thought of it!"
"Of what?"
"Something splendid!" said Ermengarde, in an excited hurry.
"This very afternoon my nicest aunt sent me a box. It is full
of good things. I never touched it, I had so much pudding at
dinner, and I was so bothered about papa's books." Her words
began to tumble over each other. "It's got cake in it, and
little meat pies, and jam tarts and buns, and oranges and red-
currant wine, and figs and chocolate. I'll creep back to my room
and get it this minute, and we'll eat it now."
Sara almost reeled. When one is faint with hunger the mention
of food has sometimes a curious effect. She clutched
Ermengarde's arm.
"Do you think--you COULD?" she ejaculated.
"I know I could," answered Ermengarde, and she ran to the door--
opened it softly--put her head out into the darkness, and
listened. Then she went back to Sara. "The lights are out.
Everybody's in bed. I can creep--and creep--and no one will
hear."
It was so delightful that they caught each other's hands and a
sudden light sprang into Sara's eyes.
"Ermie!" she said. "Let us PRETEND! Let us pretend it's a
party! And oh, won't you invite the prisoner in the next cell?"
"Yes! Yes! Let us knock on the wall now. The jailer won't
hear."
Sara went to the wall. Through it she could hear poor Becky
crying more softly. She knocked four times.
"That means, `Come to me through the secret passage under the
wall,' she explained. `I have something to communicate.'"
Five quick knocks answered her.
"She is coming," she said.
Almost immediately the door of the attic opened and Becky
appeared. Her eyes were red and her cap was sliding off, and
when she caught sight of Ermengarde she began to rub her face
nervously with her apron.
"Don't mind me a bit, Becky!" cried Ermengarde.
"Miss Ermengarde has asked you to come in," said Sara, "because
she is going to bring a box of good things up here to us."
Becky's cap almost fell off entirely, she broke in with such
excitement.
"To eat, miss?" she said. "Things that's good to eat?"
"Yes," answered Sara, "and we are going to pretend a party."
"And you shall have as much as you WANT to eat," put in
Ermengarde. "I'll go this minute!"
She was in such haste that as she tiptoed out of the attic she
dropped her red shawl and did not know it had fallen. No one
saw it for a minute or so. Becky was too much overpowered by the
good luck which had befallen her.
"Oh, miss! oh, miss!" she gasped; "I know it was you that asked
her to let me come. It--it makes me cry to think of it." And
she went to Sara's side and stood and looked at her worshipingly.
But in Sara's hungry eyes the old light had begun to glow and
transform her world for her. Here in the attic--with the cold
night outside-- with the afternoon in the sloppy streets barely
passed--with the memory of the awful unfed look in the beggar
child's eyes not yet faded--this simple, cheerful thing had
happened like a thing of magic.
She caught her breath.
"Somehow, something always happens," she cried, "just before
things get to the very worst. It is as if the Magic did it. If
I could only just remember that always. The worst thing never
QUITE comes."
She gave Becky a little cheerful shake.
"No, no! You mustn't cry!" she said. "We must make haste and
set the table."
"Set the table, miss?" said Becky, gazing round the room.
"What'll we set it with?"
Sara looked round the attic, too.
"There doesn't seem to be much," she answered, half laughing.
That moment she saw something and pounced upon it. It was
Ermengarde's red shawl which lay upon the floor.
"Here's the shawl," she cried. "I know she won't mind it. It
will make such a nice red tablecloth."
They pulled the old table forward, and threw the shawl over it.
Red is a wonderfully kind and comfortable color. It began to
make the room look furnished directly.
"How nice a red rug would look on the floor!" exclaimed Sara.
"We must pretend there is one!"
Her eye swept the bare boards with a swift glance of admiration.
The rug was laid down already.
"How soft and thick it is!" she said, with the little laugh which
Becky knew the meaning of; and she raised and set her foot down
again delicately, as if she felt something under it.
"Yes, miss," answered Becky, watching her with serious rapture.
She was always quite serious.
"What next, now?" said Sara, and she stood still and put her
hands over her eyes. "Something will come if I think and wait a
little"--in a soft, expectant voice. "The Magic will tell me."
One of her favorite fancies was that on "the outside," as she
called it, thoughts were waiting for people to call them. Becky
had seen her stand and wait many a time before, and knew that in
a few seconds she would uncover an enlightened, laughing face.
In a moment she did.
"There!" she cried. "It has come! I know now! I must look
among the things in the old trunk I had when I was a princess."
She flew to its corner and kneeled down. It had not been put in
the attic for her benefit, but because there was no room for it
elsewhere. Nothing had been left in it but rubbish. But she
knew she should find something. The Magic always arranged that
kind of thing in one way or another.
In a corner lay a package so insignificant-looking that it had
been overlooked, and when she herself had found it she had kept
it as a relic. It contained a dozen small white handkerchiefs.
She seized them joyfully and ran to the table. She began to
arrange them upon the red table-cover, patting and coaxing them
into shape with the narrow lace edge curling outward, her Magic
working its spells for her as she did it.
"These are the plates," she said. "They are golden plates.
These are the richly embroidered napkins. Nuns worked them in
convents in Spain."
"Did they, miss?" breathed Becky, her very soul uplifted by the
information.
"You must pretend it," said Sara. "If you pretend it enough, you
will see them."
"Yes, miss," said Becky; and as Sara returned to the trunk she
devoted herself to the effort of accomplishing an end so much to
be desired.
Sara turned suddenly to find her standing by the table, looking
very queer indeed. She had shut her eyes, and was twisting her
face in strange convulsive contortions, her hands hanging stiffly
clenched at her sides. She looked as if she was trying to lift
some enormous weight.
"What is the matter, Becky?" Sara cried. "What are you doing?"
Becky opened her eyes with a start.
"I was a-'pretendin',' miss," she answered a little sheepishly; "I
was tryin' to see it like you do. I almost did," with a hopeful
grin. "But it takes a lot o' stren'th."
"Perhaps it does if you are not used to it," said Sara, with
friendly sympathy; "but you don't know how easy it is when you've
done it often. I wouldn't try so hard just at first. It will
come to you after a while. I'll just tell you what things are.
Look at these."
She held an old summer hat in her hand which she had fished out
of the bottom of the trunk. There was a wreath of flowers on
it. She pulled the wreath off.
"These are garlands for the feast," she said grandly. "They
fill all the air with perfume. There's a mug on the wash-stand,
Becky. Oh--and bring the soap dish for a centerpiece."
Becky handed them to her reverently.
"What are they now, miss?" she inquired. "You'd think they was
made of crockery--but I know they ain't."
"This is a carven flagon," said Sara, arranging tendrils of the
wreath about the mug. "And this"--bending tenderly over the soap
dish and heaping it with roses--"is purest alabaster encrusted
with gems."
She touched the things gently, a happy smile hovering about her
lips which made her look as if she were a creature in a dream.
"My, ain't it lovely!" whispered Becky.
"If we just had something for bonbon dishes," Sara murmured.
"There!"--darting to the trunk again. "I remember I saw
something this minute."
It was only a bundle of wool wrapped in red and white tissue
paper, but the tissue paper was soon twisted into the form of
little dishes, and was combined with the remaining flowers to
ornament the candlestick which was to light the feast. Only the
Magic could have made it more than an old table covered with a
red shawl and set with rubbish from a long-unopened trunk. But
Sara drew back and gazed at it, seeing wonders; and Becky, after
staring in delight, spoke with bated breath.
"This 'ere," she suggested, with a glance round the attic--"is
it the Bastille now--or has it turned into somethin' different?"
"Oh, yes, yes!" said Sara. "Quite different. It is a banquet
hall!"
"My eye, miss!" ejaculated Becky. "A blanket 'all!" and she
turned to view the splendors about her with awed bewilderment.
"A banquet hall," said Sara. "A vast chamber where feasts are
given. It has a vaulted roof, and a minstrels' gallery, and a
huge chimney filled with blazing oaken logs, and it is brilliant
with waxen tapers twinkling on every side."
"My eye, Miss Sara!" gasped Becky again.
Then the door opened, and Ermengarde came in, rather staggering
under the weight of her hamper. She started back with an
exclamation of joy. To enter from the chill darkness outside,
and find one's self confronted by a totally unanticipated festal
board, draped with red, adorned with white napery, and wreathed
with flowers, was to feel that the preparations were brilliant
indeed.
"Oh, Sara!" she cried out. "You are the cleverest girl I ever
saw!"
"Isn't it nice?" said Sara. "They are things out of my old
trunk. I asked my Magic, and it told me to go and look."
"But oh, miss," cried Becky, "wait till she's told you what they
are! They ain't just--oh, miss, please tell her," appealing to
Sara.
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