Books: A Little Princess
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Frances Hodgson Burnett >> A Little Princess
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"Sara!" she cried, aghast. "Mamma Sara!" She was aghast
because the attic was so bare and ugly and seemed so far away
from all the world. Her short legs had seemed to have been
mounting hundreds of stairs.
Sara turned round at the sound of her voice. It was her turn to
be aghast. What would happen now? If Lottie began to cry and
any one chanced to hear, they were both lost. She jumped down
from her table and ran to the child.
"Don't cry and make a noise," she implored. "I shall be scolded
if you do, and I have been scolded all day. It's--it's not such
a bad room, Lottie."
"Isn't it?" gasped Lottie, and as she looked round it she bit
her lip. She was a spoiled child yet, but she was fond enough of
her adopted parent to make an effort to control herself for her
sake. Then, somehow, it was quite possible that any place in
which Sara lived might turn out to be nice. "Why isn't it,
Sara?" she almost whispered.
Sara hugged her close and tried to laugh. There was a sort of
comfort in the warmth of the plump, childish body. She had had a
hard day and had been staring out of the windows with hot eyes.
"You can see all sorts of things you can't see downstairs," she
said.
"What sort of things?" demanded Lottie, with that curiosity
Sara could always awaken even in bigger girls.
"Chimneys--quite close to us--with smoke curling up in wreaths
and clouds and going up into the sky--and sparrows hopping about
and talking to each other just as if they were people--and other
attic windows where heads may pop out any minute and you can
wonder who they belong to. And it all feels as high up--as if
it was another world."
"Oh, let me see it!" cried Lottie. "Lift me up!"
Sara lifted her up, and they stood on the old table together and
leaned on the edge of the flat window in the roof, and looked
out.
Anyone who has not done this does not know what a different
world they saw. The slates spread out on either side of them and
slanted down into the rain gutter-pipes. The sparrows, being at
home there, twittered and hopped about quite without fear. Two
of them perched on the chimney top nearest and quarrelled with
each other fiercely until one pecked the other and drove him
away. The garret window next to theirs was shut because the
house next door was empty.
"I wish someone lived there," Sara said. "It is so close that if
there was a little girl in the attic, we could talk to each other
through the windows and climb over to see each other, if we were
not afraid of falling."
The sky seemed so much nearer than when one saw it from the
street, that Lottie was enchanted. From the attic window, among
the chimney pots, the things which were happening in the world
below seemed almost unreal. One scarcely believed in the
existence of Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia and the schoolroom, and
the roll of wheels in the square seemed a sound belonging to
another existence.
"Oh, Sara!" cried Lottie, cuddling in her guarding arm. "I like
this attic--I like it! It is nicer than downstairs!"
"Look at that sparrow," whispered Sara. "I wish I had some
crumbs to throw to him."
"I have some!" came in a little shriek from Lottie. "I have
part of a bun in my pocket; I bought it with my penny yesterday,
and I saved a bit."
When they threw out a few crumbs the sparrow jumped and flew
away to an adjacent chimney top. He was evidently not accustomed
to intimates in attics, and unexpected crumbs startled him. But
when Lottie remained quite still and Sara chirped very softly--
almost as if she were a sparrow herself--he saw that the thing
which had alarmed him represented hospitality, after all. He
put his head on one side, and from his perch on the chimney
looked down at the crumbs with twinkling eyes. Lottie could
scarcely keep still.
"Will he come? Will he come?" she whispered.
"His eyes look as if he would," Sara whispered back. "He is
thinking and thinking whether he dare. Yes, he will! Yes, he is
coming!"
He flew down and hopped toward the crumbs, but stopped a few
inches away from them, putting his head on one side again, as if
reflecting on the chances that Sara and Lottie might turn out to
be big cats and jump on him. At last his heart told him they
were really nicer than they looked, and he hopped nearer and
nearer, darted at the biggest crumb with a lightning peck, seized
it, and carried it away to the other side of his chimney.
"Now he KNOWS", said Sara. "And he will come back for the
others."
He did come back, and even brought a friend, and the friend went
away and brought a relative, and among them they made a hearty
meal over which they twittered and chattered and exclaimed,
stopping every now and then to put their heads on one side and
examine Lottie and Sara. Lottie was so delighted that she quite
forgot her first shocked impression of the attic. In fact, when
she was lifted down from the table and returned to earthly
things, as it were, Sara was able to point out to her many
beauties in the room which she herself would not have suspected
the existence of.
"It is so little and so high above everything," she said, "that
it is almost like a nest in a tree. The slanting ceiling is so
funny. See, you can scarcely stand up at this end of the room;
and when the morning begins to come I can lie in bed and look
right up into the sky through that flat window in the roof. It
is like a square patch of light. If the sun is going to shine,
little pink clouds float about, and I feel as if I could touch
them. And if it rains, the drops patter and patter as if they
were saying something nice. Then if there are stars, you can lie
and try to count how many go into the patch. It takes such a
lot. And just look at that tiny, rusty grate in the corner. If
it was polished and there was a fire in it, just think how nice
it would be. You see, it's really a beautiful little room."
She was walking round the small place, holding Lottie's hand and
making gestures which described all the beauties she was making
herself see. She quite made Lottie see them, too. Lottie could
always believe in the things Sara made pictures of.
"You see," she said, "there could be a thick, soft blue Indian
rug on the floor; and in that corner there could be a soft little
sofa, with cushions to curl up on; and just over it could be a
shelf full of books so that one could reach them easily; and
there could be a fur rug before the fire, and hangings on the
wall to cover up the whitewash, and pictures. They would have to
be little ones, but they could be beautiful; and there could be a
lamp with a deep rose-colored shade; and a table in the middle,
with things to have tea with; and a little fat copper kettle
singing on the hob; and the bed could be quite different. It
could be made soft and covered with a lovely silk coverlet. It
could be beautiful. And perhaps we could coax the sparrows until
we made such friends with them that they would come and peck at
the window and ask to be let in."
"Oh, Sara!" cried Lottie. "I should like to live here!"
When Sara had persuaded her to go downstairs again, and, after
setting her on her way, had come back to her attic, she stood in
the middle of it and looked about her. The enchantment of her
imaginings for Lottie had died away. The bed was hard and
covered with its dingy quilt. The whitewashed wall showed its
broken patches, the floor was cold and bare, the grate was broken
and rusty, and the battered footstool, tilted sideways on its
injured leg, the only seat in the room. She sat down on it for a
few minutes and let her head drop in her hands. The mere fact
that Lottie had come and gone away again made things seem a
little worse--just as perhaps prisoners feel a little more
desolate after visitors come and go, leaving them behind.
"It's a lonely place," she said. "Sometimes it's the loneliest
place in the world."
She was sitting in this way when her attention was attracted by
a slight sound near her. She lifted her head to see where it
came from, and if she had been a nervous child she would have
left her seat on the battered footstool in a great hurry. A
large rat was sitting up on his hind quarters and sniffing the
air in an interested manner. Some of Lottie's crumbs had dropped
upon the floor and their scent had drawn him out of his hole.
He looked so queer and so like a gray-whiskered dwarf or gnome
that Sara was rather fascinated. He looked at her with his
bright eyes, as if he were asking a question. He was evidently
so doubtful that one of the child's queer thoughts came into her
mind.
"I dare say it is rather hard to be a rat," she mused. "Nobody
likes you. People jump and run away and scream out, `Oh, a
horrid rat!' I shouldn't like people to scream and jump and
say, `Oh, a horrid Sara!' the moment they saw me. And set traps
for me, and pretend they were dinner. It's so different to be a
sparrow. But nobody asked this rat if he wanted to be a rat when
he was made. Nobody said, `Wouldn't you rather be a sparrow?'"
She had sat so quietly that the rat had begun to take courage.
He was very much afraid of her, but perhaps he had a heart like
the sparrow and it told him that she was not a thing which
pounced. He was very hungry. He had a wife and a large family
in the wall, and they had had frightfully bad luck for several
days. He had left the children crying bitterly, and felt he
would risk a good deal for a few crumbs, so he cautiously dropped
upon his feet.
"Come on," said Sara; "I'm not a trap. You can have them, poor
thing! Prisoners in the Bastille used to make friends with rats.
Suppose I make friends with you."
How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it
is certain that they do understand. Perhaps there is a language
which is not made of words and everything in the world
understands it. Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything and
it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another
soul. But whatsoever was the reason, the rat knew from that
moment that he was safe--even though he was a rat. He knew that
this young human being sitting on the red footstool would not
jump up and terrify him with wild, sharp noises or throw heavy
objects at him which, if they did not fall and crush him, would
send him limping in his scurry back to his hole. He was really a
very nice rat, and did not mean the least harm. When he had
stood on his hind legs and sniffed the air, with his bright eyes
fixed on Sara, he had hoped that she would understand this, and
would not begin by hating him as an enemy. When the mysterious
thing which speaks without saying any words told him that she
would not, he went softly toward the crumbs and began to eat
them. As he did it he glanced every now and then at Sara, just
as the sparrows had done, and his expression was so very
apologetic that it touched her heart.
She sat and watched him without making any movement. One crumb
was very much larger than the others--in fact, it could scarcely
be called a crumb. It was evident that he wanted that piece very
much, but it lay quite near the footstool and he was still rather
timid.
"I believe he wants it to carry to his family in the wall," Sara
thought. "If I do not stir at all, perhaps he will come and get
it."
She scarcely allowed herself to breathe, she was so deeply
interested. The rat shuffled a little nearer and ate a few more
crumbs, then he stopped and sniffed delicately, giving a side
glance at the occupant of the footstool; then he darted at the
piece of bun with something very like the sudden boldness of the
sparrow, and the instant he had possession of it fled back to the
wall, slipped down a crack in the skirting board, and was gone.
"I knew he wanted it for his children," said Sara. "I do
believe I could make friends with him."
A week or so afterward, on one of the rare nights when
Ermengarde found it safe to steal up to the attic, when she
tapped on the door with the tips of her fingers Sara did not come
to her for two or three minutes. There was, indeed, such a
silence in the room at first that Ermengarde wondered if she
could have fallen asleep. Then, to her surprise, she heard her
utter a little, low laugh and speak coaxingly to someone.
"There!" Ermengarde heard her say. "Take it and go home,
Melchisedec! Go home to your wife!"
Almost immediately Sara opened the door, and when she did so she
found Ermengarde standing with alarmed eyes upon the threshold.
"Who--who ARE you talking to, Sara?" she gasped out.
Sara drew her in cautiously, but she looked as if something
pleased and amused her.
"You must promise not to be frightened--not to scream the least
bit, or I can't tell you," she answered.
Ermengarde felt almost inclined to scream on the spot, but
managed to control herself. She looked all round the attic and
saw no one. And yet Sara had certainly been speaking TO someone.
She thought of ghosts.
"Is it--something that will frighten me?" she asked timorously.
"Some people are afraid of them," said Sara. "I was at first--
but I am not now."
"Was it--a ghost?" quaked Ermengarde.
"No," said Sara, laughing. "It was my rat."
Ermengarde made one bound, and landed in the middle of the
little dingy bed. She tucked her feet under her nightgown and
the red shawl. She did not scream, but she gasped with fright.
"Oh! Oh!" she cried under her breath. "A rat! A rat!"
"I was afraid you would be frightened," said Sara. "But you
needn't be. I am making him tame. He actually knows me and
comes out when I call him. Are you too frightened to want to see
him?"
The truth was that, as the days had gone on and, with the aid of
scraps brought up from the kitchen, her curious friendship had
developed, she had gradually forgotten that the timid creature
she was becoming familiar with was a mere rat.
At first Ermengarde was too much alarmed to do anything but
huddle in a heap upon the bed and tuck up her feet, but the sight
of Sara's composed little countenance and the story of
Melchisedec's first appearance began at last to rouse her
curiosity, and she leaned forward over the edge of the bed and
watched Sara go and kneel down by the hole in the skirting board.
"He--he won't run out quickly and jump on the bed, will he?" she
said.
"No," answered Sara. "He's as polite as we are. He is just like
a person. Now watch!"
She began to make a low, whistling sound--so low and coaxing that
it could only have been heard in entire stillness. She did it
several times, looking entirely absorbed in it. Ermengarde
thought she looked as if she were working a spell. And at last,
evidently in response to it, a gray-whiskered, bright-eyed head
peeped out of the hole. Sara had some crumbs in her hand. She
dropped them, and Melchisedec came quietly forth and ate them. A
piece of larger size than the rest he took and carried in the
most businesslike manner back to his home.
"You see," said Sara, "that is for his wife and children. He is
very nice. He only eats the little bits. After he goes back I
can always hear his family squeaking for joy. There are three
kinds of squeaks. One kind is the children's, and one is Mrs.
Melchisedec's, and one is Melchisedec's own."
Ermengarde began to laugh.
"Oh, Sara!" she said. "You ARE queer--but you are nice."
"I know I am queer," admitted Sara, cheerfully; "and I TRY to be
nice." She rubbed her forehead with her little brown paw, and a
puzzled, tender look came into her face. "Papa always laughed at
me," she said; "but I liked it. He thought I was queer, but he
liked me to make up things. I--I can't help making up things.
If I didn't, I don't believe I could live." She paused and
glanced around the attic. "I'm sure I couldn't live here," she
added in a low voice.
Ermengarde was interested, as she always was. "When you talk
about things," she said, "they seem as if they grew real. You
talk about Melchisedec as if he was a person."
"He IS a person," said Sara. "He gets hungry and frightened,
just as we do; and he is married and has children. How do we
know he doesn't think things, just as we do? His eyes look as if
he was a person. That was why I gave him a name."
She sat down on the floor in her favorite attitude, holding her
knees.
"Besides," she said, "he is a Bastille rat sent to be my friend.
I can always get a bit of bread the cook has thrown away, and it
is quite enough to support him."
"Is it the Bastille yet?" asked Ermengarde, eagerly. "Do you
always pretend it is the Bastille?"
"Nearly always," answered Sara. "Sometimes I try to pretend it
is another kind of place; but the Bastille is generally easiest--
particularly when it is cold."
Just at that moment Ermengarde almost jumped off the bed, she
was so startled by a sound she heard. It was like two distinct
knocks on the wall.
"What is that?" she exclaimed.
Sara got up from the floor and answered quite dramatically:
"It is the prisoner in the next cell."
"Becky!" cried Ermengarde, enraptured.
"Yes," said Sara. "Listen; the two knocks meant, `Prisoner, are
you there?'"
She knocked three times on the wall herself, as if in answer.
"That means, `Yes, I am here, and all is well.'"
Four knocks came from Becky's side of the wall.
"That means," explained Sara, "`Then, fellow-sufferer, we will
sleep in peace. Good night.'"
Ermengarde quite beamed with delight.
"Oh, Sara!" she whispered joyfully. "It is like a story!"
"It IS a story," said Sara. "EVERYTHING'S a story. You are a
story--I am a story. Miss Minchin is a story."
And she sat down again and talked until Ermengarde forgot that
she was a sort of escaped prisoner herself, and had to be
reminded by Sara that she could not remain in the Bastille all
night, but must steal noiselessly downstairs again and creep back
into her deserted bed.
10
The Indian Gentleman
But it was a perilous thing for Ermengarde and Lottie to make
pilgrimages to the attic. They could never be quite sure when
Sara would be there, and they could scarcely ever be certain that
Miss Amelia would not make a tour of inspection through the
bedrooms after the pupils were supposed to be asleep. So their
visits were rare ones, and Sara lived a strange and lonely life.
It was a lonelier life when she was downstairs than when she was
in her attic. She had no one to talk to; and when she was sent
out on errands and walked through the streets, a forlorn little
figure carrying a basket or a parcel, trying to hold her hat on
when the wind was blowing, and feeling the water soak through her
shoes when it was raining, she felt as if the crowds hurrying
past her made her loneliness greater. When she had been the
Princess Sara, driving through the streets in her brougham, or
walking, attended by Mariette, the sight of her bright, eager
little face and picturesque coats and hats had often caused
people to look after her. A happy, beautifully cared for little
girl naturally attracts attention. Shabby, poorly dressed
children are not rare enough and pretty enough to make people
turn around to look at them and smile. No one looked at Sara in
these days, and no one seemed to see her as she hurried along the
crowded pavements. She had begun to grow very fast, and, as she
was dressed only in such clothes as the plainer remnants of her
wardrobe would supply, she knew she looked very queer, indeed.
All her valuable garments had been disposed of, and such as had
been left for her use she was expected to wear so long as she
could put them on at all. Sometimes, when she passed a shop
window with a mirror in it, she almost laughed outright on
catching a glimpse of herself, and sometimes her face went red
and she bit her lip and turned away.
In the evening, when she passed houses whose windows were
lighted up, she used to look into the warm rooms and amuse
herself by imagining things about the people she saw sitting
before the fires or about the tables. It always interested her
to catch glimpses of rooms before the shutters were closed.
There were several families in the square in which Miss Minchin
lived, with which she had become quite familiar in a way of her
own. The one she liked best she called the Large Family. She
called it the Large Family not because the members of it were big-
-for, indeed, most of them were little--but because there were
so many of them. There were eight children in the Large Family,
and a stout, rosy mother, and a stout, rosy father, and a stout,
rosy grandmother, and any number of servants. The eight children
were always either being taken out to walk or to ride in
perambulators by comfortable nurses, or they were going to drive
with their mamma, or they were flying to the door in the evening
to meet their papa and kiss him and dance around him and drag off
his overcoat and look in the pockets for packages, or they were
crowding about the nursery windows and looking out and pushing
each other and laughing--in fact, they were always doing
something enjoyable and suited to the tastes of a large family.
Sara was quite fond of them, and had given them names out of
books--quite romantic names. She called them the Montmorencys
when she did not call them the Large Family. The fat, fair baby
with the lace cap was Ethelberta Beauchamp Montmorency; the next
baby was Violet Cholmondeley Montmorency; the little boy who
could just stagger and who had such round legs was Sydney Cecil
Vivian Montmorency; and then came Lilian Evangeline Maud Marion,
Rosalind Gladys, Guy Clarence, Veronica Eustacia, and Claude
Harold Hector.
One evening a very funny thing happened--though, perhaps, in one
sense it was not a funny thing at all.
Several of the Montmorencys were evidently going to a children's
party, and just as Sara was about to pass the door they were
crossing the pavement to get into the carriage which was waiting
for them. Veronica Eustacia and Rosalind Gladys, in white-lace
frocks and lovely sashes, had just got in, and Guy Clarence, aged
five, was following them. He was such a pretty fellow and had
such rosy cheeks and blue eyes, and such a darling little round
head covered with curls, that Sara forgot her basket and shabby
cloak altogether--in fact, forgot everything but that she wanted
to look at him for a moment. So she paused and looked.
It was Christmas time, and the Large Family had been hearing
many stories about children who were poor and had no mammas and
papas to fill their stockings and take them to the pantomime--
children who were, in fact, cold and thinly clad and hungry. In
the stories, kind people--sometimes little boys and girls with
tender hearts--invariably saw the poor children and gave them
money or rich gifts, or took them home to beautiful dinners. Guy
Clarence had been affected to tears that very afternoon by the
reading of such a story, and he had burned with a desire to find
such a poor child and give her a certain sixpence he possessed,
and thus provide for her for life. An entire sixpence, he was
sure, would mean affluence for evermore. As he crossed the strip
of red carpet laid across the pavement from the door to the
carriage, he had this very sixpence in the pocket of his very
short man-o-war trousers; And just as Rosalind Gladys got into
the vehicle and jumped on the seat in order to feel the cushions
spring under her, he saw Sara standing on the wet pavement in her
shabby frock and hat, with her old basket on her arm, looking at
him hungrily.
He thought that her eyes looked hungry because she had perhaps
had nothing to eat for a long time. He did not know that they
looked so because she was hungry for the warm, merry life his
home held and his rosy face spoke of, and that she had a hungry
wish to snatch him in her arms and kiss him. He only knew that
she had big eyes and a thin face and thin legs and a common
basket and poor clothes. So he put his hand in his pocket and
found his sixpence and walked up to her benignly.
"Here, poor little girl," he said. "Here is a sixpence. I will
give it to you."
Sara started, and all at once realized that she looked exactly
like poor children she had seen, in her better days, waiting on
the pavement to watch her as she got out of her brougham. And
she had given them pennies many a time. Her face went red and
then it went pale, and for a second she felt as if she could not
take the dear little sixpence.
"Oh, no!" she said. "Oh, no, thank you; I mustn't take it,
indeed!"
Her voice was so unlike an ordinary street child's voice and her
manner was so like the manner of a well-bred little person that
Veronica Eustacia (whose real name was Janet) and Rosalind Gladys
(who was really called Nora) leaned forward to listen.
But Guy Clarence was not to be thwarted in his benevolence. He
thrust the sixpence into her hand.
"Yes, you must take it, poor little girl!" he insisted stoutly.
"You can buy things to eat with it. It is a whole sixpence!"
There was something so honest and kind in his face, and he
looked so likely to be heartbrokenly disappointed if she did not
take it, that Sara knew she must not refuse him. To be as proud
as that would be a cruel thing. So she actually put her pride in
her pocket, though it must be admitted her cheeks burned.
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