A Little Princess (20 page)

"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."