A Little Princess (7 page)

"It makes me feel as if someone had hit me," Sara had told
Ermengarde once in confidence. "And as if I want to hit back. I
have to remember things quickly to keep from saying something ill-
tempered."

She had to remember things quickly when she laid her book on the
window-seat and jumped down from her comfortable corner.

Lottie had been sliding across the schoolroom floor, and, having
first irritated Lavinia and Jessie by making a noise, had ended
by falling down and hurting her fat knee. She was screaming and
dancing up and down in the midst of a group of friends and
enemies, who were alternately coaxing and scolding her.

"Stop this minute, you cry-baby! Stop this minute!" Lavinia
commanded.

"I'm not a cry-baby . . . I'm not!" wailed Lottle. "Sara, Sa—
ra!"

"If she doesn't stop, Miss Minchin will hear her," cried Jessie.
"Lottie darling, I'll give you a penny!"

"I don't want your penny," sobbed Lottie; and she looked down at
the fat knee, and, seeing a drop of blood on it, burst forth
again.

Sara flew across the room and, kneeling down, put her arms round
her.

"Now, Lottie," she said. "Now, Lottie, you PROMISED Sara."

"She said I was a cry-baby," wept Lottie.

Sara patted her, but spoke in the steady voice Lottie knew.

"But if you cry, you will be one, Lottie pet. You PROMISED."
Lottle remembered that she had promised, but she preferred to
lift up her voice.

"I haven't any mamma," she proclaimed. "I haven't—a bit—of
mamma."

"Yes, you have," said Sara, cheerfully. "Have you forgotten?
Don't you know that Sara is your mamma? Don't you want Sara for
your mamma?"

Lottie cuddled up to her with a consoled sniff.

"Come and sit in the window-seat with me," Sara went on, "and
I'll whisper a story to you."

"Will you?" whimpered Lottie. "Will you—tell me—about the
diamond mines?"

"The diamond mines?" broke out Lavinia. "Nasty, little spoiled
thing, I should like to SLAP her!"

Sara got up quickly on her feet. It must be remembered that she
had been very deeply absorbed in the book about the Bastille,
and she had had to recall several things rapidly when she
realized that she must go and take care of her adopted child.
She was not an angel, and she was not fond of Lavinia.

"Well," she said, with some fire, "I should like to slap YOU—
but I don't want to slap you!" restraining herself. "At least I
both want to slap you—and I should LIKE to slap you—but I
WON'T slap you. We are not little gutter children. We are both
old enough to know better."

Here was Lavinia's opportunity.

"Ah, yes, your royal highness," she said. "We are princesses, I
believe. At least one of us is. The school ought to be very
fashionable now Miss Minchin has a princess for a pupil."

Sara started toward her. She looked as if she were going to box
her ears. Perhaps she was. Her trick of pretending things was
the joy of her life. She never spoke of it to girls she was not
fond of. Her new "pretend" about being a princess was very near
to her heart, and she was shy and sensitive about it. She had
meant it to be rather a secret, and here was Lavinia deriding it
before nearly all the school. She felt the blood rush up into
her face and tingle in her ears. She only just saved herself.
If you were a princess, you did not fly into rages. Her hand
dropped, and she stood quite still a moment. When she spoke it
was in a quiet, steady voice; she held her head up, and everybody
listened to her.

"It's true," she said. "Sometimes I do pretend I am a princess.
I pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like
one."

Lavinia could not think of exactly the right thing to say.
Several times she had found that she could not think of a
satisfactory reply when she was dealing with Sara. The reason
for this was that, somehow, the rest always seemed to be vaguely
in sympathy with her opponent. She saw now that they were
pricking up their ears interestedly. The truth was, they liked
princesses, and they all hoped they might hear something more
definite about this one, and drew nearer Sara accordingly.

Lavinia could only invent one remark, and it fell rather flat.

"Dear me," she said, "I hope, when you ascend the throne, you
won't forget us!"

"I won't," said Sara, and she did not utter another word, but
stood quite still, and stared at her steadily as she saw her take
Jessie's arm and turn away.

After this, the girls who were jealous of her used to speak of
her as "Princess Sara" whenever they wished to be particularly
disdainful, and those who were fond of her gave her the name
among themselves as a term of affection. No one called her
"princess" instead of "Sara," but her adorers were much pleased
with the picturesqueness and grandeur of the title, and Miss
Minchin, hearing of it, mentioned it more than once to visiting
parents, feeling that it rather suggested a sort of royal
boarding school.

To Becky it seemed the most appropriate thing in the world. The
acquaintance begun on the foggy afternoon when she had jumped up
terrified from her sleep in the comfortable chair, had ripened
and grown, though it must be confessed that Miss Minchin and
Miss Amelia knew very little about it. They were aware that Sara
was "kind" to the scullery maid, but they knew nothing of
certain delightful moments snatched perilously when, the upstairs
rooms being set in order with lightning rapidity, Sara's sitting
room was reached, and the heavy coal box set down with a sigh of
joy. At such times stories were told by installments, things of
a satisfying nature were either produced and eaten or hastily
tucked into pockets to be disposed of at night, when Becky went
upstairs to her attic to bed.

"But I has to eat 'em careful, miss," she said once; "'cos if I
leaves crumbs the rats come out to get 'em."

"Rats!" exclaimed Sara, in horror. "Are there RATS there?"

"Lots of 'em, miss," Becky answered in quite a matter-of-fact
manner. "There mostly is rats an' mice in attics. You gets used
to the noise they makes scuttling about. I've got so I don't
mind 'em s' long as they don't run over my piller."

"Ugh!" said Sara.

"You gets used to anythin' after a bit," said Becky. "You have
to, miss, if you're born a scullery maid. I'd rather have rats
than cockroaches."

"So would I," said Sara; "I suppose you might make friends with a
rat in time, but I don't believe I should like to make friends
with a cockroach."

Sometimes Becky did not dare to spend more than a few minutes in
the bright, warm room, and when this was the case perhaps only a
few words could be exchanged, and a small purchase slipped into
the old-fashioned pocket Becky carried under her dress skirt,
tied round her waist with a band of tape. The search for and
discovery of satisfying things to eat which could be packed into
small compass, added a new interest to Sara's existence. When
she drove or walked out, she used to look into shop windows
eagerly. The first time it occurred to her to bring home two or
three little meat pies, she felt that she had hit upon a
discovery. When she exhibited them, Becky's eyes quite sparkled.

"Oh, miss!" she murmured. "Them will be nice an' fillin.' It's
fillin'ness that's best. Sponge cake's a 'evenly thing, but it
melts away like—if you understand, miss. These'll just STAY in
yer stummick."

"Well," hesitated Sara, "I don't think it would be good if they
stayed always, but I do believe they will be satisfying."

They were satisfying—and so were beef sandwiches, bought at a
cook-shop—and so were rolls and Bologna sausage. In time, Becky
began to lose her hungry, tired feeling, and the coal box did not
seem so unbearably heavy.

However heavy it was, and whatsoever the temper of the cook, and
the hardness of the work heaped upon her shoulders, she had
always the chance of the afternoon to look forward to—the
chance that Miss Sara would be able to be in her sitting room.
In fact, the mere seeing of Miss Sara would have been enough
without meat pies. If there was time only for a few words, they
were always friendly, merry words that put heart into one; and if
there was time for more, then there was an installment of a story
to be told, or some other thing one remembered afterward and
sometimes lay awake in one's bed in the attic to think over.
Sara—who was only doing what she unconsciously liked better than
anything else, Nature having made her for a giver—had not the
least idea what she meant to poor Becky, and how wonderful a
benefactor she seemed. If Nature has made you for a giver, your
hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may
be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full,
and you can give things out of that—warm things, kind things,
sweet things—help and comfort and laughter—and sometimes gay,
kind laughter is the best help of all.

Becky had scarcely known what laughter was through all her poor,
little hard-driven life. Sara made her laugh, and laughed with
her; and, though neither of them quite knew it, the laughter was
as "fillin'" as the meat pies.

A few weeks before Sara's eleventh birthday a letter came to her
from her father, which did not seem to be written in such boyish
high spirits as usual. He was not very well, and was evidently
overweighted by the business connected with the diamond mines.

"You see, little Sara," he wrote, "your daddy is not a
businessman at all, and figures and documents bother him. He
does not really understand them, and all this seems so enormous.
Perhaps, if I was not feverish I should not be awake, tossing
about, one half of the night and spend the other half in
troublesome dreams. If my little missus were here, I dare say
she would give me some solemn, good advice. You would, wouldn't
you, Little Missus?"

One of his many jokes had been to call her his "little missus"
because she had such an old-fashioned air.

He had made wonderful preparations for her birthday. Among
other things, a new doll had been ordered in Paris, and her
wardrobe was to be, indeed, a marvel of splendid perfection.
When she had replied to the letter asking her if the doll would
be an acceptable present, Sara had been very quaint.

"I am getting very old," she wrote; "you see, I shall never live
to have another doll given me. This will be my last doll. There
is something solemn about it. If I could write poetry, I am sure
a poem about 'A Last Doll' would be very nice. But I cannot
write poetry. I have tried, and it made me laugh. It did not
sound like Watts or Coleridge or Shakespeare at all. No one
could ever take Emily's place, but I should respect the Last Doll
very much; and I am sure the school would love it. They all like
dolls, though some of the big ones—the almost fifteen ones—
pretend they are too grown up."

Captain Crewe had a splitting headache when he read this letter
in his bungalow in India. The table before him was heaped with
papers and letters which were alarming him and filling him with
anxious dread, but he laughed as he had not laughed for weeks.

"Oh," he said, "she's better fun every year she lives. God
grant this business may right itself and leave me free to run
home and see her. What wouldn't I give to have her little arms
round my neck this minute! What WOULDN'T I give!"

The birthday was to be celebrated by great festivities. The
schoolroom was to be decorated, and there was to be a party. The
boxes containing the presents were to be opened with great
ceremony, and there was to be a glittering feast spread in Miss
Minchin's sacred room. When the day arrived the whole house was
in a whirl of excitement. How the morning passed nobody quite
knew, because there seemed such preparations to be made. The
schoolroom was being decked with garlands of holly; the desks had
been moved away, and red covers had been put on the forms which
were arrayed round the room against the wall.

When Sara went into her sitting room in the morning, she found
on the table a small, dumpy package, tied up in a piece of brown
paper. She knew it was a present, and she thought she could
guess whom it came from. She opened it quite tenderly. It was a
square pincushion, made of not quite clean red flannel, and black
pins had been stuck carefully into it to form the words, "Menny
hapy returns."

"Oh!" cried Sara, with a warm feeling in her heart. "What pains
she has taken! I like it so, it—it makes me feel sorrowful."

But the next moment she was mystified. On the under side of the
pincushion was secured a card, bearing in neat letters the name
"Miss Amelia Minchin."

Sara turned it over and over.

"Miss Amelia!" she said to herself "How CAN it be!"

And just at that very moment she heard the door being cautiously
pushed open and saw Becky peeping round it.

There was an affectionate, happy grin on her face, and she
shuffled forward and stood nervously pulling at her fingers.

"Do yer like it, Miss Sara?" she said. "Do yer?"

"Like it?" cried Sara. "You darling Becky, you made it all
yourself."

Becky gave a hysteric but joyful sniff, and her eyes looked
quite moist with delight.

"It ain't nothin' but flannin, an' the flannin ain't new; but I
wanted to give yer somethin' an' I made it of nights. I knew yer
could PRETEND it was satin with diamond pins in.
I
tried to
when I was makin' it. The card, miss," rather doubtfully; "'t
warn't wrong of me to pick it up out o' the dust-bin, was it?
Miss 'Meliar had throwed it away. I hadn't no card o' my own,
an' I knowed it wouldn't be a proper presink if I didn't pin a
card on— so I pinned Miss 'Meliar's."

Sara flew at her and hugged her. She could not have told
herself or anyone else why there was a lump in her throat.