A Little Princess (11 page)

"To think that she was the girl with the diamond mines, Lavinia
commented. "She does look an object. And she's queerer than
ever. I never liked her much, but I can't bear that way she has
now of looking at people without speaking—just as if she was
finding them out."

"I am," said Sara, promptly, when she heard of this. "That's
what I look at some people for. I like to know about them. I
think them over afterward."

The truth was that she had saved herself annoyance several times
by keeping her eye on Lavinia, who was quite ready to make
mischief, and would have been rather pleased to have made it for
the ex-show pupil.

Sara never made any mischief herself, or interfered with anyone.
She worked like a drudge; she tramped through the wet streets,
carrying parcels and baskets; she labored with the childish
inattention of the little ones' French lessons; as she became
shabbier and more forlorn-looking, she was told that she had
better take her meals downstairs; she was treated as if she was
nobody's concern, and her heart grew proud and sore, but she
never told anyone what she felt.

"Soldiers don't complain," she would say between her small, shut
teeth, "I am not going to do it; I will pretend this is part of a
war."

But there were hours when her child heart might almost have
broken with loneliness but for three people.

The first, it must be owned, was Becky—just Becky. Throughout
all that first night spent in the garret, she had felt a vague
comfort in knowing that on the other side of the wall in which
the rats scuffled and squeaked there was another young human
creature. And during the nights that followed the sense of
comfort grew. They had little chance to speak to each other
during the day. Each had her own tasks to perform, and any
attempt at conversation would have been regarded as a tendency to
loiter and lose time. "Don't mind me, miss," Becky whispered
during the first morning, "if I don't say nothin' polite. Some
un'd be down on us if I did. I MEANS 'please' an' 'thank you'
an' 'beg pardon,' but I dassn't to take time to say it."

But before daybreak she used to slip into Sara's attic and
button her dress and give her such help as she required before
she went downstairs to light the kitchen fire. And when night
came Sara always heard the humble knock at her door which meant
that her handmaid was ready to help her again if she was needed.
During the first weeks of her grief Sara felt as if she were too
stupefied to talk, so it happened that some time passed before
they saw each other much or exchanged visits. Becky's heart told
her that it was best that people in trouble should be left alone.

The second of the trio of comforters was Ermengarde, but odd
things happened before Ermengarde found her place.

When Sara's mind seemed to awaken again to the life about her,
she realized that she had forgotten that an Ermengarde lived in
the world. The two had always been friends, but Sara had felt
as if she were years the older. It could not be contested that
Ermengarde was as dull as she was affectionate. She clung to
Sara in a simple, helpless way; she brought her lessons to her
that she might be helped; she listened to her every word and
besieged her with requests for stories. But she had nothing
interesting to say herself, and she loathed books of every
description. She was, in fact, not a person one would remember
when one was caught in the storm of a great trouble, and Sara
forgot her.

It had been all the easier to forget her because she had been
suddenly called home for a few weeks. When she came back she
did not see Sara for a day or two, and when she met her for the
first time she encountered her coming down a corridor with her
arms full of garments which were to be taken downstairs to be
mended. Sara herself had already been taught to mend them. She
looked pale and unlike herself, and she was attired in the queer,
outgrown frock whose shortness showed so much thin black leg.

Ermengarde was too slow a girl to be equal to such a situation.
She could not think of anything to say. She knew what had
happened, but, somehow, she had never imagined Sara could look
like this—so odd and poor and almost like a servant. It made
her quite miserable, and she could do nothing but break into a
short hysterical laugh and exclaim—aimlessly and as if without
any meaning, "Oh, Sara, is that you?"

"Yes," answered Sara, and suddenly a strange thought passed
through her mind and made her face flush. She held the pile of
garments in her arms, and her chin rested upon the top of it to
keep it steady. Something in the look of her straight-gazing
eyes made Ermengarde lose her wits still more. She felt as if
Sara had changed into a new kind of girl, and she had never known
her before. Perhaps it was because she had suddenly grown poor
and had to mend things and work like Becky.

"Oh," she stammered. "How—how are you?"

"I don't know," Sara replied. "How are you?"

"I'm—I'm quite well," said Ermengarde, overwhelmed with
shyness. Then spasmodically she thought of something to say
which seemed more intimate. "Are you—are you very unhappy?" she
said in a rush.

Then Sara was guilty of an injustice. Just at that moment her
torn heart swelled within her, and she felt that if anyone was as
stupid as that, one had better get away from her.

"What do you think?" she said. "Do you think I am very happy?"
And she marched past her without another word.

In course of time she realized that if her wretchedness had not
made her forget things, she would have known that poor, dull
Ermengarde was not to be blamed for her unready, awkward ways.
She was always awkward, and the more she felt, the more stupid
she was given to being.

But the sudden thought which had flashed upon her had made her
over-sensitive.

"She is like the others," she had thought. "She does not really
want to talk to me. She knows no one does."

So for several weeks a barrier stood between them. When they
met by chance Sara looked the other way, and Ermengarde felt too
stiff and embarrassed to speak. Sometimes they nodded to each
other in passing, but there were times when they did not even
exchange a greeting.

"If she would rather not talk to me," Sara thought, "I will keep
out of her way. Miss Minchin makes that easy enough."

Miss Minchin made it so easy that at last they scarcely saw each
other at all. At that time it was noticed that Ermengarde was
more stupid than ever, and that she looked listless and unhappy.
She used to sit in the window-seat, huddled in a heap, and stare
out of the window without speaking. Once Jessie, who was
passing, stopped to look at her curiously.

"What are you crying for, Ermengarde?" she asked.

"I'm not crying," answered Ermengarde, in a muffled, unsteady
voice.

"You are," said Jessie. "A great big tear just rolled down the
bridge of your nose and dropped off at the end of it. And there
goes another."

"Well," said Ermengarde, "I'm miserable—and no one need
interfere." And she turned her plump back and took out her
handkerchief and boldly hid her face in it.

That night, when Sara went to her attic, she was later than
usual. She had been kept at work until after the hour at which
the pupils went to bed, and after that she had gone to her
lessons in the lonely schoolroom. When she reached the top of
the stairs, she was surprised to see a glimmer of light coming
from under the attic door.

"Nobody goes there but myself," she thought quickly, "but
someone has lighted a candle."

Someone had, indeed, lighted a candle, and it was not burning in
the kitchen candlestick she was expected to use, but in one of
those belonging to the pupils' bedrooms. The someone was
sitting upon the battered footstool, and was dressed in her
nightgown and wrapped up in a red shawl. It was Ermengarde.

"Ermengarde!" cried Sara. She was so startled that she was
almost frightened. "You will get into trouble."

Ermengarde stumbled up from her footstool. She shuffled across
the attic in her bedroom slippers, which were too large for her.
Her eyes and nose were pink with crying.

"I know I shall—if I'm found out." she said. "But I don't
care—I don't care a bit. Oh, Sara, please tell me. What is
the matter? Why don't you like me any more?"

Something in her voice made the familiar lump rise in Sara's
throat. It was so affectionate and simple—so like the old
Ermengarde who had asked her to be "best friends." It sounded as
if she had not meant what she had seemed to mean during these
past weeks.

"I do like you," Sara answered. "I thought—you see, everything
is different now. I thought you—were different.

Ermengarde opened her wet eyes wide.

"Why, it was you who were different!" she cried. "You didn't
want to talk to me. I didn't know what to do. It was you who
were different after I came back."

Sara thought a moment. She saw she had made a mistake.

"I AM different," she explained, "though not in the way you
think. Miss Minchin does not want me to talk to the girls. Most
of them don't want to talk to me. I thought—perhaps—you
didn't. So I tried to keep out of your way."

"Oh, Sara," Ermengarde almost wailed in her reproachful dismay.
And then after one more look they rushed into each other's arms.
It must be confessed that Sara's small black head lay for some
minutes on the shoulder covered by the red shawl. When
Ermengarde had seemed to desert her, she had felt horribly
lonely.

Afterward they sat down upon the floor together, Sara clasping
her knees with her arms, and Ermengarde rolled up in her shawl.
Ermengarde looked at the odd, big-eyed little face adoringly.

"I couldn't bear it any more," she said. "I dare say you could
live without me, Sara; but I couldn't live without you. I was
nearly DEAD. So tonight, when I was crying under the
bedclothes, I thought all at once of creeping up here and just
begging you to let us be friends again."

"You are nicer than I am," said Sara. "I was too proud to try
and make friends. You see, now that trials have come, they have
shown that I am NOT a nice child. I was afraid they would.
Perhaps"—wrinkling her forehead wisely—"that is what they were
sent for."

"I don't see any good in them," said Ermengarde stoutly.

"Neither do I—to speak the truth," admitted Sara, frankly.
"But I suppose there MIGHT be good in things, even if we don't
see it. There MIGHT"—DOUBTFULLY—"Be good in Miss Minchin."

Ermengarde looked round the attic with a rather fearsome
curiosity.

"Sara," she said, "do you think you can bear living here?"

Sara looked round also.

"If I pretend it's quite different, I can," she answered; "or if
I pretend it is a place in a story."

She spoke slowly. Her imagination was beginning to work for
her. It had not worked for her at all since her troubles had
come upon her. She had felt as if it had been stunned.

"Other people have lived in worse places. Think of the Count of
Monte Cristo in the dungeons of the Chateau d'If. And think of
the people in the Bastille!"

"The Bastille," half whispered Ermengarde, watching her and
beginning to be fascinated. She remembered stories of the French
Revolution which Sara had been able to fix in her mind by her
dramatic relation of them. No one but Sara could have done it.

A well-known glow came into Sara's eyes.

"Yes," she said, hugging her knees, "that will be a good place
to pretend about. I am a prisoner in the Bastille. I have been
here for years and years—and years; and everybody has forgotten
about me. Miss Minchin is the jailer—and Becky"—a sudden light
adding itself to the glow in her eyes—"Becky is the prisoner in
the next cell."

She turned to Ermengarde, looking quite like the old Sara.

"I shall pretend that," she said; "and it will be a great
comfort."

Ermengarde was at once enraptured and awed.

"And will you tell me all about it?" she said. "May I creep up
here at night, whenever it is safe, and hear the things you have
made up in the day? It will seem as if we were more 'best
friends' than ever."

"Yes," answered Sara, nodding. "Adversity tries people, and
mine has tried you and proved how nice you are."

The third person in the trio was Lottie. She was a small thing
and did not know what adversity meant, and was much bewildered by
the alteration she saw in her young adopted mother. She had
heard it rumored that strange things had happened to Sara, but
she could not understand why she looked different—why she wore
an old black frock and came into the schoolroom only to teach
instead of to sit in her place of honor and learn lessons
herself. There had been much whispering among the little ones
when it had been discovered that Sara no longer lived in the
rooms in which Emily had so long sat in state. Lottie's chief
difficulty was that Sara said so little when one asked her
questions. At seven mysteries must be made very clear if one is
to understand them.

"Are you very poor now, Sara?" she had asked confidentially the
first morning her friend took charge of the small French class.
"Are you as poor as a beggar?" She thrust a fat hand into the
slim one and opened round, tearful eyes. "I don't want you to be
as poor as a beggar."

She looked as if she was going to cry. And Sara hurriedly
consoled her.

"Beggars have nowhere to live," she said courageously. "I have a
place to live in."

"Where do you live?" persisted Lottle. "The new girl sleeps in
your room, and it isn't pretty any more."

"I live in another room," said Sara.

"Is it a nice one?" inquired Lottie. "I want to go and see it."