A Little Princess (19 page)

Then they slipped through the skylight as noiselessly as they had
entered it. And, after he was quite sure they had gone,
Melchisedec was greatly relieved, and in the course of a few
minutes felt it safe to emerge from his hole again and scuffle
about in the hope that even such alarming human beings as these
might have chanced to carry crumbs in their pockets and drop one
or two of them.

When Sara had passed the house next door she had seen Ram Dass
closing the shutters, and caught her glimpse of this room also.

"It is a long time since I saw a nice place from the inside," was
the thought which crossed her mind.

There was the usual bright fire glowing in the grate, and the
Indian gentleman was sitting before it. His head was resting in
his hand, and he looked as lonely and unhappy as ever.

"Poor man!" said Sara. "I wonder what you are supposing."

And this was what he was "supposing" at that very moment.

"Suppose," he was thinking, "suppose—even if Carmichael traces
the people to Moscow—the little girl they took from Madame
Pascal's school in Paris is NOT the one we are in search of.
Suppose she proves to be quite a different child. What steps
shall I take next?"

When Sara went into the house she met Miss Minchin, who had come
downstairs to scold the cook.

"Where have you wasted your time?" she demanded. "You have been
out for hours."

"It was so wet and muddy," Sara answered, "it was hard to walk,
because my shoes were so bad and slipped about."

"Make no excuses," said Miss Minchin, "and tell no falsehoods."

Sara went in to the cook. The cook had received a severe
lecture and was in a fearful temper as a result. She was only
too rejoiced to have someone to vent her rage on, and Sara was a
convenience, as usual.

"Why didn't you stay all night?" she snapped.

Sara laid her purchases on the table.

"Here are the things," she said.

The cook looked them over, grumbling. She was in a very savage
humor indeed.

"May I have something to eat?" Sara asked rather faintly.

"Tea's over and done with," was the answer. "Did you expect me
to keep it hot for you?"

Sara stood silent for a second.

"I had no dinner," she said next, and her voice was quite low.
She made it low because she was afraid it would tremble.

"There's some bread in the pantry," said the cook. "That's all
you'll get at this time of day."

Sara went and found the bread. It was old and hard and dry. The
cook was in too vicious a humor to give her anything to eat with
it. It was always safe and easy to vent her spite on Sara.
Really, it was hard for the child to climb the three long
flights of stairs leading to her attic. She often found them
long and steep when she was tired; but tonight it seemed as if
she would never reach the top. Several times she was obliged to
stop to rest. When she reached the top landing she was glad to
see the glimmer of a light coming from under her door. That
meant that Ermengarde had managed to creep up to pay her a visit.
There was some comfort in that. It was better than to go into
the room alone and find it empty and desolate. The mere presence
of plump, comfortable Ermengarde, wrapped in her red shawl, would
warm it a little.

Yes; there Ermengarde was when she opened the door. She was
sitting in the middle of the bed, with her feet tucked safely
under her. She had never become intimate with Melchisedec and
his family, though they rather fascinated her. When she found
herself alone in the attic she always preferred to sit on the bed
until Sara arrived. She had, in fact, on this occasion had time
to become rather nervous, because Melchisedec had appeared and
sniffed about a good deal, and once had made her utter a
repressed squeal by sitting up on his hind legs and, while he
looked at her, sniffing pointedly in her direction.

"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."