A Little Princess
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."
"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.