A Little Princess
"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."
It was only a bundle of wool wrapped in red and white tissue paper, but
the tissue paper was soon twisted into the form of little dishes, and
was combined with the remaining flowers to ornament the candlestick
which was to light the feast. Only the Magic could have made it more
than an old table covered with a red shawl and set with rubbish from a
long-unopened trunk. But Sara drew back and gazed at it, seeing
wonders; and Becky, after staring in delight, spoke with bated breath.
"This 'ere," she suggested, with a glance round the attic--"is it the
Bastille now--or has it turned into somethin' different?"
"Oh, yes, yes!" said Sara. "Quite different. It is a banquet hall!"
"My eye, miss!" ejaculated Becky. "A blanket 'all!" and she turned to
view the splendors about her with awed bewilderment.
"A banquet hall," said Sara. "A vast chamber where feasts are given.
It has a vaulted roof, and a minstrels' gallery, and a huge chimney
filled with blazing oaken logs, and it is brilliant with waxen tapers
twinkling on every side."
"My eye, Miss Sara!" gasped Becky again.
Then the door opened, and Ermengarde came in, rather staggering under
the weight of her hamper. She started back with an exclamation of joy.
To enter from the chill darkness outside, and find one's self
confronted by a totally unanticipated festal board, draped with red,
adorned with white napery, and wreathed with flowers, was to feel that
the preparations were brilliant indeed.
"Oh, Sara!" she cried out. "You are the cleverest girl I ever saw!"
"Isn't it nice?" said Sara. "They are things out of my old trunk. I
asked my Magic, and it told me to go and look."
"But oh, miss," cried Becky, "wait till she's told you what they are!
They ain't just--oh, miss, please tell her," appealing to Sara.
So Sara told her, and because her Magic helped her she made her ALMOST
see it all: the golden platters--the vaulted spaces--the blazing
logs--the twinkling waxen tapers. As the things were taken out of the
hamper--the frosted cakes--the fruits--the bonbons and the wine--the
feast became a splendid thing.
"It's like a real party!" cried Ermengarde.
"It's like a queen's table," sighed Becky.
Then Ermengarde had a sudden brilliant thought.
"I'll tell you what, Sara," she said. "Pretend you are a princess now
and this is a royal feast."
"But it's your feast," said Sara; "you must be the princess, and we
will be your maids of honor."
"Oh, I can't," said Ermengarde. "I'm too fat, and I don't know how.
YOU be her."
"Well, if you want me to," said Sara.
But suddenly she thought of something else and ran to the rusty grate.
"There is a lot of paper and rubbish stuffed in here!" she exclaimed.
"If we light it, there will be a bright blaze for a few minutes, and we
shall feel as if it was a real fire." She struck a match and lighted
it up with a great specious glow which illuminated the room.
"By the time it stops blazing," Sara said, "we shall forget about its
not being real."
She stood in the dancing glow and smiled.
"Doesn't it LOOK real?" she said. "Now we will begin the party."
She led the way to the table. She waved her hand graciously to
Ermengarde and Becky. She was in the midst of her dream.
"Advance, fair damsels," she said in her happy dream-voice, "and be
seated at the banquet table. My noble father, the king, who is absent
on a long journey, has commanded me to feast you." She turned her head
slightly toward the corner of the room. "What, ho, there, minstrels!
Strike up with your viols and bassoons. Princesses," she explained
rapidly to Ermengarde and Becky, "always had minstrels to play at their
feasts. Pretend there is a minstrel gallery up there in the corner.
Now we will begin."
They had barely had time to take their pieces of cake into their
hands--not one of them had time to do more, when--they all three sprang
to their feet and turned pale faces toward the
door--listening--listening.
Someone was coming up the stairs. There was no mistake about it. Each
of them recognized the angry, mounting tread and knew that the end of
all things had come.
"It's--the missus!" choked Becky, and dropped her piece of cake upon
the floor.
"Yes," said Sara, her eyes growing shocked and large in her small white
face. "Miss Minchin has found us out."
Miss Minchin struck the door open with a blow of her hand. She was pale