A Little Princess
"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 Lottie. "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." Lottie
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