"I TRIED NOT TO BE"
It was pretty, comfortable Mrs. Carmichael who explained everything. She
was sent for at once, and came across the square to take Sara into her
warm arms and make clear to her all that had happened. The excitement of
the totally unexpected discovery had been temporarily almost
overpowering to Mr. Carrisford in his weak condition.
"Upon my word," he said faintly to Mr. Carmichael, when it was suggested
that the little girl should go into another room, "I feel as if I do not
want to lose sight of her."
"I will take care of her," Janet said, "and mamma will come in a few
minutes." And it was Janet who led her away.
"We're so glad you are found," she said. "You don't know how glad we are
that you are found."
Donald stood with his hands in his pockets, and gazed at Sara with
reflecting and self-reproachful eyes.
"If I'd just asked what your name was when I gave you my sixpence," he
said, "you would have told me it was Sara Crewe, and then you would
have been found in a minute."
Then Mrs. Carmichael came in. She looked very much moved, and suddenly
took Sara in her arms and kissed her.
"You look bewildered, poor child," she said. "And it is not to be
wondered at."
Sara could only think of one thing.
"Was he," she said, with a glance toward the closed door of the
library--"was _he_ the wicked friend? Oh, do tell me!"
Mrs. Carmichael was crying as she kissed her again. She felt as if she
ought to be kissed very often because she had not been kissed for so
long.
"He was not wicked, my dear," she answered. "He did not really lose your
papa's money. He only thought he had lost it; and because he loved him
so much his grief made him so ill that for a time he was not in his
right mind. He almost died of brain-fever, and long before he began to
recover your poor papa was dead."
"And he did not know where to find me," murmured Sara. "And I was so
near." Somehow, she could not forget that she had been so near.
"He believed you were in school in France," Mrs. Carmichael explained.
"And he was continually misled by false clues. He has looked for you
everywhere. When he saw you pass by, looking so sad and neglected, he
did not dream that you were his friend's poor child; but because you
were a little girl, too, he was sorry for you, and wanted to make you
happier. And he told Ram Dass to climb into your attic window and try
to make you comfortable."
Sara gave a start of joy; her whole look changed.
"Did Ram Dass bring the things?" she cried out; "did he tell Ram Dass to
do it? Did he make the dream that came true!"
"Yes, my dear--yes! He is kind and good, and he was sorry for you, for
little lost Sara Crewe's sake."
The library door opened and Mr. Carmichael appeared, calling Sara to him
with a gesture.
"Mr. Carrisford is better already," he said. "He wants you to come to
him."
Sara did not wait. When the Indian gentleman looked at her as she
entered, he saw that her face was all alight.
She went and stood before his chair, with her hands clasped together
against her breast.
"You sent the things to me," she said, in a joyful emotional little
voice--"the beautiful, beautiful things? _You_ sent them!"
"Yes, poor, dear child, I did," he answered her. He was weak and broken
with long illness and trouble, but he looked at her with the look she
remembered in her father's eyes--that look of loving her and wanting to
take her in his arms. It made her kneel down by him, just as she used to
kneel by her father when they were the dearest friends and lovers in the
world.
"Then it is you who are my friend," she said; "it is you who are my
friend!" And she dropped her face on his thin hand and kissed it again
and again.
"The man will be himself again in three weeks," Mr. Carmichael said
aside to his wife. "Look at his face already."
In fact, he did look changed. Here was the "little missus," and he had
new things to think of and plan for already. In the first place, there
was Miss Minchin. She must be interviewed and told of the change which
had taken place in the fortunes of her pupil.
Sara was not to return to the seminary at all. The Indian gentleman was
very determined upon that point. She must remain where she was, and Mr.
Carmichael should go and see Miss Minchin himself.
"I am glad I need not go back," said Sara. "She will be very angry. She
does not like me; though perhaps it is my fault, because I do not like
her."
But, oddly enough, Miss Minchin made it unnecessary for Mr. Carmichael
to go to her, by actually coming in search of her pupil herself. She had
wanted Sara for something, and on inquiry had heard an astonishing
thing. One of the housemaids had seen her steal out of the area with
something hidden under her cloak, and had also seen her go up the steps
of the next door and enter the house.
"What does she mean!" cried Miss Minchin to Miss Amelia.
"I don't know, I'm sure, sister," answered Miss Amelia. "Unless she has
made friends with him because he has lived in India."
"It would be just like her to thrust herself upon him and try to gain
his sympathies in some such impertinent fashion," said Miss Minchin.
"She must have been in the house two hours. I will not allow such
presumption. I shall go and inquire into the matter, and apologize for
her intrusion."
Sara was sitting on a footstool close to Mr. Carrisford's knee, and
listening to some of the many things he felt it necessary to try to
explain to her, when Ram Dass announced the visitor's arrival.
Sara rose involuntarily, and became rather pale; but Mr. Carrisford saw
that she stood quietly, and showed none of the ordinary signs of child
terror.
Miss Minchin entered the room with a sternly dignified manner. She was
correctly and well dressed, and rigidly polite.
"I am sorry to disturb Mr. Carrisford," she said; "but I have
explanations to make. I am Miss Minchin, the proprietress of the Young
Ladies' Seminary next door."
The Indian gentleman looked at her for a moment in silent scrutiny. He
was a man who had naturally a rather hot temper, and he did not wish it
to get too much the better of him.
"So you are Miss Minchin?" he said.
"I am, sir."
"In that case," the Indian gentleman replied, "you have arrived at the
right time. My solicitor, Mr. Carmichael, was just on the point of going
to see you."
Mr. Carmichael bowed slightly, and Miss Minchin looked from him to Mr.
Carrisford in amazement.
"Your solicitor!" she said. "I do not understand. I have come here as a
matter of duty. I have just discovered that you have been intruded upon
through the forwardness of one of my pupils--a charity pupil. I came to
explain that she intruded without my knowledge." She turned upon Sara.
"Go home at once," she commanded indignantly. "You shall be severely
punished. Go home at once."
The Indian gentleman drew Sara to his side and patted her hand.
"She is not going."
Miss Minchin felt rather as if she must be losing her senses.
"Not going!" she repeated.
"No," said Mr. Carrisford. "She is not going _home_--if you give your
house that name. Her home for the future will be with me."
Miss Minchin fell back in amazed indignation.
"With _you_! With _you_, sir! What does this mean?"
"Kindly explain the matter, Carmichael," said the Indian gentleman; "and
get it over as quickly as possible." And he made Sara sit down again,
and held her hands in his--which was another trick of her papa's.
Then Mr. Carmichael explained--in the quiet, level-toned, steady manner
of a man who knew his subject, and all its legal significance, which was
a thing Miss Minchin understood as a business woman, and did not enjoy.
"Mr. Carrisford, madam," he said, "was an intimate friend of the late
Captain Crewe. He was his partner in certain large investments. The
fortune which Captain Crewe supposed he had lost has been recovered,
and is now in Mr. Carrisford's hands."
"The fortune!" cried Miss Minchin; and she really lost color as she
uttered the exclamation. "Sara's fortune!"
"It _will_ be Sara's fortune," replied Mr. Carmichael, rather coldly.
"It _is_ Sara's fortune now, in fact. Certain events have increased it
enormously. The diamond-mines have retrieved themselves."
"The diamond-mines!" Miss Minchin gasped out. If this was true, nothing
so horrible, she felt, had ever happened to her since she was born.
"The diamond-mines," Mr. Carmichael repeated, and he could not help
adding, with a rather sly, unlawyer-like smile: "There are not many
princesses, Miss Minchin, who are richer than your little charity pupil,
Sara Crewe, will be. Mr. Carrisford has been searching for her for
nearly two years; he has found her at last, and he will keep her."
After which he asked Miss Minchin to sit down while he explained matters
to her fully, and went into such detail as was necessary to make it
quite clear to her that Sara's future was an assured one, and that what
had seemed to be lost was to be restored to her tenfold; also, that she
had in Mr. Carrisford a guardian as well as a friend.
Miss Minchin was not a clever woman, and in her excitement she was silly
enough to make one desperate effort to regain what she could not help
seeing she had lost through her own worldly folly.
"He found her under my care," she protested. "I have done everything
for her. But for me she would have starved in the streets."
Here the Indian gentleman lost his temper.
"As to starving in the streets," he said, "she might have starved more
comfortably there than in your attic."
"Captain Crewe left her in my charge," Miss Minchin argued. "She must
return to it until she is of age. She can be a parlor-boarder again. She
must finish her education. The law will interfere in my behalf."
"Come, come, Miss Minchin," Mr. Carmichael interposed, "the law will do
nothing of the sort. If Sara herself wishes to return to you, I dare say
Mr. Carrisford might not refuse to allow it. But that rests with Sara."
"Then," said Miss Minchin, "I appeal to Sara. I have not spoiled you,
perhaps," she said awkwardly to the little girl; "but you know that your
papa was pleased with your progress. And--ahem!--I have always been fond
of you."
Sara's green-gray eyes fixed themselves on her with the quiet, clear
look Miss Minchin particularly disliked.
"Have _you_, Miss Minchin?" she said; "I did not know that."
Miss Minchin reddened and drew herself up.
"You ought to have known it," said she; "but children, unfortunately,
never know what is best for them. Amelia and I always said you were the
cleverest child in the school. Will you not do your duty to your poor
papa and come home with me?"
Sara took a step toward her and stood still. She was thinking of the
day when she had been told that she belonged to nobody, and was in
danger of being turned into the street; she was thinking of the cold,
hungry hours she had spent alone with Emily and Melchisedec in the
attic. She looked Miss Minchin steadily in the face.
"You know why I will not go home with you, Miss Minchin," she said; "you
know quite well."
A hot flush showed itself on Miss Minchin's hard, angry face.
"You will never see your companions again," she began. "I will see that
Ermengarde and Lottie are kept away--"
Mr. Carmichael stopped her with polite firmness.
"Excuse me," he said; "she will see any one she wishes to see. The
parents of Miss Crewe's fellow-pupils are not likely to refuse her
invitations to visit her at her guardian's house. Mr. Carrisford will
attend to that."
It must be confessed that even Miss Minchin flinched. This was worse
than the eccentric bachelor uncle who might have a peppery temper and be
easily offended at the treatment of his niece. A woman of sordid mind
could easily believe that most people would not refuse to allow their
children to remain friends with a little heiress of diamond-mines. And
if Mr. Carrisford chose to tell certain of her patrons how unhappy Sara
Crewe had been made, many unpleasant things might happen.
"You have not undertaken an easy charge," she said to the Indian
gentleman, as she turned to leave the room; "you will discover that very
soon. The child is neither truthful nor grateful. I suppose"--to
Sara--"that you feel now that you are a princess again."
Sara looked down and flushed a little, because she thought her pet fancy
might not be easy for strangers--even nice ones--to understand at first.
"I--tried not to be anything else," she answered in a low voice--"even
when I was coldest and hungriest--I _tried_ not to be."
"Now it will not be necessary to try," said Miss Minchin, acidly, as Ram
Dass salaamed her out of the room.
* * * * *
She returned home and, going to her sitting-room, sent at once for Miss
Amelia. She sat closeted with her all the rest of the afternoon, and it
must be admitted that poor Miss Amelia passed through more than one bad
quarter of an hour. She shed a good many tears, and mopped her eyes a
good deal. One of her unfortunate remarks almost caused her sister to
snap her head entirely off, but it resulted in an unusual manner.
"I'm not as clever as you, sister," she said, "and I am always afraid to
say things to you for fear of making you angry. Perhaps if I were not so
timid it would be better for the school and for both of us. I must say
I've often thought it would have been better if you had been less severe
on Sara Crewe, and had seen that she was decently dressed and more
comfortable. I know she was worked too hard for a child of her age, and
I _know_ she was only half fed--"
"How dare you say such a thing!" exclaimed Miss Minchin.
"I don't know how I dare," Miss Amelia answered, with a kind of reckless
courage; "but now I've begun I may as well finish, whatever happens to
me. The child was a clever child and a good child--and she would have
paid you for any kindness you had shown her. But you didn't show her
any. The fact was, she was too clever for you, and you always disliked
her for that reason. She used to see through us both--"
"Amelia!" gasped her infuriated elder, looking as if she would box her
ears and knock her cap off, as she had often done to Becky.
But Miss Amelia's disappointment had made her hysterical enough not to
care what occurred next.
"She did! She did!" she cried. "She saw through us both. She saw that
you were a hard-hearted, worldly woman, and that I was a weak fool, and
that we were both of us vulgar and mean enough to grovel on our knees
before her money, and behave ill to her because it was taken from
her--though she behaved herself like a little princess even when she was
a beggar. She did--she did--like a little princess!" and her hysterics
got the better of the poor woman, and she began to laugh and cry both at
once, and rock herself backward and forward in such a way as made Miss
Minchin stare aghast.
"And now you've lost her," she cried wildly; "and some other school will
get her and her money; and if she were like any other child she'd tell
how she's been treated, and all our pupils would be taken away and we
should be ruined. And it serves us right; but it serves you right more
than it does me, for you are a hard woman, Maria Minchin--you're a hard,
selfish, worldly woman!"
And she was in danger of making so much noise with her hysterical chokes
and gurgles that her sister was obliged to go to her and apply salts and
sal volatile to quiet her, instead of pouring forth her indignation at
her audacity.
And from that time forward, it may be mentioned, the elder Miss Minchin
actually began to stand a little in awe of a sister who, while she
looked so foolish, was evidently not quite so foolish as she looked, and
might, consequently, break out and speak truths people did not want to
hear.
That evening, when the pupils were gathered together before the fire in
the school-room, as was their custom before going to bed, Ermengarde
came in with a letter in her hand and a queer expression on her round
face. It was queer because, while it was an expression of delighted
excitement, it was combined with such amazement as seemed to belong to
a kind of shock just received.
"What _is_ the matter?" cried two or three voices at once.
"Is it anything to do with the row that has been going on?" said
Lavinia, eagerly. "There has been such a row in Miss Minchin's room,
Miss Amelia has had something like hysterics and has had to go to bed."
Ermengarde answered them slowly as if she were half stunned.
"I have just had this letter from Sara," she said, holding it out to let
them see what a long letter it was.
"From Sara!" Every voice joined in that exclamation.
"Where is she?" almost shrieked Jessie.
"Next door," said Ermengarde, still slowly; "with the Indian gentleman."
"Where? Where? Has she been sent away? Does Miss Minchin know? Was the
row about that? Why did she write? Tell us! Tell us!"
There was a perfect babel, and Lottie began to cry plaintively.
Ermengarde answered them slowly as if she were half plunged out into
what, at the moment, seemed the most important and self-explaining
thing.
"There _were_ diamond-mines," she said stoutly; "there _were_!"
Open mouths and open eyes confronted her.
"They were real," she hurried on. "It was all a mistake about them.
Something happened for a time, and Mr. Carrisford thought they were
ruined--"
"Who is Mr. Carrisford?" shouted Jessie.
"The Indian gentleman. And Captain Crewe thought so, too--and he died;
and Mr. Carrisford had brain-fever and ran away, and _he_ almost died.
And he did not know where Sara was. And it turned out that there were
millions and millions of diamonds in the mines; and half of them belong
to Sara; and they belonged to her when she was living in the attic with
no one but Melchisedec for a friend, and the cook ordering her about.
And Mr. Carrisford found her this afternoon, and he has got her in his
home--and she will never come back--and she will be more a princess than
she ever was--a hundred and fifty thousand times more. And I am going to
see her to-morrow afternoon. There!"
Even Miss Minchin herself could scarcely have controlled the uproar
after this; and though she heard the noise, she did not try. She was not
in the mood to face anything more than she was facing in her room, while
Miss Amelia was weeping in bed. She knew that the news had penetrated
the walls in some mysterious manner, and that every servant and every
child would go to bed talking about it.
So until almost midnight the entire seminary, realizing somehow that all
rules were laid aside, crowded round Ermengarde in the school-room and
heard read and re-read the letter containing a story which was quite as
wonderful as any Sara herself had ever invented, and which had the
amazing charm of having happened to Sara herself and the mystic Indian
gentleman in the very next house.
Becky, who had heard it also, managed to creep up-stairs earlier than
usual. She wanted to get away from people and go and look at the little
magic room once more. She did not know what would happen to it. It was
not likely that it would be left to Miss Minchin. It would be taken
away, and the attic would be bare and empty again. Glad as she was for
Sara's sake, she went up the last flight of stairs with a lump in her
throat and tears blurring her sight. There would be no fire to-night,
and no rosy lamp; no supper, and no princess sitting in the glow
reading or telling stories--no princess!
She choked down a sob as she pushed the attic door open, and then she
broke into a low cry.
The lamp was flushing the room, the fire was blazing, the supper was
waiting; and Ram Dass was standing smiling into her startled face.
"Missee sahib remembered," he said. "She told the sahib all. She wished
you to know the good fortune which has befallen her. Behold a letter on
the tray. She has written. She did not wish that you should go to sleep
unhappy. The sahib commands you to come to him to-morrow. You are to be
the attendant of missee sahib. To-night I take these things back over
the roof."
And having said this with a beaming face, he made a little salaam and
slipped through the skylight with an agile silentness of movement which
showed Becky how easily he had done it before.