Once on a dark winter's day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and
heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop
windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an odd-looking little girl
sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the
big thoroughfares.
She sat with her feet tucked under her, and leaned against her father,
who held her in his arm, as she stared out of the window at the passing
people with a queer old-fashioned thoughtfulness in her big eyes.
She was such a little girl that one did not expect to see such a look
on her small face. It would have been an old look for a child of
twelve, and Sara Crewe was only seven. The fact was, however, that she
was always dreaming and thinking odd things and could not herself
remember any time when she had not been thinking things about grown-up
people and the world they belonged to. She felt as if she had lived a
long, long time.
At this moment she was remembering the voyage she had just made from
Bombay with her father, Captain Crewe. She was thinking of the big
ship, of the Lascars passing silently to and fro on it, of the children
playing about on the hot deck, and of some young officers' wives who
used to try to make her talk to them and laugh at the things she said.
Principally, she was thinking of what a queer thing it was that at one
time one was in India in the blazing sun, and then in the middle of the
ocean, and then driving in a strange vehicle through strange streets
where the day was as dark as the night. She found this so puzzling
that she moved closer to her father.
"Papa," she said in a low, mysterious little voice which was almost a
whisper, "papa."
"What is it, darling?" Captain Crewe answered, holding her closer and
looking down into her face. "What is Sara thinking of?"
"Is this the place?" Sara whispered, cuddling still closer to him. "Is
it, papa?"
"Yes, little Sara, it is. We have reached it at last." And though she
was only seven years old, she knew that he felt sad when he said it.
It seemed to her many years since he had begun to prepare her mind for
"the place," as she always called it. Her mother had died when she was
born, so she had never known or missed her. Her young, handsome, rich,
petting father seemed to be the only relation she had in the world.
They had always played together and been fond of each other. She only
knew he was rich because she had heard people say so when they thought
she was not listening, and she had also heard them say that when she
grew up she would be rich, too. She did not know all that being rich
meant. She had always lived in a beautiful bungalow, and had been used
to seeing many servants who made salaams to her and called her "Missee
Sahib," and gave her her own way in everything. She had had toys and
pets and an ayah who worshipped her, and she had gradually learned that
people who were rich had these things. That, however, was all she knew
about it.
During her short life only one thing had troubled her, and that thing
was "the place" she was to be taken to some day. The climate of India
was very bad for children, and as soon as possible they were sent away
from it--generally to England and to school. She had seen other
children go away, and had heard their fathers and mothers talk about
the letters they received from them. She had known that she would be
obliged to go also, and though sometimes her father's stories of the
voyage and the new country had attracted her, she had been troubled by
the thought that he could not stay with her.
"Couldn't you go to that place with me, papa?" she had asked when she
was five years old. "Couldn't you go to school, too? I would help you
with your lessons."
"But you will not have to stay for a very long time, little Sara," he
had always said. "You will go to a nice house where there will be a
lot of little girls, and you will play together, and I will send you
plenty of books, and you will grow so fast that it will seem scarcely a
year before you are big enough and clever enough to come back and take
care of papa."
She had liked to think of that. To keep the house for her father; to
ride with him, and sit at the head of his table when he had dinner
parties; to talk to him and read his books--that would be what she
would like most in the world, and if one must go away to "the place" in
England to attain it, she must make up her mind to go. She did not care
very much for other little girls, but if she had plenty of books she
could console herself. She liked books more than anything else, and
was, in fact, always inventing stories of beautiful things and telling
them to herself. Sometimes she had told them to her father, and he had
liked them as much as she did.
"Well, papa," she said softly, "if we are here I suppose we must be
resigned."
He laughed at her old-fashioned speech and kissed her. He was really
not at all resigned himself, though he knew he must keep that a secret.
His quaint little Sara had been a great companion to him, and he felt
he should be a lonely fellow when, on his return to India, he went into
his bungalow knowing he need not expect to see the small figure in its
white frock come forward to meet him. So he held her very closely in
his arms as the cab rolled into the big, dull square in which stood the
house which was their destination.
It was a big, dull, brick house, exactly like all the others in its
row, but that on the front door there shone a brass plate on which was
engraved in black letters: