When Sara entered the holly-hung schoolroom in the afternoon, she did
so as the head of a sort of procession. Miss Minchin, in her grandest
silk dress, led her by the hand. A manservant followed, carrying the
box containing the Last Doll, a housemaid carried a second box, and
Becky brought up the rear, carrying a third and wearing a clean apron
and a new cap. Sara would have much preferred to enter in the usual
way, but Miss Minchin had sent for her, and, after an interview in her
private sitting room, had expressed her wishes.
"This is not an ordinary occasion," she said. "I do not desire that it
should be treated as one."
So Sara was led grandly in and felt shy when, on her entry, the big
girls stared at her and touched each other's elbows, and the little
ones began to squirm joyously in their seats.
"Silence, young ladies!" said Miss Minchin, at the murmur which arose.
"James, place the box on the table and remove the lid. Emma, put yours
upon a chair. Becky!" suddenly and severely.
Becky had quite forgotten herself in her excitement, and was grinning
at Lottie, who was wriggling with rapturous expectation. She almost
dropped her box, the disapproving voice so startled her, and her
frightened, bobbing curtsy of apology was so funny that Lavinia and
Jessie tittered.
"It is not your place to look at the young ladies," said Miss Minchin.
"You forget yourself. Put your box down."
Becky obeyed with alarmed haste and hastily backed toward the door.
"You may leave us," Miss Minchin announced to the servants with a wave
of her hand.
Becky stepped aside respectfully to allow the superior servants to pass
out first. She could not help casting a longing glance at the box on
the table. Something made of blue satin was peeping from between the
folds of tissue paper.
"If you please, Miss Minchin," said Sara, suddenly, "mayn't Becky stay?"
It was a bold thing to do. Miss Minchin was betrayed into something
like a slight jump. Then she put her eyeglass up, and gazed at her
show pupil disturbedly.
"Becky!" she exclaimed. "My dearest Sara!"
Sara advanced a step toward her.
"I want her because I know she will like to see the presents," she
explained. "She is a little girl, too, you know."
Miss Minchin was scandalized. She glanced from one figure to the other.
"My dear Sara," she said, "Becky is the scullery maid. Scullery
maids--er--are not little girls."
It really had not occurred to her to think of them in that light.
Scullery maids were machines who carried coal scuttles and made fires.
"But Becky is," said Sara. "And I know she would enjoy herself.
Please let her stay--because it is my birthday."
Miss Minchin replied with much dignity:
"As you ask it as a birthday favor--she may stay. Rebecca, thank Miss
Sara for her great kindness."
Becky had been backing into the corner, twisting the hem of her apron
in delighted suspense. She came forward, bobbing curtsies, but between
Sara's eyes and her own there passed a gleam of friendly understanding,
while her words tumbled over each other.
"Oh, if you please, miss! I'm that grateful, miss! I did want to see
the doll, miss, that I did. Thank you, miss. And thank you,
ma'am,"--turning and making an alarmed bob to Miss Minchin--"for
letting me take the liberty."
Miss Minchin waved her hand again--this time it was in the direction of
the corner near the door.
"Go and stand there," she commanded. "Not too near the young ladies."
Becky went to her place, grinning. She did not care where she was
sent, so that she might have the luck of being inside the room, instead
of being downstairs in the scullery, while these delights were going
on. She did not even mind when Miss Minchin cleared her throat
ominously and spoke again.
"Now, young ladies, I have a few words to say to you," she announced.
"She's going to make a speech," whispered one of the girls. "I wish it
was over."
Sara felt rather uncomfortable. As this was her party, it was probable
that the speech was about her. It is not agreeable to stand in a
schoolroom and have a speech made about you.
"You are aware, young ladies," the speech began--for it was a
speech--"that dear Sara is eleven years old today."
"DEAR Sara!" murmured Lavinia.
"Several of you here have also been eleven years old, but Sara's
birthdays are rather different from other little girls' birthdays. When
she is older she will be heiress to a large fortune, which it will be
her duty to spend in a meritorious manner."
"The diamond mines," giggled Jessie, in a whisper.
Sara did not hear her; but as she stood with her green-gray eyes fixed
steadily on Miss Minchin, she felt herself growing rather hot. When
Miss Minchin talked about money, she felt somehow that she always hated
her--and, of course, it was disrespectful to hate grown-up people.
"When her dear papa, Captain Crewe, brought her from India and gave her
into my care," the speech proceeded, "he said to me, in a jesting way,
'I am afraid she will be very rich, Miss Minchin.' My reply was, 'Her
education at my seminary, Captain Crewe, shall be such as will adorn
the largest fortune.' Sara has become my most accomplished pupil. Her
French and her dancing are a credit to the seminary. Her
manners--which have caused you to call her Princess Sara--are perfect.
Her amiability she exhibits by giving you this afternoon's party. I
hope you appreciate her generosity. I wish you to express your
appreciation of it by saying aloud all together, 'Thank you, Sara!'"
The entire schoolroom rose to its feet as it had done the morning Sara
remembered so well.
"Thank you, Sara!" it said, and it must be confessed that Lottie jumped
up and down. Sara looked rather shy for a moment. She made a
curtsy--and it was a very nice one.
"Thank you," she said, "for coming to my party."
"Very pretty, indeed, Sara," approved Miss Minchin. "That is what a
real princess does when the populace applauds her.
Lavinia"--scathingly--"the sound you just made was extremely like a
snort. If you are jealous of your fellow-pupil, I beg you will express
your feelings in some more lady-like manner. Now I will leave you to
enjoy yourselves."
The instant she had swept out of the room the spell her presence always
had upon them was broken. The door had scarcely closed before every
seat was empty. The little girls jumped or tumbled out of theirs; the
older ones wasted no time in deserting theirs. There was a rush toward
the boxes. Sara had bent over one of them with a delighted face.
"These are books, I know," she said.
The little children broke into a rueful murmur, and Ermengarde looked
aghast.
"Does your papa send you books for a birthday present?" she exclaimed.
"Why, he's as bad as mine. Don't open them, Sara."
"I like them," Sara laughed, but she turned to the biggest box. When
she took out the Last Doll it was so magnificent that the children
uttered delighted groans of joy, and actually drew back to gaze at it
in breathless rapture.
"She is almost as big as Lottie," someone gasped.
Lottie clapped her hands and danced about, giggling.
"She's dressed for the theater," said Lavinia. "Her cloak is lined
with ermine."
"Oh," cried Ermengarde, darting forward, "she has an opera-glass in her
hand--a blue-and-gold one!"
"Here is her trunk," said Sara. "Let us open it and look at her
things."
She sat down upon the floor and turned the key. The children crowded
clamoring around her, as she lifted tray after tray and revealed their
contents. Never had the schoolroom been in such an uproar. There were
lace collars and silk stockings and handkerchiefs; there was a jewel
case containing a necklace and a tiara which looked quite as if they
were made of real diamonds; there was a long sealskin and muff, there
were ball dresses and walking dresses and visiting dresses; there were
hats and tea gowns and fans. Even Lavinia and Jessie forgot that they
were too elderly to care for dolls, and uttered exclamations of delight
and caught up things to look at them.
"Suppose," Sara said, as she stood by the table, putting a large,
black-velvet hat on the impassively smiling owner of all these
splendors--"suppose she understands human talk and feels proud of being
admired."
"You are always supposing things," said Lavinia, and her air was very
superior.
"I know I am," answered Sara, undisturbedly. "I like it. There is
nothing so nice as supposing. It's almost like being a fairy. If you
suppose anything hard enough it seems as if it were real."
"It's all very well to suppose things if you have everything," said
Lavinia. "Could you suppose and pretend if you were a beggar and lived
in a garret?"
Sara stopped arranging the Last Doll's ostrich plumes, and looked
thoughtful.
"I BELIEVE I could," she said. "If one was a beggar, one would have to
suppose and pretend all the time. But it mightn't be easy."
She often thought afterward how strange it was that just as she had
finished saying this--just at that very moment--Miss Amelia came into
the room.
"Sara," she said, "your papa's solicitor, Mr. Barrow, has called to see
Miss Minchin, and, as she must talk to him alone and the refreshments
are laid in her parlor, you had all better come and have your feast
now, so that my sister can have her interview here in the schoolroom."
Refreshments were not likely to be disdained at any hour, and many
pairs of eyes gleamed. Miss Amelia arranged the procession into
decorum, and then, with Sara at her side heading it, she led it away,
leaving the Last Doll sitting upon a chair with the glories of her
wardrobe scattered about her; dresses and coats hung upon chair backs,
piles of lace-frilled petticoats lying upon their seats.
Becky, who was not expected to partake of refreshments, had the
indiscretion to linger a moment to look at these beauties--it really
was an indiscretion.
"Go back to your work, Becky," Miss Amelia had said; but she had
stopped to pick up reverently first a muff and then a coat, and while
she stood looking at them adoringly, she heard Miss Minchin upon the
threshold, and, being smitten with terror at the thought of being
accused of taking liberties, she rashly darted under the table, which
hid her by its tablecloth.
Miss Minchin came into the room, accompanied by a sharp-featured, dry
little gentleman, who looked rather disturbed. Miss Minchin herself
also looked rather disturbed, it must be admitted, and she gazed at the
dry little gentleman with an irritated and puzzled expression.
She sat down with stiff dignity, and waved him to a chair.
"Pray, be seated, Mr. Barrow," she said.
Mr. Barrow did not sit down at once. His attention seemed attracted by
the Last Doll and the things which surrounded her. He settled his
eyeglasses and looked at them in nervous disapproval. The Last Doll
herself did not seem to mind this in the least. She merely sat upright
and returned his gaze indifferently.
"A hundred pounds," Mr. Barrow remarked succinctly. "All expensive
material, and made at a Parisian modiste's. He spent money lavishly
enough, that young man."
Miss Minchin felt offended. This seemed to be a disparagement of her
best patron and was a liberty.
Even solicitors had no right to take liberties.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Barrow," she said stiffly. "I do not
understand."
"Birthday presents," said Mr. Barrow in the same critical manner, "to a
child eleven years old! Mad extravagance, I call it."
Miss Minchin drew herself up still more rigidly.
"Captain Crewe is a man of fortune," she said. "The diamond mines
alone--"
Mr. Barrow wheeled round upon her. "Diamond mines!" he broke out.
"There are none! Never were!"
Miss Minchin actually got up from her chair.
"What!" she cried. "What do you mean?"
"At any rate," answered Mr. Barrow, quite snappishly, "it would have
been much better if there never had been any."
"Any diamond mines?" ejaculated Miss Minchin, catching at the back of a
chair and feeling as if a splendid dream was fading away from her.
"Diamond mines spell ruin oftener than they spell wealth," said Mr.
Barrow. "When a man is in the hands of a very dear friend and is not a
businessman himself, he had better steer clear of the dear friend's
diamond mines, or gold mines, or any other kind of mines dear friends
want his money to put into. The late Captain Crewe--"
Here Miss Minchin stopped him with a gasp.
"The LATE Captain Crewe!" she cried out. "The LATE! You don't come to
tell me that Captain Crewe is--"
"He's dead, ma'am," Mr. Barrow answered with jerky brusqueness. "Died
of jungle fever and business troubles combined. The jungle fever might
not have killed him if he had not been driven mad by the business
troubles, and the business troubles might not have put an end to him if
the jungle fever had not assisted. Captain Crewe is dead!"
Miss Minchin dropped into her chair again. The words he had spoken
filled her with alarm.
"What WERE his business troubles?" she said. "What WERE they?"
"Diamond mines," answered Mr. Barrow, "and dear friends--and ruin."
Miss Minchin lost her breath.
"Ruin!" she gasped out.
"Lost every penny. That young man had too much money. The dear friend
was mad on the subject of the diamond mine. He put all his own money
into it, and all Captain Crewe's. Then the dear friend ran
away--Captain Crewe was already stricken with fever when the news came.
The shock was too much for him. He died delirious, raving about his
little girl--and didn't leave a penny."
Now Miss Minchin understood, and never had she received such a blow in
her life. Her show pupil, her show patron, swept away from the Select
Seminary at one blow. She felt as if she had been outraged and robbed,
and that Captain Crewe and Sara and Mr. Barrow were equally to blame.
"Do you mean to tell me," she cried out, "that he left NOTHING! That
Sara will have no fortune! That the child is a beggar! That she is
left on my hands a little pauper instead of an heiress?"
Mr. Barrow was a shrewd businessman, and felt it as well to make his
own freedom from responsibility quite clear without any delay.
"She is certainly left a beggar," he replied. "And she is certainly
left on your hands, ma'am--as she hasn't a relation in the world that
we know of."
Miss Minchin started forward. She looked as if she was going to open
the door and rush out of the room to stop the festivities going on
joyfully and rather noisily that moment over the refreshments.
"It is monstrous!" she said. "She's in my sitting room at this moment,
dressed in silk gauze and lace petticoats, giving a party at my
expense."
"She's giving it at your expense, madam, if she's giving it," said Mr.
Barrow, calmly. "Barrow & Skipworth are not responsible for anything.
There never was a cleaner sweep made of a man's fortune. Captain Crewe
died without paying OUR last bill--and it was a big one."
Miss Minchin turned back from the door in increased indignation. This
was worse than anyone could have dreamed of its being.
"That is what has happened to me!" she cried. "I was always so sure of
his payments that I went to all sorts of ridiculous expenses for the
child. I paid the bills for that ridiculous doll and her ridiculous
fantastic wardrobe. The child was to have anything she wanted. She
has a carriage and a pony and a maid, and I've paid for all of them
since the last cheque came."
Mr. Barrow evidently did not intend to remain to listen to the story of
Miss Minchin's grievances after he had made the position of his firm
clear and related the mere dry facts. He did not feel any particular
sympathy for irate keepers of boarding schools.
"You had better not pay for anything more, ma'am," he remarked, "unless
you want to make presents to the young lady. No one will remember you.
She hasn't a brass farthing to call her own."
"But what am I to do?" demanded Miss Minchin, as if she felt it
entirely his duty to make the matter right. "What am I to do?"
"There isn't anything to do," said Mr. Barrow, folding up his
eyeglasses and slipping them into his pocket. "Captain Crewe is dead.
The child is left a pauper. Nobody is responsible for her but you."
"I am not responsible for her, and I refuse to be made responsible!"
Miss Minchin became quite white with rage.
Mr. Barrow turned to go.
"I have nothing to do with that, madam," he said uninterestedly.
"Barrow & Skipworth are not responsible. Very sorry the thing has
happened, of course."
"If you think she is to be foisted off on me, you are greatly
mistaken," Miss Minchin gasped. "I have been robbed and cheated; I
will turn her into the street!"
If she had not been so furious, she would have been too discreet to say
quite so much. She saw herself burdened with an extravagantly
brought-up child whom she had always resented, and she lost all
self-control.
Mr. Barrow undisturbedly moved toward the door.
"I wouldn't do that, madam," he commented; "it wouldn't look well.
Unpleasant story to get about in connection with the establishment.
Pupil bundled out penniless and without friends."
He was a clever business man, and he knew what he was saying. He also
knew that Miss Minchin was a business woman, and would be shrewd enough
to see the truth. She could not afford to do a thing which would make
people speak of her as cruel and hard-hearted.
"Better keep her and make use of her," he added. "She's a clever
child, I believe. You can get a good deal out of her as she grows
older."
"I will get a good deal out of her before she grows older!" exclaimed
Miss Minchin.
"I am sure you will, ma'am," said Mr. Barrow, with a little sinister
smile. "I am sure you will. Good morning!"
He bowed himself out and closed the door, and it must be confessed that
Miss Minchin stood for a few moments and glared at it. What he had
said was quite true. She knew it. She had absolutely no redress. Her
show pupil had melted into nothingness, leaving only a friendless,
beggared little girl. Such money as she herself had advanced was lost
and could not be regained.
And as she stood there breathless under her sense of injury, there fell
upon her ears a burst of gay voices from her own sacred room, which had
actually been given up to the feast. She could at least stop this.
But as she started toward the door it was opened by Miss Amelia, who,
when she caught sight of the changed, angry face, fell back a step in
alarm.
"What IS the matter, sister?" she ejaculated.
Miss Minchin's voice was almost fierce when she answered:
"Where is Sara Crewe?"
Miss Amelia was bewildered.
"Sara!" she stammered. "Why, she's with the children in your room, of
course."
"Has she a black frock in her sumptuous wardrobe?"--in bitter irony.
"A black frock?" Miss Amelia stammered again. "A BLACK one?"
"She has frocks of every other color. Has she a black one?"
Miss Amelia began to turn pale.
"No--ye-es!" she said. "But it is too short for her. She has only the
old black velvet, and she has outgrown it."
"Go and tell her to take off that preposterous pink silk gauze, and put
the black one on, whether it is too short or not. She has done with
finery!"
Then Miss Amelia began to wring her fat hands and cry.
"Oh, sister!" she sniffed. "Oh, sister! What CAN have happened?"
Miss Minchin wasted no words.
"Captain Crewe is dead," she said. "He has died without a penny. That
spoiled, pampered, fanciful child is left a pauper on my hands."
Miss Amelia sat down quite heavily in the nearest chair.
"Hundreds of pounds have I spent on nonsense for her. And I shall
never see a penny of it. Put a stop to this ridiculous party of hers.
Go and make her change her frock at once."
"I?" panted Miss Amelia. "M-must I go and tell her now?"
"This moment!" was the fierce answer. "Don't sit staring like a goose.
Go!"
Poor Miss Amelia was accustomed to being called a goose. She knew, in
fact, that she was rather a goose, and that it was left to geese to do
a great many disagreeable things. It was a somewhat embarrassing thing
to go into the midst of a room full of delighted children, and tell the
giver of the feast that she had suddenly been transformed into a little
beggar, and must go upstairs and put on an old black frock which was
too small for her. But the thing must be done. This was evidently not
the time when questions might be asked.
She rubbed her eyes with her handkerchief until they looked quite red.
After which she got up and went out of the room, without venturing to
say another word. When her older sister looked and spoke as she had
done just now, the wisest course to pursue was to obey orders without
any comment. Miss Minchin walked across the room. She spoke to herself
aloud without knowing that she was doing it. During the last year the
story of the diamond mines had suggested all sorts of possibilities to
her. Even proprietors of seminaries might make fortunes in stocks,
with the aid of owners of mines. And now, instead of looking forward to
gains, she was left to look back upon losses.
"The Princess Sara, indeed!" she said. "The child has been pampered as
if she were a QUEEN." She was sweeping angrily past the corner table as
she said it, and the next moment she started at the sound of a loud,
sobbing sniff which issued from under the cover.
"What is that!" she exclaimed angrily. The loud, sobbing sniff was
heard again, and she stooped and raised the hanging folds of the table
cover.
"How DARE you!" she cried out. "How dare you! Come out immediately!"
It was poor Becky who crawled out, and her cap was knocked on one side,
and her face was red with repressed crying.
"If you please, 'm--it's me, mum," she explained. "I know I hadn't
ought to. But I was lookin' at the doll, mum--an' I was frightened
when you come in--an' slipped under the table."
"You have been there all the time, listening," said Miss Minchin.
"No, mum," Becky protested, bobbing curtsies. "Not listenin'--I
thought I could slip out without your noticin', but I couldn't an' I
had to stay. But I didn't listen, mum--I wouldn't for nothin'. But I
couldn't help hearin'."
Suddenly it seemed almost as if she lost all fear of the awful lady
before her. She burst into fresh tears.
"Oh, please, 'm," she said; "I dare say you'll give me warnin', mum--but
I'm so sorry for poor Miss Sara--I'm so sorry!"
"Leave the room!" ordered Miss Minchin.
Becky curtsied again, the tears openly streaming down her cheeks.
"Yes, 'm; I will, 'm," she said, trembling; "but oh, I just wanted to
arst you: Miss Sara--she's been such a rich young lady, an' she's been
waited on, 'and and foot; an' what will she do now, mum, without no
maid? If--if, oh please, would you let me wait on her after I've done
my pots an' kettles? I'd do 'em that quick--if you'd let me wait on
her now she's poor. Oh," breaking out afresh, "poor little Miss Sara,
mum--that was called a princess."
Somehow, she made Miss Minchin feel more angry than ever. That the
very scullery maid should range herself on the side of this child--whom
she realized more fully than ever that she had never liked--was too
much. She actually stamped her foot.
"No--certainly not," she said. "She will wait on herself, and on other
people, too. Leave the room this instant, or you'll leave your place."
Becky threw her apron over her head and fled. She ran out of the room
and down the steps into the scullery, and there she sat down among her
pots and kettles, and wept as if her heart would break.
"It's exactly like the ones in the stories," she wailed. "Them pore
princess ones that was drove into the world."
Miss Minchin had never looked quite so still and hard as she did when
Sara came to her, a few hours later, in response to a message she had
sent her.
Even by that time it seemed to Sara as if the birthday party had either
been a dream or a thing which had happened years ago, and had happened
in the life of quite another little girl.
Every sign of the festivities had been swept away; the holly had been
removed from the schoolroom walls, and the forms and desks put back
into their places. Miss Minchin's sitting room looked as it always
did--all traces of the feast were gone, and Miss Minchin had resumed
her usual dress. The pupils had been ordered to lay aside their party
frocks; and this having been done, they had returned to the schoolroom
and huddled together in groups, whispering and talking excitedly.
"Tell Sara to come to my room," Miss Minchin had said to her sister.
"And explain to her clearly that I will have no crying or unpleasant
scenes."
"Sister," replied Miss Amelia, "she is the strangest child I ever saw.
She has actually made no fuss at all. You remember she made none when
Captain Crewe went back to India. When I told her what had happened,
she just stood quite still and looked at me without making a sound.
Her eyes seemed to get bigger and bigger, and she went quite pale.
When I had finished, she still stood staring for a few seconds, and
then her chin began to shake, and she turned round and ran out of the
room and upstairs. Several of the other children began to cry, but she
did not seem to hear them or to be alive to anything but just what I
was saying. It made me feel quite queer not to be answered; and when
you tell anything sudden and strange, you expect people will say
SOMETHING--whatever it is."
Nobody but Sara herself ever knew what had happened in her room after
she had run upstairs and locked her door. In fact, she herself
scarcely remembered anything but that she walked up and down, saying
over and over again to herself in a voice which did not seem her own,
"My papa is dead! My papa is dead!"
Once she stopped before Emily, who sat watching her from her chair, and
cried out wildly, "Emily! Do you hear? Do you hear--papa is dead? He
is dead in India--thousands of miles away."
When she came into Miss Minchin's sitting room in answer to her
summons, her face was white and her eyes had dark rings around them.
Her mouth was set as if she did not wish it to reveal what she had
suffered and was suffering. She did not look in the least like the
rose-colored butterfly child who had flown about from one of her
treasures to the other in the decorated schoolroom. She looked instead
a strange, desolate, almost grotesque little figure.
She had put on, without Mariette's help, the cast-aside black-velvet
frock. It was too short and tight, and her slender legs looked long
and thin, showing themselves from beneath the brief skirt. As she had
not found a piece of black ribbon, her short, thick, black hair tumbled
loosely about her face and contrasted strongly with its pallor. She
held Emily tightly in one arm, and Emily was swathed in a piece of
black material.
"Put down your doll," said Miss Minchin. "What do you mean by bringing
her here?"
"No," Sara answered. "I will not put her down. She is all I have. My
papa gave her to me."
She had always made Miss Minchin feel secretly uncomfortable, and she
did so now. She did not speak with rudeness so much as with a cold
steadiness with which Miss Minchin felt it difficult to cope--perhaps
because she knew she was doing a heartless and inhuman thing.
"You will have no time for dolls in future," she said. "You will have
to work and improve yourself and make yourself useful."
Sara kept her big, strange eyes fixed on her, and said not a word.
"Everything will be very different now," Miss Minchin went on. "I
suppose Miss Amelia has explained matters to you."
"Yes," answered Sara. "My papa is dead. He left me no money. I am
quite poor."
"You are a beggar," said Miss Minchin, her temper rising at the
recollection of what all this meant. "It appears that you have no
relations and no home, and no one to take care of you."
For a moment the thin, pale little face twitched, but Sara again said
nothing.
"What are you staring at?" demanded Miss Minchin, sharply. "Are you so
stupid that you cannot understand? I tell you that you are quite alone
in the world, and have no one to do anything for you, unless I choose
to keep you here out of charity."
"I understand," answered Sara, in a low tone; and there was a sound as
if she had gulped down something which rose in her throat. "I
understand."
"That doll," cried Miss Minchin, pointing to the splendid birthday gift
seated near--"that ridiculous doll, with all her nonsensical,
extravagant things--I actually paid the bill for her!"
Sara turned her head toward the chair.
"The Last Doll," she said. "The Last Doll." And her little mournful
voice had an odd sound.
"The Last Doll, indeed!" said Miss Minchin. "And she is mine, not
yours. Everything you own is mine."
"Please take it away from me, then," said Sara. "I do not want it."
If she had cried and sobbed and seemed frightened, Miss Minchin might
almost have had more patience with her. She was a woman who liked to
domineer and feel her power, and as she looked at Sara's pale little
steadfast face and heard her proud little voice, she quite felt as if
her might was being set at naught.
"Don't put on grand airs," she said. "The time for that sort of thing
is past. You are not a princess any longer. Your carriage and your
pony will be sent away--your maid will be dismissed. You will wear your
oldest and plainest clothes--your extravagant ones are no longer suited
to your station. You are like Becky--you must work for your living."
To her surprise, a faint gleam of light came into the child's eyes--a
shade of relief.
"Can I work?" she said. "If I can work it will not matter so much.
What can I do?"
"You can do anything you are told," was the answer. "You are a sharp
child, and pick up things readily. If you make yourself useful I may
let you stay here. You speak French well, and you can help with the
younger children."
"May I?" exclaimed Sara. "Oh, please let me! I know I can teach them.
I like them, and they like me."
"Don't talk nonsense about people liking you," said Miss Minchin. "You
will have to do more than teach the little ones. You will run errands
and help in the kitchen as well as in the schoolroom. If you don't
please me, you will be sent away. Remember that. Now go."
Sara stood still just a moment, looking at her. In her young soul, she
was thinking deep and strange things. Then she turned to leave the
room.
"Stop!" said Miss Minchin. "Don't you intend to thank me?"
Sara paused, and all the deep, strange thoughts surged up in her breast.
"What for?" she said.
"For my kindness to you," replied Miss Minchin. "For my kindness in
giving you a home."
Sara made two or three steps toward her. Her thin little chest heaved
up and down, and she spoke in a strange un-childishly fierce way.
"You are not kind," she said. "You are NOT kind, and it is NOT a
home." And she had turned and run out of the room before Miss Minchin
could stop her or do anything but stare after her with stony anger.
She went up the stairs slowly, but panting for breath and she held
Emily tightly against her side.
"I wish she could talk," she said to herself. "If she could speak--if
she could speak!"
She meant to go to her room and lie down on the tiger-skin, with her
cheek upon the great cat's head, and look into the fire and think and
think and think. But just before she reached the landing Miss Amelia
came out of the door and closed it behind her, and stood before it,
looking nervous and awkward. The truth was that she felt secretly
ashamed of the thing she had been ordered to do.
"You--you are not to go in there," she said.
"Not go in?" exclaimed Sara, and she fell back a pace.
"That is not your room now," Miss Amelia answered, reddening a little.
Somehow, all at once, Sara understood. She realized that this was the
beginning of the change Miss Minchin had spoken of.
"Where is my room?" she asked, hoping very much that her voice did not
shake.
"You are to sleep in the attic next to Becky."
Sara knew where it was. Becky had told her about it. She turned, and
mounted up two flights of stairs. The last one was narrow, and covered
with shabby strips of old carpet. She felt as if she were walking away
and leaving far behind her the world in which that other child, who no
longer seemed herself, had lived. This child, in her short, tight old
frock, climbing the stairs to the attic, was quite a different creature.
When she reached the attic door and opened it, her heart gave a dreary
little thump. Then she shut the door and stood against it and looked
about her.
Yes, this was another world. The room had a slanting roof and was
whitewashed. The whitewash was dingy and had fallen off in places.
There was a rusty grate, an old iron bedstead, and a hard bed covered
with a faded coverlet. Some pieces of furniture too much worn to be
used downstairs had been sent up. Under the skylight in the roof,
which showed nothing but an oblong piece of dull gray sky, there stood
an old battered red footstool. Sara went to it and sat down. She
seldom cried. She did not cry now. She laid Emily across her knees
and put her face down upon her and her arms around her, and sat there,
her little black head resting on the black draperies, not saying one
word, not making one sound.
And as she sat in this silence there came a low tap at the door--such a
low, humble one that she did not at first hear it, and, indeed, was not
roused until the door was timidly pushed open and a poor tear-smeared
face appeared peeping round it. It was Becky's face, and Becky had
been crying furtively for hours and rubbing her eyes with her kitchen
apron until she looked strange indeed.
"Oh, miss," she said under her breath. "Might I--would you allow
me--jest to come in?"
Sara lifted her head and looked at her. She tried to begin a smile,
and somehow she could not. Suddenly--and it was all through the loving
mournfulness of Becky's streaming eyes--her face looked more like a
child's not so much too old for her years. She held out her hand and
gave a little sob.
"Oh, Becky," she said. "I told you we were just the same--only two
little girls--just two little girls. You see how true it is. There's
no difference now. I'm not a princess anymore."
Becky ran to her and caught her hand, and hugged it to her breast,
kneeling beside her and sobbing with love and pain.
"Yes, miss, you are," she cried, and her words were all broken.
"Whats'ever 'appens to you--whats'ever--you'd be a princess all the
same--an' nothin' couldn't make you nothin' different."
8