Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
[Illustration]
A SHAM PRINCESS
[Illustration]
BY
EGLANTON THORNE
AUTHOR OF "THE OLD WORCESTER JUG,"
"WORTHY OF HIS NAME," ETC., ETC.
LONDON
THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY
56 PATERNOSTER ROW AND
65 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD
BUTLER & TANNER
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS
FROME, AND LONDON.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I. HER DEVOTED SUBJECT
CHAPTER II. A FAIRY'S VISIT
CHAPTER III. THE PRINCESS DEPARTS
CHAPTER IV. THE PRINCESS'S LETTER
CHAPTER V. THE NEW LODGER
CHAPTER VI. BERT GAINS A FRIEND
CHAPTER VII. THE QUEEN'S JUBILEE
CHAPTER VIII. IN THE HOSPITAL
CHAPTER IX. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE PRINCESS
CHAPTER X. THE PRINCESS RETURNS
CHAPTER XI. A FLASH OF LIGHT
CHAPTER XII. AT THE LAST EXTREMITY
CHAPTER XIII. DEAD AND ALIVE AGAIN
A SHAM PRINCESS
CHAPTER I
Her Devoted Subject
"COULD it be that the Princess was going to die?" Bert held his breath
as the thought smote him. He could almost hear the beating of his heart
as he stood motionless, arrested by the painful idea, and gazed with
anxious eyes on his sleeping sister.
Prin had been ill for more than a week, so ill that the parish doctor
had come every day to see her; but Bert had never thought of death
before.
The idea having presented itself, was not easily to be dismissed. He
looked at Prin's white, sunken face, at the dark veins on her forehead,
at the thin, white hands that were folded on her bosom; he listened to
her quick, difficult breathing, and his fear deepened. How could he
bear it if Prin died?
It was a small, mean room in which the brother and sister lived. The
dirty, sodden paper hung in strips from the wall; the flooring was
rotten, with holes gaping here and there; the place reeked of damp and
worse; the window, dim with dirt, looked on to a foul area; it was
hardly a room in which any patient was likely to make a good recovery.
The bed on which the sick girl lay looked very comfortless. Yet some
one had arranged the grimy pillows in the best way possible, so that
she lay at ease, and tended her so carefully that her white skin and
fair hair had a purity which contrasted strangely with her dingy
surroundings. This was their neighbour, Mrs. Kay, a woman who lived on
the floor above, a native of Scotland, but who retained few traces of
her Scotch upbringing save a faint and somewhat intermittent belief in
the virtues of cleanliness. Bert had been wont to speak of her as the
"cross old woman," for she had a sharp tongue and little patience with
the ways of children; but she had not been cross at all since Prin fell
ill, a fact which now struck Bert as ominous.
Bert knew what was the matter with his sister. She had had measles, and
now, as he had heard the doctor say, they were succeeded by bronchitis.
Bert himself had had measles; in fact, he had conveyed the infection
to the Princess; but his ailment had been over in a couple of days.
Clearly this "brownkitus," as he called it, was a much more serious
thing.
Prin had been fretful and restless all day, but now at last she slept.
As he watched her deep slumber, Bert took comfort from it. "If she
sleep, she shall do well," he said to himself, not aware that he was
making a quotation, though the words were a fleeting reminiscence of a
Scripture lesson.
Suddenly, as he thought thus, there arose an uproar in the street
above. It was never a quiet street by day or night. Fights and rows
were of frequent occurrence, so that Bert was not surprised, though
he was much annoyed when the sound of angry voices in hot altercation
broke on his ear. If Prin were suddenly roused and affrighted, she
would lose all the good that this sleep was doing her.
Bert was up the area steps in a moment, to see what he could do. Some
lads, considerably bigger than himself, were causing the disturbance.
The ringleader of the mischief had taken up his position, with his back
against the railings of the area, and was inviting the others to "come
on." With more pluck than discretion, Bert flew at him.
"Get out of this," he cried, shoving against him with all his might;
"you don't stand here and make a row. Get out, I say. My sister's below
very ill, and I won't have her woke by you, you big, hulking brutes!"
It was not a conciliatory mode of address, and it was hardly calculated
to secure quiet. On the contrary, it created a greater hubbub.
The lad thus assailed by Bert turned upon him with an oath, and dealt
him a violent blow on the head. The others, foreseeing a new diversion,
forgot their common quarrel and closed around Bert. It would have gone
badly with him—for these young street ruffians had no hesitation in
attacking one so unequally matched with them—had not the doctor's trap
at that moment driven up to the door.
"What is all this about?" he demanded as he stepped out. At the sound
of his authoritative voice the cowards took to their heels, and Bert
emerged from their midst with a bleeding face and torn clothing.
"What have they done to you? Let me see," said the doctor, in sharp but
not unkindly tones. "Why do you go with such boys as those? You did
something to provoke them, I suppose?"
"I only told them to move on because my sister was asleep, and I did
not want them to wake her," said Bert.
"Ah, and they did not choose to be commanded by you?" said the doctor.
"Well, I advise you to be more diplomatic the next time you hold parley
with the enemy. But now wash the blood from your face, and I'll put a
piece of plaster over that cut for you. Oh, you live here, do you? So,
I see it is your sister I am attending."
Bert wondered that the doctor should not know him again. He followed
him down the dirty steps of the area. In a few minutes Bert's face was
dressed, and the doctor turned his attention to the sleeping child,
whom the noises without had failed to rouse.
"Please, sir, is she better?" asked Bert anxiously.
"She is," said the doctor decidedly, when he had made his examination,
only partially waking the girl in doing so; "she really is better."
"Then you don't think, sir, that she will die?" said Bert.
"Die! What put that into your head? No, if only—" he paused, and
glanced round the dismal room with rather a hopeless expression—"if
only she could have good air and good food, I should say she might do
well. What she wants is to be sent into the country as soon as she is a
little better."
Bert's face fell. The country seemed to him as far-away as heaven. If
Prin's recovery depended on her going there, the chances were sorely
against her.
"Where is your mother?" asked the doctor.
Bert stared for a moment ere he replied,—
"We ain't got none. Our mother died ever so long ago; before I can
remember."
"Then who is the woman I have always seen with you?"
"You mean Mrs. Kay. She's out just now, sir."
"Then Mrs. Kay takes care of you, I suppose?"
"Yes," said Bert, with considerable hesitation, however; "she does
when—"
"When she is not drunk," he had been about to say, but he checked
himself. He was not willing to expose the failings of one who during
the last few days had proved herself so kind a neighbour.
"You have a father, of course?" said the gentleman.
"No, sir, not now," replied Bert; "he died in the hospital last summer."
Dr. Hurst looked keenly at the boy. His face was honest; his blue eyes
had a frank, open expression. It was plain he was speaking the truth.
"Then who keeps you children?"
"We keeps ourselves, sir."
"What do you mean? You're too young to work for your living."
"I shall soon be eleven, sir," said Bert, stretching his diminutive
frame to its utmost height, "and Prin's two years older. I sells papers
of an evening, and sometimes matches, and runs errands for people; and
Prin, she minds babies and helps Mrs. Kay. But the worst of it is, Prin
is not strong, and she soon gets tired. I often have to work for her as
well as myself."
"Upon my word you are a brave little man," said the doctor, looking at
him admiringly. He had already perceived that these children—the boy
with his open, intelligent face, the girl with her pretty, delicate
features—were of another type from most of the children who swarmed in
that narrow slum. But he had taken it for granted that Mrs. Kay was
their mother.
"Who was your father?" he asked.
"He was a scene-shifter at the theatre, sir, and mother was one of
the ladies of the theatre," said Bert, with evident pride in the
announcement. "We used to live near Drury Lane at one time."
He did not explain that his father had lost his work through drink, and
drifted lower and lower until his death.
Dr. Hurst stood musing on the facts thus presented to him. He felt that
he had not sufficiently interested himself in these children. He was
naturally a kind-hearted man, but long familiarity with the squalid
homes amid which his work lay had blunted his susceptibilities.
His own life was a disappointment to him. Partly through his faults,
partly by the force of circumstances, his medical career had proved
somewhat of a failure. He had not anticipated that in mid-life he would
hold the position of parish doctor in one of the lowest districts of
London. The failure of his hopes had embittered him. He had grown
cynical, morose, and inclined to take the darkest view of human nature.
He was more often swayed by suspicion than by sympathy in his dealings
with the poor. But he was touched by this boy's simple account of the
life which he and his sister led. He looked on him with eyes softened
by pity, and longed to do something to help these orphan children.
"What is your name, boy?" he asked.
"Bertram Sinclair," replied the boy promptly.
"And your sister's?"
"Eleanor Eliza," said Bert.
"But I thought you called her something else—some name beginning with
P?"
"Oh, Prin, sir—that's short for Princess, you know; but that's not her
real name. Father used to call her Princess, because she once took part
in a pantomime as a little princess. My! And didn't she look a princess
too! You should just have seen her. Her frock was all white, and it
sparkled so it made your eyes water to look at it. And she had diamonds
in her hair and on her neck, and white satin shoes, and a fan that
sparkled too. You couldn't have known her from a real princess."
"As real as the diamonds, no doubt," said the doctor drily. "Ah, so you
call her Princess still."
He turned to look again at his patient. She was sleeping soundly once
more. Her face was flushed now with a delicate rose, like the lining of
a shell. She looked pretty and refined enough to be a princess; but the
dingy pillows, the dark, unlovely room were a strange setting for that
dainty, fairy-like head and face.
The doctor had smiled as he turned towards her; but the smile died away
and a sad expression took its place. His eyes grew moist for a moment
as he murmured, "Poor little Princess!"
It was so unusual for him to yield to such emotion that he felt ashamed
of the momentary weakness, and with a quick assumption of his ordinary
manner turned to the little lad, saying briskly,—
"Well, good day. Don't forget that the Princess needs feeding. Give her
plenty of milk and good beef-tea, if you can get it."
That if was very much to the point. A look came into the boy's
eyes that made the doctor feel that his words were cruel in their
carelessness. "I might as well have ordered her champagne and oysters,"
he said to himself. Then Dr. Hurst did something which astonished
himself. He put his hand in his pocket, drew out a shilling and threw
it on the bed.
"There, lad, spend that on milk or beef for the Princess. It is to go
for nothing else, mind."
Bert nodded gravely as he picked up the coin. He looked wonderfully
relieved. He stood gazing at the coin with an air of extreme
satisfaction, and it did not occur to him to utter a word of thanks.
But the doctor felt that he had been abundantly thanked as he hurried
away from the miserable room. He entered the children's names in his
note-book ere he drove away.
"A case for Mrs. Thornton," he said to himself. "I must interest her in
these young waifs."