A Little Princess (17 page)

On the other side of the wall Sara was sitting in her garret
talking to Melchisedec, who had come out for his evening meal.

"It has been hard to be a princess today, Melchisedec," she
said. "It has been harder than usual. It gets harder as the
weather grows colder and the streets get more sloppy. When
Lavinia laughed at my muddy skirt as I passed her in the hall, I
thought of something to say all in a flash—and I only just
stopped myself in time. You can't sneer back at people like that-
-if you are a princess. But you have to bite your tongue to hold
yourself in. I bit mine. It was a cold afternoon, Melchisedec.
And it's a cold night."

Quite suddenly she put her black head down in her arms, as she
often did when she was alone.

"Oh, papa," she whispered, "what a long time it seems since I was
your 'Little Missus'!"

This was what happened that day on both sides of the wall.

The winter was a wretched one. There were days on which Sara
tramped through snow when she went on her errands; there were
worse days when the snow melted and combined itself with mud to
form slush; there were others when the fog was so thick that the
lamps in the street were lighted all day and London looked as it
had looked the afternoon, several years ago, when the cab had
driven through the thoroughfares with Sara tucked up on its seat,
leaning against her father's shoulder. On such days the windows
of the house of the Large Family always looked delightfully cozy
and alluring, and the study in which the Indian gentleman sat
glowed with warmth and rich color. But the attic was dismal
beyond words. There were no longer sunsets or sunrises to look
at, and scarcely ever any stars, it seemed to Sara. The clouds
hung low over the skylight and were either gray or mud-color, or
dropping heavy rain. At four o'clock in the afternoon, even when
there was no special fog, the daylight was at an end. If it was
necessary to go to her attic for anything, Sara was obliged to
light a candle. The women in the kitchen were depressed, and
that made them more ill-tempered than ever. Becky was driven
like a little slave.

"'Twarn't for you, miss," she said hoarsely to Sara one night
when she had crept into the attic—"'twarn't for you, an' the
Bastille, an' bein' the prisoner in the next cell, I should die.
That there does seem real now, doesn't it? The missus is more
like the head jailer every day she lives. I can jest see them
big keys you say she carries. The cook she's like one of the
under-jailers. Tell me some more, please, miss—tell me about
the subt'ranean passage we've dug under the walls."

"I'll tell you something warmer," shivered Sara. "Get your
coverlet and wrap it round you, and I'll get mine, and we will
huddle close together on the bed, and I'll tell you about the
tropical forest where the Indian gentleman's monkey used to live.
When I see him sitting on the table near the window and looking
out into the street with that mournful expression, I always feel
sure he is thinking about the tropical forest where he used to
swing by his tail from coconut trees. I wonder who caught him,
and if he left a family behind who had depended on him for
coconuts."

"That is warmer, miss," said Becky, gratefully; "but, someways,
even the Bastille is sort of heatin' when you gets to tellin'
about it."

"That is because it makes you think of something else," said
Sara, wrapping the coverlet round her until only her small dark
face was to be seen looking out of it. "I've noticed this. What
you have to do with your mind, when your body is miserable, is to
make it think of something else."

"Can you do it, miss?" faltered Becky, regarding her with
admiring eyes.

Sara knitted her brows a moment.

"Sometimes I can and sometimes I can't," she said stoutly. "But
when I CAN I'm all right. And what I believe is that we always
could—if we practiced enough. I've been practicing a good deal
lately, and it's beginning to be easier than it used to be. When
things are horrible—just horrible—I think as hard as ever I can
of being a princess. I say to myself, 'I am a princess, and I am
a fairy one, and because I am a fairy nothing can hurt me or make
me uncomfortable.' You don't know how it makes you forget"—
with a laugh.

She had many opportunities of making her mind think of something
else, and many opportunities of proving to herself whether or not
she was a princess. But one of the strongest tests she was ever
put to came on a certain dreadful day which, she often thought
afterward, would never quite fade out of her memory even in the
years to come.

For several days it had rained continuously; the streets were
chilly and sloppy and full of dreary, cold mist; there was mud
everywhere—sticky London mud—and over everything the pall of
drizzle and fog. Of course there were several long and tiresome
errands to be done—there always were on days like this—and
Sara was sent out again and again, until her shabby clothes were
damp through. The absurd old feathers on her forlorn hat were
more draggled and absurd than ever, and her downtrodden shoes
were so wet that they could not hold any more water. Added to
this, she had been deprived of her dinner, because Miss Minchin
had chosen to punish her. She was so cold and hungry and tired
that her face began to have a pinched look, and now and then some
kind-hearted person passing her in the street glanced at her with
sudden sympathy. But she did not know that. She hurried on,
trying to make her mind think of something else. It was really
very necessary. Her way of doing it was to "pretend" and
"suppose" with all the strength that was left in her. But really
this time it was harder than she had ever found it, and once or
twice she thought it almost made her more cold and hungry instead
of less so. But she persevered obstinately, and as the muddy
water squelched through her broken shoes and the wind seemed
trying to drag her thin jacket from her, she talked to herself as
she walked, though she did not speak aloud or even move her lips.

"Suppose I had dry clothes on," she thought. "Suppose I had
good shoes and a long, thick coat and merino stockings and a
whole umbrella. And suppose—suppose—just when I was near a
baker's where they sold hot buns, I should find sixpence—which
belonged to nobody. SUPPOSE if I did, I should go into the shop
and buy six of the hottest buns and eat them all without
stopping."

Some very odd things happen in this world sometimes.

It certainly was an odd thing that happened to Sara. She had to
cross the street just when she was saying this to herself. The mud
was dreadful—she almost had to wade. She picked her way as
carefully as she could, but she could not save herself much;
only, in picking her way, she had to look down at her feet and
the mud, and in looking down—just as she reached the pavement—
she saw something shining in the gutter. It was actually a piece
of silver—a tiny piece trodden upon by many feet, but still with
spirit enough left to shine a little. Not quite a sixpence, but
the next thing to it—a fourpenny piece.

In one second it was in her cold little red-and-blue hand.

"Oh," she gasped, "it is true! It is true!"

And then, if you will believe me, she looked straight at the
shop directly facing her. And it was a baker's shop, and a
cheerful, stout, motherly woman with rosy cheeks was putting into
the window a tray of delicious newly baked hot buns, fresh from
the oven—large, plump, shiny buns, with currants in them.

It almost made Sara feel faint for a few seconds—the shock, and
the sight of the buns, and the delightful odors of warm bread
floating up through the baker's cellar window.

She knew she need not hesitate to use the little piece of money.
It had evidently been lying in the mud for some time, and its
owner was completely lost in the stream of passing people who
crowded and jostled each other all day long.

"But I'll go and ask the baker woman if she has lost anything,"
she said to herself, rather faintly. So she crossed the
pavement and put her wet foot on the step. As she did so she saw
something that made her stop.

It was a little figure more forlorn even than herself—a little
figure which was not much more than a bundle of rags, from which
small, bare, red muddy feet peeped out, only because the rags
with which their owner was trying to cover them were not long
enough. Above the rags appeared a shock head of tangled hair,
and a dirty face with big, hollow, hungry eyes.

Sara knew they were hungry eyes the moment she saw them, and she
felt a sudden sympathy.

"This," she said to herself, with a little sigh, "is one of the
populace—and she is hungrier than I am."

The child—this "one of the populace"—stared up at Sara, and
shuffled herself aside a little, so as to give her room to pass.
She was used to being made to give room to everybody. She knew
that if a policeman chanced to see her he would tell her to
"move on."

Sara clutched her little fourpenny piece and hesitated for a few
seconds. Then she spoke to her.

"Are you hungry?" she asked.

The child shuffled herself and her rags a little more.

"Ain't I jist?" she said in a hoarse voice. "Jist ain't I?"

"Haven't you had any dinner?" said Sara.

"No dinner," more hoarsely still and with more shuffling. "Nor
yet no bre'fast—nor yet no supper. No nothin'.

"Since when?" asked Sara.

"Dunno. Never got nothin' today—nowhere. I've axed an' axed."

Just to look at her made Sara more hungry and faint. But those
queer little thoughts were at work in her brain, and she was
talking to herself, though she was sick at heart.

"If I'm a princess," she was saying, "if I'm a princess—when
they were poor and driven from their thrones—they always shared—
with the populace—if they met one poorer and hungrier than
themselves. They always shared. Buns are a penny each. If it
had been sixpence I could have eaten six. It won't be enough for
either of us. But it will be better than nothing."

"Wait a minute," she said to the beggar child.

She went into the shop. It was warm and smelled deliciously.
The woman was just going to put some more hot buns into the
window.

"If you please," said Sara, "have you lost fourpence—a silver
fourpence?" And she held the forlorn little piece of money out
to her.

The woman looked at it and then at her—at her intense little
face and draggled, once fine clothes.

"Bless us, no," she answered. "Did you find it?"

"Yes," said Sara. "In the gutter."

"Keep it, then," said the woman. "It may have been there for a
week, and goodness knows who lost it. YOU could never find out."

"I know that," said Sara, "but I thought I would ask you."

"Not many would," said the woman, looking puzzled and interested
and good-natured all at once.

"Do you want to buy something?" she added, as she saw Sara
glance at the buns.

"Four buns, if you please," said Sara. "Those at a penny each."

The woman went to the window and put some in a paper bag.

Sara noticed that she put in six.

"I said four, if you please," she explained. "I have only
fourpence."

"I'll throw in two for makeweight," said the woman with her good-
natured look. "I dare say you can eat them sometime. Aren't you
hungry?"

A mist rose before Sara's eyes.

"Yes," she answered. "I am very hungry, and I am much obliged
to you for your kindness; and"—she was going to add—"there is a
child outside who is hungrier than I am." But just at that
moment two or three customers came in at once, and each one
seemed in a hurry, so she could only thank the woman again and go
out.

The beggar girl was still huddled up in the corner of the step.
She looked frightful in her wet and dirty rags. She was staring
straight before her with a stupid look of suffering, and Sara
saw her suddenly draw the back of her roughened black hand across
her eyes to rub away the tears which seemed to have surprised her
by forcing their way from under her lids. She was muttering to
herself.

Sara opened the paper bag and took out one of the hot buns, which
had already warmed her own cold hands a little.

"See," she said, putting the bun in the ragged lap, "this is
nice and hot. Eat it, and you will not feel so hungry."

The child started and stared up at her, as if such sudden,
amazing good luck almost frightened her; then she snatched up the
bun and began to cram it into her mouth with great wolfish
bites.

"Oh, my! Oh, my!" Sara heard her say hoarsely, in wild
delight. "OH my!"

Sara took out three more buns and put them down.

The sound in the hoarse, ravenous voice was awful.

"She is hungrier than I am," she said to herself. "She's
starving." But her hand trembled when she put down the fourth
bun. "I'm not starving," she said—and she put down the fifth.

The little ravening London savage was still snatching and
devouring when she turned away. She was too ravenous to give any
thanks, even if she had ever been taught politeness—which she
had not. She was only a poor little wild animal.

"Good-bye," said Sara.

When she reached the other side of the street she looked back.
The child had a bun in each hand and had stopped in the middle of
a bite to watch her. Sara gave her a little nod, and the child,
after another stare—a curious lingering stare—jerked her
shaggy head in response, and until Sara was out of sight she did
not take another bite or even finish the one she had begun.

At that moment the baker-woman looked out of her shop window.

"Well, I never!" she exclaimed. "If that young un hasn't given
her buns to a beggar child! It wasn't because she didn't want
them, either. Well, well, she looked hungry enough. I'd give
something to know what she did it for."