“And oh, Charles, dear,” Mrs. Carmichael said to her husband, when she went downstairs to him, “we must get that lonely look out of her eyes! It isn’t a child’s look at all. I couldn’t bear to see it in one of my own children. What the poor little love must have had to bear in that dreadful woman’s house! But, surely, she will forget it in time.”
But though the lonely look passed away from Sara’s face, she never quite forgot the garret at Miss Minchin’s; and, indeed, she always liked to remember the wonderful night when the tired princess crept upstairs, cold and wet, and opening the door found fairy-land waiting for her. And there was no one of the many stories she was always being called upon to tell in the nursery of the Large Family which was more popular than that particular one; and there was no one of whom the Large Family were so fond as of Sara. Mr. Carrisford did not die, but recovered, and Sara went to live with him; and no real princess could have been better taken care of than she was. It seemed that the Indian Gentleman could not do enough to make her happy, and to repay her for the past; and the Lascar was her devoted slave. As her odd little face grew brighter, it grew so pretty and interesting that Mr. Carrisford used to sit and watch it many an evening, as they sat by the fire together.
They became great friends, and they used to spend hours reading and talking together: and, in a very short time, there was no pleasanter sight to the Indian Gentleman than Sara sitting in her big chair on the opposite side of the hearth, with a book on her knee and her soft, dark hair tumbling over her warm cheeks. She had a pretty habit of looking up at him suddenly, with a bright smile, and then he would often say to her:
“Are you happy, Sara?”
And then she would answer:
“I feel like a real princess, Uncle Tom.”
He had told her to call him Uncle Tom.
“There doesn’t seem to be anything left to ‘suppose,’” she added.
There was a little joke between them that he was a magician, and so could do anything he liked; and it was one of his pleasures to invent plans to surprise her with enjoyments she had not thought of. Scarcely a day passed in which he did not do something new for her. Sometimes she found new flowers in her room; sometimes a fanciful little gift tucked into some odd corner; sometimes a new book on her pillow;—once as they sat together in the evening they heard the scratch of a heavy paw on the door of the room, and when Sara went to find out what it was, there stood a great dog—a splendid Russian boarhound with a grand silver and gold collar. Stooping to read the inscription upon the collar, Sara was delighted to read the words, “I am Boris; I serve the Princess Sara.”
Then there was a sort of fairy nursery arranged for the entertainment of the juvenile members of the Large Family, who were always coming to see Sara and the Lascar and the monkey. Sara was as fond of the Large Family as they were of her. She soon felt as if she were a member of it, and the companionship of the healthy, happy children was very good for her. All the children rather looked up to her and regarded her as the cleverest and most brilliant of creatures—particularly after it was discovered that she not only knew stories of every kind, and could invent new ones at a moment’s notice, but that she could help with lessons, and speak French and German, and discourse with the Lascar in Hindustani.
It was rather a painful experience for Miss Minchin watch her ex-pupil’s fortunes, as she had the daily opportunity to do, and to feel that she had made a serious mistake, from a business point of view. She had even tried to retrieve it by suggesting that Sara’s education should be continued under her care, and had gone to the length of making an appeal to the child herself.
“I have always been very fond of you,” she said.
Then Sara fixed her eyes upon her and gave her one of her odd looks.
“Have you?” she answered.
“Yes,” said Miss Minchin. “Amelia and I have always said you were the cleverest child we had with us, and I am sure we could make you happy—as a parlor boarder.”
Sara thought of the garret and the day her ears were boxed,—and of that other day, that dreadful, desolate day when she had been told that she belonged to nobody; that she had no home and no friends,—and she kept her eyes fixed on Miss Minchin’s face.
“You know why I would not stay with you,” she said.
And it seems probable that Miss Minchin did, for after that simple answer she had not the boldness to pursue the subject. She merely sent in a bill for the expense of Sara’s education and support, and she made it quite large enough. And because Mr. Carrisford thought Sara would wish it paid, it was paid. When Mr. Carmichael paid it he had a brief interview with Miss Minchin in which he expressed his opinion with much clearness and force; and it is quite certain that Miss Minchin did not enjoy the conversation.
Sara had been about a month with Mr. Carrisford, and had begun to realize that her happiness was not a dream, when one night the Indian Gentleman saw that she sat a long time with her cheek on her hand looking at the fire.
“What are you ‘supposing,’ Sara?” he asked. Sara looked up with a bright color on her cheeks.
“I was ‘supposing,’” she said; “I was remembering that hungry day, and a child I saw.”
“But there were a great many hungry days,” said the Indian Gentleman, with a rather sad tone in his voice. “Which hungry day was it?”
“I forgot you didn’t know,” said Sara. “It was the day I found the things in my garret.”
And then she told him the story of the bun-shop, and the fourpence, and the child who was hungrier than herself; and somehow as she told it, though she told it very simply indeed, the Indian Gentleman found it necessary to shade his eyes with his hand and look down at the floor.
“And I was ‘supposing’ a kind of plan,” said Sara, when she had finished; “I was thinking I would like to do something.”
“What is it?” said her guardian in a low tone. “You may do anything you like to do, Princess.”
“I was wondering,” said Sara,—“you know you say I have a great deal of money—and I was wondering if I could go and see the bun-woman and tell her that if, when hungry children—particularly on those dreadful days—come and sit on the steps or look in at the window, she would just call them in and give them something to eat, she might send the bills to me and I would pay them—could I do that?”
“You shall do it to-morrow morning,” said the Indian Gentleman.
“Thank you,” said Sara; “you see I know what it is to be hungry, and it is very hard when one can’t even pretend it away.”
“Yes, yes, my dear,” said the Indian Gentleman. “Yes, it must be. Try to forget it. Come and sit on this footstool near my knee, and only remember you are a princess.”
“Yes,” said Sara, “and I can give buns and bread to the Populace.” And she went and sat on the stool, and the Indian Gentleman (he used to like her to call him that, too, sometimes,—in fact very often) drew her small, dark head down upon his knee and stroked her hair.
The next morning a carriage drew up before the door of the baker’s shop, and a gentleman and a little girl got out,—oddly enough, just as the bun-woman was putting a tray of smoking hot buns into the window. When Sara entered the shop the woman turned and looked at her and, leaving the buns, came and stood behind the counter. For a moment she looked at Sara very hard indeed, and then her good-natured face lighted up.
“I’m that sure I remember you, miss,” she said. “And yet——”
“Yes,” said Sara, “once you gave me six buns for fourpence, and——”
“And you gave five of ’em to a beggar-child,” said the woman. “I’ve always remembered it. I couldn’t make it out at first. I beg pardon, sir, but there’s not many young people that notices a hungry face in that way, and I’ve thought of it many a time. Excuse the liberty, miss, but you look rosier and better than you did that day.”
“I am better, thank you,” said Sara, “and—and! I am happier, and I have come to ask you to do somethin
g for me.”
“Me, miss!” exclaimed the woman, “why, bless you, yes, miss! What can I do?”
And then Sara made her little proposal, and the woman listened to it with an astonished face.
“Why, bless me!” she said, when she had heard it all. “Yes, miss, it’ll be a pleasure to me to do it. I am a working woman, myself, and can’t afford to do much on my own account, and there’s sights of trouble on every side; but if you’ll excuse me, I’m bound to say I’ve given many a bit of bread away since that wet afternoon, just along o’ thinkin’ of you. An’ how wet an’ cold you was, an’ how you looked,—an’ yet you give away your hot buns as if you was a princess.”
The Indian Gentleman smiled involuntarily, and Sara smiled a little too. “She looked so hungry,” she said. “She was hungrier than I was.”
“She was starving,” said the woman. “Many’s the time she’s told me of it since—how she sat there in the wet, and felt as if a wolf was a-tearing at her poor young insides.”
“Oh, have you seen her since then?” exclaimed Sara. “Do you know where she is?”
“I know!” said the woman. “Why, she’s in that there back room now, miss, an’ has been for a month, an’ a decent, well-meaning girl she’s going to turn out, an’ such a help to me in the day shop, an’ in the kitchen, as you’d scarce believe, knowing how she’s lived.”
She stepped to the door of the little back parlor and spoke; and the next minute a girl came out and followed her behind the counter. And actually it was the beggar-child, clean and neatly clothed, and looking as if she had not been hungry for a long time. She looked shy, but she had a nice face, now that she was no longer a savage; and the wild look had gone from her eyes. And she knew Sara in an instant, and stood and looked at her as if she could never look enough.
“You see,” said the woman, “I told her to come here when she was hungry, and when she’d come I’d give her odd jobs to do, an’ I found she was willing, an’ somehow I got to like her; an’ the end of it was I’ve given her a place an’ a home, an’ she helps me, an’ behaves as well, an’ is as thankful as a girl can be. Her name’s Anne—she has no other.”
The two children stood and looked at each other a few moments. In Sara’s eyes a new thought was growing.
“I’m glad you have such a good home,” she said. “Perhaps Mrs. Brown will let you give the buns and bread to the children—perhaps you would like to do it—because you know what it is to be hungry, too.”
“Yes, miss,” said the girl.
And somehow Sara felt as if she understood her, though the girl said nothing more, and only stood still and looked, and looked after her as she went out of the shop and got into the carriage and drove away.
Little Saint Elizabeth
She had not been brought up in America at all. She had been born in France, in a beautiful château, and she had been born heiress to a great fortune, but, nevertheless, just now she felt as if she was very poor, indeed. And yet her home was in one of the most splendid houses in New York. She had a lovely suite of apartments of her own, though she was only eleven years old. She had had her own carriage and a saddle horse, a train of masters, and governesses, and servants, and was regarded by all the children of the neighborhood as a sort of grand and mysterious little princess, whose incomings and outgoings were to be watched with the greatest interest.
“There she is,” they would cry, flying to their windows to look at her. “She is going out in her carriage.” “She is dressed all in black velvet and splendid fur.” “That is her own, own, carriage.” “She has millions of money; and she can have anything she wants—Jane says so!” “She is very pretty, too; but she is so pale and has such big, sorrowful, black eyes. I should not be sorrowful if I were in her place; but Jane says the servants say she is always quiet and looks sad.” “Her maid says she lived with her aunt, and her aunt made her too religious.”
She rarely lifted her large dark eyes to look at them with any curiosity. She was not accustomed to the society of children. She had never had a child companion in her life, and these little Americans, who were so very rosy and gay, and who went out to walk or drive with groups of brothers and sisters, and even ran in the street, laughing and playing and squabbling healthily—these children amazed her.
Poor little Saint Elizabeth! She had not lived a very natural or healthy life herself, and she knew absolutely nothing of real childish pleasures. You see, it had occurred in this way: When she was a baby of two years her young father and mother died, within a week of each other, of a terrible fever, and the only near relatives the little one had were her Aunt Clotilde and Uncle Bertrand. Her Aunt Clotilde lived in Normandy—her Uncle Bertrand in New York. As these two were her only guardians, and as Bertrand de Rochemont was a gay bachelor, fond of pleasure and knowing nothing of babies, it was natural that he should be very willing that his elder sister should undertake the rearing and education of the child.
“Only,” he wrote to Mademoiselle de Rochemont, “don’t end by training her for an abbess, my dear Clotilde.”
There was a very great difference between these two people-the distance between the gray stone château in Normandy and the brown stone mansion in New York was not nearly so great as the distance and difference between the two lives. And yet it was said that in her first youth Mademoiselle de Rochemont had been as gay and fond of pleasure as either of her brothers. And then, when her life was at its brightest and gayest—when she was a beautiful and brilliant young woman—she had had a great and bitter sorrow, which had changed her for ever. From that time she had never left the house in which she had been born, and had lived the life of a nun in everything but being enclosed in convent walls. At first she had had her parents to take care of, but when they died she had been left entirely alone in the great château, and devoted herself to prayer and works of charity among the villagers and country people.
“Ah! she is good—she is a saint Mademoiselle,” the poor people always said when speaking of her; but they also always looked a little awe-stricken when she appeared, and never were sorry when she left them.
She was a tall woman, with a pale, rigid, handsome face, which never smiled. She did nothing but good deeds, but however grateful her pensioners might be, nobody would ever have dared to dream of loving her. She was just and cold and severe. She wore always a straight black serge gown, broad bands of white linen, and a rosary and crucifix at her waist. She read nothing but religious works and legends of the saints and martyrs, and adjoining her private apartments was a little stone chapel, where the servants said she used to kneel on the cold floor before the altar and pray for hours in the middle of the night.
The little curé of the village, who was plump and comfortable, and who had the kindest heart and the most cheerful soul in the world, used to remonstrate with her, always in a roundabout way, however, never quite as if he were referring directly to herself.
“One must not let one’s self become the stone image of goodness,” he said once. “Since one is really of flesh and blood, and lives among flesh and blood, that is not best. No, no; it is not best.”
But Mademoiselle de Rochemont never seemed exactly of flesh and blood-she was more like a marble female saint who had descended from her pedestal to walk upon the earth.
And she did not change, even when the baby Elizabeth was brought to her. She attended strictly to the child’s comfort and prayed many prayers for her innocent soul, but it can be scarcely said that her manner was any softer or that she smiled more. At first Elizabeth used to scream at the sight of the black, nun-like dress and the rigid, handsome face, but in course of time she became accustomed to them, and, through living in an atmosphere so silent and without brightness, a few months changed her from a laughing, romping baby into a pale, quiet child, who rarely made any childish noise at all.
In this quiet way she became fond of her aunt. She saw little of anyone but the servants, who were all trained to quietness also. As soon as she was
old enough her aunt began her religious training. Before she could speak plainly she heard legends of saints and stories of martyrs. She was taken into the little chapel and taught to pray there. She believed in miracles, and would not have been surprised at any moment if she had met the Child Jesus or the Virgin in the beautiful rambling gardens which surrounded the château. She was a sensitive, imaginative child, and the sacred romances she heard filled all her mind and made up her little life. She wished to be a saint herself, and spent hours in wandering in the terraced rose gardens wondering if such a thing was possible in modern days, and what she must do to obtain such holy victory. Her chief sorrow was that she knew herself to be delicate and very timid—so timid that she often suffered when people did not suspect it—and she was afraid that she was not brave enough to be a martyr. Once, poor little one! when she was alone in her room, she held her hand over a burning wax candle, but the pain was so terrible that she could not keep it there. Indeed, she fell back white and faint, and sank upon her chair, breathless and in tears, because she felt sure that she could not chant holy songs if she were being burned at the stake. She had been vowed to the Virgin in her babyhood, and was always dressed in white and blue, but her little dress was a small conventual robe, straight and narrow cut, of white woollen stuff, and banded plainly with blue at the waist. She did not look like other children, but she was very sweet and gentle, and her pure little pale face and large, dark eyes had a lovely dreamy look. When she was old enough to visit the poor with her Aunt Clotilde—and she was hardly seven years old when it was considered proper that she should begin—the villagers did not stand in awe of her. They began to adore her, almost to worship her, as if she had, indeed, been a sacred child. The little ones delighted to look at her, to draw near her sometimes and touch her soft white and blue robe. And, when they did so, she always returned their looks with such a tender, sympathetic smile, and spoke to them in so gentle a voice, that they were in ecstasies. They used to talk her over, tell stories about her when they were playing together afterwards.
Racketty-Packetty House and Other Stories Page 8