“My dear fellow,” broke forth Carrisford, with restless bitterness, “I am SURE of nothing. I never saw either the child or her mother. Ralph Crewe and I loved each other as boys, but we had not met since our school days, until we met in India. I was absorbed in the magnificent promise of the mines. He became absorbed, too. The whole thing was so huge and glittering that we half lost our heads. When we met we scarcely spoke of anything else. I only knew that the child had been sent to school somewhere. I do not even remember, now, HOW I knew it.”
He was beginning to be excited. He always became excited when his still weakened brain was stirred by memories of the catastrophes of the past.
Mr. Carmichael watched him anxiously. It was necessary to ask some questions, but they must be put quietly and with caution.
“But you had reason to think the school WAS in Paris?”
“Yes,” was the answer, “because her mother was a Frenchwoman, and I had heard that she wished her child to be educated in Paris. It seemed only likely that she would be there.”
“Yes,” Mr. Carmichael said, “it seems more than probable.”
The Indian gentleman leaned forward and struck the table with a long, wasted hand.
“Carmichael,” he said, “I MUST find her. If she is alive, she is somewhere. If she is friendless and penniless, it is through my fault. How is a man to get back his nerve with a thing like that on his mind? This sudden change of luck at the mines has made realities of all our most fantastic dreams, and poor Crewe’s child may be begging in the street!”
“No, no,” said Carmichael. “Try to be calm. Console yourself with the fact that when she is found you have a fortune to hand over to her.”
“Why was I not man enough to stand my ground when things looked black?” Carrisford groaned in petulant misery. “I believe I should have stood my ground if I had not been responsible for other people’s money as well as my own. Poor Crewe had put into the scheme every penny that he owned. He trusted me—he LOVED me. And he died thinking I had ruined him—I—Tom Carrisford, who played cricket at Eton with him. What a villain he must have thought me!”
“Don’t reproach yourself so bitterly.”
“I don’t reproach myself because the speculation threatened to fail—I reproach myself for losing my courage. I ran away like a swindler and a thief, because I could not face my best friend and tell him I had ruined him and his child.”
The good-hearted father of the Large Family put his hand on his shoulder comfortingly.
“You ran away because your brain had given way under the strain of mental torture,” he said. “You were half delirious already. If you had not been you would have stayed and fought it out. You were in a hospital, strapped down in bed, raving with brain fever, two days after you left the place. Remember that.”
Carrisford dropped his forehead in his hands.
“Good God! Yes,” he said. “I was driven mad with dread and horror. I had not slept for weeks. The night I staggered out of my house all the air seemed full of hideous things mocking and mouthing at me.”
“That is explanation enough in itself,” said Mr. Carmichael. “How could a man on the verge of brain fever judge sanely!”
Carrisford shook his drooping head.
“And when I returned to consciousness poor Crewe was dead—and buried. And I seemed to remember nothing. I did not remember the child for months and months. Even when I began to recall her existence everything seemed in a sort of haze.”
He stopped a moment and rubbed his forehead. “It sometimes seems so now when I try to remember. Surely I must sometime have heard Crewe speak of the school she was sent to. Don’t you think so?”
“He might not have spoken of it definitely. You never seem even to have heard her real name.”
“He used to call her by an odd pet name he had invented. He called her his ‘Little Missus.’ But the wretched mines drove everything else out of our heads. We talked of nothing else. If he spoke of the school, I forgot—I forgot. And now I shall never remember.”
“Come, come,” said Carmichael. “We shall find her yet. We will continue to search for Madame Pascal’s good-natured Russians. She seemed to have a vague idea that they lived in Moscow. We will take that as a clue. I will go to Moscow.”
“If I were able to travel, I would go with you,” said Carrisford; “but I can only sit here wrapped in furs and stare at the fire. And when I look into it I seem to see Crewe’s gay young face gazing back at me. He looks as if he were asking me a question. Sometimes I dream of him at night, and he always stands before me and asks the same question in words. Can you guess what he says, Carmichael?”
Mr. Carmichael answered him in a rather low voice.
“Not exactly,” he said.
“He always says, ‘Tom, old man—Tom—where is the Little Missus?’” He caught at Carmichael’s hand and clung to it. “I must be able to answer him—I must!” he said. “Help me to find her. Help me.”
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.
13.One of the Populace
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 use
d 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.”
Th
e 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 Classic Children's Literature Collection: 39 Classic Novels Page 498