Sara Crewe Part 7

"I shall certainly wake up presently," Sara kept saying to herself.

"This one must be a dream. The other one turned out to be real; but this couldn't be. But, oh! how happy it is!"

And even when she went to bed, in the bright, pretty room not far from Mrs. Carmichael's own, and Mrs. Carmichael came and kissed her and patted her and tucked her in cozily, she was not sure that she would not wake up in the garret in the morning.

"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 pa.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed 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 boar-hound 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 companions.h.i.+p 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 to 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 n.o.body; 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 hotbuns 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 something 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.