It was just like Sara, that, once having found the things real, she should give herself up to the enjoyment of them to the very utmost. She had lived such a life of imagining, and had found her pleasure so long in improbabilities, that she was quite equal to accepting any wonderful thing that happened. After she was quite warm and had eaten her supper and enjoyed herself for an hour or so, it had almost ceased to be surprising to her that such magical surroundings should be hers. As to finding out who had done all this, she knew that it was out of the question. She did not know a human soul by whom it could seem in the least degree probable that it could have been done.
“There is nobody,” she said to herself, “nobody.” She discussed the matter with Emily, it is true, but more because it was delightful to talk about it than with a view to making any discoveries.
“But we have a friend, Emily,” she said; “we have a friend.”
Sara could not even imagine a being charming enough to fill her grand ideal of her mysterious benefactor. If she tried to make in her mind a picture of him or her, it ended by being something glittering and strange—not at all like a real person, but bearing resemblance to a sort of Eastern magician, with long robes and a wand. And when she fell asleep, beneath the soft white blanket, she dreamed all night of this magnificent personage, and talked to him in Hindustani, and made salaams to him.
Upon one thing she was determined. She would not speak to any one of her good fortune—it should be her own secret; in fact, she was rather inclined to think that if Miss Minchin knew, she would take her treasures from her or in some way spoil her pleasure. So, when she went down the next morning, she shut her door very tight and did her best to look as if nothing unusual had occurred. And yet this was rather hard, because she could not help remembering, every now and then, with a sort of start, and her heart would beat quickly every time she repeated to herself, “I have a friend!”
It was a friend who evidently meant to continue to be kind, for when she went to her garret the next night—and she opened the door, it must be confessed, with rather an excited feeling—she found that the same hands had been again at work, and had done even more than before. The fire and the supper were again there, and beside them a number of other things which so altered the look of the garret that Sara quite lost her breath. A piece of bright, strange, heavy cloth covered the battered mantel, and on it some ornaments had been placed. All the bare, ugly things which could be covered with draperies had been concealed and made to look quite pretty. Some odd materials in rich colors had been fastened against the walls with sharp, fine tacks—so sharp that they could be pressed into the wood without hammering. Some brilliant fans were pinned up, and there were several large cushions. A long, old wooden box was covered with a rug, and some cushions lay on it, so that it wore quite the air of a sofa.
Sara simply sat down, and looked, and looked again.
“It is exactly like something fairy come true,” she said; “there isn’t the least difference. I feel as if I might wish for anything—diamonds and bags of gold—and they would appear! That couldn’t be any stranger than this. Is this my garret? Am I the same cold, ragged, damp Sara? And to think how I used to pretend, and pretend, and wish there were fairies! The one thing I always wanted was to see a fairy story come true. I am living in a fairy story! I feel as if I might be a fairy myself, and be able to turn things into anything else!”
It was like a fairy story, and, what was best of all, it continued. Almost every day something new was done to the garret. Some new comfort or ornament appeared in it when Sara opened her door at night, until actually, in a short time it was a bright little room, full of all sorts of odd and luxurious things. And the magician had taken care that the child should not be hungry, and that she should have as many books as she could read. When she left the room in the morning, the remains of her supper were on the table, and when she returned in the evening, the magician had removed them, and left another nice little meal. Downstairs Miss Minchin was as cruel and insulting as ever, Miss Amelia was as peevish, and the servants were as vulgar. Sara was sent on errands, and scolded, and driven hither and thither, but somehow it seemed as if she could bear it all. The delightful sense of romance and mystery lifted her above the cook’s temper and malice. The comfort she enjoyed and could always look forward to was making her stronger. If she came home from her errands wet and tired, she knew she would soon be warm, after she had climbed the stairs. In a few weeks she began to look less thin. A little color came into her cheeks, and her eyes did not seem much too big for her face.
It was just when this was beginning to be so apparent that Miss Minchin sometimes stared at her questioningly, that another wonderful thing happened. A man came to the door and left several parcels. All were addressed (in large letters) to “the little girl in the attic.” Sara herself was sent to open the door, and she took them in. She laid the two largest parcels down on the hall-table and was looking at the address, when Miss Minchin came down the stairs.
“Take the things upstairs to the young lady to whom they belong,” she said. “Don’t stand there staring at them.”
“They belong to me,” answered Sara, quietly.
“To you!” exclaimed Miss Minchin. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know where they came from,” said Sara, “but they’re addressed to me.”
Miss Minchin came to her side and looked at them with an excited expression.
“What is in them?” she demanded.
“I don’t know,” said Sara.
“Open them!” she demanded, still more excitedly.
Sara did as she was told. They contained pretty and comfortable clothing,—clothing of different kinds; shoes and stockings and gloves, a warm coat, and even an umbrella. On the pocket of the coat was pinned a paper on which was written, “To be worn every day—will be replaced by others when necessary.”
Miss Minchin was quite agitated. This was an incident which suggested strange things to her sordid mind. Could it be that she had made a mistake after all, and that the child so neglected and so unkindly treated by her had some powerful friend in the background? It would not be very pleasant if there should be such a friend, and he or she should learn all the truth about the thin, shabby clothes, the scant food, the hard work. She felt queer indeed and uncertain, and she gave a side-glance at Sara.
“Well,” she said, in a voice such as she had never used since the day the child lost her father —”well, some one is very kind to you. As you have the things and are to have new ones when they are worn out, you may as well go and put them on and look respectable; and after you are dressed, you may come downstairs and learn your lessons in the school-room.”
So it happened that, about half an hour afterward, Sara struck the entire school-room of pupils dumb with amazement, by making her appearance in a costume such as she had never worn since the change of fortune whereby she ceased to be a show-pupil and a parlor-boarder. She scarcely seemed to be the same Sara. She was neatly dressed in a pretty gown of warm browns and reds, and even her stockings and slippers were nice and dainty.
“Perhaps some one has left her a fortune,” one of the girls whispered. “I always thought something would happen to her, she is so queer.”
That night when Sara went to her room she carried out a plan she had been devising for some time. She wrote a note to her unknown friend. It ran as follows:
“I hope you will not think it is not polite that I should write this note to you when you wish to keep yourself a secret, but I do not mean to be impolite, or to try to find out at all, only I want to thank you for being so kind to me—so beautiful kind, and making everything like a fairy story. I am so grateful to you and I am so happy! I used to be so lonely and cold and, hungry, and now, oh, just think what you have done for me! Please let me say just these words. It seems as if I ought to say them. Thank you—thank you—thank you!
“THE LITTLE GIRL IN THE ATTIC.”
The next morning she left thi
s on the little table, and it was taken away with the other things; so she felt sure the magician had received it, and she was happier for the thought.
A few nights later a very odd thing happened. She found something in the room which she certainly would never have expected. When she came in as usual she saw something small and dark in her chair,— an odd, tiny figure, which turned toward her a little, weird-looking, wistful face.
“Why, it’s the monkey!” she cried. “It is the Indian Gentleman’s monkey! Where can he have come from?”
It was the monkey, sitting up and looking so like a mite of a child that it really was quite pathetic; and very soon Sara found out how he happened to be in her room. The skylight was open, and it was easy to guess that he had crept out of his master’s garret-window, which was only a few feet away and perfectly easy to get in and out of, even for a climber less agile than a monkey. He had probably climbed to the garret on a tour of investigation, and getting out upon the roof, and being attracted by the light in Sara’s attic, had crept in. At all events this seemed quite reasonable, and there he was; and when Sara went to him, he actually put out his queer, elfish little hands, caught her dress, and jumped into her arms.
“Oh, you queer, poor, ugly, foreign little thing!” said Sara, caressing him. “I can’t help liking you. You look like a sort of baby, but I am so glad you are not, because your mother could not be proud of you, and nobody would dare to say you were like any of your relations. But I do like you; you have such a forlorn little look in your face. Perhaps you are sorry you are so ugly, and it’s always on your mind. I wonder if you have a mind?”
The monkey sat and looked at her while she talked, and seemed much interested in her remarks, if one could judge by his eyes and his forehead, and the way he moved his head up and down, and held it sideways and scratched it with his little hand. He examined Sara quite seriously, and anxiously, too. He felt the stuff of her dress, touched her hands, climbed up and examined her ears, and then sat on her shoulder holding a lock of her hair, looking mournful but not at all agitated. Upon the whole, he seemed pleased with Sara.
“But I must take you back,” she said to him, “though I’m sorry to have to do it. Oh, the company you would be to a person!”
She lifted him from her shoulder, set him on her knee, and gave him a bit of cake. He sat and nibbled it, and then put his head on one side, looked at her, wrinkled his forehead, and then nibbled again, in the most companionable manner.
“But you must go home,” said Sara at last; and she took him in her arms to carry him downstairs. Evidently he did not want to leave the room, for as they reached the door he clung to her neck and gave a little scream of anger.
“You mustn’t be an ungrateful monkey,” said Sara. “You ought to be fondest of your own family. I am sure the Lascar is good to you.”
Nobody saw her on her way out, and very soon she was standing on the Indian Gentleman’s front steps, and the Lascar had opened the door for her.
“I found your monkey in my room,” she said in Hindustani. “I think he got in through the window.”
The man began a rapid outpouring of thanks; but, just as he was in the midst of them, a fretful, hollow voice was heard through the open door of the nearest room. The instant he heard it the Lascar disappeared, and left Sara still holding the monkey.
It was not many moments, however, before he came back bringing a message. His master had told him to bring Missy into the library. The Sahib was very ill, but he wished to see Missy.
Sara thought this odd, but she remembered reading stories of Indian gentlemen who, having no constitutions, were extremely cross and full of whims, and who must have their own way. So she followed the Lascar.
When she entered the room the Indian Gentleman was lying on an easy chair, propped up with pillows. He looked frightfully ill. His yellow face was thin, and his eyes were hollow. He gave Sara a rather curious look—it was as if she wakened in him some anxious interest.
“You live next door?” he said.
“Yes,” answered Sara. “I live at Miss Minchin’s.”
“She keeps a boarding-school?”
“Yes,” said Sara.
“And you are one of her pupils?”
Sara hesitated a moment.
“I don’t know exactly what I am,” she replied.
“Why not?” asked the Indian Gentleman.
The monkey gave a tiny squeak, and Sara stroked him.
“At first,” she said, “I was a pupil and a parlor boarder; but now—”
“What do you mean by `at first’?” asked the Indian Gentleman.
“When I was first taken there by my papa.”
“Well, what has happened since then?” said the invalid, staring at her and knitting his brows with a puzzled expression.
“My papa died,” said Sara. “He lost all his money, and there was none left for me—and there was no one to take care of me or pay Miss Minchin, so—”
“So you were sent up into the garret and neglected, and made into a half-starved little drudge!” put in the Indian Gentleman. That is about it, isn’t it?”
The color deepened on Sara’s cheeks.
“There was no one to take care of me, and no money,” she said. “I belong to nobody.”
“What did your father mean by losing his money?” said the gentleman, fretfully.
The red in Sara’s cheeks grew deeper, and she fixed her odd eyes on the yellow face.
“He did not lose it himself,” she said. “He had a friend he was fond of, and it was his friend, who took his money. I don’t know how. I don’t understand. He trusted his friend too much.”
She saw the invalid start—the strangest start— as if he had been suddenly frightened. Then he spoke nervously and excitedly:
“That’s an old story,” he said. “It happens every day; but sometimes those who are blamed —those who do the wrong—don’t intend it, and are not so bad. It may happen through a mistake —a miscalculation; they may not be so bad.”
“No,” said Sara, “but the suffering is just as bad for the others. It killed my papa.”
The Indian Gentleman pushed aside some of the gorgeous wraps that covered him.
“Come a little nearer, and let me look at you,” he said.
His voice sounded very strange; it had a more nervous and excited tone than before. Sara had an odd fancy that he was half afraid to look at her. She came and stood nearer, the monkey clinging to her and watching his master anxiously over his shoulder.
The Indian Gentleman’s hollow, restless eyes fixed themselves on her.
“Yes,” he said at last. “Yes; I can see it. Tell me your father’s name.”
“His name was Ralph Crewe,” said Sara. “Captain Crewe. Perhaps,”—a sudden thought flashing upon her,— “perhaps you may have heard of him? He died in India.”
The Indian Gentleman sank back upon his pillows. He looked very weak, and seemed out of breath.
“Yes,” he said, “I knew him. I was his friend. I meant no harm. If he had only lived he would have known. It turned out well after all. He was a fine young fellow. I was fond of him. I will make it right. Call—call the man.”
Sara thought he was going to die. But there was no need to call the Lascar. He must have been waiting at the door. He was in the room and by his master’s side in an instant. He seemed to know what to do. He lifted the drooping head, and gave the invalid something in a small glass. The Indian Gentleman lay panting for a few minutes, and then he spoke in an exhausted but eager voice, addressing the Lascar in Hindustani:
“Go for Carmichael,” he said. Tell him to come here at once. Tell him I have found the child!”
When Mr. Carmichael arrived (which occurred in a very few minutes, for it turned out that he was no other than the father of the Large Family across the street), Sara went home, and was allowed to take the monkey with her. She certainly did not sleep very much that night, though the monkey behaved beautifully, and did not disturb
her in the least. It was not the monkey that kept her awake—it was her thoughts, and her wonders as to what the Indian Gentleman had meant when he said, “Tell him I have found the child.” “What child?” Sara kept asking herself.
“I was the only child there; but how had he found me, and why did he want to find me? And what is he going to do, now I am found? Is it something about my papa? Do I belong to somebody? Is he one of my relations? Is something going to happen?”
But she found out the very next day, in the morning; and it seemed that she had been living in a story even more than she had imagined. First, Mr. Carmichael came and had an interview with Miss Minchin. And it appeared that Mr. Carmichael, besides occupying the important situation of father to the Large Family was a lawyer, and had charge of the affairs of Mr. Carrisford—which was the real name of the Indian Gentleman—and, as Mr. Carrisford’s lawyer, Mr. Carmichael had come to explain something curious to Miss Minchin regarding Sara. But, being the father of the Large Family, he had a very kind and fatherly feeling for children; and so, after seeing Miss Minchin alone, what did he do but go and bring across the square his rosy, motherly, warm-hearted wife, so that she herself might talk to the little lonely girl, and tell her everything in the best and most motherly way.
And then Sara learned that she was to be a poor little drudge and outcast no more, and that a great change had come in her fortunes; for all the lost fortune had come back to her, and a great deal had even been added to it. It was Mr. Carrisford who had been her father’s friend, and who had made the investments which had caused him the apparent loss of his money; but it had so happened that after poor young Captain Crewe’s death one of the investments which had seemed at the time the very worst had taken a sudden turn, and proved to be such a success that it had been a mine of wealth, and had more than doubled the Captain’s lost fortune, as well as making a fortune for Mr. Carrisford himself. But Mr. Carrisford had been very unhappy. He had truly loved his poor, handsome, generous young friend, and the knowledge that he had caused his death had weighed upon him always, and broken both his health and spirit. The worst of it had been that, when first he thought himself and Captain Crewe ruined, he had lost courage and gone away because he was not brave enough to face the consequences of what he had done, and so he had not even known where the young soldier’s little girl had been placed. When he wanted to find her, and make restitution, he could discover no trace of her; and the certainty that she was poor and friendless somewhere had made him more miserable than ever. When he had taken the house next to Miss Minchin’s he had been so ill and wretched that he had for the time given up the search. His troubles and the Indian climate had brought him almost to death’s door— indeed, he had not expected to live more than a few months. And then one day the Lascar had told him about Sara’s speaking Hindustani, and gradually he had begun to take a sort of interest in the forlorn child, though he had only caught a glimpse of her once or twice and he had not connected her with the child of his friend, perhaps because he was too languid to think much about anything. But the Lascar had found out something of Sara’s unhappy little life, and about the garret. One evening he had actually crept out of his own garret-window and looked into hers, which was a very easy matter, because, as I have said, it was only a few feet away—and he had told his master what he had seen, and in a moment of compassion the Indian Gentleman had told him to take into the wretched little room such comforts as he could carry from the one window to the other. And the Lascar, who had developed an interest in, and an odd fondness for, the child who had spoken to him in his own tongue, had been pleased with the work; and, having the silent swiftness and agile movements of many of his race, he had made his evening journeys across the few feet of roof from garret-window to garret-window, without any trouble at all. He had watched Sara’s movements until he knew exactly when she was absent from her room and when she returned to it, and so he had been able to calculate the best times for his work. Generally he had made them in the dusk of the evening; but once or twice, when he had seen her go out on errands, he had dared to go over in the daytime, being quite sure that the garret was never entered by any one but herself. His pleasure in the work and his reports of the results had added to the invalid’s interest in it, and sometimes the master had found the planning gave him something to think of, which made him almost forget his weariness and pain. And at last, when Sara brought home the truant monkey, he had felt a wish to see her, and then her likeness to her father had done the rest.
Sara Crewe, Or, What Happened at Miss Minchin's (Dodo Press) Page 4
