A Little Princess, Frances Hodgson Burnett [ebook reader macos txt] 📗

The rug was laid down already.

“How soft and thick it is!” she said, with the little laugh which Becky knew the meaning of; and she raised and set her foot down again delicately, as if she felt something under it.

“Yes, miss,” answered Becky, watching her with serious rapture. She was always quite serious.

“What next, now?” said Sara, and she stood still and put her hands over her eyes. “Something will come if I think and wait a little”—in a soft, expectant voice. “The Magic will tell me.”

One of her favorite fancies was that on “the outside,” as she called it, thoughts were waiting for people to call them. Becky had seen her stand and wait many a time before, and knew that in a few seconds she would uncover an enlightened, laughing face.

In a moment she did.

“There!” she cried. “It has come! I know now! I must look among the things in the old trunk I had when I was a princess.”

She flew to its corner and kneeled down. It had not been put in the attic for her benefit, but because there was no room for it elsewhere. Nothing had been left in it but rubbish. But she knew she should find something. The Magic always arranged that kind of thing in one way or another.

In a corner lay a package so insignificant-looking that it had been overlooked, and when she herself had found it she had kept it as a relic. It contained a dozen small white handkerchiefs. She seized them joyfully and ran to the table. She began to arrange them upon the red table-cover, patting and coaxing them into shape with the narrow lace edge curling outward, her Magic working its spells for her as she did it.

“These are the plates,” she said. “They are golden plates. These are the richly embroidered napkins. Nuns worked them in convents in Spain.”

“Did they, miss?” breathed Becky, her very soul uplifted by the information.

“You must pretend it,” said Sara. “If you pretend it enough, you will see them.”

“Yes, miss,” said Becky; and as Sara returned to the trunk she devoted herself to the effort of accomplishing an end so much to be desired.

Sara turned suddenly to find her standing by the table, looking very queer indeed. She had shut her eyes, and was twisting her face in strange convulsive contortions, her hands hanging stiffly clenched at her sides. She looked as if she was trying to lift some enormous weight.

“What is the matter, Becky?” Sara cried. “What are you doing?”

Becky opened her eyes with a start.

“I was a-‘pretendin’,’ miss,” she answered a little sheepishly; “I was tryin’ to see it like you do. I almost did,” with a hopeful grin. “But it takes a lot o’ stren’th.”

“Perhaps it does if you are not used to it,” said Sara, with friendly sympathy; “but you don’t know how easy it is when you’ve done it often. I wouldn’t try so hard just at first. It will come to you after a while. I’ll just tell you what things are. Look at these.”

She held an old summer hat in her hand which she had fished out of the bottom of the trunk. There was a wreath of flowers on it. She pulled the wreath off.

“These are garlands for the feast,” she said grandly. “They fill all the air with perfume. There’s a mug on the washstand, Becky. Oh—and bring the soap dish for a centerpiece.”

Becky handed them to her reverently.

“What are they now, miss?” she inquired. “You’d think they was made of crockery—but I know they ain’t.”

“This is a carven flagon,” said Sara, arranging tendrils of the wreath about the mug. “And this”—bending tenderly over the soap dish and heaping it with roses—“is purest alabaster encrusted with gems.”

She touched the things gently, a happy smile hovering about her lips which made her look as if she were a creature in a dream.

“My, ain’t it lovely!” whispered Becky.

“If we just had something for bonbon dishes,” Sara murmured. “There!”—darting to the trunk again. “I remember I saw something this minute.”

It was only a bundle of wool wrapped in red and white tissue paper, but the tissue paper was soon twisted into the form of little dishes, and was combined with the remaining flowers to ornament the candlestick which was to light the feast. Only the Magic could have made it more than an old table covered with a red shawl and set with rubbish from a long-unopened trunk. But Sara drew back and gazed at it, seeing wonders; and Becky, after staring in delight, spoke with bated breath.

“This ‘ere,” she suggested, with a glance round the attic—“is it the Bastille now—or has it turned into somethin’ different?”

“Oh, yes, yes!” said Sara. “Quite different. It is a banquet hall!”

“My eye, miss!” ejaculated Becky. “A blanket ‘all!” and she turned to view the splendors about her with awed bewilderment.

“A banquet hall,” said Sara. “A vast chamber where feasts are given. It has a vaulted roof, and a minstrels’ gallery, and a huge chimney filled with blazing oaken logs, and it is brilliant with waxen tapers twinkling on every side.”

“My eye, Miss Sara!” gasped Becky again.

Then the door opened, and Ermengarde came in, rather staggering under the weight of her hamper. She started back with an exclamation of joy. To enter from the chill darkness outside, and find one’s self confronted by a totally unanticipated festal board, draped with red, adorned with white napery, and wreathed with flowers, was to feel that the preparations were brilliant indeed.

“Oh, Sara!” she cried out. “You are the cleverest girl I ever saw!”

“Isn’t it nice?” said Sara. “They are things out of my old trunk. I asked my Magic, and it told me to go and look.”

“But oh, miss,” cried Becky, “wait till she’s told you what they are! They ain’t just—oh, miss, please tell her,” appealing to Sara.

So Sara told her, and because her Magic helped her she made her ALMOST see it all: the golden platters—the vaulted spaces—the blazing logs—the twinkling waxen tapers. As the things were taken out of the hamper—the frosted cakes—the fruits—the bonbons and the wine—the feast became a splendid thing.

“It’s like a real party!” cried Ermengarde.

“It’s like a queen’s table,” sighed Becky.

Then Ermengarde had a sudden brilliant thought.

“I’ll tell you what, Sara,” she said. “Pretend you are a princess now and this is a royal feast.”

“But it’s your feast,” said Sara; “you must be the princess, and we will be your maids of honor.”

“Oh, I can’t,” said Ermengarde. “I’m too fat, and I don’t know how. YOU be her.”

“Well, if you want me to,” said Sara.

But suddenly she thought of something else and ran to the rusty grate.

“There is a lot of paper and rubbish stuffed in here!” she exclaimed. “If we light it, there will be a bright blaze for a few minutes, and we shall feel as if it was a real fire.” She struck a match and lighted it up with a great specious glow which illuminated the room.

“By the time it stops blazing,” Sara said, “we shall forget about its not being real.”

She stood in the dancing glow and smiled.

“Doesn’t it LOOK real?” she said. “Now we will begin the party.”

She led the way to the table. She waved her hand graciously to Ermengarde and Becky. She was in the midst of her dream.

“Advance, fair damsels,” she said in her happy dream-voice, “and be seated at the banquet table. My noble father, the king, who is absent on a long journey, has commanded me to feast you.” She turned her head slightly toward the corner of the room. “What, ho, there, minstrels! Strike up with your viols and bassoons. Princesses,” she explained rapidly to Ermengarde and Becky, “always had minstrels to play at their feasts. Pretend there is a minstrel gallery up there in the corner. Now we will begin.”

They had barely had time to take their pieces of cake into their hands—not one of them had time to do more, when—they all three sprang to their feet and turned pale faces toward the door— listening—listening.

Someone was coming up the stairs. There was no mistake about it. Each of them recognized the angry, mounting tread and knew that the end of all things had come.

“It’s—the missus!” choked Becky, and dropped her piece of cake upon the floor.

“Yes,” said Sara, her eyes growing shocked and large in her small white face. “Miss Minchin has found us out.”

Miss Minchin struck the door open with a blow of her hand. She was pale herself, but it was with rage. She looked from the frightened faces to the banquet table, and from the banquet table to the last flicker of the burnt paper in the grate.

“I have been suspecting something of this sort,” she exclaimed; “but I did not dream of such audacity. Lavinia was telling the truth.”

So they knew that it was Lavinia who had somehow guessed their secret and had betrayed them. Miss Minchin strode over to Becky and boxed her ears for a second time.

“You impudent creature!” she said. “You leave the house in the morning!”

Sara stood quite still, her eyes growing larger, her face paler. Ermengarde burst into tears.

“Oh, don’t send her away,” she sobbed. “My aunt sent me the hamper. We’re—only—having a party.”

“So I see,” said Miss Minchin, witheringly. “With the Princess Sara at the head of the table.” She turned fiercely on Sara. “It is your doing, I know,” she cried. “Ermengarde would never have thought of such a thing. You decorated the table, I suppose—with this rubbish.” She stamped her foot at Becky. “Go to your attic!” she commanded, and Becky stole away, her face hidden in her apron, her shoulders shaking.

Then it was Sara’s turn again.

“I will attend to you tomorrow. You shall have neither breakfast, dinner, nor supper!”

“I have not had either dinner or supper today, Miss Minchin,” said Sara, rather faintly.

“Then all the better. You will have something to remember. Don’t stand there. Put those things into the hamper again.”

She began to sweep them off the table into the hamper herself, and caught sight of Ermengarde’s new books.

“And you”—to Ermengarde—“have brought your beautiful new books into this dirty attic. Take them up and go back to bed. You will stay there all day tomorrow, and I shall write to your papa. What would HE say if he knew where you are tonight?”

Something she saw in Sara’s grave, fixed gaze at this moment made her turn on her fiercely.

“What are you thinking of?” she demanded. “Why do you look at me like that?”

“I was wondering,” answered Sara, as she had answered that notable day in the schoolroom.

“What were you wondering?”

It was very like the scene in the schoolroom. There was no pertness in Sara’s manner. It was only sad and quiet.

“I was wondering,” she said in a low voice, “what MY papa would say if he knew where I am tonight.”

Miss Minchin was infuriated just as she had been before and her anger expressed itself, as before, in an intemperate fashion. She flew at her and shook her.

“You insolent, unmanageable child!” she cried. “How dare you! How dare you!”

She picked up the books, swept the rest of the feast back into the hamper in a jumbled heap, thrust it into Ermengarde’s arms, and pushed her before her toward the door.

“I will leave you to wonder,” she said. “Go to bed this instant.” And she shut the door behind herself and poor stumbling Ermengarde, and left Sara standing quite alone.

The dream was quite at an end. The last spark