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And as she sat in this silence there came a low tap at the door--
such a low, humble one that she did not at first hear it, and, indeed,
was not roused until the door was timidly pushed open and a poor
tear-smeared face appeared peeping round it. It was Becky's face,
and Becky had been crying furtively for hours and rubbing her eyes
with her kitchen apron until she looked strange indeed.
"Oh, miss," she said under her breath. "Might I--would you allow me--
jest to come in?"
Sara lifted her head and looked at her. She tried to begin a smile,
and somehow she could not. Suddenly--and it was all through
the loving mournfulness of Becky's streaming eyes--her face
looked more like a child's not so much too old for her years.
She held out her hand and gave a little sob.
"Oh, Becky," she said. "I told you we were just the same--only two
little girls--just two little girls. You see how true it is.
There's no difference now. I'm not a princess anymore."
Becky ran to her and caught her hand, and hugged it to her breast,
kneeling beside her and sobbing with love and pain.
"Yes, miss, you are," she cried, and her words were all broken.
"Whats'ever 'appens to you--whats'ever--you'd be a princess all
the same--an' nothin' couldn't make you nothin' different."
8
In the Attic
The first night she spent in her attic was a thing Sara never forgot.
During its passing she lived through a wild, unchildlike woe of which
she never spoke to anyone about her. There was no one who would
have understood. It was, indeed, well for her that as she lay awake
in the darkness her mind was forcibly distracted, now and then,
by the strangeness of her surroundings. It was, perhaps, well for
her that she was reminded by her small body of material things.
If this had not been so, the anguish of her young mind might have
been too great for a child to bear. But, really, while the night
was passing she scarcely knew that she had a body at all or remembered
any other thing than one.
"My papa is dead!" she kept whispering to herself. "My papa is dead!"
It was not until long afterward that she realized that her bed had been
so hard that she turned over and over in it to find a place to rest,
that the darkness seemed more intense than any she had ever known,
and that the wind howled over the roof among the chimneys like
something which wailed aloud. Then there was something worse.
This was certain scufflings and scratchings and squeakings in the
walls and behind the skirting boards. She knew what they meant,
because Becky had described them. They meant rats and mice
who were either fighting with each other or playing together.
Once or twice she even heard sharp-toed feet scurrying across the floor,
and she remembered in those after days, when she recalled things,
that when first she heard them she started up in bed and sat trembling,
and when she lay down again covered her head with the bedclothes.
The change in her life did not come about gradually, but was made
all at once.
"She must begin as she is to go on," Miss Minchin said to Miss Amelia.
"She must be taught at once what she is to expect."
Mariette had left the house the next morning. The glimpse Sara
caught of her sitting room, as she passed its open door, showed her
that everything had been changed. Her ornaments and luxuries had
been removed, and a bed had been placed in a corner to transform
it into a new pupil's bedroom.
When she went down to breakfast she saw that her seat at Miss Minchin's
side was occupied by Lavinia, and Miss Minchin spoke to her coldly.
"You will begin your new duties, Sara," she said, "by taking your
seat with the younger children at a smaller table. You must keep
them quiet, and see that they behave well and do not waste their food.
You ought to have been down earlier. Lottie has already upset
her tea."
That was the beginning, and from day to day the duties given to her
were added to. She taught the younger children French and heard
their other lessons, and these were the least of her labors.
It was found that she could be made use of in numberless directions.
She could be sent on errands at any time and in all weathers.
She could be told to do things other people neglected. The cook [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]