12 A Little Princess - Stephanie Poppins

A LITTLE PRINCESS by Francis Hodgson Burnett The other side of the wall When one lives in a row of houses,

It is interesting to think of the things which are being done and said on the other side of the wall of the very rooms one is living in.

Sarah was fond of amusing herself by trying to imagine the things hidden by the wall which divided the select seminary from the Indian gentleman's house.

She knew that the school room was next to the Indian gentleman's study and she hoped the wall was thick so that the noise made sometimes after less than hours would not disturb him.

I am growing quite fond of him,

She said to Ermengarde.

I should not like him to be disturbed.

I have adopted him for a friend.

You can do that with people you never speak to at all.

You can just watch them and think about them and be sorry for them until they seem almost like relations.

I am quite anxious sometimes when I see the doctor call twice a day.

I have very few relations,

Said Ermengarde reflectively,

And I am very glad of it.

I don't like those I have.

My two aunts are always saying,

Dear me,

Ermengarde,

You are very fat.

You shouldn't eat sweets.

And my uncle is always asking me things like,

When did Edward III ascend the throne?

And who died of a surfeit of lampreys?

Sarah laughed.

People you never speak to can't ask you questions like that,

She said,

And I am sure the Indian gentleman wouldn't even if he was quite intimate with you.

I am fond of him.

She had become fond of the large family because they looked happy,

But she had become fond of the Indian gentleman because he looked unhappy.

He had evidently not fully recovered from some very serious illness.

In the kitchen,

Where of course the servants,

Through some mysterious means,

Knew everything,

There was much discussion of his case.

He was not an Indian gentleman really,

But an Englishman who had lived in India.

He had met with great misfortunes which had for a time so imperiled his whole fortune,

He had thought himself ruined and disgraced for ever.

The shock had been so great that he almost died of brain fever and ever since he had been shattered in health,

Though his fortunes had changed and all his possessions had been restored.

His trouble and peril had been connected with mines.

And mines with diamonds in them,

Said the cook,

No savings of mines ever going into no mines,

Particularly diamond ones.

With a side glance at Sarah,

We all know something of them.

He felt as my papa felt,

Sarah thought.

He was ill as my papa was,

But he didn't die.

So her heart was more drawn to him than before.

When she was sent out at night,

She used sometimes to feel quite glad because there was always a chance the curtains of the house next door might not yet be closed and she could look into the warm room and see her adopted friend.

When no one was about,

She used sometimes to stop and,

Holding the iron railings,

Wish him good night as if he could hear her.

Perhaps you can feel if you can't hear,

Was her fancy.

Perhaps kind thoughts reach people even through windows and walls.

Perhaps you feel a little warm and comforted and don't know why when I'm standing here in the cold and hoping you'll get well and happy again.

I'm so sorry for you,

She would whisper in an intense little voice.

I wish you had a little missus who could pet you as I used to pet papa when he had a headache.

I should like to be your little missus myself.

Poor dear,

Good night,

Good night,

God bless you.

She would go away feeling quite comforted and a little warmer herself.

Her sympathy was so strong it seemed as if it must reach him somehow as he sat alone in his armchair by the fire,

Nearly always in a great dressing gown and nearly always with his forehead resting in his hand as he gazed hopelessly into the fire.

He looked to Sarah like a man who had a trouble on his mind still,

Not meaning like one whose troubles lay all in the past.

He always seems as if he was thinking of something that hurts him now,

She said to herself,

But he's got his money back and will get over his brain fever in time,

So he ought not to look like that.

I wonder if there's something else.

If there was something else,

Something even servants did not hear of.

Sarah could not help believing the father of the large family knew it too,

The gentleman she called Mr.

Montmorency.

Mr.

Montmorency went to see him often and Mrs.

Montmorency and all the little Montmorencies went too,

Though less often.

He seemed particularly fond of the two elder little girls,

The Janet and Nora who'd been so alarmed when their small brother Donald gave Sarah his sixpence.

He had in fact a very tender place in his heart for all children and particularly for little girls.

Janet and Nora were as fond of him as he was of them and looked forward with the greatest pleasure to the afternoons when they were allowed to cross the square and make their well-behaved little visits to come and see him.

They were extremely decorous little visits,

Because he was an invalid.

He is a poor thing,

Said Janet,

And he says we should cheer him up.

We do try to cheer him up very quietly.

Janet was the head of the family and kept the rest of it in order.

It was she who decided when it was discreet to ask the Indian gentleman to tell them stories about India,

And it was she who saw when he was tired and it was time to steal away quietly and tell Ram Dass to go to him.

They were very fond of Ram Dass.

He could have told any number of stories if he'd been able to speak anything but Hindustani.

The Indian gentleman's real name was Mr Carisford,

And Janet told Mr Carisford about the encounter with a little girl who was not a beggar.

He was very much interested,

And all the more so when he heard from Ram Dass of the adventure of the monkey on the roof.

Ram Dass made for him a very clear picture of the attic and its desolateness,

Of the bare floor and broken boards,

The rusty empty grate and the hard,

Narrow bed.

Carmichael,

He said to the father of the large family after he'd learned this description.

I wonder how many of the attics in this square are like that one,

And how many wretched little servant girls sleep on such beds,

While I toss on my down pillows,

Loaded and harassed by wealth that is mostly not mine.

My dear fellow,

Mr Carmichael answered cheerily,

The sooner you cease tormenting yourself the better it will be.

If you possessed all the wealth of all the Indies,

You could not set right all the discomforts in this world,

And if you began to refurnish all the attics in this square,

There would still remain all the attics in another square,

And there you are.

Mr Carisford sat and bit his nails as he looked into the glowing bed of coals in the grate.

Do you suppose,

He said slowly after a pause,

Do you think it's possible the other child the child I never cease thinking of could possibly be reduced to such a condition as the poor little soul next door?

Mr Carmichael looked at him uneasily.

He knew the worst thing the man could do for himself was to begin to think in this particular way of this particular subject.

If the child at Madame Pascal's school in Paris was the one you're in search of,

The world would seem to be in the hands of people who can afford to take care of her.

They adopted her because she'd been the favourite of their little daughter who died.

They had no other children,

And Madame Pascal said they were extremely well-to-do Russians.

And the wretched woman did actually not know where they'd taken her!

Exclaimed Mr Carisford.

Mr Carmichael shrugged his shoulders.

She was a shrewd,

Worldly Frenchwoman,

And was evidently only too glad to get the child so comfortably off her hands when the father's death left her totally unprovided for.

Women of her type do not trouble themselves about the futures of children who might prove burdens.

The adopted parents apparently disappeared and left no trace.

But if you say if,

Said Mr Carisford,

The child was the one I'm in search of.

If you say if,

We are still not sure.

There was a difference in the name.

Madame Pascal pronounced it as if it were Caroo instead of Crew.

But that might be merely a matter of pronunciation,

Said Mr Carmichael.

The circumstances were curiously similar.

An English officer in India placed his motherless little girl at the school.

He had died suddenly after losing his fortune.

Then Mr Carmichael paused a moment as if a new thought occurred to him.

Are you sure the child was left at a school in Paris?

Are you sure it was Paris?

My dear fellow,

Broke forth,

Carisford,

With restless bitterness.

I am sure of nothing.

I never saw either the child or her mother.

Ralph Crew and I loved each other as boys,

But we had not met since our school days.

Until India.

I was absorbed in the magnificent promise of the mines,

And he was absorbed too.

The whole thing was so huge and glittering,

We half lost our heads.

When we met,

We scarcely spoke of anything else.

I only know the child was sent to school somewhere.

I do not even remember now how I knew it.

He was beginning to get excited.

He always became excited when his 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 he must put them quietly and with caution.

But you had reason to think the school was in Paris?

Yes,

Answered Mr Carisford,

Because her mother was a Frenchwoman.

I learned that she wished her child to be educated in Paris.

It seemed only likely she would be there.

It seems more than probable,

Said Mr Carmichael.

Mr Carisford leaned forward and struck the table with a long,

Wasted hand.

Carmichael,

He said,

I must find her.

If she's alive,

She's somewhere.

If she's friendless and penniless,

It's all 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,

Soothed Carmichael,

Try to be calm.

Console yourself with the fact that when she's found,

You will have a fortune to hand over to her.

Why was I not a man enough to stand my ground when things looked black,

Carisford groaned in petulant misery?

I believe I should have stood my ground if I'd not been responsible for other people's money as well as my own.

Poor Crewe put into the scheme every penny he owned.

He trusted me,

And he died thinking I had ruined him.

What a villain he must have thought me.

Don't reproach yourself so bitterly,

Said Mr Carmichael.

He placed his hand on Mr Carisford's shoulder,

Comforting me.

You ran away because your brain gave 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 hospital,

Strapped down in bed,

Raving with brain fever two days after you left the place,

Remember that?

Carisford dropped his forehead into his hands.

Now this is explanation enough,

Said Mr Carmichael.

How could a man on the verge of brain fever judge sanely?

Carisford 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 somehow seems,

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 used to call her by an odd pet name.

He used to say Little Mrs,

But the wretched minds drove everything else out of our heads.

We talked of nothing else.

If he did speak of the school,

I forget.

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 they lived in Moscow.

We'll take that as a clue.

I will go to Moscow.

If I were able to travel,

I would go with you,

Said Carisford,

But I can only sit here wrapped in furs and stare at the fire.

And when I look into it,

I always seem to see Crewe's face gazing back at me.

Sometimes I dream of him at night and he always asks the same question.

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?

Carisford 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.

Please help me.

On the other side of the wall,

Sarah was talking to her rat who had come out for his evening meal.

It has been hard to be a princess today,

M'Chiseledek,

She said.

It's 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 in all a flash and I only just stopped myself in time.

You can't sneer back at people like that if you're a princess,

But you have to bite your tongue to hold yourself in,

So I bit mine.

It was a cold afternoon and it's quite cold tonight.

Then she put her black head down in her arms as she often did when she was alone.

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.