10. The Indian Gentleman

A Little Princess

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

But it was a perilous thing for Ermengarde and Lottie to make
pilgrimages to the attic. They could never be quite sure when Sara
would be there, and they could scarcely ever be certain that Miss
Amelia would not make a tour of inspection through the bedrooms after
the pupils were supposed to be asleep. So their visits were rare
ones, and Sara lived a strange and lonely life. It was a lonelier
life when she was downstairs than when she was in her attic. She had
no one to talk to; and when she was sent out on errands and walked
through the streets, a forlorn little figure carrying a basket or a
parcel, trying to hold her hat on when the wind was blowing, and
feeling the water soak through her shoes when it was raining, she
felt as if the crowds hurrying past her made her loneliness greater.
When she had been the Princess Sara, driving through the streets in
her brougham, or walking, attended by Mariette, the sight of her
bright, eager little face and picturesque coats and hats had often
caused people to look after her. A happy, beautifully cared for
little girl naturally attracts attention. Shabby, poorly dressed
children are not rare enough and pretty enough to make people turn
around to look at them and smile. No one looked at Sara in these
days, and no one seemed to see her as she hurried along the crowded
pavements. She had begun to grow very fast, and, as she was dressed
only in such clothes as the plainer remnants of her wardrobe would
supply, she knew she looked very queer, indeed. All her valuable
garments had been disposed of, and such as had been left for her use
she was expected to wear so long as she could put them on at all.
Sometimes, when she passed a shop window with a mirror in it, she
almost laughed outright on catching a glimpse of herself, and
sometimes her face went red and she bit her lip and turned away.

In the evening, when she passed houses whose windows were
lighted up, she used to look into the warm rooms and amuse herself by
imagining things about the people she saw sitting before the fires or
about the tables. It always interested her to catch glimpses of
rooms before the shutters were closed. There were several families in
the square in which Miss Minchin lived, with which she had become
quite familiar in a way of her own. The one she liked best she
called the Large Family. She called it the Large Family not because
the members of it were big- -for, indeed, most of them were
little--but because there were so many of them. There were eight
children in the Large Family, and a stout, rosy mother, and a stout,
rosy father, and a stout, rosy grandmother, and any number of
servants. The eight children were always either being taken out to
walk or to ride in perambulators by comfortable nurses, or they were
going to drive with their mamma, or they were flying to the door in
the evening to meet their papa and kiss him and dance around him and
drag off his overcoat and look in the pockets for packages, or they
were crowding about the nursery windows and looking out and pushing
each other and laughing--in fact, they were always doing something
enjoyable and suited to the tastes of a large family. Sara was quite
fond of them, and had given them names out of books--quite romantic
names. She called them the Montmorencys when she did not call them
the Large Family. The fat, fair baby with the lace cap was
Ethelberta Beauchamp Montmorency; the next baby was Violet
Cholmondeley Montmorency; the little boy who could just stagger and
who had such round legs was Sydney Cecil Vivian Montmorency; and then
came Lilian Evangeline Maud Marion, Rosalind Gladys, Guy Clarence,
Veronica Eustacia, and Claude Harold Hector.

One evening a very funny thing happened--though, perhaps, in one
sense it was not a funny thing at all.

Several of the Montmorencys were evidently going to a children's
party, and just as Sara was about to pass the door they were crossing
the pavement to get into the carriage which was waiting for them.
Veronica Eustacia and Rosalind Gladys, in white-lace frocks and
lovely sashes, had just got in, and Guy Clarence, aged five, was
following them. He was such a pretty fellow and had such rosy cheeks
and blue eyes, and such a darling little round head covered with
curls, that Sara forgot her basket and shabby cloak altogether--in
fact, forgot everything but that she wanted to look at him for a
moment. So she paused and looked.

It was Christmas time, and the Large Family had been hearing
many stories about children who were poor and had no mammas and papas
to fill their stockings and take them to the pantomime-- children who
were, in fact, cold and thinly clad and hungry. In the stories, kind
people--sometimes little boys and girls with tender
hearts--invariably saw the poor children and gave them money or rich
gifts, or took them home to beautiful dinners. Guy Clarence had been
affected to tears that very afternoon by the reading of such a story,
and he had burned with a desire to find such a poor child and give
her a certain sixpence he possessed, and thus provide for her for
life. An entire sixpence, he was sure, would mean affluence for
evermore. As he crossed the strip of red carpet laid across the
pavement from the door to the carriage, he had this very sixpence in
the pocket of his very short man-o-war trousers; And just as Rosalind
Gladys got into the vehicle and jumped on the seat in order to feel
the cushions spring under her, he saw Sara standing on the wet
pavement in her shabby frock and hat, with her old basket on her arm,
looking at him hungrily.

He thought that her eyes looked hungry because she had perhaps
had nothing to eat for a long time. He did not know that they looked
so because she was hungry for the warm, merry life his home held and
his rosy face spoke of, and that she had a hungry wish to snatch him
in her arms and kiss him. He only knew that she had big eyes and a
thin face and thin legs and a common basket and poor clothes. So he
put his hand in his pocket and found his sixpence and walked up to
her benignly.

"Here, poor little girl," he said. "Here is a sixpence. I will
give it to you."

Sara started, and all at once realized that she looked exactly
like poor children she had seen, in her better days, waiting on the
pavement to watch her as she got out of her brougham. And she had
given them pennies many a time. Her face went red and then it went
pale, and for a second she felt as if she could not take the dear
little sixpence.

"Oh, no!" she said. "Oh, no, thank you; I mustn't take it,
indeed!"

Her voice was so unlike an ordinary street child's voice and her
manner was so like the manner of a well-bred little person that
Veronica Eustacia (whose real name was Janet) and Rosalind Gladys
(who was really called Nora) leaned forward to listen.

But Guy Clarence was not to be thwarted in his benevolence. He
thrust the sixpence into her hand.

"Yes, you must take it, poor little girl!" he insisted stoutly.
"You can buy things to eat with it. It is a whole sixpence!"

There was something so honest and kind in his face, and he
looked so likely to be heartbrokenly disappointed if she did not take
it, that Sara knew she must not refuse him. To be as proud as that
would be a cruel thing. So she actually put her pride in her pocket,
though it must be admitted her cheeks burned.

"Thank you," she said. "You are a kind, kind little darling
thing." And as he scrambled joyfully into the carriage she went away,
trying to smile, though she caught her breath quickly and her eyes
were shining through a mist. She had known that she looked odd and
shabby, but until now she had not known that she might be taken for a
beggar.

As the Large Family's carriage drove away, the children inside
it were talking with interested excitement.

"Oh, Donald," (this was Guy Clarence's name), Janet exclaimed
alarmedly, "why did you offer that little girl your sixpence? I'm
sure she is not a beggar!"

"She didn't speak like a beggar!" cried Nora. "And her face
didn't really look like a beggar's face!"

"Besides, she didn't beg," said Janet. "I was so afraid she
might be angry with you. You know, it makes people angry to be taken
for beggars when they are not beggars."

"She wasn't angry," said Donald, a trifle dismayed, but still
firm. "She laughed a little, and she said I was a kind, kind little
darling thing. And I was!"--stoutly. "It was my whole sixpence."

Janet and Nora exchanged glances.

"A beggar girl would never have said that," decided Janet. "She
would have said, `Thank yer kindly, little gentleman-- thank yer,
sir;' and perhaps she would have bobbed a curtsy."

Sara knew nothing about the fact, but from that time the Large
Family was as profoundly interested in her as she was in it. Faces
used to appear at the nursery windows when she passed, and many
discussions concerning her were held round the fire.

"She is a kind of servant at the seminary," Janet said. "I
don't believe she belongs to anybody. I believe she is an orphan.
But she is not a beggar, however shabby she looks."

And afterward she was called by all of them, "The-little-girl-
who-is-not-a-beggar," which was, of course, rather a long name, and
sounded very funny sometimes when the youngest ones said it in a
hurry.

Sara managed to bore a hole in the sixpence and hung it on an
old bit of narrow ribbon round her neck. Her affection for the Large
Family increased--as, indeed, her affection for everything she could
love increased. She grew fonder and fonder of Becky, and she used to
look forward to the two mornings a week when she went into the
schoolroom to give the little ones their French lesson. Her small
pupils loved her, and strove with each other for the privilege of
standing close to her and insinuating their small hands into hers. It
fed her hungry heart to feel them nestling up to her. She made such
friends with the sparrows that when she stood upon the table, put her
head and shoulders out of the attic window, and chirped, she heard
almost immediately a flutter of wings and answering twitters, and a
little flock of dingy town birds appeared and alighted on the slates
to talk to her and make much of the crumbs she scattered. With
Melchisedec she had become so intimate that he actually brought Mrs.
Melchisedec with him sometimes, and now and then one or two of his
children. She used to talk to him, and, somehow, he looked quite as
if he understood.

There had grown in her mind rather a strange feeling about
Emily, who always sat and looked on at everything. It arose in one
of her moments of great desolateness. She would have liked to
believe or pretend to believe that Emily understood and sympathized
with her. She did not like to own to herself that her only companion
could feel and hear nothing. She used to put her in a chair
sometimes and sit opposite to her on the old red footstool, and stare
and pretend about her until her own eyes would grow large with
something which was almost like fear-- particularly at night when
everything was so still, when the only sound in the attic was the
occasional sudden scurry and squeak of Melchisedec's family in the
wall. One of her "pretends" was that Emily was a kind of good witch
who could protect her. Sometimes, after she had stared at her until
she was wrought up to the highest pitch of fancifulness, she would
ask her questions and find herself almost feeling as if she would
presently answer. But she never did.

"As to answering, though," said Sara, trying to console herself,
"I don't answer very often. I never answer when I can help it. When
people are insulting you, there is nothing so good for them as not to
say a word--just to look at them and think. Miss Minchin turns pale
with rage when I do it, Miss Amelia looks frightened, and so do the
girls. When you will not fly into a passion people know you are
stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your
rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they
hadn't said afterward. There's nothing so strong as rage, except what
makes you hold it in--that's stronger. It's a good thing not to
answer your enemies. I scarcely ever do. Perhaps Emily is more like
me than I am like myself. Perhaps she would rather not answer her
friends, even. She keeps it all in her heart."

But though she tried to satisfy herself with these arguments,
she did not find it easy. When, after a long, hard day, in which she
had been sent here and there, sometimes on long errands through wind
and cold and rain, she came in wet and hungry, and was sent out again
because nobody chose to remember that she was only a child, and that
her slim legs might be tired and her small body might be chilled;
when she had been given only harsh words and cold, slighting looks
for thanks; when the cook had been vulgar and insolent; when Miss
Minchin had been in her worst mood, and when she had seen the girls
sneering among themselves at her shabbiness--then she was not always
able to comfort her sore, proud, desolate heart with fancies when
Emily merely sat upright in her old chair and stared.

One of these nights, when she came up to the attic cold and
hungry, with a tempest raging in her young breast, Emily's stare
seemed so vacant, her sawdust legs and arms so inexpressive, that
Sara lost all control over herself. There was nobody but Emily-- no
one in the world. And there she sat.

"I shall die presently," she said at first.

Emily simply stared.

"I can't bear this," said the poor child, trembling. "I know I
shall die. I'm cold; I'm wet; I'm starving to death. I've walked a
thousand miles today, and they have done nothing but scold me from
morning until night. And because I could not find that last thing
the cook sent me for, they would not give me any supper. Some men
laughed at me because my old shoes made me slip down in the mud. I'm
covered with mud now. And they laughed. Do you hear?"

She looked at the staring glass eyes and complacent face, and
suddenly a sort of heartbroken rage seized her. She lifted her
little savage hand and knocked Emily off the chair, bursting into a
passion of sobbing--Sara who never cried.

"You are nothing but a doll!" she cried. "Nothing but a doll--
doll--doll! You care for nothing. You are stuffed with sawdust. You
never had a heart. Nothing could ever make you feel. You are a
doll!" Emily lay on the floor, with her legs ignominiously doubled up
over her head, and a new flat place on the end of her nose; but she
was calm, even dignified. Sara hid her face in her arms. The rats in
the wall began to fight and bite each other and squeak and scramble.
Melchisedec was chastising some of his family.

Sara's sobs gradually quieted themselves. It was so unlike her
to break down that she was surprised at herself. After a while she
raised her face and looked at Emily, who seemed to be gazing at her
round the side of one angle, and, somehow, by this time actually with
a kind of glassy-eyed sympathy. Sara bent and picked her up. Remorse
overtook her. She even smiled at herself a very little smile.

"You can't help being a doll," she said with a resigned sigh,
"any more than Lavinia and Jessie can help not having any sense. We
are not all made alike. Perhaps you do your sawdust best." And she
kissed her and shook her clothes straight, and put her back upon her
chair.

She had wished very much that some one would take the empty
house next door. She wished it because of the attic window which was
so near hers. It seemed as if it would be so nice to see it propped
open someday and a head and shoulders rising out of the square
aperture.

"If it looked a nice head," she thought, "I might begin by
saying, `Good morning,' and all sorts of things might happen. But, of
course, it's not really likely that anyone but under servants would
sleep there."

One morning, on turning the corner of the square after a visit
to the grocer's, the butcher's, and the baker's, she saw, to her
great delight, that during her rather prolonged absence, a van full
of furniture had stopped before the next house, the front doors were
thrown open, and men in shirt sleeves were going in and out carrying
heavy packages and pieces of furniture.

"It's taken!" she said. "It really is taken! Oh, I do hope a
nice head will look out of the attic window!"

She would almost have liked to join the group of loiterers who
had stopped on the pavement to watch the things carried in. She had
an idea that if she could see some of the furniture she could guess
something about the people it belonged to.

"Miss Minchin's tables and chairs are just like her," she
thought; "I remember thinking that the first minute I saw her, even
though I was so little. I told papa afterward, and he laughed and
said it was true. I am sure the Large Family have fat, comfortable
armchairs and sofas, and I can see that their red-flowery wallpaper
is exactly like them. It's warm and cheerful and kind-looking and
happy."

She was sent out for parsley to the greengrocer's later in the
day, and when she came up the area steps her heart gave quite a quick
beat of recognition. Several pieces of furniture had been set out of
the van upon the pavement. There was a beautiful table of
elaborately wrought teakwood, and some chairs, and a screen covered
with rich Oriental embroidery. The sight of them gave her a weird,
homesick feeling. She had seen things so like them in India. One of
the things Miss Minchin had taken from her was a carved teakwood desk
her father had sent her.

"They are beautiful things," she said; "they look as if they
ought to belong to a nice person. All the things look rather grand.
I suppose it is a rich family."

The vans of furniture came and were unloaded and gave place to
others all the day. Several times it so happened that Sara had an
opportunity of seeing things carried in. It became plain that she
had been right in guessing that the newcomers were people of large
means. All the furniture was rich and beautiful, and a great deal of
it was Oriental. Wonderful rugs and draperies and ornaments were
taken from the vans, many pictures, and books enough for a library.
Among other things there was a superb god Buddha in a splendid
shrine.

"Someone in the family must have been in India," Sara thought.
"They have got used to Indian things and like them. I am glad. I
shall feel as if they were friends, even if a head never looks out of
the attic window."

When she was taking in the evening's milk for the cook (there
was really no odd job she was not called upon to do), she saw
something occur which made the situation more interesting than ever.
The handsome, rosy man who was the father of the Large Family walked
across the square in the most matter-of-fact manner, and ran up the
steps of the next-door house. He ran up them as if he felt quite at
home and expected to run up and down them many a time in the future.
He stayed inside quite a long time, and several times came out and
gave directions to the workmen, as if he had a right to do so. It was
quite certain that he was in some intimate way connected with the
newcomers and was acting for them.

"If the new people have children," Sara speculated, "the Large
Family children will be sure to come and play with them, and they
might come up into the attic just for fun."

At night, after her work was done, Becky came in to see her
fellow prisoner and bring her news.

"It's a' Nindian gentleman that's comin' to live next door,
miss," she said. "I don't know whether he's a black gentleman or
not, but he's a Nindian one. He's very rich, an' he's ill, an' the
gentleman of the Large Family is his lawyer. He's had a lot of
trouble, an' it's made him ill an' low in his mind. He worships
idols, miss. He's an 'eathen an' bows down to wood an' stone. I seen
a' idol bein' carried in for him to worship. Somebody had oughter
send him a trac'. You can get a trac' for a penny."

Sara laughed a little.

"I don't believe he worships that idol," she said; "some people
like to keep them to look at because they are interesting. My papa
had a beautiful one, and he did not worship it."

But Becky was rather inclined to prefer to believe that the new
neighbor was "an 'eathen." It sounded so much more romantic than
that he should merely be the ordinary kind of gentleman who went to
church with a prayer book. She sat and talked long that night of
what he would be like, of what his wife would be like if he had one,
and of what his children would be like if they had children. Sara saw
that privately she could not help hoping very much that they would
all be black, and would wear turbans, and, above all, that--like
their parent--they would all be "'eathens."

"I never lived next door to no 'eathens, miss," she said; "I
should like to see what sort o' ways they'd have."

It was several weeks before her curiosity was satisfied, and
then it was revealed that the new occupant had neither wife nor
children. He was a solitary man with no family at all, and it was
evident that he was shattered in health and unhappy in mind.

A carriage drove up one day and stopped before the house. When
the footman dismounted from the box and opened the door the gentleman
who was the father of the Large Family got out first. After him there
descended a nurse in uniform, then came down the steps two
men-servants. They came to assist their master, who, when he was
helped out of the carriage, proved to be a man with a haggard,
distressed face, and a skeleton body wrapped in furs. He was carried
up the steps, and the head of the Large Family went with him, looking
very anxious. Shortly afterward a doctor's carriage arrived, and the
doctor went in--plainly to take care of him.

"There is such a yellow gentleman next door, Sara," Lottie
whispered at the French class afterward. "Do you think he is a
Chinee? The geography says the Chinee men are yellow."

"No, he is not Chinese," Sara whispered back; "he is very ill.
Go on with your exercise, Lottie. `Non, monsieur. Je n'ai pas le
canif de mon oncle.'"

That was the beginning of the story of the Indian gentleman.