Chapter 3

And one day she actually did speak to him, and his start at the sound of his own language expressed a great deal of surprise and delight. He was waiting for his master to come out to the carriage, and Sara, who was going on an errand as usual, stopped and spoke a few words. She had a special gift for languages and had remembered enough Hindustani to make herself understood by him. When his master came out, the Lascar spoke to him quickly, and the Indian Gentleman turned and looked at her curiously. And afterward the Lascar always greeted her with salaams of the most profound description. And occasionally they exchanged a few words. She learned that it was true that the Sahib was very rich--that he was ill--and also that he had no wife nor children, and that England did not agree with the monkey.

“He must be as lonely as I am,” thought Sara. “Being rich does not seem to make him happy.”

That evening, as she passed the windows, the Lascar was closing the shutters, and she caught a glimpse of the room inside. There was a bright fire glowing in the grate, and the Indian Gentleman was sitting before it, in a luxurious chair. The room was richly furnished, and looked delightfully comfortable, but the Indian Gentleman sat with his head resting on his hand, and looked as lonely and unhappy as ever.

“Poor man!” said Sara; “I wonder what you are `supposing'?”

When she went into the house she met Miss Minchin in the hall.

“Where have you wasted your time?” said Miss Minchin. “You have been out for hours!”

“It was so wet and muddy,” Sara answered. “It was hard to walk, because my shoes were so bad and slipped about so.”

“Make no excuses,” said Miss Minchin, “and tell no falsehoods.”

Sara went downstairs to the kitchen.

“Why didn't you stay all night?” said the cook.

“Here are the things,” said Sara, and laid her purchases on the table.

The cook looked over them, grumbling. She was in a very bad temper indeed.

“May I have something to eat?” Sara asked rather faintly.

“Tea's over and done with,” was the answer. “Did you expect me to keep it hot for you?”

Sara was silent a second.

“I had no dinner,” she said, and her voice was quite low. She made it low, because she was afraid it would tremble.

“There's some bread in the pantry,” said the cook. “That's all you'll get at this time of day.”

Sara went and found the bread. It was old and hard and dry. The cook was in too bad a humor to give her anything to eat with it. She had just been scolded by Miss Minchin, and it was always safe and easy to vent her own spite on Sara.

Really it was hard for the child to climb the three long flights of stairs leading to her garret. She often found them long and steep when she was tired, but to-night it seemed as if she would never reach the top. Several times a lump rose in her throat and she was obliged to stop to rest.

“I can't pretend anything more to-night,” she said wearily to herself. “I'm sure I can't. I'll eat my bread and drink some water and then go to sleep, and perhaps a dream will come and pretend for me. I wonder what dreams are.”

Yes, when she reached the top landing there were tears in her eyes, and she did not feel like a princess--only like a tired, hungry, lonely, lonely child.

“If my papa had lived,” she said, “they would not have treated me like this. If my papa had lived, he would have taken care of me.”

Then she turned the handle and opened the garret-door.

Can you imagine it--can you believe it? I find it hard to believe it myself. And Sara found it impossible; for the first few moments she thought something strange had happened to her eyes--to her mind--that the dream had come before she had had time to fall asleep.

“Oh!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “Oh! it isn't true! I know, I know it isn't true!” And she slipped into the room and closed the door and locked it, and stood with her back against it, staring straight before her.

Do you wonder? In the grate, which had been empty and rusty and cold when she left it, but which now was blackened and polished up quite respectably, there was a glowing, blazing fire. On the hob was a little brass kettle, hissing and boiling; spread upon the floor was a warm, thick rug; before the fire was a folding-chair, unfolded and with cushions on it; by the chair was a small folding-table, unfolded, covered with a white cloth, and upon it were spread small covered dishes, a cup and saucer, and a tea-pot; on the bed were new, warm coverings, a curious wadded silk robe, and some books. The little, cold, miserable room seemed changed into Fairyland. It was actually warm and glowing.

“It is bewitched!” said Sara. “Or I am bewitched. I only think I see it all; but if I can only keep on thinking it, I don't care--I don't care--if I can only keep it up!”

She was afraid to move, for fear it would melt away. She stood with her back against the door and looked and looked. But soon she began to feel warm, and then she moved forward.

“A fire that I only thought I saw surely wouldn't feel warm,” she said. “It feels real--real.”

She went to it and knelt before it. She touched the chair, the table; she lifted the cover of one of the dishes. There was something hot and savory in it--something delicious. The tea-pot had tea in it, ready for the boiling water from the little kettle; one plate had toast on it, another, muffins.

“It is real,” said Sara. “The fire is real enough to warm me; I can sit in the chair; the things are real enough to eat.”

It was like a fairy story come true--it was heavenly. She went to the bed and touched the blankets and the wrap. They were real too. She opened one book, and on the title-page was written in a strange hand, “The little girl in the attic.”

Suddenly--was it a strange thing for her to do?--Sara put her face down on the queer, foreign looking quilted robe and burst into tears.

“I don't know who it is,” she said, “but somebody cares about me a little--somebody is my friend.”

Somehow that thought warmed her more than the fire. She had never had a friend since those happy, luxurious days when she had had everything; and those days had seemed such a long way off--so far away as to be only like dreams--during these last years at Miss Minchin's.

She really cried more at this strange thought of having a friend--even though an unknown one--than she had cried over many of her worst troubles.

But these tears seemed different from the others, for when she had wiped them away they did not seem to leave her eyes and her heart hot and smarting.

And then imagine, if you can, what the rest of the evening was like. The delicious comfort of taking off the damp clothes and putting on the soft, warm, quilted robe before the glowing fire--of slipping her cold feet into the luscious little wool-lined slippers she found near her chair. And then the hot tea and savory dishes, the cushioned chair and the books!

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 this 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?”