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effort to regain what she could not help seeing she had lost through her worldly folly.
"He found her under my care," she protested. "I have done everything for her. But for me she should have
starved in the streets."
Here the Indian gentleman lost his temper.
"As to starving in the streets," he said, "she might have starved more comfortably there than in your attic."
"Captain Crewe left her in my charge," Miss Minchin argued. "She must return to it until she is of age. She
can be a parlor boarder again. She must finish her education. The law will interfere in my behalf"
"Come, come, Miss Minchin," Mr. Carmichael interposed, "the law will do nothing of the sort. If Sara herself
wishes to return to you, I dare say Mr. Carrisford might not refuse to allow it. But that rests with Sara."
"Then," said Miss Minchin, "I appeal to Sara. I have not spoiled you, perhaps," she said awkwardly to the
little girl; "but you know that your papa was pleased with your progress. And--ahem--I have always been fond
of you."
Sara's green-gray eyes fixed themselves on her with the quiet, clear look Miss Minchin particularly disliked.
"Have YOU, Miss Minchin?" she said. "I did not know that."
Miss Minchin reddened and drew herself up.
"You ought to have known it," said she; "but children, unfortunately, never know what is best for them.
Amelia and I always said you were the cleverest child in the school. Will you not do your duty to your poor
papa and come home with me?"
Sara took a step toward her and stood still. She was thinking of the day when she had been told that she
belonged to nobody, and was in danger of being turned into the street; she was thinking of the cold, hungry
hours she had spent alone with Emily and Melchisedec in the attic. She looked Miss Minchin steadily in the
face.
"You know why I will not go home with you, Miss Minchin," she said; "you know quite well."
A hot flush showed itself on Miss Minchin's hard, angry face.
"You will never see your companions again," she began. "I will see that Ermengarde and Lottie are kept
away--"
The Legal Small Print 113
Mr. Carmichael stopped her with polite firmness.
"Excuse me," he said; "she will see anyone she wishes to see. The parents of Miss Crewe's fellow-pupils are
not likely to refuse her invitations to visit her at her guardian's house. Mr. Carrisford will attend to that."
It must be confessed that even Miss Minchin flinched. This was worse than the eccentric bachelor uncle who
might have a peppery temper and be easily offended at the treatment of his niece. A woman of sordid mind
could easily believe that most people would not refuse to allow their children to remain friends with a little
heiress of diamond mines. And if Mr. Carrisford chose to tell certain of her patrons how unhappy Sara Crewe
had been made, many unpleasant things might happen.
"You have not undertaken an easy charge," she said to the Indian gentleman, as she turned to leave the room;
"you will discover that very soon. The child is neither truthful nor grateful. I suppose"--to Sara--"that you feel
now that you are a princess again."
Sara looked down and flushed a little, because she thought her pet fancy might not be easy for strangers--even
nice ones--to understand at first.
"I--TRIED not to be anything else," she answered in a low voice-- "even when I was coldest and hungriest--I
tried not to be."
"Now it will not be necessary to try," said Miss Minchin, acidly, as Ram Dass salaamed her out of the room.
She returned home and, going to her sitting room, sent at once for Miss Amelia. She sat closeted with her all
the rest of the afternoon, and it must be admitted that poor Miss Amelia passed through more than one bad
quarter of an hour. She shed a good many tears, and mopped her eyes a good deal. One of her unfortunate
remarks almost caused her sister to snap her head entirely off, but it resulted in an unusual manner.
"I'm not as clever as you, sister," she said, "and I am always afraid to say things to you for fear of making you
angry. Perhaps if I were not so timid it would be better for the school and for both of us. I must say I've often
thought it would have been better if you had been less severe on Sara Crewe, and had seen that she was
decently dressed and more comfortable. I KNOW she was worked too hard for a child of her age, and I know
she was only half fed--"
"How dare you say such a thing!" exclaimed Miss Minchin.
"I don't know how I dare," Miss Amelia answered, with a kind of reckless courage; "but now I've begun I may
as well finish, whatever happens to me. The child was a clever child and a good child--and she would have
paid you for any kindness you had shown her. But you didn't show her any. The fact was, she was too clever
for you, and you always disliked her for that reason. She used to see through us both--"
"Amelia!" gasped her infuriated elder, looking as if she would box her ears and knock her cap off, as she had
often done to Becky.
But Miss Amelia's disappointment had made her hysterical enough not to care what occurred next.
"She did! She did!" she cried. "She saw through us both. She saw that you were a hard-hearted, worldly
woman, and that I was a weak fool, and that we were both of us vulgar and mean enough to grovel on our
knees for her money, and behave ill to her because it was taken from her--though she behaved herself like a
little princess even when she was a beggar. She did--she did--like a little princess!" And her hysterics got the
better of the poor woman, and she began to laugh and cry both at once, and rock herself backward and
forward.
The Legal Small Print 114
"And now you've lost her," she cried wildly; "and some other school will get her and her money; and if she
were like any other child she'd tell how she's been treated, and all our pupils would be taken away and we
should be ruined. And it serves us right; but it serves you right more than it does me, for you are a hard
woman, Maria Minchin, you're a hard, selfish, worldly woman!"
And she was in danger of making so much noise with her hysterical chokes and gurgles that her sister was
obliged to go to her and apply salts and sal volatile to quiet her, instead of pouring forth her indignation at her
audacity.
And from that time forward, it may be mentioned, the elder Miss Minchin actually began to stand a little in
awe of a sister who, while she looked so foolish, was evidently not quite so foolish as she looked, and might,
consequently, break out and speak truths people did not want to hear.
That evening, when the pupils were gathered together before the fire in the schoolroom, as was their custom
before going to bed, Ermengarde came in with a letter in her hand and a queer expression on her round face. It
was queer because, while it was an expression of delighted excitement, it was combined with such amazement
as seemed to belong to a kind of shock just received.
"What IS the matter?" cried two or three voices at once.
"Is it anything to do with the row that has been going on?" said Lavinia, eagerly. "There has been such a row
in Miss Minchin's room, Miss Amelia has had something like hysterics and has had to go to bed."
Ermengarde answered them slowly as if she were half stunned.
"I have just had this letter from Sara," she said, holding it out to let them see what a long letter it was.
"From Sara!" Every voice joined in that exclamation.
"Where is she?" almost shrieked Jessie.
"Next door," said Ermengarde, "with the Indian gentleman."
"Where? Where? Has she been sent away? Does Miss Minchin know? Was the row about that? Why did she
write? Tell us! Tell us!" [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]