A Little Princess, Part 9 of 15

I'm loving this book and you must be too since you've listened along this far. If you want to hear some of my other favourites then check out the Sleepy Bookshelf Premium feed. There are no ads and you can try it free for seven days. You'll find a link in the show notes to learn more and sign up. Aisha owns a bistro. She loves it but the admin, not so much. Luckily her Monzo Business Bank account takes some of the strain, like expensing, with real time visibility and spend limits all managed in one app. So she's free to cook up a storm without having to make a meal of the admin. Make the switch and join over 800,000 other UK businesses already banking with us. Search Monzo Business today. Team plan starts from £25 a month. UK soul traders are limited company directors only. Tease and seize apply. Hello, it's Elizabeth and I'm excited to share with you the newest show from Slumber Studios. It's called Sleepy History and it's exactly what it sounds like. Intriguing stories, people, mysteries and events from history delivered in a supremely calming atmosphere. Feel the legend of El Dorado. See what life was like for the Roman gladiators. Uncover the myths and mysteries of Stonehenge. You'll find interesting but relaxing episodes like these on Sleepy History and the same great production quality you've come to know and love from the Sleepy Bookshelf. So check it out and perhaps you'll have another way to get a good night's rest. Search Sleepy History in your preferred podcast player. Good evening and welcome to the Sleepy Bookshelf where we put down our worries from the day and pick up a good book. I'm your host, Elizabeth. It's wonderful to have you here with me tonight. This evening we are returning to a little princess. Before we begin though, let's take some time to get comfortable in bed. Once you have found a cozy spot, take a deep breath in and then a long sigh to let it all go. Work your way up from your toes to your eyebrows, gently tensing and releasing each muscle in your body. Going back to repeat any areas that need extra attention. Don't worry about falling asleep. We all drift off in our own time. Allow your mind to be enticed into the story and to move away from any thoughts from the day that are trying to steal your focus. As it was tricky for Armand Gard and Lottie to visit Sarah undetected, their presence in the attic was rare. Sarah's life was very lonely and she was largely ignored when she went out into the streets where before she was often admired for her beautiful clothes and manners. She began to become fixated on the family who lived opposite in the square whom she called the large family due to their eight children. She gave them all fanciful names from story books and once forgot herself and stood staring at them as they walked from the house into their carriage. The children had just been learning about all the poor boys and girls who had no mammas and papas to buy them gifts at Christmas and one of the boys, Donald, was determined to give away his six pence to a child like that. When he spotted Sarah, he walked right up to her and gave her his coin, surprised a little by her seemingly well-bred manners in response. After that, the large family children were as interested in Sarah as she was in them. After praying for some time that someone would move into the house next door, on the off chance she might spot another head pop out of the garret window next to hers, she finally saw a moving van outside. Some of the items reminded her of things she remembered from India and Becky excitedly declared them to belong to a heathen man. All they knew was that he was from India and that he was very unwell. Tonight, the mystery of the Indian gentleman continues, so just lie back and relax as I turn to the next pages of A Little Princess. Chapter 11. Ram Das. There were very fine sunsets, even in the square sometimes. One could only see parts of them, however, between the chimneys and over the roofs. From the kitchen windows, one could not see them at all and could only guess that they were going on because the bricks looked warm and the air rosy or yellow for a while. Or perhaps one saw a blazing glow strike a particular pane of glass somewhere. There was, however, one place from which one could see all the splendor of them. The piles of red or gold clouds in the west, or the purple ones edged with dazzling brightness, or the little fleecy floating ones tinged with rose colour and looking like flights of pink doves scurrying across the blue in a great hurry as if there was a wind. The place where one could see all this and seem at the same time to breathe the purer air was, of course, the attic window. When the square suddenly seemed to begin to glow in an enchanted way and look wonderful in spite of its sooty trees and railings, Sarah knew something was going on in the sky. And when it was at all possible to leave the kitchen without being missed or called back, she invariably stole away and crept up the flights of stairs and, climbing on the old table, got her head and body as far out of the window as possible. When she had accomplished this, she always drew a long breath and looked all around her. It used to seem as if she had all the sky and the world to herself. No one else ever looked out of the other attics. Generally, the skylights were closed, but even if they were propped open to admit air, no one seemed to come near them. And there, Sarah would stand, sometimes turning her face upward to the blue, which seemed so friendly and near, just like a lovely vaulted ceiling, sometimes watching the west and all the wonderful things that happened there. The clouds melting or drifting or waiting softly to be changed pink or crimson or snow white or purple or pale dove grey. Sometimes they made islands or great mountains enclosing lakes of deep turquoise blue or liquid amber or chrysoprace green. And dark headlands jutted into strange lost seas. Sometimes slender strips of wonderful lands joined other wonderful lands together. There were places where it seemed that no one could run or climb or stand and wait to see what next was coming. Until perhaps, as it all melted, one could float away. At least it seemed so to Sarah, and nothing had ever been quite so beautiful to her as the things she saw as she stood on the table. The body half out of the skylight. The sparrows, twittering with sunset softness on the slates. The sparrows always seemed to her to twitter with a sort of subdued softness, just when these marvels were going on. There was such a sunset as this a few days after the Indian gentleman was brought to his new home. And as it fortunately happened that the afternoon's work was done in the kitchen and nobody had ordered her to go anywhere or perform any task, Sarah found it easier than usual to slip away and go upstairs. She mounted her table and stood, looking out. It was a wonderful moment. There were floods of molten gold covering the west as if a glorious tide was sweeping over the world. A deep, rich yellow light filled the air. The birds flying across the tops of the houses showed quite black against it. It's a splendid one, said Sarah, softly to herself. It makes me feel almost afraid as if something strange was just going to happen. The splendid ones always make me feel like that. She suddenly turned her head because she heard a sound a few yards away from her. It was an odd sound, like a queer little squeaky chattering. It came from the window of the next attic. Someone had come to look at the sunset as she had. There was a head and a part of a body emerging from the skylight. But it was not the head or body of a little girl or a housemaid. It was the picturesque, white-swayed form and dark-faced, gleaming-eyed, white-turbaned head of a native Indian man-savant. Alaska, Sarah said to herself quickly, and the sound she had heard came from a small monkey he held in his arms as if he were fond of it and which was snuggling and chattering against his breast. As Sarah looked toward him, he looked toward her. The first thing she thought was that his dark face looked sorrowful and homesick. She felt absolutely sure he had come up to look at the sun because he had seen it so seldom in England that he longed for a sight of it. She looked at him, interestingly for a second, and then smiled across the slates. She had learned to know how comforting a smile, even from a stranger, may be. Hers was evidently a pleasure to him. His whole expression altered, and he showed such gleaming white teeth as he smiled back that it was as if a light had been illuminated in his dusky face. A friendly look in Sarah's eyes was always very effective when people felt tired or dull. It was perhaps in making his salute to her that he loosened his hold on the monkey. He was an impish monkey and always ready for adventure, and it is probable that the sight of a little girl excited him. He suddenly broke loose, jumped onto the slates, ran across them, chattering, and actually leapt onto Sarah's shoulder, and from there down into her attic room. It made her laugh and delighted her, but she knew he must be restored to his master, if the laska was his master, and she wondered how this was to be done. Would he let her catch him, or would he be naughty and refuse to be caught, and perhaps get away and run off over the roofs and be lost? That would not do at all. Perhaps he belonged to the Indian gentleman, and the poor man was fond of him. She turned to the laska, feeling glad that she remembered still some of the Hindustani she had learned when she lived with her father. She could make the man understand. She spoke to him in the language he knew. Will he let me catch him? She asked. She thought she had never seen more surprise and delight than the dark face expressed when she spoke in the familiar tongue. The truth was that the poor fellow felt as if his gods had intervened, and the kind little voice came from heaven itself. At once, Sarah knew that he had been accustomed to European children. He poured forth a flood of respectful thanks. He was the servant of Missy Sahib. The monkey was a good monkey and would not bite, but unfortunately, he was difficult to catch. He would flee from one spot to another like the lightning. He was disobedient, though not evil. Ram Das knew him as if he were his child, and Ram Das he would sometimes obey, but not always. If Missy Sahib would permit Ram Das, he himself could cross the roof to her room, enter the windows, and regain the unworthy little animal. But he was evidently afraid Sarah might think he was taking a great liberty and perhaps would not let him come. But Sarah gave him leave at once. Can you get across? She inquired. In a moment, he answered her. Then come? She said. He is flying from side to side of the room as if he was frightened. Ram Das slipped through his attic window and crossed to hers as steadily and lightly as if he had walked on roofs all his life. He slipped through the skylight and dropped upon his feet without a sound. Then he turned to Sarah and salamed again. The monkey saw him and uttered a little scream. Ram Das hastily took the precaution of shutting the skylight and then went in chase of him. It was not a very long chase. The monkey prolonged it a few minutes evidently for the mere fun of it, but presently he sprang, chattering onto Ram Das' shoulder, and sat there, chattering and clinging with a weird little skinny arm. Ram Das thanked Sarah profoundly. She had seen that his quick, native eyes had taken in at a glance all the bare shabbiness of the room. But he spoke to her as if he was speaking to the little daughter of a raja and pretended that he observed nothing. He did not presume to remain more than a few moments after he had caught the monkey, and those moments were given to further deep and grateful abasions to her in return for her indulgence. This little evil one, he said, stroking the monkey, was in truth not so evil as he seemed, and his master, who was ill, was sometimes amused by him. He would have been made sad if his favorite monkey had run away and been lost. Then he salamed once more and got through the skylight and across the slates again, with as much agility as the monkey himself had displayed. When he had gone, Sarah stood in the middle of her attic and thought of many things his face and his manner had brought back to her. The sight of his costume and the profound reverence of his manner stirred all her past memories. It seemed a strange thing to remember that she, the drudge whom the cook had said insulting things to an hour ago, had only a few years ago been surrounded by people who all treated her as Ram Dass had treated her, who salamed when she went by, whose foreheads almost touched the ground when she spoke to them, who were her servants. It was like a sort of dream. It was all over and it could never come back. It certainly seemed that there was no way in which any change could take place. She knew what Miss Mention intended that her future should be. So long as she was too young to be used as a regular teacher, she would be used as an errand girl and servant and yet expected to remember what she had learned and in some mysterious way to learn more. The greater number of her evenings she was supposed to spend at study and at various indefinite intervals she was examined and knew she would have been severely admonished if she had not advanced as was expected of her. The truth indeed was that Miss Mention knew that she was too anxious to learn to require teachers, give her books and she would devour them and end by knowing them by heart. She might be trusted to be equal to teaching a good deal in the course of a few years. This was what would happen when she was older she would be expected to drudge in the schoolroom as she drudged now in various parts of the house. They would be obliged to give her more respectable clothes but they would be sure to be plain and ugly and to make her look somehow like a servant. That was all there seemed to be to look forward to and Sarah stood quite still for several minutes and thought it over. Then a thought came back to her which made the colour rise in her cheeks and a spark light itself in her eyes. She straightened her thin little body and lifted her head. Whatever comes she said cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it. There was Mary Antoinette when she was in prison and her throne was gone and she had only a black gown on and her hair was white and they insulted her and called her widow Capet. She was a great deal more like a queen than when she was so gay and everything was so grand. I liked her best then. Those howling mobs of people did not frighten her. She was stronger than they were even when they cut her head off. This was not a new thought but quite an old one by this time. It had consoled her through many a bitter day and she had gone about the house with an expression in her face which Miss Mention could not understand and which was a source of great annoyance to her as it seemed as if the child were mentally living alive which held her above the rest of the world. It was as if she scarcely heard the rude and acid things they said to her or if she heard them did not care for them at all. Sometimes when she was in the midst of some harsh domineering speech Miss Mention would still find the unchildish eyes fixed upon her with something like a proud smile in them. At such times she did not know that Sarah was saying to herself you don't know that you are saying these things to a princess and that if I chose I could wave my hand and order you to execution. I only spare you because I am a princess and you are a poor, stupid, unkind, vulgar old thing and don't know any better. This used to interest and amuse her more than anything else and queer and fanciful as it was she found comfort in it and it was a good thing for her. While the thought held possession of her she could not be made rude and malicious by the rudeness and malice of those about her. A princess must be polite she said to herself and so when the servants taking their tone from their insolent and ordered her about she would hold her head erect and reply to them with a quaint civility which often made them stare at her. She's got more rares and graces than if she came from Buckingham Palace that young one said the cook chuckling a little sometimes. I lose my temper with her often enough but I will say she never forgets her manners. If you please cook will you be so kind cook? I beg you pardon cook may I trouble you cook? She drops him about the kitchen as if there was nothing. The morning after the interview with Ram Dass and his monkey Sarah was in the school room with her small pupils. Having finished giving them their lesson she was putting the French exercise books together and thinking as she did it of the various things royal personages in disguise were called upon to do. Alfred the Great for instance burning the cakes and getting his ears boxed by the wife of the neat turd. How frightened she must have been when she found out what she had done. If Miss Minchin should find out that she Sarah whose toes were almost sticking out of her boots was a princess a real one the look in her eyes was exactly the look which Miss Minchin most disliked. She would not have it. She was quite near her and was so enraged that she actually flew at her and boxed her ears exactly as the neat herds wife had boxed King Alfred's. It made Sarah start. She wakened from her dream at the shock and catching her breath stood still a second. Then not knowing why she was doing it she broke into a little laugh. What are you laughing at you bold impudent child? Miss Minchin exclaimed. It took Sarah a few seconds to control herself sufficiently to remember that she was a princess. Her cheeks were red and smarting from the blows she had received. I was sinking. She answered. Beg my pardon immediately said Miss Minchin. Sarah hesitated a second before she replied. I will beg your pardon for laughing if it was rude. She then said. But I won't beg your pardon for thinking. What were you thinking? Demanded Miss Minchin. How dare you think? What were you thinking? Jesse tittered and she and LaVinia nudged each other in unison. All the girls looked up from their books to listen. Really it always interested them a little when Miss Minchin attacked Sarah. Sarah always said something queer and never seemed the least bit frightened. She was not in the least frightened now though her boxed ears were scarlet and her eyes were bright as stars. I was thinking. She answered grandly and politely. That she did not know what she was doing. That I did not know what I was doing. Miss Minchin fairly gasped. Yes, said Sarah. And I was thinking what would happen if I were a princess and you boxed my ears. What I should do to you. And I was thinking that if I were one you would never dare to do it whatever I said or did. And I was thinking how surprised and frightened you would be if you suddenly found out. She had imagined a future so clearly before her eyes that she spoke in a manner which had an effect even upon Miss Minchin. It almost seemed for the moment to her narrow unimaginative mind that there must be some real power hidden behind this candid daring. Hot. She exclaimed. Found out. What. That I really was a princess. Said Sarah. And could do anything. Anything I liked. Every pair of eyes in the room widened to its full limit. Lavigne leaned forward on her seat to look. Go to your room. cried Miss Minchin breathlessly. This instant. Leave the school room. Attend to your lessons young ladies. Sarah made a little bow. Excuse me for laughing if it was impolite. She said and walked out of the room leaving Miss Minchin struggling with her rage and the girls whispering over their books. Did you see her? Did you see how queer she looked? Jesse broke out. I shouldn't be at all surprised if she did turn out to be something. Suppose she should. Chapter 12. 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 that the wall was thick so that the noise made sometimes after lesson hours would not disturb him. I am growing quite fond of him, she said to Armand Gard. 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'm quite anxious sometimes when I see the doctor call twice a day. I have very few relations, said Armand Gard reflectively. And I'm very glad of it. I don't like those I have. My two aunts are always saying, Dear me Armand Gard, 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'm sure the Indian gentleman wouldn't even if he was quite intimate with you. I'm 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 the very severe 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 that he had thought himself ruined and disgraced forever. The shock had been so great that he had 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 to him, 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 mines, particular diamond ones. With a side glance at Sarah, we all know some think of them. He felt as my papa felt, Sarah thought. He was ill as my papa was, but he did not 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 that the curtains of the house were still open. The 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 on to the railings wish him a 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 somehow, even through windows and doors 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 will get well and happy again. I am 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 and a little warmer herself. Her sympathy was so strong that 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 merely like one whose troubles lay all in the past. He always seems as if he were thinking something that hurts him now, she said to herself. But he has 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 is something else. If there was something else, something even servants did not hear of. She could not help believing that the father of the large family knew it, the gentleman she called Mr. Montmorency. Mr. Montmorency went to see him often, and Mrs. Montmorency and all the little Montmorencies went to, though less often. He seemed particularly fond of the two elder little girls, the Janet and Nora, who had been so alarmed when their small brother Donald had given 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 him. They were extremely decorous little visits because he was an invalid. He is a poor thing, said Janet, and he says we cheer him up. We try to cheer him up very quietly. Janet was the head of the family and kept the rest in order. It was she who decided when it was discreet to ask the Indian gentleman to tell stories about India, and it was she who saw when he was tired and it was the time to steal quietly away and tell Ram Das to go to him. They were very fond of Ram Das. He could have told any number of stories if he had been able to speak anything but Hindustani. The Indian gentleman's real name was Mr. Karasved, and Janet told Mr. Karasved about the encounter with the little girl who was not a beggar. He was very much interested and all the more so when he heard from Ram Das of the adventure of the monkey on the roof. Ram Das made for him a very clear picture of the attic and its desolateness of the bare floor and broken plaster, the rusty, empty grate, and the hard, narrow bed. Carmichael, he said to the father of the large family after he heard this description. I wonder how many of the attics in this square are like that one, and how many rich and little servant girls sleep on such beds, while I toss on my downpillows, loaded and harassed by wealth that is most of it not mine. Well, my dear fellow, Mr. Carmichael answered cheerily, the sooner you cease tormenting yourself, the better it will be for you. If you possessed all the wealth of all the Indies, you could not set right all the discomforts in the world, and if you begin to refurnish all the attics in this square, there would still remain all the attics in all the other squares and streets to put in order. And there you are. Mr. Carasved sat and bit his nails as he looked into the glowing red of the coals in the grate. Do you suppose, he said slowly after a pause, do you think it is possible that the other child, the child I never cease thinking of, I believe, could be, could possibly be reduced to any such condition as the poor little soul next door. Mr. Carmichael looked at him uneasily. He knew that the worst thing the man could do for himself, for his reason and his health, was to begin to think in the particular way of this particular subject. If the child at Madame Pascal's school in Paris was the one you are in search of, he answered soothingly, she would seem to be in the hands of people who can afford to take care of her. They adopted her because she had been the favourite companion of their little daughter who died. They had no other children and Madame Pascal said that they were extremely well to do Russians. And the wretched woman actually did not know where they had taken her, exclaimed Mr. Carasved. Mr. Carmichael shrugged his shoulders. She was a shrewd, worldly French woman 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 you say if the child was the one I am in search of. You say if. We are not sure. There was a difference in the name. Madame Pascal pronounced it as if it were crue instead of crue, but that might be merely a matter of pronunciation. The circumstances were curiously similar. An English officer in India had placed his motherless little girl at the school. He had died suddenly after losing his fortune. Mr. Carmichael paused a moment as if a new thought had 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 Carasved with a 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 meant since our school days until we met in India. I was absorbed in the magnificent promise of the mind. He became absorbed too. The whole thing was so huge and glittering that we half lost our heads. When we met we scarcely spoke of anything else. I only knew that the child had been sent to school somewhere. I do not even remember now how I knew it. He was beginning to be excited. He always became excited when he still 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 they must be put quietly and with caution. But you had reason to think the school was in Paris. Yes, was the answer. Because her mother was a French woman, I had heard that she wished her child to be educated in Paris. It seemed only likely that she would be there. Yes, Mr. Carmichael said. It seems more than probable. The Indian gentleman leaned forward and struck the table with a long, wasted hand. Carmichael, he said, I must find her. If she is alive, she is somewhere. If she is friendless and penniless, it is through my fault. How is a man to get back his nerve with a thing like that on his mind? This sudden change of luck that the minds has made realities of all our most fantastic dreams and poor crew's child may be begging in the street. No, no, said Carmichael. Try to be calm. Consol yourself with the fact that when she is found, you have a fortune to hand over to her. Why was I not man enough to stand my ground when things looked black? Carusford groaned in petulant misery. I believe I should have stood my ground if I had not been responsible for other people's money as well as my own. Poor crew had put into the scheme every penny that he owed. He trusted me. He loved me. And he died thinking I ruined him. I, Tom Carusford, who played cricket at Eaton with him. What a villain he must have thought me. Don't reproach yourself so bitterly. I don't reproach myself because the speculation threatened to fail. I reproach myself for losing my courage. I ran away like a swindler and a thief because I could not face my best friend and tell him I had ruined him and his child. The good-hearted father of the large family put his hand on his shoulder, comfortingly. You ran away because your brain had given way under the strain of mental torture. He said, you were half delirious already. And if you had not been, you would have stayed and fought it out. You were in a hospital, strapped down in a bed, raving with brain fever two days after you left the place. Remember that. Carusford dropped his forehead in his hands. Good God. Yes, he said. I was driven mad and with dread and horror. I had not slept for weeks. The night I staggered out of my house, all the air seemed full of hideous things, mocking and mauling at me. That is explanation enough in itself, said Mr. Carmichael. How could a man on the verge of brain fever judge sanely? Carusford shook his dripping head. And when I returned to consciousness, poor crew 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 record her existence, everything seemed in a sort of haze. He stopped a moment and rubbed his forehead. It sometimes seemed so now when I try to remember. Surely I must sometime have heard crew speak of the school she was sent to. Don't you think so? You might not have spoken of it definitely. You never seem even to have heard her real name. When he used to call her by an odd pet name he had invented. He called her his little missus. But the wretched minds drove everything else out of our heads. We talked of nothing else. If he spoke of the school I forgot. I forgot. 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 that they lived in Moscow. We will take that as a clue. I will go to Moscow. If I were able to travel I would go with you, said Carasvet. But I can only sit here, wrap it in furs and stare at the fire. And when I look into it I seem to see crew's gay young face gazing back at me. He looks as if he were asking me a question. Sometimes I dream of him at night. And he always stands before me and asks the same question in words. Can you guess what he says, Carmichael? Mr. Carmichael answered him in a rather low voice. Not exactly, he said. He always says, Tom, oh man, Tom, where is the little Mrs? He caught at Carmichael's hand and clung to it. I must be able to answer him. I must, he said, help me find her. Help me. On the other side of the war, Sarah was sitting in her garage, talking to Melchizedek, who had come out for his evening meal. It has been hard to be a princess today, Melchizedek, she said. It has been harder than usual. It gets harder as the winter grows colder and the streets get more sloppy. When the vineyard laughed at my muddy skirt as I passed her in the hall, I thought of something to say all in a flash. And I only just stopped myself in time. You can't sneer back at people like that if you are a princess. But you have to bite your tongue and hold yourself in. I bit mine. It was a cold afternoon, Melchizedek. And it is a cold night. Quite suddenly, she put her black head down in her arms as she often did when she was alone. Oh, papa. She whispered. Not a long time it seems since I was your little missus. This was what happened that day on both sides of the war.