Melchisedec (A Little Princess)

01Chapter 9 of A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

02Read for LibriVox.org by Karen Savage in September, 2007.

03Chapter 9.

04Melchizedek.

05The third person in the trio was Lottie.

06She was a small thing, and did not know what adversity meant, and was much bewildered by the alteration she saw in her young adopted mother.

07She had heard it rumoured that strange things had happened to Sarah, but she could not understand why she looked different, why she wore an old black frock and came into the schoolroom only to teach, instead of to sit in her place of honour and learn lessons herself.

08There had been much whispering among the little ones when it had been discovered that Sarah no longer lived in the rooms in which Emily had so long sat in state.

09Lottie's chief difficulty was that Sarah said so little when one asked her questions.

10At seven, mysteries must be made very clear if one is to understand them.

11Are you very poor now, Sarah?

12she had asked confidentially the first morning her friend took charge of the small French class.

13Are you as poor as a beggar?

14She thrust a fat hand into the slim one, and opened round, tearful eyes.

15I don't want you to be as poor as a beggar.

16She looked as if she was going to cry, and Sarah hurriedly consoled her.

17Beggars have nowhere to live, she said courageously.

18I have a place to live in.

19Where do you live?

20persisted Lottie.

21The new girl sleeps in your room, and it isn't pretty any more.

22I live in another room, said Sarah.

23Is it a nice one?

24inquired Lottie.

25I want to go and see it.

26You must not talk, said Sarah.

27Miss Minchin is looking at us.

28She will be angry with me for letting you whisper.

29She had found out already that she was to be held accountable for everything which was objected to.

30If the children were not attentive, if they talked, if they were restless, it was she who would be reproved.

31But Lottie was a determined little person.

32If Sarah would not tell her where she lived, she would find out in some other way.

33She talked to her small companions, and hung about the elder girls, and listened when they were gossiping.

34And acting upon certain information they had unconsciously let drop, she started, late one afternoon, on a voyage of discovery, climbing stairs she had never known the existence of, until she reached the attic floor.

35There she found two doors near each other, and opening one, she saw her beloved Sarah standing upon an old table and looking out of a window.

36"'Sarah!' she cried aghast.

37"'Mama Sarah!' She was aghast because the attic was so bare and ugly, and seemed so far away from all the world.

38Her short legs had seemed to have been mounting hundreds of stairs.

39Sarah turned round at the sound of her voice.

40It was her turn to be aghast.

41What would happen now?

42If Lottie began to cry, and any one chanced to hear, they were both lost.

43She jumped down from her table, and ran to the child.

44"'Don't cry and make a noise,' she implored.

45"'I shall be scolded if you do, and I have been scolded all day.

46It's—it's not such a bad room, Lottie.' "'Isn't it?' gasped Lottie, and as she looked round it, she bit her lip.

47She was a spoiled child yet, but she was fond enough of her adopted parent to make an effort to control herself for her sake.

48Then, somehow, it was quite possible that any place in which Sarah lived might turn out to be nice.

49"'Why isn't it Sarah?' she almost whispered.

50Sarah hugged her close and tried to laugh.

51There was a sort of comfort in the warmth of the plump, childish body.

52She had had a hard day, and had been staring out of the windows with hot eyes.

53"'You can see all sorts of things that you can't see downstairs,' she said.

54"'What sort of things?' demanded Lottie, with that curiosity Sarah could always awaken, even in the bigger girls.

55"'Chimneys, quite close to us, with smoke curling up in wreaths and clouds and going up into the sky, and sparrows hopping about and talking to each other, just as if they were people, and other attic windows, where heads may pop out any minute, and you can wonder who they belong to.

56And it all feels as high up as if it was another world.

57"'Oh, let me see it!' cried Lottie.

58"'Lift me up!' Sarah lifted her up, and they stood on the old table together, and leaned on the edge of the flat window in the roof, and looked out.

59Anyone who has not done this does not know what a different world they saw.

60The slate spread out on either side of them, and slanted down into the rain-gutter pipes.

61The sparrows, being at home here, twittered and hopped about quite without fear.

62Two of them perched on the chimney-top nearest, and quarrelled with each other fiercely, until one pecked the other and drove him away.

63The garret window next to theirs was shut, because the house next door was empty.

64"'I wish someone lived there,' Sarah said.

65"'It is so close that if there was a little girl in the attic, we could talk to each other through the windows, and climb over to see each other, if we were not afraid of falling.' The sky seemed so much nearer than when one saw it from the street, that Lottie was enchanted.

66From the attic window, among the chimney-pots, the things which were happening in the world below seemed almost unreal.

67One scarcely believed in the existence of Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia in the schoolroom, and the roll of wheels in the square seemed a sound belonging to another existence.

68"'Oh, Sarah!' cried Lottie, cuddling in her guarding arm.

69"'I like this attic, I like it.

70It's nicer than downstairs.' "'Look at that sparrow,' whispered Sarah.

71"'I wish I had some crumbs to throw to him.' "'I have some!' came in a little shriek from Lottie.

72"'I have part of a bun in my pocket.

73I bought it with my penny yesterday, and I saved a bit.' When they threw out a few crumbs, the sparrow jumped and flew away to an adjacent chimney-top.

74He was evidently not accustomed to intimates in attics, and unexpected crumbs startled him.

75But when Lottie remained quite still, and Sarah chirped very softly, almost as if she were a sparrow herself, he saw that the thing which had alarmed him represented hospitality after all.

76He put his head on one side, and from his perch on the chimney looked down at the crumbs with twinkling eyes.

77Lottie could scarcely keep still.

78"'Will he come?

79will he come?' she whispered.

80"'His eyes look as if he would,' Sarah whispered back.

81"'He is thinking and thinking whether he dare.

82"'Yes, he will.

83Yes, he is coming.' He flew down and hopped toward the crumbs, but stopped a few inches away from them, putting his head on one side again, as if reflecting on the chances that Sarah and Lottie might turn out to be big cats and jump on him.

84At last his heart told him they were really nicer than they looked, and he hopped nearer and nearer, darted at the biggest crumb with a lightning-peck, seized it, and carried it away to the other side of his chimney.

85"'Now he knows,' said Sarah, "'and he will come back for the others.' He did come back, and even brought a friend, and the friend went away and brought a relative, and among them, they made a hearty meal, over which they twittered and chattered and exclaimed, stopping every now and then to put their heads on one side and examine Lottie and Sarah.

86Lottie was so delighted that she quite forgot her first shocked impression of the attic.

87In fact, when she was lifted down from the table and returned to earthly things, as it were, Sarah was able to point out to her many beauties in the room which she herself would not have suspected the existence of.

88It is so little and so high above everything,' she said, "'that it is almost like a nest in a tree.

89The slanting ceiling is so funny.

90See, you can scarcely stand up at this end of the room, and when the morning begins to come, I can lie in bed and look right up into the sky through that flat window in the roof.

91It is like a square patch of light.

92If the sun is going to shine, little pink clouds float about, and I feel as if I could touch them.

93And if it rains, the drops patter and patter as if they were saying something nice.

94Then if there are stars, you can lie and try to count how many go into the patch.

95It takes such a lot.

96And just look at that tiny, rusty grate in the corner.

97If it was polished and there was a fire in it, just think how nice it would be.

98You see, it's really a beautiful little room.' She was walking around the small place, holding Lottie's hand and making gestures which described all the beauty she was making herself see.

99She quite made Lottie see them, too.

100Lottie could always believe in the things Sarah made pictures of.

101"'You see,' she said, "'there could be a thick, soft blue Indian rug on the floor, and in that corner there could be a soft little sofa with cushions to curl up on, and just over it could be a shelf full of books so that one could reach them easily, and there could be a fur rug before the fire, and hangings on the wall to cover up the whitewash and pictures.

102They would have to be little ones, but they could be beautiful.

103And there could be a lamp with a deep rose-coloured shade, and a table in the middle with things to have tea with, and a little fat copper kettle singing on the hob, and the bed could be quite different.

104It could be made soft and covered with a lovely silk coverlet.

105It could be beautiful.

106And perhaps we could coax the sparrows until we made such friends with them that they would come and peck at the window and ask to be let in.' "'Oh, Sarah!' cried Lottie.

107"'I should like to live here.' When Sarah had persuaded her to go downstairs again, and, after setting her on her way, had come back into her attic, she stood in the middle of it and looked about her.

108The enchantment of her imaginings for Lottie had died away.

109The bed was hard and covered with its dingy quilt.

110The whitewashed wall showed its broken patches.

111The floor was cold and bare.

112The grate was broken and rusty, and the battered footstool tilted sideways on its injured leg.

113The only seat in the room.

114She sat down on it for a few minutes, and let her head drop in her hands.

115The mere fact that Lottie had come and gone away again made things seem a little worse, just as perhaps prisoners feel a little more desolate after visitors come and go, leaving them behind.

116"'It's a lonely place,' she said.

117"'Sometimes it's the loneliest place in the world.' She was sitting in this way, when her attention was attracted by a slight sound near her.

118She lifted her head to see where it came from, and if she had been a nervous child, she would have left her seat on the battered footstool in a great hurry.

119A large rat was sitting up on his hindquarters, and sniffing the air in an interested manner.

120Some of Lottie's crumbs had dropped upon the floor, and their scent had drawn him out of his hole.

121He looked so queer, and so like a grey-whiskered dwarf or gnome, that Sarah was rather fascinated.

122He looked at her with his bright eyes as if he were asking a question.

123He was evidently so doubtful, that one of the child's queer thoughts came into her mind.

124"'I dare say it's rather hard to be a rat,' she mused.

125"'Nobody likes you.

126People jump and run away and scream out, "'Oh, a horrid rat!' "'I shouldn't like people to scream and jump and say, "'Oh, a horrid Sarah,' the moment they saw me, and set traps for me and pretend they were dinner.

127"'It's so different to be a sparrow.' "'But nobody asked this rat if he wanted to be a rat when he was made.

128"'Nobody said, wouldn't you rather be a sparrow?' She had sat so quietly that the rat had begun to take courage.

129He was very much afraid of her, but perhaps he had a heart like the sparrow, and it told him that she was not a thing which pounced.

130He was very hungry.

131He had a wife and a large family in the wall, and they had had frightfully bad luck for several days.

132He had left the children crying bitterly, and felt he would risk a good deal for a few crumbs.

133So he cautiously dropped upon his feet.

134"'Come on,' said Sarah, "'I'm not a trap.

135You can have them, poor thing.

136Prisoners in the Bastille used to make friends with rats.

137Suppose I make friends with you?' "'How it is that animals understand things I do not know, but it is certain that they do understand.

138Perhaps there is a language which is not made of words, and everything in the world understands it.

139Perhaps there is a soul hidden in everything, and it can always speak, without even making a sound, to another soul.

140But, whatsoever the reason, the Rat knew from that moment that he was safe, even though he was a Rat.

141He knew that this young human being sitting on the red footstool would not jump up and terrify him with wild, sharp noises, or throw heavy objects at him which, if they did not fall and crush him, would send him limping in his scurry back to his hole.

142He was really a very nice Rat, and did not mean the least harm.

143When he had stood on his hind legs and sniffed the air with his bright eyes fixed on Sarah, he had hoped that she would understand this, and would not begin by hating him as an enemy.

144When the mysterious thing which speaks without saying any words told him that she would not, he went softly toward the crumbs and began to eat them.

145As he did it, he glanced every now and then at Sarah, just as the sparrows had done, and his expression was so very apologetic that it touched her heart.

146She sat and watched him without making any movement.

147One crumb was very much larger than the others.

148In fact, it could scarcely be called a crumb.

149It was evident that he wanted that piece very much, but it lay quite near the footstool, and he was still rather timid.

150I believe he wants it to carry to his family in the wall, Sarah told.

151If I do not stir at all, perhaps you will come and get it.

152She scarcely allowed herself to breathe she was so deeply interested.

153The Rat shuffled a little nearer, and ate a few more crumbs.

154Then he stopped and sniffed delicately, giving a side glance at the occupant of the footstool.

155Then he darted at the piece of bun with something very like the sudden boldness of the sparrow, and the instant he had possession of it, he fled back to the wall, slipped down a crack in the skirting-board, and was gone.

156I knew he wanted it for his children, said Sarah.

157I do believe I could make friends with him.

158A week or so afterward, on one of the rare nights when Ermengarde found it safe to steal up to the attic, when she tapped on the door with the tips of her fingers, Sarah did not come to her for two or three minutes.

159There was, indeed, such a silence in the room at first, that Ermengarde wondered if she could have fallen asleep.

160Then, to her surprise, she heard her utter a low little laugh, and speak coaxingly to someone.

161There, Ermengarde heard her say, take it and go home, Melchizedek, go home to your wife.

162Almost immediately Sarah opened the door, and when she did so, she found Ermengarde standing with alarmed eyes upon the threshold.

163Who—who are you talking to, Sarah?

164she gasped out.

165Sarah drew her in cautiously, but she looked as if something pleased and amused her.

166You must promise not to be frightened, not to scream the least bit, or I can't tell you, she answered.

167Ermengarde felt almost inclined to scream on the spot, but managed to control herself.

168She looked all round the attic and saw no one, and yet Sarah had certainly been speaking to someone.

169She thought of ghosts.

170Is it—something that will frighten me?

171she asked timorously.

172Some people are afraid of them, said Sarah.

173I was at first, but I am not now.

174Was it—a ghost?

175quaked Ermengarde.

176No!

177said Sarah, laughing.

178It was my rat.

179Ermengarde made one bound and landed in the middle of the little dingy bed.

180She tucked her feet under her nightgown and a red shawl.

181She did not scream, but she gasped with fright.

182Oh!

183Oh!

184she cried under her breath.

185A rat!

186A rat!

187I was afraid you would be frightened, said Sarah.

188But you needn't be.

189I am making him tame.

190He actually knows me and comes out when I call him.

191Are you too frightened to want to see him?

192The truth was that as the days had gone on, and with the aid of scraps brought up from the kitchen, her curious friendship had developed, and she had gradually forgotten that the timid creature she was becoming familiar with was a mere rat.

193At first Ermengarde was too much alarmed to do anything but huddle in a heap upon the bed and tuck up her feet.

194But the sight of Sarah's composed little countenance, and the story of Melchizedek's first appearance, began at last to rouse her curiosity, and she leaned forward over the edge of the bed, and watched Sarah go and kneel down by the hole in the skirting-board.

195He—he won't run out quickly and jump on the bed, will he?

196she said.

197No, answered Sarah.

198He's as polite as we are.

199He's just like a person.

200Now watch.

201She began to make a low, whistling sound, so low and coaxing that it could only have been heard in entire stillness.

202She did it several times, and looked entirely absorbed in it.

203Ermengarde thought she looked as if she were working a spell.

204And at last, evidently in response to it, a grey-whiskered, bright head peeped out of the hole.

205Sarah had some crumbs in her hand.

206She dropped them, and Melchizedek came quietly forth and ate them.

207A piece of larger size than the rest, he took, and carried it in the most businesslike manner, back to his home.

208You see, said Sarah, that is for his wife and children.

209He is very nice.

210He only eats the little bits.

211After he goes back, I can always hear his family squeaking for joy.

212There are three kinds of squeaks.

213One kind is the children's, and one is Mrs.

214Melchizedek's, and one is Melchizedek's own.

215Ermengarde began to laugh.

216Oh, Sarah, she said, you are queer, but you're nice.

217I know I am queer, admitted Sarah cheerfully, and I try to be nice.

218She rubbed her forehead with a little brown paw, and a puzzled, tender look came into her face.

219Papa always laughed at me, she said, but I liked it.

220He thought I was queer, but he liked me to make up things.

221I—I can't help making up things.

222If I didn't, I don't believe I could live.

223She paused and glanced around the attic.

224I'm sure I couldn't live here, she added in a low voice.

225Ermengarde was interested, as she always was.

226When you talk about things, she said, they seem as if they grew real.

227You talk about Melchizedek as if he was a person.

228He is a person, said Sarah.

229He gets hungry and frightened just as we do, and he is married and has children.

230How do we know he doesn't think things just as we do?

231His eyes look as if he was a person.

232That was why I gave him a name.

233She sat down on the floor in her favourite attitude, holding her knees.

234Besides, she said, he is a Bastille-rat, sent to be my friend.

235I can always get a bit of bread the cook has thrown away, and it is quite enough to support him.

236Is it the Bastille yet?

237asked Ermengarde eagerly.

238Do you always pretend it is the Bastille?

239Nearly always, answered Sarah.

240Sometimes I try to pretend it is another kind of place.

241But the Bastille is generally easiest, particularly when it's cold.

242Just at that moment, Ermengarde almost jumped off the bed she was so startled by a sound she heard.

243It was like two distinct knocks on the wall.

244What is that?

245she exclaimed.

246Sarah got up from the floor and answered quite dramatically.

247It is the prisoner in the next cell.

248Becky!

249cried Ermengarde, enraptured.

250Yes, said Sarah.

251Listen.

252The two knocks meant, prisoner are you there.

253She knocked three times on the wall herself, as if in answer.

254That means, yes, I am here and all is well.

255Four knocks came from Becky's side of the wall.

256That means, explained Sarah, then, fellow-sufferer, we will sleep in peace.

257Good night.

258Ermengarde quite beamed with delight.

259Oh, Sarah!

260she whispered joyfully.

261It is like a story.

262It is a story, said Sarah.

263Everything's a story.

264You are a story.

265I am a story.

266Miss Minchin is a story.

267And she sat down again and talked until Ermengarde forgot that she was a sort of escaped prisoner herself, and had to be reminded by Sarah that she could not remain in the Bastille all night, but must steal noiselessly downstairs again and creep back into her deserted bed.

268End of Chapter 9 End of Chapter 9