A Little Princess

Miss Minchin insists on grandly leading Sara into the decorated schoolroom at the head of a procession of servants carrying her birthday gifts. When Miss Minchin orders the servants to depart before the present-opening, Sara asks if Becky can stay and watch, too. Although Miss Minchin thinks of scullery maids as machines instead of little girls, she grudgingly agrees to Sara’s birthday request. Miss Minchin makes a speech about Sara as a future heiress, but Sara dislikes this talk about money. After Miss Minchin exits, the schoolgirls crowd around to see Sara’s presents. Sara’s Last Doll is magnificently dressed, and the doll’s trunk contains a splendid wardrobe. When Sara imagines the Last Doll understanding their talk, Lavinia scornfully asks if Sara could still pretend things if she were a beggar and lived in a garret. It would not be easy, but Sara thinks she could do it.

Suddenly Miss Amelia tells all the schoolgirls to go into the parlor for refreshments because Mr. Barrow, Captain Crewe’s lawyer, wants to talk privately with Miss Minchin. Becky lingers a moment to look at the doll’s clothing before returning to work but hears Miss Minchin coming and hides, terrified, under the table. Mr. Barrow criticizes the extravagant gifts that Captain Crewe bought for his daughter. He informs Miss Minchin that the captain is dead due to a combination of jungle fever and the shock of the ruin of the diamond mines’ business. Captain Crewe’s boyhood friend ran away after losing all the money he had invested. Consequently, Sara is now a pauper, not an heiress, with no living relative to take care of her. Miss Minchin is outraged; she paid Sara’s recent bills while waiting for Captain Crewe’s payment. Miss Minchin wants to turn the penniless Sara out into the street, but Mr. Barrow reminds her that this action might damage the school’s reputation. He suggests that Miss Minchin make good use of Sara. Miss Minchin tells her sister to interrupt the birthday party and have Sara put on her old black dress. Miss Minchin hears Becky’s sobbing and reprimands her for hiding under the table.

Sara quietly hears the news of her father’s death but runs upstairs and locks her door. In her room, she mournfully repeats to herself, “My papa is dead!” (90). Realizing that she never liked Sara, Miss Minchin summons her and tells her that everything Sara owns now belongs to Miss Minchin because she paid the bill for the Last Doll. Sara tells her to take away the Last Doll then—she does not want it. Sara’s steadfastness angers Miss Minchin, who tells her she is not a princess anymore and will have to work for her living. When Sara surprises her by being eager to work, Miss Minchin threatens to have her sent away if she fails to please her, and she demands to be thanked for her kindness in giving Sara a home. Sara replies, “You are not kind, and it is not a home” (94).

Miss Amelia feels secretly ashamed to tell Sara that she must sleep in the attic. In the dingy room, Sara holds Emily and does not make a sound. After softly tapping at the door, Becky asks if she can enter the room. Becky’s loving, tear-smeared face finally evokes a sob from Sara. Sara reminds Becky that she once said they were the same—just two little girls. Sara declares that she is not a princess anymore, and Becky cries that Sara will always be a princess, no matter what happens to her.

Sara spends an anguished first night in the attic mourning her father while hearing the wind howling over the roof and the rats scratching in the walls. The next morning at breakfast, she sees that Lavinia now takes the seat next to Miss Minchin. Sara must sit at the little children’s table to keep them quiet. Over the next few weeks, Sara is sent out on errands in all kinds of weather and does tasks other people neglected. The cook and the housemaids enjoy dominating the girl about whom so much fuss was made and continually give her orders. Sara’s own lessons end. She is only grudgingly allowed to study old books alone in the schoolroom at night after she finishes her work. Miss Minchin does not want her to talk to the other pupils for fear she might tell them a story about being a mistreated heroine. As Sara’s appearance becomes shabbier, the pupils feel as if she is a servant. Soon, she is told to take her meals with the servants. Sara tells herself that soldiers do not complain and that she will pretend this is wartime.

Sara’s heart might have broken with loneliness, but Becky tries to help her get dressed in the mornings and prepare for bed at night. During the first weeks after her father’s death, Sara is too overwhelmed to talk about her grief with kind Becky. Ermengarde was called home for a few weeks, and when she encounters Sara in a corridor, she is so shocked by Sara’s changed appearance that she awkwardly asks if she is unhappy. Sara responds defensively because she assumes that Ermengarde is like the other pupils—no longer wishing to talk to Sara because of her poverty. However, Ermengarde is miserable and determined not to lose her friend. One evening when Sara finds Ermengarde in her attic room, the upset girl asks Sara why she doesn’t like her anymore. The girls reconcile and hug each other, and Sara tells Ermengarde: “You are nicer than I am […] I was too proud to try and make friends […] Adversity tries people, and mine has tried you and proved how nice you are” (108).

When Ermengarde asks Sara if she can bear living in the attic, Sara answers that she can if she pretends that it is a place in a story. Her imagination was stunned by her troubles, but now it is starting to work again. Sara imagines she is a longtime prisoner in the Bastille, Miss Minchin is the jailer, and Becky is the prisoner in the next cell. Ermengarde is enchanted and asks to visit at night when it is safe so she can listen to stories from her best friend.

Seven-year-old Lottie cannot understand why her “adopted mama” Sara wears an old black dress, no longer lives in the beautiful room with Emily, and only comes in the schoolroom to teach the little ones. Miss Minchin reproves Sara if any of the little children misbehave, so Sara does not reveal much in response to Lottie’s questions, trying to prevent the little girl from crying. Determined Lottie finds out where Sara now lives by listening to the older girls’ gossip. When Lottie opens the attic door, she is aghast at Sara’s ugly room. Sara implores her not to make any noise because she has already been scolded all day. Sara uses her imagination to help Lottie see the beauty of her location, so high above the street that it is like being in another world. They look out the window and see sparrows. Sara chirps softly and convinces a sparrow to take the crumbs the girls throw. Sara paints a picture for the enchanted Lottie of how lovely the room would be with nice furnishings, and she points out that she can lie in bed and count the stars. However, after the little girl leaves, “the enchantment of her imaginings for Lottie” (116) dies away; Sara feels more desolate and lonelier.

Sara hears a sound and sees a large rat sitting up and sniffing the air. She becomes fascinated with his gray-whiskered, gnome-like appearance and imagines how difficult a rat’s life would be. She recalls that Bastille prisoners used to befriend rats, so she sits still enough that the rat becomes less timid and eats a crumb near her, then takes a larger one back to his family in the wall. When Ermengarde visits Sara one week later, she is startled to discover that Sara has named the rat “Melchisedec” and tamed it, so it will come in response to her low whistling and take crumbs. Sara says that she can’t help making things up: “If I didn’t, I don’t believe I could live” (122). Ermengarde is charmed by Sara’s Bastille fantasy, with includes knocks on the walls to send signals between Sara and Becky, the “prisoner” in the next “cell.” Sara says everything is a story.