So, as they sat together, Ermengarde did not know that she was faint as well as ravenous, and that while she talked she now and then wondered if her hunger would let her sleep when she was left alone. She felt as if she had never been quite so hungry before.
'I wish I was as thin as you, Sara,' Ermengarde said suddenly. 'I believe you are thinner than you used to be. Your eyes look so big, and look at the sharp little bones sticking out of your elbow!'
Sara pulled down her sleeve, which had pushed itself up.
'I always was a thin child,' she said bravely, 'and I always had big green eyes.'
'I love your queer eyes,' said Ermengarde, looking into them with affectionate admiration. 'They always look as if they saw such a long way. I love them - and I love them to be green - though they look black generally.'
'They are cat's eyes,' laughed Sara, 'but I can't see in the dark with them - because I have tried, and I couldn't - I wish I could.'
It was just at this minute that something happened at the skylight which neither of them saw. If either of them had chanced to turn and look, she would have been startled by the sight of a dark face which peered cautiously into the room and disappeared as quickly and almost as silently as it had appeared. Not quite as silently, however. Sara, who had keen ears, suddenly turned a little and looked up at the roof.
'That didn't sound like Melchisedec,' she said. 'It wasn't scratchy enough.'
'What?' said Ermengarde, a little startled.
'Didn't you think you heard something?' asked Sara.
'N-no,' Ermengarde faltered. 'Did you?'
'Perhaps I didn't,' said Sara, 'but I thought I did. It sounded as if something was on the slates - something that dragged softly.'
'What could it be?' said Ermengarde. 'Could it be - robbers?'
'No,' Sara began cheerfully. 'There is nothing to steal -'
She broke off in the middle of her words. They both heard the sound that checked her. It was not on the slates, but on the stairs below, and it was Miss Minchin's angry voice. Sara sprang off the bed, and put out the candle.
'She is scolding Becky,' she whispered, as she stood in the darkness. 'She is making her cry.'
'Will she come in here?' Ermengarde whispered back, panic-stricken.
'No. She will think I am in bed. Don't stir.'
It was very seldom that Miss Minchin mounted the last flight of stairs. Sara could only remember that she had done it once before. But now she was angry enough to be coming at least part of the way up, and it sounded as if she was driving Becky before her.
'You impudent, dishonest child!' they heard her say. 'Cook tells me she has missed things repeatedly.'
''Twarn't me, mum,' said Becky, sobbing. 'I was 'ungry enough, but 'twarn't me - never!'
'You deserve to be sent to prison,' said Miss Minchin's voice. 'Picking and stealing! Half a meat-pie, indeed!'
''Twarn't me,' wept Becky. 'I could 'ave eat a whole 'un - but I never laid a finger on it.'
Miss Minchin was out of breath between temper and mounting the stairs. The meat-pie had been intended for her special late supper. It became apparent that she boxed Becky's ears.
'Don't tell falsehoods,' she said. 'Go to your room this instant.'
Both Sara and Ermengarde heard the slap, and then heard Becky run in her slipshod shoes up the stairs and into her attic. They heard her door shut, and knew that she threw herself upon her bed.
'I could 'ave e't two of 'em,' they heard her cry into her pillow. 'An' I never took a bite. 'Twas cook give it to her policeman.'
Sara stood in the middle of the room in the darkness. She was clenching her little teeth and opening and shutting fiercely her outstretched hands. She could scarcely stand still, but she dared not move until Miss Minchin had gone down the stairs and all was still.
'The wicked, cruel thing!' she burst forth. 'The cook takes things herself and then says Becky steals them. She doesn't! She doesn't! She's so hungry sometimes that she eats crusts out of the ash-barrel!' She pressed her hands hard against her face and burst into passionate little sobs, and Ermengarde, hearing this unusual thing, was overawed by it. Sara was crying! The unconquerable Sara! It seemed to denote something new - some mood she had never known. Suppose -! Suppose! A new dread possibility presented itself to her kind, slow little mind all at once. She crept off the bed in the dark and found her way to the table where the candle stood. She struck a match and lit the candle. When she had lighted it, she bent forward and looked at Sara, with her new thought growing to a definite fear in her eyes.
'Sara,' she said in a timid, almost awe-stricken voice, 'are - are - you never told me - I don't want to be rude, but - are you ever hungry?'
It was too much just at that moment. The barrier broke down. Sara lifted her face from her hands.
'Yes,' she said in a new passionate way. 'Yes, I am. I'm so hungry now that I could almost eat you. And it makes it worse to hear poor Becky. She's hungrier than I am.'
Ermengarde gasped.
'Oh! Oh!' she cried woefully, 'and I never knew!'
'I didn't want you to know,' Sara said. 'It would have made me feel like a street beggar. I know I look like a street beggar.'
'No, you don't - you don't!' Ermengarde broke in. 'Your clothes are a little queer - but you couldn't look like a street beggar. You haven't a street beggar face.'
'A little boy once gave me a sixpence for charity,' said Sara, with a short little laugh in spite of herself. 'Here it is.' And she pulled out the thin ribbon from her neck. 'He wouldn't have given me his Christmas sixpence if I hadn't looked as if I needed it.'
Somehow the sight of the dear little sixpence was good for both of them. It made them laugh a little, though they both had tears in their eyes.
'Who was he?' asked Ermengarde, looking at it quite as if it had not been a mere ordinary silver sixpence.
'He was a darling little thing going to a party,' said Sara. 'He was one of the Large Family, the little one with the round legs - the one I call Guy Clarence. I suppose his nursery was crammed with Christmas presents and hampers full of cakes and things, and he could see I had had nothing.'
Ermengarde gave a little jump backward. The last sentences had recalled something to her troubled mind and given her a sudden inspiration.
'Oh, Sara!' she cried. 'What a silly thing I am not to have thought of it!'
'Of what?'
'Something splendid!' said Ermengarde, in an excited hurry. 'This very afternoon my nicest aunt sent me a box. It is full of good things. I never touched it, I had so much pudding at dinner, and I was so bothered about papa's books.' Her words began to tumble over each other. 'It's got cake in it, and little meat-pies, and jam-tarts and buns, and oranges and red-currant wine, and figs and chocolate. I'll creep back to my room and get it this minute, and we'll eat it now.'
Sara almost reeled. When one is faint with hunger the mention of food has sometimes a curious effect. She clutched Ermengarde's arm.
'Do you think - you could?' she ejaculated.
'I know I could,' answered Ermengarde, and she ran to the door - opened it softly - put her head out into the darkness, and listened. Then she went back to Sara. 'The lights are out. Everybody's in bed. I can creep - and creep - and no one will hear.'
It was so delightful that they caught each other's hands and a sudden light sprang into Sara's eyes.
'Ermie!' she said. 'Let us pretend! Let us pretend it's a party! And oh, won't you invite the prisoner in the next cell?'
'Yes! Yes! Let us knock on the wall now. The jailer won't hear.'
Sara went to the wall. Through it she could hear poor Becky crying more softly. She knocked four times.
'That means: "Come to me through the secret passage under the wall",' she explained. ' "I have something to communicate".'
Five quick knocks answered her.
'She is coming,' she said.
Almost immediately the door of the attic opened and Becky appeared. Her eyes were red and her cap was
sliding off, and when she caught sight of Ermengarde she began to rub her face nervously with her apron.
'Don't mind me a bit, Becky!' cried Ermengarde.
'Miss Ermengarde has asked you to come in,' said Sara, 'because she is going to bring a box of good things up here to us.'
Becky's cap almost fell off entirely, she broke in with such excitement.
'To eat, miss?' she said. 'Things that's good to eat?'
'Yes,' answered Sara, 'and we are going to pretend a party.'
'And you shall have as much as you want to eat,' put in Ermengarde. 'I'll go this minute!'
She was in such haste that as she tiptoed out of the attic she dropped her red shawl and did not know it had fallen. No one saw it for a minute or so. Becky was too much overpowered by the good luck which had befallen her.
'Oh, miss! oh, miss!' she gasped. 'I know it was you that asked her to let me come. It - it makes me cry to think of it.' And she went to Sara's side and stood and looked at her worshippingly.
But in Sara's hungry eyes the old light had begun to glow and transform her world for her. Here in the attic - with the cold night outside - with the afternoon in the sloppy streets barely passed - with the memory of the awful unfed look in the beggar child's eyes not yet faded - this simple, cheerful thing had happened like a thing of magic.
She caught her breath.
'Somehow, something always happens,' she cried, 'just before things get to the very worst. It is as if the Magic did it. If I could only just remember that always. The worst thing never quite comes.'
She gave Becky a little cheerful shake.
'No, no! You mustn't cry!' she said. 'We must make haste and set the table.'
'Set the table, miss?' said Becky, gazing round the room. 'What'll we set it with?'
Sara looked round the attic too.
'There doesn't seem to be much,' she answered, half laughing.
That moment she saw something and pounced upon it. It was Ermengarde's red shawl which lay upon the floor.
'Here's the shawl,' she cried. 'I know she won't mind it. It will make such a nice red tablecloth.'
They pulled the old table forward, and threw the shawl over it. Red is a wonderfully kind and comfortable colour. It began to make the room look furnished directly.
'How nice a red rug would look on the floor!' exclaimed Sara. 'We must pretend there is one!'
Her eye swept the bare boards with a swift glance of admiration. The rug was laid down already.
'How soft and thick it is!' she said, with the little laugh which Becky knew the meaning of; and she raised and set her foot down again delicately as if she felt something under it.
'Yes, miss,' answered Becky, watching her with serious rapture. She was always quite serious.
'What next, now?' said Sara, and she stood still and put her hands over her eyes. 'Something will come if I think and wait a little' - in a soft, expectant voice. 'The Magic will tell me.'
One of her favourite fancies was that on 'the outside', as she called it, thoughts were waiting for people to call them. Becky had seen her stand and wait many a time before, and knew that in a few seconds she would uncover an enlightened laughing face.
In a moment she did.
'There!' she cried. 'It has come! I know now! I must look among the things in the old trunk I had when I was a princess.'
She flew to its corner and kneeled down. It had not been put in the attic for her benefit, but because there was no room for it elsewhere. Nothing had been left in it but rubbish. But she knew she should find something. The Magic always arranged that kind of thing in one way or another.
In a corner lay a package, so insignificant-looking that it had been overlooked, and when she herself had found it she had kept it as a relic. It contained a dozen small white handkerchiefs. She seized them joyfully and ran to the table. She began to arrange them upon the red table-cover, patting and coaxing them into shape with the narrow lace edge curling outward, her Magic working its spells for her as she did it.
'These are the plates,' she said. 'They are golden plates. These are the richly embroidered napkins. Nuns worked them in convents in Spain.'
'Did they, miss?' breathed Becky, her very soul uplifted by the information.
'You must pretend it,' said Sara. 'If you pretend it enough, you will see them.'
'Yes, miss,' said Becky; and as Sara returned to the trunk she devoted herself to the effort of accomplishing an end so much to be desired.
Sara turned suddenly to find her standing by the table, looking very queer indeed. She had shut her eyes, and was twisting her face in strange, convulsive contortions, her hands hanging stiffly clenched at her sides. She looked as if she was trying to lift some enormous weight.
'What is the matter, Becky?' Sara cried. 'What are you doing?'
Becky opened her eyes with a start.
'I was a "pretendin'," miss,' she answered a little sheepishly. 'I was tryin' to see it like you do. I almost did,' with a hopeful grin. 'But it takes a lot o' stren'th.'
'Perhaps it does if you are not used to it,' said Sara, with friendly sympathy, 'but you don't know how easy it is when you've done it often. I wouldn't try so hard just at first. It will come to you after a while. I'll just tell you what things are. Look at these.'
She held an old summer hat in her hand which she had fished out of the bottom of the trunk. There was a wreath of flowers on it. She pulled the wreath off.
'These are garlands for the feast,' she said grandly. 'They fill all the air with perfume. There's a mug on the washstand, Becky. Oh - and bring the soap-dish for a centrepiece.'
Becky handed them to her reverently.
'What are they now, miss?' she inquired. 'You'd think they was made of crockery - but I know they ain't.'
'This is a carven flagon,' said Sara, arranging tendrils of the wreath about the mug. 'And this' - bending tenderly over the soap-dish and heaping it with roses - 'is purest alabaster encrusted with gems.'
She touched the things gently, a happy smile hovering about her lips which made her look as if she were a creature in a dream.
'My, ain't it lovely!' whispered Becky.
'If we just had something for bon-bon dishes,' Sara murmured. 'There!' - darting to the trunk again. 'I remember I saw something this minute.'
It was only a bundle of wool wrapped in red and white tissue-paper, but the tissue-paper was soon twisted into the form of little dishes, and was combined with the remaining flowers to ornament the candlestick which was to light the feast. Only the Magic could have made it more than an old table covered with a red shawl and set with rubbish from a long-unopened trunk. But Sara drew back and gazed at it, seeing wonders; and Becky, after staring in delight, spoke with bated breath.
'This 'ere,' she suggested, with a glance round the attic - 'is it the Bastille now - or has it turned into somethin' different?'
'Oh, yes, yes!' said Sara, 'quite different. It is a banquet-hall!'
'My eye, miss!' ejaculated Becky. 'A blanket-'all!' and she turned to view the splendours about her with awed bewilderment.
'A banquet-hall,' said Sara. 'A vast chamber where feasts are given. It has a vaulted roof, and a minstrels' gallery, and a huge chimney filled with blazing oaken logs, and it is brilliant with waxen tapers twinkling on every side.'
'My eye, Miss Sara!' gasped Becky again.
Then the door opened, and Ermengarde came in, rather staggering under the weight of her hamper. She started back with an exclamation of joy. To enter from the chill darkness outside, and find one's self confronted by a totally unanticipated festal board, draped with red, adorned with white napery, and wreathed with flowers, was to feel that the preparations were brilliant indeed.
'Oh, Sara!' she cried out. 'You are the cleverest girl I ever saw!'
'Isn't it nice?' said Sara. 'They are things out of my old trunk. I asked my Magic, and it told me to go and look.'
'But oh, miss,' cried Becky, 'wait till she's told you what they are!
They ain't just - oh, miss, please tell her,' appealing to Sara.
So Sara told her, and because her Magic helped her she made her almost see it all: the golden platters - the vaulted spaces - the blazing logs - the twinkling waxed tapers. As the things were taken out of the hamper - the frosted cakes - the fruits - the bon-bons and the wine - the feast became a splendid thing.
'It's like a real party!' cried Ermengarde.
'It's like a queen's table,' sighed Becky.
Then Ermengarde had a sudden brilliant thought.
'I'll tell you what, Sara,' she said. 'Pretend you are a princess now and this is a royal feast.'
'But it's your feast,' said Sara, 'you must be the princess, and we will be your maids of honour.'
'Oh, I can't,' said Ermengarde. 'I'm too fat, and I don't know how. You be her.'
'Well, if you want me to,' said Sara.
But suddenly she thought of something else and ran to the rusty grate.
'There is a lot of paper and rubbish stuffed in here!' she exclaimed. 'If we light it, there will be a bright blaze for a few minutes, and we shall feel as if it was a real fire.' She struck a match and lighted it up with a great specious glow which illuminated the room.
'By the time it stops blazing,' Sara said, 'we shall forget about its not being real.'
She stood in the dancing glow and smiled.
'Doesn't it look real?' she said. 'Now we will begin the party.'
She led the way to the table. She waved her hand graciously to Ermengarde and Becky. She was in the midst of her dream.
'Advance, fair damsels,' she said in her happy dream-voice, 'and be seated at the banquet-table. My noble father, the king, who is absent on a long journey, has commanded me to feast you.' She turned her head slightly toward the corner of the room. 'What, ho! there, minstrels! Strike up with your viols and bassoons. Princesses,' she explained rapidly to Ermengarde and Becky, 'always had minstrels to play at their feasts. Pretend there is a minstrel gallery up there in the corner. Now we will begin.'
They had barely had time to take their pieces of cake into their hands - not one of them had time to do more, when - they all three sprang to their feet and turned pale faces toward the door - listening - listening.