Chapter 7 The Little Princess of Tower Hill by L. T. Meade
IN VIOLET
Maggie and Ralph spent a very happy afternoon at the Zoo. The best of Ralph always came to the surface when he was with his mother, and he was also impressed by Jo's remarks about her rabbits. Was it really true that Maggie had done a beautiful deed by giving his white and pretty darlings their liberty in a country wood? How Jo's eyes shone when she spoke, and how ecstatically she looked at the little princess! Ralph was a great deal too much of a boy, and a great deal too proud to make any set speech of forgiveness to Maggie, but he determined on the spot to restore her to his favor. He ceased to be condescending, and greeted her more as a little hail-fellow-well-met. Maggie rejoiced in the change. Mrs. Grenville was her brightest and most agreeable self; the lions on near acquaintance proved more fascinating than dreadful, and on their way home Maggie pronounced in favor of the Zoo, said she would certainly like to go there again, and thought that on the whole it must be a nicer place than Madame Tussaud's, where, according to Ralph's account, unless you visited the chamber of horrors there were only large and overgrown dolls to be seen.
"I wonder," said Maggie to her cousin as they sat in the most amiable manner side by side at their tea that evening, "I wonder why Susy cares to go out into the streets and sing and play a funny little tambourine. She can't be at all shy to sing before a lot of people; can she, Ralph?"
Ralph stared hard at Maggie.
"Don't you really know what she does it for?" he asked.
"I suppose for a kind of play," said Maggie, opening her eyes a little.
Ralph stamped his foot impatiently. "A kind of play!" he repeated. "I was beginning to respect you. I forgot how ignorant you are, Poor Susy goes out and plays the tambourine and dances and sings because she wants pennies – pennies to buy bread for Jo and for herself, and for Ben and Bob. No, of course you can't know! Susy wants the tambourine not to play with, but because she's hungry."
Ralph spoke with great energy; Maggie's little round sweet face became quite pale; she dropped the delicious bread-and-butter and marmalade which she was putting to her lips, and remained absolutely silent.
"Must the tambourine cost half a crown?" she asked presently.
"Yes," replied Ralph; "didn't you hear her say so? She knows best what it ought to cost."
Maggie wished she were not such a dunce, that she could read a little and write a little, and that she had some slight knowledge of figures. Hitherto she had been shy of revealing any of her great ignorance to Ralph, but now her intense longing to know how many pennies were in half a crown made her ask her cousin the question.
Ralph assured her carelessly that there were thirty pennies in that very substantial piece of money.
"It will take a long time to collect," he said, sighing deeply. "Poor Susy will have to have plenty of patience, for I know Jo can't help her, and she'll have to depend on me. I earn a penny a day when I'm good. I generally am good when I'm with mother. It was quite different at Tower Hill, for you annoyed me a good deal, Maggie, but I've made up my mind to say nothing more on that subject. I dare say you, too, will try to be a good girl when you're with mother. Well, what was I saying? Oh! about Susy's pennies. With what I gave her and what Jo collected she has got fourteen. Take fourteen from thirty, how much is left, Maggie? Of course you know, so I need not tell you. All that number of days poor Susy will have to wait, however hungry she is. There, we have finished our tea, let's go up to the drawing-room to mother now. Isn't mother sweet? Did you ever see any one – any one so nice?"
"Yes, I saw my own mother, and she's a lot nicer," said Maggie.
Ralph's eyes flashed.
"I like that," he said; "why, every one says the same thing about my mother, that she's the very, very nicest lady in the world. Oh, I say, Maggie, where are you – " But his little cousin had disappeared.
The facts were these. The events of her first day in London had worked up poor little Maggie's feelings to a crisis. She had been excited, she had been pleased, she had been greatly surprised. All the old tranquil life in the midst of which she had moved, knowing all the time that she was its center, that she, the little princess, was the beloved object for whom most things were done, for whom treats were prepared and delights got ready – all this old life had vanished, and Maggie was nothing more than little Maggie Ascot, an ignorant child, a dunce who could not even reckon figures or read a word of the queen's English, or have any pennies in her purse. Maggie was only the little cousin whom Ralph rather despised, who was nobody at all in his estimation compared to Jo – Jo, who was so humble, and so very poor. Maggie's feelings had been greatly moved about Jo and Susy; she had longed beyond words to put the necessary number of pennies into Susy's hand, and to tell her to go out and buy that tambourine, on which her heart was set, without a moment's delay. She had wished this when she only supposed that Susy wanted the tambourine to amuse herself. How much more now did she long to get it for her, when Ralph had assured her that Susy's need was so great that she wished for the tambourine in order that she might earn money to buy bread! When Ralph said this Maggie felt a lump rising in her throat, and her own healthy childish appetite failing her – even then she felt inclined to rush away and cry; but when Ralph added to this his somewhat slighting remarks about the mother whose arms Maggie did so long to feel round her, the little princess could bear her feelings no longer, and rushed upstairs to sob out her over-full heart.
It was not Miss Grey who found Maggie in the dark in her little room, but the good-natured Waters, who after all knew far more about children than the somewhat inexperienced governess. Waters wasted no time in asking the little girl what was the matter, but she lifted her into a very motherly embrace, and soothed and petted her with many loving words. Maggie thought Waters a most delicious person, and soon wiped away her tears, and began to smile once again. Waters was judicious enough to ask no questions about the tears, and, when they were over, to forget that they ever existed. She took Maggie into her mistress' room, and made her sit on the bed, and showed her some of Ralph's childish toys. It occurred to Maggie as she sat there that Waters would not be nearly such a dreadful person as most others to confide in. She was intensely anxious to gain some information, and she resolved to trust Waters.
"May I tell you something as a great, tremendous secret?" she asked.
"Well, Miss Maggie, that's as you please," replied the servant. "I can only tell you one thing – that what's confided to me is a secret from that day forward, and no mistake. What's the color to keep a secret in, Miss Maggie? In violet. That's where I keeps it, and so it's sure to be safe."
Maggie laughed and clapped her hands.
"Waters, I think you're a darling!" she said, "and I will trust you. I don't suppose you ever heard of any one so ignorant as me. I'll be eight years old before very long, and I can't read, and I can't write, and I can't put figures together. I can't even tell the time, Waters – I can't, really."
While Maggie was speaking, Waters kept gazing at her with a most perfectly unmoved countenance.
"Bless the child!" she said presently. "Well, Miss Maggie dear, where's the secret I'm to keep inviolate?"
"Why, that's it, Waters; the secret is that I don't know nothing – nothing at all."
"Well, you'll learn, dearie," said Waters; "you'll learn all in good time. You're nothing but a young child, and you has lots and lots of years before you."
Maggie did not at all consider herself very young. There were one or two babies in the village at home, just beginning to toddle, who were really juvenile; but she, Maggie Ascot, who could run and jump and skip, and even ride! – it was really rather silly to speak of her as a very young child. However, now she was so soothed by "Waters' gentle words and Waters' petting that she could find no fault with any remark made to her by that worthy person. On the contrary, she cuddled up to her and stroked her cheek, and felt relieved at the unburdening of her secret.
"I didn't learn to read till I was a good bit older than you," said Waters. "I don't mean that I'm an example for any dear little lady to follow, for I never could abide a bookworm. I don't take to it now. I only learned because my mother said it was a shame to have a great big girl who could neither spell nor write. My tastes always lay in the needlework line. Since I was a little tot I was forever with a bit of sewing in my hand; I'd hem, and I'd back-stitch, and I'd top-sew whenever I had the chance. Why, I mind me of the time when I unpicked one of my father's old shirts just for the pleasure of putting it together again, and didn't mother laugh when she saw what I was after! Plain needlework was my line, Miss Maggie, and maybe it's yours too, dearie."
"Oh, no, it isn't!" said Maggie, opening her blue eyes with quite a gleam of horror in them. "I hate plain sewing worser even than I do reading; I hate it even worser than my figures. Plain sewing pricks, and it worries me. I hate it more than anything."
"Well, well, dearie, you're in the pricking stages yet; I went through that, same as another. You'll come to learn the comfort of it, for of all the soothers for poor worrited women, there's nothing at all in my opinion like needle and thread."
Maggie was beginning to find this turn in the conversation rather unintelligible, so she brought Waters back to the subject which most interested her by asking if she had also found the study of figures very good for the worries, and if she would let her know how many pennies Susy must have to make up the half-crown.
"Oh, is that little Susy Aylmer?" said Waters. "I don't approve of no child going out to sing in the streets. However, it isn't for me to interfere, and Mrs. Aylmer is as honest and hard-working a body as ever walked, and that little Jo is a real angel, and as the poor things must live somehow, why, I suppose Susy had better sing. Master Ralph is saving up his pennies, and he'll give them all to her as sure as sure, so you has no call to put yourself out about it, Miss Maggie."
"Yes, but I don't want her to wait," said Maggie. "She has nothing to eat, and she'll be so dreadfully, dreadfully hungry. She has got fourteen pennies, and she can't get anything to eat until she has thirty. Oh, Waters! if you do know figures, please tell me how many days poor Susy must live without any food until she has got the thirty pennies."
Waters laughed.
"Things won't be as bad as that for Susy Aylmer," she said. "She is a sturdy little piece, and I don't believe she denies herself much; don't you fret about her, Miss Maggie darling."
"Yes, but what is the difference between fourteen and thirty?" insisted Maggie. "Ralph only gets a penny a day; how many days will have to pass before Susy gets the thirty pennies?"
"She has fourteen now," said Waters; "well – well, it is something of a poser; I never had much aptitude in the figure line, Miss Maggie. Fourteen in hand, thirty to make up; well – well, let's try it by our fingers. Ten fingers first, five on each hand. Bear that in your mind, Miss Maggie. Add ten to fourteen, makes twenty-four; come now, I'm getting on, but that isn't thirty, is it, darling? Try the fingers again; five more fingers makes twenty-nine, and one – why, there we are – thirty. Ten, five, and one make sixteen. There, Miss Maggie, sixteen pennies more she'll have to get."
Just at this moment Mrs. Grenville entered the room, and Maggie's conversation with the good-natured lady's maid was brought to an abrupt conclusion.
The next morning Maggie awoke out of a profound sleep, in which she had been dreaming of Jo as turned into a real angel with wings, and of Susy as playing on the most perfect tambourine that was ever invented. The little girl awoke out of this slumber to hear the unfamiliar London sounds, and to sit up in bed and rub her sleepy eyes. The hours kept at Mrs. Grenville's were not so early as those enjoyed at Tower Hill. Maggie was tired of lying in bed; she was occupying a tiny room which led out of Miss Grey's, and she now jumped up and went to the window. What was her amazement to see just under the window, walking leisurely across the road, one of the objects of her last vivid dream, Susy Aylmer herself! Susy's very stout little form was seen crossing the street and coming right up to the Grenvilles' house. Maggie was charmed to see her, and took not an instant in making up her mind to improve the occasion. She knocked violently on the pane, but her room was too high up for even Susy's quick ears to discern this signal, and she then, in her little blue dressing-gown, rushed through Miss Grey's room, and ran as fast as her small feet would carry her down the stairs, down and down until she reached the front hall. There were no servants in the hall, but the chain had already been taken off the hall door, and Maggie had no difficulty in slipping back the bolt. She opened the door and stood on the steps.
"Susy! Susy! Susy!" she screamed.
Susy at this moment was receiving what indeed she came for every morning – a good supply of broken bread and meat from Mrs. Grenville's cook. Mrs. Grenville allowed the cook to give these things to Mrs. Aylmer, and Susy was generally sent to fetch them. She was much amazed to see the pretty little country lady calling to her so vehemently; she was also delighted, and came to the foot of the hall-door steps, and looked up at Maggie with a very eager face. For a girl who was so dreadfully starved, Maggie could not help thinking the said face rather round and full; however, she would not allow this passing reflection to spoil her interest. She beckoned to Susy, and said in a whisper:
"I'm most terrible sorry for you. If I had any money I'd give it to you – really and truly I would, but I haven't got nothing at all. Father has – father's ever so rich, but he's not with me, he's far away, and I can't – oh! Susy, can you write?"
Maggie stood in a contemplative attitude. Susy posed herself on one leg, held her basket of broken meat in a careless manner, as though it did not account for anything at all, and kept her quick and intelligent eyes fixed on the little princess.
"I do want to help you, very much," said Maggie, at last. "I want to help you my own self, without any one knowing anything about it. I think I want to do this as much for Jo as for you. Once I didn't like Jo at all, but now I do love her; she looks so beautiful and so sweet. I don't think you do; you have rather a cross face, and you are very red, and you've such fat cheeks; but maybe being hungry makes people look cross and red."
"And – and – fat," continued Susy eagerly. "I'm puffed out with being so holler inside. I am now, missie, really. It's an awfully empty feel, and it won't go, not a bit of it, till I gets that 'ere tambourine."
"I wish I could help you!" continued Maggie again.
Just then there were sounds inside the house, sounds of dustpans and brushes, and of industrious maids approaching, and Susy knew that her opportunity was short.
"I believe you, missie," she said, "I believe in your kind 'eart, missie. It do seem a shame as you shouldn't have no money, for you would know how to pervide for the poor and needy, missie; but – but it might be managed in other ways, Miss Maggie."
"In other ways?" repeated Maggie. "How, Susy – how, dear, nice Susy?"
"Why, now, you hasn't nothing as you could sell, I suppose?"
"That I could sell?" repeated little Miss Ascot. "Oh, dear, no, I haven't nothing at all to make a shop with, if that's what you mean."
"I wasn't thinking of that, missie; I was wondering now if you had any little bit of dress as you didn't want. Your clothes is very 'andsome, and something as you didn't greatly care for would fetch a few pence if it was sold, and so help on the tambourine."
Maggie's blue eyes began to sparkle.
"Why, there's my new hat," she said; "mother got it from London only a week ago, and I know it cost pounds – it has two long white feathers; I like it very much, but I could do without it, 'cause I've got my little common garden-hat to wear. Do you think I'd get two or three pennies for my new best hat with the feathers and the lace, Susy?"
"Oh, yes, missie – oh, yes, missie; I seed the hat yesterday, and I never clapped my two eyes on such a beauty. But it seems a pity to take it away from you, missie dear, and maybe the little common garden-hat would fetch enough to buy the tambourine."
"Oh, I wouldn't sell that at all," said Maggie; "I am very fond of my garden-hat, 'cause father likes me in it; and 'sides, I've gathered strawberries in it, and I've had wild birds' eggs in it. I'd much, much rather sell the stupid new hat."
Susy was quite agreeable to the transfer, and it was finally arranged that the two little girls were to meet each other at the same hour on the following morning, and Susy was to accompany Maggie to the pawnbroker's, where the new hat might be disposed of.
If there was a commonplace, ordinary, every-day London child, it was Susy Aylmer. She was the sister of two little brothers, who also belonged to a very easily found class of human beings; she was the daughter of an industrious, hard-working, every-day mother; and yet she was also sister to Jo!
How Jo got into that home was a puzzle to all who knew her; she had innate refinement; she had heaven-born beauty. Her ideas were above her class; her little flower-like face looked like some rare exotic among its ruder companions.
Mrs. Aylmer alone knew why Jo was different from her other children. Jo represented a short, bright episode in the hard-working woman's life. She had been born in good days, in sweet, happy, country days. Her father had been like her, refined in feature and poetic in temperament. Shortly after Jo's birth the Aylmers had come to London, poverty and all its attendant ills had over-taken them, and after a few years Aylmer had fallen a victim to consumption, and had left his wife with four young children on her hands, the three younger of whom altogether resembled her.
Mrs. Aylmer had no time to grieve – she was a brave woman; there are many brave women in the world, thank God; among the working poor they are perhaps more the rule than the exception. She turned round, faced her position, and managed after a fashion to provide for her children. Many visitors came to see her, for she was eminently respectable, and had an honest way about her which impressed people, and all these visitors pitied her when they saw Jo.
Poor little Jo was a cripple, a lovely cripple, but still unable to walk or move from her little sofa. The visitors congratulated Mrs. Aylmer on her strong boys and stalwart-looking little daughter, but they invariably pitied her about Jo. Nothing made that worthy woman so angry. "For Jo is my brightest blessing," she would exclaim; "she's always like a bit of sunshine in the room. Trouble, bless her! she a trouble! Why, don't she take the trouble off my shoulders more than any one else ever did or ever will do? Ask me who never yet spoke a cross word, and I'll tell you it's that little pale girl who can never lift herself off the sofa. Ask me who keeps the peace with the others, and I'll tell you again it's little Jo. And she don't preach, not she, for she don't know how, and she never looks reproachful for all the roughness and the wildness of the others; but her life's one sarmin, and, in short, we none of us could get on without her. Jo my trouble indeed! I only wish them visitors wouldn't talk about what they knows nothing on."
What Mrs. Aylmer felt for her little lame daughter was also, although perhaps in a slightly minor degree, acknowledged by the boys and Susy. They clung to Jo, and looked up to her. The boys, who were the two youngest of the family, had a habit of giving her their absolute confidence. They not only told her of their good deeds, but of their naughty ones. They had a habit of pouring out their little scrapes and misdemeanors with one of Jo's thin hands clasped to their tearful faces, and when she forgave, and when she encouraged, the sunshine came out again on them.
But Susy was different from the boys, and of late she had kept the knowledge of more than one naughty little action from Jo. The history of the tambourine, the history of the purchase of that redoubtable instrument which was to make Susy's fortune and fill the Aylmers' home with not only the necessaries, but also some of the dainties of life, was, of course, known by Jo. No one had ever been more interested in the purchase of a musical instrument than she was in the collecting of that hoard which was to result in the buying of Susy's tambourine. Jo was a delightful and sympathizing listener, and Susy liked nothing better than to kneel by her sofa and pour out her longings and dreams into so good a listener's ears; but Susy had kept more than one secret to herself, and she said nothing to Jo about her interview with little Miss Ascot, nor about the arrangement she had made with that little lady to purchase the tambourine out of the proceeds of the sale of her best hat.
Susy knew perfectly that Jo would not approve of anything so underhanded, and she resolved to keep her own counsel. She returned home, however, in the wildest spirits, and indulged all day long in fantastic day-dreams. Jo was having a bad day of much pain and suffering, but Susy's brightness was infectious, and Mrs. Aylmer thought as she tidied up her place and made it straight, that surely there never were happier children than hers.
"But we won't have the tambourine for many and many a day yet," said Ben. "Don't be too sure, Susy; how can you tell but that Master Ralph'll get tired of saving up all his pennies for you? Hanyhow," continued Ben, with a profound sigh, "we has a sight of days to wait afore we gets 'arf a crown."
"I knows what I knows," answered Susan oracularly. "Look here, Jo, you're the one for making up real 'ticing pictures. I wants to make a day-dream, and you tell me what to do with it when we get it. S'pose now – oh, do be quiet, Ben and Bob – s'pose now I 'ad the tambourine, and it wor a beauty; well, s'pose as the day is fine, and the hair balmy, and every-body goes out, so to speak, with their pockets open, and they sees me – I'm dressed up smart and tidy – "
"Oh, my, and ain't you red about the face, just?" here interrupts Bob.
"Well, don't interrupt; I can't help my 'plexion; I'm tidy enough – and I'm dancing round, and I'm playing the tambourine like anything, and I'm singing. Well, maybe it's 'Nelly Bly,' or maybe it's the 'Ten Little Nigger Boys;' hanyhow I takes; I'm nothing but little Susy Aylmer, but I takes. The crowd collects, and they laugh, and they likes it, and then, the ladies and the gents, they go by, so they give me their pennies – lots of 'em; and one old gent, he have no change, and he throws me a shilling. Well, now, that's my day-dream. I comes home, I gives the pennies to mother, but I keeps the shilling; I keeps the shilling for a treat for us four young 'uns. Now, Jo, speak up. What shall we do with our day-dream?"
The boys were here wildly excited. To all intents and purposes the shilling was already in Susy's possession. Bob, to relieve his over-charged feelings, instantly stood on his head, and Ben set to work to punch him; Jo's eyes began to shine.
"'Tis a real beautiful day-dream, Susy darlint," she said.
"Yes, ain't it, Jo? a whole shilling; you mind that, Jo. Now make up what we'll do with it. Let's all sit quiet, and shut our heyes, and listen to Jo. You'll be sure to make up something oncommon, Joey dear."
Jo, when she spoke, or at least when she made up what her brothers and sisters called day-dreams, always clasped her hands and gazed straight before her; her large violet-tinted eyes began to see visions, nowhere to be perceived within that commonplace, whitewashed room; the children who listened to her instinctively perceived this, and they usually closed their own eyes in order to follow her glowing words the better.
On this occasion she spoke slowly, and after a pause.
"A whole shilling," she began; "it's a sight of money, and it ought to do a deal. What I'm thinking is this: suppose we had a wan, a wan as would hold us all, mother, and Susy, and Ben, and Bob, and there was lots of green grass in the bottom of the wan, so we all of us sat easy, and had no pain even when it moved. Suppose there was two horses to the wan, and a kind driver, and we went werry quick; we went away from the houses, and the streets, and we left the noise ahind us, and the dust and the dirt ahind us, and we got out into fields. Fields, with trees a-growing, and real yellow buttercups looking up at you saucy and perky like, and dear little white daisies, like bits of snow with yellow eyes. S'pose we all got out there, right in the fields, and we seed a little brook running and rushing past us, and we see the fishes leaping for joy out of the water; and if the sun was werry hot we got under a big tree, where it was shady, and we sat there; mother and I sat side by side, and you, Susy, and you, Ben and Bob, just rolled about on the green, and picked the buttercups and the daisies. Why, I can think of nothing better than that, unless, maybe, angels came and talked to us while we were there."
Here Jo paused abruptly, and the three children who had sat absolutely motionless opened their eyes; the two boys sighed deeply, but Susy after a time began to cut up the day-dream; while Jo thought of angels as the only possible culmination to such intense joy, it occurred to practical Susy to suggest a good substantial dinner to be eaten under the shade of the green trees.