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Two years after a monkey fortuitously scampered into Sara’s little attic room and led her into the home of her father’s best friend and her rightful inheritance, she sat on the edge of her bed and gave a little huff.
“It happened again, Emily,” she murmured. “I lost control again.”
Emily, the well-loved friend, didn’t have many conversations with Sara anymore. This was not due to any rejections of childishness, but because Sara had taken on other things to occupy her time, mostly due to her elevated station. If Emily could speak, she would be wholly supportive and express her satisfaction with staying in the place of honor at Sara’s bedside, watching over the girl.
Alas, Emily didn’t speak, and merely gazed forth as Sara gave another sigh.
“Janet and Nora brought me to that boutique today, you know that I leave most of the seasonal—” nonsense, was almost said, but Sara decided her behaviour was shameful enough for one day. “It makes them… happy, to choose my wardrobe for me, and I’m quite happy to be relieved of that burden. But sometimes I wish I could just wear the same frock every day and be done with it.” Here, she winced. “Not like the small, black dress I had to wear while working then, of course, but…”
Emily patiently waited. Sara sighed.
“I’m being ridiculous, aren’t I? I snapped at dear Nora just because she kept adding to the orders for gloves, imagine! Oh Emily,” she cried. “Every day that passes, I feel the princess slipping further away.”
Sara Crewe had always been a good-tempered child. And so it was perhaps reasonable that the people around her were taken aback by the dips in her otherwise agreeable moods.
No one was as worried as she herself was. She called them her rages, for they made her feel like the tyrannical monarchs in war stories that were prone to anger when their greed wasn’t fed. Perhaps it had been stewing for longer, simmering beneath her skin just waiting for a chance to strike, but the first of her rages happened almost a year after she was saved.
Becky was serving Sara her buns, once again refusing to just sit down and eat as well. They had their time together, of course, and there was no hesitation when they had tea in Sara’s chambers or in the parlor or even outside in public cafes, but when Mr. Tom Carrisford was dining with Sara, Becky wouldn’t lift her eyes an inch.
Once Becky excused herself, Sara turned to her uncle, feeling a strange rawness in her skin.
“Uncle Tom, why did you hire Becky as my attendant?”
“What’s the matter, my dear?” Carrisford replied with no little concern. “I thought she was a good friend of yours.”
That was exactly Sara’s point. “Yes,” she said softly. “She is my dear friend.”
“Then whatever’s the matter?”
Sara felt a state come to her—a state she’d only known once before: she returned to that one night in the old attic of the seminary, when it was so very hard to be a princess and she lashed out at Emily.
She did not shout at Uncle Tom, however, because here she was not plagued by hunger, tiredness and misery.
“I was a servant as well,” she reminded him.
As always, Uncle Tom grimaced at the mention of the time before they found each other. “My dear, despite the actions of that horrid woman, you were never truly as lowly as she made you out to be. You’ve always been a princess, didn’t you say so?”
“Yes. But I was also a servant. Everyone ordered me around and I was sent out in every sort of weather at all hours of the day. The only thing that differentiated me from Becky was that I happened to know numbers and French. Still, I went to bed in the Bastille, just as starved, weary—”
“There’s no need to distress yourself over the past anymore, Sara,” Uncle Tom interjected, even though Sara was not distressed but merely recalling fact. “Are bad memories bothering you, my dear? Would it help if I sent Becky away? I'd ensure that her new employers would treat her well, if you're worried about that...”
“No, it would not,” Sara cried, and only then was she distressed. “I think this house would be as grave as my attic if you sent Becky away. Please excuse me, Uncle.”
The next day, once she got over her mortification, she remembered that she was wealthy in her own right. Furthermore, she took an interest in that wealth for the first time in her life. A bewildered Becky was adamant that she didn’t need the education Sara was proposing, that she was eternally joyful at being where she was, that she had no business being taught by the masters when before she hadn’t had a hope that she would ever have full meals, miss!
“Please, Becky. I won’t force you if you truly loathe the idea, but wouldn’t it be so very useful?”
If it weren’t for the shine in Sara’s eyes, Becky would have kept to her station and refused. But despite her current lack of education, it was clear to her that this was more important to Sara than she let on.
She reluctantly gave in but once the embarrassment died down, she truly took an interest in the new knowledge suddenly available: grammar, numbers, writing, etiquette and a great many other things she hadn't even known existed. She had to be taught from scratch, of course, but Sara made sure that her tutors were patient with her. Whether these tutors thought the situation strange or not, they were not unwilling to comply.
Sara was pleased at the development. “I told Uncle that I would hate for Becky to be sent away,” she thought. “But now, I think that if, because of what she’s learning, she takes an interest in exploring the vast world… I think that I would be very sad but also happy to aid her.”
Unfortunately, her interactions with Mr. Carrisford had not recovered. During the incident, Sara had not raised her voice or lost her manners, but her behaviour was a rage of unacceptable proportion in her eyes. She exchanged apologies with her uncle, who was in turn chagrined at misunderstanding his precious charge so badly.
However, apologies were not enough to stop the shift... an air of awkwardness could be felt when they spoke. Mr. Carrisford had a habit of diverting conversations when they lingered too close to Sara’s former hardships, while Sara had a habit of always speaking her mind. This dynamic by itself was not unusual: the difference now was that Sara couldn’t seem to help but get cross every time.
“What are you supposing this time, Sara?” Uncle Tom asked during one of their conversations, nothing but good nature in his tone.
“I was just wondering what Miss Minchin was doing now.” The former proprietress of the seminary next door hadn’t been seen in a long time, even when Sara came by to call for Ermengarde or the other children.
“Ah,” Carrisford cleared his throat with a pained expression. “Wouldn’t it be better to wonder about something else?”
“Uncle,” Sara said, helpless as the rage came. “I love telling stories and supposing all sorts of things, but I cannot suppose events away like they never happened when they did. Nor do I want to.”
While Emily was a good listener, she did not have words to comfort Sara in this trial or any other. Sara usually did not need such words, since she could often perceive the truths in a situation herself—such was the gift of a great storyteller. However, this influx of confusing emotion was too unfamiliar to her and she was not willing to yield that the changes were on an extended visit. Or worse, permanent.
“You’re unhappy,” Ermengarde observed during one of her visits. Sara usually had much to say, whether it be about Ermengarde's lessons or the many things that took root in her imagination. Today, Sara was thoughtful. Sara was always thoughtful, but Ermengarde, for all her unawareness in other matters, only grew more attuned to her as time passed.
“Unhappy?” Sara was genuinely surprised.
“You seem so.”
She considered whether or not this was true. “But I’m surrounded by people I love and who love me,” she pointed out, mostly to herself. "I won't go hungry, cold or tired anymore unless I cause it myself."
“Oh, well…” Ermengarde looked sheepish. “You are, yes, and indeed you won't. And you’re studying a lot, which I know pleases you. I’m sorry, you know me, I worry about everything! I still remember feeling so stupid before, when I hadn't realised you were starving whenever we met in your attic. I could have been helping that whole time instead of just the once if I wasn't so stuck in my own head.”
At this, Sara began to understand.
As soon as she was able, she asked Ram Dass to accompany her to town. He readily agreed, and they both went to the bakery wherein she once bought four buns and was given six. Here, she visited the girl she gave five of those buns to.
Anne, now Anne Brown, no longer looked starved and downtrodden. She was living simply but was obviously content with her lot. She had no complaints about helping out in Mrs. Brown's bakery and she was happy to distribute bread to the hungry with Sara’s blessing.
“You remember what it’s like to ache so much for just a bite to eat, don’t you?” Sara asked as they walked together, bread baskets in hand.
Anne looked at her for a long while, assessing. “Yes,” she replied. “And so do you.”
With something akin to relief, Sara began to tell her about how Uncle Tom was lovely but she couldn’t speak of anything from before she met him, how she felt like she was attacking him every time she implied anything less than absolute happiness. She talked about the Carmichael children, who were caring and took welcome interest in her beloved stories, but sometimes enjoyed them too much when it came to her time in servitude, not out of malice but of a distinct disconnect from the experience—and about their parents, who on the other hand seemed to pity her.
She talked about Becky, her friend still, even though Sara took too long to remember.
"Everyone calls me a princess," Sara said, feeling morose after speaking for longer than she intended. She only spoke so much when she was telling a story; this too, was one, but far more real than any of the others. She did not enjoy it, but still felt as if a great burden had been lifted. "I call myself a princess. I've always known that my definition of the word didn't quite match others, but I didn't know it contrasted so greatly. Now, I cannot be certain if I even fit either of the two."
"You are both," Anne reminded her. "You are as rich as a princess and as kind as one."
"I don't deserve to be!" Sara cried with a sudden burst of despair. "I have no business calling myself that. I endured hard days in the seminary without a complaint, but now I get so—so angry at people! At poor Uncle Tom for not wanting to pain me! And at my friends—it's not their fault that they've never gone through what I have and I don't wish it for them at all!" The only person she should be angry at was her illogical self and whatever darkness inside that bred the rages.
The Magic that saved her two years ago—surely she was betraying it by being so horrid. Her trials have ended yet she turned out to be rotten after all. Perhaps I'm a hideous child, and no one will ever know, just because I never have any trials, she told Ermengarde long ago, back when her father was still alive.
Papa. She missed him so badly. That grief, too, was going the peculiar route of sharpening even more as time passed and not the other way around. It was a blade embedded in Sara's heart, a soldier's wound that won't ever heal.
Papa, are you terribly displeased with how your Sara turned out?
Anne stayed silent for a while, thinking deeply. "I dunno about deserve, miss. We're different, too, you know. I was born starving and not I'm not. You were rich, then poor, then rich again. Who had it worse? Who says either of us deserved any of that, really? I dunno."
"But you understand."
Anne always looked Sara straight in the eyes, even when she was still a timid child who'd tasted kindness for the first time. She didn't needed to answer—just like how Sara didn't ask. Their souls recognized each other as kin, and Sara felt that she should've visited more often, with Becky even. Yet another thing to rectify.
"I know that one meal wasn't enough to fill me up, back then, and you can't solve heartaches in one day no matter how rich you are." She placed a hand on Sara's shoulder and steered them back to the direction of the bakery. "And I know that a few hot buns can ease any problem, even by just a little bit. Come along now, miss."