A SHAM PRINCESS

BY

EGLANTON THORNE

AUTHOR OF "THE OLD WORCESTER JUG," "WORTHY OF HIS NAME," ETC., ETC.

LONDON

THE RELIGIOUS TRACT SOCIETY

56 PATERNOSTER ROW AND 65 ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD

BUTLER & TANNER THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS FROME, AND LONDON.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I. HER DEVOTED SUBJECT

CHAPTER II. A FAIRY'S VISIT

CHAPTER III. THE PRINCESS DEPARTS

CHAPTER IV. THE PRINCESS'S LETTER

CHAPTER V. THE NEW LODGER

CHAPTER VI. BERT GAINS A FRIEND

CHAPTER VII. THE QUEEN'S JUBILEE

CHAPTER VIII. IN THE HOSPITAL

CHAPTER IX. AN INTERVIEW WITH THE PRINCESS

CHAPTER X. THE PRINCESS RETURNS

CHAPTER XI. A FLASH OF LIGHT

CHAPTER XII. AT THE LAST EXTREMITY

CHAPTER XIII. DEAD AND ALIVE AGAIN

A SHAM PRINCESS

CHAPTER I

Her Devoted Subject

"COULD it be that the Princess was going to die?" Bert held his breath as the thought smote him. He could almost hear the beating of his heart as he stood motionless, arrested by the painful idea, and gazed with anxious eyes on his sleeping sister.

Prin had been ill for more than a week, so ill that the parish doctor had come every day to see her; but Bert had never thought of death before.

The idea having presented itself, was not easily to be dismissed. He looked at Prin's white, sunken face, at the dark veins on her forehead, at the thin, white hands that were folded on her bosom; he listened to her quick, difficult breathing, and his fear deepened. How could he bear it if Prin died?

It was a small, mean room in which the brother and sister lived. The dirty, sodden paper hung in strips from the wall; the flooring was rotten, with holes gaping here and there; the place reeked of damp and worse; the window, dim with dirt, looked on to a foul area; it was hardly a room in which any patient was likely to make a good recovery.

The bed on which the sick girl lay looked very comfortless. Yet some one had arranged the grimy pillows in the best way possible, so that she lay at ease, and tended her so carefully that her white skin and fair hair had a purity which contrasted strangely with her dingy surroundings. This was their neighbour, Mrs. Kay, a woman who lived on the floor above, a native of Scotland, but who retained few traces of her Scotch upbringing save a faint and somewhat intermittent belief in the virtues of cleanliness. Bert had been wont to speak of her as the "cross old woman," for she had a sharp tongue and little patience with the ways of children; but she had not been cross at all since Prin fell ill, a fact which now struck Bert as ominous.

Bert knew what was the matter with his sister. She had had measles, and now, as he had heard the doctor say, they were succeeded by bronchitis. Bert himself had had measles; in fact, he had conveyed the infection to the Princess; but his ailment had been over in a couple of days. Clearly this "brownkitus," as he called it, was a much more serious thing.

Prin had been fretful and restless all day, but now at last she slept. As he watched her deep slumber, Bert took comfort from it. "If she sleep, she shall do well," he said to himself, not aware that he was making a quotation, though the words were a fleeting reminiscence of a Scripture lesson.

Suddenly, as he thought thus, there arose an uproar in the street above. It was never a quiet street by day or night. Fights and rows were of frequent occurrence, so that Bert was not surprised, though he was much annoyed when the sound of angry voices in hot altercation broke on his ear. If Prin were suddenly roused and affrighted, she would lose all the good that this sleep was doing her.

Bert was up the area steps in a moment, to see what he could do. Some lads, considerably bigger than himself, were causing the disturbance. The ringleader of the mischief had taken up his position, with his back against the railings of the area, and was inviting the others to "come on." With more pluck than discretion, Bert flew at him.

"Get out of this," he cried, shoving against him with all his might; "you don't stand here and make a row. Get out, I say. My sister's below very ill, and I won't have her woke by you, you big, hulking brutes!"

It was not a conciliatory mode of address, and it was hardly calculated to secure quiet. On the contrary, it created a greater hubbub.

The lad thus assailed by Bert turned upon him with an oath, and dealt him a violent blow on the head. The others, foreseeing a new diversion, forgot their common quarrel and closed around Bert. It would have gone badly with him—for these young street ruffians had no hesitation in attacking one so unequally matched with them—had not the doctor's trap at that moment driven up to the door.

"What is all this about?" he demanded as he stepped out. At the sound of his authoritative voice the cowards took to their heels, and Bert emerged from their midst with a bleeding face and torn clothing.

"What have they done to you? Let me see," said the doctor, in sharp but not unkindly tones. "Why do you go with such boys as those? You did something to provoke them, I suppose?"

"I only told them to move on because my sister was asleep, and I did not want them to wake her," said Bert.

"Ah, and they did not choose to be commanded by you?" said the doctor. "Well, I advise you to be more diplomatic the next time you hold parley with the enemy. But now wash the blood from your face, and I'll put a piece of plaster over that cut for you. Oh, you live here, do you? So, I see it is your sister I am attending."

Bert wondered that the doctor should not know him again. He followed him down the dirty steps of the area. In a few minutes Bert's face was dressed, and the doctor turned his attention to the sleeping child, whom the noises without had failed to rouse.

"Please, sir, is she better?" asked Bert anxiously.

"She is," said the doctor decidedly, when he had made his examination, only partially waking the girl in doing so; "she really is better."

"Then you don't think, sir, that she will die?" said Bert.

"Die! What put that into your head? No, if only—" he paused, and glanced round the dismal room with rather a hopeless expression—"if only she could have good air and good food, I should say she might do well. What she wants is to be sent into the country as soon as she is a little better."

Bert's face fell. The country seemed to him as far-away as heaven. If Prin's recovery depended on her going there, the chances were sorely against her.

"Where is your mother?" asked the doctor.

Bert stared for a moment ere he replied,—

"We ain't got none. Our mother died ever so long ago; before I can remember."

"Then who is the woman I have always seen with you?"

"You mean Mrs. Kay. She's out just now, sir."

"Then Mrs. Kay takes care of you, I suppose?"

"Yes," said Bert, with considerable hesitation, however; "she does when—"

"When she is not drunk," he had been about to say, but he checked himself. He was not willing to expose the failings of one who during the last few days had proved herself so kind a neighbour.

"You have a father, of course?" said the gentleman.

"No, sir, not now," replied Bert; "he died in the hospital last summer."

Dr. Hurst looked keenly at the boy. His face was honest; his blue eyes had a frank, open expression. It was plain he was speaking the truth.

"Then who keeps you children?"

"We keeps ourselves, sir."

"What do you mean? You're too young to work for your living."

"I shall soon be eleven, sir," said Bert, stretching his diminutive frame to its utmost height, "and Prin's two years older. I sells papers of an evening, and sometimes matches, and runs errands for people; and Prin, she minds babies and helps Mrs. Kay. But the worst of it is, Prin is not strong, and she soon gets tired. I often have to work for her as well as myself."

"Upon my word you are a brave little man," said the doctor, looking at him admiringly. He had already perceived that these children—the boy with his open, intelligent face, the girl with her pretty, delicate features—were of another type from most of the children who swarmed in that narrow slum. But he had taken it for granted that Mrs. Kay was their mother.

"Who was your father?" he asked.

"He was a scene-shifter at the theatre, sir, and mother was one of the ladies of the theatre," said Bert, with evident pride in the announcement. "We used to live near Drury Lane at one time."

He did not explain that his father had lost his work through drink, and drifted lower and lower until his death.

Dr. Hurst stood musing on the facts thus presented to him. He felt that he had not sufficiently interested himself in these children. He was naturally a kind-hearted man, but long familiarity with the squalid homes amid which his work lay had blunted his susceptibilities.

His own life was a disappointment to him. Partly through his faults, partly by the force of circumstances, his medical career had proved somewhat of a failure. He had not anticipated that in mid-life he would hold the position of parish doctor in one of the lowest districts of London. The failure of his hopes had embittered him. He had grown cynical, morose, and inclined to take the darkest view of human nature. He was more often swayed by suspicion than by sympathy in his dealings with the poor. But he was touched by this boy's simple account of the life which he and his sister led. He looked on him with eyes softened by pity, and longed to do something to help these orphan children.

"What is your name, boy?" he asked.

"Bertram Sinclair," replied the boy promptly.

"And your sister's?"

"Eleanor Eliza," said Bert.

"But I thought you called her something else—some name beginning with P?"

"Oh, Prin, sir—that's short for Princess, you know; but that's not her real name. Father used to call her Princess, because she once took part in a pantomime as a little princess. My! And didn't she look a princess too! You should just have seen her. Her frock was all white, and it sparkled so it made your eyes water to look at it. And she had diamonds in her hair and on her neck, and white satin shoes, and a fan that sparkled too. You couldn't have known her from a real princess."

"As real as the diamonds, no doubt," said the doctor drily. "Ah, so you call her Princess still."

He turned to look again at his patient. She was sleeping soundly once more. Her face was flushed now with a delicate rose, like the lining of a shell. She looked pretty and refined enough to be a princess; but the dingy pillows, the dark, unlovely room were a strange setting for that dainty, fairy-like head and face.

The doctor had smiled as he turned towards her; but the smile died away and a sad expression took its place. His eyes grew moist for a moment as he murmured, "Poor little Princess!"

It was so unusual for him to yield to such emotion that he felt ashamed of the momentary weakness, and with a quick assumption of his ordinary manner turned to the little lad, saying briskly,—

"Well, good day. Don't forget that the Princess needs feeding. Give her plenty of milk and good beef-tea, if you can get it."

That if was very much to the point. A look came into the boy's eyes that made the doctor feel that his words were cruel in their carelessness. "I might as well have ordered her champagne and oysters," he said to himself. Then Dr. Hurst did something which astonished himself. He put his hand in his pocket, drew out a shilling and threw it on the bed.

"There, lad, spend that on milk or beef for the Princess. It is to go for nothing else, mind."

Bert nodded gravely as he picked up the coin. He looked wonderfully relieved. He stood gazing at the coin with an air of extreme satisfaction, and it did not occur to him to utter a word of thanks.

But the doctor felt that he had been abundantly thanked as he hurried away from the miserable room. He entered the children's names in his note-book ere he drove away.

"A case for Mrs. Thornton," he said to himself. "I must interest her in these young waifs."

CHAPTER II

A Fairy's Visit

THE Princess was better. She was no longer in bed. Mrs. Kay had helped her to rise and dress herself; and now, in her shabby, threadbare frock, with thin, broken shoes on her feet, she sat on a hard, wooden chair, beside the little handful of fire which Bert had managed to kindle in the rusty grate.

She was a very miserable princess. She had felt ill enough as she lay on her comfortless bed, but she felt far worse now as she tried to sit upright on the hard chair, with its straight, uneasy back. Her limbs ached, her head throbbed, and every now and then she was conscious of a sick, giddy sensation, when the room seemed to go round with her, and she had to clutch at the chair to keep herself from falling. If only she had had a mother to care for her, and could have felt the comfort of a mother's love in the sore depression which was the result of weakness!

Mrs. Kay was well-meaning; but since she knew the young patient to be out of danger, her manner had grown stern again. Her better self, the self of long ago, had re-asserted itself during the days when Prin needed to be watched and tended from hour to hour; but already the good influence was past. Evil habits had resumed their sway over her. She was the "cross old woman" again, and when she was not at the laundry, where she earned her living, she was drinking in the public-house over the way.

Bert was kneeling by the fire, dividing his attention between a small saucepan, which was simmering on the hob, and his sister, on whom, from time to time, he cast glances expressive of anxiety.

"Do you feel better, Prin?" he asked, not for the first time.

"I do wish you wouldn't keep asking me if I feel better," she answered pettishly; "I feel worse, I tell you, a great deal worse than I did when I was in bed. Can't you believe me?"

"But you can't really be worse," said Bert, seeking to reassure himself. "The doctor says you are better, and Mrs. Kay says so, so you must be better."

"I suppose they know my feelin's better than I do," replied the Princess scornfully; "I tell you I am worse, and I ought to know, I should think."

"Well, p'raps you'll feel better to-morrow," said Bert cheerfully.

"No, I shan't; I shall never feel well again. I only wish I was dead."

"Oh, Prin!" exclaimed Bert reproachfully. "When I want you so much to live! What could I do without you?"

"You would do just as well without me as with me," she said.

"I shouldn't do at all. I should die too," said Bert. "But don't talk of dying; just wait till you've had some of this beef-tea, and you'll feel as fit as possible."

As he spoke he lifted the lid of the saucepan, and a savoury odour was emitted. Bert's nostrils inhaled it with avidity. He was so hungry that he could have despatched in a few minutes all that the saucepan contained. But he had no intention of tasting more than a few drops, just to assure himself of the success of his cookery. Bert was feeling rather proud of his first attempt at making beef-tea. He had spent the last of the doctor's shilling on the beef—which was not of the primest quality—had got a hint from Mrs. Kay how to set to work, and the result was now to be tested. But the odour which Bert found so savoury only sickened the Princess, and to his keen disappointment she could not drink the weak, greasy decoction which he presently set before her.

"Take it away," she cried impatiently; "I don't like it; I don't want it."

And then to Bert's dismay, her head sank forward on her hands, and she began to sob helplessly. This was unlike the Princess, who was usually quick and imperious in her ways, and, though by no means sweet-tempered, perfectly self-controlled.

She signed to Bert to help her back to bed, and he obeyed. She sank down, hid her face in the pillow, and sobbed with hysterical violence, crying between her sobs,—"I wish I were dead. I do—I do!"

Bert stood looking at her in utter helplessness. He was devoted to his sister; but he was wont to regard her as one far stronger and more spirited than himself. She was his ruler, and her government was not of the gentlest description; but her faithful slave never rebelled. Their father had always petted and indulged her, while he made small account of Bert, whose appearance was mean and insignificant. The Princess was ever the Princess, to be treated with the first consideration, and given the best of everything it was possible to obtain. Bert had learned the lesson well. It never occurred to him to question her right to supremacy. He was as obedient to her now as he had been in the days when his father was at hand to insist upon his doing as she told him. It was positively alarming to Bert to see his sovereign thus prostrate.

"Don't cry, Princess," he pleaded; "oh, please, don't cry! It ain't no manner of use to cry. If things is bad to-day, they'll be better to-morrow."

"They will never be better for us," sobbed the Princess. "Look what a hole we live in! Could any one be well here?"

Bert thought he might be well enough there, if only he had something to stay the gnawing pain of hunger, of which he was just then disagreeably conscious. But he did not speak of his own feelings.

"If only you could go into the country, you would soon be well," he remarked; "the doctor said so."

"What is the good of saying it when I can't go?" asked the Princess peevishly. "You make me feel worse by talking of it. Oh, I am so thirsty! If only I had an orange!"

Bert looked around him in despair. He wished he had bought oranges instead of beef! Now he had not a penny left. His eyes searched for something that he could pawn; but there seemed nothing of any value that could be spared. Bert, however, was a boy of hopeful spirit.

"Just take a drink of this now," he said, bringing his sister a mug of water, "and I'll see if I can't get you an orange by-and-by."

The Princess drank a little of the water. Bert made a clumsy but well-meaning attempt to set her pillows comfortably, and then was off into the street. There was a metropolitan station not far from the street in which he lived. Bert made for this, in the hope of earning a penny by carrying a parcel or calling a cab. But there was no such luck for him this afternoon. Numbers of persons passed out of the station while he waited; but none of them wanted a boy. The ladies seemed to prefer to carry their own parcels, and there was no demand for cabs. He had no capital with which to start paper or match-selling.

He waited till the March evening closed in, and then, chill and weary, and hungrier than ever, he went home to see how the Princess was faring.

He halted for a moment at the top of the area steps. He did not like to present himself to the Princess without the orange which he had hoped to bring her. He dreaded her reproaches, and still more her tears. But there was no help for it. Slowly he opened the door and stole in. But the sight that met his eyes made him think for a moment that he had mistaken the house. He stood on the threshold and fairly gasped with surprise.

The first thing that met his astonished eyes was a heap of golden oranges lying on the dingy coverlid of the Princess's bed. Then he saw that the little rickety table beyond was spread with quite festal fare, and Prin, looking like her old self, and wearing a wonderful pink flannel jacket, was presiding over the feast, while Mrs. Kay, her bonnet on one side and her face suspiciously flushed, stood before the bright little fire engaged in toasting what looked remarkably like a muffin.

"Oh, come along, Bert!" exclaimed the Princess. "Here you are at last! I thought you never were coming!"

"Oh, Prin," gasped Bert, "where did you get those oranges and all those things?"

"Ah, you may well ask. There's been a fairy here since you went away. She brought me those oranges, and some tea and sugar, and that strengthening jelly; and she gave Mrs. Kay money to get firing and milk. Oh, you needn't look like that, Bert; it's quite true."

"A fairy!" stammered Bert. "There ain't no such things."