Chapter 8, The Other Side of the Wall In the kitchen, it was a mystery how the servants knew and gossiped about everything.
There, Sarah learned more about the Indian gentleman who had moved in next door.
He had come from India, but he was really an Englishman who had been living in India only while he worked on a new business.
He had become quite ill with brain fever and had still not fully gotten better.
For a time, it had seemed that his entire fortune was lost, and he had almost died from shame, along with his sickness.
His fortune had changed, though, and all that he owned had been given back to him.
Still knowing that he had let down his old-school chum and the little girl was too much to bear.
Sarah felt butterflies in her stomach.
The Indian gentleman's story was so much like her own papa's that if she hadn't seen him for herself, she might have thought they were one and the same person.
She was glad, at least for the Englishman's sake, that his story had turned out happier.
From then on, the Indian gentleman held a special place in her heart.
When she was sent out at night to fetch things instead of grumbling, she was now eager.
It gave her a better chance of spotting her new secret friend through his lighted window as he gazed sadly into the fire.
At night, she would lie awake wondering about him.
She wished that he had a little daughter, a little missus all his own, who could pamper him the way she had pampered her papa.
Oh, her dear papa.
It seemed like ages since she had sat at his knee talking of important things.
It was worlds away.
Meanwhile, right next door, on the other side of the wall, the Indian gentleman was lost in his own thoughts.
Mr. Carrisford, for that was his real name, was thinking that he ought to feel happier.
After all, he was a very lucky man.
After a period of forgetfulness caused by the brain fever, when he thought he had lost everything, his fortune had been returned and his brain was just about back to normal as well.
He had made many friends, including Mr Carmichael next door, the head of the large family in real life, and Mr Carmichael's little girls, especially Janet and Nora, were such a joy to him.
They visited often and brought him sweets and told him funny stories about their day.
One time they told him a quite unusual story, although it was hardly funny.
They told him about their encounter with a little girl who is not a beggar.
Ram Dass happened to hear what the girls were saying, and he came over to add to their story.
Why, that must be the same little girl who lives in the attic next door.
He then described Sarah's bare attic room with its worn-out floorboards and broken plaster, its rusty and empty fireplace grate and its hard, narrow bed.
"'I wonder how many poor little servant girls there are out there,' Carisford asked, "'sleeping on such hard, awful beds while we lie peacefully on our feather pillows.'
The thought seemed to sink him into an even deeper mire of sadness.
My dear friend begged, Mr Carmichael, who had arrived to pick up his daughters.
You must try not to think about such things.
You are still in a weakened state.
Please try to rest and not upset yourself.
So, but Mr Carrisford could not stop thinking of Sarah and her pitiful attic room.
"'Do you suppose,' he said slowly after a pause, "'that the other child—the child I never stopped thinking of and searching for,' he thought, "'could be out there somewhere in a similar place and in such misery?'
Mr. Carmichael didn't know what to say.
He knew, of course, what his friend was talking about, but there were no easy answers.
Mr. Carrisford had told him the whole story about Captain Crewe and his daughter.
Mr. Carrisford had gone to India to embark on an exciting new diamond mine business.
He had invited his old school chum, Captain Ralph Crewe, to be his partner.
Things had been going smoothly until both men had fallen ill with jungle fever, which affects the mind.
The fever had hit Carisford particularly hard.
He went so crazy that he was sure the business had failed.'
Half mad and scared by the thought of losing both men's money, he could not face his best friend.
He had run away and ended up in a hospital, somewhere where he did not wake up for weeks, or at least so he was told.
Of course, when he did wake up, his best friend was already dead and buried.
He died thinking that I had made him a pauper, and then run away.
He told Carmichael, his face full of pain.
It was already a sad story, but that wasn't the worst part.
Carisford's friend, Crewe, also had a little girl.
Crewe had often talked about his daughter, and Carisford knew that the child was away in boarding school somewhere waiting for her father to call her back to India.
But that was all he knew.
He did not know what city the boarding school was in or even what country.
It could have been Paris, London, or anywhere else in Europe.
Worst of all, he did not know even the little girl's name.
Her father had only spoken of her as his little missus.
She was out there somewhere, no doubt suffering, and he could do nothing about it.
Come now, said Carmichael, trying to comfort his friend.
It is a shame yes, that the little girl in Paris turned out to be the wrong little girl, but we will never stop looking for her.
We shall search high and low, and we will find her yet.
In fact, in a few days' time, I'm going to follow up on the clue you were given and go to Russia to look for her in Moscow.
Thank you.
Poor Carisford cried out, reaching for his friend's hand.
"'If I were a healthy man, I would go myself, but I must find the little missus.
I simply must.'
"'Until then,' Ram Dass advised, "'perhaps we can help the little missus right next door.
What do you think, sir?'
Carisford's eyes lit up, and he sat taller in his chair.
What do you suggest? he asked.
Ram Dass smiled, pulled out a small notepad, and drew his chair closer.
Well, for starters, we might try a little redecorate.
The next afternoon, while Sarah was out working, Melchizedek was also busy.
His job was to scour Sarah's room for any spare crumbs that she might have dropped.
Melchizedek had learned that no matter how little his roommate had to eat, she always left a tiny bit for him.
Sarah's room may not have been great for a little girl, but it was perfectly pleasant for a rat.
For starters, it was usually quiet, but on this day there was a ruckus.
It began with the sound of something moving on the roof, coming toward the window.
Then there was the sound of the window creaking open.
Melchizedek ran behind the wall and peeked out from his tiny hole.
He could see two faces peering into the window, both filled with caution and interest.
It was Ram Dass and another young man, Carisford's secretary.
But, of course, Melchizedek didn't know this.
He stood perfectly still and shook, well, like a mouse.
When, slipping through the window after Ram Dass, the secretary caught a glimpse of Melchizedek's shaking tail.
Is that a rat? he asked Ram Dass in a frightened whisper.
Yes, Ram Dass replied, but the child is not afraid.
She is the little friend of all things.
You seem to know much about her, observed the secretary.
I do know her, Ram Dass agreed.
I often watch her from my own window to make sure that she is safe.
I observe her in her sadness and her poor joys, her cold and her hunger.
I know when her friends sneak up to visit her and I know when they leave and she cries herself to sleep.
Finally, because I can sometimes hear her through the open window.
I know the things that she pretends in order to survive.
And her pretend world, that's why we're here, the secretary tried hard to understand.
Exactly, Ram Dass smiled.
Ram Dass took out his notepad again.
He had already written several pages of notes on Sarah since that day when he overheard Sarah telling Ermengarde and Lottie everything that the attic could be.
If only they pretended.
Thick, soft, blue Indian rug, he had written, and cozy couch.
Tiger-skin rug in front of fire.
He had put down below that and then lamps, pictures on the wall.
Why, this bed is awful, the secretary exclaimed, sitting on it.
It's as hard as stone and there is barely a blanket to keep warm.
Ram Dass held up his notepad.
There, on the bottom of one of the pages, in big, bold letters, he had written, Comfortable bed.
Warm silk bedspread.
Do you really think we can give her everything she has pretended? the secretary asked.
We will give her more than even she could ever imagine, Ram Dass replied.
Mr. Keversford has agreed to fund the secret operation.
He has been making himself so sick over the missing crew girl that he will gladly do whatever he can to help this girl.
In the meantime,
Ram Dass smiled, remembering the gleam of hope that had come back into his kind employer's eyes when talking about the plan.
"'It will be good for him,' he concluded.
"'But do you really think it can be done while she sleeps?' the secretary asked.
"'I can walk as softly as if my feet were made of velvet.'
Ram Dass assured him, and children sleep soundly, even unhappy ones.
When she wakes up, the secretary said she will think a magician has been in her chambers like a story from the Arabian Nights.
Ram Dass agreed.
After taking a few more notes, the two men slipped back out through the window as quietly as they had come in.
Melchizedek was very relieved.
After he was sure the two strange men were gone, he came out of his hole again.
He scuffled around a bit in the hope that even the two scary strangers might have dropped a crumb or two.
