Summary
The winter following Sara's downfall is a dismal one, and she and Becky get through it by telling each other stories and imagining that they are princesses or prisoners in the Bastille. On one particularly cold day, when she is running errands, Sara fantasizes about finding sixpence and spending it at a bakery. Lo and behold, she finds a four-penny piece buried in the mud, and realizes that she is right in front of a bakery selling delicious buns. But before she can go in, she sees a child in even worse shape than herself—one who has clearly been sleeping on the streets instead of in an attic. Sara asks the woman in the bakery if she has lost the fourpence, and the woman, realizing that Sara is going hungry, gives her six buns instead of the four she can technically afford with her coin. Sara gives five to the hungry child, keeping only one, and the woman in the bakery is so amazed by what she has witnessed that she invites the homeless child inside to warm up in honor of Sara's obvious sacrifice. As she nears the seminary, Sara spots the children of the large family bidding their father, Mr. Carmichael, farewell: he is going to Moscow to try to find a certain "little girl." Sara wonders who the little girl is, oblivious to the fact that she is the child in question. Meanwhile, the Carmichael children watch her go by, wondering what her story is and why she is always being sent on such seemingly unpleasant errands.
The next chapter pivots playfully to the perspective of Melchisedec, the only witness to an interesting incident in the attic while Sara is out. He sees two men breaking into the room via the skylight—Ram Dass and Mr. Carrisford's secretary, though Melchisedec does not know this. Ram Dass reveals that he watches Sara through their windows, and that she is a friend to all, even rats. He also references a plan being made by Mr. Carrisford, evidently to surprise Sara, hence the two men's decision to enter the room in her absence. They examine the shabby room, noting ways in which they might improve it, and discussing how excited Sara will be to see her room transformed. Ram Dass admits that this plan was his idea at first, but was then embraced by Carrisford himself. Carrisford, who is ill, is cheered by stories of Sara's kindness, even though he is upset that he cannot find Captain Crewe's daughter. The secretary compliments the secretiveness and cleverness of Ram Dass's idea, telling him that "only an oriental could have planned it."
Sara has no idea that anyone is planning to surprise her. She arrives home tired and hungry, and the bad-tempered cook gives her only stale bread for dinner. Luckily Ermengarde has come to visit and brought some books, which her father has sent her to read. Sara, who loves books, offers to read them and explain them to Ermengarde. Ermengarde plans to lie to her father and pretend to have read the books, but Sara encourages her to come clean, saying that lying is "vulgar." After all, Sara says, learning new things quickly isn't nearly as important as being kind to others, so Ermengarde's father won't mind. Then Sara tells Ermengarde about the French Revolution so vividly that Ermengarde knows she won't forget. Ermengarde isn't very observant, but she does point out how thin Sara looks, though Sara, never one to complain of hunger, tries to change the subject. Then the girls hear a series of disturbances. Ram Dass peeks in through the skylight, and while they don't see him, Sara does hear him on the roof. Then they hear Miss Minchin yelling at Becky in her own attic room, accusing her of stealing a pie. Evidently, thought the cook has stolen a pie, she has accused Becky of doing so. Sara begins to sob, and Ermengarde realizes that her friend is starving. Ermengarde realizes that her aunt has just sent her a box full of delicious food, and she offers to go find the box and sneak it into Sara's room. The girls invite Becky to join their feast. While Ermengarde is gone fetching the box, Sara and Becky set a table with some random objects from around the room, pretending that they are beautiful dishes and centerpieces, and that they are hosting a royal feast. Ermengarde has only just returned with her box of food, though, when Miss Minchin discovers the girls. She has been clued into their secret gathering by Lavinia. She promises to punish all three girls, which, in Sara's case, more or less means starvation. Sara, left dejected and alone, doesn't know that Ram Dass has been watching her.
Sara goes to bed, and, when she wakes in the middle of the night, she is covered by a warm quilt. Her room has new furniture and a roaring fire in the hearth, plus a table set with food. At first she's convinced the transformation is a dream, but eventually she realizes the room is really transformed, and finds a note that reads, "To the little girl in the attic. From a friend." She wakes Becky and the girls stare in disbelief at the seemingly magic change that has occurred. The girls stay awake, enjoying the fire and the food. Sara is most excited, though, by the knowledge that someone seems to be looking out for her. Before the girls go to sleep, Becky announces that she treasures the transformation, even if it is temporary, and commits the beautiful room to memory. In the morning, the whole school knows that Sara, Becky, and Ermengarde are in trouble. Becky would have been kicked out except that nobody else is willing to do her difficult job, and Sara would have been except that Miss Minchin wants to make use of her cleverness by making her teach classes. Meanwhile, Jessie and Lavinia argue about Lavinia's choice to report on Sara: Lavinia defends herself, while Jessie expresses horror over Sara's working conditions. Sara, though, looks healthy and happy after her surprise, much to Miss Minchin's chagrin. Sara is treated even more cruelly than usual, but when she returns to her room, it has been utterly transformed again, even more extravagantly. Every evening, when Sara returns to her room, she finds new additions. One day she finds a package addressed to "the girl in the right-hand attic," and opens it in front of Miss Minchin. It contains practical, expensively made clothes and a note promising that more will be provided whenever they are needed.
Sara is happy except for one thing: she wants to thank her secret guardian, but doesn't yet know his identity. She writes a letter profusely thanking her caretaker and leaves it on her table, hoping that the person who brings gifts to her room will find it and retrieve it. The letter disappears one day when she is out, and she knows it has been received. In her room with Becky that evening, she hears a sound near her skylight and realizes that Ram Dass's monkey is trying to enter. She lets the monkey in and snuggles up to it, pleased to have a new animal friend. She tells Becky that the monkey will sleep in her room, and that she will return him the next morning.
Analysis
These chapters, in which Sara's life is secretly improving for reasons that remain mysterious to almost everyone around her, provide a great deal of insight into the mechanisms of cruelty that have made her miserable for so long. In theory, Miss Minchin, the most villainous character in the book, should be happy that Sara looks healthy and happy. After all, Miss Minchin isn't the one paying for her extra food and nicer housing, and Sara continues to do every task that Miss Minchin assigns her, whether it's tutoring children in French or running errands. But Miss Minchin's particular brand of cruelty isn't rooted in any kind of logical self-interest, so she reacts with anger to the changes she sees in Sara. What Miss Minchin wants above all else is to see Sara's spirit broken, and she will not be satisfied until Sara loses her self-control. Another, more mundane cruelty appears in the character of Lavinia. Lavinia is motivated primarily by jealousy. She, too, wants to see Sara brought to heel, but she tells on Sara and Becky simply because she resents the attention Sara gets relative to herself. Sara also faces unkindness from other servants, most prominently the cook. Though the character of the cook is not portrayed sympathetically, Burnett hints that the servants at Miss Minchin's are cruel because they themselves are treated badly. This is treated in the novel as an explanation for the cook's manner, though not as a justification for it. After all, Sara is mistreated and still acts kindly towards others.
One of the groups towards whom Sara extends such kindness is animals. Animals are a common presence in children's books, often acting as kind, helpful presences even when the adult world has turned unkind. Since Sara is dehumanized by most people and is herself treated somewhat like an animal, she is able to relate to the monkey and to Melchisedec. Because this book tends to portray Ram Dass, an Indian man, through a racist lens, he also is described as having certain animal-like traits and as generally being different from other people—hence the secretary's assertion that only an "Oriental" could have invented the kind of surprise he proposes. In any case, Sara's friendship with the dehumanized means that we get to experience a chapter through the eyes of Melchisedec the rat—he has been humanized by Sara to the extent that he becomes a reliable narrator for us. This point-of-view shift creates several effects. For one thing, it demonstrates the strength of the strange network of friendships Sara has created. In the chapter narrated by Melchisedec, two humans plan a surprise for Sara, and, in the meantime, a rat watches over her room protectively. Therefore, without her knowledge, two completely different parties are present, offering their love and support to her: we see that she is not quite as alone in the world as she believes. The scene also serves a clever suspense-building purpose. Rather than delving into the point of view of Ram Dass and Mr. Carrisford's secretary, and therefore giving away Sara's surprise completely to the reader, Burnett portrays the scene through the eyes of a completely clueless third party. Therefore, readers garner enough information to know that these men are planning something to surprise Sara. Yet we don't pick up enough clues to know exactly what that surprise is, since we don't have access to Ram Dass's thoughts.
When Ram Dass's surprise does arrive, it is described with luxurious, detailed imagery, a welcome contrast from images of cold, muddy London and Sara's barren attic. However, readers might notice that, while Sara shares with Becky, Becky does not receive any gifts herself. This is strange, given that Becky is perhaps in even worse condition than Sara, and has been in these conditions for longer. But Becky does not provoke curiosity and empathy in strangers the way Sara does. Some of this comes from Sara's friendly, charming personality, but some of it comes from the class difference between the two girls. Neither girl has any money, but Sara has been brought up in a higher social class—and, while money can come and go, class is, in the world of this novel, immutable. Though Sara has no money, strangers realize that she is upper-class because of her manners and accent. Indeed, manners are important to Sara, and maintaining them helps her retain a sense of self. In chapter 15, she tells Ermengarde that lying to her father might be "wicked," but that the reason she cannot support it is because it would be "vulgar"—that is, ill-mannered. Ermengarde, for her part, tells Sara that she could not be mistaken for a "street beggar." Through these statements, both girls articulate a belief that Sara is poor, but not lower-class. Her upper-class behaviors encourage others to see her as deserving of luxuries. Becky, meanwhile, is lower-class, and while the novel certainly condemns her inhumane treatment, Burnett also portrays her as intrinsically tougher and more suited for difficulty than Sara.
Largely because of Sara's class identity, it is necessary for the resolution of the novel that her full status be restored. That is, she cannot merely regain the material pleasures and necessities of life: to truly be redeemed and get her revenge on Miss Minchin and the others who have persecuted her, she must be acknowledged publicly as the high-status daughter of Captain Crewe. In these chapters, Burnett prepares the reader for just such a resolution, since Mr. Carrisford and Mr. Carmichael are both heavily involved in finding the missing Sara Crewe. Since Sara is unaware that she is being looked for, this creates an exciting, suspenseful interest of dramatic irony. But it also assures readers that, in spite of Sara's inevitable rejoining of the upper classes, she would be loved and cared for regardless. Mr. Carrisford wants to find his wealthy friend's lost daughter, but he also wants to help his next-door neighbor, who is, to his knowledge, not important or high-status in any way. Therefore, readers know that the man is kind to people regardless of their background, even while he seeks to restore Sara to her proper place in society.
