Headscratchers / A Little Princess

• In the book, Captain Crewe's lawyers in London clearly knew exactly where Sara was the whole time, since they dealt directly with Miss Minchin after Captain Crewe's death. Even in turn-of-the-century London,^note Especially in turn-of-the-century London. there should have been some kind of paper trail that would have saved Carrisford the hassle of running all over Russia and France to find Sara. Why couldn't Carrisford contact the lawyers about the location of Crewe's daughter? And for that matter, why didn't Crewe, who knew there was a chance of dying in India, leave instructions on how to find his daughter in the event that something happened to him?
  • More strangely, in the book, Carmichael is sent to France looking for Sara (knowing only her last name, not her first name) and meets with Madam Pascal, a woman who ran a French school. She mentions a student left orphaned after the death of her father, who was a British officer in India. That student was adopted by a Russian couple, so Carmichael must then go to Russia searching for her. When he finally locates the girl, he finds that her surname is Carew, not Crewe, and she is too young to be Sara. But how would Madam Pascal not know her own student's name and age? There was paperwork! They didn't know Sara's first name but they certainly did know Ralph Crewe's. It should have been far more simple to ask Madame Pascal about the identity of that student and parent than to go to Russia in the vague hope of finding a single child who had recently been adopted!
  • Stranger still, Captain Crewe and Sara had employees and friends in India. Moreover he's CAPTAIN Crewe, a military man, meaning he has superiors and subordinates he likely gushed about his daughter to over the years. The plausibility of Carrisford not being able to find out Sara's first name from what's implied by Sara to be a decent number of people, including a personal maid, is perplexing to say the least. It's possible that he bolted from India before trying to research this, but one of the people he was paying to help find her might have at least considered it before chasing rumors in France and Russia.
    • They assume the 'Carew' pronunciation is her French accent, or a misremembering. Carrisford doesn't know exactly how old Sara is, and only vaguely thinks the school would be in Paris because Sara's mother was a Frenchwoman. When Carmichael finds a girl who vaguely fits what they think they know, he explores that option. Carrisford also says that he only spoke about the diamond mines, and Sara was referred to as 'little missus' not by a Christian name. Sara has been at the school for many years, her personal servants from India would likely have been sent to serve other families and be nearly untraceable. This troper thinks it is likely that any physical paperwork pertaining to Sara and her school location would probably have been in desk drawers that would have been seized to pay off the debts following Crew's death: it is entirely possibly that if there was a birth certificate, letters to/from Sara at Minchin's or other paperwork it would have been disposed of by whoever wanted to take the fancy desk as payment for their services. Equally, any information about who Crew's lawyer in London was would have been in the same place: so when Carrisford regained his senses enough to check, the paper trail might have vanished.
    • Still, it seems strange that the lawyers wouldn't have been contacted immediately (since they served Crewe's estate) once the fortune turned out to be real, particularly since the lawyer even tells Miss Minchin that Crewe died owing them a great deal of money. I like to imagine there's a whole secret backstory where the lawyers knew everything the whole time and kept quiet about Sara's whereabouts while they tried to find a legal loophole so they could claim the fortune for themselves.
    • Carrisford does know how old Sara is, roughly, or he wouldn't be able to state that the girl he found in Russia was far too young. Again, it's almost impossible to believe that it was easier for him to find one girl, in all of Russia, who had been adopted from France, and thus determine she was the wrong girl, than it was to simply ask Madam Pascal how old the child was and what her father's name was. The owner of the school would know more than just "some British officer" since there would have been paperwork. Really the whole Paris section of the story only makes sense if he never spoke to Madam Pascal at all but only heard secondhand rumors about there being a little girl adopted away, or if the other man had coincidentally been named Ralph Carew and they'd been so certain they had the right trail that they got overexcited.
  • The 1986 miniseries has Carmichael say that Crewe's commanding officer who handled settling his estate burned all of his paperwork and the Indian maid who looked after Sara disappeared, so they had no leads to go on on the Indian side. The series also implies that the Sonya Carew lead came very soon after he started the search and he and Carrisford were so surprised at their luck they were certain they were on the right track and pursued it to the end before starting over.
• In the book, Sara became rich again because the diamond mines her father invested his fortune in turned out to have diamonds after all. Wouldn't it become news back in England since the biggest investors are from there?
  • It's possible there was news amongst investors and bankers, but that sort of specific financial information wouldn't be likely to leak down to a girls' boarding school outside of the precise circumstances it did leak down; i.e., somebody's father suddenly became very wealthy because of it. And once the lawyers dropped Miss Minchin, she was probably out of the loop, too.
• In the book, Lavinia is mentioned to be 13 years old around the time when Sara enters the school at age 7. The story ends when Sara is about 12/13 years old herself, meaning Lavinia is likely in her last teen years or even going on 20. Would she still be in a school at such an age? Wouldn't she be taken back by her parents? Or are we to assume that she's such an Alpha Bitch that not even her parents want to deal with her anymore?
  • The most likely explanation for this is a continuity error between the serialized version of the story and the novel: in the serial, Sara is only at the school, as both a pupil and as a servant, for three years, and Lavinia is stated to be sixteen at the end. The novel states that Sara spent ten years altogether at the school... yet Lavinia is still there at (apparently) age twenty-three.
  • Having had two different editions of the book could explain this; in one edition I own it states that Sara was there ten years; however I have another edition that states four years. I have wondered which one was the misprint. However, I cant remember if the novel stated that she was at the school ten years or was due to be at the school ten years, but only stayed 3 to 4 years.
    • In the original 1888 story, the first line of Chapter Four states that "If Sara had been a different kind of child, the life she led at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary for the next ten years would not have been at all good for her." A copy of the 1905 edition changes it to "for the next few years".
• How accurate are the book's and films' depiction of British servanthood? Everything else I've read gives me the impression that British servants even at this point in history were employees — probably underpaid and overworked but still employees doing a job (however miserable) in exchange for wages (however small). The book and films depict Sara and Becky more like slaves — doing hard labor for no pay and reliant upon their owners/masters for food and shelter. Employers may pay employees not enough wages to fill their stomachs, but I can't imagine an employer forbidding their employees from eating — no other portrayal I've ever read of paid servants depicts them being Denied Food as Punishment. Yes, Sara's situation is unique because Minchin considers Sara as working off a debt, not in exchange for wages, but Becky's situation is no better — we never see Becky getting paid or saving or spending money she's earned, either. While scullery maids may have been at the bottom of the servants' hierarchy and have the most degrading, miserable tasks, weren't they still paid employees at this point in British history?
  • Yes, but child labor laws as we know them were not. Minchin probably used age as part of her justification for treating Becky and Sara so cruelly. Had anyone bothered to question her, which no one did, she could have made the girls' situations look much better than they were, and then gone back to her old ways once she was no longer under scrutiny. In fact, this crosses into Fridge Horror if you consider: how many other young girls has Minchin treated like this? Has she ever turned other pupils into servants because of parental death, debt, etc.?
    • Note that in the 1995 adaptation, Becky is African-American. The story is set in America, in post-slavery 1914. Still, life for African-Americans, especially children, would still have been extremely rough, especially if those kids were orphans as Becky seems to be and as Sara becomes.
    • Also note that in adaptations where Becky is white and British, as true to the source material, she speaks with a Cockney accent. Her command and expression of English, let alone who her parents were, would have meant that in her time period, she would never have been expected to rise above a servant's station, whether or not Minchin was in the picture. In fact, it would have been impossible. The best she could hope for would be a better place to work, with decent hours and wages, which in the original is what Sarah gives her. She could be educated, but this wouldn't change her class. Compare Sara, who comes from gentility, speaks RP English, and comports herself well. She's still treated like crap, but admittedly better than Becky - she mentions, for instance, that Becky gets less food and is more likely to be Denied Food as Punishment. Entirely new levels of Fridge Horror ensue.
  • The story Sara's maid tells implies that Becky was an orphan with no home or family who came to the school begging for work. While Becky's official job title was "scullery maid," she appears to have been more of a slave in practice: she was working strictly for her room and board, effectively trapping in her situation. Even if she had left the school to seek a paying job, a scullery maid's wages would not have been enough to keep her from sleeping on the streets. As for historical accuracy, it's likely many unfortunate children in Becky's position were exploited in this manner. On the other hand, the other servants at the school seemed to be getting normal wages and decent treatment.
  • In the book, Becky is paid wages, unlike Sara, but very little. There are a couple of references to this. When the girls are in disgrace after Ermengarde's foiled party, this is said about Becky and why Miss Minchin hasn't actually thrown her out on the street: "The servants knew that she was allowed to stay because Miss Minchin could not easily find another creature helpless and humble enough to work like a bounden slave for so few shillings a week." This does raise some questions as to why Becky never seems to have any money or spend it even on buying herself a little extra food.
    • Maybe a combination of this one and the one above it, then? She was getting paid, but the little she made still wasn't enough to allow her to escape the school? It's also possible, seeing how the other servants seemed to go home at the end of the day, that Becky was the only one who had no home to go to and that she was actually paying room and board from those "few shillings," leaving her with barely enough to survive on. It also makes it a matter not of her going unpaid, but simply not being paid enough for the amount of work expected of her. Work is exercise and requires at least as many calories in as out just to break even. Sarah's surprised to learn that Becky's actually older than she is because Becky's so "stunted," implying years of chronic malnourishment. Poor Becky could be broke because she's spending every spare penny she has on extra food, and it still might not be enough to replace the calories she expends during the day.
    • Plus the fact that servants like Becky were expected to use their earnings to buy their own coal or wood for winter fires. Becky probably saves every penny she can for this purpose.
    • However, if Becky were spending all her money on heating and food and still barely surviving and horribly stunted, how would Sara possibly stay alive with no pay at all?
    • Long-term, she probably could not have survived. As she grew older, however, Miss Minchin began making plans to have her teach classes so that she could dismiss one of the paid teachers. Presumably, if Sara was in the public view as a teacher, Minchin would have been forced to provide her with decent clothing and adequate food to keep her looking respectable enough that no one would suspect the circumstances. It's still a pretty horrific fate: an unpaid slave to one's employer, given bare minimum sustenance not out of human decency but so that said employer can continue to present herself as running an upstanding business.
  • In the film Becky is able to make Sara a birthday present so perhaps she does get paid something, and she spent those wages on materials to make the present. Perhaps she saved up for it but at the point in time Sara becomes a slave, she's just spent all her savings on the present and has to start saving over again.
    • In the book, it's made clear that Becky made Sara's gift from scrap material she found in the trash because she couldn't afford to give her anything. In a particularly pathetic note, Sara's initially confused by the gift because the attached card says it's from Amelia, Miss Minchin's sister. Becky clarifies that she rescued the card from the rubbish bin because it wouldn't be a "proper present" without a card. Poor girl couldn't even afford a scrap of paper.
  • In the 2016 visual novel adaptation A Little Lily Princess, Becky is given wages, but they're so miniscule that she can't possibly use them on anything that could help her become more independent, and even says that Miss Minchin often docks them and tries to come up with excuses for why she doesn't deserve to be paid, even as little as she does.