Little Lord Fauntleroy
“I was born in America,” he protested. “You have to be an American if
you are born in America. I beg your pardon,” with serious politeness
and delicacy, “for contradicting you. Mr. Hobbs told me, if there were
another war, you know, I should have to--to be an American.”
The Earl gave a grim half laugh--it was short and grim, but it was a
laugh.
“You would, would you?” he said.
He hated America and Americans, but it amused him to see how serious and
interested this small patriot was. He thought that so good an American
might make a rather good Englishman when he was a man.
They had not time to go very deep into the Revolution again--and
indeed Lord Fauntleroy felt some delicacy about returning to the
subject--before dinner was announced.
Cedric left his chair and went to his noble kinsman. He looked down at
his gouty foot.
“Would you like me to help you?” he said politely. “You could lean on
me, you know. Once when Mr. Hobbs hurt his foot with a potato-barrel
rolling on it, he used to lean on me.”
The big footman almost periled his reputation and his situation by
smiling. He was an aristocratic footman who had always lived in the best
of noble families, and he had never smiled; indeed, he would have felt
himself a disgraced and vulgar footman if he had allowed himself to be
led by any circumstance whatever into such an indiscretion as a smile.
But he had a very narrow escape. He only just saved himself by staring
straight over the Earl's head at a very ugly picture.
The Earl looked his valiant young relative over from head to foot.
“Do you think you could do it?” he asked gruffly.
“I THINK I could,” said Cedric. “I'm strong. I'm seven, you know. You
could lean on your stick on one side, and on me on the other. Dick says
I've a good deal of muscle for a boy that's only seven.”
He shut his hand and moved it upward to his shoulder, so that the Earl
might see the muscle Dick had kindly approved of, and his face was so
grave and earnest that the footman found it necessary to look very hard
indeed at the ugly picture.
“Well,” said the Earl, “you may try.”
Cedric gave him his stick and began to assist him to rise. Usually, the
footman did this, and was violently sworn at when his lordship had an
extra twinge of gout. The Earl was not a very polite person as a rule,
and many a time the huge footmen about him quaked inside their imposing
liveries.
But this evening he did not swear, though his gouty foot gave him more
twinges than one. He chose to try an experiment. He got up slowly
and put his hand on the small shoulder presented to him with so much
courage. Little Lord Fauntleroy made a careful step forward, looking
down at the gouty foot.
“Just lean on me,” he said, with encouraging good cheer. “I'll walk very
slowly.”
If the Earl had been supported by the footman he would have rested less
on his stick and more on his assistant's arm. And yet it was part of his
experiment to let his grandson feel his burden as no light weight.
It was quite a heavy weight indeed, and after a few steps his young
lordship's face grew quite hot, and his heart beat rather fast, but he
braced himself sturdily, remembering his muscle and Dick's approval of
it.
“Don't be afraid of leaning on me,” he panted. “I'm all right--if--if it
isn't a very long way.”
It was not really very far to the dining-room, but it seemed rather a
long way to Cedric, before they reached the chair at the head of the
table. The hand on his shoulder seemed to grow heavier at every step,
and his face grew redder and hotter, and his breath shorter, but he
never thought of giving up; he stiffened his childish muscles, held his
head erect, and encouraged the Earl as he limped along.
“Does your foot hurt you very much when you stand on it?” he asked. “Did
you ever put it in hot water and mustard? Mr. Hobbs used to put his in
hot water. Arnica is a very nice thing, they tell me.”
The big dog stalked slowly beside them, and the big footman followed;
several times he looked very queer as he watched the little figure
making the very most of all its strength, and bearing its burden with
such good-will. The Earl, too, looked rather queer, once, as he glanced
sidewise down at the flushed little face. When they entered the room
where they were to dine, Cedric saw it was a very large and imposing
one, and that the footman who stood behind the chair at the head of the
table stared very hard as they came in.
But they reached the chair at last. The hand was removed from his
shoulder, and the Earl was fairly seated.
Cedric took out Dick's handkerchief and wiped his forehead.
“It's a warm night, isn't it?” he said. “Perhaps you need a fire
because--because of your foot, but it seems just a little warm to me.”
His delicate consideration for his noble relative's feelings was such
that he did not wish to seem to intimate that any of his surroundings
were unnecessary.
“You have been doing some rather hard work,” said the Earl.
“Oh, no!” said Lord Fauntleroy, “it wasn't exactly hard, but I got a
little warm. A person will get warm in summer time.”
And he rubbed his damp curls rather vigorously with the gorgeous
handkerchief. His own chair was placed at the other end of the table,
opposite his grandfather's. It was a chair with arms, and intended for
a much larger individual than himself; indeed, everything he had seen so
far,--the great rooms, with their high ceilings, the massive furniture,
the big footman, the big dog, the Earl himself,--were all of proportions
calculated to make this little lad feel that he was very small, indeed.
But that did not trouble him; he had never thought himself very large
or important, and he was quite willing to accommodate himself even to
circumstances which rather overpowered him.
Perhaps he had never looked so little a fellow as when seated now in
his great chair, at the end of the table. Notwithstanding his solitary
existence, the Earl chose to live in some state. He was fond of his
dinner, and he dined in a formal style. Cedric looked at him across
a glitter of splendid glass and plate, which to his unaccustomed eyes
seemed quite dazzling. A stranger looking on might well have smiled at
the picture,--the great stately room, the big liveried servants, the
bright lights, the glittering silver and glass, the fierce-looking old
nobleman at the head of the table and the very small boy at the foot.
Dinner was usually a very serious matter with the Earl--and it was a
very serious matter with the cook, if his lordship was not pleased or
had an indifferent appetite. To-day, however, his appetite seemed a
trifle better than usual, perhaps because he had something to think of
beside the flavor of the entrees and the management of the gravies. His
grandson gave him something to think of. He kept looking at him across
the table. He did not say very much himself, but he managed to make the
boy talk. He had never imagined that he could be entertained by hearing
a child talk, but Lord Fauntleroy at once puzzled and amused him, and
he kept remembering how he had let the childish shoulder feel his weight
just for the sake of trying how far the boy's courage and endurance
would go, and it pleased him to know that his grandson had not quailed
and had not seemed to think even for a moment of giving up what he had
undertaken to do.
“You don't wear your coronet all the time?” remarked Lord Fauntleroy
respectfully.
“No,” replied the Earl, with his grim smile; “it is not becoming to me.”
“Mr. Hobbs said you always wore it,” said Cedric; “but after he thought
it over, he said he supposed you must sometimes take it off to put your
hat on.”
“Yes,” said the Earl, “I take it off occasionally.”
And one of the footmen suddenly turned aside and gave a singular little
cough behind his hand.
Cedric finished his dinner first, and then he leaned back in his chair
and took a survey of the room.
“You must be very proud of your house,” he said, “it's such a beautiful
house. I never saw anything so beautiful; but, of course, as I'm only
seven, I haven't seen much.”
“And you think I must be proud of it, do you?” said the Earl.
“I should think any one would be proud of it,” replied Lord Fauntleroy.
“I should be proud of it if it were my house. Everything about it is
beautiful. And the park, and those trees,--how beautiful they are, and
how the leaves rustle!”
Then he paused an instant and looked across the table rather wistfully.
“It's a very big house for just two people to live in, isn't it?” he
said.
“It is quite large enough for two,” answered the Earl. “Do you find it
too large?”
His little lordship hesitated a moment.
“I was only thinking,” he said, “that if two people lived in it who were
not very good companions, they might feel lonely sometimes.”
“Do you think I shall make a good companion?” inquired the Earl.
“Yes,” replied Cedric, “I think you will. Mr. Hobbs and I were great
friends. He was the best friend I had except Dearest.”
The Earl made a quick movement of his bushy eyebrows.
“Who is Dearest?”
“She is my mother,” said Lord Fauntleroy, in a rather low, quiet little
voice.
Perhaps he was a trifle tired, as his bed-time was nearing, and perhaps
after the excitement of the last few days it was natural he should be
tired, so perhaps, too, the feeling of weariness brought to him a vague
sense of loneliness in the remembrance that to-night he was not to sleep
at home, watched over by the loving eyes of that “best friend” of his.
They had always been “best friends,” this boy and his young mother. He
could not help thinking of her, and the more he thought of her the less
was he inclined to talk, and by the time the dinner was at an end the
Earl saw that there was a faint shadow on his face. But Cedric bore
himself with excellent courage, and when they went back to the library,
though the tall footman walked on one side of his master, the Earl's
hand rested on his grandson's shoulder, though not so heavily as before.
When the footman left them alone, Cedric sat down upon the hearth-rug
near Dougal. For a few minutes he stroked the dog's ears in silence and
looked at the fire.
The Earl watched him. The boy's eyes looked wistful and thoughtful, and
once or twice he gave a little sigh. The Earl sat still, and kept his
eyes fixed on his grandson.
“Fauntleroy,” he said at last, “what are you thinking of?”
Fauntleroy looked up with a manful effort at a smile.
“I was thinking about Dearest,” he said; “and--and I think I'd better
get up and walk up and down the room.”
He rose up, and put his hands in his small pockets, and began to walk to
and fro. His eyes were very bright, and his lips were pressed together,
but he kept his head up and walked firmly. Dougal moved lazily and
looked at him, and then stood up. He walked over to the child, and began
to follow him uneasily. Fauntleroy drew one hand from his pocket and
laid it on the dog's head.
“He's a very nice dog,” he said. “He's my friend. He knows how I feel.”
“How do you feel?” asked the Earl.
It disturbed him to see the struggle the little fellow was having with
his first feeling of homesickness, but it pleased him to see that he
was making so brave an effort to bear it well. He liked this childish
courage.
“Come here,” he said.
Fauntleroy went to him.
“I never was away from my own house before,” said the boy, with a
troubled look in his brown eyes. “It makes a person feel a strange
feeling when he has to stay all night in another person's castle instead
of in his own house. But Dearest is not very far away from me. She told
me to remember that--and--and I'm seven--and I can look at the picture
she gave me.”
He put his hand in his pocket, and brought out a small violet
velvet-covered case.