Little Lord Fauntleroy
take a walk past his house to see him.”
He leaned back against the cushions and regarded the Earl with rapt
interest for a few minutes and in entire silence.
“I think you must be the best person in the world,” he burst forth at
last. “You are always doing good, aren't you?--and thinking about other
people. Dearest says that is the best kind of goodness; not to think
about yourself, but to think about other people. That is just the way
you are, isn't it?”
His lordship was so dumfounded to find himself presented in such
agreeable colors, that he did not know exactly what to say. He felt that
he needed time for reflection. To see each of his ugly, selfish motives
changed into a good and generous one by the simplicity of a child was a
singular experience.
Fauntleroy went on, still regarding him with admiring eyes--those great,
clear, innocent eyes!
“You make so many people happy,” he said. “There's Michael and Bridget
and their ten children, and the apple-woman, and Dick, and Mr.
Hobbs, and Mr. Higgins and Mrs. Higgins and their children, and Mr.
Mordaunt,--because of course he was glad,--and Dearest and me, about
the pony and all the other things. Do you know, I've counted it up on
my fingers and in my mind, and it's twenty-seven people you've been kind
to. That's a good many--twenty-seven!”
“And I was the person who was kind to them--was I?” said the Earl.
“Why, yes, you know,” answered Fauntleroy. “You made them all happy.
Do you know,” with some delicate hesitation, “that people are sometimes
mistaken about earls when they don't know them. Mr. Hobbs was. I am
going to write him, and tell him about it.”
“What was Mr. Hobbs's opinion of earls?” asked his lordship.
“Well, you see, the difficulty was,” replied his young companion,
“that he didn't know any, and he'd only read about them in books. He
thought--you mustn't mind it--that they were gory tyrants; and he said
he wouldn't have them hanging around his store. But if he'd known YOU,
I'm sure he would have felt quite different. I shall tell him about
you.”
“What shall you tell him?”
“I shall tell him,” said Fauntleroy, glowing with enthusiasm, “that
you are the kindest man I ever heard of. And you are always thinking of
other people, and making them happy and--and I hope when I grow up, I
shall be just like you.”
“Just like me!” repeated his lordship, looking at the little kindling
face. And a dull red crept up under his withered skin, and he suddenly
turned his eyes away and looked out of the carriage window at the great
beech-trees, with the sun shining on their glossy, red-brown leaves.
“JUST like you,” said Fauntleroy, adding modestly, “if I can. Perhaps
I'm not good enough, but I'm going to try.”
The carriage rolled on down the stately avenue under the beautiful,
broad-branched trees, through the spaces of green shade and lanes of
golden sunlight. Fauntleroy saw again the lovely places where the ferns
grew high and the bluebells swayed in the breeze; he saw the deer,
standing or lying in the deep grass, turn their large, startled eyes as
the carriage passed, and caught glimpses of the brown rabbits as they
scurried away. He heard the whir of the partridges and the calls and
songs of the birds, and it all seemed even more beautiful to him than
before. All his heart was filled with pleasure and happiness in the
beauty that was on every side. But the old Earl saw and heard very
different things, though he was apparently looking out too. He saw
a long life, in which there had been neither generous deeds nor kind
thoughts; he saw years in which a man who had been young and strong and
rich and powerful had used his youth and strength and wealth and power
only to please himself and kill time as the days and years succeeded
each other; he saw this man, when the time had been killed and old age
had come, solitary and without real friends in the midst of all his
splendid wealth; he saw people who disliked or feared him, and people
who would flatter and cringe to him, but no one who really cared whether
he lived or died, unless they had something to gain or lose by it. He
looked out on the broad acres which belonged to him, and he knew what
Fauntleroy did not--how far they extended, what wealth they represented,
and how many people had homes on their soil. And he knew, too,--another
thing Fauntleroy did not,--that in all those homes, humble or
well-to-do, there was probably not one person, however much he envied
the wealth and stately name and power, and however willing he would have
been to possess them, who would for an instant have thought of calling
the noble owner “good,” or wishing, as this simple-souled little boy
had, to be like him.
And it was not exactly pleasant to reflect upon, even for a cynical,
worldly old man, who had been sufficient unto himself for seventy years
and who had never deigned to care what opinion the world held of him so
long as it did not interfere with his comfort or entertainment. And the
fact was, indeed, that he had never before condescended to reflect
upon it at all; and he only did so now because a child had believed
him better than he was, and by wishing to follow in his illustrious
footsteps and imitate his example, had suggested to him the curious
question whether he was exactly the person to take as a model.
Fauntleroy thought the Earl's foot must be hurting him, his brows
knitted themselves together so, as he looked out at the park; and
thinking this, the considerate little fellow tried not to disturb him,
and enjoyed the trees and the ferns and the deer in silence.
But at last the carriage, having passed the gates and bowled through the
green lanes for a short distance, stopped. They had reached Court Lodge;
and Fauntleroy was out upon the ground almost before the big footman had
time to open the carriage door.
The Earl wakened from his reverie with a start.
“What!” he said. “Are we here?”
“Yes,” said Fauntleroy. “Let me give you your stick. Just lean on me
when you get out.”
“I am not going to get out,” replied his lordship brusquely.
“Not--not to see Dearest?” exclaimed Fauntleroy with astonished face.
“'Dearest' will excuse me,” said the Earl dryly. “Go to her and tell her
that not even a new pony would keep you away.”
“She will be disappointed,” said Fauntleroy. “She will want to see you
very much.”
“I am afraid not,” was the answer. “The carriage will call for you as we
come back.--Tell Jeffries to drive on, Thomas.”
Thomas closed the carriage door; and, after a puzzled look, Fauntleroy
ran up the drive. The Earl had the opportunity--as Mr. Havisham once
had--of seeing a pair of handsome, strong little legs flash over the
ground with astonishing rapidity. Evidently their owner had no intention
of losing any time. The carriage rolled slowly away, but his lordship
did not at once lean back; he still looked out. Through a space in the
trees he could see the house door; it was wide open. The little figure
dashed up the steps; another figure--a little figure, too, slender and
young, in its black gown--ran to meet it. It seemed as if they flew
together, as Fauntleroy leaped into his mother's arms, hanging about her
neck and covering her sweet young face with kisses.
VII
On the following Sunday morning, Mr. Mordaunt had a large congregation.
Indeed, he could scarcely remember any Sunday on which the church had
been so crowded. People appeared upon the scene who seldom did him the
honor of coming to hear his sermons.
There were even people from Hazelton, which was the next parish. There
were hearty, sunburned farmers, stout, comfortable, apple-cheeked
wives in their best bonnets and most gorgeous shawls, and half a dozen
children or so to each family. The doctor's wife was there, with her
four daughters. Mrs. Kimsey and Mr. Kimsey, who kept the druggist's
shop, and made pills, and did up powders for everybody within ten
miles, sat in their pew; Mrs. Dibble in hers; Miss Smiff, the village
dressmaker, and her friend Miss Perkins, the milliner, sat in theirs;
the doctor's young man was present, and the druggist's apprentice; in
fact, almost every family on the county side was represented, in one way
or another.
In the course of the preceding week, many wonderful stories had been
told of little Lord Fauntleroy. Mrs. Dibble had been kept so busy
attending to customers who came in to buy a pennyworth of needles or
a ha'porth of tape and to hear what she had to relate, that the little
shop bell over the door had nearly tinkled itself to death over the
coming and going. Mrs. Dibble knew exactly how his small lordship's
rooms had been furnished for him, what expensive toys had been bought,
how there was a beautiful brown pony awaiting him, and a small groom to
attend it, and a little dog-cart, with silver-mounted harness. And she
could tell, too, what all the servants had said when they had caught
glimpses of the child on the night of his arrival; and how every female
below stairs had said it was a shame, so it was, to part the poor pretty
dear from his mother; and had all declared their hearts came into their
mouths when he went alone into the library to see his grandfather, for
“there was no knowing how he'd be treated, and his lordship's temper was
enough to fluster them with old heads on their shoulders, let alone a
child.”
“But if you'll believe me, Mrs. Jennifer, mum,” Mrs. Dibble had said,
“fear that child does not know--so Mr. Thomas hisself says; an' set an'
smile he did, an' talked to his lordship as if they'd been friends ever
since his first hour. An' the Earl so took aback, Mr. Thomas says, that
he couldn't do nothing but listen and stare from under his eyebrows. An'
it's Mr. Thomas's opinion, Mrs. Bates, mum, that bad as he is, he was
pleased in his secret soul, an' proud, too; for a handsomer little
fellow, or with better manners, though so old-fashioned, Mr. Thomas says
he'd never wish to see.”
And then there had come the story of Higgins. The Reverend Mr. Mordaunt
had told it at his own dinner table, and the servants who had heard it
had told it in the kitchen, and from there it had spread like wildfire.
And on market-day, when Higgins had appeared in town, he had been
questioned on every side, and Newick had been questioned too, and in
response had shown to two or three people the note signed “Fauntleroy.”
And so the farmers' wives had found plenty to talk of over their tea and
their shopping, and they had done the subject full justice and made the
most of it. And on Sunday they had either walked to church or had
been driven in their gigs by their husbands, who were perhaps a trifle
curious themselves about the new little lord who was to be in time the
owner of the soil.
It was by no means the Earl's habit to attend church, but he chose to
appear on this first Sunday--it was his whim to present himself in the
huge family pew, with Fauntleroy at his side.
There were many loiterers in the churchyard, and many lingerers in the
lane that morning. There were groups at the gates and in the porch, and
there had been much discussion as to whether my lord would really appear
or not. When this discussion was at its height, one good woman suddenly
uttered an exclamation.
“Eh,” she said, “that must be the mother, pretty young thing.” All who
heard turned and looked at the slender figure in black coming up the
path. The veil was thrown back from her face and they could see how fair
and sweet it was, and how the bright hair curled as softly as a child's
under the little widow's cap.
She was not thinking of the people about; she was thinking of Cedric,
and of his visits to her, and his joy over his new pony, on which he had
actually ridden to her door the day before, sitting very straight