Little Lord Fauntleroy
and looking very proud and happy. But soon she could not help being
attracted by the fact that she was being looked at and that her arrival
had created some sort of sensation. She first noticed it because an old
woman in a red cloak made a bobbing courtesy to her, and then another
did the same thing and said, “God bless you, my lady!” and one man
after another took off his hat as she passed. For a moment she did not
understand, and then she realized that it was because she was little
Lord Fauntleroy's mother that they did so, and she flushed rather shyly
and smiled and bowed too, and said, “Thank you,” in a gentle voice to
the old woman who had blessed her. To a person who had always lived in
a bustling, crowded American city this simple deference was very novel,
and at first just a little embarrassing; but after all, she could not
help liking and being touched by the friendly warm-heartedness of which
it seemed to speak. She had scarcely passed through the stone porch into
the church before the great event of the day happened. The carriage from
the Castle, with its handsome horses and tall liveried servants, bowled
around the corner and down the green lane.
“Here they come!” went from one looker-on to another.
And then the carriage drew up, and Thomas stepped down and opened the
door, and a little boy, dressed in black velvet, and with a splendid mop
of bright waving hair, jumped out.
Every man, woman, and child looked curiously upon him.
“He's the Captain over again!” said those of the on-lookers who
remembered his father. “He's the Captain's self, to the life!”
He stood there in the sunlight looking up at the Earl, as Thomas helped
that nobleman out, with the most affectionate interest that could be
imagined. The instant he could help, he put out his hand and offered his
shoulder as if he had been seven feet high. It was plain enough to every
one that however it might be with other people, the Earl of Dorincourt
struck no terror into the breast of his grandson.
“Just lean on me,” they heard him say. “How glad the people are to see
you, and how well they all seem to know you!”
“Take off your cap, Fauntleroy,” said the Earl. “They are bowing to
you.”
“To me!” cried Fauntleroy, whipping off his cap in a moment, baring his
bright head to the crowd and turning shining, puzzled eyes on them as he
tried to bow to every one at once.
“God bless your lordship!” said the courtesying, red-cloaked old woman
who had spoken to his mother; “long life to you!”
“Thank you, ma'am,” said Fauntleroy. And then they went into the church,
and were looked at there, on their way up the aisle to the square,
red-cushioned and curtained pew. When Fauntleroy was fairly seated,
he made two discoveries which pleased him: the first that, across the
church where he could look at her, his mother sat and smiled at him; the
second, that at one end of the pew, against the wall, knelt two quaint
figures carven in stone, facing each other as they kneeled on either
side of a pillar supporting two stone missals, their pointed hands
folded as if in prayer, their dress very antique and strange. On the
tablet by them was written something of which he could only read the
curious words:
“Here lyeth ye bodye of Gregorye Arthure Fyrst Earle of Dorincourt
Allsoe of Alisone Hildegarde hys wyfe.”
“May I whisper?” inquired his lordship, devoured by curiosity.
“What is it?” said his grandfather.
“Who are they?”
“Some of your ancestors,” answered the Earl, “who lived a few hundred
years ago.”
“Perhaps,” said Lord Fauntleroy, regarding them with respect, “perhaps
I got my spelling from them.” And then he proceeded to find his place in
the church service. When the music began, he stood up and looked across
at his mother, smiling. He was very fond of music, and his mother and
he often sang together, so he joined in with the rest, his pure, sweet,
high voice rising as clear as the song of a bird. He quite forgot
himself in his pleasure in it. The Earl forgot himself a little too, as
he sat in his curtain-shielded corner of the pew and watched the boy.
Cedric stood with the big psalter open in his hands, singing with all
his childish might, his face a little uplifted, happily; and as he sang,
a long ray of sunshine crept in and, slanting through a golden pane of a
stained glass window, brightened the falling hair about his young head.
His mother, as she looked at him across the church, felt a thrill pass
through her heart, and a prayer rose in it too,--a prayer that the pure,
simple happiness of his childish soul might last, and that the strange,
great fortune which had fallen to him might bring no wrong or evil with
it. There were many soft, anxious thoughts in her tender heart in those
new days.
“Oh, Ceddie!” she had said to him the evening before, as she hung over
him in saying good-night, before he went away; “oh, Ceddie, dear, I wish
for your sake I was very clever and could say a great many wise things!
But only be good, dear, only be brave, only be kind and true always, and
then you will never hurt any one, so long as you live, and you may help
many, and the big world may be better because my little child was born.
And that is best of all, Ceddie,--it is better than everything else,
that the world should be a little better because a man has lived--even
ever so little better, dearest.”
And on his return to the Castle, Fauntleroy had repeated her words to
his grandfather.
“And I thought about you when she said that,” he ended; “and I told her
that was the way the world was because you had lived, and I was going to
try if I could be like you.”
“And what did she say to that?” asked his lordship, a trifle uneasily.
“She said that was right, and we must always look for good in people and
try to be like it.”
Perhaps it was this the old man remembered as he glanced through the
divided folds of the red curtain of his pew. Many times he looked over
the people's heads to where his son's wife sat alone, and he saw the
fair face the unforgiven dead had loved, and the eyes which were so like
those of the child at his side; but what his thoughts were, and whether
they were hard and bitter, or softened a little, it would have been hard
to discover.
As they came out of church, many of those who had attended the service
stood waiting to see them pass. As they neared the gate, a man who stood
with his hat in his hand made a step forward and then hesitated. He was
a middle-aged farmer, with a careworn face.
“Well, Higgins,” said the Earl.
Fauntleroy turned quickly to look at him.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, “is it Mr. Higgins?”
“Yes,” answered the Earl dryly; “and I suppose he came to take a look at
his new landlord.”
“Yes, my lord,” said the man, his sunburned face reddening. “Mr. Newick
told me his young lordship was kind enough to speak for me, and I
thought I'd like to say a word of thanks, if I might be allowed.”
Perhaps he felt some wonder when he saw what a little fellow it was who
had innocently done so much for him, and who stood there looking up just
as one of his own less fortunate children might have done--apparently
not realizing his own importance in the least.
“I've a great deal to thank your lordship for,” he said; “a great deal.
I----”
“Oh,” said Fauntleroy; “I only wrote the letter. It was my grandfather
who did it. But you know how he is about always being good to everybody.
Is Mrs. Higgins well now?”
Higgins looked a trifle taken aback. He also was somewhat startled at
hearing his noble landlord presented in the character of a benevolent
being, full of engaging qualities.
“I--well, yes, your lordship,” he stammered, “the missus is better since
the trouble was took off her mind. It was worrying broke her down.”
“I'm glad of that,” said Fauntleroy. “My grandfather was very sorry
about your children having the scarlet fever, and so was I. He has had
children himself. I'm his son's little boy, you know.”
Higgins was on the verge of being panic-stricken. He felt it would be
the safer and more discreet plan not to look at the Earl, as it had been
well known that his fatherly affection for his sons had been such that
he had seen them about twice a year, and that when they had been ill,
he had promptly departed for London, because he would not be bored with
doctors and nurses. It was a little trying, therefore, to his lordship's
nerves to be told, while he looked on, his eyes gleaming from under his
shaggy eyebrows, that he felt an interest in scarlet fever.
“You see, Higgins,” broke in the Earl with a fine grim smile, “you
people have been mistaken in me. Lord Fauntleroy understands me. When
you want reliable information on the subject of my character, apply to
him. Get into the carriage, Fauntleroy.”
And Fauntleroy jumped in, and the carriage rolled away down the green
lane, and even when it turned the corner into the high road, the Earl
was still grimly smiling.
VIII
Lord Dorincourt had occasion to wear his grim smile many a time as
the days passed by. Indeed, as his acquaintance with his grandson
progressed, he wore the smile so often that there were moments when
it almost lost its grimness. There is no denying that before Lord
Fauntleroy had appeared on the scene, the old man had been growing very
tired of his loneliness and his gout and his seventy years. After so
long a life of excitement and amusement, it was not agreeable to sit
alone even in the most splendid room, with one foot on a gout-stool,
and with no other diversion than flying into a rage, and shouting at
a frightened footman who hated the sight of him. The old Earl was too
clever a man not to know perfectly well that his servants detested
him, and that even if he had visitors, they did not come for love of
him--though some found a sort of amusement in his sharp, sarcastic talk,
which spared no one. So long as he had been strong and well, he had gone
from one place to another, pretending to amuse himself, though he had
not really enjoyed it; and when his health began to fail, he felt tired
of everything and shut himself up at Dorincourt, with his gout and his
newspapers and his books. But he could not read all the time, and he
became more and more “bored,” as he called it. He hated the long nights
and days, and he grew more and more savage and irritable. And then
Fauntleroy came; and when the Earl saw him, fortunately for the little
fellow, the secret pride of the grandfather was gratified at the outset.
If Cedric had been a less handsome little fellow, the old man might have
taken so strong a dislike to him that he would not have given himself
the chance to see his grandson's finer qualities. But he chose to
think that Cedric's beauty and fearless spirit were the results of the
Dorincourt blood and a credit to the Dorincourt rank. And then when
he heard the lad talk, and saw what a well-bred little fellow he was,
notwithstanding his boyish ignorance of all that his new position meant,
the old Earl liked his grandson more, and actually began to find himself
rather entertained. It had amused him to give into those childish hands
the power to bestow a benefit on poor Higgins. My lord cared nothing
for poor Higgins, but it pleased him a little to think that his grandson
would be talked about by the country people and would begin to be
popular with the tenantry, even in his childhood. Then it had gratified
him to drive to church with Cedric and to see the excitement and
interest caused by the arrival. He knew how the people would speak of
the beauty of the little lad; of his fine, strong, straight body; of
his erect bearing, his handsome face, and his bright hair, and how they
would say (as the Earl had heard one woman exclaim to another) that the