Little Lord Fauntleroy
Fauntleroy thought she must be something like a princess. He was so much
interested in her that without knowing it he drew nearer and nearer to
her, and at last she turned and spoke to him.
“Come here, Lord Fauntleroy,” she said, smiling; “and tell me why you
look at me so.”
“I was thinking how beautiful you are,” his young lordship replied.
Then all the gentlemen laughed outright, and the young lady laughed a
little too, and the rose color in her cheeks brightened.
“Ah, Fauntleroy,” said one of the gentlemen who had laughed most
heartily, “make the most of your time! When you are older you will not
have the courage to say that.”
“But nobody could help saying it,” said Fauntleroy sweetly. “Could you
help it? Don't YOU think she is pretty, too?”
“We are not allowed to say what we think,” said the gentleman, while the
rest laughed more than ever.
But the beautiful young lady--her name was Miss Vivian Herbert--put out
her hand and drew Cedric to her side, looking prettier than before, if
possible.
“Lord Fauntleroy shall say what he thinks,” she said; “and I am much
obliged to him. I am sure he thinks what he says.” And she kissed him on
his cheek.
“I think you are prettier than any one I ever saw,” said Fauntleroy,
looking at her with innocent, admiring eyes, “except Dearest. Of course,
I couldn't think any one QUITE as pretty as Dearest. I think she is the
prettiest person in the world.”
“I am sure she is,” said Miss Vivian Herbert. And she laughed and kissed
his cheek again.
She kept him by her side a great part of the evening, and the group
of which they were the center was very gay. He did not know how it
happened, but before long he was telling them all about America, and
the Republican Rally, and Mr. Hobbs and Dick, and in the end he
proudly produced from his pocket Dick's parting gift,--the red silk
handkerchief.
“I put it in my pocket to-night because it was a party,” he said. “I
thought Dick would like me to wear it at a party.”
And queer as the big, flaming, spotted thing was, there was a serious,
affectionate look in his eyes, which prevented his audience from
laughing very much.
“You see, I like it,” he said, “because Dick is my friend.”
But though he was talked to so much, as the Earl had said, he was in no
one's way. He could be quiet and listen when others talked, and so no
one found him tiresome. A slight smile crossed more than one face when
several times he went and stood near his grandfather's chair, or sat on
a stool close to him, watching him and absorbing every word he uttered
with the most charmed interest. Once he stood so near the chair's arm
that his cheek touched the Earl's shoulder, and his lordship, detecting
the general smile, smiled a little himself. He knew what the lookers-on
were thinking, and he felt some secret amusement in their seeing what
good friends he was with this youngster, who might have been expected to
share the popular opinion of him.
Mr. Havisham had been expected to arrive in the afternoon, but, strange
to say, he was late. Such a thing had really never been known to happen
before during all the years in which he had been a visitor at Dorincourt
Castle. He was so late that the guests were on the point of rising to
go in to dinner when he arrived. When he approached his host, the Earl
regarded him with amazement. He looked as if he had been hurried or
agitated; his dry, keen old face was actually pale.
“I was detained,” he said, in a low voice to the Earl, “by--an
extraordinary event.”
It was as unlike the methodic old lawyer to be agitated by anything as
it was to be late, but it was evident that he had been disturbed. At
dinner he ate scarcely anything, and two or three times, when he was
spoken to, he started as if his thoughts were far away. At dessert,
when Fauntleroy came in, he looked at him more than once, nervously
and uneasily. Fauntleroy noted the look and wondered at it. He and Mr.
Havisham were on friendly terms, and they usually exchanged smiles. The
lawyer seemed to have forgotten to smile that evening.
The fact was, he forgot everything but the strange and painful news he
knew he must tell the Earl before the night was over--the strange news
which he knew would be so terrible a shock, and which would change the
face of everything. As he looked about at the splendid rooms and the
brilliant company,--at the people gathered together, he knew, more that
they might see the bright-haired little fellow near the Earl's chair
than for any other reason,--as he looked at the proud old man and at
little Lord Fauntleroy smiling at his side, he really felt quite shaken,
notwithstanding that he was a hardened old lawyer. What a blow it was
that he must deal them!
He did not exactly know how the long, superb dinner ended. He sat
through it as if he were in a dream, and several times he saw the Earl
glance at him in surprise.
But it was over at last, and the gentlemen joined the ladies in the
drawing-room. They found Fauntleroy sitting on the sofa with Miss Vivian
Herbert,--the great beauty of the last London season; they had been
looking at some pictures, and he was thanking his companion as the door
opened.
“I'm ever so much obliged to you for being so kind to me!” he was
saying; “I never was at a party before, and I've enjoyed myself so
much!”
He had enjoyed himself so much that when the gentlemen gathered about
Miss Herbert again and began to talk to her, as he listened and tried
to understand their laughing speeches, his eyelids began to droop. They
drooped until they covered his eyes two or three times, and then the
sound of Miss Herbert's low, pretty laugh would bring him back, and he
would open them again for about two seconds. He was quite sure he was
not going to sleep, but there was a large, yellow satin cushion behind
him and his head sank against it, and after a while his eyelids drooped
for the last time. They did not even quite open when, as it seemed a
long time after, some one kissed him lightly on the cheek. It was Miss
Vivian Herbert, who was going away, and she spoke to him softly.
“Good-night, little Lord Fauntleroy,” she said. “Sleep well.”
And in the morning he did not know that he had tried to open his eyes
and had murmured sleepily, “Good-night--I'm so--glad--I saw you--you are
so--pretty----”
He only had a very faint recollection of hearing the gentlemen laugh
again and of wondering why they did it.
No sooner had the last guest left the room, than Mr. Havisham turned
from his place by the fire, and stepped nearer the sofa, where he stood
looking down at the sleeping occupant. Little Lord Fauntleroy was taking
his ease luxuriously. One leg crossed the other and swung over the edge
of the sofa; one arm was flung easily above his head; the warm flush
of healthful, happy, childish sleep was on his quiet face; his waving
tangle of bright hair strayed over the yellow satin cushion. He made a
picture well worth looking at.
As Mr. Havisham looked at it, he put his hand up and rubbed his shaven
chin, with a harassed countenance.
“Well, Havisham,” said the Earl's harsh voice behind him. “What is it?
It is evident something has happened. What was the extraordinary event,
if I may ask?”
Mr. Havisham turned from the sofa, still rubbing his chin.
“It was bad news,” he answered, “distressing news, my lord--the worst of
news. I am sorry to be the bearer of it.”
The Earl had been uneasy for some time during the evening, as he glanced
at Mr. Havisham, and when he was uneasy he was always ill-tempered.
“Why do you look so at the boy!” he exclaimed irritably. “You have been
looking at him all the evening as if--See here now, why should you look
at the boy, Havisham, and hang over him like some bird of ill-omen! What
has your news to do with Lord Fauntleroy?”
“My lord,” said Mr. Havisham, “I will waste no words. My news has
everything to do with Lord Fauntleroy. And if we are to believe it--it
is not Lord Fauntleroy who lies sleeping before us, but only the son of
Captain Errol. And the present Lord Fauntleroy is the son of your son
Bevis, and is at this moment in a lodging-house in London.”
The Earl clutched the arms of his chair with both his hands until the
veins stood out upon them; the veins stood out on his forehead too; his
fierce old face was almost livid.
“What do you mean!” he cried out. “You are mad! Whose lie is this?”
“If it is a lie,” answered Mr. Havisham, “it is painfully like the
truth. A woman came to my chambers this morning. She said your son
Bevis married her six years ago in London. She showed me her marriage
certificate. They quarrelled a year after the marriage, and he paid her
to keep away from him. She has a son five years old. She is an American
of the lower classes,--an ignorant person,--and until lately she did not
fully understand what her son could claim. She consulted a lawyer and
found out that the boy was really Lord Fauntleroy and the heir to the
earldom of Dorincourt; and she, of course, insists on his claims being
acknowledged.”
There was a movement of the curly head on the yellow satin cushion. A
soft, long, sleepy sigh came from the parted lips, and the little boy
stirred in his sleep, but not at all restlessly or uneasily. Not at all
as if his slumber were disturbed by the fact that he was being proved
a small impostor and that he was not Lord Fauntleroy at all and never
would be the Earl of Dorincourt. He only turned his rosy face more on
its side, as if to enable the old man who stared at it so solemnly to
see it better.
The handsome, grim old face was ghastly. A bitter smile fixed itself
upon it.
“I should refuse to believe a word of it,” he said, “if it were not such
a low, scoundrelly piece of business that it becomes quite possible in
connection with the name of my son Bevis. It is quite like Bevis. He was
always a disgrace to us. Always a weak, untruthful, vicious young brute
with low tastes--my son and heir, Bevis, Lord Fauntleroy. The woman is
an ignorant, vulgar person, you say?”
“I am obliged to admit that she can scarcely spell her own name,”
answered the lawyer. “She is absolutely uneducated and openly mercenary.
She cares for nothing but the money. She is very handsome in a coarse
way, but----”
The fastidious old lawyer ceased speaking and gave a sort of shudder.
The veins on the old Earl's forehead stood out like purple cords.
Something else stood out upon it too--cold drops of moisture. He took
out his handkerchief and swept them away. His smile grew even more
bitter.
“And I,” he said, “I objected to--to the other woman, the mother of
this child” (pointing to the sleeping form on the sofa); “I refused to
recognize her. And yet she could spell her own name. I suppose this is
retribution.”
Suddenly he sprang up from his chair and began to walk up and down the
room. Fierce and terrible words poured forth from his lips. His rage and
hatred and cruel disappointment shook him as a storm shakes a tree. His
violence was something dreadful to see, and yet Mr. Havisham noticed
that at the very worst of his wrath he never seemed to forget the little
sleeping figure on the yellow satin cushion, and that he never once
spoke loud enough to awaken it.
“I might have known it,” he said. “They were a disgrace to me from their
first hour! I hated them both; and they hated me! Bevis was the worse of
the two. I will not believe this yet, though! I will contend against it
to the last. But it is like Bevis--it is like him!”
And then he raged again and asked questions about the woman, about her
proofs, and pacing the room, turned first white and then purple in his
repressed fury.
When at last he had learned all there was to be told, and knew the