Little Lord Fauntleroy
“Thank you,” said Ceddie; “I'm all right. There is nothing the matter
with my head. I'm sorry to say it's true, Mr. Hobbs. That was what Mary
came to take me home for. Mr. Havisham was telling my mamma, and he is a
lawyer.”
Mr. Hobbs sank into his chair and mopped his forehead with his
handkerchief.
“ONE of us has got a sunstroke!” he exclaimed.
“No,” returned Cedric, “we haven't. We shall have to make the best of
it, Mr. Hobbs. Mr. Havisham came all the way from England to tell us
about it. My grandpapa sent him.”
Mr. Hobbs stared wildly at the innocent, serious little face before him.
“Who is your grandfather?” he asked.
Cedric put his hand in his pocket and carefully drew out a piece of
paper, on which something was written in his own round, irregular hand.
“I couldn't easily remember it, so I wrote it down on this,” he
said. And he read aloud slowly: “'John Arthur Molyneux Errol, Earl of
Dorincourt.' That is his name, and he lives in a castle--in two or three
castles, I think. And my papa, who died, was his youngest son; and I
shouldn't have been a lord or an earl if my papa hadn't died; and my
papa wouldn't have been an earl if his two brothers hadn't died. But
they all died, and there is no one but me,--no boy,--and so I have to be
one; and my grandpapa has sent for me to come to England.”
Mr. Hobbs seemed to grow hotter and hotter. He mopped his forehead and
his bald spot and breathed hard. He began to see that something very
remarkable had happened; but when he looked at the little boy sitting on
the cracker-box, with the innocent, anxious expression in his childish
eyes, and saw that he was not changed at all, but was simply as he had
been the day before, just a handsome, cheerful, brave little fellow in
a blue suit and red neck-ribbon, all this information about the nobility
bewildered him. He was all the more bewildered because Cedric gave it
with such ingenuous simplicity, and plainly without realizing himself
how stupendous it was.
“Wha--what did you say your name was?” Mr. Hobbs inquired.
“It's Cedric Errol, Lord Fauntleroy,” answered Cedric. “That was what
Mr. Havisham called me. He said when I went into the room: 'And so this
is little Lord Fauntleroy!'”
“Well,” said Mr. Hobbs, “I'll be--jiggered!”
This was an exclamation he always used when he was very much astonished
or excited. He could think of nothing else to say just at that puzzling
moment.
Cedric felt it to be quite a proper and suitable ejaculation. His
respect and affection for Mr. Hobbs were so great that he admired and
approved of all his remarks. He had not seen enough of society as yet to
make him realize that sometimes Mr. Hobbs was not quite conventional.
He knew, of course, that he was different from his mamma, but, then, his
mamma was a lady, and he had an idea that ladies were always different
from gentlemen.
He looked at Mr. Hobbs wistfully.
“England is a long way off, isn't it?” he asked.
“It's across the Atlantic Ocean,” Mr. Hobbs answered.
“That's the worst of it,” said Cedric. “Perhaps I shall not see you
again for a long time. I don't like to think of that, Mr. Hobbs.”
“The best of friends must part,” said Mr. Hobbs.
“Well,” said Cedric, “we have been friends for a great many years,
haven't we?”
“Ever since you was born,” Mr. Hobbs answered. “You was about six weeks
old when you was first walked out on this street.”
“Ah,” remarked Cedric, with a sigh, “I never thought I should have to be
an earl then!”
“You think,” said Mr. Hobbs, “there's no getting out of it?”
“I'm afraid not,” answered Cedric. “My mamma says that my papa would
wish me to do it. But if I have to be an earl, there's one thing I can
do: I can try to be a good one. I'm not going to be a tyrant. And if
there is ever to be another war with America, I shall try to stop it.”
His conversation with Mr. Hobbs was a long and serious one. Once having
got over the first shock, Mr. Hobbs was not so rancorous as might have
been expected; he endeavored to resign himself to the situation, and
before the interview was at an end he had asked a great many questions.
As Cedric could answer but few of them, he endeavored to answer
them himself, and, being fairly launched on the subject of earls and
marquises and lordly estates, explained many things in a way which would
probably have astonished Mr. Havisham, could that gentleman have heard
it.
But then there were many things which astonished Mr. Havisham. He had
spent all his life in England, and was not accustomed to American people
and American habits. He had been connected professionally with the
family of the Earl of Dorincourt for nearly forty years, and he knew all
about its grand estates and its great wealth and importance; and, in a
cold, business-like way, he felt an interest in this little boy, who, in
the future, was to be the master and owner of them all,--the future Earl
of Dorincourt. He had known all about the old Earl's disappointment
in his elder sons and all about his fierce rage at Captain Cedric's
American marriage, and he knew how he still hated the gentle little
widow and would not speak of her except with bitter and cruel words. He
insisted that she was only a common American girl, who had entrapped
his son into marrying her because she knew he was an earl's son. The
old lawyer himself had more than half believed this was all true. He had
seen a great many selfish, mercenary people in his life, and he had
not a good opinion of Americans. When he had been driven into the cheap
street, and his coupe had stopped before the cheap, small house, he had
felt actually shocked. It seemed really quite dreadful to think that the
future owner of Dorincourt Castle and Wyndham Towers and Chorlworth, and
all the other stately splendors, should have been born and brought up in
an insignificant house in a street with a sort of green-grocery at the
corner. He wondered what kind of a child he would be, and what kind of a
mother he had. He rather shrank from seeing them both. He had a sort of
pride in the noble family whose legal affairs he had conducted so long,
and it would have annoyed him very much to have found himself obliged to
manage a woman who would seem to him a vulgar, money-loving person, with
no respect for her dead husband's country and the dignity of his name.
It was a very old name and a very splendid one, and Mr. Havisham had
a great respect for it himself, though he was only a cold, keen,
business-like old lawyer.
When Mary handed him into the small parlor, he looked around it
critically. It was plainly furnished, but it had a home-like look; there
were no cheap, common ornaments, and no cheap, gaudy pictures; the few
adornments on the walls were in good taste and about the room were many
pretty things which a woman's hand might have made.
“Not at all bad so far,” he had said to himself; “but perhaps the
Captain's taste predominated.” But when Mrs. Errol came into the room,
he began to think she herself might have had something to do with it. If
he had not been quite a self-contained and stiff old gentleman, he would
probably have started when he saw her. She looked, in the simple black
dress, fitting closely to her slender figure, more like a young girl
than the mother of a boy of seven. She had a pretty, sorrowful, young
face, and a very tender, innocent look in her large brown eyes,--the
sorrowful look that had never quite left her face since her husband had
died. Cedric was used to seeing it there; the only times he had ever
seen it fade out had been when he was playing with her or talking to
her, and had said some old-fashioned thing, or used some long word he
had picked up out of the newspapers or in his conversations with Mr.
Hobbs. He was fond of using long words, and he was always pleased
when they made her laugh, though he could not understand why they
were laughable; they were quite serious matters with him. The lawyer's
experience taught him to read people's characters very shrewdly, and
as soon as he saw Cedric's mother he knew that the old Earl had made a
great mistake in thinking her a vulgar, mercenary woman. Mr. Havisham
had never been married, he had never even been in love, but he divined
that this pretty young creature with the sweet voice and sad eyes
had married Captain Errol only because she loved him with all her
affectionate heart, and that she had never once thought it an advantage
that he was an earl's son. And he saw he should have no trouble with
her, and he began to feel that perhaps little Lord Fauntleroy might not
be such a trial to his noble family, after all. The Captain had been a
handsome fellow, and the young mother was very pretty, and perhaps the
boy might be well enough to look at.
When he first told Mrs. Errol what he had come for, she turned very
pale.
“Oh!” she said; “will he have to be taken away from me? We love each
other so much! He is such a happiness to me! He is all I have. I have
tried to be a good mother to him.” And her sweet young voice trembled,
and the tears rushed into her eyes. “You do not know what he has been to
me!” she said.
The lawyer cleared his throat.
“I am obliged to tell you,” he said, “that the Earl of Dorincourt
is not--is not very friendly toward you. He is an old man, and his
prejudices are very strong. He has always especially disliked America
and Americans, and was very much enraged by his son's marriage. I am
sorry to be the bearer of so unpleasant a communication, but he is
very fixed in his determination not to see you. His plan is that Lord
Fauntleroy shall be educated under his own supervision; that he shall
live with him. The Earl is attached to Dorincourt Castle, and spends a
great deal of time there. He is a victim to inflammatory gout, and is
not fond of London. Lord Fauntleroy will, therefore, be likely to live
chiefly at Dorincourt. The Earl offers you as a home Court Lodge, which
is situated pleasantly, and is not very far from the castle. He also
offers you a suitable income. Lord Fauntleroy will be permitted to visit
you; the only stipulation is, that you shall not visit him or enter the
park gates. You see you will not be really separated from your son, and
I assure you, madam, the terms are not so harsh as--as they might
have been. The advantage of such surroundings and education as Lord
Fauntleroy will have, I am sure you must see, will be very great.”
He felt a little uneasy lest she should begin to cry or make a scene,
as he knew some women would have done. It embarrassed and annoyed him to
see women cry.
But she did not. She went to the window and stood with her face turned
away for a few moments, and he saw she was trying to steady herself.
“Captain Errol was very fond of Dorincourt,” she said at last. “He loved
England, and everything English. It was always a grief to him that he
was parted from his home. He was proud of his home, and of his name. He
would wish--I know he would wish that his son should know the beautiful
old places, and be brought up in such a way as would be suitable to his
future position.”
Then she came back to the table and stood looking up at Mr. Havisham
very gently.
“My husband would wish it,” she said. “It will be best for my little
boy. I know--I am sure the Earl would not be so unkind as to try to
teach him not to love me; and I know--even if he tried--that my little
boy is too much like his father to be harmed. He has a warm, faithful
nature, and a true heart. He would love me even if he did not see me;
and so long as we may see each other, I ought not to suffer very much.”
“She thinks very little of herself,” the lawyer thought. “She does not
make any terms for herself.”
“Madam,” he said aloud, “I respect your consideration for your son. He