Little Lord Fauntleroy
will thank you for it when he is a man. I assure you Lord Fauntleroy
will be most carefully guarded, and every effort will be used to insure
his happiness. The Earl of Dorincourt will be as anxious for his comfort
and well-being as you yourself could be.”
“I hope,” said the tender little mother, in a rather broken voice, “that
his grandfather will love Ceddie. The little boy has a very affectionate
nature; and he has always been loved.”
Mr. Havisham cleared his throat again. He could not quite imagine the
gouty, fiery-tempered old Earl loving any one very much; but he knew it
would be to his interest to be kind, in his irritable way, to the child
who was to be his heir. He knew, too, that if Ceddie were at all a
credit to his name, his grandfather would be proud of him.
“Lord Fauntleroy will be comfortable, I am sure,” he replied. “It was
with a view to his happiness that the Earl desired that you should be
near enough to him to see him frequently.”
He did not think it would be discreet to repeat the exact words the Earl
had used, which were in fact neither polite nor amiable.
Mr. Havisham preferred to express his noble patron's offer in smoother
and more courteous language.
He had another slight shock when Mrs. Errol asked Mary to find her
little boy and bring him to her, and Mary told her where he was.
“Sure I'll foind him aisy enough, ma'am,” she said; “for it's wid Mr.
Hobbs he is this minnit, settin' on his high shtool by the counther an'
talkin' pollytics, most loikely, or enj'yin' hisself among the soap an'
candles an' pertaties, as sinsible an' shwate as ye plase.”
“Mr. Hobbs has known him all his life,” Mrs. Errol said to the lawyer.
“He is very kind to Ceddie, and there is a great friendship between
them.”
Remembering the glimpse he had caught of the store as he passed it,
and having a recollection of the barrels of potatoes and apples and
the various odds and ends, Mr. Havisham felt his doubts arise again.
In England, gentlemen's sons did not make friends of grocerymen, and it
seemed to him a rather singular proceeding. It would be very awkward if
the child had bad manners and a disposition to like low company. One of
the bitterest humiliations of the old Earl's life had been that his two
elder sons had been fond of low company. Could it be, he thought,
that this boy shared their bad qualities instead of his father's good
qualities?
He was thinking uneasily about this as he talked to Mrs. Errol until the
child came into the room. When the door opened, he actually hesitated
a moment before looking at Cedric. It would, perhaps, have seemed very
queer to a great many people who knew him, if they could have known the
curious sensations that passed through Mr. Havisham when he looked down
at the boy, who ran into his mother's arms. He experienced a revulsion
of feeling which was quite exciting. He recognized in an instant that
here was one of the finest and handsomest little fellows he had ever
seen.
His beauty was something unusual. He had a strong, lithe, graceful
little body and a manly little face; he held his childish head up, and
carried himself with a brave air; he was so like his father that it was
really startling; he had his father's golden hair and his mother's
brown eyes, but there was nothing sorrowful or timid in them. They were
innocently fearless eyes; he looked as if he had never feared or doubted
anything in his life.
“He is the best-bred-looking and handsomest little fellow I ever saw,”
was what Mr. Havisham thought. What he said aloud was simply, “And so
this is little Lord Fauntleroy.”
And, after this, the more he saw of little Lord Fauntleroy, the more of
a surprise he found him. He knew very little about children, though he
had seen plenty of them in England--fine, handsome, rosy girls and boys,
who were strictly taken care of by their tutors and governesses, and who
were sometimes shy, and sometimes a trifle boisterous, but never very
interesting to a ceremonious, rigid old lawyer. Perhaps his personal
interest in little Lord Fauntleroy's fortunes made him notice Ceddie
more than he had noticed other children; but, however that was, he
certainly found himself noticing him a great deal.
Cedric did not know he was being observed, and he only behaved himself
in his ordinary manner. He shook hands with Mr. Havisham in his friendly
way when they were introduced to each other, and he answered all his
questions with the unhesitating readiness with which he answered Mr.
Hobbs. He was neither shy nor bold, and when Mr. Havisham was talking to
his mother, the lawyer noticed that he listened to the conversation with
as much interest as if he had been quite grown up.
“He seems to be a very mature little fellow,” Mr. Havisham said to the
mother.
“I think he is, in some things,” she answered. “He has always been very
quick to learn, and he has lived a great deal with grownup people. He
has a funny little habit of using long words and expressions he has read
in books, or has heard others use, but he is very fond of childish
play. I think he is rather clever, but he is a very boyish little boy,
sometimes.”
The next time Mr. Havisham met him, he saw that this last was quite
true. As his coupe turned the corner, he caught sight of a group of
small boys, who were evidently much excited. Two of them were about to
run a race, and one of them was his young lordship, and he was shouting
and making as much noise as the noisiest of his companions. He stood
side by side with another boy, one little red leg advanced a step.
“One, to make ready!” yelled the starter. “Two, to be steady. Three--and
away!”
Mr. Havisham found himself leaning out of the window of his coupe with
a curious feeling of interest. He really never remembered having seen
anything quite like the way in which his lordship's lordly little red
legs flew up behind his knickerbockers and tore over the ground as he
shot out in the race at the signal word. He shut his small hands and set
his face against the wind; his bright hair streamed out behind.
“Hooray, Ced Errol!” all the boys shouted, dancing and shrieking with
excitement. “Hooray, Billy Williams! Hooray, Ceddie! Hooray, Billy!
Hooray! 'Ray! 'Ray!”
“I really believe he is going to win,” said Mr. Havisham. The way in
which the red legs flew and flashed up and down, the shrieks of the
boys, the wild efforts of Billy Williams, whose brown legs were not to
be despised, as they followed closely in the rear of the red legs, made
him feel some excitement. “I really--I really can't help hoping he will
win!” he said, with an apologetic sort of cough. At that moment, the
wildest yell of all went up from the dancing, hopping boys. With
one last frantic leap the future Earl of Dorincourt had reached the
lamp-post at the end of the block and touched it, just two seconds
before Billy Williams flung himself at it, panting.
“Three cheers for Ceddie Errol!” yelled the little boys. “Hooray for
Ceddie Errol!”
Mr. Havisham drew his head in at the window of his coupe and leaned back
with a dry smile.
“Bravo, Lord Fauntleroy!” he said.
As his carriage stopped before the door of Mrs. Errol's house, the
victor and the vanquished were coming toward it, attended by the
clamoring crew. Cedric walked by Billy Williams and was speaking to him.
His elated little face was very red, his curls clung to his hot, moist
forehead, his hands were in his pockets.
“You see,” he was saying, evidently with the intention of making defeat
easy for his unsuccessful rival, “I guess I won because my legs are a
little longer than yours. I guess that was it. You see, I'm three days
older than you, and that gives me a 'vantage. I'm three days older.”
And this view of the case seemed to cheer Billy Williams so much that
he began to smile on the world again, and felt able to swagger a little,
almost as if he had won the race instead of losing it. Somehow, Ceddie
Errol had a way of making people feel comfortable. Even in the first
flush of his triumphs, he remembered that the person who was beaten
might not feel so gay as he did, and might like to think that he MIGHT
have been the winner under different circumstances.
That morning Mr. Havisham had quite a long conversation with the winner
of the race--a conversation which made him smile his dry smile, and rub
his chin with his bony hand several times.
Mrs. Errol had been called out of the parlor, and the lawyer and Cedric
were left together. At first Mr. Havisham wondered what he should say to
his small companion. He had an idea that perhaps it would be best to say
several things which might prepare Cedric for meeting his grandfather,
and, perhaps, for the great change that was to come to him. He could see
that Cedric had not the least idea of the sort of thing he was to see
when he reached England, or of the sort of home that waited for him
there. He did not even know yet that his mother was not to live in the
same house with him. They had thought it best to let him get over the
first shock before telling him.
Mr. Havisham sat in an arm-chair on one side of the open window; on the
other side was another still larger chair, and Cedric sat in that and
looked at Mr. Havisham. He sat well back in the depths of his big seat,
his curly head against the cushioned back, his legs crossed, and his
hands thrust deep into his pockets, in a quite Mr. Hobbs-like way. He
had been watching Mr. Havisham very steadily when his mamma had been in
the room, and after she was gone he still looked at him in respectful
thoughtfulness. There was a short silence after Mrs. Errol went out,
and Cedric seemed to be studying Mr. Havisham, and Mr. Havisham was
certainly studying Cedric. He could not make up his mind as to what an
elderly gentleman should say to a little boy who won races, and wore
short knickerbockers and red stockings on legs which were not long
enough to hang over a big chair when he sat well back in it.
But Cedric relieved him by suddenly beginning the conversation himself.
“Do you know,” he said, “I don't know what an earl is?”
“Don't you?” said Mr. Havisham.
“No,” replied Ceddie. “And I think when a boy is going to be one, he
ought to know. Don't you?”
“Well--yes,” answered Mr. Havisham.
“Would you mind,” said Ceddie respectfully--“would you mind 'splaining
it to me?” (Sometimes when he used his long words he did not pronounce
them quite correctly.) “What made him an earl?”
“A king or queen, in the first place,” said Mr. Havisham. “Generally,
he is made an earl because he has done some service to his sovereign, or
some great deed.”
“Oh!” said Cedric; “that's like the President.”
“Is it?” said Mr. Havisham. “Is that why your presidents are elected?”
“Yes,” answered Ceddie cheerfully. “When a man is very good and knows a
great deal, he is elected president. They have torch-light processions
and bands, and everybody makes speeches. I used to think I might perhaps
be a president, but I never thought of being an earl. I didn't know
about earls,” he said, rather hastily, lest Mr. Havisham might feel it
impolite in him not to have wished to be one,--“if I'd known about them,
I dare say I should have thought I should like to be one.”
“It is rather different from being a president,” said Mr. Havisham.
“Is it?” asked Cedric. “How? Are there no torch-light processions?”
Mr. Havisham crossed his own legs and put the tips of his fingers
carefully together. He thought perhaps the time had come to explain
matters rather more clearly.
“An earl is--is a very important person,” he began.
“So is a president!” put in Ceddie. “The torch-light processions are
five miles long, and they shoot up rockets, and the band plays! Mr.
Hobbs took me to see them.”