Little Lord Fauntleroy
So it seemed to be agreed that if he received a pressing invitation from
the Earl to come and spend a few months at Dorincourt Castle, he was to
lay aside his republican prejudices and pack his valise at once.
At last all the preparations were complete; the day came when the trunks
were taken to the steamer, and the hour arrived when the carriage stood
at the door. Then a curious feeling of loneliness came upon the little
boy. His mamma had been shut up in her room for some time; when she came
down the stairs, her eyes looked large and wet, and her sweet mouth was
trembling. Cedric went to her, and she bent down to him, and he put his
arms around her, and they kissed each other. He knew something made them
both sorry, though he scarcely knew what it was; but one tender little
thought rose to his lips.
“We liked this little house, Dearest, didn't we?” he said. “We always
will like it, won't we?”
“Yes--yes,” she answered, in a low, sweet voice. “Yes, darling.”
And then they went into the carriage and Cedric sat very close to her,
and as she looked back out of the window, he looked at her and stroked
her hand and held it close.
And then, it seemed almost directly, they were on the steamer in the
midst of the wildest bustle and confusion; carriages were driving
down and leaving passengers; passengers were getting into a state of
excitement about baggage which had not arrived and threatened to be too
late; big trunks and cases were being bumped down and dragged about;
sailors were uncoiling ropes and hurrying to and fro; officers were
giving orders; ladies and gentlemen and children and nurses were coming
on board,--some were laughing and looked gay, some were silent and sad,
here and there two or three were crying and touching their eyes with
their handkerchiefs. Cedric found something to interest him on every
side; he looked at the piles of rope, at the furled sails, at the tall,
tall masts which seemed almost to touch the hot blue sky; he began to
make plans for conversing with the sailors and gaining some information
on the subject of pirates.
It was just at the very last, when he was standing leaning on the
railing of the upper deck and watching the final preparations, enjoying
the excitement and the shouts of the sailors and wharfmen, that his
attention was called to a slight bustle in one of the groups not far
from him. Some one was hurriedly forcing his way through this group and
coming toward him. It was a boy, with something red in his hand. It was
Dick. He came up to Cedric quite breathless.
“I've run all the way,” he said. “I've come down to see ye off. Trade's
been prime! I bought this for ye out o' what I made yesterday. Ye kin
wear it when ye get among the swells. I lost the paper when I was tryin'
to get through them fellers downstairs. They didn't want to let me up.
It's a hankercher.”
He poured it all forth as if in one sentence. A bell rang, and he made a
leap away before Cedric had time to speak.
“Good-bye!” he panted. “Wear it when ye get among the swells.” And he
darted off and was gone.
A few seconds later they saw him struggle through the crowd on the lower
deck, and rush on shore just before the gang-plank was drawn in. He
stood on the wharf and waved his cap.
Cedric held the handkerchief in his hand. It was of bright red silk
ornamented with purple horseshoes and horses' heads.
There was a great straining and creaking and confusion. The people on
the wharf began to shout to their friends, and the people on the steamer
shouted back:
“Good-bye! Good-bye! Good-bye, old fellow!” Every one seemed to be
saying, “Don't forget us. Write when you get to Liverpool. Good-bye!
Good-bye!”
Little Lord Fauntleroy leaned forward and waved the red handkerchief.
“Good-bye, Dick!” he shouted, lustily. “Thank you! Good-bye, Dick!”
And the big steamer moved away, and the people cheered again, and
Cedric's mother drew the veil over her eyes, and on the shore there was
left great confusion; but Dick saw nothing save that bright, childish
face and the bright hair that the sun shone on and the breeze lifted,
and he heard nothing but the hearty childish voice calling “Good-bye,
Dick!” as little Lord Fauntleroy steamed slowly away from the home of
his birth to the unknown land of his ancestors.
IV
It was during the voyage that Cedric's mother told him that his home was
not to be hers; and when he first understood it, his grief was so
great that Mr. Havisham saw that the Earl had been wise in making the
arrangements that his mother should be quite near him, and see him
often; for it was very plain he could not have borne the separation
otherwise. But his mother managed the little fellow so sweetly and
lovingly, and made him feel that she would be so near him, that, after a
while, he ceased to be oppressed by the fear of any real parting.
“My house is not far from the Castle, Ceddie,” she repeated each time
the subject was referred to--“a very little way from yours, and you can
always run in and see me every day, and you will have so many things
to tell me! and we shall be so happy together! It is a beautiful place.
Your papa has often told me about it. He loved it very much; and you
will love it too.”
“I should love it better if you were there,” his small lordship said,
with a heavy little sigh.
He could not but feel puzzled by so strange a state of affairs, which
could put his “Dearest” in one house and himself in another.
The fact was that Mrs. Errol had thought it better not to tell him why
this plan had been made.
“I should prefer he should not be told,” she said to Mr. Havisham. “He
would not really understand; he would only be shocked and hurt; and
I feel sure that his feeling for the Earl will be a more natural and
affectionate one if he does not know that his grandfather dislikes me so
bitterly. He has never seen hatred or hardness, and it would be a great
blow to him to find out that any one could hate me. He is so loving
himself, and I am so dear to him! It is better for him that he should
not be told until he is much older, and it is far better for the Earl.
It would make a barrier between them, even though Ceddie is such a
child.”
So Cedric only knew that there was some mysterious reason for the
arrangement, some reason which he was not old enough to understand, but
which would be explained when he was older. He was puzzled; but, after
all, it was not the reason he cared about so much; and after many talks
with his mother, in which she comforted him and placed before him the
bright side of the picture, the dark side of it gradually began to fade
out, though now and then Mr. Havisham saw him sitting in some queer
little old-fashioned attitude, watching the sea, with a very grave face,
and more than once he heard an unchildish sigh rise to his lips.
“I don't like it,” he said once as he was having one of his almost
venerable talks with the lawyer. “You don't know how much I don't like
it; but there are a great many troubles in this world, and you have
to bear them. Mary says so, and I've heard Mr. Hobbs say it too. And
Dearest wants me to like to live with my grandpapa, because, you see,
all his children are dead, and that's very mournful. It makes you
sorry for a man, when all his children have died--and one was killed
suddenly.”
One of the things which always delighted the people who made the
acquaintance of his young lordship was the sage little air he wore
at times when he gave himself up to conversation;--combined with his
occasionally elderly remarks and the extreme innocence and seriousness
of his round childish face, it was irresistible. He was such a handsome,
blooming, curly-headed little fellow, that, when he sat down and nursed
his knee with his chubby hands, and conversed with much gravity, he was
a source of great entertainment to his hearers. Gradually Mr. Havisham
had begun to derive a great deal of private pleasure and amusement from
his society.
“And so you are going to try to like the Earl,” he said.
“Yes,” answered his lordship. “He's my relation, and of course you have
to like your relations; and besides, he's been very kind to me. When a
person does so many things for you, and wants you to have everything you
wish for, of course you'd like him if he wasn't your relation; but when
he's your relation and does that, why, you're very fond of him.”
“Do you think,” suggested Mr. Havisham, “that he will be fond of you?”
“Well,” said Cedric, “I think he will, because, you see, I'm his
relation, too, and I'm his boy's little boy besides, and, well, don't
you see--of course he must be fond of me now, or he wouldn't want me to
have everything that I like, and he wouldn't have sent you for me.”
“Oh!” remarked the lawyer, “that's it, is it?”
“Yes,” said Cedric, “that's it. Don't you think that's it, too? Of
course a man would be fond of his grandson.”
The people who had been seasick had no sooner recovered from their
seasickness, and come on deck to recline in their steamer-chairs and
enjoy themselves, than every one seemed to know the romantic story of
little Lord Fauntleroy, and every one took an interest in the little
fellow, who ran about the ship or walked with his mother or the tall,
thin old lawyer, or talked to the sailors. Every one liked him; he
made friends everywhere. He was ever ready to make friends. When the
gentlemen walked up and down the deck, and let him walk with them, he
stepped out with a manly, sturdy little tramp, and answered all their
jokes with much gay enjoyment; when the ladies talked to him, there was
always laughter in the group of which he was the center; when he played
with the children, there was always magnificent fun on hand. Among the
sailors he had the heartiest friends; he heard miraculous stories about
pirates and shipwrecks and desert islands; he learned to splice ropes
and rig toy ships, and gained an amount of information concerning
“tops'ls” and “mains'ls,” quite surprising. His conversation had,
indeed, quite a nautical flavor at times, and on one occasion he raised
a shout of laughter in a group of ladies and gentlemen who were sitting
on deck, wrapped in shawls and overcoats, by saying sweetly, and with a
very engaging expression:
“Shiver my timbers, but it's a cold day!”
It surprised him when they laughed. He had picked up this sea-faring
remark from an “elderly naval man” of the name of Jerry, who told him
stories in which it occurred frequently. To judge from his stories of
his own adventures, Jerry had made some two or three thousand voyages,
and had been invariably shipwrecked on each occasion on an island
densely populated with bloodthirsty cannibals. Judging, also, by these
same exciting adventures, he had been partially roasted and eaten
frequently and had been scalped some fifteen or twenty times.
“That is why he is so bald,” explained Lord Fauntleroy to his mamma.
“After you have been scalped several times the hair never grows again.
Jerry's never grew again after that last time, when the King of the
Parromachaweekins did it with the knife made out of the skull of the
Chief of the Wopslemumpkies. He says it was one of the most serious
times he ever had. He was so frightened that his hair stood right
straight up when the king flourished his knife, and it never would lie
down, and the king wears it that way now, and it looks something like a
hair-brush. I never heard anything like the asperiences Jerry has had! I
should so like to tell Mr. Hobbs about them!”
Sometimes, when the weather was very disagreeable and people were
kept below decks in the saloon, a party of his grown-up friends would
persuade him to tell them some of these “asperiences” of Jerry's, and as
he sat relating them with great delight and fervor, there was certainly