Little Lord Fauntleroy (12 page)

your afechshnet old friend
CEDRIC ERROL

 

ps no one is in the dungon my granfarther never had any one langwishin in there

ps he is such a good earl he reminds me of you he is a unerversle favrit

 

“Do you miss your mother very much?” asked the Earl when he had finished reading this.

“Yes,” said Fauntleroy, “I miss her all the time.”

He went and stood before the Earl and put his hand on his knee looking up at him.

“
You
don't miss her, do you?” he said.

“I don't know her,” answered his lordship rather crustily.

“I know that,” said Fauntleroy, “and that's what makes me wonder. She told me not to ask you any questions, and—and I won't, but sometimes I can't help thinking, you know, and it makes me all puzzled. But I'm not going to ask any questions. And when I miss her very much, I go and look out of my window to where I see her light shine for me every night through an open place in the trees. It is a long way off, but she puts it in her window as soon as it is dark and I can see it twinkle far away, and I know what it says.”

“What does it say?” asked my lord.

“It says, ‘Good night, God keep you all the night!'—just what she used to say when we were together. Every night she used to say that to me, and every morning she said, ‘God bless you all the day!' So you see I am quite safe all the time—”

“Quite, I have no doubt,” said his lordship dryly. And he drew down his beetling eyebrows and looked at the little boy so fixedly and so long that Fauntleroy wondered what he could be thinking of.

T
HE fact was, his lordship the Earl of Dorincourt thought in those days of many things of which he had never thought before, and all his thoughts were in one way or another connected with his grandson. His pride was the strongest part of his nature, and the boy gratified it at every point. Through this pride he began to find a new interest in life. He began to take pleasure in showing his heir to the world. The world had known of his disappointment in his sons; so there was an agreeable touch of triumph in exhibiting this new Lord Fauntleroy, who could disappoint no one. He wished the child to appreciate his own power and to understand the splendor of his position; he wished that others should realize it too. He made plans for his future. Sometimes in secret he actually found himself wishing that his own past life had been a better one, and that there had been less in it that this pure, childish heart would shrink from if it knew the truth. It was not agreeable to think how the beautiful innocent face would look if its owner should be made by any chance to understand that his grandfather had been called for many a year “the wicked Earl of Dorincourt.” The thought even made him feel a trifle nervous. He did not wish the boy to find it out. Sometimes in this new interest he forgot his gout, and after a while his doctor was surprised to find his noble patient's health growing better than he had expected it ever would be again. Perhaps the Earl grew better because the time did not pass so slowly for him, and he had something to think of besides his pains and infirmities.

One fine morning people were amazed to see little Lord Fauntleroy riding his pony with another companion than Wilkins. This new companion rode a tall, powerful, gray horse, and was no other than the Earl himself. It was in fact Fauntleroy who had suggested this plan. As he had been on the point of mounting his pony he had said rather wistfully to his grandfather:

“I wish you were going with me. When I go away I feel lonely because you are left all by yourself in such a big castle. I wish you could ride too.”

And the greatest excitement had been aroused in the stables a few minutes later by the arrival of an order that Selim was to be saddled for the Earl. After that Selim was saddled almost every day; and the people became accustomed to the sight of the tall gray horse carrying the tall gray old man with his handsome, fierce, eagle face, by the side of the brown pony which bore little Lord Fauntleroy. And in their rides together through the green lanes and pretty country roads, the two riders became more intimate than ever. And gradually the old man heard a great deal about “Dearest” and her life. As Fauntleroy trotted by the big horse he chatted gaily. There could not well have been a brighter little comrade, his nature was so happy. It was he who talked the most. The Earl often was silent, listening and watching the joyous, glowing face. Sometimes he would tell his young companion to set the pony off at a gallop, and when the little fellow dashed off, sitting so straight and fearless, he would watch the boy with a gleam of pride and pleasure in his eyes; and Fauntleroy when, after such a dash, he came back waving his cap with a laughing shout, always felt that he and his grandfather were very good friends indeed.

One thing that the Earl discovered was that his son's wife did not lead an idle life. It was not long before he learned that the poor people knew her very well indeed. When there was sickness or sorrow or poverty in any house, the little brougham often stood before the door.

“Do you know,” said Fauntleroy once, “they all say, ‘God bless you!' when they see her, and the children are glad. There are some who go to her house to be taught to sew. She says she feels so rich now that she wants to help the poor ones.”

It had not displeased the Earl to find that the mother of his heir had a beautiful young face and looked as much like a lady as if she had been a duchess, and in one way it did not displease him to know that she was popular and beloved by the poor. And yet he was often conscious of a hard, jealous pang when he saw how she filled her child's heart and how the boy clung to her as his best beloved. The old man would have desired to stand first himself and have no rival.

That same morning he drew up his horse on an elevated point of the moor over which they rode, and made a gesture with his whip, over the broad, beautiful landscape spread before them.

“Do you know that all that land belongs to me?” he said to Fauntleroy.

“Does it?” answered Fauntleroy. “How much it is to belong to one person, and how beautiful!”

“Do you know that some day it will all belong to you—that and a great deal more?”

“To me!” exclaimed Fauntleroy in rather an awestricken voice. “When?”

“When I am dead,” his grandfather answered.

“Then I don't want it,” said Fauntleroy; “I want you to live always.”

“That's kind,” answered the Earl in his dry way; “nevertheless some day it will all be yours—some day you will be the Earl of Dorincourt.”

Little Lord Fauntleroy sat very still in his saddle for a few moments. He looked over the broad moors, the green farms, the beautiful copses, the cottages in the lanes, the pretty village, and over the trees to where the turrets of the great castle rose, gray and stately. Then he gave a queer little sigh.

“What are you thinking of?” asked the Earl.

“I am thinking,” replied Fauntleroy, “what a little boy I am, and of what Dearest said to me.”

“What was it?” inquired the Earl.

“She said that perhaps it was not so easy to be very rich; that if anyone had so many things always, one might sometimes forget that everyone else was not so fortunate, and that one who is rich should always be careful and try to remember. I was talking to her about how good you were, and she said that was such a good thing, because an earl had so much power, and if he cared only about his own pleasure and never thought about the people who lived on his lands, they might have trouble that he could help—and there were so many people, and it would be such a hard thing. And I was just looking at all those houses, and thinking how I should have to find out about the people when I was an earl. How did you find out about them?”

As his lordship's knowledge of his tenantry consisted in finding out which of them paid their rent promptly, and in turning out those who did not, this was rather a hard question. “Newick finds out for me,” he said, and he pulled his great gray mustache, and looked at his small questioner rather uneasily.

“We will go home now,” he added; “and when you are an earl, see to it that you are a better one than I have been!”

He was very silent as they rode home. He felt it to be almost incredible that he, who had never really loved anyone in his life, should find himself growing so fond of this little fellow—as without doubt he was. At first he had only been pleased and proud of Cedric's beauty and bravery, but there was something more than pride in his feeling now. He laughed a grim, dry laugh all to himself sometimes, when he thought how he liked to have the boy near him, how he liked to hear his voice, and how in secret he really wished to be liked and thought well of by his small grandson.

“I'm an old fellow in my dotage, and I have nothing else to think of,” he would say to himself; and yet he knew it was not that altogether. And if he had allowed himself to admit the truth, he would perhaps have found himself obliged to own that the very things which attracted him, in spite of himself, were the qualities he had never possessed—the frank, true, kindly nature, the affectionate trustfulness which could never think evil.

It was only about a week after that ride when, after a visit to his mother, Fauntleroy came into the library with a troubled, thoughtful face. He sat down in that high-backed chair in which he had sat on the evening of his arrival, and for a while he looked at the embers on the hearth. The Earl watched him in silence, wondering what was coming. It was evident that Cedric had something on his mind. At last he looked up. “Does Newick know all about the people?” he asked.

“It is his business to know about them,” said his lordship. “Been neglecting it—has he?”

Contradictory as it may seem, there was nothing which entertained and edified him more than the little fellow's interest in his tenantry. He had never taken any interest in them himself, but it pleased him well enough that, with all his childish habits of thought and in the midst of all his childish amusements and high spirits, there should be such a quaint seriousness working in the curly head.

“There is a place,” said Fauntleroy, looking up at him with wide-open, horror-stricken eyes. “Dearest has seen it; it is at the other end of the village. The houses are close together, and almost falling down; you can scarcely breathe; and the people are so poor, and everything is dreadful! Often they have fever and the children die; and it makes them wicked to live like that, and be so poor and miserable! It is worse than Michael and Bridget! The rain comes in at the roof! Dearest went to see a poor woman who lived there. She would not let me come near her until she had changed all her things. The tears ran down her cheeks when she told me about it!”

The tears had come into his own eyes, but he smiled through them.

“I told her you didn't know, and I would tell you,” he said. He jumped down and came and leaned against the Earl's chair. “You can make it all right,” he said, “just as you made it all right for Higgins. You always make it all right for everybody. I told her you would, and that Newick must have forgotten to tell you.”

The Earl looked down at the hand on his knee. Newick had not forgotten to tell him; in fact, Newick had spoken to him more than once of the desperate condition of the end of the village known as Earl's Court. He knew all about the tumbledown, miserable cottages, and the bad drainage, and the damp walls and broken windows and leaking roofs, and all about the poverty, the fever and the misery. Mr. Mordaunt had painted it all to him in the strongest words he could use, and his lordship had used violent language in response; and, when his gout had been at the worst, he said that the sooner the people of Earl's Court died and were buried by the parish the better it would be—and there was an end of the matter. And yet, as he looked at the small hand on his knee, and from the small hand to the honest, earnest, frank-eyed face, he was actually a little ashamed both of Earl's Court and of himself.

“What!” he said. “You want to make a builder of model cottages of me, do you?” And he positively put his own hand upon the childish one and stroked it.

“Those must be pulled down,” said Fauntleroy with great eagerness. “Dearest says so. Let us—let us go and have them pulled down tomorrow. The people will be so glad when they see you! They'll know you have come to help them!” And his eyes shone like stars in his glowing face.

The Earl rose from his chair and put his hand on the child's shoulder. “Let us go out and take our walk on the terrace,” he said with a short laugh, “and we can talk it over.”

And though he laughed two or three times again, as they walked to and fro on the broad stone terrace, where they walked together almost every fine evening, he seemed to be thinking of something which did not displease him, and still he kept his hand on his small companion's shoulder.

T
HE truth was that Mrs. Errol had found a great many sad things in the course of her work among the poor of the little village that appeared so picturesque when it was seen from the moor-sides. Everything was not as picturesque when seen near by, as it looked from a distance. She had found idleness and poverty and ignorance where there should have been comfort and industry. And she had discovered after a while that Erlesboro was considered to be the worst village in that part of the country. Mr. Mordaunt had told her a great many of his difficulties and discouragements, and she had found out a great deal by herself. The agents who had managed the property had always been chosen to please the Earl, and had cared nothing for the degradation and wretchedness of the poor tenants. Many things, therefore, had been neglected which should have been attended to, and matters had gone from bad to worse.

As to Earl's Court, it was a disgrace, with its dilapidated houses and miserable, careless, sickly people. When first Mrs. Errol went to the place, it made her shudder. Such ugliness and slovenliness and want seemed worse in a country place than in a city. It seemed as if there it might be helped. And as she looked at the squalid, uncared-for children growing up in the midst of vice and brutal indifference, she thought of her own little boy spending his days in the great, splendid castle, guarded and served like a young prince, having no wish ungratified, and knowing nothing but luxury and ease and beauty. And a bold thought came into her wise little mother-heart. Gradually she had begun to see, as had others, that it had been her boy's good fortune to please the Earl very much, and that he would scarcely be likely to be denied anything for which he expressed a desire.

“The Earl would give him everything,” she said to Mr. Mordaunt. “He would indulge his every whim. Why should not that indulgence be used for the good of others? It is for me to see that this shall come to pass.”

She knew she could trust the kind, childish heart; so she told the little fellow the story of Earl's Court, feeling sure that he would speak of it to his grandfather, and hoping that some good results would follow.

And strange as it appeared to everyone, good results did follow. The fact was that the strongest power to influence the Earl was his grandson's perfect confidence in him—the fact that Cedric always believed that his grandfather was going to do what was right and generous. He could not quite make up his mind to let him discover that he had no inclination to be generous at all, and that he wanted his own way on all occasions, whether it was right or wrong. It was such a novelty to be regarded with admiration as a benefactor of the entire human race and the soul of nobility, that he did not enjoy the idea of looking into the affectionate brown eyes and saying “I am a violent, selfish old rascal; I never did a generous thing in my life, and I don't care about Earl's Court or the poor people”—or something which would amount to the same thing. He actually had learned to be fond enough of that small boy with the mop of yellow love-locks, to feel that he himself would prefer to be guilty of an amiable action now and then. And so—though he laughed at himself—after some reflection, he sent for Newick, and had quite a long interview with him on the subject of the Court, and it was decided that the wretched hovels should be pulled down and new houses should be built.

“It is Lord Fauntleroy who insists on it,” he said dryly; “he thinks it will improve the property. You can tell the tenants that it's his idea.” And he looked down at his small lordship, who was lying on the hearthrug playing with Dougal. The great dog was the lad's constant companion, and followed him about everywhere, stalking solemnly after him when he walked, and trotting majestically behind when he rode or drove.

Of course both the country people and the town people heard of the proposed improvement. At first many of them would not believe it; but when a small army of workmen arrived and commenced pulling down the crazy, squalid cottages, people began to understand that little Lord Fauntleroy had done them a good turn again, and that through his innocent interference the scandal of Earl's Court had at last been removed. If he had only known how they talked about him and praised him everywhere, and prophesied great things for him when he grew up, how astonished he would have been! But he never suspected it. He lived his simple, happy child life, frolicking about in the park; chasing the rabbits to their burrows; lying under the trees on the grass, or on the rug in the library, reading wonderful books and talking to the Earl about them, and then telling the stories again to his mother; writing long letters to Dick and Mr. Hobbs, who responded in characteristic fashion; riding out at his grandfather's side, or with Wilkins as escort. As they rode through the market town, he used to see the people turn and look, and he noticed that as they lifted their hats their faces often brightened very much, but he thought it was all because his grandfather was with him.

“They are so fond of you,” he once said, looking up at his lordship with a bright smile. “Do you see how glad they are when they see you? I hope they will some day be as fond of me. It must be nice to have
every
body like you.”

And he felt quite proud to be the grandson of so greatly admired and beloved an individual.

When the cottages were being built, the lad and his grandfather used to ride over to Earl's Court together to look at them, and Fauntleroy was full of interest. He would dismount from his pony and go and make acquaintance with the workmen, asking them questions about building and bricklaying, and telling them things about America. After two or three such conversations, he was able to enlighten the Earl on the subject of brickmaking as they rode home.

“I always like to know about things like those,” he said, “because you never know what you are coming to.”

When he left them the workmen used to talk him over among themselves, and laugh at his odd, innocent speeches; but they liked him and liked to see him stand among them, talking away, with his hands in his pockets, his hat pushed back on his curls, and his small face full of eagerness. “He's a rare 'un,” they used to say. “An' a noice little outspoken chap too. Not much o' th' bad stock in him.” And they would go home and tell their wives about him, and the women would tell each other, and so it came about that almost everyone talked of, or knew some story of, little Lord Fauntleroy; and gradually almost everyone knew that the “wicked Earl” had found something he cared for at last—something which had touched and even warmed his hard, bitter old heart.

But no one knew quite how much it had been warmed, and how day by day the old man found himself caring more and more for the child, who was the only creature that had ever trusted him. He found himself looking forward to the time when Cedric would be a young man, strong and beautiful, with life all before him, but having still that kind heart and the power to make friends everywhere; and the Earl wondered what the lad would do, and how he would use his gifts. Often as he watched the little fellow lying upon the hearth, conning some big book, the light shining on the bright young head, his old eyes would gleam and his cheek would flush.

“The boy can do anything,” he would say to himself, “anything!”

He never spoke to anyone else of his feeling for Cedric; when he spoke of him to others it was always with the same grim smile. But Fauntleroy soon knew that his grandfather loved him and always liked him to be near—near to his chair if they were in the library, opposite to him at table or by his side when he rode or drove or took his evening walk on the broad terrace.

“Do you remember,” Cedric said once, looking up from his book as he lay on the rug, “do you remember what I said to you that first night about our being good companions? I don't think any people could be better friends than we are, do you?”

“We are pretty good companions, I should say,” replied his lordship. “Come here.”

Fauntleroy scrambled up and went to him.

“Is there anything you want?” the Earl asked. “Anything you have not?”

The little fellow's brown eyes fixed themselves on his grandfather with a rather wistful look.

“Only one thing,” he answered.

“What is that?” inquired the Earl.

Fauntleroy was silent a second. He had not thought matters over to himself so long for nothing.

“What is it?” my lord repeated.

Fauntleroy answered.

“It is Dearest,” he said.

The old Earl winced a little.

“But you see her almost every day,” he said. “Is not that enough?”

“I used to see her all the time,” said Fauntleroy. “She used to kiss me when I went to sleep at night, and in the morning she was always there, and we could tell each other things without waiting.”

The old eyes and the young ones looked into each other through a moment of silence. Then the Earl knitted his brows.

“Do you
never
forget about your mother?” he said.

“No,” answered Fauntleroy, “never; and she never forgets about me. I shouldn't forget about
you
you know, if I didn't live with you. I should think about you all the more.”

“Upon my word,” said the Earl, after looking at him a moment longer, “I believe you would!”

The jealous pang that came when the boy spoke so of his mother seemed even stronger than it had been before—it was stronger because of this old man's increasing affection for the boy.

But it was not long before he had other pangs, so much harder to face that he almost forgot, for the time, he had ever hated his son's wife at all. And in a strange and startling way it happened. One evening, just before the Earl's Court cottages were completed, there was a grand dinner party at Dorincourt. There had not been such a party at the Castle for a long time. A few days before it took place, Sir Harry Lorridaile and Lady Lorridaile, who was the Earl's only sister, actually came for a visit—a thing which caused the greatest excitement in the village and set Mrs. Dibble's shop-bell tinkling madly again, because it was well known that Lady Lorridaile had only been to Dorincourt once since her marriage, thirty-five years before. She was a handsome old lady with white curls and dimpled, peachy cheeks, and she was as good as gold, but she had never approved of her brother any more than did the rest of the world, and having a strong will of her own and not being at all afraid to speak her mind frankly, she had, after several lively quarrels with his lordship, seen very little of him since her young days.

She had heard a great deal of him that was not pleasant through the years in which they had been separated. She had heard about his neglect of his wife, and of the poor lady's death; and of his indifference to his children; and of the two weak, vicious, unprepossessing elder boys who had been no credit to him or to anyone else. Those two elder sons, Bevis and Maurice, she had never seen; but once there had come to Lorridaile Park a tall, stalwart, beautiful young fellow about eighteen years old who had told her that he was her nephew Cedric Errol, and that he had come to see her because he was passing near the place and wished to look at his Aunt Constantia, of whom he had heard his mother speak. Lady Lorridaile's kind heart had warmed through and through at the sight of the young man, and she had made him stay with her a week, and petted him and made much of him and admired him immensely. He was so sweet-tempered, light-hearted, spirited a lad, that when he went away she had hoped to see him often again; but she never did, because the Earl had been in a bad humor when he went back to Dorincourt, and had forbidden him ever to go to Lorridaile Park again. But Lady Lorridaile had always remembered him tenderly, and though she feared he had made a rash marriage in America, she had been very angry when she heard how he had been cast off by his father and that no one really knew where or how he lived. At last there came a rumor of his death, and then Bevis had been thrown from his horse and killed, and Maurice had died in Rome of the fever; and soon after came the story of the American child who was to be found and brought home as Lord Fauntleroy.

“Probably to be ruined as the others were,” she said to her husband, “unless his mother is good enough and has a will of her own to help her to take care of him.”

But when she heard that Cedric's mother had been parted from him she was almost too indignant for words.

“It is disgraceful, Harry!” she said. “Fancy a child of that age being taken from his mother, and made the companion of a man like my brother! He will either be brutal to the boy or indulge him until he is a little monster. If I thought it would do any good to write—”

“It wouldn't, Constantia,” said Sir Harry.

“I know it wouldn't,” she answered. “I know his lordship the Earl of Dorincourt too well;—but it is outrageous.”

Not only the poor people and farmers heard about little Lord Fauntleroy; others knew of him. He was talked about so much and there were so many stories of him—of his beauty, his sweet temper, his popularity, and his growing influence over the Earl his grandfather—that rumors of him reached the gentry at their country places and he was heard of in more than one county of England. People talked about him at the dinner tables, ladies pitied his young mother, and wondered if the boy were as handsome as he was said to be, and men who knew the Earl and his habits laughed heartily at the stories of the little fellow's belief in his lordship's amiability. Sir Thomas Asshe of Asshaine Hall, being in Erlesboro one day, met the Earl and his grandson riding together, and stopped to shake hands with my lord and congratulate him on his change of looks and on his recovery from the gout. “And, d'ye know,” he said, when he spoke of the incident afterwards, “the old man looked as proud as a turkey-cock; and upon my word I don't wonder, for a handsomer, finer lad than his grandson I never saw! As straight as a dart, and sat his pony like a young trooper!”