Little Lord Fauntleroy (6 page)

When, later in the evening, Mr. Havisham presented himself at the Castle, he was taken at once to the Earl. He found him sitting by the fire in a luxurious easy chair, his foot on a gout-stool. He looked at the lawyer sharply from under his shaggy eyebrows, but Mr. Havisham could see that, in spite of his pretense at calmness, he was nervous and secretly excited.

“Well,” he said; “well, Havisham, come back, have you? What's the news?”

“Lord Fauntleroy and his mother are at Court Lodge,” replied Mr. Havisham. “They bore the voyage very well and are in excellent health.”

The Earl made a half-impatient sound and moved his hand restlessly.

“Glad to hear it,” he said brusquely. “So far, so good. Make yourself comfortable. Have a glass of wine and settle down. What else?”

“His lordship remains with his mother tonight. Tomorrow I will bring him to the Castle.”

The Earl's elbow was resting on the arm of his chair; he put his hand up and shielded his eyes with it.

“Well?” he said; “go on. You know I told you not to write to me about the matter, and I know nothing whatever about it. What kind of a lad is he? I don't care about the mother; what sort of a lad is he?”

Mr. Havisham drank a little of the glass of port he had poured out for himself, and sat holding it in his hand.

“It is rather difficult to judge of the character of a child of seven,” he said cautiously.

The Earl's prejudices were very intense. He looked up quickly and uttered a rough word.

“A fool, is he?” he exclaimed. “Or a clumsy cub? His American blood tells, does it?”

“I do not think it has injured him, my lord,” replied the lawyer in his dry, deliberate fashion. “I don't know much about children, but I thought him rather a fine lad.”

His manner of speech was always deliberate and unenthusiastic, but he made it a trifle more so than usual. He had a shrewd fancy that it would be better that the Earl should judge for himself, and be quite unprepared for his first interview with his grandson.

“Healthy and well grown?” asked my lord.

“Apparently very healthy, and quite well grown,” replied the lawyer.

“Straight-limbed and well enough to look at?” demanded the Earl.

A very slight smile touched Mr. Havisham's thin lips. There rose up before his mind's eye the picture he had left at Court Lodge—the beautiful, graceful child's body lying upon the tiger-skin in careless comfort—the bright, tumbled hair spread on the rug—the bright, rosy boy's face.

“Rather a handsome boy, I think, my lord, as boys go,” he said, “though I am scarcely a judge perhaps. But you will find him somewhat different from most English children, I dare say.”

“I haven't a doubt of that,” snarled the Earl, a twinge of gout seizing him. “A lot of impudent little beggars, those American children; I've heard that often enough.”

“It is not exactly impudence in his case,” said Mr. Havisham. “I can scarcely describe what the difference is. He has lived more with older people than with children, and the difference seems to be a mixture of maturity and childishness.”

“American impudence!” protested the Earl. “I've heard of it before. They call it precocity and freedom. Beastly, impudent, bad manners; that's what it is!”

Mr. Havisham drank some more port. He seldom argued with his lordly patron—never when his lordly patron's noble leg was inflamed by gout. At such times it was always better to leave him alone. So there was a silence of a few moments; it was Mr. Havisham who broke it.

“I have a message to deliver from Mrs. Errol,” he remarked.

“I don't want any of her messages!” growled his lordship; “the less I hear of her the better.”

“This is a rather important one,” explained the lawyer. “She prefers not to accept the income you proposed to settle on her.”

The Earl started visibly.

“What's that?” he cried out. “What's that?”

Mr. Havisham repeated his words.

“She says it is not necessary, and that as the relations between you are not friendly—”

“Not friendly!” ejaculated my lord savagely; “I should say they were not friendly! I hate to think of her! A mercenary, sharp-voiced American! I don't wish to see her!”

“My lord,” said Mr. Havisham, “you can scarcely call her mercenary. She has asked for nothing. She does not accept the money you offer her.”

“All done for effect!” snapped his noble lordship. “She wants to wheedle me into seeing her. She thinks I shall admire her spirit. I don't admire it! It's only American independence! I won't have her living like a beggar at my park gates. As she's the boy's mother she has a position to keep up, and she shall keep it up. She shall have the money, whether she likes it or not!”

“She won't spend it,” said Mr. Havisham.

“I don't care whether she spends it or not!” blustered my lord. “She shall have it sent to her. She shan't tell people that she has to live like a pauper because I have done nothing for her! She wants to give the boy a bad opinion of me! I suppose she has poisoned his mind against me already!”

“No,” said Mr. Havisham. “I have another message, which will prove to you that she has not done that.”

“I don't want to hear it!” panted the Earl, out of breath with anger and excitement and gout.

But Mr. Havisham delivered it.

“She asks you not to let Lord Fauntleroy hear anything which would lead him to understand that you separate him from her because of your prejudice against her. He is very fond of her, and she is convinced that it would cause a barrier to exist between you. She says he would not comprehend it and it might make him fear you in some measure, or at least cause him to feel less affection for you. She has told him that he is too young to understand the reason, but shall hear it when he is older. She wishes that there should be no shadow on your first meeting.”

The Earl sank back into his chair. His deep-set fierce old eyes gleamed under his beetling brows.

“Come, now!” he said, still breathlessly. “Come, now! You don't mean the mother hasn't told him?”

“Not one word, my lord,” replied the lawyer coolly. “That I can assure you. The child is prepared to believe you the most amiable and affectionate of grandparents. Nothing—absolutely nothing has been said to him to give him the slightest doubt of your perfection. And as I carried out your commands in every detail, while in New York, he certainly regards you as a wonder of generosity.”

“He does, eh?” said the Earl.

“I give you my word of honor,” said Mr. Havisham, “that Lord Fauntleroy's impressions of you will depend entirely upon yourself. And if you will pardon the liberty I take in making the suggestion, I think you will succeed better with him if you take the precaution not to speak slightingly of his mother.”

“Pooh, pooh!” said the Earl. “The youngster's only seven years old!”

“He has spent those seven years at his mother's side,” returned Mr. Havisham; “and she has all his affection.”

I
T was late in the afternoon when the carriage containing little Lord Fauntleroy and Mr. Havisham drove up the long avenue which led to the Castle. The Earl had given orders that his grandson should arrive in time to dine with him, and for some reason best known to himself he had also ordered that the child should be sent alone into the room in which he intended to receive him. As the carriage rolled up the avenue, Lord Fauntleroy sat leaning comfortably against the luxurious cushions, and regarded the prospect with great interest. He was, in fact, interested in everything he saw. He had been interested in the carriage, with its large, splendid horses and their glittering harness; he had been interested in the tall coachman and footman, with their resplendent livery; and he had been especially interested in the coronet on the panels, and had struck up an acquaintance with the footman for the purpose of inquiring what it meant.

When the carriage reached the great gates of the park, he looked out of the window to get a good view of the huge stone lions ornamenting the entrance. The gates were opened by a motherly, rosy-looking woman, who came out of a pretty ivy-covered lodge. Two children ran out of the house and stood looking with round, wide-open eyes at the little boy in the carriage, who looked at them also. Their mother stood curtsying and smiling, and the children, on receiving a sign from her, made bobbing little curtsies too.

“Does she know me?” asked Lord Fauntleroy. “I think she must think she knows me.” And he took off his black velvet cap to her and smiled.

“How do you do?” he said brightly. “Good afternoon!”

The woman seemed pleased, he thought. The smile broadened on her rosy face and a kind look came into her blue eyes.

“God bless your lordship!” she said. “God bless your pretty face! Good luck and happiness to your lordship! Welcome to you!”

Lord Fauntleroy waved his cap and nodded to her again as the carriage rolled by her.

“I like that woman,” he said. “She looks as if she liked boys. I should like to come here and play with her children. I wonder if she has enough to make up a company?”

Mr. Havisham did not tell him that he would scarcely be allowed to make playmates of the gate-keeper's children. The lawyer thought there was time enough for giving him that information.

The carriage rolled on and on between the great beautiful trees which grew on each side of the avenue and stretched their broad swaying branches in an arch across it. Cedric had never seen such trees, they were so grand and stately, and their branches grew so low down on their huge trunks. He did not then know that Dorincourt Castle was one of the most beautiful in all England; that its park was one of the broadest and finest, and its trees and avenue almost without rivals. But he did know that it was all very beautiful. He liked the big, broad-branched trees, with the late afternoon sunlight striking golden lances through them. He liked the perfect stillness which rested on everything. He felt a great, strange pleasure in the beauty of which he caught glimpses under and between the sweeping boughs—the great, beautiful spaces of the park, with still other trees, standing sometimes stately and alone, and sometimes in groups. Now and then they passed places where tall ferns grew in masses, and again and again the ground was azure with the bluebells swaying in the soft breeze. Several times he started up with a laugh of delight as a rabbit leaped up from under the greenery and scudded away with a twinkle of short white tail behind it. Once a covey of partridges rose with a sudden whir and flew away, and then he shouted and clapped his hands.

“It's a beautiful place, isn't it?” he said to Mr. Havisham. “I never saw such a beautiful place. It's prettier even than Central Park.”

He was rather puzzled by the length of time they were on their way.

“How far is it,” he said at length, “from the gate to the front door?”

“It is between three and four miles,” answered the lawyer.

“That's a long way for a person to live from his gate,” remarked his lordship.

Every few moments he saw something new to wonder at and admire. When he caught sight of the deer, some couched in the grass, some standing with their pretty antlered heads turned with a half-startled air towards the avenue as the carriage wheels disturbed them, he was enchanted.

“Has there been a circus,” he cried, “or do they live here always? Whose are they?”

“They live here,” Mr. Havisham told him. “They belong to the Earl, your grandfather.”

It was not long after this that they saw the Castle. It rose up before them stately and beautiful and gray, the last rays of the sun casting dazzling lights on its many windows. It had turrets and battlements and towers; a great deal of ivy grew upon its walls; all the broad open space about it was laid out in terraces and lawns and beds of brilliant flowers.

“It's the most beautiful place I ever saw!” said Cedric, his round face flushing with pleasure. “It reminds anyone of a king's palace. I saw a picture of one once in a fairy-book.”

He saw the great entrance door thrown open and many servants standing in two lines looking at him. He wondered why they were standing there, and admired their liveries very much. He did not know that they were there to do honor to the little boy to whom all this splendor would one day belong—the beautiful Castle like the fairy king's palace, the magnificent park, the grand old trees, the dells full of ferns and bluebells where the hares and rabbits played, the dappled, large-eyed deer couching in the deep grass. It was only a couple of weeks since he had sat with Mr. Hobbs among the potatoes and canned peaches, with his legs dangling from the high stool; it would not have been possible for him to realize that he had very much to do with all this grandeur. At the head of the line of servants there stood an elderly woman in a rich, plain, black silk gown; she had gray hair and wore a cap. As he entered the hall she stood nearer than the rest, and the child thought from the look in her eyes that she was going to speak to him. Mr. Havisham, who held his hand, paused a moment.

“This is Lord Fauntleroy, Mrs. Mellon,” he said. “Lord Fauntleroy, this is Mrs. Mellon, who is the housekeeper.”

Cedric gave her his hand, his eyes lighting up.

“Was it you who sent the cat?” he said. “I'm much obliged to you, ma'am.”

Mrs. Mellon's handsome old face looked as pleased as the face of the lodge-keeper's wife had done.

“I should know his lordship anywhere,” she said to Mr. Havisham. “He has the Captain's face and way. It's a great day, this, sir.”

Cedric wondered why it was a great day. He looked at Mrs. Mellon curiously. It seemed to him for a moment as if there were tears in her eyes, and yet it was evident she was not unhappy. She smiled down at him.

“The cat left two beautiful kittens here,” she said; “they shall be sent up to your lordship's nursery.”

Mr. Havisham said a few words to her in a low voice.

“In the library, sir,” Mrs. Mellon replied. “His lordship is to be taken there alone.”

A few minutes later the very tall footman in livery, who had escorted Cedric to the library door, opened it and announced: “Lord Fauntleroy, my lord,” in quite a majestic tone. If he was only a footman, he felt it was rather a grand occasion when the heir came home to his own land and possessions, and was ushered into the presence of the old Earl, whose place and title he was to take.

Cedric crossed the threshold into the room. It was a very large and splendid room, with massive carven furniture in it, and shelves upon shelves of books; the furniture was so dark, and the draperies so heavy, the diamond-paned windows were so deep, and it seemed such a distance from one end of it to the other, that, since the sun had gone down, the effect of it all was rather gloomy. For a moment Cedric thought there was nobody in the room, but soon he saw that by the fire burning on the wide hearth there was a large easy chair, and that in that chair someone was sitting—someone who did not at first turn to look at him.

But he had attracted attention in one quarter at least. On the floor, by the armchair, lay a dog, a huge tawny mastiff with body and limbs almost as big as a lion's; and this great creature rose majestically and slowly, and marched towards the little fellow with a heavy step.

Then the person in the chair spoke. “Dougal,” he called, “come back, sir.”

But there was no more fear in little Lord Fauntleroy's heart than there was unkindness—he had been a brave little fellow all his life. He put his hand on the big dog's collar in the most natural way in the world, and they strayed forward together, Dougal sniffing as he went.

And then the Earl looked up. What Cedric saw was a large old man with shaggy white hair and eyebrows, and a nose like an eagle's beak between his deep fierce eyes. What the Earl saw was a graceful childish figure in a black velvet suit, with a lace collar, and with love-locks waving about the handsome, manly little face, whose eyes met his with a look of innocent good-fellowship. If the Castle was like the palace in a fairy story, it must be owned that little Lord Fauntleroy was himself rather like a small copy of the fairy prince, though he was not at all aware of the fact, and perhaps was rather a sturdy young model of a fairy. But there was a sudden glow of triumph and exultation in the fiery old Earl's heart as he saw what a strong beautiful boy this grandson was, and how unhesitatingly he looked up as he stood with his hand on the big dog's neck. It pleased the grim old nobleman that the child should show no shyness or fear, either of the dog or of himself.

Cedric looked at him just as he had looked at the woman at the lodge and at the housekeeper, and came quite close to him.

“Are you the Earl?” he said. “I'm your grandson, you know, that Mr. Havisham brought. I'm Lord Fauntleroy.”

He held out his hand because he thought it must be the polite and proper thing to do even with earls. “I hope you are very well,” he continued, with the utmost friendliness. “I'm very glad to see you.”

The Earl shook hands with him, with a curious gleam in his eyes; just at first he was so astonished that he scarcely knew what to say. He stared at the picturesque little apparition from under his shaggy brows, and took it all in from head to foot.

“Glad to see me, are you?” he said.

“Yes,” answered Lord Fauntleroy, “very.”

There was a chair near him, and he sat down on it; it was a high-backed, rather tall chair, and his feet did not touch the floor when he had settled himself in it, but he seemed to be quite comfortable as he sat there, and regarded his august relative intently but modestly.

“I've kept wondering what you would look like,” he remarked. “I used to lie in my berth in the ship and wonder if you would be anything like my father.”

“Am I?” asked the Earl.

“Well,” Cedric replied, “I was very young when he died, and I may not remember exactly how he looked, but I don't think you are like him.”

“You are disappointed, I suppose?” suggested his grandfather.

“Oh, no,” responded Cedric politely. “Of course you would like anyone to look like your father; but of course you would enjoy the way your grandfather looked, even if he wasn't like your father. You know how it is yourself about admiring your relations.”

The Earl leaned back in his chair and stared. He could not be said to know how it was about admiring his relations. He had employed most of his noble leisure in quarreling violently with them, in turning them out of his house, and applying abusive epithets to them; and they all hated him cordially.

“Any boy would love his grandfather,” continued Lord Fauntleroy, “especially one that had been as kind to him as you have been.”

Another queer gleam came into the old nobleman's eyes.

“Oh!” he said, “I have been kind to you, have I?”

“Yes,” answered Lord Fauntleroy brightly; “I'm ever so much obliged to you about Bridget and the apple-woman and Dick.”

“Bridget!” exclaimed the Earl. “Dick! The apple-woman!”

“Yes,” explained Cedric; “the ones you gave me all that money for—the money you told Mr. Havisham to give me if I wanted it.”

“Ha!” ejaculated his lordship. “That's it, is it! The money you were to spend as you liked. What did you buy with it? I should like to hear something about that.”

He drew his shaggy eyebrows together and looked at the child sharply. He was secretly curious to know in what way the lad had indulged himself.

“Oh,” said Lord Fauntleroy, “perhaps you didn't know about Dick and the apple-woman and Bridget. I forgot you lived such a long way off from them. They were particular friends of mine. And you see Michael had the fever—”

“Who's Michael?” asked the Earl.

“Michael is Bridget's husband, and they were in great trouble. When a man is sick and can't work and has twelve children, you know how it is. And Michael has always been a sober man. And Bridget used to come to our house and cry. And the evening Mr. Havisham was there, she was in the kitchen crying because they had almost nothing to eat and couldn't pay the rent; and I went in to see her, and Mr. Havisham sent for me and he said you had given him some money for me. And I ran as fast as I could into the kitchen and gave it to Bridget; and that made it all right; and Bridget could scarcely believe her eyes. That's why I'm so obliged to you.”

“Oh,” said the Earl in his deep voice, “that was one of the things you did for yourself, was it? What else?”

Dougal had been sitting by the tall chair; the great dog had taken its place there when Cedric sat down. Several times it had turned and looked up at the boy as if interested in the conversation. Dougal was a solemn dog, who seemed to feel altogether too big to take life's responsibilities lightly. The old Earl, who knew the dog well, had watched it with secret interest. Dougal was not a dog whose habit it was to make acquaintances rashly, and the Earl wondered somewhat to see how quietly the brute sat under the touch of the childish hand. And, just at this moment, the big dog gave little Lord Fauntleroy one more look of dignified scrutiny, and deliberately laid its huge, lion-like head on the boy's black-velvet knee.