Little Lord Fauntleroy

‘One of us has got a sunstroke!’ he exclaimed.

‘No,’ returned Cedric, ‘we have not. 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 biscuit 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 black cloth 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 were 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 endeavoured 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 endeavoured 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 than 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 coupé 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 splendours, should have been born and brought up in an insignificant house in a street with a sort of greengrocery 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 parlour 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 towards 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 to 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 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 ensure 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 anyone 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’ in 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 grocery-men, 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 quite a brave little 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.