The big dog stalked slowly beside them, and the big footman followed; several times he looked very queer as he watched the little figure making the very most of all its strength, and bearing its burden with such good-will. The Earl, too, looked rather queer, once, as he glanced sidewise down at the flushed little face. When they entered the room where they were to dine, Cedric saw it was a very large and imposing one, and that the footman who stood behind the chair at the head of the table stared very hard as they came in.
But they reached the chair at last. The hand was removed from his shoulder, and the Earl was fairly seated.
Cedric took out Dick’s handkerchief and wiped his forehead.
“It’s a warm night, isn’t it?” he said. “Perhaps you need a fire because—because of your foot, but it seems just a little warm to me.”
His delicate consideration for his noble relative’s feelings was such that he did not wish to seem to intimate that any of his surroundings were unnecessary.
“You have been doing some rather hard work,” said the Earl.
“Oh, no!” said Lord Fauntleroy, “it wasn’t exactly hard, but I got a little warm. A person will get warm in summer time.”
And he rubbed his damp curls rather vigorously with the gorgeous handkerchief. His own chair was placed at the other end of the table, opposite his grandfather’s. It was a chair with arms, and intended for a much larger individual than himself; indeed, everything he had seen so far,—the great rooms, with their high ceilings, the massive furniture, the big footman, the big dog, the Earl himself,—were all of proportions calculated to make this little lad feel that he was very small, indeed. But that did not trouble him; he had never thought himself very large or important, and he was quite willing to accommodate himself even to circumstances which rather overpowered him.
Perhaps he had never looked so little a fellow as when seated now in his great chair, at the end of the table. Notwithstanding his solitary existence, the Earl chose to live in some state. He was fond of his dinner, and he dined in a formal style. Cedric looked at him across a glitter of splendid glass and plate, which to his unaccustomed eyes seemed quite dazzling. A stranger looking on might well have smiled at the picture,—the great stately room, the big liveried servants, the bright lights, the glittering silver and glass, the fierce-looking old nobleman at the head of the table and the very small boy at the foot. Dinner was usually a very serious matter with the Earl—and it was a very serious matter with the cook, if his lordship was not pleased or had an indifferent appetite. To-day, however, his appetite seemed a trifle better than usual, perhaps because he had something to think of beside the flavor of the entrees and the management of the gravies. His grandson gave him something to think of. He kept looking at him across the table. He did not say very much himself, but he managed to make the boy talk. He had never imagined that he could be entertained by hearing a child talk, but Lord Fauntleroy at once puzzled and amused him, and he kept remembering how he had let the childish shoulder feel his weight just for the sake of trying how far the boy’s courage and endurance would go, and it pleased him to know that his grandson had not quailed and had not seemed to think even for a moment of giving up what he had undertaken to do.
“You don’t wear your coronet all the time?” remarked Lord Fauntleroy respectfully.
“No,” replied the Earl, with his grim smile; “it is not becoming to me.”
“Mr. Hobbs said you always wore it,” said Cedric; “but after he thought it over, he said he supposed you must sometimes take it off to put your hat on.”
“Yes,” said the Earl, “I take it off occasionally.”
And one of the footmen suddenly turned aside and gave a singular little cough behind his hand.
Cedric finished his dinner first, and then he leaned back in his chair and took a survey of the room.
“You must be very proud of your house,” he said, “it’s such a beautiful house. I never saw anything so beautiful; but, of course, as I’m only seven, I haven’t seen much.”
“And you think I must be proud of it, do you?” said the Earl.
“I should think any one would be proud of it,” replied Lord Fauntleroy. “I should be proud of it if it were my house. Everything about it is beautiful. And the park, and those trees,—how beautiful they are, and how the leaves rustle!”
Then he paused an instant and looked across the table rather wistfully.
“It’s a very big house for just two people to live in, isn’t it?” he said.
“It is quite large enough for two,” answered the Earl. “Do you find it too large?”
His little lordship hesitated a moment.
“I was only thinking,” he said, “that if two people lived in it who were not very good companions, they might feel lonely sometimes.”
“Do you think I shall make a good companion?” inquired the Earl.
“Yes,” replied Cedric, “I think you will. Mr. Hobbs and I were great friends. He was the best friend I had except Dearest.”
The Earl made a quick movement of his bushy eyebrows.
“Who is Dearest?”
“She is my mother,” said Lord Fauntleroy, in a rather low, quiet little voice.
Perhaps he was a trifle tired, as his bed-time was nearing, and perhaps after the excitement of the last few days it was natural he should be tired, so perhaps, too, the feeling of weariness brought to him a vague sense of loneliness in the remembrance that to-night he was not to sleep at home, watched over by the loving eyes of that “best friend” of his. They had always been “best friends,” this boy and his young mother. He could not help thinking of her, and the more he thought of her the less was he inclined to talk, and by the time the dinner was at an end the Earl saw that there was a faint shadow on his face. But Cedric bore himself with excellent courage, and when they went back to the library, though the tall footman walked on one side of his master, the Earl’s hand rested on his grandson’s shoulder, though not so heavily as before.
When the footman left them alone, Cedric sat down upon the hearth-rug near Dougal. For a few minutes he stroked the dog’s ears in silence and looked at the fire.
The Earl watched him. The boy’s eyes looked wistful and thoughtful, and once or twice he gave a little sigh. The Earl sat still, and kept his eyes fixed on his grandson.
“Fauntleroy,” he said at last, “what are you thinking of?”
Fauntleroy looked up with a manful effort at a smile.
“I was thinking about Dearest,” he said; “and—and I think I’d better get up and walk up and down the room.”
He rose up, and put his hands in his small pockets, and began to walk to and fro. His eyes were very bright, and his lips were pressed together, but he kept his head up and walked firmly. Dougal moved lazily and looked at him, and then stood up. He walked over to the child, and began to follow him uneasily. Fauntleroy drew one hand from his pocket and laid it on the dog’s head.
“He’s a very nice dog,” he said. “He’s my friend. He knows how I feel.”
“How do you feel?” asked the Earl.
It disturbed him to see the struggle the little fellow was having with his first feeling of homesickness, but it pleased him to see that he was making so brave an effort to bear it well. He liked this childish courage.
“Come here,” he said.
Fauntleroy went to him.
“I never was away from my own house before,” said the boy, with a troubled look in his brown eyes. “It makes a person feel a strange feeling when he has to stay all night in another person’s castle instead of in his own house. But Dearest is not very far away from me. She told me to remember that—and—and I’m seven—and I can look at the picture she gave me.”
He put his hand in his pocket, and brought out a small violet velvet-covered case.
“This is it,” he said. “You see, you press
this spring and it opens, and she is in there!”
He had come close to the Earl’s chair, and, as he drew forth the little case, he leaned against the arm of it, and against the old man’s arm, too, as confidingly as if children had always leaned there.
“There she is,” he said, as the case opened; and he looked up with a smile.
The Earl knitted his brows; he did not wish to see the picture, but he looked at it in spite of himself; and there looked up at him from it such a pretty young face—a face so like the child’s at his side—that it quite startled him.
“I suppose you think you are very fond of her,” he said.
“Yes,” answered Lord Fauntleroy, in a gentle tone, and with simple directness; “I do think so, and I think it’s true. You see, Mr. Hobbs was my friend, and Dick and Bridget and Mary and Michael, they were my friends, too; but Dearest—well, she is my CLOSE friend, and we always tell each other everything. My father left her to me to take care of, and when I am a man I am going to work and earn money for her.”
“What do you think of doing?” inquired his grandfather.
His young lordship slipped down upon the hearth-rug, and sat there with the picture still in his hand. He seemed to be reflecting seriously, before he answered.
“I did think perhaps I might go into business with Mr. Hobbs,” he said; “but I should LIKE to be a President.”
“We’ll send you to the House of Lords instead,” said his grandfather.
“Well,” remarked Lord Fauntleroy, “if I COULDN’T be a President, and if that is a good business, I shouldn’t mind. The grocery business is dull sometimes.”
Perhaps he was weighing the matter in his mind, for he sat very quiet after this, and looked at the fire for some time.
The Earl did not speak again. He leaned back in his chair and watched him. A great many strange new thoughts passed through the old nobleman’s mind. Dougal had stretched himself out and gone to sleep with his head on his huge paws. There was a long silence.
In about half an hour’s time Mr. Havisham was ushered in. The great room was very still when he entered. The Earl was still leaning back in his chair. He moved as Mr. Havisham approached, and held up his hand in a gesture of warning—it seemed as if he had scarcely intended to make the gesture—as if it were almost involuntary. Dougal was still asleep, and close beside the great dog, sleeping also, with his curly head upon his arm, lay little Lord Fauntleroy.
VI
When Lord Fauntleroy wakened in the morning,—he had not wakened at all when he had been carried to bed the night before,—the first sounds he was conscious of were the crackling of a wood fire and the murmur of voices.
“You will be careful, Dawson, not to say anything about it,” he heard some one say. “He does not know why she is not to be with him, and the reason is to be kept from him.”
“If them’s his lordship’s orders, mem,” another voice answered, “they’ll have to be kep’, I suppose. But, if you’ll excuse the liberty, mem, as it’s between ourselves, servant or no servant, all I have to say is, it’s a cruel thing,—parting that poor, pretty, young widdered cre’tur’ from her own flesh and blood, and him such a little beauty and a nobleman born. James and Thomas, mem, last night in the servants’ hall, they both of ‘em say as they never see anythink in their two lives—nor yet no other gentleman in livery—like that little fellow’s ways, as innercent an’ polite an’ interested as if he’d been sitting there dining with his best friend,—and the temper of a’ angel, instead of one (if you’ll excuse me, mem), as it’s well known, is enough to curdle your blood in your veins at times. And as to looks, mem, when we was rung for, James and me, to go into the library and bring him upstairs, and James lifted him up in his arms, what with his little innercent face all red and rosy, and his little head on James’s shoulder and his hair hanging down, all curly an’ shinin’, a prettier, takiner sight you’d never wish to see. An’ it’s my opinion, my lord wasn’t blind to it neither, for he looked at him, and he says to James, ‘See you don’t wake him!’ he says.”
Cedric moved on his pillow, and turned over, opening his eyes.
There were two women in the room. Everything was bright and cheerful with gay-flowered chintz. There was a fire on the hearth, and the sunshine was streaming in through the ivy-entwined windows. Both women came toward him, and he saw that one of them was Mrs. Mellon, the housekeeper, and the other a comfortable, middle-aged woman, with a face as kind and good-humored as a face could be.
“Good-morning, my lord,” said Mrs. Mellon. “Did you sleep well?”
His lordship rubbed his eyes and smiled.
“Good-morning,” he said. “I didn’t know I was here.”
“You were carried upstairs when you were asleep,” said the housekeeper. “This is your bedroom, and this is Dawson, who is to take care of you.”
Fauntleroy sat up in bed and held out his hand to Dawson, as he had held it out to the Earl.
“How do you do, ma’am?” he said. “I’m much obliged to you for coming to take care of me.”
“You can call her Dawson, my lord,” said the housekeeper with a smile. “She is used to being called Dawson.”
“MISS Dawson, or MRS. Dawson?” inquired his lordship.
“Just Dawson, my lord,” said Dawson herself, beaming all over. “Neither Miss nor Missis, bless your little heart! Will you get up now, and let Dawson dress you, and then have your breakfast in the nursery?”
“I learned to dress myself many years ago, thank you,” answered Fauntleroy. “Dearest taught me. ‘Dearest’ is my mamma. We had only Mary to do all the work,—washing and all,—and so of course it wouldn’t do to give her so much trouble. I can take my bath, too, pretty well if you’ll just be kind enough to ‘zamine the corners after I’m done.”
Dawson and the housekeeper exchanged glances.
“Dawson will do anything you ask her to,” said Mrs. Mellon.
“That I will, bless him,” said Dawson, in her comforting, good-humored voice. “He shall dress himself if he likes, and I’ll stand by, ready to help him if he wants me.”
“Thank you,” responded Lord Fauntleroy; “it’s a little hard sometimes about the buttons, you know, and then I have to ask somebody.”
He thought Dawson a very kind woman, and before the bath and the dressing were finished they were excellent friends, and he had found out a great deal about her. He had discovered that her husband had been a soldier and had been killed in a real battle, and that her son was a sailor, and was away on a long cruise, and that he had seen pirates and cannibals and Chinese people and Turks, and that he brought home strange shells and pieces of coral which Dawson was ready to show at any moment, some of them being in her trunk. All this was very interesting. He also found out that she had taken care of little children all her life, and that she had just come from a great house in another part of England, where she had been taking care of a beautiful little girl whose name was Lady Gwyneth Vaughn.
“And she is a sort of relation of your lordship’s,” said Dawson. “And perhaps sometime you may see her.”
“Do you think I shall?” said Fauntleroy. “I should like that. I never knew any little girls, but I always like to look at them.”
When he went into the adjoining room to take his breakfast, and saw what a great room it was, and found there was another adjoining it which Dawson told him was his also, the feeling that he was very small indeed came over him again so strongly that he confided it to Dawson, as he sat down to the table on which the pretty breakfast service was arranged.
“I am a very little boy,” he said rather wistfully, “to live in such a large castle, and have so many big rooms,—don’t you think so?”
“Oh! come!” said Dawson, “you feel just a little strange at first, that’s all; but you’ll get over that very soon, and then you’ll like it here. It’s such a beau
tiful place, you know.”
“It’s a very beautiful place, of course,” said Fauntleroy, with a little sigh; “but I should like it better if I didn’t miss Dearest so. I always had my breakfast with her in the morning, and put the sugar and cream in her tea for her, and handed her the toast. That made it very sociable, of course.”
“Oh, well!” answered Dawson, comfortingly, “you know you can see her every day, and there’s no knowing how much you’ll have to tell her. Bless you! wait till you’ve walked about a bit and seen things,—the dogs, and the stables with all the horses in them. There’s one of them I know you’ll like to see——”
“Is there?” exclaimed Fauntleroy; “I’m very fond of horses. I was very fond of Jim. He was the horse that belonged to Mr. Hobbs’ grocery wagon. He was a beautiful horse when he wasn’t balky.”
“Well,” said Dawson, “you just wait till you’ve seen what’s in the stables. And, deary me, you haven’t looked even into the very next room yet!”
“What is there?” asked Fauntleroy.
“Wait until you’ve had your breakfast, and then you shall see,” said Dawson.
At this he naturally began to grow curious, and he applied himself assiduously to his breakfast. It seemed to him that there must be something worth looking at, in the next room; Dawson had such a consequential, mysterious air.
“Now, then,” he said, slipping off his seat a few minutes later; “I’ve had enough. Can I go and look at it?”
Dawson nodded and led the way, looking more mysterious and important than ever. He began to be very much interested indeed.
When she opened the door of the room, he stood upon the threshold and looked about him in amazement. He did not speak; he only put his hands in his pockets and stood there flushing up to his forehead and looking in.
He flushed up because he was so surprised and, for the moment, excited. To see such a place was enough to surprise any ordinary boy.
The room was a large one, too, as all the rooms seemed to be, and it appeared to him more beautiful than the rest, only in a different way. The furniture was not so massive and antique as was that in the rooms he had seen downstairs; the draperies and rugs and walls were brighter; there were shelves full of books, and on the tables were numbers of toys,—beautiful, ingenious things,—such as he had looked at with wonder and delight through the shop windows in New York.
The Classic Children's Literature Collection: 39 Classic Novels Page 25
