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 no more popular voyager on any ocean
steamer crossing the Atlantic than little Lord Fauntleroy. He
was always innocently and good-naturedly ready to do his small
best to add to the general entertainment, and there was a charm
in the very unconsciousness of his own childish importance.
"Jerry's stories int'rust them very much," he said to his
mamma. "For my part--you must excuse me, Dearest--but sometimes
I should have thought they couldn't be all quite true, if they
hadn't happened to Jerry himself; but as they all happened to
Jerry --well, it's very strange, you know, and perhaps sometimes
he may forget and be a little mistaken, as he's been scalped so
often. Being scalped a great many times might make a person
forgetful."
It was eleven days after he had said good-bye to his friend Dick
before he reached Liverpool; and it was on the night of the
twelfth day that the carriage in which he and his mother and Mr.
Havisham had driven from the station stopped before the gates of
Court Lodge. They could not see much of the house in the
darkness. Cedric only saw that there was a drive-way under great
arching trees, and after the carriage had rolled down this
drive-way a short distance, he saw an open door and a stream of
bright light coming through it.
Mary had come with them to attend her mistress, and she had
reached the house before them. When Cedric jumped out of the
carriage he saw one or two servants standing in the wide, bright
hall, and Mary stood in the door-way.
Lord Fauntleroy sprang at her with a gay little shout.
"Did you get here, Mary?" he said. "Here's Mary, Dearest,"
and he kissed the maid on her rough red cheek.
"I am glad you are here, Mary," Mrs. Errol said to her in a low
voice. "It is such a comfort to me to see you. It takes the
strangeness away." And she held out her little hand, which Mary
squeezed encouragingly. She knew how this first "strangeness"
must feel to this little mother who had left her own land and was
about to give up her child.
The English servants looked with curiosity at both the boy and
his mother. They had heard all sorts of rumors about them both;
they knew how angry the old Earl had been, and why Mrs. Errol was
to live at the lodge and her little boy at the castle; they knew
all about the great fortune he was to inherit, and about the
savage old grandfather and his gout and his tempers.
"He'll have no easy time of it, poor little chap," they had
said among themselves.
But they did not know what sort of a little lord had come among
them; they did not quite understand the character of the next
Earl of Dorincourt.
He pulled off his overcoat quite as if he were used to doing
things for himself, and began to look about him. He looked about
the broad hall, at the pictures and stags' antlers and curious
things that ornamented it. They seemed curious to him because he
had never seen such things before in a private house.
"Dearest," he said, "this is a very pretty house, isn't it? I
am glad you are going to live here. It's quite a large house."
It was quite a large house compared to the one in the shabby New
York street, and it was very pretty and cheerful. Mary led them
upstairs to a bright chintz-hung bedroom where a fire was
burning, and a large snow-white Persian cat was sleeping
luxuriously on the white fur hearth-rug.
"It was the house-kaper up at the Castle, ma'am, sint her to
yez," explained Mary. "It's herself is a kind-hearted lady an'
has had iverything done to prepar' fur yez. I seen her meself a
few minnits, an' she was fond av the Capt'in, ma'am, an' graivs
fur him; and she said to say the big cat slapin' on the rug
moight make the room same homeloike to yez. She knowed Capt'in
Errol whin he was a bye--an' a foine handsum' bye she ses he was,
an' a foine young man wid a plisint word fur every one, great an'
shmall. An' ses I to her, ses I: `He's lift a bye that's loike
him, ma'am, fur a foiner little felly niver sthipped in
shoe-leather."'
When they were ready, they went downstairs into another big
bright room; its ceiling was low, and the furniture was heavy and
beautifully carved, the chairs were deep and had high massive
backs, and there were queer shelves and cabinets with strange,
pretty ornaments on them. There was a great tiger-skin before
the fire, and an arm-chair on each side of it. The stately white
cat had responded to Lord Fauntleroy's stroking and followed him
downstairs, and when he threw himself down upon the rug, she
curled herself up grandly beside him as if she intended to make
friends. Cedric was so pleased that he put his head down by
hers, and lay stroking her, not noticing what his mother and Mr.
Havisham were saying.
They were, indeed, speaking in a rather low tone. Mrs. Errol
looked a little pale and agitated.
"He need not go to-night?" she said. "He will stay with me
to-night?"
"Yes," answered Mr. Havisham in the same low tone; "it will
not be necessary for him to go to-night. I myself will go to the
Castle as soon as we have dined, and inform the Earl of our
arrival."
Mrs. Errol glanced down at Cedric. He was lying in a graceful,
careless attitude upon the black-and-yellow skin; the fire shone
on his handsome, flushed little face, and on the tumbled, curly
hair spread out on the rug; the big cat was purring in drowsy
content,--she liked the caressing touch of the kind little hand
on her fur.
Mrs. Errol smiled faintly.
"His lordship does not know all that he is taking from me," she
said rather sadly. Then she looked at the lawyer. "Will you
tell him, if you please," she said, "that I should rather not
have the money?"
"The money!" Mr. Havisham exclaimed. "You can not mean the
income he proposed to settle upon you!"
"Yes," she answered, quite simply; "I think I should rather
not have it. I am obliged to accept the house, and I thank him
for it, because it makes it possible for me to be near my child;
but I have a little money of my own,--enough to live simply
upon,--and I should rather not take the other. As he dislikes me
so much, I should feel a little as if I were selling Cedric to
him. I am giving him up only because I love him enough to forget
myself for his good, and because his father would wish it to be
so."
Mr. Havisham rubbed his chin.
"This is very strange," he said. "He will be very angry. He
won't understand it."
"I think he will understand it after he thinks it over," she
said. "I do not really need the money, and why should I accept
luxuries from the man who hates me so much that he takes my
little boy from me--his son's child?"
Mr. Havisham looked reflective for a few moments.
"I will deliver your message," he said afterward.
And then the dinner was brought in and they sat down together,
the big cat taking a seat on a chair near Cedric's and purring
majestically throughout the meal.
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 to-night. To-morrow 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 sha'n'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 is only seven
years old!"
"He has spent those seven years at his mother's side," returned
Mr. Havisham; "and she has all his affection."
