XV
Ben took his boy and went back to his cattle ranch in California,
and he returned under very comfortable circumstances. Just
before his going, Mr. Havisham had an interview with him in which
the lawyer told him that the Earl of Dorincourt wished to do
something for the boy who might have turned out to be Lord
Fauntleroy, and so he had decided that it would be a good plan to
invest in a cattle ranch of his own, and put Ben in charge of it
on terms which would make it pay him very well, and which would
lay a foundation for his son's future. And so when Ben went
away, he went as the prospective master of a ranch which would be
almost as good as his own, and might easily become his own in
time, as indeed it did in the course of a few years; and Tom, the
boy, grew up on it into a fine young man and was devotedly fond
of his father; and they were so successful and happy that Ben
used to say that Tom made up to him for all the troubles he had
ever had.
But Dick and Mr. Hobbs--who had actually come over with the
others to see that things were properly looked after--did not
return for some time. It had been decided at the outset that the
Earl would provide for Dick, and would see that he received a
solid education; and Mr. Hobbs had decided that as he himself had
left a reliable substitute in charge of his store, he could
afford to wait to see the festivities which were to celebrate
Lord Fauntleroy's eighth birthday. All the tenantry were
invited, and there were to be feasting and dancing and games in
the park, and bonfires and fire-works in the evening.
"Just like the Fourth of July!" said Lord Fauntleroy. "It
seems a pity my birthday wasn't on the Fourth, doesn't it? For
then we could keep them both together."
It must be confessed that at first the Earl and Mr. Hobbs were
not as intimate as it might have been hoped they would become, in
the interests of the British aristocracy. The fact was that the
Earl had known very few grocery-men, and Mr. Hobbs had not had
many very close acquaintances who were earls; and so in their
rare interviews conversation did not flourish. It must also be
owned that Mr. Hobbs had been rather overwhelmed by the splendors
Fauntleroy felt it his duty to show him.
The entrance gate and the stone lions and the avenue impressed
Mr. Hobbs somewhat at the beginning, and when he saw the Castle,
and the flower-gardens, and the hot-houses, and the terraces, and
the peacocks, and the dungeon, and the armor, and the great
staircase, and the stables, and the liveried servants, he really
was quite bewildered. But it was the picture gallery which
seemed to be the finishing stroke.
"Somethin' in the manner of a museum?" he said to Fauntleroy,
when he was led into the great, beautiful room.
"N--no--!" said Fauntleroy, rather doubtfully. "I don't THINK
it's a museum. My grandfather says these are my ancestors."
"Your aunt's sisters!" ejaculated Mr. Hobbs. "ALL of 'em?
Your great-uncle, he MUST have had a family! Did he raise 'em
all?"
And he sank into a seat and looked around him with quite an
agitated countenance, until with the greatest difficulty Lord
Fauntleroy managed to explain that the walls were not lined
entirely with the portraits of the progeny of his great-uncle.
He found it necessary, in fact, to call in the assistance of Mrs.
Mellon, who knew all about the pictures, and could tell who
painted them and when, and who added romantic stories of the
lords and ladies who were the originals. When Mr. Hobbs once
understood, and had heard some of these stories, he was very much
fascinated and liked the picture gallery almost better than
anything else; and he would often walk over from the village,
where he staid at the Dorincourt Arms, and would spend half an
hour or so wandering about the gallery, staring at the painted
ladies and gentlemen, who also stared at him, and shaking his
head nearly all the time.
"And they was all earls!" he would say, "er pretty nigh it!
An' HE'S goin' to be one of 'em, an' own it all!"
Privately he was not nearly so much disgusted with earls and
their mode of life as he had expected to be, and it is to be
doubted whether his strictly republican principles were not
shaken a little by a closer acquaintance with castles and
ancestors and all the rest of it. At any rate, one day he
uttered a very remarkable and unexpected sentiment:
"I wouldn't have minded bein' one of 'em myself!" he
said--which was really a great concession.
What a grand day it was when little Lord Fauntleroy's birthday
arrived, and how his young lordship enjoyed it! How beautiful
the park looked, filled with the thronging people dressed in
their gayest and best, and with the flags flying from the tents
and the top of the Castle! Nobody had staid away who could
possibly come, because everybody was really glad that little Lord
Fauntleroy was to be little Lord Fauntleroy still, and some day
was to be the master of everything. Every one wanted to have a
look at him, and at his pretty, kind mother, who had made so many
friends. And positively every one liked the Earl rather better,
and felt more amiably toward him because the little boy loved and
trusted him so, and because, also, he had now made friends with
and behaved respectfully to his heir's mother. It was said that
he was even beginning to be fond of her, too, and that between
his young lordship and his young lordship's mother, the Earl
might be changed in time into quite a well-behaved old nobleman,
and everybody might be happier and better off.
What scores and scores of people there were under the trees, and
in the tents, and on the lawns! Farmers and farmers' wives in
their Sunday suits and bonnets and shawls; girls and their
sweethearts; children frolicking and chasing about; and old dames
in red cloaks gossiping together. At the Castle, there were
ladies and gentlemen who had come to see the fun, and to
congratulate the Earl, and to meet Mrs. Errol. Lady Lorredaile
and Sir Harry were there, and Sir Thomas Asshe and his daughters,
and Mr. Havisham, of course, and then beautiful Miss Vivian
Herbert, with the loveliest white gown and lace parasol, and a
circle of gentlemen to take care of her--though she evidently
liked Fauntleroy better than all of them put together. And when
he saw her and ran to her and put his arm around her neck, she
put her arms around him, too, and kissed him as warmly as if he
had been her own favorite little brother, and she said:
"Dear little Lord Fauntleroy! dear little boy! I am so glad!
I am so glad!"
And afterward she walked about the grounds with him, and let him
show her everything. And when he took her to where Mr. Hobbs and
Dick were, and said to her, "This is my old, old friend Mr.
Hobbs, Miss Herbert, and this is my other old friend Dick. I
told them how pretty you were, and I told them they should see
you if you came to my birthday,"--she shook hands with them
both, and stood and talked to them in her prettiest way, asking
them about America and their voyage and their life since they had
been in England; while Fauntleroy stood by, looking up at her
with adoring eyes, and his cheeks quite flushed with delight
because he saw that Mr. Hobbs and Dick liked her so much.
"Well," said Dick solemnly, afterward, "she's the daisiest gal
I ever saw! She's--well, she's just a daisy, that's what she is,
'n' no mistake!"
Everybody looked after her as she passed, and every one looked
after little Lord Fauntleroy. And the sun shone and the flags
fluttered and the games were played and the dances danced, and as
the gayeties went on and the joyous afternoon passed, his little
lordship was simply radiantly happy.
The whole world seemed beautiful to him.
There was some one else who was happy, too,--an old man, who,
though he had been rich and noble all his life, had not often
been very honestly happy. Perhaps, indeed, I shall tell you that
I think it was because he was rather better than he had been that
he was rather happier. He had not, indeed, suddenly become as
good as Fauntleroy thought him; but, at least, he had begun to
love something, and he had several times found a sort of pleasure
in doing the kind things which the innocent, kind little heart of
a child had suggested,--and that was a beginning. And every day
he had been more pleased with his son's wife. It was true, as
the people said, that he was beginning to like her too. He liked
to hear her sweet voice and to see her sweet face; and as he sat
in his arm-chair, he used to watch her and listen as she talked
to her boy; and he heard loving, gentle words which were new to
him, and he began to see why the little fellow who had lived in a
New York side street and known grocery-men and made friends with
boot-blacks, was still so well-bred and manly a little fellow
that he made no one ashamed of him, even when fortune changed him
into the heir to an English earldom, living in an English castle.
It was really a very simple thing, after all,--it was only that
he had lived near a kind and gentle heart, and had been taught to
think kind thoughts always and to care for others. It is a very
little thing, perhaps, but it is the best thing of all. He knew
nothing of earls and castles; he was quite ignorant of all grand
and splendid things; but he was always lovable because he was
simple and loving. To be so is like being born a king.
As the old Earl of Dorincourt looked at him that day, moving
about the park among the people, talking to those he knew and
making his ready little bow when any one greeted him,
entertaining his friends Dick and Mr. Hobbs, or standing near his
mother or Miss Herbert listening to their conversation, the old
nobleman was very well satisfied with him. And he had never been
better satisfied than he was when they went down to the biggest
tent, where the more important tenants of the Dorincourt estate
were sitting down to the grand collation of the day.
They were drinking toasts; and, after they had drunk the health
of the Earl, with much more enthusiasm than his name had ever
been greeted with before, they proposed the health of "Little
Lord Fauntleroy." And if there had ever been any doubt at all as
to whether his lordship was popular or not, it would have been
set that instant. Such a clamor of voices, and such a rattle of
glasses and applause! They had begun to like him so much, those
warm-hearted people, that they forgot to feel any restraint
before the ladies and gentlemen from the castle, who had come to
see them. They made quite a decent uproar, and one or two
motherly women looked tenderly at the little fellow where he
stood, with his mother on one side and the Earl on the other, and
grew quite moist about the eyes, and said to one another:
"God bless him, the pretty little dear!"
Little Lord Fauntleroy was delighted. He stood and smiled, and
made bows, and flushed rosy red with pleasure up to the roots of
his bright hair.
"Is it because they like me, Dearest?" he said to his mother.
"Is it, Dearest? I'm so glad!"
And then the Earl put his hand on the child's shoulder and said
to him:
"Fauntleroy, say to them that you thank them for their
kindness."
Fauntleroy gave a glance up at him and then at his mother.
"Must I?" he asked just a trifle shyly, and she smiled, and so
did Miss Herbert, and they both nodded. And so he made a little
step forward, and everybody looked at him--such a beautiful,
innocent little fellow he was, too, with his brave, trustful
face!--and he spoke as loudly as he could, his childish voice
ringing out quite clear and strong.
"I'm ever so much obliged to you!" he said, "and--I hope
you'll enjoy my birthday--because I've enjoyed it so
much--and--I'm very glad I'm going to be an earl; I didn't think
at first I should like it, but now I do--and I love this place
so, and I think it is beautiful--and--and--and when I am an earl,
I am going to try to be as good as my grandfather."
And amid the shouts and clamor of applause, he stepped back with
a little sigh of relief, and put his hand into the Earl's and
stood close to him, smiling and leaning against his side.
And that would be the very end of my story; but I must add one
curious piece of information, which is that Mr. Hobbs became so
fascinated with high life and was so reluctant to leave his young
friend that he actually sold his corner store in New York, and
settled in the English village of Erlesboro, where he opened a
shop which was patronized by the Castle and consequently was a
great success. And though he and the Earl never became very
intimate, if you will believe me, that man Hobbs became in time
more aristocratic than his lordship himself, and he read the
Court news every morning, and followed all the doings of the
House of Lords! And about ten years after, when Dick, who had
finished his education and was going to visit his brother in
California, asked the good grocer if he did not wish to return to
America, he shook his head seriously.
"Not to live there," he said. "Not to live there; I want to
be near HIM, an' sort o' look after him. It's a good enough
country for them that's young an' stirrin'--but there's faults in
it. There's not an auntsister among 'em--nor an earl!"
