Little Lord Fauntleroy, Frances Hodgson Burnett [best sci fi novels of all time .TXT] 📗

state of affairs had been explained to him, he had felt some little anxiousness and perplexity, it is true, but its foundation was not in baffled ambition.

While the Earl told him what had happened, he had sat on a stool holding on to his knee, as he so often did when he was listening to anything interesting; and by the time the story was finished he looked quite sober.

“It makes me feel very queer,” he said; “it makes me feel⁠—queer!”

The Earl looked at the boy in silence. It made him feel queer, too⁠—queerer than he had ever felt in his whole life. And he felt more queer still when he saw that there was a troubled expression on the small face which was usually so happy.

“Will they take Dearest’s house from her⁠—and her carriage?” Cedric asked in a rather unsteady, anxious little voice.

“No!” said the Earl decidedly⁠—in quite a loud voice, in fact. “They can take nothing from her.”

“Ah!” said Cedric, with evident relief. “Can’t they?”

Then he looked up at his grandfather, and there was a wistful shade in his eyes, and they looked very big and soft.

“That other boy,” he said rather tremulously⁠—“he will have to⁠—to be your boy now⁠—as I was⁠—won’t he?”

“No!” answered the Earl⁠—and he said it so fiercely and loudly that Cedric quite jumped.

“No?” he exclaimed, in wonderment. “Won’t he? I thought⁠—”

He stood up from his stool quite suddenly.

“Shall I be your boy, even if I’m not going to be an earl?” he said. “Shall I be your boy, just as I was before?” And his flushed little face was all alight with eagerness.

How the old Earl did look at him from head to foot, to be sure! How his great shaggy brows did draw themselves together, and how queerly his deep eyes shone under them⁠—how very queerly!

“My boy!” he said⁠—and, if you’ll believe it, his very voice was queer, almost shaky and a little broken and hoarse, not at all what you would expect an Earl’s voice to be, though he spoke more decidedly and peremptorily even than before⁠—“Yes, you’ll be my boy as long as I live; and, by George, sometimes I feel as if you were the only boy I had ever had.”

Cedric’s face turned red to the roots of his hair; it turned red with relief and pleasure. He put both his hands deep into his pockets and looked squarely into his noble relative’s eyes.

“Do you?” he said. “Well, then, I don’t care about the earl part at all. I don’t care whether I’m an earl or not. I thought⁠—you see, I thought the one that was going to be the Earl would have to be your boy, too, and⁠—and I couldn’t be. That was what made me feel so queer.”

The Earl put his hand on his shoulder and drew him nearer.

“They shall take nothing from you that I can hold for you,” he said, drawing his breath hard. “I won’t believe yet that they can take anything from you. You were made for the place, and⁠—well, you may fill it still. But whatever comes, you shall have all that I can give you⁠—all!”

It scarcely seemed as if he were speaking to a child, there was such determination in his face and voice; it was more as if he were making a promise to himself⁠—and perhaps he was.

He had never before known how deep a hold upon him his fondness for the boy and his pride in him had taken. He had never seen his strength and good qualities and beauty as he seemed to see them now. To his obstinate nature it seemed impossible⁠—more than impossible⁠—to give up what he had so set his heart upon. And he had determined that he would not give it up without a fierce struggle.

Within a few days after she had seen Mr. Havisham, the woman who claimed to be Lady Fauntleroy presented herself at the Castle, and brought her child with her. She was sent away. The Earl would not see her, she was told by the footman at the door; his lawyer would attend to her case. It was Thomas who gave the message, and who expressed his opinion of her freely afterward, in the servants’ hall. He “hoped,” he said, “as he had wore livery in ’igh famblies long enough to know a lady when he see one, an’ if that was a lady he was no judge o’ females.”

“The one at the Lodge,” added Thomas loftily, “ ’Merican or no ’Merican, she’s one o’ the right sort, as any gentleman ’u’d reckinize with all a heye. I remarked it myself to Henery when fust we called there.”

The woman drove away; the look on her handsome, common face half frightened, half fierce. Mr. Havisham had noticed, during his interviews with her, that though she had a passionate temper, and a coarse, insolent manner, she was neither so clever nor so bold as she meant to be; she seemed sometimes to be almost overwhelmed by the position in which she had placed herself. It was as if she had not expected to meet with such opposition.

“She is evidently,” the lawyer said to Mrs. Errol, “a person from the lower walks of life. She is uneducated and untrained in everything, and quite unused to meeting people like ourselves on any terms of equality. She does not know what to do. Her visit to the Castle quite cowed her. She was infuriated, but she was cowed. The Earl would not receive her, but I advised him to go with me to the Dorincourt Arms, where she is staying. When she saw him enter the room, she turned white, though she flew into a rage at once, and threatened and demanded in one breath.”

The fact was that the Earl had stalked into the room and stood, looking like a venerable aristocratic giant, staring at the woman from under his beetling brows, and not condescending a word. He simply stared at her, taking her in from head to foot as if