Then he clenched his hand suddenly and turned on her.
"Where"s the child?" he demanded. "He"s going with me! He is done with you, and so am I!"
And just as he finished saying the words, the door leading into the bedroom opened a little, and the boy, probably attracted by the sound of the loud voices, looked in. He was not a handsome boy, but he had rather a nice face, and he was quite like Ben, his father, as any one could see, and there was the three-cornered scar on his chin.
Ben walked up to him and took his hand, and his own was trembling.
"Yes," he said, "I could swear to him, too. Tom," he said to the little fellow, "I"m your father; I"ve come to take you away. Where"s your hat?"
The boy pointed to where it lay on a chair. It evidently rather pleased him to hear that he was going away. He had been so accustomed to queer experiences that it did not surprise him to be told by a stranger that he was his father. He objected so much to the woman who had come a few months before to the place where he had lived since his babyhood, and who had suddenly announced that she was his mother, that he was quite ready for a change. Ben took up the hat and marched to the door.
"If you want me again," he said to Mr. Havisham, "you know where to find me."
He walked out of the room, holding the child"s hand and not looking at the woman once. She was fairly raving with fury, and the Earl was calmly gazing at her through his eyegla.s.ses, which he had quietly placed upon his aristocratic, eagle nose.
"Come, come, my young woman," said Mr. Havisham. "This won"t do at all.
If you don"t want to be locked up, you really must behave yourself."
And there was something so very business-like in his tones that, probably feeling that the safest thing she could do would be to get out of the way, she gave him one savage look and dashed past him into the next room and slammed the door.
"We shall have no more trouble with her," said Mr. Havisham.
And he was right; for that very night she left the Dorincourt Arms and took the train to London, and was seen no more.
When the Earl left the room after the interview, he went at once to his carriage.
"To Court Lodge," he said to Thomas.
"To Court Lodge," said Thomas to the coachman as he mounted the box; "an" you may depend on it, things are taking a uniggspected turn."
When the carriage stopped at Court Lodge, Cedric was in the drawing-room with his mother.
The Earl came in without being announced. He looked an inch or so taller, and a great many years younger. His deep eyes flashed.
"Where," he said, "is Lord Fauntleroy?"
Mrs. Errol came forward, a flush rising to her cheek.
"Is it Lord Fauntleroy?" she asked. "Is it, indeed!"
The Earl put out his hand and grasped hers.
"Yes," he answered, "it is."
Then he put his other hand on Cedric"s shoulder.
"Fauntleroy," he said in his unceremonious, authoritative way, "ask your mother when she will come to us at the Castle."
Fauntleroy flung his arms around his mother"s neck.
"To live with us!" he cried. "To live with us always!"
The Earl looked at Mrs. Errol, and Mrs. Errol looked at the Earl.
His lordship was entirely in earnest. He had made up his mind to waste no time in arranging this matter. He had begun to think it would suit him to make friends with his heir"s mother.
"Are you quite sure you want me?" said Mrs. Errol, with her soft, pretty smile.
"Quite sure," he said bluntly. "We have always wanted you, but we were not exactly aware of it. We hope you will come."
XV
Ben took his boy and went back to his cattle ranch in California, and he returned under very comfortable circ.u.mstances. 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k, and would see that he received a solid education; and Mr. Hobbs had decided that as he himself had left a reliable subst.i.tute 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 peac.o.c.ks, 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!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed 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 a.s.sistance 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! n.o.body 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 n.o.bleman, 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 a.s.she 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: