Chapter VII

Little Lord Fauntleroy

by Francis Hodgson Burnett

On the following Sunday morning, Mr. Mordaunt had a large
congregation. Indeed, he could scarcely remember any Sunday on which
the church had been so crowded. People appeared upon the scene who
seldom did him the honor of coming to hear his sermons.

There were even people from Hazelton, which was the next parish.
There were hearty, sunburned farmers, stout, comfortable,
apple-cheeked wives in their best bonnets and most gorgeous shawls,
and half a dozen children or so to each family. The doctor's wife
was there, with her four daughters. Mrs. Kimsey and Mr. Kimsey, who
kept the druggist's shop, and made pills, and did up powders for
everybody within ten miles, sat in their pew; Mrs. Dibble in hers;
Miss Smiff, the village dressmaker, and her friend Miss Perkins, the
milliner, sat in theirs; the doctor's young man was present, and the
druggist's apprentice; in fact, almost every family on the county
side was represented, in one way or another.

In the course of the preceding week, many wonderful stories had
been told of little Lord Fauntleroy. Mrs. Dibble had been kept so
busy attending to customers who came in to buy a pennyworth of
needles or a ha'porth of tape and to hear what she had to relate,
that the little shop bell over the door had nearly tinkled itself to
death over the coming and going. Mrs. Dibble knew exactly how his
small lordship's rooms had been furnished for him, what expensive
toys had been bought, how there was a beautiful brown pony awaiting
him, and a small groom to attend it, and a little dog-cart, with
silver-mounted harness. And she could tell, too, what all the
servants had said when they had caught glimpses of the child on the
night of his arrival; and how every female below stairs had said it
was a shame, so it was, to part the poor pretty dear from his mother;
and had all declared their hearts came into their mouths when he went
alone into the library to see his grandfather, for "there was no
knowing how he'd be treated, and his lordship's temper was enough to
fluster them with old heads on their shoulders, let alone a
child."

"But if you'll believe me, Mrs. Jennifer, mum," Mrs. Dibble had
said, "fear that child does not know--so Mr. Thomas hisself says; an'
set an' smile he did, an' talked to his lordship as if they'd been
friends ever since his first hour. An' the Earl so took aback, Mr.
Thomas says, that he couldn't do nothing but listen and stare from
under his eyebrows. An' it's Mr. Thomas's opinion, Mrs. Bates, mum,
that bad as he is, he was pleased in his secret soul, an' proud, too;
for a handsomer little fellow, or with better manners, though so
old-fashioned, Mr. Thomas says he'd never wish to see."

And then there had come the story of Higgins. The Reverend Mr.
Mordaunt had told it at his own dinner table, and the servants who
had heard it had told it in the kitchen, and from there it had spread
like wildfire.

And on market-day, when Higgins had appeared in town, he had
been questioned on every side, and Newick had been questioned too,
and in response had shown to two or three people the note signed
"Fauntleroy."

And so the farmers' wives had found plenty to talk of over their
tea and their shopping, and they had done the subject full justice
and made the most of it. And on Sunday they had either walked to
church or had been driven in their gigs by their husbands, who were
perhaps a trifle curious themselves about the new little lord who was
to be in time the owner of the soil.

It was by no means the Earl's habit to attend church, but he
chose to appear on this first Sunday--it was his whim to present
himself in the huge family pew, with Fauntleroy at his side.

There were many loiterers in the churchyard, and many lingerers
in the lane that morning. There were groups at the gates and in the
porch, and there had been much discussion as to whether my lord would
really appear or not. When this discussion was at its height, one
good woman suddenly uttered an exclamation.

"Eh," she said, "that must be the mother, pretty young thing."
All who heard turned and looked at the slender figure in black coming
up the path. The veil was thrown back from her face and they could
see how fair and sweet it was, and how the bright hair curled as
softly as a child's under the little widow's cap.

She was not thinking of the people about; she was thinking of
Cedric, and of his visits to her, and his joy over his new pony, on
which he had actually ridden to her door the day before, sitting very
straight and looking very proud and happy. But soon she could not
help being attracted by the fact that she was being looked at and
that her arrival had created some sort of sensation. She first
noticed it because an old woman in a red cloak made a bobbing
courtesy to her, and then another did the same thing and said, "God
bless you, my lady!" and one man after another took off his hat as
she passed. For a moment she did not understand, and then she
realized that it was because she was little Lord Fauntleroy's mother
that they did so, and she flushed rather shyly and smiled and bowed
too, and said, "Thank you," in a gentle voice to the old woman who
had blessed her. To a person who had always lived in a bustling,
crowded American city this simple deference was very novel, and at
first just a little embarrassing; but after all, she could not help
liking and being touched by the friendly warm-heartedness of which it
seemed to speak. She had scarcely passed through the stone porch
into the church before the great event of the day happened. The
carriage from the Castle, with its handsome horses and tall liveried
servants, bowled around the corner and down the green lane.

"Here they come!" went from one looker-on to another.

And then the carriage drew up, and Thomas stepped down and
opened the door, and a little boy, dressed in black velvet, and with
a splendid mop of bright waving hair, jumped out.

Every man, woman, and child looked curiously upon him.

"He's the Captain over again!" said those of the on-lookers who
remembered his father. "He's the Captain's self, to the life!"

He stood there in the sunlight looking up at the Earl, as Thomas
helped that nobleman out, with the most affectionate interest that
could be imagined. The instant he could help, he put out his hand
and offered his shoulder as if he had been seven feet high. It was
plain enough to every one that however it might be with other people,
the Earl of Dorincourt struck no terror into the breast of his
grandson.

"Just lean on me," they heard him say. "How glad the people are
to see you, and how well they all seem to know you!"

"Take off your cap, Fauntleroy," said the Earl. "They are
bowing to you."

"To me!" cried Fauntleroy, whipping off his cap in a moment,
baring his bright head to the crowd and turning shining, puzzled eyes
on them as he tried to bow to every one at once.

"God bless your lordship!" said the courtesying, red-cloaked old
woman who had spoken to his mother; "long life to you!"

"Thank you, ma'am," said Fauntleroy. And then they went into
the church, and were looked at there, on their way up the aisle to
the square, red-cushioned and curtained pew. When Fauntleroy was
fairly seated, he made two discoveries which pleased him: the first
that, across the church where he could look at her, his mother sat
and smiled at him; the second, that at one end of the pew, against
the wall, knelt two quaint figures carven in stone, facing each other
as they kneeled on either side of a pillar supporting two stone
missals, their pointed hands folded as if in prayer, their dress very
antique and strange. On the tablet by them was written something of
which he could only read the curious words:

"Here lyeth ye bodye of Gregorye Arthure Fyrst Earle of
Dorincourt Allsoe of Alisone Hildegarde hys wyfe."

"May I whisper?" inquired his lordship, devoured by
curiousity.

"What is it?" said his grandfather.

"Who are they?"

"Some of your ancestors," answered the Earl, "who lived a few
hundred years ago."

"Perhaps," said Lord Fauntleroy, regarding them with respect,
"perhaps I got my spelling from them." And then he proceeded to find
his place in the church service. When the music began, he stood up
and looked across at his mother, smiling. He was very fond of music,
and his mother and he often sang together, so he joined in with the
rest, his pure, sweet, high voice rising as clear as the song of a
bird. He quite forgot himself in his pleasure in it. The Earl
forgot himself a little too, as he sat in his curtain-shielded corner
of the pew and watched the boy. Cedric stood with the big psalter
open in his hands, singing with all his childish might, his face a
little uplifted, happily; and as he sang, a long ray of sunshine
crept in and, slanting through a golden pane of a stained glass
window, brightened the falling hair about his young head. His
mother, as she looked at him across the church, felt a thrill pass
through her heart, and a prayer rose in it too,--a prayer that the
pure, simple happiness of his childish soul might last, and that the
strange, great fortune which had fallen to him might bring no wrong
or evil with it. There were many soft, anxious thoughts in her
tender heart in those new days.

"Oh, Ceddie!" she had said to him the evening before, as she
hung over him in saying good-night, before he went away; "oh, Ceddie,
dear, I wish for your sake I was very clever and could say a great
many wise things! But only be good, dear, only be brave, only be
kind and true always, and then you will never hurt any one, so long
as you live, and you may help many, and the big world may be better
because my little child was born. And that is best of all,
Ceddie,--it is better than everything else, that the world should be
a little better because a man has lived--even ever so little better,
dearest."

And on his return to the Castle, Fauntleroy had repeated her
words to his grandfather.

"And I thought about you when she said that," he ended; "and I
told her that was the way the world was because you had lived, and I
was going to try if I could be like you."

"And what did she say to that?" asked his lordship, a trifle
uneasily.

"She said that was right, and we must always look for good in
people and try to be like it."

Perhaps it was this the old man remembered as he glanced through
the divided folds of the red curtain of his pew. Many times he
looked over the people's heads to where his son's wife sat alone, and
he saw the fair face the unforgiven dead had loved, and the eyes
which were so like those of the child at his side; but what his
thoughts were, and whether they were hard and bitter, or softened a
little, it would have been hard to discover.

As they came out of church, many of those who had attended the
service stood waiting to see them pass. As they neared the gate, a
man who stood with his hat in his hand made a step forward and then
hesitated. He was a middle-aged farmer, with a careworn face.

"Well, Higgins," said the Earl.

Fauntleroy turned quickly to look at him.

"Oh!" he exclaimed, "is it Mr. Higgins?"

"Yes," answered the Earl dryly; "and I suppose he came to take a
look at his new landlord."

"Yes, my lord," said the man, his sunburned face reddening.
"Mr. Newick told me his young lordship was kind enough to speak for
me, and I thought I'd like to say a word of thanks, if I might be
allowed."

Perhaps he felt some wonder when he saw what a little fellow it
was who had innocently done so much for him, and who stood there
looking up just as one of his own less fortunate children might have
done--apparently not realizing his own importance in the least.

"I've a great deal to thank your lordship for," he said; "a
great deal. I----"

"Oh," said Fauntleroy; "I only wrote the letter. It was my
grandfather who did it. But you know how he is about always being
good to everybody. Is Mrs. Higgins well now?"

Higgins looked a trifle taken aback. He also was somewhat
startled at hearing his noble landlord presented in the character of
a benevolent being, full of engaging qualities.

"I--well, yes, your lordship," he stammered, "the missus is
better since the trouble was took off her mind. It was worrying
broke her down."

"I'm glad of that," said Fauntleroy. "My grandfather was very
sorry about your children having the scarlet fever, and so was I.

He has had children himself. I'm his son's little boy, you
know."

Higgins was on the verge of being panic-stricken. He felt it
would be the safer and more discreet plan not to look at the Earl, as
it had been well known that his fatherly affection for his sons had
been such that he had seen them about twice a year, and that when
they had been ill, he had promptly departed for London, because he
would not be bored with doctors and nurses. It was a little trying,
therefore, to his lordship's nerves to be told, while he looked on,
his eyes gleaming from under his shaggy eyebrows, that he felt an
interest in scarlet fever.

"You see, Higgins," broke in the Earl with a fine grim smile,
"you people have been mistaken in me. Lord Fauntleroy understands
me. When you want reliable information on the subject of my
character, apply to him. Get into the carriage, Fauntleroy."

And Fauntleroy jumped in, and the carriage rolled away down the
green lane, and even when it turned the corner into the high road,
the Earl was still grimly smiling.