Little Lord Fauntleroy. Frances Hodgson Burnett
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of reading the newspapers, and so Cedric heard a great deal about what was going on in Washington; and Mr Hobbs would tell him whether the President was doing his duty or not. And once, when there was an election, he found it all quite grand, and probably but for Mr Hobbs and Cedric the country might have been wrecked. Mr Hobbs took him to see a great torchlight procession, and many of the men who carried torches remembered afterwards a stout man who stood near a lamppost and held on his shoulder a handsome little shouting boy, who waved his cap in the air.
It was not long after this election, when Cedric was between seven and eight years old, that the very strange thing happened which made so wonderful a change in his life. It was quite curious, too, that the day it happened he had been talking to Mr Hobbs about England and the Queen, and Mr Hobbs had said some very severe things about the aristocracy, being specially indignant against earls and marquises. It had been a hot morning, and after playing soldiers with some friends of his, Cedric had gone into the store to rest, and had found Mr Hobbs looking very fierce over a piece of the Illustrated London News, which contained a picture of some Court ceremony.
‘Ah,’ he said, ‘that’s the way they go on now; but they’ll get enough of it some day, when those they’ve trod on rise and blow ’em up sky-high – earls and marquises and all! It’s coming, and they may look out for it!’
Cedric had perched himself as usual on the high stool and pushed his hat back, and put his hands in his pockets in delicate compliment to Mr Hobbs.
‘Did you ever know many marquises, Mr Hobbs?’ Cedric inquired; ‘or earls?’
‘No,’ answered Mr Hobbs with indignation; ‘I guess not. I’d like to catch one of ’em inside here; that’s all! I’ll have no grasping tyrants sittin’ ’round on my biscuit barrels!’
And he was so proud of the sentiment that he looked around proudly and mopped his forehead.
‘Perhaps they wouldn’t be earls if they knew any better,’ said Cedric, feeling some vague sympathy for their unhappy condition.
‘Wouldn’t they!’ said Mr Hobbs. ‘They just glory in it! It’s in ’em. They’re a bad lot.’
They were in the midst of their conversation when Mary appeared. Cedric thought she had come to buy some sugar, perhaps, but she had not. She looked almost pale as if she were excited about something.
‘Come home, darlint,’ she said; ‘the misthress is wantin’ yez.’
Cedric slipped down from his stool. ‘Does she want me to go out with her, Mary?’ he asked. ‘Good morning, Mr Hobbs. I’ll see you again.’
He was surprised to see Mary staring at him in a dumbfounded fashion, and he wondered why she kept shaking her head. ‘What’s the matter, Mary?’ he said. ‘Is it the hot weather?’
‘No,’ said Mary, ‘but there’s strange things happenin’ to us.’
‘Has the sun given Dearest a headache?’ he inquired anxiously.
But it was not that. When he reached his own house there was a coupé standing before the door, and someone was in the little parlour talking to his mamma. Mary hurried him upstairs and put on his best summer suit of cream-coloured flannel with the red scarf around the waist, and combed out his curly locks.
‘Lords, is it?’ he heard her say. ‘An’ the nobility an’ gintry. Och! bad cess to them! Lords indade – worse luck.’
It was really very puzzling, but he felt sure his mamma would tell him what all the excitement meant, so he allowed Mary to bemoan herself without asking many questions. When he was dressed, he ran downstairs and went into the parlour. A tall, thin old gentleman with a sharp face was sitting in an armchair. His mother was standing near by with a pale face, and he saw that there were tears in her eyes.
‘Oh, Ceddie!’ she cried out, and ran to her little boy and caught him in her arms and kissed him in a little frightened, troubled way. ‘Oh, Ceddie darling!’
The tall old gentleman rose from his chair and looked at Cedric with his sharp eyes. He rubbed his thin chin with his bony hand as he looked. He seemed not at all displeased.
‘And so,’ he said at last slowly, ‘and so this is little Lord Fauntleroy.’
There was never a more amazed little boy than Cedric during the week that followed; there was never so strange or so unreal a week. In the first place, the story his mamma told him was a very curious one. He was obliged to hear it two or three times before he could understand it. He could not imagine what Mr Hobbs would think of it. It began with earls; his grandpapa, whom he had never seen, was an earl; and his eldest uncle, if he had not been killed by a fall from his horse, would have been an earl too in time; and after his death, his other uncle would have been an earl, if he had not died suddenly, in Rome, of fever. After that, his own papa, if he had lived, would have been an earl; but since they had all died and only Cedric was left, it appeared that he was to be an earl after his grandpapa’s death – and for the present he was Lord Fauntleroy.
He turned quite pale when he was first told of it.
‘Oh, Dearest,’ he said, ‘I should rather not be an earl. None of the boys are earls. Can’t I not be one?’
But it seemed to be unavoidable. And when, that evening, they sat together by the open window looking out into the shabby street, he and his mother had a long talk about it. Cedric sat on his footstool, clasping one knee in his favourite attitude and wearing a bewildered little face rather red from the exertion of thinking. His grandfather had sent for him to come to England and his mamma thought he must go.
‘Because,’ she said, looking out of the window with sorrowful eyes, ‘I know your papa would wish it to be so, Ceddie. He loved his home very much; and there are many things to be thought of that a little boy can’t quite understand. I should be a selfish little mother if I did not send you. When you are a man you will see why.’
Ceddie shook his head mournfully. ‘I shall be very sorry to leave Mr Hobbs,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid he’ll miss me, and I shall miss him. And I shall miss them all.’
When Mr Havisham – who was the family lawyer of the Earl of Dorincourt, and who had been sent by him to bring Lord Fauntleroy to England – came the next day, Cedric heard many things. But somehow it did not console him to hear that he was to be a very rich man when he grew up, and that he would have castles here and castles there, and great parks and deep mines and grand estates and tenantry. He was troubled about his friend, Mr Hobbs, and he went to see him at the store soon after breakfast in great anxiety of mind.
He found him reading the morning paper, and he approached him with a grave demeanour. He really felt it would be a great shock to Mr Hobbs to hear what had befallen him, and on his way to the store he had been thinking how it would be best to break the news.
‘Hallo!’ said Mr Hobbs. ‘Mornin’!’
‘Good morning,’ said Cedric.
He did not climb up on the high stool as usual but sat down on a biscuit box and clasped his knee, and was so silent for a few moments that Mr Hobbs finally looked up inquiringly over the top of his newspaper.
‘Hallo!’ he said again.
Cedric gathered all his strength of mind together.
‘Mr Hobbs,’ he said, ‘do you remember what we were talking about yesterday morning?’
‘Well,’ replied Mr Hobbs, ‘seems to me it was England.’
‘Yes,’ said Cedric; ‘but just when Mary came for me, you know?’
Mr Hobbs rubbed the back of his head.
‘We was mentioning Queen Victoria and the aristocracy.’