The Lost Prince & Little Lord Fauntleroy. Frances Hodgson BurnettЧитать онлайн книгу.
and for some reason best known to himself, he had also ordered that the child should be sent alone into the room in which he intended to receive him. As the carriage rolled up the avenue, Lord Fauntleroy sat leaning comfortably against the luxurious cushions, and regarded the prospect with great interest. He was, in fact, interested in everything he saw. He had been interested in the carriage, with its large, splendid horses and their glittering harness; he had been interested in the tall coachman and footman, with their resplendent livery; and he had been especially interested in the coronet on the panels, and had struck up an acquaintance with the footman for the purpose of inquiring what it meant.
When the carriage reached the great gates of the park, he looked out of the window to get a good view of the huge stone lions ornamenting the entrance. The gates were opened by a motherly, rosy-looking woman, who came out of a pretty, ivy-covered lodge. Two children ran out of the door of the house and stood looking with round, wide-open eyes at the little boy in the carriage, who looked at them also. Their mother stood courtesying and smiling, and the children, on receiving a sign from her, made bobbing little courtesies too.
“Does she know me?” asked Lord Fauntleroy. “I think she must think she knows me.” And he took off his black velvet cap to her and smiled.
“How do you do?” he said brightly. “Good-afternoon!”
The woman seemed pleased, he thought. The smile broadened on her rosy face and a kind look came into her blue eyes.
“God bless your lordship!” she said. “God bless your pretty face! Good luck and happiness to your lordship! Welcome to you!”
Lord Fauntleroy waved his cap and nodded to her again as the carriage rolled by her.
“I like that woman,” he said. “She looks as if she liked boys. I should like to come here and play with her children. I wonder if she has enough to make up a company?”
Mr. Havisham did not tell him that he would scarcely be allowed to make playmates of the gate-keeper’s children. The lawyer thought there was time enough for giving him that information.
The carriage rolled on and on between the great, beautiful trees which grew on each side of the avenue and stretched their broad, swaying branches in an arch across it. Cedric had never seen such trees,—they were so grand and stately, and their branches grew so low down on their huge trunks. He did not then know that Dorincourt Castle was one of the most beautiful in all England; that its park was one of the broadest and finest, and its trees and avenue almost without rivals. But he did know that it was all very beautiful. He liked the big, broad-branched trees, with the late afternoon sunlight striking golden lances through them. He liked the perfect stillness which rested on everything. He felt a great, strange pleasure in the beauty of which he caught glimpses under and between the sweeping boughs—the great, beautiful spaces of the park, with still other trees standing sometimes stately and alone, and sometimes in groups. Now and then they passed places where tall ferns grew in masses, and again and again the ground was azure with the bluebells swaying in the soft breeze. Several times he started up with a laugh of delight as a rabbit leaped up from under the greenery and scudded away with a twinkle of short white tail behind it. Once a covey of partridges rose with a sudden whir and flew away, and then he shouted and clapped his hands.
“It’s a beautiful place, isn’t it?” he said to Mr. Havisham. “I never saw such a beautiful place. It’s prettier even than Central Park.”
He was rather puzzled by the length of time they were on their way.
“How far is it,” he said, at length, “from the gate to the front door?”
“It is between three and four miles,” answered the lawyer.
“That’s a long way for a person to live from his gate,” remarked his lordship.
Every few minutes he saw something new to wonder at and admire. When he caught sight of the deer, some couched in the grass, some standing with their pretty antlered heads turned with a half-startled air toward the avenue as the carriage wheels disturbed them, he was enchanted.
“Has there been a circus?” he cried; “or do they live here always? Whose are they?”
“They live here,” Mr. Havisham told him. “They belong to the Earl, your grandfather.”
It was not long after this that they saw the castle. It rose up before them stately and beautiful and gray, the last rays of the sun casting dazzling lights on its many windows. It had turrets and battlements and towers; a great deal of ivy grew upon its walls; all the broad, open space about it was laid out in terraces and lawns and beds of brilliant flowers.
“It’s the most beautiful place I ever saw!” said Cedric, his round face flushing with pleasure. “It reminds any one of a king’s palace. I saw a picture of one once in a fairy-book.”
He saw the great entrance-door thrown open and many servants standing in two lines looking at him. He wondered why they were standing there, and admired their liveries very much. He did not know that they were there to do honor to the little boy to whom all this splendor would one day belong,—the beautiful castle like the fairy king’s palace, the magnificent park, the grand old trees, the dells full of ferns and bluebells where the hares and rabbits played, the dappled, large-eyed deer couching in the deep grass. It was only a couple of weeks since he had sat with Mr. Hobbs among the potatoes and canned peaches, with his legs dangling from the high stool; it would not have been possible for him to realize that he had very much to do with all this grandeur. At the head of the line of servants there stood an elderly woman in a rich, plain black silk gown; she had gray hair and wore a cap. As he entered the hall she stood nearer than the rest, and the child thought from the look in her eyes that she was going to speak to him. Mr. Havisham, who held his hand, paused a moment.
“This is Lord Fauntleroy, Mrs. Mellon,” he said. “Lord Fauntleroy, this is Mrs. Mellon, who is the housekeeper.”
Cedric gave her his hand, his eyes lighting up.
“Was it you who sent the cat?” he said. “I’m much obliged to you, ma’am.”
Mrs. Mellon’s handsome old face looked as pleased as the face of the lodge-keeper’s wife had done.
“I should know his lordship anywhere,” she said to Mr. Havisham. “He has the Captain’s face and way. It’s a great day, this, sir.”
Cedric wondered why it was a great day. He looked at Mrs. Mellon curiously. It seemed to him for a moment as if there were tears in her eyes, and yet it was evident she was not unhappy. She smiled down on him.
“The cat left two beautiful kittens here,” she said; “they shall be sent up to your lordship’s nursery.”
Mr. Havisham said a few words to her in a low voice.
“In the library, sir,” Mrs. Mellon replied. “His lordship is to be taken there alone.”
A few minutes later, the very tall footman in livery, who had escorted Cedric to the library door, opened it and announced: “Lord Fauntleroy, my lord,” in quite a majestic tone. If he was only a footman, he felt it was rather a grand occasion when the heir came home to his own land and possessions, and was ushered into the presence of the old Earl, whose place and title he was to take.
Cedric crossed the threshold into the room. It was a very large and splendid room, with massive carven furniture in it, and shelves upon shelves of books; the furniture was so dark, and the draperies so heavy, the diamond-paned windows were so deep, and it seemed such a distance from one end of it to the other, that, since the sun had gone down, the effect of it all was rather gloomy. For a moment Cedric thought there was nobody in the room, but soon he saw that by the fire burning on the wide hearth there was a large easy-chair and that in that chair some one was sitting—some one who did not at first turn to look at him.
But he had attracted attention in one quarter at least. On the floor, by the armchair, lay a dog, a huge tawny mastiff, with body and limbs almost as big as a lion’s; and this great creature rose majestically and slowly, and marched toward the little fellow