As Mr. Havisham looked at it, he put his hand up and rubbed his shaven chin, with a harassed countenance.
"Well, Havisham," said the Earl's harsh voice behind him.
"What is it? It is evident something has happened. What was the extraordinary event, if I may ask?"Mr. Havisham turned from the sofa, still rubbing his chin.
"It was bad news," he answered, "distressing news, my lord--the worst of news. I am sorry to be the bearer of it."The Earl had been uneasy for some time during the evening, as he glanced at Mr. Havisham, and when he was uneasy he was always ill-tempered.
"Why do you look so at the boy!" he exclaimed irritably. "You have been looking at him all the evening as if--See here now, why should you look at the boy, Havisham, and hang over him like some bird of ill-omen! What has your news to do with Lord Fauntleroy?""My lord," said Mr. Havisham, "I will waste no words. My news has everything to do with Lord Fauntleroy. And if we are to believe it--it is not Lord Fauntleroy who lies sleeping before us, but only the son of Captain Errol. And the present Lord Fauntleroy is the son of your son Bevis, and is at this moment in a lodging-house in London."The Earl clutched the arms of his chair with both his hands until the veins stood out upon them; the veins stood out on his forehead too; his fierce old face was almost livid.
"What do you mean!" he cried out. "You are mad! Whose lie is this?""If it is a lie," answered Mr. Havisham, "it is painfully like the truth. A woman came to my chambers this morning. She said your son Bevis married her six years ago in London. She showed me her marriage certificate. They quarrelled a year after the marriage, and he paid her to keep away from him. She has a son five years old. She is an American of the lower classes,--an ignorant person,--and until lately she did not fully understand what her son could claim. She consulted a lawyer and found out that the boy was really Lord Fauntleroy and the heir to the earldom of Dorincourt; and she, of course, insists on his claims being acknowledged."There was a movement of the curly head on the yellow satin cushion. A soft, long, sleepy sigh came from the parted lips, and the little boy stirred in his sleep, but not at all restlessly or uneasily. Not at all as if his slumber were disturbed by the fact that he was being proved a small impostor and that he was not Lord Fauntleroy at all and never would be the Earl of Dorincourt. He only turned his rosy face more on its side, as if to enable the old man who stared at it so solemnly to see it better.
The handsome, grim old face was ghastly. A bitter smile fixed itself upon it.
"I should refuse to believe a word of it," he said, "if it were not such a low, scoundrelly piece of business that it becomes quite possible in connection with the name of my son Bevis. It is quite like Bevis. He was always a disgrace to us.
Always a weak, untruthful, vicious young brute with low tastes--my son and heir, Bevis, Lord Fauntleroy. The woman is an ignorant, vulgar person, you say?""I am obliged to admit that she can scarcely spell her own name," answered the lawyer. She is absolutely uneducated and openly mercenary. She cares for nothing but the money. She is very handsome in a coarse way, but----"The fastidious old lawyer ceased speaking and gave a sort of shudder.
The veins on the old Earl's forehead stood out like purple cords.
Something else stood out upon it too--cold drops of moisture. He took out his handkerchief and swept them away. His smile grew even more bitter.
"And I," he said, "I objected to--to the other woman, the mother of this child" (pointing to the sleeping form on the sofa); "I refused to recognize her. And yet she could spell her own name. I suppose this is retribution."Suddenly he sprang up from his chair and began to walk up and down the room. Fierce and terrible words poured forth from his lips. His rage and hatred and cruel disappointment shook him as a storm shakes a tree. His violence was something dreadful to see, and yet Mr. Havisham noticed that at the very worst of his wrath he never seemed to forget the little sleeping figure on the yellow satin cushion, and that he never once spoke loud enough to awaken it.
"I might have known it," he said. "They were a disgrace to me from their first hour! I hated them both; and they hated me!
Bevis was the worse of the two. I will not believe this yet, though! I will contend against it to the last. But it is like Bevis--it is like him!"And then he raged again and asked questions about the woman, about her proofs, and pacing the room, turned first white and then purple in his repressed fury.
When at last he had learned all there was to be told, and knew the worst, Mr. Havisham looked at him with a feeling of anxiety.
He looked broken and haggard and changed. His rages had always been bad for him, but this one had been worse than the rest because there had been something more than rage in it.
He came slowly back to the sofa, at last, and stood near it.
"If any one had told me I could be fond of a child," he said, his harsh voice low and unsteady, "I should not have believed them. I always detested children--my own more than the rest. Iam fond of this one; he is fond of me" (with a bitter smile).
"I am not popular; I never was. But he is fond of me. He never was afraid of me--he always trusted me. He would have filled my place better than I have filled it. I know that. He would have been an honor to the name."He bent down and stood a minute or so looking at the happy, sleeping face. His shaggy eyebrows were knitted fiercely, and yet somehow he did not seem fierce at all. He put up his hand, pushed the bright hair back from the forehead, and then turned away and rang the bell.
When the largest footman appeared, he pointed to the sofa.
"Take"--he said, and then his voice changed a little--"take Lord Fauntleroy to his room."
