"I believe I know it," replied Mr. Fauntleroy. "There has been an address in our books as long as I have had anything to do with the office, 'Robert Carr, Messrs. something (I forget the name), Rotterdam.' I once asked Mr. Carr if it was his son's correct address, and he said it was, for all he knew. That is the address I have written to."
"Are you sure that the old man did not make a will?" asked the squire, alluding to his relative, Marmaduke.
"I am sure that I never made one for him," returned Mr. Fauntleroy. "Will? no, not he! The very mention of the subject used to anger him? Where was the use of his making a will, he said. His son would inherit just as well without a will as with one: he was heir-at-law."
Squire Carr's covetous heart gave vent to a resentful sigh. They were the very self-same words that Mr. Carr had used to him so many years ago, on the same topic. That old Marmaduke had not made a will, he felt as certain as that he should go to his own bed that night, but he could not help harping upon the contrary hope. As to Valentine, he could almost have found in his heart to forge one, had such doings not been unfashionable.
"Well, I must say Marmaduke might have remembered that he had other relatives besides that runagate son," grumbled the squire. "Had he been mine, I'd have cut him off with a shilling."
"Not a bit on't, Carr," laughed the lawyer, in his coarse way. "You'll not leave your chattels away from your own progeny; not even from the roving sheep, Ben."
Now it was a singular coincidence, amid the many small coincidences of this history, that Marmaduke Carr's son Robert should die at the same time as his father. But so it was. The exile of many, many years died without ever having seen his father, or sought for a word of reconciliation with him: he had died suddenly in a fit, before his father, but not above an hour or two; and without seeing one of his three children, for all were away from home when it occurred.
In reply to Mr. Fauntleroy's letter there arrived a short note, written by a lady who signed herself "Emma Carr, neé D'Estival." The language was English, and good English, too; but the handwriting was unmistakably French. In acknowledging the receipt of Mr. Fauntleroy's letter, it stated that "her husband" was from home; and it gave the information that Mr. Carr was dead—had died after a few hours' illness.
Nothing could exceed the commotion that this news excited at Squire Carr's. Robert Carr dead! then they were the heirs-at-law. They beset the office of Mr. Fauntleroy; they took the conduct of affairs into their own hands; they ordered the funeral, and they fixed the day of interment. Not by any means a remote day; scarcely decently so, according to English notions of keeping the dead. It was hot weather, Valentine remarked; and that was true: but Westerbury said they wanted to get the poor old man under ground that they might ransack the house, and see what valuables were in it. Mr. Fauntleroy was rather taken aback at these proceedings; at the summary wrestling of affairs out of his hands; and he had promised himself some nice little pickings out of all this, the funeral and the acting for Robert Carr, and one thing or another; but he did not see his way clear to hinder it. If Robert Carr was dead, and the old man had left no will, Squire Carr was undoubtedly the heir-at-law.