CHAPTER V.
HOME, IN DESPAIR
The Reverend Mr. Prattleton literally recoiled at the words, and staggered back a few steps in his dismay. Not at first could he recover his amazement. The suggestion was so dreadful, so entirely, as he believed, uncalled for, that he began to doubt whether poor Mrs. Dundyke's trouble had not turned her brain.
"It surely, surely is so!" she impressively repeated. "He has been murdered, and by Mr. Hardcastle."
"Good heavens, my dear lady, you must not allow your imagination to run away with you in this manner!" cried the shocked clergyman. "A gentleman in Mr. Hardcastle's position of life–"
"Oh, stop! stop!" she interrupted; "is it his position of life? Is he indeed Mr. Hardcastle?"
And she began, in her agitation, to pour out forthwith the whole tale: the various half doubts of the Hardcastles, suppressed until now. Her conviction that Mrs. Hardcastle was certainly not a lady, their embarrassments for money, and other little items. Then there had been the long absence of Mr. Hardcastle on the day of the disappearance; his sneaking upstairs quietly on his return, hurt and scratched, warm and dusty, as if he had walked far; his sudden change of colour when she asked after her husband, and the angry look turned upon his wife when she suggested that he had possibly been with Mr. Dundyke. There was the description given by the Swiss peasant of the two gentlemen he had seen walking together that day, and the furious quarrel she had heard at night, when her husband's name was mentioned. All was told to Mr. Prattleton, what she knew, what she thought; all with an exception: the one faint suspicion that had crossed her as to whether Mr. Hardcastle could be Benjamin Carr. She did not mention that. Perhaps it had faded from her memory; and Benjamin Carr, a gentleman born, would be no more likely to commit a murder than the real Mr. Hardcastle. However it may have been, she did not mention it, then, or at any other time.
How could the pencil have got back to the hotel, and into that room, unless brought by Mr. Hardcastle? The testimony of the Swiss peasant, of the two gentlemen he had seen walking together, was terribly significant now. Mr. Prattleton, who had never been brought into contact with anything like murder in his life, felt as if he were on the eve of some awful discovery.
"It was so strange that people of the Hardcastles' position should be up here in one small room on the third floor of the hotel!" cried Mrs. Dundyke, mentioning the thought that had often struck her. "Mrs. Hardcastle said no other room was vacant when they came, and that may have been so; but would they not have changed afterwards?"
Mr. Prattleton went downstairs. He sought an interview with the host, and gleaned what information he could, not imparting a hint of these new suspicions. Could the host inform him who Mr. Hardcastle was?
The host supposed Mr. Hardcastle was—Mr. Hardcastle. Voilà tout! Although he did think that the name given in to the hotel at first was not so long as Hardcastle, but he was not quite sure; it had not been written down, only the number of the room they occupied. Monsieur and Madame had very much resented being put up on the third floor. It was the only room then vacant in all the hotel, and at first Madame said she would not take it, she would go to another hotel; but she was tired, and stopped, and the luggage, too, had been all brought in. Afterwards, when Madame was settled in it, she did not care to change. In what name were Monsieur's letters addressed—Hardcastle? Ma foi, yes, for all he knew; but Monsieur's letters stopped at the post-office, as did those of three parts of the company in the hotel, and Monsieur went for them himself. Money? Well, Monsieur did seem short of money at times; but he had plenty at others, and he had paid up liberally at last. Other gentlemen sometimes ran short, when their remittances were delayed.
There was not a word in this that could tell really against Mr. Hardcastle. The host evidently spoke in all good faith; and Mr. Prattleton began to look upon Mrs. Dundyke's suspicions as the morbid fancies of a woman in trouble. He put another question to the landlord—what was his private opinion of this singular disappearance of Mr. Dundyke?
The landlord shook his head; he had had but one opinion upon the point for some days past. The poor gentleman, there was not the least doubt, had in some way got into the lake and been drowned. But the notes in his pocket-book? urged the clergyman—the money that had been changed at the money-changer's? Well, the fact must be, the host supposed, that his pocket-book was left upon the grass, or had floated on the water, and some thief had come across it and appropriated the contents.
Mr. Prattleton, after due reflection, became convinced that this must have been the case; and for the pencil-case, he believed that Mrs. Dundyke was in error in supposing her husband took it out with him.
Mrs. Dundyke was not so easily satisfied. She urged the strange fact of Mr. Hardcastle's appearance when he returned that day: his scratched face, his dusty clothes, his altogether disordered look, his sneaking up the stairs as if he did not want to be seen. But upon inquiry it was found that a gentleman, whose appearance tallied with the person of Mr. Hardcastle, did so fall on the dusty flint stones, in trying to avoid a restive horse, and his face was scratched and his hand hurt in consequence; and, as Mr. Prattleton observed, he really might be trying to avoid observation in coming up the hotel stairs, not caring to be met in that untidy state. The pencil-case was next shown to the boatmen; but they could not say whether it was the one the gentleman had written the note with. They were tired with the row in the hot sun, and did not take particular notice. One of them was certain that, whatever pencil the gentleman had used, he took it from his pocket; and he saw him tear the leaf out of the pocket-book to write upon.
Altogether it amounted to just this—that while Mr. Hardcastle might be guilty, he probably was innocent. Mr. Prattleton inclined to the latter belief; and as the days went on, Mrs. Dundyke inclined to it also. The points fraught with suspicion began to lose their dark hue, and when there arrived a stranger at the hotel, who happened to know that old Mr. Hardcastle's nephew was travelling on the continent, and was much inclined to spend money faster than he got it, though otherwise honourable, Mrs. Dundyke's suspicions faded, and she reproached herself for having entertained them.
But nothing further could be heard of Mr. Dundyke; nothing further was heard, and it became useless to linger on in Geneva. That he was in Geneva's lake, she never doubted, and the place became hateful to her.
She travelled towards home in company with Mr. Prattleton and his daughter. At Paris they parted; they remaining in it for a few days, she proceeding to London direct, which she reached in safety. Poor Mrs. Dundyke! As she sat alone in the dark cab which was to take her to her now solitary home at Brixton, she perhaps felt the loss, the dreadful circumstances of it altogether, more keenly than she had felt them yet. She sat with dry eyes, but a throbbing brain, feeling that life for her had ended; that she was left in a world whose happiness had died out.
It was a very pretty white villa, with a lawn before it, and encircled by carriage drive, with double gates. As the man drove in at one, and stopped before the entrance, and the door was thrown open to the light of the hall, Mrs. Dundyke became aware that some gentleman was standing there, behind the servant.
"Who is that, John?" she whispered.
"It's a stranger, ma'am; a gentleman who has just called. He seemed so surprised when I said you had not returned yet; but you drove up at the moment. And master, ma'am?"
Mrs. Dundyke did not answer. The servants knew that something was amiss; but she had not courage to explain then; in fact, she could scarcely suppress her emotion sufficiently to speak with composure. The stranger came forward to meet her, and she recognised the gentleman who had assisted them in Grenoble, and had given his name as Robert Carr.
"You see I have availed myself of your invitation to call," he said. "It is curious I should happen to come to-night when you are only returning. I fancied you did not intend to remain away so long. But where is Mr. Dundyke?"
She turned with him into one of the sitting-rooms—an elegant room of good proportions. The chandelier was lighted; a handsome china tea-service, interspersed with articles of silver, stood on the table; cold meats and other good things were ready; and altogether it was a complete picture of home comfort, of easy competency. The thought that he, who had been the many years partner of her life, would never come back to this again, combined with the home question of the Rev. Mr. Carr, struck out of her what little composure she had retained, and Mrs. Dundyke sank down in an easy chair, and burst into a storm of sobs.
To say that the young clergyman stood in consternation, would be saying little. He was not used to scenes, did not like them; and he felt inwardly uncomfortable, not knowing what he ought to say or do.
"Pray, forgive me," she murmured, when she had recovered sufficiently to speak. "You asked after my husband. He is lost—he is gone. He will never come home again."
"Lost!" repeated Robert Carr.
Mrs. Dundyke told her tale, and the young man listened in utter astonishment. He had never heard of such a thing in all his life; had never imagined anything so strange. It seemed that he could not be tired of asking questions—of hazarding conjectures. He wished he had been there, he said; he was sure that the search he would have instituted would have found him, dead or alive. And it was a somewhat remarkable fact that everybody, forthwith destined to hear the story, said the same. So prone are we to under-rate the exertions of other people, and over-rate our own.
But simple, courteous Mrs. Dundyke, could not forget the duties of hospitality amid her great sorrow. She went upstairs for a minute to take off her travelling things, and then quietly made tea for Robert Carr, asking him questions about himself as he drank it.
He had come straight to London from Grenoble, on business connected with an assistant ministry he expected to get in November, and then went to Holland. He had been back in London now about a week, but should soon be returning to Holland, as his wife was not in good health.
"His wife!" Mrs. Dundyke repeated in surprise. She thought he looked too young to have a wife.
Robert Carr laughed. He had a wife and two children, he said; he had married young.
Mrs. Dundyke told him that she thought they were connected—in fact, she knew they were, for old Mrs. Dundyke used to say so. "I do not quite remember how she made it out," continued Mrs. Dundyke; "I think she was a cousin in the second degree to the Miss Hughes's of Westerbury. They were–"
Mrs. Dundyke stopped short. None were more considerate than she of the feelings of others; and it suddenly struck her that the young clergyman before her, a gentleman himself, might not like to be reminded of these things.
"They were dressmakers, if you speak of my mother's sisters," he quietly said; "I have heard her say so. She was a lady herself in mind and manners; but her family were quite inferior."
Mrs. Dundyke did not feel her way altogether clear. She remembered hearing of the elopement; she remembered certain unpleasant subsequent rumours—that Martha Ann Hughes remained with Mr. Carr in Holland, although the ceremony of marriage had not passed between them. Always charitably judging, she supposed now that they must have been married at some subsequent period; and this, their eldest son, called himself Robert Carr. But it was not a topic that she felt comfortable in pursuing.
"You say that your mother is dead?" she resumed.
"She has been dead about five years. We are three of us: I; my brother Thomas, who was born two years after me; and my sister, Mary Augusta, who is several years younger. There were two other girls between my brother and Mary, but they died."
"Mr. Carr is in business in Rotterdam?"
"Yes; partner in a merchant's house there. He has saved money, and is well off."
Mrs. Dundyke faintly smiled; she was glad for a moment to make a semblance of forgetting her own woes. "Those random young men often make the most sober ones when they settle down. Your father was wild in his young days."
"Was he? I'm sure I don't know. You should see him now: a regular steady-going old Dutchman, fat and taciturn, who smokes his afternoons away in the summer-house. He has not been very well of late years; and I tell him he ought to spend his hours of recreation in taking exercise, not in sitting still and smoking."
"Does he keep up any intercourse with his relatives in Westerbury?" asked Mrs. Dundyke, for she had heard through Mildred Arkell that Westerbury never heard anything of its renegade son, Robert Carr, and did not know or care whether he was dead or alive—in fact, had forgotten all remembrance of him.
"Not any—not the least. I fancy my father and mother must have had some disagreement with their home friends, for they never spoke of them. I remember, when I was a little boy, my mother getting news of the death of a sister; but how it came to her I'm sure I don't know."
"She had two sisters, and she had a brother," said Mrs. Dundyke. "I heard that Mary died. Are the other sister and the brother living?"
"I really do not know. If we had possessed no relatives in the world, we could not have lived more completely isolated from them. I believe my grandfather is living, and in Westerbury—at least, I have not heard of his death."
"Have you lived entirely in Rotterdam?" she asked, her interest very much awakened, she scarcely knew why, for this young man. Perhaps it took its rise in the faint, sad thought, which would keep arising in spite of herself, that a terrible blow might be in future store for him, of whose possible existence he was evidently in utter ignorance.
"Our home has been in Rotterdam, but I and my brother have been educated in England. We were with a clergyman for some years in London, and then went to Cambridge. It would not have done for me to preach with a foreign accent," he added, with a smile.
"But you speak with a perfect accent," said Mrs. Dundyke; "as well as if you had never been out of England. Do you speak Dutch?"
"As a native; in fact, I suppose it may be said that I am a native. Dutch, English, German, and French—we speak them all well."
Poor Mrs. Dundyke heaved a bitter sigh. The words brought to her remembrance what her husband had said about their rubbing on with "we" and "no;" but she would not let it go on again to emotion. She observed the same delicate look on this young man that had struck her at Grenoble; and he coughed rather frequently, always putting his hand to his chest at the time, as if the cough gave him pain.
"Will you let me ask you if you are very strong?" she said. "I do not think you look so."
"I was strong," he replied, "no one more so, until I met with a hurt. In riding one day at Cambridge, the horse threw me, and kicked me here," touching his chest. "Since then, I have had a cough, more or less, and am sometimes in slight pain. My father despatched me on that tour, when I met you, with a view of making me strong."
"Was the injury great at the time?"
"No, I think not; the doctors said not. I believe some of the small arteries were ruptured. I spit blood for some time after it; and, do you know," he added, looking suddenly up at her, "the last day or two I have been spitting it a little again."
"You must take care of yourself," said Mrs. Dundyke, after a pause.
"So I do. I am going to a doctor to-morrow morning, for I want to get into duty again, and should be vexed if anything stopped it."
"Have you ever done duty?"
"Of course; for a twelvemonth. I had my title in the diocese of Ely. I am in full orders now, and hope to be at work in November."
A doubt came over Mrs. Dundyke as she looked at his slender hands and his hollow cheek, whether he would ever work again. Robert Carr rose to bid her good-bye.
"Can I be of any service to you in any way?" he said, in a low, earnest tone, as he held her hand in his. "You cannot tell what a strange impression this tale has made upon me; and I feel as if I should like to go to Geneva, and prosecute the search still."
"You are very kind," she said; "but indeed there is nothing else that can be done. The environs of Geneva were scoured, especially on the side where, as I have told you, two gentlemen were seen who bore the resemblance to my husband and Mr. Hardcastle."
"I don't like that Mr. Hardcastle," cried the young man; "no, I don't. He ought not to have gone away, and left you in the midst of your distress. It was an unfeeling thing to do."
"He could not help it. He said he had urgent business at Genoa."
"The business should have waited, had it been mine. Well, if I can do anything for you, Mrs. Dundyke, now or later, do let me. If what you say is correct—that we are related—I have a right to help you."
"Thank you very much. And remember," she added, in a voice almost as low as a whisper, "that should you ever be in—in—trouble, or distress, or need a friend in any way, you have only to come to me."
What was in Mrs. Dundyke's mind as she spoke? What made her say it? She was thinking of that shock which might be looming for him in the future, it was hard to say how near or how distant. And she felt that she could love this young man almost like a son.
"I will see you again, Mrs. Dundyke, before I leave town," were his last words.
But he did not. When he reached his lodgings that night, he found a telegraphic despatch awaiting him from Rotterdam, saying that his father was taken dangerously ill.
And the Reverend Robert Carr hastened to Dover by the first train, en route for Holland.
CHAPTER VI.
NEWS FOR WESTERBURY
It cannot be denied that the present time, this first day after coming home, was one of peculiar pain to Mrs. Dundyke. She would have to go over the sad and strange story again and again, and there was no help for it. The chief partners in Fenchurch-street naturally required the particulars; the few friends she had, the household servants, wished to hear them, and there was only herself to tell the tale.
By ten o'clock, on the morning after her arrival, the second partner of the house, who wore rings and a moustache, and had altogether been an object of envy to the unfortunate common-councilman, was sitting with Mrs. Dundyke. She had not put on widow's weeds; she would not yet; she had said to Mary Prattleton, with a burst of grief, that a widow's cap would take the last remnant of lingering hope out of her. She wore a rich black silk gown, trimmed with much crape, but the cap and bonnet of the widow she assumed not.
Mr. Knowles, a kind-hearted man, who did not want for good sense, dandy though he was in dress, sat twirling his sandy moustache, the very gravest concern pervading his countenance. Mrs. Dundyke, who had never seen this gentleman more than once or twice, sat in humility, struggling with her grief. His social position was of a different standing from what poor Mr. Dundyke's had ever been.
"You see, Mrs. Dundyke, one hardly knows how to act, or what to be at," he remarked, after they had talked for some time, and she had related to him the details (always excepting any suspicion she might once have entertained of Mr. Hardcastle) as closely as she could. "Apart from the grief, the concern for your husband personally, it is altogether so awkward an affair, in a business point of view: we don't know whether we are to consider him as dead or alive."
She shook her head.
"There is little hope that he is alive, sir."
"Well, it would really seem like it. But what can have become of him?"
"There was the lake, you know."
"Yes."
A pause. Presently Mr. Knowles went on.
"When the letter came from that clergyman—Prattleton, wasn't his name?—saying that Mr. Dundyke was missing, and asking for the particulars of the money we had forwarded to him, we could not understand it. 'Missing!' cried old Mr. Knowles, who happened to have come to Fenchurch-street that day, 'one talks of a child being missing, but not of a man.' And when Mr. Prattleton's second letter came to us, giving some of the facts, I assure you we could with difficulty give credence to them."
"There is one little point I did not know of, sir; the sending to you for a fifty-pound note. My husband told me he was sending for the thirty pounds, but he did not say anything of the other. I cannot think why he sent for it."
Mr. Knowles took out his pocket-book.
"I happen to have Mr. Dundyke's letter, which was preserved quite accidentally, not being a strictly business one. You see, he only asks for the fifty pounds in a postscript, as if it were an afterthought. In fact, he says as much:" and Mrs. Dundyke's eyes filled as she looked on the well-known characters.
"P.S. Upon second thoughts, I doubt whether the 30l. will be enough for me. Be so good as to send me a 50l. note in addition to it; in halves as the other."
"Which accordingly we did," resumed Mr. Knowles, as Mrs. Dundyke returned him the letter. "And that note, you say, has not been traced?"
"No, sir, it has not."
"Well, it is altogether most strange. Of course whoever found the pocket-book (if the supposition that it was picked up on the bank of the lake be correct) may be keeping the fifty-pound note by him, but the probability is that he would have got rid of it at once, as he did the others."
"The most singular point to my mind throughout, sir, is the finding of the pencil-case in Mr. Hardcastle's room," said Mrs. Dundyke. "I can't get over that."
"Can't you? It appears to me easily explainable. The supposition that Mr. Dundyke took it out with him that morning must be a mistake. Mr. Hardcastle probably borrowed it from him at breakfast."
"I am quite sure, sir, he did not. I saw my husband put the pencil in its place in the pocket-book, and return the pocket-book to his pocket."
"Then he must have taken it out again when outside the room, and perhaps dropped it. Mr. Hardcastle may have picked it up, and carried it up to the chamber and forgotten it. There are many ways of accounting for that; but it is a pity the pencil was not found before Mr. Hardcastle's departure."
Mrs. Dundyke opened her lips to ask how then could her husband have written the pencilled note afterwards—that he never carried but that one; but she was weary with reiterating the same thing over and over again; and, after all, what Mr. Knowles said was possible. He might have dropped the pencil afterwards; Mr. Hardcastle might have picked it up and carried it to his room; and it certainly might have happened, it was not impossible, that her husband, contrary to custom, had a second pencil in his pocket.
"Shall we send the twenty-pound order to Hardcastle's house and get it cashed for you?" Mr. Knowles asked, when he was leaving. "I fancy that young Hardcastle is not very steady. He is a great deal on the continent, and I have heard he gambles."
Mrs. Dundyke thanked him and handed him the order. "Perhaps you would let the clerk inquire for Mr. Hardcastle's address at the same time, sir?" she said; "and whether he is still at Genoa. I should like to write and ask how he did find the pencil."
But when the order on Hardcastle and Co. was presented—as it was that same day—the house in Leadenhall-street declined to pay it, disclaiming all knowledge of the drawer. Upon the clerk's saying that it had been given by the nephew of Mr. Hardcastle, senior, to Mrs. Dundyke, in liquidation of money borrowed at Geneva, the firm shrugged their shoulders, and recommended the clerk to apply personally to that gentleman, at his residence at Kensington. This information was conveyed to Mrs. Dundyke, and she at once said she should like to go herself.
She went up to Mr. Hardcastle's the next day, and the old gentleman received her very courteously. He was a venerable man with white hair, and was walking up and down the room, which opened to a conservatory. Mrs. Dundyke did not state any particulars at first; she merely said that she had an order on the house in Leadenhall-street for twenty pounds, money borrowed by his nephew; that the house had declined to pay it, and had referred it to him.
"Borrowed money?" he repeated, in a sharp tone, as if the words visibly annoyed him.
"Yes, sir," he borrowed it of my husband; "his remittances did not arrive from England."
Mr. Hardcastle put on his spectacles, and she noticed that his hands trembled, she thought with agitation. "I have a nephew," he said, "who lives principally upon the continent; a thankless scapegrace he is, and has caused me a world of trouble. He has not been in England for eighteen months now, and I hope he will not come to it in a hurry; but he is always threatening it."
Mrs. Dundyke was surprised. "He told us, sir, that he had come from London recently; in fact, he said—he certainly implied—that he took a principal and active part in your house in Leadenhall-street."
"All boast, madam, all boast. He has not anything to do with it, and we would not let him have. I wonder he should say that, too! He is tolerably truthful, making a confession of his shortcomings, rather than hiding them."
"Is he at Genoa still, sir?"
"At where?" asked Mr. Hardcastle, looking at Mrs. Dundyke through his spectacles, which he had been all the time adjusting.
"He went on to Genoa, sir, from Geneva. I asked whether he was there still."
"He has not been at Geneva or at Genoa," said Mr. Hardcastle; "latterly, at any rate."
"Yes he has, sir; he was at Geneva when we got to it in July, and he stayed some time. He then went on to Genoa."
"Then he has deceived me," said Mr. Hardcastle, in a vexed tone. "I don't know why he should; it does not matter to me what place he is in. What is this, madam—the order? This is not his handwriting," hastily continued Mr. Hardcastle, at the first glance, as he unfolded the paper.
"I saw him write it, sir," said Mrs. Dundyke.
"Madam, it is no more like his writing than it is like yours or mine," was the testy answer. "And—what is this signature, B. Hardcastle? My nephew's name is Thomas."
There was a momentary silence. Mr. Hardcastle sat looking at the written order, knitting his brow in reflection.
"Madam, I do not think he could have been at Geneva when this was dated," he resumed; "I had a letter from him just about this time, written from Brussels. Stay, I will get it."
He opened a desk in the room and produced the letter. Singular to say, it bore date the 10th of August, the very day that the order was dated. The post-marks, both in Brussels and London, agreed with the date.
"It is impossible that it could have been he who wrote this order, madam, as you must perceive. Being in Brussels, he could not have been in Geneva. That this letter is in my nephew's handwriting, I assure you on my honour. You may read it; it is about family affairs, but that does not matter."
Mrs. Dundyke read the letter: it was not a long one. And then she looked in a dreamy sort of way at Mr. Hardcastle.
"Madam, I fear you must have been imposed upon."
"Have you two nephews, sir?"
"I never had but this one in my life, ma'am; and I have found him one too many."
"His wife is a showy woman, very pale, with handsome features," persisted Mrs. Dundyke, in a tone as dreamy as her gaze. Not that she disbelieved that venerable old man, but it all seemed so great a mystery.
"His wife! my nephew has no wife: I don't know who'd marry him. I tell you, ma'am, you have been taken in by some swindler who must have assumed his name. Though egad! my nephew's little better than a swindler himself, for he gets into debt with everybody who will let him."
Mrs. Dundyke sat silent a few moments, and she then told her tale—told everything that had occurred in connexion with her husband's mysterious fate. But when she came to hint her suspicions of Mr. Hardcastle's having been his destroyer, the old gentleman was visibly shocked and agitated.
"Good heavens! no! Spendthrift though he is, he is not capable of that awful crime. Madam, how do you suppose your husband lost his life? In a struggle? Did they quarrel?"
"I know nothing," answered poor Mrs. Dundyke.
"A quarrel and struggle it may have been. Mr. Hardcastle was a powerful man."
"A what? A powerful man, did you say, this Mr. Hardcastle?"
"Very powerful, sir; tall and strong. Standing nearly six feet high, and as dark as a gipsy."
"Thank Heaven for that relief!" murmured Mr. Hardcastle. "My nephew is one of the smallest men you ever saw, ma'am, short and slight, with fair curls: in fact, an effeminate dandy. There's his picture," added the old gentleman, throwing open the door of an inner room, "and when he next comes to England, and he is threatening it now, as you read in that letter, you shall see him. But, meanwhile, I will refer you to fifty persons, if you like, who will bear testimony that he is, in person, as I describe. There is no possible identity between them. Once more, thank Heaven!"
Mrs. Dundyke returned to her home. The affair seemed to wear a darker appearance than it had yet worn. And again her suspicions reverted to the man who had called himself Mr. Hardcastle.
We must now turn to Westerbury. That generally supine city was awakened out of its lethargy one morning, by hearing that Death had claimed Marmaduke Carr. On the very night that his grandson was at Mrs. Dundyke's, he was dying: and in the morning, Westerbury heard that he was dead.
On the same day, the instant the news was conveyed to them, Squire Carr and his son and heir came over with all the speed that the train could bring them, and went bustling to the house of the dead man. There they found Mr. Fauntleroy, the solicitor to the just deceased Mr. Carr. He was a tall, large man, this lawyer; a clever practitioner, a fast-living man, and, by the way, the same scapegrace who had done that injury, in the shape of money, to Peter Arkell. But Mr. Fauntleroy had settled down since then, and had made an enormous deal of money; and he held some sway in Westerbury.