The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume 8. Guy de Maupassant

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      "Good-evening, my dear Maître," said he, giving his visitor the title which in France is the official prefix to the name of every lawyer.

      Mme. Rosémilly rose.

      "I am going," she said. "I am very tired."

      A faint attempt was made to detain her; but she would not consent, and went home without either of the three men offering to escort her as they always had done.

      Mme. Roland did the honors eagerly to their visitor.

      "A cup of coffee, Monsieur?"

      "No, thank you. I have this moment done dinner."

      "A cup of tea, then?"

      "Thank you, I will not refuse presently. First we must attend to business."

      The total silence which succeeded this remark was broken only by the regular ticking of the clock, and below stairs the clatter of saucepans which the girl was cleaning – too stupid even to listen at the door.

      The lawyer went on:

      "Did you, in Paris, know a certain M. Maréchal – Léon Maréchal?"

      M. and Mme. Roland both exclaimed at once: "I should think so!"

      "He was a friend of yours?"

      Roland replied: "Our best friend, monsieur, but a fanatic for Paris; never to be got away from the boulevard. He was head clerk in the exchequer office. I have never seen him since I left the capital, and latterly we had ceased writing to each other. When people are far apart, you know – "

      The lawyer gravely put in:

      "M. Maréchal is deceased."

      Both man and wife responded with the little movement of pained surprise, genuine or false, but always ready, with which such news is received.

      Maître Lecanu went on:

      "My colleague in Paris has just communicated to me the main item of his will, by which he makes your son Jean – Monsieur Jean Roland – his sole legatee."

      They were all too much amazed to utter a single word. Mme. Roland was the first to control her emotions and stammered out:

      "Good heavens! Poor Léon – our poor friend! Dear me! Dear me! Dead!"

      The tears started to her eyes, a woman's silent tears, drops of grief from her very soul, which trickle down her cheeks and seem so very sad, being so clear. But Roland was thinking less of the loss than of the prospect announced. Still, he dared not at once inquire into the clauses of the will and the amount of the fortune, so to work around to these interesting facts he asked.

      "And what did he die of, poor Maréchal?"

      Maître Lecanu did not know in the least.

      "All I know is," said he, "that, dying without any direct heirs, he has left the whole of his fortune – about twenty thousand francs a year ($3,840) in three per cents – to your second son, whom he has known from his birth up, and judges worthy of the legacy. If M. Jean should refuse the money, it is to go to the foundling hospitals."

      Old Roland could not conceal his delight and exclaimed:

      "Sacristi! It is the thought of a kind heart. And if I had no heir I would not have forgotten him; he was a true friend."

      The lawyer smiled.

      "I was very glad," he said, "to announce the event to you myself. It is always a pleasure to be the bearer of good news."

      It had not struck him that this good news was that of the death of a friend, of Roland's best friend; and the old man himself had suddenly forgotten the intimacy he had just spoken of with so much conviction.

      Only Mme. Roland and her sons still looked mournful. She, indeed, was still shedding a few tears, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief, which she then pressed to her lips to smother her deep sobs.

      The doctor murmured:

      "He was a good fellow, very affectionate. He often invited us to dine with him – my brother and me."

      Jean, with wide-open, glittering eyes, laid his hand on his handsome fair beard, a familiar gesture with him, and drew his fingers down it to the tip of the last hairs, as if to pull it longer and thinner. Twice his lips parted to utter some decent remark, but after long meditation he could only say this:

      "Yes, he was certainly fond of me. He would always embrace me when I went to see him."

      But his father's thoughts had set off at a gallop – galloping round this inheritance to come; nay, already in hand; this money lurking behind the door which would walk in quite soon, to-morrow, at a word of consent.

      "And there is no possible difficulty in the way?" he asked. "No lawsuit – no one to dispute it?"

      Maître Lecanu seemed quite easy.

      "No; my Paris correspondent states that everything is quite clear. M. Jean has only to sign his acceptance."

      "Good. Then – then the fortune is quite clear?"

      "Perfectly clear."

      "All the necessary formalities have been gone through?"

      "All."

      Suddenly the old jeweler had an impulse of shame – obscure, instinctive, and fleeting; shame of his eagerness to be informed, and he added:

      "You understand when I ask all these questions so immediately it is to save my son disagreeables which he might not foresee. Sometimes there are debts, embarrassing liabilities, what not! And a legatee finds himself in an inextricable thorn bush. After all, I am not the heir – but I think first of the little 'un."

      They were accustomed to speak of Jean among themselves as the "little one," though he was much bigger than Pierre.

      Suddenly Mme. Roland seemed to wake from a dream, to recall some remote fact, a thing almost forgotten that she had heard long ago, and of which she was not altogether sure. She inquired doubtingly:

      "Were you not saying that our poor friend Maréchal had left his fortune to my little Jean?"

      "Yes, madame."

      And she went on simply:

      "I am much pleased to hear it; it proves that he was attached to us."

      Roland had risen.

      "And would you wish, my dear sir, that my son should at once sign his acceptance?"

      "No – no, M. Roland. To-morrow, at my office to-morrow, at two o'clock, if that suits you."

      "Yes, to be sure – yes, indeed, I should think so."

      Then Mme. Roland, who had also risen and who was smiling after her tears, went up to the lawyer, and laying her hand on the back of his chair while she looked at him with the pathetic eyes of a grateful mother, she said:

      "And now for that cup of tea, Monsieur Lecanu?"

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