A Mixture of Frailties Read online

  “I have always thought this one of the loveliest rooms in Salterton,” said he.

  But Solly was not allowed to answer. Miss Puss Pottinger, great friend and unappeased mourner of the deceased, popped up beside him.

  “It is as dear Louisa would have wished it to be,” she said, in an aggressive but unsteady voice. “Thursday was always her At Home day, you know, Mr. Dean.”

  “First Thursdays, I thought,” said the Dean; “this is a third Thursday.”

  “Be it what it may,” said Miss Puss, losing control of face and voice, “I shall think of this as dear Louisa’s—last—At Home.”

  “I’m very sorry,” said the Dean. “I had not meant to distress you. Will you accept a sip—?” He held out his glass.

  Miss Pottinger wrestled with herself, and spoke in a whisper. “No,” said she. “Sherry. I think I could take a little sherry.”

  The Dean bore her away, and she was shortly seen sipping a glass of dark brown sherry in which Cobbler, unseen, had put a generous dollop of brandy.

  Solly was at once engaged in conversation by his Uncle George Hansen and Uncle George’s wife. This lady was an American, and as she had lived in Canada a mere thirty-five years, still found the local customs curious, and never failed to say so.

  “This seems to me more like England than at home,” she said now.

  “Mother was very conservative,” said Solly.

  “The whole of Salterton is very conservative,” said Uncle George; “I just met old Puss Pottinger mumbling about At Homes; thought she was dead years ago. This must be one of the last places in the British Empire where anybody has an At Home day.”

  “Mother was certainly one of the last in Salterton to have one,” said Solly.

  “Aha? Well, this is a nice old house. You and your wife going to keep it up?”

  “I haven’t had time to think about that yet.”

  “No, I suppose not. But of course you’ll be pretty well fixed, now?”

  “I really don’t know, sir.”

  “Sure to be. Your mother was a rich woman. You’ll get everything. She certainly won’t leave anything to me; I know that. Ha ha! She was a wonder with money, even as a girl. ‘Louie, you’re tighter than the bark to a tree,’ I used to say to her. Did your father leave much?”

  “He died very suddenly, you know, sir. His will was an old one, made before I was born. Everything went to mother, of course.”

  “Aha? Well, it all comes to the same thing now, eh?”

  “Solly, do you realize I’d never met your wife until this afternoon?” said Uncle George’s wife. “Louisa never breathed a word about your marriage until she wrote to us weeks afterward. The girl was a Catholic, wasn’t she?”

  “No, Aunt Gussie. Her mother was a Catholic, but Veronica was brought up a freethinker by her father. Mother and her father had never agreed, and I’m afraid my marriage was rather a shock to her. I’ll get Veronica now.”

  “Why do you keep calling her Veronica?” said Uncle George. “Louie wrote that her name was Pearl.”

  “It still is,” said Solly. “But it is also Veronica, and that is what she likes me to call her. Her father is Professor Vambrace, you know.”

  “Oh God, that old bastard,” said Uncle George, and was kicked on the ankle by his wife. “Gussie, what are you kicking me for?”

  At this moment a Hansen cousin, leaning on a stick, approached and interrupted.

  “Let’s see, George, now Louisa’s gone you’re the oldest Hansen stock, aren’t you?”

  “I’m sixty-nine,” said Uncle George; “you’re older than that, surely, Jim?”

  “Sixty-eight,” said Jim, with a smirk.

  “You look older,” said Uncle George, unpleasantly.

  “You would, too, if you’d been where I was on the Somme,” said Cousin Jim, with the conscious virtue of one who has earned the right to be nasty on the field of battle.

  “You people certainly like it hot in Canada,” said Aunt Gussie. And she was justified, for the steam heat and three open fires had made the crowded rooms oppressive.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” said Solly and crept away. He ran upstairs and sought refuge in the one place he could think of which might be inviolable by his mother’s relatives. As he entered his bathroom from his dressing room his wife slipped furtively in from the bedroom. They locked both doors and sat down to rest on the edge of the tub.

  “They’re beginning to fight about who’s the oldest stock,” said Solly.

  “I’ve met rather too many people who’ve hinted that our marriage killed your mother,” said Veronica. “I thought a breather would do me good.”

  “Mother must have written fifty letters about that.”

  “Don’t worry about it now, Solly.”

  “How is Humphrey doing?”

  “I haven’t heard any complaints. Do people always soak like this at funerals?”

  “How should I know? I’ve never given a funeral tea before.”

  (5)

  When Solly and his wife went downstairs again they found that most of the guests had turned their attention from drink to food, save for a half-dozen diehards who hung around the bar. The mourners were, in the main, elderly people who were unaccustomed to fresh air in the afternoon, and the visit to the cemetery had given them an appetite. The caterer directed operations from the kitchen, and his four waitresses hurried to and fro with laden platters. Ethel and Doris, ranking as mourners, pretended to be passing food, but were in reality engaged in long and regretful conversations with family friends, one or two of whom were unethically sounding them out about the chances of their changing employment, now that Mrs. Bridgetower was gone. (After all, what would a young man with an able-bodied wife want with two servants?) Miss Puss had been expected to pour the tea, a position of special honour, but she gave it up after overfilling three cups in succession, and seemed to be utterly unnerved; little Mrs. Knapp took on this demanding job, and was relieved after a hundred cups or so by Mrs. Swithin Shillito. The fake beams of the dining-room ceiling seemed lower and more oppressive than ever as the mourners crowded themselves into the room, consuming ham, turkey, sandwiches, cheese, Christmas cake and tartlets with increasing gusto. Those who were wedged near the table obligingly passed plates of food over the heads of the crowd to others who could not get near the supplies. The respectful hush had completely vanished, laughter and even guffaws were heard, and if it had not been a funeral tea the party would have been called a rousing success.

  The mourners had returned from the graveyard at four o’clock, and it was six before any of them thought of going home. It was the general stirring of the Montreal Hansens, who had a train to catch, which finally broke up the party.

  “Good-bye, Solly, and a Merry Christmas!” roared Uncle George, who had returned to the bar immediately after finishing a hearty tea. His wife kicked him on the ankle again, and he straightened his face. “Well, as merry as possible under the circumstances,” he added, and plunged into the scramble for rubbers which was going on in the hall. Cousin Jim was sitting on the stairs, while a small, patient wife struggled to put on and zip up his overshoes. “Take care of my bad leg,” he said, in a testy voice, to anyone who came near. It was some time before all the Hansens had gone. Several of them trailed back into the drawing-room, in full outdoor kit, to wring Solly’s hand, or to kiss him on the cheek. But at last they went, and the Saltertonians began to struggle for coats and overshoes.

  Mr. Matthew Snelgrove, solicitor and long-time friend of Mrs. Bridgetower, approached Solly conspiratorially. He was a tall old man, stiff and crane-like, with beetling brows.

  “Will tomorrow, at three o’clock, suit you?” he said.

  “For what, Mr. Snelgrove?”

  “The will,” said Mr. Snelgrove. “We must read and discuss the will.”

  “But is that necessary? I thought nobody read wills now. Can’t we meet at your office some day next week and discuss it?”

  “I think t
hat your Mother would have wished her will to be read in the presence of all her executors.”

  “All her executors? Are there others? I thought that probably you and myself—”

  “There are two executors beside yourself, and it is not a simple will. Not simple at all. I think you should know its contents as soon as possible.”

  “Well—if you say so.”

  “I think it would be best. I shall inform the others. Here, then, at three?”

  “As you please.”

  Solly had no time to reflect on this arrangement, for several people were waiting to say good-bye. Dean Knapp and his wife approached last, each holding an arm of Miss Puss Pottinger, who wore the rumpled appearance of one who has been put into her outside clothes by hands other than her own. One foot was not completely down into her overshoe, and she lurched as she walked.

  “We shall see Miss Pottinger home,” said the Dean, smiling but keeping a jailor’s grip on Auntie Puss.

  “Solly, dear boy,” cried that lady, and breaking free from the Dean she flung herself upon Solly’s bosom, weeping and scrabbling at his coat. It became clear that she wanted to kiss him. He stooped and suffered this, damp and rheumy as it was; then, taking her by the shoulders, he passed her back to Mrs. Knapp. With a loud hiccup Auntie Puss collapsed, and almost bore the Dean’s wife to the floor. When she had been picked up, she was led away, sobbing and murmuring, “Poor Louisa’s last At Home—shall never forget—” They were the last to go.

  “Well, well, well,” said Cobbler, strolling in from the hall, when he had helped the Dean to drag Auntie Puss down a rather icy walk, and boost her into a car; “quite overcome with grief. Sad.”

  “She was drunk,” said Solly. “What on earth did you give her?”

  “The poor old soul was badly in need of bracing,” said Cobbler. “I gave her a sherry with a touch of brandy in it, and it did the trick. But would she let well alone? She would not. She kept coming back. Was I to refuse her? I tried her once without the brandy, but she passed back her glass and said, ‘This isn’t the same.’ Well—she had seven. I couldn’t put her on the Indian List; she’d have made a scene. Whatever she feels like tomorrow, I am pure as the driven snow. Never say No to a woman; my lifelong principle.”

  He was helping Veronica to clear up the mess. Paper napkins were everywhere. Dirty plates covered the top of the piano. Cake had been ground into the carpet. The pillow of white roses in Mrs. Bridgetower’s chair had been pushed under it by the callous Cousin Jim, who wanted to sit down and had no feeling for symbolism.

  “For heaven’s sake leave that,” said Solly. “Let Ethel and Doris cope with it.”

  “ ’Fraid the girls are a bit overcome,” said Cobbler. “They told me they were good for nothing but bed. Odd phrase, considering everything.”

  “Humphrey, what did you do?” said Veronica.

  “Me? Not a thing. Just my duty, as I saw it. People kept asking for drinks and I obliged them. Really, Solly, those Hansen relatives of yours are something special. Hollow legs, every one of them.”

  “Was there enough?”

  “Just managed. Do you know that there were two hundred and forty-seven souls here, and not one of them was a teetotaller? I always count; it’s automatic with me. I count the house at every Cathedral service; the Dean likes to know how he’s pulling. I consider that the affair was a credit to your late Mum, but we nearly ran out of swipes. It was a close thing.”

  He sat down at the grand piano, and sang with great expression, to the tune of the popular ballad Homing—

  All things get drunk at eventide;

  The birds go pickled to their snoozing;

  Heaven’s creatures share a mighty thirst—

  Boozing—Bo-o-o-zing.

  “Humphrey, stop it!” said Veronica. “If you must do something, will you get me a drink? I’m completely done up.”

  Cobbler got them all drinks, and while Solly and Veronica sat by the fire, trying to forget the trials and miseries of the past few days, he played Bach choral preludes on the old piano, to heal their wounded spirits.

  (6)

  Mr. Snelgrove completed the reading of Mrs. Bridgetower’s will the following afternoon, just as the library clock struck four. He had enjoyed himself. Modern custom did not often require him to read a will and he felt that there was something splendidly professional and lawyer-like about doing so. When a testator is dead he is in the hands of God; certainly this was the belief of Mr. Snelgrove who was, among other dignified things, chancellor of the diocese of which St. Nicholas’ was the Cathedral; but the testator’s affairs on earth remain in the hands of his lawyer. There is drama in such a position, and Mr. Snelgrove greatly relished it. He blew his nose and removed his pince-nez in order to rub his old eyes.

  The setting in which Mrs. Bridgetower’s will had been read was everything that the legal ham Mr. Snelgrove could have wished. Outside the windows a light snow was falling from a leaden, darkening sky. Inside the library a wood fire burned, its light being reflected in the leaded glass of the old-fashioned book-jails which lined the walls. The room was comfortable, dark, stuffy and rather depressing. It was Christmas Eve.

  His listeners looked suitably grave and impressed. Dean Knapp, sunk in a leather armchair, stroked his brow reflectively, like a man who cannot believe that he has heard aright. Miss Puss Pottinger sat bolt upright on an armless chair, refusing to yield to the splitting headache which seemed to possess her whole small being; from time to time her gorge rose sourly and searingly within her, but she was a soldier’s daughter, and she forcibly gulped it down again. The fumes from Solly’s pipe were a great trial to her. He was perched on the arm of a large chair in which Veronica was sitting. It was Solly who was first to speak.

  “I think I’ve got the drift of the will, but I’m not quite sure,” said he. “Could you let us have the meaning of it in simple language?”

  Mr. Snelgrove was happy to do so. Interpreting legal scripture to laymen was the part of his profession which he liked best.

  “Shorn of technicality,” said he, “the meaning of the will is this: all of your late mother’s estate is left in trust to her executors—you, her son, Solomon Bridgetower—you, Laura Pottinger, spinster—you, Jevon Knapp, as Dean of St. Nicholas’ Cathedral. That estate, as outlined here, consists of this house and its contents and considerable holdings in investments. You, Solomon Bridgetower, are to continue to occupy the house, which has always been your home, but it is the property of the trust, and you may not dispose of it. But the income from the estate is to be devoted to the educational project which your late mother has outlined.”

  “You mean, I don’t get any money?” said Solly.

  “You get a legacy of one hundred dollars,” said the lawyer.

  “Yes, but I mean—the investments, and the money that brought in my Mother’s own income, and all that—I don’t quite follow—?”

  “That money is all to be devoted to the education, or training, of some young woman resident in this city of Salterton, who is desirous of following a career in the arts. The young woman is to be chosen by you, the trustees. She must be not more than twenty-one at the time she is chosen, and you are to be responsible for her maintenance and training, in the best circumstances you can devise, until she reaches the age of twenty-five. She is to be maintained abroad in order, as your mother says, that she may bring back to Canada some of the intangible treasures of European tradition. That phrase, of course, rules out any possibility of her being trained in the States. And when she is twenty-five, you are to choose another beneficiary of the trust. And so on, unless the conditions under which the trust exists are terminated.”

  “And I get nothing except a hundred dollars and the right to live in the house?”

  “You get nothing, unless the condition is fulfilled which brings the trust to an end. If, and when, that condition is fulfilled and you are still living in this house, you receive a life interest in your mother’s estate. Bequests are
made to the two servants, Ethel Colman and Doris Black, which will be payable when the condition is fulfilled. Laura Pottinger receives a bequest of the testator’s collection of Rockingham china. The Cathedral Church of St. Nicholas will receive all of the testator’s holdings in certain telephone and transportation stocks.”

  “There is a condition attaching to this latter bequest. Until the Cathedral gets the telephone stock, the Dean is to preach, every St. Nicholas’ Day, a special sermon on some matter relating to education, and these sermons are to be known as the Louisa Hansen Bridgetower Memorial Sermons. If there is any failure in this respect, the bequest is forfeit.”

  Solly still looked puzzled. “And all of this hangs—?”

  “It all hangs on your having a son, Mr. Bridgetower. When, and if, you and your wife, Pearl Veronica, née Vambrace, produce male issue, who is duly christened Solomon Hansen Bridgetower, he becomes heir of all his grandmother’s estate save for the bequests I have mentioned. But you are to have a life interest in the estate, so that he will not actually come into possession of his inheritance until after your death.”

  “And if we have a child and it is a girl?”

  “The trust will remain.”

  “But it’s fantastic.”

  “Somewhat unusual, certainly.”

  “When was this will made?”

  “I read you the date. Your mother made this will less than three months ago.”

  “It puts my wife and me in a pretty position, doesn’t it?”

  “It does not put anyone in an enviable position, Solomon,” said Mr. Snelgrove. “Did you not notice what it does to me? I am not an executor, though as an old and, I believed, valued friend of your Mother’s, I might have expected that confidence; I am named solely as solicitor to the executors—a paid position. And the condition is made that if I have not settled all your Mother’s affairs within one year from the day of her death, the estate is to be taken out of my hands and confided to Gordon Balmer—a solicitor for whom your Mother knew that I had a strong disapproval. You did not perhaps notice her comment that she thought that my ‘natural cupidity’ would make me hurry the business through. ‘Natural cupidity’ is a legal expression which she picked up from me and has turned against me. Your Mother has given us all a flick of her whip.”