A Rather Lovely Inheritance (15 page)

“They’re trying everything,” Harold said. “Including saying that Jeremy ingratiated himself with your great-aunt at the end of her life when she was vulnerable, and talked her into leaving the bulk of the French estate to him.”

My mind was working on it, turning it over and over like a dog, trying to get a grip on it. “Does it matter that Jeremy’s real father—isn’t—” I asked haltingly.

Harold said, “It shouldn’t—but it doesn’t help, either. People contest wills for all kinds of ridiculous reasons, and even if it doesn’t stick, it can be a damned nuisance and delay what could have been a very smooth process. Look, it’s all very complicated, and nothing’s been decided yet, and I certainly will keep your parents up on every development as it occurs—”

“Correct me if I’m wrong,” I said,“but my parents have nothing to do with the French estate. I’m the only other heir in this fracas, other than Rollo. Right?”

“Yes,” said Harold, “unless your mother wants to sue for a share.”

“Ho, ho,” I said. “Look, I’m just trying to help Jeremy hold on to what’s his.”

“As we all are,” said Harold. “We won’t let it go without a fight, I assure you. And your own inheritance in France, too, of course.” I caught the irony in his tone. He was making fun of my rusty little car and snake-infested garage.

“Rollo must think that car’s worth something, if he tried to steal it,” I said stoutly.

“We think he was trying to remove it before anyone else knew it was there and could list it as the ‘contents’ that you’re entitled to. He’s fond of antiques, I’m told. Believe me, Severine has the whole thing under control,” Harold said in his best leave-the-driving-to-the-professionals tone.“Jeremy trusts her eminently, and has left the matter in our hands. Of course, if you wish to hire your own solicitor—”

That’s another thing lawyers and doctors do. Threaten to quit on you if you question their methods. “I would be remiss if I didn’t ask these questions,” I said calmly.

“Oh, of course, of course,” Harold said smoothly. “In the meanwhile, the best advice I can give you is to get back to business-as-usual in your own life. All too often, people make a mistake of dropping everything they normally do, to devote their entire time and energy to the legal aspects of the estate settlement. But you don’t want to neglect your other personal and business affairs. Best not to over-focus on this.” I’d listened patiently but concluded that yes, he was patronizing me for being young and inquisitive.

“As for Jeremy,” I persisted, “I still want to speak to him. It’s personal,” I added.

“I shall convey that to his secretary, who will certainly see that he gets your message,” Harold said in a slightly reproving but polite tone, and we hung up.

I was already fumbling around in my handbag for Jeremy’s home number. I dialed it right away, and his answering machine picked up on the third ring.Very unceremoniously it said in Jeremy’s recorded voice, “Leave a message at the tone, please. I’ll get back to you.”

At the beep I said, “Jeremy. It’s Penny.” I stopped short. I had the most uncanny idea that he was there, listening. I tried to brush it off, but it was a powerful impression, based on absolutely nothing except a feeling.

“Jeremy,” I said again, “are you there? Harold says you’re not feeling well. So where else would you be?” I waited. Honestly, I could feel him listening. I said, “Look, Jeremy, I’ve got some information you need, about a lot of things. And I need to hear from you. Please call me at Aunt Penelope’s.” I left the number and my mobile phone number and e-mail address, even though I knew he had it all. I hung up, feeling unsatisfied.

S
OMETHING STUPENDOUS OCCURRED TO ME IN AUNT PENELOPE’S OLD-FASHIONED bathtub, after I’d been experimenting with the water taps. The tub was huge, took forever to fill, and did not have a metal shower overhead, but instead had some archaic rubber-showerheadwith-tube contraption, attachable to the spout of the tub, which you had to use by hand like a garden hose and which kept popping off just when you thought you were up and running. I cursed a great deal because I got shampoo in my eyes. Finally I calmed down and lay back meditatively. And then it hit me, genius that I am.

“Jesus Christ,” I said. “Jeremy’s not my cousin.”

I sat bolt upright, and sloshed water all over the floor.Very rapidly, I flashed through every memory I had of him, as if I were flipping a deck of cards that formed a moving-picture show. I felt several stabs of acute embarrassment along the way, blushing deeper and deeper with hot waves of mortification.

First of all, those childhood games of Secret Agents, which had lulled me into a false sense of security with him. He’d seen me at my most gangly, dopey self. However, this was mild compared to the utter anguish that swept over me at the recollection of recent conversations we’d had, about my love life, my track record with guys, the breakup with Paul, etc. These were harmless enough conversations to have with a cousin; like strangers on a train, you could confide and be sure that everything you said would not be used against you in a future romantic situation. But they were not the kinds of things you told a
guy
, a regular man, for heaven’s sake.

“Ah, nuts,” I said aloud each time I remembered things I’d said about my love life.“
Ah, nuts
,” I’d repeat. For it wasn’t so much what I’d said as
how
I’d said it.The tone, the gestures. “Loserville,” I said aloud, and my tone of agony reverberated in Aunt Penelope’s elegant hallway. Hearing the echo, I straightened up, wrapped a towel around me, and padded into the bedroom, damp and miserable.

There was a silver-framed, very stylized photograph of Aunt Penelope’s younger self on the boudoir table. The photo looked as if it had been shot in a studio, for she was posed like a thirties glamour girl, in a slinky evening gown, wearing diamond earrings. She seemed to be looking straight at me.

“Pull yourself together, ducky,” I said aloud, in my best imitation of Aunt Penelope’s accent. I drew a deep breath. It was time to change my attitude, if not my life, and to stop tiptoeing around like Goldilocks playing in a house I’d broken into. Aunt Penelope had left this to us, to live in. My mother wanted it to be mine. I’d never had the lap of luxury before, but the least I could do was be grateful and make an effort. So the first change I was going to make in my own life was to stop being frantic and frazzled. I opened my suitcase and dressed.

And just in time, too. The doorbell rang, solemn and sonorous. For a wild moment I thought it might be Jeremy, come to apologize for dumping me in France so unceremoniously. But it was Rupert, who’d showed up dutifully with the papers Harold wanted me to sign. I showed him into the library. Because for once in my life I had a library to show somebody into, with a desk for me to write at, and nice chairs for a guest.

“It’s all got to do with the transfer of the property,” he explained. “From the estate to your mother, and from your mother to you. It won’t be official until we attach the tally you’re making. I’ve enclosed a preliminary assessment to start you off.”

“Great,” I said. “Want some coffee?” But he shook his head and sat down patiently to wait. He’d brought in the newspaper from my doorstep—it was still being delivered to Aunt Penelope—and he glanced at it casually, but I suspected that he was the kind of go-getter who’s already read all the world papers by seven in the morning.

I sat at the desk and read everything carefully. My parents had e-mailed me a note assuring me that their lawyers had reviewed the documents and they were okay, and that Mom indeed wanted to transfer the property into my name, so that when she died there wouldn’t be any problem inheriting it. I calculated that I could phone them later, at afternoon time in London, when it would be morning back home. I was dying to tell them personally about Jeremy.

Somebody—Rupert, no doubt—had placed tabs at all the places where I should sign, so, with Aunt Penelope’s pen, I did.“I’ll send you my estimate soon,” I promised Rupert as I handed back the signed papers.

“Terrific. Harold says don’t feel too rushed; it’s more important to be accurate than quick,” Rupert said, reaching into his briefcase. He handed me another envelope. “By the way, here’s a telephone list you may find useful. And there’s a cleaning woman who worked for your great-aunt. She comes tomorrow, unless you cancel her.”

I thought that airing out the place of its sad-dust was a good idea. Rupert’s telephone list included taxi, grocery market, hospital, police; and he’d enclosed a London street map and another of the Tube routes and train schedules. I thanked him, and he beamed with satisfaction.

“A pleasure,” he said.

I showed him to the door and watched him climb into his tiny but expensive-looking German car. Jeremy would know what kind it was, I thought morosely to myself.What a rat to disappear like that, even if his whole life had just tumbled to pieces.

The house was deathly quiet after Rupert left. There were only two other apartments, one on the ground floor and one above me. Rupert had informed me that each was inhabited by an elderly couple, and I assumed that they all rose and retired at earlier hours than I did. The house was so soundproof, with its thick walls, that I never heard them stirring. I could hear only my own footsteps echoing on the polished wood floors, and the faint ticking of the clock in the library. I went very solemnly back into the library and sat at the desk to read Rupert’s assessment of the contents of Aunt Penelope’s apartment.

It really was a beautiful room when filled with morning sun, and her small walnut desk had everything you’d need to write letters—pale pink linen stationery, modest but nice pens, leather-trimmed blotter and matching notepad, gold letter-opener in a maroon leather sheath, even some stamps in a little gold cup. The lamp was black and gold, and cast good light. The matching chair was comfortable and supportive, and had a soft cushion.Whenever I looked up from the papers that I was reading, at the view through the bay windows of old trees and a pretty street, I felt as if I were already fulfilling an old dream of mine, having wandered into a time warp of London between the two world wars.

I soon became totally absorbed reading Rupert’s assessment of the estate’s value. He’d listed most of the possessions Aunt Penelope had left in the apartment. He was very thorough, right down to the comb-brush-mirror set on the bedroom dresser. In addition to the furniture, china, and kitchen stuff, he’d listed “assorted clothing” and “an album of pictures and personal memorabilia.” He left the clothing, furniture and memorabilia value blank for me to fill in, but he’d put a stick-on note telling me that he estimated the total of her possessions, including that stuff, to be about 150,000 pounds. Jeremy and I had roughly calculated the furnishings in the villa to be worth about 350,000 pounds. The garage and its contents—a car and gardening tools—were “at a value to be determined.” And then there was the villa itself, which, despite its need of repair and “mod-cons” (modern conveniences), because of its location was estimated to be worth 2,090,000 pounds—nearly four million dollars. No wonder Rollo had contested the French will.

I sat back in the chair and gazed around the quiet apartment. There was something a bit chilling about summing up a life with a grocery-style list of possessions. Strangers coldly assessing their value, looking at your favorite things when you weren’t there to object. And although Jeremy had warned me not to romanticize the whole thing, I couldn’t help feeling that there was some deeper meaning in Aunt Penelope’s quixotic gesture of giving me her old car and, via my mother, this beautiful London apartment. She hardly knew me, really ; yet I could imagine that if I were a woman of the world with no children of my own, I might wish to impart wisdom to a dopey little great-niece of a namesake.What was she trying to tell me?

I glanced at the window-seat. It reminded me of a window-seat at Grandmother Beryl’s house in Cornwall. I’d been curled up there one rainy afternoon that summer we visited; for some reason, I was the only one in the house that day. I’d pulled down a book of rather dark fairy tales, and landed on a truly sad one about a poor girl who got all excited because she received an invitation to the prince’s ball. So she made a beautiful dress and prepared to go. But her family was jealous and said that she probably got invited by mistake, and they wouldn’t let her take the horse and carriage, so she set out on foot and walked the whole long way to the city where the castle was. She got her pretty dress all dusty and her shoes ruined in the puddles, but that wasn’t the worst of it.The journey took so long that by the time she arrived, she was no longer a girl but an old lady. It had taken her all her life to get there, and the prince had married and was throwing a ball for his son now.The old woman, still clutching her tattered invitation, which the guards laughed at, collapsed on the steps of the castle; and when she heard the music from inside, while staring up at the night sky with its twinkling stars and moon, she thought she was being invited by the prince to dance, when, clearly, she was probably being summoned by death out in the ether, whilst the ballroom music filled her ears.

I was at an age when you’re easily given to dramatic stabs of melancholy because you’ve just figured out that life indeed has its forlorn, darker side. Maybe it was the rainy day, or a jolt of loneliness in a strange windswept house in a foreign country, but that day I was moved to tears at the thought that life could play such a cruel joke on an innocent person.

And that was where Aunt Penelope had found me, at the window-seat, sniffling. At first she looked amused, curious, and I didn’t want to discuss it. But I was in such a state that she easily pried it out of me. And unlike most adults, she didn’t tell me that it was only a story. She listened thoughtfully, then said quietly, “I hate when they do that in fairy tales, don’t you? Grant a heartfelt wish and then punish you for wanting it? Don’t worry, Penny, dear.Yours is a very different fate, I’m sure.” I looked at her doubtfully, and she said lightly but firmly, “Darling, I am never wrong about these things. You won’t have to walk to the ball.”