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tell you, then
you’ll see how difficult all this is going to be for me. I expect
you know that my grandfather made a great deal of money in South
Africa. He owned three department stores – in Johannesburg and
Durban and one in Pietermaritzburg. He sold the Jo’burg and Durban
stores in the nineteen-thirties when he brought his daughters back
to England – my grandmother had died by then. But he wouldn’t sell
the Pietermaritzburg store. It was the first one he opened and
somehow he felt sentimental about it, I suppose.’ Her tone nicely
combined respect for her grandfather’s business acumen and contempt
for his sentiment. ‘When Mummy and Aunt Maud married, he set up
this Trust. They would each have a moiety – that’s a share.’ she
explained condescendingly. (I didn’t remind her that I had been
married for over twenty years to a solicitor.) ‘A share of the
interest on the money he got from the sale of the two stores. It
was over a million then, in the ‘thirties – and a million was a
million in those days. And, of course, it was pretty shrewdly
invested. He was a good businessman. I suppose.’ she said
complacently, ‘that’s where I get it from. Anyway, under the Trust
Mummy and Aunt Maud inherited the interest, not the capital, and
could only bequeath it to their children – not to their husbands.
For some reason Grandfather never had a very high opinion of
Daddy’s business sense and he always said that Uncle James would
never make old bones – and do you know, he was right, because Uncle
James died only ten years after they were married.’
    ‘Goodness!’ I said, quite overwhelmed by all this
financial detail. ‘The problems of wealth. But what happens to the
capital?’
    ‘Oh, that remains intact in the Trust, rather like an
entail, so that the interest continues through the generations.
But’ – and here her lips set in a thin line of disapproval –
‘there’s the question of the third department store.’
    ‘The one in Pietermaritzburg?’
    ‘Yes. He had this thing about keeping it in the
family. So he said in his will that it must always remain a private
company and it must also be kept intact, under one owner. The
company mustn’t ever be divided up but must go to the heir – the
eldest child, whether male or female – of his surviving
daughter.’
    ‘So that if your aunt Maud dies first, then your
mother’s heir – and that would be you, because you’re older than
Alan – will inherit it, but if your mother dies before your aunt
Maud, then your cousin Marion will get it.’
    ‘Exactly. And the amount of money is quite
staggering. You see, in addition to the day-to-day profits of the
business, and it’s a really big concern now, there’s all the money
from it (and the interest on that) that’s been mounting up since
Grandfather died. That’s in another Trust fund. You see what I mean
about lawyers; they must have made a fortune out of it
already!’
    I decided to ignore this slight on the legal
profession. ‘It does seem a very complicated situation. And, as you
say, there is a great deal of money involved.’
    ‘Exactly.’ Her voice rose and she became more excited
than I had ever seen her. ‘You see how monstrous it is – and you
can see how unbelievably difficult it is that Mummy should have
disappeared just now when Aunt Maud is on her last legs.’
    ‘Yes, I do see...’
    ‘I bet Marion can’t wait to get her hands on that
money – and that playboy husband of hers, he’s never done a day’s
work in his life; they’ve just sponged off Aunt Maud all these
years. It’s so unfair when you think how hard Gordon and I have
worked and how much difference it would make to the business to
have that sort of extra capital just now. I’m sure that if
Grandfather were alive he would see that we ought to have it.’
    I refrained from pointing out that if her grandfather
were alive the situation wouldn’t have arisen and chose another
tack. ‘I don’t think