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Authors: Sarah Caudwell
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carpenters.” She gave a small sigh, as if nonetheless expecting the conference to present her with further troubles.
I asked if Sir Robert was still expecting her to advise him on the choice of his successor.
“I’m afraid so. His latest idea is that if I meet the two directors concerned I’ll somehow be able to tell which of them is the insider dealer. He’s bringing them along so that I can have a look at them. They don’t know that’s why, of course—ostensibly I’m advising on the documents for the next takeover.”
“It’s gratifying, at least, that he has such faith in your judgment.”
“Well, it would be if it weren’t utterly absurd—I’m beginning to feel like the girl in the fairy story who was expected to spin straw into gold.”
Julia arrived: she had received a further letter from her aunt.
24 High Street
Parsons Haver
West Sussex
Thursday, 24th June
Dear Julia,
I had a rather strange conversation with Ricky yesterday, and he told me why he advised us to buy those shares you were interested in—this is the first chance I’ve had to sit down and write to you about it. I seem to have spent as much time on Isabella’s funeral as if she’d been my dearest friend—which, as you know, she wasn’t.
Maurice is in rather the same position—he’s been spending as much time on it as if she’d been his most devout parishioner, which she also wasn’t. Still, it does make things a bit easier that he’s going to conduct the service, and that it’s going to be atSt. Ethel’s. I’d have expected her to want Stonehenge, with the Archdruid presiding, but Daphne seems quite sure she’d have wanted Maurice to do it—”She always said you were her adversary, Father Dulcimer, but an honourable adversary and a true priest.” Oh dear, poor Maurice.
He seems at the moment to be the only person who can deal with Daphne—she’s still very upset, poor girl. Understandably, of course, as Isabella was all she had, even if—well, never mind. I brought her back here with me on Tuesday morning and Mrs. Tyrrell fed her on tea and chocolate cake while I rang the undertakers and so on, but it was only when Maurice arrived that she began to calm down at all. I dare say Isabella would have seen this as a sign of his “great spiritual authority.”
He asked Daphne the name of her aunt’s solicitor—a Mr. Godwin, living in London—and rang him up and told him what had happened. It seems that Isabella made a will about two years ago, soon after she moved here, and Mr. Godwin is appointed the executor—it doesn’t say anything about funeral arrangements, except that she wanted to be buried rather than cremated. Mr. Godwin said he couldn’t come down for the funeral, but he’d be getting in touch with Daphne in due course.
He was rather cagey about the provisions of the will, but Maurice thought it sounded as if Daphne didn’t have much to worry about financially—it sets up some kind of trust and she’ll get the income from the whole estate. She doesn’t have much for immediate living expenses—just sixty pounds or so that Isabella had in her handbag—butMaurice has had a word with Mr. Iqbal at the supermarket, and she can go on using Isabella’s account there for the next three or four weeks, until it’s all sorted out.
There didn’t seem to be anyone else to be personally notified of Isabella’s death—she’d apparently never been married, though the name she was born with turns out to have been Isabel Cummings. Her only sister died a year or two ago. But Daphne was very anxious to have it announced in all the newspapers, national as well as local, and wanted Maurice to help her with getting the wording right.
So he told her to write out what she wanted to say and said he’d come back later and look it over. I settled her down in the garden, with a notepad and a couple of ballpoint pens, and left her to work on it.
After three hours or so she came back into the house, with ink all
I asked if Sir Robert was still expecting her to advise him on the choice of his successor.
“I’m afraid so. His latest idea is that if I meet the two directors concerned I’ll somehow be able to tell which of them is the insider dealer. He’s bringing them along so that I can have a look at them. They don’t know that’s why, of course—ostensibly I’m advising on the documents for the next takeover.”
“It’s gratifying, at least, that he has such faith in your judgment.”
“Well, it would be if it weren’t utterly absurd—I’m beginning to feel like the girl in the fairy story who was expected to spin straw into gold.”
Julia arrived: she had received a further letter from her aunt.
24 High Street
Parsons Haver
West Sussex
Thursday, 24th June
Dear Julia,
I had a rather strange conversation with Ricky yesterday, and he told me why he advised us to buy those shares you were interested in—this is the first chance I’ve had to sit down and write to you about it. I seem to have spent as much time on Isabella’s funeral as if she’d been my dearest friend—which, as you know, she wasn’t.
Maurice is in rather the same position—he’s been spending as much time on it as if she’d been his most devout parishioner, which she also wasn’t. Still, it does make things a bit easier that he’s going to conduct the service, and that it’s going to be atSt. Ethel’s. I’d have expected her to want Stonehenge, with the Archdruid presiding, but Daphne seems quite sure she’d have wanted Maurice to do it—”She always said you were her adversary, Father Dulcimer, but an honourable adversary and a true priest.” Oh dear, poor Maurice.
He seems at the moment to be the only person who can deal with Daphne—she’s still very upset, poor girl. Understandably, of course, as Isabella was all she had, even if—well, never mind. I brought her back here with me on Tuesday morning and Mrs. Tyrrell fed her on tea and chocolate cake while I rang the undertakers and so on, but it was only when Maurice arrived that she began to calm down at all. I dare say Isabella would have seen this as a sign of his “great spiritual authority.”
He asked Daphne the name of her aunt’s solicitor—a Mr. Godwin, living in London—and rang him up and told him what had happened. It seems that Isabella made a will about two years ago, soon after she moved here, and Mr. Godwin is appointed the executor—it doesn’t say anything about funeral arrangements, except that she wanted to be buried rather than cremated. Mr. Godwin said he couldn’t come down for the funeral, but he’d be getting in touch with Daphne in due course.
He was rather cagey about the provisions of the will, but Maurice thought it sounded as if Daphne didn’t have much to worry about financially—it sets up some kind of trust and she’ll get the income from the whole estate. She doesn’t have much for immediate living expenses—just sixty pounds or so that Isabella had in her handbag—butMaurice has had a word with Mr. Iqbal at the supermarket, and she can go on using Isabella’s account there for the next three or four weeks, until it’s all sorted out.
There didn’t seem to be anyone else to be personally notified of Isabella’s death—she’d apparently never been married, though the name she was born with turns out to have been Isabel Cummings. Her only sister died a year or two ago. But Daphne was very anxious to have it announced in all the newspapers, national as well as local, and wanted Maurice to help her with getting the wording right.
So he told her to write out what she wanted to say and said he’d come back later and look it over. I settled her down in the garden, with a notepad and a couple of ballpoint pens, and left her to work on it.
After three hours or so she came back into the house, with ink all
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