“That’s easy,” said Lester. “It was all that beautiful money of Grandfather’s.”
“I don’t really remember,” Hester said, “but you may be right.”
Uncle Homer chuckled and patted his neat little pot that was growling softly for gin.
“It’s as well to be candid in these things,” he said. “Flo, you have a charming pair here. You should be proud of them.”
“They’re incorrigible,” Flo said. “They say naughty things to their mother.”
“Is that so? Children, that’s too bad of you. You shouldn’t say naughty things to your mother.”
“We only say them because they’re true,” Lester said.
“Well, never mind. We mustn’t engage in a family spat.” They had by this time moved from the drive into the front hall of the house, which had the dimensions and atmosphere of a small hotel lobby, and Uncle Homer waved a stubby arm at a massive oak door leading from it at the rear. “We are gathering in the library. Brewster is not here yet, but I expect him any minute.”
“Homer,” said Flo, “I hope you’ve made sure that we won’t be interrupted.”
“Oh, yes. Yes, indeed. I let it be known explicitly that we would not receive callers after the ceremony.”
They went along the hall and into the library. Aunt Madge and Junior were waiting there, Aunt Madge in a high-backed walnut chair with Grandfather’s Chihuahua looking lonely and deserted on her lap, and Junior idling along the wall-shelves reading the titles of books, which was as much of any book as Junior had ever read, even during the three years he had spent as a freshman in three colleges here and there. As the others entered, he reached the hiatus of a window and a window seat, and he collapsed on the seat and crossed his legs and regarded Hester with the admiration that she customarily incited and expected.
“Greetings, Cousin Hester,” he said. “You too, Cousin Lester.”
“Oh, never mind me,” Lester said. “I don’t mind being omitted.”
“I wouldn’t mind it myself,” Hester said, “so far as that goes.”
“Are you children being disagreeable?” Aunt Madge said.
“Not at all,” Hester said. “Lester was referring, on the contrary, to Junior’s expression of extraordinary affection. He appears to be considering the pleasures of a brood of little cretins.”
“Cretins? What on earth does she mean? Homer, what are cretins?”
“It’s all right, Madge, dear,” Uncle Homer said. “A cretin is what Junior is, and therefore it is perfectly logical that he should have a brood of them.”
“Well, all right, then. I’m sure that Junior will do what is right and logical.”
“In my opinion,” said Junior, “it is a myth that cousins are sexually incompatible.”
“It may be a myth that they are sexually incompatible for the reason of being cousins,” Hester said, “but there are plenty of other reasons I can name if necessary.”
“I’m sure,” said Aunt Madge, “that this is no time to be talking about sex. Hester and Junior, you should be ashamed of yourselves.”
“Quite right,” said Lester. “This is the time to be talking about money.”
Hester sat down on an ancient sofa of leather and oak that she suspected of being stuffed with horsehair. She drew her legs up under her, displaying a pretty pair of nylon knees, and looked at Aunt Madge with a stony expression.
“Aunt Madge,” she said “must you hold that nasty, naked little bitch on your lap?”
“I must say that I agree with Cousin Hester, Mother,” Junior said. “She has the look of an obscene rat.”
Aunt Madge, driven by this critical assault to a defensive attitude, scratched the Chihuahua between the ears with an index finger and assumed a haughty indignation.
“Surely,” she said, “you do not mean this dear little dog.”
“Inasmuch as she is the only nasty, naked little bitch on your lap,” said Hester, “we surely do.”
“I’d like to remind you,” Aunt Madge said, “that she was your late Grandfather’s precious pet, and was allowed every privilege.”
“You don’t have to remind me,” Hester said, “and I wish you wouldn’t.”
“Grandfather,” Lester said, “was in many ways a simple-minded old curmudgeon.”
“As his only surviving son,” Uncle Homer said, “I am in no position to deny it. What I am in a position to do, however, is to offer everyone a nice martini. Father, as you know, was drier than Woodrow Wilson, but I took the opportunity, immediately after his sad departure, to lay in a small stock of gin and vermouth. Just to see me through the difficult days of final arrangements, you understand. It’s in the kitchen, and so I’ll just go and mix up a pitcher.”
He headed directly for the kitchen, and Hester, who had been nagged by awareness of an incongruity she couldn’t quite place, watched him go with sudden sympathy and understanding.
“Now I’ve got it,” she said. “I’ve been wondering and wondering what was different about Uncle Homer. He’s sober.”
“How could you have missed it?” Junior said. “Let me tell you that it’s been almost more than I could bear. Sober, Father is a frightening apparition.”
“Speaking of frightening apparitions,” Lester said, “where in the devil is old Brewster?”
2
As it happened, old Brewster was directly outside in the hall, and he came in immediately as if on cue. In his case, the apparition tag was not altogether inappropriate. He was tall and incredibly thin with a big bald head and a long cadaverous face with eyes sunk deep in purple pockets. His gait when moving normally was not so much a walk as a kind of fast lope, as if at any moment he might break into a gallop, and his arms and legs seemed to fly in all directions in a multiplicity of acute and obtuse angles. Hester had once remarked, in a flash of inspiration, that he looked as if he were constantly in a rush to get to an anatomy lecture on the human skeletal structure. Not as a student or the lecturer, she said, but as a specimen.
“Well, here you are, here you are,” he said. “Ready and waiting, I see. How are you, Madge? Flo? Junior? Hester and Lester? Where’s Homer?”
“He’s out in the kitchen mixing up a batch of martinis,” Junior said.
“Hardly necessary, I should say. Hardly appropriate. It could have waited, I should say, until after the conclusion of our business. I greatly fear, Junior, that your father is an addict.”
“What he is,” said Junior, “is a lush.”
“Perhaps he would have waited,” Hester said, “if you hadn’t been so late. You can hardly expect a person to sit around forever as dry as pop corn. Especially Uncle Homer.”
“Late? Who was late?” Willis Brewster consulted a huge pocket watch and waved it indignantly at the end of its long chain. “Young lady, I was precisely on time. I am always precisely on time. I make a point of it. A point.”
“Well, you needn’t make it over and over. You have come to read Grandfather’s will, if I understand the occasion correctly, and I suggest you get on with it.”
Brewster had appropriated the library table, depositing a worn brief case upon it and himself behind it. Now, before answering, he loosened the straps of the case and removed from it a sheaf of legal-sized sheets. He placed the sheaf beside the case and patted it as gently as if it were the Chihuahua’s head.
“In good time. Good time. As it is, I declare that we are rushing things a bit, I was against it from the beginning. From the beginning. I said so to Homer. Also to you, Flo, if you will be so kind as to remember. I was for a decent interval. A few days, at least. At least. It would have shown proper respect for the late Artemus Hunter.”