Myra opened it, lifted out a stack of yellow packets of holiday snaps and there underneath them, still blank, still untouched, lay the will form. Myra expelled her breath and momentarily closed her eyes. Then she went through the rest of the papers which Mrs. Brewer had kept in an orderly way, found National Savings to the value of 3,000 pounds and a bank deposit book showing an accumulation of nearly 2,000 pounds.
How long would she have to wait before she came into possession? Some months, she feared, remembering that when her father died intestate, letters of administration had had to be applied for. In that case, she might as well take her mother’s fur coat with her, a very good ranch mink it was and only two years old. It would be a pity not to have the benefit of that next spring.
Harold was in the breakfast room. He had been doing a lot of serious reading lately—James Pope Hennessy’s Queen Mary, no less, and a book called The File on the Tsar —so for light relief he had turned to an historical novel about the twin sons its author said Mary Queen of Scots had secretly borne to the Earl of Bothwell. He had just reached the point where one of the twins was about to rescue his father from the dungeons of Elsinore, when Myra came in wearing a fur coat. Harold stuck a finger in his book, half shut the covers, and looked at her because it had been a very hot day and the temperature was still over seventy.
Myra took the coat off and threw it over the back of a chair.
“Well, Hal, I think you and I can count on being thirty-five thousand pounds to the good by next year. How does that grab you?
“The old dear never made a will, then?”
“Of course she didn’t. I knew that. It was all talk. Why bother when it’d naturally go to her only daughter? I think we ought to celebrate, we ought to have a bottle of champagne. It’s not every day you come into money like that, we ought to have a real celebration.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Harold. “I don’t fancy the idea of celebrating your mother’s death.”
“We’re not celebrating her death, don’t be ridiculous, we’re celebrating coming into money. It’s not the same thing, surely you can see that?”
“Go down The Woman in White, then, shall we?”
“I’m not going there. Let people see me in a pub with Mother not even cremated yet! What a thing to suggest. Celebrate at home is what I meant, like civilized people do.”
Harold said nothing. He returned to the windswept ramparts of Elsinore. Myra looked in the cupboard in the dining room and found about a quarter of a bottle of sherry left over from her party and half that quantity of Dubonnet. While she was thinking what to do, she drank up the sherry direct from the bottle. It was a Friday, pay day, but because she had not been to work, her pay was still at the dental surgery. She had about forty-five pence in her purse.
“You could go to the wineshop and get us a bottle of sparkling white,” she said to Harold.
Harold laughed in an absent way without looking up. “Good job you didn’t take me up on my offer. I’m skint.” He pulled out his trouser pocket. “Not a sausage.”
By this time Myra wanted a celebration very much indeed. An excited restless feeling had come over her. She was in that euphoric state in which one wants to dance about and sing, and as people do, she wanted a companion whose mood would match hers and who would dance about and sing with her. Harold Yearman was not ideally cast in this role but he was all she had. These days Myra seldom thought of the married man but she thought of him now, of how he had liked to enjoy himself and how wild he could be.
She stood in the hall, which she was halfway through papering and which smelt of wallpaper adhesive, and she wondered if, considering the state of her current account, she dared give a check to the man in the wineshop. Even if she did dare, the shop closed at 8:00 and it was five to now. Myra looked up
How long would she have to wait before she came into possession? Some months, she feared, remembering that when her father died intestate, letters of administration had had to be applied for. In that case, she might as well take her mother’s fur coat with her, a very good ranch mink it was and only two years old. It would be a pity not to have the benefit of that next spring.
Harold was in the breakfast room. He had been doing a lot of serious reading lately—James Pope Hennessy’s Queen Mary, no less, and a book called The File on the Tsar —so for light relief he had turned to an historical novel about the twin sons its author said Mary Queen of Scots had secretly borne to the Earl of Bothwell. He had just reached the point where one of the twins was about to rescue his father from the dungeons of Elsinore, when Myra came in wearing a fur coat. Harold stuck a finger in his book, half shut the covers, and looked at her because it had been a very hot day and the temperature was still over seventy.
Myra took the coat off and threw it over the back of a chair.
“Well, Hal, I think you and I can count on being thirty-five thousand pounds to the good by next year. How does that grab you?
“The old dear never made a will, then?”
“Of course she didn’t. I knew that. It was all talk. Why bother when it’d naturally go to her only daughter? I think we ought to celebrate, we ought to have a bottle of champagne. It’s not every day you come into money like that, we ought to have a real celebration.”
“I don’t know about that,” said Harold. “I don’t fancy the idea of celebrating your mother’s death.”
“We’re not celebrating her death, don’t be ridiculous, we’re celebrating coming into money. It’s not the same thing, surely you can see that?”
“Go down The Woman in White, then, shall we?”
“I’m not going there. Let people see me in a pub with Mother not even cremated yet! What a thing to suggest. Celebrate at home is what I meant, like civilized people do.”
Harold said nothing. He returned to the windswept ramparts of Elsinore. Myra looked in the cupboard in the dining room and found about a quarter of a bottle of sherry left over from her party and half that quantity of Dubonnet. While she was thinking what to do, she drank up the sherry direct from the bottle. It was a Friday, pay day, but because she had not been to work, her pay was still at the dental surgery. She had about forty-five pence in her purse.
“You could go to the wineshop and get us a bottle of sparkling white,” she said to Harold.
Harold laughed in an absent way without looking up. “Good job you didn’t take me up on my offer. I’m skint.” He pulled out his trouser pocket. “Not a sausage.”
By this time Myra wanted a celebration very much indeed. An excited restless feeling had come over her. She was in that euphoric state in which one wants to dance about and sing, and as people do, she wanted a companion whose mood would match hers and who would dance about and sing with her. Harold Yearman was not ideally cast in this role but he was all she had. These days Myra seldom thought of the married man but she thought of him now, of how he had liked to enjoy himself and how wild he could be.
She stood in the hall, which she was halfway through papering and which smelt of wallpaper adhesive, and she wondered if, considering the state of her current account, she dared give a check to the man in the wineshop. Even if she did dare, the shop closed at 8:00 and it was five to now. Myra looked up
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