Blackwood Farm - Anne Rice [153]
“But what unfolded surprised everyone. The smaller bequests—one hundred thousand dollars each to Clem, Felix, Ramona, Lolly and Jasmine—were no great shock. And that Pops had left them handsome annuities for retirement as well made everyone a little less nervous. In fact, I’m understating the case. This part of the will made Clem and Jasmine and Lolly jubilant. Jasmine started to cry, and Lolly held tight to her arm, tearing up as well, and Clem just shook his head at the marvel of it.
“But then there came the real meat of the feast and no one could have been more amazed than Patsy. It seemed that Great-grandfather Gravier had left a trust fund to Pops which was bound by its original terms to go in its entirety to Pops’ only child, Patsy. The principal of the trust was in the high double-digit millions, and the income so handsome that Patsy positively screamed with astonished laughter.
“As to Pops’ remaining trust funds, also enormous, one went to Aunt Queen until her death and then to me, and the other was mine immediately. It was a dizzying amount of income.
“In summary, Pops had disinherited Patsy, but it made no difference because he couldn’t stop Grandpa Gravier’s trust from going to her. And his frugal ways over the years, his paying himself a pittance of a salary and rolling back into the big trust its earnings, had even increased Patsy’s fortune. Of course Patsy couldn’t touch the principal of the big trust, and when she died I would inherit it.
“Patsy was so delirious that she threw her arms around Aunt Queen, squealing and giggling and stomping the floor with her red leather boots.
“And even I felt happy for her.
“Aunt Queen kissed her cheek and told her warmly that it was indeed wondrous news, and now Patsy could buy some new clothes with her newfound money.
“ ‘Oh, am I going to buy new clothes!’ she declared. She ran out of the lawyer’s office before anyone could stop her. How she found transportation without Clem I couldn’t guess, except that she had her cell phone with her always these days, and Seymour was back at the house with her van. Whatever the case, never sensing the irony of Aunt Queen’s gentle words, she vanished.
“I sat there absorbing the fact that I now had a substantial income in my own right, some one hundred thousand dollars a month immediately available to me, though it came with strict and nonbinding advice that I take Aunt Queen’s guidance in everything.
“There was some fancy language pertaining to all that, something to do with Aunt Queen’s advanced age, and my precocity, and I interpreted from it that I was being entrusted with my income now because of my obedient nature and the fact that my mother could not be relied upon to provide the proper guidance.
“I was given two credit cards on the spot, each with a line of credit of a hundred thousand, a checkbook for a checking account which would carry a rolling balance of twenty thousand dollars a month, a money market account into which would be deposited eighty thousand a month, and I filled out some important papers, signed bank forms and cards, signed the credit cards as well, slipped them into my wallet, pocketed the checkbook, and my part of the transaction was over. I was intoxicated with new-funded manhood.
“What followed had to do with the various other employees who were left handsome amounts, of which they would soon be apprised, as Aunt Queen, appointed executrix for these, had some six months to make them available to the designated persons. It was wonderful to hear of this. The men were going to be mighty pleased.
“Then came the description of the household trust, which had been established by the Old Man himself, Manfred. It had grown enormously over the years, and its sole beneficiary was Blackwood Farm. And try as I might I could not understand all its complications.
“That Blackwood Farm couldn’t be divided, that its house could never be pulled down, that any architectural changes must be in keeping