“What business was it of theirs?”

“Don’t be stupid; people who mind their own business die of boredom at thirty. Don’t you suppose the hospitals hoped for a chunk? Your father was a professor at Waverley University for years; do you think Waverley didn’t have its hand out? The Cathedral wanted a slice, too. But nothing doing. And they say you don’t get a red cent. Where is it all going? I don’t mean to pry, you understand. I’m just aching to know.”

“All you have heard is that none of the places that expected a legacy got anything, and that I am not the heir?”

“Precisely. Are you going to give us the real story, or do you want Molly and me to feel that we aren’t trusted, now that you are poor like us?”

“I suppose it’ll all come out in a few days. You might as well know.” And so Solly told the Cobblers the conditions of his mother’s will. They opened their eyes very wide, and Cobbler gave a long whistle, but it was his wife who spoke.

“That’s what you can really call laying the Dead Hand on the living, isn’t it,” said Molly. “I suppose it’s something to be proud of, in a way; not many people have the guts to make a really revengeful will. They’re too anxious to leave a fragrant memory, and few things are so fragrant as a million dollars. I suppose it’s well over a million?”

“Haven’t any idea,” said Solly. “But I’m sure you’re wrong about revenge. I mean, Mother was capricious, and very strong-minded, but revenge—it doesn’t seem like her.”

“Seems very much like what I knew of her,” said Cobbler. “You really must grow up, you know. Your Mum told you that she loved you, and you believed her. She made your life a hell of dependency, and you put up with it because she played the invalid, and tyrannized over you with her weak heart. She beat off any girls you liked, until you got up enough gumption to marry Veronica—or Veronica got enough gumption to marry you; I never quite knew which it was. That was only a bit more than a year ago. What peace have you known since? She made you come here and live with her, and like a couple of chumps you did it. She let it be known as widely as possible that your marriage grieved her.”

“Look here, you’re talking about my Mother, who was buried the day before yesterday. I don’t expect you to behave like other people, but you must show some decency. I know better than anybody how difficult she was, but she had very good reasons for everything she did. Of course they’re not easily understandable, from an outsider’s viewpoint. I’ve read and re-read her will today; it’s very full, and very personal. She says that she has left the money away from me to prove me—to test what I can do absolutely on my own. She says she knows it will be hard, and advises me to take my father as an example. I know—it sounds very odd by modern notions of such things, but it is quite obvious that she meant it kindly.”

This was greeted with a studied silence by the others.

“Well, look at it from her point of view,” said Solly, when the silence had begun to wear on him. “She always knew I was rather a feeble chap; it was her last try to put some backbone into me.”

“You’re not a bit feeble,” said his wife, laying her hand on his.

“Yes; yes, I am. I don’t pretend that this will isn’t a shock, and I won’t pretend to think it’s really fair. But I see what she meant by it. And your suggestion that it was because of our marriage is sheer nasty spite, Humphrey. I won’t say Mother liked Veronica, but I know she respected her. And certainly Ronny was as good as any daughter could have been to her during the past six months. You didn’t marry me for money, did you?” said he, smiling at his wife.

“I don’t think that is what Humphrey meant,” said Veronica.

“Well, what else is there?”

“Darling, if you haven’t thought of it, I won’t find it very easy to explain. Your mother leaves you her money—or the income from it, which is the same thing—if we have a son. Well? Must we set to work, cold-bloodedly, to beget a child, hoping it will be a son? If it is a daughter—try, try again. You know what people are. They’ll be ready to make the worst of it, whatever happens. They’ll have a splendid, prurient snigger at us for years. Don’t you see?”

“Oh I’m sure Mother never meant anything like that,” said Solly.

“Then why did she make such a will?” said Molly. “You’ve got to consider the generation your mother belonged to. She wasn’t a big friend of sex, you know. She undoubtedly thought it would dry up the organs of increase in you both. Very pretty. Sweetly maternal.”

“I wish you people would get it into your heads that you are talking about my Mother,” said Solly, with some anger.

“Now look, Solly,” said Cobbler, “talk sense. Ever since I first met you your main topic whenever you were depressed was what a hell of a time your mother was giving you. I’ve heard you talk about her in a way which surprised even me—and I specialize in speaking the unspeakable. You can’t make a saint of her now simply because she is dead.”

“Shut up,” said his wife. “Solly needs time to get used to the fact that his mother is dead. You know how you carried on when your mother died. Roared like a bull for days, though you rarely gave her a civil word the last few times you met.”

“Those were quarrels about music,” said Cobbler. “We disagreed on artistic principles. Just showed how really compatible we were that we could talk about them at all. I bet Solly never talked to his mother about such things.”

“The terms of her will showed that she cared a great deal about artistic principles. Or about education, anyhow,” said Solly.

“I have not forgotten that she requested that My Task be sung at her funeral,” said Cobbler. “The bill for that caper is outstanding, by the way. I only got a girl to do it at the last moment.”

“She sang it very nicely,” said Veronica.

“Good voice. A girl called Monica Gall. And it will be ten dollars.”

“Include it in the bill you send to Snelgrove,” said Solly, “along with the charges for the choir, and yourself.”

“I played gratis.”

“Well, don’t. Send Snelgrove a bill. I don’t wish to think that my Mother was obliged to you for anything.”

“Oh, for God’s sake don’t turn nasty, just because I spoke my mind. If you want friends who echo everything you say and defer to all your pinhead notions, count me out.”

“Shut up, both of you,” said Molly. “You’re carrying on like a couple of children. But listen to me, Solly. You and Veronica may have some hard days ahead of you, and you’ve got to make up your minds now to stick together, or this idiotic will can make trouble between you. And the fact that you have no money will make it all the easier.”

“We have just as much money as we ever had,” said Solly. “I still have my job, you know.”

“A junior lecturer, and quite good for your age. A miserable salary, considering that you are expected to live the life of a man of education and some position on it. Still, Humphrey and I are living very happily on less. But if I understand the conditions of the will, you have to live in this house, and keep it up, and keep Ethel and Doris on that money, and go on having children until you have a son. They say that clever men tend to have daughters, Solly, and I suppose you qualify as a clever man, in spite of the way you are behaving at present.” Molly’s affectionate tone took the sting out of her words. “But I think you should recognize that your mother has laid the Dead Hand on you and Veronica in the biggest possible way, and the sooner you see that the better you will be able to deal with it.”

“And you’d better not begin by holding a grudge against me,” said Cobbler. “You are going to want all your friends, now that you have joined the ranks of the struggling poor. You are going to feel some very sharp pangs, you know, when you see all that lovely money, which might have been yours, going to support dear little Miss God-knows-who, while she studies flower arrangement in the Japanese Imperial Greenhouses, at the expense of your Mum’s estate. So stop snapping me up on every word. I had nothing personal against your Mum. It is just that she symbolized all the forces that have been standing on my neck ever since I was old enough to have a mind of my own. And to prove my goodwill, I give you a toast to her memory.”