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"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 with its original designs, that all who were employed in the management and maintenance of Blackwood Manor and Blackwood Farm were to be well paid -- all this was rolled out in complex language, spelling security for the estate that I loved, and making it very clear that the income we received from our paying guests meant absolutely nothing.
"There was also considerable language about the responsibilities for the farm trust now falling upon Aunt Queen, and then passing on to me, but this was also too complicated to follow. That Patsy would never own or control Blackwood Farm was the gist of this, and of course Patsy wouldn't give a damn about it.
"As for the present, the pure ownership of Blackwood Farm itself, including all buildings, swamp and land, passed from Pops to me, with a grant of usufruct to Aunt Queen, meaning she could live there throughout her lifetime.
"This left me astonished. But immediately Aunt Queen explained the wisdom of it. Were she to marry, she said, her husband might try to bring a claim of ownership against the land, and this was what Pops wanted to protect against. Of course, she was seventy-eight (or so she said) and she wasn't going to marry anyone, she remarked (Except perhaps the charming Nash Penfield. Laugh. ), but Pops had to do it this way to protect me.
"But I couldn't help but note that Patsy didn't even have the right to live at the property, which Aunt Queen did. I kept quiet about it. Patsy would never know. And I certainly wasn't going to put her out on the porch with her bags packed.
"Besides, with her high monthly income -- some half a million -- she wasn't likely to be around much.
"What funded all of our trusts were enormous investments in such diversified instruments as railroads, international shipping, worldwide banking, precious metals and gems, foreign currencies, U. S. Treasury bills, pharmaceutical companies, mutual funds of every imaginable name and description and random stocks of all kinds, from the most conservative to the most speculative, the entire holding administered by the investment firm of Mayfair and Mayfair, in New Orleans, an arm of the law firm of Mayfair and Mayfair, which managed only a handful of very select private fortunes.
"It was quite impossible to find anyone superior to Mayfair and Mayfair when it came to investing, and it was also impossible to solicit their services today. The deal had been struck with them in 1880 between Manfred Blackwood and Julien Mayfair. And nothing but good luck and high profits had followed down to the present time.
"Since I was in love with Mona Mayfair, all this made a very favorable impression on me. But in the main it was over my head. I had always known I was well-off, and how well-off had never been a matter of concern.
"Now, when all this was complete and done, came the biggest shocker. Pops had confided to his lawyer something of which we didn't even dream. But before we were asked to hear it, Jasmine, Clem and Lolly were invited to excuse themselves.
"Aunt Queen, on what instinct I'm not sure, asked Jasmine to remain. Lolly and Clem seemed unperturbed by this and went out immediately to sit in the parlor. Jasmine moved closer to me as though to protect me from whatever was coming.
"Our lawyer, Grady Breen, laid aside the many documents he had before him and started to speak to us with a note of sympathy in his voice that seemed genuine.
" 'Thomas Blackwood' (this was Pops) 'confided in me a secret before he died,' he said, 'and he made a verbal request of me as to this secret, that I advise you of it and ask of you that you do right by it. Now, as you may or may not know, there is a young lady in the backwoods hereabouts, name of Terry Sue, who has about five or six children. ' He glanced at his watch. 'Probably six children. ¡¯
" 'Who on earth hasn't heard of Terry Sue?' asked Aunt Queen with a faint smile. 'I'm ashamed to say every Shed Man on the property knows Terry Sue. She just had another baby --. ' Now Aunt Queen looked at her watch. 'Didn't she? Yes, I believe she did. ¡¯
" 'Well, yes, she did,' said Grady, slipping off his wire-rimmed glasses and sitting back. 'And it's a well-known fact that Terry Sue is one beautiful young woman, and a young woman who likes to have babies. But it's not that new baby that I want to discuss now. It seems that Terry Sue had a child by Pops about nine years ago. ¡¯
" 'That's impossible!' I said. 'He would never have been unfaithful to Sweetheart!¡¯
" 'It wasn't a thing he was proud of, Quinn,' said Grady. 'Indeed, he was not proud of it, and he was deeply concerned that the rumors about it would never disturb his family. ¡¯
" 'I don't believe it,' I said again.
" 'DNA has proved it, Quinn,' said Grady. 'And Terry Sue of course has always known it, and out of affection for Sweetheart, for whom Terry Sue did baking, you know --. ¡¯
" 'Those big Virginia hams,' I said. 'She'd soak them and scrub them and bake them. ¡¯
" 'What tenderness,' said Aunt Queen. 'Seems she soaked and scrubbed something else. But Grady, you have a point to make with this revelation, don't you, dear fellow?¡¯
" 'Indeed, I do, Miss Queen,' said Grady. 'Pops was in the habit of taking an envelope of cash over there to Terry Sue every week or so, and though whatever man she's with tends to run off the old ones, no one was ever tempted to run off Pops with his envelope. It was about five hundred a week that he gave her. And this keeps the boy in a good Catholic school -- St. Joseph's over in Mapleville -- and that was the one term exacted for it, as far as I know. The boy's nine years old now, I believe. He's in the fourth grade. ¡¯
