Free Slight Mourning by Catherine Aird

evenings.”
    â€œBoys and Mad Matthew. I’m told he finds it a great comfort. He thinks the doctor’s listening to him all the time. In fact, what with the boys playing about and the machine being so sympathetic to poor Matthew … Oh, that’s one of the things you shouldn’t do, isn’t it?”
    â€œWhat is?”
    â€œEndow an inanimate object with human characteristics.”
    â€œI must say Paul’s answering machine doesn’t sound exactly inanimate to me.”
    â€œNo, but …”
    Cynthia smiled. “You’re right. Strictly speaking you shouldn’t.”
    â€œI remember that from school. Funny what you remember and what you forget. You don’t seem to have forgotten anything, Cynthia.”
    â€œNonsense, Ursula.”
    â€œThe Greeks had a word for it, didn’t they?” persisted Ursula.
    â€œAnthropomorphic,” supplied Cynthia knowledgeably, “but I shouldn’t let it worry you.”
    It was later at Strontfield Park. Dr. Harriet Baird had been summoned hastily from Berebury to deal with Helen Fent’s fainting attack. Annabel Pollock, nurse, and Cousin Hettie, animal-lover, had tended her until the lady doctor had arrived and persuaded her, willy-nilly, to bed.
    â€œThe Will,” murmured a wan, protesting Helen. “Mr. Puckle was just going to read it.”
    â€œMen!” declared Dr. Baird roundly. “Just like them to want the Will read at a funeral. Barbaric custom, if you ask me. Should be stopped. Well, they’ll just have to get on with it on their own, m’dear. You’re staying in bed …”
    In the drawing-room Mr. Puckle smoothed out the thick legal paper in front of him, not sorry that the widow was not present.
    â€œThe provisions of the Will are quite simple, ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “It was drawn up by me on Mr. Fent’s instructions on the occasion of his marriage … that would be … let me see now …”
    â€œEight years ago,” said Annabel Pollock. “They had been married eight years. I was still at school.”
    â€œEr … precisely.” Mr. Puckle’s attention went back to the Will. “Eight years. Acting upon my advice at the time”—he paused fractionally and regarded the assembled company over the top of his glasses: there was obviously a special limbo reserved in a lawless hell for those who did not take Mr. Puckle’s advice—“Mr. Fent agreed to the insertion of the usual commorientes clause.”
    â€œCome again?” interjected Quentin.
    â€œCommorientes,” replied Mr. Puckle repressively. “Quite a customary measure in these days of high estate duty. It is a provision that before they can inherit the legatees shall survive the testator for thirty days.”
    â€œThe family that travels together, dies together,” murmured Quentin flippantly.
    Rigid disapproval of this remark emanating from every muscle in his body, the elderly solicitor crackled the Will between his fingers and began reading. “‘This is the last Will and Testament of me, William Anstruther Fent, of Strontfield Park, Constance Parva, in the County of Calleshire, Justice of the Peace …’”
    Someone in the drawing-room let out a long breath. It did seem as if the solicitor was getting near the point now.
    â€œAs I said before,” went on Mr. Puckle, “the provisions of the Will are quite simple. A certain proportion of the unsettled estate is to be set aside in trust to provide a life income for the—er—widow.”
    â€œPoor Helen,” sniffed Cousin Hettie.
    Mr. Puckle, liking neither flippancy nor sentiment, cleared his throat purposefully and continued. “Miss Annabel Pollock is to receive the deceased’s moiety from his late mother’s estate.”
    â€œMy niece Mary,” said Great-Uncle George gruffly. “A lovely girl.”
    Annabel