The Vagabonds (11 page)
As his companions knew yet might not on the instant remember, the enterprise itself had been established thirty-eight long years before. It had been known at first as Edison Electric Light and then, in 1892, created from the merger of Edison General Electric Company and a chief competitor, the Thomson-Houston Electric Company. For 855 dollars apiece, said Edison—who did the calculation without benefit of pad or pen—we may purchase five shares each and consign them to the girl. The sum is not extravagant but neither is it negligible, an investment in the future and a cap tipped to the past. It will set her on her feet who on that starlit night so heedlessly had lifted them, and though Barclay must not know of or be party to philanthropy, it would, would it not, help their child?
And so it was transacted and so this little history came to its rapid close. Peter Barclay would remain in Firestone’s employment but no longer as close confidant or in the role of valet; he was sent abroad. The checks were drawn and an account established by Henry Ford and Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone in equal parts subscribed. John Burroughs they kept out of it, since he had few disposable funds and might not approve such settlement but consider it a bribe. In December 1916, fifteen prime shares of the company called General Electric were transferred to the central office of Adirondacks Savings Bank, for the benefit and use of Miss Elizabeth Dancey’s heirs in trust. She herself was not to know of the transaction or be informed of its existence until two full years had elapsed, and it was stipulated that not Miss Dancey but solely her child and her child’s children be the beneficiaries of this gift of stock.
The sum would grow.
2003
T
he snow stays unimportant, a white dusting only, and it brightens the slush at the side of the road and the roofs of the buildings in town. At nine o’clock the sun is up, and icicles are melting, and there is a good deal of traffic; delivery trucks clog the streets. The lawyer’s office occupies the front-facing portion of the second floor of a three-story brick building overlooking Congress Park. The hallway lights are dim. They climb the wooden stairs.
Outside the smoked glass door of the offices of Beakes, Chilton, O’Dwyer & Rosenbaum stands a fig tree in a basket, its plastic leaves curled and shredding and its trunk built of interlaced vines. Gum wrappers and a half-smoked cigarette festoon what looks like Spanish moss in the tree’s wicker container, and the whole effect is so dispiriting that Beakes’s clients pause. One of the arms of the coat rack has sprung, and two umbrellas stand in the umbrella stand. Turn by turn they wipe their boots on the welcome mat; then David opens the door and the three of them walk in.
Inside there is a single desk and upholstered chairs and a series of sepia-toned photographs of Saratoga in the past. Men in top hats drink the healthful waters; men with wagons are ferrying ice. There are photos of horses and scenes of the spa and a poster of Lillian Russell; there is, however, no one at the desk. Irresolute, they wait; then David rings the bell again and Claire and Joanna sit down. A toilet flushes, and out of a door at their left a receptionist appears. Wearing a pink woolen suit, she sits, smooths freshly hennaed hair; she peers at them in silence while Claire says they have an appointment at nine-thirty with Joseph Beakes; is he in?
She nods.
“We’re the Saperstone children,” says David. “Alice Saper- stone’s . . .”
“We’ve got an appointment,” Joanna repeats.
Again the woman lifts and drops her chin, then selects a “to-do” pad from the blotter and writes “
Laryngitis
” and points at her throat.
David smiles at her. “I’m sorry,” he says, “you don’t need to talk, but is Mr. Beakes in the office?”
“I am,” the lawyer says.
He has appeared from the door on the right; he shakes their hands in sequence: David, Joanna and Claire. Then he pilots them into his office—a jumble of papers, a desk and four chairs—and says, “Sit down, sit down! I’m delighted you could make it, though not of course delighted by the reason we’re all here.” He too sits, then stands again: “Can I get you anything? A glass of water? Coffee? Tea?”
They thank him and decline. He is in fact a man they remember, a person they did know in childhood, and he is much older now but someone they still recognize: the one with the Polaroid camera at the dance recital, the one who would stand on the cottage front stoop wassailing on Christmas Eve. You’re looking very well, he says, you’ve grown up, haven’t you, and repeats how long it’s been since they were all in the same town together.
Beakes’s office occupies a corner, its windows facing east and south, and sunlight illumines the bookshelves: fat leather-bound volumes of judicial opinions and case histories, books of New York State statutes and the annual proceedings of the New York State Appellate Court. There are colored lithographs of horses wearing colors, and large framed photographs of the Saratoga Track. On the paneling behind his desk hang a series of diplomas and a mounted set of miniature silver snowshoes from the Lake Placid Winter Olympics Committee, with
Joseph Beakes: In Gratitude
incised along the base.
The lawyer’s voice is high, mellifluous, and he takes pleasure in the sound of it. He inquires as to their journeys, their experience of travel yesterday and, in the case of those who flew, the promptness of their flights. Are they comfortable, he wants to know, and certain that they don’t want tea, and then he leans back in his chair and folds his hands together and regards the three of them.
“Your mother Alice,” he observes, “was one of my favorite people, one of my very favorites: a
lady.
Not, I’m afraid, a word we can apply to many women nowadays.” Inclining his head at Joanna and Claire, he says, “I mean no disrespect, of course. But as I don’t need to tell you, my dears, I’m an old dog who can’t be taught new tricks; I’ve been in the habit of speaking my mind for so long by now it isn’t a habit I know how to break. She was a lady, your mother, and though her death is no surprise I did want to offer condolences and before we begin these proceedings say how very sorry I am.”
Beakes coughs. It is a dry cough, nonproductive, and he produces a handkerchief and wipes his cheeks, then mouth. Meticulously, he adjusts his horn-rimmed glasses where they balance on his nose. “Proceedings,” he repeats. His desk lamp functions on a swivel, and this too he adjusts. His every action, Claire decides, has been rehearsed and repeated, as though years before he had watched
Perry Mason
and patterned his behavior on a television lawyer: not the sleek impatient ones they feature now on
Law and Order
or
The Practice
but the old-fashioned grandfatherly lawyer, the one with the hair fringe and watch on a chain and speculative manner of questioning a witness or examining the ceiling with his one good eye.
He produces three sets of documents on legal-size paper, their cover sheets blue, and offers one to each of them and says, “With your permission I’ll read this to you—the salient passages anyhow, the principal provisions. It’s a simple will, straightforward enough, and she was entirely clear about her intentions; you’ll remember that, I warrant, her
clarity,
her—how to put it?—
decisiveness
once she had made up her mind. The world would be a better place if more of us were like your mother, and her last will and testament is a model of precision and simple enough to enact. The document is dated, as you will observe, some seven years ago—10 January, 1996—and though she was in failing health there’s no question of her competence. With your permission, ladies, David?”
He clears his throat. He takes a swallow from the mug of coffee on his desk. He reads:
I, ALICE FREEDMAN SAPERSTONE of Saratoga Springs, County of Saratoga, State of New York, being of sound and disposing mind, memory and understanding, do make, publish and declare the following as my Last Will and Testament.
1. I hereby revoke any and all former wills made by me.
2. I direct that all my just debts, taxes and funeral expenses be paid as soon after my decease as conveniently can be done. All federal, state and other taxes and all administration expenses shall be paid out of my estate and be charged against or deducted from the respective bequests and devises herein provided for proportionately as nearly as may be.
3. I give and bequeath to my three children, Claire Handleman, Joanna Saperstone, and David Saperstone, as tenants in common, the land and premises where I have resided at 47 Meadow Street, Saratoga Springs, New York, and the contents of the residence except as otherwise provided herein.
4. I specifically give and bequeath to Claire Handleman my entire collection of cats—porcelain and wooden, metal and clay, etc.—as the same exists within my home.
5. I specifically give and bequeath to Joanna Saperstone all of my silver—cutlery and serving implements—as the same exists within my home.
6. I specifically give and bequeath to David Saperstone the contents of the library and the oil portrait of my father Aaron Freedman as the same exists within my home.
Here the lawyer pauses, adjusts the reading light and looks up from the document and across his desk. “There are individual bequests to local citizens and charities; we will proceed to administer articles seven through twelve according to your mother’s wishes—but these need not concern you; they are, relatively speaking, few, and relatively small. You understand, of course,” he says, “that most of what remains will be disposable by you in private and by agreed-on choice. If one of you, for example, wants a specific piece of furniture you may lay a claim to it and indemnify the others; this happens all the time. If you decide to keep the cottage as a collective asset then you may do so by the terms provided; if you choose to sell instead you divide the profit in thirds. If one of you wishes to buy out the others, then the usual procedure is to have two—three, if there’s a wide discrepancy—assessments made by local Realtors, and thereby establish an averaged value and purchase the remaining two-thirds of the whole. Do you follow—am I being clear on this?”
They nod. The sun is high, and there are dust motes thickly clustered at the window; telephones are ringing in the outer office. Beakes resumes:
13. All the rest, residue and remainder of my estate, real, personal or mixed, wheresoever situated, or to which I may be in any manner entitled, or in which at the time of my death I may be interested, and not otherwise by this will be disposed of, I give, devise and bequeath, to my executor within named, or successor or successors, to divide and distribute the same among my three children, if living, or their issue, if any, in equal proportion; my executor having full power to sell, lease, operate, use or need of such property, as division or distribution thereof, or any part thereof, shall have taken place.
14. I appoint my lawyer Joseph Beakes as the executor of this my will and testament. I direct and request that such executor be allowed to serve without giving any bond or security whatsoever. I authorize my executor, if and whenever in the settlement of my estate, to execute and deliver all deeds, instruments, transfers and other writings necessary to pass a proper title thereto.
Their mother’s signature is bold—black ink, unwavering—and familiar to the three of them; they have been reading as the lawyer reads, and now they close their folders and look at each other, unsmiling. There has been nothing remarkable here, and though none of the children has done this before the procedure feels routine. A clock chimes the hour: ten times. The lawyer takes another sip of the liquid in his Starbucks mug, explaining that he next must read a letter, and this is why he called them here, and needs them here; he lifts a piece of paper from its white manila folder: “I direct, authorize and empower my executor Joseph Beakes to notify my children of my passing, to request their personal presence at the reading of this will and to disclose to each of them in person the existence of that certain trust created for my benefit and the benefit of my issue, the proceeds of which I declined to accept, which shall now be distributed to them in equal proportion.”
The wall beneath the window has a radiator, painted gray, and water rattles and clanks in it loudly; David tries to establish the rhythm of the knocking—three beats, four?—and cannot; he shifts in his seat. Joanna crosses, uncrosses her legs. Claire, watching the two of them, coughs.
“There is another issue,” Joseph Beakes resumes. “An issue we need to discuss. That ‘certain trust’ is a matter of considerable interest,” he says, “and I may as well say at the outset that it violates the rule against perpetuities. This is a rule we learned about in law school”—he spreads his hands—“in my case very long ago, and it’s been around since, oh, the twelfth or thirteenth century in common law.” He looks at the ceiling, the rug on the floor. “But I don’t believe it need concern us; we have the assets in hand, do we not, and ready for distribution? In other words, although there may have been some question at the time of the
creation
of the trust—the rule against perpetuities stipulates that the trust must vest not later than twenty-one years after some life or lives in being at the time the trust is created—it was not your mother’s fault, of course, and we honor here the spirit if not letter of the law. What I mean is, what I want to make clear, is that
now’s
the time to deal with this, and without contestation. All right? All right. That’s fine.”
He has removed his glasses; he peers across the desk at them; he is not, Claire understands, as vague as he pretends or without a lawyer’s cunning; he has waited till this moment to tell them what’s at stake.
“The Saratoga Savings and Trust Bank has delegated me to inform you. I do a good deal of work for them—
with
them—and the issue is simple enough, but it may possibly take you—as it took
me
—by surprise. I’m not even certain you
knew
of the Saratoga Savings and Trust Bank, which is what they call themselves nowadays, or its role in our little drama, for Alice never seemed to pay attention to the question of her parentage. She was an excellent daughter, of course. As responsible a daughter as her own father could have wished and as you two have no doubt been in turn. Her values were—how does one put it?—traditional, and she valued family above all else.” Beakes clears his throat. “But there were certain aspects of her history, her
mother’s
history, I mean to say, which she refused to dwell upon and entrusted to others instead. Which is why she insisted you all must be here.”