Irene Brand - Heiress

Allison stared at the floor and, with the toe of her shoe, traced the outline of the hexagon shapes on the carpet. Curnutt and Charles didn’t rush her.

“May I take some time to deliberate?”

“Certainly,” Curnutt said, “but I wouldn’t hesitate long. Will it help you make up your mind if I take you to Page Publishing and the house Harrison owned?”

“I’m not ready for that yet. I want to go back home and make my decision there. I’ll telephone you within a week.”

The attorney closed the file before him. “Very well.” He gave her a look of admiration. “May I say that it’s a privilege to work with such an exceptional young woman.”

Allison’s look of surprise was genuine. “Exceptional? Me? I’ve always considered myself a very ordinary person.”

“You aren’t, Miss Sayre. I don’t know of anyone—young or old—who would hesitate a minute if given an opportunity to have several million dollars handed to them. Let me repeat, you’re exceptional. I would be interested to know why you are so cautious.”

“I haven’t really thought it out, but I suppose I’m hesitating for a number of reasons. I’m afraid I will make a failure and lose everything. Also, I told you my mother doesn’t want me to move to Columbus, and I don’t want to be at odds with her. And what will so much wealth do to my values? My parents have taught me to avoid selfishness and greed, and I’ve had everything I want on a moderate income. Will I be greedy to take so much wealth? No doubt the hospital needs it more than L”

Curnutt smiled at her and shook his head. “As I said before, exceptional.”

Allison was silent as they traveled from Curnutt’s office to the airport, and Charles didn’t press her to talk. As the plane lifted into the air and she looked down on Columbus, now illuminated by the noonday sun, she said, “Daddy, I don’t think I can handle it.”

“I don’t care what you do, but you’re worrying needlessly about some things,” Charles said sternly. “I’ve told you that Beatrice will come around. She loves you. She won’t want to be estranged from you. And about running that business—millionaires don’t make all their own decisions—that’s why they employ accountants and lawyers. Besides, the employees at Page Publishing will do the work. Your job will be to see that they’re doing it right.”

Those words, meant for comfort, did little to assuage Allison’s apprehension. How could she supervise employees when she didn’t know what they were supposed to do?

Still wavering between going to Columbus and rejecting the inheritance, Allison gave her employer two weeks’ notice and told her landlady that she would relinquish her furnished apartment in another month. More than once Allison picked up the receiver to telephone Thomas Curnutt to tell him that she wouldn’t accept the legacy and authorize him to transfer the assets to Mount Carmel Hospital, but something always held her back. Was it the unseen hand of God preventing her from making a mistake? At last, she telephoned Curnutt and told him that she would arrive in Columbus in late February, and he assured her that he would immediately set in motion the necessary steps to transfer Page’s assets to her.

Still plagued with misgivings, she began to pack her belongings. Allison wanted to move back home for the few weeks she had left, but when Beatrice still refused to discuss Allison’s plans for the future, she knew it wouldn’t be pleasant for any of them. Whether or not Charles intervened Allison didn’t know, but when Allison telephoned that she intended to move within a week, Beatrice did ask her to stay with them during her remaining days in Chicago.

Tim and Cleta came to help Allison pack the loaded boxes into her six-year-old sedan, and there wasn’t room for everything, but she gave a box of knickknacks to Cleta, enabling them to stow the remainder in the back seat and trunk.

As they shifted boxes to make more space, Tim said, “You won’t have to drive this old car much longer, Allison. What kind of new car will you buy?”

“I haven’t thought about a new car. I’ve been too busy burying the past to think about my future.”

“You’re afraid to think about it, aren’t you?” Cleta said.

Allison looked in amazement at her perceptive sister. “Maybe, but I have been busy.”

After Allison turned the key into her landlady, she said, “If we can all three wedge into the front seat, let’s drive around the city. Chicago has always been home; I rather hate to leave it.”

Along the lakefront, they enjoyed a view of the public parkland stretching along the shoreline, its broad beaches and lawns covered with a few inches of snow. They drove through downtown Chicago, with its spectacular skyscrapers, fashionable shops and many department stores. Entering the financial district, they noted at least six major banks, the Chicago Board of Trade, the City Hall-County Building and the blue-tinted Illinois Center. Only a few walkers braved the frigid weather to exercise in three-hundred-acre Grant Park. Allison had spent a lot of time with Donald in this downtown area, but she had also enjoyed days of pleasure with her family at the same places, so she focused on the family gatherings rather than her dates with Donald.

As the time approached for her departure, Allison felt her excitement intensify, yet she would have anticipated the adventure much more if her mother had not been displeased. Allison had deduced that Beatrice was not angry with her, for she prepared all the foods that her daughter preferred and insisted that Allison store anything in her bedroom that she didn’t want to move to Columbus, and she arranged a dinner party for the family and Allison’s best friends at a downtown restaurant and bought tickets to a performance of the Chicago Symphony. Allison winced at the cost of the evening, but she had to accept the outlay of money—for she knew it was Beatrice’s way of apologizing for her attitude. Allison decided that her mother was reconciled to the move, for she made no overt display of unhappiness, although Tim and Cleta shed tears for a couple of days before her departure, and Charles, his face solemn, would often hug Allison tightly without saying a word.

Although eager to be on her way, Allison dreaded their final parting, but she forced a cheerful attitude until, at the last minute, Beatrice embraced her eldest daughter and wept convulsively. Her grief spread until the whole family was sobbing, and when Allison finally drove away from the house, her eyes were swollen and red. Beatrice had gone into the house rather than watch Allison leave. She realized that her mother would miss her, but Allison still felt puzzled at her mother’s reaction. It wasn’t as if Columbus were a continent away—there was no reason they couldn’t visit often. Children couldn’t stay in the family home forever, and it wasn’t like Beatrice to act this way.

Allison planned two days for the trip to Columbus, but driving conditions were favorable and she arrived at the luxurious hotel along High Street where Thomas Curnutt had made reservations for her early Thursday afternoon. Over the past month, she had often wondered if this change in her circumstances was real or if she was dreaming, but if she needed proof that she was now classed among the wealthy, it came when she reached the hotel complex and a valet took her old car and parked it beside the Cadillacs, Lincolns and Mercedes belonging to the hotel’s other patrons.

As she followed another valet carrying her small bags into the reception room, Allison had never felt more out of place. Recalling a poem that Charles, from his childhood memory, had often quoted, she thought, “Lawk a mercy on me, this is none of I.”