—Miss . . . Bast. I’m afraid I haven’t made myself clear. My court appearance today has nothing whatsoever to do with this matter. There is no reason for any of this to ever come into court. In fact, believe me Miss Bast . . . both of you ladies, the last thing I would wish would be to . . . to see you ladies in court. Now. You must understand that I am not here simply as Mister Angel’s attorney, I am here as counsel for General Roll . . .
—You remember back when Thomas started it, Julia? And we thought it was a military friend he’d made?
—Of course it was James who had friends in the military.
—Yes, he’d run off to war, you know, Mister Cohen. A drummer boy in the Spanish war.
—The . . . Spanish war? he murmured vaguely, braced against the back of the Queen Anne chair before the empty hearth.
—Yes. He was only a child.
—But . . . the Spanish war? That was ’thirty-seven, wasn’t it? or ’thirty-eight?
—Oh, not so long ago as that. I think you mean ’ninety-seven, or ’ninety-eight was it, Anne? When they sank the Maine?
—Who? That’s one I never heard. Do you feel unwell, Mister Cohen?
—Yes, Thomas ran off right after James did, but he was too small for the war of course. He joined a Tom show passing through town, playing clarinet in the entreact and they also let him look after the dogs, finding livery stables to put them up in. You might have noticed his scar, Mister Cohen, where one of the bloodhounds tore open his thumb. He carried it with him right into the grave, but you’re not leaving us so soon, Mister Cohen? Of course if we’ve answered all your questions, I know you must be a busy man.
—Mister Cohen might like a nice glass of cold water.
—No, it isn’t . . . water that I need. If you ladies, you . . . just for a moment, if you’ll give me your undivided attention . . .
—We have no objection at all, Mister Cohen. We’re telling you everything we can think of.
—Yes but, some of it is not precisely relevant . . .
—If you’ll simply tell us what it is you want to know, instead of wandering around the room here waving your arms. We want to see this settled as much as anyone.
—Yes . . . thank you, Miss Bast. Precisely. Now. As we are all aware, the bulk of your brother’s estate consists of his controlling share in the General Roll Corporation . . .
—Share! I think Thomas had at least forty shares, or forty-five was it Anne? Because we have . . .
—Precisely, Miss Bast. Since its founding, General Roll has been a closely held company owned by members of your family. Under the guidance of the decedent, and more recently that of his son-in-law Mister Angel, General Roll has prospered substantially . . .
—You certainly wouldn’t know it from the dividends, Mister Cohen. There simply have not been any.
—Precisely. This is one of the difficulties we face now. Since your brother, and more recently his son-in-law, have wished to build the company larger rather than simply extract profits from it, its net worth has grown considerably, and with that growth of course have come certain obligations which the company right now is being hard pressed to satisfy. Since no buy-sell arrangement had been made with the decedent prior to his death, no cross-purchase plan providing life insurance on each of the principals or an entity plan that would have allowed the company itself to buy up his interest, in the absence of any such arrangements as these, the money which will be required to pay the very substantial death taxes . . .
—Julia, I’m sure Mister Cohen only is complicating things unnecessarily . . .
—Crowned by the complications inherent in any situation in which the decedent dies intestate . . .
—Julia, can’t you . . .
—Further complicated by certain unresolved and somewhat delicate aspects of the family situation which I have come out here today to discuss with . . .
—Mister Cohen, please! Do sit down and come to the point.
—Yes, after all Julia, you remember. Charlotte died without leaving a will and Father simply sat down and parceled things out. Of course I think that James always felt . . .
—Yes, James made it quite clear how he felt. Do sit down here, Mister Cohen, and stop waving that piece of paper around.
—It’s . . . simply the waiver. I mentioned, he said giving it up and seating himself in the Queen Anne chair whose arm came off in his hand.
—Julia? I thought Edward had fixed that.
—It was the side door latch he fixed, Anne.
—It didn’t work when I let Mister Cohen in. He had to come round by the back.
—I thought you came in at the side, Mister Cohen.
—Well I let him in, Julia. After all.
—I thought Edward had . . .
—Let him in?
—No. Fixed the latch.
Mister Coen, finished fitting the arm of the chair back into place, leaned carefully away from it. —That is the waiver I brought out for your nephew Edward to sign, he said resting his elbows on the scarcely more firm support of his knees. —A, a mere formality in this case. Of course, where there’s a will . . .
—There’s a way. You’re quite witty today Mister Cohen, but believe me Anne I think this is Thomas’ will, the tangle things are in right now.
—Yes, just look at these obituaries, and why Mister Cohen ever brought them out unless to tangle things up still further. To read them it’s hard even knowing who’s dead. Did you see this one? It’s all about James. James, and no mention of Thomas at all.
—I simply included it because . . . he began in a tone that seemed to echo the deep, as he fixed the newspaper streamer flown before his glazed eyes. —Word comes in to a newspaper of a death, if someone there is in a hurry and just hears the last name, he might grab the obituary that’s already written on someone like your brother James, as prominent as your brother James, they keep one written and up to date against the day . . .
—But James isn’t dead! he’s just away . . .
—Abroad, accepting some sort of award.
—Yes, yes in fact, I think if you’ll read that clipping . . .
—That seems to be about all James does now, going about to accept awards.
—It’s not as though he didn’t deserve them, Julia. Don’t give Mister Cohen the wrong idea, there’s no telling the stories he’ll carry back with him.
—I . . . ladies I assure you, all I wish to carry back is this waiver with your nephew’s signature. Since your brothers were not, ahm, especially close, and the decedent died intestate, the cooperation of the survivors is . . .
—You make us sound like a shipwreck, Mister Cohen.
—Well now that you speak of it, Miss Bast . . .
—I think I know what he’s trying to say. He’s going to drag up those old stories about James and Thomas not getting on.
—I don’t think he could sit there and name two brothers who went out of their way for one another as often as James and Thomas did. Neither of them had a single job that the other didn’t claim to have got for him.
—The Russian Symphony . . .
—And Sousa’s Band? Of course there was a certain competitive spirit between the boys. No one denies that, Mister Cohen. We had a family orchestra, you know, and they practiced three and four hours a day. Every week Father gave a dime to the one who showed the most improvement. From the time they were six, until they left home . . .
—Yes, Julia played the . . . where are you going now, Mister Cohen? If you’ll just sit still for a minute, I’m sure we can find some black thread. I can sew that button back on while we’re chatting.
—While I wait to talk with your nephew Edward . . .
—Whatever that paper is you’ve brought there, I don’t think he’ll be in any hurry to sign it.
—Yes, I remember Father telling us to never sign anything we didn’t read carefully.
—But . . . ladies! I want him to read it, I urge him to read it. I urge you to read it! It’s only a few
lines, the merest formality, a waiver to permit the appointment of the decedent’s daughter, one Stella, Mrs Angel, as administrator of her father’s estate, so that we may submit to the court . . .
—Mister Cohen, you distinctly said that you hoped to keep us all out of court. Didn’t you hear him say that, Anne?
—Yes, I certainly did. And I’m not at all sure what James will say about these goings on.
—James has a great instinct for justice, Mister Cohen, and in spite of his being a composer he knows more than a little about the law. If we’re all obliged to end up in court in order to settle what’s right and wrong here . . .
—Madam, Miss Bast, please I . . . I implore you, there is no such issue at stake, and there is no reason there ever should be. The law, Miss Bast, let me tell you, the law . . .
—Do be careful of that lamp, Mister Cohen.
—There’s no question of justice, or right and wrong. The law seeks order, Miss Bast. Order!
—Now Mister Cohen, if you’ll just sit still. I’ve found some black thread right here in the basket.
—And an agreement within a legal framework is made for the protection of all concerned. Now . . .
—Perhaps you would like to take off your jacket. I’m just afraid you will spill those papers.
—Yes. Thank you. No. Now . . .
—It’s carpet thread, and should hold quite well. It will probably outlast the suit itself.
—Let me assure you that signing this waiver will not in any way affect any claim your nephew may have upon the estate of the decedent. But because of his somewhat equivocal position . . .
—I got it for Father’s overcoat buttons. It always outlasted the coats themselves.
—I don’t know what you’re inferring, Mister Cohen, but . . .
— This is I understand it, Miss Bast, your nephew Edward’s position in the family. His mother, who was known as Nellie . . .
—She wasn’t simply known as Nellie. That was Nellie’s Christian name, even though a lot of people thought it was a nickname. But I see no reason to start prying . . .
—I think when James is done his memoirs, can you raise your arm a little Mister Cohen? A lot of prying people will have surprises, and after all the gossip that followed . . .
—Ladies, I am not here to pry! But in the legal disposition of your brother’s estate, his relationship to Nellie and your nephew Edward is extremely pertinent. Now as I understand it, your brother Thomas had one child, Stella, by his first wife, who then died . . .
—I wouldn’t really say who then died, Mister Cohen. Why, she was still alive when . . .
—Of course, forgive me. At any rate Thomas remarried, one Nellie, who in due course appears to have separated from him, in order to cohab . . . ahm, to . . .
—Yes, to marry James. Precisely. But I would hardly say in due course, Mister Cohen. I think we were all really quite surprised.
—I don’t know, Anne. Nellie was flighty.
—I remember James using that word, now that you say it. It was when Rachmaninoff was visiting, I remember because he’d just had his fingers insured. Hand me those scissors please, Mister Cohen?
—However, yes, thank you, here . . . now, however, in the absence of any record of legally contracted marriage between the said Nellie and James . . .
—My dear Mister Cohen . . .
—Or indeed any evidence of legal and binding divorce between the aforesaid Nellie and the decedent . . .
—It scarcely seems necessary . . .
—And although it appears to have been known that this Nellie aforesaid was the, living as the, ahm, the wife of the decedent’s brother James at the time she bore her son Edward, and had been so living for some indefinite time prior to that event, nonetheless in the continued absence of a birth certificate attesting to those circumstances of his, ahm, provenience, Edward is in a position to exert a substantial claim upon the estate in question, and therefore . . .
—I scarcely understand a word you’ve said, Mister Cohen, and where you got that piece of paper you’re reading from . . .
—But I wrote it, Miss Bast, it’s . . .
—His glasses are rather like the ones that James lost that summer up near Tannersville, aren’t they Julia.
—And the idea of digging up all this gossip again. Why, Edward’s been perfectly happy here, and James has been a fine father to him, there’s never been any question at all, why . . .
—But I don’t question that, Miss Bast. The point is simply that in regards to your brother’s estate, until his position is clearly established, he . . . what . . .
—Just a little thread here still hanging, if you’ll hold still . . .
—Yes, thank you again for the button, Miss Bast, but . . .
—Are you leaving so soon?
—No I simply hope I think may be . . . maybe think better on my feet . . .
—He’s spilling those papers there, Julia.
—Miss Bast, and . . . yes, thank you Miss Bast, and therefore . . .
—After Nellie died, Mister Cohen.
—To the contrary notwithstanding . . .
—James brought him here then, you know, and we’ve practically brought him up ourselves. James’ work has always made such demands. That’s his studio there at the back, you can see it right out that side window, and we’d often miss him for days at a time . . .
—But the point, the point Miss Bast, the point of law at issue here is . . .
—Julia, I think I heard something, it sounded like hammering, someone hammering . . .
—The presumption, you see, the presumption of legitimacy while not conclusive and rebuttable in the first instance remains one of the strongest presumptions known to the law, and will not fail, Miss Bast, yes, where is it, Hubert versus Cloutier, it will not fail unless common sense and reason are outraged by a holding that it abides . . .
—There’s no question that at the time, Julia, we all thought James’ behavior outrageous . . .
—In general this presumption is not even overcome by evidence of the wife’s adultery, in regard to your nephew’s claim even when this adultery is established as of about the commencement of the usual period of gestation, as held in Bassel versus the Ford Motor Company . . .
—Mister Cohen please, Edward has nothing against the Ford Motor Company or anyone else, now . . .
—I am merely stating the legal position open to him, Miss Bast, in the event he should elect to pursue . . .
—Hammering, didn’t you hear it?
—Possibly your testimony and that of your brother James regarding the period of his cohabitation with the said Nellie prior to Edward’s birth, since there is merely a prima facie presumption that, just a moment, here, yes, that a child born in wedlock is legitimate where husband and wife had separated and the period of gestation required, in order that the husband may be the father, while a possible one, is exceptionally long and contrary to the usual course of nature, you see? Now in bringing a proceeding to establish the right to the property of a deceased person, the burden is on the claimant to show his kinship with the decedent, where kinship is an issue, of course, as in this instance of basing a claim on the alleged fact that claimant is decedent’s child, and . . . yes, that while in the first instance, where is it yes, proof of filiation from which a presumption of legitimacy arises will sustain the burden and will establish the status of legitimacy and heirship if no evidence tending to show illegitimacy is introduced, the burden to establish legitimacy does not shift and claimant must establish his legitimacy where direct evidence, as well as evidence of potent . . . is this word potent? potent, yes potent circumstances, tending to disprove his claim of heirship, is introduced. Now, regarding competent evidence to prove filiation . . .
—Mister Cohen, I assure you there is no need to go on like this, if . . .
—Ladies, I have no choice. In settling an estate of these proportions and this complexity it is my duty to make every point which may bear up
on your nephew’s legal rights absolutely crystal clear to you and to him. Now.
—It’s kind of him, Julia, but I must say . . .
—You understand that to proceed without taking into consideration your nephew’s possible rights in this estate would be to jeopardize the status of everyone concerned, since to hold a child a bastard is not permissible unless there is no judicial escape from that conclusion . . .
—Mister Cohen!
—And it is incumbent upon the party assuming the fact of illegitimacy to disprove every reasonable possibility to the contrary, and as apparently obtains here, in the case of a child conceived or born in wedlock, it must be shown that the husband of the mother could not possibly have been the father of the child.
—Crystal clear indeed Mister Cohen!
—Crystal clear, and while I am aware that you ladies may find certain legal terms somewhat obscure, nonetheless in pursuing other evidence tending to support illegitimacy, a declaration of the deceased mother, for example, might be admissible, or any similar characterizations of family relationships tending, as part of a series of res gestae, to throw light . . .
—Nellie was never one to write letters.
—Or photographs, he came on in a flourish of papers at the wall behind him—for the purpose of comparing the physical characteristics of the child with those of the husband and such other man . . .
—Just behind your left shoulder Mister Cohen, that’s always been my favorite picture of James. There, the two men sitting in the tree, the other one was Maurice Ravel. It shows James’ profile off so nicely, though he always felt that our Indian blood . . .
—I don’t think that’s anything to get into now, Anne.
—It’s quite all right, ladies. I have it here somewhere . . .
—Really, Anne . . .
—Yes, here, even where territorial statute provides for the legitimacy of the issue of marriages null in law, the issue of a white man and Indian woman has been held illegitimate . . .
—It is Cherokee blood you understand, Mister Cohen. They were the only tribe to have their own alphabet.
—Notwithstanding that the alleged marriage may have been conducted in accordance with the customs of the Indians on an Indian reservation within the territory and that, I think, should settle that. It’s not an area to meddle in, Miss Bast.