Читать книгу The Money Makers - Harry Bingham - Страница 6

There are a million ways to torment your kids, but from beyond the grave Bernard Gradley had found a new one.

Technically, of course, he was within his rights. Every legal aspect had been considered, the document drafted and redrafted under Gradley’s dictatorial eye. Augustus Earle had resisted every change. He knew the difference between right and wrong, and he fought to preserve the family’s disintegrating rights. But Gradley was unforgiving. He demanded a document ‘watertight as a Scotsman’s wallet’ and wouldn’t rest until he had it. And once he did, he signed it, then put it away from him for ever, a document hard and mean as the dead man’s heart.

Earle pitied the family. The mother, who had for so long defended her kids from their father’s severity, had done nothing to merit this. And if the kids weren’t perfect, their punishment would far outweigh their faults.

They would come in hope. Their father had built a mighty fortune, and isn’t wealth supposed to pass down the generations more reliably than genes? Well, hope might bring them, but other emotions would send them away. Grief, sorrow, anger, rage.

The clock readied itself to strike twelve noon. The family would be here any minute. With tension mounting in the pit of his stomach, Earle patted the documents nervously into line, beneath his desk lamp: the will and the letter, heavy as a curse and more certain.