I am not legal adviser to Miranda's family; nevertheless she came to see
me on business the other day. I saw at once by her serious air that it
was something of first-rate importance.
"I want a will," she said; "one of those things that people leave when
they die."
"Some people leave them and some don't," I said.
"I mean the things that show who is to have your belongings."
"Undoubtedly you mean wills."
"Do you sell them?"
"Sometimes."
"I should like to see some."
"What size?" I asked facetiously.
"Sixes--long ones," said Miranda, looking at her hands.
"I remember," I murmured.
Miranda looked up with a start and assumed her severest expression.
"I'm afraid you're not treating the matter seriously. Perhaps I had
better go to father's solicitor; he's older and quite serious. But then
he's rather bald and uninteresting. I think he takes snuff."
I retorted in my most professional manner. "I beg your pardon; I think
you must have misunderstood me. I meant that all wills are not quite the
same; some are longer than others."
"Not too long, then," she said. "You might show me some medium size
ones. I should like to do the thing fairly well."
"We don't exactly stock them; they're generally made to order."
"I'm sorry; I wanted one at once. You know I was twenty-one the other
day." (I knew it to my cost.) "Father says that everyone over twenty-one
ought to make a will."
"Your father's views on the subject are very sound. If you'll give me
your instructions, I'll make you one." I spread a sheet of paper in
front of me.
"But surely you can make a will without my help?"
"Not very easily. It's something like being measured for a gown. I must
know what you have to leave and to whom you wish to leave it."
"But I don't want anybody to know."
"I'm not anybody."
"I know. I don't think, though, that I quite care to tell you."
"Then I'm afraid there'll be some little difficulty about executing your
wishes in the matter."
"How much do wills cost?" she asked irrelevantly.
"It depends on the length."
"How much a yard?"
"We mostly sell them by the folio, not by the yard."
"How many feet are there in a folio?"
"You'll have to ask a law-stationer that."
"How much would a medium-sized will cost? Half-a-crown?"
"More than that," I said.
"Much more?" She turned over some coins in her purse.
"A good deal more."
"But I saw some in a chemist's for ninepence. Perhaps I'd better buy one
of those."
"You might," I said doubtfully.
"You said that as though you didn't think that chemists sell very good
wills."
"There's nothing really the matter with them. They consist of some
printed words and spaces--mostly spaces. If you happen to execute them
the right way the Judge afterwards decides what they mean."
"But how does he know?"
"He doesn't. That's what makes it so interesting. After a number of
barristers have explained what they might mean, the Judge says what they
ought to mean, and they mean that."
"So there would have to be a law-suit?"
"Almost inevitably."
"And you make good wills?"
"My wills are all of the very best quality."
"Then I suppose I must let you make me one. What sort of things do
people leave?"
"All sorts of things. Anything they've got and quite often things they
haven't got."
"Animals? Dogs? Can I will away Bobs, for instance?"
"Yes."
"Can I leave anything to anyone I like?"
"Yes, to anyone you like or don't like." I was thinking of Bobs. He is
not a very amiable dog and no friend of mine.
"I think I'll leave Bobs to you." I had felt it coming.
"But I might die before Bobs. Bobs being a specific legacy would then
lapse and fall into residue," I hurriedly explained.
"That doesn't sound nice."
"It isn't nice. Bobs would never be happy there. You had better leave
him to some one younger."
After we had settled Bobs on a young cousin we got on quite quickly. We
left her old dance programmes and several unimportant things of doubtful
ownership to her greatest rival; her piano (with three notes missing),
on which she had learnt to play as a child, to her Aunt in Australia,
said Aunt to pay carriage and legacy duty; her violin to the people in
the next flat; her French novels to the church library; her golf clubs
and tennis racket to her old nurse; her Indian clubs to the Olympic
Games Committee; her early water-colour sketches to the Nation. We
divided up all her goods. Everybody got something appropriate. It was a
good will. And when I suggested that there should be no immediate
charge, but that the cost should be paid out of the estate in due
season, Miranda very cheerfully agreed; and even went so far as to
express a generous hope that I should outlive her.
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