Page 17 of The Vanished

“Several months ago, I informed Mr. Lefferts I needed to make a will.”

“Surely there’s time,” Geneva protested.

Douglas shook his head. “I’m afraid I’ve run out of time, Genny.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“When I saw Dr. Miller in September, he ordered some tests.”

“Oh, God,” Geneva moaned.

Douglas nodded. “Lung cancer. There’s no treatment, I’m afraid.”

“How long do you…?” She couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence.

“It’s a matter of months.”

“Oh, Daddy,” Geneva cried. She hadn’t called him that since she was a little girl, but at the moment she felt like a child—frightened and in need of parental comfort. “Surely there’s something that can be done. Surgery, or maybe a stint at a sanatorium.”

Douglas shook his head. “The cancer has metastasized. It’s already in the lymph nodes and the bones. And it might have already attacked the brain.”

“No,” Geneva wailed. “Please, no.”

Douglas looked like he was going to cry. “I fear it gets worse, Genny.”

“How can it possibly be worse?”

Her father smiled ruefully. “Your mother always refused to discuss matters pertaining to the estate, and I suppose I have become accustomed to not talking things over with my family.”

“Good heavens, Father. Are we bankrupt too?”

“We’re not bankrupt. The estate is solvent.”

“Then what is it? What do we need to discuss now, today?”

She could barely keep the tears at bay and couldn’t wrap her head around matters of business when she had just been informed that she was about to lose her only surviving parent. In the eyes of the law, she was an adult, a woman capable of looking after herself, but she felt like a little girl who’d suddenly realized she was lost and didn’t know how to find her way home. How did one go on when everything was about to change? Again, when they had just learned how to live without people they had loved and still mourned.

Douglas sighed heavily, which led to a bout of coughing that lasted several minutes. He tried to stifle the spasms, but that only made it worse, and his face turned scarlet as blood rushed to his head. Spittle flew from his mouth, and his eyes bulged as the coughing intensified. Geneva sprang to her feet, desperate to help, but she knew from past experience that there was nothing she could do. The fit had to run its course, and it did, leaving her father panting and his hand shaking as he stuffed his handkerchief into his pocket and once again sucked on his pipe.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered.

“You have nothing to apologize for.”

Douglas lifted his hand to get her attention, and Geneva fell silent. He had something to tell her, and he needed to get it off his chest before another spasm overtook him and he was interrupted again.

“As soon as I received the results, I went to see Mr. Lefferts about my will. I should have consulted him sooner, I know. But the news came as something of a shock to me as well. And I’m so very sorry.”

“Sorry about what?” Geneva wailed. “I don’t understand.”

“Genny, your great-grandfather had two daughters, and then, years later, when he was in his fifties, his second wife gave birth to a son. When the child was born, in an effort to prevent his daughters from inheriting, he entailed the estate.”

“What does that mean?”

Geneva’s grandfather had inherited Bellamy Hall, and her father had been next in the line. As the oldest, she would inherit when her father passed. Or so she had assumed, since Jack was no longer there to take up the reins.

“An entailment means that the estate can pass only to a male heir. Or the closest male relative if there’s no direct heir. I had two sons, so there was no cause for concern, and the late Mr. Lefferts, the current Mr. Lefferts’ father, never thought to warn me. And then Edwin died of smallpox, and Jack died at the Somme, and, suddenly, there was no male left to inherit. Had you married and had a boy, the title and estate would pass to your son, but now I must make sure you girls are provided for. So I had Mr. Lefferts make some inquiries.”

“Inquiries about what?” Geneva whispered.