A Family Trust

by Ward Just

  At least it was not gaudy, she thought. A solid block of granite was not gaudy. It said simply, RISING

  “LORD, I BELIEVE.”

  with two smaller headstones, AMOS / JOSEPHINE

  1868-1953 / 1870-1950

  and room for half a dozen more. Room for all of them, all living Risings. Generations yet unborn would have to find another Garden of Faith; this one was filled. She stood back from the big stone, staring at it, staring at its legend, and then she was laughing and crying at the same time. Lord, I believe; Stanley should have said it to Livingstone. She turned away, lifting her eyes to the prairie beyond the hedge. The land was soft and fallow and there was a farmhouse and dark woods in the distance. She could see movement around the farmhouse, a woman carrying eggs in a basket followed by two barking dogs. She moved off a few yards, scuffing along the path, then turned back, staring at the headstones. Amos, Jo. She lit a cigarette and leaned against a marble monument, looking at the dates: 1868, 1870; only two years’ difference in their ages. She understood suddenly that her history, the history of the family, ended with Amos Rising. Or began with him, one or the other. He stood like a closed door to the past. There was nothing before him and everything that came after was too close; so close you could touch it. Touch it, and him too. Somewhere back of him were men and women who’d managed to leave no trace of themselves. They were ghosts. No letters or drawings or artifacts of any kind, only obscure genes; a vaguely prominent nose, a certain set of the shoulders. And long life. Physical characteristics. A thousand generations, vanished. Perhaps—who knew?—there were pharaohs in the family, Carolingian kings, sensual popes, gallant crusaders, ancestral castles on the Rhine or palaces beside Venetian canals. Doubtless most of them had been people of the interior; she thought of them as living on the slopes of mountains, inland, wary of coasts and islands. Somewhere there, had been an interruption or collective loss of memory because nothing whatever was known, or would ever be known. Amos had disclosed nothing. She wondered about Jo. She had come to Dement as a young girl from Indiana. Somewhere in Indiana, no one was certain where it was; her grandmother had never spoken of it. Her mother’s parents were dead and while there were living relations they were scattered and no longer kept in touch. Her mother, too, was circumspect. Amos cast a dark shadow over all of them, and substituted something else.

  In place of family traditions or history, an intimate dramatis personae, or heirlooms, legacies or birthrights—they had a newspaper. The newspaper was all those things, family business, carrying with it rights and responsibilities and patterns of conduct. The men stood “in a line,” prepared to serve the business and be served by it. It was similar to the military or the clergy: you took certain orders and abided by the rules, though the code of conduct was different . . . She shuddered; thank heaven that Amo’s I was exactly like the military and the clergy, a masculine order. No females admitted, but they wanted you in the gallery, for sure. They wanted your attention and concern. Women: perhaps they thought of them as maidens in the tower, waiting for rescue, or with picnic lunches and parasols on the slopes of Antietam or waiting for the ships to return to New Bedford. If they ever did return. In any case, wanted; necessary; they wanted. you around, waiting. They wanted appreciation for their sacrifices. “I’m doing it for you.” And they were certain they were, on those occasions when they could assemble no other plausible explanation for their actions. When they were tired or dispirited or frightened, late at night. You must be strong, her father had said, or they’ll take it away from you.

  She thought, Not likely.

  She dropped her cigarette and ground it underfoot. Harsh, that was harsh; too harsh. This was her only family, though she often had difficulty distinguishing between the family and the business. The business hovered over all of them, like a great umbrella, protecting them from rain and sunshine alike. She could see the pain and uncertainty in her father’s eyes. He did not know what would happen to the I, and all of it was his responsibility; he had to provide for its future and he did not know how. His son was dead and he never accepted that. All his hopes were pinned on his son, and that son had been dead nine years. His daughter had drifted away from him, living now in New York; sleeping with a married man. He did not understand her life, could not understand it given the terms of his own. Dana could not solve his problem, no; but her presence was in some way valuable to him. She was there. She cared. It mattered to her, what happened to the I and therefore to the family and its history, past and future. She could explain this to no one else: it represented their very existence, the essence of their lives.

  And the man in the grave. He still cast a shadow. It was dim, but it was there; more within the family than within the town now. Well, why not? She smiled suddenly, remembering that her grandfather had once described the family business, from Ford to the corner grocer, as the Bulwark of the American Economy She laughed out loud. Perhaps he was right after all. An economy could be wonderful if you owned one of its bulwarks, living permanently on a rampart . . . She moved away from the Rising graves, walking slowly through the stones back to the ancient gate. She noticed other names, Brandon, Ashcroft, The Ashcrofts had been friends of her grandparents. Ella Ashcroft had been her grandfather’s special friend. Her memory moved, and was still. She walked quickly now, she wanted to be on the road. If she hurried she might make an earlier plane; she could be in New York by eight o’clock. She took off her raincoat as she hurried through the light mist that had gathered around the cemetery Her father would be waiting for her, and once she said good-bye she’d be free again.

  4.

  THEY WERE drinking cognac from huge balloon glasses. McGee was describing trusts and they were laughing, one riotous table in the corner of a quiet restaurant. Trusts: serpentine documents whose words resembled the stones of the great wall of China. They were immovable, clogged, words piled upon words, clauses, subclauses, codicils, subcodicils, capital letters for each Noun. Unbreakable trusts. Trusts put together like chain mail, the words themselves resembling free verse. McGee was serious but his father was light. Harold McGee recited, describing each line with his forefinger, like an orchestra conductor: The Trustee shall distribute

  to each of said Issue

  Upon reaching the age of 21 years

  His or Her share of the Principal, Interest

  and/or Income

  of the Trust!

  The Remainder shall continue

  In Trust for the Benefit of

  My Children

  Until such Time as they all have reached the

  Age

  Of 21 years.

  Dana laughed and Harold McGee leaned back in his chair. It’s all code, he said; a gigantic cipher, to which the family attorney alone holds the key. He said, “It’s nonsense of course. I apprenticed to a man who thought the trust the noblest creation of the law. Sublime. He told me once, ‘The trust is to the law as the Sistine Chapel is to wall decoration.’ And.” He leaned across the table, pointing the balloon glass at Dana. “‘The preservation of a family business through the mechanism of a trust.’” He put the glass on the table and dipped his forefinger, a passable imitation of Michelangelo’s Adam. “’Is the moment of creation.’” Then he looked at his son, and at Dana. “He believes that, sees some sort of poetry or drama in it.”

  “That’s true,” McGee said.

  “Give me a messy divorce any day.”

  Dana said, “You’re Daumier. He’s Michelangelo.”

  Harold McGee laughed and turned to his son. “You’ve been a fool. You could’ve come into my firm, not those Boston idiots. We need a good trust man. It would be a pretty satisfactory fee-split, now that I think about it, A fresh will follows a fresh divorce as the day follows the night. And nine times out of ten the testator, newly sad but newly wise, has concluded that the only way to preserve the fortune is to lock it up, so to speak.”

  “I finished a trust last week,” McGee said. “Remarkable document, if I do say so myself.�
� He mentioned a great name and the business associated with it. “My trust will preserve that fortune forever, if the children are prudent—”

  “Hah!” Harold McGee blurted. “Naïf! The children are never prudent.” He wagged his finger at his son. “No trust can prevent profligacy after three generations, you’re damn lucky if you can hold it together for two. Unless of course you establish a foundation whose officers have no connection with the family and are superhumanly wise, Solomons all. You can retain some of the swag through a foundation but the cure is often worse than the disease. Because the money is not in the family’s control. To the family’s benefit, but benefit is not control, alas. That’s a pity but on the other hand the money is still there. It is not in the federal treasury, which is the important thing—”

  She glanced at McGee. He was distracted and not listening carefully. He had been distracted all evening, and now she put her hand on his, locking fingers. He looked at her and smiled. She said, “Well, naïf. Tell me about imprudent children.” But he said he had to make a telephone call, excused himself, and left the table.

  Harold McGee watched him go. Then he said, “My son is a very serious young man. More serious than I am. Believes in things I don’t, anymore. Do you know how serious he is? Dana,” he said. “You take your time. He needs a period of recovery.” Their eyes met and she shook her head.

  “I believe he’s completely over that marriage, he doesn’t think about her anymore—”

  “I don’t mean the marriage. I mean Europe. Tough time for him. I think you’re the best thing that’s happened to him in a long time. A very long time—”

  She smiled at the older man.

  He said, “I mean it.”

  “I know you do. It surprises me,” she said. “The life he’s led, what he’s done, where he’s been. To slip back so easily into the life of a Boston lawyer. I can’t believe it’ll last.”

  “It won’t,” Harold McGee said.

  “He’s really a superb diplomat.”

  The older man laughed quietly, toying with the balloon glass in front of him. “How do you know that?”

  She said, “Instinct.”

  “It’s true of course. I don’t know where he got it, certainly not from me. But he has a way of putting himself in the other man’s shoes, not in order to seek an advantage is a lawyer would, but to understand the—what?—mental process. As a priest would. He’d never make a litigator but he’s probably the best back-room man in the business. Law or diplomacy. The thing about my son that no one’s ever understood is that he’s extremely shy No one understands it because of the way he looks. He’s tall and good-looking and appears to be self-assured. But he isn’t.” Harold McGee paused for a moment, rocking the balloon glass in his fingers. “Worries me,”

  “Shyness. It’s not an unattractive quality.”

  “By no means.”

  “Well, then—”

  “It leads him to believe that others know a hell of a lot more than they actually do. He has a knack for understanding the motives of other people. That’s what it is, you know, motive. Once he understands he begins to sympathize, and then to believe. I guess I wish he had a firmer center of gravity of his own, because sooner or later—”

  “Maybe that is his center of gravity.”

  “Maybe.”

  She said, “I love him, you know.”

  He smiled broadly and a witty remark came to his tongue, and mercifully remained there, unspoken. Harold McGee was not accustomed to the directness of this girl. It was a quality that enchanted him and puzzled him at the same time. He said, “How did you ever manage to escape the Middle West? Just how did you manage that?”

  “You don’t like the Midwest?”

  “I don’t know it.”

  “Well, it wasn’t easy.”

  “You won’t take it amiss if I say there’s still something very—”

  She began to laugh. “And I’ve worked so hard to overcome it.”

  He said, “I didn’t mean—”

  “This outfit, it’s from Peck and Peck. This little pin, McGee got it for me at Tiffany. And now you tell me it’s all for nothing, and I’m straight out of J. C. Penney.”

  He said, “Touché.”

  “I guess I’m doomed. What is it, the accent?”

  “Seriously,” he said. “How did you manage it?”

  “My family thought it would be temporary. I knew it wouldn’t be but it didn’t seem wise to disclose that little fact. After Mount Holyoke I didn’t want to go back; it was as simple as that. I wanted out and I was determined to get out and if it had come down to it I suppose I would’ve just left. Lit out like Huck Finn. No note.”

  Harold McGee looked at her a long moment. “Huck Finn,” he said, “did not ‘light out.’ He contrived his own murder. A counterfeit murder, then dealt himself a new identity.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I know.”

  Then McGee was back, smiling, looking at them both, realizing then that he’d interrupted.

  “Good thing you’re back,” Harold McGee said. “I’m about to fall for this enchantress. The Very Young Miss Rising. From Mount Holyoke.”

  McGee smiled. “What brought this on?”

  She said, “We were talking about trusts.”

  “Of various kinds,” Harold McGee said.

  McGee turned to Dana. “Have you ever heard him on the subject of family businesses?” She shook her head. “Go on,” he said to his father. “Give her the full treatment.”

  “You’re the trust man,” Harold McGee said.

  McGee looked at Dana and laughed, his first genuine show of amusement all evening. He said quietly, “My father believes that they tend to break up after the third generation. He says—”

  “It’s not exactly new or original,” Harold McGee said. “Sometimes it’s merely a question of blood, the grandson of the founder seldom has the tenacity and ... grit. The business is the founder’s life. To the son it’s a challenge. To the grandson it’s a property. He doesn’t want it enough to devote his life to keeping it, so it disintegrates. And of course by the third generation families commence to quarrel. One branch is always richer than another and that brings resentment, both ways. The chairman finds he is spending more time negotiating with relatives than he is running the business and when that happens the business is in trouble. One tends a business like a garden: care for the flowers and the weeds and understand where the fertilizer goes and what happened the year before; prepare for flood and prepare for drought. If the chairman is shrewd, he’ll mix up the people under him, a rapid turnover so no one knows the business as well as he. That’s the key to it, and of course he has the old family retainers to deal with and sooner or later they’ll want a piece of the business. But the arrangements are difficult because nine times out of ten into the third generation the stock is split a half-dozen ways with no one in absolute control. Tamper with one block, of stock and you affect the relationship of the others, each to each. Even a percentage point here and there can affect—not the ownership of the business but the psychology of ownership, which is just as important. A company which has been run on attention to detail and a loyalty to the business itself becomes a business matter pure and simple. The esprit goes to hell. It becomes a business like any other. Understand: The founder and his immediate successor serve the company because they do not distinguish between the company and themselves. Identical egos. Not so the grandson, two generations removed. The grandson—”

  “Or granddaughter,” Dana said.

  “Or granddaughter. Looks at the mess, the quarrelling family, each member with his percentage, and says the hell with it. This chap, call him the head of the family, decides it’s too much trouble and sells the family interest. It’s usually a simple enough matter to round up fifty-one percent among a fractious family, when the object is to sell the business at top dollar. He gets a seat on the board and a title and something to do and it signals continuity. Especially when there is no continuity.
Everyone else gets money and an exchange of stock, and if you do that in the right way you can generate quite a lot of capital and avoid, federal income taxes,”

  “I had a feeling you were coming to that,” Dana said.

  “Mn,” Harold McGee said. He paused for a moment, lost in thought. The balloon glass rested against his lips. Then he smiled from behind the glass; the lecture was almost over. “But if the point is to keep the business, then you’ve got to risk it into the third generation. Give somebody complete control. Keep it through the third generation intact, functioning, solvent and harmonious, and you can keep it forever. You couldn’t kill it with an ax. Into the fourth generation an instinct for survival overcomes all other instincts. Family quarrels recede. The business again becomes identified with the family, or that part of it which is in control. By the fourth generation new blood has supplanted the old. The founder is no more than a memory, more honored in the breach. That’s why to seal everything away in a trust is a mistake. It’s a straitjacket and more than that it’s unnatural because it doesn’t allow for the craziness—”

  “What do you mean,” Dana said. “Craziness.”

  “People,” Harold McGee said. “Heirs particularly.”

  “Trusts are too remote,” she said.

  “That may be,” McGee said- “But they do—preserve. That’s what they’re devised for, preservation. They—”

  “Taxidermy,” Harold McGee said.

  “Do you think it’s a good thing?”