The Amish Heiress

Chapter Three - The Inheritance

Chapter Three

The InheritanceAugusta St. Clair marched through the swinging glass door into the offices of Murray, Peterson and Lowell. Augusta was a formidable looking woman with perfectly coifed white hair wearing a low-key, but obviously expensive, charcoal business suit. The extremely handsome young man beside her was dressed in a modern, collegiate way. The look on his face let the world know that he did not want to be there. Behind them trotted an older woman in a frumpy suit and glasses, looking somewhat like a scared puppy. The startled secretary behind the massive reception desk raised her hand to stop the group.

The nervous woman behind Augusta tried to intervene. “Maybe we shouldn’t go in Mrs. St. Clair. I think—”

“Shut your mouth, Eva,” Augusta snapped. The young man looked at Eva’s embarrassed face and shrugged as Augusta pushed her way past the protesting secretary and into the inner sanctum of the prestigious law firm. Several pieces of paper were clutched in her hand.

James Lowell looked up from his desk. When he recognized his visitor, his face paled and he started to protest. “Augusta, I can’t see you right now. I’m in the middle—”

Augusta St. Clair cut him off with an imperious wave of her hand. “You will see me right now, James, if you know what’s good for you and this firm.”

James Lowell started to answer back and then looked over at the two men in the chairs facing him, smiling sheepishly. “Well, gentlemen, as you see, something very important has come up. We will have to discuss this matter at another time.”

One of the men rose and looked at James with steely eyes. “You mean, you’re asking us to leave, James? This is a five million dollar deal we’re discussing. I would think—”

Before he could finish, Augusta cut in. “Good afternoon, Mr. Carrington. Perhaps you don’t know who I am, but I know who you are and the company you represent. Let me be very clear. If I wanted to, I could buy your crummy little factory and shut it down today. So if you don’t want that to happen, I would suggest you accept Mr. Lowell’s request and come back another day. Goodbye.”

Without another look, she turned to the man behind the desk as the chastened visitors slunk out the door. The young man who was with Augusta found a chair and started to light a cigarette. At a warning look from Augusta, he put the pack back in his pocket. Eva stood behind Augusta, shifting from one foot to the other as though waiting for a command.

Augusta shook the stack of papers in front of James Lowell’s face and then flung them down on the attorney’s desk. “Just what is this?”

Lowell swallowed hard, picked up the top document, and adjusted his glasses. “Oh, you got my letter,” he said with a weak smile.

“Don’t play games with me, Jimmy. I want to know what this means.”

James Lowell pushed his glasses down on his nose as he glanced at the cover page. Then he put the sheaf of papers down and removed his glasses. “I thought I made myself very clear, Augusta. I have looked over all the documents and the family papers, and I have concluded that I must deny your request.”

“You have concluded?” Augusta laughed. “You little pipsqueak! You don’t deny anything I ask; you do what I say. Now you get on that phone, call the trustees and tell them to sign the papers, or you will wish you had never been born.”

A bead of sweat formed on Lowell’s forehead.

He looked down and then back up at Augusta. “I can’t. I tried but they won’t have it. The inheritance directives are over four hundred years old and there is not a person on the whole board of trustees who will deviate from them—not one inch!”

“Oohh!”

Augusta’s face began to turn red. Eva touched her shoulder.

Augusta turned sharply and spoke with a voice like knives. “What is it, Eva? Can’t you see I’m talking here?”

The woman’s face went pale. “Please, Mrs. St. Clair, you know what the doctor said. You’re not to let yourself get worked up. Your heart...”

Augusta stared at the woman for a long moment while the muscle in her jaw worked furiously. Finally, she took three deep breaths and raised her hands. Her voice was evenly modulated and low.

“You’re right, Eva. You’re right. You know I told you never to interrupt me, but I don’t want to have a heart attack right here in this man’s office so I’ll let it go this time. After all,” she said as she turned slowly back to Lowell, “I wouldn’t want to die before Jimmy, now would I?”

The young man blinked and tried to mollify things. “Threats probably won’t help the situation, Grandmother.”

“I’ll tell you when to speak, Gerald.”

Gerald started to respond, but closed his mouth and kept silent.

Augusta walked around and sat on the edge of James Lowell’s desk. “Now, James, I wouldn’t want anything bad to happen to you, so surely there must be another way...” Augusta paused meaningfully while Lowell mulled over the dark implications.

Then Augusta smiled and patted James Lowell on the hand. “Oh, I’m just playing with you, Jimmy,” she said, but her eyes told a different story. “Now, I want you to tell me exactly what the board said.”

Lowell wiped the sweat off his brow with a Kleenex from a box on his desk, adjusted his glasses again, and pushed a stack of papers toward Augusta. “It’s all in here.”

Augusta ignored the papers and kept looking at Lowell. “Just give me the Cliffs Notes version, Jimmy,” she said sweetly, but there was ice in the air.

Lowell wrung his hands, looked over at Gerald, and then spoke. “You can keep your trust, you can keep the house and the estate, but no one inherits the bulk of the money unless they are a direct descendant of the oldest son and have the Key. That’s the bottom line and I can’t get around it.”

“The Key? And what is the Key?”

James Lowell shrugged. “I don’t know. You will have to ask the board of trustees, because I don’t have the slightest idea. I would suggest you contact Michel Duvigney. He’s the director of the board of trustees.”

Augusta gave Lowell a steely look. She stood up and walked toward the door. Without glancing back, she spoke to Eva. “Eva, be a dear and get the pertinent information from Mr. Lowell and then set an appointment for me with Mr. Duvigney.”

“Yes, Mrs. St. Clair.”

Augusta opened the door and then stopped and looked back at James Lowell. “When I settle this, I will settle with you, Jimmy. Nobody stands in my way. It’s a bad decision. Come, Gerald!”

With that, she picked up the sheaf of papers, turned and stomped out, her grandson and secretary trailing along behind like ducklings trying to keep up with their mother.

*****

Three days later, Augusta sat in the dark office of Michel Duvigney. It was small and cramped with red cherry wood bookshelves lining the walls and a small fireplace with a gas flame burning behind glass doors. The desk was the largest piece of furniture in the room and it was covered with books and odd pieces of memorabilia. Pictures of Duvigney with well-known personages, including him shaking hands with three ex-presidents, hung on the wall. Dim afternoon light tried to force its way through the drawn venetian blinds, but the only real illumination in the room came from the small lamp on the desk.

Duvigney was old, but somehow the lines of age had not marked themselves too deeply on his features. His white hair and crow’s feet around his eyes were the only giveaways. Augusta sat stiffly while Duvigney went over the paperwork in front of him. Finally, he lifted the whole pile in his hands, tapped the bottom twice on the desk to even the documents up, and set it aside.

Looking at Augusta he spoke in a quiet, sibilant voice. “I’m sorry, Ms. St. Clair, but there is no other decision that can be made. The directives for the succession of the St. Clair inheritance are quite explicit. First of all, only the direct descendants of an eldest son can inherit. It can be male or female as long as it can be proved that the eldest son was either father or grandfather to the heir.”

Duvigney smiled but there was no warmth in it. “May I call you Augusta?”

Augusta nodded. Duvigney took a folder from a tray on his desk and opened it.

He scanned it for a moment and then closed it again. “I see from this file that you are the widow of Jerod St. Clair, the younger son of Maximillian St. Clair. Jerod was killed in World War II in a mission over France. You had one son with Jerod...”

Duvigney glanced down. “...Ah, yes, Francis, who is also deceased, as well as his wife.”

“They died in a skiing accident in Switzerland,” Augusta said with a frown. “An avalanche...”

“Yes, I have the details here. So, Augusta, even though you are the sole beneficiary of your late husband’s will, which entitles you to the proceeds from his portion of the St. Clair trust, the house you are now living in, the property in Connecticut, and the townhouse in London, you persist in pressing your claim to the bulk of the estate which is in trust for the true heir, a claim that is without merit and will never be considered.”

Augusta twisted in her chair. It was an overstuffed club chair covered in leather that somehow put Augusta’s eyes on a plane lower than Duvigney’s.

“Well, if I’m not able to inherit, what about my grandson, Gerald? Shouldn’t he be considered?”

Duvigney’s voice took on a tone that sounded like a snake hissing. “Augusta, you don’t seem to be following me. The St. Clair family is over eight hundred years old and can trace their lineage back to the household knights of William the Conqueror. The precedents for preserving the lineage and the inheritance were established hundreds of years ago in Europe. I’m afraid that you, as a relative newcomer to the family, cannot seem to grasp the significance of the St. Clair traditions.”

Augusta stiffened. “Excuse me, Michel, but my family has a very old and proud name. Why, my family is descended from the royal families of Russia. We have traditions as well.”

Duvigney smiled again. “Augusta, you must think me simple. Your family is not descended from the Romanovs. Your grandfather was a Yugoslavian immigrant named AlexzanderBošnjaković who was a cheese maker on the lower east side. Your father was a used car salesman who changed his last name to Bosnan so his customers could pronounce it. Your real name is Francine Bosnan, and you were born to a lower middle class family in The Bronx. Compared to the St. Clairs, your family doesn’t have traditions, it has habits.”

Duvigney’s face cracked for a moment at his attempt at humor. The effect was not pleasant.

He glanced down at the dossier in front of him. “Now, as to how you moved up so far in your life. It seems that you met Jerod at a USO dance in Manhattan in August of 1944 and began seeing him on a regular basis. You cleverly arranged to become pregnant before he was sent to England with his bomber squadron in February 1945. An honorable man, Jerod married you three weeks before he left and, voilà, suddenly you were the wealthy Augusta St. Clair, possessor of a proud name and a mysterious background, a background invented by you to make your way through the labyrinth of New York society. Which you did handily, I must say.”

Duvigney glanced up and smiled a patronizing sort of smile that infuriated Augusta, but she held her tongue.

He glanced back down. “Sadly, Jerod was killed a week after he arrived in England on a bombing run over Germany. Your son, Francis, was born three months later in June 1945.”

Michel picked up a pencil and tapped it a few times on his desk. Then he smiled. “You see, Augusta, we do our homework. Now let’s go over this once more. Your husband’s older brother, Robert, was the true heir to the St. Clair fortune. It has come to our attention that he was also married and had a child, but the wife and child disappeared.”

Augusta stared at the old man. “How did you find out about Robert’s wife and child?”

Duvigney showed the first signs of exasperation. “Ms. St. Clair! For years we believed that Robert died without an heir, and so Robert’s trust was a closed account waiting until we could take action to declare a new heir. When you came forward to press your claims, the case was re-opened, and during that new investigation, certain facts came to light concerning Robert St. Clair. Our investigation turned up a copy of a marriage license listing Robert St. Clair and Rachel Borntraeger dated September 15, 1946. We also found a birth certificate for their daughter, Jennifer Constance St. Clair, dated January of 1947. We know that Robert St. Clair was killed in a car accident, but at this time, the whereabouts of the wife and daughter remains unknown. Our representatives are conducting a search for them. If we find her or the child and they can prove definitive relationship to Robert through DNA testing, or if the daughter has the Key, then they will be invested with the bulk of the trust estate which totals at this time...”

Duvigney reached over and rustled through some papers in a tray on the corner of his desk and pulled out a spreadsheet. “...around forty billion dollars in investments and properties.”

Augusta clamped her jaw shut to keep from gasping. She gathered her emotions and then spoke again, trying to be pleasant. “May I ask you a question, Michel?”

“Yes, of course, Augusta.”

“What is the Key?”

Duvigney’s face took on a serious mien. “The Key is the St. Clair Key. It is, in fact, a birthmark that was found on the first St. Clair in 1123. It is a red, key-shaped mark that is located above the heart on the chest. This birthmark has been a factor in determining the heir for centuries. It sometimes skips generations but it has always followed the line. Your brother-in-law had this birthmark, but your husband did not. If we find an heir that carries the Key, there will be absolutely no question as to the validity of their claim. They will be immediately granted title to everything.”

“Even if they are female?”

“The trust documents permit a woman inheriting if she has the Key. That only holds true to the second generation from the direct heir. If no heir is found, then fifty years after the heir’s death, the board of trustees will follow the other lines of descent and name the closest St. Clair male the new heir. The long wait prevents internecine strife.”

“Internecine strife?”

“Yes, strife of or relating to conflict within a group, a family, or an organization. In this case, family members killing each other for the money. It seems that in the fourteenth century, certain of the St. Clair brothers attempted to murder each other over the inheritance, so strict guidelines were set in place by their father.”

“So you are saying that Robert’s daughter could inherit, if she has the Key, or his granddaughter or grandson. But if they could not be found, then the fortune would go to the next St. Clair male which would be my grandson, Gerald?”

“Not exactly, Augusta. Robert died forty-four years ago. Gerald would become the next in line six years from now, but only his heirs could inherit. So he would have to have a child who reaches the age of twenty-one. Then the estate would be invested in that heir. And so the line would continue.”

Duvigney glanced at his Rolex. “Now, I’m sorry, Augusta, but that is all the time I have. It has been very pleasant talking with you, but I’m afraid there is no further use in your pursuit of this claim. You need to learn to be content with the bounty that has been, might I say, generously provided to you by the St. Clair family. Now, if you will excuse me—”

A door behind Augusta opened and a large man in a butler’s uniform stepped into the room. The signal was clear. The meeting was over.

*****

As the limousine cruised up Park Avenue, Augusta sat in the back, fuming. “Why that pompous, overblown secretary! Who does he think he is?” she said to no one in particular. Augusta knew she had to make a plan. She picked up the car phone from the armrest next to her and dialed a number. After a few rings a man’s voice answered.

“Gordon Randall Security.”

“Randall, this is Augusta St. Clair. I need you to do some work for me.”

“Certainly, Mrs. St. Clair. What do you need?”

“I need you to find a little girl; well, she would be grown up now. Her mother was married to Robert St. Clair. She was from Lancaster, Pennsylvania and she was Amish. Her name was Rachel Borntraeger. That’s about all I have. I’ll leave the rest up to you.”

“Fine, Mrs. St. Clair. Any other instructions?”

“Yes, Randall. Some other people are looking for this girl also. It is imperative that you find her first, absolutely imperative. There can be no mistaking my meaning.”

“Fine, Mrs. St. Clair. Consider it handled.”