In the Still of the Night

inheritance, largely by hard work and intellect. But when the stock market crashed and he jumped out of his broker’s window five flights above Wall Street, they discovered that he had gotten greedy. He’d borrowed against all the family properties—the apartment in New York, the summer house in Massachusetts, the sprawling home on the coast of South Carolina, the cottage in Kent, England, where they frequently spent Christmases with British cousins. And he had put all the money into the stock market on margin.
    After his death, when everything was sold for far less than its value to meet his debts, Lily and Robert were left with their mother’s pier glass, eight hundred dollars, and two trunks and a suitcase each of their personal belongings.
    And very few skills that meant anything anymore. Knowing which fork to use for shrimp and the rules of polo were no longer valuable assets.
    Then almost two miserable years later good luck struck them. Or rather, glanced off them. A very wealthy great-uncle they barely remembered died and left them Grace and Favor Cottage. But Great-uncle Horatio, being both canny and suspicious, had put a huge restriction on them. They had to live in the mansion for ten years without being away more than two months total a year before it actually became theirs to keep. And to prevent them from going back to their useless, rich society life, he left his vast fortune to them under the same conditions.
    Uncle Horatio’s attorney, Mr. Elgin Prinney, was charged with the duty of disbursing necessary funds for the upkeep of the mansion and grounds, and keeping a close eye on Lily and Robert to see that they observed the rules.
    After the first month they’d lived at Grace and Favor, settled in and incidentally solved the mystery of their Uncle Horatio’s murder, they cast about for a way to make money.
    Getting jobs locally was impossible. Not only did they lack the expertise for working at the butcher shop or millinery shop or boat repair company, but what few jobs there were had already been grabbed by natives of the area who were hanging on to them for dear life. They’d considered traveling by train to New York City for jobs but the train fare would have eaten up any profit they might have eked out. Besides, Mr. Prinney had warned them that there were other relatives who were down and out who might find out about the restrictions in the will and claim that the hours Lily and Robert were working away from home would count against the time they were allowed to be away.
    On the first cool day of September, Robert sat Lily down in the morning room and said, “I’m about to perish of boredom and so are you. The Duesenberg is now at the point of absolute perfection and you’ve read every novel in the library—some of them twice to my sure knowledge. We have nine years and eleven months to go. What are we to do now?“
    “We’ve talked about taking in boarders,“ Lily said listlessly. “Lord knows we’ve got enough room here to put up a lot of people if some of them don’t mind living in the servants’ quarters on the third floor.“
    “And do you want to be the kitchen skivvy and me be the guy who tries to fix the plumbing and wiring?”
    Lily shuddered. “You and electricity in the same breath scare me to death. It wouldn’t be much of a life. Oh, Robert, I’m still such a snob,“ Lily admitted. “The thought of filling the house with railway workers and apprentice butchers makes me cringe.“
    “Then let me suggest Plan B,“ he said with a grin. “We have a wide range of acquaintances who still—God knows how—have plenty of money. Why not have guests instead of boarders? People we used to know. People who aren’t worried about where the next meal is coming from. People we might still have a few things in common with. Even the most obnoxious guest eventually leaves, but a annoying boarder is hard to get rid of, I’d think.”
    Lily considered. “I doubt that our old friends would consider us, poor as church mice, to have anything in common with them anymore.“
    “They needn’t know that. I doubt that any of them would go to the trouble of looking up Uncle Horatio’s will. They’d just see us as having inherited a big monster of a house in a terrific setting and assume there’s a fortune that came with it and that we’ve gotten greedy about increasing it.“
    “But they have their own monster houses. Why would they pay money to come to ours? They’d have to