Kane and Abel (Kane & Abel 1)

The responsibility had been passed back to the gr - andmothers. Anne passively accepted their proprietory role. Life for her now had little purpose left other than William, whose destiny they now seemed determined to control. William was polite but uncooperative. During the day he sat silently in his lesson with Mr. Munro and at night wept into the lap of Es mother.

'What he needs is the company of other children,' declared the grandmothers briskly, and they dismissed Mr. Munro and the nurse and sent William off to Sayre Academy in the hope that an introduction to the real world and - the constant company of other children might bring him back to his old self.

Richard had left the bulk of his estate to William, to remain in the family trust until his twenty - first birthday. There was a codicil added to the will. Richard expected his son to become chairman of Kane and Cabot on merit. It was the only part of his father's testament that inspired William, for the rest was his by birthright. Anne received a capital sum of five hundred thousand dollars and an income for life of one hundred thousand dollars a year after taxes which would cease, if she remarried. She also received the house on Beacon Hill, the summer mansion on the North Shore, the home in Maine, and a small island off Cape Cod, all of which were to pass to William on his mother's death. Both grandmothers received two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and letters leaving them in no doubt about their responsibility if Richard died before them. The family trust was to be handled by the bank, with William's godparents acting as co - trustees. The income from the trust was to be reinvested each year in conservative enterprises.~ It was a full year before the grandmothers came out of mourning, and although Anne - was still only twenty - eight, she looked her age for, the first time in her life.

The grandmothers, unlike Anne, concealed their grief from William until he finally reproached them for it.

'Don't you miss my father?' he asked, gazing at Grandmother Kane with the blue eyes that brought back memories of her own son.

'Yes, my child, but he would not have wished us to sit around and feel sorry for ourselves.'

Tut I want us to always remember him - always,' said William, his voice crackingi 'William, I am going to speak to you for the first time as though you were quite grown up. We will always keep his memory hallowed between us, and you shall play your own part by living ~_ip to what your father would have expected of you. You are the head of the family now and the heir to a large fortune. You must, therefore, prepare yourself through woi k to be fit for that inheritance in the same spirit in which your father worked to - increase the inheritance for you.'

William made no reply. He was thus provided with the motive for life which he had lacked before, and he acted upon his grandmother's advice. He learned to live with his sorrow without complaining and from that moment on he threw himself steadfastly into his work at school, satisfied only if Grandmother Kane seemed impressed. At no subject did he fail to excel, and in mathematics he was not only top of I - Lis class but far ahead of his years. Anything his father had achieved, he was deterrnined to better. He grew even closer to his mother and became suspicious of anyone who was not family, so that he was often thought of as a solitary child, a loner and, unfairly, as a snob.

The grandmothers decided on William's seventh birthday that the time had come to instruct the boy in the value of money. They therefore allowed him pocket money of one dollar a week, but insisted that he keep an inventory accounting for every cent he had spent. With this in mind, they presented him with a green leather - bound ledger book, at a cost of ninety - five cents, which they deducted from his first week's allowance of one dollar. From the second week the grandmothers divided the dollar every Saturday morning.

William invested fifty cents, spent twenty cents, gave ten cents to any charity of his choice, and kept twenty cents in reserve. At the end of each quarter the grandmothers would inspect the ledger and his written report on any transactions. When the first three months had passed, William was well ready to account for himself. He had given one dollar twenty cents to the newly founded Boy Scouts of America, and saved four dollars, which he had asked Grandmother Kane to invest in a savings account at the bank of his godfather, J. P. Morgan. He had spent a further three dollars eight cents for which he did not have to account and had kept a dollar in reserve. The ledger was a source of great satisfaction to the grandmothers : there was no doubt William was the son of Richard Kane.

At school, William made few friends, partly because he was shy of mixing with anyone other than Cabots, Lowells or children frorn families wealthier than his own. This restricted his choice severely, so he became a somewhat broody child, which worried his mother, who wanted William to lead a more normal existence, and did not in her heart approve of the ledgers or the investment programme. Anne would have prtferred William to have a lot of young friends rather than old advisors, to get himself dirty and bruised rather than remain spotless, to collect toads and turtles rather than stocks and company reports; in short to be like any other little boy. But she never had the courage to teU the grandmothers about her misgivings and in any case the grandmothers were not interested in any other little boy.