The Wrong Kind of Money Read Online Free PDF

makes the slightest move to challenge this Last Will and Testament shall be immediately stripped of any of its benefits.” Asked to comment on this clause, Noah Liebling dismissed it as “routine.” Asked about the tied-to-mother’s-apronstrings factor, Noah Liebling replied, with a wink, “I can assure you that my mother has never worn an apron.”
    Mrs. Hannah Liebling, 62, was in Europe, traveling on company business, and could not be reached for comment.
    All that, of course, was written twenty years ago, and many things have changed since then. For one thing, all the people mentioned in that story are now twenty years older. But, as you will see as our story unfolds, there are many things that have not changed. You may well ask: Was it the intention of Noah’s father’s will to keep his son from assuming the presidency of the company for this long a time? Or was it the old man’s wish that his widow act as a sort of regent until Noah was a little older—four or five years, perhaps, or until Noah was in his mid-thirties? But Noah Liebling has now passed his mid-forties, and his mother is still very much, and very firmly, in charge of things, and has offered no visible sign that she is ready to let go. Was that what the old man really wanted, or expected, to have happen? By now quite a few people have asked that question.
    But in the meantime, we have backed away from our story. We have left three of the principals—Hannah Liebling, her son Cyril, and her son Noah’s daughter Anne—stuck in a traffic jam on Park Avenue, while we digressed backward to Hannah’s late husband. It should be possible to tell this story in as straightforward and linear a fashion as possible, and avoid these flashbacks. But this may be hard to do. J. B. Liebling, twenty years dead, continues to influence his family as powerfully today as he did when he was alive. At certain intersections, as in a logjam of traffic, it will be difficult to bypass the old man.
    Where are these three going? Where are they coming from? They are coming from Hannah Liebling’s apartment at 1000 Park, where Anne has had tea with her grandmother. Anne is a freshman at Bennington, home on winter break. Ever since Anne reached her teens, these afternoon teas with her grandmother have become a ritual. Indeed, for Anne they are a command performance. They are always very formal, always preceded by a handwritten invitation on Hannah Liebling’s embossed Cartier note paper:
    One Thousand Park Avenue
    Dearest Anne ,
    Your mother tells me you will be coming down from school on——.
    Please join me here for tea on the afternoon of——at four o’clock.
    I look forward to seeing you.
    Devotedly ,
    Nana Hannah
    Hannah Liebling pours from the big silver teapot. (“Lemon or sugar? One lump or two?”) Then she hands the little teacup to Bridget, her parlor maid, who delivers it to Anne, who always sits in what is known as “the visitor’s chair” opposite her grandmother in the glassed-in terrace that is called the morning room, since it faces east. Hannah then pours for herself, and Bridget passes the tray of thin finger sandwiches, cucumber, and watercress, followed by tea cakes and cookies. Hannah is determined that Anne shall at least be exposed to the kind of manners and social niceties which she herself was brought up to observe. She suspects that Anne’s mother, Carol Liebling, is a little lax about such matters.
    But Carol Liebling takes her mother-in-law’s teas every bit as seriously. “Glove inspection,” Carol says cheerfully as her daughter prepares to depart. “Are they white-white-white? Clean-clean-clean? Good. Now keep them in your purse until you’ve rung her doorbell. Then slip them on. Have you got a clean white hankie, in case you need to blow your nose?”
    â€œMoth- err !”
    â€œAnd don’t tease your grandmother,” Carol