CHAPTER V

NEWS IN THE POST

One morning, a month after Timothy's funeral, Dot was sitting at her writing desk attempting to make progress on her next novel. Reading through her notebooks her thoughts were disturbed by the noise of the post arriving. Getting up from her desk she went through to the hall, on the front door mat there was a very official looking letter, picking up this large envelope of heavy, cream laid paper it was addressed to 'Miss Dorothea Callum'. She pulled open the flap of the envelope as she stood in the hall, she could see inside there was a letter on matching paper with a black embossed letterhead with two or three sheets of paper attached with a brass paperclip, and an ordinary white envelope. She returned to her desk, sat down and took the items out of the envelope, the other white envelope was simply addressed to 'Dot' in Timothy's neat handwriting. She placed this envelope to one side on her desk, she was almost scared to open it, instead of doing so she picked up the main letter.

Dear Miss Callum

As solicitors and executors for the late Mr Timothy Stedding we enclose a sealed envelope deposited with us, by Mr Stedding, to be passed to you in the event of his death.

In addition, under the terms of Mr Stedding's will, a copy of which is attached, you are to be the sole beneficiary of a trust fund created from twenty percent only of Mr Stedding's residual estate after the payment of appropriate taxes and legal fees. The final calculation of this amount is currently awaiting settlement of death duties etcetera, but we can inform you that your one-off payment from the trust should result in a sum approximately between ninety thousand pounds and one hundred thousand pounds; you will be notified of the exact amount and its method of payment to you in due course. As the sole beneficiary of the trust you should note that in the will you are not named, this is in accordance with the rules of the trust as set up by Mr Stedding,…

Dot read no further and placed the letter on the desk in front of her and as she did so realised she was shaking violently, she started to call out for someone to help her but remembered, perhaps fortunately, that Titty and Dick were out and she was in the house alone.

She had given up her flat soon after Dick and Titty had married, they had lived in the flat with her for the first few months of their marriage. She not so much gave up her flat, it was more that Dick and Titty agreed that they should have a house, and decided that Dot should share it with them. Dot had objected to this, she had not the money to help in the purchase of a house despite her success as a novelist and, more importantly, she had no wish to disrupt their married life. Neither Titty nor Dick would hear of it, the closeness of both of them to Dot made such an idea unthinkable.

So within a few months of the idea being mooted by Dick a house in Hampstead was duly purchased, and it was large enough to enable Dot to have her own writing room with a window overlooking the heath. It was here she was sitting contemplating the evidence of her tragedy on her desk.

To delay the opening of the other envelope further, still waiting for her on the desk, she went in to the kitchen and made herself a cup of coffee. As she did so she realised she was taking as long as possible over this simple task, just to avoid dealing with the other letter. She wished Titty was there, but if she had of been then Dick would be there as well; but he knew nothing of her situation and probably when he did know he would not understand the way her life had turned out.

Coffee prepared, she carried the cup back to her desk, then sat down and picked up the other envelope. She had recognised Timothy's writing as soon as it slipped out of the larger envelope. In an ornamental biscuit tin in one of her desk drawers there were a large number of similar envelopes, over the years she had kept every one. She got up from her chair once again and returned to the kitchen to get a knife, she knew there was a letter opener somewhere on the desk, but getting a knife from the kitchen delayed the opening of the envelope even further.

Returning to her desk and sitting down again, she finally picked up the envelope.

Once she had carefully slit the flap she slid out two sheets of notepaper covered in Timothy's neat writing, even before she started to read there were tears in her eyes, but she forced herself to begin.

My Darling Dot

If you are reading this then we both know the inevitable will have happened and events will have caught up with me.

I suppose I've been lucky for so many years over many things but sometimes luck runs out, it must have done so now.

I'm so sorry we were never properly together and that I never committed myself to you when I should have done, but I was always only ever in love with you but I never knew how to leave. I treasured every moment I spent with you, I'm sorry that I treated you so badly and I should have left 'her' many years ago, I should never have married her.

As you should know by now I have made, what I hope is adequate, provision for you in my will, this arrangement I am assured by my solicitor this will not be revealed to those who do not need to know. I plan for you to always be a secret from my terrible wife and in-laws as much as you have been all these years.

My true love has only ever been for you and will always be so.

Goodbye My Darling.

Timothy.