The Death of Mrs. Westaway Read online

  It was like two voices warring in her head. Hal pressed her gloved hands to her forehead, feeling the coldness of the rain still soaked into the wool, and she knew if she didn’t get it together she wouldn’t even make it as far as the wake, she would be found out for the impostor she was before they had even left the church.

  The bearers made their slow way past her, deposited the narrow coffin at the top of the church, and filed dutifully into the pews at the front, followed by the little gaggle of family members trailing behind.

  And the service began.

  CHAPTER 10

  * * *

  An hour later, it was over—or almost. The sparse congregation filed out into the driving rain to stand around the grave as the coffin was lowered into the raw earth, and the priest raised his voice to intone blessings over the shriek of the wind off the sea.

  It was almost dusk now, and the temperature had dropped even further—and Hal was shivering uncontrollably in her thin coat, but nevertheless she was grateful for the wind and the rain. Under cover of the weather, no one could read her expression as anything other than pinched and pained. Her eyes were watering with genuine tears, as she blinked away the drops that trickled from her hair into her eyes. No one would have expected her to cry—she knew that—but the next test was the wake, back at Trepassen House, and Hal knew that there, she could not escape scrutiny. It was a relief not to have to think about the expression on her face or her defensive body language for just a few minutes—here, huddled around the grave with the wind lashing in the mourners’ faces, she could hug herself protectively and blame nothing but the weather.

  At last, though, the priest said his final words, and Harding threw a handful of gritty earth from the covered bucket at the side of the grave. It splashed, rather than thudded, onto the wooden coffin lid, and he passed the pail to his brother Abel, who threw a handful in his turn, shaking his head as he did, though Hal could not tell what the gesture meant. Round the circle it went, handful after handful, a few flowers, limp with wet, following the earth into the grave. The last to take the pail was Ezra. He flung the earth almost carelessly, and then turned to Hal, standing in his shadow, just behind his shoulder, trying to efface herself from notice.

  He said nothing, just held out the bucket, and Hal took it. As she did, the feeling struck her that there was something profoundly wrong in what she was about to do—blasphemous, almost, in this symbolic act of burying a woman she had no connection with. But the eyes of the family were upon her, and she had no choice.

  The earth was clagged with rain now and she had to pull off her glove and dig into the mud with her nails.

  It thudded down onto the coffin with a strange finality, and she handed the pail back to the curate.

  “Ashes to ashes,” said the priest over the noise of the wind and waves, “dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life . . .”

  Hal wiped her muddy palm surreptitiously on her trench coat and tried to shut out his words, but the memories kept intruding—of the kind vicar who had presided over her mother’s cremation, of his meaningless words of comfort, and of the promises she could not believe. She felt the mud grit beneath her fingernails and she remembered, with a force that felt like a blow to the chest, the feeling of her mother’s ashes, gritting against her palm as she had scattered them on another December day, three years ago. She had gone to Brighton beach, on a day as windy as this, though dry, and she had walked down to the edge of the sea, her bare feet cold against the stones, and stood among the foamy weeds, watching as the ashes had tugged from her fingers and scattered across the sea.

  As she stood, looking into the raw, wet mouth of the grave, Hal felt her heart clutch again with the pain of loss, as if an old, half-healed wound had been struck. Was it really worth doing this—putting herself through this again, the grim rituals of mourning and remembrance for what could be nothing more than an ugly lamp or a collection of postcards?

  There are two paths ahead of you, they twist and turn . . .

  She found her nails were digging into her palms, and she thought of the page of swords, striding out to meet the stormy seas, his sword upraised, his face determined.

  The truth was, the two paths were gone now. She had chosen one—and shut off the possibilities of the other as if it had never existed. There was no way back, no point in second-guessing her decision. She had made the choice she needed in order to survive, and now the only way out was to push forwards—deeper into the deception. She could quite literally not afford to fail.

  At last the final words were spoken, the priest began picking up his things, and the rest of the family began scattering, moving off towards the cars, their collars raised against the driving wind and rain.

  Hal felt a flutter of fear in her stomach. She had to say something—and quickly. She had to ask one of them for a lift—but the thought of approaching these total strangers out of the blue was suddenly almost more terrifying than anything else. It wasn’t just the fear of being found out. It was something more basic—more childlike. Whom should she ask? How?

  “I—” she said, but her throat felt stiff and croaky. “I—is it—”

  None of them turned. Harding was in the front, surrounded by his three teenage children and flanked by a woman who must be Mitzi. Hal recognized Richard from Facebook, already fiddling with his phone as he followed his father towards the car park. Abel and Ezra were walking behind, deep in conversation. As she watched, Abel put his arm around his brother, squeezing him tightly as if in consolation, and Ezra shrugged away, a little impatiently.

  The others had already scattered to a clutch of cars parked beneath the dripping yews.

  She was in danger of being left behind in this deserted graveyard. Panic rose up in her throat.

  “Excuse me,” she croaked again, more loudly, and then, as before, she felt a hand on her shoulder and turned sharply, to see Mr. Treswick standing there, his umbrella held out.

  “Harriet. May I offer you a lift back to Trepassen?”

  “Yes, oh yes.” Hal felt the words tumbling out, almost incoherently. “Oh, thank you so much, I wasn’t sure—”

  “There will be no room in the funeral cars, I’m afraid, all the seats in the official cortège are taken up, but if you don’t mind sharing my own car . . .”

  “N-n-not at all,” Hal said. Her teeth were chattering with cold, and she swallowed, trying to steady herself, make her gratitude less naked. “Thank you, Mr. Treswick, I really appreciate it.”

  “Not at all. Here, you hold the umbrella—mind it doesn’t turn inside out, I’m afraid the sea gusts are rather unpredictable—and I will take your case.”

  “Oh no,” Hal protested, “p-please!” but it was too late, somehow the little man had deftly removed the case from where she had let it rest on the graveled path, and the umbrella was in her hand, and he was forging through the rain to the car, parked down by the verge where the taxicab had set her down.

  • • •

  INSIDE THE VOLVO, MR. TRESWICK turned the heating up full, and as the car pulled out into the lane, splashing through the rutted puddles, Hal felt some of the chill begin to leave her fingers. In the graveyard she had thought that she might never be warm again—it was as if the cold had gone right through to her bones. Now the hot air blasting from the vents on the dashboard made her fingers sting and ache with the shock of the thaw, though the chilliness deep inside her seemed impenetrable.

  “It’s about four miles to Trepassen,” Mr. Treswick said conversationally as they wound slowly down the lane to the main road, the wipers frantically swishing back and forth. At the crossroads they stopped while he peered through the gloom up and down the road, trying vainly to see if there was a car coming, and eventually, with a feeling of taking both their lives in his hands, he stamped on the accelerator and the car jolted across the junction and picked up speed.

  “I hope Mrs. Warren will have tea waiting for us. Are you staying the night?”
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  “I—” Hal felt a jolt of guilt. She had not been able to write—there had been no time—and she had no idea what she would do if the invitation to stay was rescinded. “I would love to, yes, but I’m afraid I wasn’t able to tell Mrs. Warren I was coming. Your letter only arrived two days ago—I didn’t think a reply would get here in time. . . .”

  “Oh, I am sorry, I should have put in a telephone number,” Mr. Treswick said apologetically. “But no matter, Mrs. Warren will be able to open up a room, I’m sure. I should warn you”—he glanced doubtfully at Hal’s wet coat and soaking clothes beneath—“there is no central heating at Trepassen I’m afraid, Mrs. Westaway never got around to having it installed. But there are plenty of fires and hot-water bottles and so on. You should be . . .”—he hesitated—“well, fairly comfortable.”

  “Thank you,” Hal said meekly, though something in his tone made her doubt the truth of his words.

  “I must say”—Mr. Treswick changed gears as they crested a hill—“I was a little surprised to find out that Maud had had a child.”

  Maud. So that was the missing daughter’s name. M. Westaway—like her mother. Was that where the mistake had originated? Hal felt a silent wash of thankfulness that she had not brought her full birth certificate, followed by a flicker of something else, a kind of alarm. What did Mr. Treswick mean, he was surprised Maud had had a child? Was there something she needed to know? Could she ask, or would her ignorance give her away?

  “I . . . what do you mean?” she asked at last.

  Mr. Treswick gave a laugh. “Oh, she was very decided as a young woman. Always swore she would never get married, never have children. I remember telling her once, she must have been about twelve at the time, ‘You may feel differently when you’re grown up, my dear,’ and she laughed, and said I was an old fool—she was rather forthright, your mother. She told me children were nothing but padlocks on the patriarchal shackles of marriage. That was the phrase she used—I remember it rather well. I recall thinking at the time that it was rather an unusual turn of phrase, particularly for a child of that age. So I was a little taken aback to learn that she had in fact had a child—and fairly young too, as I understand it?”

  “She—she was eighteen,” Hal said faintly. “When she had me.”

  Eighteen. When Hal was a child it had seemed a perfectly reasonable age—grown-up, in fact. Now that she was twenty-one herself, she could not imagine what her mother had been through, the struggle it must have been to have a child so young, and care for it alone.

  But the words were barely out of her mouth when she realized her mistake, and felt a rush of cold fury prickle down the back of her neck at what she had just let slip. Damn. Damn. What a stupid, amateurish mistake.

  It was the first rule of cold reading—be as vague as possible, try not to offer specific information, unless you can retract or twist the meaning if you’ve got it badly wrong. Always I’m getting a man’s name . . . a name with an f in it . . . ? rather than I’m hearing from your cousin Fred. If you must guess at a specific, make it one that’s statistically probable—I’m seeing a blue car . . . ? Never a green one.

  Hal had just committed two grave errors in less than five words. She had given a specific, unnecessary piece of information, and it was one that was statistically unlikely to be right. How many women had children at eighteen? Two percent? Less? She had no idea.

  But even setting that aside, she didn’t know enough about the facts of this woman’s life to make guesses like that. What if Maud would have been in her fifties now, so that elementary maths would tell Mr. Treswick the relationship was impossible? What if she had still been at home at the age of eighteen? Hal had been lulled by the false reassurance of Mr. Treswick’s “fairly young, as I understand it”—a piece of information that had seemed to chime so neatly with Hal’s own life. But there was fairly young, and fairly young. A twenty-five-year-old mother was “fairly young,” these days. She had just slipped up—and badly.

  Hal looked nervously across to see if Mr. Treswick had begun frowning, adding up figures in his head. But he didn’t seem to have noticed her mistake. In fact, he barely seemed to have heard her remark at all. His mind was traveling down other paths.

  “The patriarchal shackles of marriage,” he said with a chuckle. “That phrase will always remind me of your mother. Though of course”—he threw a brief glance at her, his eyes bright as a robin’s—“she never did marry, I understand?”

  “N-no,” Hal said. In spite of the chill in her bones, her face felt hot, scorched by the blast from the fan heater. How stupid she had been. From now on she would not offer information—just corroborate what others had already told her.

  Though perhaps . . . They turned a corner, the tires shushing in the wet, and Hal pressed her cheek to the cold window and tried to think. Perhaps she hadn’t been such a fool to admit her mother’s age. It was very possible—probable, even—that she would be caught out at some point. Perhaps it was better to volunteer honest information now, so that if she were caught, she could represent the whole thing as a misunderstanding, luckily picked up, rather than a cold-blooded deception. If she started lying now, there would be no way out later on. Not without prosecution for fraud.

  Maud Westaway. If only she had known about the name, she could have googled on the train, found out something about this woman who was supposed to be her mother. What did she look like? How old was she? And what had happened to her?

  It was too late now. She could hardly get out her phone and start researching in front of Mr. Treswick. But the idea of having some basic facts to arm herself with, before she faced her “uncles,” was enticing. She could not afford to slip up again. Could she creep away when they got to the house? Perhaps if she asked to change into dry clothes . . . ?

  She kept silent for the rest of the journey, as did Mr. Treswick, though he shot the odd glance at Hal as the little car ate up the long country miles. It was only as the car began to slow down that Hal sat up, and he raised his voice above the noise of the wipers.

  “Here we are.” He indicated left, the flashing light turning the raindrops golden. “Trepassen House. Ah, the gates are open. Very good. I must say, I didn’t relish the idea of struggling with the latch in this weather.”

  They turned carefully through the giant wrought-iron gates and began to wend their way up a long, graveled drive.

  Far up ahead was a long, low building, and with a jolt, as they came round the corner, Hal realized that she recognized it. An image flashed into her head—tall windows, a sweep of grass falling away—and there it was, appearing before her eyes, like a conjuring trick.

  Hal felt her mouth drop open, and for a moment it seemed inexplicable—and then, with a little rush of chagrin, she realized. Of course. It was the postcard she had found online. We had a very good tea at Trepassen House. It had been taken from just slightly farther along the lawn, and the jolt of recognition she had experienced was nothing but the perspectives slotting into place. But even as she recognized the image, she was noticing the changes—the ivy and Virginia creeper that had been decorous little trails in that original postcard, but now ran riot over the front of the house, seeming to strangle the bay windows and the columns that supported the porch. The paintwork was no longer the pristine white of the postcard, but cracked and flaking, and the lawns were overgrown, weeds growing between the flags of the terrace.

  Hal felt her hopes begin to ebb away a little, along with the righteous certainty she had felt on the train. Where were the ponies, the signs of the foreign holidays, the expensive suits? If there was money here, it had not been spent for a long, long time.

  They drove past a copse of yew trees, the rain momentarily stopping as they passed beneath the thick canopy of the branches—and as they did, a flurry of black and white swooped without warning from the tree above, and Mr. Treswick swerved and ground a tire on one of the granite boulders marking the edge of the drive.

  “Damnation!” He sounded flu
stered as he righted their course, and drove more slowly up the final few yards to the house, the rain resuming as they left the shelter of the copse.

  “What was it?” Hal asked, looking back over her shoulder. “A gull?”

  “No, a magpie. The house is plagued with them—absolutely plagued. They can be surprisingly aggressive.” He drove through a vaulted arch and slowed to a halt in a graveled carriage yard to the right of the main frontage. There he turned off the engine and wiped his palms shakily on his trousers. “It’s supposed to be the origin of the name, you know. Piasenn is the Cornish word for magpie. And tre means farm or farmstead. So they say Trepassen is a corruption of Tre Piasenn—Magpie Farm. Whether that’s true or not, I have no idea, but it certainly lives up to the name. Another theory holds that it’s to do with the Cornish word for the past, passyen. Myself, I don’t know. I’m no Cornish scholar, I’m afraid.” He smoothed his hair and unclipped his seat belt, looking, for the first time since Hal had seen him, more than a little rattled. “I . . . I am not very fond of birds—it’s something of a phobia. Much as I would love to overcome it, I have not been able to. And the magpies here . . .” He gave a little involuntary shudder. “Well, as I said, they are really rather numerous, and not at all shy. At least”—he reached for his umbrella and gave a small, rather mirthless smile—“at least in this house one has no danger of sorrow.”

  “Sorrow?” Hal said, startled.

  “Why, yes, don’t you know the rhyme? One for sorrow, two for joy, and so on? Although joy seems equally unlikely—I’ve never seen anything less than half a dozen magpies congregated here.”

  “Yes . . .” Hal said slowly. “Yes, I know the rhyme.” Her hand went to her shoulder, and she touched the skin there, beneath the thin coat, remembering, and then let her hand drop. “At least . . . I know the first four lines. Does it go as far as six?”

  “Oh yes,” Mr. Treswick said, and then frowned. “Let me see . . . one for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy. What’s the next bit—five for silver . . . six I think is gold. Yes, that’s right, six for gold.”