The Death of Mrs. Westaway(112)

I am writing to let you know that I have decided to tell Hal the truth. She turns eighteen next week, and she deserves to know her own story, and I cannot hide behind my own cowardice any longer.

The fact is, I have been frightened of him for too long—frightened of what he might do to Maggie when we were at Trepassen, frightened of how he might stop us from escaping, frightened of him tracking us down, and frightened of what he had done to her when she didn’t return that last time. For I knew, Mother. I always knew. There is no way in the world Maggie would have left her newborn baby without a word. She went back there to face him, to fight for the future Hal deserved—and she didn’t return.

I have blamed you bitterly for your silence—and yet I’ve committed the same crimes myself. I could have told the police my suspicions. I could have asked them to dig in the grounds, or dredge the lake, or search the cellars. But if I had done that, I would have lost custody of Hal to Ezra, if they found nothing. And I could not do that, Mother. I couldn’t take the risk. I was too late to save Maggie with the truth—but I could save her child with my lies.

But Hal is about to become an adult now, and I can’t hide behind excuses anymore. The only way I can lose her now is if SHE chooses to cut herself off from me. I would not blame her if she did—God knows, I’ve lied to her for so long, though I told myself my motives were good. I have deceived her unforgivably—I just hope that she can, in fact, forgive.

There is much that I will never forgive you for, Mother. But in spite of that, you have kept my secret faithfully these past few years, and I felt that you deserved to know the reasons for my decision. I don’t know what Hal will do with the information—it’s hers to decide. But it’s possible she will come and seek you out. Be kind to her, if she does.

Yours,

Maud

Hal let the letter fall to the sheets, feeling her eyes well with tears, wishing that she could reach out and hug her mother, back through the years.

How had Mrs. Warren come by this letter? Had it ever reached Mrs. Westaway? Or had Mrs. Warren intercepted it? Either way, someone had told Ezra. And for the second time in his life, but not the last, her father had killed an innocent person to protect himself.

If only, if only her mother had not sent the letter. It seemed unbelievably na?ve—to give up such hard-fought-for anonymity, to warn her mother of what she was about to do.

Had Maud underestimated Ezra? Or had she simply trusted Mrs. Westaway too much? They had been corresponding for a while, that much was plain from the letter. Perhaps she had slowly trusted more and more—thinking that if her mother had kept her secret safe thus far, she could trust her a little further, until at last she had entrusted Mrs. Westaway with a secret she could not keep.

But Hal wasn’t sure. There had been something about Mrs. Warren’s attempts to warn her . . . a kind of long-held guilt. She thought of that sitting room, the framed photographs of the cherubic little boy Mrs. Warren had loved for so long, and the man he had turned into.

Perhaps, for the sake of that little boy, she had written a letter—warning Ezra to be careful, to keep away.

And only afterwards realized what she had done.

Hal would never know the true chain of events. All she knew was that this letter was the first piece in a swift chain of betrayals that led to a hot summer’s day, and the screech of a car’s brakes, and her mother’s crumpled body on the road outside her own house.

She closed her eyes, feeling the tears squeeze from between the lids and run down the sides of her nose, and she wished, more passionately than she had ever wished anything before, that she could go back and tell her mother, It’s okay. There is nothing to forgive. I trust you. I love you. There is nothing you could do to change that. Whatever angry things I might have said or thought or done, I would have come back to you, in the end.

“Are you awake, my darling?” A Cornish accent broke into her thoughts, and Hal opened her eyes to see an orderly standing there beside a tea trolley, a white china cup in one hand and a metal pot in the other. “Tea?”

“Yes please,” Hal said. She swiped surreptitiously at the trickle beside her nose, and blinked away the rest of the tears as the woman poured her a cup.

“Ooh, homemade cake. Aren’t you the lucky one? I’ll give you another saucer,” the woman said, and she helped Hal to a generous chunk, and put it on her bedside tray.

After she had gone, moving on to the next person, Hal broke off a piece and put it between her lips, the buttercream melting on her tongue, soothing her sore throat, and taking away some of the bitterness of her thoughts.

She could not dwell in might-have-beens, she could only move forwards, to a different future.

The letter was still on her lap, and she folded it up carefully and laid it on the locker beside her bed. As she did, her hand knocked against the Golden Virginia tin, lying there, and on a sudden impulse she opened it up, closed her eyes, and shuffled the cards.

With her eyes closed, she might almost have been at home, in her little booth on the pier, feeling the soft frayed edges of the cards between her fingers, feeling their polished backs slide over each other, every movement changing the possibilities life dealt out, asking different questions, revealing different truths.

At last she stopped, holding the cards between her cupped palms, and then she cut the deck and opened her eyes.

A single card stared back at her, upright—and she found herself smiling, in spite of the tears that still clung to her lashes.