The Death of Mrs. Westaway(20)

“Mr. Treswick—you wrote to me!” she said. She put out a hand. “I’m Hal—I mean, Harriet Westaway.” At least, put like this, it was not a lie. Not exactly, anyway.

There was a pause. Hal felt her stomach clench with nerves. This was the moment of truth—or one of them. If the real Harriet Westaway was thirty-five, or blond, or six feet tall, it was all over before it had begun. She could kiss good-bye to even entering the church, let alone a legacy. It would be back to Brighton on the same train, with her wallet dented, and her pride considerably bruised.

Mr. Treswick didn’t say anything at first, he only shook his head, and Hal felt her stomach drop away. Oh God, it was over. It was all over.

But then, before she could think what to say, he took her hand, pressing it between two warm leather gloves.

“Well, well, well . . .” He was still shaking his head, in disbelief, Hal realized. “Well, I never. How very, very glad I am that you could make it. I wasn’t certain you would receive the letter in time—it was not an easy task tracking you down, I must say. Your mother—” He seemed suddenly to think better of the direction the conversation was taking, and stopped, covering his confusion by removing his glasses and wiping the rain from them. “Well,” he said as he resettled them on his nose, “never mind that now. Let’s just say, it was touch-and-go that we found you in time. But I am so glad you were able to attend.”

Your mother. In the sea of uncertainty, the words felt like something firm for Hal to hang on to—one fact she could begin to build upon. So it was as she’d thought—Mrs. Westaway’s dead daughter was her link to all this.

Hal had a sudden picture of herself wading through shifting, clutching mud—and finding something solid to rest on for a moment.

“Of course,” she said, and managed to smile, in spite of the way her teeth were clenched against the cold. “I’m g-glad too.”

“Oh, but you’re shivering,” Mr. Treswick said solicitously. “Let me show you inside the church. It’s an absolutely filthy day, and I’m afraid St. Piran’s has no heating at all, so it’s not much better inside. But at least you’ll be dry. Have you—”

He paused as they reached the lych-gate, opening it up and standing aside for Hal to pass through.

“Have I . . . ?” she prompted as they stood in the shelter of the gate’s arch for a moment. Mr. Treswick polished his glasses again—futilely, Hal realized, looking at the stretch of graveyard they still had to cover.

“Have you met your uncles?” he asked diffidently, and Hal felt a sudden flood of warmth around her heart, in spite of the chilly day. Uncles. Uncles. She had uncles.

You do not, she told herself sternly, trying to dampen down the sensation. They are not your relatives. But she could not think like that. If she was going to pull this off, she had not only to pretend, she had to believe.

But what should she say? How could she answer his question? She stood for a long moment, trying to think, before suddenly realizing that she was gaping at Mr. Treswick, and that the little man was looking at her, puzzled.

“No,” she said at last. That at least was a no-brainer. There was no point in pretending she knew people who were standing right over there, and who could give her story the lie the instant they saw Mr. Treswick. “No, I never have. To be honest . . .” She bit her lip, wondering if this was the right path to take, but surely it was better to tell the truth where she could? “To be honest,” she finished in a rush, “I didn’t know I had any uncles until you wrote. My mother never mentioned them.”

Mr. Treswick said nothing, only shook his head again, though whether in resigned understanding or baffled denial, Hal wasn’t sure.

“Shall we?” he asked, glancing up at the iron-gray sky above. “I don’t think the rain is going to lighten at all, so we might as well make a dash for it.”

Hal nodded, and together they scurried the short distance from the lych-gate to the church.

On the porch, Mr. Treswick wiped his glasses yet again and tightened the belt of his mackintosh as he ushered Hal ahead of him, but as he was about to follow, his head cocked like a spaniel’s at the sound of an engine, and he turned back.

“Ah, if you will excuse me, Harriet, I believe that is the funeral cortège. May I leave you to seat yourself?”

“Of course,” Hal said, and he disappeared into the rain, leaving her to enter the church alone.

The door was just ajar, as some protection from the driving wind and rain, but as she slipped inside, the first thing that struck her was not the cold, but the lack of people. There could not have been more than four or five people dotted about the pews. She had assumed that the group of mourners she had seen from the taxi were latecomers, joining those already in the church, but now she realized that she must have seen the arrival of almost everyone here.

There were three very elderly women in the second pew from the front, a man in his forties who looked like an accountant seated towards the back, and a woman in a district nurse’s uniform perched by the entrance, as if poised to make a quick getaway, should the service drag on.

Hal looked around, trying to assess where she should sit. Was there a rule with funerals? She tried to remember her mother’s service at Brighton Crematorium, but all she could recall was the little chapel overflowing with pier folk and neighbors, grateful clients, old friends, and people she didn’t even recognize but whose lives her mother had touched. At the back they had been standing, crushing against the wall to make room for more mourners, and she’d seen Sam from the fish-and-chip kiosk giving up his seat to let an elderly neighbor at Marine View Villas sit down. Someone had kept a place for Hal at the front, but for the rest, she was not sure how they had decided who sat where, or what hierarchy of mourning might apply.