The Death of Mrs. Westaway(21)
Whatever the rules were, though, surely anyone who had never met the deceased ranked pretty low.
In the end, she took a seat towards the back, but not so conspicuously as the accountant and the district nurse—three or four rows in from them, on the right-hand side. Her glasses were still streaked with drying raindrops, and she took them off to clean them, listening, as she did so, to the rustle of feet, and the drumming of the rain on the roof, and the occasional cough from the women at the front. She tried not to shiver.
Hal had only two coats—the battered leather jacket she wore every day, and a dark trench coat mackintosh that had been her mother’s and was too big for her. The leather jacket was black, at least, but it hadn’t seemed right for a funeral, so she had worn the trench coat. It had felt warm enough on the train, but at some point in its long storage, its waterproofing had worn off, and the fabric had soaked right through in the brief run from the taxi. Now she sat in the cold church and felt the rain leaching through to her skin. Her hands, when she looked down at them in her lap, were bluish, and she had to shove them into the pockets of the flimsy coat to stop her fingers shaking with cold. At the bottom of one of the pockets she felt something round and rough chafe against her numb skin, and when she pulled it out, she smiled. Gloves. Something warm, at least. It felt like a present from her mother.
She was just pulling them on when there was a blast of sound from an unseen organist, and the doors of the chapel were flung open, letting in a gust of wind that sent the thin paper orders of service scurrying down the aisle.
The priest—or vicar, Hal was not sure which—entered first, and behind him came four men in black suits, holding between them a narrow, dark-wood coffin.
The rear left-hand bearer Hal recognized straightaway as Mr. Treswick, his mackintosh shed to reveal a black suit and tie beneath. He was struggling a little with his position, for he was shorter than the other three men, and kept having to raise his corner higher than was comfortable to compensate.
At the front right was a balding man in his fifties who Hal thought must be Harding Westaway. She looked hard at his round, jowly face and pale, wispy hair, trying to imprint it on her memory. He had the air of a man who had eaten a good meal, but would always want more, nibbling at nuts and cheese and fruit, and then complaining of the subsequent indigestion. There was something both self-satisfied and yet self-doubting about him. It was a strange combination. As Hal watched, he brushed at his hair a little self-consciously, as though feeling her appraising eyes.
To his left was a bearded man with dark blond hair fading to gray at the temples, who looked close enough to the images she’d seen of Abel Westaway for Hal to guess that the final bearer, on the rear right, must be the third son, Ezra.
He was by far the youngest man in the group, and where his brothers were fair, Ezra was dark, and deeply tanned. He was also the only person in the whole church who was not wearing an expression of careful sorrow—in fact, as he drew level with Hal, he flashed her a curving Cheshire cat smile, and she felt a jolt of shock—it was so very inappropriate for the time and place.
In confusion, she turned away, pretending she hadn’t seen, and faced the front of the church, feeling her cheeks burn.
It wasn’t just the smile—though that was bad enough. It was that there had been something . . . something flirtatious in his grin, in the twinkling eye, close to a wink. He doesn’t know he’s your uncle, she told herself. He has no idea who you are.
That’s because he’s not your uncle, replied her conscience, snippily.
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.