The Death of Mrs. Westaway(33)

At those words, Hal felt her pulse quicken and her cheeks flush.

Ten thousand pounds? Ten thousand pounds? Why, she could pay off Mr. Smith, pay the rent, the gas bill . . . she could even afford to take a holiday. A flickering warmth was spreading through her, as though she had drunk something particularly hot and nourishing. She tried not to smile. Tried to remember that there were a lot of hoops still to negotiate. But the words kept repeating themselves inside her head. Ten thousand pounds. Ten thousand pounds.

It was all she could do to stay still on the spot, when every particle of her wanted to dance with excitement. Could it be true?

But Mr. Treswick was still speaking.

“. . . excepting, that is, her granddaughter Harriet.”

Oh.

The sensation was like a balloon, pricked of air, collapsing in on itself into a sad little pile of colored rubber faster than it took to describe.

In that one sentence, it was over. She imagined the ten thousand pounds blowing away into the sea breeze, the notes fluttering over the cliff edge into the Atlantic.

There was a wrench in letting the dream go, but as she watched the notes disappear in her mind’s eye, she realized: it had been an absurd fantasy to think that she could get away with this. Farcical, really. Forged birth certificates, fake dates of birth. What had she been thinking?

Well, it was over, but at least she hadn’t been found out. She was no worse off than she had been before. As for what she would do about Mr. Smith and his messengers . . . well, she couldn’t think about that now. She just had to get through this, and get away.

It felt cruel, though, to have the promise dangled before her for that one moment, only to be snatched away.

As the adrenaline of exhilaration ebbed, a sense of great exhaustion was creeping through her, and Hal put out a hand to steady herself on a chair as Mr. Treswick cleared his throat, preparatory to continuing.

“To Harriet,” he said, a little awkwardly, and he shuffled the papers again, as if reluctant to say what was coming, “to, um, Harriet, Mrs. Westaway has left the entire residue of her estate, after payment of death duties.”

There was a long silence.

It was Harding who exploded first, his voice breaking into the hush.

“What?”

“I did realize that this was liable to be something of a shock,” Mr. Treswick said diffidently. “That was why I felt it only right to inform you pers—”

“To hell with that!” Harding shouted. “Are you insane?”

“Please don’t raise your voice, Mr. Westaway. It’s unfortunate that your mother didn’t see fit to discuss this with you while she was still—”

“I want to see the wording,” Harding said through gritted teeth.

“Wording?”

“The will. The wording of the bequest. We’ll challenge it. Mother must have been crazy—when was this monstrosity dated?”

“She made her will two years ago, Mr. Westaway, and I’m afraid that while I appreciate your concern, there is no question of Mrs. Westaway’s capacity. She asked her doctor to visit her on the day she made the will, with a view, I believe, towards avoiding any such successful challenge.”

“Undue influence, then!”

“I don’t believe Mrs. Westaway had ever met her granddaughter, so it’s hard to see how that would stand up in co—”

“Give me the damn will!” Harding shouted, and he snatched at the pieces of paper Mr. Treswick held out.

Hal was holding on tight to the back of the chair, her fingers numb and white with pressure, feeling the eyes of Mitzi, Abel, and Ezra on her as Harding scanned down the long document, and began to read aloud.

“I, Hester Mary Westaway, being of . . . God, there’s pages of this stuff. . . . Ah, here we are: And to my granddaughter, Harriet Westaway, last known to be resident at Marine View Villas, Brighton, I give the residue of my estate—Jesus fucking Christ, it’s true. Mother must have been mad.”

He groped his way to a sofa and sat, heavily, scanning up and down the document as if looking for some kind of explanation, something that would make this madness go away. When he looked up, his face was purple and suffused with blood.

“Who even is this girl? We don’t know her from Adam!”

“Harding,” Abel said warningly, and he put out a hand to his brother’s shoulder. “Calm down. This isn’t the time for—”

“And as for you, Treswick, you bloody charlatan. What business had you letting Mother execute a document like this? I should sue you for malpractice!”

“Harding,” Mitzi broke in more urgently. “Abel, Mr. Treswick—look at the girl.”

“I think she’s going to faint,” said a voice, tinged with a sort of detached interest, from Hal’s right, and she felt all the heads in the room turn towards her, even as the room itself began to disintegrate into fragments.

Hal didn’t feel the chair slip from her loosening grip, and Mitzi’s cry of alarm came as if from a great way off.

She didn’t even feel the thump as she hit the floor.

The nothing washed over her, like a great, thankful wave.

CHAPTER 14


* * *

“Harriet.”

The voice in Hal’s ears was persistent, dredging her up from far below, where she seemed to have been drifting a great while.