The Death of Mrs. Westaway(34)

“Harriet. Come on now, it’s time to wake up.”

And then, as if to someone else, “Her temperature’s still high. Her forehead feels like a radiator.”

Hal blinked, screwing up her eyes against a brightness that hurt.

“What—how . . .” Her throat was sore and dry.

“Oh, thank goodness. We were getting worried!” It was a woman’s voice, and Hal blinked again and reached for her glasses. She slipped them over her ears, and the room slid into focus. First Mitzi’s face, and then behind her the figure of a man—Abel, she thought. Everything came back—St. Piran. The funeral. The house. And—oh God—that scene with Harding . . .

“Here,” Mitzi said. There was a rustle, and a glass of water loomed under Hal’s nose. “Have some of this. You’ve been asleep for ages. You must be very dehydrated.”

“I—what time is it?”

“Getting on for nine. We were getting quite worried. Abel and I were just discussing whether we should take you to A and E.”

“Wh-what happened?”

Looking down, Hal saw she was lying on a couch of some kind, her dress rucked up to her thighs, although, thank God, there was a blanket over her legs. The room was one she didn’t recognize—some kind of library, by the looks of it, with honey-colored shelves rising to a high, damp-speckled ceiling, and ranks of peeling leather-bound books, swathed in cobwebs.

“You just keeled over, and when we went to try to help you, you were burning up. It’s a good job you’re a skinny little thing.”

“How are you feeling, Harriet?” It was Abel, speaking for the first time, his light tenor soft and anxious. He came and knelt beside the couch, and touched her gently on the forehead. Hal had to fight not to pull away from the intrusion of his touch, but his knuckles were cool. “Do you want us to call a doctor?”

“A doctor?” Hal struggled up against the sofa cushions, setting dust motes spinning in the golden light of the reading lamp. She imagined Abel picking her up from the floor, her skirt around her hips, and felt her cheeks flare with heat. “God, no. I mean, thank you—but I don’t think . . .”

“I’m not sure our chances of getting an out-of-hours GP are very good,” Abel said. He stroked his mustache thoughtfully. “But if you’re feeling nauseated, perhaps we should try A and E.”

“I don’t need a doctor,” Hal said, trying to sound firm.

“She’s still very hot,” Mitzi said, talking over Hal as if she hadn’t spoken. “Do you think your mother has a thermometer anywhere?”

“Goodness knows,” Abel said. He rose, dusting off his knees. “There’s probably some lethal Victorian apparatus involving mercury in the medicine cabinet. I’ll go and have a look.”

“Oh, would you? You’re a darling. Rich’s iPhone has some app that claims it can take a temperature, but I can’t see how it can possibly be accurate.”

“I’m fine!” Hal said. She swung her legs to the floor, and was met with a chorus of clucking disapproval from Abel and Mitzi.

“Darling—” Abel put a hand on her shoulder, pressing her back into the couch. “You just went white as a sheet and keeled over. The one thing you are definitely not is fine. Now, if I leave you alone with Mitzi to go and find a thermometer, do you promise not to go running off?”

“I promise,” Hal said, only half reluctantly. She put her legs back on the couch, and lay back, shading her eyes from the glare of the lamp.

Mitzi saw the gesture, and bent over.

“Is the light hurting your eyes?”

“A little bit,” Hal admitted. “You don’t have any painkillers, do you? My head’s really hurting.”

“I’m not surprised,” Mitzi said, a touch of tartness in her voice, as she angled the lamp to the side, pointing it away from Hal’s face. “You came down with quite a whack on the parquet. There’s an impressive egg on the side of your head. It’s a shame you didn’t go down the other way—you would have hit the rug, although it’s so threadbare I’m not sure it would have done any good. Yes, I have some paracetamol in my handbag, but it’s in the other room. Will you be okay while I go and fetch it?”

Hal nodded, and Mitzi stood up.

“Don’t do anything silly, now. I don’t want you passing out again.”

“I won’t,” Hal said faintly. She didn’t mention that the idea of ten minutes alone while Mitzi hunted for her handbag was even more alluring than the painkillers.

As the door shut behind Mitzi, Hal let her head fall back onto the couch and tried to think—to piece together what had happened in the strange, frantic interlude between Mr. Treswick’s announcement and her passing out.

Because it didn’t make sense. None of this made sense. She was named, in this woman’s will. Personally named, along with her address. The will was referring to her—there could be no doubt at all. Could it . . . could it possibly be true? Was she Mrs. Westaway’s long-lost granddaughter?

A flicker of hope began to burn, almost painful with the intensity of longing.

Be skeptical, Hal, her mother’s voice whispered in her ear, and be doubly skeptical when it’s something you want to believe.

And that was the problem. She was telling herself this, not because it was possible, but because she wanted it to be so. It could not be true, however much she might want to persuade herself of that fact. Her mother’s birth certificate contradicted it absolutely. However Hal twisted the possibilities in her mind, there was no way she could make the connection work. Her mother might possibly be related to this family in some distant way—Westaway wasn’t that common a name. But unless Hal ignored the evidence not just of her own birth certificate, but of her mother’s too, there was no way she could be Hester Westaway’s granddaughter.