The Death of Mrs. Westaway(45)

“Admiring your domain?”

The voice, coming from behind her up the slope, made Hal jump, and she jerked her head around to see Abel walking down across the lawn, his hands in his pockets.

“No!”

The word slipped out defensively, before Hal had properly considered her reply, and she felt her cheeks flush with something that was not just cold; but Abel only laughed. He pulled at his mustache.

“I’m not Harding, you don’t need to worry about me on that score—there’s no ill feeling on my part, I assure you. I had no expectations anyway.”

Hal wrapped her arms around herself, unsure of what to say. It struck her that for someone who kept stressing how very unconcerned he was about being cut off, Abel talked about it a lot. She remembered Mitzi’s words in the library: Oh, Abel, stop being such a saint! Was anyone really that selfless? Could someone survive being disinherited by their only parent and honestly feel no bitterness at all?

Abel seemed to feel her equivocation, or at least her discomfort about the topic, for he changed the subject.

“But tell me, what happened at breakfast?”

“At breakfast?” Hal faltered. She remembered Harding and Ezra’s near fight, and felt herself hedging, unwilling to get caught in the complicated web of resentments and loyalties she sensed between the brothers. “I—I’m not sure what you mean. Harding and Ezra had . . . well . . . a bit of a . . . disagreement.”

“Oh, you needn’t worry about them,” Abel said with a laugh. He fell into step beside her. “They’ve been sparring since Ezra could first talk. By the way, if we head to the left here, I can show you the maze.”

“There’s a maze?”

“Not a very good one. It’s over there.” He pointed away from the copse of trees, towards the far side of the lawn. “But that wasn’t what I meant, actually—I was talking about the plumes of smoke floating up the stairs.”

“Oh, that!” Hal said. She echoed his laugh, relieved to be on less touchy ground. “The toaster caught fire.”

“Oh, was that it. I thought perhaps Mrs. Warren had tried to burn the house down rather than let it pass to the unworthy.”

Hal felt her cheeks flush in sudden shock at the word, and Abel’s face changed.

“Oh God, Harriet, I’m sorry—that was incredibly crass of me. I didn’t mean you—I just meant—well, look, Mrs. Warren’s always had a touch of the Mrs. Danvers about her. I don’t think she would have been happy with any of us inheriting—except maybe Ezra.”

“It’s okay,” Hal said stiffly. She could hardly admit how close to the bone Abel’s remark had struck. “Why does she like Ezra so much?” she managed after a moment’s awkward silence.

Abel blew into his hands, sending a cloud of white breath gusting ahead of them, as if thinking about her question.

“Who knows,” he said at last. “There’s no reason—on paper, at least. He’s always been charming, but heaven knows, Mrs. Warren is pretty resistant to stuff like that. He was always Mother’s favorite too. Youngest child syndrome, maybe. Youngest boy, at least. Your mother was actually the youngest, of course—by a few hours, anyway.”

“They were twins?” Hal said unguardedly, and then wanted to bite her tongue off. She had got to stop saying the first thing that came into her head. She had never thought of herself as a particularly garrulous person—quite the reverse, in fact; people who knew her often remarked on how self-contained she was, how little she volunteered. But she had not understood before coming here how impossible any conversation at all would be, how every chance remark could be a trap. It wasn’t just a case of not giving away too much of herself, and concealing the gaps in her knowledge—every step she took was on false ground that could give way at any moment. She could not afford to forget that.

Fortunately, though, Abel didn’t seem to have noticed the oddness of her question. He only nodded.

“Fraternal, of course. They were . . . they were very close. I was four years older, and Harding older still—he’s eight years older than me, so he was away at school by the time they could walk. But Maud and Ezra . . . that’s why, I think, he never really got over her disappearance. He was always a tempestuous personality, but after she ran away . . . I don’t know, Harriet. Something changed. It was like all that fire turned inwards, onto himself. He spent years looking for her, you know.”

“I’m so sorry,” Hal said. Her throat was stiff and sore with falsehood.

Abel put a gentle hand on her shoulder. She felt as if his touch should have burned her, but it did not.

“She—she was a remarkable woman,” he said softly. “I don’t know how much she told you about her childhood, but it can’t have been easy being here with Mother after Harding and I had broken away. Ezra was at boarding school for most of the time, and even when he was at home, he somehow always managed to escape the worst of it, but . . . well, my mother wasn’t an easy person to cope with at the best of times, and she got stranger and more irascible as she got older. I think in the end Mrs. Warren was really the only person who could stand to be in her company—and I’m not sure she really got away unscathed. But listen.” He stopped, cleared his throat, and drew a breath, then smiled determinedly. “The reason I came to find you—I found something in my room, and I thought you . . . well. I thought you might like it.”