The Death of Mrs. Westaway(82)
But the only other possibility was even more disturbing—that Margarida Westaway was dead.
CHAPTER 37
* * *
Hal was soaked and shivering by the time she got to the big wrought-iron gates. She was profoundly grateful that Abel had made her take his walking jacket, but the hood was too big to stay up. However tight she pulled the drawstring, the wind blew it back and sent the rain running down the back of her neck to soak her T-shirt.
For a mile or so she tried holding it in place with one hand, but even with her fingers scrunched as far as she could get into the cuffs of the coat, it left her hands cold and blue, and in the end she abandoned the hood, and shoved her hands deep into the pockets of the coat.
When Hal pushed open the gate, the hinges shrieked, a low, mournful sound that cut through the patter of the rain, and made her shiver in a way that wasn’t just cold. There was something about the long, low note that made the skin on the back of Hal’s neck crawl. It was as though the house itself were dying in pain.
By the time she got up to the house, there was a little sleet mixed in with the rain, the tiny shards of ice stinging her cheek and making her eyes water, and in spite of her trepidation, she was glad to reach the shelter of the porch, where the wind dropped and she could shake off the worst of the water. Inside, she took off Abel’s coat, watching as the water pooled on the tiles, and feeling the sensation painfully returning to her chapped fingers, stinging as the blood began to return. From the drawing room she could hear male voices, and taking a deep breath, she put the coat on the peg and made her way across the hallway to the half-open door.
“Hal?” Abel looked around as Hal entered diffidently. “Bloody hell, you look like a drowned rat. Why didn’t you call me?”
“I was enjoying the walk,” Hal said. She moved closer to the fire, trying to mask the chattering of her teeth. It was not quite a lie. She had not enjoyed the walk, not exactly, but she had not wanted a lift. She’d needed the time to clear her head, work out what she was going to say.
Across the room Ezra was sprawled on the sofa, replying to something on his phone, but he looked up as Hal passed him, and gave a snorting laugh.
“I’ve never seen anyone look quite so impressively bedraggled. I’m afraid you’ve missed lunch, but we could probably brave Mrs. Warren’s lair for a cup of tea if you need something to warm you up. Or the water in the immersion tank should be hot, if you want a bath?”
“I’ll do that,” Hal said, grateful for the excuse. Part of her wanted to get this over and done with, but another, more cowardly part was clutching at any straw to postpone the cataclysm that was sure to follow. “Wh-where’s Harding?”
“In his room, I think. Having a nap, is my guess. Why?”
“Oh . . . just wondered.”
? ? ?
THE BATHROOM WAS UPSTAIRS—JUST one for the entire house, with a huge claw-footed tub streaked green with copper rust, and a lavatory in one corner with a chain that clanked and screeched when Hal pulled it, reminding her of the metallic groan of the gates.
But the water, when she turned the brass taps, was hot, and the pressure was good, and when she at last lowered herself into the scalding heat, she felt something inside her release, a tension that she hadn’t known she was holding on to.
Uncle Harding—I’m not who you think I am.
No. Absurdly dramatic. But how could she say it? How could she bring it up?
When I went back home, I discovered something. . . .
And then the story of the diary, as though she had just come to this dawning realization.
The trouble with that was that it was a lie.
So what, then?
Harding, Ezra, Abel—I set out to defraud you.
Maybe the words would come, when she was faced with them all. Closing her eyes, she submerged herself beneath the water, so that her ears filled with the sound of her own pulse and the drip, drip of the tap, driving out all the other voices.
? ? ?
“HARRIET?”
Hal jumped and turned, clutching the towel to herself, as Harding’s head came out of the doorway of one of the rooms. At the sight of her, damp and pink from her bath, bare shoulders rising from a swath of towel, he looked almost as horrified as Hal felt.
“Oh! My dear, I’m so sorry.”
“I had a bath,” Hal said, unnecessarily. She felt the corner of the towel slip, and hitched it up, holding her damp clothes in front of herself like a shield. “I was just going up to get dressed.”
“Of course, of course,” Harding said, waving a hand to indicate that she should feel free to go, though when Hal turned he spoke again, forcing her to turn back, shivering as she did, in the sudden draft. “Oh, Harriet, I’m so sorry—there was one thing I wanted to say, before we met with the others. I won’t keep you, but I wanted—well, your offer to perform a deed of variation was very generous, but I’m sorry to say that Abel, Ezra, and I discussed it, and Ezra is being rather difficult about it. He’s an executor, you know, and as such he has to agree to any such deed, and he feels, rather strongly, that Mother’s wishes should be honored, however perverse and disruptive. I must say it seems an extraordinary position to me, given he never showed the least interest in her wishes when she was alive, but—well—there it is. We’ll discuss it with Mr. Treswick tomorrow, anyway.”
Hal shivered again, unable to prevent it, and Harding seemed belatedly to realize the cold.