The Death of Mrs. Westaway(84)

“I found out something when I was back in Brighton. I hadn’t been sure before, but I went through my mother’s papers and I found out—”

She swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry, wishing she had not drained the whiskey so fast, but had saved a sip for now. Harding was frowning; Abel was suddenly tense, leaning forwards in his chair, his expression full of a kind of apprehension. Only Ezra looked unconcerned. He had folded his arms and was regarding her with interest, like someone watching an experiment play out.

“Well?” Harding said, with a little impatience in his voice. “What did you find? Spit it out, Harriet.”

“Margarida Westaway—your sister—she was not my mother,” Hal said.

She felt a great weight roll off her, but there was no relief in its passing, only an aching pain, and a kind of dread as she waited for the crash as it dropped.

There was a long silence.

“I—what?” Harding said at last. He was staring at Hal, his plump, ruddy face scarlet with the heat of the fire, or with shock at Hal’s speech, she was not sure which. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’m not your niece,” Hal said. She swallowed again. There were tears coming up from somewhere deep inside, and it would have been so easy to let them out—play for their sympathy—but the knowledge made her force them back down. She would not play the victim here. She was done with dissembling.

“I should have realized before—there were . . . things . . . they didn’t add up. But it was only when I went home, I looked in my mother’s papers to try to get to the bottom of it, and I found . . . I found diaries . . . letters . . . making it clear there had been a terrible mix-up. My mother wasn’t your sister. She was Maggie.”

“Oh my God.” It was Abel who spoke, his voice flat and blank with shock. He put his head in his hands, as if to try to contain thoughts that threatened to burst out. “Oh my God. Hal—but this is—this is—” He stopped, shaking his head like someone punch-drunk, trying to shrug off blows. “Why didn’t we see?”

“But—but wait, this means the will is invalid,” Harding burst out.

“For God’s sake!” Ezra said. He gave a derisive laugh. “Money! Is that all you can think of? The will is hardly the most important thing.”

“It’s what brought Harriet here in the first place, so I would say it’s quite important, yes!” Harding shot back. “And the money isn’t the point at all. I deeply resent what you’re implying there, Ezra. It’s about—it’s about—oh dear God, just when we were beginning to get the whole benighted situation sorted out—what in hell’s name was Mother thinking?”

“A good question,” Abel said in a low voice. He was slumped in his seat, his head still in his hands.

“But—but your name was in the will,” Harding said slowly. He had the air of someone whose first shock was beginning to wear off, who was retracing his footsteps . . . trying to piece things together. “Or—wait, are you telling us—are you not Harriet Westaway at all? Who are you really?”

“No!” Hal said quickly. “No, no, I am Harriet. I promise you. And my mother really is Margarida Westaway. But I think your mother must have asked Mr. Treswick to trace her daughter.” Hal’s face felt stiff, and her fingers cold, in spite of the fire. “And somehow the threads became crossed, and he found my mother instead, without realizing the mix-up. I think he must have reported back to your mother that he had found your sister and that she had died, but that she’d had a daughter. And so she put my name in the will—not realizing that I wasn’t her granddaughter at all.”

“How did you not realize?” Abel said, but there was no anger in his voice, only bewilderment. He looked up at Hal, his eyes full of a puzzled pain that she didn’t fully understand. “Surely there were things that didn’t add up—things that made you think—”

He stopped. Hal felt herself grow still and careful. This was it. This was the dangerous part. Because he was right.

She forced herself to stop pacing, and to sit, and her mother’s voice was in her head. When you’re tempted to answer in a hurry—slow down. Make them wait for you. Give yourself time to think. It’s when we hurry that we’re most prone to stumble.

“Well . . .” she said slowly. The sofa springs squeaked as she shifted her weight uncomfortably, and the wind howled in the chimney. “Well . . . there were things. Not at first—but later . . . but you have to understand . . . my name, it was there in the will. And Mum never spoke much about her childhood. She never mentioned any brothers, or a house in Cornwall, but then there was so much she never talked about. She didn’t talk about her parents either, or my father. I just took it for granted that this was another part of her I didn’t know. And I wanted so much . . .” Her voice faltered, no artifice here as she fought hard against the tremor in her voice, for this was the truth. “I wanted so much for it to be true. I wanted this—all of this—” She waved her hand at the room, at the fire and the house and the men sitting around her, looking at her with varying degrees of puzzled exasperation and bewilderment. “Family. Security. A home. I wanted it all so much, Mr. Treswick’s letter felt like—it felt like an answer to a prayer. I think—I think I shut my eyes to my doubts.”