The Death of Mrs. Westaway

Hal packs her bags and prepares to leave. All the while, her mind is filled with suspicion about Mrs. Warren’s true intentions. Hal joins the brothers in the hallway of the house, and they realize that Mrs. Warren has not been seen in hours. Ezra tries to enter her room, but it is locked. With the weather worsening, they decide that they must leave without saying goodbye to the housekeeper. Harding and Abel plan to drive back to London together, so Hal says her goodbyes to them as Ezra prepares to drive her to the station. During the car ride, Hal silently wonders what she will do when she arrives back in Brighton, remembering the unpaid debts and looming threats of violence against her. Additionally, she feels a longing for the sense of family that she very briefly experienced. At the station, Hal bids farewell to Ezra, who insists that he is “not coming back” (200). Inside the station, Hal realizes that all the trains have been canceled due to the weather. She runs out of the station, but Ezra has already left. She is suddenly alone in a strange town with no money, with the temperature falling by the hour. As she begins to worry, Ezra’s car circles back around and he offers her a lift.

They ride in silence along the roads as the snow falls heavier and heavier. Eventually, Ezra decides to stop for coffee at a service station. As they drink their coffees, Ezra hints that he would not blame Hal if she had always been aware of the truth about her relation to Hester and the will. They talk about Maggie and Hal asks for information about the photograph of her mother. She wants to know who took the picture, and whether this unknown person could be her father. Ezra reveals that there was another person present on that day but worries that Abel has lied to protect them. He says that the identity of the photographer is Abel’s partner, Edward. Ezra cautions Hal not to jump to conclusions, offering her support though she does not know how to react. She asks Ezra for advice, not knowing whether she should tell Edward and not understanding why her mother kept everything a secret. Ezra suggests that she “leave it alone” (207), as her mother may have had a good reason for leaving the past in the past. When Hal presses Ezra for answers, she mentions Maud. Ezra reacts angrily. Hal apologizes and Ezra admits how much he misses his sister. Hal feels guilty for forcing him to endure the pain of Maud’s disappearance all over again. They prepare to resume their journey. The snowfall continues to get worse as Ezra and Hal drive to Brighton. When they hit a blockade of traffic, Ezra takes a different route. Hal takes the opportunity to sleep, and her dreams are a confusing, nightmarish blend of Edward, Mrs. Warren, the boathouse, and the staircase. When she wakes up, Ezra has pulled to the side of the road again. He regretfully informs her that there is no chance that they will complete their journey, so they agree to head back to Trepassen House.

Ezra and Hal return to Trepassen House. The home seems abandoned, but Ezra finds a spare key under a stone. Inside the house, he calls for Mrs. Warren but hears no answer. Feeling tired, he decides to go to bed. Before they retire to their separate rooms, he hugs her. Hal reaches her attic bedroom, which is just as she left it. She lights a small fire in the fireplace and sits in the warmth, reflecting on what she learned about Edward. She has no warm feelings toward him and “no sense of connection” (212). Unable to sleep and still reflecting on her day, she turns to her tarot deck. She thinks about the superstitious, credulous, and optimistic woman who wrote the diary—in contrast to the skeptical, disillusioned, and practical woman whom she knew as her mother. She wonders how the young Maggie became the old Maggie, who seems like “a different person” (213). On the verge of sleep, Hal remembers the photograph album in the unused study. She leaves the attic room to find the album, hoping it contains information about her past. After sneaking through the house and retrieving the album, Hal opens it at the study desk. She flicks through the photographing, spotting one of Maud and Ezra as babies. The babies are named as Margarida Miriam and Ezra Daniel. Hal continues perusing the photographs of the children growing up until she realizes that the woman she’d known as her mother is actually Maud.

The revelation shocks Hal. The explanation begins to make sense to her, and she worries that she has made a terrible mistake. She understands that the woman who raised her is Maud, but that her biological mother is Maggie. She does not know how, but she realizes that Maud must have—at some unknown point and for some unknown reason—assumed Maggie’s identity and raised Hal as her own daughter. Hal wonders whether Maggie’s single return trip to Trepassen House was to ask for financial help in raising the baby, especially as she knows that Maud did not return with her. At some point, Maggie disappeared and Maud raised Maggie’s child. Both Maggie and Maud were named Margarida Westaway, so Maud assuming Maggie’s identity seems easy enough to Hal. Maud has taken over Maggie’s life, including her tarot booth on the pier, and raised Hal as her own daughter because she had “no other option” (218). Then, Hal realizes that the names Ezra Daniel were shortened to a nickname. Ezra, nicknamed Ed, was Maggie’s lover. He is also Hal’s father.

Hal knows that she will not be able to sleep but she fears that the only person who can provide answers is Mrs. Warren. She goes to Mrs. Warren’s rooms but cannot find the elderly housekeeper. Instead, she discovers that Mrs. Warren possesses dozens of photographs of Ezra. Hal searches Mrs. Warren’s bedroom but finds no one. As she searches in the darkness, Ezra appears behind her. As she stares up into her father’s eyes, a terrible realization begins to dawn over her.

Ezra and Hal stand opposite one another in Mrs. Warren’s rooms. He takes the photo album from her hands and flicks through the pages. Though he is trying to be nonchalant, Hal knows that he understands that she had figured out the mystery. Ezra stops smiling. Hal accuses him of hiding the truth from her. Thanks to the skills she has developed during her tarot readings, she reads his tiny physical reactions to her words. She demands to be told what he knows about Maud and Maggie. Then, she suddenly understands.

Hal accuses Ezra of killing her mother. Ezra admits that Maud had written to Hester, revealing that she planned to tell Hal the entire truth. She believed that Hal “had a right to know” (227). Ezra could not let Hal know the truth. He admits that he killed both Maud and Maggie, many years apart. He remembers the day when Maggie returned to Trepassen to see Ezra, demanding that he help support his child financially. Hal uses her fortune telling experience to compel Ezra to continue talking. She acts as though he is a client in her tarot booth. Ezra admits that he strangled Maggie to death in the boathouse and Hal understands that her body is still hidden beneath the lake. With tears in his eyes, Ezra apologizes. Then he stands and reaches for Hal.

Hal pleads with Ezra to leave her alone. She screams for help and Ezra lunges for her. They wrestle together with Ezra’s hands around her throat. As Hal is about to black out, Ezra whispers another desperate apology to her. Deep within the recesses of her mind, Hal hears someone tell her to “hold on” (230). Her hand reaches for and finds a picture frame, then she smashes it against Ezra’s head. Hal fights off Ezra just long enough to run from the room. She jumps through the door and falls down the steps into the cellar beneath the house, though her fall is broken when she lands on Mrs. Warren’s body. The old woman is already dead. Hal stumbles through the dark cellar as she hears Ezra chase after her. He ignites his cigarette lighter long enough to spot Hal, but in doing so she can glimpse the general layout of the cellar. He drops the lighter and chases after her, while she plunges desperately into the darkness. She reaches a door, bursts through, and finds herself outside in the moonlit snow. Without realizing where she is headed, Hal runs until she reaches the boathouse. He chases her down until she is cornered at the edge of the lake. She begins to back out onto the ice. Ezra tells her that “it’s not safe” (233) but she feels safer on the frozen water than anywhere near him. She thinks about Maggie’s body, still somewhere beneath the lake. The ice creaks and groans beneath her weight. She walks backward until she reaches the island in the middle of the lake. Her arrival sends a flurry of magpies into the air. Ezra cries out in rage and follows Hal out onto the ice. He takes one step and the ice gives way, plunging him into the freezing waters. Hal tries to call out but her throat is too sore. Ezra is “gone” (233).

Hal wakes up in a hospital room. A nurse tells her that she has visitors. Hal dreads another visit from the police, having already told them everything she knows about what occurred at Trepassen House. She is surprised to see Abel and Mitzi walk through the door carrying flowers and cake. They offer their sympathies and apologies, but Hal does not understand why she needs to forgive them. Abel admits that he must have known that “something was wrong” (234) with Ezra but he did nothing for decades. He confirms that only Hester and Mrs. Warren ever knew the whole truth about Ezra’s dark past. Though Hal understands (in a dark way) why Ezra felt the need to kill Maud and Maggie and to try to kill her, she does not understand why he killed Mrs. Warren. She thinks about all the questions that only Mrs. Warren could answer, and she feels sad that she will never know the whole truth about her past and her parents. When Mitzi mentions that Ezra was Hal’s father, Hal wants to say that “whatever her father was—had been—she’d had not one but two remarkable mothers” (235). Instead, she stays silent. Mitzi reveals that Hester was aware of the situation when the will was drafted, meaning that Treswick believes that the inheritance legally belongs to Hal. Abel wonders whether his mother’s plan had always been to cause so much chaos that the truth would eventually surface. Hal confesses that she had originally intended to scam the family using what she believed to be Treswick’s mistake. She also theorizes that Ezra refused her offer of giving up the inheritance because he worried that Harding would sell the property and, in doing so, uncover Maggie’s body in the lake. The nurse arrives and announces that visiting hours are over. Before he leaves, Abel gives Hal a photocopy of a letter found in Mrs. Warren’s room. The nurse also says that Hal can be discharged the next day; Mitzi offers her a place to stay while she recuperates. When alone, Hal reads the letter, written by Maud to Hester and dated from near the time of Hal’s 18th birthday. In the letter, Maud tells Hester that she has decided to tell Hal the truth. Maud explains that she is frightened of Ezra and she blames her mother for being silent for so long. She would have gone to the police, but she feared that she would lose Hal to her father, Ezra. Though Maud admits that there is plenty for which she cannot forgive her mother, she is thankful that Hester has kept silent about her relationship to Hal for so long. Hal finishes the letter and feels overcome with emotion. She still has many questions but she decides that she can only look to the future. Struck by an idea, she reaches for her tarot cards. The cards suggest that she has “come to the end of a journey” (241) and she thinks about the mother who raised her from a child. She lies down in the bed and closes her eyes, thinking about the magpie rhyme Treswick told her on her first day at Trepassen House. Finally, she believes, she knows something close to the truth.