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52 pages 1 hour read

Ruth Ware

The Death of Mrs. Westaway

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018

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Important Quotes

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“But she couldn’t afford to get ill.”


(Chapter 1, Page 13)

The opening chapters establish Hal’s desperate poverty. She cannot afford to be sick and risk missing any work; her own health is a ticking time bomb, waiting to thrust her into even deeper trouble. By establishing this dilemma early, the novel provides a sympathetic context for Hal’s later moral compromises.

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“The truth was, her father was no one special.”


(Chapter 3, Page 20)

Hal spends most of the novel disregarding any chance that she could ever know her father’s identity, despite its importance. Her mother told her enough information to leave a psychological imprint on Hal: Hal believes that he is “no one special” (20), a trait which she then applies to herself. Her low self-esteem is partly due to an abject self-narrative: an unimportant father abandoned her at a young age.

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“How could it be right that some people had so much, while others had so little?”


(Chapter 8, Page 47)

Hal’s decision to travel to Penzance and involve herself in the will takes on an ideological dimension. For a fleeting moment, Hal expresses envy for those who have far more money than she has ever had. She cannot understand how she has so little, while they have so much, even while she has tried to live a good life. Hal’s egalitarian thoughts are justified to an extent, but they also exemplify her need to give validating purpose to her actions. She is no longer just chasing after money, but achieving balance for an unfair universe.

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“Think of the client, her mother’s voice in her head.”


(Chapter 11, Page 61)

Hal frequently hears her mother’s voice in her head, guiding her through the world. The lessons Maud taught her from a young age have left a palpable impression, to the extent that Maud always feels present in Hal’s thoughts. The narrative of divination thus finds a deeper symbolic resonance, as the presence of Hal’s dead mother is akin to a séance. Though Hal insists that she does not perform such rituals of ostensibly talking to the dead, she unwittingly resembles a medium, hearing her dead mother’s voice and allowing it to guide her actions.

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“It feels like an escape from the rest of the house.”


(Chapter 12, Page 71)

Though Hal will eventually learn about the room’s dark history, the attic offers momentary peace during a tumultuous day. The contrast between the room’s reality and Hal’s moment of escapism underscores the overwhelming nature of her current predicament: To a young woman caught up in an impossible situation, an otherwise grim space can offer respite if it allows her momentary relief.

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“The nothing washed over her, like a great, thankful wave.”


(Chapter 13, Page 79)

Hal‘s longstanding poverty renders the prospect of an inheritance overwhelming. Her body and mind unable to cope, she simply faints. Added to the sudden wealth, however, is the complicated moral dimension, as Hal is worried that her fraud will surface. Her original aim was to secure a few thousand pounds to pay her debts, but now she has inherited far more, compounding her initial guilt. Unconsciousness is a welcome oblivion, as she would rather succumb to the “great, thankful wave” (79) than think about her immediate problems.

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“Harding spent all his life trying to prove himself to Mother, and now he gets this, from beyond the grave.”


(Chapter 14, Page 81)

As Hal becomes more acquainted with the Westaway family, she picks up on the hints of Hester’s true character and discovers that Hester was not the sweet old woman whom she first appeared to be. She haunts the family “from beyond the grave” (81), the effects of her vicious behavior long surviving her death. Harding’s personal and professional success mean nothing to his abusive mother, who even makes her own death a battle he must endure.

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“It was as if she had wanted to take offense.”


(Chapter 17, Page 94)

Mrs. Warren is an echo of Hester’s hostility. She weaponizes politeness, making Hal feel bad for offering to help with household chores. Mrs. Warren is not really offended, but she knows that she can adopt a pretense of offense to drive Hal away. While Harding, Abel, and Ezra are immune to Mrs. Warren’s barbed remarks, Hal is insecure enough to feel stung.

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“She had begun to commit an active, traceable fraud.”


(Chapter 18, Page 107)

By this point in the narrative, Hal feels as though she has reached a point of no return. She can no longer claim in good faith that she was merely confused or mistaken. Instead, she is fully aware that she is attempting to defraud people who have welcomed her into their unconventional family. With each action, Hal commits herself to the crime. She does not believe in fate or determinism, but she feels herself swept along by surrounding material forces and will only regain her peace of mind when she regains her agency over her future.

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“It’s the only way I ever find out anything around here.”


(Chapter 20, Page 114)

For Kitty, eavesdropping is a regular part of life. She catches Hal listening to her parents’ conversation but she is not bothered enough to report Hal’s actions to anyone. Every one of the Westaways—both children and adults—are familiar with secrecy and deceit, and Kitty’s non-reaction indicates the rot at the core of the family.

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“It was never a home—not even when I lived there.”


(Chapter 21, Page 119)

Trepassen House is a decaying repository for family suffering. The building itself is cold and inhospitable, but this is not a recent development. The people who grew up in the house—which never felt like a home to them—spent their entire lives trying to escape it. Hal inherits not just a physical building, but the estate’s accompanying litany of miseries.

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“What about your father?”


(Chapter 22, Page 125)

Throughout the story, people comment on, ask about, or refer to Hal’s father. The unanswerable question lingers around Trepassen House and makes itself increasingly apparent. Abel, Harding, and Ezra all reference Hal’s father at certain moments, though there is an added irony to Ezra asking. His prodding question takes on added weight after Hal learns of her father’s identity. He is not actually interested in Hal’s father; instead, he is interested in Hal.

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“It was hard to match the uncertain, romantic girl writing this diary with the strong, practical woman she had become.”


(Chapter 30, Page 158)

Hal has suffered so much throughout her life that she dismisses an apparently radical personality change between her mother’s old diary and the woman who raised her. In actuality, the two women—Maggie and Maud—are different, but Hal’s willingness to reconcile the psychological disparity suggests the fundamental instability she has endured in her own life. After her mother’s death, Hal became more cynical and pessimistic and assumes the difference between the diary’s author and Hal’s own lived experience of her mother is a trauma-induced change in her mother’s personality.

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“As Hal closed down the message she had the strangest feeling—a mixture of warmth and suffocation.”


(Chapter 32, Page 162)

Hal has spent most of her life with a family either minimal or nonexistent—and, after her mother’s death, she felt entirely alone. However, the will’s mysterious instructions manufacture new connections for Hal, and in absurd circumstances she finally gets a hint of what it means to have a supportive familial community. At the same time, this warmth is suffocating: For all the joy it brings to have people who care about her, Hal knows that this care is built on a foundation of lies. Hal appreciates her newfound family but worries that she will immediately lose everything. The more supportive they are, the more she is worried that she has already betrayed them.

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“I’m not your father.”


(Chapter 34, Page 168)

Like Ezra, Abel makes loaded comments about the identity of Hal’s father. Abel is unlikely to be Hal’s father due to his sexuality, and he bluntly denies any paternity. However, in a family where lies and secrets are so commonplace, Hal can never be certain. Lying by omission, Abel tells the truth but also refuses to divulge the identity of Hal’s father.

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“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.”


(Chapter 37, Page 183)

Hal attempts confession, but only tells half the truth. She has told the family that she is not Maud’s daughter but has not admitted her intentions to scam them. She is left with a dull, aching pain that came with bearing the weight of the lies for so long, but the pain is only partially lifted by her half-confession. Ironically, however, her actions illustrate just how much she is like the Westaways—to whom deception is normative—rather than separating her.

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“Mrs. Westaway had started something with this legacy, and Hal was blindly following the sequence of events she had set off.”


(Chapter 38, Page 188)

Hal is caught in a constant battle between free will and fate. She tells herself that she believes in neither fate nor the future predicted by her tarot cards, yet she feels pulled by an irresistible current of events set in motion by Hester’s will. Hal needs to reassert her agency and regain her free will, but to do so she must escape from the events that Hester set in motion rather than "blindly following" (188).

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“What about me?”


(Chapter 48, Page 198)

Hal has submitted to others throughout the book: She pretends to be a part of the Westaway family, she takes on the burden of her late mother’s business, and she is financially enslaved to an extortionate debt. Over the course of the narrative, however, she asserts herself. She reveals her lies to the family and then asks this important question centering her role in the story. By switching the focus to herself, Hal stops living on others’ terms.

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“She had been so blindly focused on her own need for answers that she had forgotten—this was his past too.”


(Chapter 43, Page 207)

Hal begins the novel in mourning, poverty, and fear so overwhelming that she barely has time for empathy. In her attempted fraud, she told lies which had genuine emotional ramifications for others. So focused on her own pain, Hal has been unable to recognize the suffering of people like Abel and Ezra. As she begins to overcome her own suffering, however, she recognizes the pain she has caused and feels sincere remorse.

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“The person she had loved beyond her own life, beyond reason, beyond bearing, when she had lost her.”


(Chapter 45, Page 219)

Motherhood transcends biological realities. While Maggie is technically Hal’s mother, Maud provided the emotional support and guidance that Hal associates with a parent. Hal’s definition of motherhood by lived experience gives her life and her loss an added dimension of meaning.

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“She wanted to turn back—but it was impossible now.”


(Chapter 46, Page 222)

Hal is still caught in a battle for her free will. She wrestles with her judgment and the circumstances seeming to dictate the course of her life. With the dangers in her life mounting, she feels a need to turn back, but something compels her not to do so. She must remind herself that, like the tarot cards, the circumstances which seem so “impossible” (222) to ignore are simply a form of guidance. Once Hal ignores these circumstances and makes decisions for herself, she can put herself in a position of strength.

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“She had him cornered, not the other way around.”


(Chapter 47, Page 225)

Eventually, Hal stands up for herself, reframing her situation by assuring herself that she is in control and that she has Ezra cornered. While she is still in danger, this sense of power gives Hal the strength to fight her murderous father. The lessons from Hal’s mother and her experiences reconcile with her situation. Hal becomes the fully realized and strong young woman that her mother raised her to be.

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“She heard her mother’s voice in her head: Never show them you’re shocked.”


(Chapter 48, Page 227)

There is an explicit irony in Hal’s use of her cold reading skills to defeat Ezra, as this talent was one of the most important lessons taught to her by Maud; Hal is using the techniques she learned from her mother to defeat her father, the man who killed her mother. As such, the use of cold reading against Ezra is a small but significant act of avenging Maud, using her talents to take down the man who killed her.

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“Maybe, a little still voice inside of her said, maybe it had always been meant to lead back here.”


(Chapter 49, Page 232)

Hal feels fatalistically drawn back to the lake to escape Ezra and she worries she will die. Her actions mirror those of her biological mother, Maggie, whom Ezra strangled in the boathouse. Though Hal recognizes the historical parallels as they occur, she now knows that she does not have to be a victim of fate; in accordance with the advice she gives her tarot clients, the future is not fixed, even if certain events were “always meant to lead back here” (232). Hal’s power is her awareness of her free will.

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“One for sorrow

Two for joy

Three for a girl

Four for a boy

Five for silver

Six for gold

Seven for a secret

Never to be told.”


(Chapter 50, Pages 241-242)

The magpie rhyme appears frequently throughout the novel, but the final page is one of the few instances of the entire rhyme. Whereas Hal previously remembered only fragments, she now recalls the entirety to herself, reflecting her position in the narrative and therefore her definitive character arc. Just as the poem is finally presented in full, Hal’s family history has come together at last: She has reassembled her past and learned the truth about her parents. The scattered, fragmented knowledge becomes a whole, cohesive self-narrative.

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