Page 49 of Sunset at Embthwaite Farm
“Yes, well.” He coughed and cleared his throat. “He’s changed the will significantly since then and I wanted to make you aware of it before the official reading, as I imagine its contents might be something of a…shock.”
“A shock?” Harriet straightened in her chair, frowning. “But…that doesn’t sound good.” Mr Hale did not reply, and Harriet continued, her tone sounding both strident and pleading, “Dad told me he’d changed it right before he died. He said he was making thingsright. Those were his exact words.”
“Well.” Mr Hale cleared his throat again, and Anna was starting to feel seriously anxious. What, she wondered, had Peter done? How had he, in the tangled web of his own destroyed mind, made itright?
“Maybe you should just tell us what the changes are,” Rachel suggested quietly. “We assumed he’s split his estate equally between us, but I’m guessing that might not be the case?” Her eyes looked hard, but she chewed her lip in anxiety. Anna pressed her hands together.
“No, it isn’t the case,” Mr Hale agreed sombrely. “I’m afraid your father made a—a significant change to his will.” He paused, and then in the resolute yet resigned tone of someone who knows he has to give unpleasant news and has decided to just say it: “He’s left you, Rachel and Harriet, five thousand pounds each.”
“What!” Rachel’s face paled, her jaw slackening as she stared at the solicitor in disbelief. “You mean…that’s it? What about the house? The land?”
Mr Hale’s expression was turning rather wretched. “He has left the house and land, and indeed the rest of his estate, to Miss Daisy Hatch.”
Anna felt as if she’d just been dipped in ice. “Daisy…” The name slipped from between her lips in little more than a breath of shock…but one Rachel heard.
“You know this person?” she demanded. “ThisDaisy?”
“I don’tknowher,” Anna replied slowly. She should have told the girls about Daisy, she realised hollowly, to spare them this moment. But how could she have possibly known this moment was coming? She’d had no idea at all, not even the remotest inkling…
“She’s…she’s Dad’s other woman, isn’t she?” Harriet said slowly, realisation dawning across her face. “She must be. He’s left everything toher.” She spat the words, shaking her head. “I can’t believe it. And he said he was going to make things right. What a bloody joke.” Her eyes filled with tears, and she brushed them away angrily. “It’s not about the money,” she told the solicitor, “so please don’t think we’re money-grubbing shrews, angling for his inheritance, or something like that. It’s…it’s about therelationship.” Her voice broke, and she had to wipe her eyes again, while Anna watched on impotently, her heart aching for her daughter, for all of them. “Or lack of it, really,” Harriet continued. “I spent thirteen years of my life putting my own needs aside and looking after that man and that bloody, bloodyfarm—”
“I think there’s been a mistake,” Mr Hale broke in, sounding even more miserable at this outpouring of emotion. “About the identity of Miss Hatch—”
“Daisy Hatch isn’t your father’s…mistress,” Anna interjected, her voice so low she wasn’t sure if either Harriet or Rachel heard her, although they must have because they both went still. “She’s…she’s…” She took a deep breath, closed her eyes as she prayed for strength. “She’s his daughter.”
The silence felt shocking, endless. Anna opened her eyes. Harriet and Rachel were both staring at her, eyes wide and mouths agape. Anna stared back, having no words. What could she possibly say to them now?
“Hisdaughter?” Rachel finally repeated, her voice hoarse. “You mean…”
“He had a child with Ruth Hatch,” Anna confirmed, and now her voice sounded wooden. “Daisy. She was born between you and Harriet, I’m not exactly sure when. She must be about thirty, thirty-one now.”
Another silence that felt leaden, awful. Anna longed to close her eyes against it all, but she didn’t. She needed to face this—she knew she did.
“How long have you known about this?” Harriet demanded.
Anna glanced at the solicitor, who was looking, by this point, as if he’d rather be anywhere else. “I think…I think we should have this discussion elsewhere,” she stated. “And finish this one first.”
“Is there anything left to say?” Rachel demanded, glancing between them all, her expression accusing. “He’s left us five thousand pounds each. Did he leave you anything, Mum?” She turned to glare at the solicitor, as if this was all his fault.
“I wasn’t expecting anything—” Anna began, only for the solicitor to take an envelope from his desk.
“He left you this,” he told Anna. “A letter.”
“He did?” Anna really hadn’t been expectingthat. She took it between fingers that felt numb. “Thank you.” She could feel her daughters’ curiosity like a palpable thing, but she was not about to open a letter from Peter in the solicitor’s office.
“And everything else to Daisy Hatch?” Rachel asked flatly. “Right?”
The solicitor nodded. “Yes, everything else.”
A silence fell on the little group. Anna thought about all the things Daisy would now own—all the furniture, the antiques and heirlooms passed down through the Mowbray family. All the knick-knacks she’d once dusted, all the mementoes Rachel and Harriet had treasured—or not. Daisy Hatch, this woman they’d never known, would be the sole proprietor of Embthwaite Farm. It felt inconceivable, offensive,wrong.
“Then I suppose there’s nothing more to say,” Anna said slowly. It was, she presumed, within Peter’s rights to bequeath his estate to one of his children, and not the others. And maybe something in his letter would explain it…or not.
She had the sudden urge to tear the letter up into bits, to never know what feeble excuse her ex-husband might have made, to cheat his two daughters of their inheritance. She’d made enough excuses for the man over the years. She’d been as forgiving and understanding and accepting as she knew how to be…but her patience was running out, now that he was dead, and it appeared as if he’d left only devastation in his wake.
Why, Peter?she cried silently.Why would you do this?
Mr Hale made some remarks that Anna couldn’t quite pay attention to, and then they were rising with a scraping of chairs and a murmuring of both thanks and apologies—Anna wasn’t sure which sentiment was more appropriate in this situation—and then they were wandering down the street, all of them feeling aimless, until Harriet guided them into a little tea shop near the Shambles.
