The Shrouded Web

by Anne Mather

  One evening Paul met her from work in his car. It was drizzling, a chilly November day, with lowering skies and an icy blast in the wind. Rebecca was finished early and they planned to have a meal before going to the cinema. Over steak and french fried potatoes, Paul said: ‘I found out today that my aunt’s nurse knows you.

  Rebecca looked up, startled. ‘Your aunt’s nurse?’ she said questioningly. ‘Who is that?’

  Paul smiled. ‘Sheila Stephens.’

  ‘Sheila—Stephens!’ Rebecca was incredulous. Sheila was the girl she had used to share a flat with; the girl who was going to marry Peter Feldman! She shook her head incredulously. That was all five years ago now, and Sheila had had time to get married and divorced. ‘How—how is she?’

  Paul shrugged. ‘Fine.’ He toyed with his fillet steak. ‘We were discussing my work at the hospital and I happened to mention your name. She said you and she used to share a flat.’

  ‘That’s right, we did.’ Rebecca hesitated. ‘Actually, I thought Sheila was married.’

  Paul shook his head. ‘Not so far as I know. Naturally I don’t know her well. I only see her occasionally. She seems a nice girl.’

  ‘She is.’ Rebecca cupped her chin on her hand. ‘What a small world! Sheila Stephens!’ She sighed. ‘I’d like to see her again.’

  ‘She would like to see you.’ Paul pushed aside his plate. ‘I said I’d arrange it.’

  Rebecca smiled at him. ‘That was thoughtful of you.’

  ‘Yes, wasn’t it?’ Paul grinned. ‘Seriously though, would you like to meet her?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Then you’d better come to my house—’

  ‘Your house?’ Rebecca stared at him.

  ‘Of course. My aunt lives with us—with my father and me, that is. My mother’s dead, you know, I told you.’

  ‘I know, but—’ Rebecca spread her hands. ‘I—I couldn’t possibly come to your house. I mean—after all, Sheila is only your aunt’s nurse—’

  ‘That doesn’t matter—’

  ‘Of course it matters, Paul. Heavens, I have the apartment, she can come there.’

  ‘Don’t you want to see my home, is that it?’

  Rebecca flushed. ‘Don’t be silly, Paul. But as I understand it your home is miles away, the other side of London, in fact.’

  ‘So what? You have days off. We could make an outing of it. I’d like you to come.’ Paul looked at her appealingly.

  Rebecca sighed. ‘Honestly, Paul, I thought you realised by now that our relationship—’

  Paul lit a cigarette and drew on it deeply. ‘I realise everything,’ he said, blowing smoke rings into the air. ‘I still want you to come. Heavens, where’s the harm? I’m not fooling you, you know. Your girl-friend is there!’

  Rebecca pressed her lips together. ‘Oh, I believe that,’ she said uncomfortably. ‘It’s just that—well—your family—’

  ‘There will only be my aunt there. My father’s abroad somewhere. He spends very little time in England, actually. Besides, I’d like you to see the house. My father bought it about fifteen years ago. It’s one of those old Georgian country houses, standing in its own grounds.’

  Rebecca bit her lip. Of course she had known that Paul’s family were wealthy, but somehow the thought of going to his home brought it more significantly to mind, and she really wished she could refuse. But as Paul said, it would make a pleasant trip, and she would like to see Sheila again. She traced the pattern of the tablecloth absently. Then she looked up to find Paul’s eyes upon her, his expression hopeful.

  ‘I don’t know, Paul,’ she began slowly. ‘I—well—I’d hate your family to get the wrong impression about us.’

  Paul stubbed his cigarette out impatiently. ‘Why should they?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just feel—’ She shook her head. ‘If—if you lived in a semi-detached in Cricklewood, I wouldn’t mind so much, but a Georgian manor house—’

  Paul hunched his shoulders. ‘Look, Rebecca, I can’t help it if my father’s family, and my mother’s family come to that, made a fortune out of industry, can I? That side of the coin doesn’t interest me. That’s why I left home and took this medical degree. I was always pretty bright,’ he said this without false modesty, ‘and I guess physics and chemistry had always interested me. In any event, I entered university without difficulty and went on from there. I want to be a doctor, not a general practitioner, you understand, but some kind of specialist. I’m interested in children’s diseases, and pediatrics seems my most likely destination. I’m telling you this so you’ll realise that I’m not wanting to take you to Sans-Souci to blind you with wealth and possessions, to try and persuade you by material means.’

  Rebecca linked her fingers together. ‘I’m sorry, Paul,’ she said softly. ‘Of course I’ll come.’ Then she frowned. ‘Sans-Souci! Unconcern. That’s an unusual name for a house.’

  Paul shrugged. ‘It was my mother’s idea,’ he said, beckoning the wine waiter. ‘It was typical of her attitude to life.’

  There was bitterness in his voice as he spoke, and Rebecca felt a sense of compassion for him. It was obvious that whatever benefits he had had, a happy home life seemed not to be one of them.

  * * *

  They drove down to Sans-Souci a week later. It was Saturday, and Paul had arranged to take the same weekend off as Rebecca. Whether he planned that they might stay the night at his home, Rebecca wasn’t sure, but she was determined to insist on returning that night. Either that, or putting up at a hotel.

  They skirted London, driving into the Hertfordshire countryside. This was a part of England Rebecca did not know well, even though she had lived in and around London all her life. They stopped at Harpenden for lunch and drove on into Buckingham, arriving at the village of Linslow soon after two-thirty. It was a pretty place with thatched cottages lining the main street. There was an olde-worlde inn, and the grey stone church spire rose above stark elms, silhouetted against a sky that showed sometimes blue, sometimes cloudy grey. The bare trees around the village green still sparkled with traces of frost, and although the sun shone in snatches it was very cold.

  Paul glanced at Rebecca smilingly, noticing her pleasurable reactions, and said: ‘It’s like another world, isn’t it?’

  She nodded. ‘I imagine though that people who live in villages like this have more social life than some town dwellers. I mean—everyone knows everyone else, don’t they, and there’s a spirit of camaraderie, isn’t there?’

  Paul gave her a wry smile. ‘I suppose so. It cuts both ways, though. You simply can’t keep secrets in villages, and if you have something to hide, heaven help you!’

  Rebecca frowned. ‘You say that as though you had.’

  Paul shook his head. ‘Oh, no,’ he said. ‘At least—not now!’

  Rebecca pondered this remark as they drove through the village and took a narrow private road that wound for some distance between skeletal trees before reaching a barred gate marked Private. Paul opened the gate, drove through, and closed it again, and he smiled at Rebecca as he slid back into the car. ‘As you can see, I’m a true countryman,’ he remarked mockingly. ‘I always close gates behind me.’

  Rebecca smiled with him and looked ahead with interest. Now she could see acres of rolling parkland on either side of the drive and ahead of them as they breasted a rise she saw the house.

  She didn’t know quite what she had expected, but certainly nothing so imposing as the porticoed facade of Sans-Souci. It stood against a backdrop of hills, gaunt and magnificent, with two octagonal towers rising to either side of the central mass. Corinthian columns shadowed the entrance above a flight of shallow steps, giving the building a slightly Grecian appearance.

  Rebecca looked questioningly at Paul as they drove up to the massive forecourt where, incongruously, a sleek grey Mercedes was parked. Paul, sensing her eyes upon him, glanced at her half ruefully. ‘Don’t you like it?’

  Rebecca gave an expressive gesture. ‘That�
��s not the point, is it? Heavens, this is like some Palladian mansion.’

  Paul chuckled. ‘I suppose it is. I’ve lived here so much I guess I don’t notice it any longer.’

  He brought the car to a halt at the foot of the steps leading up to the pillared entrance, and Rebecca climbed out rather reluctantly. Smoke spiralled from chimneys and somewhere dogs barked, heralding their arrival. On all sides stretched acres of undulating land, dipping and rising and thick with belts of trees, all bare now in the bleakness of autumn. The house itself had the atmosphere of years upon it, and unaccountably Rebecca shivered.

  Immediately Paul took her hand and led her up the steps. ‘At least its appointments are not as ancient as its walls,’ he commented encouragingly, and shaking her head she allowed him to lead her inside.

  Paul closed the door behind them and Rebecca looked about her curiously, unable to deny the interest the house had aroused in her. As Paul had said, inside was vastly different from outside, and she couldn’t decide whether she liked it or not. The hall, which had once been an enormous apartment, had been divided into two, and arched ceilings had been lowered. Central heating had been installed and the floors were thickly carpeted. Only the huge fireplace flanked by stucco sculptures seemed typically Georgian in design.

  As Paul removed his overcoat and helped Rebecca out of her sheepskin jacket a manservant appeared from a doorway across the hall and came to greet them. Dressed in a dark suit, his greying hair thinning on top, he could have been a member of the family, thought Rebecca, except for the old-fashioned deference he showed to Paul.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir,’ he greeted him politely.

  Paul nodded and smiled. ‘Hello, Gillean. Where is everybody?’

  Gillean cast a curious glance in Rebecca’s direction, and then said: ‘Your aunt and Nurse Stephens are in her suite, sir. Oh, and your father is back from Amsterdam.’

  ‘Oh! Is he?’ Paul sounded surprised and Rebecca looked quickly at him.

  ‘Would you rather we came back some time when your father is not at home?’ she asked, uncomfortably, and he shook his head vigorously.

  ‘Heavens, no,’ he exclaimed. ‘I just didn’t expect my father to be here, that’s all. Actually, I’m glad he is. I’d like you to meet him.’

  Rebecca smiled. ‘All right. If you’re sure he won’t mind.’

  ‘Mind?’ Paul regarded her with amusement. ‘My dear girl, you aren’t the first girl-friend I’ve brought home.’

  Gillean took their coats and said: ‘Have you had lunch, sir? Or would you like Mrs. Gillean to make you both a meal?’

  Paul shook his head again. ‘Oh, we’ve eaten, thank you, Gillean. By the way—’ He took Rebecca’s hand and drew her forward. ‘Rebecca, I’d like to introduce you to Gillean. He’s my father’s head of the household, an old-fashioned title, but apt, don’t you think?’ He smiled. ‘His family have been here since the early nineteenth century when they served the original owners of the house, the Harmondseys. Lord Harmondsey was the lord of the manor, I suppose, in those days, and it was quite an honour being in service here.’

  Rebecca smiled and shook hands with the elderly manservant while Paul told him that he and Miss Lindsay would go up and see his aunt. ‘Where is my father, anyway?’ he enquired.

  ‘In the study, sir,’ answered Gillean, at once. ‘He brought Mr. Bryant home with him, and as I understand it they are studying the plans of the Australian project.’

  Paul bent his head. ‘Oh, Tom Bryant, yes.’ He considered for a moment, and then he said: ‘Well, you can tell him we’re here when you get the chance, but we’ll go on up to see my aunt. Miss Lindsay is a friend of Nurse Stephens.’

  ‘Very well, sir.’ Gillean stepped aside and Paul led Rebecca across the pile-carpeted hall to where a spiral-staircase had been installed which led up to a wrought-iron balustraded gallery.

  ‘The original staircases were in the towers,’ Paul informed her, as they climbed. ‘But it is so much more convenient and attractive to have a staircase in the hall, and in any case my mother liked to make an entrance.’

  Rebecca digested this, making no comment. She thought the idea of staircases in the towers was quite a romantic one, but she said nothing.

  The house was automatically in three sections. There was the bulk of the building which formed the central portion, and the west and east wings which jutted out beyond the towers at either side. Paul explained that in years gone by the lower part of the west wing had been wholly taken over as servants’ quarters with the kitchens being there also. But now that staff was so hard to come by, most of that part of the building was unused, and only the stables which adjoined the kitchen quarters were fully occupied. His father, he said, had his suite of rooms at the back of the house in this central portion, while his aunt and himself occupied the east wing.

  ‘It’s far too big, of course,’ he observed, wiping a film of dust from a window ledge. ‘Mrs. Gillean has only two helpers, a girl who comes daily from the village and Mrs. Fellowes, whose husband is the gardener. She tackles the rough work, Mrs. Gillean herself does most of the cooking.’

  To Rebecca, who had never known the luxury of even a housekeeper, it all seemed rather awe-inspiring, but she successfully hid any trepidation she might be feeling and thought instead of the pleasure it would be to see Sheila again.

  They walked along a corridor whose windows overlooked the sweep of forecourt before the house and the long narrow gravelled drive. For all Paul might find dust on the window ledges and spiders’ webs in some of the corners, the whole place was luxuriously carpeted and furnished, and obviously great care had been taken to make it very comfortable.

  Paul stopped outside double white panelled doors and after a light tap entered the room. Rebecca followed him, looking about her with interest. The room was high-ceilinged and attractive, with pink damask-covered walls and a cream and gold carpet underfoot. It was furnished as a lounge, with deep chairs and couches upholstered in striped satin. A wide window-seat overlooked the side of the house and the village in the distance. As in the other apartments, the heating was provided by long low radiators, and the log fire that crackled in the grate was more for effect than anything else.

  As the room was deserted, Paul called: ‘Aunt! Aunt Adele! Are you there?’

  And even as Rebecca’s features froze in the semblance of a smile, there was the swish of a chair’s wheels and a woman propelled herself forward into the room through an open doorway. Thinner than even Rebecca remembered, her emaciated features twisting in amused mockery, it was unmistakably Adele St. Cloud, and for a moment Rebecca felt quite faint. Then common sense asserted itself and the memories that had suddenly crowded her shocked mind receded. Adele was regarding her intently, obviously deriving a great amount of pleasure from Rebecca’s startled reactions, and it came to the girl that Adele had known she was coming.

  ‘Well! Well!’ Adele spoke first. ‘So this is the young woman we’ve been hearing so much about, Paul!’

  CHAPTER TWO

  REBECCA stiffened and Paul glanced at her curiously. ‘Yes,’ he said, in answer to his aunt’s question, and then to Rebecca, in an undertone: ‘Are you all right, love? You look awfully pale.’

  His solicitude was soothing and Rebecca was glad of it. His hand at her elbow was warm and reassuring and for the first time in their relationship she needed him. ‘I—I was surprised to meet your aunt, that’s all,’ she said now. ‘You see—we do know one another already, don’t we, Miss St. Cloud?’

  Paul looked puzzled and looked to his aunt for confirmation. ‘Is that right, Aunt Adele? Do you know Rebecca?’

  Adele chewed her lower lip, apparently taken aback by Rebecca’s sudden shift to the attack. Until then she had held all the cards. ‘Yes, it’s true,’ she agreed. ‘Rebecca was my nurse in Fiji.’

  ‘Good lord!’ Paul was amazed, though not at all perturbed, regarding this as an amazing coincidence. ‘How amusing!’

  ‘Yes, isn’t it?�
�� Adele looked fully at Rebecca. ‘You’re looking well. A little thinner perhaps, but aren’t we all?’

  Rebecca managed to smile. She would not allow Adele to notice her consternation. But her mind was in a whirl. So many questions manifested themselves, so many anxieties probed her consciousness. That Adele St. Cloud should be Paul’s aunt was absolutely incredible. She had never imagined Adele might return to England. Somehow whenever she had thought of her it had been in Fiji. And Paul must be the son of one of her sisters. She remembered Adele had said she had several. And as Paul had told her that his mother was dead, possibly his mother had been called—Denise; yes, that was the name Adele had used, Denise.

  Adele watched the girl with cold, calculating eyes, and Rebecca wanted nothing so much as to turn and run. It wasn’t that Adele frightened her; it was simply that she wanted to have nothing to do with any branch of this family.

  Paul, sensing nothing amiss, said: ‘Where’s Sheila? Rebecca and she were close friends years ago.’

  ‘Were they?’ Adele raised her eyebrows. ‘How nice! Well, she’ll be back soon enough. I think she’s exercising the dogs at the moment.’ She patted the chair nearest to her. ‘Rebecca, my dear, come and sit with me and tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself all these years.’

  Rebecca hesitated. She had no desire to sit down beside Adele with or without Paul’s comforting presence. But Paul urged her forward and she moved reluctantly across the room to Adele’s side, perching on the edge of the chair near her. It was as though time had shifted back three years and she shivered momentarily.