The Shrouded Web

by Anne Mather

  ‘Oh, no.’ Rebecca lifted her swollen lids. ‘I tell you, I’ll be all right.’

  But by the end of that dreadful day it became obvious that she most definitely was not all right, and that this was no simple cold she had contracted. She felt sick and trembling, aching in every limb, with a hammering pain in her temples that made her dizzy every time she tried to lift her head from the pillow. Dr. Manley took charge as the competent doctor he was, and late in the evening she was installed in a bed in the wing usually reserved for patients with infectious diseases. By this time Rebecca had to admit to herself that it was a relief to pass her responsibilities on to someone else.

  For ten days her life seemed to hang in the balance. The ‘flu had deteriorated into pneumonia as Dr. Manley had been afraid it might, and only drugs kept her alive. Rebecca knew little of what went on. She slept a lot in between attacks of breathlessness and she seemed to drink gallons of liquid. The faces who came and went so frequently in her room meant little to her, and only her own misery seemed to penetrate her consciousness.

  Then one morning she awoke to find the fever had left her and she was not bathed in sweat as she usually was. When she lifted her head to look about her the pain had gone, too, and there was a blessed lightness about her body.

  She managed to eat a little that day and in consequence felt a little stronger, but when she saw her reflection in the mirror in the bathroom she was horrified at the change in herself. The flesh seemed to have fallen off her body and her face seemed thin and pallid. Could she really have changed so dramatically in such a short time? It was incredible. But Dr. Manley thrust her protestations aside when she tried to tell him of her astonishment, merely assuring her solemnly that she was very lucky to be alive and that she would soon get back her strength and her colour.

  After that she improved daily, taking a little more food each mealtime and generally trying to take an interest in her surroundings. Some of the nurses in the hospital with whom she was friendly came to see her and she looked forward to their chatter. It distracted her mind from other problems.

  Towards the end of the second week Paul came to see her. He brought her an enormous bunch of roses and her nurse looked at them admiringly. ‘Roses in December,’ she observed lightly. ‘How lucky you are.’

  To Rebecca’s relief Paul did not mention his own affairs. He talked about her illness and the shock it had given all of them, but kept their conversation in a light vein, and seemed less intense than she remembered.

  After he had gone, her nurse came back with the roses in water. ‘Aren’t they beautiful!’ she exclaimed, smiling at Rebecca. ‘I didn’t know you knew Paul Victor.’

  Rebecca sighed. ‘Oh, yes. I—er—went out with him a couple of times.’

  ‘Oh, did you?’ The girl raised her eyebrows. ‘And now?’

  ‘I think it’s all over,’ said Rebecca, pleating the bedspread carefully. ‘Why?’

  The young nurse chuckled. ‘Just that he doesn’t seem the constant type.’

  Rebecca smiled, too. ‘We were just friends, you know.’

  ‘Oh, that’s all right, then. I happen to know he went out with a friend of mine a couple of nights ago.’

  Rebecca raised her eyebrows, amazed at the relief the girl’s words had brought to her. Until then she had thought he was too involved to break away. She sighed. Obviously she had too inflated an idea of her own importance. Still, it was a relief to know that she didn’t have to feel guilty about him any more. And a relief too to break all threads with the St. Clair family…

  * * *

  It was four weeks before she was allowed to go home and it was already the middle of December. The days were colder and the flat seemed empty and devoid of human contact when she arrived back. The neighbour from the floor below had taken the trouble to turn on her fire and there was a welcome warmth issuing from the storage radiators. She had obtained some food on her way home and once a pan was simmering on the stove and the kettle was whistling merrily she felt more relaxed. It was silly to feel so low just because she had come home. Heavens, she hadn’t wanted to go into hospital, had she? Still, the sooner she got back to work the better.

  In the middle of the evening, when she was watching television, the doorbell rang. Rebecca sighed and got up reluctantly. The unaccustomed effort of making her own meal had tired her more than she would have thought possible and she hoped if this was her neighbour from downstairs she would not stay long.

  However, when she opened the door, she found a strange man on the threshold.

  Rebecca was taken aback and stood holding the door rather nervously, wondering who he could be and whether he knew she was alone here. All of a sudden she hoped the neighbour from downstairs would appear.

  ‘Miss Lindsay?’ the man asked. He was tall and thin and middle-aged, and he wore horn-rimmed spectacles. ‘Miss Rebecca Lindsay?’

  ‘Y-yes,’ agreed Rebecca reluctantly. ‘Who—who are you?’

  ‘My card, Miss Lindsay,’ the man held out a narrow strip of cardboard. ‘Mr St. Clair sent me…’

  ‘Mr. St.—Clair!’ Rebecca looked down at the card curiously. It said simply: Daniel F. Halliday: Private Investigator.

  She looked up at the man in astonishment and then her bewilderment turned to resentment and anger. So he was having her investigated! He had asked her at Sans-Souci if she knew who Halliday was, and now she did. She stared at the man through eyes suddenly glazed with tears. How dared he? How dared he have her investigated like some common creature who he thought was unfit to associate with his son!

  ‘Get out!’ she cried blindly. ‘Go away! I don’t want to speak to you! I won’t speak to you.’

  She threw the slip of cardboard in his face and made to slam the door.

  ‘Miss Lindsay—wait—you don’t understand—’

  ‘Oh, yes, I do. Go away! Go away before I call the police and have you ejected!’

  With a forceful thrust she slammed the door in his face and secured the bolt and chain before turning the key in the lock. She heard him hammering on her door, begging her to open it, telling her that he had something to tell her, something urgent, but she would not listen. Instead, she left the door and walked into the living room, turning up the television so that he would be bound to hear it and realise that whatever he was trying to say he was wasting his time.

  Eventually he went away and she turned the television down again, but she found she was trembling. She felt resentful and unhappy. How could Piers do this to her? What was he afraid of? What secrets did he hope to unearth? Surely he knew that Paul was almost bound to tire of being involved with a woman who could give him so little? Or didn’t he know that? She didn’t know any more…

  She hunched her shoulders and tried to re-interest herself in the play she had been watching on the television, but thoughts plagued her head and she couldn’t understand what was going on any more. If Piers had gone so far as to put a private investigator on to her then he must know everything about her by this time. He must know about Sheila and Peter Feldman, for example, if he had not already been told a garbled version by Adele, for it seemed obvious that Sheila was in the other woman’s confidence, and that was something they would find easy to translate into their own terms. Maybe that was another reason why he seemed to despise her so.

  She got unsteadily to her feet. If she continued to think like this she would drive herself insane. She went out to the kitchen and began to make some coffee. Tomorrow she would go and see Matron and ask her how soon she could get back to the hospital. Only by working and tiring her body to exhaustion could she get any kind of mental relief…

  CHAPTER SIX

  BUT when Rebecca went to see Matron the following day she received another disappointment. Matron was kind and gentle, but she was also firm.

  ‘My dear girl,’ she said, resting her elbows on her desk and leaning towards Rebecca, ‘you’ve just recovered from a particularly virulent attack of pneumonia. I could not possibly take you
on here again until you have had time to fully recuperate. My best advice to you is wait until the New Year is here, have a break now, and come and see me again towards the end of January.’

  Rebecca stared at her incredulously. ‘Towards the end of January?’ she echoed faintly.

  ‘Yes, at the very earliest. If we were in the height of summer I might suggest you took a month at the sea and then returned to work gradually, but this weather is very bad for you and quite honestly I’m afraid you’d collapse if you put too great a strain on your energies.’ She sighed as she saw Rebecca’s dejected face. ‘My dear girl, I’m not doing this to be unkind. I just want you to be properly well before you return.’

  Rebecca came out of Matron’s study feeling absolutely shattered. She had pinned all her hopes on getting back into a routine, putting things back into perspective and resuming a normal life. But it seemed even that was to be denied her, for the time being at least, and she had weeks and weeks stretching ahead of her with nothing to do except think…

  Back at her apartment she gave way to tears. Lying on her bed, staring blindly at her bedroom ceiling, she wondered if she would ever feel normal again.

  Annette Fleming came to see her that evening and she was frankly shocked by her friend’s appearance. ‘Come on, Rebecca,’ she exclaimed anxiously. ‘Don’t be so down-hearted, just because you can’t get back to work. Heavens, I should have thought you would appreciate the break. Particularly when the weather’s so cold and nobody wants to crawl out of bed these icy mornings.’

  Rebecca shrugged miserably. ‘But what can I do?’ she cried despairingly. ‘I have no family like you. No—no boy-friend.’

  Annette frowned. ‘Well, why don’t you do as Matron says and take a holiday? You’re not hard up, are you? You could go abroad. It would be exciting.’

  Rebecca sat up in her seat and frowned. It was quite an idea when she considered it seriously. And at least, as Annette said, it would take her out of England for a time. In some foreign country she would be just another anonymous tourist…

  ‘Where would you go, then?’ she asked Annette.

  Annette considered for a moment. ‘At this time of the year you’d have to go quite a distance to be sure of the sun. North Africa or the Caribbean even. Could your finances stretch so far?’

  Rebecca cupped her chin on one hand. ‘Why not? I don’t go out much. I never seem to spend any money, except on clothes, of course.’

  ‘Lucky you.’ Annette stretched her arms above her head lazily. ‘Honestly, Rebecca, now you’re thinking seriously about it, I feel positively green with envy.’

  Rebecca found herself smiling. ‘Then it’s a pity you can’t come, too.’

  Annette gave a rueful grimace. ‘Unlike you, I do go out a lot and my finances are almost nil. Besides, Barry wouldn’t like it.’

  Rebecca lay back in her chair, her eyes suddenly thoughtful. The more she thought about it the more desirable the idea became. If she went somewhere far afield, somewhere like the Caribbean for example, there would be little chance of meeting anyone she knew. Momentarily she recalled that Tom Bryant had said that Piers had a house in Jamaica, and she made a mental note not to be tempted to go there…

  During the next few days she made definite enquiries about taking a holiday and she renewed her passport. There were so many exciting possibilities to choose from and she spent her evenings poring over travel brochures. Now that she had something with which to occupy her mind it wasn’t so difficult to get by and she resumed an interest in herself, having her hair trimmed and styled and buying some new clothes.

  Then towards the end of that week a letter came for her. It was from a firm of solicitors in Lincolns Inn advising her that she was one of the beneficiaries under the terms of a last will and testament made by a Miss Adele Margaret St. Cloud…

  * * *

  Rebecca was absolutely stunned by the news. She had never imagined Adele might die so soon, and although she had not liked her, in truth at times she had almost hated her, she would not have wished her dead. It seemed unbelievable that the hysterical tyrant who had caused her so much misery in her life should actually be dead. Although, as Rebecca herself had been told many times by the doctor in Fiji, the attacks she suffered could one day be fatal and she must therefore guard against too much excitement. Rebecca could not deny the faint feeling of compassion which stole over her, even though she knew that Adele would not have thanked her for it.

  Reading the letter again, she found it difficult to believe that Adele could have left her anything. After all, she had not liked her, she had tried to hurt her, and on her visit to Sans-Souci, that disastrous visit, she had made it plain that she still despised her.

  And yet, amazingly, she was summoned to the offices of Messrs. Kitchener, Francis, and Morrison, to hear something to her advantage.

  But did she want anything from Adele? Could she take whatever it was Adele had left without being continually reminded of what was past? Or was that Adele’s idea? Was her mind distorted to the last to the extent that she was trying to hurt Rebecca after death?

  Rebecca paced the flat restlessly. Curiosity was a powerful weapon, and Adele knew what she was doing when she had placed that weapon in Rebecca’s hands.

  Finally she decided she would have to go to see the solicitors. After all, whatever it was Adele had left her could not be passed on to someone else without her taking a hand in the passing. And as she was hoping to leave England soon anyway, it should be done at once.

  She rang the solicitors and made an arrangement to see a Mr. Broome the following morning at eleven. As she stepped out of the taxi outside of the offices, she trembled a little, realising that it was quite possible that one or more members of Adele’s family could be here at the same time. But when she was shown into Mr. Broom’s office she was relieved to discover that she was his only client at that moment.

  He was quite a young man and he explained that although his father had actually been Miss St. Cloud’s solicitor he was dealing with this side of it. Rebecca thanked him and then waited patiently for him to go on.

  ‘As you are aware, Miss St. Cloud owned a villa, outside of Suva on the main Fijian island of Viti Levu. I believe at one time you worked there as Miss St. Cloud’s nurse, is that correct?’

  Rebecca nodded. ‘For two years, yes.’

  Mr. Broome nodded himself. ‘Good.’ He consulted the papers on his desk. ‘I have here a copy of Miss St. Cloud’s last will and testament, and in it she states that she wishes you to have the villa and sufficient funds every year to maintain it.’ Ignoring Rebecca’s gasp of astonishment, he went on: ‘If you should decide to sell the villa, the yearly allowance will naturally cease.’ He flicked over another page of the manuscript. ‘The money is to be sent to some obscure charity, I believe.’

  ‘You can’t be serious!’ Rebecca was staring at him incredulously. ‘You can’t mean she’s left the villa—to me!’

  Mr. Broome regarded her frowningly. ‘Why do you say that, Miss Lindsay? It’s here in black and white. I shan’t bother you with all the unnecessary details of the preamble, but be assured the villa is yours.’

  Rebecca ran a hand over her forehead confusedly. ‘But I thought—I mean—she’d lived in England for so long—I assumed the villa had been sold.’

  ‘Oh, no, Miss Lindsay. There is a woman—a Fijian, I believe—looking after it for her.’

  ‘Rosa!’ Rebecca said the word almost experimentally. ‘It will be Rosa.’ She pressed a hand to her throat. ‘But—but does she say why? I mean—I just can’t believe it.’

  Mr. Broome smiled. He was a very self-contained young man and Rebecca couldn’t imagine him getting excited about anything. ‘My dear Miss Lindsay, as I understand it, Fiji is the other side of the world. Not everyone would want to live there—miles from western civilisation.’

  Rebecca compressed her lips. ‘Oh, but you’re wrong!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s a marvellous place. Have you ever been to the Melanesi
an islands, Mr. Broome?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’ Mr. Broome’s lips thinned. He turned back to his papers once more. ‘I realise you will need time to consider the matter, to think it over, as it were, so I suggest you go away now and come back tomorrow, or the following day, and give me your instructions.’

  Rebecca nodded blankly, getting to her feet with nervous haste so that she dropped her gloves and almost her handbag. Fumblingly she picked them up and made her way to the door. Mr. Broome opened it smoothly, and she stepped outside, wondering whether any of his clients aroused him to a more considered awareness of what he was offering them.

  In the street she halted, realising that it would be impossible for her to accomplish anything until she had had time to sit down and actually consider the possibilities of what Adele had offered her. It was like some wild dream and she couldn’t take it in. Putting aside the fact that Adele had never liked her it still left the incredulous fact that she now owned a villa in Fiji and what was she going to do about it?

  There were several things she could do. She could return to the solicitor and tell him she wanted neither the villa nor the money with which to maintain it and have him sell it and send all the money to the obscure charity he had mentioned. Or she could keep the villa, maintain it, and use it whenever she thought fit. Or she could do as Adele had done, so many years before her, and leave England altogether and settle out there. She would need to work, of course, but that wouldn’t trouble her, for it seemed obvious that the money Adele was leaving was just to maintain the villa and not herself as well. But she could easily get a post out there, either privately or with a hospital; Doctor Manson would help her, and she would be able to make a whole new life.

  Only one thought troubled her and it was a thought she most determinedly thrust down; that of knowing that Piers would be thousands of miles away in England, and there would be no faint chance of ever seeing him again…