The Other Rebecca

by Maureen Freely

  THE OTHER REBECCA

  Maureen Freely

  Contents

  I

  Lost Souls

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  II

  Chattering Classes

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  III

  Cold Feet

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  IV

  The Marriage Hearse

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  V

  She Speaks from the Grave

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  A Note on the Author

  By the Same Author

  Art lets you get away with murder

  Pablo Picasso

  as quoted, or perhaps misquoted, by another artist

  I

  Lost Souls

  Chapter One

  There was a gate where there hadn’t been one before. I think that was what made me forget my resolution. I got out of the car and gave the gate a push, just to make sure it was locked, but to my surprise it yielded, and so, without pausing to think, I swung it open, got back into the car and drove into the village I had once assumed would be my home for ever.

  I parked between the two cottages. How many years had it been? Six going on seven. Someone had mowed the communal lawn, but our old flowerbeds were strangled with nettles. The rose bushes had intertwined with the ivy to cover the walls, choke the windows and wrap around the mesh that covered the thatch. The tennis court was no longer – the concrete had buckled, the fencing had disappeared, the poles teetered at precarious angles over what appeared to be the remains of a bonfire.

  It was only with difficulty that I was able to fight my way through the long grass to the walled garden. Here the gate was padlocked, but to no avail, because it had rusted off its hinges. Inside I found more nettles, and the raspberry bushes threatening to smother the grape arbour, but rising above the weeds and the thorns were my magnolia trees in full blossom. I couldn’t resist the idea of taking a branch or two home with me. There would be no need to tell anyone where they came from. While I was choosing my trophies, I noticed a ladder propped up against the northern wall, and, again, I’m not quite sure what prompted me to take it as an invitation. There was a baby bird learning how to fly in the upper branches. Its desperate chirps disappeared, then merged with a chorus of other baby birds. My first thought must have been to find the nest, but when I had, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to climb to the top of the ladder and look over.

  I knew what to expect, but it was still a shock. There before me was the field of daffodils, the orchard, still pink with blossoms, and the bluebell wood leading up to the charred remains of the manor garden’s outer wall. But beyond it, nothing – or rather, just another slope of trees, tall grass and daffodils spilling past their prime over the crest of the hill into the marsh in the distant horizon.

  It was like looking at a picture with the centre ripped out. Where was the proof that the house had ever existed? I felt afraid, as if there were someone else in the walled garden, watching me, and so I hurried back down the ladder, took my branches and retreated, went home and put the whole thing behind me. That was four days ago – Wednesday, to be precise. Then last night, in a dream, I returned to Beckfield again.

  This time the manor was back where it belonged, rising tall and grey over its implausible emerald lawn. It was early evening as I walked down the drive. There, at the top of the steps, were the bronze lions, unsinged and intact. I paused in front of them to watch the last glints of sunlight fade from their eyes.

  I surveyed the windows. They were dark except for the one looking into the little sitting alcove. Here I saw a man I did not know – a weekend guest, he had to be – doing the crossword in front of a tame but glowing fire. The mantelpiece was as usual cluttered with engraved invitations. The tables and chairs were still covered in their old paisleys, and there, next to them, was the stool I had once, to the embarrassment of all present, said resembled the lid of a sewing basket. Standing on the sideboard was a silver drinks tray that held six tumblers, a bottle of vodka, a glass jug of tomato juice and – proudly, emphatically – no ice. Looking beyond into the unlit entryway – and even as I use that word, I remember that they had another, better word for it – I could just make out the dark outline of the grand piano, and sitting on it, but in this inconstant half-light seeming to float in midair, the contours of Bea’s peacock feathers rising out of their slim ceramic vase.

  And there, I noticed, as I moved to look through the little window to the left of the doorway, was that other table where she kept her guest book and her African basket for outgoing post, except that this evening it was filled with those strange black and white dolls she used to knit whenever she felt her nerves unravelling. Had anyone ever dared mention to her how undemocratic they looked, how very much like black and white minstrels? Someone must have done, because, as I remembered now, during those last months, she had switched, with a telling refusal to explain or apologise, to knitting black cats and white mice.

  I turned my back on the window and continued walking along the wall past the offices. These were too dark for inspection. All I could see through the Venetian blinds was the occasional green or red glowing electronic button. I paused at the folly to watch a purple mist creep up the hill, and when it had overtaken most of the garden, I used my memory to keep to the path leading into the courtyard, where I found the magnolia trees draped in fairy lights, and beyond them, in the bright, tiled kitchen, the housekeeper and the caterer standing over the Aga, the butler Bea hired for dinner parties inspecting a crate of wine.

  I knew they couldn’t see me but I felt awkward standing there envying their inaudible gossip, their offstage excitement, their pleasure in their unnecessary uniforms, and so I continued my journey around the edges of the house. The round table in the dining room was, I counted, set for twelve, with three crystal glasses standing at the head of each place. The only light in the room came from the candles inside the transparent pyramid that stood at the table’s centre. This highlighted the gold-lettered spines of the books while at the same time obscuring the shelves that housed them; emphasised the gilt frames on the walls at the expense of the dour ancestors in the portraits. A collar here, a pair of beady eyes there – that was all that I could see, but it was a different story, I now saw, in the sitting room next door. There, over the mantelpiece and another fire, was the painting that had brought about my downfall – or my reinstatement, as some would say – the painting of the young girl on her way to a ball, wearing the black gown with the ribboned sash.

  Except that this evening the gown was white. And there, just a few feet away from the French door
s, striking that odd rocking-horse pose that people fall into when they are trying to give the impression of being uplifted by great art – there, with her forefinger poised on her raised/chin, was an intently gazing Bea. Standing next to her was the crossword man from the alcove. I recognised him now. He was the art historian whose third wife was Bea’s oldest childhood friend, and he had just noticed a detail in the painting, somewhere in the/lower left-hand corner, that he was now telling Bea he found perplexing and exciting. What a good thing she had thought to have it cleaned, he proclaimed to her in his – to me, somewhat muffled – Etonian trumpet. ‘It could well turn out to be an unsigned work by G himself, instead of just a study by one of G’s students.’

  ‘Hmm,’ said Bea. Then her eyes darted to the door. Enter the butler, with two glasses of champagne on a tray. ‘Oh, thank you so much, Frith. You are kind. Yes, that will do very nicely.’

  The butler retreated and closed the door behind him. Bea and the art historian took their first sips of champagne. Bea told the art historian how pleased she was to see him again. The art historian told Bea how sweet it was of her to have invited him. Bea apologised for the invitation having been ‘at such short notice’. The cuckoo clock behind the photograph of Queen Mary on the side table struck seven, and two cars rolled into the courtyard.

  Out of the first stepped two of Bea’s long-necked, aquiline-featured nieces – the one who used to be an obituarist, and the one who used to belong to a repertory company somewhere in the Midlands. Out of the second car stepped a flashily dressed blonde woman whom I recognised as the Merry Widow. Audible groans from the nieces as she approached them. ‘Oh no, not that again,’ said one, and the other hissed, ‘Just pray she hasn’t brought her friend!’

  But she had. Out of the darkness came lumbering a large man in a kilt. He didn’t see me as I walked past him. He looked drunk, and sounded ungracious as the Merry Widow presented him to the nieces. ‘You’ve met before, I’m sure,’ said the Merry Widow, in a loud voice clearly intended to compensate.

  ‘Yes, of course we have,’ said the obituarist brightly. ‘It was at Giles’s sixtieth birthday party.’

  I left them to it and moved on in the direction of the cottages.

  I skirted the tennis court – as usual, it was lit but empty – and was heading straight across the lawn towards the cottage that had once been my home when suddenly I stopped, as if in response to a shouted warning. Looking over my shoulder into the brightly lit sitting room of the other cottage, I thought I saw the reason why, because there, panting at the window, was Jasper the dog, and at his side, brushing her short ginger hair with those slow, exaggerated strokes of hers, strokes that would have been excessive even if her hair had reached to her waist – there, staring vacantly through me, was Danny.

  Now she seemed to see me. Her lips curled. She sucked in her breath as if to prepare for speech, but then she let it go again, shrugged her shoulders and moved away from the window and out of my view. An old hatred passed through me. But why? I asked myself. What did she matter? When had she ever mattered?

  I moved on to the cottage that had been our first marital home. I looked into the long room, and the scene I saw was familiar or so I first thought, down to the last detail. But I paid no attention to the books, the pictures, the carpets or even the toys, because there, sitting on the sofa in the far left-hand corner, were the children. They were dressed in their pyjamas, robes and slippers, their hair wet and recently combed and parted. Their eyes were on the television, which I could not see. At the other end of the room, sitting at the head of the dining table, his head bent over an open book, was Max.

  He looked the way he used to look, the way he would still look, I suppose, if I hadn’t tried to save him. By this I mean to say that there was a spring to his gestures that made him look younger, or at least more hopeful. His hair was longer and fairer than it is now. He was dressed in a dark-blue shirt I did not recognise, and an unusually baggy pair of black trousers. He kept looking towards the low-beamed door that led to the back of the house, but because I was looking at him, I saw the startled smile that brightened his face before I saw the cause, before I realised that the scene predated and so could never include me – that the family I saw inside, the family I had been so convinced was my family, did not want or even need me; it was complete unto itself.

  The woman who had entered the room, for whom Max now rose with such pleasure, for whom the children now abandoned their television programme with eager cries, was Rebecca.

  As she wrapped her arms around them, she looked over her shoulder, locked eyes with me and gave me a triumphant smile.

  That was where the dream ended, but it reminds me of the curse that caused it, and so brings me to the beginning of the story I now have decided the time has come to tell. I don’t know what will become of me once I’ve told it. Some would say that it was not mine to tell. But there’s nothing worse than living inside someone else’s story. Let them talk you out of believing your own story, and you might as well bury yourself alive. Here’s how I found out: I fell in love with a man, only to find myself in a book written by another woman.

  Chapter Two

  I had a few minutes of impartiality. I return to them often, because I need to remember how he looked before I knew who he was. We met in Deia, seven years ago this July. I was there courtesy of a Mrs Van Hopper, who had taken me on as a sort of upmarket lady’s companion. She had a house on the point overlooking the cala, and a small circle of devoted friends, but her sights were on the infamous Irish novelist who had once been only the second best the village had to offer, but who had moved into first place since the death of Robert Graves four years earlier. Or rather, her sights were on the man’s large, powerful, but not particularly brilliant family; the novelist himself was now confined to his bed.

  On the eve of what promised to be his last birthday, while she was sitting in the café waiting for me to finish her shopping, Mrs Van Hopper happened to overhear two of the novelist’s sons discussing a staffing crisis. Their father’s night nurse had failed to turn up the previous evening. Rumour had it that she had left for the mainland. Although the day nurse had stood in for her, she would need to be relieved by the end of her present shift. The local agencies had failed to come up with a stand-in. The agency in London was not going to be able to get anyone down to Mallorca for at least two days. To complicate matters, a dozen house guests had just arrived, with twice that number expected for the birthday celebrations the following evening. Hoping to be included, Mrs Van Hopper offered to lend me to the novelist’s family. They took her up on it without bothering to return the favour with the invitation she coveted.

  This put her into a foul mood, but there was no going back on it. A foot in the door, she told me, was better than nothing at all. It was not the first time she had used me to advance herself socially, but in the past it had been my small literary reputation she had presented as her calling card. As much as I resented the fairy tale she had woven around it (‘She was destitute, poor thing! She lost everything after the tragedy, everything! If it hadn’t been for me, she would be waiting tables in Kansas City!’), I could not afford to talk back. And anyway, as I was the first to remind myself, I was as curious about the Forbidden Villa as she was. I set out that evening without too much complaint.

  The novelist’s wiry and deeply bronzed wife was busy in the kitchen when I arrived. She took me straight up to the sickroom. ‘It’s so so kind of you to have come,’ she said distractedly. ‘You have no idea how very grateful we all are. Everything’s gone wrong at once. You’ll find the supplies and the instructions in the desk. We’ve just turned him over, so he’s good for a few hours, I would say.’ With that, she had returned to her house guests on the terrace.

  There were no instructions in the desk – just charts, illegible notes and a collection of pills and syringes. But it didn’t seem urgent to ask for help as the patient appeared to be sleeping. I settled down in the chair next to the bed. A
t first I was, I’ll admit it, curious to look at the face, or rather at the changes that had occurred in it since he had last exposed it to a camera – his once rugged countenance now relaxed into a childish frown, his famously accusing eyes opening to unfocused confusion whenever a passing car startled him out of his light sleep.

  From time to time he remained awake long enough to notice me. Once, when I made the mistake of trying to fix his covers, he grabbed my arm and wouldn’t let go. I had to prise his fingers loose, only to have him grab my hand, and then my other hand, my other forearm – but none of this threw me. I had dealt with it before. I knew what happened to old men when their minds began to go. The erasure of this man’s intelligence did not seem unusually tragic. I admired his writing, but I had never been a disciple. He set his sights too high, just as in those days I set mine too low. Human error, that was what I looked for then – the way the mighty tripped and revealed themselves unworthy of Mount Olympus. This great man had long since fallen. He could no longer be caught out. I was more interested in his family’s frenetic efforts to rest on his laurels. This, in any event, was how I saw the dinner party that was playing itself out on the terrace below.

  My view was restricted by the grape arbour that covered the inner half of the terrace. This meant that I could hear only the people I couldn’t see. But sometimes conversation can be a distraction, can keep the unfeeling witness from seeing the obvious. In this case, it was that the dozen or so guests at the far end of the terrace belonged to two incompatible groups. One consisted of my charge’s sons and their beautiful but (I knew from previous observation) braindead acolytes. The other was made up of visitors. You could tell from their pallor and the slight awkwardness with which they wore their summer clothes that they hadn’t been on the island long. You could tell from their vague, beaming smiles that they were chuffed to have been invited. Yet the nervous way they picked at the nuts and olives, and the deep, dark looks they bestowed from time to time upon their wineglasses, suggested that they were far more important at home, or at work, than they were here, and not quite certain what to do when they weren’t the centre of attention.