The Poellenberg Inheritance (2 page)

She put the receiver to her ear.

‘Hello?'

‘Is that Mrs. Stanley?' It was a man's voice, with a foreign accent.

‘Yes, speaking. Who is that?'

‘My name is Black. But you don't know me. I would like to come and see you.'

Paula hesitated. It was five-thirty and she was getting ready to go down to her mother for the weekend.

‘Why do you want to see me?' she asked. ‘What can I do for you?'

‘I just want to come and talk to you,' the voice said. ‘Don't be alarmed, Mrs. Stanley. I am not a crank. I have something very important to tell you. Something which is to your advantage.'

‘What do you mean? Are you a solicitor?'

Which she realised at once was immaterial because there was no one to die and leave her money. Her mother was her only relative.

‘No, Mrs. Stanley. I am not a solicitor. I am a friend of your father's. When can I come?'

‘What do you mean, a friend of my father's – my father is dead.'

‘I know that; does the name Poellenberg mean anything to you?'

‘Not a thing. I've never heard of it.' For a moment she was tempted to hang up. The towel was slipping and she was cold.

‘Let me come and see you and I will explain,' the voice said. ‘But don't mention it to anyone. Don't mention Poellenberg. Can I come tomorrow morning?'

‘No,' Paula said. ‘I'm going away for the weekend. Why mustn't I mention this to anyone – what's all the mystery about, Mr. Black?'

‘I will explain when I see you,' he said. ‘I will explain everything then, but you will have to trust me. On Monday morning, at ten o'clock.'

‘I go to my office at ten,' she said. ‘Wait a minute, let me think – why don't you come there? About eleven-thirty?'

‘Will we be able to speak in private?'

‘Certainly. Nobody will disturb me. One moment, tell me one thing – you say you're a friend of my father's …'

‘I will come to your office on Monday at half past eleven,' the voice cut in. ‘I know the address. Goodbye, Mrs. Stanley. I look forward to meeting you.'

The line clicked. He had rung off. Paula put the phone down and stood shivering, holding the towel round her. Of course she wasn't afraid. That was what James always said about her, ‘Nothing would scare you, sweetheart, you're a real tough little Hun.' It was a remark that wounded, assuming, as it did, that she was able to take care of herself and consequently he was free of obligation. Even if he were right, that epithet, Hun, always rubbed raw. It was not as if she had been to Germany since her childhood or even spoke the language. James had made the accident of blood into a genetic crime. She had been born in Germany, but she left it as a child, and the Englishman her mother married had adopted her legally and given her his name. Paula went back and let the tepid water out of the bath. She dried herself and stood for a moment before the mirror, examining the naked body for defects. There were none visible; she was young, firm, slenderly built, with an attractive face framed in smooth brown hair. Only the eyes were different. They were blue, but of an extraordinary colour. She went back into her bedroom and dressed in trousers, sweater and jacket. Her weekend case was packed. She looked at the telephone again. What an extraordinary call. A complete stranger ringing out of the unknown, claiming to have news of great importance for her, claiming to have known the dead father she could not remember. It was odd, but Paula realised suddenly that this was what had made her agree to a meeting. He had known her father. Who was he, this Mr. Black, with an accent that came from her unknown homeland across the Rhine? The voice was that of an old man, and if he had known her father the General, then he must be well into his sixties. She locked the flat door behind her and went into her car. As it started up, her thoughts were far from the traffic that choked her route out through the City of London, through the East End and on to the Newmarket road. She knew the route by heart; she had travelled down to her stepfather's house in Essex for the last eight years, since she had left home at twenty to live and work in London alone. Alone. It was the operative word to describe the best part of her life. Five years of that dismal marriage, after a childhood which was spent playing gooseberry to two adults who only wanted to be left alone with each other. Now that she was truly independent, free of family ties and without James to nag about neglecting them so he could go off on his own, Paula paid infrequent visits to the house in Essex. They didn't miss her when she stayed away. They were pleased to see her in a distant way, and kind, prepared to let her share their warmth and smugness in each other's company. The result was to drive her out of the house as quickly as good manners would permit.

But her mother was sixty, although she didn't look it, and sometimes Paula's conscience jabbed. On those occasions she gave up her weekend with friends in London or declined another invitation to go away, and invited herself down to the farm.

It was a handsome lath and plaster Essex house, sixteenth-century in the most part, with an eighteenth-century wing, which her stepfather's ancestor had built.

Brigadier Gerald Ridgeway,
D.S.O., M.C
. She could remember that rosy complexioned face, with the brisk gingery moustache and the hearty voice, bending over her from what seemed a gigantic height. He used to smell of leather and cologne. He had always been kind, but it was a stiff relationship, with bouts of false bonhomie which embarrassed Paula even when she was very young. Children have an instinct for what is assumed, and she knew that her stepfather didn't really love her, that he was only making an effort.

So there was no relationship; she didn't hate him as she might have done if his attitude towards her had been more positive. She accepted him as part of her life, and accepted also that she had lost her mother to him as inevitably as if she had died, like the General. She didn't remember the General. She knew he was dead, and her mother had answered her questions about him with obvious resentment at being expected to explain. Paula hadn't pursued the subject. Her mother indicated her displeasure and Paula, even though nearly grown up, withdrew from the contest.

The man called Black knew her father. She was clear of the traffic and beyond the bottleneck at Epping; Paula pressed down on the accelerator and the little car gathered speed. He had insisted upon secrecy; what was the name he had mentioned? – Poellenberg. Paula shrugged as she drove. It meant nothing to her. What was it, a name, a place – what was its significance. In an hour and a half she had turned into the drive and pulled up at the entrance. It was June, and the front of the low-built house was covered with yellow climbing roses. The Brigadier was a keen gardener; he had interested her mother in the art, and Paula remembered her astonishment at seeing that elegant figure down on its knees with a garden trowel, grubbing in a flower bed.

Two black labradors came bounding out of the door, barking and leaping up to welcome her. Dogs, roses, the Women's Institute, a distinguished retired soldier as her adoring husband – this was the role in which her mother had elected to live the rest of her life. She came through the door after the labradors, a tall, thin woman in muted tweeds, old but still beautiful with the agelessness of fine aristocratic bone structure, the blue eyes filled with vitality.

They were not the same colour as Paula's; that astonishing blue was the General's legacy.

‘Paula, dear …' She gave her daughter a kiss on the cheek. ‘You're early; did you have a good journey down?'

‘Rather a lot of traffic,' Paula said. ‘How are you, Mother? You're looking very well.'

‘I am, dear. But your poor father's got a cold. Come inside, and push those naughty dogs down, they'll ruin your clothes.'

She always referred to the Brigadier as ‘your father'. It was quite unselfconscious; Paula was sure her mother would have been horrified to know how deeply she resented it.

Inside, the house was furnished with comfort and elegance; they spent their time in a small panelled study filled with her stepfather's collection of military books; the pictures and furniture were exactly in character with the owner. Very English, slightly shabby, valuable but understated. There was nothing in this country gentleman's home to remind Paula of the dimly remembered gilt and stucco palace where she had lived until the age of four years. That was a confused and fading memory, unaided by photographs or any of the normal souvenirs of another life. It was as if her mother had decided to erase the first thirty years before she had met and married Gerald Ridgeway.

She had succeeded in what she set out to do, as indeed she succeeded in everything. A German-born baroness, widow of a man who had risen to the rank of general fighting the Allies, she now played a leading part in the village life, looked up to and respected in the area. She had succeeded as an army officer's wife under the most difficult post-war conditions. Even her husband's ultra-conservative military family had ended by accepting the beautiful young German into their circle. Paula was offered a drink and she sat down; one of the labradors had settled beside her and was pressed against her knee. It should have made her feel at home, relaxed and at ease, her mother sitting opposite, talking about the latest village news, the dusk deepening outside. Instead, its effect upon Paula was to make her feel strange and isolated. It was not part of her, however much it had been superimposed upon her. Unlike her mother, she had not adopted the protective colouring of an alien country and an alien culture.

As a result she had no country and no affiliations, but it was not possible to miss what one had never known. Or at least it was difficult to blame the sense of restlessness and vacuity upon that deprivation. If Paula was unhappy, she did not know whom to blame or how to define what she needed. She was merely aware of a condition within herself, which had always existed. This she accepted.

‘If you don't mind, dear,' Mrs. Ridgeway said, ‘I've made your father stay in bed; I don't want him to take any risks with that cold. The last one was on his chest. It made him quite ill.'

‘Of course I don't mind,' Paula said. ‘I'll go up and say hello to him later. By the way, Mother, I'm glad we're on our own tonight. I want to talk to you.'

‘Oh? What about?' There was the same guarded look on her mother's face, an instant letting down of shutters, whenever Paula attempted any intimacy.

‘I hope there's no more trouble with James.'

‘It's nothing to do with James,' Paula said.

‘You know we were very upset about that,' her mother said. ‘It's such a final step, breaking up a marriage.'

‘Sleeping with my best friend was a pretty final step,' Paula said. ‘Not to mention the little bird he wanted to marry. I suppose I might have taken one of them but I'm sorry, Mother, both was just too much. Besides, we weren't in love with each other. It was bound to come sooner or later.'

‘I could never imagine leaving my husband,' Mrs. Ridgeway said. ‘Whatever he did.'

‘But he didn't do anything, did he?' Paula countered. ‘He's adored you all your married life, so how would you know what you'd do if you had a rotten husband, for instance.'

The beautiful, ageing face was like a mask. The coldness struck at Paula suddenly and made her angry. How would her mother know anything about the problems of being married to a man who neglected you, avoided responsibility, and only made love when he felt like it? She had been loved and spoiled by one man with an obsessive passion for her. All they had ever wanted was to be alone together, to share their bed and their life without the encumbrances of a child, who seemed always standing in the shadows, looking on.

‘Anyway, I don't want to talk about James. I had a very curious telephone call tonight. A man rang up and said his name was Black and he was a friend of my father. He asked to see me.'

Now there was a faint colour in the face opposite; it tinged the fine white skin, as if her mother were blushing. Paula saw the change from impassive disapproval to outright alarm. The mouth opened for a second; she thought her mother was going to say something. But the moment passed. Now it really was a mask, the colour was fading, leaving a grey pallor, the eyes were bright with wariness watching her daughter like an intruding stranger.

‘I don't understand.' The voice was cold, angry. ‘I know no one connected with us called Black. It sounds like a practical joke.'

‘It wasn't,' Paula insisted. ‘I'm quite sure it was perfectly genuine. Mr. Black. He sounded German. Mother, please don't go out of the room, I want to ask you about this!'

‘There is nothing to ask.' Mrs. Ridgeway was standing, poised to walk out. ‘I advise you to have nothing to do with this man, whoever he is. I know your father would say the same.'

Now Paula was standing too. ‘He's not my father. He's your husband, but he's nothing to me. Let's leave him out of it for once. I want to talk about my
real
father. Don't walk out on me, Mother. What are you afraid of?'

‘I refuse to be bullied,' her mother said. ‘I have nothing to discuss with you about your father. He was killed in Russia, and you never even knew him. I suspect you've been building up some fiction about him in your mind. My advice to you is not to make a fool of yourself. As for Mr. Black, it's probably a hoax or else some unpleasant creature with a kink about telephoning women living alone. I think you'd be extremely foolish to have anything to do with it. That's all I have to say.'

‘He mentioned something,' Paula said. ‘Poellenberg. That was what he said. He asked me if I knew what it meant. By the look on your face, Mother, it seems to mean something to you.'

‘I'm going upstairs,' her mother said. ‘I'm going to your father.'