The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  My father said nothing.

  “Did my grandfather really die of drink?” I said, and started counting. A bad liar will let a silence of several seconds elapse while he tries to frame a reply. A good liar will play for time while he keeps the silence at bay.

  “Your grandfather died of something-or-other of the liver,” said my father without a second’s hesitation. “The doctor wrote it down for me but the word looked so uncommonly odd that I could never work out how to pronounce it, but of course you’ll know the word I mean; I believe the disease is very common among drunkards.” He paused. He had now worked out what he considered to be the perfect reply. Smiling at me he said, “You mustn’t start seeing murder in every death, Robert! I’m sure you’d never have thought of asking that question if you hadn’t been working in a world where murder is commonplace.”

  That was a valid criticism, and smiling back I made a gesture to acknowledge it. We said no more on the subject. As we rode on, my father began to talk of the Martinscombe sheep and soon he was recalling Bryn-Davies’ famous dictum that Penhale Down might have been designed by God to produce strong ewes and twin lambs.

  My father managed all four of the major farms on the estate himself and his four foremen answered directly to him instead of to a bailiff. He always said a bailiff would be guaranteed to annoy the laborers and make the wrong decisions, but no doubt he had been influenced by the memory of his father who had made a disastrous habit of hiring the wrong men for the post.

  My father was also in a position, exceptional among his fellow squires, of having experienced the practical side of farming in his impoverished early years. The men in his employment knew he was no idle landowner who kept his hands clean and talked through his hat. They knew he knew what it was to shovel manure, rise before dawn to milk cows, bore himself into a stupor with hoeing and generally endure all that is most tedious in agricultural life.

  “… and then I had this chance to buy into a closed herd …”

  We had left Martinscombe after drinking tea with the foreman and his wife, and as we wound our way across the valley to Daxworth my father began to talk of the cows that awaited us there. Of the three other major farms beyond Martinscombe, Daxworth and Cherryvale were concerned with cattle breeding, while the task of the Home Farm was to supply a wide variety of food to the main house.

  “… so taking it from a financial point of view, Robert, it works out like this. …”

  I tried not to yawn and succeeded but the truth was that I had no fundamental interest in farming. I loved Oxmoon; I enjoyed every leisure hour spent roaming around the countryside; I savored the peace and permanence of a home where my family had lived for generations, but whenever my father embarked on a cattle-breeding panegyric I felt my brain begin to atrophy.

  “… and the cost of feeding a cow through the winter works out at …”

  As my mind wandered I recalled Cicero’s rhapsodies about the glory of farming. But of course his life had been centered on Rome. If he had lived all the year-round in the country his views might have been less romantic.

  My life was and would be centered on London but I saw no conflict in the future; there was nothing to stop me maintaining a successful parliamentary career while I kept Oxmoon as my country house. I would have to employ a bailiff but because I had mastered the necessary agricultural theories in order to please my father, I would be capable of the appropriate supervision, and I saw no reason why such an arrangement should not be a success. Certainly I judged myself more than adequately prepared to take the minimum interest required to pass on a prosperous estate to the next generation.

  But the thought of my parliamentary career, which so far existed only in my mind, brought me once more back to my problems and I was acutely aware of not knowing what I really wanted from life. For a second I yearned for the mountains, but told myself I was only longing for the cancer that would kill me.

  “… and Emrys Llewellyn tried to sell me this bull; you never saw such an animal, looked as if it would run a mile at the sight of a cow.

  My ill-fated grandmother had been a Llewellyn. The Llewellyns were one of the few Welsh-speaking families in The Englishry of southern and central Gower and were unusual in owning their own land in the parish of Penhale. My father was estranged from his Welsh cousins. He had never forgiven them for refusing to receive his mother when she had tried to leave her drunken husband.

  “Is Emrys still referring to Grandmama as ‘Aunt Gwyneth the Harlot’?” I inquired idly. I was becoming unable to sustain an intelligent interest in cows and bulls.

  “We don’t mention her nowadays. I’ve no patience with Emrys. Whatever I do he don’t like it. It’s all jealousy, of course. He’d like to be a squire with two thousand acres and an entry in Burke’s Landed Gentry instead of a yeoman with two hundred acres and a pedigree which goes back to Hywel Da—and we all know that’s a fable. I’m willing to treat him as an equal, I’m no snob, but it makes it worse when I’m friendly to him, he’d far rather I was breathing fire and making a nuisance of myself.”

  “I think it’ll be a long time before the Llewellyns intermarry again with the Godwins!”

  “Yes, thank God you’ve no desire to marry your cousin Dilys.”

  There was a silence as we remembered the other cousin who was now only too eligible to be my wife.

  My father suddenly reined in his horse again. “How do you find Ginevra?” he said abruptly.

  “In a state of shock and grief.”

  “No, I meant …” He hesitated, sifting through his English vocabulary but finding only an obsolete phrase which could express the nuance of the Welsh question in his head. “Will you pay court to her, do you think?”

  “How quaint that sounds! Papa, I intend to be what she needs most at this time: a good friend.”

  “Is that possible? I saw the expression in your eyes when you were refilling her glass of champagne yesterday morning.”

  “What expression?”

  “Oh, your mother and I both noticed it. Robert, I want you to promise me something. If you’re going to pay your addresses to Ginevra, will you please not do so at Oxmoon? Your mother’s never forgiven her for causing such a scandal, engaging herself to one man, eloping with another, and you can hardly now expect Margaret to welcome any signs that you still want Ginevra to be your wife.”

  “All I expect from my mother,” I said, “is that she should mind her own business.”

  “And all I expect from you,” said my father, “is that you should keep a civil tongue in your head and do as you’re told in a house which don’t yet belong to you.”

  There was a pause. Our horses fidgeted restlessly but we ourselves were very still. I was aware of a cow lowing far away by the river and a gull soaring overhead and a faint breeze swaying the poppies by the wayside but most of all I was aware of shock. It had been many years since my father had spoken to me so roughly. Too late I realized he was deeply distressed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said at last. “Yes, of course I’ll behave as you wish—I regret if I’ve given you cause for concern.”

  We rode on but it was as if a cloud had passed over the sun and it was not until later as we were leaving Daxworth on our way to Cherryvale that I summoned the nerve to say to him, “Papa, I’m afraid your edict about Ginette puts me in an awkward position.” And I told him how I had promised to take her out in the motor that afternoon. “I assure you my behavior towards her will be entirely fraternal—”

  “Of course. Yes, by all means make the excursion—I’m sure, it would do her good,” said my father, obviously anxious to avoid a quarrel, and with mutual relief we exchanged smiles and rode on to Cherryvale.

  V

  “THE SEA! THE SEA!” exclaimed Ginette with a sigh of pleasure as I halted the car on top of the cliffs.

  “That,” I said, “is the most famous line in Xenophon’s Anabasis.”

  “Of course,” she said, teasing me. “What else?” And we laughed.


  We were at the extreme western end of the Gower Peninsula and before us lay the matchless curve of Rhossili Bay. On our right Rhossili Downs rose from the vast empty golden sands which were marred only by the blackened timber of shipwrecks. Beyond the little village that slumbered beside us on the cliff top there was no sign of human habitation except for one house, built above the beach at the foot of the Downs.

  Ginette was still wearing black but she had exchanged her flimsy shoes for a pair of walking boots and had donned a large hat with a suitable motoring veil. Now that the motor was stationary she was setting aside the veil and adjusting her hat.

  “Thank God this brute of a machine behaved itself,” I said, carefully ascertaining that the brake was in the correct position. Only an imbecile could fail to master such a simple skill as driving a motor but I was never at my ease with machinery, particularly as I would have been helpless in the event of a breakdown.

  “Let’s go and look at the Worm,” said Ginette.

  The Worm’s Head is Gower’s most striking claim to fame. It is an extension of the south arm of the bay; the cliffs beyond the village of Rhossili slope steeply to sea level and there, across the tidal causeway of rocks known as the Shipway, a long narrow spur of land arches its way far out into the sea. It has all the allure of a semi-island and all the glamour of a myth. “Worm” is an old word for dragon, and with a little imagination one can look at this unusual land formation and see a monster thrashing its way into the Bristol Channel.

  The Mansel Talbots of Penrice who owned the land kept sheep on the Worm’s Head, and it had been on his way to inspect this flock that Owain Bryn-Davies had met his death in the tidal trap of the Shipway. Bryn-Davies, born and bred in the Welshery of northeast Gower, had misjudged the dangers awaiting those unfamiliar with the landscape in the southwest.

  “You’re thinking what I’m thinking, aren’t you,” said Ginette suddenly. “Robert, did Bobby ever tell you—”

  “The whole story? No, of course not, but what intrigues me is why my mother should keep so resolutely silent. It’s as if she feels the story must come from him because she herself doesn’t have the right to tell it.”

  There was a pause. We stood there on the exposed headland and stared out across the silver-blue sea towards the coast of Devon which was hidden in a heat haze. The powerful light played tricks with the seascape and created optical illusions. The Shipway seemed a narrow strip of rocks instead of a curving swath of land many yards wide. The Inner Head, the first of the Worm’s three humps, seemed close at hand and not half an hour’s hard scramble away. On our right the shimmering sands seemed as remote as some beautiful mirage, and on our left the cliffs stretched away towards Porteynon into another haze. At that moment I was conscious of the shifting quality of reality, of the elusiveness of truth, and as my thoughts returned to the tragedies of my father’s past I heard Ginette say, “Why would Margaret feel she hadn’t the right to tell the story?”

  “Because I believe,” I said, “that my father connived at concealing a murder and she would think it to be her duty to protect him, not to confess to his children on his behalf.”

  “Good God! Are you trying to say—”

  “Yes, I believe the lover poisoned the husband and that the wife knew of it but convinced the authorities he died of cirrhosis. I think Papa guessed but as he was only a child then, no more than fourteen, he was too frightened to do anything but keep quiet.”

  “Heavens!” She was staring at me wide-eyed. At least I had temporarily diverted her from her own tragedy. “But what makes you think this?”

  “Well, first of all I don’t believe the disintegration of a bad marriage is sufficient by itself to explain Papa’s paralyzed reticence on the subject of his parents and Bryn-Davies. For a long time I’ve suspected there was more to the story than that, and this morning I finally subjected Papa to a cross-examination.”

  “Poor Bobby!”

  “Not at all. He stood up to it well although he made the fatal mistake of assuming, without any open declaration from me, that murder was the subject under discussion. Of course he lied, but the really interesting question is Why did he bother? I gave him the perfect opening to make a clean breast of this story which I know he’s wanted to tell me for a very long time. So why on earth didn’t he take advantage of it?”

  “Perhaps he simply felt it was the wrong time to launch himself upon a confession.”

  “But in that case when will be the right time? The whole thing’s most odd.”

  We discussed my theory further during the journey down the cliff path to the Shipway, but presently the conversation drifted towards nostalgia again.

  “Do you remember that picnic at Rhossili beach when you found a starfish and I helped you smuggle it home?”

  “Ah, those picnics at Rhossili beach!”

  “And at the Worm. Do you remember when we asked Bobby why Margaret would never go there? That was the first time we heard that Bryn-Davies had drowned on the Shipway.”

  I was conscious that we were back with Bryn-Davies again and Ginette was conscious of it too for the next moment she was saying, “How strange it is that the happy home Bobby and Margaret created for us was always permeated by that old tragedy. … Those ghastly Christmases when your grandmother was brought home from her asylum! How could we have laughed at the time and regarded poor old Aunt Gwyneth as a figure of fun? In retrospect it all seems unspeakably sinister and tragic.”

  “Tragedy and comedy often go hand in hand. Think of Shakespeare.”

  “Oh darling, must I? Let’s go and look at the rock pools.”

  We had reached the foot of the cliffs and were standing on the grassy bank that lay on the brink of the Shipway. The ensuing scramble over the rocks was too arduous to permit conversation but when we had paused on the brink of a large pellucid pool Ginette murmured, “Oh Robert!” and heaved a sigh of pleasure.

  “Yes?” I said neutrally, wondering how much longer I could repress the urge to embrace her.

  “I was just thinking how wonderful it is to reminisce with someone who shares one’s memories—and how even more wonderful it is to be with a man who simply treats one as a friend! To tell the truth, darling”—another sigh, another misty-eyed gaze into the rock pool—“I’ve absolutely exhausted the possibilities of grand passion.”

  “Ah,” I said. “Yes. Well, I’ve always suspected grand passions were grossly overrated. Shall we go on?”

  We began to flounder at a snail’s pace across the rocks to the next pool but Ginette soon stopped to gaze out to sea. The entire seascape was, as I now realized, disastrously romantic. If we had been in a Swansea back street I was sure I would have had perfect control over my emotions but as it was I felt I was walking a tightrope suspended between two steadily sinking poles.

  “I want to talk about the present,” said Ginette. “I want to ask you all about your career and your London life. But I can’t. All I can do is talk about the past. How do I escape from it? Sometimes I don’t believe there’s a present or a future; there’s just the past going on and on.”

  I saw my chance. The poles supporting my emotional tightrope promptly collapsed as all reason and common sense slumped into abeyance, and putting my future at the stake I gambled, playing to win.

  “No, Ginette,” I said. “The past is over. The past is done. You may not be in a frame of mind to admit that at the moment, but later when you’re more recovered from your husband’s death, I’ll help you see that a very different future is possible for you.”

  She looked at me. Then she turned away and stared again past the rocks to the alluring serenity of the sea.

  I waited, outwardly calm yet inwardly furious with myself for disclosing my true feelings at such a premature stage of our reunion. Yet I failed to see what else I could have done for the truth was I was on the horns of a dilemma. So relieved had I been that Ginette and I should have slipped back with ease into our old friendship that I had not at first realized
I could be setting out on the same road to failure by inviting the past to repeat itself, but now I could visualize a future in which I nursed Ginette back to emotional health only to see her turn to someone else when a platonic friendship no longer satisfied her.

  The vision horrified me. I knew I must somehow re-form our relationship immediately in order to avoid such a disaster, but since she had just made it clear she wanted nothing from me but friendship, any change seemed doomed to repel her. I was thus in the unenviable position that whatever I did I lost. I was losing now as I sensed her emotional withdrawal. I would have lost ultimately if I had persisted in keeping my hopes for the future to myself. In despair I groped for the words to put matters right but the words—if they existed—continued to elude me. All I could say was “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disclose my true feelings.”

  She turned in surprise to face me. “Disclose your true feelings? But my dear Robert, I’ve always known exactly how you felt!”

  I was stunned. “But you couldn’t. Not possibly.”

  “Oh, I agree you’ve acted superbly! But a woman always knows when a man’s in love with her.” She moved restlessly back to the first pool and it was not until she was standing by the water’s edge that she added, “Has there been no one else?”

  “Well …”

  “Oh, of course you’ve had mistresses, I understand all that, but—”

  “You’re the only woman I’ve ever loved and you’re the only woman I’ll ever want and that’s that. However I quite understand that this kind of sentimental twaddle is the last thing you want to hear at this particular moment, so—”

  “I adore sentimental twaddle!” She was smiling at me. Then she said suddenly, “What a gloriously simple man you must be. Oh God, that sounds insulting, doesn’t it, but what I meant was—”