The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  “I know what you meant. Yes, I suppose single-mindedness is a form of simplicity.”

  “It’s very attractive.” As she moved forward again, I heard her say, “I’m so sick of complexity, so sick of mess and muddle and unhappiness.”

  “You were unhappy?”

  “Yes, but saying I was unhappy is meaningless, it’s too simple, it describes nothing here.” She turned impulsively to face me. “I loved Conor,” she said, “and he loved me, but it wasn’t a restful sort of love. Quite the contrary.”

  I said nothing. I knew better than to interrupt anyone bent on confession but when she spoke again I sensed she was already retreating into generalities. “We were too alike, that was the trouble,” she said idly. “When a marriage runs into difficulty it’s always supposed to be because the couple grow apart. Nobody ever tells you how difficult it is when the couple grow too alike. To live with one’s own faults is hard enough. To live with one’s own faults mirrored in someone else is like looking into a glass and watching oneself grow ugly. … But sometimes even ugliness can exert its own irresistible fascination.” She laughed briefly and I heard her murmur, “But we couldn’t have parted. We were too attracted physically. That brought us together in the beginning and it kept us together at the end. … Odd, wasn’t it?” she demanded unexpectedly, her voice crisp. “Most affairs of that kind fall apart after six months. Oh, what a white-hot muddle it all was! And then suddenly one bullet … a rush of blood … and after fifteen years of perpetual clamor—silence. I still can’t get used to it. I wake in the middle of the night and the silence goes on and on.”

  “Naturally it’ll take you a long time to recover.”

  “You keep making these wonderfully simple remarks which have nothing to do with reality. Recover, you say? How do I recover? Do I suddenly discover a talent for leading an orderly, peaceful life? I’ve never had a talent for that—I barely know what peace and order mean! Yet I long for them. … Yes, I long to be safe … and protected … with someone I can trust, someone loyal who won’t let me down. … Oh God, what on earth’s going to happen to me when I get to London? I’m so frightened, Robert, so frightened of all the predatory men, so frightened of getting into yet another appalling mess, sometimes I think I can’t face London at all, but where else am I to go? I can’t stay indefinitely at Oxmoon—oh, all thought of the future paralyzes me, I don’t know how I shall ever survive—”

  “I give you my word of honor that I shall come riding up on my white horse to slay every London dragon who breathes fire at you!

  “Oh Robert! Dear, dear Robert! How romantic!”

  We were laughing together, just as I had intended. Meanwhile I had moved closer to her and the next moment I was aware of nothing save the muffled boom of the surf on the other side of the Shipway and the throb of the blood beneath my skin. The expression in her eyes changed. Unable to stop myself I held out my arms.

  “Ginette—”

  But she interrupted me. “Come to my room tonight,” she said in a low voice. “After the dinner party. I’ll be waiting for you.”

  The scene froze. It was as if the violins had once more stopped playing “The Blue Danube.”

  I was appalled.

  4

  I

  MY FEELINGS MUST HAVE BEEN clearly written on my face. I saw her turn so white that I was seized with the melodramatic notion that she might faint, but the moment of crisis passed and instead of fainting she managed to say carelessly, “Sorry! Wrong move. I stole your lines, didn’t I? What a faux pas!”

  I drew breath to speak but she forestalled me.

  “If a man says to a woman, ‘May I come to your room tonight?’ they both think he’s a very fine fellow,” she said in a shaking voice, “but if a woman issues a similar invitation—even to a man she loves—the man automatically classes her as a whore.”

  “I could never think—”

  “You thought it. I saw you. Well, maybe you’re right. Maybe, according to your book of rules, I am a whore. But who wrote that book of rules, I’d like to know? Men! Damned men! They make the rules and have all the fun of breaking them while we women have to stay locked up in our straitjackets!”

  “I absolutely deny—”

  “Oh, don’t bother!”

  “But—”

  “I’ve talked like a whore and now I’m behaving like some ghastly suffragette and I know perfectly well you’re wondering how you could ever have loved me and oh God, I’ve done it again, I’ve made a mess of everything and I hate myself so much that I don’t know how to bear it!”

  She burst into tears. For one long moment I was transfixed by this harrowing display of feminine emotion but finally I recovered my wits and pursued the only intelligent course of action that remained to me.

  She was still weeping. “Oh Robert, forgive me—please forgive me—”

  “My dearest Ginette,” I said, and took her in my arms.

  II

  THERE FOLLOWED A SOMEWHAT predictable interval in which I lost the capacity for rational thought and made a number of declarations which sounded as if they had been invented by the worst kind of nineteenth-century poet. However most of the time I had the good sense to keep my mouth shut—or at least, to be accurate, to keep my nineteenth-century maunderings to myself; my mouth was busy proving the maxim that actions speak louder than words.

  This extraordinary scene was interrupted all too soon by a party of jolly strangers on an excursion. The secluded beauties of the Gower Peninsula have never been entirely unspoiled since Baedeker wrote of them, but at that moment I felt I could resign myself to any intrusion, even the advent of four noisy fiends with Lancashire accents who sang “Rule, Britannia” as they strode down the cliff path.

  “Maybe they’ll drown on the Shipway!” murmured Ginette.

  “Not a chance—the tide’s barely past low water!”

  We smiled into each other’s eyes.

  “Oh Robert …”

  “Ah Ginette, Ginette …”

  And so on and so on. I was not surprised when the strangers boggled in response to our polite “Good afternoon.” They probably felt the landscape was quite romantic enough without two starry-eyed lovers cluttering up their path to the Worm.

  “Darling, what time is it?”

  “There is no time,” I said, “only eternity.” Of course I was still thoroughly demented.

  “Darling, that’s simply lovely and I’d adore to stay here in eternity with you forever, but unfortunately I promised Margaret that we’d be back for tea.”

  Eternity was terminated. “Why on earth did you do that?” I said annoyed.

  “Because Margaret said to me before we left, ‘Dearest Ginevra, have a lovely time and don’t forget that there’ll be a special tea waiting when you come back—you will be back for tea, won’t you?’ and I said, ‘Dearest Margaret, yes, of course.’ ”

  “I despair of you both.”

  “Oh Robert, she doesn’t trust us an inch!”

  “Yes, we’ll have to reassure her by acting a charade of unblemished chastity among the teacups and the cucumber sandwiches.”

  We laughed. Then I said again, “My dearest Ginette!” and we paused for one last lingering luscious kiss before toiling back up the cliff path to Rhossili.

  III

  IT TOOK HALF AN hour to reach the motor, and the interval proved salutary. By the time I was helping Ginette into the passenger seat I had recovered my capacity for rational thought, and although I was still in a fever of happiness I had at least emerged from my delirium. Thus when the engine stalled I made no attempt to restart it. I remained motionless, my hands gripping the wheel, my eyes watching the white lines of the breakers sweeping the beach far below.

  “Ginette.”

  She turned to me. Her dark eyes were brilliant beneath their long black curling lashes. Her flawless skin was flushed from her walk. Her wide full-lipped mouth was irresistible and again I made no effort to resist. I kissed it.

  �
��What’s the matter?” she said when I released her.

  “I can’t come to your room tonight.” I paused before adding levelly: “There are reasons—good reasons—why it’s not possible.”

  All she said was “Go on.”

  I bent all my concentration towards translating confusion into clarity. “In my opinion you shouldn’t go to bed with anyone at the moment,” I said frankly. “The truth is your husband’s been dead less than a month, you’re in a thoroughly unstable state and if I took advantage of you now I think you might come to resent me later—I think I might become just another of those ‘damned men’ who you implied take what they want at the woman’s expense. And I don’t want you ever to think of me in that way, Ginette. I want you to think of me as a man who cares enough for you to postpone winning what he wants most.”

  Still she looked at me steadily. And again she said, “Go on.”

  “I also have to consider my parents. I promised my father this morning that my attitude towards you would stay fraternal while I remained at Oxmoon, and we both know why he extracted that promise from me; we both know my mother not only disapproves of the idea of any intimacy between us but is absolutely opposed to any irregular behavior beneath her roof. And annoying though I find my mother at present, I have to concede that I have a duty not to offend her in this respect.”

  “Yes, I understand. Go on.”

  “Well,” I said, finally disconcerted by this continuing request to proceed, “that’s it. All things considered I sincerely believe—”

  “Are you sure there’s no other reason? Can you promise me you’re not acting out of anger?”

  “Anger!” I was astonished. “But why should I be angry?”

  “Because I was the one who took the initiative in suggesting that we meet tonight.”

  “What an extraordinary notion! No, of course I’m not angry with you because of that!”

  “Then are you worried about Conor?”

  “Worried about … my dear Ginette, what in God’s name are you talking about?”

  “Nothing. I’m sorry.” She leaned forward to kiss me. “Shouldn’t we be going?”

  But after that kiss I was conscious only of my physical arousal. I said abruptly, “How soon can you come up to London?”

  “I don’t know. It depends what I do about the boys.”

  “Well, never mind, we can discuss that later.” The thought of her two sons was not a stimulating one.

  She was drawing on her gloves and as I watched Kinsella’s rings disappearing from sight I was aware for the first time of complex emotions which I could not begin to analyze. I thrust them aside. Then with my confusion safely buried at the back of my mind, I got out of the car and made renewed efforts to start the engine.

  Twenty minutes later we were motoring hell-for-leather up the drive to Oxmoon and praying we were not too late for tea.

  IV

  THE SPECIAL TEA WHICH my mother had promised Ginette consisted of a sumptuous repast on the lawn below the terrace. There were three different kinds of sandwiches, four cakes, a batch of scones, a heap of currant buns, assorted biscuits and, to add the final touch of luxury, strawberries and cream. When Ginette and I emerged from the house we found the meal had already started. Lion, John, Edmund and my father had all been playing lawn tennis; they were wearing whites, my father looking just as lean and strong as any of his sons. Celia had been sketching; her drawing board and pencils were tucked beneath her deck chair and she had a hot flustered look as if she had just beaten back Thomas’s efforts to purloin them. Thomas himself, looking like a sulky cherub in his white sailor suit, was busy pouring his glass of milk over my father’s dog. Meanwhile Bayliss and Ifor were circulating with the large plates of sandwiches, and beneath a striped umbrella which shaded the wrought-iron table my mother presided over the silver teapot. I was acutely aware of her watching us as we descended the stone steps to the lawn.

  “No, no, Thomas,” my father was saying mildly to the child. “Glendower doesn’t like being christened with milk. Perhaps cold water, as it’s such a hot day.”

  “Here come the childhood sweethearts!” caroled that idiot Lion.

  “Where did you go?” called John cheerfully.

  “Rhossili!” exclaimed Ginette. “My dear, that Worm’s Head! Too divine! We toiled all the way down to the Shipway—imagine! I feel exhausted!”

  “Have my chair, Ginevra—”

  “No, have mine—”

  “Mine’s the best—”

  “Darlings,” said Ginette, reclining gracefully upon the nearest proffered deck chair, “how heavenly you all are!”

  “I’m sorry we’re late, Mama,” I said, sitting down next to my father.

  “That’s quite all right, Robert. I hope you had a pleasant outing.” She turned to the footman. “Ifor, we’re going to need more hot water.”

  “So sorry we’re late, Margaret!” said Ginette, accepting a cucumber sandwich from the butler. “I’m afraid it’s my fault—Robert didn’t realize that I’d promised we’d be home for tea.”

  “That’s quite all right, Ginevra. Milk or lemon?”

  “Oh, lemon would be delicious, as the weather’s so hot! In America, you know, they have iced tea—it sounds horrid but actually when the weather’s absolutely steaming …”

  Settling down to join her in a bravura performance of our grand charade I began to discuss the merits of the motorcar with my father.

  V

  THE NEXT ORDEAL ON the agenda was my parents’ “little dinner party for twenty-four” which, since not all the invited guests were able to come at such short notice, had turned out to be a little dinner party for eighteen. The Mowbrays were up in town and the Bryn-Davieses had a previous engagement in Swansea, but the de Bracys, the Stourhams and the Applebys all professed themselves eager to welcome Ginette home.

  I was sorry the Bryn-Davieses were to be absent. My father had long ago befriended Owain Bryn-Davies the Younger, and with admirable determination had persisted in demonstrating his belief that the sins of my grandmother’s lover should not be blamed upon the next generation of the family. Owain the Younger had also suffered as the result of the debacle in the Eighties; his father had walked out on a wife and five children when he had gone to live at Oxmoon with his mistress. However later, well educated on the money his father had plundered from the Oxmoon estate, Owain the Younger had made an excellent marriage to the daughter of a Swansea coal-mine owner, and now he lived in immaculate middle-class respectability on the outskirts of Swansea. His only son Alun, a contemporary of mine at Harrow, was so grand that he barely knew one end of a sheep from the other.

  “By the way,” said Lion after tea when the conversation turned to the approaching dinner party, “there’s something I want to ask.” He glanced around to make sure Ginette and the servants had retired indoors. “Do we admit Kinsella was murdered?”

  “Absolutely not!” said my mother, effortlessly drawing the line. “We say he had an accident with a gun and of course everyone will be much too well-bred to make further inquiries.”

  “Oh Mama, I don’t really have to wear black, do I?” begged Celia querulously. “I’ll look such a fright!”

  “Well, I think navy blue would be permissible for you in the circumstances, dear. After all, Mr. Kinsella was not a blood relation and indeed was barely known to us. I of course shall wear black, but I see no reason why you shouldn’t allow yourself a little latitude so long as the color of your gown remains discreet.”

  “My dear Celia,” I said later as we found ourselves going upstairs to change, “you’re twenty-nine years old! Can’t you make your own decisions about what to wear for a dinner party?”

  “Oh, leave me alone, Robert—you’re always so beastly to me! Do you think I like being reminded that I’m nearly thirty and still living at home?”

  For some reason which I failed to understand, conversations with my sister always sank to this fractious level. Celia seemed to think I despis
ed her but I thought her worthy enough despite her plain looks and lack of intelligence. She occupied herself a great deal with charity work and was famous for her volumes of pressed wild flowers.

  In my room while I waited for hot water to be brought to me I thought what a very different life Ginette had lived far away in unknown barbaric New York, and the next moment before I could stop myself I was seeing Kinsella’s rings on her finger and hearing her talk of her marital intimacy. “It brought us together in the beginning and it kept us together at the end. …” That disturbed me. I began to pace up and down. Finally I even shuddered, and when the hot water arrived it was all I could do not to cut myself as I shaved. I knew from my experience in criminal law that women, even good women, can become as addicted to carnal pleasure as many men, and it seemed to me that Ginette now sought not me at all but an opiate which would shut out her fear of the future.

  I told myself firmly that I had reached the right decision on top of the cliffs at Rhossili that afternoon. I did not want to be treated as a soothing medicine contained in a bottle marked TAKE REGULARLY AT BEDTIME. Nor—and this was an even more horrific possibility—did I want to be treated as a substitute for Kinsella. I wanted to be wanted because I was myself, because I was the best man in the world for her, and bearing this in mind I had no alternative but to wait until she could give me the response I deserved. Any other solution was quite unacceptable.

  I felt better, and congratulating myself that my thoughts on this most complicated subject were now in order, I set off briskly downstairs to the drawing room.

  VI

  SHE ENTERED THE ROOM and my well-ordered mind fell apart into chaos. She wore a rich black satin gown, very décolleté and trimmed with yards of erotic black lace. A diamond pendant, sparkling against her creamy skin, pointed downwards like an arrow as if to emphasize her breasts, and her thick glowing auburn hair, piled high, was secured with a diamond clasp.