The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  She was wearing a plain black day frock with no jewelry. She had not replaced Kinsella’s rings and in my fevered state I thought this omission a disastrous error, but when I glanced around the table I soon realized that no one had noticed such a minor detail of her appearance. I willed myself to keep calm.

  “Good morning, Robert!” she was saying as Ifor drew out the chair next to mine. “How’s your sunstroke?”

  “He’s decided to live!” said Lion promptly. “We’re all mortified!”

  “Well, I really mustn’t linger,” murmured my father, and to my envy he finally managed to escape.

  But I knew I had to stay at the table. I could hardly abandon Ginette now that she had flung caution to the winds by walking into the lion’s den, and as I glanced at her tense smiling face I recognized a pattern of behavior with which I was not unfamiliar: the prisoner became so exhausted by the strain of waiting in his cell that he could barely be restrained from rushing into court to confront the judge and learn his fate.

  “Papa looks awful, Mama,” John was saying with concern. “Is anything wrong?”

  “No, dear, just a little touch of insomnia as the result of last night’s lobster.”

  “Mama,” said Celia, preparing to leave the table, “how are we all traveling to church? Will there be room for me in the motor or are Robert and Ginevra accompanying you and Papa?”

  “Oh, there’ll be room for you, dear,” said my mother. “Robert and Ginevra won’t be going to church.”

  Everyone looked at her in astonishment.

  “But it’s the rule!” shrilled Thomas scandalized.

  “No doubt they’ll go to Evensong, dear, but this morning they have an important matter to discuss.”

  “What’s that?” said Lion automatically.

  “Lion dearest,” said my mother, “it’s a personal and private matter connected with Ginevra’s recent sad loss, and I think it would be indelicate of you to inquire further. A widow,” said my mother, sipping her tea, “naturally has many legal and financial problems which require the attention of someone experienced in such matters.”

  “Oh, I see.” Lion subsided into a puzzled silence.

  “Shall I eat this third rasher or not?” mused Edmund, who was still pondering over his breakfast. “I can’t make up my mind.”

  “Leave it,” said John, standing up so suddenly that I knew he had sensed the tension in the room. “Come on, fellows, time to play hunt-the-prayer-book.”

  “Can I get down, please?” said Thomas perfunctorily. He was already moving to the door with his mouth full.

  “Very well, Thomas. Edmund, make sure you change your tie before church. You’ve got an egg stain on it.”

  “Oh, Lord, so I have! Thank you for telling me, Mama.”

  “That will do, Bayliss,” said my mother to the butler. “I shall ring later when I want you to clear.”

  “Very good, ma’am.” Bayliss left with Ifor at his heels. Thomas and John were already in the hall and as I watched both Lion and Edmund followed them.

  “I wonder which hat to choose,” mused Celia. “I think I’ll wear the one with rosebuds.”

  She drifted away. The door finally closed. My mother remained at one end of the long table and Ginette and I remained side by side some distance away on her right. In the silence that followed I felt Ginette’s hand groping unsteadily for mine.

  “I’m sorry you saw fit to come down, Ginevra,” said my mother pleasantly at last, replacing her teacup in its saucer. “I intended to say what has to be said in the privacy of your room. I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of Robert.” She paused before adding: “Perhaps you’d prefer Robert to leave now?” Her voice was solicitous. She made it sound as if she had only our welfare in mind.

  I pulled Ginette’s hand above the table so that my mother could see our fingers were interlocked. “I’m staying,” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t think you want to stay, Robert,” said my mother. “Not really. I think you’d be much happier if you let me have a little talk with Ginevra on her own.”

  I put my arm around Ginette’s shoulders. She was trembling. Holding her tightly I repeated, “I’m staying.”

  “Very well.” My mother paused to reorganize her thoughts. Finally she said, “Ginevra, I must tell you that Bobby had a long talk with Robert this morning, and Robert is now aware that you haven’t been honest with him.”

  I both heard and felt Ginette’s horrified gasp but I said with lightning speed as if she were a client in great danger, “Don’t say a word.”

  Ginette was rigid with fear. I was painfully aware of the color suffusing her face but still I kept my arm around her and we remained silent.

  “Now, Ginevra,” said my mother, suddenly becoming very businesslike, “I think that if you intend to marry Robert you really should be honest. You may well be content to deceive him but in my opinion such a deception would be quite wrong and I could not possibly condone it. But perhaps I’m mistaken and you have no intention of marriage? If you merely intend to continue as his mistress then of course Robert must take you as he finds you and I’ll say no more.”

  I said, “We’re getting married.”

  “Ah,” said my mother, “then I fear I have no alternative.” She stood up, a small neat square figure in gray, and we stood up too, Ginette leaning against me, barely breathing, fingers frantically clutching my free hand.

  “I am now going to church,” said my mother. “While I’m gone, you, Ginevra, are going to tell Robert exactly what happened at Oxmoon when you were sixteen, and when I come back I shall discuss the situation further with him. If I find you haven’t told him the truth, then believe me I most certainly shall.”

  I intercepted her. “Ginette can tell me nothing,” I said, “that I don’t already know.”

  She looked at me steadily. Her pale eyes seemed darker than usual as they reflected the somber shade of her dress. She had a wide plain broad-nosed face with a mouth that could harden in a second to express implacable resolution. It hardened now. As I instinctively recoiled from her, I heard myself say—and to my horror my voice was unsteady—“I know what you’re trying to tell me but I don’t believe it. I don’t, I won’t and I can’t. You’re just acting out of spite and revenge.”

  She turned abruptly to Ginette. “We must put him out of his misery at once. Are you going to tell him or shall I?”

  “Oh Margaret, no—no—”

  “My dear, you can’t fool him indefinitely. He’s much too clever and he deals daily with criminals and liars—look at him, he already knows although he refuses to believe it—”

  “I can’t tell him!” screamed Ginette. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!”

  “Very well,” said my mother. “Perhaps I was expecting too much. Perhaps I should have made greater allowances for you considering all you’ve been through.” Then she turned to me and said kindly, with a complete lack of all the emotion to which she was entitled, “I’m sorry, Robert, but your father didn’t tell you the whole story. It’s not his fault, it’s just that he’s emotionally incapable of it. The truth is simply this: he seduced her. She slept with him. And it nearly destroyed us all.”

  PART TWO

  Ginevra

  1913-1919

  BUT YOU ARE WRONG if you think Fortune has changed towards you. Change is her normal behavior, her true nature. In the very act of changing she has preserved her own particular kind of constancy towards you. She was exactly the same when she was flattering you and luring you on with enticements of a false kind of happiness. You have discovered the changing faces of the random goddess. To others she still veils herself, but to you she has revealed herself to the full. …

  BOETHIUS

  The Consolation of Philosophy

  I

  I

  “AND IT NEARLY DESTROYED US all,” said Margaret.

  I fainted.

  No, that’s not right. That’s fantasy and in this journal I must be concerned with
reality. I’m like one of those wretched women who suffer from some disorder of the womb yet lie to their doctors because they fear having their private parts examined. If you don’t tell the truth to your doctor how can you expect to get better? And if I don’t tell the truth to my journal how can I hope to extricate myself from the messy lies of my ghastly private life?

  So no more lies, not here. No more writing, “I fainted” as if I were the virginal heroine of a romantic novel. (Oh, how divine it would be to be a virginal heroine! I wouldn’t even mind pressing all those frightful wild flowers.) What I have to do is to record in the past tense what, to the best of my recollection, seemed to be happening, and then to comment in the present tense on what was—and is—really going on. Then perhaps I’ll master reality and avoid the horror of a future based on illusion.

  So bearing all this in mind, I must be brave, resolute and blindingly honest (all the things that I’m not). Cross out “I fainted.” And start again.

  “The truth is simply this,” said Margaret, rather as if she were discussing some troublesome dinner-party menu with Cook. “He seduced her, she slept with him and it nearly destroyed us all.”

  I thought: Well, that’s that. All over. And I sank down on the nearest chair. I was conscious of nothing but relief that disaster, long anticipated, had finally struck. I thought of my childhood heroine, Mary Queen of Scots, finally being obliged to put her head on the block. What bliss! What relief! Nothing else to do but wait for the axe.

  So I sat at the dining-room table in a passive stupor amidst the ruins of breakfast while nearby a very tall man was facing a very small woman who was saying in a passionless voice, “I shall now go to church. However, should either of you wish to resume this conversation with me later, I shall be only too willing to help in any way that I can.”

  Neat little footsteps tip-tapped past me, and after the dining-room door had closed neat little footsteps tip-tapped away to the hall. I went on waiting for the axe but when nothing happened I eventually nerved myself to look at my executioner. He was staring at the dirty plates on the table, the crumpled napkins, the sordidness, the disorder, the mess. Then he said in an abrupt voice, “Go and wait for me in the music room.” He might have been marshaling a tiresome solicitor out of his chambers; I almost expected him to advise seeing his clerk for a further appointment.

  He held the door open for me as I left the room but I did not dare look at him and I suspected he did not dare look at me. Stumbling down the corridor I prayed I wouldn’t meet anyone and I didn’t. (Why is it that God so often answers trivial prayers but not the prayers that really matter?) The little music room, where I had spent so many hours thumping out those boring scales, lay off the passage that led to the ballroom, and there by the window stood the same table where long ago I had teased my ineffectual governess Miss Sale by drawing grossly sensual treble clefs.

  I went to the piano.

  “How well you play!” said Bobby in my mind, the Bobby I could bear to remember the man who was always so kind and good with children. Another Bobby had existed but he could be allowed no place in my memory. Sometimes he tried to slip in—he was trying to slip in now—but fear made me strong and I shut, him out. The road to remembrance was guarded by a terrible coldness and as soon as I shivered I thought, I won’t think of that. Yet I was always terrified I would. I was terrified now. I knew I was going to have to remember that other Bobby but I did not see how I could speak of him and remain conscious. I thought I would die of the shame.

  To distract myself I began to play “The Blue Danube,” but I was in such an agony of terror that all the notes came out wrong, and I had just broken off in despair when the inevitable happened; footsteps echoed in the corridor and Robert walked into the room.

  I struggled to my feet. He was expressionless but exuding a businesslike efficiency. My terror deepened.

  “Sit down, please,” he said, gesturing to the table.

  We sat down opposite each other by the window. There was a pile of sheet music between us, and as I stared at the treble clefs they became meaningless, mere recurring symbols between those recurring parallel lines.

  “Now,” said Robert briskly, “this is what we’re going to do. You’re going to tell me the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Then once the truth is established beyond all reasonable doubt I shall reduce it to order so that we can conduct a rational survey of our dilemma. However before I begin … Are you listening?”

  I whispered that I was.

  “Then look at me.”

  I somehow raised my eyes to the level of his watch chain.

  ‘That’s better. Now before we begin there are two points I wish you to understand. One: don’t lie to me because I’m on my guard now and I’ll be able to spot a lie almost before it’s spoken. I’m trained to recognize lies, and in fact although I shut my mind against the knowledge I knew earlier that my father hadn’t told me the whole truth; he was very plausible but I noticed how he relaxed in relief when he thought his big lie had been safely delivered. … So you see, you must always tell me the truth because if you don’t I’ll know and that’ll mean the end.”

  “Yes.” I heard the word “end” and realized dimly that he spoke of it not as if it were in the present but as if it were in the future, and not just in the future but in a future that was not necessarily inevitable. I was apparently being granted some fearful stay of execution. I thought of the rack and disembowelment and began to see the advantages of a simple beheading. Perhaps Mary Queen of Scots had been luckier than I had ever realized.

  “Very well, that’s the first point I want to make,” said Robert, “and the second point is this: whatever the truth is don’t be frightened of confessing it to me because I can’t possibly be shocked—I’ll have heard it all before. May I remind you that I don’t just defend murderers at the Old Bailey. I go out on circuit, and at the assizes I defend people accused of robbery, assault, rape, sodomy, bestiality, incest and any other criminal offense you care to name. You do see what I’m trying to say, don’t you? You do see what an enormous advantage my profession gives us here?”

  I managed to nod but I still couldn’t imagine how I was ever going to speak of the unspeakable. However Robert saw my difficulty and tried again.

  “If you can help me by doing as I ask,” he said, “then I can help you. Regard it as a new charade to play: I shall think of you as my client, someone in great trouble who requires all my professional skill, and you must think of me as your lawyer, the only person on earth who has a hope of getting you out of this mess.”

  I suddenly understood not only his proposal but the logic that lay behind it. He was trying to distance us from the horror by making it impersonal. We were no longer lovers. We were lawyer and client. I was in ghastly trouble but he could help, he had seen it all before; he was calm, he was professional, he could cope. All I had to do to survive was to trust him.

  “This sort of case is in fact not uncommon,” said Robert, shoring up my confidence. “You may be surprised to hear that there’s even sometimes on the part of the child a degree of acquiescence which can amount to encouragement. I say that not to imply that this was true in your case but to reassure you that I’m wholly familiar with such incidents. Now … shall we begin?”

  I nodded but was immediately plunged into panic again. As far as I could see no beginning was possible.

  “Ginevra.” That snapped me out of my panic as abruptly as a slap in the face for he never called me Ginevra as everyone else did. “You must trust me,” he said, and when I looked into his eyes I found I could not look away. “You must.”

  “Yes … I will … I do … but I can’t see where to begin.”

  He smiled. Like so many juries I had surrendered my mind to his and the first hurdle had been overcome. I was so relieved to see him smile that tears came to my eyes, and when he offered me a cigarette (a noble gesture from a man who hated women smoking) I nearly wept with gratitude.

  W
hen our cigarettes were alight he said, “The first matter I want to clarify is the chronology. This case is all mixed up with your first encounter with Kinsella, isn’t it? What I’d like to establish is whether the two incidents were related or whether they were merely running concurrently. Let’s start with Kinsella. You met him at the Mowbrays’, didn’t you, in the May of 1896, shortly after your sixteenth birthday?”

  “Yes.” This was easy. I thought of Conor and how divinely glamorous he had looked at twenty-four, a fascinating rough diamond in a pearls-and-primness setting. “It was a grown-up dinner party,” I said. “I wasn’t ‘out,’ of course, but it didn’t matter because it was just a gathering of old friends. The Porteynon Kinsellas came with Conor, and the Bryn-Davieses were there as well. I remember saying to Conor, ‘Mr. Bryn-Davies’s father and my cousin Bobby’s mother were involved in a simply scorching grand passion!’ and Conor was very entertained, but Margaret overheard and was livid with me afterwards.”

  “What was Bobby’s attitude to you at this time?”

  “Normal.” I was grateful to him for using Bobby’s first name instead of any word that would have underlined their relationship.

  “Very well. What happened after this dinner party when you created such a deep impression on Kinsella?”

  “Nothing. There was no deep impression. You see, I was so young, I still wore my hair in plaits—I hadn’t a hope of winning any serious attention from a sophisticated man of twenty-four. Besides, he was after his cousins’ money—the money that went to that wretched dogs’ home in the end—and so he had to be on his best behavior. He couldn’t afford any unwise flirtations.”

  “But he did like you.”

  “Oh yes, I think he found me amusing but I soon realized nothing was going to come of it. Margaret hadn’t cared for him at all so I knew he’d never be invited to Oxmoon.”

  “Very discouraging for you. What happened next?”