The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  “Robert, thank God you’ve come—Papa’s demented—the situation’s quite beyond me—”

  “So I see,” said Robert. “Very well, help Bennett lift this bloody thing up the steps. Where’s Warburton?”

  “He’s not here yet. I told him I thought she’d had a stroke. Oh God, Robert, I can’t begin to tell you—”

  “Then don’t.”

  We reached the top of the steps. I was just moving aside to allow Bennett room to maneuver the chair over the threshold when Ginevra rushed out to join us. She looked gray enough to faint.

  “Robert, he mustn’t see you in that chair, he’s forgotten the illness, he’ll have such a shock—oh Johnny, help me, don’t let Bobby see—”

  But she was too late.

  “Where’s Robert?” demanded my father, opening the front door wide, and the next moment he was confronted by the invalid in the wheelchair.

  He stopped. Then he said confused, “I want Robert” and added, “I want Margaret.” He looked around in panic. For a second we were all transfixed, but when Ginevra and I darted forward instinctively to protect him, he shouted, “Margaret! Margaret!” in a terrified voice before keeling forward into unconsciousness.

  III

  “He’ll be all right,” said Warburton, closing his black medical bag. “He’ll sleep through the rest of the night and wake around noon.”

  We were in the bedroom which had belonged to Lion and which after his death my mother had ruthlessly refurbished for the use of guests. My father lay asleep in Lion’s old bed, his hand finally limp in mine.

  “When he does wake,” Warburton was saying, “don’t force the reality of the death upon him but on the other hand don’t join in any fantasy. I think with any luck he’ll be normal—that’s to say, he’ll be deeply upset. I’ll come back after lunch and see how he is, but if there’s any trouble telephone me and I’ll come at once.”

  Warburton was forty, a dark neat slender man who kept a boat at Porteynon and liked to sail and fish in his spare time. He was a distant cousin of Lady Appleby’s and had become enamored of the Gower Peninsula during summer holidays spent at All-Hallows Court. He came originally from Surrey where he had attended Epsom College. Before the war my sister Celia had fancied herself in love with him, but he had married a London girl and although she was now dead he had shown no inclination to remarry.

  “Warburton, now that you’ve dealt with my father I wonder if you could take a look at Edmund. I’m afraid he’s in a bad way.”

  We found Edmund still in the dining room, his head pillowed in his arms as he lay sprawled across the table. Both the whisky and the brandy decanters stood empty beside him, and with horror I noticed he had even started on the sherry.

  “Not much I can do there,” said Warburton, “except give you a hand to carry him out.”

  We lugged Edmund into the morning room and arranged him on the sofa with a cushion beneath his head. He showed no sign of waking.

  “And now,” said Warburton, “we come to you.”

  “Oh, I’m all right, absolutely fine, no need to worry about me at all.”

  “Nonsense, you’ve had a bad shock!”

  “I’m all right now Robert’s here.”

  “He won’t be here for much longer. It’s essential that he should go home to rest.”

  But Robert had other ideas. Warburton and I both tried to argue with him, but he flatly refused to listen. “I’ve got to be there when my father wakes,” he said to Warburton, “and that’s that. Ginette, tell Bayliss to make up a bed for me on the morning-room sofa.”

  I explained that the sofa was already occupied.

  “Ridiculous!” said Robert. “Turn Edmund out and tell him that he’s bloody well got to pull himself together. No one else goes to pieces in this house, not while I’m here; I won’t have it!”

  Warburton and I were just glancing at each other in despair when there was an interruption. The door opened and in walked Thomas in his pajamas, his eyes puffy with sleep.

  “What’s going on?” he demanded. “Why’s everyone rushing around in a frenzy at four in the morning?”

  “John,” said Robert, “you’re good with children—take the boy away and deal with him. Ginette, organize Edmund’s removal. Warburton, you can go. Thank you for your help. We’ll telephone if we need further assistance. Well, don’t just stand there gaping, all of you! For Christ’s sake do as I say!”

  We all gave in, collapsing in exhaustion beneath the power of his personality. Piloting Thomas away to the far corner of the room, I broke the news to him as gently as possible.

  He looked livid as if his mother had offered him an unforgivable insult. Then his mouth became softer and his eyes brighter. He glanced away.

  “I want Papa.”

  “He’s sedated,” said Robert, who had begun to draft a cable to Celia. “He won’t wake till noon. John, how does this sound? ‘Prepare shock regret Mama dead you essential Dieter prohibited Erika optional’—do you think that makes it sufficiently clear to a woman of Celia’s limited intellect that although she can bring the baby with her she’s on no account to bring the damned Hun?”

  Watching Thomas I saw a tear drop pathetically into the cup of tea I had just given him, and a lump at once hardened in my throat. Grief is very contagious.

  “I’m sorry, Robert, I can’t—quite—”

  “Conjugate Latin verbs—that’s always an infallible recipe for keeping a grip on oneself. Now pay attention, please, while I read the message again. ‘Prepare shock—’ ”

  “He doesn’t care,” said Thomas to me in a shaking voice. “I hate him.”

  “For Christ’s sake!” yelled Robert in a fury, and with his stronger arm hurled both pencil and paper at the wall.

  When I had retrieved them and promised to send the wire, all he said was “I’ve got to rest,” and I knew he was worn out. “Bloody hell,” he said, raging against the illness that impaired him, but he was so weak he could hardly speak above a whisper. I wheeled him into the morning room. Edmund had been carried out. A bed was being prepared on the sofa. Bennett and Ginevra were both there. “John, give me your word you’ll wake me in time to deal with Papa.”

  I gave him my word and hurried back to look after Thomas.

  IV

  “What a pretty blue paint Margaret chose for the walls,” said my father, waking to find he was in Lion’s refurbished room, and his eyes filled with tears.

  We waited, I by the window, Robert in his chair by the bed, and eventually my father, wiping his eyes on the sheet, whispered, “I want to see her.”

  “Now or later?” said Robert with a bluntness which I could never have emulated.

  “Now. I always think one ought to see the body. Otherwise one wonders whether the person’s really dead. Better to make sure.”

  “Quite right,” said Robert as I inwardly shuddered. “Very sensible.”

  “Such a relief it was,” murmured my father as I helped him into his dressing gown, “when Bryn-Davies was washed up. I had nightmares that he’d somehow survived and swum ashore.” He said no more at that moment, but when we all reached my parents’ room he went without hesitation to the bed and looked down at the lifeless figure. “Yes,” he said, “there’s nothing there now. Just the shell.” He covered the face again with the sheet, withdrew to the window and paused. Then at last he said, “I shall think of after-the-funeral later. Now all I shall think about is the funeral itself, and of course it must be a perfect funeral, everything done properly, nothing omitted, not a rule broken. I shall be all right, you see, absolutely all right so long as I stick to the rules.”

  We promised to help him organize a perfect funeral.

  “And no atheism,” said my father sternly. “I don’t hold with it. Atheism’s not the done thing at all.”

  We assured him we would behave as correctly as the devoutest members of the Church. He was satisfied. Methodically his thoughts turned elsewhere. “And now I must take care of the ch
ildren,” he said. “Let me see. You two are here, Lion’s dead, Thomas … where’s Thomas? Who’s looking after him? Find him, John, I want to see him at once. And where’s Edmund? He’s got to be looked after too. And what’s happening about Celia?”

  “John’s sent the wire. I’m sure she’ll come at once.”

  “I won’t have that damned Hun in the house!”

  “Don’t worry, I made that very clear.”

  We returned to Lion’s room, but to my relief we did not have to coax my father back to bed; he was still affected by the drug Warburton had administered, and for another hour he was too groggy to consider getting dressed. Later Warburton said to me, “He’s better than I thought he would be, but I’m worried about how well he’ll be able to stand the coming stress. I suppose there’s no chance of the funeral being a quiet one?”

  “None whatsoever,” I said levelly, and we found ourselves once more regarding each other in despair.

  V

  My father then proceeded to astonish us all by giving a bravura performance as an indomitable paterfamilias. He relieved me of the responsibility of looking after Thomas, he attended to Edmund with such success that Edmund became capable of conducting a rational conversation, he addressed the weeping servants with such skill that they pulled themselves together, he gave calm audiences to the vicar and the undertaker, he chose hymns and flowers with meticulous care, he even redrafted Robert’s notices for the Times and the Morning Post. Afterwards Robert was finally sent home to rest, Ginevra’s emotional but clearly reluctant offer to stay on to manage the household was refused and I myself to my great relief was dispatched to Penhale Manor. Now, I thought, I would at last be free to grieve in peace.

  Yet when I arrived home I felt as if the mechanism for grief had jammed in my consciousness. I told myself how devoted I had been to my mother and how much I was going to miss her, but the words echoed emptily in my mind until I realized with horror that I was unable to connect them with a genuine emotion. Genuine emotion lay elsewhere, and suddenly I was aware of an anger which represented forbidden thoughts such as She should have loved me better, She didn’t understand me, I doubt if I’ll miss her much once the shock’s worn off.

  This reaction, which was so far outside any conventional idea of grief, shocked me so much that I hardly knew what to do with myself. Blanche was kind, as gentle a wife as any bereaved man could wish for, but her attitude only made it more impossible that I should confide in her. Amidst all my deplorable emotions the sheer perfection of her response seemed almost more than I could endure.

  Blanche told the children their grandmother was dead. We were both present but she was the one who spoke. Marian shed a tear but was consoled by the thought of Granny happily ensconced among the angels in heaven. Harry was uninterested and obviously did not understand, but Blanche thought it better not to stress the death by further explanations, and I had no doubt she was right.

  The funeral was perfect. It was everything my father wished. People came from all over Gower and South Wales to attend. Every villager in Penhale was crammed into the churchyard. My father had some antique notion that motorcars were unsuitable for transporting coffins, so the traditional black hearse drawn by black horses was used. Edmund, Thomas and I joined the undertaker’s men in shouldering the coffin. Aunt Ethel, my mother’s surviving sister, tried to tell Thomas he was too young but since he was as tall as Edmund and considerably more robust, we had all supported his wish to participate. Aunt Ethel, a massive figure in black veils, was proving a great trial to us all, but my father was so charming to her that her natural inclination to be frightful was temporarily muted. In fact my father was quite faultless, faultlessly dressed, faultlessly tearless, faultlessly demonstrating how a genuine grief could be displayed with dignity and good taste. I had never admired him more.

  However unfortunately not everyone could follow his example. My sister Celia, a foolish but kindhearted woman of whom I was moderately fond, sat beside Edmund, her favorite brother, and snuffled and sniffled until I thought I would lose my patience entirely. Edmund himself wept without ceasing but then, as I reminded myself, allowances had to be made for Edmund. Ginevra sobbed in a most vulgar manner, but what else could one expect? Ginevra had never been renowned for either lack of emotion or good taste. Robert, who ignored her, looked bored as if the whole occasion were beneath his notice, and once even glanced at his watch. That horrified me. I too could hardly wait for the agonizing ceremony to be concluded, but I knew I could never have manifested open impatience.

  Afterwards in the churchyard the only people with dry eyes were my father, Robert and I myself. I wondered vaguely what was on the menu for luncheon.

  Luncheon, served that day at two tables joined in a T, turned out to be a five-course banquet for thirty-three, the food plain but perfectly cooked and accompanied by no more than a light hock, just as my mother would have deemed appropriate. Those present consisted of my father, my sister, my brothers, Ginevra, Blanche and me; Aunt Ethel with her three unmarried daughters, Dora, Rosa and Clara; her son Montague, who ran the family pottery business, and his wife; dead Aunt May’s daughter Evadne and her husband Frank; Lion’s widow Daphne with her parents, Sir Cuthbert and Lady Wynter-Hamilton; Ginevra’s son Rory Kinsella; Oswald Stourham with his sister Angela and his daughter Eleanor; Owain Bryn-Davies the Younger with his wife and his son Alun; Sir William and Lady Appleby; Lady de Bracy and her daughter Gwen; the vicar, his wife and Gavin Warburton. The conversation was universally appalling. Sandwiched between my cousins Dora and Clara, both keen feminists, I came to the conclusion that postfuneral lunches should be banned by law.

  “My dears!” exclaimed Ginevra, who was seated opposite us. “What fun you girls are! Johnny, why did we always write off the Staffordshire crowd as a dead loss in the old days?” It was obvious she had had too much hock.

  “Dead loss?” said Aunt Ethel, who had the kind of hearing that would have permitted her to eavesdrop at fifty paces. She turned to my father. “Bobby, did you hear that?”

  “Well, as a matter of fact,” said my father with great courtesy, “I didn’t.” He suddenly looked very tired. Pushing away his glass of hock, he turned to the butler. “Bayliss, bring me a glass of champagne.”

  “Champagne?” said Aunt Ethel. Unlike my mother, she had never fully conquered her Staffordshire accent. “Bobby, I don’t know how you can think of drinking champagne when my poor dear sister has been laid to rest only an hour ago, but all I can say is—”

  “John,” said Robert at once, but I was already on my feet. We had long since worked out a plan of action in case Aunt Ethel’s frightfulness assumed intolerable proportions.

  “Papa,” I said, moving swiftly towards him, “let me take you into the library for a quiet cigarette.”

  “But I can’t abandon my guests,” said my father. “That wouldn’t be the done thing at all.”

  “Oh, don’t mind me!” said Aunt Ethel. “I know I’m only here on sufferance to keep up appearances! I realized long ago I wasn’t considered good enough for Oxmoon!”

  I looked at Cousin Montague for help. He had been educated at some minor public school and I thought he might have the decency to keep his mother’s vulgarity in check, but evidently he shared her grudge against my family, for he merely toyed with his fruit knife and said nothing. Meanwhile silence had fallen with lightning speed over the table, and into that silence Robert suddenly unleashed his fury.

  “You stupid woman!” he shouted at Aunt Ethel. “How can you have the insolence to talk of your ‘poor dear sister’ when we all know you were so jealous of her that you could hardly ever bear to visit this house! I’ve had enough of you simulating grief in the most vulgar way imaginable—just you leave my father to grieve in peace!”

  “Well!” said Aunt Ethel, puce with rage. “Well! Never in all my life have I been so—”

  “Papa,” I said, stooping over him, “you can leave your guests now—the meal’s over. Edmund—Celia �
�”

  Edmund, Celia and Thomas all rushed to the rescue.

  “Poor dearest Papa” said Celia, “you’ve been so brave—don’t take any notice of that horrible woman—”

  “Montague,” said Aunt Ethel, “are you going to let your mother be insulted like this?”

  Cousin Montague said, “I must say I find this behavior most uncalled for and quite definitely not the done thing at all.”

  “You are, of course,” said Robert, “referring to your mother’s conduct. In which case I utterly agree with you.”

  “How dare you!” shouted Aunt Ethel.

  “And how dare you,” shouted Robert, “degrade my father’s hospitality like this!” He turned to Ginevra. “Take me out of here; get me out.”

  “—never been so insulted in all my—”

  “Please!” My father was on his feet. Silence fell. His children stepped back a pace as if allowing him room to speak. He was ashen. “I must apologize,” he said to his guests, “for this unforgivable scene. Ethel, I apologize in particular to you because I know my children’s insults are the last thing Margaret would have wanted you to suffer. And now, if you please, I must beg you all to excuse me.” Exquisitely polite, shaming us by the very perfection of his manners, he walked out of the room.

  Edmund, Thomas, Celia and I all looked at one another and then turned as one to follow him.

  He was waiting for us in the hall. “Margaret will be very angry when she hears about this,” he said severely. “Very angry indeed.”

  As we stared at him in appalled silence, Ginevra wheeled Robert into the hall, and in panic I swung to face them. “Robert, Papa’s unwell again—”

  “I’m not surprised!” Robert was still shaking with rage. “I’m only surprised that we’re not all raving lunatics after this bloody unspeakable charade!”

  We all gasped. My father was suddenly very white, very still, and the next moment Robert was turning on him with a horrifying brutality.