The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  “Blanche?”

  She was wearing a white nightgown, white as the white roses. Vile white roses. Odorless. Listless. Dead.

  I got out of bed, pulled on my shoes again, picked up the candle and went downstairs to the telephone.

  “Dr. Warburton, please,” I said to the postmistress when she responded to my call.

  I was now no longer baffled but incredulous. In fact I was outraged. How could she have been unhappy? I had done everything possible to ensure a successful marriage. I had told her lie after lie in order to protect her from my troubles. I had restrained my baser physical inclinations endlessly in order not to give her offense. I had toiled year after year at the task of behaving perfectly towards her—and as I thought of this, I could hear my mother’s voice again. She was holding me in her arms in the remote past and telling me how I could feel safe and happy. “You’re going to be an extra-specially good boy so that your poor papa is never reminded of his mother’s wickedness …”

  My mind suddenly plunged into chaos as past and present collided. Instinctively I squeezed my eyes shut in a futile attempt to blot out the Christmas of 1903.

  “Hullo? Warburton speaking.”

  “Warburton, it’s John Godwin.” I was so acutely aware of time being dislocated that I could not pin myself to the present. I said, “It’s all to do with my grandmother, my grandmother and Owain Bryn-Davies,” and then I hung up so that I could concentrate on the task of staying sane. Something seemed to be happening to my mind. I felt as if my capacity for producing rational interlinked thoughts were being savagely dismembered.

  The telephone rang. I answered it. One always answered telephones when they rang. That was normal.

  “Godwin, you need help, don’t you?”

  It was Gavin Warburton calling back, nailing me firmly to the September of 1921. The past receded. I was back, shattered but sane, in a horrifying present.

  “My wife’s dead,” I said, “except that she can’t be dead because she’s only twenty-five and there was nothing wrong with her.”

  Warburton said he was on his way.

  V

  “I’m sorry,” said Warburton, “but I’m afraid there’ll have to be an autopsy. Of course there’s no question of death from unnatural causes, but when a young person dies suddenly the cause of death must be conclusively established.”

  “You’re saying she’s dead.”

  “I’m saying she’s dead. I’m very, very sorry. It could have been a heart attack,” said Warburton, persistently talking in order to underline the truth which I was still trying to reject, “but it might have been a cerebral hemorrhage. Did she complain of a headache?”

  I stared at him.

  Warburton started talking again, but this time I could not hear everything he said. His voice seemed close to me at one moment, far away the next. “Possibly born with a weakness in one of the blood vessels of the brain … could have happened at any time … or perhaps a blood clot … sometimes when a young woman is pregnant … very tragic … so much admired … deepest sympathy … My dear Godwin, I think you’d better tell me where you keep your brandy.”

  The next thing I knew I was drinking brandy in my study while Warburton telephoned for an ambulance. When he rejoined me I said, “I don’t understand. This shouldn’t be happening. It’s as if my script’s been torn up, it’s as if someone’s rung down the curtain in the wrong place and now I’ve got no lines, no part, nothing, I don’t know what to do next, I don’t even know who I am anymore.”

  Warburton waited a moment. Then he said, “Shall I telephone your father and ask him to come over? I think he’d understand what you’re going through.”

  “Good God, no!” I said, shocked at last out of my wretched loss of nerve. I pulled myself together. “But I’ll talk to Robert. He’ll know what to do. I’ll telephone him straightaway.”

  Warburton began to speak but checked himself. I looked at him coldly. “You needn’t worry,” I said. “I haven’t forgotten he’s an invalid. I’m not going to behave like my father, throwing a hysterical fit and mixing up past and present.” I was going to say more but those last five words paralyzed me; I was too frightened to go on. I ran to the telephone but found I did not know what to do with it. I said, “This is September, 1921. Robert’s in a wheelchair. My mother’s been dead for two months. I’m twenty-nine years old. My grandmother’s been dead since 1910, eleven years she’s been dead, and this is now 1921.”

  “I’ll talk to your brother,” said Warburton. “Come and sit down again while I make the call.”

  He poured me some more brandy. I drank it. And gradually I began to be calmer.

  VI

  “I must establish straightaway,” I said to Robert and Ginevra, “that I’m now on an even keel following my initial shock. No more dementia; we’ve had quite enough demented behavior in this family, thank you very much, so if you think I’m going to go to pieces like Papa, you’d better bloody well think again. Sorry, Ginevra, please excuse my language, I’m afraid I’m still a trifle upset.”

  “That’s all right, darling,” said Ginevra.

  “Of course it’s tempting to go to pieces because that would prove how much I loved Blanche, and I did love her, no doubt about that, although it wasn’t a grand passion because I don’t believe in grand passions, they’re much too dangerous, think of Grandmama and Bryn-Davies—chaos, anarchy, madness and death. Awful. Stick to the script is the answer and don’t deviate from it. Hold fast, stand firm and soldier on, as John Buchan might have said, although actually I don’t think he ever did.”

  “Yes, darling,” said Ginevra.

  “Have a sedative, John,” said Robert, “and go to bed.”

  “No, I’m going to sit by Blanche and grieve for her.”

  “They’ve taken her away to the mortuary, John, you know they have. You saw the body being taken out.”

  “Steady, Robert,” said Warburton.

  “I know I saw it,” I said, “but I forgot for a moment, that’s all, it was just a little slip of the memory, there’s no need to treat me as if I’m a bloody lunatic. Sorry, Ginevra, please do excuse my language, I’m not quite myself yet.”

  “It doesn’t matter, darling,” said Ginevra.

  I suddenly realized she was humoring me. “I’m not mad!” I shouted. “I’m not! I absolutely refuse to be mad! I draw the line!”

  “It’s all right,” said Warburton, gripping me. “Don’t panic; it’s the shock, it’s normal, you don’t have to worry about madness. Now, if you can sit down and take off your jacket … Ginevra, can you roll up his sleeve?”

  “My poor grandmother,” I said, “it was retribution. But then the wheel turned a full circle and Papa and Mama knew retribution themselves. The wheel … Robert, you used to talk about that wheel—”

  “All right, Godwin—just clench your fist and count to five.”

  “And to think it was she who thought of the tide tables—he did it but she thought of it—oh, the horror, I can’t bear it, can’t face it, blot it out, blot it out, blot it out—”

  The needle found the vein. I started counting in Welsh and within seconds was fathoms deep in oblivion.

  VII

  I woke at six. Evidently Warburton had reduced the dose he had given to my father—or perhaps because I was younger and stronger the drug had had less effect—for I had no inclination to sleep till noon. I felt dull-witted but not ill. I did have one moment of bewilderment when I found myself lying semidressed beneath a blanket on the drawing-room sofa, but my brain was functioning normally again, and although I shied away from the memory that Blanche was dead, I could recall the fact without confusion. My main preoccupation was with Robert and Ginevra. I was just shuddering at the memory of the scene I had created in their presence when I was mercifully diverted by the sight of a note propped on the nearby table.

  Darling, I read, ring me as soon as you wake up and I’ll come over to hold the fort. I’ve spoken to Nanny and she’ll tell
the children. All the servants know. Gavin will be returning to see you at nine. Much love, GINEVRA.

  My mind fastened on the word “children.” I knew I had to tell them myself. That was the right thing to do. A glimmer of a new script presented itself. I had to be the perfect widower, and the first act consisted of surviving the funeral with decency and good taste. I had no idea what the second act would be about, but I could think of after-the-funeral later. Meanwhile I had to look after my children and behave properly.

  Leaving the wings I began to move to the center of my new stage.

  VIII

  “Mama’s gone to heaven?” repeated Marian dazed and burst into tears.

  “When will she be back?” said Harry mystified. I saw that this second death in the family, coming so soon after his grandmother’s, had made him feel death was a subject he wanted to understand.

  “She’s dead, you stupid baby, she’s dead!” wept Marian before I could choose the right words for him. “And dead people never come back, never!”

  “Shhh … Marian …” As I held her tightly, I saw Harry’s dark eyes fill with tears.

  “But that’s not fair,” he said.

  There was no answer to that. Leaning forward, one arm still around Marian, I drew him to me as he started to cry.

  IX

  “My wife’s aunt will of course be coming down for the funeral, Nanny, but she’s suggested that you take the children now to her house in London for a few days.” Ginevra had offered to have the children to stay, but Robin was always aggressive towards anyone who tried to share his nursery, and I thought Harry and Marian would be better off under Aunt Charlotte’s roof.

  “Oh, that would suit very well, sir—much better for the poor little lambs to be far away from here while the funeral’s going on. … Oh sir, I can hardly believe it … such a lady she was, always so thoughtful to others, always so sympathetic and understanding …”

  But I could not stop to think about Blanche. There was no time. My new script called for an audience with the vicar, and soon I was hurrying into Penhale on cue.

  X

  “I want the shortest possible service,” I said to Anstey, who was a Swansea man about five years my senior. He did not have Gavin Warburton’s County connections but my father, always conscious of his own lack of education, liked him the better for not having attended a public school. Anstey preached a brisk twenty-minute sermon, kept his services free of Romish tendencies and could be relied upon to discuss the weather intelligently. In my opinion no parish could ask more of its parson than that.

  “But you’ll have music, of course,” he said to me. “Everyone will remember your wife’s gift for music—although she was always so modest and unassuming—really, she was such an exceptional person, wasn’t she, so sensitive to the welfare of others, such a very Christian lady—”

  “But she’s dead,” I said, “and funerals are for the living to endure. I want no music, no hymns, nothing. This is to be a short plain private English funeral, and I’ll have no Welsh circuses here.”

  XI

  My butler was making an emotional speech telling me that all my servants offered their deepest sympathy.

  “… the best lady we ever worked for … always so ready to help … nothing was ever too much trouble or beneath her notice …”

  I thanked all the servants for their sympathy and loyal support. Then I retired to my study to draft the notices for the newspapers.

  XII

  My father wrote me a note.

  My dear John, I’m so very sorry. How seldom one meets someone who is beautiful and good and nice. It makes the tragedy worse. Tragedies hurt. I don’t like to think of you in pain. Please come and stay for a while at Oxmoon. I want so much to help. Always your loving and devoted father, R. G.

  I tore up the note. I burned the shredded paper. And I scattered the ashes from the nearest window.

  Then, because I had a break between scenes, I started to think. That was a mistake because my thoughts were not in accordance with my script. I was aware that a portrait was inexorably emerging of someone I did not recognize, someone who listened to people’s problems, someone who was deeply involved in caring for others, someone to whom people talked and who talked to them in return. My fragile exquisite wife whom I had preserved so conscientiously beneath the glass case of my love now seemed to be disintegrating in my memory while into her place moved a stranger I had never cared to know.

  The world was grinding out of focus but I ground it back. I told myself I would think of all that, whatever “all that” was, after the funeral. Then I drove to Little Oxmoon to embark on the next scene in my script.

  XIII

  “Ginette and I feel we must talk to you,” said Robert at Little Oxmoon on the night before the funeral.

  I had gone there to dine with Aunt Charlotte, who had arrived that afternoon. Since I had temporarily dismissed all my servants from the Manor by giving them a week’s holiday with pay, this meant—to my relief—that I was unable to invite Aunt Charlotte to stay, but although I had expected her to go to the Metropole Hotel in Swansea, Ginevra had compassionately offered her hospitality instead.

  Dinner had now finished; Aunt Charlotte had retired, pleading exhaustion, and as soon as the drawing-room door had closed Robert was launching himself into the attack.

  “We want to talk to you about your decision to spend a week entirely alone without servants after the funeral tomorrow.”

  “Darling,” said Ginevra, taking the lead in a rush, “you can’t be all alone in that house for a week! I know it’s madly romantic to want to entomb yourself with your memories, and of course I’m simply passionate about romance, but—”

  “Who’s going to iron your shirts and wash your underwear?” said Robert with his usual brutal common sense. “Who’s going to provide heated water for your shave?”

  Ignoring him I said simply to Ginevra, “I know it must seem odd but I’ve got to be there.”

  “But darling, why?”

  I thought carefully. It was hard to know how to express my complex emotional instincts in words, but at last I said, “I have to arrange my memories.” I thought how much better I had felt after I had sorted out my muddled feelings towards my mother. “I have to arrange my memories into the right order before I can draw a line below the past and make plans for the future,” I said. “And to do that I have to be alone in the house where Blanche lived.”

  They were silent but it was not a comfortable silence. I felt I could guess what they were thinking.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, “I’m not about to go mad. I’ve rejected the grand folly of an elaborate funeral followed by a smart luncheon party. I’m quite in touch with reality, I assure you.”

  “I can think of nothing less in touch with reality,” said Robert, “than shutting yourself up for a week in a manor house with no servants.”

  “Well, if I don’t like it,” I said, “I can always leave. What are you two getting so flustered about?”

  They looked at me. They looked at each other. But they both decided there was nothing more they could say.

  XIV

  The air reeked of flowers, and all the flowers seemed to be white in remembrance of her French name. The servants’ children had even offered wild white daisies from the hedgerows in little bunches tied with white ribbon. The September morning was warm but overcast; the sky seemed to reflect a burning white light which accentuated the aching glare of the white flowers. I had ordered a wreath of white roses and had instructed that the card should read: In loving and devoted memory, John, Marian and Harry. Later I planned to return to the churchyard, just as I had after my mother died, and put that card in my breast pocket. I was very mindful of how that small gesture had meant so much to me.

  I had asked for the funeral to be private so the mourners in the church were restricted to the family, but outside all the village had gathered. Ginevra cried at the graveside. I knew she was prone to tears at emotional mom
ents but nevertheless I was touched. I thought how kind she had been to me during the past few days, and I even wondered if I had judged her too harshly in the past. I resolved to be less censorious in future.

  My father was there. He had tried to speak to me before the service but I had cut him dead. Edmund had been shocked. I thought, Silly old Edmund, and I started missing Lion again.

  At last the service ended. I shook hands with Anstey and thanked him for conducting the service. I thanked Robert and Ginevra for being so kind. I thanked Aunt Charlotte for what I described as her understanding and patience in a time of great trial. Vaguely appalled by my diplomatic glibness, I excused myself from Blanche’s Herefordshire cousins and promised to visit them later when I had recovered from what I described as “this sad and difficult occasion.” I cut my father again, nodded to Edmund, said, “Thank you for coming, Thomas—that was good of you” and headed for the lych-gate. The silent crowds parted before me. My car was waiting. I drove off and two minutes later was halting the car outside the door of my home.

  Now, finally, I could be alone to grieve. Taking a deep breath I expelled it with the most profound relief and then ran willingly, without a second’s hesitation, into the nightmare that lay waiting for me beyond.

  XV

  The grandfather clock in the hall was striking noon. All through that day I remember the clocks chiming the passing hours and reminding me that time was moving on for those who were left alive. Only the dead were beyond time, and Blanche was most certainly dead—“gone to heaven,” as I had told the children when I repeated the phrase that Blanche herself had used to break the news of my mother’s death. I shuddered. “Heaven” in that context conjured up an image of a celestial concert hall, complete with harps and massed choirs, and since I had no ear for music I found this vision more hellish than heavenly.