The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  Occupied with these comfortingly vacuous thoughts I drifted into the dining room, mixed myself a whisky-and-soda and sat down at the table to reflect further on life after death and other fables. Time filtered idly but not unpleasantly by until I found myself meditating on the meaning of life which I knew was a desperate subject for a man who had insufficient courage to believe in either atheism or God. I decided I had to pull myself together. Mixing myself a second whisky-and-soda, I set aside all metaphysical speculation and said aloud, “Now I shall grieve.” I waited. Nothing happened, but that, as I realized, was because I was in the wrong room. I went into the drawing room and opened the lid of the piano so that I could more easily picture Blanche playing her music. Still nothing happened, but that, as I told myself, was because I needed time to unwind after the ordeal of the funeral.

  The clock on the chimneypiece struck one, the fine French china clock that Blanche’s ancestor had smuggled out of Paris during the French Revolution. I had always thought this episode in the clock’s history was most improbable, but I had to concede that improbable things did happen. It was improbable that Blanche should have died yet she was undeniably dead and here was I, undeniably alone as I waited to grieve, just as every good widower should, for the wife I had so greatly loved and admired.

  I debated whether to have another whisky but decided against it. Instead I began to wander around the house as I waited for the grief to come. I decided my trouble was that I had so many precious memories that I could not immediately decide how they should all be arranged, and suspecting I would think more clearly if I had something to eat, I entered the kitchens just as the clock in the servants’ hall chimed two. Nosing around in the larder, I found a piece of cheese and ate it. “ ‘Appley Dapply, a little brown mouse, goes to the cupboard in somebody’s house’!” Lion had chanted long ago. I could not accurately recall the rest of Beatrix Potter’s rhyme, but I knew that Appley Dapply had been charmed by cheese. However I was less than charmed by the piece I ate, and closing the larder door I began wandering again.

  Upstairs in our bedroom the little hand of the clock on the bedside table pointed to three, and when I opened the window I heard the church clock in the village boom the hour. Penhale church was as unusual in its possession of a clock as it was in its possession of a square tower. The previous Lady de Bracy, an Englishwoman who had found Wales distressingly unregulated, had installed the clock to encourage the villagers to lead more ordered lives, but nobody had paid it the slightest attention. Enraged by the continuing unpunctuality, Lady de Bracy had ordered that the chimes be made louder, and from that day onwards the clock of Penhale church had been famous for the manner in which it thundered the hour.

  I stood by the window listening to it. I liked the thought of the clocks all chiming away, all doing what they were supposed to do, but that only reminded me that my own behavior was leaving much to be desired, so I embarked on my most serious effort so far to arrange my memories. My first task obviously was to picture Blanche with the maximum of clarity in order to conjure up the appropriate emotions, so turning aside from the window I examined the silver-framed wedding photograph that stood on top of the chest of drawers nearby.

  I continued to stare at the handsome young couple in the picture but after a while they began to seem like an illustration from some old-fashioned book of homilies. I could imagine the text: “This is how you should look on your wedding day. This is how you must appear as you prepare to live happily ever after.” Then it occurred to me that the photograph was just a pattern of black-and-white shapes. It had no reality, it was just a prop in my script, and when I looked at Blanche I could not see the Blanche I wanted to remember.

  I shoved the frame face down on the chest of drawers and opened the wardrobe so that I could touch her clothes. Here was reality. Now I could visualize her clearly in the clothes she had worn. I saw her smooth, shining hair, so dark that it was almost black, the pale, creamy skin, the slender waist, the delicate breasts, the lovely line of her neck, her—but no, I could not see her face. In my memory, my glance traveled upwards from her neck and found a void beneath the cloud of dark hair.

  I was unnerved. I had to see her face. I looked at the wedding photograph again but that was useless; her face was like a death mask. I had to see her being normal, laughing with the children, being the wife I remembered.

  The grandfather clock in the hall struck four as I raced downstairs to the drawing room, but in panic I discovered that the photograph albums had vanished from the cupboard below the bookcase. This was bizarre indeed; it was almost as if Blanche had never existed, as if she had been a mere figment of my imagination, yet another prop in my script, but I knew I could not cope with a mad thought like that so I thrust it aside and dashed into the study. There was a photograph of Blanche on my desk, a studio portrait taken after she had recovered from the loss of our first son, who had died within hours of his birth. I stared at the new arrangement of black-and-white shapes. She looked like some actress who had been miscast in Shakespearian tragedy; I saw her as Ophelia, or perhaps as the poor queen in Richard II, someone struggling with adversity on a cold bleak stage, someone wearing a mask not of her own making, someone toiling in the wrong part assigned to her by some blockheaded producer who had entirely failed to understand her talents.

  Reality began to grind into focus again, and this time I could not grind it back. I told myself I had to find those photograph albums. They were my last chance. Without the photograph albums I would be unable to visualize the Blanche I had loved, and if I could not remember her properly how could I arrange my memories? I started to ransack the house from top to bottom.

  I ended up in the nursery just as the cuckoo clock on the wall was hiccuping five. It had occurred to me that Nanny had removed the albums from the drawing room and forgotten to replace them; no doubt the children too had wanted to see the photographs as part of the ritual of grief. I hunted among the toys, but at last ran the albums to earth on the bedside table in Marian’s room. Sinking down on the bed I began to turn the pages.

  I looked for a long time and in the end I even took the collection downstairs to the study were I could examine the pictures with the aid of a magnifying glass.

  More time elapsed and on the chimneypiece the carriage clock struck six.

  I glanced up at those two hands pointing in opposite directions. I was in my study at Penhale Manor, the room the de Bracys had called the library. That, I knew, was true. That was real. But nothing else was. All the albums showed me was my script. In a variety of charming scenes the perfect mother played and laughed with her perfect children; the perfect wife smiled adoringly at her perfect husband. But there was no sign of the other Blanche, the real Blanche who had wept and said we never talked to each other, the Blanche who had been so frightened and alone. I had never known the real Blanche. It had not suited me to know her. I had been too busy acting out my script in which I outshone Robert and secured my parents’ approbation by making the perfect marriage. I had not cared for Blanche. The only person I had cared for had been myself. I had had this wonderful wife, who everyone now told me had been so exceptional, and yet I had never loved her enough to bother to become more than formally acquainted with her. And what was worse, I had made her desperately unhappy.

  This was a different situation indeed from my mother’s death. There I had been able to console myself that matters had been put right between us before she died, but Blanche had died when I was estranged from her; she had died alone and unloved.

  The truth stood revealed in its full horror. I had been a bad husband. My marriage had been a failure. My life had been false. “I want to arrange my memories,” I had said grandly. What memories? I had no memories of anything except lies, and now, I realized to my horror, I was going to have to live with them. But how did one live with such guilt and such shame? I had no idea. I felt I couldn’t cope, couldn’t manage, couldn’t think how I was going to go on. I had never before experienced suc
h a horrifying consciousness. The pain was excruciating. How did one live with such pain and stay sane?

  The Victorian clock in the dining room thudded seven as I uncorked the bottle of champagne. I drank the first glass straight off and poured myself another, but seconds later the glass was empty again. I went on drinking, and gradually as the familiar lassitude stole over me I managed to control my panic. I knew I had been fond of Blanche. That was real, that was true, and I thought that if I could now grieve for her, not as a husband should grieve for his wife but as a man mourning the loss of someone precious, I would find my disastrous failure easier to accept. But my guilt defeated me; although I waited and waited and waited, the grief still refused to come.

  I stopped drinking. I knew I should eat to avoid becoming ill but I had drunk too much, and in the kitchens all I could do was vomit into the sink. I returned to the hall, and as I entered the drawing room the silence came to meet me, the silence of those white piano keys, the silence of the white roses, the silence of reproach and estrangement. The room was utterly silent, utterly still, unbearably silent, unbearably still, and suddenly I was overpowered by the silence, choked and racked by it, and I knew I had no choice but to escape.

  I burst into the garden. The evening air was clear but the rose garden was an intolerable blur of white light, and the next moment I had started to run.

  I ran to the front of the house, I ran down the drive, I ran past the gates into the lane. I ran towards the village but even before I saw the church I knew what I wanted to do. I wanted to take the card from the wreath. I wanted to see those words loving and devoted and tell myself they did bear some relation, no matter how distorted, to reality. I thought that once that card was in my breast pocket next to my heart, I would finally be able to grieve as I had grieved for my mother.

  I reached the lych-gate. I passed the porch. I turned the corner of the tower to confront the grave on the far side of the churchyard.

  Some yards away in front of an ancient yew tree the white flowers, symbol of death, were heaped on the dark earth. But beyond them was color, a flash of shimmering red, the fire of life coruscating in the pale evening light.

  I stopped.

  A woman was seated casually on the ground by the grave. She was plucking the short grass nearby and throwing it aside in hypnotic rhythmic movements of her hand. Her brilliant red hair was very long, stretching all the way to her waist, and it waved over her shoulders like burning liquid gliding over molten rocks.

  She went on tearing the grass, her head bent in deep, concentrated thought, but at last she became aware that she was being watched and her fingers were still.

  She looked up. She saw me. She leaped to her feet. For a long moment we stood there, both of us transfixed with shock, and then above us, far above us in the belfrey, the church clock began to thunder the hour.

  5

  I

  SHE BEGAN TO WALK TOWARDS ME. The evening sun, slanting across her face, lit those light eyes to a deep glowing sea-green. With a quick movement of her hand she pushed back her long fiery hair but again it slid forward to frame her face, and as the church tower cast its shadow across her translucent skin I knew, as indeed I had always known at heart, that she was ravishing. The clock, hammering her extraordinary beauty deep into my consciousness, struck again and again and again.

  The last stroke died away. It was eight o’clock on the day of my wife’s funeral and I was alone with Bronwen Morgan in the churchyard at Penhale.

  “Mr. Godwin,” she said rapidly in her low heavily accented voice, “forgive me for intruding. You want to be alone with your grief and I’ll leave you at once.”

  I stopped her by raising my hand. “Why are you here?” I said. My voice was puzzled, confused.

  “I couldn’t be in the churchyard this morning with the rest of the village because Dafydd was sick, but I did so want to pay my respects … Mrs. Godwin was such a very lovely lady and so kind to me.”

  I had a brief poignant glimpse of Blanche being kind, and in that glimpse I saw both the familiar Blanche and the Blanche I had never known. The horror of my estrangement from my wife overwhelmed me afresh, and I leaned dumbly against the wall of the tower.

  “Mr. Godwin, you’re not well. Come and sit down, sir, you really should sit down, indeed you should.”

  I was too overcome by misery to protest. “I’ve done a very foolish thing,” I said as we reached the iron bench by the yew tree. “I’ve dismissed my servants because I wanted to be alone to grieve, but solitude’s proved too … difficult, and I don’t know what to do next. I can’t think clearly at all.”

  “Have you had anything to eat?”

  I discounted the cheese and shuddered at the memory of the champagne. “No.”

  “Then if you like, sir,” she said, “I’ll make you some tea and a sandwich. You mustn’t have too much but you should have something, and tea’s so clear, so cool, you’ll be able to think more clearly once you’ve had some tea.”

  I could at once picture the tea, fragrant and steaming, in one of the white Coalport cups. “That’s very good of you, Mrs. Morgan,” I said. “Thank you.”

  Leaving the churchyard, we crossed the green and walked down the lane to the Manor. No one was about. I supposed everyone was either at home or in the pub or at a meeting that was in progress in the church hall. In the lane the hedgerow glowed with wild flowers and the summer air was fragrant. Neither of us spoke. When we reached the house I led the way into the hall.

  “I know where the kitchens are, sir,” she said. “You go to the parlor—the room with the piano—and rest. I shan’t be long.”

  “I’m afraid the fire in the range is out—”

  “Then I’ll light it,” she said tranquilly, and disappeared beyond the green baize door.

  Returning to the drawing room, I sat and waited. The room grew darker, and I was just rising to my feet to light a lamp when I heard her footsteps recrossing the hall.

  She was carrying a tray. On it stood a teapot with a milk jug and sugar bowl, a plate bearing a cheese sandwich, and an apple. There was only one cup and saucer.

  “I hope the bread’s not too stale, sir.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Mrs. Morgan, you’ve only brought one cup. Don’t you want any tea?”

  “I have a cup waiting in the kitchen.”

  “Then please bring it in here. I’ve been alone too much in this room today.”

  She retrieved her tea, and when she returned she brought not only more hot water but a second sandwich. The tea tasted exquisite. I ate and drank with single-minded concentration until finally I felt strong enough to look back over my shoulder at the piano, but although the image of Blanche returned to me I was still unable to see her face.

  I said suddenly, “I can’t grieve. I want to but I can’t. I’ve set this time aside to grieve but now the grief won’t come and I don’t know how to summon it.”

  “There is no timetable for grief,” said Bronwen Morgan. “Grief isn’t a train which you catch at the station. Grief has its own time, and grief’s time is beyond time, and time itself … isn’t very important. It’s the English who think time is a straight line which can be divided up and labeled and parceled out in an orderly fashion, but time isn’t like that, time is a circle, time goes round and round like a wheel, and that’s why one hears echoes of the past continually—it’s because the past is present; you don’t have to look back down the straight line, you just look across the circle, and there are the echoes of the past and the vision of the future, and they’re all present, all now, all forever.”

  I looked at her and saw far beyond her into the remote comforting mysticism of Celtic legend. She leaned forward, putting her elbows on her knees and cradling her chin in her hands, and as her hair streamed over her shoulders to frame her face again, I felt the magic of that other culture beckoning me away from the down-to-earth brutality of the Anglo-Saxon tradition in which I had been educated. And then it seemed to me that the cult
ure which had been hammered into me at school was not only inferior to hers but less in touch with the real truths of life, and I felt my familiar world shift on its axis as if pulled by some gravitational force far beyond my control.

  “Tell me about the echoes of the past,” I said. “Tell me how I can look across the circle and hear my wife’s echo in time.”

  She said, “It may be tomorrow, it may not be for years, but you’ll hear it. Perhaps the children will sound the first note, the first chord in time; perhaps one day Master Harry will go to the piano and when he plays you’ll see her there and you’ll think, Yes, it’s sad I shall never hear her play again, and you’ll grieve. Or perhaps you’ll think, Yes, it’s sad, but there was happiness before the sadness, and then although you’ll still grieve you’ll be grateful for the memory, and the memory will echo on in time. And later perhaps you’ll hear one of her favorite tunes played by someone else and you’ll remember again, perhaps less painfully, perhaps even with pleasure that the memory should bring her close to you again, and the echo may be fainter but still very clear, so clear that you’ll tell your children about it, and then it’ll be part of their memory too, and so it’ll go on echoing again and again in time, and that time is beyond time, time out of mind.”

  She paused. She was still looking at the unlit fireplace, and behind her the soft light from the lamp made her hair blaze against her uncanny skin.

  “When I was two,” she said, “my father died in the Boer War. I have no memory of him. I thought later, How sad I can’t remember him, can’t grieve as I should—for of course to me he wasn’t a hero, he was just someone who’d gone away and left us, and I resented him for being killed and then I felt guilty that I resented him, and what with all the resentment and the guilt I never thought the grief would come, I thought I’d never hear his echo in time, and indeed I forgot all about grieving, but gradually, as I grew up, other people would talk to me about him, and I thought, Why do they do this, what makes them speak now after so many years, and then suddenly I realized it was because of me, because I was the echo for those people, and for them the past wasn’t lost far away down the straight line after all but coming back towards them in a curve. It was as if he was still alive, for when they looked at me they saw him, and when I understood this, when I understood he was present in me, then I knew him, then he became real to me, then the resentment died and the guilt fell away and at last, years after his death, I was able to grieve.” She stood up and stacked her own cup and saucer with mine on the tray. “I’ll take these to the kitchen and wash them up. Please excuse me, sir, for talking so much.”