The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  Another reason why I had no wish to rush into marriage was because I was so aware how important it was that I should find the right woman to be my wife. I knew my father had been correct in saying that Blanche had not been entirely suited to me. I still wanted someone who could be gentle but paradoxically I now felt that what I needed most in a partner was strength. I had spent so much of my life in an emotional muddle that I longed for someone who could be guaranteed to see life clearly whenever I became bogged down in confusion, and for the first time it occurred to me how attractive my mother’s personality must have been to my father. I had no desire to marry someone exactly like my mother, but her unflinching ability to discern the truth of a given situation and deal with it efficiently, no matter how horrific the truth might be, now struck me as a priceless asset.

  The picture of my future wife began to form more clearly in my mind. I wanted someone strong, though the strength had to be entirely feminine; I wanted someone intelligent, like Blanche, but less musical and with more eclectic interests; I wanted someone not necessarily beautiful but certainly someone whom I found sexually attractive. I decided that although I could not contemplate a divorced woman, I might consider a widow. Virginity struck me as being overrated. I felt I had had enough bashfulness in my sexual history to last me for the rest of my life, and I decided it was high time I conquered those emotional constraints which I later discovered from Constance were called inhibitions.

  By the time Constance arrived from America in the April of 1923, the portrait of my second wife had crystallized in my mind.

  I was now looking for a woman who was smart, sophisticated, good-looking, intelligent, efficient, sensible, sexually satisfying, popular with her contemporaries, admired by the world in general, affectionate towards Harry and Marian, devoted to me and altogether a paragon of womanhood. However as this extraordinary combination of feminine virtues not surprisingly proved elusive, it had slowly dawned on me that I might have to lower my impossibly high standards. I decided that I might after all marry a virgin if she showed unmistakable signs of sensuality. I also decided that I might marry a foreigner provided she could adapt herself without difficulty to my world. Armstrong’s enthusiastic descriptions had made me suspicious, but when I met Constance I could see that he had by no means fabricated her attractions.

  We were introduced at his house on Eaton Walk on the day of her arrival in London. Mrs. Armstrong never traveled anywhere on account of what were described as her “nerves,” so her daughters had been chaperoned across the Atlantic by family friends who were heading for a grand tour of Europe.

  Constance was nineteen. Dressed with severe smartness in a beaded black gown accompanied by a diamond necklace and earrings, she appeared more self-assured than her English contemporaries. Not a wisp of her fashionably bobbed hair was out of place. Her unobtrusive American accent gave her speech a formal tone, but beyond her apparent poise I sensed she was nervous in case she failed to appear suitably soignée. With the aid of my most polished manners I did my best to put her at ease.

  “John!” Armstrong was surging towards me with his younger daughter bobbing saucily at his side. “Meet Theodora! Teddy my dear—Mr. John Godwin.” And he gave her a doting look, a perfect example of a normally sensible man in the grip of a paternal sloppiness. Yet I knew Teddy was not to my taste. As soon as I saw her round blue eyes, bee-sting mouth and conscientiously “naughty” expression, I realized she would be a chaperone’s nightmare, thoroughly unsuitable for me. However I took another look at Constance and decided she had possibilities.

  Exerting the full force of my diplomatic charm I slipped casually and disastrously into the role of Prince Charming.

  VI

  At this point I needed someone to shout at me, “Don’t you deal in lies!” and shake me till my teeth rattled but unfortunately no one performed these useful offices and I continued to think that I was behaving in a rational manner. Having made up my mind that it would be wonderfully fortunate if Constance turned out to be the kind of woman I wanted to marry, I now saw with striking clarity how wonderfully fortunate it would be if I decided to marry her. It would save me from disappointing Armstrong, who was offering me this wonderfully fortunate future which so neatly solved all my problems, and whenever I remembered those problems I became increasingly convinced that I did not care for the idea of disappointing Armstrong. I felt that Armstrong’s disappointment was a prospect on which it was safer not to dwell.

  However I did not forget my past experience with Blanche. Prince Charming, in other words, was a role I had played before with results that had been dubious in the extreme, and armed with this knowledge, I now decided the time had come to analyze my feelings for Constance with scrupulous honesty.

  She apparently had everything to commend her. I found her sexually attractive; with her slim neat figure and her dark hair and eyes, she belonged to a physical type that I had always strongly admired, although despite this surface resemblance she was very different from Blanche. The most striking difference was that she was well educated enough to discuss French literature with me, an accomplishment which I regarded at first with antipathy but later with a reluctant fascination. It was by this time ten years since I had come down from Oxford, and I was ripe to recover from the anti-intellectual reaction I had suffered after so much exhausting academic toil. Deciding I would start to read novels in French again, I took Constance with me to Hatchard’s where she bought all the novels that I bought so that we could embark on our literary journeys together. This joint venture resulted in some enthralling discussions, and I had to admit to myself that the prospect of a well-educated wife opened up vistas of hitherto unexplored intellectual pleasures.

  Better still, Constance was no mere bluestocking but a well-informed articulate young woman who even read the reports of the political debates in the Times. The political state of the nation had been in turmoil for some time, with the Conservatives marching and countermarching, the Liberals continuing to hack themselves to pieces and the Labour Party waiting breathlessly in the wings as the Coalition fell apart. I found it all of absorbing interest, particularly since I had begun to doubt that the country would disintegrate if a Labour government came to power. Constance and I spent long hours debating the possibility of class war, revolution fermented by Bolsheviks and the elimination of all that was most inequitable in British society. In the election I voted Conservative out of loyalty to my class, but through the newspapers Constance and I followed Ramsay MacDonald with rapt attention as he inched his way closer to power. Constance said she found it so moving that he was illegitimate, and although I smiled, I knew what she meant. He proved that the socially unacceptable could still win their way to the top; he represented those who were discriminated against because of circumstances which they could not avoid; he stood for the victims of social prejudice, for all those in that unknown world where people did not know what H meant on a basin tap and were turned out of their rooms because their husbands had drunk the rent money.

  “Nevertheless,” said Constance, “I’m glad the Conservatives were elected. What would happen to the stock exchange if Labour came to power? the Times says today …”

  To my amazement she started to quote from the City pages. As usual, she had read all the newspapers and knew everything. I began to wonder how she ever found the time.

  She did play the piano, but it was a mere technical accomplishment and she preferred to listen to her gramophone or her crystal set. So did I. I bought her many records—classics, popular songs, dance tunes—and found she could comment intelligently on them all. Then we transferred our attention to painting, a subject about which I knew nothing, and Constance explained modern art to me. I still considered it was rubbish, but I thought it was wonderful how well she talked about it.

  In addition to this exhausting intellectual activity, we somehow found the time to expend some energy on more mindless pursuits. I danced with her at numerous balls, dined with her at uncounted par
ties, escorted her to Ascot, to Henley and to Wimbledon, wrote my name against the most important dance in her program when Armstrong gave the coming-out ball for his daughters at Eaton Walk. Armstrong was now confidently expecting me to propose, at the end of the season. So were Constance and Teddy. So was London Society. So was I. The only trouble was that I found it hard to imagine myself ever doing it.

  Something was wrong, and because I admired Constance so much and longed so intensely for the happy ending to which I felt entitled after so much sadness and muddle, I made a new attempt to analyze my situation so that I could define the problem and put it right.

  I knew she was a little too serious, but I liked that. The modern girl who constantly erupted with gaiety like an overshaken cocktail I found noisy, tiresome and unsympathetic. I did wonder if Constance’s seriousness would affect her behavior in bed, but I came to the conclusion that this was unlikely, first because she struck me as an intense girl who would be capable of the most passionate emotion, and second because she was so competent in everything she undertook that I could not imagine her failing to master the basic pleasures of sex.

  I had no doubt either that she would make an exemplary stepmother. “The subject of raising children is just so fascinating,” she confided in me one day. “I’ve been reading the latest book on the subject of child psychology.”

  I had never even heard of the subject of child psychology. Gazing at her in unstinted admiration I thought yet again what a remarkable girl she was, and I was just telling myself I was a complete fool not to rush immediately to Bond Street to buy a ring when my brother Edmund arrived to stay with me and announced that he was looking for a wife.

  VII

  “Between you and me and the bedpost, old chap,” said Edmund as we smoked our cigars after dinner on the evening of his arrival, “I’m getting too old to turn out on a winter’s night and drive all the way to Llangennith whenever I want a good you-know-what, and now that I’m almost twenty-nine I can see that marriage does have a lot to offer.”

  “I understand exactly,” I said, remembering uncomfortable winter journeys down the Fulham Road.

  I had become closer to Edmund since my reconciliation with my father two years ago. Whenever I returned to Gower we had plenty of opportunity for long talks together, because I had installed him at Penhale Manor to look after my house and estate for me. At first it had seemed merely a neat solution to an awkward problem, but to my surprise and gratification, it had turned out to be the best offer to Edmund that I could possibly have made. The opportunity to lead an independent life and the salaried responsibility of the position not only had diverted him from the chronic melancholy he had suffered since the war but had given him the confidence he had always lacked. All my father’s children had known what it was to be overshadowed by Robert, but only Edmund had known the horror of being overshadowed by everyone. I realized belatedly that he had grown up convinced he was useless, an opinion my parents had unwittingly reinforced when they had allowed him to live at home without earning a living, and it was only when I had offered him work that he had begun to believe he was not compelled to go through life as a failure who lived on his parents’ charity.

  His position was not arduous, since Huw Meredith was a first-class manager, but Edmund took his responsibilities seriously and applied himself with enthusiasm to the estate. However his chief interest remained horticulture, and at my request he had embarked on the task of removing all the scentless white roses from Blanche’s garden.

  “My one insuperable problem,” said Edmund after he had revealed his decision to contemplate matrimony, “is money. I know you and Lion each brought off the fantastic feat of marrying an heiress, but you yourself are so obviously cut out to be a huge success in life, and even old Lion was cut out to be a huge success as a bounder, while I’m not cut out to be a huge success at anything.”

  I recognized the plea for reassurance. “Stop talking drivel—you’re earning your living, you’ve been to the right school, you’re thoroughly respectable and you’re a jolly nice chap. What more can any girl want?”

  “Money for diamond hatpins.”

  “Edmund, girls don’t go to bed with diamond hatpins. They go to bed with men.”

  This put us on safer ground. Edmund had overcome his conviction that no woman could possibly look twice at him; at least his experiences in wartime France had not all been hellish, and when he returned home he had embarked on a long affair with a land girl called Joan who worked at Stourham Hall. Unfortunately Joan, having decided that no wedding ring was ever going to be forthcoming from Edmund, had now announced her plans to marry a Swansea bank clerk, and it was this catastrophe, rather than his advancing years, which had led Edmund to consider that matrimony might have more to offer than a love affair.

  “I was so upset,” he confided in me, “that I damned nearly proposed to Joan myself, but Papa talked me out of it and I know he was right. It’s simply no good marrying out of one’s class, is it? Of course he and Mama did, but he was déclassé and she was exceptional and the circumstances were so peculiar that it didn’t matter. But normally … well, you know what happens. The marriage winds up in a social mess, and it’s always such hell for the children.”

  “True. I tried to explain to Armstrong once that to marry out of one’s class here is like marrying someone of a different-colored skin. That’s the only parallel that an American can understand.”

  “You don’t think I’m being a bloody snob?”

  “No, just bloody sensible.”

  Edmund visibly blossomed as I praised his good sense, but was still anxious enough to say, “All the same my position isn’t easy. Do you by any chance know of a gorgeous young heiress who’s simply panting to marry a man whose only talent lies in being a jolly nice chap?”

  “Possibly—but what kind of a girl are you looking for? I suppose you’d like a sweet shy English-rose type of person who’s fond of gardening.”

  “Good God, no!” said Edmund horrified. “What use would that be? Isn’t it bad enough that I’m a sweet shy English-rose type of person who’s fond of gardening? No thank you, I want someone utterly different! I want one of those marvelous modern girls who says outrageous things and laughs all the time, someone who smokes like a chimney and drinks like a fish and thinks sex is jolly good fun!”

  “Say no more, Edmund. Let me introduce you to Teddy Armstrong.”

  VIII

  I had spoken with the rashness that so often follows a pleasant dinner and half a bottle of claret, and when I awoke the next, morning I was at once uneasy about my role of matchmaker. However I told myself it was most unlikely that Edmund and Teddy would discover a mutual passion which would drive them pell-mell to the altar.

  Never was I more mistaken. Edmund was quickly reduced to a shining-eyed wraith who could neither eat nor sleep, and Teddy was quickly driven to confide that he was “every right-minded girl’s dream come true.” I noted the word “right-minded” as I acknowledged her determination to be besotted with him, and realized that Teddy had frightened herself by her fast behavior that season. After ricocheting in and out of love with a fine display of emotional pyrotechnics, she had lost her heart to a former army captain who had turned out to be not only a professional gambler but a married man. Her hired chaperone had washed her hands of her. Even the doting Armstrong had been shocked enough to talk of sending her back to America, but I had convinced him that his best chance of avoiding scandal lay in keeping her at his side.

  “Of course nothing actually happened,” confided Edmund to me. “She’s told me all about it.”

  I thought it kindest to maintain a diplomatic silence. It was certainly possible that Teddy’s virginity was intact but on the other hand hired chaperones seldom return their fees unless racked by the most profound sense of failure.

  “Poor little Teddy’s been awfully misunderstood,” said Edmund. “She says all she really wants is to get married and live happily ever after near her father
. She doesn’t get on too well with that mother of hers in Boston.”

  That sealed Edmund’s fate, and his fate made it well-nigh impossible for me to break with Armstrong even if I had wished to do so. If I now refused to marry Constance, I knew he would intervene in revenge to prevent his other daughter marrying my brother. I did wonder if he would object to the match, but I soon realized the bizarre truth that Edmund was even more of an ideal son-in-law for Armstrong than I was. Armstrong wanted to control his favorite daughter’s life; this meant he needed a docile son-in-law whom he could manipulate, and in this respect Edmund posed no threat to him. He must have hoped that Teddy would do better for herself but after the scandal he was willing to concede that she could do very much worse, and as always he was keenly aware that if she failed to marry she would have to return to her mother in the autumn.

  Deciding to approve of Edmund, Armstrong then asked me when I was going to propose to Constance.

  “On her birthday,” I said without a second’s hesitation. The date was two weeks away.

  “No, let’s sew this up right now,” said Armstrong, unable to resist pushing to conclude the deal that would scoop both his daughters away from his wife. “Constance isn’t eating or sleeping properly, and I want her put out of her agony. Take the day off tomorrow, buy the ring and fix the date.”