The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  But it had happened. He saw my expression, knew I was thinking of my mother replaced by a whore and shouted, “You’ve no right to judge me!”

  “And you’ve no right to judge me!” I shouted back before I could stop myself.

  “I’ll have to ask your mother to talk to you,” said my father to me in despair. “Margaret will have to deal with it.” He turned his back on me only to be confronted by the figure of Mrs. Straker, representing an intolerable present. He turned towards the summerhouse only to be confronted once more by the intolerable past. He rubbed his eyes and looked dazed. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Not well.”

  Pity mingled with my guilt and drove me to make a final effort to communicate with him.

  “Papa, you’re under strain and I think you should see Warburton. There are modern drugs—”

  “No!” said my father fiercely. “I’m not seeing a doctor!”

  “But you’ve just admitted you’re unwell!”

  “Old age. Not so young as I used to be.”

  “But—”

  “Nobody’s going to shut me up anywhere!”

  “That’s all right, Bobby,” said Mrs. Straker, covering the last few yards of lawn with the speed of lightning. “That’s all right my pet. Nobody gets shut up just because they get a bit upset now and then. The idea of it! If that were true we’d all be locked up, wouldn’t we, John?”

  Ignoring her I took my father’s hands in mine. “Papa, I give you my word that I’ll never let anyone take you to the Home of the Assumption—or indeed, to any other institution of that kind.”

  His eyes filled with tears once more. He whispered, “You’re such a good kind boy, John—and that’s why I can’t bear to see you destroying yourself like this.”

  “Oh, come off it, Bobby!” said Mrs. Straker at once. “This one’s not going to destroy himself in a hurry—just look at him! Smart as paint, smooth as glass and clever as the Indian rope trick! You mark my words, a man like that could keep a bloody harem in a church if he put his mind to it! Now, don’t you worry, my poppet. You run along and look at those strawberry beds, just as you said you would, and John and I’ll work out how he can live happily ever after at the Manor. He’s not stupid and he’s not interested in destroying himself and I’m sure we’ll have everything settled in no time at all. Oh, and watch that dog in the kitchen garden. I hear he’s a terror for digging holes in all the wrong places.”

  This demonstration of crude street-corner sanity was evidently just what my father needed. He wiped away his tears, kissed her briefly and trailed away across the lawn with Glendower at his heels. I watched him for some time but even before I had nerved myself to face Mrs. Straker, I knew she was poised to move in for the kill.

  “Well, Mr. John!” she said with heavy irony. “Don’t you think you should come down off your high horse before you fall flat on your face? Let’s go and sit in that bloody love nest of a summerhouse for a moment. I think it’s time you and I had a cozy little chat together.”

  XIII

  Robert had implied that we might one day have to go to war with Mrs. Straker about her position at Oxmoon, but neither he nor I had anticipated that she might now seek to go to war with us. Horrified by my father’s condition, I was no match for her at that moment. I could only follow her into the summerhouse, and when she sat down on one of the wicker chairs I saw no alternative but to sit down opposite her.

  She had crossed her legs primly as if she were drinking tea in her native London suburb, and when she began to speak this illusion of respectability only made her words the more bizarre.

  “I was thinking of having a word with you, Mr. Casanova,” she said, “even before this trouble blew up over your gorgeous redhead. I’d decided it was time you and your brother Robert realized how bloody indispensable I am here nowadays. You’re hoping, aren’t you, that this little trouble of your father’s will give you the excuse to step in and get rid of me. Well, think again, my friend! Just you think again! You can’t afford to wipe me off the slate, and if you can somehow manage to keep that handsome mouth of yours shut for a moment, I’ll tell you the way things really are at Oxmoon.

  “That’s better. I can see I’ve got your full attention. I knew you weren’t stupid. Now just you listen to me.

  “There are two sides to my job here, and I do each of them damn well. Let’s take the formal side first. I run that house like God runs heaven—perfectly. And unlike God I don’t have a lot of angels to help me, and from a domestic point of view Oxmoon’s a long way from heaven. It’s old-fashioned, inconvenient and hell to keep organized. How your mother stood it I don’t know, but of course she had a full prewar indoor staff of ten, whereas I now count myself lucky if I can get five servants living in and a couple of dailies from the village—your father won’t pay for anything more. Never mind, I manage. I rule with a rod of iron and stand no nonsense, and fortunately the unemployment situation helps—people want to hang on to their jobs so they’ll stand for a lot, and my God, I make them stand for it. Yes, I hold this place together all right. But remove me and it would fall apart at the seams.

  “All right, so that’s one potent argument in favor of keeping me: I do the formal side of my job damn well. But it’s on the informal side that I’m bloody well indispensable. You might replace me as a housekeeper—if you were lucky—but you’d never find anyone willing to replace me for long in your father’s bed. Nor are you going to find anyone who can control him in the way I can. You think my control over him’s a bad thing, don’t you? Well, this is the moment when you change your mind, my friend, because neither you nor your brothers have any idea what would go on at Oxmoon if I packed my bags and walked out. Shall I continue? Or shall I give you a moment to digest that? You look as if you could do with a cigarette. That’s right, take out your case. I’ll have one too—here, give me the matches and I’ll do the lighting. That’s right. Ah … that’s better, isn’t it? Nothing like a good puff to steady the nerves, and my God, your nerves are going to need steadying when you hear what I’m going to say next.”

  She leaned forward in her chair. Her sharp pointed face was close to me, and I could see the mole on her chin and the powder in the pores of her sallow skin and the hard lines running from her nose to the corners of her mouth.

  “Your father,” she said, “isn’t the man he used to be. The present deterioration set in after Robin died, but if you ask me he’s never been right since his wife’s death, and now it’s got to the stage where it doesn’t take much to upset him and trigger him off. The only reason why this incident is different from other more recent ones is that this time he has a genuine excuse for being upset. However let’s leave Mrs. Morgan for the moment—we’ll get to her later.

  “The truth you’ve now got to face is that although your father still spends a lot of time being sound as a bell, he’s getting to the point where he needs a keeper, because whenever he’s upset like this his one remedy is sex. So long as I’m here he’s not going to go around doing God-knows-what to the nearest scullery maid, but once I’m gone he’ll do it and, what’s worse, he won’t even remember afterwards that he’s done it, he’ll shut it clean out of his mind. Now, I know what to do with him. I can keep him satisfied, but he’s got some weird tastes, and while I don’t mind that—the weirder the better, as far as I’m concerned—there aren’t many women who’d stand for that kind of behavior. Except prostitutes, of course. And do you really want your father bringing the lowest form of street life into Oxmoon and turning the place into some kind of cross between a brothel and a lunatic asylum? Of course you don’t. So look at me and be grateful because so long as I’m around you don’t have to worry.

  “Well, now that we’ve got all that straightened out, let’s talk about the facts of life, otherwise known as pounds, shillings and pence. I’m worth my weight in gold, but Bobby only pays me a pittance as housekeeper. I filch a bit here and there, of course—why the hell shouldn’t I, after all I do?—but Bobby’s mean abou
t money, and although he’s a bit potty sometimes, he’s still capable of being all too lucid when the subject of money comes up for discussion. The truth is he’s so dependent on me that he gets a thrill out of saying no when I ask for things; it makes him feel more the master of his own home. Now I could go on filching—nothing easier—but why the hell should I have to scrape around like that? You’re a rich man and it’s in your best interests to pay me what I’m worth.”

  She stopped talking. I stubbed out my cigarette and stood up. Beyond the doorway, far away across the lawn, Oxmoon lay pallidly in the sunlight. I noticed that the creeper was beginning to die on the walls. “I’ll have to talk to my brother.”

  “Yes, I thought you’d say that, but think again, dear. For instance, why don’t you and I come to a very private agreement, an agreement which will suit you as well as it’ll suit me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, dear, before Bobby’s really certifiable, why don’t I whisper a little word in his ear about the will?”

  “What will?”

  “Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know about it! The will where he leaves everything to that little ninny Kester just because he wants to be kind to poor old Robert! What a lot of sentimental old balls—but don’t you worry about it, my friend, because if you guarantee me five hundred a year, starting from now, I’ll guarantee you Oxmoon when Bobby drops dead.”

  I knew it was vital that I never hesitated so the instant she stopped speaking I said, “I’ll not cheat my dying brother. I draw the line.” The most appalling part of this heroic statement was that I found myself wondering whether it was true.

  “What’s the matter, dear?” said the woman at my side. “Worried in case you wouldn’t get away with it? But I’d keep my mouth shut, and anyway people can get away with anything if they put their minds to it. Look at your father! He got away with murder.”

  I turned to face her. “Did he?” I said.

  We were silent. I thought of my ruined father, locked up in his private hell and shamed before the children he loved, but the thought was unendurable. Turning my back on the woman I walked out of the summerhouse.

  “My God,” said Milly Straker, “the man’s incorruptible. That’s the sexiest act I’ve seen in a month of Sundays.” She followed me to the edge of the tennis lawn. “All right, dear, suit yourself, but let me know if you change your mind. And now—while we’re still talking about sex—I think we’d better have a quick word about the luscious Mrs. Morgan. No, don’t take offense! This is just a friendly word from a well-wisher. All I want to say, dear, is Don’t live with her openly. I don’t know whether you really intend to install her immediately in Penhale Manor as your mistress, but take it from me it just won’t do.”

  “Mrs. Straker—”

  “Oh, don’t misunderstand! I’m not like your father—I’m not worried about you, I’m worried about her! You love her, don’t you? All right, then if you’re as decent as you’ve almost convinced me you are, take time off from your romantic dreams and imagine what hell life’s going to be for her if you put her on public display nailed to a cross with a placard inscribed MISTRESS around her neck! If you’ve got to keep her at the Manor, let her call herself a housekeeper or a nanny or a tweeny or something—give her a title to hide behind when the inevitable happens and everyone realizes what’s going on. Believe me, you’ll have to fight tooth and nail to preserve that girl, and don’t think I don’t know what I’m talking about. My God, I’ve seen some crucifixions in my time! The bloody men get off scot-free and the girls end up in the bath with their wrists slashed—oh, I’ve seen it all! So take my advice for her sake and stop being so bloody selfish and naive.”

  After a pause I managed to say: “As I intend to marry Mrs. Morgan, I hardly think your advice is applicable.”

  “Why, yes, of course you intend to marry her, dear. A gentleman always intends to marry the girl at first, doesn’t he? After all, he wouldn’t be a gentleman if he didn’t.” She stepped past me and began to walk away across the lawn. “But Mrs. Morgan’s a lucky girl,” she added over her shoulder. “I can see that now. And maybe you really will be fool enough to marry her—if, of course, that new pregnant wife of yours is ever fool enough to agree to a divorce.”

  I watched her till she had disappeared from sight. Then I stumbled back into the summerhouse, sank down on the nearest chair and covered my face with my hands.

  9

  I

  “SHE THEN SAID SHE WOULD guarantee me Oxmoon if I guaranteed her an income,” I said to Robert

  “How intriguing. What did you say?”

  “I said I refused to cheat you.”

  “Oh, she’ll never believe that,” said Robert. “You should have reminded her instead that undue influence and unsoundness of mind can invalidate a will.”

  “No doubt I should. But I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking too clearly at that stage.”

  “At that stage I’d have been dead of apoplexy. … Is that a car I hear outside?”

  It was. Ginevra had arrived home from one of Esther Mowbray’s smart bridge parties, and was looking overdressed in a shiny afternoon frock, an absurd hat like a semidestroyed Balaclava and a very, very long bead necklace.

  “Are you going to tell her, Robert?”

  “Of course. I always tell her everything.”

  This surprised me for Robert and Ginevra never gave an impression of marital intimacy and I had long since decided that their separate lives were linked by an enduring, genuine but not close affection. However when Robert now began to talk to her in the frankest possible manner, I found myself automatically trying to assess their marriage afresh. But it did not lend itself easily to assessment. The asexuality of the relationship struck odd notes; he made no effort to be charming or deferential to her, but was bossy and didactic as if she were a school chum who needed firm handling, while she in her turn made no effort to demonstrate her considerable feminine wiles but said exactly what she liked with varying degrees of rudeness. This meant they bickered frequently and energetically, but I had schooled myself to take no notice; I had realized that their two personalities, his so austere, hers so emotional, were locked in the harmony of opposites from which neither of them wished to escape.

  When Robert finished speaking, she said to me, “How absolutely vile for you, Johnny,” and suddenly as I realized she was genuinely upset I saw beyond her affectations to the sensitive woman I hardly knew.

  She turned back to Robert. “What do we do?”

  “I’m beginning to wonder. I’m afraid this is all much more hair-raising than I thought it was. How far did you believe Straker, John?”

  “I hate to admit it but I believed every word.”

  Neither of them attempted to disagree with this verdict. Ginevra said, “So we daren’t get rid of Straker: And he won’t see a doctor. Is he legally certifiable, Robert?”

  “Nowhere near. We’ve no evidence that he’s not running the estate properly. Even Straker admits he spends most of the time being as sound as a bell.”

  “But he’s deteriorating,” I said. “He’s going mad, Robert. This isn’t just a nervous breakdown, it’s hereditary insanity, I know it is, I know it—”

  “Shut up. Pull yourself together. Christ, isn’t it enough that Papa’s sinking into this unspeakably sordid dotage? If you go round the bend as well I’ll bloody well never forgive you!”

  But Ginevra’s hand slipped into mine and Ginevra’s voice said gently, “Take no notice of him. He’s only being awful because he’s so upset.”

  “You bloody fool, stop pandering to him!” shouted Robert. “If he persists in clinging to this ridiculous obsession of his, he doesn’t need kindness—he needs to be shaken till his bloody teeth rattle!”

  Ginevra was furious. “My God, you are a bastard sometimes!”

  “Oh, stop carping at me like a stupid bitch!”

  “Shut up!” she screamed at him. “Just because you yourself can’t stand any bloody
emotion—”

  “What I can’t stand is everyone going to bloody pieces!”

  “I’m sorry,” I said hastily, jolted out of my fears by this searing marital squabble. “You’re right to shout at me, I know I’m being useless—”

  “Darling,” said Ginevra, “after that scene at Oxmoon the miracle is that you’re still conscious.” She swung back to face Robert. “Since you’re so bloody clever, you bastard,” she said, “just you answer me this: if Bobby isn’t going stark staring mad—and I agree with Johnny, I think he is—just what the hell do you think’s going on?”

  “I think the entire trouble’s emotional. I suspect he’s racked with shame because he’s unable to stop himself sliding deeper and deeper into this appalling private life.”

  “My God, that’s plausible,” I said in spite of myself. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “But why’s He compelled to lead this ghastly private life in the first place?” demanded Ginevra. “Isn’t that in itself evidence of derangement?”

  “Possibly. But not necessarily. He told me once he regarded sex as an escape from facts he couldn’t face; Straker now confirms this by saying he resorts to sex when he’s upset. This nauseating private life may be evidence that he’s disturbed, but it’s not, repeat not, evidence of hereditary insanity.”

  “I think it is,” I said.

  “So do I,” said Ginevra.

  “If I don’t quash this hereditary-insanity nonsense very soon,” said Robert, “I swear I’ll bloody well go mad myself. For God’s sake let’s get hold of Gavin Warburton and ask him for a rational, detached, qualified medical opinion on the subject; I think it’s time we laid Grandmama’s ghost once and for all.”