Rage once more annihilated the desire to cry. “I think Harry should make his peace with me, sir!” I said stubbornly. I was careful not to sound rude, merely burning with the desire for justice. “It was he who spoke the first insult,” I said, ruthlessly casting aside any puerile convention against sneaking, “and it was he who struck the first blow, and I’m jolly well going to stand up for myself by making that clear.”
I think Uncle John was startled by this show of strength. Perhaps he had expected me to collapse meekly into an abject heap after his stern reproofs, and when I remained defiantly upright he fell silent. At once I was terrified. Supposing he decided to beat me? I knew Harry was never beaten but then Harry was perfect. In contrast I was a long way from perfection, and I thought Uncle John would be sure to approve of corporal punishment.
I began to stammer an apology but he interrupted me.
“Kester,” he said, “you can afford to be generous to Harry today. Just do as you’re told, make your peace with him and stop arguing.”
Something in his tone cut deep into my consciousness. He sounded so very bleak and cold, and suddenly I was aware of all my secret fears that he despised me and found me a terrible cross to bear.
“You’re wishing it was Harry who had Oxmoon,” said a small high unsteady voice which I dimly realized was mine. “You hate me and wish I was dead like Robin.”
“Oh my God!” said Uncle John, and heaved one of his vast sighs. Then, most unexpectedly, he laughed. “I’ve never before known a child,” he said, “who plays every scene in his life as if it were the final act of a Victorian melodrama! My dear Kester, if you really want to cast me in the role of the wicked uncle there’s nothing I can do to stop you, but I do assure you that the performance is all entirely in your mind.”
He slumped down in one of the old leather armchairs by the fireplace and drew me to him. Then he smiled. Instinctively I leaned against him for comfort, anxious for any gesture which would negate my nightmarish suspicion that I was despised, and as if he knew exactly what I needed, he put his arm around my shoulders.
“If I’d wanted Oxmoon for Harry,” he said gently, “I could have got it. I was my father’s favorite at the end and he would have given me anything I asked. But it would have been wrong, Kester. It would have meant cheating your father, my favorite brother. It would have meant making your mother unhappy. It would have meant depriving you of something which by tradition was rightfully yours. How could I ever have wanted something which would have involved me in so much wrongdoing? One can’t go through life grabbing everything without regard for the consequences, you know. That’s the road to hell, and the people who wind up in hell are the people who don’t know when to say ‘Stop!’ and draw the line.”
I was entranced. A picture flashed into my mind of a broad golden line with a black pit marked HELL on one side of it and a pastoral vista marked HEAVEN on the other. “Gosh!” I said, my fondness for melodrama well satisfied, and leaned a little closer to him. I was greatly enjoying my first lesson in metaphysics.
“Terrible things happen,” said Uncle John, “to people who fail to draw the line.”
“Is that why we all have to stick to the rules and play the game and do the done thing?”
I was proving an apt pupil. He smiled at me again, patted my head and stood up. “Yes. Now let’s go into the garden and find Harry.”
I clasped his hand and decided I would impress him by being thoroughly magnanimous to poor old Cousin Harry, whom Uncle John had so delightfully described at the start of our conversation as a jealous child. Obviously it would be the done thing to be magnanimous. I began to feel much better.
“You do like me a little in spite of everything, don’t you, Uncle John?”
“My dear Kester, what an idiotic question!” said Uncle John, sounding as irritated as my mother undoubtedly would have been in the circumstances. “You know perfectly well I think of you as my own son now your father’s dead.”
My last trace of insecurity dissolved. I looked up at him mistily and thought he was wonderful.
In the garden we saw Harry huddled on the bench by the tennis court, but when we appeared he stood up and trudged slowly towards us. He had stuffed his hands into his pockets, and as I watched I saw him pause more than once to dig his heel fiercely into the ground. His black hair fell forward across his forehead to shadow his face, and it was hot until he was close to us that I noticed his eyes had a faint pink rim.
Uncle John, who was holding my right hand in his left, held out his own right hand to his son and Harry grabbed it, a small pin hurling itself thankfully at an all-powerful magnet. Uncle John smiled, and when I saw Harry lean against him I knew that he too was feeling relief after a nightmarish moment of insecurity.
“Well, boys,” said Uncle John as we all paused by the tennis court and looked back at the house, “you’ve both behaved badly but I’ve made it clear what I think of such conduct so now we’ll consider the incident closed. However, there’s to be no more fighting. It’s quite wrong and I’ll no longer tolerate it. I draw the line.”
We gazed up at him solemnly but he did not see us. He was looking at the bedraggled walls of his old home.
“We all know what happens to a house that’s divided against itself,” said Uncle John. He spoke idly and almost to himself as if neither Harry nor I were present. He might have been making some prosaic remark such as “Dear me, I must get an estimate to have the roof repaired.” Then he remembered us and tightened his clasp on our hands. “Oxmoon belongs to all of us,” he said easily, “although Kester’s the one who has the responsibility of looking after it and passing it on to the next generation. That’s a very heavy responsibility so we have to do all we can to help Kester, don’t we, Harry? I’m sure you understand that we all have to work together and be friends.”
“Yes, Papa,” said Harry.
“And you understand that too, don’t you, Kester?”
“Oh yes, Uncle John,” I said, and added (rather craftily, I thought): “It’s the done thing.”
“Very well. Now shake hands, both of you, and be friends.”
Harry and I shook hands, two small boys hypnotized by that powerful complex adult personality which even in later life I often wondered if I had ever truly understood.
“Sorry I bashed you just now, Harry.”
“That’s all right, old chap. Sorry I ragged you about not going to school.”
“Of course you can come and play at Oxmoon whenever you want.”
“Jolly decent of you. Thanks.”
There was an awkward little pause. And that was when I looked at Harry and Harry looked at me and we both knew that no matter how often Uncle John talked of the perils of a house divided against itself, we were all heading for some very complicated long-division sums indeeds.
II
When we arrived back at the house the gong was sounding for lunch, and the family, all shrieking and laughing with the slackening of nervous tension which follows a surfeit of champagne, were milling around in the hall and declaring what a splendid funeral it had turned out to be.
“Poor Bobby, missing this!” shouted my mother, who was tight, to Uncle John. “How he’d have loved it!”
Uncle John, who was stone-cold sober, merely raised an eyebrow and moved to muzzle Uncle Thomas who, having abandoned champagne in favor of whisky, was telling an enthralled Rory some story involving chains and pillowcases. (The idiotic things grown-ups talked about!) Trailing along at the end of the crowd towards the dining room, I glumly wondered how long my new friendship with Harry would last.
The dining room was built on a corner of the main block of the house, next to the passage that led past the green baize door to the servants’ quarters. Huge bad paintings of hunting scenes blazed from the walls, the pink coats of the huntsmen clashing with the dark red wallpaper. The long ravishing rosewood dining table, an eighteenth-century treasure which had somehow been allowed to coexist with all the Victorian j
unk so beloved by my grandparents, lay like a dream of elegance in the middle of the threadbare Indian carpet and was lovingly adorned with the renowned Godwin silver épergnes and the monogrammed Godwin cutlery (generously spared by the acquisitive Mrs. Straker). The dinner service was Doulton, a little chipped and cracked in places, just like Oxmoon, but by no means a mere ghost of past splendor. By the sideboard lurked Lowell with a couple of attendant minions, and beyond the servants I noticed that the champagne bottles were lined up like skittles. I wondered if anyone would offer me a little sip and propose a toast in my honor, but thought both events highly unlikely.
My mother was squabbling with Uncle Thomas. “John must sit at the head of the table,” she was saying, murdering my best daydream with one ruthless sentence, “but I’m going to sit opposite him in Margaret’s chair—no, you can’t have it! Go and sit next to John—he might be able to keep you in some sort of order!”
“God, what a bitchy old cow you are sometimes, Ginevra!”
“Thomas!” said Uncle Edmund, very pink.
“Whoops!” said Aunt Teddy. “Hold on to your horses, everyone, we’re off for a thundering gallop!”
“Everyone—please!” begged Aunt Celia, a tall angular spinsterish-looking woman with a permanently horrified expression. “Let’s all show a little respect for darling Papa’s memory!”
“I absolutely agree,” said Uncle Edmund. “Harry, come and sit with me and tell me more about school.”
“Say, that’s odd,” said Aunt Teddy. “There aren’t enough places—or have I counted wrong?”
“Well, I’m sitting here on John’s right,” said Uncle Thomas, plonking himself down in his chosen chair, “so whoever ends up standing won’t be me.”
“I can’t think why Mrs. Wells should have got it wrong,” said my mother. “I gave her the correct numbers as soon as Daphne phoned to say she couldn’t come. Lowell, why aren’t there place cards?”
“Well, madam, I was waiting for your instructions—”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were waiting for instructions? I thought Mrs. Wells said—”
“What are we going to eat?” said Rory, sitting down next to my mother. “I rather fancy some caviar.”
“Christ!” said Uncle Thomas. “Look at all that champagne!”
“Really, Thomas!” exploded Aunt Celia. “Your language, your irreverence, your general demeanor—”
“Ah, here comes Mrs. Wells. Mrs. Wells, there are nine people and only eight places—”
“I’m so sorry, madam, I do apologize,” said Mrs. Wells. “I didn’t realize Master Harry was going to be present—I thought Master Kester was going to be the only grandchild to attend the funeral. I’ll arrange for an extra setting straightaway.”
Everyone was now sitting down except me and Uncle John. Uncle John was standing beside my grandfather’s carved chair which had figured so pathetically in my futile dreams of grandeur. In a moment he would sit down in it and I would be left standing, embarrassed and humiliated, the master of Oxmoon who was just a joke, the little boy whom everyone forgot.
“Well, go on, John,” said Uncle Thomas, “sit down—you make me nervous when you tower over me like this!”
“Kester,” said my mother, belatedly noticing that I had nowhere to sit, “come down here by me—Rory, move up to make room for the extra place.”
I trudged drearily down the room.
“Kester,” said Uncle John.
I turned. I had just reached my mother at one end of the long table and he was still standing at the other. At first I thought I had done something wrong, for his voice was abrupt, but then I saw he was smiling at me.
He gestured towards the great carved chair.
I stared.
The room unexpectedly fell silent as if everyone was as stunned as I was.
“Come along, Kester,” said Uncle John. “This is your place now.”
I thought: I mustn’t cry. I mustn’t.
It was so quiet that I could hear my new shoes squeak. Not daring to look either to right or to left I walked towards him. Twelve steps to glory, twelve steps to ecstasy, twelve steps to the start of the fairy tale where all my dreams came true.
When I reached the chair I gripped one of the arms and looked back at my family. I expected to see scorn mingled with indulgent amusement, but no one laughed and no one looked scornful. On the contrary, far from showing any expression the family looked blank, as if they had suddenly been presented with a reality which they found as stunning as I did.
The fairy tale had come true and suddenly, magically, I was indeed master of Oxmoon, scrambling up into the chair to take my place at the head of the table.
“That’s it,” said Uncle John casually. “Good boy. Now up you get, Thomas, and I’ll have your place on Kester’s right. Ah, Mrs. Wells, set the extra place next to Mrs. Edmund, please—Rory, just move a little closer to Ginevra, would you?”
Thomas stood up without a word, dispossessed and defeated. I wanted to shout “Hurrah!” at the top of my voice but of course I said nothing and kept my face expressionless. Uncle John had waved his magic wand and I had become the perfect Godwin, effortlessly doing the done thing at all times.
“Lowell,” said Uncle John, “half a glass of champagne each, please, for Master Kester and Master Harry.”
The parlormaids were distributing the smoked salmon.
“Why, Kester, how cute you look in that lovely old chair!” said nice kind bouncy Aunt Teddy.
“Papa simply adored that chair,” said dreary Aunt Celia. “Mama bought it in a jumble sale for his twenty-first birthday and it cost her thirteen and six. Of course they were terribly poor in those days and hardly had a farthing between them. Do you remember, Ginevra …” And she droned on as the maids completed serving the salmon and Lowell arrived with the two half-glasses of champagne.
Uncle John stood up. Aunt Celia’s reminiscences stopped as if someone had mercifully turned off a dripping tap.
“Well,” said Uncle John, matchlessly at ease. “I think we’ve had enough prayers in church this morning so I won’t say grace. And I think we would all wish to grieve in our different ways for my father so I see no point in giving a eulogy. It’s enough that we know he was a fine man with a tragic past which made him old before his time. Let it rest at that. And now I suggest we should be grateful for the present and hopeful for the future. Kester’s an intelligent boy, he’s full of promise and above all he’s Robert’s son. Let’s think of Robert, who was without doubt the most brilliant Godwin of his generation, and let’s all now join in wishing Kester well.”
He raised his glass until it caught the light. I have an unforgettable memory of him standing there, straight-backed, perfectly poised, setting the example for all the family to follow.
“To Kester!” said my heroic Uncle John, and as I looked up at him with shining eyes, I thought, If this is what happens when people do the done thing, then I’m all in favor of people doing the done thing.
But then I looked down the table at Harry, white-faced, stiff-lipped Cousin Harry, and I thought he might not be enjoying the spectacle of Uncle John doing the done thing half as much as I was—and in fact might well not be enjoying it at all.
III
It says a great deal about the way Uncle John handled his private life that I took for granted Bronwen’s absence from both my grandfather’s funeral and the family luncheon afterwards. Officially she was his children’s nanny; she took no part in his social life, and when Uncle John dined or lunched with us he came alone. It was only when he came to tea with the children that Bronwen would accompany him (I came to realize that tea was the only meal to which socially inadequate people could be invited). Uncle John seldom entertained his friends at Penhale Manor, but when he did my mother would be present to act as his hostess and Bronwen would keep out of sight upstairs. It was always stressed to me that far from minding being left out of his social life, she was only too relieved to be excused from it.
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“God only knows what will happen if they ever marry and he has to present her to his friends,” my mother said once. “I don’t think she could cope at all, poor darling.”
In making this remark my mother was not being cattily snobbish but was merely facing the facts of class as she faced the facts of death—with shattering directness. Accordingly, as I took my cue from her, it never occurred to me to look down on Bronwen; I went on loving her just the same, but I knew she was different and must often suffer for being different so I felt increasingly sorry for her, particularly when she had to miss a grand occasion like my grandfather’s funeral. I wished she could have seen me taking my place in the carved chair.
By the time I inherited Oxmoon I had overheard much speculation on the subject of Uncle John’s relationship with Bronwen, and I was aware that although everyone professed to understand it, no one could agree what was causing it to persist. (People tended to speak of it as if it were an unusually bad case of measles.) In other words, no one really understood it at all. My mother glibly wrote it off as a Grand Passion, but this diagnosis much irritated my father who thought that believing in romance was as futile as believing in God but very much sillier.
“I’m not denying grand passions exist,” I could remember him saying, “but in my unromantic opinion they exist in order to fill a vacuum in an unsatisfactory life—they’re the product of disturbed minds which yearn for an escape from insoluble problems.”
The Wheel of Fortune Page 75