The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  “But what do you think’s happened?”

  “I don’t know,” said my mother, “but if John doesn’t intend to confide in me, I shan’t pry.” Then she made a remark which I was to remember long afterwards in very different circumstances.

  “We know so little,” she said, “about even those who are closest to us. We know so little of what really goes on in other people’s lives.”

  Since Bronwen had departed the previous May Uncle John had been living a secluded life at Oxmoon, and his one diversion had been the estate, which he had proceeded to overhaul. Thomas remained the salaried manager but while Uncle John was concerning himself with Oxmoon Thomas was temporarily dispatched to run the estate at Penhale Manor, and in October Uncle John installed him in the Manor itself as a caretaker. Uncle John had at first decided to sell the house but in the end could not bring himself to do it. Then he had decided to let it but couldn’t bring himself to do that either. It was accordingly a relief to him when Thomas offered to look after the place, and as a consequence it was Little Oxmoon, not Penhale Manor, that eventually fell vacant in 1933. Martinscombe Farm was already let to tenants and now Uncle John decided to let the bungalow as well once it had been spruced up after Thomas’s four-year occupation.

  While these changes were taking place I found I had to endure eight weeks of the school summer holidays in the company of Cousin Harry, who joined his father at Oxmoon in July. Fortunately Marian, who had been staying with her great-aunt Charlotte in London during her first season, now retired to Scotland with Aunt Daphne and Elizabeth, so I was at least spared her pea-brained presence but Harry threatened to ruin my entire summer. I even wondered in despair if he and I were to be condemned to live under the same roof indefinitely. My mother said Uncle John would find another home of his own as soon as he had decided what to do with himself, but I was beginning to think Uncle John rather enjoyed living at Oxmoon.

  However when one expects the worst one is often pleasantly surprised when the worst is better than one has dared hope, and as it turned out Cousin Harry spent most of his holidays keeping out of my way. He used to disappear every day on solitary expeditions to the Downs, and in the evenings he would shut himself in his room with his wireless set and listen to music. I was delighted. Nothing could have pleased me more. Prompted by my mother I made an effort to talk to him occasionally but when he showed no interest in being sociable I gave up. Once I did ask him if he minded that Bronwen and the little ones had gone for good, but he was very offhand and gave the impression that he couldn’t have cared less.

  “Well, it was the done thing, wasn’t it, old chap?” he said. “Of course Bronwen had to think of the children so obviously emigrating to Canada was the right thing—indeed the only thing—to do.”

  Callous brute. Tears still came to my eyes whenever I thought of Bronwen and my lost acolyte.

  In the following year at Easter my mother decided to hold a huge family reunion at Oxmoon, not exactly to celebrate Uncle John’s return to Aunt Constance but to celebrate the end of the schism that had rent the family when Uncle John left her for Bronwen. The ballroom was cleaned in anticipation of evenings spent dancing to the gramophone; all the spare bedrooms were made habitable; extra help was engaged from the village, and on the Wednesday preceding Good Friday the guests began to arrive.

  I had not seen Uncle John since the previous November. After his reconciliation with Aunt Constance he had briefly returned to Oxmoon to pack up his possessions and commit the estate once more into Thomas’s hands, but as soon as that was done he had vanished into Belgravia. Harry and Marian had spent Christmas with him and Aunt Constance in London. Marian wrote sketchily to my mother that everything was “too divine,” but in the new year she went to stay with Aunt Daphne again, and after Harry returned to Harrow, Uncle John took Aunt Constance and Francesca to the Riviera for the remainder of the winter. It was March before they returned to England, and as Easter approached I found myself wondering if I would find him greatly changed when I saw him again. I pictured him white-haired, bent double with the burden of doing the done thing and shuffling along with the aid of a stick. I was fourteen by this time but my imagination, far from being dimmed by the passing years, was burgeoning to new heights of prurient speculation.

  “Will they both sleep in one bed, Mum?”

  “In the absence of any hint to the contrary,” said my mother drily, “I can only suppose that they will.”

  Beds were rather in the news at the, time because Rory had just telephoned to ask if he could have a spare room with a double bed so that he could bring his mistress. My mother was livid and said certainly not; if he did bring his mistress they would have to have separate bedrooms to preserve the proprieties and anyway since the mistress hadn’t been invited he was on no account to bring her.

  “What you do in London’s your own affair,” she said to Rory after he arrived alone in his sports car. “But here I have my standards and here I draw the line.”

  “No offense meant, Ma,” said Rory cheerfully. “I just thought it was worth a try in case you were getting soft in your old age.”

  “Old age!” said my mother incensed. “What’s that?” And when Rory had finished laughing, she said, “Darling, do behave yourself this weekend—this reunion’s quite tricky enough without you playing Casanova with passing housemaids. Oh, how I do wish you’d settle down and be respectable like Darling Declan!”

  “But Ma, I’m only thirty-three!”

  “Yes,” said my mother brutally, “and crashing with the most undignified speed towards a premature middle age!”

  Rory laughed again to give the impression that he didn’t give a damn what his dear old mother thought, but I suspected she had made him uncomfortable. I was beginning to realize that Rory was devoted to my mother with that childlike naivety common in stupid men, and that her good opinion was very important to him. Ever since Declan had reentered her life, Rory had been making conspicuous efforts to please her, staying in jobs longer than a year, living (occasionally) within his income and being faithful to one mistress whom no one could possibly have mistaken for a tart. I think Rory found it unsettling to be compared with Declan and found wanting. He was as devoted to Declan as he was to my mother, but I’ve no doubt he found my mother’s rhapsodies about Darling Declan as tiresome as I did.

  I half-wondered if Declan would come over for the great family reunion. I knew my mother had invited him, but as usual he made some excuse and stayed away.

  “I don’t think he wants to meet me,” I said, “but that’s all right because I don’t want to meet him.”

  My mother smiled but said nothing. Perhaps she was consoling herself for Declan’s absence by thinking of the guests who had accepted her invitation. By that time Uncle Edmund and Aunt Teddy had arrived with Richard and Geoffrey (both perfect Godwins born with cricket bats in their hands), Aunt Daphne had arrived with Elizabeth and now—sensation of sensations—Aunt Celia was due to arrive from Germany with my cousin Erika; her husband had run off with a Hungarian ballet dancer and had last been seen heading for Vienna.

  After this drama had unfolded further at Oxmoon (Aunt Celia weeping buckets, my mother rashly offering her unlimited hospitality, Erika showing me her pictures of Hitler), Uncle John’s arrival with Aunt Constance was almost an anticlimax. However so anxious was I to escape from Cousin Erika extolling the virtues of Heidelberg in fractured English that I at once rushed outside to welcome them.

  They arrived in two chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royces followed by a Swansea taxi containing Uncle John’s valet and Aunt Constance’s maid, who had left London by train. Uncle John, Aunt Constance and Marian traveled in the first Rolls, and Harry, Francesca and Francesca’s nanny traveled in the second. Luggage overflowed from both boots. Uncle John wore a dark gray suit and his Old Harrovian tie and looked distinguished enough to have an open invitation to Buckingham Palace. Aunt Constance wore a sleek mustard-colored ensemble with a mink stole and one or two discreet
diamonds. Together they looked as if they were advertising some lavish product (the Rolls-Royces?) in the glossy pages of Country Life.

  My mother glided past me. “Dear Constance,” she said smoothly, “welcome back to Oxmoon.”

  “Thank you, Ginevra,” said Aunt Constance, effortlessly participating in this charade of friendship but unable to resist a small triumphant smile, and offered her immaculate magnolia-colored cheek to be kissed. I saw her sharp dark eyes sizing up the reception committee who were now calling greetings as they streamed through the open front door.

  My mother somehow managed to perform the chilling ritual of the kiss of peace and then turned with relief to Uncle John. I noticed that during their quick fierce embrace not a single word was spoken on either side.

  A dear little creature with dark hair and blue eyes skipped over to them and turned a happy shining face up to my mother. Small loving fingers slipped into my uncle’s hand and clasped it tightly. Tiny feet clad in dainty shoes jumped up and down with excitement.

  “Francesca?” said my mother. “Oh, how pretty you are! Kester, come and meet your new cousin!”

  I saw the likeness to Gerry and Sian and could hardly speak. I didn’t dare look at my uncle in case my eyes were unacceptably moist.

  “Why, Kester,” said Aunt Constance, “how you’ve grown! I declare you’re as tall as Harry!” And to my honor, the magnolia-colored cheek was gently but mercilessly inclined in my direction.

  I kissed it. It was soft and velvety like a newly cleaned curtain, but instead of smelling of cleaning fluid it exuded an indefinable and no doubt very exclusive scent. The memory of Bronwen made all speech impossible; I could only think how monstrous it was that I should have to kiss this repellent female, and as I stood there, gawky and tongue-tied like some caricature of adolescence, tall dark handsome Cousin Harry, never at a loss for words, sauntered up to me with his hand outstretched.

  “Hullo, old chap. Nice to be back at the old shack again.” He did not wait for a reply but after we had shaken hands limply he turned to flash a brilliant smile at my mother. “Hullo, Aunt Ginevra—how nice to see you after all this time!”

  “Harry darling—how are you?” My mother kissed him, I was aggrieved to note, with unprecedented warmth and concern, but Harry assured her suavely that everything was absolutely first-class.

  “Aunt Ginevra, what heaven to see you!” It was Marian, horribly sophisticated and dripping with nasty little fox furs. At eighteen she was exactly the kind of girl I most disliked, affected, catty, thoroughly useless and man-mad. I often wondered how her bosom friend our cousin Elizabeth put up with her. Elizabeth was useless and man-mad too but she was redeemed by a splendid sense of humor. She was said to resemble her father, my dead Uncle Lion, but I always thought she looked more like Aunt Daphne. They were both plump and pink-cheeked with a slight double chin. Later in life I suspected that Marian thought Elizabeth’s plainness was the perfect foil for her own stone-cold good looks.

  “I rather fancy Maid Marian,” said Rory, who no longer attended debutante dances and had not seen Marian for some time. “What a tempting little prize for anyone who wants to play Robin Hood!”

  “Well, this isn’t Sherwood Forest,” said my mother, very tough, “so we’ll have no stolen kisses behind the bushes, if you please.”

  “Just one little kiss behind one little bush!” pleaded Rory, teasing her, and added idly as if the thought had only just occurred to him: “How much money does she have when she’s twenty-one?”

  “Ask John,” said my mother, knowing he wouldn’t dare, and kept a close eye on Marian, who was more than willing to be the center of attention.

  “Things are so much better now,” I heard her confide frankly to my mother. “Darling Aunt Ginevra, I can’t tell you what a relief it is to have a lady in charge of the household at last! Of course Bronwen was sweet and I adored her, but really … well, I’m sure it’s all for the best. Rhiannon? Oh, heavens no, we’ve quite lost touch! She’s living with Dafydd at some ghastly place like Hammersmith where one simply wouldn’t be seen dead—I mean I’m absolutely the last person to be snobbish and I was terribly fond of both of them, but … well, when all’s said and done one really does have more to say, doesn’t one, to people of one’s own class …”

  “Mum,” I said later as the result of this conversation, “how could Uncle John have produced such a ghastly daughter?”

  My mother made no attempt either to deny Marian’s ghastliness or to explain it. She just said, “What beats me is how Daphne can stand her but Daphne’s got rather ghastly herself lately—that affair with Lord Thingamajig, or whatever his name was, went straight to her head. I keep thinking how horrified Lion would have been to see her becoming so snobbish and pompous.”

  “This is going to be a very snobbish pompous weekend, Mum. Did you hear Aunt Constance saying to Aunt Teddy that she couldn’t imagine why Uncle Edmund preferred a Bentley to a Rolls-Royce?”

  “That woman’ll be murdered yet! But what a lovely little girl Francesca is—she must be a great consolation to poor John …”

  Francesca was not yet ten so she did not stay up for dinner but before I went to my room to change I looked in at the nurseries to say good night to her.

  “Nanny’s gone to fetch Mummy and Daddy,” she confided, sitting up in bed with an air of eager expectancy. “They always come together to say good night to me.”

  There was something touching about her excitement. She made them sound such very important visitors.

  “You must be glad your father’s come back to live with you,” I said kindly.

  “Oh yes!” said dear little Francesca. “It was just like a miracle! Ever since I can remember I prayed every night: ‘Please God, make Daddy come home again,’ and then one morning I woke up and went into Mummy’s room and he was there, having breakfast with her by the window! I was so happy I cried.”

  I was just thinking of Evan, sobbing at Oxmoon, when Uncle John himself entered the room with Aunt Constance.

  “It’s a little cold in here,” Aunt Constance was remarking. “I can never understand why the British can’t heat their homes properly. All it takes is a good engineer.” When she saw me she added with a diplomatic smile: “Maybe you’ll install a first-class heating system here one day, Kester, and set your compatriots a good example!”

  I looked at Uncle John but he was inscrutable. I was to come to know that inscrutable look very well in the years that followed. Ignoring both me and his wife he stooped over his daughter.

  “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy …” She hugged him tightly.

  “That’s enough, Francesca,” said Aunt Constance. “John, don’t overexcite her. Now, Francesca, let’s hear your prayers, please.”

  I saw then her supreme talent for turning joy into dreariness. I slipped out of the room, and Uncle John slipped after me. Across the passage in the other night nursery, Uncle Edmund and Aunt Teddy were saying a noisy good night to their exuberant boys.

  “Francesca’s lovely, Uncle John,” I said impulsively, feeling that even the most mundane compliment might alleviate the dreariness, but he merely said “Thank you, Kester” and gave me a polite smile.

  Thomas and his fiancée joined us at dinner. Thomas had become engaged to Eleanor Stourham soon after he had moved from Little Oxmoon to Penhale Manor, and they planned to marry in July.

  “Imagine being married to Thomas!” my new friend Ricky Mowbray had said after the engagement had been announced. “That really would be a fate worse than death!”

  But I couldn’t imagine being married to Thomas. I couldn’t even imagine being married to Eleanor. She was thirty-two, five years older than her fiancée, and had a horsy, weatherbeaten face, cropped hair and a muscular frame which looked well in her customary land girl’s outfit of trousers and shirt. It was odd to see her that night in evening dress, but she wore her conventional black gown with an air of defiance as if daring anyone to comment on her unusual appearance. No one did. L
ike Thomas, she had the reputation for being outspoken, but that night, surrounded by Godwins, she was uncharacteristically subdued, and I wondered if her bold masculine appearance might not disguise a secret feminine inclination to be shy. Everyone agreed that like her father Oswald Stourham she was “a good sort,” but nevertheless no one seemed to like her much except Thomas who treated her as if she were a favorite drinking companion he had met by chance at the pub. She in her turn treated him with a benign optimism as if he were an endearing puppy who showed signs of growing into a splendid dog. My mother said they were obviously in bliss, although how she arrived at this deduction I had no idea. However after dinner when we were all in the ballroom I saw she was right as usual for the two of them retreated to a far corner and began to chew each other’s faces.

  I shuddered and turned away.

  Meanwhile Aunt Constance, languid in her mink stole, was droning on again about central heating, this time to Aunt Celia, who said how efficiently the Germans heated their homes. I was just thinking how boring the subject was when Cousin Erika took me by surprise and asked me if I liked Beethoven. I looked at her with new eyes. Could there be a sensitive musical soul lurking beneath those sleekly coiled blond plaits? It seemed unlikely but there was no harm in hoping; I conceded I was a passionate admirer of Beethoven’s genius.

  “I can play the Moonlight Sonata on the piano,” announced Cousin Erika, for once mastering English syntax and getting the sentence in the right order.

  “Good for you,” I said tactfully, wondering why foreigners didn’t know it wasn’t the done thing to boast, and added to put her in her place: “So can Harry. In fact Harry can play anything on the piano, anything at all.”

  As if to prove my point Cousin Harry abandoned the group who were arguing over which record to play on the gramophone, sat down at the grand piano and began to play “The Blue Danube.”

  “The chandeliers look less romantic now they’ve been electrified,” mused Uncle Edmund, a few feet away on my right. “John, do you remember how Ifor had to light all the candles with wax tapers?”