The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  I could only compare my relationship with her to the bizarre comradeship that can develop between men in wartime. When two people go through hell together this comradeship automatically springs into existence; it has little or nothing to do with whether they normally like each other or not. So it was with Bella and me. We had gone through hell together when we were children and Melody, our secret which we had to share for the rest of our lives, had created this indestructible bond which existed independently of our marriage. The marriage I now found shallow, exasperating and profoundly unsatisfactory, but how could I leave her? She depended on me utterly. She relied on me not only to redeem the past—I’d already done that by marrying her and giving her four more children—but to keep on redeeming it by loving her forever, and if I did leave her I had no doubt I would only complete the destruction of her life which I had begun at fourteen. Could I ever be happy if I had to live in the knowledge that I had destroyed her? No. I had to stay.

  Having accepted that I saw that my task was to try to remake our marriage in a more satisfactory mold, and if Bella had grown up, as I had, there might have been some hope of achieving this. But Bella had remained little changed from the child I had loved in 1933. It was not only impossible to conduct painful but constructive conversations about our marriage with her. It was impossible to discuss any subject in depth. She didn’t understand, lost interest, started to talk of something else.

  I could see she was relieved that I didn’t want to talk about my war experiences. As far as she was concerned I’d come back and that was that. It would never have occurred to her that I was suffering from such a tortuous reaction from the war that I wondered if I’d ever recover. It would never have occurred to her, as I struggled to focus my attention on the estate, that I lived in terror of breaking down and being unable to cope. I worried about everything but I couldn’t talk about my worries to her. I did try to talk about money but she just said, “What does it matter since your father’s a rich man?” and I couldn’t find the words to paint a picture of my father’s Victorian streak, my horror of having to crawl to him to confess further failures and—my biggest nightmare of all—the prospect of one of those Canadian boys turning into a dazzling success and outshining me over and over again.

  I wasn’t worried about Evan. My ex-serf was talking of becoming a clergyman and my father had roused Bronwen’s fury by exclaiming, “But there’s no money or future in the Church!” My poor father! It was hardly possible for him to slough off the effects of that chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce overnight, and although he had hastily retracted his remark I suspected he was still disappointed in Evan’s decision.

  Lance was a quiet studious boy who wanted to be an engineer. No problem there. My father would always think engineering came low on the list of desirable professions.

  That left Gerry, and Gerry, I was beginning to realize with sickening clarity, was all set to play the role of Wonder Boy and transform my normally rational father into a besotted parent. Gerry was handsome. He was personable. He was athletic. He was clever. And most sinister of all, he was ambitious. He had decided to attend a London crammers in the hope of winning a scholarship to Oxford to read law. Naturally my father was as pleased as Punch. In fact he even started talking about Uncle Robert.

  The hackles rose on the back of my neck.

  I began to have a most unpleasant vision of a future in which I would be compared with Wonder Boy and found wanting. But I didn’t tell Bella that. I didn’t tell anyone that. I merely tucked it away among my private fears and decided not to think about it, but the trouble was I had so many private fears by that time that it was hard to find the space for a new arrival. My rash began to bother me again. I felt demented. I started to drink too much.

  “Tricky thing, peace,” said Edmund. “Worse than war in some ways.”

  It’s odd how often, when one’s in great trouble, help comes from the quarter you least expect it. I’d always written Edmund off as a benign old fool, but in the end when I was on the verge of breakdown it was not my father but my underestimated uncle who was there at the brink to step between me and the abyss.

  Edmund had not only survived the four years of the First War. He had survived the shell-shocked years of peace afterwards. “Don’t worry about the nightmares,” he said when I finally poured out my heart to him about the men I’d killed and the sights I’d seen and my constant terror that I’d go out of my mind. “You’ve wrapped your memories up in a parcel and the nightmares just mean you can’t resist undoing the parcel and having a peep inside every now and then. But eventually the desire to peep will fade away and you can treat the parcel as lost property. You’ll never actually lose it, but it’ll turn into a bundle you don’t care to redeem from the Lost Property Office, and then it won’t matter anymore.”

  “It’ll always matter.”

  “No, no,” said Edmund placidly. “Not so. In fact the great truth of life is that the things most people think are important aren’t really important at all. Look at John. After years and years he’s finally realized this. Why drive a Rolls-Royce when you can be happier on a bicycle?”

  “But Edmund, about the war—”

  “The only important thing about the war is that you survived it. Don’t try and make sense of what happened because the world is very far from being sensible and personally I think one gets in far less of a muddle if one simply says to oneself: ‘Yes, the world’s chaotic and ghastly beyond belief—how do I survive it?’ Then you’re more likely to do the right thing for the wrong reasons than the wrong thing for the right reasons.”

  We began to talk about survival. I told him all my current problems.

  On the subject of money Edmund said, “Stop worrying about the done thing and go to John. He can’t eat you.”

  “No, but he could write me off as his favorite son.”

  “What of it, old chap? I was never anyone’s favorite but look at me, I’m happy as a lark!”

  “Yes, but—”

  “My dear Harry, crucifying yourself in order to remain John’s favorite is not the way to survive with your sanity intact. Take crucifixion firmly off your list of desirable activities.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you’re right, but … Edmund, I’m not just afraid of being demoted as favorite. I’m afraid that if I ask for money Father will use my penury to boot me out of Penhale to the estate in Herefordshire.”

  “Well, what’s wrong with that, old chap? Nice country, Herefordshire. Of course I know how sentimental you feel about this house, but if your financial problems are so acute—”

  “Edmund, I couldn’t cope. At least, I could but Bella couldn’t. Here at Penhale she has Anna as a friend and Eleanor to visit now and then, but if we moved to Herefordshire she’d know no one, she’d be utterly dependent on me and quite honestly I just couldn’t stand it, I’d crack, go mad, kill her in a moment of frenzy, wind up on the gallows and oh Christ what would my father say then—”

  “I’ll tell you exactly what he’d say,” said Edmund, not batting an eyelid as all this appalling neurotic rubbish spewed out of me.

  “He’d say, ‘This is all my fault for forcing that boy to Herefordshire when any intelligent father could see it would drive him round the bend.’ Harry, isn’t it about time you saw your father as he really is? He’s not a heathen god who has to be constantly appeased. He’s a clever man with a broad experience of life and he also happens to be devoted to you. He’ll want to offer help, not mete out punishment!”

  “Yes, but what do I say, how do I explain—”

  “Just tell him the truth. You have a difficult marriage and a move to Herefordshire would create more problems than it would solve. … Have you considered a divorce?”

  “Couldn’t. Not possible.”

  “I hope you’re not saying that because you’re afraid of what John would think.”

  “No. I just couldn’t leave her. Couldn’t.”

  “All right.” Edmund paused for a moment. “I won’t sa
y any more because I know Teddy wants to talk to you about her. Teddy’s determined to move back to London, I’m afraid, now that our house is open again.”

  “I’m only grateful to you both for staying so long.”

  “Well, I’d stay on longer but Teddy’s right, we’ve got to leave the two of you on your own eventually and it may as well be sooner rather than later. Teddy’s wonderful at making tough decisions like that, but then Teddy’s wonderful at everything. Amazing woman. Don’t know what I’d do without her.”

  I felt so close to him by that time that I was able to say, “Isn’t it a bit difficult living with someone so powerful?”

  “Not at all, old chap. She deals with the things that bore me to tears, like money, and I’m set free to do what I think is really important—growing roses, for instance, or going fishing with my boys. Quite frankly, Harry, so long as I’m the boss in the bedroom I don’t give a hang what goes on outside. Happiness is all a question of getting one’s interests in the right order, isn’t it?”

  A remarkable man. A survivor. And in his own modest way a hero. I resolved to take his advice—but not just at that moment.

  I couldn’t face my father. Not quite. Not then. Later.

  III

  “Now, don’t worry, honey,” said Teddy the next day. “I wouldn’t dream of leaving you until we’ve got this problem fixed.”

  First of all I thought how typical it was of Teddy to assume that the problem could be fixed, but then I realized she had no idea what the real problem was. No outsider can ever know the full story of any marriage.

  Teddy was primarily concerned about the survival of the household once she departed. She advised me to retain the first-class but expensive housekeeper and engage a properly qualified nanny in addition to the Welsh nursemaids who appeared and disappeared with bewildering regularity.

  “I know Bella wants to keep those boys all to herself,” said Teddy, “but children can’t live on adoration alone, Harry—it’s like living on a diet of cream cakes. Now those kids behave when I’m around, but once I’m gone there’ll be anarchy and I just don’t think that’s fair on you.”

  “Yes. It’s really a question of money, Teddy—”

  “Sure, and don’t think I don’t realize you’re going to pass out when I show you my estimates for the future. But to my mind it’s money that has to be spent if you and Bella are to have a chance of happiness, and you should make that crystal-clear to John.”

  Our glances met. I saw then how much she disliked him but she said at once with all her warmth and charm: “Don’t take any notice of me, honey; I don’t pretend to understand that father of yours, never have. But since he married money—two times out of three—I don’t see why the hell he can’t spread it around where it’s needed.”

  I said nothing. She kissed me affectionately. “Never mind, dear, there’s a silver lining to every cloud, and although Bella’s short on housekeeping skills she’s long on love. She just adores you, Harry—you’ll never have to worry about her looking at anyone else!”

  That was the problem.

  IV

  “I’m longing for another baby, Harry—I hoped I’d get pregnant as soon as you came home but I didn’t and then you started using those awful sheaths again so I couldn’t, and now it’s three whole years since Humphrey was born and I feel so horribly out of practice—”

  “I think we’d better wait, Bella,” I said but I knew I didn’t want another child. It was bad enough having four little ruffians running wild and wrecking everything in sight. They’d even broken my piano. That disaster had made me so angry that I’d lost my temper, yelling at her for spoiling the boys to death and making no attempt to discipline them, but when she had only cried pathetically in response I’d felt so helpless because she was so helpless—helpless and hopeless, not able to cope as other women coped, just playing with the children or thumbing through her mindless magazines or wanting sex whenever she could think of nothing else to do.

  “But why do we have to wait, Harry?”

  “I’ve got to talk to my father about money,” I said, unable to tell her I couldn’t face a fifth child and knowing this excuse would enable me to postpone the problem. By this time my father had gone on a visit to Canada with Bronwen and the two younger children in order to wind up their North American life. In suburban Swansea the six-bedroomed house with the acre of garden had been left in the hands of the decorators, while in London Gerry and Evan were sharing my father’s flat as they waited to begin their new careers. Evan had applied to read theology at King’s and was filling in time by working for one of the Armstrong charities. Wonder Boy was at the crammers preparing for Oxford.

  “But your father’s bound to give you money so why can’t we start the baby now? I don’t understand.”

  “No,” I said, “you wouldn’t, would you? You’re too damned stupid.”

  A ghastly scene ensued in which she accused me of having changed, of not loving her anymore, of hating the boys, of no longer caring about poor little Melody who would have been twelve years old if she’d lived—

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up!” I shouted. “I never want to hear that bloody silly name again!”

  That was the stupidest thing I could have said. She hit me and burst into tears—oh God, I felt so sorry for her, and oh God, how I hated myself for being so cruel.

  “I didn’t mean it, Bella, it was a lovely name—”

  “I want a little girl—I want my little Melody back again …”

  What could I say? I promised to see my father as soon as he returned from Canada.

  V

  No six cows in a field, no dead antiques on a beige carpet, no Edwardian coronation mug on the mantelshelf of the morning room at Oxmoon. Just my father’s brand-new home where the kitchen was full of gleaming machines and the reception rooms oozed modern Canadian comfort. My father must have found the place a liberation after his years in that lifeless museum on Eaton Walk.

  When I arrived he was wandering around in a pair of dungarees and carrying a pail of whitewash. Sian and Lance were busy with tape measures on the lawn.

  “Hullo!” called my father brightly. “You’re just in time to help us mark out the tennis court!”

  He was enjoying himself so much that he didn’t realize I wasn’t paying a social call. Fortunately Bronwen then emerged from the house, took one look at me and said, “Johnny, leave the lawn and have a cup of tea with Harry.”

  That move took us to his study. He had managed to salvage the comfortable armchairs from the library at Eaton Walk and I also recognized various items of bric-à-brac, including a detestable photograph of me taken when I had been in my last year at Harrow; I looked like a successful matador who sold shares in the Kingdom of Heaven in his spare time. In contrast next to my photograph was a picture of my four Canadian siblings all looking clean, virtuous and aseptically attractive. Wonder Boy’s teeth, inherited from Bronwen, were formidably white and even.

  “Sorry to bother you like this, Father, but I’m afraid I’m in rather a jam again.

  And so on and so on. My father, who had been looking like an artisan in his dungarees and checked shirt, slowly began to emanate a miasma which suggested that the dungarees were an illusion of my anxiety-ridden mind and that he was in reality wearing a Savile Row suit and his Old Harrovian tie. I could almost hear the Rolls-Royce purring in the background.

  “Well, Harry,” he said abruptly when I had explained my dilemma with as much dignity as possible, “this is really a most unsatisfactory situation.”

  “Yes, sir. I’m afraid it is.”

  “A rich man,” said my father, “is under a moral obligation—”

  My heart sank. I had to make a great effort not to let my respectful expression slip.

  “—not to allow his children to think they can always come running to him if they get into financial difficulties. I refuse to be treated as a blank check. I draw the line.”

  “Yes, sir.” I was sunk s
o deep in despair that I couldn’t even summon the energy to lose my temper.

  “However,” said my father, suddenly becoming human once he had relieved his feelings by behaving like a Victorian monster, “of course I must help you solve this dilemma of yours. You needn’t think I won’t bend over backwards to help you but unfortunately”—he sighed—“I don’t think the answer lies in increasing your unearned income. The tax on that can only go up now that the socialists are in power.”

  He began to pace up and down the room. I maintained an abject silence and waited for him to try to kick me to Herefordshire.

  “It would be better to expand the Penhale Manor estate,” said my father suddenly, taking me by surprise. “If we do that we kill two birds with one stone. With more land you make the estate a better economic proposition and at the same time you create more deductions for yourself so that you wind up paying the minimum amount of tax. I’ll let you have Martinscombe and Little Oxmoon at a nominal rent. The farm’s surprisingly profitable; the sheep do well on Penhale Down. And as for Little Oxmoon, you can let it—the rent should help to pay the wages of the nanny and housekeeper which otherwise you wouldn’t be able to afford.”

  I thanked him as effusively as decency permitted but he wasn’t finished. No doubt he thought it was his moral duty not to let me escape too lightly.

  “I can’t let this conversation close,” he said coolly, “without saying how much I disapprove of you wasting your very considerable abilities on a small estate which can only become increasingly unworthy of you.”

  I explained why I felt unable to move to Herefordshire.

  My father listened without expression. When I stopped he said, “I see,” but made no further comment.

  The silence yawned between us. When I felt my face becoming hot I said rapidly, “I admit Bella and I have our difficulties, but there’s absolutely no question of a divorce.”