The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  “What a rotten French accent you’ve got, Robert,” said John, valiantly collaborating with me in helping the conversation along, but Ginette proved quite unable to permit us to gloss over the disaster.

  “Margaret, I’m so sorry—please do excuse me—awful vulgarity—frightful taste—” She was in agony.

  Ignoring her my mother said serenely to my father, “I think a little dinner party would be acceptable, dearest, provided we have only our oldest friends. But it must be quiet. No champagne; I think champagne would look too eccentric in the circumstances.”

  “I agree,” said my father obediently. “A good claret—perhaps a touch of hock somewhere—but no champagne.”

  “And of course,” said my mother to Celia, “you and I must wear dark gowns, dear, to acknowledge the fact that there’s been a tragedy in the family.”

  “Yes, Mama,” said Celia.

  “Dearest Ginevra,” said my mother, smiling to conceal how implacably she was wielding her power, “you must think us so provincial and old-fashioned in our ways, but we’re so far removed here from a modern city like New York!” I do hope you understand.”

  “Yes, Margaret,” said Ginette. “Of course.” She was clutching her glass so hard that I thought the stem would snap.

  “Naturally,” pursued my mother, “I wouldn’t dream of dictating to you on the subject of dress. I have every confidence, dearest, that you’ll contrive to look dignified as well as fetching on any occasion when people outside the family are to be present.”

  “Yes, Margaret.” Her hand shook as she put down her glass. She stood up clumsily. “I must go upstairs and unpack—all my black gowns will need ironing—I wonder if perhaps your maid—”

  “I’ll send her to you at once,” said my mother, clinching her victory with a single succinct sentence.

  “I’ll come and help you, Ginevra,” said Celia, and we all rose to our feet. Lion, John and Edmund all tried to open the door in an orgy of chivalry, and there was much laughter as they bumped into one another. The women departed. My father said; “Who’s going to volunteer to deliver the dinner invitations? Time’s short as Robert’s going back to London on Monday, so we’ll have to give this party tomorrow night.”

  An argument began about how quickly the invitations could be delivered but I did not stay to listen to it. Opening the garden door I slipped out onto the terrace and the next moment I was escaping across the lawn.

  II

  CUTTING A STRAIGHT LINE past the freshly painted croquet hoops I circled the lawn tennis court and paused on the edge of the woods by the summerhouse, a two-roomed frivolity built at the whim of my grandfather Robert Godwin the Drunkard in the days before his unfortunate habits had driven his wife to seek consolation with her sheep farmer, Owain Bryn-Davies. In the open doorway I turned to look back at the inheritance his son had resurrected from the grave.

  Oxmoon’s original name had been Oxton-de-Mohun, which in a loose translation of the three conquerors’ languages involved meant “the settlement by water belonging to Humphrey de Mohun.” Of the three aggressive races who had battered the Peninsula the Vikings, prowling the coasts in their longships, had probably had the least effect; the Saxons, trading continuously from North Devon, had steadily insinuated their influence among the indigenous Celts, and the Normans had blasted their way into the seat of power with their usual brutal efficiency.

  Humphrey de Mohun had been a twelfth-century Norman warlord who had delegated the running of his Gower estate to a Saxon mercenary called Godwin of Hartland. Hartland is the Devonian peninsula that lies south of Gower across the Bristol Channel, and in English-speaking South Gower—called “The Englishry” to distinguish it from “The Welshery” of the Welsh-speaking northeast—Devon is reflected like a mirror image, a little distorted but plainly recognizable, the result of centuries of communication between Wales and England across the busy waters of the Channel.

  Godwin set the seal on a successful career when he married de Mohun’s younger daughter. When de Mohun died, the elder daughter received her father’s vast estates in the Welsh Marches but the younger inherited the fiefdom in Gower which included the fortified tower in the woods below Penhale Down. Financially, socially and territorially Godwin had arrived, and giving his son the Norman name of Robert he settled down to become more Norman than the Normans.

  The Norman tower remained the home of the Godwin family until Tudor times when fifteenth-century Robert Godwin tried to celebrate the Battle of Bosworth by building a moated manor, but after this architectural innovation had been razed by a faction from Llangennith he retired to the Norman castle of his ancestors.

  In the seventeenth century the master of Oxmoon attempted to build a Jacobean mansion on the site of the Tudor manor, but he abandoned the attempt when it became obvious that the result would be a disaster. However the founder of modern Oxmoon, Robert Godwin the Renovator, decided that this uncompleted monstrosity could be finished and given a new look. He had met Robert Adam in Italy during a typical eighteenth-century tour of Europe, and later he became acquainted with the architects of the Wyatt family. Inspiration inevitably followed, and in the library we have one of his letters declaring his intention of making Oxmoon the grandest house in Wales.

  A highly idiosyncratic vision of classical architecture was thus initiated, a rustic rendering of a magnificent dream. The portico was rather too large, the windows a fraction too narrow, pediments and chimneys appeared in unexpected places. But if not the grandest house in Wales it must have been one of the most unusual; in South Wales particularly such places are few and far between.

  That was the end of the rebuilding of Oxmoon although various additions to the house and grounds occurred later. Robert Godwin the Regency Rake added the ballroom after a visit to Bath, and experimented with an orangerie which collapsed. My grandfather Robert Godwin the Drunkard later restored it before turning his hand to designing the summerhouse.

  The results of these centuries of idealistic efforts to bring civilization to this formerly remote and lawless land lay now before my eyes. Despite the small failures of design, which were less noticeable at a distance, the house was at least passably proportioned. It had no basement, two floors and an attic. Virginia creeper, clinging to walls that should have been left bare, gave it an unorthodox look of shaggy coziness, and this unorthodoxy was enhanced by the presence of the ballroom, a startling excrescence upon the Georgian symmetry which looked as if the architect had been reading too many of the Gothic novels of Mrs. Radclyffe during a fatal visit to Brighton Pavilion. However the balance in favor of the conventional was somewhat restored on the other side of the house where the kitchen wing meandered into courtyards which embraced the servants’ quarters, the stable block, the farmyard, the timberyard, the kitchen garden and the blighted orangerie where nothing would grow except stunted grapes. Provincial and relaxed, sunlit and cherished, twentieth-century Oxmoon faced its future master across the manicured lawn of the eighteenth-century “pleasure garden” and shimmered beguilingly in the hot noon light.

  I felt at peace.

  Yet the very peace, which was so unfamiliar, served to remind me of my intractable problems. Rising to my feet to shut them from my mind I sought refuge in the soothing shadows of the woods but at the ruined Norman tower I turned back. Another path led me out of the trees on the far side of the tennis lawn, and strolling down the lavender walk I found myself heading into the walled rectangle of the kitchen garden.

  Most of the fruit lay at the far end where an ancient orchard flourished, but nearby I was aware of the strawberry beds exuding their old seductive fragrance. I paused. My senses sharpened. I felt that nothing had changed—despite the fact that everything had changed. I felt time had stood still—and yet I knew it had moved inexorably on. Stooping impulsively I plucked a strawberry from beneath the leaves, and then as the past repeated itself by sliding ahead of the present I knew immediately, without looking up, that Ginette was once more moving down
the path to my side.

  III

  “ROBERT.”

  She had changed into a plain black skirt and an elaborate black blouse which opened at the neck to reveal a string of pearls. She had looked striking in turquoise and orchids but in stark black with chaste jewelry she was alluring beyond description. I found myself smiling as I realized how effortlessly—and no doubt unconsciously—my mother’s veiled demand for seemliness had been outwitted.

  “You shouldn’t have let my mother dictate to you in the matter of dress,” I said abruptly, offering her the strawberry in my hand.

  “My dear, whenever Margaret opens her mouth and says ‘dearest Ginevra’ I’m immediately reduced to a mindless mass quivering with terror! Heavens, how delicious this strawberry is. Do you remember—”

  “Vividly.”

  “—how we overate and were sick and Margaret put us on bread and water as a punishment—”

  “Are all children so mindlessly preoccupied with food, I wonder?”

  “Of course! Eating’s the first of the great sensual pleasures of life—although of course children don’t believe heroes and heroines should be sensual at all. Do you remember how you said you wanted to be a hero?”

  “I remember expressing considerable doubt that you’d ever be a heroine.”

  “I suppose it all depends how you define heroes and heroines, doesn’t it? I’ve come to the conclusion they’re unheroic people who flounder around, stagger in and out of awful messes and somehow manage to survive without going mad. Oh, I became a heroine, Robert! But the big question is … what became of you? Who are you now? Are you still there?”

  I knew at once what she meant. “Yes,” I said. “I’m still here.”

  “Thank God. You terrified me when I arrived. All I could see was this formidable stranger encased in glamour.” She stooped to pick another strawberry. “Darling, for heaven’s sake take me away from here before I make a complete pig of myself.”

  We smiled at each other. Our hands clasped. We said no more but walked away without hurrying, and around us past and present kept shifting and interlocking like a constantly shaken kaleidoscope. Bees hummed lazily along the lavender walk and as we drew nearer the tennis lawn the scent of lavender once more gave way to the scent of new-mown grass, drifting towards us on the limpid summer air.

  “I can hear the larks singing,” said Ginette suddenly.

  “Oxmoon Redux.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “The past recaptured.”

  We reached the summerhouse and turned in unison to look back across the lawn.

  “Oxmoon!” said Ginette, and as the tears filled her eyes she said in a shaking voice, “I’ve done it. I’ve come home.”

  I gave her my handkerchief and helped her sit down on one of the wicker chairs. As I sat down besides her she whispered, “I did love him.”

  “Yes.” I watched the curve of her neck below her auburn hair. “I saw that when you were eighteen and I saw it five years ago when you were twenty-eight. Why should I start disbelieving in your love now?”

  “Because I’m behaving as if I’m mad with relief. But I’m mad with pain and grief too—it’s hard to explain, I’m in such a muddle, oh Robert, Robert, why do I always end up in these ghastly messes?”

  “You need someone who can train you to be orderly. Let me offer my services by attempting to dissipate this air of mystery which is clinging to you like a fog—no one can hope to be orderly while they’re wallowing in mystery. How did he die?”

  “He was shot.”

  “What! How?”

  “With a gun.”

  “Oh, don’t be so stupid, Ginette! I meant how did it happen?”

  “Oh, that sort of thing happens quite often in New York. It’s that sort of place. I hated it at the end but I loved it in the beginning. It was the city of my youth, the place where all my dreams came true—”

  “Never mind that sentimental twaddle for the moment. Let’s keep this a well-ordered narrative. Just tell me why he was shot.”

  “Oh God, I don’t know, how should I know, I suppose he got on the wrong side of the Sicilians over his gambling debts, certainly his Irish friends said it would be safer if I left town as soon as possible—”

  “But this is barbarous! Are you trying to tell me—”

  “Oh yes, it was barbarous, it was hell, it was ghastly beyond belief, God knows why I’m not dead with shock and horror—”

  “Tell me exactly what happened.”

  “He was shot dead on the sidewalk outside our apartment block. We’d been to the theater. He died in my arms.” She was sitting on the edge of her chair, my handkerchief clenched in her hands. “That sounds romantic, doesn’t it, but it wasn’t. It wasn’t romantic at all.” Tears streamed down her face again. “He screamed in pain and choked on his blood,” she said, her voice trembling, “and his last word was an obscenity. ‘Shit,’ he said. That was all. ‘Shit.’ Then more blood came out of his mouth and he died.” She covered her face with her hands, and although by this time instinct was telling me that her married happiness had not been unflawed, she sobbed with a grief which I had no choice but to acknowledge was genuine.

  I took her hand in mine again. No further words were necessary. She knew I sympathized, she knew I understood the horror she had endured, she knew I was there to stand beside her and give her all the help I could, and gradually her tears ceased. She was just turning towards me in gratitude at last when we were interrupted. Far away across the lawn the garden door was flung wide as Lion, John and Edmund bounded out onto the terrace.

  “Oh God,” I said. “Let me go and fend them off.”

  “No—no, it doesn’t matter, I’m all right now … Oh, look at them, how adorable they are, so fresh and new and unspoiled—”

  “Spare me the sentimentality. They’re noisy, tiresome and ignorant, and at present they’re no use to you at all. Now look here, Ginette. This is what you must do—”

  “Robert, I must see you on your own again before you go back to London, I simply must.”

  “Don’t interrupt. Just pay attention to me for a moment before those three boys get within earshot. Are you listening? Very well, now summon all your energy to survive luncheon. Then retire to your room and rest for the remainder of the day—you’re obviously worn out. But we’ll meet tomorrow. In the morning I have to go out with Papa to see the estate but in the afternoon I’ll borrow the motor and we’ll escape.”

  “But Robert, what will Margaret think?”

  “My dear Ginette, I don’t care what she thinks and neither should you! Why this slavish preoccupation with my mother?”

  “Because she’s the only mother I can remember, and daughters who are so hopeless at doing the done thing and sticking to the rules are automatically paralyzed with guilt whenever they come within fifty yards of a mother like Margaret.”

  “But it’s irrational to be so intimidated! After all, who is she? Just an ordinary little woman with a provincial mind and conservative tastes! For God’s sake, take no notice of her if she implies you should behave like Queen Victoria after Prince Albert died!”

  Our conversation was at that point terminated by my brothers who were halfway across the lawn.

  “Coo-ee!” called Lion idiotically. “What are you two up to? Reciting all your old nursery rhymes?”

  “Darling Lion!” murmured Ginette, incorrigibly sentimental. “Who would have thought that monster of a baby would turn out to be so amusing? I’m passionate about his joie de vivre!”

  I could think of more rewarding objects for her passion but I kept my mouth shut and contented myself with repossessing her hand.

  All things considered I felt my prospects were not unfavorable.

  IV

  “MURDERED!” EXCLAIMED MY FATHER. He reined in his horse and stared at me.

  “She herself doesn’t want to talk about it, but she asked me yesterday to tell the rest of the family so I thought you should be the first
to know.”

  We were riding down one of the narrow country lanes that crisscrossed the Oxmoon estate in the center of Gower. Penhale Down towered on our right, Harding’s Down shimmered ahead and the lie of the land beyond the Oxmoon woods prevented us from seeing the long high line of Rhossili Downs which protected the inland plain from the sea. We were on our way to Martinscombe, the only one of my father’s four major farms that specialized in upland sheep. I could see the sheep now, dotted over Penhale Down, but we were still half a mile from the farmhouse.

  I was feeling very hot. I rode often enough in London for exercise so I could not complain I was unaccustomed to the exertion, but the weather was unusually warm and my mind was in an uncharacteristically overheated state. As the conversation turned towards Ginette I felt the sweat break out afresh on my back.

  “But how appalling for Ginevra,” said my father, “to see her husband killed before her eyes!”

  “Appalling, yes.” Following his example I too reined in my horse and we faced each other in the lane.

  “How did it happen?”

  I told him and added, “Obviously New York is the most barbarous and uncivilized place.”

  “As Gower used to be.” My father stared at the tranquil rural landscape that surrounded us. “Barbarity’s everywhere, that’s the truth of it. Absolutely anyone is capable of absolutely anything.”

  “My dear Papa, I had no idea you were such a cynic!”

  “That’s not cynicism, that’s honesty—as you well know, dealing with criminals as you do, seeing the human race continually at its worst.”

  “My profession has only underlined to me the importance of civilized behavior—a civilizing influence can be a powerful deterrent to iniquity. … But you’re thinking of Bryn-Davies, aren’t you? Some people, I agree, are certainly capable of anything.” As I spoke it suddenly occurred to me that I had been living with the mystery of his past for over quarter of a century and that now was the time to solve it, analyze it and file it away once and for all. “What exactly did Bryn-Davies get up to, Papa?” I said, adopting the tone of mild interest that I used with nervous witnesses. “I know he seduced your mother and plundered your estate, but was that the limit of his crimes?”