The Wheel of Fortune

by Susan Howatch

  I thought idly: It would be much more interesting if they did; the stories would be more true to life. But I was obliged to put this heretical thought aside when I suddenly realized that Lady Sybil’s alibi was no good. She would never have had the chance to get hold of the arsenic so therefore she wouldn’t need an alibi. I had to engineer a chance for her, but since Professor Metz was keeping the arsenic in a locked briefcase … but he was her ex-husband so … I futilely toyed with the idea of a seduction in the conservatory.

  Time floated by in a golden haze. I scribbled away, rewriting Chapter Eight, but although I lured the professor into the rose garden, I suddenly realized Lady Sybil still had no chance to acquire the arsenic. (Professor Metz would hardly have taken his briefcase among the roses.)

  “Damn,” I said, and tearing up what I had written, I left my room and wandered out into the garden for inspiration. I had no idea what the time was but I was dimly aware it was day and not night. Round and round the orangerie I went, and round and round the kitchen garden. I was just moodily eating a blackberry when I suddenly saw how Lady Sybil could have had access to a lethal poison without involving the professor (who would now, of course, make a brilliant red herring).

  I ran hell-for-leather out of the kitchen garden and pounded across the croquet lawn to the terrace. A flash of blue beyond the garden door told me that Anna was in the drawing room.

  I burst in. “There was arsenic in the rose spray!” I shouted. “And the rose spray had been left in the rose garden!”

  Anna’s face told me exactly what I didn’t want to know. We were not alone.

  With a gasp I whipped around to face my amazed guests. My face felt as if it were in flames.

  “Good morning, Kester,” said Uncle John.

  “Hullo, old chap,” said Cousin Harry.

  “Christ, Kester,” said Thomas, completing this most unholy of trinities. “Have you gone completely crazy? We all know there’s no rose garden at Oxmoon!”

  IV

  I had been caught acting like a lunatic. That was bad enough but what was worse was that Uncle John, who knew all my un-Godwin-like traits so well that they must have been engraved on his heart, immediately realized I had been writing. When I tried to welcome him in a conventional fashion I could only stammer. I felt about fourteen and getting younger every second.

  Anna said composed, “Uncle John and Harry have only just arrived, Kester. Perhaps I should show them to their rooms.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said. I forgot my humiliation. I was now grappling with the enormity of Cousin Harry’s presence. “What the devil are you doing here?” I demanded fiercely.

  “Maybe he can help me run Oxmoon,” said Thomas, “while you run around hallucinating about rose gardens.”

  “That’ll do, Thomas,” said Uncle John abruptly, and turned to my wife. “Anna, before we go to our rooms would it be possible for us to have some coffee? We drove down without stopping, which is always such a mistake.”

  “Yes, of course, Uncle John.”

  “Wait a minute,” I said again. “Wait a minute.”

  They all stared at me.

  “I’m not sure I want you all loafing around swilling coffee in my drawing room,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be more tactful, Uncle John—more the done thing—if you consulted me before bringing your son to this house and ordering my wife around as if she were a parlormaid?”

  Dead silence. Thomas’s jaw sagged. Cousin Harry’s eyes widened. Uncle John was too stunned to speak.

  Anna said rapidly, “I think I will organize some coffee all the same … excuse me.” And she made her escape.

  As the door closed behind her, Uncle John said with exquisite courtesy, “You’re quite right, Kester, and I do apologize. I’m very much aware, I assure you, that you’re master here now.”

  “Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

  “Why, you bloody-minded little—”

  “Be quiet, Thomas,” said Uncle John steadily without raising his voice. “Let me apologize again, Kester, if I’ve given you offense, but in fact I do have a good reason for bringing Harry with me. You see, I accept your decision not to go up to Oxford; I think it’s a pity, but you’re your own master now and you must do as you think fit. But of course this decision of yours makes it imperative that you now receive instruction in estate management, and I thought it would be more … acceptable to you if you didn’t receive instruction from Thomas on your own. That’s why Harry’s here. He wants to learn about estate management too.”

  “He what?”

  “Fact is, old chap,” said Cousin Harry, very debonair, “I’ve decided to come down from Oxford and follow in Grandfather’s footsteps as a farmer. Father’s going to lease me Penhale Manor, and as I know as much about estate management as you do we thought it might be amusing if awful old Thomas here tries to flog the facts of farming life into two pupils instead of one. I think between the two of us we might just be able to keep him in order.”

  Thomas guffawed, delighted by the implication that he was an insufferable tyrant, but I barely heard him. My mind was reeling with horror. I had shunned Oxford specifically to avoid Cousin Harry, but now, by the most malign twist of fate, we were to be locked up together in the parish of Penhale. I knew at once that he would run the Penhale Manor estate brilliantly. Rage and despair met, merged and massacred my self-control.

  “How dare you!” I shouted to Uncle John. “How dare you attempt to impose your will on me like this!”

  “My dear Kester, I—”

  “I think he wants to murder us all with the nearest rose spray,” said Thomas.

  “Be quiet!” snapped Uncle John, making him jump. “If you think this is a joking matter—”

  “It’s no joke and I’m not amused!” I shouted.

  “And neither am I!” shouted Cousin Harry with that lightning descent into violence which marked those rare occasions when he lost his temper and emerged from behind his public-school mask. “Look here, Kester, I don’t see why you should behave like a maniac when my poor long-suffering father’s one aim in life is to treat you more decently than you deserve—”

  “My God, that’s the understatement of the century,” said Thomas.

  “Enough!” blazed Uncle John. The room instantly fell silent. He looked at each one of us in turn. Then he said, “I draw the line.”

  Nobody spoke. What was there to say? When Uncle John drew the line that was that. All one could do afterwards was simmer in silence and let the unacceptable emotions fester at leisure.

  Harry, Thomas and I simmered and our emotions festered but we kept our mouths shut and our faces expressionless. That, after all, was the done thing, and having been brought up by Uncle John, we all knew that the most important task in life was to play the game and stick to the rules.

  “Harry—Thomas—leave us, please,” said Uncle John. “Obviously Kester and I must have a private talk together.”

  “Oh no we don’t!” I said. “Never again!”

  They stared at me. I saw them realize that they were impotent and that I was all-powerful. It was the most thrilling moment of my life, and suddenly I was abandoning the game, I was ignoring the done thing, I was flaunting my true feelings in defiance of the rules.

  “I’ve had more than enough of all of you!” I shouted, wallowing in the luxury of naked rage. “I’m sick of you all thinking I’m some hopeless freak who has to be tolerated in the name of family loyalty! I’m sick of your sneers and your snide remarks and your patronizing condescension, I’m sick of you treating my house as if it were yours, I’m sick of your boring uncultivated conversations, I’m sick of pretending we all like each other—I’m sick of all this bloody hypocrisy! I put up with it while my mother was alive, but now she’s dead and if you think I’m just going to carry on where she left off you’d better think again! In future you’ll all wait till you’re invited before you turn up at Oxmoon—and in future you’ll all keep your hands off my estate! Now,” I
said, having worked myself up to my peroration, “get out, stay out and bloody well leave me alone to do as I please!”

  No one attempted a reply and indeed I gave none of them a chance to do so, for the next moment I had walked out and slammed the door with a violence that must have shaken Oxmoon to its foundations.

  The new reign had begun.

  V

  I took the stairs two at a time and sped across the landing to the window that overlooked the drive. Thomas’s car was parked outside but all three men, when they emerged from the house, paused beside the Rolls and I realized they must be waiting for the chauffeur who was probably enjoying a cup of tea in the kitchens. Thomas was talking and Uncle John was letting him talk. Uncle John looked tired and drawn in contrast to Thomas who was obviously in fine fettle. Thomas thrived on rage and I could imagine the crude obscenities that would now be flowing happily—though for me, thank God, inaudibly—from his thick flabby lips.

  Since guilt prevented me from watching Uncle John and repulsion made me recoil from Thomas, I turned my attention to the third member of the trio. Cousin Harry, evidently bored by Thomas’s ravings, had wandered away until he was standing in the center of the gravel sweep before the porch, and as I watched, taking care to shelter behind the curtain, he paused to light a cigarette. Then he started to look at the house. He looked and looked and looked until at last I suspected he was not seeing the house at all but was sunk in some profound reverie which I could not begin to imagine. This awareness that his mind was a closed book to me I found both novel and intriguing. What went on behind that polished facade? Harry had always been such a myth of perfection to me, but I had seen some very long-standing myths exploded in recent weeks, and I was no longer prepared to accept a myth without questioning it.

  What, I now asked myself, was really happening in Cousin Harry’s life? What were his secret fears, miseries, obsessions and loathings? I had no idea, but I did know that it was very, very odd that he should have come down from Oxford after only one year. This was in stark contrast to Harry’s image of unflawed perfection and most definitely not the done thing at all. Could he conceivably have been sent down? No. Not possible. His open scholarship made the chance of academic failure nonexistent, and of course he would be much too clever to get into trouble of any other kind. No, I had to accept that he had come down voluntarily, but nevertheless … what a disappointment for Uncle John! But Uncle John, running true to form, was glossing over the incident by keeping a stiff upper lip and standing by Harry just as he had earlier stood by Marian. Or was this just wishful thinking on my part? Perhaps Uncle John had been delighted by Harry’s decision to cast aside the irrelevant study of Latin and Greek and adopt the life of a gentleman farmer. After all, as Harry himself had pointed out, such a life was exactly in my grandfather’s tradition. In fact now that I really thought about his decision I could see it was absolutely the done thing after all.

  I might have known Harry would never put a foot wrong. His was the one myth I’d never be able to crack, and now this paragon, this monster of virtue, this truly insufferable hero was about to move into my life lock, stock and barrel to form a mirror image, a reflection in which I would always find myself wanting.

  That was not only a vile thought. It was a sinister one. I shuddered and tried to pull myself together. I would still be the first man in the parish. Oxmoon was bigger and better than Penhale Manor. All I had to do was run Oxmoon to perfection and then I would easily outshine Cousin Harry—in fact, once I started making Oxmoon a shrine to Beauty, Truth, Art and Peace I would soon be, to coin that most peculiar phrase, the cynosure of all eyes. Very well, I thought, let him come back to Gower! I’d make him writhe with jealousy until in the end, unable to stand the sight of me flourishing so sumptuously at Oxmoon, he’d gnash his teeth and slink away to try his luck elsewhere—in Northumberland, perhaps, or East Anglia. I supposed it was too much to hope that he would emigrate.

  I laughed, and as I turned away from the window at last I saw my wife running up the stairs to meet me.

  “Kester, what on earth’s going on?”

  “Ah, Anna—I won, I won!” I whirled her in a dervishlike dance all the way across the landing into the largest guest room which we were using until my mother’s room could be refurbished, and amidst gales of laughter we collapsed upon the bed.

  “Tell me everything!” she gasped.

  “Later!” I was so excited that I couldn’t undo my trouser buttons, and in a paroxysm of joy I gave up and ripped open the flies. “Whoopee!” I shouted.

  “Heavens, what will the tailor think when he does the repairs?” said Anna, and as we almost passed out with laughter she pulled me into her arms to celebrate my mighty victory.

  VI

  After this triumphant severance of my leading strings, I received two letters. The first, a surprisingly neat missive in a bold upright handwriting, read: Kester, you’re a bloody fool and what Oxmoon’s done to deserve you I’ll never know, but when you get in a hole (and you will—a deep one) you’d better tell me so that I can dig you out. This isn’t my idea of having a good time, but John says you’ve got to know there’ll always be someone nearby who’s prepared to help in an emergency, and as far as I’m concerned John’s the boss of this family and will be till he drops dead (and God help us all when he does). So I’m obliged to obey orders. THOMAS.

  I made no reply to this childish effusion, but the second letter I received was far less easy to forget. Uncle John wrote with exquisite politeness that it grieved him I was so bitter towards my family, and that he personally had taken my attitude very hard as he had always tried to do his best for me; he begged me to remember that he and my father had been the most devoted of brothers, and added that whatever happened I would always have a special place in his affections.

  This made me feel very mean. Furious with him for crucifying me with guilt and furious with myself for permitting the crucifixion I wrote in an effort to crush these chaotic emotions: My dear Uncle John, Thank you for your letter. I know it was more civil than I deserved. I’m sorry about the row but I must lead my own life now and it seemed impossible to convince you of this without resorting to plain speaking—which, as I now realize, obliged me to treat you with an unkindness you’ve never merited. Of course I’m aware how much I owe you and I’ve no wish to appear ungrateful, but when we meet in the future (as of course I hope we shall) it must be on my terms. I remain now and always your very affectionate nephew, KESTER.

  This fawning effort to assuage my conscience by appeasing him seemed so nauseous that I could hardly bear to reread it, but I did feel better afterwards and Uncle John evidently felt better too. He replied by return: My dear Kester, I was very pleased to receive your letter and of course I understand and forgive your natural desire to attain the independence which is yours by right. I wish you well, and I hope that if ever you need help or advice in the future you’ll remember that you can always come straight to me. Your devoted uncle, J.G.

  In other words, to paraphrase the letter with a crudeness which diplomatic Uncle John would always have eschewed, he too suspected I was going to make a cock-up of my independence, but he was prepared, for lack of a better alternative, to sanction my efforts to go my own way. So much for Uncle John—and so much for bestial Thomas. I was determined to prove myself, but meanwhile I had to try to work out what on earth I was going to do without them.

  VII

  My first concern was for Anna. She had to have a housekeeper. My mother, unorthodox as always, had run her various establishments herself with the aid of a succession of henchmen who had each in turn been referred to as “My Devoted Factotum,” but when we left Little Oxmoon, her current Devoted Factotum (the parlormaid Watson) had stayed on there to keep house for Thomas. However my mother had never let my father’s nurse Bennett slip through her fingers, and after my father’s death she had retained him as a butler, a position he had filled in London before my father became ill. When she moved to Oxmoon Benn
ett came too as the new Devoted Factotum which meant that he and my mother between them had assumed the household duties formerly undertaken by Mrs. Straker.

  However, shortly after my elopement Lowell the butler and Bennett had had “words” and Bennett, a Cockney, had decided the time had finally come when he had to move back to the sound of Bow Bells. My mother, who would willingly have sacrificed Lowell, bribed, bullied and cajoled but to no avail. Bennett departed. Probably he had only stayed on in the hope of playing gentleman’s gentleman one day to the master of Oxmoon; but having been brought up in more modest surroundings than my father and belonging to a postwar, not a prewar generation I considered a valet would have represented an intolerable intrusion on my privacy.

  My mother had been interviewing candidates for the role of Devoted Factotum before I returned from my honeymoon, but fortunately no one suitable had been found. I knew that a Devoted Factotum, who liked to live a life of vicarious glamour in the service of a flamboyant personality, was no answer for Anna; she needed a quite ladylike conventional housekeeper like Mrs. Wells, who had been Uncle John’s housekeeper at Penhale Manor before Bronwen’s departure, and if Mrs. Wells had still been in the neighborhood I would have offered her the job but she had taken a new position and disappeared into the Home Counties. How did one find a similar paragon? I wrote the word Housekeeper on my note pad and sat looking at it anxiously for some time.

  Eventually it occurred to me that I might consult Cousin Elizabeth who employed a housekeeper herself and was bound to be full of useful advice. I had become fond of nice cheerful down-to-earth Cousin Elizabeth since she had become a neighbor in Swansea, and although Owen was an awful bore, besotted with The Financial Times and rugby football, he was always civil and good-natured to me. In fact if I had to have relations living nearby I could hardly have asked for more agreeable ones than the Bryn-Davieses, who treated me with friendly respect, never turned up at Oxmoon without a prior invitation and telephoned once every three months as a courtesy to check that I was still alive. If more relations were like that I was sure there wouldn’t be nearly so many unhappy families in the world.