The Wheel of Fortune (20 page)

But I was transfixed. I looked at her and could not speak for suddenly I was seeing her not as the woman who was so familiar to me but as the unknown girl of sixteen, brought up in a cheerful moneyed home and catapulted into the moral and financial bankruptcy of a terrifying alien world. I thought of her standing by my father in the beginning when a lesser woman might have run sobbing home to her parents; I thought of her sticking by him through thick and thin; I thought of her mastering crises that most women would have found not only insuperable but unimaginable. And I thought how I had misjudged her, dismissing her as narrow and limited when in truth the narrowness and limitation had been all on my side. I saw her helping me at that crucial moment in my adolescence when she realized my father had failed me; I saw her trying to talk to me although I had always been too proud to listen; I saw her understanding me far too well for my own conceited contemptible comfort, understanding me as my father never had and never could. In my memory I heard her say, “You’re like me—you really have very simple emotional tastes,” and for the first time I realized what she must have suffered from that complex man she had married and whom she had apparently loved, as single-mindedly as I had loved Ginette, from the age of sixteen.

“Come along!” she was repeating briskly. “You mustn’t keep your father waiting!” But hardly had she finished speaking when I was stepping forward to take her in my arms.

For a brief interval she was silent. Then she patted my back and said kindly, “There, there. We’ll sort it all out later. Now come along and let’s do what we’re supposed to do.”

Still mute I followed her to the dining room.

V

I NOTICED AT ONCE
that Ginette was absent. That disturbed me. By this time I was so obsessed with the desire to pretend that everything was as it should be that any small deviation from the normal was unnerving.

“Are you feeling better, Robert?” inquired John when the prayers were finished.

“Better?” I said blankly.

“Your sunstroke, dear,” said my mother. “I nearly sent a tray up to your room this morning, but then your father told me you were quite recovered. I’m so glad.”

“Mama decided to spoil Ginevra instead!” Lion informed me. “And incidentally, Mama, how tired do
I
have to be before I’m allowed to miss family prayers and have breakfast in bed?”

After the laughter had subsided I accepted coffee, fried eggs, bacon, sausages and toast and sat toying with my knife and fork. My father chose bacon alone and managed to slip it slice by slice to Glendower. At the other end of the table my mother had cunningly ordered a boiled egg, and since no one could see through the shell no one could tell how much of it she ate. She drank two cups of tea and looked tranquil.

Meanwhile an animated postmortem on the dinner party was being conducted. I had forgotten what a noise large families make but although I winced periodically I was glad of the opportunity to remain silent.

“Well,” said my father, making a great business of pulling out his watch, “there are one or two things I have to do before church, so if you’ll all excuse me—”

The door of the dining room opened and in walked Ginette.

VI

“GINEVRA!” CHORUSED MY BROTHERS
in delight.

“Darlings!” said Ginette radiantly to them. “I simply couldn’t stay in bed, it made me feel too guilty!” She looked down the table at my mother. “Margaret, it was so kind of you to send up a tray but I really did feel I wanted to join the family for breakfast. I’m sorry I missed prayers.”

She was wearing a plain black day frock with no jewelry. She had not replaced Kinsella’s rings and in my fevered state I thought this omission a disastrous error, but when I glanced around the table I soon realized that no one had noticed such a minor detail of her appearance. I willed myself to keep calm.

“Good morning, Robert!” she was saying as Ifor drew out the chair next to mine. “How’s your sunstroke?”

“He’s decided to live!” said Lion promptly. “We’re all mortified!”

“Well, I really mustn’t linger,” murmured my father, and to my envy he finally managed to escape.

But I knew I had to stay at the table. I could hardly abandon Ginette now that she had flung caution to the winds by walking into the lion’s den, and as I glanced at her tense smiling face I recognized a pattern of behavior with which I was not unfamiliar: the prisoner became so exhausted by the strain of waiting in his cell that he could barely be restrained from rushing into court to confront the judge and learn his fate.

“Papa looks awful, Mama,” John was saying with concern. “Is anything wrong?”

“No, dear, just a little touch of insomnia as the result of last night’s lobster.”

“Mama,” said Celia, preparing to leave the table, “how are we all traveling to church? Will there be room for me in the motor or are Robert and Ginevra accompanying you and Papa?”

“Oh, there’ll be room for you, dear,” said my mother. “Robert and Ginevra won’t be going to church.”

Everyone looked at her in astonishment.

“But it’s the rule!” shrilled Thomas scandalized.

“No doubt they’ll go to Evensong, dear, but this morning they have an important matter to discuss.”

“What’s that?” said Lion automatically.

“Lion dearest,” said my mother, “it’s a personal and private matter connected with Ginevra’s recent sad loss, and I think it would be indelicate of you to inquire further. A widow,” said my mother, sipping her tea, “naturally has many legal and financial problems which require the attention of someone experienced in such matters.”

“Oh, I see.” Lion subsided into a puzzled silence.

“Shall I eat this third rasher or not?” mused Edmund, who was still pondering over his breakfast. “I can’t make up my mind.”

“Leave it,” said John, standing up so suddenly that I knew he had sensed the tension in the room. “Come on, fellows, time to play hunt-the-prayer-book.”

“Can I get down, please?” said Thomas perfunctorily. He was already moving to the door with his mouth full.

“Very well, Thomas. Edmund, make sure you change your tie before church. You’ve got an egg stain on it.”

“Oh, Lord, so I have! Thank you for telling me, Mama.”

“That will do, Bayliss,” said my mother to the butler. “I shall ring later when I want you to clear.”

“Very good, ma’am.” Bayliss left with Ifor at his heels. Thomas and John were already in the hall and as I watched both Lion and Edmund followed them.

“I wonder which hat to choose,” mused Celia. “I think I’ll wear the one with rosebuds.”

She drifted away. The door finally closed. My mother remained at one end of the long table and Ginette and I remained side by side some distance away on her right. In the silence that followed I felt Ginette’s hand groping unsteadily for mine.

“I’m sorry you saw fit to come down, Ginevra,” said my mother pleasantly at last, replacing her teacup in its saucer. “I intended to say what has to be said in the privacy of your room. I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of Robert.” She paused before adding: “Perhaps you’d prefer Robert to leave now?” Her voice was solicitous. She made it sound as if she had only our welfare in mind.

I pulled Ginette’s hand above the table so that my mother could see our fingers were interlocked. “I’m staying,” I said.

“Oh, I don’t think you want to stay, Robert,” said my mother. “Not really. I think you’d be much happier if you let me have a little talk with Ginevra on her own.”

I put my arm around Ginette’s shoulders. She was trembling. Holding her tightly I repeated, “I’m staying.”

“Very well.” My mother paused to reorganize her thoughts. Finally she said, “Ginevra, I must tell you that Bobby had a long talk with Robert this morning, and Robert is now aware that you haven’t been honest with him.”

I both heard and felt Ginette’s horrified gasp but I said with lightning speed as if she were a client in great danger, “Don’t say a word.”

Ginette was rigid with fear. I was painfully aware of the color suffusing her face but still I kept my arm around her and we remained silent.

“Now, Ginevra,” said my mother, suddenly becoming very businesslike, “I think that if you intend to marry Robert you really should be honest. You may well be content to deceive him but in my opinion such a deception would be quite wrong and I could not possibly condone it. But perhaps I’m mistaken and you have no intention of marriage? If you merely intend to continue as his mistress then of course Robert must take you as he finds you and I’ll say no more.”

I said, “We’re getting married.”

“Ah,” said my mother, “then I fear I have no alternative.” She stood up, a small neat square figure in gray, and we stood up too, Ginette leaning against me, barely breathing, fingers frantically clutching my free hand.

“I am now going to church,” said my mother. “While I’m gone, you, Ginevra, are going to tell Robert exactly what happened at Oxmoon when you were sixteen, and when I come back I shall discuss the situation further with him. If I find you haven’t told him the truth, then believe me I most certainly shall.”

I intercepted her. “Ginette can tell me nothing,” I said, “that I don’t already know.”

She looked at me steadily. Her pale eyes seemed darker than usual as they reflected the somber shade of her dress. She had a wide plain broad-nosed face with a mouth that could harden in a second to express implacable resolution. It hardened now. As I instinctively recoiled from her, I heard myself say—and to my horror my voice was unsteady—“I know what you’re trying to tell me but I don’t believe it. I don’t, I won’t and I can’t. You’re just acting out of spite and revenge.”

She turned abruptly to Ginette. “We must put him out of his misery at once. Are you going to tell him or shall I?”

“Oh Margaret, no—
no
—”

“My dear, you can’t fool him indefinitely. He’s much too clever and he deals daily with criminals and liars—look at him, he already knows although he refuses to believe it—”

“
I can’t tell him!
” screamed Ginette. “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!”

“Very well,” said my mother. “Perhaps I was expecting too much. Perhaps I should have made greater allowances for you considering all you’ve been through.” Then she turned to me and said kindly, with a complete lack of all the emotion to which she was entitled, “I’m sorry, Robert, but your father didn’t tell you the whole story. It’s not his fault, it’s just that he’s emotionally incapable of it. The truth is simply this: he seduced her. She slept with him. And it nearly destroyed us all.”

PART TWO

Ginevra
1913-1919

BUT YOU ARE WRONG
if you think Fortune has changed towards you. Change is her normal behavior, her true nature. In the very act of changing she has preserved her own particular kind of constancy towards you. She was exactly the same when she was flattering you and luring you on with enticements of a false kind of happiness. You have discovered the changing faces of the random goddess. To others she still veils herself, but to you she has revealed herself to the full
. …

BOETHIUS

The Consolation of Philosophy

I

I

“AND IT NEARLY DESTROYED US
all,” said Margaret.

I fainted.

No, that’s not right. That’s fantasy and in this journal I must be concerned with reality. I’m like one of those wretched women who suffer from some disorder of the womb yet lie to their doctors because they fear having their private parts examined. If you don’t tell the truth to your doctor how can you expect to get better? And if I don’t tell the truth to my journal how can I hope to extricate myself from the messy lies of my ghastly private life?

So no more lies, not here. No more writing, “I fainted” as if I were the virginal heroine of a romantic novel. (Oh, how divine it would be to be a virginal heroine! I wouldn’t even mind pressing all those frightful wild flowers.) What I have to do is to record in the past tense what, to the best of my recollection, seemed to be happening, and then to comment in the present tense on what was—and is—really going on. Then perhaps I’ll master reality and avoid the horror of a future based on illusion.

So bearing all this in mind, I must be brave, resolute and blindingly honest (all the things that I’m not). Cross out “I fainted.” And start again.

“The truth is simply this,” said Margaret, rather as if she were discussing some troublesome dinner-party menu with Cook. “He seduced her, she slept with him and it nearly destroyed us all.”

I thought: Well, that’s that. All over. And I sank down on the nearest chair. I was conscious of nothing but relief that disaster, long anticipated, had finally struck. I thought of my childhood heroine, Mary Queen of Scots, finally being obliged to put her head on the block. What bliss! What relief! Nothing else to do but wait for the axe.

So I sat at the dining-room table in a passive stupor amidst the ruins of breakfast while nearby a very tall man was facing a very small woman who was saying in a passionless voice, “I shall now go to church. However, should either of you wish to resume this conversation with me later, I shall be only too willing to help in any way that I can.”

Neat little footsteps tip-tapped past me, and after the dining-room door had closed neat little footsteps tip-tapped away to the hall. I went on waiting for the axe but when nothing happened I eventually nerved myself to look at my executioner. He was staring at the dirty plates on the table, the crumpled napkins, the sordidness, the disorder, the mess. Then he said in an abrupt voice, “Go and wait for me in the music room.” He might have been marshaling a tiresome solicitor out of his chambers; I almost expected him to advise seeing his clerk for a further appointment.

He held the door open for me as I left the room but I did not dare look at him and I suspected he did not dare look at me. Stumbling down the corridor I prayed I wouldn’t meet anyone and I didn’t. (Why is it that God so often answers trivial prayers but not the prayers that really matter?) The little music room, where I had spent so many hours thumping out those boring scales, lay off the passage that led to the ballroom, and there by the window stood the same table where long ago I had teased my ineffectual governess Miss Sale by drawing grossly sensual treble clefs.