The Wheel of Fortune (57 page)

“My God, John, she’s amazing! All the servants gave notice and sat back waiting for her to beg them to stay, but not a bit of it. ‘All right, out you go!’ she says, and brings in a gaggle of girls from Swansea, all terrified of her. She rules ’em with a rod of iron and the house runs like clockwork. Incredible.”

“But surely not all the servants were dismissed?”

“No, Papa exercised clemency in a few cases. Bayliss is still there, white as a sheet and absolutely cowed—”

“All right, never mind the servants. How’s Thomas?”

“Oh, fine! Actually he and Milly get on rather well.”

“My God, Edmund, you don’t call her Milly, do you?”

“Not before the servants—no, of course not,” said Edmund blushing.

I was appalled.

After he had departed I said to Blanche, “If I were Edmund I’d leave Oxmoon and seek a position in London but of course he won’t. It’s a pity. I think his lack of ambition condemns him to great unhappiness.”

“Perhaps,” said Blanche, “but my dear Mama used to say that unambitious people often have a greater capacity for happiness than those people who yearn for worldly success.”

I was becoming a little tired of hearing Blanche’s Dear Mama quoted against me, but I said nothing because with our holiday fast approaching I wanted no cross word to mar our happiness.

I took my family each year to the Isle of Wight in August, not only because it was a delightful spot for the children but because the yachting at Cowes gave us the chance to keep up with our London acquaintances. I intended eventually to lease a flat in town but at present we seldom went to London. Blanche’s aunt had a house near Knightsbridge and we occasionally stayed there, but I did not care for Aunt Charlotte, who thought her niece could have done better for herself than to marry the younger son of a Welsh squire. However Blanche was devoted to her aunt, the only sister of her Dear Mama, so I had to employ much diplomatic tact to avoid awkwardness in that direction.

Marriage is full of such trying little pitfalls. In fact I was not surprised that some couples were driven into regular quarrels. Blanche and I never quarreled, but now and then I did feel that we came dangerously close to a tiff. However I always labored diligently to suppress any cross word, and my reward for our unsullied marital happiness was our annual holiday when I could play with my children in the day, enjoy smart dinners in the evening and at night make love to my wife with a greater frequency than unselfishness usually permitted.

We had not been at Cowes more than a week when I realized that Blanche was hoping to conceive again. Nothing was said between us but then there was nothing to say. Certainly I was not about to object because my wife became subtly more gentle and loving than usual, but sometimes as we walked across the sands together I found our silence oppressive, as if we were divided by some gulf I did not understand, and then I thought I did not want another baby to divide us further. Yet that made no sense. How could it make sense when I wanted a large family and considered my marriage idyllic? Classifying such thoughts as morbid, I dismissed them firmly from my mind.

We were away a month, just as we always were, and returned home at the end of August. Still nothing had been said between us on the subject of pregnancy, but the fact that Blanche had been spared her monthly affliction had not passed unnoticed by me. Normally, when I pursued my marital rights once or at the most twice a week, it was possible for her to suffer her affliction without me knowing about it, but I had indulged myself at Cowes and I knew her health had been unimpaired.

I wondered when the symptoms would begin. Blanche spent a large part of her pregnancies lying either in bed or on a sofa to counter her general feeling of malaise, and to my distress I found this ill health annoying. I was not repelled by pregnancy itself but by the joylessness and lassitude that accompanied her infirmity. I did not want to be repelled. I was most upset that Blanche should be unwell, particularly when she never complained, but nevertheless I found her pregnancies dreary and knew they were made even drearier by my conscientious removal to a separate bedroom. Naturally I could not have forced myself on her at such a time. Only a savage would have been so inconsiderate.

“How nice it is to be home!” said Blanche as we reached the Manor. “Oh look, darling, the roses are lovelier than ever! Aren’t they beautiful?”

“Beautiful,” I agreed mechanically, and indeed my home did seem ravishing to the eyes, the garden glowing with flowers, the old house encircling us with its mellow charm, and beyond the Manor walls Gower too was ravishing, the Downs shimmering in the summer light, the earth of my lands a terra-cotta red, the cattle grazing peacefully in the water meadows.

Yet no sooner had I returned than I found that everything was going wrong. It had been one of the driest summers in living memory, too dry for the comfort of the cattle, and a freakish cold spell in June had laid a deathly hand not only on my new acres of crops but on the vegetables in our kitchen garden. Then just as I was wondering how in God’s name I was going to water my cattle if the river ran dry, I heard that damned Llewellyn had been marching his sheep over my land again. I was so furious that I immediately drove into Swansea to see my solicitor, but he merely regaled me with legal obscurities till I lost patience. After telling him that he was to get me an injunction even if he were struck off the rolls in the attempt, I retired exhausted to Penhale.

The first person I saw when I entered the hall of the Manor was little Rhiannon Morgan. She was doubled up with laughter at the foot of the stairs as Marian slid down the banisters.

I stopped dead.

“Marian!” exclaimed Blanche, emerging from the drawing room in response to the squeals of laughter. There was no sign of Nanny. “Off those banisters at once!” She turned to greet me. “Hullo, darling—how did you get on in Swansea?”

I said blankly, “That’s Rhiannon Morgan.”

“Yes, isn’t that nice! I saw Mrs. Morgan in the village this morning so I asked her to bring Rhiannon to play.”

“But she returned to Cardiff.”

“Oh, she arrived back at the farm last night for another little holiday! However I think she must have taken the Merediths by surprise, because when I saw them yesterday they didn’t mention—ah, here she is! You’ll stay to nursery tea, won’t you, Mrs. Morgan?” she called. “Nanny assumed you would.”

Mrs. Morgan had emerged from the kitchens. She wore a pale limp green cotton dress that needed ironing, and cheap white sandals. Her garish hair was scraped back from her face as usual and lay in a lump on her long neck. She looked tired.

“Thank you, Mrs. Godwin,” she said awkwardly, and added to me with an even greater embarrassment, “Good afternoon, sir.”

“Good afternoon, Mrs. Morgan,” I said, and walked away into the drawing room.

“Papa!” cried Marian, rushing after me. “Come and have tea with us!”

“I’d love to, Marian, but I’m afraid today I’ve too much to do.” I looked around the drawing room in search of some all-consuming occupation, but fortunately Marian took no for an answer and dashed away again into the hall.

“Dafydd’s playing with a friend in the village,” said Blanche, following me into the drawing room. “He’s too young for the girls and too old for Harry—oh and darling, talking of Harry, I must tell you what he did today! He ran in here and played ‘God Save the King’ on the piano—with both hands and not a note wrong …”

There was a fresh bowl of white roses on the piano. While she was talking I stooped to smell them, but found they had no scent. They were perfectly formed, perfectly arranged, but they had no scent. I stared at them, and the more I stared the less real they seemed to me until finally it was as if they were made of wax, bleached of color, devoid of life.

“Darling, I don’t think you’ve been listening to a single word I’ve been saying!”

“Sorry, I was thinking of wretched Llewellyn and his sheep.”

After tea I retired to my study and tried to write some business letters, but I was unable to concentrate. I kept thinking of those white roses. Then I started thinking of color—the brilliant sea-green of the water by the Worm’s Head and the flaming sunsets over Rhossili Bay. I remembered the white roses on my mother’s grave, a symbol of death, but for one split second beyond them I glimpsed the fire of life, red-hot, all-consuming, terrifying.

I decided my Welsh blood was making me fanciful. Mixing myself a whisky-and-soda, I abandoned my correspondence, settled down in my favorite armchair and escaped into the very English world of John Buchan as I reread his famous shocker
The Thirty-nine Steps.

IV

I remember every detail of that evening clearly. Blanche wore an evening gown of a most ethereal shade of yellow, paler than primrose, barely darker than cream, and with the gown she wore the amethyst pendant I had given her for her eighteenth birthday after our engagement had been announced. At dinner we discussed the possibility of inviting Daphne and little Elizabeth to stay in the autumn, as it was now out of the question that they should stay at Oxmoon, and soon afterwards I began to reminisce about Lion. I tried to explain how awful he had been and how wonderful he had been and how although I had expected to miss him less and less I found myself missing him more and more.

“He had more spunk than Edmund,” I said, “and so much more warmth than Robert, and he was never sullen like Thomas—he was always so jolly and such fun. God, how we used to laugh when we were young! Yes, we had good times … but later we drifted apart, and at the end of our teens he called me a prig and I called him a rake and that was that. But I always remained fond of him. He was—” I hesitated before finding the right word. “—he was a very
real
person. There was no illusion there—he never played any roles, and he had such vitality—he was
so alive.
”

I stopped to reflect on what I had said before adding in wonder: “How strange it is that I should say all that now, five years after his death! I thought I’d finished grieving for him long ago.” And when I saw that Blanche was moved, either by my reminiscence or by the fact that Lion was dead, I said abruptly, “Well, we won’t talk of him anymore. I’m sorry—I was being morbid. Will you play me some music instead?”

We retired to the drawing room and she sat down at the piano, her pale yellow gown shimmering in the light from the candle sconces; the fresh white roses, perfect as ever, in the same crystal vase nearby.

She began to play. The music meant nothing to me, but I enjoyed watching her and thinking how beautiful and talented she was. Then I started worrying about Harry, playing “God Save the King” perfectly before he was three years old. A musical inclination was no use to a boy at all.

I was just wondering if I could find a miniature cricket bat to give him for Christmas when Blanche suddenly stopped playing.

“Are you all right?” I said, springing to my feet as she put her hand to her forehead.

“No—I’m sorry, darling, but I’ve got the most beastly headache. It’s come on very suddenly. Will you excuse me if I go up to bed?”

“Of course,” I said sympathetically, and thought with a sinking heart: Pregnancy. To conceal this inexcusable antipathy I said quickly, “Shall I telephone the doctor?”

“No, don’t worry, darling—it’s only a migraine.”

“I’ll sleep in the dressing room so that I don’t disturb you.”

“No.” She looked wretched. “I know you hate that.”

“Don’t be absurd! When you’re not well I don’t mind in the least!”

“You do,” she said, and to my horror she began to cry.

“Well, we won’t talk about that now,” I said hastily, but she only wept harder and whispered, “We never talk, never, and there’s so much I want to say.”

“But my dear Blanche … what do you mean? We’re always talking! We get on so well!”

“I feel so lonely.”

“
Lonely
?”

“I’m frightened in case you don’t love me.”

“But I adore you! How can you possibly say—”

“I’m frightened in case I can’t be the sort of wife you want me to be, I’m frightened that I won’t be able to cope with our marriage much longer, I’m frightened that you don’t confide in me, I’m frightened because I don’t know what your silence means—”

“My darling, you must stop this nonsense—yes, I insist that you stop! You’re simply tired and overwrought. I love you and you’re the best wife in the world and—”

“Then why do you never talk to me?”

“I do and I will—but not now when you’ve got a bad headache. Come on, I’ll take you upstairs.”

“No,” she said desolately. “I’ll say good night here.” She dried her eyes, gave me a chaste little kiss which I dutifully returned and vanished upstairs into the dark.

I felt very, very disturbed. I closed the piano and saw the roses shiver on their long stems. Then I shut all the windows. I felt as if I were battening down the hatches—but against what? I had no idea. Retreating to the study I mixed myself another whisky-and-soda and prepared to escape again into the world of John Buchan, but now Richard Hannay too was fleeing from forces that terrified him and in his flight I saw my own flight reflected.

Moving outside into the moonlit garden, I wandered down the path to the potting shed. An owl hooted above me, and as I remembered similar nocturnal expeditions with Lion long ago at Oxmoon I suddenly knew I wanted to be Johnny again, safe in an uncomplicated past.

But I was in a complicated present, and my wife was unhappy—except, as I well knew, this was impossible because she had no reason to be other than contented. What had happened? What had gone wrong? I had no idea.

I thought of Blanche weeping, “I’m frightened that I won’t be able to cope with our marriage much longer,” and at once I heard my mother saying in despair, “How’s that poor child Blanche ever going to cope?” That was the moment when I knew it was all my fault. I had no idea what “it” was, but I was going to find out. Glancing up at the dark window of our bedroom, I wondered if Blanche was still awake, and I hesitated, torn between my reluctance to disturb her and my compulsion to solve the problem. Naturally, I never doubted that the problem—“it”—could be solved.