The Wheel of Fortune (75 page)

“The truth you’ve now got to face is that although your father still spends a lot of time being sound as a bell, he’s getting to the point where he needs a keeper, because whenever he’s upset like this his one remedy is sex. So long as I’m here he’s not going to go around doing God-knows-what to the nearest scullery maid, but once I’m gone he’ll do it and, what’s worse, he won’t even remember afterwards that he’s done it, he’ll shut it clean out of his mind. Now, I know what to do with him. I can keep him satisfied, but he’s got some weird tastes, and while I don’t mind that—the weirder the better, as far as I’m concerned—there aren’t many women who’d stand for that kind of behavior. Except prostitutes, of course. And do you really want your father bringing the lowest form of street life into Oxmoon and turning the place into some kind of cross between a brothel and a lunatic asylum? Of course you don’t. So look at me and be grateful because so long as I’m around you don’t have to worry.

“Well, now that we’ve got all that straightened out, let’s talk about the facts of life, otherwise known as pounds, shillings and pence. I’m worth my weight in gold, but Bobby only pays me a pittance as housekeeper. I filch a bit here and there, of course—why the hell shouldn’t I, after all I do?—but Bobby’s mean about money, and although he’s a bit potty sometimes, he’s still capable of being all too lucid when the subject of money comes up for discussion. The truth is he’s so dependent on me that he gets a thrill out of saying no when I ask for things; it makes him feel more the master of his own home. Now I could go on filching—nothing easier—but why the hell should I have to scrape around like that? You’re a rich man and it’s in your best interests to pay me what I’m worth.”

She stopped talking. I stubbed out my cigarette and stood up. Beyond the doorway, far away across the lawn, Oxmoon lay pallidly in the sunlight. I noticed that the creeper was beginning to die on the walls. “I’ll have to talk to my brother.”

“Yes, I thought you’d say that, but think again, dear. For instance, why don’t you and I come to a very private agreement, an agreement which will suit you as well as it’ll suit me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, dear, before Bobby’s really certifiable, why don’t I whisper a little word in his ear about the will?”

“What will?”

“Oh, don’t pretend you don’t know about it! The will where he leaves everything to that little ninny Kester just because he wants to be kind to poor old Robert! What a lot of sentimental old balls—but don’t you worry about it, my friend, because if you guarantee me five hundred a year, starting from now, I’ll guarantee you Oxmoon when Bobby drops dead.”

I knew it was vital that I never hesitated so the instant she stopped speaking I said, “I’ll not cheat my dying brother. I draw the line.” The most appalling part of this heroic statement was that I found myself wondering whether it was true.

“What’s the matter, dear?” said the woman at my side. “Worried in case you wouldn’t get away with it? But I’d keep my mouth shut, and anyway people can get away with anything if they put their minds to it. Look at your father! He got away with murder.”

I turned to face her. “Did he?” I said.

We were silent. I thought of my ruined father, locked up in his private hell and shamed before the children he loved, but the thought was unendurable. Turning my back on the woman I walked out of the summerhouse.

“My God,” said Milly Straker, “the man’s incorruptible. That’s the sexiest act I’ve seen in a month of Sundays.” She followed me to the edge of the tennis lawn. “All right, dear, suit yourself, but let me know if you change your mind. And now—while we’re still talking about sex—I think we’d better have a quick word about the luscious Mrs. Morgan. No, don’t take offense! This is just a friendly word from a well-wisher. All I want to say, dear, is Don’t live with her openly. I don’t know whether you really intend to install her immediately in Penhale Manor as your mistress, but take it from me it just won’t do.”

“Mrs. Straker—”

“Oh, don’t misunderstand! I’m not like your father—I’m not worried about
you,
I’m worried about
her!
You love her, don’t you? All right, then if you’re as decent as you’ve almost convinced me you are, take time off from your romantic dreams and imagine what hell life’s going to be for her if you put her on public display nailed to a cross with a placard inscribed
MISTRESS
around her neck! If you’ve got to keep her at the Manor, let her call herself a housekeeper or a nanny or a tweeny or something—give her a title to hide behind when the inevitable happens and everyone realizes what’s going on. Believe me, you’ll have to fight tooth and nail to preserve that girl, and don’t think I don’t know what I’m talking about. My God, I’ve seen some crucifixions in my time! The bloody men get off scot-free and the girls end up in the bath with their wrists slashed—oh, I’ve seen it all! So take my advice for her sake and stop being so bloody selfish and naive.”

After a pause I managed to say: “As I intend to marry Mrs. Morgan, I hardly think your advice is applicable.”

“Why, yes, of course you intend to marry her, dear. A gentleman always intends to marry the girl at first, doesn’t he? After all, he wouldn’t be a gentleman if he didn’t.” She stepped past me and began to walk away across the lawn. “But Mrs. Morgan’s a lucky girl,” she added over her shoulder. “I can see that now. And maybe you really will be fool enough to marry her—if, of course, that new pregnant wife of yours is ever fool enough to agree to a divorce.”

I watched her till she had disappeared from sight. Then I stumbled back into the summerhouse, sank down on the nearest chair and covered my face with my hands.

9

I

“SHE THEN SAID SHE WOULD
guarantee me Oxmoon if I guaranteed her an income,” I said to Robert

“How intriguing. What did you say?”

“I said I refused to cheat you.”

“Oh, she’ll never believe that,” said Robert. “You should have reminded her instead that undue influence and unsoundness of mind can invalidate a will.”

“No doubt I should. But I’m afraid I wasn’t thinking too clearly at that stage.”

“At that stage I’d have been dead of apoplexy. … Is that a car I hear outside?”

It was. Ginevra had arrived home from one of Esther Mowbray’s smart bridge parties, and was looking overdressed in a shiny afternoon frock, an absurd hat like a semidestroyed Balaclava and a very, very long bead necklace.

“Are you going to tell her, Robert?”

“Of course. I always tell her everything.”

This surprised me for Robert and Ginevra never gave an impression of marital intimacy and I had long since decided that their separate lives were linked by an enduring, genuine but not close affection. However when Robert now began to talk to her in the frankest possible manner, I found myself automatically trying to assess their marriage afresh. But it did not lend itself easily to assessment. The asexuality of the relationship struck odd notes; he made no effort to be charming or deferential to her, but was bossy and didactic as if she were a school chum who needed firm handling, while she in her turn made no effort to demonstrate her considerable feminine wiles but said exactly what she liked with varying degrees of rudeness. This meant they bickered frequently and energetically, but I had schooled myself to take no notice; I had realized that their two personalities, his so austere, hers so emotional, were locked in the harmony of opposites from which neither of them wished to escape.

When Robert finished speaking, she said to me, “How absolutely vile for you, Johnny,” and suddenly as I realized she was genuinely upset I saw beyond her affectations to the sensitive woman I hardly knew.

She turned back to Robert. “What do we do?”

“I’m beginning to wonder. I’m afraid this is all much more hair-raising than I thought it was. How far did you believe Straker, John?”

“I hate to admit it but I believed every word.”

Neither of them attempted to disagree with this verdict. Ginevra said, “So we daren’t get rid of Straker: And he won’t see a doctor. Is he legally certifiable, Robert?”

“Nowhere near. We’ve no evidence that he’s not running the estate properly. Even Straker admits he spends most of the time being as sound as a bell.”

“But he’s deteriorating,” I said. “He’s going mad, Robert. This isn’t just a nervous breakdown, it’s hereditary insanity, I know it is, I know it—”

“Shut up. Pull yourself together. Christ, isn’t it enough that Papa’s sinking into this unspeakably sordid dotage? If you go round the bend as well I’ll bloody well never forgive you!”

But Ginevra’s hand slipped into mine and Ginevra’s voice said gently, “Take no notice of him. He’s only being awful because he’s so upset.”

“You bloody fool, stop pandering to him!” shouted Robert. “If he persists in clinging to this ridiculous obsession of his, he doesn’t need kindness—he needs to be shaken till his bloody teeth rattle!”

Ginevra was furious. “My God, you are a bastard sometimes!”

“Oh, stop carping at me like a stupid bitch!”

“Shut up!” she screamed at him. “Just because you yourself can’t stand any bloody emotion—”

“What I can’t stand is everyone going to bloody pieces!”

“I’m sorry,” I said hastily, jolted out of my fears by this searing marital squabble. “You’re right to shout at me, I know I’m being useless—”

“Darling,” said Ginevra, “after that scene at Oxmoon the miracle is that you’re still conscious.” She swung back to face Robert. “Since you’re so bloody clever, you bastard,” she said, “just you answer me this: if Bobby isn’t going stark staring mad—and I agree with Johnny, I think he is—just what the hell do you think’s going on?”

“I think the entire trouble’s emotional. I suspect he’s racked with shame because he’s unable to stop himself sliding deeper and deeper into this appalling private life.”

“My God, that’s plausible,” I said in spite of myself. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“But why’s He compelled to lead this ghastly private life in the first place?” demanded Ginevra. “Isn’t that in itself evidence of derangement?”

“Possibly. But not necessarily. He told me once he regarded sex as an escape from facts he couldn’t face; Straker now confirms this by saying he resorts to sex when he’s upset. This nauseating private life may be evidence that he’s disturbed, but it’s not, repeat
not,
evidence of hereditary insanity.”

“I think it is,” I said.

“So do I,” said Ginevra.

“If I don’t quash this hereditary-insanity nonsense very soon,” said Robert, “I swear I’ll bloody well go mad myself. For God’s sake let’s get hold of Gavin Warburton and ask him for a rational, detached, qualified medical opinion on the subject; I think it’s time we laid Grandmama’s ghost once and for all.”

II

“Without examining the patient, “said Warburton, “it’s impossible for me to give an opinion.”

“All right, Gavin,” said Robert. “We accept that’s your official statement. Now let’s talk unofficially. Could this mental disturbance result from a physical degeneration?”

“Yes, but I’d say that was unlikely. It’s three years since I attended him after your mother died, but he struck me then as being in first-class health for a man of his age. He doesn’t eat, drink or smoke to excess. He’s not overweight. He moves well and there’s nothing lifeless about his facial muscles so I think we can rule out a premature onset of senility—”

“What about syphilis?” said Robert as I shuddered in my chair.

“Most unlikely. There’d have been other symptoms, and besides the onset of syphilitic madness is somewhat different. There’s usually a sort of—”

“Ginette, get John some brandy.”

“I’m all right,” I said. “I’m all right.”

“Are you sure?” said Warburton in concern.

“Take no notice of him,” said Robert. “He’s merely incorrigibly squeamish about mental illness. Now, to return to my father—could he possibly be suffering from schizophrenia?”

“That’s very hard to say,” said Warburton evasively.

“Is that hereditary?” I said at once.

“No one knows.”

“It’s John’s theory,” said Robert to Warburton, “that my grandmother suffered from a form of hereditary madness with the result that all her descendants are doomed to be locked up one by one.”

“Ah, I see.” Warburton immediately looked more relaxed. “Well, that’s much easier to ascertain. The Home of the Assumption would, of course, have a record of her medical history. I’ll talk to de Vestris—he’s the doctor in charge there, John—and arrange to see her file. What was your grandmother’s first name, when did she go there and when did she die?”

I was unable to speak. Robert said: “Gwyneth. 1882. 1910.”

Warburton wrote this information on a prescription pad and the conversation continued, but I did not hear it. I was still holding my glass of brandy but I could no longer drink. I sat motionless on the edge of my chair.

“Johnny?” said Ginevra suddenly.

“I’m all right,” I said again. “I’m all right.”

“John would like to see this doctor, Gavin,” said Robert. “Can you make an appointment?”

“Yes, of course. When?”

“Now, if he’s available.”

“Let’s find out,” said Warburton, and headed for the telephone in the hall.

III

I listened to Warburton’s side of the telephone call. I think I had some nightmarish fear that he and Dr. de Vestris would conspire to conceal the truth from me, but Warburton merely said the matter was of extreme urgency and asked if we could see him within the hour. De Vestris consented. Warburton then terminated the call, said to me, “Shall we go?” and drove me the fourteen miles to the Home of the Assumption at a brisk pace.

I had never been inside the gates. Only my father had ever visited my grandmother there, and when Ginevra had her nervous breakdown I had been with Bronwen in Cornwall. I had imagined hideous scenes being enacted daily behind that sinister Victorian facade, but as we were admitted by a cheerful nun I found the atmosphere was peaceful. I was hardly in a mood to perceive my surroundings clearly, but there was a not unpleasant smell of furniture polish emanating from the glowing wooden banisters of the staircase, and a tortoiseshell cat was washing its paws absent-mindedly in a corner of the hall.