The Wheel of Fortune (122 page)

When did the magic start to fade? Probably after Gerry was born in 1927. I was eight and my father’s favorite; idiotic Marian could hardly rival me, and although I’d heard talk that Evan was my father’s son I didn’t believe it. Evan had been there at the Manor before we arrived so in my eyes he was just someone my father had taken over along with Rhiannon and Dafydd. My father did say with perfect clarity, “This is your brother,” but I at once assumed he meant stepbrother. Marian told me later that I had been present at a big scene when she had told Nanny my father and Bronwen had produced a baby without being married, but I had no memory of this drama; at five years old I had been more interested in my toy train and more willing to accept Nanny’s reported declaration that babies never arrived unless a marriage had taken place.

Then Gerry was born. Within hours it became clear to me that Nanny had told a fib. Gerry was my father’s son. So was Evan. Then it occurred to me that my father was much too delighted with the new baby and very much too fond of Evan. In other words, I realized I had two rivals. Fortunately Marian explained to me that they were bastards and could therefore never be as good as we were—poor old Evan and Gerry, poor little sods—but I had some unpleasant moments before I decided with sickening relief that my position was unimpaired. All things considered I was almost anxious to go away to prep school to recover.

But I didn’t like being sent away from my magic lady and my happy home. And I didn’t like school either. Couldn’t say so, of course. Not the done thing. And I had to do the done thing or else my father would have been disappointed in me, and if he were disappointed in me he might have started overlooking the fact that Evan and Gerry were bastards and making them his favorites instead. I decided I had to be so perfect that they would never outshine me.

As a matter of fact I rather enjoyed trying to be perfect, and once I was used to school I soon realized that the most painless way to survive it was to excel at everything. Luckily I was born athletic with a first-class memory. One can get a long way on athleticism and a first-class memory, and by God I traveled far. My father was thrilled by my progress. By the time Lance and Sian were born I was so secure in my position as the apple of my father’s eye that I even deigned to shake the babies’ rattles for them occasionally.

I was twelve when Sian was born. Two more magic years to go but the magic was fading fast now, slipping through our fingers, and the darkness was closing in. I knew about the trouble, we all did, but I thought it could never affect me. I was legitimate and a gentleman. Dafydd might have to be boarded out in Cardiff and Rhiannon might choose to live with her aunt at the Home Farm and Evan might have difficulty in finding a school that would take him, but no one was ever going to be hostile to me just because my father lived openly with his mistress. My father said his action was right because he and Bronwen loved each other, but he needn’t have bothered to explain. I knew it was right. I could see it, feel it. It wasn’t my father’s fault that he couldn’t marry Bronwen and do the done thing. That was the fault of Constance, the wicked witch I could barely remember. I thought that my magic lady would always be able to ward off the witch’s spells, but this was no fairy tale and I saw her waste away, become thin and tired, pale and unhappy. I knew the end was near when Rhiannon and Dafydd went away to London because they said they couldn’t stand living any longer among people who regarded their mother as a whore. But I tried not to see the end coming. I couldn’t bear to see it. I looked the other way.

I was at Harrow when Evan was rejected by the headmaster of Briarwood and Bronwen made her decision to leave. I hated Harrow. Couldn’t say so, of course. Not the done thing. Everyone went to Harrow in my family and everyone liked it, so that was that. I did try to tell my father that the only thing I enjoyed there was messing around in a laboratory, but he didn’t hear me. He just said yes, science was fun, but how glad he was that I was obviously a born classicist like Uncle Robert.

I wanted to confide in Bronwen but by that time she always seemed to be either having a migraine or turning out the nursery. I almost confided in my friends at school, but I had realized that science wasn’t quite the done thing and I was afraid that if I confessed how very much I liked it people would think I was different. Terrible things happened to people who were different, not only to little Evan, scurrying home in tears from the village shop, but to the misfits at Harrow who wouldn’t or couldn’t play the Great English Public School Game. I was a survivor and I knew what I had to do to survive. Survival was cricket and rugger, Latin and Greek, keeping a stiff upper lip and doing the done thing. So I kept my mouth shut, battened down the hatches over my emotions and survived.

“And how’s everything going, Harry?” said my father when I was fourteen. “No problems?”

“Oh no, sir, none at all.”

Did I know I was lying? No. The truth is we’re all mesmerized by our upbringing, and although I knew that the life I was living bore no relation to my secret inclinations I absolutely accepted that there was nothing I could do about it. Rebellion would have been inconceivable and I was too young for self-analysis. Children, blinkered by the vision that’s been foisted on them, always are. It’s the adults who are supposed to see when something’s going wrong but the adults in my world were far too busy with their own problems to pay any attention to mine.

Bronwen began to talk of visiting cousins in Vancouver.

“Is Bronwen all right, Father?”

“Oh yes, she’s fine.”

How could he say that when she so obviously wasn’t?

“Father, how long will Bronwen be in Canada?”

“Oh, not long.”

I wanted to say “They will come back, won’t they?” But I couldn’t. I wanted to say “Please tell me what’s going on!” But I couldn’t. I wanted to say “Is it because she doesn’t love you anymore?” But I couldn’t. I couldn’t talk to him and he couldn’t talk to me.

“Good luck, Harry,” said my father as I left home to begin the summer term of 1933. “I do hope the cricket goes well.”

Bronwen just hugged me and was silent.

I was silent too. Or at least I did say something but it had no meaning. I said, “Have a wonderful holiday in Canada.”

Bronwen nodded and stooped over Sian who was tugging at her skirt. I knew then she wasn’t coming back, but I shut my mind against the knowledge. I decided that if I didn’t think about it, it wouldn’t happen.

Three weeks later my father arrived at school to take me out to lunch. We drove to an inn in the rural country north of the Middlesex border. I remember we talked continuously about cricket, both my own efforts in the second eleven and the past winter’s test matches with Australia. We were still discussing Larwood’s body-line bowling as we sat down at our table. My father ordered us half a pint of beer apiece and two portions of jugged hare.

I never ate jugged hare again.

Of course I knew why he had come to see me, but when I realized that he was unable to speak of what had happened—the jugged hare was in front of us by that time—I said, “They’re not coming back, are they?”

He shook his head. I thought he was still incapable of speech but at last he did say, not looking at me, “It was the right thing—the only thing—to do.”

He went on talking, saying there had to be a new life for the sake of the children, but I barely heard him. As far as I was concerned everything had been said. The line had been drawn and everyone had done the done thing and sunk behind it without trace.

“She left a letter for you.”

He was holding out an envelope.

“Thank you.” I stowed it out of sight in my jacket.

“If you want to read it—”

“Not at the moment, thank you, Father.” I suddenly couldn’t stand to see him so upset,
couldn’t stand it.
Fear of a mutual breakdown gripped me. I almost hated him for exposing us both to such a terrible danger. Pushing the jugged hare round and round my plate I began to talk again about cricket.

Later, back at school, I found a quiet corner in a remote passage by a linen cupboard and opened Bronwen’s letter.

My dearest Harry, it breaks my heart to go but I can’t bear to see the little ones suffer, your father will explain, don’t blame your father, he’s a good kind decent man, it’s not his fault, I’ll always love him and I’ll always love you too just as if you were my own. I’d like to beg you to write but it would make things worse, drawing out the suffering, so better not. Stand by your father, he’ll need you so much, he’s so proud of you and in the midst of all this misery it’s such a comfort to him to know you’re happy at school and doing so well. Know that I’ll look back often as we move farther apart in time, but remember too that time is a circle and that one day we may look not back but forward and see each other face to face again. Always your loving and devoted friend,
BRONWEN
.

I tore the letter into tiny pieces, flushed it down the nearest lavatory and went out to the cricket nets.

Couldn’t let anyone see something was wrong.

Because of some minor fever my father was unable to return to Harrow at half-term to take me out, but Marian and my mother’s aunt Charlotte motored down from London. Aunt Charlotte had recently presented Marian at court and was now acting as her chaperone, although Marian spent most of her time trying to escape to Aunt Daphne who was far more modern in her outlook.

“My dear,” said Marian to me as we all motored into the West End to have lunch at the Ritz, “isn’t it simply too tragic about Bronwen? But of course”—this was for Aunt Charlotte—“it’s all for the best. The situation really was quite impossible.”

We could say nothing more at lunch but afterwards when Aunt Charlotte retired to the ladies’ cloakroom we had the chance for a word on our own.

“Did she write to you?” I said.

“Yes. It was rather sweet.” Marian’s eyes filled with tears but she added violently: “But really, the situation
was
impossible. The other day I heard someone say in the chaperone’s corner at one of the dances, ‘Oh, there’s Marian Godwin—her father has the most extraordinary
ménage
in Wales, my dear, and the poor girl’s been brought up by a Welsh peasant!’ And it was just the same at St. Astrith’s. ‘Oh, Marian Godwin can’t ask anyone home, my dear, because her situation’s so peculiar!’ I mean, really …
really …
it was beyond everything. And I’ve tried so hard to be ordinary, acting as if the only people I ever met were ladies and gentlemen, behaving as if the working classes were all quite beneath me—heavens, I think some people have even thought I was a snob!—but it was all for nothing, people always knew, people always found out, and oh, how I hated being different and everyone thinking I was so peculiar—”

“So you’re glad she’s gone.”

“Yes, I am!” said Marian, but she was crying. “It wasn’t her fault,” she whispered. “She was sweet. But it shouldn’t have gone on so long, it should have been stopped—”

“Well, you can’t say Constance didn’t do her best.” A second later a horrifying thought occurred to me. “My God, Marian, you don’t suppose—”

“No, it’s all right, he swore to me he’d never go back to her.”

I didn’t care much for Marian, who was brainless and unmusical and altogether a highly expendable member of the female race, but a sister’s a sister and after that conversation I detected a remote note of harmony between us. It was good to know I wasn’t alone in feeling rotten about Bronwen and sagging with relief that there was no possibility of a return to the witch in Belgravia.

But there were other possibilities almost as bad. When I arrived back in Gower for the summer holidays I found that my father was staying at Oxmoon because he couldn’t face Penhale Manor. To make matters worse, he was still emotionally in pieces and had no idea what he was going to do with himself. The whole situation was a nightmare.

I had been assigned a bedroom that had once belonged to my uncle Lion but I made no attempt to open the packing cases there which contained my possessions. I just sat on the bed and longed futilely for home. Later I went back to Penhale Manor but it was all shut up. Only the door of the potting shed was open. I went in and remembered my little serf, helping me with my experiments. Behind the flowerpots I found a smashed test tube. That was when the full magnitude of the disaster reached me; that was the moment when I had no choice but to acknowledge what had happened. I was dispossessed. My happy home had been smashed up. I’d lost my magic lady. I cried all the way to Oxmoon, a great big lout of fourteen sobbing like a baby in nappies. Disgusting. My eyes were so red that I knew I couldn’t go down to lunch. Despicable. I hated myself for being so weak.

Eventually when I didn’t turn up in the dining room Aunt Ginevra came to see if I was all right, but I had bathed my eyes by that time and looked pale but passable.

“Is something wrong, Harry?”

“Oh no, Aunt Ginevra. Everything’s fine.”

She gave me one of her shrewd but not unfriendly stares. “You surprise me,” she said drily. “If I were you I’d be feeling wretched. Why don’t we talk it over? I liked Bronwen, you know. I was very fond of her.”

Something terrible was happening to my throat. Damn the woman, get her out.

“Oh, I quite accept all that, Aunt Ginevra. Nothing more I want to say about it, thank you.”

She wavered but then Kester called her and she seized the chance to wash her hands of me. “All right, Harry, but do say something, won’t you, if you’re feeling awful? I know John’s not much use at the moment.”

I hated her. “My father’s absolutely all right!” How I got the words out I didn’t know. My throat felt as if it were housing a lump the size of a cricket ball.

“Mu-um!” sang out Kester, poor old Kester, poor old sod, who had this utterly miserable life being pampered to death in his palatial mansion by everyone in sight. “I’ve got something terribly funny to tell you! Honestly, I laughed so much I nearly split my sides!”

Seconds later they were convulsed with mirth in the corridor. I listened, tears streaming down my cheeks, but finally I pulled myself together and went in search of my father.