The Wheel of Fortune (79 page)

“I trust you. I agree you’ve done dreadful things, but now you’re trying to do what’s right, you’re being honest and truthful and brave, and so long as you’re honest and truthful you can’t get in a mess by living a lie, and so long as you’re brave you can’t despise yourself for cowardice, and so long as you’re all those things you’ll be strong enough to draw those lines, as the English say so strangely when all they mean is choosing the right circle to live in, and once the lines are drawn you’ll be the man you want to be and the man I know you are, and you’ll be safe.”

I wanted to make love to her again, but I was too exhausted and I collapsed into her arms. After a long time I heard myself say, “My father thinks I still want Oxmoon. Probably Robert thinks I still want Oxmoon. Sometimes even I think I still want Oxmoon—oh, God, I’m in such a muddle still; I don’t want Oxmoon anymore, I truly don’t, I’m fully satisfied just to live here with you, but sometimes I can’t help thinking—”

“Of course you covet it now and then. That’s human. You covet it like I used to covet my lady in Cardiff’s best teapot. But I wouldn’t have stolen it. That would have been wrong.”

“But supposing Robert thinks—”

“You don’t lie to him, do you?”

“No, I told him how Straker tried to bribe me.”

“Then you’re safe.
Don’t start lying to Robert.
So long as you’re truthful with him you’ll be safe.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Distrust grows out of lies. Wrongdoing grows out of distrust. Tragedy grows out of wrongdoing. But out of honesty grows love and love’s so powerful, it’ll be like a suit of armor, protecting Robert, protecting you.”

“That ought to be true, but is it true? It all sounds vaguely religious but I can’t believe in God, not after the war—”

“I never believed in God so long as I thought of Him as a person,” said Bronwen. “To me He was like my father who’d gone away and couldn’t help me. But then I stopped saying ‘He’ and said ‘It,’ and suddenly everything seemed simple. God’s magic, that’s all. It’s all the things we can’t see or explain. It’s the rhythm of life. It’s the circle of time.”

“That reminds me of Robert talking about Boethius and the Wheel of Fortune,” I said, and I began to tell her about that ancient theory of life which had become so popular in the Middle Ages. “I never studied Boethius,” I said, “but when I was reading French and German up at Oxford I came across the work of Peter von Kastl and Jean de Meung who were both influenced by him …” And as I talked on about the Wheel of Fortune revolving in its endless cycle, I began at last to feel calmer.

“But that sounds as if people have no power to leave the wheel,” said Bronwen, “and I think they have. I think there are many wheels, and if you have the will you can move from one to another.”

“That’s what I need to believe too but supposing free will is an illusion? For instance, take Robert’s view: he says that although we’re all strapped to the Wheel of Fortune, Fortune herself offers us choices to determine our fate. Now, that sounds fine but supposing those choices themselves are predetermined by forces beyond our control?”

“That’s a horrible idea!”

“Horrible, yes—I’ve always detested and feared the concept of predestination. However I have a feeling Boethius solved the problem, although I can’t remember how he did it.”

This time I did manage to make love to her again. Then having proved that renewal could follow exhaustion on our own private wheel of fortune, I found my courage returning and knew I could discard my despair and struggle on.

XV

I had no respite. The chaos continued but by this time I had realized that a section of my life would be in chaos indefinitely, so I was becoming resigned to the hard core of misery in my mind. My father telephoned with the news that Edmund had a son. Letters started to arrive from Constance about the possibility of a double christening. The long aftermath of my disastrous marriage seemed about to overwhelm me again, but before I could give way a second time to despair I was diverted by a crisis at Oxmoon.

It was by that time early November, and when the news of the crisis reached me I had just returned from fetching Marian from her private school in Swansea. Once Daphne’s opinion that no respectable governess would remain long at the Manor had been confirmed, I had had no difficulty convincing myself that it would be good for Marian to go to school, but as Bronwen had refused my offer that her children too should be privately educated, Rhiannon and Dafydd continued to attend school in the village. Marian, not unnaturally, wanted to go there too, and when I refused I found myself involved in inevitably distasteful explanations. There was no row, since Marian quickly accepted the fact that ladies never attended the village primary school, but I foresaw the class system pushing its long cruel bayonets deep into my home and in time impaling us all.

“We must give all the children the same education,” I said to Bronwen stubbornly, but she was equally stubborn in disagreeing.

“I don’t want my children given airs and graces and being taught to look down on their own class,” she said. “It wouldn’t make them happy. Dafydd wants to be a motor mechanic, not a gentleman, and if Rhiannon gets a lady’s education she’ll end up too good for the boys of her own class and not good enough for the boys who are better.”

There was undoubtedly much truth in this observation, but I foresaw the situation deteriorating as the children became aware of their differences. Marian was too aware of them already. I had that very afternoon in the car been obliged to reprove her for making a snobbish criticism of Rhiannon.

On our arrival home Marian dashed off to the dining room where everyone was having tea and I went to the cloakroom to hang up my coat and hat. I had just returned to the hall when I was startled by a thunderous battering on the front door.

It was Thomas, wearing his best livid expression. I knew at once he was very upset.

“Hullo,” I said swiftly. “What’s the trouble?”

“It’s the old bugger.”

I steered him into my study, but just as I was opening my mouth to reprove him for referring to our father so disrespectfully he collapsed into the nearest armchair as if it were a sanctuary and I realized a reproof would be inappropriate. His mouth was trembling. He managed to tuck it down at the corners as usual, but when he spoke his voice was unsteady.

“Got a gasper, old boy?”

I gave him a cigarette. “What’s happened?”

Thomas inhaled deeply and managed to say in a casual voice: “The old bugger’s gone crazy. Well, of course he’s been gaga off and on for ages, we all know that, but this is worse, this is the last straw, this is absolutely bloody …” He faltered to a halt.

“What happened?”

“We had a row about the estate. The old bugger won’t let me do anything. Well, I didn’t mind loafing around for a time while I recovered from bloody school, but I’m bored now and I want to do something so I asked him a month ago if he could teach me how to run the estate, and he said no, I was too young and I ought to be at school. So we had a row and I went off to Daxworth and learned about cows instead, but I got a bit bored because I don’t think they’re really my kind of animal, so I thought I’d get interested in estate management again, and this afternoon when Papa was out I sneaked into the library and had a look at the books—”

“—and he caught you red-handed.”

“Yes. Christ, he was bloody angry.”

“Well, I suppose he had a right to be angry since you were prying among his private papers, but on the other hand I’m surprised he wasn’t glad to see how keen you are to learn.” I tried to stop myself wondering why my father should be so abnormally sensitive about anyone seeing the accounts. “What happened next?”

Thomas did not answer immediately. His blue eyes reflected complex emotions; anger and resentment were mingling with some deep distress, and as I watched I saw the distress become uppermost in his mind.

“Out with it, Thomas. You’ll feel better once you’ve told me.”

But still he was silent, struggling with his feelings. At last he muttered, “Don’t want to be disloyal.”

I was touched by this because I saw how fond he was of his father, but I was also disturbed and to my dismay I realized I was in the middle of an interview that was far more crucial than I desired.

“There’s no question of disloyalty, Thomas,” I said quickly. “He’s my father as well as yours and I know very well he’s subject to mental disturbances. What did he do? Did he hit you?”

“No. God, I wish he had. I wouldn’t have minded that. But he didn’t. He yelled at me and then—suddenly—he went to pieces. He said, ‘I can’t manage you anymore,’ and he went out into the hall and shouted for Mama.”

There was a silence. Thomas bit his lip, pouted but finally tucked his mouth down at the corners again. “Silly old bugger,” he muttered fiercely. “I felt so ashamed for him.”

“I’d have been both shocked and frightened,” I said at once, implying that shock and fear were permissible emotions in the circumstances. “What did you do next?”

“Nothing. I was too … well, I just stayed where I was. Then Milly came, but he said he wanted his wife, not the parlormaid.”

“Christ. How did Milly cope?”

“She said, ‘Very well, Mr. Godwin, but why don’t you sit down for a minute while I fetch you a little glass of champagne.’ Then there was an awful silence, and just when I thought I was going to be sick, Papa said, ‘Milly’ and burst into tears. Oh God, John, it was so absolutely
bloody
—”

“Bloody, yes. Did you manage to escape then?”

“No, Milly told me to help her take him upstairs. He was shaking and crying and could hardly stand, but we got him up to his room somehow without the servants seeing. Then Milly said to me, ‘Go out of the house for an hour—
go right out.’
She was very fierce about it so I went downstairs but I was sick in the cloakroom and the vomit got over my shirt so I went upstairs to change and then I heard noises going on in the bedroom, awful noises, I couldn’t stand it, I felt sick again—”

“Yes, all right, Thomas, you don’t have to say anymore.”

“It was hearing the noises—he was sort of screaming—”

“Sit down again and I’ll get you some brandy.”

Retrieving the decanter and two glasses from the dining room, I poured us each a stiff measure. Thomas drank his too fast and choked. Afterwards he whispered, “I don’t want to go back there just yet.”

“No, of course not, I wouldn’t dream of suggesting it. You can stay here for as long as you like. I’ll go over to Oxmoon, have a word with Milly and sort everything out.”

Thomas was too overcome to speak but not too overcome to grab the decanter and pour himself another measure. When he had gulped it down he said, “You’re the only one of all those bloody brothers that’s ever cared more than a pail of pigshit for me. I’m sorry I was so bloody awful to you in the past. I suppose I was jealous. I didn’t like it when the old bugger fawned over you, but I don’t suppose you’d ever understand.”

I began to tell him how jealous I had been of Robert when I had been his age, but he was too upset to listen.

“I hate Robert,” he said interrupting me. “I hate everyone and everything except you—the world, the weather, women, politics, Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin, Bolsheviks, the Prince of Wales, Harrow, the English, the Germans, clergymen, God, the Devil and bloody sex. I hate them all and I only like animals and you—animals are better than humans because they don’t let you down, and you’re as good as an animal. You’re the only decent human being I know, and I don’t care who you sleep with.”

I casually removed the brandy decanter as his hand wavered towards it, but my feelings were very far from casual. I was thinking of Thomas pitchforked from the secure loving innocent world my mother had created for him into the world of Milly Straker, and I had a long chilling view of my father’s moral debacle. Then suddenly I was contrasting Marian, racked by sobs, with the happy little girl who had said her prayers in the nursery with Blanche, and once more I had a glimpse of a wheel which terrified me.

I closed my mind against it. Struggling to my feet I said abruptly to Thomas, “I’ll ask Mrs. Wells to prepare a room for you and I’ll tell Bronwen you’ve come to stay.”

An hour later, when Thomas had been safely settled at the Manor, I found myself once more on the road to Oxmoon at the beginning of a new journey into hell.

XVI

“Much better for Thomas to be with you, dear,” said Milly. “I’ll go and pack a couple of bags for him straightaway. As for your father, I put him in the library because he’s always happy pottering around there with his papers, but don’t be surprised if he’s not entirely twenty shillings to the pound.”

My father looked better than I had anticipated but not at all pleased to see me. He was seated at the library table in front of the estate books, and as I entered the room he looked up at me suspiciously over his spectacles.

I asked his permission to look after Thomas for a while. “I think he could be useful to me at the farm,” I said, “and I’d enjoy his company.”

“Yes, very well, you take care of him. I can’t manage him anymore; he’s too difficult.”

I thought of the strong capable father of my early memories. When I could speak again I said, “Papa, there’s a question I’d like to ask but if it upsets you too much then naturally I shan’t expect an answer. Do you want Thomas out of the house because he’s difficult or because you’re afraid of his interest in the estate books?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said instantly, but he did. He looked furious.

Once again I had to pause before I could nerve myself to continue. “I was wondering if the estate’s getting too much for you now that—by your own admission—you’re not quite so young as you used to be. If I can be of any help—”

“Absolutely not,” said my father. “You’ve got to be kept out.”

There was another silence. I remember thinking, in the detached manner that sometimes accompanies harrowing circumstances, that an outsider would have thought our conversation bizarrely disjointed.