The Wheel of Fortune (112 page)

But I thought of my mother writing in her final letter of my father:
He was my friend,
and of Conor Kinsella:
He was my first love and my last.
What did the background mysteries matter when the basic truth was as absolute as that? I found then that I was resigned to the fact that I would never now hear the whole story from my mother’s lips, and with my resignation came acceptance so that the past was unable to hurt me anymore. I saw her buried with her first husband and thought as Declan had thought before me: Yes, it was romantic. The romance was not as I had imagined it to be, but it was there nonetheless, allowing me to preserve all my idealism, allowing me to remember my mother as I wanted to remember her, and as I stood there in the soft Irish rain in that foreign cemetery so far from home I saw again in the glittering grass the chandeliers at Oxmoon and heard once more in my imagination the orchestra that had played “The Blue Danube.”

6

I

A
FTER THIS EMOTIONAL IRISH
interlude my arrival home was very much a return to the cold hard Anglo-Saxon facts of life. With my mother dead I found myself abruptly brought face to face with a subject I had never troubled to master: the administration of Oxmoon. In the library I opened one of the estate books, but it might have been written in Etruscan, and I was just closing it with a bang when the door opened and in walked bestial Thomas.

“Oh hullo,” he said. “What are you doing here buggering around with the estate books?”

My
library and I’m asked what I’m doing here.
My
estate, run by someone I detest.

I looked at him narrowly and said nothing.

“How was bloody old Ireland?” said Thomas casually, flicking through some correspondence. “God, what a dump that country is!”

I knew he had never been there. I went on watching him narrowly and still I said nothing.

“Oh, by the way,” said Thomas who was much too insensitive to find my silence suspicious and probably only thought I was being deferential, “John rang up yesterday. He’s coming down tomorrow to discuss the future with you. He said he’d stay three days.”

My
house and my uninvited guests coolly tell me how long they intend to stay.

“Oh yes?” I said without expression, and walked out.

I felt like wiring Declan to come with a machine gun.

II

When I was on my honeymoon I had written a long letter to Uncle John. Of course I had been consumed by guilt that I had not thanked him properly for rushing to Scotland to extract me from jail. How could I have been so hostile and brutal to him when he had been so heroic? Grinding my teeth I penned the required letter of gratitude. Then it occurred to me that since he was already horrified by my un-Godwin-like behavior he could hardly be more horrified if I displayed some new heresy, so I broke the news to him that I had decided not to go up to Oxford. My mother’s death had effectively precluded us from discussing this decision, but before I departed for Ireland he had expressed the wish that we could meet as soon as I returned.

The thought of another battle with Uncle John sickened me. The thought of Thomas downstairs in the library sickened me. In the privacy of my room I lay on my bed and groaned with nausea and rage.

“Uncle John won’t force you to go up to Oxford against your wishes,” said my wonderful Anna, who had been such a tower of strength to me during my recent ordeals, “and who knows? Perhaps he’ll be only too delighted that you want to run the estate yourself.”

This was certainly possible, but she had overlooked the core of my dilemma. “Uncle John will never allow me to get rid of Thomas. He’ll say I can’t cope, and the awful thing is he’d be right.”

“Nonsense!” said Anna roundly. “I’m sure you could learn how to cope in no time—you’re twice as clever as Thomas!”

“Only twice?” I said, cheering up. Her confidence did indeed put me in better spirits, but that night I lay awake quailing at the thought of Uncle John gliding to my rescue once more in his formidable and repellent Rolls-Royce.

III

The next morning, unable to resist the temptation, I unlocked the drawer of the bureau in my old bedroom and took a look at the manuscript which had been untouched since the week before my elopement. I at once felt much calmer. Seduced long since by the works of Miss Christie and Miss Sayers, I was now specializing in the country-house detective story and luxuriating in complicated plots involving corpses galore, alibis by the dozen and an interminable dénouement in the library. My detective, modeled on Lord Peter Wimsey, was passionately in love with an adventuress who was fast becoming much too sexy.

I wished I could let them go to bed together but I knew that wasn’t the done thing in a detective story, not even when the heroine was an adventuress. It was true that Lord Peter had gone to bed with Harriet, but not until they were husband and wife. Could I marry off my Honorable Jonathan? But then the dramatic suspense of his private life would be destroyed, because he would have to live forever after in uxorious bliss; detective stories never allowed their married heroes any other fate.

I thought idly: It would be much more interesting if they did; the stories would be more true to life. But I was obliged to put this heretical thought aside when I suddenly realized that Lady Sybil’s alibi was no good. She would never have had the chance to get hold of the arsenic so therefore she wouldn’t need an alibi. I had to engineer a chance for her, but since Professor Metz was keeping the arsenic in a locked briefcase … but he was her ex-husband so … I futilely toyed with the idea of a seduction in the conservatory.

Time floated by in a golden haze. I scribbled away, rewriting Chapter Eight, but although I lured the professor into the rose garden, I suddenly realized Lady Sybil still had no chance to acquire the arsenic. (Professor Metz would hardly have taken his briefcase among the roses.)

“Damn,” I said, and tearing up what I had written, I left my room and wandered out into the garden for inspiration. I had no idea what the time was but I was dimly aware it was day and not night. Round and round the orangerie I went, and round and round the kitchen garden. I was just moodily eating a blackberry when I suddenly saw how Lady Sybil could have had access to a lethal poison without involving the professor (who would now, of course, make a brilliant red herring).

I ran hell-for-leather out of the kitchen garden and pounded across the croquet lawn to the terrace. A flash of blue beyond the garden door told me that Anna was in the drawing room.

I burst in. “There was arsenic in the rose spray!” I shouted. “And the rose spray had been left in the rose garden!”

Anna’s face told me exactly what I didn’t want to know. We were not alone.

With a gasp I whipped around to face my amazed guests. My face felt as if it were in flames.

“Good morning, Kester,” said Uncle John.

“Hullo, old chap,” said Cousin Harry.

“Christ, Kester,” said Thomas, completing this most unholy of trinities. “Have you gone completely crazy? We all know there’s no rose garden at Oxmoon!”

IV

I had been caught acting like a lunatic. That was bad enough but what was worse was that Uncle John, who knew all my un-Godwin-like traits so well that they must have been engraved on his heart, immediately realized I had been writing. When I tried to welcome him in a conventional fashion I could only stammer. I felt about fourteen and getting younger every second.

Anna said composed, “Uncle John and Harry have only just arrived, Kester. Perhaps I should show them to their rooms.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. I forgot my humiliation. I was now grappling with the enormity of Cousin Harry’s presence. “What the devil are you doing here?” I demanded fiercely.

“Maybe he can help me run Oxmoon,” said Thomas, “while you run around hallucinating about rose gardens.”

“That’ll do, Thomas,” said Uncle John abruptly, and turned to my wife. “Anna, before we go to our rooms would it be possible for us to have some coffee? We drove down without stopping, which is always such a mistake.”

“Yes, of course, Uncle John.”

“Wait a minute,” I said again. “
Wait a minute
.”

They all stared at me.

“I’m not sure I want you all loafing around swilling coffee in my drawing room,” I said. “Wouldn’t it be more tactful, Uncle John—more the done thing—if you consulted
me
before bringing your son to this house and ordering my wife around as if she were a parlormaid?”

Dead silence. Thomas’s jaw sagged. Cousin Harry’s eyes widened. Uncle John was too stunned to speak.

Anna said rapidly, “I think I will organize some coffee all the same … excuse me.” And she made her escape.

As the door closed behind her, Uncle John said with exquisite courtesy, “You’re quite right, Kester, and I do apologize. I’m very much aware, I assure you, that you’re master here now.”

“Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

“Why, you bloody-minded little—”

“Be quiet, Thomas,” said Uncle John steadily without raising his voice. “Let me apologize again, Kester, if I’ve given you offense, but in fact I do have a good reason for bringing Harry with me. You see, I accept your decision not to go up to Oxford; I think it’s a pity, but you’re your own master now and you must do as you think fit. But of course this decision of yours makes it imperative that you now receive instruction in estate management, and I thought it would be more … acceptable to you if you didn’t receive instruction from Thomas on your own. That’s why Harry’s here. He wants to learn about estate management too.”

“
He
what
?”

“Fact is, old chap,” said Cousin Harry, very debonair, “I’ve decided to come down from Oxford and follow in Grandfather’s footsteps as a farmer. Father’s going to lease me Penhale Manor, and as I know as much about estate management as you do we thought it might be amusing if awful old Thomas here tries to flog the facts of farming life into two pupils instead of one. I think between the two of us we might just be able to keep him in order.”

Thomas guffawed, delighted by the implication that he was an insufferable tyrant, but I barely heard him. My mind was reeling with horror. I had shunned Oxford specifically to avoid Cousin Harry, but now, by the most malign twist of fate, we were to be locked up together in the parish of Penhale. I knew at once that he would run the Penhale Manor estate brilliantly. Rage and despair met, merged and massacred my self-control.

“How dare you!” I shouted to Uncle John. “How dare you attempt to impose your will on me like this!”

“My dear Kester, I—”

“I think he wants to murder us all with the nearest rose spray,” said Thomas.

“Be quiet!” snapped Uncle John, making him jump. “If you think this is a joking matter—”

“It’s no joke and I’m not amused!” I shouted.

“And neither am I!” shouted Cousin Harry with that lightning descent into violence which marked those rare occasions when he lost his temper and emerged from behind his public-school mask. “Look here, Kester, I don’t see why you should behave like a maniac when my poor long-suffering father’s one aim in life is to treat you more decently than you deserve—”

“My God, that’s the understatement of the century,” said Thomas.

“
Enough!
” blazed Uncle John. The room instantly fell silent. He looked at each one of us in turn. Then he said, “I draw the line.”

Nobody spoke. What was there to say? When Uncle John drew the line that was that. All one could do afterwards was simmer in silence and let the unacceptable emotions fester at leisure.

Harry, Thomas and I simmered and our emotions festered but we kept our mouths shut and our faces expressionless. That, after all, was the done thing, and having been brought up by Uncle John, we all knew that the most important task in life was to play the game and stick to the rules.

“Harry—Thomas—leave us, please,” said Uncle John. “Obviously Kester and I must have a private talk together.”

“Oh no we don’t!” I said. “Never again!”

They stared at me. I saw them realize that they were impotent and that I was all-powerful. It was the most thrilling moment of my life, and suddenly I was abandoning the game, I was ignoring the done thing, I was flaunting my true feelings in defiance of the rules.

“I’ve had more than enough of all of you!” I shouted, wallowing in the luxury of naked rage. “I’m sick of you all thinking I’m some hopeless freak who has to be tolerated in the name of family loyalty! I’m sick of your sneers and your snide remarks and your patronizing condescension, I’m sick of you treating my house as if it were yours, I’m sick of your boring uncultivated conversations, I’m sick of pretending we all like each other—
I’m sick of all this bloody hypocrisy!
I put up with it while my mother was alive, but now she’s dead and if you think I’m just going to carry on where she left off you’d better think again! In future you’ll all wait till you’re invited before you turn up at Oxmoon—and in future you’ll all keep your hands off my estate! Now,” I said, having worked myself up to my peroration, “get out, stay out and bloody well leave me alone to do as I please!”

No one attempted a reply and indeed I gave none of them a chance to do so, for the next moment I had walked out and slammed the door with a violence that must have shaken Oxmoon to its foundations.

The new reign had begun.

V

I took the stairs two at a time and sped across the landing to the window that overlooked the drive. Thomas’s car was parked outside but all three men, when they emerged from the house, paused beside the Rolls and I realized they must be waiting for the chauffeur who was probably enjoying a cup of tea in the kitchens. Thomas was talking and Uncle John was letting him talk. Uncle John looked tired and drawn in contrast to Thomas who was obviously in fine fettle. Thomas thrived on rage and I could imagine the crude obscenities that would now be flowing happily—though for me, thank God, inaudibly—from his thick flabby lips.