The Wheel of Fortune by Susan Howatch

Author:Susan Howatch [Howatch, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-4532-6345-7
Published: 2012-09-09T22:30:00+00:00

III

It says a great deal about the way Uncle John handled his private life that I took for granted Bronwen’s absence from both my grandfather’s funeral and the family luncheon afterwards. Officially she was his children’s nanny; she took no part in his social life, and when Uncle John dined or lunched with us he came alone. It was only when he came to tea with the children that Bronwen would accompany him (I came to realize that tea was the only meal to which socially inadequate people could be invited). Uncle John seldom entertained his friends at Penhale Manor, but when he did my mother would be present to act as his hostess and Bronwen would keep out of sight upstairs. It was always stressed to me that far from minding being left out of his social life, she was only too relieved to be excused from it.

“God only knows what will happen if they ever marry and he has to present her to his friends,” my mother said once. “I don’t think she could cope at all, poor darling.”

In making this remark my mother was not being cattily snobbish but was merely facing the facts of class as she faced the facts of death—with shattering directness. Accordingly, as I took my cue from her, it never occurred to me to look down on Bronwen; I went on loving her just the same, but I knew she was different and must often suffer for being different so I felt increasingly sorry for her, particularly when she had to miss a grand occasion like my grandfather’s funeral. I wished she could have seen me taking my place in the carved chair.

By the time I inherited Oxmoon I had overheard much speculation on the subject of Uncle John’s relationship with Bronwen, and I was aware that although everyone professed to understand it, no one could agree what was causing it to persist. (People tended to speak of it as if it were an unusually bad case of measles.) In other words, no one really understood it at all. My mother glibly wrote it off as a Grand Passion, but this diagnosis much irritated my father who thought that believing in romance was as futile as believing in God but very much sillier.

“I’m not denying grand passions exist,” I could remember him saying, “but in my unromantic opinion they exist in order to fill a vacuum in an unsatisfactory life—they’re the product of disturbed minds which yearn for an escape from insoluble problems.”

“What rubbish!” said my mother. “That takes no account of factors like the irresistible chemistry of sexual attraction and the breathtaking thrill of a meeting of the minds!”

“That’s the sort of remark,” said my father, “which confirms my belief that women really are the stupider sex,” and the conversation had then deteriorated into one of their furious rows.

I was interested to note that this phrase of my mother’s, “sexual attraction” (not quoted in the dictionary, I discovered to my chagrin),

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.