Destiny

by Sally Beauman

  She refused absolutely to consider an abortion. The Baron was obliged to make himself clear: marriage was out of the question. There was the war; he hoped shortly to be returning to France. He regretted it, but for a man in his position, marriage could not be undertaken lightly; his wife would be the Baronne de Chavigny. Only a woman from a certain kind of background could undertake a position such as that…There he floundered.

  Violet folded her hands in a way he had come to hate.

  “You think I am not good enough for you.”

  “Please, my dear. It’s not a question of that.”

  “My father came from an old Devon family.” Her voice shook. “I was brought up to be a lady…”

  The Baron decided to lie. He said he knew that, of course he knew that; he had been aware of it the first time he met her. But unhappily his family fortunes had been adversely affected by the war. To save the family companies, the family estates, he himself had no choice: he must make a dynastic marriage; it must be an heiress or nothing.

  She listened to all this very quietly, and accepted it. The Baron never knew whether she believed him or not. But from that point she seemed to give up the fight. She became utterly passive, as if she no longer had any mind of her own. Physically she was not strong, and her pregnancy weakened her; for the first two months she was frequently sick and could keep down very little food. The Baron hoped she would lose the baby, have a miscarriage. He knew it was brutal, and was half-ashamed, but really it seemed the best solution for everyone involved.

  By the end of 1942, when she was four months pregnant and had not suffered a miscarriage, the Baron came to a decision. He could make arrangements for her and the child to be kept, of course, but he foresaw an eternal saga of pleading demands if he did that, and besides, the thing that seemed to appall her most was the stigma of bearing an illegitimate child. So the Baron decided to find her a husband. He found the perfect candidate in an American G.I., Corporal Gary Craig of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, at present serving with the U.S. Army, 4th Infantry Division, to whom he was introduced by his commanding officer, a friend and drinking companion of the Baron’s in London.

  Craig was a giant of a man, a heavy drinker, not overly bright, but not a man to pass up an opportunity to earn himself a few bucks. The Baron had to meet him only once, and that was on the occasion when the money changed hands. The preliminary work was all kindly undertaken by the Baron’s buddy, who also ensured that all the paperwork involved when a G.I. married a British national went through with the minimum of fuss. It cost the Baron five thousand dollars, and Gary Craig, who had never seen so much money in his life, thought it was a gas.

  “She’s a real pretty girl, I’m told?” He grinned. “Sounds like y’all got yourself a deal, gentlemen.”

  Violet agreed to the proposition without argument or emotion. Her eyes looked to the Baron now like a sleepwalker’s; she neither abused him nor thanked him, she just said yes. To the Baron’s great relief Gary Craig avoided getting killed the next year at the D-Day landings. Both men, the one with the 4th Infantry, the other as an officer in General Jacques Leclerc’s French 2nd Armored Division, were among the victorious troops who liberated Paris on August 25, 1944. By this time the baby, a girl whom neither man had seen, had been born in a private London clinic, the costs being met by the Baron as previously agreed, and was fourteen months old.

  Sergeant Gary Craig was discharged from the U.S. Army late in 1944, after the death of his father, and returned to his parents’ small farm in Louisiana to await his bride and child.

  Violet and the little girl joined him in late 1945, sailing from Southampton on the Argentina along with many other G.I. brides. The Baron, who was not without feelings, arranged for a glorious bouquet of white roses and violets to be delivered to the ship, and then instructed his London solicitors to close their files on Mrs. Craig, formerly Fortescue. That done, Jean-Paul heaved a sigh of relief. It was an unsavory episode and a close shave; he was profoundly glad Edouard did not know of it, as he would almost certainly have been censorious.

  Jean-Paul felt relief. Louisiana was a long way away.

  Edouard, still in London, heard of the scenes of the liberation of Paris at second hand in his brother’s letters. But together with his mother and French friends, he watched the newsreels and saw General de Gaulle lead his victorious troops down the Champs-Élysées. He watched for Jean-Paul proudly, and when he saw him marching, not so very far behind the General himself, he cheered wildly and wept, just as everyone else was cheering and weeping.

  He was eighteen years old; France was free; and his brother, the Baron de Chavigny, had never looked more like a hero.

  Hélène

  Alabama, 1955–1958

  “YOU EVER DONE IT with a boy?”

  Priscilla-Anne had her hair in a new ponytail. It was scraped right back off her face and tied with a pink ribbon. It wasn’t too big a ponytail, because Priscilla-Anne was waiting for her hair to grow, but Hélène looked at it enviously. She’d like to wear her hair like that, and wear a skirt like Priscilla-Anne’s, which flared right out in a circle and had stiff crinkly petticoats underneath. Priscilla-Anne was chewing gum. When Hélène didn’t answer, she took the gum out, inspected the pink globule carefully, then stuck it back in her cheek. She lay back on the dried-out grass, and put her hands underneath her head, and sighed. Her breasts stuck up provocatively in their new Maidenform bra. Hélène looked away miserably. She wanted a bra; her mother was resisting the idea. Priscilla-Anne swore blind that hers was now 34C.

  “You gone deaf, or what?” Priscilla-Anne poked her with her toe. She raised herself back on one elbow and looked at Hélène thoughtfully. “I said—have you ever done it with a boy?”

  They were up on the bank behind the ballpark, waiting for the school bus to take them back to Orangeburg. Down below, the senior boys of Selma High were working out. Hélène could just make out the figure of Billy Tanner. He was taller and more muscular than anyone else. She broke off a short stem of grass and chewed on it, keeping her eyes on the ballpark, avoiding Priscilla-Anne’s curious stare. She hesitated. The question was a difficult one: she knew it, and Priscilla-Anne knew it.

  She didn’t want to admit the truth, not even to Priscilla-Anne, who was her best friend, and she didn’t want to lie either. Most of the girls lied—or exaggerated, anyway. At least, she suspected they did, but she couldn’t be sure. And if they weren’t lying when they boasted in the locker room, what did that make her? Hélène sighed. She was beginning to think there must be something wrong with her. Sometimes she was positive she was the only girl in Selma Junior High who’d never even been kissed. She turned around to Priscilla-Anne reluctantly. Her one hope was that Priscilla-Anne’s question was a fairly idle one, just a cue, maybe. Priscilla-Anne was looking dreamy again, the way she often did these past months. Hélène cleared her throat.

  “Not exactly,” she said carefully. “No.” She waited a beat. “Have you?”

  “Well now…” Priscilla-Anne’s eyes took on a cunning look, and her wide, pink-lipsticked lips spread apart in a conspiratorial smile. Hélène relaxed. It was all right. It was just a prompt. Priscilla-Anne wanted to talk.

  She lay there for a moment, just staring up at the sky. Then, quite suddenly, she stopped smiling and sat up abruptly. Her breasts jounced. Hélène looked jealously away.

  “I haven’t been all the way—okay?”

  “Sure. Sure. Of course.”

  “I mean, there’s petting and there’s petting—you know?”

  “Sure.”

  “But…” She hesitated, and her voice fell. “You remember Eddie Haines—lives out Maybury way? His daddy owns that big gas station on the highway there. Tall. Big.” She giggled. “Some jock. You remember him at the Maybury game last fall?”

  “You know I remember.” Hélène smiled. “I also remember how you looked when he first asked you out on a date. Sort of weak at the knees, and misty-eyed, and—”

&n
bsp; Priscilla-Anne gave her a push.

  “Will you shut up? This is serious, Hélène. Truly.” She stopped, then sighed. “I love him.”

  Hélène’s eyes widened. She stared at Priscilla-Anne with new respect.

  “You do? You’re sure? Oh, Priscilla-Anne…” They looked at each other for a moment, wide-eyed. “Is it nice? I mean—does it feel good?”

  “Good?” Priscilla-Anne laughed. “It feels great.”

  “And does he love you?”

  Hélène leaned forward impulsively, reaching for Priscilla-Anne’s hand. Priscilla-Anne’s eyes dropped.

  “Well, I guess so. I think so. I mean, obviously he hasn’t said so yet—we’ve only had four dates. What boy is going to say that after four dates? But…when he looks at me, you know—he looks like he does, and—” She broke off suddenly, and her grip on Hélène’s hand tightened.

  “If I tell you the God’s honest truth, Hélène, do you swear, just swear, you won’t breathe a word to one living soul?”

  “Oh, I swear. Priscilla-Anne, I swear.”

  “You do?” Priscilla-Anne looked at her doubtfully for a moment, then she sighed. “Well, I shouldn’t probably be telling you this—and I wouldn’t, maybe, if I wasn’t so worried. Well, not worried, exactly, but I’ve been thinking about it and thinking about it, till I thought I was just going to go crazy, and…Hélène, you know what I think the problem is? I think folks lie, that’s what I think. I think they just don’t come out with the simple plain truth.”

  “The truth?” Hélène stared at her. “How do you mean?”

  “Well…” Priscilla-Anne sat up and settled herself comfortably on her haunches. She leaned forward earnestly. “The thing is, they don’t warn you—not the way they ought to. They all say a girl ought to do this, and she’d better not do that, and they just go and leave out the most important part—that you’re enjoying it yourself! I mean, it feels real nice, and I don’t know, but I don’t think your mind is working too clear. So just when you know, back of your mind, that you ought to be giving him the red light, what happens? You go give him the green one before you’ve even noticed…”

  She paused dramatically to let this piece of information sink in, and Hélène listened respectfully. She just knew that everything Priscilla-Anne said would be useful to her one day—she hoped one day very soon. Meantime, she didn’t want to interrupt the flow. Priscilla-Anne was a year older; she’d be fourteen next month. And Priscilla-Anne had breasts: real breasts, like a woman. Maybe when Hélène grew some—if she ever did—she’d have to face the same problem. Green light or red: she couldn’t wait.

  “You want me to tell you what he did?” Hélène nodded energetically, and Priscilla-Anne drew closer. She held up one finger.

  “First date—okay? He kisses me. And just as I’m beginning to get used to it, and enjoying it and all, you know what he does? He goes and kind of pushes with his tongue, and he puts it inside. Right inside my mouth! You remember, like Susie told us that time? She called it French kissing? And when she told us, I just thought that was the most disgusting thing I ever heard, and everybody knows she’s not much better than a slut anyway…But you know, he did it, and Hélène, I swear to God, it felt great. Just great.”

  “Oh, Priscilla-Anne.” Hélène stared at her round-eyed. She gave a nervous little giggle. “On the first date? He did that on the first date?”

  “Wait, there’s more.” Priscilla-Anne raised a second finger.

  “On the second date—he puts his hand right there.” She indicated the extreme tip of her breast.

  “Right there?”

  “Right there. Well, then I pushed his hand off, and he waited awhile, then he moved it right back again. It was kind of funny, you know? And he laughed, and I laughed, and then…then, he started moving his finger back and forth, back and forth, real slow, right on the tip there, where a baby would suck…” Priscilla-Anne blushed. “And Hélène, it just felt so good I thought I was going crazy. I knew I ought to stop him, but he was moving about so fast, kind of squirming, and then, before I knew it—his hand was inside.”

  “Inside?” Hélène swallowed. “You mean under your sweater?”

  “Under my sweater to begin with.” Priscilla-Anne looked over her shoulder and lowered her voice. “And then, right under my bra. I was so surprised! I do not know how he did it. One minute it was all tight and done up, in fact I was getting so warmed up and so hot I felt I was goin’ to bust right out of the thing any minute, and then—it’s undone. And he’s touching me. Really touching me.”

  There was a silence, and the two girls stared at each other. Hélène’s mind was working frantically, trying to remember the things she’d heard the other girls say. It was all so complicated. Above the waist was all right, she was pretty sure about that, but not right away. Not on the second date. On the fifth, or the sixth, maybe, or even later, but that quick! Priscilla was watching her reaction anxiously. Now she leaned forward.

  “You think that was wrong? On the second date? You think he’ll think I’m easy? You think he’ll tell the other guys?”

  “No, no, of course not.” Hélène tried not to sound dubious. “I mean, if you love him. If he loves you…”

  “Well, I don’t know.” Priscilla-Anne shook her head. “It’s real hard. You see, the thing is, we’ve had four dates. Number five is tonight. He’s borrowing his daddy’s car, and he’s taking me to the new movie at the drive-in. And I just know that he’s going to want to sit in the backseat, and—”

  She broke off, and glanced back down the road beyond the ballpark. In the distance the orange shape of the school bus could just be made out, approaching slowly in a cloud of dust. Priscilla-Anne stood up. She brushed down her skirt and picked up her books. She eyed Hélène as she got slowly to her feet.

  “You want to stop off at my place on the way back? Come in the store? The new fountain’s arrived. I’ll get my daddy to fix us a soda if you like.”

  Hélène hesitated, and suddenly Priscilla-Anne laughed. She linked her arm through Hélène’s.

  “Oh, come on. Why not? You never will. What you worrying about—your mother? She can wait awhile, can’t she?”

  Hélène hesitated. Down below, she saw Billy Tanner look up. He stared in their direction for a second, lifted his hand in a quick salute, then let it fall. She shrugged.

  “Okay,” she said lightly. “Why not for once?”

  Priscilla-Anne grinned. “I’ll tell you what happened on dates three and four if you do.” She paused, and Hélène saw her eyes fall to Hélène’s neat white shirt, then back to her face.

  “In fact, if you like, I’ll do more than that. You know what you told me—about your mother, and how she wouldn’t buy you a bra yet and all? Well, come back with me, and you can have one of my old ones.” She nudged Hélène in the ribs.

  “I hardly wore it. It’s almost new. But then I’ve been growing real fast…”

  Hélène stopped in her tracks. Her face went scarlet.

  “Priscilla-Anne! Would you? You think I need it?”

  “Sure do…now, come on. That dumb nigger drives the bus is new. It’s late—and my throat is just parched…”

  By the time they ran down the slope and skirted the ballpark there was a whole crowd of kids scrambling to get on the bus. Priscilla-Anne and Hélène had to stand at the back of the line, and by the time they climbed aboard, there was only one seat left. Priscilla-Anne grinned; she snapped her gum, and her eyes roved the bus—checking out the talent, she called it.

  “You take it,” she said, pushing Hélène into the last seat. “It’s okay. I prefer to stand.”

  The bus started to move off, then it stopped. The driver was looking back over his shoulder. Hélène saw him haul on the brake. He was new; a man of about fifty, very thin. He was wearing a shiny gray suit frayed at the cuffs, and a white nylon shirt. The bones on his wrists stuck out. She saw him turn, and she saw him hesitate. Priscilla-Anne did, too, because she gave h
im a long cool stare, then turned her head and began to hum a tune.

  “Miss. Miss. You gonna sit down, or what?”

  He was trying to make a joke of it. There was a flash of white teeth. The conversation in the bus fell away. Suddenly, there was dead silence. Priscilla didn’t even turn her head. “Miss. Miss. You gotta sit down. It’s against the regulations to stand…”

  Very slowly, Priscilla-Anne turned her head. She had an audience now, and she knew it. She was enjoying herself, Hélène could see it. Very slowly she brushed an imaginary fleck of dust off her sleeve. She turned her head, just a fraction.

  “You talking to me, boy?”

  The heat in the bus was intense. The silence seemed to shimmer. In back, someone laughed. The driver raised his eyes. He just looked at Priscilla-Anne awhile, not moving, not speaking. Then, very slowly, he turned back and released the brake. The bus moved off. Conversation started up again, Priscilla-Anne began to hum once more and swing her hips to the tune, and Hélène felt sick.

  “Why’d you do that?” she said when they’d gotten off the bus in Orangeburg. “Priscilla-Anne—why’d you call him ‘boy’ like that? He didn’t mean any harm. He was only doing his job.”

  “Who cares?” Priscilla-Anne gave a toss of the head. “He’s just a dumb nigger drivin’ a bus. He’d be picking cotton if the machines didn’t do it better. No nigger talks to me like that. And don’t say a word to Daddy, for God’s sake, or he’ll go wild. For months now, it’s been ‘nigras, nigras, nigras’—ever since that Supreme Court decision, you know.”