Destiny

by Sally Beauman

  Slowly Hélène raised her head and looked at him. She knew he didn’t want to talk about the liquor. He lifted his hand and wiped it across his forehead, and she saw he was sweating hard.

  “I guess…I guess I got a bit carried away back there. Frightened you, maybe. I’m sorry if I did that, honey…” He moved then, as if encouraged by the fact that she said nothing. He sat down, near her but not too close, then after a while, he took her hand. “You angry with me, Hélène? I don’t ever want you to be angry—not with me.” He paused. “You see—I guess it’s hard for you to understand. But a girl like you—a woman like you. Well, a man finds himself alone with her, when he’s admired her a long time, thought how beautiful she was and—and then it’s not too easy for him to behave maybe the way he ought to behave. You understand that?”

  “I—I suppose so.”

  “Well, I’m telling you, honey, that’s the way it is.” A note of irritation came into his voice. “You just listen now, and you’ll understand. I’m a man, Hélène, just an ordinary man, and I have needs and wants, the same as all men do. Not all women feel the same way. Sometimes they don’t want a man to be touching them, kissing them, and when that happens it’s hard on the man, Hélène, real hard. He kind of shuts himself up inside; he gets to feeling dead—half-alive at best. Now, no disrespect to Mrs. Calvert, but she and I have been married a long time now, and for years, honey, years…well, it’s God’s truth, I’ve been a very unhappy man.”

  “You? Unhappy?” Hélène lifted her head.

  “That’s right.”

  “You mean you don’t love Mrs. Calvert anymore?”

  “Well, not exactly, honey. My wife is a fine woman, and I admire her, and I wouldn’t ever want to hurt her. But—put it like this—I don’t feel about her the way I do about you.”

  “About me?” Hélène’s eyes widened, and he moved quickly, crouching before her and clasping her hands in his, so she looked down into his face.

  “Well, you must know that…” He smiled at her. “You think I would bring you here, and kiss you—do all those things—if I didn’t admire you? If you hadn’t just driven me so wild that I hardly knew what I was doing anymore? Maybe…” He frowned. “Maybe, if I hadn’t heard about your seeing Billy Tanner, I might have managed to hold it in. But when I heard that, I swear to you, Hélène, I felt so angry, so jealous, I could hardly think anymore…”

  “You were jealous? Of Billy Tanner?” She stared at him in disbelief, and he shook his head.

  “I most certainly was. What man wouldn’t be, thinking of a girl with another boy—a girl he knows he wants to love.”

  Hélène stood up slowly.

  “That can’t be true. It can’t be.”

  Quickly, he was by her side, pressing her against him. Then he released her, and looked down into her eyes.

  “Would I lie to you? Honey, would I?” His hand snaked about her waist, and he gave her a little half-playful squeeze. “Hélène, I’m not a man lies about things like that. Don’t you think that now, or you’ll make me mad. Now, listen to me…I know I did wrong. I know I let things get out of hand. But I want you to say you’ll see me again. Just sometimes. Just so’s I can look at you, and we can walk and talk and go for a drive maybe, the way we did today. Nothing more. There’s no harm in that, is there?”

  “I—I suppose not. If we just did that.” Hélène hesitated. Whispery doubts crowded in at the back of her mind, but he was looking her straight in the eye now, and he was almost pleading.

  “Thursday,” he said. “I could pick you up right after school, on the Orangeburg road. We could go for a little drive, then I’d drop you off home. No one needs to know—just us. It could be our little secret.” He hesitated. “You wouldn’t want to tell anyone. Your mother—you wouldn’t want to tell her.” Hélène sighed and plucked at her skirt.

  “No. I don’t talk to her so much these days. Not the way I used to.”

  He sighed. What she said seemed to ease his mind. “Thursday then. Promise me. Make me happy.”

  “All right. Maybe.” She swallowed. “But you promise—what you said? Just a drive?”

  “I promise. I swear it to you, Hélène.” He pressed his mouth quickly and lightly against her hair.

  “You’re the most beautiful thing I ever saw—you know that? Now, come on—I’ll drive you home. I’ll drop you off just before the trailer park. That okay with you?”

  Edouard

  Oxford–Algeria–France, 1949–1958

  “TELL HIM I SHALL be there at once.”

  “At once, milady?”

  “Almost at once. I’m in London at the moment. In the bath, actually. But in a minute I shall just jump in the car, and then I’ll be in Oxford before you can blink.”

  “Yes, milady.”

  “He is there, I suppose?”

  “Yes, milady. He has finals next week.”

  This was said meaningfully; there was a sigh at the other end of the line.

  “How perfectly horrible. In that case I shall certainly hurry.”

  The receiver was replaced. Mr. Bullins, porter at Magdalen College for forty years, and senior porter for the last ten, put on his bowler hat and the bland expression he always assumed on such occasions and walked to staircase 111 in New Buildings, overlooking the Deer Park, where E.A.J. de Chavigny had some of the most desirable rooms in college. Below him was H.J.E. Dudley, Lord Sayle; above him were the rooms of his closest friend, the Honorable C.V.T. Glendinning. The gentlemen’s titles did not appear on the hand-painted signs at the foot of the staircase; in certain other Oxford colleges such practices were countenanced: not, Mr. Bullins thought proudly, in Magdalen, which, in his opinion, was not only the most beautiful college in Oxford, but also the only one of any consequence.

  He puffed his way up to the first floor, and finding the outer door open, knocked on the inner one.

  He entered to find Edouard de Chavigny stretched out in an armchair, wearing cricket flannels, with a copy of John Maynard Keynes’s Treatise on Money open on his lap. He did not appear to be reading it.

  Mr. Bullins regarded him with approval. It was well known in college that, barring some accident, Mr. de Chavigny would take a First in his politics, philosophy, and economics finals. This was good; what was even better—and the more remarkable, given that the gentleman was French—was that he would do so in the proper manner: with little apparent effort on his part, with a negligent modesty, as befitted an English gentleman.

  In Mr. Bullins’s opinion, the war had had a regrettable effect upon Oxford, and even upon Magdalen. A number of undergraduates were men in their mid-twenties who had served in the war and whose university education had therefore been deferred. These young men, taciturn, hard-working, serious, did not conduct themselves in what Mr. Bullins considered the correct manner. Edouard de Chavigny did: he was a fine athlete, with a blue for cricket, and had taken so well to rowing that even though a late starter, he had narrowly missed selection for the Oxford eight. He spoke successfully at Union debates; he had acted with the Oxford University Dramatic Society; he knew how to enjoy himself. He gave parties at which a great deal of champagne was consumed; he attended other parties; he entertained young women to luncheon parties in his rooms—women whose fashionable faces Mr. Bullins recognized from society magazines such as the Tatler, which formed his own favorite bedtime reading. He dressed superbly while looking as if clothes were unimportant to him. He was extremely good-looking, and extremely charming, generous to his scout, and to Mr. Bullins on numerous occasions. In short, Mr. Bullins admired him, and—this was rarer still—liked him. He would go far, this young man, Mr. Bullins considered, and he looked forward to reading of his progress once he left Oxford.

  He cleared his throat as the young man looked up.

  “Lady Isobel Herbert, Mr. de Chavigny,” he announced. “She has just telephoned. She says that she is in the bath now, sir, but that she will be with you shortly.”

  He conveyed the mess
age at ten-thirty in the morning. Lady Isobel’s idea of time was exceedingly flexible. She arrived at Magdalen in her Derby Bentley at three-fifteen. Edouard, who had had plenty of time to speculate, was still surprised by her arrival. He could think of no reason to account for it. Over the past few years, since she had broken off her engagement to Jean-Paul, he had seen her on various occasions—at balls in London, or at country-house weekends, once at Christian Glendinning’s parents’ house, but they had spoken only briefly. That was all. She had never visited him in Oxford before; he had not been alone with her for years—not since the war, not since London. He assumed the visit must be one of Isobel’s whims, and there had been many of those. A brief flirtation with the Communist Party, done mainly to shock, he supposed. A narrowly avoided divorce scandal involving a prominent Member of Parliament. At least two further broken engagements that he could remember: one to a Battle of Britain flying ace, the other to an Italian count internationally celebrated as a racing driver. Isobel seemed to like danger at second hand, he thought, and wondered again why she was coming.

  She walked into his rooms without knocking, wearing an emerald-green silk dress, no hat, and the Conway pearls. The sun caught her dazzling hair, and as Edouard sprang to his feet, she smiled at him.

  “Tell me, darling Edouard,” she said, “have you learned to make cocktails yet?”

  And then he knew why she had come.

  She drank two dry martinis, and said she wasn’t hungry and didn’t want to eat. Then she lit a cigarette and curled up on the window seat. Edouard waited.

  “Shall you get your first? I hear you’re going to.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Hugo said you would. I ran into him the other day.”

  “How is he?”

  “All right.” She paused. “No—probably not very all right. Unhappy, I think. A bit lost. Feeling he hasn’t done things he ought to have done—hasn’t fulfilled his promise. I don’t know. Jagged. The way lots of people are. I saw his cousin Christian in the quad as I came in. Wearing a pink silk shirt and a yellow tie. He hasn’t changed.” She smiled. “Is he still your best friend?”

  “My closest friend, yes.”

  “I’m glad. I like him.” She hesitated. “He’s madly queer, of course.”

  “Even so.”

  Isobel flicked ash out of the window carelessly and frowned.

  “How’s Jean-Paul? Still fighting?”

  “He’s still in the army. A desk job, mainly. He might be posted to Indochina, I suppose. It’s in the cards. He spends most of his leaves in Algeria—at our vineyards, you know. He likes it there.”

  “Who minds the shop when he’s away?”

  Edouard shrugged. “I shall. When I go down from Oxford.”

  “Do you want to do that?”

  “I do, yes. Jean hasn’t much time—and I think I might do it quite well.” He hesitated. “Everything’s stood still, you see, since my father died. There’s a lot of room for development. Expansion.”

  “I miss Jean sometimes.” She stood up restlessly. “He made me smile. He could be so predictable. I’m afraid I behaved rather badly.” She paused. “Of course, I miss the emerald too. You know, I was disproportionately fond of that emerald.” The green eyes met his, and the lips widened into a smile.

  Edouard hesitated. “It’s an unlucky stone. I didn’t want to say that when you chose it. But it is supposed to be unlucky.”

  “Is it?” She was looking at him very intently. “Well, that would explain an awful lot of things.” She turned and looked at the door across the room. “Is your bedroom in there?”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “Oh, good.”

  She crossed in front of him and went into the bedroom. There was a silence, then she called to him. He walked slowly over to the door and stood looking down at her. The emerald dress was in a heap on the floor, and Isobel’s slender pale boyish body was stretched out naked on his narrow college bed. Her hair flared across the pillow; there was a triangle of red-gold between her narrow thighs; the Conway pearls lay between her small white breasts.

  “Darling Edouard. You don’t mind, do you? You see, I wanted to do this ages ago…” She paused, and her wide greenish cat’s eyes shone up at him. “I’m going to be married, Edouard, did I tell you? The racing driver one, after all. Next week, I think, after some Grand Prix thing he’s racing in. If he isn’t killed first, of course. And so I knew I must do this now. I couldn’t bear to be married if I hadn’t…”

  Edouard crossed to the bed, sat down beside her, and took her slender hand in his.

  “You don’t have to worry about anything.” She smiled. “I have one of those beastly Dutch cap things. I put it on before I left London. They tell me you’d never know it was there…”

  He bent his head and gently kissed her lips, then he drew back and touched her cheek with his finger.

  “You’re crying.”

  “Only a little bit. I’ll stop in a moment. It’s probably all that waiting. Tell me, darling Edouard—you did know, didn’t you?”

  He looked at her steadily.

  “I suppose I did. Yes.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad. That makes it much simpler. Dear Edouard, would you mind if I just watched—while you undressed?” Edouard smiled. He took off his clothes, and Isobel curled up on the bed watching him, like a little cat. Then she drew him onto the covers and pushed him gently back. “Darling Edouard. Don’t kiss me. Not yet. You don’t need to do anything. I’m quite ready. I’m wet. I was quite wet when I was drinking the first martini. You have the most wonderful…the most beautiful…I’ve ever seen. And I just want to do—this…”

  With great grace she straddled his body and paused for a moment, upright above him, her body as pale and slender as a wand. Then she touched his full penis with one slender hand, and guided its head between her legs. He felt the moistness, felt the narrow aperture, then slowly, her eyes never leaving his, she lowered herself down as if she were impaling herself on his flesh.

  “Darling Edouard. I shall come almost at once if you move just the tiniest bit. Oh, yes…”

  He moved, and she did. Then she kissed him. They made love all afternoon, and sometimes she was creamy and calm and slow as a cat being stroked, and sometimes the cat arched her back, and revealed claws. Edouard came into her body with a feeling of shuddering release, and the afternoon seemed to pass in a dream he had had, or she had had long before.

  As dusk fell, he kissed her damp thighs, and then her mouth, and Isobel held his head and looked into his eyes. Her own glittered like emeralds, but without tears this time. “Darling Edouard,” she said. “I love you in a very special way and I knew you would understand. I did do the right thing, didn’t I?”

  “Most certainly.” He smiled.

  “Do you like me? I’ve always liked you.”

  “Yes, I do.” He kissed her gently. “I’ve always liked you very much.”

  “I thought so. I’m glad. I’d much rather be liked than loved. On the whole. And now I must go home.” She sprang up from the bed with that quick restless grace which had always delighted him, and pulled on her green dress.

  “I shall send you a piece of my wedding cake.” Her lips curved mischievously. “It will be encrusted with that terrible white icing pastry cooks are always so proud of, and far too sweet. But I love those little box things with the lacy paper that they pack it in. So I’ll send it. You can eat it before your finals, and wedding cake is terribly lucky—everyone says—so then you’ll be certain to get your First, and…”

  “Isobel…”

  “If I stay one more minute, I shall cry again,” she said. “And that would be in very poor taste. Good-bye, darling Edouard. And take care of yourself.”

  The following week he sent a telegram: Thank you for the cake, Edouard. Three months later, after his First was announced with the other Oxford and Cambridge examination results in The Times, he received a telegram at the house in St. Cloud. It read: I see you
ate it. Isobel. He did not hear from her again for another eight years.

  When Edouard left Oxford and returned to France to begin work on the administration of the de Chavigny companies and estates, he was appalled by what he found. During his years at Oxford, he had spent part of his vacations in France, but those relatively short periods had given him no idea of the chaos that had prevailed since his father’s death.

  With Jean-Paul’s casual agreement—“Of course, go ahead, little brother. You’ll find it’s a terrible bore”—he began a systematic investigation of the de Chavigny empire: the jewelry company, its workshops and showrooms in Europe and America; the estates and vineyards in the Loire and in Algeria; the stockholdings; the capital assets; the property the Baron had retained in France and abroad. Everywhere he found the same thing: elderly employees attempting to run things as they thought the old Baron would have wanted, out of touch with new ideas, fearful of making any decision on their own, and consequently stalling, allowing problems to build up. No new blood had come into the affairs of de Chavigny for years: everywhere Edouard found stagnation and apathy. It was as if a great machine had been left running so long that no one had noticed, or cared, that it was running down.

  After the execution of Xavier de Chavigny, the German High Command had taken over the house and gardens at St. Cloud, and had used the beautiful late-seventeenth-century mansion to quarter troops. This Edouard knew: what he could not understand was that in the years since the end of the war, Jean-Paul had made no attempt to restore the house. He had carved out a small apartment for himself in one of the wings, kept on the remnants of an elderly staff of servants, and left the rest of the place as it was.

  Knowing what he would find when he went there, and knowing that it would pain him, Edouard delayed the moment when he would make a formal inspection of the house. He went, finally, on a beautiful September day in 1949, some three months after he came down from Oxford.