Destiny

by Sally Beauman

  But Elizabeth Culverton—that was another matter. In this kind of rural area, where families lived for generations, where there were few newcomers and everyone knew everyone else’s antecedents and history, it was easy to trace someone. A garden, and a sister called Violet—that had been enough. No one had identified the photograph of Helen Hartland, as Christian still thought of her, but several elderly inhabitants of the villages of Hartland and Stoke-by-Hartland recalled the young Violet Culverton, who lived in the big house and who ran away to go on the stage. It had been a great scandal at the time: the fact that it took place before the war, some twenty-five years earlier, was irrelevant: here, that was yesterday.

  Christian flicked the guidebook closed, and gazed out the window. In his experience, there were two kinds of liars: those who invented completely, and those who invented in part, larding their lies with elements of the truth. Helen Hartland came into the second category, he supposed; the existence of Elizabeth Culverton and this house proved it. And that was fortunate from Edouard’s point of view—or was it?

  Christian glanced across at his friend, and then away. Edouard’s obsession disturbed him more and more: naturally he said nothing, but he often wished that the girl had been a more thorough liar. If she had disappeared totally, might that not have been better—for everyone concerned? He sighed, and glanced at a passing signpost, then down at his watch. They were going to be fifteen minutes early.

  Edouard pulled the handle of an old-fashioned brass bell, and the bell clanged inside the house. An ugly house: a huge red brick Victorian pile, approached by a long drive through tall and dripping rhododendrons. It looked, and sounded, empty.

  Edouard and Christian glanced at each other, stepped back, and looked up at the house. Rows of dark windows, no lights: broken guttering, and walls stained with damp. Even on a summer’s day it would not have been attractive; in the cold November light it looked dank and unwelcoming. Edouard pulled the bell again, and as it clanged mournfully, a dog began to bark somewhere in the gardens beyond. Edouard and Christian paused and then, with one accord, set off in the direction of the barking, down a narrow flagged path that ran around the side of the house, past some outbuildings and a decaying stable block, and out into the gardens at the rear. Christian saw a huge expanse of terraced lawns, covered with damp leaves; in the distance, beyond a dripping Wellingtonia and dark yew hedges that needed clipping, he glimpsed the sea.

  The dog barked again, and he and Edouard turned. To their right, the path continued. It led past an old summerhouse, its roof caved in and covered with creeper, to a square enclosure which was now bare and mournful, but which was clearly a rose garden.

  There, two fat black Labradors cavorted, chasing each other, and a tall woman, secateurs in hand, struggled with an immense rose bush. They saw her before she saw them: a gaunt woman, of about sixty, with short-cropped gray hair. She was wearing a thick corduroy jacket, men’s cavalry twill trousers, and mudcaked Wellington boots. Edouard walked forward; the dogs stopped their game, looked up, and growled in warning. The woman disengaged herself from a long thorny branch that tangled in her hair, and stood still, watching them as they approached. Briefly, the sun came out from behind a cloud; it glinted on the blades of her secateurs. Then, with an irritable gesture, she locked them shut, and stepped forward. A weatherbeaten face, sharp blue eyes, angular features: an English fox-hunting face, Christian thought. It wore an extremely unwelcoming expression.

  “Oh. You’ve shown.” She stepped forward. “I didn’t think you would. Well, since you’re here, you’d better come inside, I suppose. I hope this won’t take long. It’s damned inconvenient. I have seventy-five more of these to prune…”

  She drew level with them, gave them both a quick appraising glance, and then strode past them. The dogs started after her, then faltered.

  “Come on, Livingstone. Stanley, heel…Here.” She whistled, and the two dogs bounded after her. Edouard and Christian exchanged glances. As they turned to follow her, Christian took Edouard’s arm.

  “Edouard—you know your reputation for charm…”

  “I’ve heard it mentioned…”

  “Well, I rather think this might be the moment to employ it. Don’t you?”

  They followed Elizabeth Culverton into a cold and cavernous hall. There she yanked off her Wellingtons, tossed her jacket onto a hat-stand of antler horns, and stood looking at them, her feet encased in thick wool socks, standing on a tessellated floor of sludge-green and orange tiles.

  “You can leave your coats there.”

  From a welter of riding boots, brogues, and other mudcaked shoes, she selected a pair of men’s felt slippers which a dog had chewed, and strode past them, down the dark hall, and into a room beyond. Slowly Christian and Edouard removed their overcoats. Christian looked around him. There was an enormous branching staircase of yellow oak; the Morris-design wallpaper was of dark brown and vaguely predatory flowers; on it were hung, receding into the gloom, an array of bad family portraits. He saw a stuffed fox in a glass cage, more stag heads and antlers, a rack of fishing rods, and a display case of fishing flies. His eyes met Edouard’s.

  “It’s worse inside than out,” he said in a low voice. “Which is something of an achievement really…”

  “Christian, please…”

  “Oh, all right, all right. I’ll behave…”

  He trotted after Edouard down the hallway, and followed him into the room beyond. It smelled of wood smoke, and, as they came in, Elizabeth Culverton threw another log onto a dying fire and gave it a hefty kick. Christian looked around him curiously.

  The room, clearly once a gentlemen’s smoking room, looked as if it hadn’t been touched since 1914. It contained many vast and bulging armchairs, some upholstered in worn leather, some in faded chintz. There was a soaring nicotine-brown plaster ceiling, with Gothic spandrels. The walls were paneled in dark oak, and hung with photographs. Groups of oarsmen; school groups; cricket teams. Men in white flannels, arms crossed, with Kaiser Bill moustaches stared down at him in serried ranks. Over the door there was an oar, inscribed: TRINITY, HEAD OF THE RIVER 1906. Beneath it was another photograph, of six young men surveying them with all the arrogance of privileged youth. It bore the inscription: BEEFSTEAK CLUB, CAMBRIDGE 1910.

  Elizabeth Culverton moved to a heavy mahogany side table, picked up a square decanter, and to Christian’s relief, poured two inches of whisky into each of three exquisite chipped glasses. She set down the decanter with a bang.

  “Can’t be bothered to make tea. Kitchen’s too bloody cold. I’m bloody cold. You’d like a whisky—yes?” She indicated the two other glasses, picked up her own, and moved back in front of the fire. Behind her was a heavily carved Victorian overmantel some eight feet high, of surpassing ugliness. To her right was an Eton boater on a peg, and to her left, bizarrely, a fan-shaped arrangement of school-prefect canes. They were tied with faded pink bows.

  “You might as well sit down. Since you’re here,” she said gruffly.

  Christian, who was feeling weak, grabbed a whisky and sank down into collapsed springs and dog hair. Edouard remained standing. Elizabeth Culverton looked at Christian, and then at Edouard, whose back was to the window, and whose face was in shadow. She paused, and then addressed herself to him.

  “Well, I know who you are. Since you’ve gone to the trouble to find me, I assume it’s important…” Her chin lifted combatively. “Before we go any further, perhaps you’d like to explain. Exactly what is your interest in my niece?”

  There was a brief silence. Christian’s hand, in the act of conveying the whisky to his lips, froze. He felt a nervous and almost irrepressible desire to laugh. For once, he thought, Edouard might have met his match.

  Edouard took one step forward. His face came into the light, and he looked directly at Elizabeth Culverton.

  “But of course,” he said coolly. “I love her, and I wish to marry her. I hope that answers your question.”

  Elizabeth C
ulverton was visibly taken aback, not a state with which she was familiar, Christian would have bet on that. She hesitated, blinked, looked down at her glass, and then up again. Then she gave a sudden bark of laughter.

  “Well, you’re direct, I suppose. That’s something.” She paused. “If you’ll sit down, I’ll tell you just why that’s a bloody absurd idea…” She gestured at the glass of whisky on the side table, and a slightly malicious glint came into her sharp blue eyes. “And I should have that, if I were you. You might need it.”

  “Her name is Craig. Hélène Craig—the first name spelled and pronounced in the French manner, which gives you some idea of her mother’s taste. She was always a stupid affected woman. Hélène! And the girl is sixteen, seventeen next year.”

  She said it with virtually no preamble, sitting now, in one of the deep armchairs beside the fire, the glass of whisky in one hand and an unfiltered Senior Service cigarette in the other. She inhaled deeply, coughed, and when Edouard, now also seated, did not answer, she looked a little disappointed. A woman who did not like men, Christian thought; a woman who liked to draw blood.

  “What’s more…” She paused, looking at Edouard speculatively. “You obviously think I can help you—and I can’t. I hardly know the girl, and I’ve no idea at all where she is now. She may contact me again, but I doubt it.”

  Edouard looked down at his hands, his face set, and Christian, who knew what he must be thinking, felt a dart of pity. He was counting the lies, he thought: name, age, where she grew up; three, so far. Christian leaned forward.

  “But she was here—earlier this year? We understood that—”

  “Of course she was here.” Elizabeth Culverton looked irritable. “And damned thoughtless and inconvenient it was. She had sent a cable, but it was delayed. In the end it arrived about three hours before she did. Damned stupid thing to do. If she’d written, I would have told her not to come. As it was—she had to stay, naturally. What else could I do?”

  A note of anxiety had crept into her voice. Edouard looked up, and Elizabeth Culverton drained the whisky in her glass. She levered herself stiffly from her chair, and poured herself another. No soda, no water; her hand shook a little, and the glass clinked against the decanter. She returned to her chair, and Christian watched her with interest. That she felt some emotion was obvious: that she was trying to cover it up was also clear. He glanced across at Edouard, waiting for him to prompt her, but Edouard said nothing. One of his notorious silences. Now Christian saw how effective they could be. To his considerable surprise, Elizabeth Culverton looked at Edouard, looked back into the fire, drew on her cigarette, and then, unprompted, began to speak, her voice now jerky and resentful.

  “That probably sounds harsh. I should explain. I never got on with her mother. Violet and I were chalk and cheese. There was no love lost between us. She might have pretended otherwise when it suited her purposes, but I never liked her, even as a child, and when she left, I was heartily glad to see the back of her. She used to write occasionally, and I never answered her letters. I knew she had a child, of course—she angled for an invitation to come back here before it was born—she always did, whenever she was in trouble of any kind…” She paused, drew on her cigarette, and then threw the butt into the smoldering fire. “However. That was a long time ago. Sixteen years ago. I’d had virtually no contact with my sister since then. My half sister. I didn’t know she was dead—I didn’t even know she’d been ill. Until I received the telegram, and the girl turned up. Then—well, if I’m truthful, I have to say I was surprised. Violet seemed to have brought her up quite well. She was a pleasant enough girl. Well-mannered. Well-spoken. Quite charming, I thought, to begin with. She didn’t look well—she was tired out, very pale, obviously distressed at Violet’s death. She had nowhere else to go. So, naturally, I had to ask her to stay here.” She paused, and two spots of color heightened in her cheeks.

  “I intended it to be a temporary arrangement, you understand. And then—well, I quite liked the girl, and I began to consider letting her stay. I live alone, you see, and I have this damned arthritis. There’s no help in the house. No help in the garden. We had sixteen gardeners once, in my father’s day. Now I have to struggle along on my own…” She gave an angry shrug. “I never mentioned the idea to her. I had no chance. She stayed precisely three days, and then she walked out. I imagine she’d thought I had money, and when she discovered I hadn’t—that all went, a long time ago—she left. I washed my hands of her. Which is what I should have done in the first place.”

  “I see.” Edouard looked down at his hands, then stood up. He moved away to the window, so his back was toward them, and looked out over the gardens. The light was fading fast. “It’s a fine garden,” he said meditatively. “In the summer it must be very beautiful…”

  Christian looked up at him in surprise. Edouard sounded perfectly sincere, and Christian couldn’t understand why he was wasting time. There were a thousand questions bubbling in his own brain, and he couldn’t wait to start asking them. He opened his mouth, and Edouard gave him a quick glance. Christian shut it again, and Elizabeth Culverton, no doubt exactly as Edouard had intended, began speaking again. Her voice, at first defiant and defensive, softened as she spoke.

  “It was fine. Very fine. When I was a child. Before the war—when there was staff, when there was money.” She gave another bitter bark of laughter. “It would break my father’s heart to see it now. He created it, you see. Oh, his father began it, but it was my father’s garden. He was a great plantsman in his day. A visionary. Everything I know I learned from him—we were very close. After my mother died, exceptionally so. I was like a son to him…”

  Were you now? Christian thought, glancing up at her. Edouard turned back, his face gentle and sympathetic, his eyes holding those of the woman by the fire.

  “I begin to understand,” he said. “I was very close to my own father.” Edouard sat down again and looked into the fire. He appeared to hesitate. “He must have remarried presumably?” His voice was quiet and thoughtful.

  “When I was seventeen, yes. A most unfortunate marriage, which he lived to regret. She was called Beryl. Beryl Jenkins. A dreadful, vulgar woman. I loathed her. She might have appealed to a certain type of man, I suppose. The type who likes barmaids. Chorus girls. She had some money—she was the widow of some brewer or something. I never inquired too closely. I imagine the money must have accounted for it. My father had debts. He can hardly have admired her. She was completely unpresentable. None of our friends would receive her. She cut my father off, manipulated him…”

  “And Violet was her daughter?”

  “Violet was born a year after they married, yes.” She snapped the reply, her blue eyes sharp with remembered anger. “Her mother left my father not long afterward. She died a year or two later. Violet remained here.” She gestured angrily around the shadowed room. “She grew up here. My father, poor man, doted on her…”

  “That must have been very difficult for you,” Edouard murmured, and her blue eyes flashed.

  “Not really. My father adored me. I knew that. We were as close as ever. But Violet was devious. She played up to him. She was very pretty in an insipid kind of way. She lisped as a child—she was always clinging to my father, climbing up on his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck—that kind of thing. I detest that kind of behavior myself. My father felt protective, I think. She was a very timid child—or she pretended to be. Wouldn’t say boo to a goose. No brain, of course. I had no patience with her.” She paused.

  “She always wanted to be an actress, even when she was little. She used to practice on my father, that’s all. She’d preen in front of the looking glass for hours; she used to do recitations for him in the drawing room after dinner—ghastly simpering stuff, Tennyson mostly. She had absolutely no talent whatsoever, but my father was a kind man. He’d encourage her, and then she’d twist him around her little finger. She’d persuade him to give her treats—things we could ill affo
rd by that time. I remember once, he took her to Paris with him. Paris! I told Hélène that. I wanted her to understand—why I disliked her mother so much. It was so unfair. I loved him. I cared for him. He meant nothing to Violet. Two months after he took her to Paris, she ran off. Joined some third-rate touring company somewhere; changed her name. There was a man involved, I imagine. Someone she’d met. Violet wouldn’t have had the guts to do it on her own.” She paused, and glanced away dismissively. “It killed my father. She never came back, and it broke his heart. The damn stupid doctor said it was pneumonia, but I knew it wasn’t. It was grief. I held Violet responsible for his death, and I still do. I wrote then, and told her. I never wanted to see her again.”

  Edouard was frowning, Christian saw. He shook his head, as if he were reminded of something, but could not quite recall it. In the silence that followed, Elizabeth Culverton lit another cigarette. She seemed to regret her outburst, because when she spoke again, her voice was more measured.

  “Nor did I see her,” she continued. “She wrote occasionally. She made a foolish marriage—predictably. Some American G.I. The daughter was born here, then they both followed him back to America. It didn’t last, I gather. I don’t remember the details, and I burnt the letters.” She paused. “I have the address where they were living—I did keep that. Somewhere in the South. I can give you that, if you like, but it won’t help you. The girl won’t have gone back there.”

  “You think not?”

  Elizabeth Culverton had risen stiffly. At Edouard’s quiet question, she glanced back over her shoulder.

  “I’m sure of it. She hated it. She said so. I believed that—I suppose.”

  “You didn’t believe other things she said?”

  “In retrospect, no.” She opened the flap of a bureau desk and rummaged inside among an untidy welter of papers. “Ah, here’s the address. And here’s the cable the girl sent. You can have that too. I don’t want it.” She paused, looking at Edouard, the two pieces of paper in her hand. Then she handed them to him.