Destiny

by Sally Beauman

  Ghislaine Belmont-Laon had asked to meet him—it was urgent, she had said—and it was Ghislaine who had suggested their meeting place, the jardin interieur at the Paris Ritz. She was not to know of its associations for Edouard, but, that evening, as he sat there at the small table, they crowded in on him, images so sharply vivid that, for some time, he hardly heard what Ghislaine said.

  He saw himself, approaching the table where Isobel sat in her violette de Parme dress; he saw her lift her face to his, and the shock of her emerald eyes, their expression first amused, and then anxious. Isobel had been dead five years; now, for an instant, and quite distinctly, he heard her voice.

  He bent his head slightly, and pressed his hand across his brow; he tried to force himself to concentrate on what Ghislaine was saying, aware, dimly, that he felt very tired—a draining exhaustion and despondency, which he could not shake off. It had been with him ever since he returned from New York, and it had the effect of dissociating him from his surroundings, so that all action seemed pointless; it was even pointless to speak.

  He made an effort. He looked up again and smiled at Ghislaine abstractedly. Her glass was already empty, and he ordered her another drink.

  Ghislaine appeared very strung up, and she was a capable, efficient woman who had never, so far as he could remember, invented unnecessary dramas. He could not imagine why she had been so determined to see him tonight. She was dressed with particular care; Edouard, who always noted what women wore, noted that; a black suit, Saint Laurent, he would have said severe, like all. Ghislaine’s clothes, emphasizing her uncompromising, slightly masculine chic. He complimented her on it, and on her appearance—for she looked very well—as the waiter brought her her drink. A dry martini, like Isobel. He felt, illogically, that he wished she had ordered something else.

  Edouard had to return to his office; he had to see de Belfort, and talk to Richard Smythe, and he was still worrying about the takeover bid. Though he tried, politely, to disguise the fact that he was watching the time, Ghislaine, who was quick, obviously sensed his impatience. She lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and then, as if deciding rapidly to come to the point, began to speak.

  “I know you’re busy, Edouard. I know I’m taking up your time, but I felt I had to speak to you. It’s rather difficult, but I’m terribly worried, and it concerns you. Well, indirectly it concerns you. I would have spoken to you sooner—but a confidence is involved. Loyalty is involved. I wasn’t certain it was the right thing to do.” She paused. “It’s a financial matter—well, partly a financial matter. You see, I was given a tip, a stockmarket tip, and—”

  “Ghislaine—I’m sorry. I never advise my friends on the market. I’m too closely involved. It’s a rule I never break…”

  Ghislaine looked at him. Edouard was just beginning to feel impatient, when she said, “Rolfson Hotels Group.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Rolfson Hotels Group.” She leaned across the table. “Edouard, please be patient. I’m so terribly worried. You see—well, this is a little personal—but Jean-Jacques and I keep our financial affairs quite separate, and I don’t have a great deal of money of my own to invest. When I was given this tip—it seemed such an opportunity. So—I bought some stock. And it rose—dramatically. It was so exciting, and then—the last couple of days. Well, you’ll know, probably, it’s started to fall. And I’m so frightened. I don’t know what to do, whether to hang on or to sell at a loss, or what and—”

  “Ghislaine. I’m very sorry.” Edouard’s face had become set and cold. “I cannot advise you on this. You should talk to your broker…”

  “I’ve done that. He’s useless. He advised me against buying in the first place. And I would have listened to him, I always do. I’m extremely cautious, Edouard, normally. But you see—it’s more complicated than that. As soon as I’d bought the stock, I realized I shouldn’t have. I knew there was something wrong—I should have come to you right away, as soon as she told me…”

  She paused. Her eyes were glittering, and Edouard could see that she was, quite genuinely, upset. As well she might be, he thought grimly; the Rolfson Hotels Group stock, he estimated, had a long way to fall yet.

  “Ghislaine,” he said more gently, “what are you talking about? Who gave you this tip?”

  “That’s the awful part. The really dreadful part. She told me in confidence, Edouard, and I respected that. And then, I began to see that there was something wrong, that she might have misplaced her trust. You see, unless she’s sold out, she’ll lose too—and much more than I will. She’d invested a great deal—not enough to do her any serious damage, but still a lot. And I’m so fond of her, so devoted to Louise. I don’t want to see her hurt.”

  There was a long silence. Edouard’s face became hard; she had never seen him look more angry, Ghislaine thought, and through her perfectly genuine anxiety about her own investment, she felt a little thrill of excitement, a touch of triumph.

  “My mother advised you to buy this stock?” For a moment, he looked totally bewildered. “When was this?”

  “Not long ago. Just over a week maybe. But Louise had been buying since February, she told me. She had cleared one hundred thousand in sterling…Edouard. I blame myself. I should have spoken to you immediately, but Louise made me promise not to. Then I began to see—even before the stock dropped—how vulnerable she was. She’s not young anymore, and she’s always been so impetuous, and when a man is involved…”

  He knew at once, as soon as she said that. Every strand of the pattern that had been perplexing him all week, assembled in its natural, obvious, and inevitable place.

  “Who was this?” he asked, though he already knew the answer, and Ghislaine, her mind singing with gladness and triumph, told him.

  When she had finished, he sat quietly for a moment. Then, to her delight, he reached across and rested his hand over hers.

  “Ghislaine. I’m most terribly sorry that this should have happened. It’s very serious—more serious than you realize, perhaps. I’m very grateful you did this. I understand your predicament, and I want you to know—I am in your debt.” He hesitated. “I shouldn’t say this, even now, but I will. You should call your broker immediately, and sell your stock. And then—please—” His tone became formal and awkward. “You will let me know the extent of any losses you have made, and I will repay them, of course.”

  He removed his hand, and stood up.

  “I’m sorry…if you’ll forgive me. I shall have to leave you.”

  Ghislaine did not leave with him. She stayed at the table, too intoxicated by the touch of his hand, the concern in his voice, to move. She felt as if she could stay there all night; she was so happy, so relieved. The money she would lose—she felt impetuously that she could lose all of it and she would not care. Edouard would make good her loss, but it was not that loss she cared about anymore. It was all the other losses, all the humiliations and dissatisfactions of her life, and the conviction she felt then, the absolute conviction, that—if she was very, very careful—Edouard would repay those too.

  There was no point in trying to deny it, and Edouard noted that de Belfort did not make the attempt. He sat in Edouard’s office, and listened, while Edouard spoke, point by damning point.

  Never once did he show any emotion—they might have been speaking about a hypothetical case, about events from the distant past. He simply sat there, his pale heavy features immobile. He remained gazing steadily, with his pale eyes, at a point somewhere to the left of Edouard’s head. When Edouard paused, the faintest of smiles crossed de Belfort’s face, and for a moment Edouard had the sensation that in some obscure and perverse way, de Belfort was almost glad to have been found out. Certainly the consequences of his actions seemed to cause no alarm, or fear; in his heavy opaque way, one thing alone seemed to make him react, and that was Edouard’s cold anger: that he seemed to be enjoying very much.

  “You could have bought stock yourself.” Edouard leaned forward, pale wit
h the rage he was trying to control. “You could have used an intermediary. A Swiss bank, even a broker, though I can see that would have been more risky. Why use my mother?”

  “Oh, I should have thought that would be obvious.” Again there was a faint chilly smile. “I don’t have that kind of capital, and your mother does…”

  And—because she is my mother, Edouard thought instinctively.

  “We came to an agreement, obviously.” De Belfort sounded almost bored. “A sixty-forty split on the profits. Sixty to me, forty to Louise. She wasn’t inclined to haggle.”

  Edouard could have hit him then. The desire to step forward, grab de Belfort by the collar, and slam him back against the wall, was almost insuperable. He might have done it, too, had he not suspected de Belfort would have enjoyed it very much. Edouard had been standing; now he returned to his desk. He looked down at the papers there, then up.

  “And you knew there was a strong possibility of a counterbid, I imagine, so the stock was likely to go even higher?”

  “Oh, yes. I knew that. I have a friend at Matheson De Vere. They were all set to go. When we delayed, I suppose they got cold feet. The word must have spread. That’s why the shares started falling.”

  “I see.” Edouard’s lips tightened. He stared at de Belfort. Even now, he found it incomprehensible, unbelievable, that any man in his position should have behaved as de Belfort had. The man’s calm was incredible to him; he seemed, if anything, smug.

  “You do understand what you’ve done?” he said at last. “You have compromised my company. You have compromised my mother, and me. You have also—irrevocably—compromised yourself. You realize that you are now unemployable—not just here, anywhere?”

  “I don’t quite see it like that.” De Belfort regarded him with a bland obstinacy. “Not everyone shares your absolute standards. Other people in this company don’t. I have my supporters, you know. Besides, I’m not the first person to do what I did. Insider trading isn’t even against the law in England…”

  “For God’s sake.” Edouard pushed his papers aside in exasperation. “The whole point is that there is no law against this kind of exploitation. The financial world operates on trust. I don’t have to explain that to you, surely? If you exploit that trust, you betray it. You undermine everything.”

  He stopped. De Belfort had begun to smile.

  “Ah, yes. A gentleman’s word is his bond—that kind of thing, you mean? Yes, well, they talk about that a lot in the City of London, just as they talk about trust. Personally, I never believe any of them. And I don’t believe in trust. I never build it into my contracts…”

  “I trusted you.” Edouard looked up at him directly. “I never liked you, as perhaps you knew. But I damn well bent over backward to help you, because I could see you were able, I could see you had promise. You’ve been promoted. You’ve been well paid. You were put in a position of considerable responsibility and influence—did it never occur to you that you owed something to this company, to the people you work with here, to me? It’s beyond my imagination that someone in your position could do this.”

  “It probably is.” Again that small smile flickered across de Belfort’s face. “An honorable imagination is a severe disability. Your particular Achilles heel, I would have said.”

  He made the remark flatly; it stung Edouard to the quick. He looked away. An imagination limited by its inability to understand the dishonorable—yes, he could see the truth in that particular gibe. His mother, he thought, would probably say precisely the same thing.

  He stared down at the columns of figures on the paper in front of him, figures which added up to fraud. And he thought, with a sense of despair, not of de Belfort, but of Hélène. He had placed his trust in her; he had placed his trust in his love for her; he saw that action, for a moment, from de Belfort’s cynical point of view. An illogical, an unlikely and an obstinate trust. He saw it, just then, in the light of common day—an illusory thing, in which he had unswervingly believed.

  He knew de Belfort was watching him, eager to see if his words had struck home. He did not intend to give him that satisfaction. He moved the papers across his desk, aligned them with its edge, and stood up.

  “I have canceled our bid for the Rolfson Hotels Group, obviously. After this, we cannot proceed. I imagine I don’t need to tell you that you’re dismissed.”

  “You can’t prosecute.” De Belfort lifted his heavy-lidded eyes to Edouard’s face.

  “No, I can’t prosecute. Unfortunately.”

  De Belfort sighed. “I wonder what your mother will have to say about this.”

  “What my mother says or does not say is no concern of yours. You will not see my mother again.”

  “It seems to me that’s her decision. Not yours.”

  For the very first time, there was a flicker of anger in de Belfort’s face. He shrugged. “You may enjoy ordering people around, but you can’t order Louise. And you can’t order me. I don’t work for you anymore, remember?”

  “Very well.” Edouard sat down once more. He looked at de Belfort coldly. “I’ll spell it out to you. You will never work in any position of seniority or trust in any reputable company—I shall personally ensure that. But if you attempt to see my mother after tonight—if you so much as communicate with her in any way—I shall go further than that.” He leaned forward. “I will take you apart—do you understand that? Your financial affairs, your investments, the income you have declared to the tax authorities, and the income you have no doubt concealed, the expenses you have claimed, the cash transactions, the offshore dealings. I will have you investigated step by step, piece by piece. I shall turn you inside out, until I find whatever it takes to finish you off. However long it takes, I will do it.” He paused. “I think you know me well enough to believe that. I hope for your sake that you do. Because I can assure you I will do it, and without hesitation. And you’ll go where you belong. For a very long time.”

  There was a silence. De Belfort let out a long slow sigh. “Oh, I’m sure you would. I don’t doubt it for a second. I’ve seen you do similar things before. No doubt you’d enjoy it, in my case, very much.”

  “You think so?” Edouard looked at him contemptuously. “Oddly enough, you’re wrong. I might have once. Not now. And you are not a special case—you glamorize yourself too much.”

  De Belfort’s mouth tightened; that angered him. He rose. “Very well. I shall leave the country in any case. As you say, I have no illusions about my chances here.”

  He turned away and moved to the door at a leisurely pace. At the door, he turned back, and looked around him with his pale heavy-lidded gaze. He looked at the furniture, the sculptures, the paintings. He looked at Edouard; no sign of hatred, no sign of resentment, no sign of any emotion at all.

  “All this.” He lifted one heavy hand and gestured at the room. “All these paintings. Houses. Offices. Companies. Subsidiaries. Shareholdings. All this work. And you have no children.” He paused. “None of it will outlast you—I suppose you realize that? Don’t you ever think, Edouard, what fun people will have when you’re dead—picking over the spoils? No, maybe you don’t.” He began to smile. “Maybe that’s beyond your imagination too. What a pity. I’d like to think you thought about that—just occasionally.” He opened the door. “Give my regards to your mother—will you do that?”

  “That godawful overpainted bitch is after you, Edouard,” Christian remarked in a conversational manner. He lit a cigarette, put his feet up, and leaned back in his chair. They sat on the terrace of Louise’s villa on the first day of what was supposed to be a holiday. Christian had been invited, by Edouard, at the very last moment. He was still undecided whether he was glad that he had come. There was a glass of excellent Montrachet at Christian’s elbow; the sun shone; he was prepared to enjoy himself. When Edouard made no response to his sortie, Christian sighed. He knew why he had been invited, knew why he was here. He was here because Edouard was in a state of black depression, and he w
as to play the court jester. Sometimes this role amused him, sometimes he was resentful of it. Today he was not sure quite which.

  He glanced across at his friend; Edouard gave no indication that he had even heard him. From one of the rooms beyond the terrace, Ghislaine’s voice floated out to them, sharp on the still air. She was directing the moving of various heavy pieces of furniture, now here, now there. Every so often her commanding tones were interrupted by a softer voice, that of Clara Delluc, who was supervising the hanging of sixty sets of curtains.

  “Even Ghislaine can’t spin it out much longer,” Christian went on, determined not to give up. “She could have left days ago. She’s deliberately delaying. A crisis is approaching, Edouard—be warned.”

  “Christian—leave it, will you? I’m not interested,” Edouard said. He, too, was leaning back in his chair; he was staring out at the sea.

  “Well, obviously you’re not interested,” Christian persisted waspishly, deliberately misunderstanding him. “That won’t stop her, however. She’s so vain she doesn’t notice, and you’re so blind to your own attractions that you can’t see. Honestly, Edouard, she’s in a kind of fury of sexual excitement. Anyone but you would see it right away. It’s quite terrifying. Do you think it can be her age that accounts for it? She positively trembles with it, Edouard, an awful black lust. I can see it burning in her eyes every time she looks at you. As if she wanted to devour you. Or possibly be saved by you. I’m not quite sure which.”

  “You exaggerate—as usual. And what you say is not very kind.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake. Why should I be kind? I can’t stand her, and I never could…”

  Christian stood up restlessly. “Look, why don’t we escape for a bit? What do you say? We could drive into St. Tropez—go to Senequier’s—have a marvelous boozy lunch.” He paused. “Forget women—all women—for once.”