The Eagles Gather

by Taylor Caldwell

  Peter was still silent. Jean peered at him curiously in the darkness, but could hardly make out the lines of his face.

  “Of course,” he continued, “these are not as spectacular as fighting ‘munitions lobbies,’ and other unimportant things. But they have fine results. Yes, Peter, we’d like you to belong to the family in other ways than just blood. Get married.”

  Peter spoke in a strained voice that he tried to make light: “Find me a wife.”

  Jean did not answer for a moment; he affected to be engrossed in making a dangerous turn. Then he said casually: “It’s best to keep the money in the family. We have a tendency to marry in the family, you know. Makes for dynasty, and all that, though you can’t always trust members of your own house. Frankly, we’ve thought of Armand’s girl, Annette, for you.”

  “Annette!” Peter smiled. “Why, she’s only a child!”

  Jean shrugged. “Not such a child but that Armand is trying to ram her down Henri’s throat. Henri’s an opportunist, anyway. I have an idea he’s regretting being so hasty in getting engaged to Celeste.”

  Peter said nothing, but Jean could feel his sudden alertness. He went on, laughing lightly: “Why don’t you do him a favor? Snatch up little Celeste yourself?”

  The events of the evening had shaken Peter sufficiently to dull his caution. He remembered only that Jean was his brother, and he still had a lurking sentimental conviction that brothers do, or should, make confidants of each other. So he said very quietly: “That’s just what I intend to do.”

  Jean had not expected such a prompt and open reply. The wheel jerked in his hands. He narrowly avoided an accident. It was not until the road was clear again that he said in a voice he tried to make only mildly interested:

  “But what about Henri? Does Christopher know?”

  Peter was already regretting his impulsiveness, so he said with some reserve and hauteur: “Nothing is settled yet. It is up to Celeste. She is to make up her mind by herself. For the rest, Henri is to know nothing, and nothing is going to be said. I hope to God you can keep your mouth shut? I haven’t forgot that Frank calls you ‘the blabber.’”

  “I?” Jean’s tone was offended. “Look here, my lad, I may talk a lot but I invariably say nothing. Besides, it’s of no personal interest to me. I only hope you’re not headed for a stink. Engagements aren’t so easily broken in our family. Christ! what the newspapers could do to all of you!” He began to laugh; he shouted with laughter. Peter did not hear his jubilation; he heard only the laughter, and his anger rose violently.

  Jean reassured him as soon as he could get his breath. He would not violate Peter’s confidence. But, if Peter needed any help at all, would he remember that Jean would be only too willing to give what assistance he could? In spite of his anger and apprehension, Peter was touched by this open generosity.

  The brothers parted with great amiability. It might have disturbed Peter excessively had he seen Jean stop in at the nearest open drugstore and rush precipitately for a telephone. And he would have been enormously surprised to hear Jean put in a long-distance call for Nicholas Bouchard.

  CHAPTER XLVI

  Edith, who had not slept well, got up and went to her bedroom window. She thrust out the window, leaned on the sill. The bare open spaces of grass glittered away from her to the edge of the distant blue sea, which hung, a shining blue curtain, between a pale hot sky and the warm morning earth. She could see the strip of white sand over which the lace-edged blue waves slipped monotonously. Gulls, with light on their wings, swept and dived and screamed in the gende wind. Far off, near the horizon, faint sails shimmered, and a long low cloud of smoke showed the passing of a liner out to sea. Everything was silent, except for the deep whisper of the ocean, and the thin screaming of the gulls. All the guests were still asleep. The sun was hot on the stone sill, hot on the rugged walls of Crissons.

  Edith shook out her long black hair. It fell on her shoulders and breast and over her arms. Her dark thin face was somber, and somewhat set. Then her eyes became alert. Someone was leaving the house and going towards the sea. It was Christopher, in a white shirt and flannel trousers. She watched him approach the narrow strip of sand. He stood there, watching the slipping of the waves, the circling of the gulls with their incandescent wings. He did not stand as other men stood, hands in pockets, smoking, idly enjoying the morning. He stood with folded arms, not moving, not smoking.

  She watched him for some moments, then caught up a robe, thrust her feet into slippers, shook back her long loose hair, and ran swiftly down the stairs. No one was stirring. Not even a servant was visible. She opened the door, and ran towards the sea. Christopher still stood there, watching the water. He did not hear her coming, but when she stood by his side he did not seem surprised. He smiled. “Hello,” he said. He was haggard. His dry skin looked parched. There were purplish streaks under his eyes, which were paler and less human than ever.

  She slipped her hand under his arm, and stood beside him. They stared at the ocean. The wind lifted Edith’s hair and blew it about her face, and over Christopher’s arm. They said nothing at all.

  But in spite of her pity, in spite of her deep pain, Edith was passionately contented. Her hand tightened on his arm. She leaned against him. Then, very quietly, she turned her head and kissed his cheek.

  He did not move. He did not respond, but neither did he pull away. “It’s not the end of the world, darling,” she said gendy.

  He replied indifferently: “Isn’t it?”

  “I love you, Christopher,” she exclaimed with sudden passion. She turned, so she could look directly at him. She took him by the arms. He saw her dark eyes, full of painful light, and the pale sternness of her face. “I love you,” she repeated, and shook him a little fiercely. “I don’t know why. You aren’t human. But there it is!”

  He did not answer her for a moment. His expression changed to one she had never seen before. She was amazed when he replied, quite softly: “Yes, I’m human, Edith. Why are you such a romantic fool?” And he took her hands and held them with such pressure that she was aware of hard pain. But she could only gaze at him with grave muteness, the passionate light of her love shining in her eyes.

  Then he suddenly threw her hands away. “But I haven’t time for that! Not yet. You don’t understand anything.”

  Again she caught him by the arms, forced him to look at her. “Perhaps I do, Christopher. Perhaps I do.” He stared at her. She smiled whitely. “But is it worth it? Revenge or anything?”

  His stare became more intense. Then all at once he colored violently. “You are a fool!” he cried angrily. “I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “Oh, yes, you do! I’ve been watching a long time. I’ve seen a great deal, Christopher Bouchard. More than you ever suspected. Everyone is afraid of you and hates you. Except me. I’m not afraid of you, and so I could see nearly everything that went on in your mind. You’re not so damned formidable, and obscure! What do you care about Bouchard and Sons? You don’t really want a lot of money; you aren’t the type, really. You’re too austere. It’s just your horrible ego, Christopher. You think everyone laughs at you because of your father’s will. Perhaps they did, at first. And perhaps it was because you were such a horrid person, anyway, and they liked to see you hurt. People are like that, you know. But they’d forget. If you’d just let them forget. But you keep it in their minds, that you are full of hatred, and want to get revenge, so they watch you to see if you will succeed. And the funny part of it is, you don’t care a damn whether you succeed or not. It’s just that you hate everybody.”

  He did not speak. She felt the coldness and rigidity of his flesh, the mortal fury of a man who has been found out and stripped naked.

  She laughed a little, with a catch in the laughter. She shook him lightly. “Darling, I’m not your enemy. I love you. Don’t look at me like that because I see you and not the frightful-looking thing you dangle before other people. And it’s because I really see you
that you love me, in spite of yourself. Christopher, I know I’m right! If it was just money you were after, you would have angled for me long ago. You would have married me for my awful lot of bonds.”

  And now, incredibly, and involuntarily, he smiled. The rigidity slowly left his arms. His light eyes suddenly shone with amusement, not his usual vitriolic sort, but an amusement which admitted disarming. “How do you know I’ve not been angling for you all the time?” he asked. And then he laughed. “How do you know I’m not after your damn bonds, anyway?”

  She put her arms about his neck, and pressed her cheek against his. She did not speak. Her wordless love, her deep sympathy and compassionate understanding flowed out to him. For a moment he resisted, putting his hand on her shoulder to push her away. And then his hand dropped. He stood, without moving, staring over her head at the bitterly bright water, the blazing sky. Self-pity was not one of his vices. At first he felt only shame and anger that Edith had seen into him so acutely; now he was still ashamed, and still resentful. But, in spite of himself, he was touched and strangely moved by her love and understanding, and strangely relieved. For several moments his despair and rage retreated to a distant pain, like an agony momentarily subdued by a narcotic. He felt the pressure of her breasts against him; he could smell the faint fresh odor of her loose, lifting hair. He closed his eyes. He astounded himself by a sudden shaking thought: If I didn’t have to go on!

  But that very thought brought him back to his terrible disappointment and despair. Now he pushed Edith away from him. His hands stayed on her shoulders. He looked into her eyes. “I can’t help it, Edith,” he said. “I’m wound up in my own inertia. I’ve got to go on. I can’t give up.” He paused. “Will you do something for me? Don’t tell Henri about Celeste, and that dim-wit, Peter. She’s a little imbecile. She doesn’t know what she wants. It’s partly my fault; I should have let her run loose, at least part of the time, the little bitch! Then she’d know what she wanted. A normal girl wouldn’t look at—him. So I’ve got to protect her, too. She’ll get over this. She’s promised me not to see him for a month, and to give Henri every chance. So, I’ve got to work fast. I want you to help me. Will you?”

  She did not answer immediately. Her mouth set with a sort of uneasy sternness. She looked into his eyes, and her own were troubled. Her inner core of integrity was disturbed. Then she frowned.

  “Yes, I’ll help you,” she said quietly.

  “Thank you,” he replied.

  He paused. He waited for her to smile again, to move towards him. But she did neither of these. At last, without another word, she turned and walked away. He was surprised. He watched her go. She walked without hurry, but without looking back. Her hair blew about her shoulders, floated against the dark red of her gown.

  CHAPTER XLVII

  “You,” said Henri, smiling coldly at Christopher, “look kicked in the stomach. What’s the matter? Duval-Bonnet sunk in the mud?”

  Christopher returned the smile. “No. But what about that loan? Did you get it?”

  Henri carefully lit a cigarette. He did not like tobacco particularly. He took a few puffs, removed the cigarette from his mouth, regarded it with disfavor, and tossed it away. Then he regarded the long dark-blue swell of the evening ocean thoughtfully. He and Christopher were standing alone at a rather isolated spot, hidden from Crissons and the private beach by a series of high rugged rocks. The sea came in silently, then reaching the rocky coast, it burst into spume and emitted a sound like the tearing of gigantic bales of silk. The evening wind was heavy with salt, and cool. Far out from the coast rotated the monotonous beam of a lighthouse, brightening as the day darkened.

  Henri finally answered: “Yes.”

  Christopher’s heart pounded. His head throbbed with excitement. He turned and faced Henri’s profile. “Splendid! And just in time, too! You must have performed a major operation on Regan.”

  Without facing his cousin, Henri replied quietly: “How did you know it was Regan? I don’t think I told you. However, it was. I didn’t need to perform any operation. I merely talked to him for some time.”

  Christopher’s acute perceptions were those of an adventurer who is an adventurer by desperate necessity. He did not like Henri’s cold expression; he did not like the look on the large pale face with its big brutal mouth. His own mouth tightened to a thin white line; his eyes narrowed. But he said calmly enough: “You must have talked very persuasively. Unless you put up your bonds as collateral.”

  Henri smiled again, bleakly, somewhat cruelly. “I didn’t.Perhaps I was just persuasive. But I have heard that Regan isn’t a man to listen to—persuasion. Haven’t you? Anyway, I’ve got the loan. Twenty million dollars.”

  Christopher was silent. But the perceptions of a desperate adventurer are alert and vibrating. A curious drumming sound invaded his brain, which, oddly, was also as icily clear as a diamond. (He wants something, he thought.) But he was not one, himself, to thrust his chest against a waiting sword. He was accustomed to wait. And so he waited for what Henri would say next.

  Henri knew that Christopher was waiting, and why. He smiled again, this time very unpleasantly. He said: “I wonder if it would be possible for all of us to have a little private talk? Hugo, Frank, Emile, you and I? Very soon?”

  Christopher’s voice was calm, almost indifferent: “Of course. At least, I think so. Hugo’s up in Maine, you know. Frank’s on his yacht. So’s Emile, on his. But I think I can get in touch with them, and have a meeting next week some time. Naturally, now that we have the loan there’ll be a good deal to discuss.”

  Henri did not answer for several long moments, during which the sea obtruded with a loud and ominous sound. Then he said slowly: “Yes, there’ll be a good deal to discuss.”

  All at once he was smiling and affable again. He turned to Christopher, put his hand on his shoulder. “Let’s go back to the house. I haven’t seen Celeste alone since I came yesterday. What’s the matter with the girl? What have you been doing to her? She looks as though she’d been kicked around lately.”

  Christopher laughed lightly. He and Henri started back along the strip of beach. “I tell you: the child doesn’t know what to make of everything. It’s my fault, of course. I’ve protected her, and kept her locked up all her life. She’s beginning to realize that marriage may mean something more than an extended wedding-cake existence, all silver candy and frosting. Don’t rush her. Leave her alone a little.”

  Henri said nothing. Then he began to whistle in a low dull key. He kicked small stones out of his path. When he spoke again it was of something else entirely, something quite inconsequential.

  It was curious that at dinner that night Henri could hardly look away from Adelaide. She sat at the table as though she were drugged, her sunken face gray, her eyes remote and fixed. She spoke through lips that hardly moved. When her eyes touched Henri they seemed to distend momentarily. Yet she smiled at him. She was the only woman he had ever respected. He had despised Alice, his mother. His pet aversions were female fools. Men, he would say, had other virtues to offset foolishness. Women had nothing. A female fool was merely a female animal which, while convenient at times, was also more than a trifle repulsive. But Adelaide was not a fool. Henri realized that. He realized it more, each time that Christopher spoke slightingly to, or of, his mother. He was also full of curiosity about her. Once he said to her: “You find the Bouchards a little too much at times, don’t you, Adelaide?” She had merely smiled at him, and had seemed faintly amused. But after that there was a slight if secret friendliness between them. She was the thing Henri most admired, a great lady. In this respect he was inordinately like his great-grandfather, Ernest Barbour.

  Her face and expression tonight vaguely disturbed him. He came to the conclusion that something was wrong, something connected with himself and Celeste. The girl was very pale, not with the luminous pallor of health, but with a certain deadness of color. She was not a voluble talker under any circumstances. Now she was he
avily silent. Even when Henri spoke to her she replied only with inclinations of her head, stirrings of her lips, or gestures. Consequently, as the meal went on, noisy with the laughter of women and the clink of glasses, he grew more somber, more sulky of mouth and eye.

  After dinner he took Celeste by the arm and said: “Look, dear, let’s get away from all this. We’ll walk along. the beach alone, shall we?” He was conscious, grimly, that her slender muscles tightened under his hand, that a strange rigidity jerked up her spine and set her shoulders. But she said sweetly and clearly: “Yes, let’s.” And they slipped out together into the darkness, which was all wind and the sound of water and the heaviness of salt.

  The moon was rising over the sea. The sand slid away under their feet. The wind was strong. Now a shattered golden path was on the waves. The sky was as black as ebony, and as opaque. The man and the girl walked in silence. In the warm strong light of the moon Celeste’s face had the pure and delicate and heroic outlines of a figurehead; the wind lifted and blew back her thick black hair, giving her a wild stern appearance, at once strong and fragile. Her thin white dress flowed backward from her breasts and hips. She walked as though she were alone, with a strange severe expression and carriage. Henri thought: I would rather have this funny child than all the rest of them together. He put his arm about her. She stumbled, as though suddenly agitated, then went on. Neither her expression changed, nor her manner.

  They came to the rocks where he and Christopher had talked a couple of hours ago. He helped Celeste climb up on them. She sat down; he sat beside her. The moonlight made her face luminous; the delicate sternness of it was more marked than ever. He felt her quietness and resolution, and an unfamiliar melancholy. He took her hand; for a moment he thought she was going to resist, then apparently she thought better of it, for she let her hand remain in his. He saw that she was faintly smiling.