Destiny (121 page)

That evening they left Los Angeles in Edouard's plane, so that they would be in New York in time for the sailing the next day. It was only when they were airborne that Edouard suddenly realized something which appalled him.

Helene still did not know of his own involvement with Partex and with Sphere; in the confusion, and the happiness, the rush of explanations, that one central fact had been omitted.

Edouard sat very still. He looked across at Helene, who was sitting opposite him. Cat was looking out the window excitedly, thrilled to be in a plane that had no other passengers; Helene was pointing out landmarks still visible below. The plane was chmbing, and, as they entered the cloud line. Cat cried out with pleasure.

Edouard hesitated. His first instinct was to tell Helene as soon as they were alone. Then he remembered all the things she had said about Thad Angelini, and the ways in which he had tried to control her life. He remembered how angry Angelini had made her, and he felt a certain fear.

If he told her now, it would look as if he had deliberately concealed the information until they left. It might seem, to Helene, that he had acted wrongly. To some extent, he knew, both Angelini and she owed their success to him. Sphere had given them opportunities they might have spent years fighting for in the Hollywood marketplace, opportunities that might otherwise have been denied them both. For all her willingness to leave Los Angeles, Helene was proud of her work, proud of her achieve-

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ments: how would she regard them if she knew the truth, and how would she then regard him?

He had done these things because he loved her—but Angelini might have claimed the same thing. Edouard looked at Helene's face, bent toward Cat, and then looked away.

He did not want to deceive her; he hated the thought that anything so important should be kept back, but to tell her now . . .

The plane leveled at cruising height; Edouard looked back at Helene once more. He looked at the curve of her cheek, at the brightness in her eyes, the beauty of her face, and he decided.

He would Telex Simon Scher from the ship; he would instruct him to wind down Sphere's operations, and then to sell it off, and to keep his own name out of all dealings, as before. He would not tell Helene, now or in the future; his connection with the company, that role he had played in her life, would be relegated to the past.

Helene looked up from Cat at that moment, and smiled at him happily.

Edouard smiled back, with sudden relief It was not such a terrible thing, after all, he told himself, and besides—it was the only secret he would keep.

Cat had a cabin with a bunk and a porthole; Cassie and Madeleine had cabins that were larger, but similar, on either side of her. Cat was in transports of delight. Even before they sailed, she had explored the whole ship. She had seen the swimming pool, and the movie theater, the library and the ballroom. She had peeped into the various restaurants, and examined the lifeboats.

She stood between Edouard and Helene when the great ship finally eased away from the quay; she leaned on the rail and waved to all the people who were so unlucky as to be staying on shore. She counted the tugboats; she gazed at the Statue of Liberty, and at the outline of ElUs Island in the distance, when Helene pointed it out.

"Thank you," Cat said to Edouard. "Oh, thank you. It's much better than an airplane." She stopped, and then realizing she might have been untactful, added, "Even your airplane, which was very nice."

She found fault with only one thing. When she came up to the higher deck, where Edouard and Helene had separate but adjoining staterooms, she looked around Helene's in consternation. It was large, and filled with flowers. It was very pretty . . . but it had a bed.

"Oh, Mother, what a shame. You don't have a bunk. . . ." She looked up at Edouard. "Do you have a bunk, Edouard?"

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Edouard smiled; he and her mother exchanged a mystifying glance.

"Well, no. I have a bed, too, I'm afraid. You can come and bounce on it if you like. They're both very comfortable."

Cat stood and stared at the ground. Her face became very red. After a pause, she said, in the small voice of one prepared to make the supreme sacrifice, "I bet Mother would rather have a bunk. I'll change places with her. If she wants to."

Edouard coughed. He turned away and coughed some more. Helene crouched down to Cat, and, to her daughter's great relief, said, "Darling, it's very kind of you. But really, I'm quite happy here. ..."

"All right then," Cat said nonchalantly. "Maybe I'll go and play with those ring things. . . . Madeleine's going to show me. I'm going to beat her, and Cassie. ..."

She made a speedy retreat, in case her mother should change her mind.

"My mother has a bed, not a bunk," she said to Cassie and Madeleine when they began their game of quoits. "So does Edouard. I said Mother could have my bunk if she'd rather, but she said no."

It was very odd, because this seemed to make Cassie cough. She went quite red in the face, as if she were laughing. Only Madeleine took the news in her stride.

''Attention, ma petite. Concentrate now. It is very difficult this game, we have to master it before we reach France, and we only have five days. ..."

"Perhaps Edouard will play."

"Maybe. Maybe. But you mustn't bother them, Cat, they may be a httle busy. . . ."

Cat gave a resigned sigh. She didn't mind. There were so many things to do, so many places to explore. How stupid grown-ups were, she thought, to be busy in such a wonderful playground as this.

On their first night at sea, long after dinner, Edouard and Helene walked on the deck, and then stood, at the stern of the ship, looking down at the water. They were quite alone. Behind them, the ship was ht up. In the saloons, people were drinking and talking and playing bridge; in the ship's ballroom, they were dancing, and they could just hear the music above the thrum of the huge engines.

It was cold on deck, and the Atlantic was dark and unmoving, almost without waves except those caused by the wake of the ship. Helene shivered a little, and Edouard drew her closer to him. They stood for some

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time, silently and contentedly. "We are between two continents," Helene said at last.

Edouard pressed her hand. And two hves, he thought, knowing it was what she had meant. He turned to look at her, her profile pale and clear-cut in the dark air, the wind lifting the fair hair from her forehead.

"Will you miss it?" he said finally. "All these things and places that I'm asking you to leave behind?"

"No." Helene looked up at him quickly. "I had left them behind already, before you asked me to come away with you. There is nothing I shall miss. I feel as if I'm coming home." She hesitated. "Everything, and everyone, that most matters to me, is with me on this ship now. None of the other things matter. I've done them, and now I'm glad just to leave them behind."

Edouard pressed her closer to him, and they stood there a while longer. Then, with one accord, and without a word's being spoken between them, they turned and walked slowly back to their cabins.

They went into Helene's, and she did not turn on the Ught. As Edouard shut the door and moved forward, she lifted her arms to him. The coat she had draped around her shoulders fell to the floor, and Edouard felt the glance of her bare arms against his throat. They had both been a little afraid of this moment, Helene thought. But now that it was here, she felt only peace, and a sweet relaxing. The past five years were gone, as soon as she touched him.

Afterward, they lay for a long time in each other's arms; Helene felt as if they floated, just above the water, just above the distant hum of the engines, calmly and serenely upon an ocean of contentment. They talked, slept, touched, talked, slept once more.

Since they rarely left this cabin, the voyage felt like five days of dreaming, and five days which obliterated five years.

"I never left you," she said one night.

"You couldn't leave. I couldn't let you," he answered.

On the fifth day, they reached France. When they docked. Christian was there to meet them. "You may not yet know this," he said to Helene, "but I played a most significant role in this drama. I have no intention of ever letting either of you forget it. Now, hurry up, the car's waiting—you shall come straight to my apartment and drink champagne. Oh—and this is the little Cat." He turned to Cat, who was staring at him wide-eyed, taking in the

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battered panama, the wine-red floppy bow tie, and the ancient pair of white flannel trousers.

Christian held out his hand, and shook Cat's. "We can't call you Cat, you know," he said. "You haven't grown enough yet. I shall introduce you to my Siamese, and I shall address you as Kitten. Now, come along ..."

He ushered them toward the customs sheds; beyond, in the parking area, a black Rolls-Royce was waiting.

At the last moment, with one accord, both Helene and Edouard looked back. They looked up at the ship, and at the passengers, so small from here, still lining the decks; they looked at each other, and smiled, and followed Christian.

On board, on one of the upper decks, one man watched their progress with particular interest. From here he had a clear view. He watched them enter customs—the man, the film star, the child, two other women, and the man wearing a ridiculous hat. Philippe de Belfort leaned on the rail, his pale heavy face expressionless. He watched them enter the sheds, and emerge on the other side. He watched them separate into two cars, and a third pull alongside for the luggage: little changed, he thought, Edouard de Chavigny still traveled, as he lived, with style.

It had occurred to him that Edouard might have seen his name on the passenger list, might even have sought him out to demand to know why he was returning to France. De Belfort felt a passing regret that he had not done so: he might have enjoyed the confrontation, he felt. But presumably he had not seen the name; perhaps, de Belfort thought, with a small smile, perhaps he was too occupied to scan passenger lists, or even to pay attention to those who sat, not many tables distant, in the first-class dining room.

He watched the procession of cars disappear into the distance, and then walked slowly to the gangplank. It was pleasant to be returning to France after such a long absence. The dust had settled now, and there were people who would welcome him back, though, obviously, he would have to be careful.

He passed through customs and immigration swiftly, and saw, with a certain satisfaction, that the Mercedes he had expected was waiting for him. He climbed into it, and waited patiently for his luggage to be loaded. Then he leaned back, and gave the driver directions. He smoothed down the folds of his vicuna overcoat, noted the fittings of the Mercedes with approval.

The intervening years had been kind to him, and he had prospered.

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They spent a week at St. Cloud, several weeks by the sea in Normandy, and the rest of the summer at the chateau in the Loire. Edouard would fly to Paris, and then fly back, hating to leave, impatient to return. In the Loire, he taught Cat to ride, and with her and Helene, he rode the same routes he had once ridden with Gregoire. The months passed: Christian came to stay, and so—for a while—did Anne Kneale: it was a time of great happiness.

Newspapers and magazines, of course, speculated at some length on this new liaison. And, elsewhere, other hves continued. Lewis Sinclair sold Ingrid Nilsson's house in the hills to a rock star, and moved into a house in San Francisco close to the junction of Haight Street and Ashbury. He shared it with Betsy, whom he had met for the first time at the Ellis party, and in whom he had quickly found a substitute for Stephani SandrelU.

There were riots, that summer, in the Watts district of Los Angeles, and Thad Angelini watched them on his silent television, occasionally averting his eyes to look at the quiz show, or soap opera, or old movie, which played on the other.

He was making a new film, for A.L and Joe Stein: it was still in its early stages, and he never spoke of the Ellis sequels to anyone.

In the small town of Orangeburg, Alabama, the Calvert house was demolished, and the earth movers of Merv Peters's new construction company dug up the fields of the Calvert plantation.

In Bella Vista Drive, an overweight housewife, who had reverted to her maiden name of Priscilla-Anne Peters, decided that, when her father's new estate was built, she might move back to Orangeburg. She spent her afternoons reading magazines, and planning her decor, drinking vodka, while the kids screamed in the yard. Occasionally she came across articles on Helene Harte, who seemed to have landed on her feet again, according to the gossip columns, anyway. These items of information about her childhood friend always made her especially ill-tempered: life, she told herself, was unfair—to be her age, and still to get small-town blues. . . .

But these things, all these things, happened somewhere else. Helene and Edouard knew of some of them, but they seemed distant, and part of another reality. Sometimes, standing at the windows of the chateau, and looking out across its park, over a view that excluded the twentieth century, Helene would feel that she had never left this place, and that all the events of the past five years had happened to someone else. But at other times, she knew that was not the case. She looked at her room, she looked at the furniture of Adeline de Chavigny, and her portrait which still hung

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above the fireplace, and she no longer felt like an intruder. She felt that she had, now, a right to be here, and that this place now accepted her.

After the wine-harvest, and the annual supper that followed, they returned to Paris for the fall. Then, in December, they went back to the Loire to celebrate Edouard's fortieth birthday. They dined alone and drank a bottle of the claret Xavier de Chavigny had laid down in 1925, the year of Edouard's birth. A prewar wine: Edouard looked down the table at Helene, and smiled; he thought of all those prewar summers of his childhood, and of all the summers to come. When he looked to the future, he realized, he saw no very precise images, just himself, and Helene, as they were now, and—from outside—the cries and shouts of the children they would have, who would be in the gardens, playing.