Destiny (129 page)

"Such a httle darling. So handsome." Louise, having disposed of the riots to her own satisfaction, leaned across and cooed at Lucien. He regarded her levelly, with his wide blue eyes. Louise looked at him closely, and then looked up at Edouard. She smiled her sweetest and most maternal smile, and Edouard at once tensed.

"Of course, you know who it is that he resembles?" Louise's eyes were now fixed on Edouard's face. "/ noticed it at once."

"Both of us, I suppose ..." Edouard shrugged.

Louise's smile widened.

"Edouard, how absurd you are. Men are so blind. It's perfectly obvious. He's precisely Uke, exactly Uke, my darling Jean-Paul."

Quite how, or when, Helene first began to play a part in Edouard's business activities, neither of them could afterward say: the process was gradual, and to begin with almost imperceptible. "It crept up upon me," Edouard would later say with a smile.

Helene had, from the first, taken an interest in his work, and Edouard had, from the first, seen that she possessed a quick understanding and an instinct for financial affairs which he had always believed to be rare in women. Before and after their marriage, she continued to manage her private portfolio of investments, still through the offices of James Gould in New York, and also through brokers in Paris and in London. She did not bother Edouard with the details of these investments, but they were, on occasion, discussed; Edouard noted then her shrewdness, was impressed, but thought no more about it. Helene noticed this, and was amused by it, but said nothing: Edouard's attitude to women was chivalric, conditioned by his generation and his upbringing. Helene knew perfectly well that deep down Edouard held very simple beliefs: he beheved in marriage, he be-heved in the family; if he had been called upon to define his own role in that union, he would probably have said that he saw himself as a provider, and as a protector, though his natural reticence on such matters might have inclined him not to define at all.

Clara Delluc, with whom Helene gradually, in Paris, became friends,

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once said with a smile, "Edouard is full of paradoxes. He admires independence, in men and in women. When I was beginning my work, trying to build a career, Edouard helped me more than anyone."

She seemed about to go on, and then hesitated. Helene smiled. "But?" she prompted.

Clara laughed. "But I think he still believes it's a little unnatural. He can't quite believe that a woman—any woman—can be truly happy unless she is married and has children. Though, of course, he would say the same of a man." Clara paused; she had not married, and she had never had children.

"And who knows?" She gave a wry smile. "He may not be entirely wrong. Perhaps women need both. Though I would never admit that to Edouard ..."

Shortly after the birth of Lucien, Edouard began to explain his business concerns to Helene in more detail. Helene saw that, although the ramifications of the company were extensive and complex, its central organization was very simple. It remained a private company; within that company, Edouard held ninety percent of the voting stock, and his mother ten. Louise's holding, which had come to her through Xavier, and would pass to Edouard on her death, entitled her to a seat on the board. In thirty years, she had never attended a board meeting.

Edouard explained, hesitantly, as if expecting possible opposition from Helene, that this division of stock needed review: he wanted to transfer a fifteen-percent holding to Helene direct; he wanted her to join the board of the company.

Helene knew quite well why he had done this: with the birth of Lucien, he had had to alter his will, and Edouard, cautious and methodical in all such things, was ensuring that, should anything happen to him, Helene, who would hold Cat's and Lucien's interests in trust for them until they came of age, would feel familiar with the workings of the company.

She accepted, gladly: she attended her first de Chavigny board meeting in the spring of 1969: she was, as she had known she would be, the only woman present.

The other board members, all much older than she, were precisely as she expected. They were able, they were astute, and to her they were deferential. They welcomed her charmingly—and then they proceeded to ignore her completely. Very occasionally, when one of the men present feared the discussions might have become a little too technical for her, he would call a gentle halt to the proceedings in order that they might be explained to Helene in words of one syllable.

Helene accepted this gracious patronage quietly. For the first four or five board meetings she attended, she said very little. She bided her time,

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watching the men around the table, hstening to their arguments and their counterarguments, deciding in her own mind which of the men present had most to contribute, and which least. She watched them, and she weighed them, noting with interest their various alliances and rivalries, and—she was pleased to note—her relative silence was effective. After the first two or three meetings, they seemed almost to forget that she was there: their behavior was then the more revealing.

Edouard did not underestimate her, and occasionally she would catch a gleam of amusement in his eyes when one of his colleagues patiently and laboriously explained some terms or practices with which, Edouard knew perfectly well, Helene was already familiar. But he never said anything, either during the meetings, or afterward when they were alone. He was waiting, Helene knew, and it amused him to wait.

So, possibly, Helene's involvement began then, when she was appointed to the board. Helene knew Edouard would not have pressed her: had she been content to remain simply a silent ornament to the board table, Edouard might have been disappointed, but he would have accepted it as her choice. She herself felt, however, that her involvement dated from a point later in 1969, when she first discussed with him openly the other board members, and the agenda of the meeting she had just attended.

"Shall I list the factions for you?" she said with a smile, when they were at dinner together that night.

"Please do."

Edouard leaned back in his chair. Helene dealt swiftly, and accurately, with the factions. When she had finished, Edouard's smile had grown broader.

"So—you think all those weighty and carefully researched arguments Temple was putting forward against the further expansion of the hotel division—you think they were biased?"

"I'm certain they were." Edouard noted with amusement that Helene's pretense of detachment was slipping away: her color had risen, and she spoke rapidly, and with animation. "I'm quite sure. Temple can't bear Bloch—they're equally influential at the moment, but if Bloch's plans for the hotel division were implemented, it would divert assets Temple wants earmarked for the Sardinian villa development. It would give Bloch more influence and more power, and Temple doesn't want that to happen. Besides, I thought his arguments were wrong. The hotel division has been virtually static for the past three years, you've consolidated your existing holdings—it looks like the moment to expand."

"I see."

Edouard made a small pyramid with his fingers. This was precisely what

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he himself thought. He looked at Helene thoughtfully. "It's interesting," he said slowly. "I knew you were watching them. You see it like a play."

"In some ways, yes." Helene leaned forward. "On the one hand there're the arguments they put forward, but you can't judge those on purely commercial grounds. You have to understand the men who make them, and their interrelationships—because that affects their proposals. It's the politics of it, if you hke. That interests me."

"And what else did you think while you were watching them so carefully and unobtrusively—on general grounds?"

"Generally?" Helene paused. "Well, generally, I was impressed. They're able, and they speak their minds on most issues, with one possible exception, I thought."

"And that was?"

"The jewelry division. There's still some opposition to the Wyspianski collections, isn't there? I could sense it. But they're for the most part afraid to cross you on that, so they defer." She hesitated. "And they're all men, Edouard. It just struck me that might be one of the problems. They don't have your interest in Floryan's work, I don't think they understand it. And the jewelry division is the only one whose products are aimed primarily at a female market. I think those two facts might be connected." She paused. "I could see—they're quite at ease when they're dealing with hotels, or property, or wine—^but when it comes to the jewelry division, they all become a little impatient."

"Are they wrong?"

"You know they're wrong." She leaned forward. "Floryan is an artist. His work is the finest in the world. It's unique, and it's part of a long company tradition. The identity of de Chavigny is bound up with that tradition, you can't separate the two. All the prestige associated with the name, it flows from the one central activity. You can't classify what Floryan does for the company purely in terms of profit and loss. If they had their way, if the jewelry division were sold off—and I think that's what some of them would like to see—de Chavigny would be just another faceless multinational corporation. They should understand that."

Edouard frowned. He thought of Philippe de Belfort, and of the arguments he had once propounded. It angered him that they should still linger on, as if, though de Belfort had left de Chavigny, his influence remained, a ghostly legacy. Sometimes Edouard felt that influence had grown stronger this past year; many times, in the past few months, he had recognized de Belfort's arguments in other men's mouths, phrased in almost the same way. It disturbed him; and it consoled him, now, to hear Helene taking the opposite stance.

He looked up at her with a dry smile. "Anything else?"

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"One other thing. It concerns you."

"Oh, I see. I might have known I wasn't immune. Tell me."

"You should deputize more." Helene paused. "I understand why you haven't. Partly because of the hours you used to work, partly because, among the men I've met, there's really no obvious candidate. But you need someone, Edouard. Someone you can trust absolutely. Someone to cover for you. And perhaps—someone to watch your back."

"You think that?" Edouard looked up quickly.

Helene hesitated. "I do think that," she said finally, with some reluctance. "Any man in your position has to consider that, and you, perhaps, more than most."

"Why is that?" Edouard looked at her steadily.

Helene sighed. "Oh, Edouard. Because you excite envy, I think, that's why."

Edouard looked away when she said that. He seemed surprised, as if the idea, so obvious to her, had not occurred to him before, and made him uncomfortable.

Shortly afterward, they left the dinner table, and the conversation changed to more personal concerns. It was not referred to again for some weeks. Helene continued to attend board meetings, and began, gradually— to the severe shock of the men present—to voice her opinions, quietly and incisively. Now, when Edouard brought work home, he discussed it with her: they looked at his papers together, and slowly Helene began to piece together a much more detailed understanding of de Chavigny, its many interests, and how, within the executive divisions of the company, they were structured. She met an increasing number of the de Chavigny senior personnel—and to her amusement, as her influence on board meetings became gently and then more strongly apparent, the very men who had so courteously patronized her before, now began to seek her out. Deftly, and delicately, they sought to involve her in their power games and their maneuverings: initially, perhaps, because they thought she had Edouard's ear, but—more gradually—because they realized that if her viewpoints held sway, it was because they were rational.

"You think like a man, Madame," said Monsieur Bloch graciously one evening, at a party of his that she and Edouard attended.

He clearly saw this as a compliment: Helene let it pass.

She assumed that her suggestion to Edouard regarding his need for a lieutenant or deputy had been forgotten, for Edouard did not refer to it again; but in this supposition, she was wrong.

At the beginning of 1970, Helene looked up one morning from the pages of the Financial Times, which she read each day at breakfast, and passed it across to Edouard.

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She was flanked, on one side, by Cat, in her convent school uniform, who was as usual late, in a cross mood, and bolting her breakfast at high speed; and on the other hand by Lucien, trapped in a highchair he detested, who was attempting to eat a soft-boiled egg, unaided. Helene, who hked breakfasts en famille, was unflurried. She dealt with Lucien and the problems of his egg; she turned to Cat and persuaded her to finish eating, and also—which was more difficult—to tidy her unruly hair before she left for her classes.

The spectacle of Helene, with her hair loose, en deshabille, dressed in a simple blue cotton dressing gown the color of her eyes, made Edouard inclined to delay. When Cat kissed them both and rushed off to school, and Lucien was claimed for the nursery by his new English nanny, Edouard was considering whether, just this once, he might not delay his arrival at the office by at least one hour.

He stood up, without looking at the article Helene had indicated, and let the Financial Times fall. He walked around the table to Helene, and rested his hand gently on the nape of her neck, lifting her hair, and letting it brush through his fingers.

Helene bent her head back and looked up at him: he saw the answering response in her eyes, the stilling of her face. He bent, and kissed her on the lips; he slipped his hand down over her throat, and under the soft blue cotton; Helene sighed. She stood up and rested against him, in his arms.

"You'll be late. . . ."

"I know I'll be late. I don't give a damn."

She was about to protest further, though without great conviction. Edouard, who could feel the warmth, and the sudden lassitude in her body, stopped her from further words.