Destiny (140 page)

"Perhaps I was right." Helene looked away. "I think that kind of certainty—that kind of determination—can carry you a very long way. There will always be some things, some things you can't control. ..."

DESTINY • 845

The sentence died away; she was thinking of Edouard, whom no willpower in the world could bring back. But Cat, fifteen years old, filled with the certainty of her youth, did not, perhaps, follow the line of her thoughts, or had perhaps simply ceased to listen.

She knelt upright, those two patches of color hectic in her cheeks, her mouth set in a line that reminded Helene of Edouard. "I don't believe in hmitations. I never shall. Daddy never did. I shall do this, Mother. I swear to you I shall. I swear it now. ..." She lifted her hand, and rested it for a moment on the lid of the box in front of her, and Helene, who understood that she needed this belief now, and perhaps needed the solemnity of an oath, said nothing, but just watched her quietly.

Cat stayed in the same position, kneeling upright, hand extended in a queer stiff gesture, her face lifted toward the windows and the gardens; then, abruptly, as if she had suddenly become self-conscious, she stood up.

"How quiet it is, this evening!"

She turned back, and as Helene also rose, Cat put her arms around her, and gave her one of her quick impulsive hugs. "I want to go outside. Just for a while. On my own. I want to think—you don't mind?"

"Of course I don't mind. You go. I'll call you when supper's ready. ..."

At the windows, Cat paused, and looked back. She frowned sUghtly. "When you were my age ... I never thought of that before. That you were my age, once. ..."

She hesitated, and Helene smiled. Cat turned, and ran out into the garden.

When she had gone, Helene sat for a while in the cool of the room. From other regions of the house came distant noises: the sound of Cassie, singing to herself, and clattering pans as she prepared supper. From upstairs, the noise of running feet as the seven-year-old Baron de Chavigny and his four-year-old brother were hustled to bed. From outside, the murmuring of wood pigeons, and the sound of birdsong. A still evening.

She had been touched by Cat's words, and by the passionate intensity with which they had been spoken. They brought the past rushing back to her: she thought of Edouard, as Christian had described him, up in arms against the world, if need be, on behalf of his dead father. She thought of herself, sitting on the steps in the trailer park, looking up at the night sky, and the southern stars, and believing that anything—anything—was possible.

846 • SALLY BEAUMAN

It was important to believe that, she thought suddenly, almost angrily. If you didn't believe it when you were fifteen years old—when would you beheve it?

She feared for Cat, though. It hurt her to think of that brightness of spirit becoming tarnished with time, and experience. She stood up. Time passing, and the sadness of its passing—at once, as often happened, she ached for Edouard. She stood still, and waited, as she had learned, for the first acuteness, the first edge of the pain to pass. She moved around the room, restlessly: there, on the walls, were Anne Kneale's two portraits, the one of Cat as a child, the one of herself, only a little older than Cat was now. She looked at it curiously, hardly able to believe that it was herself, and then turned away.

Edouard's chair. The table at which he sometimes wrote letters. Edouard's tapes and records. Edouard's books.

She touched each of these objects as she passed them—the chair, the surface of the table, the worn spines of the books. Some of these dated from his boyhood; she had had them brought down here when the house in Eaton Square was sold. She touched them, not looking at their titles, and then drew one out at random. She did as she always did with Edouard's books—held it loosely in her hand, to see if it would fall open at some particular place, which he had marked by constant reference.

This was a collection of poems, and it fell open at once, near the beginning of the book, where a piece of paper was folded between the pages. She took the paper, and smoothed it out; there, in a boyish version of Edouard's handwriting, a poem from the book had been carefully and neatly copied out. John Donne: The Anniversarie. Underneath it was a date: August 22nd 1941. She did not know the poem, and she read it carefully, line by line of affirmation, the unfamiliar words sounding in her ears with Edouard's voice. She listened to the music of its certainty, and of its promise, clear across three hundred years, clear across thirty.

This, no tomorrow hath, nor yesterday. She closed the book, and held the piece of paper tight in her hand. Why had Edouard copied it? She would never know; but she felt sure she had been meant to find it.

The pain ebbed; her heart was as still and as sure as if Edouard were there in the room with her. She felt a strong yet confused sense that it was this which was important, this love which animated her, which had not been altered or diminished in any way by his death. For Edouard, as much as for herself, she crossed to the stereo, and inserted the Beethoven tape. The music began, tumbling into the evening air; she moved to the window, and looked out at the garden, and the figure of Cat, in the distance. The music mingled with the shadows, and with the scent of the damp grass. Across the lawns, she saw Cat stand still, a pale shape against the darkness

DESTINY • 847

of the yew hedges behind her. She hfted her face, hstening to the music. Helene thought she smiled; then Cat hfted her bare arms; slowly she began to dance.

She turned, and turned again, moving slowly and gracefully in the gray and mauve of the evening air, rejoicing in the coolness of the grass against her feet, and the patterns of light upon her skin. Her mother had been watching her, and Cat thought she had smiled. But now she had left the open window, and Cat, unwatched, was alone in the garden, alone in the evening, alone with the music.

She stopped dancing, and stood quite still, letting her arms fall by her side. She lifted her face to the sky, in which the stars were still invisible. A pale fuzzy moon was just rising, its edges softened and blurred; it hung there in the sky, giving only a little veiled light.

In the distance, she heard an owl hoot. A long wavering cry. Cat kept very still, as she had once before in this garden, on a night very hke this. She looked toward the woods, straining her eyes, and then she ghmpsed it: a white shape; the measured beat of its wings. It dipped low across the lawn, making no sound, quartered the fields beyond, and then was gone.

She stayed there, hoping it might come back, but it did not. Color faded from the air; the music from the house grew plaintive, and then assertive once more. She was growing cold, but she felt reluctant to leave: the garden, and the moon, and the owl all felt powerful to her. She felt powerful herself, the way she had felt two years ago, up on the hillside, when the fear left her, and she realized she could ride Khan. She felt charged—by the accident of circumstance, the clash and resolution of the music, the stillness of the night.

She held the feeling to her, nursed it. She said her father's name to herself, once, twice, three times, hke a charm, for it was an evening when magic could be made, and when anything was possible.

She felt him there then, for an instant, as real as if he had reached out and touched her hand, and to her own surprise, she realized that she had tears on her cheeks, yet she did not feel sad.

The music was filled with gaiety now. She shpped off her shoes, and curled her toes in the cool grass. Then, lifting her arms high, she began to dance once more, turning and turning. She danced for her father, and for her mother; for the cool of the evening, for the beauty of the music, and for herself. And as she danced, she thought: / shall do such things, such things . . .

No one had ever felt so certain before—she was sure of it. The feehng was heady; it buoyed her up. She knew a sense of hghtness, of great con-

848 • SALLY BEAUMAN

tentment. The garden was still and dark; the sky was shining; and from the house, her mother was calling.

She stopped dancing, and stood still. Then, with a small shiver, which might have been excitement, and might have been fear—so much was beginning—she turned, and ran back from the garden, and into the house.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

The film that actually won the Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1962 was the Brazilian O Pagador de Promessas.

In 1965, the Academy Award for Best Picture went to The Sound of Music; the Best Actress award went to Julie Christie, for Darling; and the award for Best Director went to Robert Wise, for The Sound of Music.