Destiny (32 page)

Edouard made inquiries; the servants were embarrassed. He persisted, and discovered that the little boy was called Gregoire. His mother was now the wife of one of the estate carpenters, and the boy was Jean-Paul's son, fathered after a drinking bout during his first visit to the Loire after the war. Jean-Paul confirmed the story negligently. Yes, it was true, he accepted paternity. He had seen the boy once or twice since, and he seemed a nice enough lad—a little backward perhaps, but his mother was ashamed of him, and refused to send him to school, perhaps fearing the other children would tease him. Jean-Paul shrugged. He would be all right. When he grew up, there would always be work for him on the estate.

This meeting took place in Paris, where Jean-Paul was visiting Louise briefly before returning to Algeria. Edouard sat and watched his brother as he spoke, his own face growing hard and still. Jean-Paul was sprawled in a chair, his complexion flushed; he was drinking brandy though it was the middle of the day. He seemed annoyed at Edouard's questions, but apart from that, sublimely unconcerned.

"You feel no responsibility for him, then?" Edouard leaned forward.

"Responsibility? Edouard—if a man had to be responsible for every Httle by-blow, where would it end? The boy is perfectly happy. I imagine he's in good health. I fail to see why I should concern myself with him any further."

"I see. And his mother—have you made any provision for her?"

"Good God no." Jean-Paul stood up angrily. "She's married now, isn't she? I give her husband employment. These people are peasants, Edouard, and proud of it—they accept these things. Their way isn't our way. And besides, give her money, and people would talk. Half the pregnant women

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on the estate would be swearing I fathered their children. Mind your own business for once, can't you, Edouard? Really—it's not your aflFair."

Edouard looked at him, red in the face with indignation, reaching for the brandy bottle, glancing toward his brother uneasily, as if he feared more self-justification would be needed. In that moment the last of Edouard's illusions about his brother fell away. He stopped making excuses for him; he let his loyalty and his trust shp aside, and he saw Jean-Paul clearly. Perhaps Jean-Paul read the disgust and the anger in his face; Edouard thought that he did, for he started, in a stubborn voice, on a whole new series of excuses. He was still in mid-speech when Edouard turned and walked out of the room.

Edouard went back to the Loire. He went back to the small house in which Gregoire hved and attempted to interview his mother. The attempt was not a success. The woman refused to sit in his presence; she kept looking over her shoulder as if she feared her husband would come in. Edouard saw that she had bruises on her wrists and that one side of her face, which she tried to turn away from him, was swollen. He looked around the cottage with a sense of despair. It was poorly and sparsely furnished; a brave effort had been made to keep it tidy and clean. The woman had four other children by her marriage; they crept into the room, peeped at Edouard, and crept away.

*T manage," the woman kept saying in response to his questions. "I manage. I get by."

"But five children . . ."He hesitated. The cottage was without heat, except from a stove; there was no running water.

"My sister helps me." Her face grew set. "I told you. We manage."

Finally, Edouard left her. He returned to the chateau, furious with himself that he could have allowed people to live in this way. He called in his estate manager, rebuked him, and angrily ordered that there should be a complete overhaul of the property of every de Chavigny tenant. The houses should be repaired and modernized; proper plumbing should be installed, and more adequate heating. . . . The manager hstened to this; he frowned.

"It will be expensive. The question arose, immediately after the war. I discussed it with the Baron then. He said—"

"I don't give a damn what he said," Edouard roared, unable to contain his anger. "I want this done, do you understand? And I want it done now."

Later that day, when he left the garden to walk by the river alone, a small figure appeared from the bushes beside the path. It attached itself to him, and Edouard, looking down, recognized the young girl he had seen with Gregoire, pulling him back into the cottage. He stopped. The girl

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looked up at him. She had a square, intense face, and very dark hair. The mother's sister, Edouard thought, and was correct. Her name was Madeleine.

"I heard this morning. I was Hstening." She looked up at him, clearly terrified to be speaking to him, and yet determined to go on.

"She won't tell you—my sister. She's too frightened. He drinks. He beats her up. He hates Gregoire. He resents him—he always has. He's not a bad man, but he has a violent temper. He always blames Gregoire. He takes his belt to him—I try and hide him sometimes, but he always finds him in the end. I wish—I wish someone would do something. . . ."

The words had all tumbled out, one upon another. Now she stopped, biting her lip. Edouard, moved by her words, lifted his hand gently to touch her arm, and to his horror, she flinched as if she expected him to hit her.

"Please." Edouard looked at her in consternation. "I mean you no harm. I'm not angry. I'm glad you came after me. I wanted to help—that's why I came to see your sister. Here"—he held out his hand to her—"come back to the house with me. Then we can sit down and you can explain properly."

Madeleine was reluctant, but finally agreed. She shrank from entering the chateau, and had to be cajoled inside. Once there, she sat nervously on the edge of a Louis XIV chair, her bare legs drawn together, her hands in her lap. Edouard ordered her a citron presse, and then quietly listened as— slowly at first, then with gathering confidence—she told him the whole story. It was predictable enough, and Edouard's face grew taut as he Hs-tened. When she had finished, he suggested gently that perhaps he might meet Gregoire.

Her face lifted. She flushed, and pressed her hands together. "You would do that?" She paused. "But not here. It would frighten him. I'll bring him —to the stables. May I do that? He won't be so shy there. He loves horses. ..."

Edouard smiled, and agreed. Madeleine stood up. She looked about the room, and then back at him.

"So many things,"" she said in a puzzled voice as she left. "What do you do with them?"

"I look at them, I suppose." Edouard shrugged. He was aware that, half the time, he hardly saw them.

Madeleine frowned. "They must make a lot of dusting." She left then, and Edouard, amused by her words, which had touched some chord in him, looked at the room with new eyes. Things indeed; priceless things— which gathered dust just as cheap ones did. The room suddenly seemed to him both overcrowded and empty.

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The next day he went to the stables as arranged, and the meeting with Gregoire took place. Madeleine left them alone after a while, and at first Gregoire was shy and hardly spoke.

Edouard took him on a tour of the stables; he showed him the tack room; he introduced him to the horses, and gave the httle boy lumps of sugar to offer them. Gradually Gregoire seemed to relax: he explained that he was allowed to help the stable boys sometimes; he would have Uked to ride, too, but of course he was not allowed to do that.

"You are allowed now. Here." Edouard lifted the little boy into the saddle of one of the older horses. He was very light, and his bones felt as delicate as a bird's. He looked down at Edouard from the horse's back, and Edouard looked up at him. The boy's mother was from the Landes region, and Gregoire took after her rather than Jean-Paul: he was very thin, very tanned, with a narrow solemn face, and thick black hair. He looked down, and for the first time, smiled.

Edouard felt something snap inside him. In that instant it was as if some dam erected long ago around his heart had been breached. He took Gregoire riding. He canceled his appointments for a week, and stayed in the Loire, spending each day with the boy. At the end of that week, Gregoire was allowed to canter. He executed the run well, without mishap; Edouard's heart was in his mouth as he watched him. When the boy drew his horse in triumphantly beside him, he felt more pride, more sense of achievement than he had felt in four years of high-powered business dealings.

He talked to Gregoire. He talked to the boy's mother. He talked to Madeleine. With their glad acceptance, it was agreed: Gregoire should return to Paris with Edouard and live at St. Cloud. Edouard would arrange for his education; he would take care of the boy personally. Madeleine would accompany Gregoire to Paris for a while, to help him adjust, and then—when she felt ready, when Gregoire felt ready—Edouard would help her find training and work. He outlined these plans stiffly, fearing a proud rejection. When he finished, Gregoire's mother fell to her knees, aU control gone. She kissed his hand and wept; Edouard, helping her back to her feet, felt rebuked by that gratitude. He had been blind to need, he thought, ashamed. He would never be so bhnd again.

Edouard was worried that it might be difficult for Gregoire to adjust to St. Cloud, and that he might be homesick. But his worries proved groundless. The httle boy loved the place. He was made a great pet of by Edouard's manservant, George, and by his cook. If other servants resented him, these two carefully shielded him. Edouard set aside a part of each day to be with him.

That winter, he took him skiing. In the spring he took him to the house

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in Normandy. He spent hours on the beach with Gregoire, quite alone, just swimming and talking and playing. It was after that holiday, when they returned to Paris, that Madeleine said one day: "You don't need me anymore. Gregoire doesn't need me. I have never known him so happy."

She was then eighteen, serious, intense, and very single-minded. She loved children, she said. She would like to be a children's nurse. Yes, she would like to train to do that.

Edouard made inquiries, and finally arranged that she should go to the place of her choice, Norland College in England, which had trained generations of nannies.

"You're sure? You're certain, Madeleine? You don't have to leave—there is always a home for you here."

"I'm certain. I want to learn. I want to work." She stopped abruptly. "I wish to thank you, and I don't know how. You have changed my life."

"Ah, but you changed mine," Edouard said.

After Madeleine left, Edouard spent more and more time with the little boy—every free moment. Gregoire called him "uncle," at his request, which caused great gossip in Paris, but Edouard did not care. He felt hke the boy's father; he loved and cared for Gregoire as if he were his son. And at the back of his mind, knowing that Jean-Paul had never married and seemed unlikely to, knowing that he himself had met no woman he wished to make his wife, he thought: Gregoire could be my heir. Everything I have done could be for him. He will carry on from me, perhaps, as I have carried on from my father.

He consulted his lawyers and altered his will. Then, slowly at first, he began to prepare the little boy for this possible destiny. He never spoke of this inheritance, but he tried, gently, to introduce Gregoire to some aspects of his business empire. As his father had shown him jewels, so he showed them to Gregoire. He took him to all the different workshops de Chavigny maintained in different parts of Paris: he let him watch these highly skilled men at work, the specialists in metal work, the specialists in inlay work and enamels, the gem cutters, the gem setters, the team of highly skilled men who made the mechanisms for clocks and watches.

These, Gregoire especially loved. He had, Edouard saw, a technical mind, and loved to see how working parts fitted together. He would sit for hours, quite silent, watching the assembling of minute coils and springs; he seemed to find the exactitude satisfying.

He loved cars, Edouard quickly discovered that, and—since Edouard loved them too—this became a shared pleasure. But whereas Edouard loved cars for their design and their beauty, and collected them on that basis, Gregoire loved them for the engines under their gleaming hoods.

Some of their happiest hours together were spent driving, or looking at

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cars, or simply in the huge garages at St. Cloud, where Gregoire would contentedly remove wheels, and then replace them, and Edouard would contentedly watch him. His mechanic gave Gregoire lessons, and the little boy learned very quickly. After a few months he could strip down the simpler engines, service and reassemble them. When he had finished such a task, he would lift his face, streaked with oil and grease, beaming with contentment.

"I can do it," he would say to Edouard. "Look. Everything in the right place."

Edouard smiled at him gently; at such times his own life seemed to him equally simple; the components were there—they had been assembled.

The weeks passed happily. They went to the Loire and toured the vineyards together. They returned to the house in Normandy and, one weekend, just for the excitement of it, camped outside, making a fire on the beach, cooking their own supper, and burning it. Neither of them minded the burned taste in the least; they sat side by side on the sand, the tall dark man, and the small dark boy; at peace together.

"I'd Uke to stay here forever, just like this," Gregoire said.

"So should I," Edouard answered.

Later, in sleeping bags, with Gregoire quiet and breathing peacefully, Edouard lay on his back and looked up at the stars. It was the first time in his life that he had slept out of doors; as a boy, he and Jean-Paul had often pleaded to do this, and it had always been forbidden. Now, breathing the cool night air, listening to the soft sucking of the sea against the sand, Edouard experienced great happiness. He glanced toward Gregoire, knowing that happiness sprang from him; he had brought Edouard love; he had also given back to him a sense of purpose.

The next day they went riding, the boy in riding clothes made for him by Edouard's English tailors, a miniature copy of Edouard's own. As they were returning, Gregoire grew quiet and thoughtful.