Destiny (37 page)

The cafe was empty. They were seated at a small table with a red-checked cloth surmounted by a clean one of starched white linen, with two glass beakers, two knives, and two forks, and a basket of the most dehcious freshly baked bread. The wine, which arrived in a carafe, was a strong excellent vin ordinaire. The meal that accompanied it was a feast, cooked and served by the patron with justifiable pride: tiny moules mariniere that tasted as if they had been cut from the rocks that morning; bifteck, brown and crisp on the outside, perfectly rare within; a platter of thin crisp s\zz\\xi%-\ioX pommes frites; an excellent salad served in a plain white bowl. The best Camembert that Isobel had ever tasted, which the patron said proudly had come from his brother's farm in the Auge region of Normandy—the only Camemberts worth buying, he assured them, came from there.

They both ate hungrily, and when they had finished, and were sipping their cafes noirs and the tiny glasses of wonderful rough marc de bour-gogne, Isobel leaned back with a smile.

"That was the most wonderful meal I have ever had. Much better than Maxim's. Thank you, Edouard."

"I thought you would like it. Now—tell me about the lions."

Isobel hesitated. "Well," she began carefully, "I was widowed two years ago—you know that. You wrote to me."

DESTINY • 227

"Yes." The dark blue eyes looked up, met hers.

"And then—I was rather at a loss, I suppose. I'd been leading such a rackety life—Edouard, you can't imagine. Rushing about from one racetrack to another, always on planes or trains. Then, very suddenly, it was over. All that time, all those years. I'd been so busy, I'd had no time to think. Just the next ticket, the next hotel. I preferred not to think, perhaps. I don't know. Anyway, suddenly it was over, and I thought—"

She broke off and reached for his hand. "Darling Edouard. I know you'll understand. I thought I wanted to do something useful. Be useful. To someone. Something." She looked away. "And that was diflBcult. I wasn't brought up to be useful. I had a stupid girls' education. No training of any sort. Even in the war—now I look back—when lots of other women were doing sensible things . . . driving ambulances, joining the army, being land-girls ... I never did anything like that." She shrugged. "I suppose I felt guilty—ten years too late."

"So—what did you do—to be useful?" He put the question gently, and Isobel sighed.

"I went home. To England. To Papa. Oh, Edouard—I can't tell you how sad it was. I'd hardly been back for years—only briefly, when Mama died. This time . . . well, they'd sold the London place years before. It's been pulled down—now it's a hotel. That kept the wolf from the door for a little while, I think. But not long enough. So—anyway— I went to the country. And there Papa was, all alone in that great place, hundreds of rooms, not enough servants, missing Mama—terribly lonely. William is always in London—he's in the City now—do you remember Will, my eldest brother? So there he was, in a merchant bank, desperately trying to restore the family fortunes. And there was Papa in this great mausoleum, worrying about bills." She shrugged. "It really is the most impossible place. No matter what you do, it's never enough. There are one hundred and seventy-five rooms, two acres of roof—can you imagine? Well, of course you can. But in this case most of it hadn't been touched since 1934, and part of it had been requisitioned for troops during the war. So, in short, it was a total mess. Papa didn't know what to do, and then he got talking to some of his cronies, and he decided on a 'grand scheme.' Open the house. Paying visitors. They could troop round and look at the Rubenses and the Gains-boroughs—the ones that are left. Papa had to sell some of the best ones. They could go into the chapel, and the Adam library, and the red drawing room, and with a bit of luck they'd be so busy looking at the Chippendale and the Hepplewhite, they wouldn't notice the holes in the rugs." She sighed. "It was a good idea. But it didn't really work. It costs five shillings and sixpence to go round, and you need an awful lot of those to mend two acres of roof. So. Papa decided to have a game park."

228 • SALLY BEAUMAN

"A game park?" Edouard's eyebrows rose, and Isobel nodded solemnly.

"Absolutely. A game park. Lions and giraffes and wildebeest. Roaming over the parkland. And as a matter of fact, mad as it sounds, it was rather a good idea." She smiled impishly. "They look rather sweet. CapabiUty Brown would have approved, I'm sure. And they don't seem to mind the rain—which surprised me. And Papa adores them. He goes out and talks to the lions every morning from the back of a Land-Rover, and they all have names, just the way the dairy herd had when we were children. Only not Daisy and Posy and Rose, of course, but African names—Ngumbe, Banda, things like that. Papa spent weeks researching it."

"And do the people come to see the lions?"

"In droves. Absolute droves. Much more fun than the Rubenses, and I must say I rather agree. So. There you are. I went off to Kenya to buy lions. It turned out to be the most useful thing I could do." The green eyes flicked up at him teasingly, but also a little apprehensively, as if she were afraid he might mock her. Edouard, who knew she was most vulnerable when she seemed most frivolous, pressed her hand. She snatched it away with a sudden quick anger.

"Oh, Edouard, don't. Don't be kind. I know it's ridiculous. I despise myself. I wish sometimes—oh, God, I don't know ... I just wish I had been a man, that's all. Then—"

He took her hand back and raised it gently to his lips. "You are the most beautiful woman I know. Also one of the cleverest, however much you pretend not to be. I'm very very glad you are not a man. Now." He stood up. "Come back to St. Cloud with me."

It was late when they reached the great house, but the moon was full, and the night air was warm and still. Edouard, at Isobel's suggestion, took her on a grand tour. They walked through the wild informal gardens, then through the allees of clipped hornbeam, then yew, to the rose garden, and on to the parterre, which had been planted with herbs and—for the spring—wallflowers. Isobel sighed.

"Gilly flowers—that's the old English name. I love them. I love their scent." She picked one, and held it to her face, and in the lights which shone from the long windows of the house, Edouard saw that the color of the flower, that rich deep red shot through with gold, was the color of her hair. There was a little silence between them, then they moved on.

He showed her the stables, and one of the old mares nuzzled Isobel's hand with a mouth as soft as velvet. Then he took her into a long flat-roofed building like a small aircraft hangar. He flicked the light switch,

DESTINY • 229

and Isobel gave a cry of delight. There were twenty cars—no, more, thirty at least—each one of them perfect, each the finest example of its marque. She moved along the rows in delight: a Bugatti, a Jensen, a Bristol, one of the great Mulliner Bentleys, the legendary Porsche 356, a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost with running boards.

Isobel ran from one to another, touching the gleaming coach work, the shining chrome. Edouard stood back by the doors, watching her, his face oddly closed. Isobel turned back to him.

"Edouard—they're beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. The Bugatti must be unique—only seven were built, weren't they? I thought there was none left. ..." She mused. "I didn't know you hked cars so much."

He shrugged. "I like driving fast. Alone. I do that sometimes at night, when I need to think."

"But so many . . ."

"Yes." He shrugged. "I bought them really for someone else. Someone I knew who was interested in cars." He turned to the door. "I suppose it's a httle absurd to keep them all now."

He switched off the light and began to walk away. Isobel looked after him. She had heard about the little boy Gregoire, Jean-Paul's son, so people said. She had heard about Edouard's attachment to him. She felt a stab of pity: was that what the cars were for? A priceless collection, for a little boy?

She ran after Edouard, and put her arm through his. Later, after looking at the rest of the house, they returned to Edouard's study on the first floor. A quietly efficient English manservant brought them coffee and Armagnac, and then withdrew. Isobel moved restlessly around the room. It was like Edouard, she thought, a room that contrived to be both French —with its delicate painted paneling—and also English in the severity of the furnishings. A room that was restrained, masculine, and formal. Bookcases of leather-bound volumes; some exceptionally fine eighteenth-century watercolors; a Chippendale writing desk; chairs covered in exquisitely faded Spitalfields silk. Each object in the room was perfect of its kind; each spoke of taste and discernment, and unlimited means, and also of loneh-ness. Like the rest of the house, the room felt cared-for and curiously empty.

She looked down at Edouard. He was sitting before the log fire, his Armagnac untouched, his face in repose, somber. As she looked at him, he suddenly turned and held out his hand to her.

Isobel took it, and he drew her down so she sat on the silk rug at his feet, on a pattern of birds and flowers, of blues and scarlets and browns. She rested her head against his knee, and he rested his hand against her hair.

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"Now," he said softly. "Tell me, Isobel."

She turned her head to look up at him. With that intuitive understanding she had always had with him, she knew exactly what he meant.

"I was happy, Edouard. I did love him, you see. And I think he loved me, in his way. But he loved danger more." She paused, surprised that her own voice should be steady. She had spoken of her marriage to no one, not during it, not since her husband's death. "I knew what would happen all along. I'm sure he did. I think he almost wanted it. He wouldn't have liked old age, even middle age. He wouldn't have Uked losing. So I think it ended the way he would have wanted it to end. Very quickly. One skid. The car exploded. I was watching."

There was a silence. Then Edouard said, "You never had children."

"No." The green eyes clouded momentarily. "I wanted them, to begin with, wanted them very much. And then I realized it would be impossible. He couldn't have attachments—not really. It would have made him unable to race."

"Weren't you an attachment?"

"Oh, no." Isobel smiled. "I'm much too good an actress for that. He thought I Uked the danger as much as he did. In fact, every race, I used to be sick. Before it, and after. And I used to pray, of course. All the time. On every single bend. But he never knew that."

There was a little silence. Edouard stared into the fire, and eventually Isobel lifted her head once more. "And you?" she said gently. "DarUng Edouard, tell me."

"There is nothing to tell."

"In eight years?" She smiled up at him, wishing she could will the tension out of his body, wishing she could make him relax that guard. "I've read about you," she went on after a pause in which he did not answer her. "Lots of things. You're very famous now, Edouard."

"Anything you've read is sure to be lies."

"That's a shame. Some of it was rather poetic." She smiled up at him wickedly. "Those presents. For your mistresses. Jewels to match the color of their eyes, or their hair, or their skin. Black pearls. Sapphires. Rubies. Never diamonds." She paused. "I read all that, and I cheered. I thought: that's my Edouard. It had style." She reached for his hand. "Was it true?"

"Some of it." He paused. "None of it mattered in the least."

"Really?" Her eyes met his, and she began to smile.

"Really."

They held each other's gaze for a moment, a look of understanding and amusement, and then, both at once, they began to laugh. Isobel felt the tension leave his body, saw the amusement, and then the sudden seriousness in his eyes.

DESTINY • 231

They stopped laughing; Edouard leaned forward, gathered her in his arms and kissed her. Then he drew back, looked down into her face, and said: "Will you marry me, Isobel?"

And Isobel rested her face against his arm, and sighed.

"Darling Edouard," she said. "Of course I will. You know quite well that's why I came back to see you."

Then Edouard took her into his bedroom, and they remained there for three days and three nights. On the fourth day, they drove out into the country, and were married by an extremely flustered official in a small mairie, some fifty kilometers outside Paris. No guests. No reporters.

Isobel had her wedding ring first. She chose her engagement ring belatedly in the de Chavigny Paris showrooms. She passed over the trays of sapphires, and rubies, and diamonds; she chose an emerald. When Edouard slipped it onto her finger, she looked up at him and smiled.

"This one has no superstitions attached to it, I hope." Edouard put his arms around her.

"My darling, none. It's very very lucky, I promise you."

They had six months of unclouded happiness. They made love a disproportionate amount, Isobel told him, in the certain knowledge that Edouard would then make love to her again. He was the best lover she had ever had: the most skillful, the most understanding, the most gentle, the most fierce. He took her body, and he made it come ahve. They were inseparable. In six months that included many business trips, they were never apart for one night. Other women ceased to exist for Edouard; he gently terminated his affair with Clara Delluc, and Isobel, knowing this woman had meant more to him than any of the others, asked if she might meet her; she did, and the two women became friends.

Isobel found herself fascinated by the diversity and challenge of Edouard's work; she also quickly found that she could be of help to him. Not simply as a hostess—"the only task I was ever trained for," she said to him wryly—but also as an advisor. Like her husband, she had sharp and brilliantly intuitive instincts for people; she knew at once whom Edouard could trust. But she was more patient and more sympathetic than he, and so colleagues and advisors Edouard might have overlooked, Isobel drew out, and nurtured. Being English, she knew little about wine—that had been her father's province. There, she was content to let Edouard educate her. Being a woman, and coming from the background she did, she knew a great deal about jewelry. There, Edouard discovered, she could educate