Destiny (38 page)

232 • SALLY BEAUMAN

him. Her taste, which had never been for understatement, influenced his, which had always been a little austere.

"I adore these." She held up a heavy necklace of cabochon rubies intertwined with emeralds and pearls.

"Thank you. They're Bulgari."

"Don't sulk. They're wonderful. Pagan. A little barbaric. Jewelry ought to be like that. It ought to be flamboyantly seductive. To show off" a little. Diamonds seem to me totally pointless if they're discreet."

It was Isobel who found Edouard his designer of genius, succeeding by chance where his headhunters, in years of patient searching, had failed.

She had a friend from finishing school, Maria, who came from a rich Hungarian family, and who had fled her country for Paris in 1956, at the time of the Russian invasion. Maria had brought out no money, but she had smuggled out some of her jewels. Isobel helped her friend to settle in Paris and find work; one day Maria asked her if de Chavigny might be interested in buying her jewelry.

"It seems pointless to me now." She smiled at Isobel. "I can't think how I ever cared for the things. But the money would be useful." She laid the jewels out on the bed in the small atelier she was renting. Isobel took one look at them, and telephoned Edouard.

They had been made for Maria by a Polish emigre, Floryan Wyspianski, a man in his early thirties who had settled in Budapest after the war. He was skillful, Maria said—she and his mother had always loved his work— but he was not very successful. He had only a small shop; it was difficult, in Budapest, for a Pole.

Edouard examined the jewelry carefully, standing in the north light of the atelier's large window. He looked at the pieces with the naked eye, then with his glass, while behind him Isobel held her breath.

What he saw was incredible to him: imperfect stones, yes, flawed, sometimes of poor coloration, but cut and set with such skill and ingenuity that their imperfections were disguised. Dazzlingly accomplished workmanship. Some of the most original and beautiful designs he had seen in thirty years.

He could trace the influences, he thought; this man had used scholarship as well as talent. One of the necklaces—a collar of Byzantine magnificence —had clearly been influenced by the classical revivalist designs of For-tunato Castellani, and his pupil Giuliano, whom Edouard's great-grandfather had once tried to woo into working for him in London. The use of enamel, the brilliant understanding of color, yes, that piece reminded him of Giuliano, though the design was more subtle, less heavy. That necklace was one of Wyspianski's early pieces, Maria said. Later, he had moved away from these classic designs; he had become interested in Arab jewelry,

DESTINY • 233

she said, and in their techniques of wiring jewels so dehcately and invisibly that they moved with their wearer. This necklace, she said, picking up another, this was the last piece she had bought from him. It showed the Arab influence, she thought.

Edouard held the necklace reverently. It was the finest of the pieces Maria had bought: the work of a master. A delicate circlet of gold wired with pearls and diamonds, the diamonds shaped like flowers, the pearls suspended like dew from their petals. Alexander Reza, at the turn of the century, had done work resembling this, but never anything so fragile.

Edouard looked back at the collection. What excited him most of all was that these pieces, each so different, each showing a restless determination to experiment, all had the signature of Wyspianski. They bore the unmistakable stamp of one man's genius: to anyone who knew anything about jewelry, that was immediately obvious. Looking at them, he knew at once that his long search was over. He turned around slowly.

"Yes?" Isobel was trembling with excitement.

"Yes. Oh, yes."

There was a silence. Isobel and Maria exchanged glances.

"There is a problem," Isobel admitted finally, with reluctance. "Wyspianski is still in Hungary. With his family. He would like to leave, but he cannot."

"That is no problem. I shall get him out."

Maria sighed. She did not know Edouard very well. "Alas—it is impossible. Two years ago—yes. A year ago—maybe. Now the Russian hold is very tight. It cannot be done."

"I shall do it."

He flew, with Isobel, to Moscow the following week. One month later, the young wife of a senior member of the Politburo was astonishing her friends with a necklace, earrings, and bracelets of positively Czarist splendor. The Pole, Floryan Wyspianski, and his wife and young daughter had exit visas from Hungary.

"Bribery and corruption," Isobel said tartly as she drew her sables more tightly around her, and they mounted the steps to Edouard's plane for the flight back to Paris. Edouard looked injured.

"I tried pleas first. Rational arguments. Commercial incentives. Bribery and corruption were a last resort."

"Have you tried them before?" Isobel looked up at him curiously.

"Of course. When I had to." Edouard scowled suddenly. "It was one of the things I hated most. Discovering there was no one—almost no one— who could not be bought."

That had been one month before. Wyspianski and his family were due in Paris the next week. Isobel, thinking of that as she walked in the gardens

234 • SALLY BEAUMAN

at St. Cloud in the autumn sunshine, hugged herself with secret joy. That afternoon she had been to see her doctor in Paris. He had finally been able to confirm what she had believed and prayed for these past six weeks. She was going to have a baby. A baby—and the designer Edouard had been searching for so long. Both at once. Isobel danced for sheer happiness.

Now, she thought, now Edouard will have what I know he wants so desperately, what I want for him. A child. An heir. A family. And that darkness, that sadness she still sometimes glimpsed in his eyes, will be banished forever.

She lifted her arms up to the warmth of the sun, filled with a sudden wild joy. It shone on the falling leaves, on the burnished red-gold of her hair. She turned her face to the light, and silently, incoherently, not knowing which deity she addressed, she thanked the gods, who had been so kind to her, and to the husband she loved so much. Tonight, she thought; this evening, as soon as he comes home, I shall run to meet him, and I shall tell him.

A day later, Edouard still did not know about the baby. Isobel had heard the wheels of his car on the gravel. She ran quickly around to the front of the house, just as she had planned. The driver was already pulling away in the Rolls, and Edouard already striding toward the house. Isobel took one look at his face, and kept silent. They went into the small drawing room they always used when they were alone in the house. Edouard kissed her, but absentmindedly. He began pacing up and down the room. He poured himself a drink. Isobel refused one, and watched him, knowing something was wrong, longing to speak, to burst out with her news, and knowing she must make herself wait. Eventually he sat down, and passed his hand tiredly across his brow.

"My darling, I'm sorry. I thought you would have seen the newspapers. Heard the news. You obviously haven't?"

"No. I went into Paris—for some fittings." Isobel hesitated, then sat down. "Then I was in the gardens . . ."

"I warned him." He put down his glass angrily. "I told Jean-Paul this would happen—nearly two years ago now. I knew this was inevitable." He paused. "The Front de Liberation Nationale blew up the second largest gendarmerie in Algiers this morning. Thirteen men died. Two others were shot by snipers. Fifteen men—in one day. And of course, nine French policemen have already been killed during the past month. Reprisals, they say, for those raids that were made on the Casbah." He shrugged wearily.

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"I spoke to Mendes-France briefly, this evening. It's going to get worse, Isobel, much worse."

"But there are French troops there, Edouard. ..." She hesitated. "They will stop it, won't they? Stop the terrorism?"

"My darling, it's not terrorism. It's a revolution. If you'd been there, if you'd seen the country, you'd understand. The FLN won't rest until the French are out—every last colon.''''

"But it's a French colony. ..."

"It's an Arab country." He stood up angrily. "The days of colonialism are over. Finished. Jean-Paul can't see that, and never will. As far as Jean-Paul is concerned, the French haven't put a foot wrong. They've built roads and bridges and rail systems. Houses. Hotels. Factories. They've created a civil service, and trained Arabs to work like French bureaucrats. Jean-Paul thinks the French brought prosperity to a poor country, and he goes on believing it because he takes care never to set foot outside the European quarter. So he never sees the poverty. Never smells the squalor. Do you know why it is that Jean-Paul's Algerian estates are so prosperous? Why they make the profits of which he's so proud? Because he pays his Algerian workers a pittance, that's why. They earn in a year what he'd pay a French worker in a month. But they're still better off than the other Arabs, the ones that don't work for the French. And so he can make his profits, and feel hke a philanthropist at the same time. Isobel, I loved Algeria when I first saw it; but the poverty—the attitudes, the intolerance. I came to hate it. I've hated it more every time I've been back. When I saw Jean-Paul there, I was ashamed. Ashamed of my own brother."

Isobel looked at him silently. She had rarely heard him speak with such vehemence, never seen him so angry.

"Eighteen months ago"—he swung around to her again—"in 1956, when there were clear signs of what was going to happen, Jean-Paul came to me, and asked that the company invest in more estates out there. Vineyards. Olive plantations. They belonged to a friend of his who'd decided to get off the sinking ship quickly. I turned him down—and do you know that to this day, Jean-Paul has no idea why?" He paused, his voice growing calmer. "I gave him financial reasons. Business reasons. Of which there were many. And in the end he accepted it. Profit and loss, that's what we talked about. But it wasn't the true reason I refused him. The true reason was that I want nothing to do with that country while it remains as it is, and if it hadn't been for Jean-Paul, I'd have ceased all our operations out there years ago."

Isobel smiled. "And Jean-Paul can be as stubborn as a mule, and you knew perfectly well that if you told him what you felt, he would have dug

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in his heels and insisted." She sighed. "You can be terribly devious, Edouard."

"Possibly." Edouard looked down at her. "Do you think I did the wrong thing?"

"I don't know," Isobel said quietly, and looked away.

There was silence, a moment of tension between them. Edouard thought of IsobePs family, of her grandfathers, uncles, cousins, who had propped up and maintained an empire, who had fought, and ruled, in India, in Africa. He thought it unlikely she would understand his arguments, and he felt a sense of distance, a moment's regret, there and then gone. Isobel, bending her head, thought: / can't tell him about the baby; not now. She sensed his withdrawal from her, and slowly looked up.

"You're going out there, aren't you, Edouard?"

Her quickness and her resignation touched him. The regret instantly passed, and he crouched down to her, and took her hands gently in his. "My darling, I have to. I've tried speaking to Jean-Paul on the telephone, and it's hopeless. I shall have to go out. I want to persuade him to come back to France."

"Leave Algeria?" Isobel's eyes widened. She felt a moment's scorn. In her family, the men had never walked out on their colonial responsibilities. She thought of her father's many remarks on that subject, his outrage when India was finally granted independence. But her mind shied away from politics, and she had no wish to cross Edouard on that front. She sighed, and chose her words carefully.

"Surely he'll never agree to that, Edouard? He loves it there, you told me. It's obviously meant so much to him, since he left the army. He'll never agree to leave the vineyards, his land. ..."

"It won't be his land much longer whether he goes or stays." Edouard's tone was dismissive. He stood up and moved away. "He might as well realize that now. Two years from now—maybe more, maybe as much as five, though I doubt it—the French will pull out. You're probably right about Jean-Paul. But I have to try. Algiers isn't a safe place for any Frenchman—particularly one like Jean-Paul—"

He broke off abruptly, an expression of distaste on his features. Then he swallowed the last of his drink, shrugged, turned back. "So—I have to try to persuade him. That's all. He is my brother."

Isobel watched him closely. She wondered what he meant by that last remark about his brother, so quickly bitten off", but she knew better than to ask.

"When are you going?" she said quietly.

"Tomorrow."

"I shall come with you."

DESTINY • 237

"My darling, no." He swung around again, his face softening. "Not this time. I'd rather you stayed here."

Isobel stood up. "If you go, I go," she said firmly. "And if it's too dangerous for me, then it's too dangerous for you. And you don't think that, do you?"

"No, of course not, but—"

"Then I'm coming with you." She gave him her most disarming smile. "You know perfectly well that I can persuade you, so you might just as well give in now with good grace. ..."

"Oh, really?" She saw his lips curve at her challenge, and before he could protest, she crossed quickly to him.

"Darling Edouard. I'm coming. No ridiculous arguments. Kiss me. If you Uke, we can argue later."

She put her arms around his neck, and Edouard managed to resist her for about thirty seconds. Then he groaned, and then he kissed her.

They did argue about it, later, but Isobel got her way. When Edouard left for the airport the next morning, Isobel was with him. And she still hadn't told him.

Jean-Paul leaned back, and watched the naked boy who was oiling his body. He had long, supple fingers, slender hands with surprising strength. They worked their way down over Jean-Paul's flesh, expertly kneading the muscles, smoothing the lax skin, seeking the most sensitive folds and crevices. Down over the stomach to the groin, then back to the chest, feeling for each rib under its layer of flabby muscle and fat.