Destiny (109 page)

He had never been stupid, and he had certainly been cunning. She had remembered that, and planned for that, calculating what his response would be. At first, exercising all his charm, he played for time, putting the pieces together one by one: the girl he had known; the film star; the wife of a man called Lewis Sinclair; the owner of the company who had bought his land, and taken over his loans.

"Helene Harte." He shook his head, and rolled the name in the richness of his southern drawl. "That's amazing. Just amazing. I heard of you, of course. I never saw your movies—well, I never get to the movies these days. But I must have seen pictures of you, I guess. You must take me for a fool—not knowing. And all these years, I've been thinking about you. Wondering what became of you . . ." He paused, then risked it. "Wondering what became of that lovely httle girl ..."

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He lied more clumsily than she remembered. Helene smiled.

"Oh, it doesn't matter. I've thought about you, Ned. Very often."

He shifted a little in his seat, trying to work out the next move quickly. Helene watched him. Now that she saw him, she knew the truth was probably very simple; he had forgotten her, that was all. The moment she left Orangeburg, and with the ease of an egoist he had forgotten her. He had presumably moved on, and the next woman had wiped out all interest in the one before.

Even now he was interested neither in Helene Craig nor in Helene Harte. He was interested in Hartland Developments, Inc., to whom he was in debt. But the fact that this company was headed by a woman, and that woman someone he had once been able to charm, seemed, gradually, to give him encouragement.

"Your company?" He had lit a cheroot, first asking if he might smoke in her presence. He drew on it thoughtfully. "Entirely yours? Well, now, if that just doesn't beat everything. What's a beautiful woman like you doing, bothering her pretty head with business deals?"

"Oh, you know how it is . . ." She gave a vague gesture of the hand. "I have a lot of advisors."

"Sure. Sure. Well—this calls for a drink. How long is it since we met— seven years, is it?"

"Five."

"Five. I can't believe it. You were such a lovely little thing. And now look at you. A grown-up woman. A very beautiful woman." His eyes flickered away from her face, and he stood up abruptly. Helene sensed that, for him, a drink was becoming urgent.

"What'll it be, Helene? ... I may call you that? A glass of sherry? A cocktail, perhaps? You won't join me in a bourbon, I take it?"

"Just some soda and ice," Helene said.

"Surely. Surely."

He made a great play of fixing the drinks—perhaps to give himself time —and presented the glass with some ceremony. When he was seated once more, he took another pull on his cheroot. He smiled then and patted his chest.

"I've been trying to give it up. Doctor says it's bad for my heart." He paused. "Of course, I've been under a lot of strain, Helene. I've had a lot of worries."

"I'm sorry to hear that." She paused, then put the question in her most innocent voice. "Is your wife away, Ned?"

She knew very well where Mrs. Calvert was. Cassie's letters had been full of gossip on that question. Mrs. Calvert had returned to Philadelphia for good, some nine months before; she had filed for a judicial separation.

666 • SALLY BEAUMAN

Mrs. Calvert had made it extremely plain to every tradesman in Orangeburg, and to the two banks to whom the plantation had been mortgaged, that she would take no further responsibility for her husband's debts. Helene did not expect Ned Calvert to admit this—and he did not. What she had not expected was the reaction. He smiled, and leaned back in his seat; the smile grew wider. Clearly he thought she asked the question because she was still attracted to him.

"Well, now, she's away. Mrs. Calvert is away. Visiting with her family in Philadelphia. You remember how she used to do that, Helene, from time to time. . . ."

His eyes met hers, lazily. It was a cue, specifically designed to bring the question of their former relationship out into the open. He was watching her carefully.

"I do remember that. Yes, Ned."

He hesitated, then took a large swig of bourbon, as if to fortify himself. His confidence was growing, she felt sure, but he was still being cautious, still feeling his way.

"I thought I'd never see you again." He managed a sigh. "I really did. When you left—it was like all the hope went right out of my life. It's been hard for me, Helene, real hard, these last seven years. ..."

"Five."

"Five, I mean five." He accepted the correction slightly irritably. He shook his head. "Five years, and all that time I'd tell myself not to be such a goddamn fool. You'd forgotten me. Broke clean away. Never gave Ned Calvert a second thought. That's what I told myself. And now you're here. Sitting opposite me, just the way you used to do. Lovelier than ever. A married woman. Tell me, Helene, you been married long? You have any children?"

"I was married in 1960. I have a daughter—she'll be five next May." She paused. "My husband and I are separated."

It gave him hope—she knew it at once. It was why she had told him. His eyes hardened slightly, but when he spoke, his voice was heavy with regret.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Helene. Real sorry. A sweet girl like you. You deserve to be happy." He paused. "I wanted to make you happy once. Maybe I shouldn't say this now, but it's God's own truth—I cared for you, Helene. I cared for you a lot."

"Did you, Ned?"

"Why pretend? I'm not so young as I was. It gets important, when a man gets older. Comes a time when he feels he just has to tell the truth, come what may. I watched you grow up. I'm not ashamed of what I felt. ... I know it was wrong in some ways, but, Helene, there are some things a man just can't control. He tries—I tried, and my heart just

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wouldn't listen. I looked at you, and it beat a little faster. ..." He paused. "Of course, I knew afterward. When you'd gone. I thought to myself—Ned, you just lost the only woman that really mattered to you. I'd look back then, and I'd wish it could have been different. I'd wish—well, I guess I wished a lot of things. But I knew it wasn't meant to be. I knew I had no right to feel that way, Helene. So I bowed to that, even when it hurt. I thought—you've got to let her go, Ned. That's just the way it's got to be. She's not for you—a lovely young girl like that, with all her Ufe before her. Still . . ."He hesitated, glanced up at her. "I shouldn't talk about these things. Not now."

"I'm glad you did, Ned. It makes things easier, somehow."

"Yes. Still . . ." He sighed, swirling the last of his bourbon in his glass. "There're other things we have to talk about, I guess. Business affairs. After all, that's why you're here. It's no good my kidding myself you came back to see me after all this while. I'm nothing to you now. I know that. I accept that. ... So. How come you got yourself involved in all this, Helene? I mean, it can't be coincidence, I know that. A smart woman like you—you must have planned all this, am I right?"

The nub of the matter. He had finally brought himself to ask the question he had been burning to ask from the moment he recognized her. Helene hesitated; she thought— not yet.

"You're right, of course." She paused. "I've kept in touch with people in Orangeburg. I heard you'd run into difficulties. I was looking for investment opportunities at the time, and—"

"And you thought you'd help me?" He jumped in eagerly, then stopped and shook his head sadly. "But no—I can't believe that. Why should you? Maybe you have a few feelings left for this place, maybe even for me. I'd hke to think that. But I guess your advisors wouldn't let sentiment enter in —and you're too smart to let it. So, tell me, Helene, how come you came back, after all this time, to give old Ned Calvert a helping hand?"

"Have I helped, Ned?"

"You surely have, honey!" He made an expansive gesture of the hands. "Helped? Why, last year you came near to saving me, saving this place. You didn't realize that? Those loans your company picked up on—well, I had my back to the wall then, Helene, I won't try and deceive you. Everywhere I turned, it was the same thing. Mrs. Calvert even—weU, no disrespect to my wife, Helene—but she never did understand cotton. It makes me sad to say this, Helene, but my wife wasn't the help and support to me that she might have been. And those goddamn banks—men I've known all my life, men I've helped in the past, men who owed me a lot . . . And what happened when I was in a tight comer? They turned their backs.

668 • SALLY BEAUMAN

That hurt. It was a betrayal. That's a strong word, maybe, but that's how it felt."

He leaned forward, warming to his theme. "They wouldn't listen to me. They wouldn't understand—the possibilities there are in this place. I can build it up again, I know I can. All I need is time. A year—maybe a year and a half. A little extra financing, yes—a small extension, just to see me through." He paused. The alert brown eyes fixed on her face. "You helped me once, Helene. I'll never forget that as long as I live. You came through for me, and you know what? It kind of restores my faith in human nature. And it gives me hope. After all, if you helped me once, you just might help me again."

"I see." Helene looked down. Carefully she drew toward her the document case, and took out from it a large manila envelope. Ned Calvert's eyes focused on it at once. He had begun to sweat. He drew out a large white handkerchief and mopped his brow.

"Here. Let me freshen your drink." He stood up quickly and reached for her glass. The square tanned hand was unsteady. "You see, I don't want us to rush this, Helene. . . ." He was moving off fast in the direction of the liquor cabinet. "The fact that you're here—that you bothered to come yourself—that means a lot to me. I feel like I can talk to you, if you'll give me the time. I can explain, go over the figures with you. Most women haven't much time for that sort of thing, of course, but you're different, I can see that. You're smart. If I could just go over them with you, I know I can make you see. ... I lapsed on the repayments, sure, I know that. But that was just a temporary thing, a question of cash flow— you familiar with that term? I've been operating underfunded, that's the problem. With a small loan, an extension—I can get going again. It'll be a good crop this year. . . . Just the soda? You wouldn't like me to pep it up a bit?"

"No, thank you. Just as before." She paused fractionally. "I never drink alcohol when I'm doing business."

He tensed immediately, the bourbon bottle in his hand. He looked at her, then he gave an uneasy laugh. "Jesus. You are something, you know that? So cool. But you were always that way. Do you remember what I used to call you? Helene—my little girl?" He shook his head. "You know how I thought of you, deep down? I thought of you like my daughter, the lovely little daughter I never had. ..."

Even he knew that was too much, that the flattery and the sentiment were overdone, and there was no chance it could square with the memories they both shared. His face reddened. "Deep down," he repeated defensively. "Oh, I know I didn't always behave the way I should, and that's

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been on my conscience all these years. But underneath, yes, underneath, that's what I always felt."

He turned away to hide his embarrassment, the transparency of the lie. Helene waited until he held the bourbon bottle poised over his glass. Then she said, her voice cool and detached, "That's what you felt? I see. How did you feel about my mother?"

"What's that?" She saw him tense, stand absolutely still.

"My mother. How did you feel about her?"

"I don't quite see ..."

"Do you remember I asked you for sixty dollars once? It was for my mother. She was having a baby. Your baby. And the money was to pay for her abortion, though I didn't know that until later. The abortion went wrong, and that's how she died. She died aborting your child. Did you know that?"

Bourbon splashed over his hands. He stared down at it blankly, then put the bottle down, and slowly turned around. The color had ebbed from his face. He blinked at her, as if he couldn't understand what she had just said. One square tanned hand made a small convulsive movement.

"My child?"

"Yes."

"That's not possible."

"She went to someone in Montgomery. Sixty dollars wasn't enough, I suppose. It was too cheap. I ought to have asked you for more."

"It's not true." His mouth worked, and his voice suddenly rose. "It's a filthy goddamn lie. ..."

He took a step toward her, his hands clenching and unclenching. Helene turned her face away to the windows. Her voice was low and flat, and it was easier to speak if she did not look at him.

"It's ironic, I see that now. The child you never had. It might have been a boy. An heir—to all this. Except I suppose your wife would have left you then, and you wouldn't have had her money to bail you out all these years. ..."

"Will you stop this? Will you goddamn well stop it?" He advanced toward her, his face flushed with rage. "There's not a goddamn word of truth in this. Who told you?"

"My mother."

"Then she must have been out of her mind. Crazy. She was never too stable, your mother. My God—when I think of all the things I tried to do to help her out. How Mrs. Calvert and I tried ... I never laid a finger on your mother. Helene—you knew her. You knew her hold on reality was never strong. Don't tell me you believed her. Don't tell me you've been thinking that all these years. Jesus, I . . ."

670 • SALLY BEAUMAN

"I did believe her. I still do."

"Well, I'm telling you. It's a lie, start to finish. She invented the whole thing. ..."

He came to a stop in front of her, his mouth contorted with anger. He lurched a little on his feet, then felt for a chair and sat down. He seemed to be gasping for breath. With one hand he loosened his tie, with the other he fumbled in his pockets, pulled out a brown bottle, and slipped a small white pill under his tongue. Then he leaned back in the chair. His lips were a dull bluish color.