Destiny (63 page)

"You might as well sit down. Since you're here," she said gruffly.

Christian, who was feeling weak, grabbed a whisky and sank down into collapsed springs and dog hair. Edouard remained standing. Elizabeth Culverton looked at Christian, and then at Edouard, whose back was to the window, and whose face was in shadow. She paused, and then addressed herself to him.

"Well, I know who you are. Since you've gone to the trouble to find me, I assume it's important. . . ." Her chin lifted combatively. "Before we go any further, perhaps you'd like to explain. Exactly what is your interest in my niece?"

There was a brief silence. Christian's hand, in the act of conveying the whisky to his hps, froze. He felt a nervous and almost irrepressible desire to laugh. For once, he thought, Edouard might have met his match.

Edouard took one step forward. His face came into the light, and he looked directly at Elizabeth Culverton.

"But of course," he said coolly. "I love her, and I wish to marry her. I hope that answers your question."

Elizabeth Culverton was visibly taken aback, not a state with which she was familiar. Christian would have bet on that. She hesitated, blinked, looked down at her glass, and then up again. Then she gave a sudden bark of laughter.

"Well, you're direct, I suppose. That's something." She paused. "If you'll sit down, I'll tell you just why that's a bloody absurd idea. . . ." She gestured at the glass of whisky on the side table, and a slightly malicious glint came into her sharp blue eyes. "And I should have that, if I were you. You might need it."

I—I er name is Craig. Helene Craig—the first name spelled and pro-X Xnounced in the French manner, which gives you some idea of her mother's taste. She was always a stupid affected woman. Helene! And the girl is sixteen, seventeen next year."

She said it with virtually no preamble, sitting now, in one of the deep armchairs beside the fire, the glass of whisky in one hand and an unfiltered Senior Service cigarette in the other. She inhaled deeply, coughed, and when Edouard, now also seated, did not answer, she looked a little disap-

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pointed. A woman who did not like men, Christian thought; a woman who Uked to draw blood.

"What's more . . ." She paused, looking at Edouard speculatively. "You obviously think I can help you—and I can't. I hardly know the girl, and I've no idea at all where she is now. She may contact me again, but I doubt it."

Edouard looked down at his hands, his face set, and Christian, who knew what he must be thinking, felt a dart of pity. He was counting the lies, he thought: name, age, where she grew up; three, so far. Christian leaned forward.

"But she was here—earlier this year? We understood that—"

"Of course she was here." Elizabeth Culverton looked irritable. "And damned thoughtless and inconvenient it was. She had sent a cable, but it was delayed. In the end it arrived about three hours before she did. Damned stupid thing to do. If she'd written, I would have told her not to come. As it was—she had to stay, naturally. What else could I do?"

A note of anxiety had crept into her voice. Edouard looked up, and Elizabeth Culverton drained the whisky in her glass. She levered herself stiffly from her chair, and poured herself another. No soda, no water; her hand shook a little, and the glass clinked against the decanter. She returned to her chair, and Christian watched her with interest. That she felt some emotion was obvious: that she was trying to cover it up was also clear. He glanced across at Edouard, waiting for him to prompt her, but Edouard said nothing. One of his notorious silences. Now Christian saw how effective they could be. To his considerable surprise, Elizabeth Culverton looked at Edouard, looked back into the fire, drew on her cigarette, and then, unprompted, began to speak, her voice now jerky and resentful.

"That probably sounds harsh. I should explain. I never got on with her mother. Violet and I were chalk and cheese. There was no love lost between us. She might have pretended otherwise when it suited her purposes, but I never liked her, even as a child, and when she left, I was heartily glad to see the back of her. She used to write occasionally, and I never answered her letters. I knew she had a child, of course—she angled for an invitation to come back here before it was bom—she always did, whenever she was in trouble of any kind. ..." She paused, drew on her cigarette, and then threw the butt into the smoldering fire. "However. That was a long time ago. Sixteen years ago. I'd had virtually no contact with my sister since then. My half sister. I didn't know she was dead—I didn't even know she'd been ill. Until I received the telegram, and the girl turned up. Then—well, if I'm truthful, I have to say I was surprised. Violet seemed to have brought her up quite well. She was a pleasant enough girl. Well-mannered.

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Well-spoken. Quite charming, I thought, to begin with. She didn't look well—she was tired out, very pale, obviously distressed at Violet's death. She had nowhere else to go. So, naturally, I had to ask her to stay here." She paused, and two spots of color heightened in her cheeks.

"I intended it to be a temporary arrangement, you understand. And then—well, I quite liked the girl, and I began to consider letting her stay. I live alone, you see, and I have this damned arthritis. There's no help in the house. No help in the garden. We had sixteen gardeners once, in my father's day. Now I have to struggle along on my own. ..." She gave an angry shrug. "I never mentioned the idea to her. I had no chance. She stayed precisely three days, and then she walked out. I imagine she'd thought I had money, and when she discovered I hadn't—that all went, a long time ago—she left. I washed my hands of her. Which is what I should have done in the first place."

"I see." Edouard looked down at his hands, then stood up. He moved away to the window, so his back was toward them, and looked out over the gardens. The light was fading fast. "It's a fine garden," he said meditatively. "In the summer it must be very beautiful. . . ,"

Christian looked up at him in surprise. Edouard sounded perfectly sincere, and Christian couldn't understand why he was wasting time. There were a thousand questions bubbling in his own brain, and he couldn't wait to start asking them. He opened his mouth, and Edouard gave him a quick glance. Christian shut it again, and Elizabeth Culverton, no doubt exactly as Edouard had intended, began speaking again. Her voice, at first defiant and defensive, softened as she spoke.

"It was fine. Very fine. When I was a child. Before the war—when there was staff, when there was money." She gave another bitter bark of laughter. "It would break my father's heart to see it now. He created it, you see. Oh, his father began it, but it was my father's garden. He was a great plantsman in his day. A visionary. Everything I know I learned from him —we were very close. After my mother died, exceptionally so. I was like a son to him. . . ."

Were you now? Christian thought, glancing up at her. Edouard turned back, his face gentle and sympathetic, his eyes holding those of the woman by the fire.

"I begin to understand," he said. "I was very close to my own father." Edouard sat down again and looked into the fire. He appeared to hesitate. "He must have remarried presumably?" His voice was quiet and thoughtful.

"When I was seventeen, yes. A most unfortunate marriage, which he Uved to regret. She was called Beryl. Beryl Jenkins. A dreadful, vulgar woman. I loathed her. She might have appealed to a certain type of man, I

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suppose. The type who Ukes barmaids. Chorus girls. She had some money —she was the widow of some brewer or something. I never inquired too closely. I imagine the money must have accounted for it. My father had debts. He can hardly have admired her. She was completely unpresentable. None of our friends would receive her. She cut my father off, manipulated him. . . ."

"And Violet was her daughter?"

"Violet was born a year after they married, yes." She snapped the reply, her blue eyes sharp with remembered anger. "Her mother left my father not long afterward. She died a year or two later. Violet remained here." She gestured angrily around the shadowed room. "She grew up here. My father, poor man, doted on her. ..."

"That must have been very difficult for you," Edouard murmured, and her blue eyes flashed.

"Not really. My father adored me. I knew that. We were as close as ever. But Violet was devious. She played up to him. She was very pretty in an insipid kind of way. She lisped as a child—she was always clinging to my father, climbing up on his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck—that kind of thing. I detest that kind of behavior myself. My father felt protective, I think. She was a very timid child—or she pretended to be. Wouldn't say boo to a goose. No brain, of course. I had no patience with her." She paused.

"She always wanted to be an actress, even when she was Uttle. She used to practice on my father, that's all. She'd preen in front of the looking glass for hours; she used to do recitations for him in the drawing room after dinner—ghastly simpering stuff, Tennyson mostly. She had absolutely no talent whatsoever, but my father was a kind man. He'd encourage her, and then she'd twist him around her little finger. She'd persuade him to give her treats—things we could ill afford by that time. I remember once, he took her to Paris with him. Paris! I told Helene that. I wanted her to understand—why I disliked her mother so much. It was so unfair. I loved him. I cared for him. He meant nothing to Violet. Two months after he took her to Paris, she ran off. Joined some third-rate touring company somewhere; changed her name. There was a man involved, I imagine. Someone she'd met. Violet wouldn't have had the guts to do it on her own." She paused, and glanced away dismissively. "It killed my father. She never came back, and it broke his heart. The damn stupid doctor said it was pneumonia, but I knew it wasn't. It was grief. I held Violet responsible for his death, and I still do. I wrote then, and told her. I never wanted to see her again."

Edouard was frowning. Christian saw. He shook his head, as if he were reminded of something, but could not quite recall it. In the silence that

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followed, Elizabeth Culverton lit another cigarette. She seemed to regret her outburst, because when she spoke again, her voice was more measured.

"Nor did I see her," she continued. "She wrote occasionally. She made a foolish marriage—predictably. Some American G.I. The daughter was bom here, then they both followed him back to America. It didn't last, I gather. I don't remember the details, and I burnt the letters." She paused. "I have the address where they were Uving—I did keep that. Somewhere in the South. I can give you that, if you Uke, but it won't help you. The girl won't have gone back there."

"You think not?"

Elizabeth Culverton had risen stiffly. At Edouard's quiet question, she glanced back over her shoulder.

"I'm sure of it. She hated it. She said so. I believed that—I suppose."

"You didn't beheve other things she said?"

"In retrospect, no." She opened the flap of a bureau desk and rummaged inside among an untidy welter of papers. "Ah, here's the address. And here's the cable the girl sent. You can have that too. I don't want it." She paused, looking at Edouard, the two pieces of paper in her hand. Then she handed them to him.

"I told you. The girl was in a disturbed state," she said abruptly. "She was quite calm at first. But there were crying fits. Long silences. Then various garbled stories about her mother and herself. When she left, I decided it was all too highly colored. To be charitable, she was still obviously very shocked by her mother's death, which was sudden. And this place was clearly a disappointment to her. ..." She paused, the blue eyes growing hard. "And, to be uncharitable, she was a fantasist. Just as her mother always was. Frankly, I'm glad she left." She moved to the door as she spoke, as if to indicate that the interview was over. The men got to their feet, but at the door she suddenly turned back, fixing Edouard with her sharp blue eyes.

"I've heard of you, of course." She made it sound like a concession. "You have horses, don't you? Jack Dwyer's your trainer."

"Yes." Edouard looked slightly puzzled.

Elizabeth Culverton gave a tight malicious smile. "Then perhaps you'll understand when I say that in my experience, whether it's horses, or dogs ..." She gestured across at the labradors. "Or people. Breeding will out. I know nothing of her father's pedigree, of course. But I would say that Helene was very much her mother's daughter. It might be as well for you to remember that. Men are exceedingly foolish where women are concerned, so I don't suppose you'll listen. However, you've come a long way, so you may as well have the benefit of my advice, as well as my information."

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She turned, and walked out into the hall. Christian, embarrassed by her rudeness, found himself blushing. Edouard appeared quite unmoved. In the hall, he shook hands courteously, and thanked Elizabeth Culverton for her help. Her failure to rile him irritated her. Christian thought.

In the Rolls, Christian leaned back in the seat and sighed. "Dear God. What a ghastly woman. 'Her father's pedigree.' Women like that make me ashamed to be English."

Edouard shrugged. "As a species, they're not confined to England, you know. It is possible to encounter them elsewhere."

"Not if I can avoid it." Christian glanced at him sideways. "You're taking it all very calmly. I was a httle disappointed. I was absolutely dying for you to be frightfully rude."

"There was no point. Besides, she was helpful, I thought."

Edouard turned his face to the window and looked out at the dark. Christian watched him curiously.

"Was she? I thought she was no help at all."

"Not of immediate help perhaps. But in the long term . . ." Edouard paused, and then turned back to Christian impulsively. "I feel I need to know her. Christian. That I have to know her to find her. Know who she is. Know what she wants."

Christian looked at him levelly. The eagerness in Edouard's face, the expression in his eyes, reminded Christian of a much younger Edouard, the Edouard he had known as a boy; he was touched, and simultaneously fearful for him.