The Final Hour

by Taylor Caldwell

  Henri had married Annette as his last forceful blow to regain the power that had been ruthlessly stolen from the great-grandchildren of Ernest Barbour by his nephew, Jules Bouchard. Now, to Edith, all these remorseless regaining of power seemed foolish and tragic, and very childish.

  I’m absurd, she thought.

  And then, under the shadow of the smart black sailor hat with its white ribbon, her nut-brown eyes widened. Her heart quickened uneasily. Henri, married to the sterile and ailing Annette; Celeste, married to the dying Peter. Henri—and Celeste. She had a mysterious and frightened premonition that destiny, as well as Henri, could be seen as a vague but gigantic shadow behind the presence of Celeste in this house. Henri, too, must have felt the impelling force of this house.

  No! she thought, I am absurd.

  But her uneasiness quickened to fear. She bent her head and hurried into the cool dim immensity of the reception hall. Her one stern thought was: Look here, it’s hands off. Earlier in the morning, she had not thought that. She had had an entirely different idea. Now, the enchantment and the power of the house were upon her, and the strong air warned her.

  Celeste had always impressed Edith with her childlikeness and singleness of mind and thought. An eternal child, she had once thought. But now she discerned that Celeste was a woman. There might still be a childlike quality in the direct dark-blue eyes that met hers quietly. There might be a simplicity in her dignified manner. But she was a woman now. She might not be as disingenuous as all the other Bouchards, but she was without illusion. This, too, Henri must know.

  Edith and Celeste had never been friends. Edith had felt only an amused superiority towards the silent child that her brother had so desired. She had not believed Celeste worthy of such a man. She, too, had had a large part in the thwarting of Henri, convinced that he would find no happiness in the pure innocence of Celeste. Had she been mistaken? She asked herself this question sombrely, as Adelaide had asked it so often of herself.

  The five of them, Celeste, Henri, Annette, Christopher and Edith, had breakfast in the sunny morning-room, whose french windows opened out upon the rose gardens. Peter did not as yet come downstairs for breakfast.

  Annette was lovingly delighted at the presence of her guests. Her flat little body, so fragile and thin, was clad in a white lace morning gown. The tendrils of her bright fair hair curled about her small triangular face, emphasizing its pallor. But her extraordinarily beautiful light-blue eyes, so large and tender, were filled with radiance. Beside her sat Henri. He listened to her gay prattle with a smile, and some times looked at her with casual fondness. She was no longer very young, but she appeared still immature. When she glanced at her husband her eyes lit up with a dazzling and pathetic light, and there would be a flutter of faint rose in her little face.

  How can Henri endure that sickly little thing? thought Edith, as she had always thought it, but now with new and awakened disgust, sorrowful and outraged. But he betrayed nothing but mixed kindness and solicitude for his wife. He rarely glanced at Celeste, sitting across from him in her dark-blue frock which matched her eyes.

  It had been many years since Edith had seen her sister-in-law, who was also related to her by blood. It was the same Celeste, but with an unfamiliar sternness in her repose, a worn look about her nostrils and lips. There was patience there, repressed and firm, and a sureness. She smiled rarely. But she was more beautiful than ever, in her maturity. Christopher could hardly look away from his beloved sister. When she met his look, he smiled, and there was a strange searching tenderness in his smile, for all its immobile and metallic quality.

  He had inquired politely of Peter, and had listened to Celeste intently when she replied. ‘He is much better,’ she said. ‘He only coughs a little at night. Soon, we’ll look about for a place of our own.’

  Henri, at this, lifted his head, and directed a pale glance at Celeste. But the heavy lips with the brutal folds about them did not move. A moment later he lifted his eyes to Christopher, bland blank eyes which expressed nothing at all. However, all Christopher’s lean muscles tightened with a kind of alert surprise, and calculation.

  Impossible, he thought. That’s over and done with. Then he thought: But nothing is ever over and done with, with such men. Nevertheless, he felt a black and dangerous amusement. He turned his own glittering stare upon his sister, and the chromium wheels of his mind began a soundless but rapid whirling. She had undone him, by her marriage to Peter, against his plans. He, like Henri, never forgot, never wholly forgave. But, as he studied her, that inner treachery of his which could never withstand the love he had for her filled him with gloomy anxiety. The little love, the little utter fool! She had ruined her life, ruined Henri’s life, ruined his own. She had caused that tight deep look about her eyes and mouth, the patient look of vicarious suffering. He felt the marble core of her, and wondered, for the hundredth time, how he had never known of it when she had been a child and under his care. His anxiety lifted a little. She had been a match for all of them, because she had been defenceless. She was a better match now, because she understood so many things, and was a woman at last.

  His scrutiny of her intensified. Henri was speaking idly to her of nothing at all. She was returning his regard indifferently. There was no sign of any emotion on her grave pale face. Her little white hand rested near her coffee cup in a supine attitude. It did not tremble in the least.

  Christopher’s mind increased its speed. Henri was in control of the Bouchards, through his marriage to Annette, because of his own power of character. Annette. Christopher glanced at his sister-in-law, who was also his niece. As brittle and delicate as a figurine. But one could not always count on the early demise of such little creatures. They had tenacity, and clung to life until they dropped from it as a fluttering leaf drops from a tree in autumn. However, such as she died when their hearts broke. He remembered she had almost died when Celeste had been engaged to Henri. Now, if she should die—

  If she should die. Christopher’s mind fastened on the thought as greedy hands fasten on ripe fruit, the juice spilling through the fingers in the clenched grip. If Peter should die. A look of utter malevolence shone in his inhuman eyes for an instant. Then, there would be only Henri and Celeste. A swift warmth, almost like a fever, touched his face.

  He felt someone looking at him, and glanced up to see that it was Henri. And Henri was smiling, his eyelids narrowed.

  But Henri said in the most casual of tones: ‘Would you like to go up to see Peter, Chris?’

  ‘I’ll wait a while,’ said Edith, who hated invalids. ‘We girls have a lot to talk about.’

  The two men rose and left the breakfast table. They entered the long corridor that led to the reception hall. Christopher walked behind Henri, and could not look away from the back of that large Napoleonic head, the set of those broad shoulders, Henri moved quickly and firmly. Reaching the foot of the staircase, he turned and regarded his brother-in-law with that bland blank expression.

  Nothing had been said, nothing hinted. But, as the two men stared at each other in the purplish dusk, the impalpable air was full of portent. Christopher saw the pale gleaming of Henri’s eyes, his faint smile. He saw the broad strong hand on the stair-rail. Henri had planted one of his feet on the first step. He stood there, did not move, and only gazed at his brother-in-law, and waited.

  Christopher began to smile.

  He said, very softly: ‘So, he’s here. How is he?’

  ‘Dying,’ said Henri, with impassive calm.

  Again there was silence.

  ‘As insane as ever?’

  Henri shrugged. He glanced down at his hand, lifted it absently, and bit the nail of his index finger. Christopher, with a shock, remembered from his own boyhood that immemorial gesture of Ernest Barbour.

  ‘I have an idea,’ said Henri, at last, examining the nail he had bitten, ‘that he knows a great deal. Too much. He’s bursting with it. But, he doesn’t know enough—from this side. He is hell-bent on f
inding out. He will, too. He has the obsession that we nasty Bouchards are plotting war.’ He smiled.

  Christopher smiled also. ‘It might interest him to know we have other thoughts, this time. But that might be worse than his present ideas. Much worse. In fact, with the stupid obsession he now has he can be of invaluable assistance.’ He coughed gently.

  ‘My thought, exactly,’ agreed Henri, with friendly warmth. They regarded each other with amusement.

  ‘He could be delicately encouraged—’ continued Christopher.

  ‘Exactly,’ repeated Henri.

  ‘Must be dexterously handled—’

  ‘With finesse. It can be managed. We’ll have a gathering of the clan. He never was very bright,’ Henri added.

  ‘He’s big with book again?’

  ‘About to hatch, I’d say. He couldn’t have returned at a happier time, in my opinion. But, we’ve got to work fast. He’ll hardly last more than a few months. I’ve seen the X-rays.’

  There was a ringing silence, there in the hallway, while the two men stared impassively at each other.

  Then Christopher touched his lips with his skeletal fingers. ‘And little Celeste? It’ll be bad for her.’

  Henri’s fixed regard did not leave his brother-in-law. ‘Perhaps,’ he murmured. ‘Who can tell?’

  Christopher, who hated Henri more than did any of the other Bouchards, because of the public humiliation and ignominy Henri had once inflicted on him, reached out and pressed the other’s arm with affection.

  ‘We’ll be on hand, to help her bear it,’ he said, in a jocular tone.

  But Henri said nothing. He went up the stairway. Christopher followed, watching him with narrowed eyes.

  Henri tapped on a door in the upper hall, and he and Christopher entered Peter’s apartments.

  CHAPTER IX

  Peter was sitting in a deep chair near one sunny window, which was opened to admit the shining wind. On a table near his right elbow was heaped a mass of orderly papers and books and magazines. Somehow, he had been able to obtain a few sheets of paper, and had apparently been making rapid notes upon them for some time. A housemaid was busily dusting his bedroom beyond.

  Christopher, smiling, glanced acutely at his brother-in-law, and missed no detail of that exhausted and pallid face, with the sunken cheeks and white lips, the suffering eyes. What he saw made his spirits rise excessively.

  ‘Well!’ he exclaimed, ‘so here we are!’

  He approached Peter, his hand extended. Peter looked at him in silence, even while he mechanically took that hand. He felt a thrill of the old loathing and disgust at the touch of that dry cool flesh and the light pressure of the bony fingers. ‘The Robot’ had not improved with marriage. He was easier in manner, yes, had even more of the inhuman sangfroid which had always distinguished him. But the lethal quality of him was still there, waiting, like poison in a vial.

  ‘You haven’t changed, Christopher,’ he said.

  Christopher laughed lightly. ‘Oh, come now. We’re none of us any younger, you know that. But thank you, anyway, Pete.’

  Henri smiled irrepressibly. Peter was not known for his tact; he had no deviousness. Henri discerned that he might even elucidate his real meaning, which might have its amusing aspects. But Peter, by an effort, did not elucidate. He withdrew his feverish hand from Christopher’s, and was silent again.

  ‘We’re all delighted you are home,’ said Christopher, sitting down near the other. ‘It’s been a long time.’

  ‘Too long,’ remarked Peter.

  ‘I think so, too. How are you? You seem perfectly well to me.’ Nothing could have been more affectionate than Christopher’s smile, his air of solicitude.

  ‘I am much better,’ murmured Peter. He hesitated. ‘In fact, I am going to insist that everyone stop treating me as an invalid.’

  ‘Quite right,’ said Henri, moving to the window and glancing idly through it. ‘There’s been enough of this pampering. But, you know women. Hens cackling over chicks. Celeste’s been coddling you enough, Pete. How do you think you would stand a dinner party, with the whole damned family?’

  ‘I’d like it,’ said Peter, in a low tone. Henri’s profile was toward him, brutal, blunt, carved harshly as if by a powerful knife. ‘I’ve wanted that.’

  He could not look away from Henri. The man seemed to fascinate him. In the meantime, Christopher was fondly studying the heap of papers and books on the table. ‘Another book, Pete? I hope a more charitable one this time.’

  Peter laid his shrunken hand protectingly over the contents of the table nearest to him. He regarded Christopher with eyes that were suddenly blue fire.

  ‘I have my plans,’ he said, very quietly. He drew a deep breath. The two other men heard the rasping in his chest, the wheezing. ‘I’ve been gathering material.’ He lifted a thin book, and Christopher saw the German lettering on it: Deutsche Wehr. Peter held it in his hands and stared down at it.

  ‘A German military publication, June 13, 1935,’ said Christopher. ‘It must be interesting. If only as a psychological study of the German mentality. I’ve always, hated the Germans. A vicious and perverted people. Quite mad. But, I suppose you don’t agree with me, Pete? You never did believe in the virulence of people.’

  But Peter said calmly: ‘On the contrary. I do agree with you. This time. I didn’t, at first. A Swedish nobleman once told me that they had a proverb in his country: “As mad as a German.” Yes, they are an insane people. It isn’t Hitler. It’s Germany, itself. Every German, man, woman or child. Any German, anywhere. There’s a mass insanity there. But that doesn’t mean we should cater to that insanity, you know. Every man of intelligence understands that insane people should be isolated. But there are men, everywhere in the world, who intend to turn the dementia of Germany to their own uses. They think that afterwards they can put chains on Germany. But you can’t easily put madmen back in the madhouse after you’ve used them.’

  ‘“You can’t indict a whole people,”’ murmured Henri. ‘Didn’t you say that yourself, in your own book?’

  ‘I’m not indicting the Germans,’ replied Peter. A febrile colour rushed to his cheeks. ‘In a way, I pity them. They are intrinsically mad. You don’t murder madmen. You pity them, incarcerate them where they won’t harm society. You try to cure them by suggestion, or drugs, or treatment—if you can.’ He paused. The flush left his cheek. It became livid. He half raised himself in his chair, and despite his own inner warnings, he could not control himself. ‘I tell you, I’ve seen so much in Europe! No one will listen to me—I went everywhere. I saw so terribly much. That’s why I came back—to tell what I’ve seen! Perhaps a few will listen.’

  ‘My God,’ interrupted Henri, wearily, turning from the window and looking down at Peter. ‘We’ve had a measlesrash of books about Europe. Prophets have been going wildly up and down America, shrieking warnings. Jeremiahs have been howling on every doorstep. The people are sick of it, I’m afraid. You don’t intend to add yourself to the prophets and Jeremiahs, do you, Pete? It’s no use. We’ve got legions of them already. They bore us to death.’

  Peter was trembling violently. They could see that. Henri and Christopher exchanged a malignant look of amusement. Christopher thought He’s been suppressed. He’s not been allowed to speak. Henri has seen to that. Now, he lets him talk. He wants me to hear. He, Christopher, felt the old rising of excitement, a satisfaction that his deadly brother-in-law was conspiring with him again.

  Peter cried out in a thin and choking voice: ‘“Bore you to death!” My God, can’t you see?’ He stopped. His hands clenched on the German military publication. His eyes were blue flame, and his mouth was grim. ‘Yes,’ he said, in a lower tone. ‘You see, all right. I know that. There’s nothing I can tell you. You know it all. That’s what I was afraid of.’

  Henri shrugged, smiled. ‘My God. You believe that, don’t you? You will continue to flatter us with omnipotence and omnipresence and prescience. You are our best advertiser, our
best boaster, Pete. Never mind. Calm yourself. Maybe Germany isn’t as mad as we all think. It will blow over. You’ll see.’

  Peter’s shaking hands opened the book. ‘Let me read this to you,’ he said, in such a strained and agitated voice that it was hardly audible: “‘Totalitarian victory means the utter destruction of the vanquished nation and its complete and final disappearance from the historical arena. In reality, totalitarian warfare is nothing but a gigantic struggle of elimination whose upshot will be terrible and irrevocable in its finality.”’ He closed the book, looked slowly from one to the other with his moved eyes. ‘I suppose you’ve read that before?’

  Henri laughed, with indulgent disgust. ‘I’ve heard it somewhere, yes. Who listens to the bombast of Germans? They’re all bullies and cowards and shouters. We ought to have enforced the Versailles Treaty. We didn’t. That was our sentimentality—’

  ‘Your expediency!’ cried Peter, aroused now from the sluggish inertia of the many past weeks. Christopher was silent, smiling slightly. Henri was ‘egging’ the fool on, for his own purposes. So Christopher listened intently, understanding that in this apparently incoherent and silly conversation there was a plan and a pattern which Henri intended him to discern.

  ‘Our expediency?’ said Henri, becoming colder and heavier as Peter’s passionate agitation grew. He was studying the sick man with implacable interest. ‘Don’t be a fool, Pete. Yes, I remember what you said in your book: “Evil men will seek to destroy the Versailles Treaty, call a moratorium on reparations from Germany, help her secretly to arm and loose her madness on the world again—for profits.”’