The Final Hour

by Taylor Caldwell

  ‘Celeste!’ exclaimed Henri, with genuine surprise. Now it was dark again. The wind suddenly fell, though the dim roaring stirred the topmost branches. A hot breath ran over the grass. The thunder murmured far off in space. Celeste could feel, rather than see, that Henri was approaching her. Now she saw his dark silhouette against the lighter darkness.

  She forced herself to speak, and her voice was faint: ‘It was hot. I came out for some air.’

  She moved now, and was unaware that she had taken a step towards him. It was an involuntary step, and her hands rose like shells upon a wave, then dropped. Her whole body was like a shell also, as fragile as a puff of down, effortlessly blown. A dreamlike state fell upon her. Whether Henri sensed this or not, he gave no indication. He only stood and peered at her, seeing the floating white oval of her face.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, very quietly, ‘It is hot. I came out, too, to see if I could get a breath of air.’

  He came closer to her. ‘You aren’t going in? Let’s sit down a few minutes. I think there is a storm coming. It’s bound to get colder. The house is like a furnace.’

  She found herself sitting on the bench again, and he was beside her. The dreamlike sweetness, mingled with a nameless terror, increased within her. She was becoming languidly numb, and resistless. She saw a dim flash in the darkness, Henri was opening his cigarette case, and extending it to her.

  With fingers that had no feeling, she took a cigarette. When he lit it for her, the flame blinded her eyes, so that she closed them momentarily. He saw the full whiteness of her lids, her clear pallor, the sad vague redness of her lips. He lit a cigarette for himself, and leaned back on the bench, and stared into the darkness.

  ‘I wanted to have an air-conditioning plant installed, but it seemed foolish, considering that we were always away for the summer,’ he said, in the most casual and indifferent of tones. ‘Now, I think I shall do it.’

  She heard his voice, but not his words. Now all about her was a strong warmth and poignancy, a languor and an odd beating that appeared to come from the air itself. She was trembling somewhat. She asked herself nothing, thought nothing, was only experiencing. She drew a long deep breath.

  ‘Yes,’ she murmured. The glowing tips of their cigarettes were like fireflies in the hot gloom. Her lips formed words, and she listened to them vaguely as to the voice of a stranger. ‘Has Annette gone to bed?’

  ‘Yes, long ago. And Peter?’

  ‘He was restless, and I left him with Miss Tompkins. I saw his light go out.’

  He heard her voice, and noted its dreamlike toneless quality. He did not answer. They sat in silence. Celeste’s breathing was becoming more difficult. Her body felt suffused with heat. Emotion filled her so that every vein sang and hummed, and she heard a prolonged roaring in her ears. But she had no desire to move. She wanted only to sit like this, forever, never moving again, only feeling.

  ‘I think he is much better,’ said Henri at last, quietly. ‘The rest is doing him good.’

  Celeste’s confusion increased. She forced herself to understand Henri’s words. Of whom were they speaking? Peter! She sat up, rigidly, sick with a kind of shock. Now she was completely aware of herself, of Henri, and full of dread and sharp terror. She made a motion as if to get up, and he caught her arm, though he appeared not to move. She felt the strong grasp of his fingers. They slowly descended, had taken her hand. Her own hand was trembling and burning.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘Stay here with me for a few minutes. What are you afraid of?’

  She was speechless, her heart swelling. If I stand, she thought, I’ll fall. I’ll surely fall!

  ‘I’ve never had a minute with you alone,’ he said, still grasping her hand firmly. ‘After all, we are relatives, you know. You’re my guest, yet I only catch glimpses of you, going in or coming out. Like a ghost.’

  She could not speak. She could feel the sweet and heavy languor stealing over her again, and she tried to resist it.

  At last she faltered: ‘There are so many people to see I’ve been away so long.’

  ‘Too long,’ he said, gently.

  He released her hand. Immediately an appalling desolation fell over her, a sense of loss, acute and aching. He was leaning forward, but away from her, his elbows on his knees, his quiet hand lifting the cigarette to his lips.

  ‘Do you remember a day, a very long time ago, when you first came here, and we walked in this rose-garden?’ he asked. ‘That was when Edith and I came home. Old Thomas was with us then. He died in Florida, when he was with Edith and Christopher. It was a hot afternoon when I first saw you. You came with your mother and Christopher, and you were such a little girl then. Wasn’t it in July, 1925?’

  ‘I think so,’ she whispered. Her hand was aching from a grasp that was no longer upon it. Her heart was devoured by a strange hunger.

  He laughed softly. ‘Such a little girl! With a big hat and a white dress. You even had blue ribbons! What a romanticist Chris was, in those days. I couldn’t believe you, when I saw you. He must have kept you under glass. You were a nice little girl, too, unbelievably nice.’ He paused. ‘You’ve changed, Celeste. It’s not just that you’re older. It’s something else.’

  I must go away from here, at once! she thought. But she did not stir. She felt his strength, his power, though he was so still, and they kept her motionless. The emanations from his body and his personality were like heavy chains upon her arms and legs, and she could not struggle against them.

  Now she felt, rather than saw, that he was turning to her.

  ‘What is it, Celeste? What’s happened to you?’

  She pressed her fingers tightly together, and spoke almost incoherently: ‘I’ve grown older, that’s all. I’m not a child any more. I’m not even very young now. Does anyone remain the same?’

  He was silent for a few minutes. She felt his eyes upon the dim shadow of her face.

  ‘It’s something else,’ he repeated, at last, and she started at the sound of his voice in the windy darkness. ‘You had some quality of freshness and simplicity, of faith and strength. It’s all gone. I’m sorry about that.’

  She did not answer. Ponderous silence was all about them, except for the wind. Even the crickets were still. A long rolling passed far in the distance. A sulphurous smell ran over the invisible grass.

  ‘You should have married me,’ he said, and his tone was most casual, and very light.

  She could move now. She cried out: ‘You mustn’t say that! You must never say that again—’ And could say nothing more. But her throat tightened; tears sprang to her eyes; they fell over her cheeks. Her heart was strangling in her breast.

  ‘Why not?’ he asked, reasonably. ‘After all, it doesn’t matter now.’ He paused. He took her hand again, and held it tightly. ‘It doesn’t matter now. Does it?’

  She tried to pull her hand away, then surrendered it limply. ‘No,’ she whispered.

  ‘We got what we wanted,’ said Henri, in an amused tone. ‘You—Peter. I—Annette. We’re very happy now. And contended. We ought to congratulate each other.’

  ‘Don’t!’ she cried again, as if in unbearable pain.

  ‘Why not? It’s true, isn’t it?’

  She wrenched her hand from his. She put both her hands to her face a moment, pressing them against her eyes. She was sick with a queer anguish.

  ‘Do you remember the day you kicked me out?’ he asked, gently. ‘I came, and you gave me my ring.’ He was silent a moment. ‘And then I went away. But you looked after me, through the window. I saw your poor little face there, all the way to the gates. Why did you look after me, Celeste?’

  She wrung her hands, twisted her handkerchief. ‘How do I know? It is such a long time ago. Perhaps I was—sorry. Sorry I had hurt you.’

  But he said remorselessly: ‘I know why. It was because you really loved me, Celeste. You knew it, at the very last. It wasn’t Peter you wanted, really. Perhaps you had persuaded yourself that you did; it was what he said, w
hich was so novel and unique, that had appealed to your poor little ingenuousness. He was a hero. He fought the Bouchard dragons. You didn’t like your family. They frightened you. They made you feel foolish and small and inferior. Peter fought them; he was such a hero. And so romantic. I wasn’t romantic, I am afraid.’

  Her voice was trembling, but hard as iron now: ‘You mustn’t talk like this. It’s stupid. Very stupid. You are unfair. You were always unfair, Henri. Anyway, what does it matter? It was a long time ago. I was only a child. Nothing matters now. We’ve come a long way. We aren’t young any longer.’

  But he said, as if she hadn’t spoken: ‘You were good and sweet and had a peculiar kind of “virtue.” So, Peter appealed to you. In a way, perhaps, you really did care for him. But you loved me. You always did.’ After a moment, he added: ‘You always have. Even now. Is that why you’re afraid of me, Celeste?’

  Terror overwhelmed her. She sprang to her feet. He stood up, also, but much more slowly. She faced him, and cried: ‘I’m not fraid of you, Henri Bouchard! Do you know what I think of you? I think you are a coward. A cheat! If you weren’t, you wouldn’t talk to me like this! Haven’t you any shame? Don’t you think—’

  ‘Of Annette? Of Peter?’ She was startled, and terrified, at the sudden change in his voice, which had become rough and brutal. ‘Shall I tell you something about yourself, Celeste? You are a fool. You are over thirty now, but you are still a girlish romantic, full of idiotic dreams. When you hear the truth, you shy away, daintily. You don’t like the truth, do you? Shall I tell you something else? I despise you.’

  His voice, his words, shocked her so profoundly that she could not move, nor speak, and could only stare at the shifting outline of his face above hers, in the thickening darkness.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I despise you. You aren’t what I thought you were. I never thought you were a liar, and especially not that would lie to yourself. But, you are a liar; you do lie to yourself. You think you are noble and honourable, don’t you, when you lie like this? All loyalty and pride, dedication and duty. You think: ‘What would the world be if one renounced duty, or were unfaithful, or looked at the truth?’ And so, let me tell you that such principles as yours have made the world sick. It’s made it what it is. The maudlin folly of people like you has done more to prevent any progress than any other one thing you can name. I tell you, you’ve got to look at the truth, and live accordingly. If the world is to survive, it’s got to look at the truth.’

  The shock still made all her flesh vibrate. She cried out scornfully; ‘And you, Henri Bouchard, think that you’ve looked at the truth! Don’t you know that I know what you are? Have you really thought I was so blind, and dumb, and stupid, that I didn’t know? You’ve said you despise me. Well, let me tell you that I know you are a liar, a mountebank, a malefactor, a cheat on a colossal scale. You’re a scoundrel, Henri. A beast. When the world rids itself of such as you, it will be a better place, a cleaner and a safer place—’ She paused, smothering with her impotence and her rage.

  But even in that impotence and rage, she became aware that he had listened very intently, and that he had come a step closer to her. ‘Yes?’ he said. ‘Who’s told you these things? Peter?’

  ‘Do you think we’ve been blind all these years, in Europe?’ she cried, bitterly. ‘Don’t you know that Peter has been studying, interviewing people, reading, searching?’

  And then she heard him laughing uncontrollably. She stopped, abruptly.

  ‘O God!’ he exclaimed. ‘If that isn’t the damnedest rot! And you’ve been trailing him around the world, listening to that, faithfully recording his idiocies! I had an idea there was something like this. But I didn’t realize the full extent of it all.’

  He seized her hand and pulled her towards him, roughly and strongly. ‘You’re a fool, Celeste. A romantic, drivelling fool. I don’t blame you too much. Look at your associates! You’re still a little girl, the little girl I first saw. I put a flower in your hair that first day; do you remember? That was pretty and romantic, wasn’t it? Enough even for you! I ought to have known then that you’d never really grow up.’

  She struggled with him briefly. But he caught her face in his hands and kissed her brutally upon the lips. He took her in his arms, and kissed her over and over, until she was blinded and stunned, and could not resist.

  ‘I love you, my poor imbecile darling,’ he whispered, against her ear. ‘Do you know that? I’ve always loved you, and wanted you. Now, you’ve come back. Do you think I’ll ever let you go again?’

  She pressed her hands against his chest. ‘Let me go,’ she said, through her clenched teeth. But her knees were weak beneath her. If he had released her, she would have fallen. Her lips burned as if stung by flame.

  ‘No,’ he said, softly, kissing her again. ‘I’ll never let you go again. You never wanted me to go. You’re a shameless woman, aren’t you, darling? I’ve watched you these last weeks. I knew I had only to reach for you, and you’d come. You knew that, too. I’ve reached; you’ve come. It’s as simple as all that, isn’t it?’

  She had grasped his arms, to push them from her, but now her hands dropped away. She burst into tears, as he held her. He bent his head and pressed his cheek against hers, though she tried to turn her face away.

  ‘Hush, dear,’ he said, with great tenderness. ‘I’m sorry that I had to say that to you. But it had to be said. I’ve known all about it. Don’t you know how I love you, Celeste? Don’t you know that nothing matters but you? There are things I’d like to do, but they would hurt your miserable kind little heart. So we’ll have to wait. No, we won’t wait for love. And not too long, for other things. We’ve waited a long time. I’ve a lot of patience, dearest. But not too much.’

  He smoothed her hair, murmuring in her ear. He pressed her face closer to his. She was all anguish, all wretchedness, shame and resistance. But suddenly she was overpowered by a delirious joy. Without her own volition, she clung to him, devoured by hunger and the first desire she had ever felt. Her lips bloomed and softened under his own. Her eyes, opened wide, stared at the stars, which shrank and brightened to points of flame. The wind, the trees, the thunder and the distant roaring of the gathering storm, sang exultantly with atavistic passion and ecstasy. She felt the spinning of the earth under her feet, and its wild rotation invaded her body when he lifted her in his arms and took her away into a darkness which was hot and clamouring and impenetrable, and full of singing voices.

  Christopher and Edith sat in the smothering heat of the great drawing-room, with every lamp burning. They heard the gathering storm, which, though rain had not yet come, was shaking the windows with subterranean sound.

  Edith was wiping her eyes in silence and sadness, and Christopher was immobile. From time to time, he glanced at his watch.

  ‘I don’t understand it,’ he said, in his neutral voice. ‘They said she didn’t go out. At least, she didn’t order a car. ‘The butler saw her on the terrace, over an hour ago, without a hat. He was under the impression she had gone for a walk. And no one knows where Henri is. He didn’t go out for the evening, either.’

  Edith sighed. Then she said, wearily: ‘It’s a hot night. Perhaps they’re out on the grounds somewhere, together, trying to get a breath of coolness.’

  ‘No doubt,’ answered Christopher.

  Suddenly, he got to his feet, and went to one of the black and shining windows, which reflected every lamp hotly. A flash of lightning lit up his face, which was like a plaster mask, gaunt and suddenly evil, sunken and dark under the bony cheeks. His back was to Edith; she saw only the contour of his thin shoulders, but she felt something violent and repressed in him.

  ‘Do you think we ought to go and look for them?’ asked Edith, restlessly. ‘After all—’

  Christopher was silent for a moment. Then he said, not turning: ‘No. They’ll be here shortly. Where could they go?’

  ‘I’m afraid—for Celeste,’ said Edith, pressing her handkerchief to her eyel
ids again. ‘It’ll be terrible for her, Christopher. She and Adelaide were so attached. She’ll never forgive herself.’

  Christopher turned, and now she saw his face, and in a sudden fear she half rose from her chair. Was it possible, she thought, that he could have had a secret affection for his mother, that it had been quite frightful for him? His plaster pallor, the colourless glitter of his eyes, were alarming to her. Or (and this must be the more logical explanation), he was concerned for Celeste, afraid of her frantic grief—

  But there was something in his look which was incongruous with her surmise of softer sentiments, something which increased her instinctive fear and confusion.

  ‘What is it, Christopher?’ she cried, involuntarily.

  But he did not hear her. He was listening. She turned her head, and listened, also. She heard the terrace door opening, but no voices. Now, there was only silence. Edith stood in the centre of the room, near her husband, and the heart under her thin breast began to pound uneasily. Christopher caught her wrist, and so unexpected, so vicious was his grasp, that she almost cried out. He was not looking at her; he was staring at the great empty archway of the room. Then he swung her behind him so that she almost fell into her chair, and he moved towards the archway as soundlessly as a feather floating. She watched him go, in the daze of a nightmare.

  She saw him stand rigidly on the threshold, as he reached it. But she did not see what he saw: Henri and Celeste pressed together in the silent abandon of passion, in the shadow near the stairway. Edith wanted to go to her husband, as he stood there, seeing what she could not see, but something in the rigid contour of his shoulders, the carved motionlessness of his gaunt pale head, held her still in her chair.

  Christopher thought to himself with brilliant clarity: Bitch!

  He could not have summoned any will in himself to move, or speak. He could only watch, and feel a dry and dusty disintegration within him, a dusty wind of hatred, accompanied by stabbing pangs of bitterness and grief. And mingled with these was a horrible kind of humiliation and personal debasement.