The Final Hour

by Taylor Caldwell

  In all his life he had loved only one creature with complete purity and tenderness, with absolute softness and gentleness. And that had been his sister, Celeste, who, from her birth, had been his self-dedicated charge. Even when she had married against his will and desire, and had gone away for so many years, he had never forgotten her for a moment, had willed her return with a kind of cold desperation. He had considered her something apart from other women, something pure and untouchable, clad in a chastity and integrity and nobility which nothing could destroy. That was his sentimentality, his naïveté, and now, his shame, his degradation.

  He had known for so long that Henri Bouchard would never relinquish Celeste, no matter how long he would have to wait. But Christopher, with a curious kind of simplicity, had believed that it would be Celeste who would pronounce the period of waiting, and set its limits. Its limits would be the death of her husband, the divorce of Annette by Henri.

  During these past months he, Christopher, had lived in a kind of airless vacuum of indecision, doubt and gloomy anxiety. So much depended upon what transpired between Henri and Celeste, upon what was decided by his sister. Now, as he stood there, devoured by the most frightful hatred and rage and self-abasement, he made his decision. His degradation was none the less, but only increased, by his acknowledgment that he had been a naïve and sentimental fool, a Victorian fool. He had only vengeance left. He thought: She is no better than any of the others. She is filthy and corrupt, foul and disgusting. She had surrendered so easily, so supinely, without even a struggle. In another man, these thoughts would have wildly amused him, furnished him with ribald comments upon the simplicity and absurdity of human nature. He found nothing amusing in himself.

  He thought: Now, I know what I must do. How I would like to go to him, and murder him! How I would like to show him what I know! But he dared not do this. He dared not let Henri Bouchard even know what he had seen.

  So, it had not been enough for Henri Bouchard to have humiliated him, Christopher, fourteen years ago, to have stripped and degraded him in the face of all the family, to have publicly betrayed and destroyed him, to have sent him away into virtual exile. (And then, triumphant, Henri had seized the power of the Bouchards, which Christopher had so malignantly and unremittingly coveted, had, like Napoleon, set the crown on his head with his own hands.) No, it had not been enough for him. It had not been enough until he had taken Celeste and had disgraced her, under this roof that sheltered her own brother and her own husband. And her brother stood there, feeling the final deathly humiliation and impotence.

  Deep within the heat of the maelstrom, Christopher was aware of the hot core of unbearable pain, which he could not analyse and could only feel.

  The concentration of his eyes, the violence of the emotions that were almost destroying him, must have reached the consciousness of Henri Bouchard. For he lifted his head and turned it in Christopher’s direction.

  For a few instants, the two men regarded each other in an intense silence. Then Henri relinquished Celeste, gently.

  ‘Yes?’ he said, quietly, with that brutal directness which always intimidated others. Celeste now stood beside him, with a remote and rugged expression in her eyes, which were dim and suffused. Her hair was dishevelled, a mass of black curls about her cheeks and neck.

  Christ! thought Christopher, looking at her. He had an impulse to go to her swiftly, and strike her again and again across her pale cheek, until she fell down.

  Edith appeared in the archway. She came forward a step or two, glancing first at her brother and then at Celeste. And then her thin face flushed darkly red.

  But she said, very quietly, to the bemused Celeste:

  ‘Celeste. We’ve bad news. We came back—just a little while ago. And there was a message. Your mother has just had a stroke, at Emile’s. You’re to go there, at once.’ She paused, and her tears came, helplessly, with obscure anger: ‘We’ve waited for you, Celeste, you must go at once!’

  CHAPTER XV

  Henri glanced at his watch. It was three o’clock. He resumed his restless pacing up and down the lighted empty room, unnaturally bright and silent in this early morning. The crickets no longer shrilled outside in the warm grass; the crescent moon had slipped far down behind the great trees. The storm had been brief, had passed with as swift violence as it had come, leaving behind only the cool and passionate scent of the earth and of foliage heavy with water.

  At one o’clock Christopher had called briefly from Emile’s home to announce that Adelaide Bouchard, his mother, had just died, after only a moment or two of consciousness. Did Henri intend to inform Annette, granddaughter of Adelaide, at once? No, Henri had replied. There was no necessity to disturb her. It would only shock and upset her. Better to let her know in the morning, after a good night’s rest. In the meantime, he, Henri, would wait for the return of Christopher, Edith and Celeste. He was not in the least tired, he replied impatiently, at Christopher’s suggestion that he go to bed. He, himself, would have gone to Emile’s home had he not been afraid that Annette would awaken and miss him, and be alarmed. As it was, he frequently went to her door to see if she still slept. At this, Christopher smiled darkly to himself, and hung up, after Henri had belatedly expressed his regrets at the death of his wife’s grandmother, his own aunt.

  Henri, who rarely smoked except in company with others, and who was noted for his precise and compactly neat habits, had filled several trays with the ramains of cigarettes during these past hours. He would eye them with startled aversion when he encountered them, as though this had been done by a stranger without fastidiousness and orderly manners, and then would light another cigarette and smoke it restlessly. Sometimes he would sit down, and run his broad fingers through his crest of hair that was neither light nor greying, but rather bleached in appearance, and he would stare with excited gloom before him. He thought of Celeste, but he thought of many other things, also. He had long ago discovered that one’s thoughts could be preternaturally sharp in the early hours before dawn. His light straight brows drew together in concentrated scowls.

  It was not his way to taste in retrospect fruits already eaten nor did wine already drunk intoxicate him. ‘Let him take who is able; let him hold who can,’ had always been the philosophy upon which he had lived, and would continue to live. Tomorrow, he was to have visited Jay Regan, the aging but still potent financier. Now, that was impossible. Even he could not overlook the amenities necessary after a death. He was annoyed. Adelaide could not have died at a more inopportune time. It was not the habit of Mr Regan to send quiet and secret summons to any of his friends unless something grave portended, something imminent and of the most profound importance. For once, Henri was puzzled. He speculated upon Regan’s communication, and cursed the mischance of Adelaide’s death. A miserable attenuated old woman, who ought to have died years ago! She had distorted, practically ruined, several lives with her confounded nobility. What evil the good can do!

  Henri reflected that there is in all men a lust for power, but in the ‘good’ there is a greater lust than in the ‘wicked.’ Moreover, the wicked can sometimes be made to pause at the demands of reason, but the good are without reason. Therefore, they are the most destructive, the more dangerous. The most wicked man lacks a complete conviction; the good are made brazen by it. What had happened tonight was the long result of Adelaide’s ‘goodness’ and nobility of character. He frowned again. He hoped that Celeste would not react to her mother’s death in a ridiculous fashion. If she did, it would make it a little more difficult for him. But that was all. He liked to have events occur in an orderly and progressive fashion, and thereafter be filed away for future reference. To have them bulge untidily from the files and blow all about was distasteful and angering to him. During the fourteen years of Celeste’s marriage, in which he had seen her at irregular periods, he had made no attempt to reach her. He had waited for the proper hour, when the act could be accomplished, and laid as a foundation for future events. In these years,
he had had to consolidate his position. Not even for Celeste would he have jeopardized that position. Now, when everything was safe and secure, he had moved to take her. It would be very annoying if she again became temporarily inaccessible. It would take up time, and time, now, was very important to him, and ought not to be wasted upon a silly woman who must be seduced all over again. For a moment, he contemplated abandoning his pursuit of her. Why not let her go in her foolishness and simplicity? He had more important things to engross his attention.

  It had always been incredibly amazing to him that powerful men were frequently destroyed by their lust for a single woman, or, sometimes, just women. It was still amazing to him. He could think of no occasion when his passion for Celeste might be irresistible enough to make him turn aside from larger issues and drivel over her with complete abandon. ‘Like a damn libidinous dog,’ he thought, with disgust. Women were the rewards of power, the ultimate rewards. And only that. But in adolescent America (who, in the midst of her very adolescence, was rotting and aging at the top), the reward was considered the only thing of value. That was the influence of women, and drivellers, who believed the rump that perched on the knee of him who sat on the throne was more important than the throne. God! The world was full of eager rumps, and there were actually men who seized on one and let ruin fell them during their preoccupation! His disgust mounted.

  If his pursuit of Celeste at any moment threatened to endanger himself, then he would let her go. He had always known that. Yet, at the thought, he was seized by such an astounding and protesting despondency that he felt new disgust, and even alarm, for himself. He stood up again, and began his restless pacing once more. There was no reason for abandoning Celeste. It was only irritating that he might have to begin the pursuit again just when it was most important that his whole mind be engaged in imminent issues. He must bring things to a climax in his private life very shortly. He had confidence in himself, that he could juggle his private life without endangering the great motive power of his existence.

  So preoccupied was he that he was completely startled when he saw that Edith and Christopher and Celeste had returned. He went to meet them. Celeste had not wept, he discerned, after a quick and penetrating glance at her. Her face was marble white, and her eyes unusually wide and brilliant. She was very still. She looked at him blindly, as a statue stares, and did not seem to know what to do next. Edith had one arm about the younger woman’s waist. It was she, rather than Celeste, who betrayed the signs of sorrow, for her eyelids were swollen. Christopher was pale, but as inscrutable as ever.

  ‘Well?’ he said. He regarded Henri without expression.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Henri, looking only at Celeste. ‘But she was very old. We’ve got to remember that.’

  Why did Celeste look at him like that? He frowned.

  ‘I think,’ said Christopher to his wife, ‘that you’d better take Celeste to bed.’

  ‘Come, dear,’ said Edith, to Celeste. ‘You’re so very tired.’

  Then Celeste opened her white mouth, and still gazing at Henri, spoke like a sleepwalker, in a toneless high voice: ‘I can’t forget what she said. She said I must go away, at once. That was just before she died. She said; “Go away from that bad man, where he can’t reach you, and kill you. In the name of God, go away and never see him again”.’

  And then, after saying that, she stood there, rigid as stone, staring at him with the blind bright blueness of her eyes.

  A dull scarlet passed over Henri’s grim face. Christopher smiled faintly, touched his lips with his bony and delicate fingers. Edith was acutely but sternly embarrassed.

  Henri looked slowly from one to the other, saw Christopher’s smile and Edith’s cold anger when she met his eye. He clenched his fists. He lowered his head like a bull and the nostrils in his short nose dilated. This was ridiculous, humiliating. He turned to his sister.

  ‘Take her to bed,’ he said, shortly.

  ‘Yes. One must never remember what the dying say,’ said Christopher, nodding curtly to Edith. ‘The girl’s not responsible.’

  ‘I must go away,’ said Celeste, and she stepped out of Edith’s grasp and stood apart from them, with a sudden wild desperation on her face. ‘I must go away at once! You can see that, can’t you?’ Now her voice rose on the arch of a cry, and she struck her hands together with a loud sharp noise.

  ‘She’s hysterical,’ said Christopher, coldly. He seized his sister’s arm, and said slowly, and clearly: ‘go to bed, Celeste. Do you want me to call the doctor and have him put you to sleep like any other fool of a woman? Behave yourself. You aren’t a child any more.’

  She looked at him, her face all wild white tremulousness, and tried to withdraw her arm from his painful grasp. But he held her remorselessly.

  ‘You don’t understand,’ said Celeste, in a tone of such agonized mournfulness that Christopher’s inhuman eyes strangely softened. She held out her hand to her brother with a pathetic gesture. ‘I never forgot him. I couldn’t forget. I stayed away, ran away, for years. It was all so terrible. There was nothing I could do but stay away. And then, I came back. And then, there was tonight—’ She paused, and cried out in a loud and aching voice: ‘You don’t know about tonight! I knew then that it was all useless, my running away, that I couldn’t stay away from him! What am I to do? Christopher, tell me what to do!’

  In spite of her sadness, Edith was disgusted. ‘What a scene! The family has always been known for its luscious family scenes, but this is the most revolting. Celeste, haven’t you any shame, for yourself? Don’t you know what you are saying?

  Please, Chris, help me to put her to bed immediately, before she has every servant listening and peering.’

  She turned to her brother and said: ‘Well, say something, damn you. Don’t stand there like an image of a charging bull. What have you done to her? O God, this is disgraceful!’ ‘I agree with you,’ said Henri, quietly. His colour was still high. He moved to Celeste, and said, in a hard and penetrating voice: ‘Nothing happened. You are hysterical, my girl. Go to bed. You’ve had a bad night and aren’t responsible, but for God’s sake, try to control yourself a little.’

  At the sound of his voice, she started violently. She stood rigid, but trembling, in her brother’s grasp. She gazed at Henri with a kind of nightmare horror. Then, all at once, she began to cry, the tears running down in a river from her distended eyes. ‘Henri,’ she said brokenly, and took a step towards him. Christopher released her. She lifted her hands to Henri, and he took them very gently, trying to control her with the power of his eyes.

  ‘Yes, darling,’ he said, softly. ‘I know. Go to bed. Rest. Well talk about all this another time.’

  But Celeste said through quivering lips: ‘She said I must go away from you, Henri. You know I can’t do that. Never again. Henri, why can’t I die? Why did I ever come back? But you wanted me to come back, didn’t you?’

  Henri was silent. Edith retreated a few steps with an expression of contemptuous loathing and renewed embarrassment. But Christopher watched intently. He saw that Henri and his sister had forgotten him and Edith. Then Henri said: ‘Yes, Celeste, I wanted you to come back.’

  He held her to him, and she dropped her head on his shoulder. He smoothed her head gently and tenderly. The violence of her weeping began to subside, as she clung to him, grasping his sleeves with desperate hands. When he kissed her, she pressed herself closer and closer to him, her black curls falling over his strong fingers.

  Edith looked at her husband, who appeared to be very calm. She said quietly: ‘Well, this is a nice, shameless thing, I must say. A beautiful scene. One forgets, of course, that Annette and Peter are upstairs sleeping like woolly lambs. This isn’t very pretty, you know. High, fine and romantic! I think it’s just untidy and nasty and revolting. I wash my hands of the whole thing.’

  She lifted her dark head, straightened her shoulders, and walked from the room. Christopher smiled thinly after her, and then stood in silence and wa
tched his sister and Henri. The girl was quieter now, sobbing softly, while Henri murmured in her ear words that Christopher found inaudible, however he strained to hear them.

  Once he had used his sister to entangle and secure Henri for his own purpose. Now, he reflected with exultation, he could use her to ruin Henri. The stone basilisk had his spot of vulnerable flesh, through which he could be struck to the heart. Christopher had hoped for much, but not this much. His exultation rose to the pitch of delirium. Over his dry and bleached features ran a flash of murderous light.

  Henri was releasing himself from Celeste’s clinging. He was saying gently and slowly. ‘And now, you must go to bed, and rest. You know that, don’t you?’ He looked about for his sister. She had retreated to the reception hall outside the room, and was waiting at the foot of the stairs, very pale and grim. He led Celeste like a child to Edith, who waited and watched, her mouth compressed, her eyes full of contempt.

  ‘She’ll do now. Take her to bed,’ he said, and at his look, implacable and yet expressionless, she felt the old fear of him, and put her arm about Celeste again. Henri watched the two women go slowly up the stairs, then he returned to the great lighted room where Christopher still waited.

  Christopher opened his case and said, casually: ‘Cigarette?’ Henri stared at it as if he was in doubt as to what it was, then accepted. Christopher lit it for him, lighted one for himself. He said: ‘The funeral is Thursday. It was unfortunate that my mother didn’t die before we got there. She lived just long enough to see Celeste. Must have waited for her. The poor girl was put through some bad paces.’

  Henri sat down, and looked directly at Christopher with his pale eyes, which had regained their old surface gleam. ‘Who else heard?’ he asked, abruptly.

  ‘Only Edith, and Celeste, and I. We were only admitted in groups of two or three to see the old lady. Good luck, there. Not that anyone else would have understood. They would probably have thought that she meant Peter.’ He laughed silently.