The Final Hour

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Peter pressed his hands to his throbbling temples. Celeste stood beside him now, seeing only him. He turned to her and read the wordless anxiety in her eyes. ‘My God, darling!’ he cried. ‘Nothing matters but this. Can’t you see?’ He put his arm around her, and she dropped her head to his shoulder.

  ‘I’ll send you some material by special messenger tomorrow,’ said Henri, holding out his hand to Peter. Peter stared at the hand, then took it. ‘And another thing,’ said Henri, smiling as if with deep amusement, ‘don’t be scholarly in your attack. Use words of one syllable, if possible. Remember, the majority of the people are pretty ignorant. They have a natural suspicion for what they call “college professors.” Keep it simple, telling, violent, and spectacular. Nothing measured and restrained. They’ll only turn you off, otherwise. Listen to Bishop Halliday, that pious swine. Copy his style, and improve on it. He’s a good rabble-rouser. Be a rabble-rouser.’

  Peter smile convulsively. Henri saw that his mind had already flown off into an excited and turbulent realm, and that he was already formulating what he would write. He did say, however: ‘It’ll be fantastic, working with you, Henri. I still can’t believe it.’

  ‘Believe it,’ replied the other. ‘I’ll give you some very interesting facts tomorrow night, after dinner.’

  Annette was silent. But her little hands clutched Henri’s solid arm, and she was smiling radiantly, seeing nothing but his face.

  And so it was that no one saw that Celeste, too, was looking at Henri, her lips fallen open, her eyes dark and strange.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  Peter had purchased ten acres of land on Placid Heights for his new home.

  The land embraced a whole low hill, and behind it rose the mauve folds of taller foothills so that it seemed enclosed in the ring of an immense and circling fortress. The house, now in the process of being built, stood on the tip of its hill. The grounds were to be adequately landscaped, but at this time, in late August, the hill was brown and scorched, with here and there a bent a sinewy tree and spindling second-growth timber. Therefore, the house had an exposed and vulnerable look in the brawling sunlight, its strong grey walls somewhat grim, its red roof too bright and raw.

  But the hill sloped gently down to a narrow cleft between the hills, a valley filled with radiant and translucent mist, so that the trees scattered through it stood motionless in a silver light. No other house was visible. There was only the pale brilliance of the sky, the purple folds of the hills, the dreamlike valley, as far as eye could see. There was no wind, no sound of a bird in that vast and widespread quiet, under the universal cataract of the sunlight. Only the sawing of wood, the clamour of workmen’s hammers, an occasional rough voice, or the clump of a footstep on rough new flooring. The smell of fresh sawdust permeated the hot and sterile air.

  A short way down the slope a small blue car was parked, and near it, on a smooth stone, sat Celeste, her red dress a splash of colour against the yellowed hillside. She did not look up and back at the house. She stared before her down at the valley, her hands motionless beside her, a lock of her hair lifting and falling faintly as the slightest of breezes sometimes touched it. The stern quiet of her face had relaxed; her lips were softer, more blooming, more gentle, than they had been for some time. Once or twice she smiled, quickly, with a caught breath, then sighed, and for an instant or two the old rigidity would tighten her features, to pass away once more in a vivid flash of renewed sweetness.

  She had come out to discuss the panelling for the library with the architect. He had gone. She was all alone. The diamond on her hand flashed in the sunlight like a round prism. She had sat like this for nearly an hour.

  No one looking at her could have guessed the feverish excitement that filled her, the sudden gusts of black despondency that followed, which were followed in turn by a wild bright quickening that made her clench her hands together, and pierced the swelling of her heart with voiceless ecstasy and deep passionate sadness. Then, as if exhausted by her own emotions, she would become very limp and still, to begin the cycle of emotion again within a few minutes.

  She had been dead so long.

  Since last night, when Henri had proposed his plan to Peter, the latter had been so violently excited, so exultant that Celeste had been unable to restrain him. Any suggestion that he calm himself was met by an outburst, by his crying that she did not understand him, that she was trying to quell the first joy he had felt for months, even for years. So, she had finally said nothing. She saw that Peter, too, had been dully desperate, full of impotence and fear and hopelessness. Now he had been given an opportunity to reach millions, who must be awakened.

  Celeste would think of the man who had made it possible for Peter to live again, to feel once more that terrible bright exultation of the potent. And she would feel a trembling in herself, and would catch her breath. So many years had passed since she had experienced this shaking emotion. She became aware, after so long, of the acute sharpness of the world’s imminence, its passionate violence, its urgency and wonder and vivid colour. She had been given again that clarity of perception, that exhilarating keenness, which she had once felt in existence, and which she had forgotten had ever been. Now, as she thought of Henri Bouchard, her awakened senses observed everything with such vividness that it was almost painful. The small rubble at her feet took on significant shapes and forms. The shadow of a twisted tree near her was full of meaning, and as its great leaves bent in the faintest of winds, she could hardly endure the poignancy of the sunlight upon them. She would lift dazed eyes to the sky, and it seemed to her that the drifting outlines of pale clouds were more than she could bear.

  So absorbed was she that she did not hear the grunting struggle of a car as it climbed the roadless hill, nor the slam of its door. Nor did she at once see the strong broad figure that began a slow ascent towards her. When she discerned who it was that was approaching her, it seemed only the continuation of her dazed and radiant dream. She could only sit there on her stone, dimly smiling, her face turned towards the climbing man.

  Then, all at once, she became aware of him, and it was like a shock through all her body, a wild awakening. She could not rise. She could only sit there, her hands gripping the sides of the stone, her face white and set. When he lifted his hand in a friendly salute, she did not answer. She was paralyzed; her heart appeared to stop.

  Now he halted for a moment some fifty feet below her, and wiped his damp fact with his handkerchief. ‘Hello!’ he called.

  Her lips and throat were dry. She was still unable to move. He climbed slowly and easily towards her, then halted again some ten feet distant. ‘Peter here?’ he asked.

  Her voice was a hoarse rustle, projected with infinite effort: ‘No.’

  Now she could stand up. He was smiling at her in the friendliest fashion. ‘He’s not ill again, is he?’

  Her lips formed the negative, but no sound came from them. ‘At the last minute, Annette decided it was too hot, and so I thought I would run out myself,’ he said.

  Celeste was silent. They faced each other, and now he, too, did not speak. His large head was inclined gravely, his expression serious. She awaited what he would say next, with an agonizing acuteness of all her senses. But he only said at last: ‘Well. And how are things coming along here? You know, we often come out.’

  ‘Very well,’ she replied, again struggling to speak. Her limbs were heavy and throbbing.

  He turned away from her, and smiled again. ‘I’d like to see for myself,’ he said, and climbed up and away from her towards the house. She watched him go, mutely. After a long time, she sat down again on the stone, quickening with a desire to run away, to get into her car and turn it down to the valley. The desire was like a blowing flame in her, but she had no will to respond to it.

  She did not know how long he had been gone, but he was suddenly beside her again. He was not looking at her; he was gazing down at the valley with a contented expression. ‘Very nice,’ he remarked. ‘An
d not too far from the city. You know, I saw the old Sessions house a few times, when I was a brat. You’ve heard of it, Celeste? If I recall it rightly, the plan of the interior was similar to this, and there was an exterior resemblance, too.’ He laughed a little. ‘It ought to have been preserved as a family monument. There’s a story that it inspired old Ernest Barbour all his life. Then it was finally abandoned by the family, after my great-grandmother, May Sessions, died, in 1910. By then it had become surrounded by slums, but she still stayed there. Must have been a fascinating old devil, my great-grandfather, eh? The house was slowly falling into flakes, but she stayed there, thinking of him. When she died, though, the family pulled it down so it wouldn’t degenerate into a rooming house, or worse.’

  He laughed again. His strong broad teeth flashed in the sunlight, as she gazed up at him, dumbly. ‘You know, I’d have liked the final, irony—the old Sessions house becoming a bordello. There’s an epigram in that. The thing that at first inspires a man finally becomes his degradation. I’m clever, aren’t I?’

  Now she could smile, painfully. She stood up, brushed off her dress. ‘I must go,’ she murmured.

  He lifted his hand easily, and closed it softly, but firmly, about her arm. She started, and then hardly controlled a humiliating impulse to tear her arm away from his grasp. So she stood, becoming very still and cold. But a sudden sharp heat spread from the fingers that grasped her, spread all down her arm and then into her body. Now her eyes widened, fixed themselves upon him, blazing with vivid blue light, proud, bitter and incandescent.

  ‘Hello, Celeste,’ he whispered.

  Any movement on her part, she thought, despairingly, would make her ridiculous, increase her wild humiliation. So she did not stir. But her heart was rising on a swift arch of exquisite pain and tumult. And he watched her closely, smiling, that pale and polished gleam of his eye narrowing between its lids.

  ‘Let’s walk down there a little way,’ he said. He dropped his hand to her own hand, and held it strongly. He drew her after him, and she followed, stumbling, seeing only the floating ground at her feet, too engrossed with her shame to resist.

  They moved along the slope at an angle, so that a rising hump of ground hid them from the sight of any curious workman at the house above. There was a short squat tree here, with thick shade. They stood under it. Here, Henri dropped Celeste’s hand, and they faced each other in silence, a silence almost as violent in its unspoken power.

  Then Henri spoke very quietly, and slowly: ‘It’s time we had a talk, don’t you think? And made up our minds what we are going to do.’

  Celeste smiled bitterly, and flung up her head. ‘Are you actually considering divorcing Annette?’ she asked, with harsh mockery, her look very direct and bright.

  She expected him to hesitate. But he slowly and gravely shook his head. ‘No. Not yet.’ His voice was reflective and firm. ‘For a reason I can’t tell you about just now. It came up very recently. It makes it impossible for me to divorce her—at present. The opportunity will come later. Not very late, I hope.

  ‘And now, you. Are you going to wait until Peter dies before we begin to live?’

  The audacity of him, inexorable as it was, and now grim, stunned her. She could only stare at him, dumbfounded for a long time. Then incoherent and furious words rushed to her lips in such a flood that she stammered over them, as one stumbles, falters, runs and staggers in flight: ‘Oh, you are contemptible! How can you—! You are a ghoul! There’s nothing I can say to you but this—leave me alone. Stay away from me. Haven’t you hurt me—and Peter—enough? Do you think it’s easy for me to look at him? Now? I’ve got to make it up to him. How can I bear looking at him, every day, every night? You could never understand that. There never was a decent impulse in you, no honour, no fidelity, no kindness. You would kill poor little Annette, easily, if it would help you in any way. Sometimes I think you are killing her; she has such an awful look in her eyes lately. What am I going to do? Nothing! Never! Never, never.’

  She turned away from him, and took a few rushing steps. But he caught her at once, and pulled her back. He shook her with hard violence.

  ‘Celeste. You fool. Stop struggling; you are ridiculous. Look at me, Celeste.’

  She was weeping loudly now. But at the vicious contempt in his voice, the implacable command, she stopped, sobbing under her breath, regarding him with mute and intense hatred through her wet eyes. He dropped his hands from her shoulders.

  ‘There, now, that’s better. You act like a child, a stupid and unreasonable and romantic child. We aren’t children, you little imbecile. We aren’t even very young now. This is a matter to be faced, understand, and decided upon. Yes, you are hating me now, aren’t you? You’ve made a fine mess of our lives, yet you have the impudence to glare at me as if I were the one to blame, and not you. A fine defence mechanism, but a cowardly one, like all defence mechanisms. Or is all this beyond your intelligence?’

  A flood of scarlet ran over her face. She was very quiet now. She said, looking at him fixedly: ‘Yes, perhaps I’m a coward. I always thought I was. But that doesn’t matter now. I’m Peter’s wife. It may surprise you to know that I don’t want Peter to die! You see, I love him.’

  ‘And so,’ he interrupted her, ironically, ‘you prefer to discuss this matter after Peter is dead? You have that in mind? You can’t see the nastiness of that? Bah, you make me sick, Celeste. Why can’t you be honest? The fact that you have decided to think about matters after you are a widow doesn’t enhance your fine honour, your smug virtue and righteousness. It doesn’t undo any “wrong” you’ve already done to Peter. It doesn’t exonerate you because you won’t face things until your husband is dead. The thought is already there.’ She was silent a moment, still staring at him. Then she drew a deep breath, and said softly: ‘All right, then. I’ll decide now. Whether Peter lives, or dies, there’ll never be anything between us, Henri. Never. Not even if you divorce Annette.

  Not even if Annette should die, and you do want her to die very badly, don’t you?’

  He began to smile. ‘Annette die? Yes, I wouldn’t mind that. I’ve no real, dislike for the little thing. In fact, I’m fond of her. But it would simplify many things if she died soon. Soon, but not just now.’

  ‘I’m sure I hate you now,’ said Celeste, with a kind of wonder. ‘Yes, I’m sure of it.’

  His smile became a laugh. ‘That’s better. I like you to hate me. And you haven’t really decided, have you? You are wordy little wretch. Didn’t Christopher feed you milk toar and romanticism all your life? I think I remember that. Yc are an untidy little romanticist. Your hair is all disorder. I’n speaking figuratively, of course. You see, I have to be very careful in choosing words that aren’t beyond your limited intelligence. You’ve thought yourself quite a high and noble intellectual all these years gypsying around Europe with Peter, haven’t you? You’ve sat and listened to the masters at every international tea-table. So now, you have a Mind and a Soul. Yes, my love, you make me sick.’

  He added: ‘I never liked sickly romanticism: I asked you, believing you might have acquired just a little sense, to discuss with me what we are going to do now. And you come out with Jane Eyre.’

  He moved a foot or two from her, and inclined his head towards his car below on the slope. But his harsh and cruel eyes did not leave her face.

  ‘I’ve never pursued women. Frankly, I don’t like women. I don’t like you; I never did. But I’ve loved you. I’m not too sure, just at this minute, whether I love you any longer. Fools make me puke. You are quite a fool, you know. But, I’ve loved you. I might even love you again.

  ‘But just now, I’m not sure. I’m not even sure I want you. I’m almost sure I don’t.’

  He paused. Her face was as white as bone, in the shadow. She could not look away from him. She said nothing. But her heart went down into the blackest depths of despair and desolation, of an anguish so acute and immense that it seemed her heart must stop. He watched her narro
wly.

  He lifted his hand slowly, and pointed at her, and his finger was like a dagger. ‘I’m going to start to walk, Celeste. And at any time before I reach my car, you may call me back. But once I get in it, and go away, that’s the end. Think about it for a moment, honestly, like a decent human being. When I go away, that’s all there is. There’ll never be anything more. “Never, never,”’ he added, with quiet disgust.

  He waited a little while. But she stood there unmoving. He smiled grimly. With infinite slowness and resolution, he turned away from her, began to walk in the direction of his car. She watched him go.

  He had reached a little mound of rocks. She thought: He is really going. He won’t look back. He’ll never come back.

  Now all her pulses were like separate hearts in her throat, her temples, her hands, her knees. She could feel their sickening bounding and leaping, tearing at their confines, forcing a taste of salt into her mouth. He was within sixty feet of his car now. He walked very steadily, never faltering for a moment, never hurrying, never pretending to delay. She saw his broad grey back in the sunlight, the back of his large and brutal head. He seemed as unaware of her as if she did not exist.

  Now a huge pain took hold of her with iron teeth, so that she literally felt their tearing in her flesh, their clenching in her vitals. No! she cried in herself. O no! O Henri, no!

  The strong figure moving so inexorably in the sunlight had shut out everything else in her consciousness. It was a nightmare, a dream that dragged each horrible moment to its ultimate conclusion, never hurrying, never pausing.

  Now the iron teeth had fallen on her last living defence, and she felt a soaring of agony in her body and her spirit which was unendurable. It was this that made her cry out, a great loud cry that was less an act of her will than pure torment, which had become beyond her power to fight.