The Final Hour

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Then he said:‘There’s another thing:Henri will eventually know. Have you thought about that? What do you think he will do?’

  ‘That’s another reason for my staying, and facing it out,’ she replied, tonelessly. ‘When all of them see that I expect them to believe it’s Peter’s child, he won’t dare say anything. Even he wouldn’t dare say anything. Did you actually think that he would strike an attitude and shout out to the world that it’s his child? Not if I know Henri!’

  ‘I see. Of course, you’re right. But there’s another thing: don’t you think he might rush matters, then, about a divorce from Annette?’

  She looked at him with sharp fright. Then, she shook her head. ‘No. Not under present conditions. No. He’d know that he wouldn’t dare do that, while Armand is alive. While it isn’t safe for him to do it.’

  Then she said, drearily: ‘I think he’ll be glad he’s out of it, anyway.’

  She was suddenly crying again, her lip trembling childishly. ‘I’ll have the child, anyway,’ she said, with simplicity. ‘That’s something.’

  For some time Christopher amused himself with certain vicious thoughts. Then he became aware of Celeste again, with renewed compassion and love. He took her in his arms and held her close to him.

  ‘Poor darling. You’re a brave little devil, you know. You always were, God help you.’

  She drew away from him a little. ‘Not so brave,’ she said, steadfastly. ‘I’ve thought of killing myself, sometimes.’

  That night, at Endur, Christopher told Edith, without emotion, and with an air of indifference. He knew her strength and lack of emotional upheavals. But even she listened, aghast, though she said nothing until he had finished.

  ‘My God, how terrible,’ she said. And, characteristically: ‘How terrible for Henri.’

  Christopher smiled unpleasantly. ‘You mean, how terrible for Celeste, don’t you? Or do you still have a brother-fixation, sweet?’

  She looked at him, her nut-brown eyes filled with an expression he had never seen there before, so ruthless, so minatory was it.

  ‘Aren’t you mistaken, Christopher?’ she asked, quietly. ‘You’re speaking of a sister-fixation of your own, aren’t you? Never mind. We’ll get nowhere, bickering.’ She looked at him fully, and now her eyes were dim. ‘You’ve never really loved me, have you, Christopher?’

  He was about to say something, out of the virulence of his nature, but remained silent. Then he said, reflectively: ‘I believe I have. Yes, I believe I have.’

  She swallowed stiffly. She sat before him in her smart plainness, her slender legs crossed. Her brown hair was streaked with silvery lines, but her dark profile was still lean and firm and young. ‘You are a brute, you know,’ she said. ‘But I’ve told you so many times. What do they call you? ‘‘The white snake.” I’ve never thought that about you. Sometimes I’ve thought you loved me.’

  He repeated, still reflectively: ‘Yes, I believe I have.’

  She said: ‘Yes, I think you are telling the truth. You know, I’ve always hated Celeste a little, because of you. I don’t think I hate her now. I’m glad you told me that you love me, Christopher,’ she added, simply. ‘You never told me before, not in so many words.’

  He was touched. He went to her and took her hand, then bent and kissed her. ‘You’re a fool, Edith. But you’re the only bright woman I’ve ever known, too. I like bright women.’

  She lifted her arms and put them about his neck, pulling his head down so that she could kiss his lips. Her smile was soft and tremulous, despite the habitual stern lines of her mouth. ‘You hurt me all the time, you pig,’ she said. ‘But you can’t help hurting everyone. I understand you, you see. Well, thanks for small favours, my pet. I know you never told any other woman you loved her.’

  She pushed him away from her, with a little laugh, in which he joined. Then she frowned thoughtfully before her. ‘Your darling little sister has courage,’ she admitted, grudgingly. ‘I never believed that, before. So, we’re in a conspiracy of silence, eh? You don’t think there’ll be trouble with Henri?’

  ‘No. It’s obvious there won’t. And when Peter’s dead, and pray God that’s soon, Celeste will be treated tenderly, outwardly, at least, by the family. With you most tender, in the forefront. The family is a little afraid of you, my soft little angel. They won’t dare laugh in your face.’

  CHAPTER XLI

  Peter knew that each day that he lived was a day borrowed reluctantly from death. He had known that with his mind, but never with his full consciousness of body and spirit together. It was like a fact established by the cold intellect but never accepted by the senses and the emotions.

  But on this early May day he awoke very early in the morning, just before dawn. Though it still was very dark, the darkness had that thrilling quality of the earth immediately preceding the rising of the sun. It was an aliveness, an awareness, that quality, as if he stood in a dark ante-room looking at a closed and massive door behind which teemed great life and great movement, unseen, and unheard. He had awakened, and though he was aware of an immense lassitude and numbness in his body, his mind was abnormally clear, vivid and alert. When he moved his hands, he could hardly feel the motion, so numb was his flesh, and he was quite amazed to discover that the pressure of the bed under him was barely perceptible to his body. He listened to the darkness, to its clear and hollow substance. The windows of his room could not be seen. Everything was impenetrable, and filled with peace.

  Then, in that vast and hollow peace, that breathless and motionless peace, came the faint murmur of the winds of dawn, soft, whispering, like the woodwind notes of an orchestra. They murmured solemnly, hardly stirring. Slowly they deepened, became stronger. The newly leafed trees moved and lifted up their branches and their voices, strengthening the light far notes. Now, from far and wide, from over the dark moveless hills, from over the distant valley and the far river, other voices advanced and rose. The tremolo of the bird took up the song, until all the dim air fluttered and was pierced by golden notes.

  Peter lifted himself heavily in his bed and drew aside a drapery. The earth still lay under a black and airy sea, but beyond the eastern hills there was a line of pale bright fire, throwing those hills into silhouette. That fire ran electrically over the rims, and above it the sky slowly pulsed into a tremulous rose, streaked with thin flame. Now the chorus of the thousand voices deepened exultantly; the wind increased the tempo of its cello notes; the sweet fluting of the birds became of such crystal poignancy that Peter felt the tears in his eyes.

  He had never regretted the necessity of death. He had always been so busy, so anxious, so tormented, that he had never felt that death might overtake him, personally. At least, he had never felt this with his emotions. Now, he felt it. He was filled with sad and active regret, with immeasurable sorrow, with a nostalgia that was like an unbearable pain in his heart.

  Concerned, as he had always been, with the agonies of men, with injustice and cruelty and madness and fury, he had been too absorbed to withdraw into himself and indulge in contemplation. He had rarely thought of God. When certain men had spoken to him of God, he had listened with inner impatience. What had ‘God’ to do with the immediate and terrible problems of mankind? It was an apotheosis to be indulged in only by metaphysicians, by those who had no real regard for their fellows. At its worst, ‘God’ had been the abracadabra of the wicked, the foolish, and the tyrants. If Peter had thought of God at all acutely in his life, and particularly in the past years, it had been with rage and hatred and detestation. If there was ‘God,’ how had He been able to stand by in complacent or evil silence through these years, through the last decade, and see what there was to be seen? How could He have beheld the degradation and violence of mankind, the torture of the innocents, the death and tears and despair of the defenceless, the multitudes who had died with hands uplifted to the mute heavens, and not have moved in His eternal might and destroyed their enemies? How many countless prayers must have ri
sen from the ghettoes of convulsed Poland to that silent and heedless God! How many anguished cries for help must have started from the bloody cells of the concentration camps, from the burning walls of churches and synagogues, from the turgid gutters where children died in torment, from blasted homes and shattered fields!

  Yet the heavens had remained mute. There had been no sign from Him who had declared that it were better that a millstone were hung about a man’s neck and he were cast into the sea than that he inflict suffering upon one of these ‘little ones.’ Thousands upon thousands of these ‘little ones’ had perished, their mouths stopped with their own blood, their arms reaching for the mothers who were not there—and God had slept, or had not cared. The innocent had died unsuccoured and uncomforted, in agony, torn asunder by man, deserted by God.

  Out of his thoughts, then, out of his anguish for the helpless for whom no one cared, there had arisen in Peter a profound hatred and loathing for any ‘God’ who might exist. He had felt his spirit standing naked and alone on a desolate mountain-top, cursing God for the horror He had inflicted on men. There was no excuse; the apologies and explanations of churchmen were foolish and outrageous mouthings, the mutterings of imbeciles who must have their idiot-magic even in the face of the desperate agonies of the world. There were some who declared that God was ‘testing’ mankind by this horrible spectacle of human depravity and human suffering. There were some who promised that those who died helplessly, and in torture, would enter a ‘better world.’

  But to Peter no ‘better world’ was worth the last fluttering, dying gasp in the throat of a little child. What æons of eternal bliss could ever erase the final memory of that death, that hopelessness? If the enemy paid and paid throughout eternity for his cruelty and his madness, it would not be enough to take from the records of time the glazing of one child’s bewildered and suffering eye, as it died in loneliness and pain. There was simply no explanation, no excuse, for the last pathetic lifting of a dying child’s hand, for the last wild shriek of a mother searching in ruins for a little body ruthlessly murdered, for the last groan of a man in a concentration camp. There was no forgiveness for the men who did these things. There was no forgiveness for the God who permitted them.

  Peter’s hatred and loathing for ‘God’ extended to the vile creatures He had created, to all the world.

  Now, as he watched the morning rising over the hills, he was overwhelmed by his pain. A universal suffering pervaded him. He felt the universal sorrow of the earth. And at last, in him, the hatred ebbed away, leaving only tears and sadness behind. He saw that the tormentor suffered equally with his victim, that in the end he died in equal anguish. So, Peter’s sorrow, too deep for despair, too profound for words. He felt the universal aching throughout his spirit, felt a grief too enormous for anything but prayer, for anything but compassion.

  And with this, he knew, with all his emotions, that he was about to die.

  The realization, all at once, brought him a solemn and bottomless peace. He watched the dawn brightening, heard the louder triumphant voices of the earth. But he felt no joy with his peace, no fulfilment. He could not deceive himself that he ‘understood.’ He only accepted. He was glad that he was about to die. He hoped only that there would be no remembrance. How frightful to carry into eternity the memory of the horror of men, of the indifference of God, of the mysterious hopelessness of the world!

  When Celeste came softly into his room at half-past seven, she thought Peter was asleep. But when she approached the bed, she saw that his face was turned speechlessly to the window, where he could see the morning sunlight on the tops of the trees. He turned to her when he became aware of her, and smiled.

  She said to herself: He is dying.

  And then it seemed to her that there was a great rending pain in her heart, suffocating and shattering. She knelt beside the bed and touched his hand. She felt its coldness, the skeletal hardness of the fingers. She could not speak. She looked into his eyes, and they remained like this for a long while, looking deeply into each other’s souls and thoughts.

  Finally, Celeste laid her head beside her husband’s on the pillow, and knelt like that, hardly breathing, not thinking.

  At last, she felt his hand on her head, gently and slowly smoothing it. When she looked up, her eyes dry and burning, she saw that he was smiling again. His voice, weak and calm, came from his quiet lips:

  ‘My darling, you look so tired, so exhausted. Will you do something for me? Go out today. Go somewhere. Go for a walk. Look, the sun is shining, after a week of rain.’

  ‘No,’ she said.

  ‘You must, dear,’ he said, with great urgency. ‘It would please me very much. I’m much better, you know. After a while, I’ll get up and work a little.’

  ‘No, Peter, you mustn’t work today,’ she answered. ‘You—look so tired. You didn’t sleep much, did you?’

  He did not answer for a moment, then said, turning his head away a little on his pillow: ‘No, not much. But then, I get no exercise. Lying here, and sitting in the chair—that isn’t very much.’

  She gazed at his profile, so attenuated, so delicate and drained now of every emotion, of every longing. Yet, it was not a peaceful profile. It was one of profound resignation and weary patience. The pain in her heart quickened so that she pressed her hand to her breast, and she was blind with suffering.

  She saw at last that he had turned his head again to her and was regarding her with deep and penetrating love and compassion. ‘Celeste,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, darling?’ she whispered.

  His hands moved restlessly on the light blanket which covered him. ‘You know, dear, and I know,’ he said, ‘that I haven’t much longer to live. I’d like to know that when you are free, you will be happy, that you will find happiness. Somewhere.’ His voice was very gentle and very calm.

  ‘Peter,’ she began. And then could say nothing else. But her tears came now, very slowly, dropping over her cheeks. He raised his hand heavily, and, with a smile and a faint sigh, and with infinite tenderness, he brushed those tears away. ‘Hush, dear. Don’t cry. Why should you cry? In many ways, we’ve been very happy together. I like to remember how happy. It’s been no life for you. I’d like to think that you might be really happy again—sometime.’

  And again, they looked at each other in that deep and unspeaking silence.

  Celeste was sick with her pain. She lifted his hand and pressed it to her cheek.

  ‘You’re still young, my dear,’ he said, more faintly now. ‘Life won’t end for you. You’ve had a lot of misery, with me. I hope you’ll forget that misery, and remember the pleasanter things. The things we saw together, the talks we had, the walks, the times we laughed, the new places we visited, the friends.’

  ‘If I remember all that, I’d never be able to live,’ she said, inaudibly.

  And then it seemed to her that her heart broke and divided on an immense and tormented cry. She pressed her face against the bed. She burst into wild sobbing. ‘Forgive me, Peter!’ she groaned. ‘Forgive me!’

  Her hands clutched the sheets and blankets, pulled at them, writhed among them. Her sobs shook the bed. She forgot everything but her anguish and despair and remorse.

  It was not for some time that she realized that Peter had neither moved nor spoken, and had not replied to her. When at last she lifted her ravaged and tear-stained face, she saw that he was looking at her with grave and stern gentleness, and with such sad and passionate understanding. And then he raised his hand and pressed his fingers on the long white streak that ran backwards from her forehead. He lifted that streak and moved it between his finger-tips.

  He said: ‘I never saw that before, my darling.’

  She opened her shaking lips to cry out against herself, but he shook his head. He said again: ‘I never saw it before. I’ve been so blind, so inexcusably blind.’

  And then he moved his head so that he could kiss the white brand of her long suffering. She felt the pressure of his li
ps, and closed her eyes on a spasm of agony that struck at her consciousness, and made all things faint and dim about her.

  When the doctor had paid Peter his daily visit, he went down to see Celeste, who was waiting for him. He said, gravely: ‘He is very weak. You know, of course, Mrs Bouchard, that he may go at any time. He is resting now. He asked me particularly to tell you to go out for the day.’ He paused, seemed about to speak, hesitated, then said nothing.

  ‘Did he say why?’ asked Celeste, dully.

  ‘There are some people,’ replied the doctor, ‘who want to be alone when they—realize. They want to think about it. You see, I don’t think he fully realized all this before—not completely. He does, now. He wants to think about it. He’s in no pain. He seems much better, mentally, than he has been for some time. Physically, of course, he is much weaker.’ He studied her intently. He remembered what Peter had said to him at the last: ‘I feel it’s come. I want to spare her. I want to be alone. She mustn’t be here.’ Of course, that was nonsense. Sick men often felt like that, the doctor argued to himself.

  ‘I’ll come in again, in about two or three hours,’ he added. ‘His nurse is with him now. I think it would please him if you were to go out for a while.’

  He went on, when she did not speak: ‘Mr Bouchard is right, of course. You look very tired and ill.’

  With more compassion than he usually felt for those he served, he saw how haggard she was. Her eyelids were red and swollen, her lips white and parched. She was still young, but she looked old, especially now, when the bleached lock of hair fell in disorder over her forehead.

  ‘It would do you good,’ he urged. ‘It does no good, making one’s self ill in caring for an invalid. This is the first nice day in a long while. Suppose you go out for a few hours, Mrs Bouchard.’

  Celeste nodded, but he wondered, when he went away, if she had heard. Something nagged at his consciousness, the consciousness of a doctor. There had been something about her which he had overlooked, in his preoccupation with Peter. He shook his head, impatiently, puzzled.