The Final Hour

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  ‘You wouldn’t lose anything if I did cut you off,’ he went on. ‘For if Henri goes down, and I go down, in the general debacle, what will you have left? Think of yourself, my darling.’«

  She was deeply perturbed. The dryness and sparseness of her father’s words had the greatest effect upon her. Her avarice, enormous as the avarice of all the Bouchards, came strongly awake. Seeing her perturbation, her father took a box of cigarettes off his desk, and extended it to her. She took a cigarette with svelte, red-tipped fingers that quite visibly trembled. He lit for her, then leaned back and waited for her to speak.

  ‘You can’t feel any loyalty towards that rabble,’ said Francis. ‘You can’t really feel any sympathy for their aims. How could you? So, that is disposed of. The complete lists, Rosy. The names, backers, tie-ups with the German Embassy, German Intelligence, and the German Consulate. Nothing must be left out. And,’ he added, ‘I wouldn’t mention any of this conversation to Antoine. It wouldn’t be a good thing for you. We’d have to move prematurely, and, my darling, the fact that you’re my daughter wouldn’t cause me much more than the slightest passing regret’

  ‘Dad,’ said Rosemarie, in a shaking voice, ‘you’re a swine.’

  But he said, quietly and heavily: ‘I’m a man fighting for my life. Didn’t it ever occur to you, Rosy, what your nasty intrigues would mean to me?’

  ‘I didn’t know you were in with—him!’ cried Rosemarie. ‘You’ve got to believe that!’

  ‘You never really gave the matter any thought at all,’ said her father, sternly. ‘You were so damned engrossed in your own filthy little hates and jealousies, and your natural viciousness. You’ve done me a lot of damage, Rosy. You’ve got to undo it. And before you leave this house.’

  He indicated his desk, and a thick sheaf of blank paper upon it.

  ‘What good would all that do anyone, even if I gave you the information?’ asked Rosemarie. ‘You couldn’t stop the organizations, you know that. Even exposing them wouldn’t do any good. They’d go underground.’ Her voice was shrill with desperation.

  Francis stared at her emptily. ‘The Federal Bureau of Investigation would like the information,’ he said to her, relentlessly. ‘Don’t jump, Rosy. Yes, we intend to turn over the complete lists when the time comes. And that time is soon coming.’

  Her desperation increased to sharp personal fear. ‘Dad, you couldn’t keep my name out of it—at the end,’ and now her tone was pleading, distraught.

  ‘No. Perhaps not. I know that, Rosy,’ said Francis. ‘But the fact that you gave us this information would mitigate in your favour. That’s all we can promise you. Anyway, you’re a Bouchard. I doubt you would be—inconvenienced. Come on, Rosy. We’ll find out without you. It’ll take a lot of time, however. And when we do find out, you’ll not have a leg to stand on. This way you can save your skin. While you save mine, too.’

  She twisted her fingers together in her deep agitation and misery. Then she looked directly at her father, fear burning in her eyes. ‘Dad, Antoine’s in it, you know. A lot of his money. He’s been backing Jaeckle. And the America Only Committee. He, and Nicholas, and Jean, and Alexander. I don’t care about the others. But I do care about Antoine.’

  A sensation of utter sickness struck at Francis’ heart. What a foulness there was in women these days! The daughters and wives of the ‘best’ people took lovers as casually as did the dirtiest strumpets and trollops of the streets. There was no decency in women, no honour, no respect for their miserable bodies. He stood up abruptly. It would not be expedient, just now, to strike his daughter violently across the face.

  ‘There is the paper, and the pen, Rosy,’ he said, in a strained voice, and walked quickly out of the room.

  CHAPTER L

  Celeste, Edith reluctantly admitted to herself, possessed the iron of fortitude. With dignity, with lifted head, with calm and poise, she had faced her family, had looked them unswervingly in the eye, had silenced, at least in her vicinity, any malicious or ambiguous remark, had forced them in her presence to treat her with respect. Even if the venomous Christopher and the stalwart Edith and the sweet and faithful Annette had not stood behind her and beside her, her very indomitable manner and direct and steadfast look would have compelled strong admiration, and an assiduous outward show of acceptance. Despite her years of marriage, she had always been known as ‘little Celeste’ to the family, and not with endearment but rather with mockery, because of Christopher. Too, she had lacked most of the traits of the Bouchard character, and had never been known for amusing conversation or ingratiating manners, two traits which most of the Bouchards fondly believed were attributes of their particular breed. In childhood, she had been fearful of her relatives, and shy, and silent, and not prepossessing in temperament. The family had early discerned that she was not truly a Bouchard, but a frightened stranger who instinctively loathed them.

  As they had not admired or respected Peter, for similar reasons, Celeste and her husband had fallen far back in the consciousness of the family, who, during their European pilgrimages and residences, often totally forgot for years at a time that they existed. Their return, the curiosity and laughter about Peter’s ‘opus,’ and then the sudden huge entrance of Henri into what the Bouchards considered the little and piddling picture of two unpopular and insignificant people had brought the exiles into strong and brilliant focus in the vision of the family. They had forgotten almost entirely Christopher’s devotion to his sister, and Christopher himself had been virtually exiled to Florida by the formidable Henri. Christopher’s emergence from obscurity added to the vivid light now thrown on the small portrait in the dark corner.

  The family, by a kind of grapevine, knew many, many things which Henri obtusely believed they either dared not know, or were too stupid to know. It was the immense shadow of this man looming behind Celeste which stilled tongues by nature malignant and cruel.

  The Bouchards, then, had never admired Celeste in her own right until now. They had considered her brainless, dull and ridiculously ingenuous. Now, as she came among them, proud, silent, courageous and embittered, stricken with grief but valiant, they looked at her with new respect and even fondness. The sympathy they extended to her, as a young, rich and beautiful widow, was not entirely hypocritical. They, and especially the Bouchard women, began to speak of ‘poor Peter’s child’ with increasing firmness. Those who spoke thus, with cool and challenging eyes, were led by Agnes Bouchard, to almost everyone’s surprise, for Agnes had been in the vanguard of those who in the past had amusingly derided Peter and Celeste. Then, of course, there was Annette, the frail but gallant, and in her sweet and gentle presence not even the most vulgar or brutal dared utter a malevolent word.

  Also, family solidarity (the ‘rogue’s loyalty,’ as Jules had called it) made them stand together in strong ranks against the possible whispers of snickering outsiders. They might laugh furtively among themselves, but never among their friends and associates.

  Last, but not least, was their mortal fear of Henri Bouchard.

  So it was that, after their first enjoying surprise and secret loud laughter, almost all the Bouchards, even among themselves, spoke only of ‘Peter’s coming child.’ Antoine, to his fury, could do nothing. He was stared down, even by his immediate conspirators. Once the pompous Alexander, the pious and the ponderous, had said to the younger man: ‘I don’t know what you are inferring, Antoine, but I can say: It is in extremely bad taste, if not slanderous.’

  It had been no easy thing for Celeste, at the stern promptings of Edith and Agnes, and the gentle insistence of Annette, to face the family fully, to force herself to go among them, to accept, after the first sly smiles, their condolences and sympathy. Her eye had glazed, her face had flushed hotly. But she had not shrunk, she had not tried to hide, after the first few weeks when she had been almost beside herself with shame, sorrow, remorse and despair. She attended dinners given for her, very quiet and affectionate dinners. She had given small dinners, a
lso, for her female relatives. Her now strong dignity, her new sureness, excited their admiration. It was only on the occasions when she saw Annette that her eyelids flickered a little, and her mouth trembled.

  She had even gone to New York alone to see Mr Hawkins, and to arrange with him for the allocation of the royalties from The Fateful Lightning to various refugee and foreign relief organizations in which Peter had been so desperately interested.

  Her life, then, had taken on a heavy serenity and calm, without joy or anticipation, but very controlled and full of dignity. She regarded the coming child with sombre indifference and weariness, as she would have regarded any other catastrophe in the long series of catastrophes in her life. When her relatives spoke of the child, she replied desultorily and with disinterest. It had no reality for her, no warmth. She made no plans for it, and, incredibly, never wondered as to its sex.

  For she lived, now, in a complete suspension of emotion, in a sort of inertia and apathy. She had always been considered phlegmatic by the family, and this quality seemed enhanced in these days of waiting. It was not that she moved in a dazed stoicism, but rather that she gave an appearance of impassive and neutral control. And, this was not merely an outward manifestation. Her control extended to her disciplined thoughts, her movements, her words. She read much, watched the progress of the war with absorbed distress and intensity, walked, drove, wrote letters to distant friends in England and unoccupied France, and evidenced sincere interest in the coming Presidential elections. She slept calmly, never waking to tears and anguish, never suffering agitated dreams. She had forced herself beyond all this.

  Edith had a word for all this: fortitude. She was only partially right, as Christopher suspeoted. For Christopher knew that Celeste had decided that she dare not think, nor allow herself to feel.

  When Christopher was away, Edith spent the days of his absence with Celeste. She knew that Christopher’s nervous concern for his sister was ridiculous. Celeste was not in the least disturbed at being alone. She was mildly pleased at the presence of Edith, for the two women had become moderately strong friends, but she did not express any wistful regret when Edith returned to Endur to be with Christopher. Edith had to struggle hard to repress her natural annoyance and jealousy, when, immediately after Christopher’s return, he insisted on visiting his sister: ‘All alone up on those damned bleak hills, God knows what could happen to her.’

  It was a waste of time to point out to Christopher that Celeste had a houseful of servants, two nurses, and a doctor who called to see her at least once a day. He would only impatiently brush aside Edith’s remark that not a day passed but that every female Bouchard called the big lonely house on Placid Heights to inquire about the health of the prospective mother, and that at least three times a week a delegation drove up on brief visits. As far as Christopher was concerned, his little sister lived in wild and precarious isolation on the top of some abandoned mountain, where only a strong eye in the valley below could catch any distress signal in the form of a tiny fluttered handkerchief from a high bastion. He had tried to induce Celeste to spend the days of her waiting at Endur, but when she had involuntarily shuddered, he had said, irritably, before she could speak: ‘All right, all right! I know you never liked the place.’

  On a hot Sunday morning in late August, Edith came up to Celeste’s room, in the wake of the morning tray carried by the constantly beaming young nurse. ‘Well, my pet,’ she said, briskly, ‘Christopher’s flying in from New York at noon, so I’ll be trotting along. Is there anything I can do for you before I go?’

  Celeste was sitting up in bed, propped up by pillows, and she looked movingly young and defenceless with her black bright hair on her shoulders. Her face had the polished patina of ivory, and her mouth was blooming with freshness. If it had an habitual tautness, if her dark-blue eyes were always a little too fixed, only a keen observer could detect it. She smiled at Edith, and glanced down indifferently at the tray being arranged before her. ‘No, darling,’ she said. ‘And thank you for staying with me. I hate imposing on you.’

  ‘No imposition at all,’ said Edith, pushing a rose back into a vase. She glanced through the windows at the warm soft slope of the hills. Even though it was still August, a mauve haze obscured the heated distance, and the hot quiet air was heavy with the fecund odours of approaching autumn. Trees rustled at the windows; the leaves glittered in the dazzling sunlight. All over the country the silence was blazing and too brilliant. Edith could see the far and blinding gleam of the river in the valley below. Everything was caught in a somniferous trance of sun and heat. Though it was still early morning, the locusts were already stridely shrilling, curiously emphasizing the silence.

  When Edith had gone, Celeste ate her breakfast without hurry. Sometimes she stared through the windows, feeling in herself the heavy and motionless unreality and torpidity in which she now spent her life. Nothing had meaning for her. She looked at the morning newspaper, and, at its account of death and fury and destruction in Europe, she shivered slightly. She thrust the paper away from her. Something stirred in her heart at these stories, something agonized and piercing, which, had she allowed it, would have awakened her to shrieking and desperate life.

  She allowed her nurse to bathe and dress her. The heat of the day rose strongly. Even the cool dusky rooms with their blue closed shadows were unbearable. Celeste, in her loose white dress, went out into the gardens, her large white hat protecting her head. With gloved hands, she cut flowers, replied gently to the greetings of the gardeners. She did not encourage her nurse to follow her, and had been peremptory at the original suggestion. She walked slowly down the slope behind the house, and entered the cool green shadow of the tangled trees. White benches and chairs were scattered on the dark moist grass, and she sat down and removed her hat. Little sparkles of sunlight broke through the frondage overhead and danced over her dark hair and quiet expressionless face.

  She sat without moving, her hands in her lap, looking emptily before her. Above her, in the hot still distance, she saw the glitter of the upper windows of the house which she and Peter had built less than a year ago, and the hot colour of the red tiled roofs. No one was here in this small natural wood but herself. She heard the flutterings of birds in the dark boughs over her, and could catch little broken fragments of blazing blue sky between the petrified leaves. It was very still and peaceful here, and refreshing. A squirrel ran near her foot, and she watched its brisk scurryings idly. It turned its little head and regarded her with penetrating wild eyes, sitting up on its haunches like a nervous and febrile child. She pursed her lips and whistled softly to the creature, and smiled. A bird suddenly flew through the warm green gloom, bearing a sudden flash of light on its eager wings.

  There was a strong and vital stirring in her body, and Celeste put her hand over it, as if to quell it. The stirring grew more insistent, and now she was anxiously conscious of a dull but quick pain in her back. Apprehensively, she waited. The pain was gone as quickly as it had come. But her forehead was suddenly wet, and she was aware of an odd weakness.

  Her term had almost passed, but the child was not expected for nearly three weeks, according to the doctor’s calculations. Celeste sternly repressed her heart’s new leaping, breathed deeply, sat back against the chair.

  Yet she could not control the thoughts that now leapt insistently into her newly disturbed mind. For the first time she thought intently of the child that had stirred so urgently in her body, calling her attention emphatically to its own importunate life. She saw it, for the first time, as an individual, a human creature endowed with potential consciousness and character and spirit, and not, as usual, as a lump of living flesh that had no connnection with her at all. She was enormously shaken. What would she do with this creature, how receive it, how regard it? It would be there, in that house, Peter’s house, a presence, insistent, demanding, growing daily more aware. When her body was relieved of it, her mind and her soul would not be relieved. It would be with her alway
s, until the day of her death.

  She was suddenly terrified. In some vague way she had dimly fancied that once the child was separated from her it would disappear into the mists of the past and no longer be part of her. In her bemused state, she had thought that she could forget it when it had left her. But now its presence was close upon her, its life bound to her own.

  She thought, for the first time: Will it be a boy or a girl? Her newly awakened mind sharpened all her thoughts, made them too bright and clear. She said to herself: I hope it will be a girl. And at the thought of a daughter, a daughter who would live with her in that house, whose voice she would hear, who would soon run through these woods, her heart moved strangely and deeply, and her eyes filled with tears. And now the heavy apathy deserted her, and she felt faint and heady and too vivid with a kind of sweet and trembling joy.

  She had not allowed herself to think of Henri during these past months. She did not think of him now. She thought only of her child, and the strong delirious sweetness that the thought of her child brought to her. It was all her child; it did not belong to anyone else. She had not seen Henri since Peter’s funeral, nor, in her profound anguish, had she desired to see him. (Annette, in Celeste’s presence, and in the presence of the family, had once remarked regretfully that ‘Henri is away so much these days, in New York, and Washington, that I hardly ever see him.’) But Annette had brought friendly messages from him, that he hoped she was well, and she had repeated these messages firmly to Celeste in the presense of the other Bouchard women, and had looked at them all with her lovely light-blue eyes, so that they had not dared to glance aside.

  Now, engrossed with thoughts of her child, Celeste did not think of Henri. She had built up an impassable wall between her consciousness and any awareness of him. Henri had nothing to do with this creature that now stirred so strongly and determinedly below Celeste’s heart. She clasped her hands over her swelling body, and a bright deep smile stood on her lips.