The Final Hour

by Taylor Caldwell

  ‘Celeste,’ began Agnes, in a cold and curious voice, ‘do you know anything? Anything at all? Are you a complete fool? I always thought you were, you know. I thought it from the moment I first saw you. You were about five, then, weren’t you, a little younger? You had black pigtails and big dark-blue eyes and a stupid little red mouth. You were always afraid. People always spoke of you as a tender little creature who must be protected. Women never felt that way about you, even when you were a nasty little brat. It was always men.’

  Celeste was silent. Her white face was very still and taut. But her eyes fixed themselves expectantly upon Agnes. Agnes nodded with a cynical smile.

  ‘Yes, you were always good at that attitude. They thought it was defensiveness. But I know it is invulnerability. You always took exceedingly good care of yourself. You still do.’

  She paused, and humorously lifted her hand, and began to check off the fingers. ‘First, there was your father, Jules, who ruined the lives of his sons, because of you. “Little Celeste must be protected.” He never thought the boys really ought to be protected against you. They weren’t loving sons and brothers to begin with; but Jules’ distribution of his estate, to “protect” you, did nothing to increase the loving kindness between Armand, Emile and Christopher. Probably they would have feuded, anyway, and plotted against each other, but not with the ferocity they have exhibited because of you. Did Jules know that? I often wonder. He never did like his sons. He was a very subtle man.’

  Celeste’s white lips parted, and she said, quietly; ‘This is very interesting. But family history bores me, I am afraid. I am not to blame for my father’s will. Also, I must confess that I don’t see how all this concerns you, Agnes, or how it is your business. Emile’s done very well for himself, hasn’t he? Or, do you want more? You always were very avaricious.’

  Agnes still kept her hands in the air, in the attitude of counting, but over them she regarded Celeste with narrow gleaming eyes and a malevolent smile. ‘So you do have fangs,’ she commented. ‘I always knew it. No one else ever seemed to.’

  She continued with inexorable animation: ‘Now, let’s see. Jules was the first man to come under your “spell.” After that, there was your brother, Christopher. He was not born a saint, but your existence made him a devil. He fought for you with your father. They fought for you from the very minute you were born. You knew, of course, that Christopher was in love with you for many years, Celeste? So much in love that he could never care too much for any other woman. Not a nice story, is it? A little ugly? I’ve always been very sorry for Edith, Christopher’s wife.’

  A look of horrified terror, repudiation and sickness flashed over Celeste’s face. She stood up, catching at the back of her chair. ‘You are a dirty woman, Agnes,’ she said, and her voice was only a hoarse whisper. The sockets of her eyes stretched with her sickness and loathing, so that they were filled with blue flame.

  Agnes nodded with smiling grimness. ‘Honest people are always nasty, my dear. No one loves them. They are outcasts. They say such devastating and improper things. I’m being an honest woman now. For the sake of your soul. For the sake of things so much more important than you, you miserable white little wretch. I’m not blaming you for your brother’s passion for you. You couldn’t help it, I suppose. You were lovely and soft and innocent, a combination that does mad things to men. But because Christopher loved you, and still does, I am afraid, you ruined his life. He’s quite insane, you know. He would kill for you, destroy everything for you, even his life. Under certain present circumstances, that is very fortunate. But I will come to that later. When I am saying now is that your very existence made a fiend out of him, instead of just the average bad Bouchard he would have been. He hated his brothers; they all hated each other. But you made the hatred worse.’

  Celeste stood by her chair, clutching it with wet hands. Her breast, under the blue wool frock, rose and fell with passionate agitation. Her white forehead, her pallid upper lip, gleamed with moisture.

  Agnes continued wits hard serenity: ‘Now, let me see. Henri came next, you remember.’ She paused now and waited.

  Celeste did not move, but she appeared to dwindle and shrink, become smaller. However, she gazed steadfastly, and in petrified silence, at Agnes. Agnes was smiling again, with renewed viciousness.

  ‘What you did to Henri! Oh, of course you couldn’t help it! You never could. It wasn’t your fault that Henri came back to America, that he tried to regain what had been stolen from him. He would have done that even if you had never existed. I grant that. But he came and saw, and you conquered. Of course you were young and inexperienced, and you had a right to change your mind. Henri was a bad man, to begin with; all the Bouchards are. It’s part of their irresistible charm. Henri, however, was the worst of them all. Nevertheless, he wouldn’t have been such a monster, if it hadn’t been for you, if he had never seen you. For it seems, unfortunately, that you have the ability to bring out everything that is evil in everyone. I know you do that to me’—and she laughed curtly.

  ‘I thought Henri had escaped, when you finally threw him over and married Peter. I thought he would then become just a naturally bad Bouchard, a normal Bouchard. You went away. And then, you came back.’

  She stopped, for Celeste had moved, just a little, but even that slight movement was as if lightning had struck her.

  ‘I’ll come back to Henri, later,’ said Agnes, with cruel softness. ‘We’ll go on now to poor Peter. In some way, he seemed to have escaped the pestilential nature of the Bouchards. He was a “good” Bouchard. There haven’t been many. I can’t recall any other, in my own experience. Yes, he was a “good” Bouchard.

  ‘It wasn’t your innocent little fault that Peter had been gassed in the war—by Bouchard gas, at that. It wasn’t any of your doing that Peter returned here. You didn’t know anything at all about Peter until he arrived. He was sick, but he was still alive. He still had courage and strength and purity. He married you and you both went away. I am not saying that he might have been happier, or healthier, with any other woman. At least, until you came back. But, he is dying now. And he is dying in misery and hopelessness. Perhaps that has nothing to do with you. I’ve heard that you have been the tenderest wife, and he seems devoted to you. I’ll give you that credit. But—sometimes I wonder— You never gave him any peace, or any real happiness, for it is not in you to give happiness to anyone, only passion and madness and despair and ruin.’

  She stared remorselessly at Celeste. For Celeste’s control had suddenly and violently broken. Her face, her eyes, expressed supreme terror. She had stepped behind her chair; she had lifted her hands, palms outward, towards Agnes, as if to fend off some brutal and lethal attack. She cried out, incoherently: ‘Go away! I won’t hear another wordl Get out of my house, now, right away!’

  But Agnes was unperturbed. She regarded Celeste with shrewd and significant thoughtfulness. ‘I see,’ she said, reflectively. ‘I see a lot of things. You aren’t outraged, so much, by what I have said about Peter. You are only afraid of what I am going to say next, aren’t you?’

  Celeste was silent. But she was shaking strongly. She dropped her hands. Then she whispered: ‘My God. Go away.’ She moved backwards, towards the door.

  ‘Come back, Celeste,’ said Agnes, quietly. She stood up. Her smile was gone. Her features were stark and harsh. ‘Come back. Sit down. I didn’t come out in this beastly weather to give you a lecture on your little kitten morals. You can sleep with a dozen men, for all of me. You can curl up in a dozen beds, and I’ll only shrug over it. That’s your business. I suppose, too, you have some fastidiousness.’

  Celeste had stopped retreating, but she did not return to her chair. The two women faced each other across the wide and gleaming carpet in the silent room. Celeste seemed no longer to be full of terror and dread. She was as still as frozen ice, and as expressionless. Her eyes were empty, as if the shock she had undergone had driven the soul out of them.

  For a mom
ent, Agnes experienced a rare qualm of pity, and a deep curiosity.

  ‘Celeste,’ she said, in a changed tone, ‘I’m sorry for you. You were very young and inexperienced, when you married Peter. That was Christopher’s fault. He wanted to save you for himself. Perhaps you’ve been sinned against, too. Perhaps it isn’t all your fault. “Victim of circumstances,” maybe. When you came back, you were a woman at last, not a child. You had always loved Henri, hadn’t you? You had never forgotten him: I can see that now. I thought you were just bored by your sick husband, and looking for a last adventure. Henri must have seemed very romantic to you, I thought. Besides, he hadn’t forgotten you. None of the men who loved you ever could. I thought, wrongly, probably, that you knew this, and were taking advantage of it. I am mistaken. And so, I’m sorry for you.’

  Celeste tried to speak. And then, with a gesture infinitely pathetic and full of tragedy, she put her hands over her face. Agnes watched her. Her own face darkened, twisted, and those hard black eyes were suddenly gentle and sad, as they had never been before.

  ‘My poor child,’ she said, compassionately. “It is all so terrible.’

  After a moment she laughed a little, and there was a tremulous and bitter note in that laughter. ‘I’m so sorry for you, my dear. And, believe it or not, I’m sorry for Henri, too! That’s incredible, isn’t it? Being sorry for a man like Henri?’

  Celeste dropped her hands. Her face was wet with mute tears. Her lips were trembling. ‘Does Annette know?’ she asked, in a painful and dwindled tone. ‘Does Peter know?’

  If Agnes had any last doubts about Celeste’s true emotions, these selfless words destroyed them. She hesitated. Then she went to Celeste and put her arms about her with a tenderness alien to her nature. ‘Come, dear, sit down. I’ve got so much more to say to you.’ She led Celeste back to her chair, and with her own scented handkerchief she wiped away the younger woman’s tears.

  ‘No,’ she said at last, thoughtfully, ‘I don’t think Annette and Peter know. But practically everyone else does, I’m afraid!’

  Celeste shivered. She leaned forward and clasped her hands over her folded arms, and crouched forward in an attitude of utter collapse and anguished cold. Her head dropped forward. Her bright black hair fell over her face.

  ‘I can’t believe that Henri was so naïve that he really expected not to be found out,’ said Agnes. ‘I think there is another explanation. I think he believes, in his egotism, that no one would dare to talk about him, or whisper about him openly, for fear of reprisal. So long as people knew, and kept quiet about it, he didn’t care. He knew everyone was afraid of him. He probably knows everyone is talking. That doesn’t matter to him. So long as they don’t try anything inimical. He can cope with enemies. And circumstance. But let them try to injure him, or you, because of this—matter, and he will smash them—he believes. The trouble is, they are trying. And might even succeed. And that will be very bad.’ She paused. ‘I’m not thinking of you, Celeste, or even of Henri, when I say it will be bad. I am thinking of things much more important.’

  Celeste stirred sluggishly, in the depths of her collapse and despair. She lifted her head. Her hair clung in disordered ringlets about her wet cheeks. Fear and panic were alive in her eyes; her face was gaunt with them.

  Agnes sat down near her, and leaned forward, speaking with a quiet intensity. ‘Celeste, my darling, don’t you know anything at all?’ she asked, with surprised pity. ‘Hasn’t Henri told you anything about what he is trying to do? Or, are you only his favourite harem wife, kept in purdah, behind screens and veils and walls? Does he think you are a moron, who wouldn’t understand?’

  Celeste’s haggard expression changed. ‘He has told me quite a little,’ she murmured.

  Agnes leaned back in her chair and contemplated the young woman for a long moment or two. Her own expression was dark and sombre. ‘I see,’ she muttered. ‘Yes, he must have told you. He is a very clever man. He knew that he lost you once because he was repulsive to you—his ideas, his intrigues and his plans were repulsive. Perhaps you came together, once or twice, out of sheer irresistible attraction, when you returned from Europe. But he knew that was not enough to keep you. That was it, wasn’t it? So, he had to tell you. I have no doubt he dressed it up a little, quite artfully, so that he acquired a kind of stern nobility in your eyes, even a selflessness, God help us! I imagine that, of Henri! It would be quite amusing, if it weren’t so damnably ominous. Frankly, can you imagine Henri doing anything heroic and noble because of patriotism or change of heart or virtue or greatness?’ She laughed harshly.

  But Celeste said nothing. She only waited.

  ‘Nevertheless,’ continued Agnes, changing again to sombre intensity, ‘what he is doing now is the only chance for America—for all of us—to survive. You know that, don’t you? And you know who his enemies are, and what they are trying to do?’

  ‘Yes,’ whispered Celeste. ‘I know. He’s told me.’

  ‘They’re terrible enemies,’ Agnes went on. ‘There is only a feeble chance that he will win. He is determined to win. He has brought some of the Bouchards with him, because they are frightened, because he has intimidated them, bribed, threatened, coerced them. No matter. You know,’ she added, musingly, ‘if I were a younger woman, I’d make tracks for Henri, myself. There is something about him. He’s quite a man.’

  Again, Celeste’s face changed, became intense with passion and tragedy. She fixed her eyes upon Agnes, and waited, her very breath suspended.

  ‘I don’t wonder you love him,’ said Agnes, with stern gentleness. ‘He has everything. There aren’t many like him now, in America. He has a frightful fight ahead. Emile’s in with him. Even if Emile is my beloved husband, he’s a bloated black rat. Henri did a good job in bludgeoning him. Christopher’s in with him, and Alex, and Francis. But there’s another faction, and a very pestilential one. You know that?’

  Celeste nodded dumbly.

  ‘Antoine, that sparkling bowing friend. And others. Others, not only a few Bouchards, but others just as powerful, in politics, in the newspaper field, in industry. The lesser Bouchards are just milling uncertainly along the fringes of both factions. Henri is trying to boot them into line. Antoine is trying too, with much more finesse. And behind them both is a confused and amorphous America. Things are very bad,

  Celeste, my dear. You know that. What of the future? America will trundle along behind the winner. We want Henri to win, you and I. and so many others, too. We’ll live—with Henri. We, and America, will die with Antoine.’

  She stood up, as if the pressure of her thoughts was too much for her. She began to pace up and down the room, this elegant and assured woman, clasping and unclasping her hands.

  ‘I’ve never been patriotic. I’ve never been an ‘‘American.” How many Americans are there in America? So terribly, terribly few. How many love America? I am afraid to answer that. I only know that America is inert, stupid, mad, dull and dead. We’ve got Antoine’s kind to thank for that. A nation of belly-filling morons is very necessary to them. And a nation of lunatics. Do you know about the organizations he is backing? Filled with insane women, with haters, with the greedy and the cruel and the stupid and the criminal? We’ve got the makings here in America of a robust Nazi party. Hate is their God, and Jaeckle is their prophet. They’ve got priests behind them, murderers, thieves and liars, and madmen. That’s the outlook, in America, and that’s the outlook Antoine is fostering. You know why.’

  She drew a deep breath. ‘It’s funny,’ she murmured. ‘But I believe I’m an American now. Because of America’s peril. Because of the madmen.’

  ‘I know,’ whispered Celeste.

  ‘The America Only Committee,’ continued Agnes. ‘Half of them are sincere fools and imbeciles, who perhaps even love America, and don’t want to get her embroiled in what they call “foreign” wars. As if there were ever any “foreign” wars! You’d think America was a planet rolling around serenely in her own orbit, instead of par
t of one world. It’s as if a man had cancer in a remote part of his body, and his mind asked him what it had to do with it. It was only in his belly, wasn’t it? What had that to do with his arms, or his eyes, or his heart or his lungs? By some miracle, such a man tells himself, he can ignore the cancer in his belly. But there comes a day when all of him will die. He forgets that.

  ‘And then, hovering around the fringes of the America Only Committee are the lunatic organizations, the orgiastic women who would like to tear little children apart with their naked hands, who would like to torture other women, who would like to sleep with their own sons, who would like to stand, breast-high, in the blood of the murdered. Why do you shudder, Celeste? Don’t you know anything at all about mankind? I do, unfortunately.

  ‘And then there are the murderous and avaricious priests, who would like to torture the helpless, who would like to steal their possessions, who would like to enslave the world, who are bloated with hatred and madness. And then there are the criminals, who want to rape and torment and kill, and see an opportunity to do these things without punishment. Yes, there is much madness in the world. And much of this madness is behind Antoine.’

  She stopped now. She stood near Celeste. The snow whispered at the windows. The winter wind rose on the long arch of a howl.

  Agnes suddenly cried out in a loud voice: ‘How frightful it is! How can one endure it? The Walpurgis Night of fury and death is upon us. And waiting, in their quiet rooms, are the lusters after power. Waiting in Washington, waiting in their great factories. Waiting for the ruin of America.’