The Final Hour

by Taylor Caldwell

  Edith had turned then, and stared at him, but he had taken up a book and had begun to read. Edith frowned.

  There was a sweet delirium in the days, for Celeste. Health and vitality came back to her. The house, no longer empty and sad and full of suppressed gloom, became gay, also. Flowers were everywhere. Fires roared. Celeste’s happy voice, and Godfrey’s laughter, and the shouts of little Land, came back from every room, every hall. There was a gentle recklessness about them, like a holiday. In the meantime, November had gone, and December had come, a calm and snowy December full of shining blue light.

  Godfrey had begun to hope. By now, he had persuaded himself that what he had seen so obscurely and fleetingly at that Thanksgiving dinner had been his own imagination. Though he had visited Antoine at his home, Antoine had said nothing, only remarking very sympathetically that it was an excellent thing that Godfrey had come, for Celeste had been ‘distrait’ for a long time. ‘She should marry again,’ he said, casually. ‘Someone who could teach her to play and to enjoy life. She’s had a grim time of it.’

  Godfrey was too intelligent and too realistic to reflect that he was poor and that Celeste was an heiress. He had a moment or two of doubt about his lost leg, but again, his realism made him shrug. ‘I’m still a man, with most of my members,’ he would say to himself, with a smile.

  He loved Celeste. He had loved her almost from the first hour when he had met her. (He had also liked Peter, to the point of great affection.) Moreover, he understood women thoroughly. He knew what pleased them, in general, and what displeased them. They interested him very much, as human beings, apart from their femaleness. He liked them. He enjoyed their company, even when they were fools. If they were beautiful, they delighted him; if they were intelligent, they intrigued him. He pitied their weaknesses, and admired their great and unsuspected strengths. He believed that the ages had much maligned them. It was a favourite saying of his that if men would only learn to understand women better, and to acquire the art of pleasing them, they, themselves, would derive immense benefit and pleasure from the effort. Godfrey firmly believed that though many things were valuable in life, human relationships, and the delight and sweetness which these could bring, were the most valuable.

  Did Celeste love him now? he would ask himself. He had never had any such doubts about any other woman. He had always known, and availed himself of the knowledge. But, with Celeste, he could not know completely. He knew that she was very fond of him, that she had only to see him to become radiant, that her voice took on a sweet high breathlessness when she spoke to him. But how much of this was due to a pathetic loneliness he had alleviated? How much was gratitude that she had found a friend and a companion, full of sympathy and affection? How much was mere congeniality, and similar tastes, and mutual laughter and understanding? And then he would think to himself, buoyantly: But what else is there to love, anyway? Passion there was, of course, and vehemence, but both of them had seen enough of these exhausting aspects, and would prefer them now in gentler and more mellow guise. Even if, as far as Celeste was concerned, they might always be absent, no matter. The other things were much more durable.

  He became preoccupied with his thoughts, and more grave and pensive. Noting this, Celeste was frightened and perplexed. Had she begun to bore him? Was he tired of being here on Placid Heights, with herself and her child? Perhaps her conversation was too light and inconsequential. But, O God, she would think, I’ve had so many years of being serious and taking the world on my shoulders! I’d like a little surcease, now. I should like to laugh, even for a little while and pretend, just a little, that nothing is of tragic importance.

  She was thirty-five, now, no longer young, but she still had pure and easily bewildered naïveté of a child. She would lie awake at night, thinking of Godfrey, her thoughts so busy with him, so humble over her inadequacies, that the old monstrous pain, huge and black, became like an ominous mountain far in the distance of her consciousness. When she would meet him in the morning, she would peep at him wistfully. When he would look at her, and smile, and suggest a ride, or a romp in the snow with the baby, her face would light up and her eyes would dance with pleasure. While the final arrangements were being made with her lawyers and Godfrey, in her pleasant living-room, she would listen with eagerness to technical discussions of motion-picture making, and there would be a shining quality about her. When she declared, quickly, that she wanted no profits, she did not notice the acrid hidden smile of her lawyers, and looked only at Godfrey, who laughed and patted her hand, and assured her she was no business woman.

  He had many things, therefore, to make him hope. And on the morning that Mr Milch irritably called him from Hollywood and suggested that he had had holiday enough, Godfrey decided to discover just how much foundation their was for this hope.

  There had been an ice-storm during the night. The morning sun, blazing and whitely incandescent, shone on a crystal world, in which every twig, every tree trunk, every evergreen frond, every eave and fence-post and telephone line was encased in brilliant glass. Godfrey and Celeste went out alone to look at it. They saw the distant hills, now purple as hyacinths in that clarified and too poignant light, and a sky that was also crystal and pure as ice. When they spoke, their voices rang from them in crystalline echoes. All was so silent, so still, so luminous, so very sharp, that finally they did not speak, but stood side by side, their hands locked tightly. The houses in the valley below were like doll-houses; pillars of blue smoke stood upright over their chimneys. The light on the snow reflected back the sun until they were blinded.

  They went back into the house, and sat by the fire. Celeste’s cheeks were crimson. She held out her hands to the fire, and smiled shyly at Godfrey, who was smoking in silence. She discovered that he had been watching her keenly, and she could not explain to herself the sudden springing of her heart, her sudden awareness.

  He threw his cigarette into the fire, and spoke with gentle abruptness: ‘Celeste, my child, I must leave for Hollywood not later than the day after tomorrow. I don’t want to go, but I must. I have a living to earn.’

  All the brightness was wiped from her face. It became pale and dull. She turned to the fire again, and after a moment, in a difficult voice, she said: “Yes. Of course. I understand.’ She sighed. ‘I’ll be awfully sorry. You have no idea how sorry.’

  He leaned towards her now, and took her hand. ‘Darling, look at me.’

  She did so. Her mouth quivered. She tried to smile. He kissed her hand.

  ‘I want to ask you something, my dear,’ he said, softly.

  ‘Perhaps it’s a little soon. But I’ve got to know. Have I any chance at all?’

  He had known she was naïve, that perhaps she would retain this pure virtue to a great age, to the end of her life. But he could hardly believe it when he saw her astonishment, and when she pulled her hand quickly from his, and then stared at him in white silence, he, himself, was astounded. Had she really been so blind? And now there was a sick and peculiar aching in his chest.

  ‘I love you, Celeste, my darling,’ he said, the words pushing themselves out painfully from a throat suddenly dry and thick. ‘I thought you knew.’

  She did not speak. Her eyes filled with slow tears. She lifted her hand, rested it on the arm of her chair, and concealed her profile from him.

  And now there was silence in the room. The sun streamed in through the windows in one long wash of profound radiance. The fire crackled on the hearth. Trees snapped outside. There was no other sound. Godfrey was leaning towards Celeste, waiting, his hands dropped and clasped before him.

  ‘I think we’ve been happy here, together,’ he murmured. ‘Perhaps I banked too much on that.’ He regarded the fire reflectively. ‘And perhaps it was too soon.’

  She dropped her hand now, and he saw her touchingly wet cheeks, and her quivering mouth. She tried to speak, but she had to make several efforts before she succeeded:

  ‘Yes, dear, a little too soon.’ Her voice was sh
aking.

  He became quick and sympathetic, the ache in his chest abating somewhat.

  ‘Yes, of course! I understand. Poor Peter—’

  But he saw, now, that she had become rigidly grave, and bleakly stern.

  ‘Godfrey, it isn’t Peter,’ she said, steadfastly.

  He gazed at her speechlessly, his head bent. And waited.

  She pressed her hands together, palms and fingers stiff. She began to shiver.

  ‘I can’t be a hypocrite to you, Godfrey,’ she said, still looking at him with strong valour. ‘I loved Peter. I honestly did. From the first time I met him. I loved him until he died. I shall always love him. But not the way you think. It—it was never like that.’

  He fixed his brown eyes on her steadily, and was silent, while he missed nothing of her speechless anguish and misery. Then he said, with the greatest gentleness: ‘Then, it is someone else?’

  She did not reply. But her head bent a little.

  He looked down at his crutches, as if he would take them and begin to walk up and down the room. And then he just sat there, and looked at them, as if there was nothing else on his mind.

  ‘It would be impudent of me, of course, to ask—’ he said.

  He was startled at the sharp and bitter clarity of her voice, and its loudness, as if she spoke in self-loathing and uncontrollable self-contempt: ‘You might as well know, Frey. Everyone else does. I thought perhaps one of the family had been kind enough to enlighten you! I thought you knew, and still didn’t care! I was grateful for that. You see, it’s Henri.’

  He still looked down at the crutches. His merry mouth was now sharp and thin with shock. But I think I always knew, he thought He said, not lifting his eyes to her: “He’s married, though. To little Annette. So—’

  But her words poured out at him, swiftly, like flung pellets of ice, and he did not recognize this voice, so brittle, so stinging, so embittered and full of breaking agony, as if all her control had broken down and she must speak for very inability to do otherwise. She told him of her old engagement to Henri, which she had broken, and of her marriage to Peter. She told him, in hard, loud, unemotional tones, of the fourteen years of almost complete exile. She told him how she had never forgotten Henri, that she had wished never to return, because she felt she dared not, for Peter’s sake. She did not hesitate or fumble as she told him everything, her return, her meeting with Henri, their subsequent affair.

  And Godfrey listened, numbly, never taking his brown eyes from her. Once or twice, he heard the tense anguish of her short laugh, dreary and choked.

  ‘I had made a mess of everything. I didn’t seem to care. Nothing mattered at all. I had no pride, no shame. He came and went as he pleased. I did whatever he said.’ She suddenly put her hands to her throat, as if an unendurable pain had stabbed her there. ‘He told me over and over, that he made no promises. He only said that if and when it was safe, and feasible, for him to divorce Annette, he would do so, and we could be married. It seemed that nothing could be done until Armand died, and his will was known.’

  She told him of the will, and the conditions. And he listened, not moving a muscle, only watching her distraught wildness, her aimless and jerking gestures. If he was shocked and horrified, there was no sign of it.

  ‘Then,’ she continued, still in that hard, loud, hurried voice, ‘Peter became very ill. I never thought of anything else. I take some comfort, remembering that. And then, he died.’ She stopped for a moment, and he saw the rigidity of her white throat, and her difficult swallowing. ‘I discovered, too, that I was going to have a child, that it was too late to do anything about it.’

  Then Godfrey made an uncontrollable movement. His pale lips parted. His hands, shaking a little, rumbled for a cigarette. He lit it, stared blindly at the still burning match that he held (as if he did not know what it was) and then flung it into the fire. He said, very quietly: ‘Henri’s child, of course?’

  ‘Oh, yes, yes!’ Her smile was even wilder, more mocking. ‘The family knew. But I owe them some gratitude. They never spoke of it. They always speak of “Peter’s little boy.” Family pride, I suppose. Yes, I am grateful.’

  Godfrey smoked slowly. He said, in a casual voice: ‘And Henri has made no move?’

  ‘I tell you, it’s the will! He must wait until he decides that the proper moment has arrived to open the will! I’ve tried to understand. I really did understand,’ and her voice now broke quickly, with a heart-shaking pathos. ‘I understood. There were things to be considered besides myself. I wasn’t unreasonable. I was willing to wait. I didn’t want him to open the will prematurely, just to satisfy me. It wasn’t that which made me break with him.’

  Her voice was hoarse and breathless, and she waited a little, breathing heavily, before she could continue:

  ‘I broke with him. Because he is cruel, and brutal. Because he is a sadist. Because, even though I knew he loved me, he could not resist tormenting me. He is a bad man, Frey. A very bad man. I had always known it. I had tried to overlook it. But there came a day when I couldn’t any longer.’

  Godfrey threw his cigarette into the fire. He watched its engulfment in the flames. He said: ‘Then you have broken with him?’

  ‘Yes.’ She whispered this, as if she had no more strength left for loud speech. Her head fell on her breast.

  They sat like this for a long time, with only the crackling of the fire and the snapping of the trees outside to break the silence. It seemed to Godfrey that the sunlit room had become very cold. He gazed at Celeste’s fallen head and hands, and his heart was wrung with the most profound compassion and love that he had ever known in all his life.

  And then he said, with the deepest gentleness: ‘You haven’t forgotten him, though, have you, darling?’

  She put her hands to her face. Her voice came to him, muffled, broken: ‘No. No. I’ve tried. But it’s no use, It’ll never be any use. There isn’t any hope. He’s finished with me, no matter what the will contains. He’ll never come again. He’s forgotten. He doesn’t care.’

  Godfrey sighed. He rubbed his cold hands together. There was no heat for him in the roaring and leaping fire.

  ‘You are wrong, my dear, poor child. He hasn’t forgotten. I saw it at once, that Thanksgiving day. I saw him look at you.’

  She pressed her fingers deeper over her face. A murmured laugh, harsh and broken, came through them. ‘Not if the will forbids it! Not if he loses anything by coming! He told me so. Quite frankly.’ She dropped her hands, and turned to him. He saw her white and ravaged face, her dry eyes full of bitter and sardonic light. Then her expression changed, and she said, almost incoherently: ‘What do you mean, Godfrey? About his still remembering? About his not having forgotten?’

  And he sighed again, knowing finally there was not the least hope for him. He saw that, in her eyes, suddenly poignant, suddenly desperate and fixed. He averted his head. ‘It’s quite true. He hasn’t forgotten. He will come back. Perhaps very soon.’

  ‘I won’t see him! I won’t speak to him!’ she cried, in a wild and distraught way. She clenched her hand and struck her knee with it. ‘I won’t see him!’

  But he only looked at her and smiled drearily. He fumbled for his crutches. He said nothing.

  She saw his gesture. All at once, she burst into tears. She rose and fell on her knees before him and put her arms about his neck, and dropped her head on his shoulder. She clung to him, distractedly. After a little hesitating, he put his arms about her, and held her to him, as if she were a heartbroken child, and he gently kissed her cheek and the top of her head. He comforted her in silence.

  After a long time she was quiet. She lifted her head, and showed him her wet face, relaxed and exhausted, now. ‘Godfrey, dear,’ she said, humbly. ‘Ask me again. Six months from now. A year from now.’

  He smoothed her disordered hair, and sighed. ‘No, dear,’ he said, tenderly. ‘I won’t ask you again. You see, there would never be any use.’

  CHAPTER LXXIr />
  Christopher had just returned from a flying trip to Detroit this burningly cold December Sunday morning, when he was called to the telephone. It was Henri.

  ‘I am alone here,’ said Henri, in a low and monotonous voice. ‘Annette’s in New York. I want to talk to you. It’s very important.’ He paused. ‘I’ve just returned from New York, myself. I’ve opened the will.’

  Christopher’s pulses jumped. But he answered indifferently: ‘I’ll be over in an hour.’

  The wire hummed with silence. Christopher knew the line was still open. After a long moment or two, he heard the click of the receiver as Henri hung it up. Christopher smiled evilly to himself. He returned to Edith, who was waiting impatiently for him in the breakfast room. He told her of the conversation.

  ‘He wanted me to ask, all breathless and tremulous and eager, what the will contained,’ he said, with satisfaction. ‘But I didn’t.’

  ‘How could you restrain yourself?’ she asked, mockingly. But he saw that she was alert and concerned.

  Christopher began to laugh. ‘I’ve an idea. He wouldn’t have called like that, if it hadn’t contained everything he wanted. There was something he wanted to know, too. I’ve an idea that Godfrey’s nesting up at Placid Heights has caused him some bad minutes. He’s human, after all, by God! I hope,’ added Christopher, with pleasure, ‘that’s he’s been squirming.’

  ‘Did you tell him that Godfrey had left for Hollywood yesterday, my amiable pet?’ A certain look of strain had left Edith’s face since yesterday.

  ‘Indeed I did not I If I had been a really vulgar person, I might have hinted that we could all expect some exciting news from Placid Heights soon. Somehow, I wish that were true.’ Christopher’s expression had become musing now, and a little sad. ‘I really wish it were true. I didn’t care for our gay adventurer, personally, but he seemed just the thing for little Celeste.’

  Edith looked at him wryly. But she made no comment. She saw that, in spite of his nastiness, he was enormously excited and anticipatory.