The Final Hour

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  It never occurred to her that he had married her because she was the only and beloved daughter of Armand Bouchard, the president of Bouchard & Sons. Was he not the powerful holder of Bouchard bonds? What more might he desire? She did not know Henri Bouchard. There was to be a time when she would know, but it was not yet. She, until that hour, was not to understand his sleepless hatred because Jules Bouchard, her grandfather, had so manipulated Henri’s mother’s affairs that her son, great-grandson of Ernest Barbour, had been rendered impotent. Henri had dissipated that impotence. He was now the power of the Bouchards, and the president of the mother company since the retirement of the diabetic Armand. But the hatred remained. It was part of his personality. It was not in him to forget an offence, an injury. Sometimes, he looked at her in the strangest and most formidable fashion, remembering that she was the granddaughter of the subtle and Machiavellian Jules.

  Annette had made objective the power he held behind the scenes. She had been too frail and gentle a thing to know or understand what he had done immediately prior to her marriage to him. She had heard the faint echoes of the thunderbolt, the dim shaking of the earth under all the Bouchards. But her marriage had made her unaware of anything else. She knew that the Bouchards had a kind of terribleness about them, but she believed it was because she was so weak and frail, and they were so strong. She hated no one; she did not even dislike the most repellent of the Bouchards. She longed only for affection, for kindness, for gentle hands and voices and eyes. Now that she was Henri’s wife, she had them in good measure. Her gratitude was touching, even to the hardest heart. She rejoiced that her family now accepted her as a complete human being, that many listened to her respectfully, and that they were solicitous of her. She asked no questions. She was too sweet, too humble, too timid.

  It was these qualities that protected her from the cold furies and remorseless brutality of Henri Bouchard. When he had first seen his cousin in 1925 (his father and her grandfather had been brothers) he had known immediately that here was a poor little creature instinctively overwhelmed by a subconscious knowledge of the character of her family. He had known they despised her, whenever she infrequently came to their attention. Only her father’s former position as dominant executive of the Bouchard affairs had prevented her from open or covert abuse. Her very gentle youth, her timidity, her frailness of body, her air of deformity (which really did not exist) reminded them of an old legendary figure of the family: Jacques Bouchard, son of the cofounder of the Dynasty, old Armand, her grandfather’s grandfather. The legend had persisted in the family, a furtive tale which still could arouse sniggers among the meanerminded. It was said that Jacques had been ‘in love’ with Martin Barbour, brother of the terrible Ernest, and had killed himself when Martin had married Amy Drumhill, cousin to Ernest’s wife, May Sessions. Emile, Annette’s brother, had an old and faded miniature of Jacques, and indeed, the poor deformed cripple was strangely like little Annette. There were the same large blue eyes, light and radiant, the same delicate features, the same small triangular face, so pale and drawn, the same mass of light and buoyant hair. Even the expression, gentle and tragic and appealing, was startlingly similar.

  Henri’s first emotion upon seeing Annette had been an indifferent compassion. Later, he was slightly interested by her intelligence, sweetness and innocence. But he never recovered from a sense of strong repugnance for her. Sometimes he hated her, as if she had wronged him by her mere existence, though she had saved him years of work in gaining control of Bouchard & Sons. His reason was annoyed at this emotional reaction against a gentle creature who had done him no harm, and who loved him with such passionate shy consecration. His annoyance at himself caused those intervals of coldness towards her which so puzzled and frightened her, and filled her with a sense of guilt. The intervals came rarely. She was now only his hostess, his tender little friend whenever he would permit it, his idolatress. And there are few men who can resist idolatry. He had only to be kind and courteous to satisfy her, to transform her into radiant joy.

  The family was completely aware of why he had married Annette, and they admired him for it, even while they snickered in private at the spectacle of the implacable Henri mated to that fluttering little bird. They knew of his many liaisons, but out of fear of him did not acquaint Annette with the luscious facts. And especially not since the advent of Rosemarie in his amorous life. They also had Francis Bouchard, her father, with whom to reckon in the event of an open scandal. Did Francis know? They believed he did. They shrewdly conjectured that Francis even countenanced the affair, in the hope of Annette’s early death and Henri’s marriage to Rosemarie.

  A wall of affectionate silence, then, surrounded Annette. Occasionally, however, she saw the dim shapes of reality passing behind the glass, heard the faint harsh echoes of cruel voices, but strain as she would, with fear, she discerned nothing definite enough to shatter the glass and leave her bereft and shuddering. Perhaps this was because she dared not look too closely. She forced herself to be satisfied with things as they appeared on the surface. Always, she had been too introspective, too sensitive, too fearful, she would reproach herself. Even in Paradise she would look for the serpent, watch the eternal sun for signs of storm, believe that the whispering winds of heaven contained the sly voices of enemies. Thus she told herself.

  For Annette was no fool. Years of quiet and secluded living had turned her mind to books and music, to long thoughts and meditative silences. This had given her a clarity of perception, very dangerous for the helpless. Her consciousness had been like a mass of trembling antennae waving in every subtle wind that emanated from other personalities. She had been able to feel the thoughts of others, their reactions not only to herself, but to circumstance, to environment, to voices, to the very sun and weather. She had sensed their backgrounds, and their response to their backgrounds. This had frequently given her such a strange sense of disorientation and confusion that she had often felt her own personality disintegrating in the general mass of reactions all about her, and she could not tell whether she was thinking thus and so, or whether others were thinking in this manner.

  Now she knew that if she was to retain her identity, if she was to live at all, endure at all, she must protect herself from this exhausted surrender to impressions of others, and helpless identification with their personalities. She must grow a skin; better, she must enclose herself in concrete. If, as she sometimes thought, that concrete had in it the quality of a sarcophagus, at least she would be comparatively safe from a perceptiveness that threatened her very existence, physical as well as mental.

  For, like her relative, Peter, she knew that she would surely die if she understood too much about the world of men. Her life now was an unending struggle not to see more than was necessary for her survival, not to read the true meaning under casual and guarded words, to accept the statements of others with simple faith, to believe that their gestures meant only what they were intended to convey, that their faces expressed what they apparently desired them to express.

  So, she had a kind of happy if static peace in her tortured heart. If she caught herself listening to the dim and ominous echo behind friendly and casual voices, if she found herself searching for the arched lip and cruel eye beyond affectionate smiles, she sternly covered her spiritual ears with her hands and closed her clear and desperate eyes. Who could know the truth about mankind, and live? she would whisper to herself.

  When Henri would enter her apartments during the early months, or even years, of their marriage, her gaze would instinctively and fearfully fasten upon him, her heart would rise with quick and perceptive dread, her blood would cool so that she shivered as if expecting a mortal shock. She had overcome that now. She accepted him as he desired to be accepted by her. If he smiled affectionately, as he did this evening, she accepted that affection. But she still could not control the instinctive lurching of a heart that demanded the truth, even if it died for it.

  Her maid placed a négligé over her
thin bare shoulders, and discreetly left the room. Annette smiled joyously at her husband, extended her little narrow hand to him. He took it; it trembled a little, as always. Her great light eyes fixed themselves upon him with a helpless pleading to which he had become accustomed, and which never failed, despite himself, to give him a qualm of compassion. So he bent and kissed her white forehead, then touched her hair with a briefly tender hand.

  ‘Am I interfering with something important, darling?’ he asked.

  She sighed, and smiled. The imminent danger was passed. It always passed. But she always waited for it, in bottomless terror. She sat down in a puffed satin chair, as if weak. He sat near her.

  ‘No, dearest. Nothing else is important, when you come,’ she said. Her hands fluttered, as if she desperately desired to take hold of him and feel his strength.

  ‘Well then, how would you like to give a large family party for Celeste and Peter?’ he asked, regarding her with indulgent fondness. His pale expressionless eyes had even a slight smile in them.

  ‘Oh, lovely!’ she exclaimed, in her fluting voice. She clapped her hands together, softly. Now she was all joy, and delight. Then the small face clouded. ‘But Peter. Is he well enough? Would he want it?’

  ‘I think he is well enough, pet. Frankly, I think we’ve pampered him too much. That is just like you, Annette: you are always so brooding and solicitous, like a damned little wren.’

  She laughed happily at this, and adored him. ‘Oh, Henri, that’s unfair. Didn’t you warn me, yourself, that poor Peter mustn’t be disturbed, that he needed careful nursing? Didn’t you suggest nurses, yourself? That was so kind of you, so very, very good. But it was you, you know, who insisted on all this.

  ‘If you really think Peter could stand a party, then I’ll be so happy to give him and darling Celeste one. When do you think?’

  But he was silent a moment, eyeing her with penetration. She was immediately uneasy. He said: ‘You are very fond of Celeste, aren’t you, sweet?’

  She was immediately radiant. ‘Oh, yes, I am,’ she said, very softly. ‘We were always such friends. You can’t know. Celeste was my only friend. We are almost the same age, even if she is my aunt. We were together, whenever Uncle Christopher would allow it. I think I was the only friend the poor darling ever had, too. Uncle Christopher kept her like a little nun. I would do anything for Celeste,’ she added, with the swiftness of pain and love. ‘I know she is so unhappy now, over Peter.’

  He did not move a muscle, yet she had the queer sensation that he had moved closer to her, as if not to miss a single expression or a solitary intonation of her voice.

  ‘Why do you think she is so unhappy, Annette?’

  She felt the pressing power of his personality, his intentness. This confused her, so that she could only falter: ‘Well, isn’t it obvious, dear? Peter has been so ill, is still so ill. There doesn’t seem much hope for his complete recovery. And Celeste is so devoted to him, loves him so. It is awfully touching; sometimes I can’t bear it.’ Her voice faded; there were tears in her eyes.

  Henri shrugged. ‘She married him, didn’t she? Knowing that he was a sick man? What could she expect?’

  She spoke eagerly, as if pleading for his compassion for Celeste and Peter; ‘Yes, she knew it. Or, as much as she could. She was so young. She believed that he would recover. After all, the doctors were optimistic. The damage to his lungs was quite bad, but not irreparable, they said. But he didn’t recover. He got worse.’ She hesitated, pleading again with her illumined eyes for his pity. ‘Celeste once hinted to me, not long ago, that it was something else that was making Peter so ill. She said—she thought it was because he couldn’t stand the things he had learned about—about—’ Her voice fell into distressed silence, and now those eyes were filled with a personal terror, as if she heard the echo in herself of things she dared not hear.

  Henri raised his eyebrows in a broad expression of amusement. He laughed. ‘Now, let’s not get metaphysical. I don’t follow you when you talk such nonsense, little mouse. It’s my opinion, and the doctors uphold it, that Peter’s too introspective, too absorbed in himself and in what he believes. The supreme egoist. Now, I’m not intending to be unkind, so don’t look at me like that. I’m telling you my considered opinion, after long study of our sensitive invalid.

  ‘So, that’s why I’m suggesting a party. It might help him. Take him out of himself. Besides, Celeste needs it, too. It’s my observation that she’s pretty miserable. I’ve sometimes wondered if she didn’t regret marrying Peter.’

  ‘O no!’ cried Annette, in a tone unusually loud and desperate. ‘You’re wrong, Henri! She loves him so. I know that.’

  ‘How can you know that?’ he asked, obviously bored, and standing up. ‘After all, she’s had her bellyful of dancing attendance. She hasn’t had a normal life. I wouldn’t blame her if she was sick of it.’

  She looked up at him, her eye-sockets widening and stretching, until her whole small face seemed filled with anguished blueness.

  ‘Henri, you don’t understand. Celeste is so-so stern. She wouldn’t allow herself to think such things, even if they were there. I—I know Celeste. I know that she’d rather have had her life with Peter, wretched and anxious though it has been at times, than a more serene and normal life with anyone else. Please believe me. I know.’

  ‘Celeste has told you this?’ She felt again that he had moved too close to her. There was a nameless sense of smothering in her thin throat. She lifted her hands as if to hold him off, and he thought: He did that, too, this morning. They’re alike, these pathetic wretches.

  ‘No, no, she didn’t tell me!’ she cried. ‘I just know.’ Now she dropped her hands and pressed them on the cushion beside her, as if to spring to her feet, and flee.

  He saw her distress, but he was remorseless. He studied her intently. He thought: She is frightened. She is afraid to look too sharply at the truth. She knows the truth.

  He relaxed, and smiled. He took her face in his hands. It felt chill and damp to his touch. He bent down and kissed her again. She was vibrating, like a tuning fork which had been struck too violently. But under his strong touch, under his smile, under the eyes deliberately affectionate, she subsided, feeling only a profound weakness.

  ‘Now, we’re getting too excited over nothing at all,’ he said, soothingly. ‘Why do you upset yourself, you little fool?’ He pressed her cheeks again, then straightened up. He took out the gold cigarette case she had given him on his last birthday, and nonchalantly lighted a cigarette. She watched all his motions, deliberate, heavy, calm, and could not look away from him. He puffed a moment, frowning thoughtfully at the curling smoke.

  ‘I have a feeling you are perhaps right,’ he acknowledged. ‘Only this morning Celeste said something, before Peter, of leaving us very shortly.’

  She uttered a light cry of protest. The weakness was still strongly upon her, but she forgot its cause in this new development. ‘Oh, I couldn’t bear that! I’ve hoped Celeste and Peter might stay with us indefinitely. I couldn’t bear losing her now, Henri.’

  He smiled with hidden satisfaction. ‘Well, we can’t chain them, you know. However, you might mention your feelings to Celeste very soon. Tell her you need her, or something. She’s very good at being needed.’

  There was something in his tone, something cruel or sardonic, which made the poor little creature wince. But she forced herself to think: He is so kind. My darling is so kind. He always thinks of me.

  She said: ‘I will, dearest. Tonight, perhaps.’

  She rose when he moved towards the door, following him like a frail white shadow. On the threshold, he stopped again, to touch her cheek lightly. He opened the door, and went out. She closed it slowly.

  Her palms flattened against the polished wood. Her lips almost touched it. Then, very slowly, they came into contact with the door. She stood there, pressed against the wood, as if crucified against it, as if fainting against it, unable to move away for fear of fall
ing into utter darkness forever.

  CHAPTER XI

  Just before dinner, Annette went to the apartments of Celeste and Peter.

  Her assumed sprightliness had now become involuntary habit, and she moved quickly on her thin little legs and tiny feet, hardly seeming to touch the floor in her tread. Her blue-and-white print frock emphasized the childishness of her figure, and the fair ringlets about her pale face enhanced her apparent immaturity. Nothing could have been sweeter than her smile when, after her soft knock, she entered her guests’ sitting-room.

  She found Celeste sitting near Peter, as they awaited the dinner bell. Celeste, in a white frock, appeared all coolness and freshness, though the day had been extremely hot and breathless. Peter, as usual, was drained and exhausted. Annette’s quick and perceptive glance touched them uneasily. Was it her imagination, or was Celeste abnormally pale and drawn of eye and lip? Certainly she had a sterner look than ordinarily, and her round dimpled chin was set with a grim obstinacy. Had the darlings been quarrelling? As always, at the hint of a disturbed or violent atmosphere, Annette’s heart rose on an arch of disquiet and fear. Her smile became even more tender and eager, and her hands lifted a little, as if to implore, to soothe.

  ‘Hasn’t it been too dreadfully hot?’ she prattled. ‘No, no, dear Peter, please don’t get up. I’ll only stay a minute, until dinner. It is almost time.’ She reached out, and took Celeste’s hand, as she sat down, and gazed at her with pleading and speechless earnestness. Were they tired of her? Did she annoy them with her foolish impotence? Did she bore them?