The Final Hour

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  Christopher was immediately alert and intrigued. He sat near Henri in the coziest sort of intimacy, and no one watching that ‘ravenous, chromium-coloured wolf,’ as his brothers called him, would have suspected the secret malignance behind the amiable smile he directed at his brother-in-law.

  ‘I’ll be glad to help,’ he said, with great cordiality. He passed his hand over his narrow and delicate skull.

  Henri sat back in his chair and surveyed him with saturnine humour. ‘Do you mind if I review your own history for a moment? It’s a very interesting one. I don’t mean to offend you, of course, but a freshening of memory is necessary.’

  Christopher smiled, and shrugged. ‘Go on,’ he said.

  Henri put his fingers together and stared at them meditatively. ‘I’m sure it’s agreed that you were given a dirty deal by your colourful father, Jules, when he left control of Bouchard & Sons to Armand, and made you a petty, subsidiary officer. Your own personal fortune, as Bouchard fortunes go, was comparatively meagre. I think he did that, deliberately. Well, no matter. But, you’ve done well for yourself. You’ve got Duval-Bonnet, your own creation. Has anyone ever congratulated you on it?’ and he smiled quizzically,

  Christopher laughed. He allowed Henri to refill his glass.

  ‘Yes,’ continued Henri, with frankness, ‘you’ve done well for yourself. With assistance. My assistance,’ he added, pursing his lips humorously. ‘And I think you know that I never back anyone without reason. You’ve lived up to expectations. My expectations. I’ve watched you over a number of years, Chris, and you’ve never made a mistake.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Christopher, drily. He studied Henri with eyes as bright as a serpent’s, and as wary. A faint pulse of fear began to beat in him, fear of this formidable and ruthless man who could still crush him and stamp him out with one lift of his heel. And his hatred grew with his fear. Mixed with these was an icy rage at the bland condescension in Henri’s voice, amiable and affectionate though it was.

  Henri was silent for a moment, as he studied his broad and powerful hands. Then he lifted his pale inexorable eyes and fixed them on Christopher.

  ‘You’ll allow me to be a little sentimental, eh? Well, we Bouchards have always been great breeders, until the dynasty descended to our generation. Now, we haven’t done so well. One or two children, at the most. That’s bad. Let us look at Bouchard & Sons, for instance. Armand, who is out, and so doesn’t matter much, has only his son, Antoine, to contribute any flesh to the Company. And, somehow, I don’t find much pleasure in the thought that Antoine’s children might inherit Bouchard & Sons. In fact, I’ve already taken care of that part. You understand that this is in strict confidence?’

  Christopher felt a sudden fierce excitement. He laid his glass down carefully, and gave all his attention to his brother-in-law. The pulse of fear had been superseded by this new emotion.

  He smiled. ‘Antoine won’t like that,’ he said softly. ‘Antoine—has ambitions.’

  Henri returned his smile with an inclination of his head. ‘Yes, I know that. And I love to spike ambitions, when they don’t fit in with my plans.

  ‘So, Armand has no one else but Annette, his daughter, my wife. I don’t need to tell you that Annette will never have any children, and what that has meant to me for the past few years. When you married my sister, I had some hopes. But, you and Edith seem about as sterile as others in the family. You haven’t even produced a girl!’

  But Christopher was as rigid and intent as bright metal.

  ‘Do you mean, that if we’d had children, they might have been your heirs?’

  Henri waved a hand negligently. ‘Why not? Edith’s my sister. I’m very fond of Edith, as you may have discovered before this. But the time for Edith to have children is past. Inconvenience of nature.’

  Christopher relaxed suddenly in his chair, and now his sudden volatile hatred turned against his wife, whom he, in fact, truly and deeply loved. He remembered what she had said upon their marriage fourteen years ago: ‘No, Chris. No children. I’ll not be responsible for bringing any more Bouchards into this world!’ He had not cared, particularly, then. He had only laughed. It was enough for him that he had Duval-Bonnet, and Edith. In truth, he detested children. The sense of dynasty was not in the least strong in him.

  Henri saw his look, and smiled internally. He spread his hands, and shrugged. ‘So, here we are, I with Bouchard & Sons and no heirs, you with Duval-Bonnet, and no heirs. Do you like the idea of Bouchard & Sons—though you are no longer actively connected with the Company—going to your lovely brother Emile’s son, Robert?’

  Christopher had a quick inner vision of Robert, Emile’s personal secretary. Robert, the short, the black, the surly and vicious, the ever silent tnd chronically resentful. One was hardly conscious of that young man, with his snarling voice and beetling black eyes, so like his father, except that Robert had nothing of Emile’s false geniality and fat sparkle. But now Christopher saw Robert clearly, and his narrow lips tightened.

  Henri inclined his head. ‘That’s how it is,’ he said. ‘Who else have we got?’ He added, when Christopher did not reply: ‘I don’t admire Robert. Yet his father has already planned it.’

  So, thought Christopher, that’s his game. Never a whisper out of him, yet while he’s been plotting with us, he had his damned son in mind all the time. He regarded the inner vision of his nephew, Robert, with loathing and fury. But nothing appeared on his emaciated mask of a face. He only nodded, very slowly.

  ‘Of course, that seems logical,’ Henri conceded. ‘I can see that. Emile has a right to plan. After all, he is vice-president of Bouchard & Sons. It is natural that he should have ambitions for his son. Besides, Robert’s little wife, Isabel, looks as if she is going to present a crown-prince to Bouchard very shortly. A great breeder, by the looks of it. How long have they been married? Less than nine months, but the egg is practically ready to burst, isn’t it? Too, she is a Catholic, and Catholics aren’t notorious for restraint in breeding. Yes, it all seems to be working out by plan. Emile is entrenching himself. His own personal fortune is enormous. He owns a large block of stock in Bouchard, and larger blocks in the subsidiaries. His wife, Agnes, is a very rich woman, too. Then, little Isabel, grand-daughter of our foul automobile manufacturer, Mitchell, will inherit considerable shekels in her own right, for all her grandpapa was quite a Ku-Kluxer and bible-worshipper and didn’t approve of his son, Edmund, marrying a Roman Catholic. I understand our Isabel is quite his pet.’ He stared at Christopher with affectionate immobility. ‘You don’t mean to tell me, Chris, that you haven’t thought of all this before?’

  Christopher was silent. His meatless fingers clenched with a quick and lethal movement. He had hated his brother, Armand, but now merely despised him since his descent from power into the intricacies of The List. For his brother, Emile, he had an enormous natural hatred, congenital and bottomless. Now, when he saw the ‘natural plot,’ he was seized with a sense of impotent suffocation, a sensation as of drowning.

  Henri shifted in his chair, smiled, sighed with humour, and raised his brows. Christopher, at the slight sound Henri made, visibly started, slowly fastened his eyes on Henri’s face. He said, very quietly: ‘You. You’ve thought of something, haven’t you? You aren’t letting Bouchard go so easily, are you?’

  ‘No,’ said Henri, frankly, after a moment. ‘I’m not. That’s why you’re here, if you didn’t know it before.’

  At this, Christopher felt such an enormous wave of relief that he became actually weak. He had never depreciated the power of Henri Bouchard. He would have called it naïveté in another man, this belief in the omniscience of his brother-in-law. His voice was hoarse, when he said: ‘Yes. Go on.’

  He could hardly contain himself. He stood up, quickly, walked back and forth for a moment or two, passing his hands over his small and bony skull. Then he sat down again, as sharp and alert as a lean and silvery wolf. His eyes had begun to sparkle with swift and smiling malevolence.
‘Go on,’ he repeated.

  ‘I’ve long thought of a way out,’ continued Henri, genially. ‘I’ve planned a way out, from the beginning. Celeste.’

  At the mention of his sister’s name, Christopher straightened in his chair with a movement of almost violent energy. He stared at Henri with cold but furtive ferocity.

  ‘Yes, Celeste,’ he muttered. He drew a deep breath. ‘But there’s no hope of children, there. You know that.’ His eyes began to leap in their elongated sockets.

  ‘Perhaps not there,’ said Henri, very softly. ‘Not with Peter. No. But with me—yes.’

  Christopher could hardly breathe, after this astounding statement. He leaned forward, clutching the arms of his chair. His features were alive, fluid, shining. ‘You mean?’

  ‘I mean,’ said Henri, with equanimity, ‘that I soon intend to divorce Annette. And marry Celeste. After that coughing rabbit, Peter, dies. And he’ll die soon, as I told you.’ Christopher fell back in his chair. Then suddenly he was shaken with a grim and terrible joy. His little Celeste! It was all right, then. Everything was all right! He forgot everything, in the thought of Celeste. And then he remembered Emile, and his son, Robert, and he suddenly laughed aloud, a quiet shrill and vicious sound.

  Though Henri was well aware of Christopher’s passion for his little sister, yet he was newly astounded. And a compassion rare with him stirred him a little. He had always believed that there was something more than a trifle incestuous in Christopher’s love, a great deal of the paternal. But he had not fully realized the extent of all this. He knew that Celeste loved her youngest brother, but also feared and suspected and disliked him, especially since her marriage to Peter. And so, Henri’s compassion. It seemed pitiable to him, who rarely pitied anything, that so much love, so much ferocious protection, so much single-heartedness and relentless devotion, could have poured from so deadly and serpentine a man upon a sister whose love, these past years, had only been lukewarm. Every man had his soft spot of potential death. Christopher’s was Celeste. Again, Henri felt pity.

  He had another thought: Perhaps, now, it was not necessary to go on with his plans. Perhaps Celeste was enough. He eyed Christopher fixedly. No, it would do no harm to appeal to his rapacity, also. Love and rapacity: an invincible combination.

  He said, in a kind tone: ‘Why are you so surprised?

  Surely, you know I never give up?’ He assumed affront. ‘You must have known that I’ve always wanted Celeste, and intended to have her some day.’ He smiled faintly. ‘And my intentions were always honourable, I assure you. Once, she thought she hated me. She never did, really. She came back, quite willingly. When Peter’s dead, there’ll be no difficulty. But, of course, all this is very confidential, as you know. Celeste and I had a little talk, that night her mother died. It’s all arranged.’

  Henri continued to watch Christopher closely, his eyes narrowed. It has been so very easy. Again, his pity stirred. He had no intention of divorcing Annette and her fortune, so long as Armand lived.

  He shifted to a more comfortable position in his chair, refilled Christopher’s glass. Christopher, still gloating, took it automatically, and drank.

  ‘And now,’ said Henri, with a deliberately quick change of tone, ‘we’ve settled the sentimentalities. Of course, there wasn’t any need of all this explanation. You must have known it all along. I didn’t call you to New York to discuss any such obvious thing. It was something quite different, something immediately important.’

  Christopher came out of his dream of triumph and joy with a start, and a new wariness. How could he have forgotten! With trembling fingers, he fumbled for his platinum cigarette case, lit a cigarette. But the cigarette hung drily from his lips, as he thought. He might lift a murderous hand against his wife’s brother; he might rejoice, with a deadly and virulent rejoicing, at the fall of Henri Bouchard. But, Celeste’s husband was another matter. All his triumph and his joy flowed out of him, congealed. He felt suddenly very ill.

  Henri saw all this. Yes, the thought, he had been quite right. Love was not as invincible as rapacity. He saw now, from the constant vibration of Christopher’s eyelids, that he was suddenly plotting again. It would not be beyond him to try to keep Celeste from Henri, for the furtherance of his own schemes. The thought was causing Christopher real agony of mind. But behind it was his rapacity. Henri knew the exact moment when Christopher’s love lost the struggle with his overpowering greed. It was then that Henri moving again, and his pity was entirely gone replaced by stony malignancy.

  ‘We’ll, get down to business, Chris. It’s after one o’clock, and we still haven’t come to the real thing.’

  But Christopher was sunken deep into his private chaos. Henri had to raise his voice harshly to bring him back. He started. The chromium-coloured eyes had lost all their gleam; they were actually haggard. Bemused, he hardly heard Henri’s opening words:

  ‘We’ll pare down to essentials. We know that Hitler will move against Poland in a few months, perhaps sooner. There’ll be war. England and France will attack Hitler. They’ll have to; they’re frightened out of their wits this time. It’s now or never. But, you know all that.’

  Christopher said nothing. But he was all alertness now. He had had a shock. He had forced his own recovery.

  ‘It has been my firm belief, at least it has become my belief recently, that we can’t do business with Hitler,’ resumed Henri. ‘You, Chris, and some of the others, haven’t agreed with me. I presume you still disagree?’

  Now Christopher forgot everything in the intensity of his listening. The thin vague pulse of fear returned to him, but stronger now, beating heavily in his chest and his temples. He regarded Henri in fixed silence for a few moments, before smiling easily, and lifting his hand with a deprecating gesture. ‘I still think we can do business with Hitler,’ he said. Henri shook his head slowly. ‘And I know we can’t. But that’s an old story. We’ve gone over it a dozen times. I won’t argue with you. The only thing we have agreed upon is that America is not to enter any war cooked up in Europe.’ Christopher nodded. ‘We’ll see to that.’

  ‘As we’ve all agreed before, war will ruin us. Roosevelt is bent on government ownership, or at least a strong form of socialism. The war, if we get into it, will be his God-given chance. America will become the besotted empire of the Common Man. In this barnyard, civilization will be trampled down under hoofs. Not that we don’t appreciate the good services the Common Man has done us, and will continue to do in the future! You can always rely on the Masses to go grunting and trampling and chewing wherever you drive them. Swine!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Christopher, smiling reminiscently. ‘Every time our holy reverend Halliday sends forth his sonorous venom over the radio, a pogrom threatens, the Polacks in Detroit get ready to pull Jewish beards, the aristocratic Oakies of the South fondle ropes and dream of lynching Negroes, and Mitchell, Halliday’s guardian angel, slaughters another union in his cheap automobile plants. The mob never learns, thank God.’

  ‘Thank God,’ echoed Henri. ‘And so, if we have a war, the mob will follow Roosevelt into socialism, and bellow for our scalps. We’ve done a good job in the past with the masses. We can’t rely on continuing an equally good job if we get into the war. When it becomes a choice with the fellaheen of gorging themselves, or hating others, they prefer the gorging. Roosevelt fills their bellies; we gave them hatred. They prefer their bellies.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ said Christopher, ‘the masses instinctively love fascism. We can rely on that. They love the boot and the whip. It gives them a kind of orgasm—a voluptuousness. The Germans aren’t the only perverts. The masses love to murder and torture. Give them the chance, and they’ll run for it, screaming with joy. That’s why fascism is so popular. Why, it would be popular here.’

  Henri contemplated him a moment. ‘However, fascism, though it appeals to me personally, wouldn’t do in America. I’ll be servant to no master. And, I believe, you agree with me?’

  ‘C
ertainly,’ said Christopher, smoothly.

  The fear was strong in him now, a metallic taste on his lips. Henri appeared to grow before him, to become terrible and gigantic and threatening. Yet, Henri was laughing, lightly.

  ‘Not that there is any danger of real fascism in America. We know the limits. For our own survival. But this isn’t getting down to business, I’m afraid.

  ‘When the war comes, we’ll have our greatest chance. In South America. When Germany is involved in the war, she will be unable to control her damned airlines in South America; we’d then have an opportunity to get control.’

  Christopher moved imperceptibly in his chair, but he gave the impression of leaning forward, watching Henri with narrowed eyes.

  ‘I now have the chance to gain control of the Eagle Aviation Company,’ said Henri, with impassive calm. ‘It has been offered to me. The stock is down to five dollars a share. Yet, they have the plans and patents all ready for large passenger planes that can easily be converted into bombers.’

  Christopher said nothing. He was whiter than ever.

  ‘Now,’ said Henri, with a casual wave of his hand, ‘your company, Duval-Bonnet, makes only fighter planes. Eagle Aviation also makes fighter planes, and possesses fine patents for pursuit planes. While you, yourself, have perfected planes for speed, you haven’t the facilities for making large ships, nor the motors for them. Our own subsidiary, Giant Motors, are making such a motor for the planes planned by Eagle Aviation.’

  Christopher felt that he was smothering. He put his hand momentarily to his throat. But otherwise he betrayed nothing of what he was thinking. Through a bright haze, he saw that Henri was smiling blandly.

  ‘If I purchased Eagle Aviation, I could put Duval-Bonnet out of business. But quick,’ he was saying. ‘A very unfraternal thing to do, of course. And, naturally, I haven’t even given that a thought, as you can well imagine. But I have had a very nice thought, which will appeal to you.