The Final Hour

by Caldwell, Taylor;

  He spoke with such detachment, even indifference, that his words were enhanced in their ferocity, rather than diminished. He had put his cigarette to his lips; she saw the sudden strong burning of its tip as if he had drawn a quick savage breath. He was staring before him.

  ‘It wasn’t love for England, my sweet, that sent me into the Air Force. It wasn’t tenderness for dear old filthy, lying, crafty and greedy France. It was only hatred. You see, I know so much about Germans. I lived in Germany quite a few years.’

  She had never seen Godfrey like this, and even when he shrugged his shoulders, smiled again, his eyes dancing as of old, she was still horror-stricken at the cold and deadly look he had worn for an instant or two, and the iron and ringing sound of his quiet voice. She thought: What a terrible thing it is for the Germans to have this on their conscience: that they have made men hate them so that these men could forget all civilized instincts of gentleness and compassion, and hate with even greater ferocity.

  ‘It is not Hitler. It never was Hitler,’ said Godfrey. ‘It was, and is, always the German people. Hitler just catered to their instincts, and was able to get his brothers-under-the-skin to help him in Europe. And in America, probably.’

  ‘A drink?’ asked Celeste, after a moment’s silence.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered, smiling at her fondly. He watched her. ‘Come. A little more of that whiskey, pet. A lot more. And very little of the soda.’

  They sat before the fire, glasses and ice sparkling on a small table near them. Celeste gave a glass to Godfrey. She watched him as he gulped its contents quickly, as if he was enormously thirsty. ‘More?’ she said, when he removed the glass from his lips. She was not surprised, and only sad, when he nodded. He watched her pour the golden whiskey into the glass again, and add the soda, which hissed loud in the warm, firelit silence. This time he did not gulp. He sipped, his elbow on his left knee. She tried not to look at the stump, which was so neatly folded into its blue trouser. She fixed her attention on Godfrey and it seemed to her that as the moments passed the squeezing pain about her heart was becoming unbearable.

  The mask of Godfrey Barbour was there, smiling and attentive as always, even gay and light and zestful. But there were moments, she discerned, when the old mask would slip aside, and show his new and dreadfully real face.

  ‘Do you want to tell me about it, Frey?’ she asked.

  He still smiled, yet he gave the impression of frowning, also. He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t, Celeste. I will tell you this, though.’ He tapped his stump. ‘This happened over Berlin. We were given industrial targets before we set out. Always industrial targets! They’re probably most necessary, I admit. But, I wanted something else. I wanted to kill Germans more than I wanted to blow up an aeroplane factory or a tank plant. Just wanted to kill Germans, male or female, big or small. You see, I would prevent them from breeding more Germans to harass the world some twenty-five years from now. I turned off the scheduled flight. I got the plane over the residential districts for a few split seconds.’ He paused. He sipped again, took the glass from his lips, and looked at the fire. There was a red reflected glow in the sockets of his eyes, and it gave him a terrible look. ‘All the bombs went there, from my Thunderbolt. All of them. Right on the houses, the streets, the shelters. I was killing Germans. You can’t know what joy that brings to a realistic man, Celeste.’

  He looked down at his stump, long and fixedly. ‘That’s when this happened. But it was more than a fair exchange. I had probably killed scores of Germans. I paid for it with half a leg. It was little enough.’

  He held out his glass to her automatically, and again she filled it.

  ‘And now,’ he said, in his old tone, light and warm with affection, ‘what have you been doing, Celeste? You know, I heard about Peter. He suffered so, poor old chap. And the baby? I suppose I may see him?’

  Celeste glanced aside, and he wondered, fleetingly, at the closed and uneasy expression of her mouth. She said: ‘Oh, of course. But tomorrow, Frey. We’ll have dinner soon, when you are ready. Your room is ready.’ She paused, then in a quicker, livelier voice: ‘You don’t know how good it is to see you again! Peter and I were so fond of you, Frey. He often spoke of you after we had come home.’

  ‘Good old Peter,’ he murmured, and there was genuine sadness in his voice. ‘I suppose I should have written, after I went to England. But I couldn’t think of anyone there, at Cannes, along the Riviera, without feeling sick. You and Peter were different. Yet, you were there. I wanted to cut myself away, clean.’

  ‘Yes, I understand,’ said Celeste, softly. She looked at him with tenderness. Some old painful rigidity in her was relaxing, some old painful wariness and distress.

  They talked now, of the war, of the probability of America’s embroilment, of the family he had never seen. He was particularly interested in the last. But he laughed in protest as Celeste tried to unravel the complexities of relationship. ‘That’s enough!’ he cried. ‘You make it sound like incest.’

  Celeste was suddenly pale and rigid again. She looked aside. ‘It is,’ she murmured. ‘Spiritual incest. You don’t know the Bouchards, Godfrey.’

  ‘I bet I’ll find them interesting!’ he said.

  Celeste asked him if he had married, and he shook his head, laughing. ‘No, I was never in love. Not really. Except once, perhaps.’

  ‘And you couldn’t marry her, Frey?’

  He leaned forward to place his empty glass very carefully on the table. All his movements were slow and precise. She saw his profile, and it was no longer open and careless, as she remembered it, but secret and restrained. Yet, his mouth was smiling.

  ‘No,’ he said, indifferently. ‘She was already married. Very unfortunate. There was nothing I could do. Her husband was my friend.’

  He turned to her now, and there was a bland smoothness, opaque and unreadable, about his eyes, which reminded her, painfully, of Henri. She stared at him, and to her dazed senses it seemed that there was something about him that was powerfully suggestive of the absent man. She pushed her chair back a little.

  He saw this, and frowned to himself. Had he frightened her, or aroused her suspicions? My darling, he thought, why the hell do you think I came here anyway?

  They went in to dinner. The dining-room was now no longer chill and empty for Celeste, nor full of dreary cold shadows. The candles burned warmly, throwing soft flickering lights upon her face. Godfrey was delighted and exuberant about the dinner. ‘You don’t know what all this means after rationing!’ he cried. ‘All the roast beef I want, God! And butter! And sugar. It’s a miracle!’

  He ate with appetite. He was so gay and pleasant and simply happy. His shrewd remarks and epigrams kept Celeste helpless with laughter. It had been so long since this room had heard her laughter, or her voice, eager and alive as now. She forgot his mutilation. Her face glowed; her eyes were blue dancing lights. He did not remark on the streak of whiteness in her hair, nor did he appear to glance at it. But he knew it was there; he was completely aware of it. Sometimes, in the intervals of her laughter, he saw the marks of pain about her mouth, and the mauve shadows under her eyes.

  They sat for hours at the table. When they finally returned to the fire for coffee, Celeste felt young and free again, light and dizzy. And they sat by the fire until the last coals had turned to ash, and midnight had long gone.

  For the first time in many weeks, Celeste fell asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow, and she smiled a little, as she slept. The house, formerly so deserted and desolate to her, so barren of human life and joy, closed about her warmly like the friendly walls of home.

  CHAPTER LXVI

  It had always seemed to Celeste that pain had been her familiar from her earliest consciousness. She had become so accustomed to it that on the few and scattered occasions when she had known happiness there had been a kind of hysteria in her joy, a disorientation, as if she had become drunk. Sometimes she had thought: I think I can bear anything with ease, e
xcept happiness. For happiness had always created a wild tension in her, a thrilling spasm which caused her heart to beat too rapidly for comfort.

  But the pain her final separation from Henri had produced had been too much even for one so inured to suffering. She had abandoned, in her grief, all pretences of living normally, of revealing to the outside world even the show of tranquil existence. Even her child had not been able to lift from her mind the crushing blackness and desolation, the long cold misery of hopelessness and sorrow. She had begun to wander, as Armand had wandered, through the empty rooms of her house, looking blindly through windows at the autumn landscape, feeling in herself no response to any stimulus, no care and no desire. A thousand times she said to herself: But I always knew what he was.

  But her reason was impotent against this ball of cold and iron weight in her throat and breast. She never cried out in despair, for despair is the sister of hope. She had no hope. There were times when she asked herself: What is to become of me? But even the silence that answered her question had no power to agitate and torture her. A thick dullness had begun to settle on her face, to echo in her voice, to make all her gestures languid and heavy. She did not care whether others knew. When Christopher visited her and talked to her, when her other relatives literally forced her to come to their houses, she answered them, and looked at them, with an endless weariness and emptiness. She heard them as from a far distance, and they had begun to lose dimension for her, so that they appeared like wearisome and annoying shadows from which she must soon deliver herself.

  Her mornings had been the worst of all, for during sleep she often forgot her desolate state. For a few seconds she would lie peacefully on her pillows, vaguely staring at her windows and thinking of her child. Then the initial pain, for only a few instants, would return like a mortal agony, and she would turn her face down as if to drive memory from her in one convulsive act of suffocation.

  She did not think of Henri acutely. He was only a symbol of her pain. She did not long for him, nor even desire that he should come to her. Her suffering was like a disease, which she could only endure numbly. There had been one time when she discovered that she could no longer breathe with comfort, and that the slightest exertion provoked breathlessness and sharp pain. Then, she had been frightened. If she died, what would become of her child? She had visited her physician, who, after a few shrewd questions, and quiet scrutiny, had shrugged and prescribed sedatives for her. The sedatives had dulled the violence of her anguish, had left it throbbing far off from her. It had also dulled her thoughts. One day, she was amazed to discover it was the middle of November. Time had stood still for her.

  It was no wonder then, that when she awoke the morning after Godfrey Barbour’s arrival and did not feel that old hideous plunge into agony, she was utterly amazed. She sat up in bed, and waited. But she felt nothing but a curious sense of consolation and tranquillity. Everything, too, had taken on clarity, and was no longer outlined with the dim haze of drug-induced lethargy. She saw the rim of bright snow on the window-sills, the crystal branches of the tree that tapped the shining glass. She saw the pale and sparkling blue of the November sky, streaked here and there with white veils. She sprang out of bed and looked out over the brown hills, glittering with frost, and the dark vitality of the evergreens that surrounded the house. The room was full of fresh cold air, but she stood in her nightdress, her hands and face pressed against the window, and the clear and brilliant light lay on her pale face and staring eyes.

  Her maid, entering discreetly, was surprised to see her mistress standing there, and was even more surprised when Celeste turned, smiling. Was Mr Barbour up? she asked, and when she heard that he was, she hurried through her bathing, and then studied the dress she would wear. She finally chose a crimson wool. She discovered that her hands were tremling, that a thin and excited pulse was beating in her throat. On the way from her room she passed a bowl of red roses. Smiling, she took a flower and thrust its stem through her black hair.

  She ran down the stairs to the breakfast room, whose south wall of windows was filled with flowering plants. Godfrey was standing there on his crutches, looking out over the hills and the white plain of shining snow that lay between them and the house. He turned when she entered, and stretched out his hand, laughing. ‘Hello! This is a fine place you have here, my pet! And how well you are looking this morning!’

  She caught his hand impulsively between her own, and cried: ‘O Frey, you don’t know how glad I am that you are here!’

  He looked down at her, and was silent, though his smile was wide. But his eyes narrowed a trifle, searchingly. And then he said: ‘Are you sure, Celeste? You are really glad?’

  ‘O yes. So very glad. I’ve been so lonely, Frey.’ Her words, her voice, her look, were simple and moving, like a child’s, and because he was both subtle and intuitive, he guessed that she had been suffering for a long time for some reason unknown to him. Was it poor old Pete? Certainly: that was it. He remembered her devotion to Peter, and a pang of something sharply like jealousy passed through him. How lonely she must have been, indeed, in her grief. Her family, then, was no comfort to her, no joy. Not even the child, evidently. His heart suddenly rose giddily as he saw how fresh she appeared this morning, and how the deep blue of her eyes was alive and sparkling. She had such a pure simplicity, this poor darling little creature, such candour and openness. He looked down at the hands that held him, and impulsively he lifted one and kissed it.

  He wondered how she would take this. But when he looked up, she was smiling, and her cheeks were glowing. He drew out a chair for her, and she let him do it, to his gratitude, and did not appear to notice how he swayed on his crutches. He sat near her, and surveyed the pleasant table with its crystal and silver with open admiration. ‘I’d forgotten, really, how nice peace is,’ he said. ‘And how nice snow is, and the country, and lighted houses. I think I’m going to like America, When you come down to it, I’m an American, after all. Or am I?’ he added, pausing with his glass of orange juice near his lips.

  She pretended to regard the question seriously. The air about her was all lightness and childlike gaiety. Then she shook her head. ‘I’m afraid not. You were born in England, weren’t you? Your father was born in France. What does your passport say?’

  ‘I’ve a British passport. But really, I’m an American. By the way, in Manchester, I discovered a family of Barbours who I believe belong to us. Shopkeepers. There was a chap who was one of our mechanics. A fresh and sturdy brute of a young fellow, with pale grey eyes like stone. Remarkable damn resemblance to a photograph of a mutual relative, Henri Bouchard.’ He paused, with some surprise, for all at once Celeste’s colour had gone, and her lips had changed. She had dropped her eyes; her hand lay quietly on the table silver. ‘Did I say something wrong?’ he asked.

  She looked up quickly. Her expression was quite dead. ‘No, not at all. But it’s very interesting about those Barbours. Do tell me more, Frey.’

  ‘There isn’t very much to tell,’ he said, watching her with furtive keenness. ‘I met the family. Working-class, but good and healthy. Yes, they were our Barbours. This young chap’s great-grandfather had been a George Barbour, who had got a start in America, and then had been robbed by his brother’s son, our good old Ernest Barbour. Georgie had gone back to England, and opened a draper’s shop. This young chap, Edward, however, was a fine mechanic. He said he was going to patent an invention of his. Something about a radio detector, or something equally mysterious. Said he had some fellows very interested. Hope something comes of it. There’s a drive in him. When I told him I was done, and was going to America, he wanted to know if I could interest some people here. I have the blueprint in my luggage, and perhaps, if I have the time, I’ll haul it out and give it an airing among the boys for their opinion.’

  Celeste was listening with interest. Her colour was returning, but very slowly. When she spoke, it was with an effort: ‘That would be nice for—what did you say his name was?’r />
  ‘Edward. Edward Barbour.’

  After breakfast, Celeste ordered the baby to be brought down for inspection. Godfrey insisted upon holding him upon his knee, and dandled him. The child played with his buttons, and fingered the bit of ribbon and the medal on his chest. He looked up at Godfrey without shyness, and with an odd contained smile. ‘Handsome little devil,’ said Godfrey.

  ‘And believe it or not, he’s got Ed Barbour’s’ eyes. That curious bright pale grey. It must run in the family. Crops out here and there in the generations.’

  Celeste called for a car, and they drove out into the brilliant November light. Celeste’s spirits had returned in good measure. She laughingly indulged Godfrey when he insisted upon getting out of the car and standing in the thin layer of snow. ‘I’m going to like America!’ he exclaimed. The car had stopped near a thick wood, and Godfrey surveyed the tall bare trees with pleasure. A pheasant whirred near them. In the distance a farmhouse chimney fumed against the pale blue of the cold sky. A dog barked, and the echo of his barking fell back from the woods with sharp clarity. Shafts of radiant sunshine and shadows of scudding clouds raced over the white and undulating valley. Godfrey took off his blue RAF cap, and the cold fresh wind blew through his flaxen hair. A stain of colour appeared on his thin and sunken cheeks. When they were back in the car, and turned homeward, he began to sing. He held Celeste’s hand, and the warmth of his own penetrated through her glove. Soon, she was laughing with him, and singing foolish popular songs. Her face was pink, framed beautifully in the rim of fur that lined her woollen hood. She had forgotten Godfrey’s lost leg, and when his crutches clattered down at their feet, she joined in his merriment and pretended to be shocked at his profanity. Their bodies were warm and close under the fur robe.