The Final Hour Read online

  Christopher. I haven’t asked him yet. Perhaps it would be better to say nothing at all about it.’

  If you don’t care for Crissons, we could go to Windsor, and stay at Endur,’ said Adelaide, hopefully, remembering her old home.

  Celeste shrugged. ‘Somehow, I don’t think Endur appeals to me. I never liked that house, either. Besides, hasn’t Armand’s new superintendent rented it? Yes, I remember Armand writing me about that.’

  She laughed again, without merriment. ‘We really haven’t a home! The first two years Peter and I were married we spent in New York.’ She lifted the fingers of her left hand and counted the years off with the index finger of her right hand. ‘Then we spent four years in England, at Torquay. We came back to New York for a year. That was when poor old Etienne died. We occupied his apartment. What a fantastic place it was! Then, thinking the mountains might help Peter, we went to Switzerland for two years, or a little more. Then Paris for a few months. Then Germany, Italy. Finally Cannes, for five years. What horrible expatriates we are!

  She smiled thoughtfully, then with wryness.

  ‘Why not remain in New York a little, then you and Peter could look about and see where you would prefer to live,’ suggested Adelaide, her knotted hands twisting together with their chronic gesture of old pain.

  Celeste, not replying, lifted the paper on her knee and studied it thoughtfully. The slightest frown appeared between her eyes. She was silent for a short space.

  Then she said: ‘I love Windsor. I feel I have roots there. Perhaps it is because it is practically infested with Bouchards. All of us. We own it, mentally, physically, spiritually. And, financially. I feel important in Windsor. Not useless, as I do now. Peter hasn’t said he hated it. I think he is perfectly indifferent. I also think he could come to love the little city as I do.’

  She was silent again. She studied the paper intently. There were only a few lines on it. Adelaide recognized it as a cable. Then she had the feeling that Celeste was playing for time, that for once she was hesitant, she who was always so assured and resolute.

  ‘Is that a cable, dear?’ asked Adelaide, tentatively.

  Celeste, still looking at the paper, nodded. She lifted her head and stared, rather than looked at her mother, almost challengingly.

  ‘We could stay with Armand, or Emile, or Jean, or any of the rest of our numerous relatives for a while, until we made up our minds. They’ve all invited us. Francis, after all, is Peter’s brother, and they’ve had something in common. Of course, Georges has invited us to stay with him and Marion on their farm in Dutchess County. I shouldn’t like that, even though he and Peter are great friends. I really detest Marion. I wonder if she is as “clear-eyed” as ever. Remember? Papa always spoke of her going about the whole damned place with “clear eyes.” Dear me,’ she added, after a moment, ‘we’ve been away so long that I haven’t been able to keep up with the family. Surely we have some younger relatives!’

  With sudden unreasoning terror, Adelaide thought: She is thinking of something. For once, she is afraid to speak of it. She is hesitating!

  She made herself speak calmly and indifferently: ‘Well, you’ll soon learn all about your relatives again when we return. What have you decided to do, dear?’

  Celeste again stared at her mother, and now Adelaide detected a hint of hard ruthlessness in the young woman’s beautiful eyes.

  ‘There was really only one of my multitudinous relatives with whom I ever had anything in common. Annette,’ she added, speaking of her niece, daughter of her eldest brother, Armand. ‘Yes, Annette. We loved each other. We are almost the same age. I always loved Annette.’

  Now the terror was close upon Adelaide. Annette, wife of Henri Bouchard! Poor weak little Annette, who had almost died when Celeste had become engaged to Henri! Since the marriage between Annette and Henri, Celeste had seen those two only three times in fourteen years, and then only for a short while. It was true that Annette and Celeste had corresponded vigorously, always, with affection, long letters passing between them. But letters are not personal contact.

  Adelaide drew a deep breath. She met Celeste’s eyes, and her withered lips dried.

  ‘Are you trying to tell me that you are really considering staying with Henri and Annette at Robin’s Nest, Celeste? You and Peter? Remembering—everything?’

  Celeste still stared. Her face was smooth and still. One black eyebrow rose in a whimsical curve.

  ‘O Mama. That is so tiresome. Because I was once a silly girl, and engaged to Henri, means nothing at all. That was so long ago. We’ve all forgotten it. “Remembering—everything,” you say. So melodramatic. What is there to remember, except a short mistake? Henri, I am sure, has forgotten a long time ago. If you recall, he wasn’t inconsolable. He married Annette almost immediately.’

  Adelaide compelled herself to speak in as indifferent a tone as her daughter’s. But her voice was somewhat faint. ‘But why Annette, darling? After all, there is Emile, your own brother, and his wife, Agnes. Emile is my son. I should much prefer to be with my son, rather than with my granddaughter, Annette, and her husband.’

  Celeste gazed at her with a frankness which was, however, opaque and unreadable.

  ‘Well, that brings us to a situation, Mama. We can’t all three of us descend in a body on our relatives, can we? So, I suggest that you go to Emile, or to Armand, and Peter and I will consider going to Annette and Henri, until we can settle ourselves.’

  Adelaide regarded her daughter speechlessly. Her seamed and saddened face took on a sunken look. She thought: I have exiled myself with you and your husband, my child. I have roamed all the terrible world with you. I have dragged my old bones in your wake, wanting only to be with you, to serve you and help you, because you, alone, of all my children, have I loved. Because you, of all my children, had integrity of character, honesty, virtue. So I believed. Is it possible I have deceived myself all these years? And, are you repaying me for my service by this cold and cruel dismissal? What is behind it? Why are you doing this thing to me, to yourself?

  And she knew that, once separated from Celeste, she would never be allowed to be with her again. Did Celeste understand this? She searched her daughter’s face with painful earnestness, with passionate imploring. If Celeste understood that she would be forever separated from her mother—had she intended this? And if so, why?

  Could it be she was afraid?

  The smooth pale face opposite her, with the firm blooming mouth and the eyes almost violet in their colour and as polished as an amethyst in their brilliant hardness, told her nothing. But Adelaide was sick with her fear, her real terror.

  With a last supreme and desperate effort, she cried, leaning towards Celeste, extending her hands: ‘My darling, let us be frank, for once, in all these fourteen years! Do you wish to rid yourself of me? Tell me, honestly? Have I failed you in some way?’

  Celeste’s features expressed nothing but impatient surprise. ‘Mamma! How can you say that? You are so imaginative. Wouldn’t I be the nastiest of creatures if I forgot what you’ve done for me, and for Peter? What in the world would I have done without you?’

  Adelaide paused. She wrung her hands together. She looked down at them, so discoloured and mottled, so veined, so large and gaunt of knuckle. She heard a soft movement. Celeste was kneeling beside her and putting her warm white arms about her shoulders, laughing a little, shaking her mother fondly.

  ‘O Mama, how can you be so silly! Look at me. Don’t you know how much I love you, dearest?’

  Adelaide looked down at her daughter’s smiling face, and at the deep eyes, so tender now. But she thought: Never has she been so unreadable as now.

  A horrible impotence came over her, and a new fear, even though she kissed her daughter’s cheek, and took one of the little hands and pressed it. We are speaking through a glass, she thought. We are not making real sense.

  ‘Of course, I know you love me, my dear. You were always my favourite child. I’ve done what I coul
d. Do you think these years have been easy for me? I’m an old woman, very old. I’m in my seventies. I won’t live much longer. You see,’ she added, incoherently, ‘I am so afraid. I’ve always thought you were very vulnerable, darling. The honest and the virtuous are always vulnerable. I’ve been so afraid for you.’

  She took Celeste’s face in her hands, feeling its warm and velvety texture against her trembling palms. She held that face in trembling despair. She saw how a thin white sheath seemed to slide subtly over it, hiding all thoughts, all expression.

  ‘Now, Mama, that is foolish,’ said Celeste, lightly. She gently removed her mother’s hands, pressed them, rose, and resumed her seat. ‘You know, I’m a pretty strong party, myself. I don’t think I was ever very much afraid of anyone.’ She laughed a little. ‘Except Christopher, once or twice. But that was my imagination. I’ve outgrown that.

  ‘You know, we’re making much ado about nothing. Here I am, suggesting we accept Annette’s invitation, Peter and I, and you go to Emile, or to Armand, your own sons, for a while, until we can all get settled. Frankly, I don’t intend to leave Windsor again. I was born there. Dozens of us Bouchards were born there. I want to feel rooted again. Peter can’t travel very much any longer. I’m not deceiving myself. Probably we won’t be with Annette at Robin’s Nest for more than a week or so. It’s better than a hotel, I’m sure.’

  Adelaide’s sense of hopelessness, of confusion, grew. ‘But why Henri and Annette?’ she urged again. ‘Have you thought how Peter would regard this? You know how he dislikes Henri. He always did.’

  Celeste laughed again, her light laugh that was brittle and indifferent. ‘Mama, dear. That was a long time ago. If you remember, he and Henri have written to each other several times since we’ve been abroad. Very amiable letters, too. Do you think either of them has had the time to remember a silly romantic feud? After all, Henri is about forty now, and Peter is even older. Mama, you, like so many—older—people, live acutely in the past. We’ve forgotten everything. Everything, about our youth, and our adolescence. It was all so foolish. Have you forgotten that Peter has had Henri manage his affairs for him while we’ve been away, and that he didn’t ask that of his own brothers, Francis, Hugo, and Jean? Yet, here you come, with Victorian trappings, talking like the parents of Romeo and Juliet! Now, isn’t that very silly?’

  She added, with rising impatience: ‘This is all so absurd. I’m going to radio Annette and Henrie that we accept their invitation.’

  She stood up, smoothing the folds of her black lace dress.

  Adelaide thought: Am I indeed stupid? Am I making something of nothing? Do I, like all the old, think of nothing but the past? My darling is still young. She has forgotten the past.

  Nevertheless, her fear remained. She thought, with sharp pain: The child is afraid. But of what?

  CHAPTER VI

  ‘Ah, there she is, the darling!’ cried Annette Bouchard, standing on tiptoe to peer over bobbing heads at the deck of the great liner. She fluttered her wisp of a lace handkerchief, blew kisses. ‘Celeste! Celeste!’ she called. ‘Look, Henri, there’s Peter beside her, waving. Why, he seems quite well, bless him. Celeste!’ she cried again, almost dancing with delight, then composing herself. But her delight remained, a radiance upon her poor little face, brighter than the brilliant sun.

  ‘She can’t hear you, pet,’ said Henri, indulgently. ‘Yes, she sees you. But don’t scream so.’

  He turned to Rosemarie Bouchard, who stood beside him, and smiled slightly. Rosemarie returned that smile with a quirk of her vividly painted lips, and a wink of contempt. She reached behind Annette’s small and agitated back, caught his hand, pressed in the little finger sharply to the palm. He made a grimace of affected pain. She pursed her mouth in an exaggerated kiss.

  According to the ramifications of the Bouchard clan, Henri and Rosemarie were distant cousins. Henri’s father had been François Bouchard, brother of Jules Bouchard, both cousins to Honoré, grandfather of Rosemarie. Thus, Rosemarie was also a vague cousin of Celeste’s, as Jules, Celeste’s father, had been cousin to her own grandfather. (Her father, Francis, was second-cousin to the late Jules.) Rosemarie’s grandmother, the late Ann Richmond Bouchard, had been quite a genealogist, and had kept charts of family relationships. But no one bothered now. It was too complex. It was the family name, rather than involved relationships, that kept the clan welded together. Old family portraits lined the walls of every Bouchard household, but it was too complicated to trace out the lines of descent and inter-marriage, and resulting progeny. The name, and mutual hatred, were better for unity than recollections of blood. Even those ladies who married into the clan, though perfectly friendly and amiable and affectionate creatures to begin with, invariably soon absorbed the pride and the hatred and out-Boucharded the Bouchards. The former Estelle Carew, mother of Rosemarie, had been a wholesome nice woman in the beginning, hating no one. Now she merely disliked the Bouchards, so she was apparently a woman without true character.

  Phyllis Bouchard, sister of Rosemarie, had married the son of the Morse National Bank of New York. That is how he was designated by the Bouchards, though his father had had the individual name of Richard Morse. Phyllis now had four young daughters. Though the Bouchard family had long been Episcopal, Phyllis (married to an official Presbyterian) had suddenly reverted to the ancient Catholicism of the Bouchard clan, and her children went about with jewelled crosses, medals and scapulars, made their first communions, and attended convent schools. All this, much to the risibility of the Bouchards, who considered Phyllis an affected fool, full of romanticism. They remembered her as ‘the little tart’ of Christopher’s naming, and this abrupt conversion of Phyllis’s endlessly entertained them. From a wild and ribald girl, who in earlier days might have been called ‘no better than she should be,’ she had become a prim dark matron, sedulously pious, and, necessarily, fanatically vicious in her new religion. If one mentioned the Roman Church with the slightest indifference, or ridicule, or with the faintest contempt, she became quite hysterical, her voice trembling, her dark thin face flushing, her black eyes sparkling with What Henri called ‘the auto-da-fé light.’ She was constantly feuding with her relatives, trying to convince them of ‘the truth,’ praying for them with virulent hatred, making novenas for their conversion, and paying out tremendous sums of her own and her husband’s cash for masses for the souls of her grandparents, and other relatives, now pining in Purgatory awaiting release via the Bouchard money. Though the Bouchards affectionately hated every other member of the family, Phyllis hated them all with becoming cruelty and madness. They baited her, teased her, when in good humour. She bored them to complete ennui, almost constantly.

  Rosemarie was attractively ugly, very chic, very French. She had been to school in France. Now, she spoke with a French accent, a pure affectation, very amusing to the Bouchards. Her voice was hoarse, fashionably husky, though in moments of stress she forgot, and allowed it to become naturally shrill. (Her mother had once distressedly, and in Irish forthright fashion, warned her during a family gathering that she would ruin her vocal cords by compression, for which her daughter had never forgiven her. When her voice was most husky it was customary for the family to murmur something about ‘compression,’ a word calculated to make the young lady quite violent.)

  She had a tall lank figure, but with elegance and litheness. She wore her exquisite and simple clothing with an air, so that the eye of the beholder was fascinated. Part of this fascination was due to her personal magnetism, for she was witty, daintily obscene, full of original repartee, and humour. Too, she was exceptionally intelligent and disingenuous. She was too clever to be cynical, that attribute of the eternal adolescent, but she had no trust in her for her fellow man or woman, which did not prevent her from havìng many adoring friends. Humanity constantly amused her; she despised, rather than hated it, and found it unremittingly entertaining. She rarely admired anyone, felt no affection for a single soul, though she was capable of fiery a
nd ferocious passion, as Henri Bouchard had discovered at least five years ago. Disloyal, treacherous, brilliant, malicious, even venomous at times, unsentimental and hard-hearted and greedy, and, like all the Bouchards, intrinsically selfish, she had infinite variety and was never dull.

  She made much of her ugliness, until it became fascination. Her lank hair, so like an Indian’s, was always severely dressed, brushed back in blue-black and polished smoothness behind her excellent ears, and wound in a coil at the nape of her neck. It reached to her knees; she had let it grow very long. Her great-great-grandmother, Antoinette, wife of the founder of the Bouchards, Armand, had been an Italian, and this accounted, perhaps, for her pale olive complexion, her malevolent black eyes, rather small, but very vivacious, and her long Moorish nose with the jerking nostrils. She had a wide thin mouth, which she painted to a vivid slash, and mobile and very thick black eyebrows under a low brow. She was in constant activity, even when apparently the most serene. Her expression, sly, twinkling, wary, amused and disillusioned, gave her plain but attractive face a look of alert life, and lively malice. She had been one of Henri Bouchard’s numerous mistresses for at least four years. She was now twenty-seven, and had found no one she cared to marry, except Henri, who seemed firmly wedded to Annette.

  She knew Henri did not love his wife. She, perhaps alone of the Bouchards, knew that he still loved Celeste, and in consequence she hated Celeste with wild passion. She had been in New York to shop, and had been invited by the innocent Annette to accompany her and Henri to the docks, to meet the returning expatriates. She had not been able to resist the invitation, wishing to see Henri’s reaction at the sight of Celeste. So far as she had been able to discern, his manner had been quite calm and indifferent.