Forever (10 page)

The fairy lights still gleamed in the trees, pale reflections now as the pearl-grey sky took on the first golden hints of dawn. Champagne corks littered the sweet-smelling grass. Down at the pool, her aunt and Jim Meredith and a score of others still laughed and danced. The band, bleary eyed, still played for the remaining couples.

Gussie sighed blissfully. It had been a perfect party. Nearly as perfect as her wedding day would be.

Bradley broke off a full-blown rose from the bank of flowers that fronted the porticoed entrance to the house and slid it into her hair so that it rested at her temple. She smiled; a gentle, soft, sensuous smile that caught at his heart.

In the marble-floored hallway a maid was waiting to usher her to her room and put her to bed.

‘Are you coming in for breakfast?' she asked.

He shook his head. ‘No, I'm going now. Ring me when you wake up.'

He kissed her one last time and she paused at the doorway, reluctant to go inside and lose sight of him. The moon faded in the glowing sky, the sun inched to the rim of the horizon. She leaned against a fluted pillar and dreamily removed the rose from her hair, smelling its fragrance, watching in a world of her own as Bradley strolled, broad-shouldered and handsome to his Thunderbird.

His parents had gone home long ago, carefully chauffered as the majority of guests had been. Her aunts and uncles, cousins and second-cousins were sleepily making their way to bed, or lingering over coffee and the hot buffet breakfast that was being served in the dining room and which her father was hosting. She could no longer see the band but she could hear the faint notes of a last waltz. Bradley's car disappeared down the oak-lined drive. She blew a kiss in its direction and turned to enter the house.

The shadow fell across her as softly as a kiss. She stood perfectly still, her heart hammering. This time she would not chase it away. This time she would know, once and for all. It enveloped her, caressing her so that she could hardly breathe.

‘Augusta, Augusta.'

The very air seemed to whisper her name. She felt beads of perspiration break out on her forehead and her fingers tightened around the rose. Perhaps if she moved very slowly, perhaps this time … Almost imperceptibly she turned her head. The steps behind her were deserted. On the distant lawn two or three couples remained, locked in each other's arms, too distant to be recognizable. There was no one there: no one to be seen. With a low moan she fled into the house, the crushed petals of the rose scattering in her wake.

Charles Lafayette was buoyant. In the week following the party Augusta had been unusually quiet and had looked strained and tired – obviously Jim Meredith had been right about the excitement being too much for her – but now from the direction of the pool came the sound of records being played, and laughter. A smile tinged his mouth. A pool party. Augusta was once more feeling her usual vivacious self. He had seen the Shreve boys arrive with Bradley, and he had glimpsed Mae Jefferson and Austin Merriweather. He strolled towards his study, happy with his daughter's friends, happy with his daughter, happy with life. His cousin Leo was remaining at St Michel for a prolonged vacation before returning to Vancouver, as was the great aunt. It was wonderful to have family around again, and tonight Leo had promised him a treat.

‘I like home movies, Cousin Leo. I won't be bored, honestly.'

Leo Lafayette smiled indulgently at her. ‘Most of them are of Vancouver and of people you don't know. I thought they'd be of interest to your father, not you.'

‘Well, they
do
interest me,' Augusta said. ‘And you took some of my birthday party, didn't you?'

‘Reels and reels.'

‘Then we'll have another party tonight. A
family
party, and watch them. Aunt Tina is coming to supper and Great Aunt Belle is still with us. Daddy is afraid she isn't ever going to leave.'

Great Aunt Belle was as eager as Gussie to see the movies, as she announced later that evening when all was ready. ‘Perhaps now we'll know what it is you
do
up in Canada,' she said grouchily, sitting herself in the centre of the sofa. ‘No wife, no children. What sort of a life is that?'

Leo grinned and winked at Augusta, and Augusta winked back. She liked her Cousin Leo. Younger than her father, he had none of her father's austere manner. He had cut loose from New Orleans long ago, and his visits were always long looked-forward-to treats.

Tina sat gracefully beside Great Aunt Belle, displaying long, silken legs and sipping a glass of wine. Charles Lafayette nursed a glass of brandy and sat in a leather wing chair while Augusta perched on the arm.

‘Goodness,' Augusta said as a girl little older than herself skied to a halt in front of the camera and blew a kiss. ‘So
that
is what you get up to in Canada, Uncle Leo!'

There were roars of laughter and Great Aunt Belle made disapproving noises though her mouth twitched suspiciously at the corners.

‘Oh, there's me,' Augusta cried, clapping her hands delightedly at the sight of herself in her Paris gown as she greeted her guests, her father standing proudly on one side of her, Bradley on the other. ‘Doesn't Bradley look handsome? Look, there's Eden flirting with him quite openly whenever I'm not looking. And there's Cousin Theobald with Mae and just
look
at the expression of his face! He obviously can't wait to get away.'

‘There's Conrad Hampton. If Bradley still looks as good when he's his father's age, you will be a lucky girl,' Tina Lafayette purred.

Great Aunt Belle snorted in disapproval and Leo grinned. He knew very well the kind of tricks his little relative got up to.

‘And there we are dancing,' Gussie said, clasping her hands around her knees, leaning forward. ‘Doesn't my dress look divine? I shall keep it until I'm an old lady. There's Eden again, this time with Cousin Frederick. I never realized before what a flirt Eden is. And there's Austin Merriweather trying to dance and failing miserably. Poor Austin. All that money and no sex appeal. And there's Jason Shreve looking quite sophisticated in his tuxedo, and there's—'

The words choked in her throat, her eyes widened, the blood drained from her face.

‘What is it, Gussie? Do you feel faint?' Tina asked, starting to her feet.

Leo left the projector flickering its laughing, dancing images on the screen and grabbed her shoulders.

‘Gussie! Stop staring like that! Charles, I think she's gone into a trance!'

Charles Lafayette had been monentarily transfixed by shock. Now he pushed his brother away, seized his daughter and shook her. ‘Gussie!
Gussie!
‘

Slowly Gussie's eyes focused on her father's frightened face.

‘Gussie, are you all right? What
is
it? Shall I call Dr Meredith? Tina, call Jim Meredith …'

‘No …' Unsteadily Gussie rose to her feet. ‘No … I don't want to see anyone.' Dazedly her eyes were dragged back to the now blank screen.

‘Let me put her to bed,' Tina Lafayette said practically. ‘Send Allie up with a glass of hot milk, Charles. I'll give her two of my sleeping tablets and she'll be fine by morning.'

Slowly, like a sleep-walker, Gussie climbed the stairs to her room, holding on to the banisters as if at any second she would lose consciousness and fall crashing to the floor.

Charles and Leo looked at each other bewilderedly.

‘Gussie's never been … histrionic, has she?' Leo asked hesitantly as Gussie stumbled to her room.

Charles Lafayette wheeled on him, his face savage. ‘Of course she hasn't! We'll have no such talk in this house! Gussie is perfectly normal. She's over-excited, that's all.' He mopped his sweating brow with a large silk handkerchief.

‘Sorry, Charles. I wasn't insinuating …'

‘Forget it,' Charles Lafayette snapped. ‘Tina is right. What Gussie needs is a good night's sleep.'

He rang for Allie and ordered the little maid to take a glass of hot milk immediately to Augusta. While he was doing so Leo thoughtfully rewound the film aware that he had been tactless in referring, however obliquely, to the skeleton in the family cupboard.

‘It was just about here, Charles. There's Gussie dancing with Bradley,' he said easily, trying to make amends.

Unwillingly Charles Lafayette sat down and watched the re-run of his daughter's party.

‘There's that friend of hers, Mae is it? There's the Merriweather boy dancing.'

Charles Lafayette's fingers tightened over the arm of his chair. ‘There's Jason Shreve,' he said, ‘and there's –
My God
!'

Leo looked at his cousin in surprise. Charles's face was ashen, his eyes incredulous, fixed, as Gussie's had been, on the screen.

Leo turned swiftly to see what had caused such an outburst of shock. Gussie was dancing with Bradley, her face radiant, her hair spilling freely down her neck. The Merriweather boy was making awkward movements with his rosy-cheeked girlfriend. Jason Shreve was chatting up an older woman who should have known better. There were other dancers that Leo did not know. All young; all carefree. All enjoying themselves. In the distance were tiny groups composed mainly of New Orleans'more sedate citizens, chatting, champagne glasses in their hands. A maid was circulating with a silver tray of hors d'oeuvres; a waiter could be seen opening a bottle of champagne. Charles was on the film, his back to the dancers, his head bowed to hear what the small, elderly woman he was talking to was saying. Under the trees a girl that looked suspiciously like Desirée Ashington had her back to the camera, her arms around a young man's neck. Farther left, nearly out of the picture, another figure stood, watching intently, his face cast into darkness by the heavy foliage of the oak beneath which he was standing.

Leo stopped the film and re-ran it. There was nothing, absolutely nothing to cause such an expletive from his usually carefully-spoken cousin. At the point where Gussie had choked on her words and Charles had blasphemed, he halted the film.

‘What is it, Charles? I can't see a damn thing wrong myself.'

Slowly Charles Lafayette rose to his feet. ‘There!' he rasped, ‘beneath the tree. Do you see?'

Leo looked. Desirée and her boyfriend were caught for all time indiscreetly kissing. He shrugged. ‘It was a little early, but so what? An hour later, everyone was kissing everyone else.'

‘No, not them.
Him!
'

He stabbed at the dark figure beneath the oak. Leo looked from the film to his cousin and back again. Charles looked nearly as ill as Gussie had looked.

‘I don't know him. Who is he?'

Charles did not answer for a long time. He stared at the frozen image and then said slowly, ‘He
looks
like Beauregard Clay.'

‘And would Beauregard Clay have been such a disastrous guest?' Leo asked, intrigued.

Charles laughed harshly. ‘Beauregard Clay is dead. Gussie had a schoolgirl crush on him and she took his death pretty badly, for a time – until Bradley came along.'

Leo regarded the dark figure beneath the trees with interest. ‘I see. No wonder the film gave her such a shock. But who
is
he? Beau's brother?'

‘Beau Clay's brother is five foot three, fair-haired and lives in Houston. Only Judge Clay was at the party.'

Leo turned back to the fim; the tense, intent figure beneath the trees was that of a young man, not an old man.

‘Then who?' he asked. ‘Your guest list was highly selective. Whom did you invite who resembles Beauregard Clay?'

‘No one,' Charles Lafayette snapped. ‘Not a damned soul, he said and tearing his eyes from the screen strode white-lipped from the room.

Leo re-ran the film again, and the next film, and the next. Nearly the whole of Augusta's party was depicted at one stage or another. Face after face reappeared, but no matter how carefully he searched the screen he saw no resemblance to the faceless figure beneath the trees. Whoever he had been, he had not danced. That powerful, slim-hipped figure would have been immediately recognizable. Even caught motionless, there was a sense of power under restraint emanating from his body.

At last, tired and red-eyed from his efforts, Leo Lafayette switched off the projector and the lights in the room. Whoever he was, he had spoiled a nice evening. He was glad Bradley hadn't been there to see the extent of Gussie's reaction. Filled with a strange sense of foreboding, too restless for sleep, he lit a cigar and strolled out into the velvet blackness, gazing across the moonlit lawns to where the giant oak stood, its dark silhouette strangely menacing aginst the scudding clouds of the night sky.

Gussie lay in her vast bed, her eyes wide, staring blankly at the ceiling. How could she have forgotten him so easily? That lithe body, that unmistakeable way of standing, deceptively at ease, yet as alert as the most dangerous of predators. She bit her bottom lip and tasted blood. She had wanted him and she had bound him to her forever. Sweat broke out on her forehead. She was being hysterical. The man beneath the trees had not been Beau. Beau was dead. Shrouded in his family's monolithic tomb. She had thought she had forgotten him. Her birthday party, her forthcoming wedding, Bradley, all had conspired to drive him from her mind, but now he was back in full force, her longing for him so intense it was a physical pain.

Gussie threw herself from the bed and paced the room, pressing her hands against her throbbing temple. ‘Beau! Beau!' Unconsciously she called his name aloud, her voice anguished. Why had he died? Why had he not lived and come for her on that far-off night of Midsummer's Eve? She sat in the window seat, her tear-wet cheek pressed close to the glass as fireflies danced against the pane. If he had come for her she would have been marrying Beau in October. Beau with his hard glittering eyes and savage mouth; Beau with his indecent appetite for life and fearlessness and daring.