Forever (16 page)

‘I don't want to see Bradley, Dr Meredith. I don't want to hurt him any further.' Her voice was low, drained of feeling. The voice of someone for whom there is no option.

Jim Meredith leaned forward and took her unprotesting hands in his.

‘Why, Augusta? Why?'

‘Because I can't marry him,' she said, as simply as if she were talking to a child. ‘I can never marry him.'

‘Don't you love him?' He tried to keep the eagerness from his voice. This was the first time she had spoken at any length since her collapse. Perhaps at last he would know the truth.

A shadow of a smile hovered at the corners of her mouth and vanished, leaving an expression of unspeakable sadness.

‘Yes. I love him. But I can't marry him. Not ever.'

‘But
why
?' Jim Meredith's voice throbbed with urgency. Was Dr Wallace correct?
Did
Augusta have a father fixation that they were unaware of?

She turned away from him, staring sightlessly into the dressing-table mirror.

‘I gave my word to someone else,' she said, and large tears glittered in the depths of her eyes. ‘I can never be free of that vow. Never.'

Jim Meredith felt relief swamp him. So much for psychiatry. Augusta had been unfaithful to Bradley and was now consumed with regret and guilt.

‘Only a wedding vow is binding,' he said compassionately. ‘No other vow can hold you.'

A smile, wordly-wise, strangely knowing on so young a face, tinged her lips. ‘The vow I took has bound me more firmly than any wedding vow, Dr Meredith. Wedding vows are only until death.'

‘I don't understand you, Augusta. What vow did you make?'

She tilted her head slightly on one side, her hair skimming her waist, her eyes suddenly puzzled.

‘I didn't promise anything …'

‘Then what did you say?'

‘Nothing.' Staring into the glass she began go laugh softly, mirthlessly. ‘Nothing at all. I just
willed
him and now he won't let me be free. Not ever.'

Filled with disquiet, Jim Meredith rose to his feet and stood behind her, resting his hands on her shoulders.

‘
Who
did you will, Augusta? Who is it you believe has a hold over you?'

Her disconcerting laughter ceased. Through the glass her eyes met his. Intelligent and sane, deadly sure.

‘Beauregard Clay,' she said and began to weep.

Dr Wallace did not accept Dr Meredith's opinion that Augusta's distress was caused by her infatuation with the dead Beau Clay. Father and daughter had lived together at St Michel for fifteen years. The result was a relationship with incestuous overtones.

Jim Meredith called him a fool and told Charles that he had made a mistake in asking for Dr Wallace's opinion. Charles Lafayette paid Dr Wallace lavishly and saw him off the premises within the hour.

Jim Meredith nursed a brandy and thought hard. It would serve no good purpose to tell Charles what Augusta had told him. Charles would find such a reason for his daughter's behaviour totally unacceptable and would probably not even believe it. It was a confidence he must keep: for the time being. He would treat Augusta himself; visit her daily; gain her trust. Time. With time, everything would be resolved.

Bradley Hampton had run out of time.

‘I'm sorry, sir,' he stormed at Charles Lafayette. ‘But I'm going to see Gussie.'

Charles Lafayette protested in vain. Jim Meredith laid a restraining hand on his arm and said quietly

‘I think Bradley
should
see Augusta.'

Reluctantly Charles Lafayette stood by as Bradley strode towards the staircase, taking the crimson-carpeted stairs two at a time.

‘He won't marry her now, Jim. A Hampton and a Lafayette. It would have been such a good marriage.'

‘It still may be, Charles. He loves her and she loves him.'

‘Then what in hell's name is wrong?' Charles asked tormentedly. ‘What has happened to Augusta?'

Jim Meredith didn't answer him because he didn't know. Or at least not enough. He intended speaking to the Alexanders'daughter. She was a level-headed girl and close to Augusta. She had been bridesmaid at the hastily terminated wedding ceremony. He would ask her why Augusta should feel bound to a man dead for many months and who, to his knowledge, had never paid her the slightest attention.

‘Gussie! I was beginning to think you were dead and they were scared to tell me.' Bradley crossed the room in swift strides and folded her in his arms. She trembled, but no arms circled his neck and when he tried to kiss her she averted her head.

‘What's the matter, Gussie? There's nothing so bad you can't tell me.'

She tried to move away from him but he refused to let her go.

‘Gussie!' His voice was naked with desire and love. ‘What is it that troubles you? Please tell me.'

‘I can't.' Sobs rose in her throat.

His hold tightened. ‘It doesn't matter what you've done. It won't alter the way I love you. Do you understand that, Gussie?' He hooked a finger under her chin and stared challengingly down at her. ‘I love you, Gussie. Nothing you can say or do will alter that.'

She gave a little sound full of pain and anguish.

‘I want to marry you and take you away from New Orleans. At least for a little while. We could go to Europe. Anywhere. Father Keane will marry us right here, at St Michel, this afternoon. Your father and Dr Meredith will serve as witnesses.'

‘No!' She twisted free of his hold. ‘No! I can't marry you, Bradley. Not ever!'

‘
Why
?' His eyes were frenzied.

She was gasping for breath, the blood beating wildly in her ears. ‘Because I don't love you!' she lied.

The silence was terrible. It yawned between them like a chasm that could not be bridged. His eyes held hers, unbelieving at first, then masked with pain. Very slowly he turned on his heel and left the room, the door swinging open behind him.

She swayed on her feet, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth. He was going. He would never come to St Michel again. Never hold her; never tease her; never love her. With a cry of anguish she ran to the door and the landing beyond. He was in the hall, striding, unspeaking, past her father and Jim Meredith. Striding towards the door and his car.

‘Bradley!' His name screamed in her head, but could find no utterance.
‘Bradley!'

The door slammed in his wake.

‘Bradley!'

This time her fevered cry filled the house. Her father and Jim Meredith were racing up the stairs towards her but Bradley had gone. She had set him free. Free, as she herself would never be.

‘Augusta, for God's sake.' Her father's hands seized her shoulders.

Obediently she allowed herself to be propelled into her room. Now was the waiting time. Now surely he would come to her.

There was no longer any talk of when the Hampton/Lafayette wedding would take place. Callers, refused entry time and time again at St Michel, ceased to come. The porch swing gathered dust; the pool was covered. Mae Jefferson and Austin Merriweather married and moved to Atlanta. Augusta had been invited to the wedding, but the letter declining the invitation had been in Charles's handwriting.

Still, Beau didn't come. It was as if, sure of her fidelity, he no longer needed to remind her of his presence. Through long sleepless nights Gussie waited in vain for his voice; for his presence. Her cheeks became hollow: her eyes blue-shadowed.

Bradley Hampton took Eden Alexander out with increasing regularity, and there were rumours that a wedding was afoot, but nothing came of it, and Eden continued her relationship with Dean.

Charles Lafayette resigned his directorships and was no longer seen at civic functions. Augusta was never seen at all. Rumour had it that she had gone to London: to Paris: to Rome. No one knew, and the less they knew the more they talked.

As the months passed, gossip faded, only to be renewed when the preparations for another Mardi Gras began. After all, Augusta Lafayette had been a queen of Mardi Gras. Now she was a recluse. Seen by no one but her father and by the Lafayette servants, who steadfastly remained silent on the subject.

Eden wrote, telephoned and called in person at St Michel, all to no avail. In despair she wrote to Mae, expressing fears she dare not utter. The letter from Mae was terse. No. She did not share Eden's fears. Midsummer's Eve had been a prank. She was surprised that Eden even remembered it.

Eden screwed up the letter and threw it away. She knew that Mae was lying, and at last decided to pay a visit to Tina Lafayette.

They sat in the grape-hung conservatory on sun-loungers and as Eden spoke Tina threaded and rethreaded the fringe on her shawl through her fingers.

‘I have not visited St Michel for a long time,' she said apologetically. ‘I really don't know if my cousin and Augusta are in residence or if they're away. Would you like a cocktail? A Hurricane? Nicky makes very good Hurricanes.'

A devastatingly handsome young man some fifteen years Tina Lafayette's junior mixed drinks as obediently as a butler.

‘Bradley is still in love with Augusta,' Eden said, silencing Tina as she began to talk about the new boutique that had opened near the square.

‘Oh!' Tina Lafayette's hands fluttered nervously. ‘I'd heard that … I thought perhaps … You and Bradley …'

‘No. He isn't a monk. He dates a lot of girls. Too many. His dates with me are different. Purely platonic. I'm his link with Augusta: or rather, he'd
like
me to be his link with Augusta. The house is closed to him now – as it is to everyone.'

‘I think that's a little exaggerated, Eden.'

‘When did you last see Gussie?' Eden shot at her.

‘Why, I … Actually …' Tina Lafayette's hands tightened on her glass.

‘Exactly. I bet it's so long ago you can't even remember!'

‘They like their privacy. There was so much gossip …'

‘Hardly surprising under the circumstances,' Eden said grimly to Tina, and then to herself, as if Tina Lafayette wasn't there: ‘What the hell am I going to do? There must be
something
. It isn't possible. It just isn't possible …'

Tina Lafayette stared at her with frightened eyes and did not deter her as she rose to her feet, her drink untouched, leaving without even saying goodbye.

The nicest people had begun to behave strangely, Tina reflected. Judge Clay was a broken man and even to her it seemed odd that his collapse should come after the intended Hampton/Lafayette wedding, and not before. Until then he had managed to keep up an outward appearance but now he was scarcely recognizable. He shambled about the Clay mansion, murmuring his dead son's name: speaking to him as if he were in the same room. She shivered. Beau's body had never been found. Never would be found now.

Gussie, who should have been the belle of the city, was hiding away, refusing to see even the cousin of whom she had always been so fond. Charles had become a withdrawn wraith, an anguished figure who would speak to no one. This time last year, all had been happy anticipation. There had been Gussie's birthday party and their whirlwind trip to Europe for dresses. There had been the happy preparations for Gussie's wedding. Now there was nothing but vile gossip and fevered speculation.

‘Another drink, Nicky, darling,' she whispered, feeling suddenly old. ‘A double, please.'

Eden drove with unusual slowness away from Tina Lafayette's sprawling home. Lives were being destroyed and it seemed impossible that the cause could have been a giggling, thoughtless, girlish game. Without intending to, she drove to the old, overgrown graveyard in the French Quarter. She turned her jacket collar up, dug her hands deep in her pockets and wandered between the cold stone of ancient family mausoleums.

The single rose before the Clay tomb was fresh, the soft petals not even beginning to brown or wither. Eden knew full well whose hand had placed it there. She stood for a long time, staring at the long-stemmed rose as the breeze ruffled the lush petals. She would write to Mae again. She would not give up. Not yet.

‘A heart attack,' Jim Meredith said bleakly to Tina Lafayette, who soon after disclosed to the New Orleans elite that her cousin had been ill for a long time and that Augusta had nursed him: hence, their seclusion.

No one was surprised. To a certain extent it helped to moderate the gossip. It was a reason readily believed, but not by Jim Meredith, who had signed the death certificate; and not by Mae Merriweather and Eden Alexander.

‘What will I do, Jim?' Tina sobbed helplessly. ‘Who will look after Augusta?'

‘Augusta doesn't need any looking after,' Jim Meredith said. ‘She's not mad, Tina. Not even halfway mad.'

‘Then why won't she behave normally? Why does she stay there, day after day, refusing to see people?'

Jim Meredith sighed. ‘I don't know, Tina. There was a time when I thought I did, but I guess I was wrong. Perhaps being a recluse is part of Augusta's nature. Perhaps she was never meant to marry.'

‘Rubbish,' Tina Lafayette said, stamping a small, expensively shod foot. ‘You know that isn't so, Jim Meredith. Why, you've known Augusta since she was a baby. How can you say such things?'

‘Because I don't know the real answer,' Jim Meredith said bleakly.

She was dressed entirely in black, her sun-gold hair gleaming in a chignon and topped by a tiny pill-box hat and heavy veil. She looked incredibly beautiful and utterly vulnerable.

‘I don't need a sedative,' Augusta said to Jim Meredith on the morning of the funeral. ‘I loved him too much to want the pain of losing him eased.'

Leo Lafayette walked with her to the first of the waiting limousines, Tina Lafayette, leaning heavily on Jim Meredith's arm, following close behind. Family members who had last been at St Michel on the occasion of the intended wedding came after, descending to the cars silently and in tears. An austere man to many people, Charles Lafayette had been a long distant patriarch to scores of Lafayettes and was sincerely mourned.