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.
Despite the soft warmth of the night, she shivered in her lace-trimmed nightdress. She had been destined to marry Beau and now she was going to marry Bradley. She could barely remember Bradley’s face. It was Beau’s image that burned in her brain. She could see the narrow eyes set slanting above high cheekbones, the mouth quirking in a mocking smile as if he were only feet away from her.
‘Oh my love,’ she whispered as the moon rode high in the sky. ‘Why did you leave me? Why? Why?’
Leo settled himself into Charles’s leather wing chair and shook open a copy of the morning paper, thankful for his bachelorhood and his consequent lack of worries. The guest list for the party was on a side table, names scored through viciously in red ink. Though Charles had not told him when they’d met at breakfast, Leo knew that Charles had spent most of the night hours going over and over it, searching for the guest who bore an uncanny resemblance to the dead Beauregard Clay.
‘Good morning, Cousin Leo. Has Daddy gone?’
Leo peered over the top of the centre page. ‘About fifteen minutes ago, Gussie.’ He frowned. Unless he was very much mistaken, Gussie’s slender shoulders appeared to be relaxed, and it seemed to him that her lemon dress and matching hair ribbon were not the sort of clothes someone who was distressed might wear. It seemed that Charles had been overreacting to Gussie’s behaviour the previous evening.
‘Going somewhere special?’ he asked with a smile.
‘I’m having lunch with Bradley. There’s a house at Baton Rouge he wants us to have a look at.’
‘That young man certainly doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet, does he?’
Gussie gave a small smile. ‘No. Would you like some more coffee, Cousin Leo?’
‘I wouldn’t say no. I’ve lived in Vancouver so long, I’ve forgotten how good real chicory coffee tastes.’
Gussie rang for Allie and then sat on the sofa, staring towards the far corner of the room where the screen had stood the night before. She had made up her eyes and her lips were glossed, but her face was pale, her eyes pensive.
‘I thought perhaps Bradley would be tempted by the North,’ Leo said, injecting a note of briskness into his voice in an effort to dispel her sombre quietness. ‘New York or Washington, for instance.’
Allie came in with the coffee and Gussie poured.
‘No. Bradley is a Southerner through and through. He wants to stay here and build up a law practice.’
Leo’s eyebrows rose. ‘I thought Bradley was all set to take over the family’s banking fortunes?’
With an effort, Gussie tore her eyes away from the corner of the room. ‘He wants to make it on his own first. That’s why he wants to buy a place instead of renting one or living at St Michel or with his parents.’
Leo sipped at his coffee. ‘As I remember it, the Hampton home would house an army. It must be one of the biggest plantation houses left in the district.’ He shook his head, thinking of his neat service flat in Vancouver. ‘Why people still want to live on in those great white mausoleums, I can’t imagine.’
Gussie trembled so violently that her coffee spilled into the saucer. Mausoleums. She had never visited the Clay mausoleum. She had never paid her respects. She set the cup and saucer down unsteadily. Perhaps she should go. Perhaps she should make an excuse to Bradley and go today. She heard the Thunderbird sweep to a halt outside St Michel’s entrance with a screech of tyres.
‘Have a nice day,’ Leo said, returning to his paper.
‘Yes …’ It was too late now. She could already hear Bradley’s voice greeting the butler. She would go tomorrow: or the day after.
‘Hello, princess,’ Bradley said, taking her in his arms and kissing her full on the mouth. ‘You look sensational.’
She clung to him, relief flooding through her. This was Bradley: flesh and blood: warm and loving. Suddenly her fears seemed groundless, and her melancholia lifted. She was going to view a house that could well be her future home. She was happy and in love.
Hands clasped, they ran down St Michel’s wide shallow steps and towards the car. As Bradley swung the door open for her, a small exhalation of breath brushed the nape of her neck. She halted, trying to keep hold of the sensation, but it vanished as swiftly as it had come.
‘What is it, sweetheart?’
‘Nothing.’ She got into the car and Bradley started the engine.
‘Bradley …’ She hesitated. She wanted to tell him. She wanted to share everything with him only it was so difficult. They eased out of the drive and the Thunderbird picked up speed. ‘Bradley, last night the strangest thing happened.’
‘Your father got stoned.’
‘No.’ For once her usual giggle was absent. ‘Cousin Leo was showing some film of my birthday party and …’
‘Idiot.’ Bradley said as a pale blue Continental swerved out in front of him. ‘What were you saying, honey? Were they good?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was bleak. ‘Yes. They were very good.’
She couldn’t tell Bradley. He would laugh at her; tease her. Besides, she didn’t really want to tell Bradley. She wanted to keep her thoughts of Beau Clay to herself.
‘It’s plenty big enough,’ Bradley said as he and Gussie strolled through the empty rooms. ‘The pool isn’t Olympic sized, but I like the way it’s been landscaped with palms and magnolias. What do you think of the balcony off the main bedroom? We can breakfast there and pretend we’re in the Vieux Carré.’
‘It’s lovely, Brad,’ she said softly, her voice holding none of its usual verve.
Bradley frowned and stared down at her. ‘You don’t have to like it to please me, Gussie. I don’t care where we live as long as you are happy.’
She forced a smile and squeezed his hand. ‘I mean it, Brad. It’s lovely.’
Faintly perturbed, Bradley led the way back to the car and drove to the nearest restaurant.
‘Are you feeling O.K., Gussie?’ he asked as the waiter took their order. ‘You look pale.’
‘I’m fine. Truly.’
Bradley wondered if being faced with the house had given her a sudden attack of pre-wedding nerves. Instead of laughing and chattering, squeezing his arm, kissing him at every opportunity, teasing him unmercifully, Gussie remained strangely subdued, barely hearing him when he spoke to her. The day was not turning out remotely as he had envisaged. Instead of Gussie being overjoyed at the sight of their future home, she seemed almost indifferent. Instead of the happy celebration he had planned, she was picking listlessly at her food and ignoring the expensive wine he had selected with such care.
Her mood was contagious. By the end of the meal he, too, had lapsed into silence, though Gussie seemed unaware of it.
Disappointedly he drove her home, hoping that the sight of St Michel would arouse her from her stupor and that she would ask why they had returned so soon. She didn’t. She allowed him to kiss her goodbye and then said hesitantly, ‘Do you believe that love is forever, Bradley?’
He tilted her chin so that her troubled eyes met his. ‘Of course, I do, darling. I shall never love anyone else. Is that what’s been troubling you?’ He grinned and held her close. ‘Goose,’ he said tenderly. ‘How could you ever imagine that I would cease to love you?’
A faint frown puckered her brow. ‘Once you give your word there can be no going back, can there?’
‘Never.’ He held her close, trying to reassure her foolish doubts.
Her face was pressed against his chest. She said indistinctly, ‘Then it isn’t possible to love again when you have already vowed your love to someone else?’
‘No.’ He held her away from him, his voice emphatic. ‘I don’t know what’s got into you, Gussie, but I can tell you that I’ve never loved anyone else and that I never will love anyone else. When we make our wedding vows I intend to keep them. Understand?’
‘Yes.’ Her voice was little more than a whisper, her eyes on his but strangely unseeing and unfocussing. ‘Yes,’ she repeated. ‘I understand.’
‘Then stop looking so tragic and get back in the car. I’ve tickets for the theatre tonight.’
She shook her head. ‘I’d rather not, Bradley. I don’t feel too good. Maybe another night.’
‘But the tickets are for tonight …’ he began and then stopped in mid-sentence. She was already halfway into the house.
‘What the hell …’ he said and then savagely tore up the tickets and drove to a club in the French Quarter where he drank Hurricanes until his frustration was drowned in an alcoholic haze.
Gussie sat on her bed and stared at her row of dolls. The dolls stared back unblinkingly. Why did she feel so strange? Why had she hurt Bradley when he had made so much effort to make the day special? Why could she not give him her attention? Why was it centred so firmly on Beau Clay?
Slowly she moved across to the dressing table and sat down. Did she love Beau, and not Bradley? Did she love them both? Or did she love Bradley, and did Beau know, and was his presence at her side a reminder of her foolishness; of her lightly-made vow? She slammed down the hair brush so hard on the polished wood that it splintered. She was being idiotic. There were no such things as ghosts. Beau was dead and had never loved her. That had all been in her imagination. She was in love with Bradley; she was going to marry Bradley. She was bound to no one else but the man whose ring she wore on the third finger of her left hand.
‘Forever,’ the silence breathed. ‘Forever and forever and forever.’
‘No!’ she shouted, drowning the insidious whisper. ‘It was a game! It didn’t mean anything! It couldn’t have!’
‘Forever.’ The words echoed and reverberated. Vainly she pressed her hands over her ears. Bradley had believed that once a vow was given it could not be broken. She had vowed to make Beau Clay love her forever. Was he surmounting death to keep his promise? Was it Beau’s shadow that fell across her on the cloudiest of days? Beau’s voice that whispered so insistently in her ear? Beau, who had stood beneath the trees of St Michel and watched in jealous anger as she danced with another man?
She groaned, scarcely recognizing herself in the glass. Her eyes seemed huge in her whitened face. The gaiety and the vivacity had gone. All that was left was a mental anguish that grew steadily, minute by minute. She closed her eyes, fighting for self-control. She had to think. She had to behave rationally. Eden: she would telephone Eden. Eden’s commonsense was unfailing.
With shaking hands she dialled the Alexanders’number.
‘Hi! Nice to hear from you at last,’ Eden said, putting Madame Bovary down and pouring herself another glass of chilled Chablis.
‘Can you come over, Eden? Now?’
At the tone of her voice, Eden paused, holding the bottle in mid-air. ‘What is it Gussie? You sound ill.’
‘I’m not ill. I just need to talk and I can’t do it over the phone. Please come.’
‘I’m on my way.’ Eden recorked the Chablis, flung it into her bag and walked quickly from the room. Gussie’s time had been so taken up with Bradley that she hadn’t seen her in ages. However, one thing was for sure. The voice on the phone had not been that of the old, fun-loving, irrepressible Gussie.
‘My God,’ Eden said as she entered Gussie’s bedroom. ‘I thought future brides were supposed to be radiant. You look like Mae on a bad night.’
‘Quit joking, Eden. I feel terrible.’
‘I believe you,’ Eden said, searching for a tooth mug and filling it with Chablis. ‘You look it. What’s wrong?’
Gussie sat on the edge of the bed and stared at her. Now that it had come to it, the whole thing sounded so ridiculous that she didn’t know where to begin.
‘Here.’ Eden handed her the tooth mug and searched for another glass. ‘I’ve discovered a delicious fact of life. I’m an alcoholic who never gets drunk.’
Gussie sipped the wine. Eden sat on the window seat and waited. At last Gussie said awkwardly, ‘Do you remember that silly ritual we held here the night Beau Clay died?’
Imperceptibly Eden stiffened. ‘Yes. What of it?’
‘It couldn’t have meant anything, could it?’
‘In what way?’
Gussie felt her throat tighten with suppressed hysteria. ‘Well, it couldn’t have worked, could it?’
Eden shrugged. ‘You thought it could.’
Gussie put her glass down and hugged her arms around her body as if she were cold. ‘But Beau died.’
‘Yes.’ Eden regarded Gussie curiously.
Gussie rose from the bed and began to pace the room, rubbing her arms as if to bring some warmth back into them.
‘Eden, I think I’m going mad. I keep hearing Beau calling my name. I keep feeling his shadow. Today I felt his breath on the nape of my neck!’
Eden tried to check her, but once started Gussie rushed on heedlessly.
‘He was at my birthday party! Cousin Leo took movies and he was there, on the film! I swear he was! He doesn’t want me to marry Bradley! He wants me for himself! He’s going to love me forever, just as I said he would!’
Eden sprang from the window seat and grabbed her, halting her frenzied pacing. ‘You’re hysterical, Augusta Lafayette. Beau Clay is dead.’
‘Then he wants me to join him! He wants us to be together!’
Eden slapped her viciously across the face and Gussie collapsed on to the floor, sobbing unrestrainedly.
‘I loved him so much,’ she gasped. ‘I would have sold my soul to have had him. Is that what I’ve done, Eden? Sold my soul?’
‘Your sanity more like,’ Eden said cruelly, dragging her to her feet and shaking her. ‘That childish charade was utterly meaningless, Gussie. If you hear Beau Clay calling your name it’s because subconsciously you want to hear him call your name. It’s about time you put him from your mind. You loved him and he’s dead. Now you love Bradley. Be careful with that glass of wine. It’s a nineteen seventy-one.’
Gussie fought for breath. ‘Do you mean it, Eden? Is it my imagination?’
‘Undoubtedly.’
‘But the movie!’
‘The world and his brother were at St Michel that night. No doubt someone who resembled Beau was there. I made an ass of myself in Goldberg’s yesterday. I thought it was Dean being served at the counter and rushed in, covering his eyes and chirrupping “Guess who?”. It turned out to be a tourist from England.’
‘What did you do?’ Gussie’s breathing was returning to normal. She wiped her eyes and reached for the tooth mug.
‘Had a most enjoyable evening,’ Eden said with a grin.
Gussie laughed tremulously.
‘If I’m going to be your bridesmaid, we ought to decide definitely about colours for the dress. I refuse to wear pastels. Mae, as your maid-of-honour, would look fine, but I would look as if I’d just stepped off the top of a Christmas cake.’
‘Well, you can’t wear scarlet!’ Gussie said, giggling, feeling as if the world had righted on its axis. ‘Where did you get that outfit from, Eden? It’s incredible.’
Eden looked down at her crushed velvet, searing red jacket and culottes and said calmly, ‘It was one of the costumes for that last Shakespearian production at college. I just altered it a little here and there. It’s rather stunning, don’t you think?’
‘It’s different,’ Gussie said truthfully and agreed to Eden’s suggestion that they go out to eat. The dark weight that seemed at times to crush her had evaporated. She felt happy; normal; sane.
Later in the evening she rang Bradley to apologize for her behaviour and to tell him how thrilled she was with the house. In the days that followed they saw each other constantly, went swimming, to restaurants, for walks in the park. She didn’t turn, or even hesitate in their conversation when the dark, cold shadow fell across her path. Instead she chatted more brightly, laughed more loudly. Her brittle gaiety was overpowering.
Bradley sensed her underlying fear and asked her time and time again if she wanted to postpone the wedding. The prospect only made her more excitable. She wanted to marry him: today, tomorrow. As soon as possible.
‘Another death for the Clays,’ her father said as they breakfasted together a few weeks later. ‘Not that this is the tragedy young Beau’s death was. Judge Clay’s mother was eighty-four at least.’
Gussie had been about to reach for a slice of toast. Her hand fell into her lap; the blood drained from her face.
‘Laetitia Clay,’ Charles Lafayette said, removing his spectacles and folding up the newspaper. ‘She was quite a lady in her youth. I believe she had a soft spot for Beau, for all his wildness.’ He rose to his feet. ‘The funeral is on Friday, Gussie. Tell Allie to make sure your dark clothes are ready.’
‘No!’ She pushed her chair away from the table. ‘No! I’m not going!’
Her father’s steel-grey eyebrows rose imperceptibly. It was not often he was firm with Augusta. ‘Laetitia Clay was one of the oldest and most respected of New Orleans’citizens. Judge Clay is a personal friend of mine. I expect you to accompany me, Gussie.’
Gussie stared after him, appalled. When her father spoke in that tone there was no arguing with him. She began to shake. She remembered clearly the burials she’d had to attend before. The hideous depositing of the body on the stone shelf. The mouldering, swathed bodies on other shelves. The smell of death and decay. When the Clay family tomb was opened there would be another brief glimpse of the long dead; and of the not-so-long dead. She raised a hand to her mouth and stifled a cry. In the last few weeks only Eden had saved her sanity. With utter conviction, Eden had repeated time and again that the presence at her side, the voice she heard at all times of the day and night, was nothing but her imagination. She was not insane. She was not possessed. She was sensitive and overwrought and had reacted badly to the death of a man she had idolized. Like a litany, Gussie had repeated Eden’s words until she had almost come to believe them. Had believed them when Bradley was at her side and the room was crowded and the music loud. Now she would be faced with a nightmare: the sight of Beau’s dead body: the terrible knowledge that he still held her heart and that Bradley had never completely succeeded him. She hated Laetitia Clay for dying. She hated her father for imposing his will on her. Most of all, she hated herself for not
being able to love Bradley as he deserved.
The heat was oppressive, the sky overcast as the mourners followed the coffin to the old, overgrown graveyard in the centre of New Orleans. Gussie squeezed her hands together tightly. The St Louis Cemetery was itself a city. A city of the dead. How could Beau have been laid to rest in such overpowering grimness? How could he have borne it?
The priest held up his arm and blessed the assembly as they halted before the ornate magnificence of the Clay mausoleum.
‘Dearly beloved. We are gathered here today to pay our respects to one of our most revered citizens. A lady of great character; great fortitude …’
The iron grille before the mausoleum was still closed, the officiants standing by, ready to open it. Gussie tried to tear her eyes away, and could not.
‘I have seen death too often to believe in death … To be mortal is to share in divinity …’
Beads of sweat broke out on Gussie’s brow. If she fainted her father would have to carry her from the graveyard. She felt queasy. There was a tight band around her chest. Judge Clay’s sister was crying softly.
‘Come to meet her, angels of the Lord. Welcome her. Present her to God, the most high. Saints of God, come to her aid …’
The same words had rung over Beau’s coffin. Beau, too, had lain shrouded and still on that high catafalque.
‘I am the resurrection, the truth and the light …’
She should never have come. She should have defied her father.
‘May the angels speed you into Paradise, and the Masters welcome you as you draw near and lead you into jerusalem, the Heavenly City …’
Gussie swayed. Was it never going to end? The sound of sobs intensified. Laetitia Clay had been well-loved.
‘Lord, grant her everlasting rest and let perpetual light shine upon her. May she rest in peace. Amen.’
The grille was swung open. The priest was sprinkling holy water on the mummified body in the coffin. Gussie’s heart began to slam against her chest in thick, heavy strokes. She would not look when the last barrier to the interior of the tomb was removed. She would remember him as he was; standing beneath the tree, watching with jealous passion as she danced in Bradley’s arms. Her hands were clammy, her breath coming shallow and fast. Beau had been dead when she had danced at her birthday party. Dead as Laetitia Clay was dead.
Judge Clay stepped forward and sprinkled holy water on the body of his mother, his face haggard. His sister and son followed.
‘Augusta. Augusta.’
She gave a small cry, staring round her with petrified eyes. Her father’s fingers tightened on her arm. Augusta had not been close to Laetitia Clay. There was no need for her to express undignified grief.
‘I’m here, Augusta,’ the barely audible voice said, floating up and around her. ‘Forever and forever …’
‘Dead! Dead! Dead!’ she chanted silently to herself, clinging desperately to a last shred of sanity. ‘You’re dead and I’m alone …’
The corpse was lifted from its casket. The heavy inner door of the mausoleum was opened slowly.
Gussie summoned up a remnant of courage. She would take one last, swift look; say one silent goodbye.
There were cries of incredulity and horror. Sobs rose to hysteria. Frenzied explanations were relayed to those at the back who had no view of the tomb. The priest faltered in his task. Laetitia’s body was held aloft, rudely jostled by those who pushed forward to see for themselves.
The stone shelf that had held the body of Beau Clay was empty. Only other, older grey mounds of disintegrating bodies waited to be joined by Laetitia Clay.
‘Oh my God! It isn’t possible! It’s gone, I tell you! Gone!’
Pandemonium broke out and Laetitia Clay’s body was ignored. The priest was ashen-faced. A flashbulb popped boldly. Dignity was dispensed with. Revered members of the community fought for a vantage point. Screams and sobs echoed round the grim monoliths of the dead.
The priest was the first to recover his equilibrium, and he tersely ordered the bearers of Laetitia’s body to deposit her inside the tomb as quickly as possible. With indecent haste, the inner door was slammed into place, the iron grille following.
‘Who would want to do such a terrible thing?’
‘Is it a joke? Have those wild friends of Beau’s taken his body as a joke?’
‘Some joke. How the hell would they get in there? It’s sealed as tightly as a Hampton bank!’
Charles Lafayette caught his daughter as she fell. This time there was no Bradley to carry her with swift ease. The crowd pushed in, milling and shouting. Charles glimpsed Judge Clay’s stunned, uncomprehending face and then he was pushing his way frantically through the mass of near-hysterical bodies. Twice he stumbled, but there was no one to come to his assistance. No one had time for anything but speculation as to what had happened to the body of Beauregard Clay.
The Lafayette chauffeur had been lolling against the bonnet of the limousine reading the States Item. As Charles Lafayette staggered from the graveyard, Augusta in his arms, the chauffeur dropped the paper to the pavement and ran to his employer, taking the insensible weight of the girl.
Charles Lafayette’s face was grey. ‘Home! Fast! Must ring Jim Meredith!’
The chauffeur laid Gussie on the rear seat and her father practically scrambled into the car. ‘For Christ’s sake, man! Move!’
Charles Lafayette twisted round in his seat, reaching a hand out to steady Gussie. Her face was marble white; her eyelids were closed.
‘Of all the tasteless, vulgar, barbaric acts,’ Charles said to Jim
Meredith as he closed Gussie’s bedroom door behind them.
Jim Meredith shook his head. ‘It’s hard to credit, Charles. Are you sure Beau’s body was not simply on a shelf other than the one people expected?’
‘The only remains in that tomb had been there for thirty years or more,’ Charles said firmly, pouring two stiff brandies. ‘The body had been taken all right, and I can imagine by whom.’
Jim Meredith waited. He had never seen Charles so distressed before. ‘Those hellrakes young Clay used to associate with. It would be their idea of a joke. They’re sick. Promiscuous, Marxist and sick. The shock nearly killed Augusta.’
‘Augusta’s fine,’ Jim Meredith said soothingly. ‘Obviously she’s deeply shocked. It’s a pity you were right upfront with the family mourners, but it can’t be helped. She’s young. She’ll soon forget.’
‘They deserve tarring and feathering when they’re caught,’ Charles Lafayette said viciously. ‘Prison’s too good for them. I’d whip their hides myself, given the chance.’
A flicker of amusement lit Jim Meredith’s eyes. Charles Lafayette was the mildest mannered man he knew. Nothing but distress to Augusta could have aroused such passion.
‘They’ll find them,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Judge Clay will see to that. If the body has been taken – and I must say, Charles, that I’m still not one hundred per cent convinced of the fact – then the Clay family will go to every length to see that it is returned.’
‘If they find it,’ Charles Lafayette said, sinking into his chair, feeling suddenly old. ‘You should have heard the inane babbling of the Delatours and Lafittes. It took them all of two seconds to come to the conclusion that the body had been taken for use in a black magic ceremony. We’re going to hear nothing in this town but voodoo and witchcraft for the next six months.’
Jim Meredith’s face was stern. ‘Then see that Gussie doesn’t get to hear any such foolish talk. Warn Bradley. He’ll see to it that she isn’t exposed to such idiocy. I like that boy. He’s got both charm and sense. A rare combination.’
Alone in her vast bed Augusta lay motionless. Where was he, her dead lover? His voice was silent now, his presence absent. She wondered: if she held out her arms, if she pleaded with him to come and take her, if she, too, would die, his kiss on her lips, his arms around her as their spirits soared. Beneath the silken sheets she dug her nails into her palms, resisting the temptation. Beau would not want her to die. She was eighteen. The whole of her life stretched before her. Her forehead burned. It had stretched before Beau, too. When she had summoned his heart to hers he had attempted to reach her in such desperate haste that he had killed himself. That was how Beau had died. She knew it as surely as she knew his body no longer inhabited the Clay mausoleum.
A pair of narrow eyes, slanting above high cheekbones, swam before her. His black hair had a blue sheen, his mouth curved into a smile. ‘Beau,’ she whispered, her hands sliding up and free of the sheets. ‘Beau, my darling …’
‘—Jim Meredith says you should take one of these three times a day for the next week or so,’ her father said, striding into the room, a bottle of Valium in his hand.
She blinked, scarcely recognizing him, the vision shattered.
‘Maybe we should take a vacation? Go down to Barbados or Antigua?’
‘No, Daddy. I want to stay here.’
Close to Beau: close to the arms and lips that were just a fingertips’ touch away.
Charles Lafayette thought he understood. It was not long now until the wedding and it was understandable that she would not wish to be parted from Bradley. He watched as she obediently swallowed a tablet, and then kissed her on the forehead. His little girl. She would be a wife soon. Bradley would take care of her.
When the door closed behind him, Gussie waited expectantly but the room remained as it had always been: the row of dolls lined the sofa; the late afternoon sun streamed through the window and on to the pale carpet and the array of perfumes and cosmetics on her dressing table. He did not come to her. She closed her eyes and slept.
‘My mother nearly died of heart failure,’ Eden said as she sat with Mae in one of their favourite haunts in the French Quarter. ‘Who would do such a hideous thing?’
Mae shook her head unhappily and toyed with her absinthe frappe. ‘Judge Clay has offered a reward of one hundred thousand dollars for information leading to the return of Beau’s body,’ she said, her eyes fixed on her drink.
‘If the voodooists have got him, there’s no money in the world will buy him back,’ Eden said frankly. ‘What does your grandmother think, Mae? Have you spoken with her?’
Mae shook her head vehemently. ‘No, and I don’t want to talk about it, either.’
Eden lapsed into silence. She had lived in New Orleans for only three years but she had heard plenty of strange talk about Mae’s grandmother, about the voodoo that was still practised secretly. Still, if Mae didn’t want to talk about it, she had no intention of forcing her.
It was Mae who broke the silence, saying hesitantly, ‘Strange things do happen, Eden, though, don’t they? Do you remember Midsummer’s Eve? I know you laughed at me at the time, but I’m sure Gussie saw more in that mirror than she ever let on.’
‘Rubbish.’ Eden’s voice had a tight edge to it.
‘She’s never been quite the same since.’
‘But that’s because Beau died, not because of the ceremony.’
‘That’s the point.’ The blood had drained from Mae’s rosy face. ‘Beau Clay died the night Gussie bound him to her forever.’
They stared at each other and then Mae began to cry. ‘I can’t bear it, Eden. I’m sure something terrible is going to happen to Gussie. Just like it did to her grandmother.’
Eden’s sleek brows met in a frown. ‘What happened to Gussie’s grandmother?’
Mae sobbed and struggled from the table. ‘She went crazy and drowned herself. They said she was obsessed. Obsessed as Gussie is obsessed!’ Before Eden could restrain her, Mae had pushed past startled customers and fled into the street.
Eden paid for the drinks and rose to her feet. Poor Gussie. A mother who died when she was born and a grandmother who had committed suicide. She wandered out into the strong sunlight. Down the street black musicians were playing exuberantly in the humid afternoon heat. The news of Beau’s missing body would have hit Gussie hard. She opened the door of her Cadillac and started the engine. She was supposed to be seeing Dean at two o’clock but he wouldn’t mind if she was late. She would call in at St Michel and see Gussie first.
Gussie was sitting on the porch swing, swinging listlessly. She showed no surprise, pleasure or disappointment at Eden’s appearance.
‘Hi,’ Eden said, and perched herself on a pile of cushions. ‘How’s the happy bride?’
Gussie shrugged.
‘If you keep on losing weight so rapidly, your wedding dress will never fit.’
‘It’s already been taken in twice.’
‘I’m not surprised. I’m going to look gigantic in comparison. I like my dress, though. That deep lavender blue is soft without being too wishy-washy …’
‘You were wrong.’
Eden stared at her.
‘You were wrong about Beau.’ Her voice was flat and expressionless. ‘He does love me. He does want me. He watches me all the time. He’s watching me now – there, down by the cherry trees.’
‘For Christ’s sake!’ Eden’s face was aghast. ‘Have you told anyone else this? You need a doctor, Gussie. A shrink.’
A slight smile tinged Gussie’s mouth as she continued swinging. ‘No, I don’t. I’m not mad. I loved him and I wanted him and now he won’t let me go.’
‘Does Bradley know?’ Eden felt the words strangle in her throat. Of course Bradley didn’t know. He would have done something about it if he had.
‘No. He wouldn’t believe me even if I told him.’
‘Neither do I,’ Eden said firmly. ‘You’re letting Beau Clay obsess you. It’s unhinging your mind, Gussie. You’ve got to stop it now: this minute.’
Gussie’s eyes moved reluctantly from the distant cherry trees and rested unnervingly on Eden. ‘You thought it was my imagination, didn’t you Eden? Do you think it is my imagination that Beau is no longer in his family’s tomb?’
‘No, of course I don’t. Whatever has happened to Beau’s body is hideous, but not supernatural. Graves have been robbed before. I daresay if it wasn’t for the fact that Beau was so well-known, we’d have hardly have heard about it.’
Gussie smiled a small, secret smile and Eden knew that she didn’t believe her.
‘What about the wedding? Are you going ahead with it?’
‘Of course.’ Gussie’s voice was mildly surprised. ‘I love Bradley as well. It’s just that I can’t remember Bradley’s face when he isn’t with me. Not like I can Beau’s. Beau’s face is with me all the time.’ Her eyes returned to the cherry trees. ‘But I can’t marry Beau, can I? Not unless I die, and I don’t want to die.’
Eden rose unsteadily to her feet, thoroughly frightened. ‘You’re sick, Gussie. Beau Clay is dead. He doesn’t love you: he never did.’
‘Then why won’t he free me?’ Gussie demanded, her eyes burning with sudden intensity.
‘I guess it’s because you’re always thinking of him,’ Eden said awkwardly. ‘Once you’re married to Bradley you’ll forget all about Beau Clay.’
‘Yes.’ The passion drained from her voice, leaving it as flat and expressionless as before. ‘Yes. Once I marry Bradley, then everything will be all right.’
They were sitting on the edge of the dunes, the ocean shimmering beneath the heat of the sun.
‘You can’t have Jason Shreve as your best man,’ Gussie said, laughing, her head resting against Bradley’s shoulder. ‘Daddy is determined that this wedding is going to be the social occasion of the year.’
‘Jason Shreve is my closest friend,’ Bradley said, relieved to see that the pallor of the last few weeks had fled, and that her eyes had regained their natural sparkle.
‘Maybe, but the Shreves are … well …’ She giggled. ‘… just the Shreves, I guess. Daddy would want you to have someone more prestigious.’
‘Whose wedding is this?’ Bradley asked, his hand slipping beneath her blouse and touching the warm softness of her flesh. ‘Ours, or your father’s?’
‘Ours,’ she said dreamily, allowing herself to be pushed gently back against the sand, her lips parting willingly as Bradley’s sought hers. His weight pinioned her, his body heavy against her.
Her hand slid pleasurably across the strong muscles of his back and up into the thickness of his hair. The curls sprang against her palm and her fingers tightened.
‘I do love you, Bradley. You do believe me, don’t you?’
There was a strange urgency in her voice. He raised his head and looked down at her: at her gentle, soft, sensuous mouth. At the tumbled, dishevelled mass of her wheat-gold hair. At her eyes, as velvet and dark as the heart of an exotic flower.
‘You’d better do, Augusta Lafayette,’ he said fiercely, the heat naked at the back of his eyes. ‘Who else would you be in love with?’
Something indefinable crossed Augusta’s face, to be instantly chased away. She loved Bradley. She was marrying Bradley. She was normal and sane and her marriage would prove it.
‘No one,’ she sighed passionately, pulling his head down to hers, her tongue flicking past his, searching, giving, desire flaring up in her.
He responded passionately, but then, just as she thought that he had lost his self-control, he grasped her wrists, pinning them high above her head, and said hoarsely, ‘Not yet, Gussie. Not yet.’
She sobbed in anguish, and as he released her, clung to him in desperate need. If only Bradley would make love to her, then she could never belong to anyone else. Not ever.
‘One week,’ Bradley said, pulling her gently to her feet, cradling her in his arms. ‘Then we’ll be Mr and Mrs Hampton and honeymooning in Acapulco.’
‘A week is a long time,’ she said as they began to walk along the creaming shoreline. ‘It seems like …’ She stopped. ‘Forever’ was a word she never uttered. Not to Bradley. Not since her birthday party. ‘It seems like a lifetime,’ she said, suddenly cold despite the shimmering heat of the midday sun.