Forever (15 page)

‘Who
was
that guy?' Mr Jefferson asked wildly as people pushed past him, struggling to get a better view.

‘Who in his right mind would crash into a wedding ceremony like that?' Shenton Ross Sr said, unable to answer him.

‘Seeking shelter, I guess,' a Lafayette relation said, wiping perspiration from his brow and striving to maintain an appearance of calm.

‘Shelter? He wasn't even wet!'

The clamour of voices was deafening. Reverence had been replaced by pandemonium.

‘Dear God, but I thought the Devil himself had entered,' Mrs Ashington said tremulously, supported by her husband.

‘Where did he go?' Hamptons and Lafayettes asked in unison.

‘Why did Gussie run?' Natalie Jefferson asked, clutching at the pew for support.

‘Scared out of her wits, poor child,' the woman next to her said.

‘Some hell of an entrance. Who
was
he?' Mr Jefferson demanded again as elegant hatted women pushed past him, eager to reach open air.

‘It looked like …' a stunned Mr Alexander began.

‘For Christ's sake! Don't say that! There are enough wild rumours already!' Mr Jefferson mopped his brow again and stumbled into the aisle.

Leaving Augusta temporarily in the care of her fiancé and parent, Father Keane returned to calm the near-hysterical congregation.

‘Dear Brethren. On behalf of Mr Charles Lafayette, I am requested to inform you that because of his daughter's health, the wedding will not take place as planned. At least, not today. The reception will be as arranged and he will meet with you all at St Michel. Thank you.'

The buzz of speculation increased. What did Father Keane mean? ‘Due to Gussie's health?' What was wrong with Gussie's health? Now that the centre of the storm had passed, courage was returning to shattered nerves.
They
were feeling all right now. A little shaky, as anyone might be after nearly being struck by lightning, but all right, just the same. Surely, in a few moments, Augusta could have returned to her place at Bradley's side?

‘Did you hear what she called? I swear to you it was Beau. Beau Clay. I know the thunder was deafening, but I'd stake my life on it,' a Hampton relative said authoritatively.

‘Bradley. She was calling for Bradley. The lightening terrified her,' the woman at his side corrected.

‘And she looked so beautiful coming down the aisle. Happy and radiant,' Natalie Jefferson said, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief that matched her dress. ‘That storm's ruined everything.'

‘Never mind. There's still the reception. Charles Lafayette never stints on the quality of his caviar and champagne,' Mrs Ashington said, patting Mrs Jefferson's hand and smiling vacantly at someone across the aisle.

Noisily they made their exit from the cathedral they had entered so respectfully a short while before. Eden and Mae were ushered quickly into a Lafayette limousine. Only Judge Clay remained seated, half-turned as everyone else had been when the doors had crashed open and the intruder entered, shattering the last shreds of Gussie's nerves. A galaxy of flowered hats now bobbed beneath the porch, scurrying for cars and chauffeurs and the anticipation of more gossip at St Michel. Judge Clay remained immobile: staring into space in stunned disbelief.

‘Augusta, Jim Meredith is here …' Her father's anxious voice permeated her consciousness.

‘Gussie! Gussie! Can you hear me?'

It was strange to hear such naked emotion in Bradley's voice: a tone almost of fear. She opened her eyes, her fingers tightening imperceptibly in his grasp. Bradley's arms were around her, her head was resting against his chest.

‘Thank God!' her father said, mopping his face with a large silk handkerchief. ‘Now perhaps you will believe there's something wrong with my daughter, Jim. Three times! Three times she's collapsed like this and you keep telling me it's nothing to worry about! I want the best, Jim. Tests, checks, everything.'

‘Let me carry you, Gussie.' Bradley's face, so joyful only moments before, was ravaged.

‘No!'

Charles Lafayette turned his attention back to his daughter and prospective son-in-law. ‘No. We're not leaving here until Augusta can walk. To be seen being carried will only intensify the gossip. That lightning was the worst I've ever experienced. There wasn't a woman in the place who wasn't terrified out of her skin. And then that maniac …' He broke off. He didn't want to dwell on thoughts of the dark, powerful figure whose entrance had been almost a physical blow. ‘They'll understand her fainting …'

‘Don't get upset, Daddy,' she said quietly. ‘I can walk. Let's go home.'

Tenderly Bradley raised her to her feet and circled her waist with his arm.

‘I've had to let the reception go on as planned,' Charles Lafayette said to no one in particular. His composure had completely deserted him. ‘What do we do now? Continue the ceremony at the house while the guests are assembled? Yes, yes. I think that would be best.' He paced the room nervously. ‘The main salon will hold all the Lafayettes and Hamptons …'

‘No.' Three heads turned to Gussie in varying degrees of surprise. ‘No. I don't want to continue the wedding ceremony at St Michel.'

‘But it would make life easier, Augusta,' her father said, a desperate edge to his voice.

‘No.' She was so pale that her skin seemed almost translucent. ‘You don't understand. There isn't going to be another wedding ceremony.'

‘But of course there is …' her father began.

‘What do you mean, Gussie?' Bradley's voice was urgent. He halted, still supporting her, and stared down at her vacant expression.

‘I'm not going to marry you, Bradley,' she said unsteadily. ‘I can't.'

‘What do you mean, can't?' her father ranted, shrugging off Father Keane's restraining arm. ‘Are we to look complete fools? This is your wedding day, Augusta! I've planned it for months! A small simple ceremony in the main salon …'

‘No.' Bradley silenced him, his eyes full of anguish. ‘No. If Gussie has no wish to continue the ceremony today, then we'll postpone it.'

‘But the guests …' Charles Lafayette protested.

‘Damn the guests!' Bradley said and, ignoring Charles Lafayette's former pleas, he swung Augusta up into his arms and carried her out into the weak sunlight that was filtering through the receding clouds.

Gussie didn't speak again as Bradley drove her home in a Hampton limousine. Silently she allowed him to carry her up one of St Michel's rear flights of stairs, avoiding the guests, and lay her on her bed. For a long moment he stood by her side, holding her hand, and then said gently, ‘Sleep, sweetheart. I'll see you tomorrow. We'll talk then.'

Only her eyes answered him. Filled with such unspeakable sadness that the breath caught in his throat. Blindly he stumbled from the room, ran down the staircase, pushed past startled guests and leaped into his car. Charles Lafayette could go on with his mockery of a reception but he was having no part of it. He had lost Gussie and he did not know why.

Gussie lay very still. From downstairs came the sounds of voices and laughter and champagne corks. Festivities for a non-existent bride. They would never understand: not her father, not Bradley. She couldn't tell them. She would have to live with the secret lifelong, with the result of a silly, girlish prank. The sadness in her eyes turned to suffering. Because of it, Beau had died and had found no peace. Her obsessive love for him had led to his eternal torment.

Silent tears stole down her cheeks. Forever. She had never realized what forever meant. Never comprehended the magnitude of it. She would have to live out the whole of her life alone. Watching as Bradley gradually withdrew from her, finding tenderness elsewhere: love. Being a guest at his wedding instead of his bride. Her heart hurt with the pain of it. She would become like Mae's grandmother. An oddity to be pointed out and whispered about: all because she had sat before her mirror and willed with all her heart and soul for Beauregard Clay's unending devotion.

Jim Meredith had come to give her a sedative. Her father had come in several times and had stood at the foot of her bed, gazing with increasing concern at her glazed eyes. Tina Lafayette had held her hand and talked softly and comfortingly but had received no replies. Augusta had sunk into a world of silence, consumed by her own thoughts, oblivious of those around her. When the bride-to-be had failed to put in an appearance at the lavish reception, Charles Lafayette had announced smoothly, but sadly, that Dr Meredith was attending her and that she was suffering from a fierce flu virus and would be incapacitated for several days: possibly two weeks or maybe three.

‘I'm sorry, Bradley. She's not well enough to see anyone,' Charles Lafayette had said awkwardly when Bradley had arrived the next morning.

Bradley had stared at him, his jaw muscles tensing. For once he had not argued with his future father-in-law. He had simply swung on his heel and strode towards his car, intent, apparently, on speaking with Dr Meredith and discovering the true situation for himself.

Charles Lafayette breathed a sigh of relief, remembering those agonizing moments. He had no desire for Bradley to see Augusta in her present condition. If Bradley saw her, he might think twice about going ahead with the wedding. Augusta's passivity was far more disquieting than hysteria would have been.

He paced his study restlessly. When she had fainted on her birthday she had recovered within minutes: bouncy and vivacious as ever. When she had fainted at Laetitia Clay's funeral she had taken longer to return to her normal self, but she had done so – eventually. This time he was filled with grim foreboding. It was as if his Augusta, the little girl he loved so deeply, had slipped away from him and left a stranger in her place. A stranger whose mind was closed to him. Even Jim Meredith had been disconcerted and had promised to contact a psychiatrist friend of his. A man who was a specialist in cases of emotional disturbance. He slammed his fist hard on his desk. Damn it. She couldn't be like her grandmother. She
couldn't
.

Besides, his mother's death had been an accident. Not suicide. He had never believed what the gossips had believed: what the family had believed. His mother had been young; happy; in love. Why should she have waded deep into the stagnant waters of the bayous and extinguished her own life? It was a question he had asked himself a hundred times.

Doubt, insiduous and never quite stilled, gripped him. Perhaps his mother
had
been sick. There had been other rumours down the years. Rumours about Leila Jefferson. And Leila and his mother had been inseparable.

He clenched his fists. There was nothing wrong with Augusta. Nothing abnormal about
his
little girl. Why, then, was she behaving so strangely? Goddammit. She had
wanted
to marry Bradley. She had everything a girl could desire. What, in heaven's name, was the matter with her?

At the time, Charles had thought that what he had told the guests at the reception would give plenty of leeway for Augusta's recovery. Now he was not so sure. Two weeks had already passed and Augusta was no nearer to being her laughing, vivacious self than she had been when she had regained consciousness in the vestry. It was as if an inner light had been quenched. She no longer glowed with life and health and vitality. She remained in her room, sitting for long, silent hours at her dressing table, gazing into the oval mirror as if therein lay the answer to her misery. Jim Meredith had come again, Dr Wallace, a young, slick-suited New Yorker in his wake. Charles had regarded the man distrustfully, but Jim Meredith had promised that no one would know that they had resorted to psychiatry. Not even Bradley.

Since then the unnervingly young Dr Wallace had moved into St Michel, and now spent the greater part of each day with Gussie. Apart from Charles and Jim Meredith, only Tina Lafayette knew of his presence. Fortunately, Bradley, respecting Jim Meredith's judgment, had promised not to force his presence on Augusta until she was willing, of her own accord, to see him. He had anticipated a wait of days – not weeks. He had visited the house two, three times a day and every time he left his sense of disquiet grew. Something terrible had happened to Gussie and no one would tell him what it was.

Dr Wallace emerged from Gussie's room and gravely told Jim Meredith that in his opinion Augusta Lafayette had a deep-seated father fixation: that her emotional trauma was caused by her fear of losing her father's love once she became a wife as well as a daughter.

Jim Meredith frowned and kept his thoughts to himself. In his opinion the answer was not so simple, but Wallace was the expert. He himself was only a family practitioner, accustomed to healing day-to-day infirmities – not delving into the recesses of sick minds. Nevertheless, he went to sit with Augusta himself.

‘How are you feeling this morning. Augusta?'

She was sitting at her dressing table, a satin, long-sleeved robe over her négligé. At his query she turned her head away and stared through the open window and out over the lawns and trees of St Michel.

‘Bradley was here about an hour ago. He's coming back this afternoon. He wants to see you very badly, Augusta.'

There was no reply.

‘It's been three weeks, Augusta,' he said carefully, convinced that she had no concept of how time had passed since she had collapsed. ‘Leo has returned to Vancouver. Great Aunt Belle has finally returned home, much to your father's relief. Bradley has come every day, several times a day, to see you. Your father is refusing him permission until he feels you are regaining your strength and expressing a desire to see himyourself. How about it, Augusta? He's a fine young man.'

He waited. It was as if she had not heard him. Then she turned her head slowly and his heart twisted at the pain in her violet-dark eyes.