Forever by Margaret Pemberton Read Free Book Online

steadying influence of a good wife.’ He eyed the photograph of his son on his desk speculatively. ‘Marriage can settle a boy like nothing else. I know. I married at twenty and never regretted it. I’ve been thinking lately that Bradley is growing too headstrong for his own good.’ He tapped his glasses on the leather surface. Something would have to be done concerning Bradley. He had narrowed his choice of suitable daughters-in-law down to three. There weren’t many girls fit for marriage to a Hampton.
    â€˜He’s dead!’ Shenton’s mother said to her husband unbelievingly. ‘Beauregard is dead!’ She stumbled for a chair. ‘What if Shenton had been with him? It could have been Shenton at the bottom of that swamp! Oh, I think I’m going to faint. Brandy, somebody, quickly!’
    â€˜Lord, Lord, but that boy sure done it this time,’ the Laussat’s oldest family retainer said, shaking her head and rocking vigorously in her chair. ‘Ah remember when he was knee-high to a grasshopper. Had the light of the Devil in his eyes even then.’
    Eden sat on her bed hugging herself. She’d never known anyone who had died. Even her grandparents were still alive and indecently healthy. Now Beau Clay was dead: someone she had known, seen, talked about. She shivered. She had been talking about him only last evening. Talking about him when perhaps even then his car had been careering down a darkened, swamp-flanked road.
    Her elder sister Romaine came into the room, her face flushed.
    â€˜Isn’t it terrible? They say his neck was broken and that he drowned! Can you imagine it? Drowning in that terrible swamp, unable to move, just waiting …’
    Eden did not have a very high opinion of her twenty-year-old sister. Faced with Romaine’s dramatics, some of Eden’s old good sense reasserted itself.
    â€˜If he did die like that, there’s no need to dwell on it,’ she said sharply.
    Romaine was about to flounce indignantly from the room at being spoken to in such a manner by a mere seventeen-year-old, but Eden checked her. It was obvious that her mother had been talking about the tragedy and perhaps imparting information she would not give to Eden.
    â€˜Was he driving alone?’ she asked, trying to close her mind to the dreadful images her sister’s revelations had conjured up.
    Slightly mollified by being in-the-know, Romaine halted at the door.
    â€˜Yes. And they say his father is nearly out of his mind. I mean, everyone in New Orleans knows the future Beau had.’
    Eden raised a finely shaped brow and lit a forbidden cigarette. Perdition had been the only future she had heard predicted for Beau Clay. Death, apparently, was already lending enchantment.
    Her sister was already gushing on like a child of thirteen.
    â€˜He was so talented. I guess that’s why he was so wild. It takes talented people that way. Think of Scott Fitzgerald. And so sexy . Mom said it reminded her of when James Dean died. That …’
    Eden sighed. There were times when she felt that she was the only sensible person in the house, with the exception of her father. She wanted to discuss Beau Clay’s death rationally. And with a semblance of respect.
    She wondered if Mae had heard the news. Mae’s parents were good friends of Sheriff Surtees. If anyone knew the details of Beau’s death, the Jefferson family would. Grabbing her car keys, she excused herself from Romaine’s irksome company and left the house. On the drive over to Mae’s she considered the possibilities.
    Perhaps Beau had had someone with him when he died. Perhaps he had quarrelled with his latest girlfriend. Perhaps he had been drunk or on drugs. Perhaps he had even meant to kill himself.
    With scant regard for other traffic, she raced her Cadillac down Louisiana Avenue and out towards St George Avenue.
    Mae looked distinctly strained. Her usually rosy cheeks were