The Witching Hour

But Liz described him all right--tall, brown hair, very "distinguished," Liz said, and he'd been kissing Deirdre and whispering to her.

  "Rita Mae, imagine her opening all the locks, bringing him up the stairs. She was just crazy."

  "All I know is this," Rita said later to Jerry Lonigan when they were courting. "She was the sweetest girl I ever knew in my life. She was a saint compared with those nuns, I tell you. And when I thought I'd go crazy in that place, she held my hand and told me she knew how I was feeling. I would have done anything for her."

  But when the time came to do something for Deirdre Mayfair, Rita hadn't been able to do it.

  Over a year had passed. Rita's teenaged life was gone and she never for a second missed it. She had married Jerry Lonigan, who was twelve years older than her and nicer than any boy she'd ever met--a decent and kind man who made a good living from Lonigan and Sons' Funeral Home, one of the oldest in the parish, which he ran with his daddy.

  Jerry was the one who gave Rita news about Deirdre. He told her Deirdre was pregnant by a man who'd been killed already in a highway accident, and those aunts of hers, those mean crazy Mayfair women, were going to make her give up her baby.

  Rita was going by that house to see Deirdre. She had to. Jerry didn't want her to go.

  "What the hell you think you can do about it! Don't you know that aunt of hers, Miss Carlotta, she's a lawyer? She could get Deirdre committed if she didn't give up that baby."

  Red Lonigan, Jerry's dad, shook his head. "That's been done plenty a time, Rita," he said. "Deirdre will sign the papers or wind up in the nuthouse. Besides, Father Lafferty's got a hand in this thing. And if there's any priest at St. Alphonsus I trust, it's Tim Lafferty."

  But Rita went.

  It was the hardest thing she'd ever done, walking up to that enormous house and ringing the bell, but she did it. And naturally it was Miss Carl who came to the door, the one everybody was afraid of. Jerry told her later that if it had been Miss Millie or Miss Nancy it might have been different.

  Still Rita walked right in, just sort of pushed past Miss Carl. Well, she had opened the screen door a crack, hadn't she? And Miss Carl really didn't look mean. She just looked businesslike.

  "Just want to see her, you know, she was my best friend at St. Ro's ... "

  Every time Miss Carl said no in her polite way, Rita said yes in some other way, talking about how close she'd been to Deirdre.

  Then she'd heard Deirdre's voice at the top of the steps.

  "Rita Mae!"

  Deirdre's face was wet from crying and her hair was all in straggles over her shoulders. She ran down the steps barefoot towards Rita, and Miss Nancy, the heavyset one, came right behind her.

  Miss Carl took Rita firmly by the arm and tried to move her towards the front door.

  "Wait just a minute!" Rita said.

  "Rita Mae, they're going to take my baby!"

  Miss Nancy caught Deirdre around the waist and lifted her off her feet on the stairway.

  "Rita Mae!" Deirdre screamed. She had something in her hand, a little white card it looked like.

  "Rita Mae, call this man. Tell him to help me."

  Miss Carl stepped in front of Rita:

  "Go home, Rita Mae Lonigan," she said.

  But Rita darted right around her. Deirdre was struggling to get free of Miss Nancy, and Miss Nancy was leaning against the banister, off balance. Deirdre tried to throw the little white card to Rita, but it just fluttered down on the stairs. Miss Carl went to get it.

  And then it was just like fighting for Mardi Gras trinkets thrown from the parade floats. Rita pushed Miss Carl to the side and snatched the card up, just the way you snatched a junk necklace off the pavement before anybody else could get it.

  "Rita Mae, call that man!" Deirdre screamed. "Tell him I need him."

  "I will, Dee Dee!"

  Miss Nancy was carrying her back up the steps, Deirdre's bare feet swinging out, her hands clawing at Miss Nancy's arm. It was awful, just awful.

  And then Miss Carl grabbed Rita's wrist.

  "Give me that, Rita Mae Lonigan," said Miss Carl.

  Rita pulled loose and ran out of the front door, the little white card clutched in her hand. She heard Miss Carl running across the porch right after her.

  Her heart was pounding as she ran down the path. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, this was a madhouse! And Jerry was going to be so upset. And what would Red say?

  Then Rita felt a sharp, ugly pain as her hair was jerked from the back. The woman pulled her almost off her feet.

  "Don't you do that to me, you old witch!" Rita said, her teeth clenched. Rita couldn't stand to have her hair pulled.

  Miss Carl tried to tear the little white card out of her fingers. This was almost the worst thing that had ever happened to Rita. Miss Carl was twisting and tearing off the corner of the card as Rita held on to it, and with the other hand Miss Carl was still yanking Rita's hair as hard as she could. She was going to pull it out by the roots.

  "Stop it!" Rita screamed. "I'm warning you now, I'm warning you!" She got the card away from Miss Carl and she crumpled it in her fist. You just couldn't hit an old lady like this.

  But when Miss Carl jerked her hair again, Rita did hit her. She hit Miss Carl across the chest with her right arm, and Miss Carl fell into the chinaberry trees. If there hadn't been so many chinaberry trees, she would have fallen on the ground.

  Rita ran out the gate.

  A storm was blowing up. The trees were all moving. She could see the big black branches of the oaks swaying in the wind, hear that loud roar that big trees always made. The branches were lashing the house, scratching at the top of the upstairs porch. She heard the sound of breaking glass suddenly.

  She stopped and looked back, and she saw a shower of little green leaves falling all over the property. Tiny branches and twigs were falling. It was like a hurricane. Miss Carl was standing on the path staring up at the trees. At least her arm or leg wasn't broken.

  Good Lord, the rain would come any minute. Rita was going to be soaked before she even got to Magazine Street--that on top of everything else, her hair torn to pieces and the tears streaming down her face. She was a sight all right.

  But there was no rain. She made it back to Lonigan and Sons without getting wet. And when she sat down in Jerry's office, she broke down completely.

  "You shouldn't have gone there, you should never have gone!" he said. He had a funeral going on out front. He should have been helping Red out there. "Honey, they could turn everybody against us, old family like that!"

  Rita couldn't do anything but cry. Then she looked at the little white card. "But will you look at this, Jerry! Will you look at it!"

  It was all mashed and damp from the sweat of her palm. She broke down again.

  "I can't read the numbers on it!"

  "Now, just a minute, Rita," Jerry said. He was patient as always, just a really good-hearted man the way he'd always been. He stood over her, unfolding the little card on the desk blotter. He got his magnifying glass.

  The middle part was clear enough:

  THE TALAMASCA

  But you couldn't read anything else. The words below that were just tiny little specks of black ink on the pulpy white cardboard. And whatever had been written along the bottom edge was completely ruined. There was just nothing left of it.

  "Oh, Dee Dee!" Rita cried.

  Jerry pressed it out under two heavy books, but that hadn't helped. His dad came in and took a look. But he couldn't make anything out of it. Name Talamasca didn't mean anything to Red. And Red knew just about everybody and everything. If it had been an old Mardi Gras society, for instance, he would have known it.

  "Now look, you can see something here written on the back in ink," Red said. "Look at that."

  Aaron Lightner. But there was no phone number. The phone numbers must have been printed on the front. Even pressing the card with a hot iron didn't help matters.

  Rita did what she could.

  She
checked the phone book for Aaron Lightner and the Talamasca, whatever that was. She called information. She begged the operator to tell her if there was an unlisted number. She even ran personals in the Times-Picayune and in the States-Item.

  "The card was old and dirty before you ever got it," Jerry reminded her. Fifty dollars spent on personal ads was enough. Jerry's daddy said he thought she might just as well give up. But one thing she could say for him, he hadn't criticized her for it.

  "Darlin', don't go back to that house," Red said. "I'm not scared of Miss Carlotta or anything like that. I just don't want you around those people."

  Rita saw Jerry look at his father, and his father look at him. They knew something they weren't saying. Rita knew Lonigan and Sons had buried Deirdre's mother when she fell from that window years ago, she'd heard that much, and she knew Red remembered the grandmother who had "died young" too the way Deirdre told Rita.

  But those two were closemouthed the way morticians had to be. And Rita was too miserable now for hearing about the history of that horrible old house and those women.

  She cried herself to sleep the way she had at boarding school. Maybe Deirdre had seen the ads in the papers, and knew that Rita had tried to do what she wanted.

  Another year passed before Rita saw Deirdre again. The baby was long gone. Some cousins out in California took it. Nice people, everybody said, rich people. The man was a lawyer like Miss Carl. That baby would be looked after.

  Sister Bridget Marie at St. Alphonsus told Jerry the nuns at Mercy Hospital said the baby was a beautiful little girl with blond hair. Not like Deirdre's black curls at all. And Father Lafferty had put the baby in Deirdre's arms and said to Deirdre, "Kiss your baby," then taken it away from her.

  Gave Rita the shivers. Like people kissing the corpse right before they closed up the coffin. "Kiss your baby," then taking it like that.

  No wonder Deirdre had had a complete breakdown. They took her right from Mercy to the sanitarium.

  "Not the first time for that family," Red Lonigan said as he shook his head. "That's how Lionel Mayfair died, in a straitjacket."

  Rita asked what he meant, but he didn't answer.

  "Oh, but they didn't have to do it like that," Rita said. "She's such a sweet thing. She couldn't hurt anybody."

  Finally Rita heard Deirdre was home again. And that Sunday Rita decided to go to Mass at the Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel in the Garden District. That's where the rich people went mostly. They didn't come to the big old parish churches--St. Mary's and St. Alphonsus--across Magazine Street.

  Rita went up there to the ten o'clock Mass, thinking, Well, I'll just pass by the Mayfair house on the way back. But she didn't have to, because Deirdre was there at Mass, sitting between her great-aunts Miss Belle and Miss Millie. Thank the lord no Miss Carlotta.

  Deirdre looked dreadful to Rita, like Banquo's Ghost as Rita's mother would have said. She had dark circles under her eyes and her dress was some old shiny gabardine thing that didn't fit her. Padded shoulders. One of those old women in the house must have given her that.

  After Mass, as they were going down the marble steps, Rita swallowed, took a deep breath, and ran after Deirdre.

  Deirdre at once gave her that beautiful smile. But when she tried to talk, almost nothing came out. Then in a whisper she said: "Rita Mae!"

  Rita Mae leaned over to kiss her. She whispered:

  "Dee Dee, I tried to do what you asked me. I could never find that man. The card was too ruined."

  Deirdre's eyes were wide, vacant. She didn't even remember, did she? At least Miss Millie and Miss Belle didn't notice. They were saying their hellos to everybody passing. And poor old Miss Belle never noticed anything anyway.

  Then Deirdre did seem to recall something. "It's OK, Rita Mae," she said. She had the beautiful smile again. She squeezed Rita Mae's hand and leaned forward and kissed her this time, on the cheek. Then her Aunt Millie said, "We should go now, sweetheart."

  Now, that was Deirdre Mayfair to Rita. It's OK, Rita Mae. The sweetest girl she ever knew.

  Deirdre was back at the sanitarium before long. She'd been walking barefoot on Jackson Avenue talking out loud to herself. Then they said she was in a mental hospital in Texas, and after that Rita only heard that Deirdre Mayfair was "incurably ill" and was never coming home again.

  When old Miss Belle died, the Mayfairs called Jerry's dad as they'd always done. Maybe Miss Carl didn't even remember the fight with Rita Mae. Mayfairs came from all over for that funeral, but no Deirdre.

  Mr. Lonigan hated opening the tomb in Lafayette No. 1. That cemetery had so many ruined graves with rotting coffins plainly visible, even the bones showing. It sickened him to take a funeral there.

  "But those Mayfairs have been buried there since 1861," he said. "And they do keep up that tomb, I'll give them that. They have the wrought-iron fence painted every year. And when the tourists come through there? Well, that's one of the graves they always look at--what with all the Mayfairs in there, and those little babies' names, going back to the Civil War. It's just the rest of that place is so sorry. You know they're going to tear that place down someday."

  They never did tear down Lafayette No. 1. The tourists liked it too much. And so did the families of the Garden District. Instead they cleaned it up, repaired the whitewashed walls, planted new magnolia trees. But there were still enough broken-down tombs for people to get their peek at the bones. It was a "historical monument."

  Mr. Lonigan took Rita through there one afternoon, showing her the famous yellow fever graves where you could read a long list of those who had died within days of each other during the epidemics. He showed her the Mayfair tomb--a big affair with twelve oven-size vaults inside. The little iron fence ran all the way around it, enclosing a tiny strip of grass. And the two marble vases stuck to the front step were full of fresh-cut flowers.

  "Why, they keep it up real nice, don't they?" she said. Such beautiful lilies and gladiolus and baby's breath.

  Mr. Lonigan stared at the flowers. He didn't answer. Then after he'd cleared his throat, he pointed out the names of those he knew.

  "This one here--Antha Marie, died 1941, now that was Deirdre's mother."

  "The one who fell from the window," Rita said. Again he didn't answer her.

  "And this one here--Stella Louise, died 1929--now that was Antha's mother. And it was this one over here, Lionel, her brother--'died 1929'--who ended up in the straitjacket after he shot and killed Stella."

  "Oh, you don't mean he murdered his own sister."

  "Oh, yes, I do," Mr. Lonigan said. Then he pointed out the other names going way back. "Miss Mary Beth, now that was the mother of Stella, and of Miss Carl, and now, Miss Millie is actually Remy Mayfair's daughter. He was Miss Carl's uncle, and he died at First Street, but that was before my time. I remember Julien Mayfair, however. He was what you call unforgettable, Julien was. Till the day he died, he was a fine-looking man. And so was Cortland, his son. You see, Cortland died that year that Deirdre had that little baby. Now I didn't bury Cortland. Cortland's family lived in Metairie. They say it was all that ruckus over the baby that killed Cortland. But that don't matter. You can see that Cortland was eighty years old besides. Old Miss Belle was Miss Carl's older sister. But Miss Nancy, well, she is Antha's sister. It will be Miss Millie next, you mark my words."

  Rita didn't care about them. She was remembering Deirdre on that long-ago day at St. Ro's when they sat on the side of the bed together. The emerald necklace had come to her through Stella and Antha.

  She told Red about it now, and it didn't surprise him at all. He just nodded, and said, yes, and before that the emerald necklace had belonged to Miss Mary Beth and before that to Miss Katherine who had built the house on First Street, but Miss Katherine was really before his time. Monsieur Julien was as far back as he could recall ...

  "But you know, it's the strangest thing," Rita said. "Them all carrying the Mayfair name. Why don't they take the names of the men they ma
rry?"

  "Can't," Mr. Lonigan said. "If they do, then they don't get the Mayfair money. That's the way it was set up long ago. You have to be a Mayfair to get Mayfair money. Cortland Mayfair knew it; knew all about it; he was a fine lawyer; never worked for anybody except the Mayfair family; I remember once he told me. It was legacy, he said."

  He was staring at the flowers again.

  "What is it, Red?" Rita asked.

  "Oh, just an old story they tell around here," he said. "That those vases are never empty."

  "Well, it's Miss Carl who orders the flowers, isn't it?" Rita asked.

  "Not that I know of," Mr. Lonigan said, "but somebody always puts them there." But then he went quiet again the way he always did. He would never really tell you what he knew.

  When he died a year after that, Rita felt as bad as if she'd lost her own father. But she kept wondering what secrets he'd taken with him. He'd always been so good to Rita. Jerry was never the same. He was nervous afterwards whenever he dealt with the old families.

  Deirdre came home to the house on First Street in 1976, a mindless idiot, they said, on account of the shock treatments.

  Father Mattingly from the parish went by to see her. No brain left at all. Just like a baby, he told Jerry, or a senile old lady.

  Rita went to call. It had been years since she and Miss Carlotta had that awful fight. Rita had three children now. She wasn't scared of that old lady. She brought a pretty white silk negligee for Deirdre from D. H. Holmes.

  Miss Nancy took her out on the porch. She said to Deirdre:

  "Look what Rita Mae Lonigan brought, Deirdre."

  Just a mindless idiot. And how awful to see that beautiful emerald necklace around her neck. It was like they were making fun of her, to put it on her like that, over her flannel nightgown.

  Her feet looked swollen and tender as they rested on the bare boards of the porch. Her head fell to one side as she stared through the screens. But otherwise she was still Deirdre--still pretty, still sweet. Rita had to get out of there.

  She never called again. But not a week went by that she didn't walk back First just to stop at the fence and wave to Deirdre. Deirdre didn't even notice her. But Rita did it nevertheless. It seemed to her Deirdre got stooped and thin, that her arms weren't down in her lap anymore, but drawn up, close to her chest. But Rita was never close enough to make certain. That was the virtue of just standing at the fence and waving.