The Witching Hour

  Daniel McIntyre was terrified at the prospect of his wife's leaving him. When he was made to understand that Mary Beth wasn't going to recover, he commenced his final binge, and according to the gossips and the later legends was never seen to be sober again.

  Others have told the same story that Llewellyn told, of Daniel waking Mary Beth constantly in her final days, frantic to know whether or not she was still alive. Family legend confirms that Mary Beth was endlessly patient with him, inviting him to lie down beside her, and comforting him for hours on end.

  During this time, Carlotta moved back into the house so that she could be close to her mother and, indeed, sat with her through many a long night. When Mary Beth was in too much pain to read, she asked Carlotta to read to her, and family legend says that Carlotta read all of Wuthering Heights to her, and some of Jane Eyre.

  Stella was also in constant attendance. She stopped her carousing altogether, and spent her time preparing meals for her mother--who was frequently too sick to eat anything--and consulting doctors all over the world, by letter and phone, about cures.

  A perusal of the scant medical records that exist on Mary Beth indicate her cancer had metastasized before it was ever discovered. She did not suffer until the last three months and then she suffered a great deal.

  Finally on the afternoon of September 11, 1925, Mary Beth lost consciousness. The attending priest noted that there was an enormous clap of thunder. "Rain began to pour." Stella left the room, went down to the library, and began to call the Mayfairs all over Louisiana, and even the relatives in New York.

  According to the priest, the servant witnesses, and numerous neighbors, the Mayfairs started to arrive at four o'clock and continued to arrive for the next twelve hours. Cars lined First Sheet all the way to St. Charles Avenue, and Chestnut Street from Jackson to Washington.

  The "cloudburst" continued, slacking off for a few hours to a drizzle and then resuming as a regular rain. Indeed it was raining all over the Garden District, though it was not raining in any other part of the city; however, no one took particular notice of that fact.

  On the other hand, the majority of the New Orleans Mayfairs came equipped with umbrellas and raincoats, as though they fully expected some sort of storm.

  Servants scurried about serving coffee and contraband European wine to the cousins, who filled the parlors, the library, the hallway, the dining room, and even sat on the stairs.

  At midnight the wind began to howl. The enormous sentinel oaks before the house began to thrash so wildly some feared the branches would break loose. Leaves came down as thick as rain.

  Mary Beth's bedroom was apparently crowded to overflowing with her children and her nieces and nephews, yet a respectful silence was maintained. Carlotta and Stella sat on the far side of her bed, away from the door, as the cousins came and went on tiptoe.

  Daniel McIntyre was nowhere to be seen, and family legend holds that he had "passed out" earlier, and was in bed in Carlotta's apartment over the stables outside.

  By one o'clock, there were solemn-faced Mayfairs standing on the front galleries, and even in the wind and rain, under their unsteady umbrellas, on the front walk. Many friends of the family had come merely to hover under the oak trees, with newspapers over their heads and their collars turned up against the wind. Others remained in their cars double-parked along Chestnut and First.

  At one thirty-five, the attending physician, Dr. Lyndon Hart, experienced some sort of disorientation. He confessed later to several of his colleagues that "something strange" happened in the room.

  To Irwin Dandrich, he confided in 1929 the following account:

  "I knew she was almost gone. I had stopped taking her pulse. It seemed so undignified, to get up over and over, only to nod to the others that she was still alive. And each time I made a move towards the bed, naturally the cousins noticed it, and you would hear the anxious whispers in the hall.

  "So for the last hour or so I did nothing. I merely waited and watched. Only the immediate family was at the bedside, except for Cortland and his son Pierce. She lay there with her eyes half open, her head turned towards Stella and Carlotta. Carlotta was holding her hand She was breathing very irregularly. I had given her as much morphine as I dared.

  "And then it happened. Perhaps I'd fallen asleep and was dreaming, but it seemed so real at the time--that a whole group of entirely different persons was there, an old woman, for example, whom I knew but didn't know was bending over Mary Beth, and there was a very tall old gentleman in the room, who looked distinctly familiar. There were all sorts of persons, really. And then a young man, a pale young man who was very primly dressed in beautiful old-fashioned clothes, was bending over her. He kissed her lips, and then he closed her eyes.

  "I was on my feet with a start. The cousins were crying in the hallway. Someone was sobbing. Cortland Mayfair was crying. And the rain had started to really pour again. Indeed the thunder was deafening. And in a sudden flash of lightning I saw Stella staring at me with the most listless and miserable expression. And Carlotta was crying. And I knew my patient was dead, without doubt, and indeed her eyes were closed.

  "I have never explained it really. I examined Mary Beth at once, and confirmed that it was over. But they already knew. All of them knew. I looked about, trying desperately to conceal my momentary confusion, and I saw little Antha in the corner, a few feet behind her mother, and that tall young gentleman was with her, and then, quite suddenly, he was gone. In fact, he was gone so suddenly that I'm not sure I saw him at all.

  "But I'll tell you why I think he was really there. Someone else also saw him. It was Pierce Mayfair, Cortland's son. I turned around right after the young man vanished, and I realized Pierce was staring at that very spot. He was staring at little Antha, and then he looked at me. At once he tried to appear natural, as if nothing was the matter, but I know he saw that man.

  "As to the rest of what I saw, there certainly wasn't any old lady about, and the tall old gentleman was nowhere to be seen. But do you know who he was? I believe he was Julien Mayfair. I never knew Julien, but I saw a portrait of him later that very morning on the wall of the hallway, opposite the library door.

  "To tell you the truth, I don't think any of those in the sickroom paid me the slightest notice. The maids started to wipe Mary Beth's face, and to get her ready for the cousins to come in and see her for the last time. Someone was lighting fresh candles. And the rain, the rain was dreadful. It was just flooding down the windows.

  "The next thing I remember, I was pushing through a long line of the cousins, to get to the bottom of the stairs. Then I was in the library with Father McKenzie, and I was filling out the death certificate, and Father McKenzie was sitting on the leather couch with Belle and trying to comfort her, telling her all the usual things, that her mother had gone to heaven and she would see her mother again. Poor Belle. She kept saying, 'I don't want her to go away to heaven. I want to see her again right now.' How do people like that ever come to understand?

  "It was only when I was leaving that I saw the portrait of Julien Mayfair and realized with a shock that I had seen that man. In fact a rather curious thing happened. I was so startled when I saw the portrait that I blurted it aloud: 'That's the man.'

  "And there was someone standing in the hallway, having a cigarette, I believe, and that person looked up, saw me, and saw the portrait to his left, on the wall, and then said with a little laugh, 'Oh, no, that's not the man. That's Julien.'

  "Of course I didn't bother to argue. I can't imagine what the person thought I meant. And I certainly don't know what he meant by what he said, and I just left it at that. I don't even know who the person was. A Mayfair, you can be sure of it, but other than that, I wouldn't make a guess.

  "I told Cortland about it all afterwards, when I thought an appropriate amount of time had passed. He wasn't at all distressed. He listened to everything I said, and told me he was glad I'd told him. But he said he hadn't seen anything particular in that r
oom.

  "Now, you mustn't go telling everyone this story. Ghosts are fairly common in New Orleans, but doctors who see them are not! And I don't think Cortland would appreciate me telling that story. And of course, I've never mentioned it to Pierce. As for Stella, well, frankly I doubt Stella cares about such things at all. If Stella cares about anything, I'd like to know what it is."

  These apparitions undoubtedly included another appearance of Lasher, but we cannot leave this vivid and noteworthy story without discussing the strange exchange of words at the library door. What did the Mayfair cousin mean when he said, "Oh, no, that's not the man"? Did he mistakenly think that the doctor was referring to Lasher? And did the little comment slip out before he realized that the doctor was a stranger? And if so, does this mean that members of the Mayfair family knew all about "the man" and were used to talking about him? Perhaps so.

  Mary Beth's funeral was enormous, just as her wedding had been some twenty-six years before. For a full account of it we are indebted to the undertaker, David O'Brien, who retired a year later, leaving his business to his nephew Red Lonigan, whose family has given us much testimony since.

  We also have some family legends regarding the event, and considerable gossip from parish ladies who attended the funeral and had no compunction about discussing the Mayfairs critically at all.

  All agree that Daniel McIntyre did not make it through the ceremony. He was taken home from the Requiem Mass by Carlotta, who then rejoined the party before it left the church.

  Before the interment in Lafayette Cemetery several short speeches were made. Pierce Mayfair spoke of Mary Beth as a great mentor; Cortland praised her for her love of her family and her generosity to everyone. And Barclay Mayfair said that Mary Beth was irreplaceable; and she would never be forgotten by those who knew her and loved her. Lionel had his hands full consoling the stricken Belle and the crying Millie Dear.

  Little Antha was not there, and neither was little Nancy (an adopted Mayfair mentioned earlier whom Mary Beth introduced to everyone as Stella's child).

  Stella was despondent, yet not so much that she failed to shock scores of the cousins, and the undertaker, and numerous friends of the family, by sitting on a nearby grave during the final speeches, with her legs dangling and swilling liquor from her famous bottle in the brown bag. When Barclay was concluding his speech, she said to him quite loudly, "Barclay, get on with it! She hated this sort of thing. She's going to rise from the dead and tell you to shut up if you don't stop."

  The undertaker noted that many of the cousins laughed at these remarks, and others tried to stop themselves from laughing. Barclay also laughed, and Cortland and Pierce merely smiled. Indeed, the family may have been divided with regard to this response entirely on ethnic lines. One account holds that the French cousins were mortified by Stella's conduct but that all the Irish Mayfairs laughed.

  But then Barclay wiped his nose, and said, "Good-bye my beloved," and kissed the coffin, and then backed up, into the arms of Cortland and Garland, and began to sob.

  Stella then hopped down off the grave, went to the coffin and kissed it, and said to the priest, "Well, Father, carry on."

  During the final Latin words, Stella pulled a rose off one of the funeral arrangements, broke the stem to a manageable length, and stuck the rose in her hair.

  Then the closest of the kin retired to the First Street house, and before midnight the piano music and singing was coming so loud from the parlor that the neighbors were shocked.

  When Judge McIntyre died, the funeral was a lot smaller but extremely sad. He had been much loved by many Mayfairs, and tears were shed.

  Before continuing, let us note once more that, to our knowledge, Mary Beth was the last really strong witch the family produced. One can only speculate as to what she might have done with her powers if she had not been so family oriented, so thoroughly practical, and so utterly indifferent to vanity or notoriety of any kind. As it was, everything that she did eventually served her family. Even her pursuit of pleasure expressed itself in the reunions which helped the family to identify itself and to maintain a strong image of itself in changing times.

  Stella did not have this love of family, nor was she practical; she did not mind notoriety, and she loved pleasure. But the keynote to understanding Stella is that she wasn't ambitious either. She seemed to have few real goals at all.

  "Live" might have been the motto of Stella.

  The history from this point until 1929 belongs to her and little Antha, her pale-faced, sweet-voiced little girl.

  STELLA'S STORY CONTINUES

  Family legend, neighborhood gossip and parish gossip all seem to agree that Stella went wild after her parents' death.

  While Cortland and Carlotta battled over the legacy fortune and how it should be managed, Stella began to throw scandalous parties for her friends at First Street; and the few she held for the family in 1926 were equally shocking, what with the bootleg beer and bourbon, and Dixieland bands and people dancing the Charleston until dawn. Many of the older cousins left these last parties early, and some never returned to the First Street house.

  Many of them were never invited again. Between 1926 and 1929, Stella slowly dismantled the extended family created by her mother. Or rather, she refused to guide it further, and it slowly fell apart. Large numbers of cousins lost contact altogether with the house on First Street, rearing children who knew little or nothing about it, and these descendants have been for us the richest source of legend and other lore.

  Other cousins were alienated but remained involved. All of Julien's descendants, for example, remained close to the legacy family, if for no other reason than because they were legally and financially connected, and because Carlotta could never effectively drive them away.

  "It was the beginning of the end," according to one cousin. "Stella just didn't want to be bothered," said another. And yet another, "We knew too much about her, and she knew it. She didn't want to see us around."

  The image of Stella we have during this period is of a very active, very happy person who cared less about the family than her mother had, but who nevertheless cared passionately about many things. Young writers and artists in particular interested Stella, and scores of "interesting" people came to First Street, including writers and painters whom Stella had known in New York. Several friends mentioned that she encouraged Lionel to take up his writing again, and even had an office refurbished for him in one of the outbuildings, but it is not known if Lionel ever wrote anything more.

  A great many intellectuals attended Stella's parties. Indeed, she became fashionable with those who were not afraid to take social risks. Old guard society of the sort in which Julien moved was essentially closed to her, or so Irwin Dandrich maintained. But it is doubtful Stella ever knew or cared.

  The French Quarter of New Orleans had been undergoing something of a revival since the early 1920s. Indeed, William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson, Edmund Wilson, and other famous writers lived there at various times.

  We have no evidence to connect any individual person with Stella; but she was very familiar with the Bohemian life of the Quarter, she frequented the coffee houses and the art galleries, and she brought the musicians home to First Street to play for her and threw open her doors to penniless poets and painters very much as she had done in New York.

  To the servants this meant chaos. To the neighbors it meant scandal and noise. But Stella was no dissolute drunk, as her legal father had been. On the contrary, for all her drinking, she is never described as being intoxicated; and there seems to have been considerable taste and thought at work in her during these years.

  At the same time, she undertook a refurbishing of the house, spending a fortune on new paint, plaster, draperies, and delicate expensive furniture in the art deco style. The double parlor was crowded with potted palms as Richard Llewellyn has described. A Bozendorfer grand piano was purchased, an elevator was eventually installed (1927), and before that an immense swimming pool w
as built to the rear of the lawn, and a cabana was built to the south side of the pool so that guests could shower and dress without bothering to go into the house.

  All of this--the new friends, the partying, and the refurbishing--shocked the more staid cousins, but what really turned them against Stella, thereby creating numerous legends for us to gather later, was that, within a year after Mary Beth's death, Stella abandoned the large family gatherings altogether.

  Try as he might, Cortland could not persuade Stella to give any family parties after 1926. And though Cortland frequently attended her soirees or balls or whatever they were called, and his son Pierce was often there with him, other cousins who were invited refused to go.

  In the Mardi Gras season of 1927, Stella gave a masked ball which caused talk in New Orleans for six months. People from all ranks of society attended; the First Street house was splendidly lighted; contraband champagne was served by the case. A jazz band played on the side porch. (This porch was not screened in until later for Deirdre Mayfair when she became an invalid.) Dozens of guests went swimming in the nude, and by morning a full-scale orgy was in progress, or so the bedazzled neighbors were heard to say. Cousins who had been excluded were furious. Indeed, Irwin Dandrich says they appealed to Carlotta Mayfair for explanations, but everyone knew the explanation: Stella didn't want a bunch of dreary cousins hanging about.

  Servants reported Carlotta Mayfair was outraged by the noise and duration of this party, not to mention the expense. Some time before midnight she left the house, taking little Antha and little Nancy (the adopted one) with her, and she did not return until the afternoon of the following day.

  This was the very first public quarrel between Stella and Carlotta, but cousins and friends soon learned that they had made it up. Lionel had made peace between the sisters, and Stella had agreed to stay home more with Antha, and not to spend so much money, or make so much noise. The money seems to have been a matter of particular concern to Carlotta, who thought filling an entire swimming pool with champagne was "a sin."