The Witching Hour by Anne Rice
Family legend avers that Mary Beth was extremely kind to Daniel in the last years of their lives.
From this point on the story of the Mayfair Witches is really Stella's story, and we will deal with Mary Beth's final illness and death at the proper time.
THE CONTINUING STORY OF STELLA AND MARY BETH
Mary Beth continued to enjoy her three main pursuits in life, and also to derive a great deal of pleasure from the antics of her daughter Stella, who at sixteen became something of a scandal in New Orleans society, driving her automobiles at breakneck speed, drinking in speakeasies, and dancing till dawn.
For eight years Stella lived the life of a flapper, or a young reckless southern belle, utterly unperturbed by business concerns or thoughts of marriage or any future. And whereas Mary Beth was the most quiet and mysterious witch ever produced by the family, Stella seems the most carefree, the most flamboyant, the most daring, and the only Mayfair Witch ever bent entirely upon "having fun."
Family legend holds that Stella was arrested all the time for speeding, or for disturbing the peace with her singing and dancing in the streets, and that "Miss Carlotta always took care of it," going to get Stella and bring her home. There is some gossip to the effect that Cortland sometimes became impatient with his "niece," demanding that she straighten up and pay more attention to her "responsibilities," but Stella had not the slightest interest in money or business.
A secretary for Mayfair and Mayfair describes in vivid detail one of Stella's visits to the office, when she appeared in a dashing fur coat and very high heels, with a bottle of bootleg whiskey in a brown paper bag from which she drank all during the meeting, erupting into wild laughter at all the funny legal phrases read out to her regarding the transaction involved.
Cortland seemed to have been charmed, but also a little weary. Finally, in a good-natured way, he told Stella to go on to her luncheon, and he would take care of the whole thing.
If there, was ever anyone who did not find Stella "bewitching" and "attractive" during this period, other than Carlotta Mayfair, we have not heard of such a person.
In 1921 Stella apparently "got pregnant," but by whom no one was ever to know. It might have been Lionel, and certainly family legend indicates that everyone suspected it at the time.
Whatever the case, Stella announced that she didn't need a husband, wasn't interested in marriage in general, and would have her baby with all appropriate pomp and ceremony, as she was utterly delighted at the prospect of being a mother, and would name the baby Julien if it was a boy or Antha if it was a girl.
Antha was born in November of 1921, a healthy, eight-pound baby girl. Blood tests indicate that Lionel could have been the father. But Antha in no way resembled Lionel, for what that is worth, and there is simply something wrong with the picture of Lionel being the father. But more on that as we go on.
In 1922 the Great War was over, and Stella declared that she would make the Grand Tour of Europe which she had been denied before. With a nurse for the baby, and Lionel in tow quite reluctantly (he had been reading law with Cortland and he did not want to go), and Cortland happy to take off from the firm though his wife disliked his doing it, the party went to Europe first class, and spent a full year wandering about.
Stella was now an exceptionally beautiful young girl with a reputation for doing anything that she pleased. Cortland, as he grew older, more and more resembled his father Julien, except that his hair remained black until the end of his long life. In his photographs Cortland is lean and handsome at this period. The resemblance between him and Stella was frequently remarked upon.
According to the gossip of Cortland's descendants, the Grand Tour was a drunken bash from start to finish, with Stella and Lionel gambling at Monte Carlo for weeks on end. In and out of luxury hotels all over Europe they went, and in and out of museums and ancient ruins, often carrying their bottles of bourbon with them in paper sacks. To this day the grandchildren of Cortland talk about his letters home, full of humorous descriptions of their antics. And countless presents arrived for Cortland's wife, Amanda, and his sons.
Family legend also maintains that the party suffered one tragedy while abroad. The nurse who went along to take care of baby Antha experienced some sort of "breakdown" while they were in Italy, and took a severe fall on the Spanish Steps in Rome. She died in the hospital within hours of the fall.
Only recently have our investigators been able to shed some light on this incident, uncovering a simple written record (in Italian) of the incident in the Holy Family Hospital in Rome.
The woman's name was Bertha Marie Becker. And we have verified that she was half Irish and half German, born in New Orleans in the Irish Channel in 1905. She was admitted with severe head wounds and went into a coma about two hours afterwards from which she never revived.
But before that time she did a considerable amount of talking to the English-speaking doctor who was called to assist her and to the English-speaking priest who arrived later on.
She told the doctors that Stella, Lionel, and Cortland were "witches" and "evil" and that they had cast a spell on her and that "a ghost" traveled with the party, a dark evil man who appeared by baby Antha's cradle at all hours of the night and day. She said the baby could make the man appear, and would laugh with delight when he stood over her; and that the man did not want Bertha to see him, and he had driven Bertha to her death, stalking her through the crowds at the Spanish Steps.
The doctor and the priest concurred that Bertha, an illiterate servant girl, was insane. Indeed the record ends with the doctor noting that the girl's employers, very gracious, well-to-do people who spared no expense to make her comfortable, were heartbroken at her deterioration, and arranged for her body to be shipped home.
To our knowledge no one in New Orleans ever heard this story. Only Bertha's mother was living at the time of the girl's death, and she apparently suspected nothing when she heard that her daughter had died from a fall. She was given an enormous sum of money by Stella in compensation for her lost daughter, and descendants of the Becker family were talking about that as late as 1955.
What interests us about the story is that the dark man is obviously Lasher. And except for the one mention of a mysterious man in a taxi with Mary Beth, we have no other mention of him in the twentieth century before this time.
The truly remarkable thing about this story is that the nurse said the baby could make the man appear. One wonders if Stella had any control over the situation. And what would have been Mary Beth's thoughts on the subject? Again, we shall never know. Poor Bertha Marie Becker faced it entirely alone, or so the record appears to show.
In spite of the tragedy the party did not return home. Cortland wrote a "sad letter" about the whole affair to his wife and sons, and explained that they had hired a "lovely Italian woman" who took better care of Antha than Bertha, poor child, had ever managed to do.
This Italian woman, who was in her thirties at the time, was named Maria Magdalene Gabrielli, and she returned with the family and was Antha's nurse until the girl was nine years old.
If she ever saw Lasher we don't know anything about it. She lived at First Street until she died, and never spoke to anyone outside the family as far as we know. Family legend holds she was highly educated, could read and write both English and French as well as Italian, and had "a scandal in her past."
Cortland finally left the party in 1923, when the trio had arrived in New York, and there Stella and Lionel, along with Antha and her nurse, remained in Greenwich Village, where Stella took up with numerous intellectuals and artists, and even did some painting of her own, which she always called "quite atrocious" and some writing, "hideous." and some sculpture, "absolute trash." At last she settled down to simply enjoying the company of truly creative individuals.
Every source of gossip in New York avers that Stella was extremely generous. She gave huge "handouts" to various painters and poets. She bought one penniless friend a typewriter and another an easel,
During this time Lionel resumed his studies, reading constitutional law with one of the New York Mayfairs (a descendant of Clay Mayfair, who had joined descendants of Lestan Mayfair in a New York firm). Lionel also spent considerable time in the museums of New York City, and he frequently dragged Stella to the opera, which had begun to bore her, and to the symphony, which she liked only a little better, and to the ballet, which she did genuinely enjoy.
Family legend among the New York Mayfairs (available to us only now, as no one would talk at the time) depicts Lionel and Stella as absolutely devil-may-care and charming, people of tireless energy who entertained continuously, and often woke up other members of the family with early morning knocks on the door.
Two photographs taken in New York show Stella and Lionel as a happy, smiling duo. Lionel was all his life a slender man, and as indicated he inherited Judge McIntyre's remarkable green eyes and strawberry blond hair. He did not in any way resemble Stella and it was remarked more than once by those who knew them that sometimes newcomers into the crowd were shocked to discover that Lionel and Stella were brother and sister; they had presumed them to be something else.
If Stella had any particular lover, we know nothing of it. In fact, Stella's name was never coupled with that of anyone else (up till this point) except Lionel, though Stella was believed to be absolutely careless with her favors where young men were concerned. We have accounts of two different young artists falling passionately in love with her, but Stella "refused to be tied down."
What we know of Lionel reinforces over and over again that he was quiet and somewhat withdrawn. He seems to have delighted in watching Stella dance, and laugh, and carry on with her friends. He enjoyed dancing with her himself, which he did all the time and rather well; but he was definitely in Stella's shadow. He seemed to get his vitality from Stella. And when Stella wasn't around, he was "like an empty mirror." You hardly knew he was there.
There are several rumors that he was writing a novel while they were in New York, and that he was quite vulnerable with regard to the matter, and that an older novelist destroyed his confidence by telling him his pages were "pure rot."
But from most sources, we hear only that Lionel enjoyed the arts, that he was a contented human being, and that as long as no one came between him and Stella he was "just fine."
Finally, in 1924, Stella, Lionel, little Antha and her nurse, Maria, came home. Mary Beth threw a huge family party at First Street, and descendants still mention sadly that it was the last affair before Mary Beth took sick.
At this time a very strange incident occurred.
As mentioned, the Talamasca had a team of trained investigators working in New Orleans, private eyes who never asked why they were being asked to gather information on a certain family or a certain house. One of these investigators, a man who specialized in divorce cases, had long let it out among the fashionable photographers of New Orleans that he would pay well for any discarded pictures of the Mayfair family, particularly those who lived in the First Street house.
One of these photographers, Nathan Brand, who had a fashionable studio on St. Charles Avenue, was called to the First Street house for this big homecoming party, and there took a whole series of pictures of Mary Beth, Stella, and Antha, as well as pictures of other Mayfairs throughout the afternoon as a wedding photographer might do.
A week later when he brought the pictures to the house for Mary Beth and Stella to choose what it was they wanted, the women picked out a fair number and laid the discards aside.
But then Stella retrieved one of the discards--a group shot of her with her mother and her daughter in which Mary Beth was holding a big emerald necklace around little Antha's neck. On the back of it, Stella wrote:
"To the Talamasca, with love, Stella! P.S. There are others who watch, too," and then, giving it back to the photographer, she went into peels of laughter, explaining that his investigator friend would know what the writing meant.
The photographer was embarrassed; he claimed innocence, then made excuses for his arrangement with the investigator, but no matter what he said, Stella only laughed. Then Stella said to him in a very charming and reassuring manner, "Mr. Brand, you're working yourself into a fit. Just give the picture to the investigator." And that is what Mr. Brand did.
It reached us about a month later. And was to have a decisive effect upon our approach to the Mayfair family.
At this time the Talamasca had no specific member assigned to the Mayfair investigation, and information was being added to the file by several archivists as it came in. Arthur Langtry--an outstanding scholar and a brilliant student of witchcraft--was familiar with the entire record, but he had been busy all of his adult life with three other cases, which were to obsess him till the day he died.
Nevertheless, the whole family history had been discussed numerous times by the grand council, but the judgment not to make contact had never been lifted. And indeed, it is doubtful that anyone among us at that time knew the full story.
This photograph, with its obvious message, caused quite a stir. A young member of the order, an American from Texas named Stuart Townsend (who had been Anglicized by years of living in London), asked to make a study of the Mayfair Witches with a view to direct investigation, and after careful consideration the entire file was placed in his hands.
Arthur Langtry agreed to reread all the material, but pressing matters kept him from ever doing it, though he was responsible for increasing the number of investigators in New Orleans from three professional private eyes to four and of discovering another excellent contact--a man named Irwin Dandrich, the penniless son of a fabulously rich family, who moved in the highest circles while selling information secretly to anyone who wanted it, including detectives, divorce lawyers, insurance investigators, and even scandal sheets.
Allow me to remind the reader that the file did not then include this narrative, as no such collation of materials had yet been done. It contained Petyr van Abel's letters and diary and a giant compendium of witness testimony, as well as photographs, articles from newspapers, and the like. There was a running chronology, updated periodically by the archivists, but it was very sketchy, to say the least.
Stuart was at that time engaged in several other significant investigations, and it took him some three years to complete his examination of the Mayfair material. We shall return to him and to Arthur Langtry at the appropriate time.
After Stella's return, she began to live very much as she had before she ever went to Europe, that is, she frequented speakeasies, once again gave parties for her friends, was invited to numerous Mardi Gras balls where she created something of a sensation, and in general behaved as the ne'er-do-well femme fatale she had been before.
Our investigators had no trouble at all gathering information about her, because she was highly visible and the subject of gossip all over town. Indeed, Irwin Dandrich wrote to our detective agency connection in London (he never knew to whom his information was going or for what purpose) that all he had to do was step into a ballroom and he heard all about what Stella was up to. A few phone calls made on Saturday morning also provided reams of information.
(It is worth noting here that Dandrich, by all accounts, was not a malicious man. His information has proved to be ninety-nine percent accurate. He was our most voluminous and intimate witness regarding Stella, and though he never said so, one can easily infer from his reports that he went to bed with her numerous times. But he didn't really know her; and she remains at a distance even at the most dramatic and tragic moments described in his reports.)
Thanks to Dandrich and others, the picture of Stella after her return from Europe took on greater and greater detail.
Family legend says that Carlotta severely disapproved of Stella during this period, and argued with Mary Beth about it, and demanded repeatedly and in vain that Stella settle down. Servant gossip (and Dandrich's gossip) corroborated this, but s
Mary Beth is even quoted as saying to one society friend (who promptly passed it on to Dandrich), "Stella is what I would be if I had my life to live over again. I've worked too hard for too little. Let her have her fun."
We must note that Mary Beth was already gravely ill and possibly very tired when she said this. Also she was far too clever a woman not to appreciate the various cultural revolutions of the 1920s, which may be hard for readers of this narrative to appreciate as the twentieth century draws to a close.
The true sexual revolution of the twentieth century began in its tumultuous third decade, with one of the most dramatic changes in female costume the world has ever witnessed. But not only did women abandon their corsets and long skirts; they threw out old-fashioned mores with them, drinking and dancing in speakeasies in a manner which would have been unthinkable only ten years before. The universal adoption of the closed automobile gave everyone unprecedented privacy, as well as freedom of movement. Radio reached into private homes throughout rural as well as urban America. Motion pictures made images of "glamour and wickedness" available to people worldwide. Magazines, literature, drama were all radically transformed by a new frankness, freedom, tolerance, and self-expression.
Surely Mary Beth perceived all this on some level. We have absolutely no reports of her disapproval of the "changing times." Though she never cut her long hair or gave up long skirts (when she wasn't cross-dressing), she begrudged Stella nothing. And Stella was, more than any other member of the family, the absolute embodiment of her times.
In 1925 Mary Beth was diagnosed as having incurable cancer, after which she lived only five months, and most of them in such severe pain that she no longer went out of the house.
Retiring to the north bedroom over the library, she spent her last comfortable days reading the novels she had never got around to reading when she was a girl. Indeed, numerous Mayfair cousins called upon her, bringing her various copies of the classics. And Mary Beth expressed a special interest in the Bronte sisters, in Dickens, which Julien used to read to her when she was little, and in random other English classics, which she seemed determined to read before she died.