The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,279

ordinary fashion.

It is also worth noting that the little children of the family loved Mary Beth. She was photographed scores of times with Stella, Lionel, Belle, Millie Dear, Nancy, and dozens of other little children all around her. And every Sunday for years the south lawn of the First Street property was covered with children tumbling and playing ball and tag while the grown-ups napped inside after dinner.

The third great passion or obsession of Mary Beth’s life, as far as we can determine, was her desire for pleasure. As we have seen, she and Julien enjoyed dancing, parties, the theater, etc. She also had many lovers.

Though family members are absolutely mute on the subject, servant gossip, often coming to us second or thirdhand through friends of the servant’s family, is the largest source of such information. Neighbors also gossiped about “good-looking boys” who were always hanging about, supposedly to do jobs for which they were often utterly unqualified.

And Richard Llewellyn’s story of the gift of the Stutz Bearcat to a young Irish coachman has been verified through simple registration records. The giving of other large gifts—sometimes bank drafts for enormous amounts—also indicate that these good-looking boys were Mary Beth’s lovers. For there are no other explanations as to why she should give five thousand dollars as a Christmas present to a young coachman who could not in fact manage a team; or to a handyman who could never so much as hammer in a nail without assistance.

It is interesting to note that when all the information on Mary Beth is studied as a whole, we have more stories about her sensual appetites than any other aspect of her. In other words, stories about her lovers, her wine drinking, her love of food, and her dancing far outnumber (seventeen to one) stories about her occult powers or her abilities in making money.

But when all the many descriptions of Mary Beth’s love of wine, food, music, dancing, and bed partners are considered, one can see that she behaved more like a man of the period than a woman in this regard, merely pleasing herself as a man might, with little thought for convention or respectability. In sum, there is nothing too unusual about her behavior if one sees it in this light. But of course people at the time did not see it in that light, and they thought her love of pleasure to be rather mysterious and even sinister. She deepened this sense of the mysterious by her casual attitude towards what she did, and her refusal to attach importance to the shallow reactions of others. More than one Mayfair close cousin begged her to “behave” (or so the servants said), and more than once Mary Beth shrugged off this suggestion.

As for her cross-dressing, she did it so long and so well that just about everyone became accustomed to it. In the last years of her life she would often go out in her tweed suit, and with her walking stick, and stroll around the Garden District for hours. She did not bother to pin up her hair any more or hide it beneath a hat. She wore it in a simple twist or bun; and people took her appearance entirely for granted. She was Miss Mary Beth to servants and neighbors for blocks around, walking with her head slightly bowed, and with very big steps, and waving in a lackadaisical fashion to those who greeted her.

As for her lovers, the Talamasca has been able to find out almost nothing about them. Of a young cousin, Alain Mayfair, we know the most, and it is not even certain that he was Mary Beth’s lover. He worked for Mary Beth as a secretary or chauffeur or both from 1911 until 1913, but was frequently in Europe for long periods. He was in his twenties at the time, and very handsome and spoke French very well, but not to Mary Beth, who preferred English. There was some disagreement between him and Mary Beth in 1914, but no one seems to know what it was. He then went to England, joined the forces fighting in World War I, and was killed in combat. His body was never recovered. Mary Beth held an immense memorial service for him at First Street.

Kelly Mayfair, another cousin, also worked for Mary Beth in 1912 and 1913, and continued in her employ until 1918. He was a strikingly handsome red-haired, green-eyed young man (his mother was Irish-born); he took