The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,281

numerous records attest to his having advised Julien well in a variety of business ventures. He also represented Julien successfully in several crucial civil suits. And we have one very interesting little anecdote told to us years later by a clerk in the firm to the effect that, about one of these civil suits, Julien and Daniel had a terrible argument in which Daniel repeatedly said, “Now Julien, let me handle this legally!” to which Julien repeatedly replied, “All right, if you are so damned set on doing it, then do it. But I tell you I could very easily make this man wish he had never been born.”

Public records also indicate that Daniel was highly imaginative in finding ways for Julien to do things he wanted to do, and for helping him discover information about people who opposed him in business.

On February 11, 1897, when Daniel’s mother died, he moved out of their uptown St. Charles Avenue home, leaving his sister in the care of nurses and maids, and took up residence in an ostentatious and lavish four-room suite at the old St. Louis Hotel. There he began to live “like a king,” according to bellhops and waiters and taxi drivers who received enormous tips from Daniel and served him expensive meals in his parlor which fronted on the street.

Julien Mayfair was Daniel’s most frequent visitor, and he often stayed the night in Daniel’s suite.

If this arrangement aroused any enmity or disapproval in Garland or Cortland, we know nothing of it. They became partners in the firm of McIntyre, Murphy, Murphy, and Mayfair, and after the retirement of the two Murphy brothers, and the appointment of Daniel to the bench, Garland and Cortland became the firm of Mayfair and Mayfair. In later decades, they devoted their entire energies to the management of Mayfair money, and they were almost partners with Mary Beth in numerous ventures; though there were other ventures in which Mary Beth was involved of which Garland and Cortland apparently knew nothing.

Daniel was already by this time a heavy drinker, and there are numerous accounts of hotel staff members having to help him to his suite. Cortland also kept an eye on him continuously, and in later years when Daniel bought a motor car, it was Cortland who was always offering to drive Daniel home so that he wouldn’t kill himself or someone else. Cortland seems to have liked Daniel very much. He was the defender of Daniel to the rest of the family, which became—over the years—an ever more demanding role.

We have no evidence that Mary Beth ever met Daniel during this early period. She had already become very active in business, but the family had numerous lawyers and connections, and we have no testimony to indicate that Daniel ever came to the First Street house. It may have been that he was embarrassed by his relationship with Julien, and a bit more puritanical about such things in general than Julien’s other lovers had been.

He was certainly the only one of Julien’s lovers of whom we know who had a professional career of his own.

Whatever the explanation, he met Mary Beth Mayfair in late 1897, and Richard Llewellyn’s version of the meeting—in Storyville—is the only one we have. We do not know whether or not they fell in love as Llewellyn insisted, but we do know that Mary Beth and Daniel began to appear together at numerous social affairs.

Mary Beth was by that time about twenty-five years old and extremely independent. And it was no secret that little Belle—the child of the mysterious Scottish Lord Mayfair—was not right in the head. Though very sweet and amiable, Belle was obviously unable to learn even simple things, and reacted emotionally to life forever as though she were about four years old, or so the cousins later described it. People hesitated to use the word feebleminded.

Everyone knew of course that Belle was not an appropriate designee for the legacy as she might never marry. And the cousins discussed this fairly openly at the time.

Another Mayfair tragedy was also a topic of conversation and that was the destruction, by the river, of the plantation of Riverbend.

The house, built by Marie Claudette before the beginning of the century, was built on a thumb of land jutting into the river, and sometime around 1896 it became clear that the river was determined to take this thumb of land. Everything was tried, but nothing could be done. The levee had to be built