The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,287

And sure enough, I’d open the box, and I can tell you this happened more than once, and there’d be some little thing I so wanted with all my heart. Why, one time it was a tiny Infant Jesus of Prague she gave me, all dressed in silk and satin, and another time, the most beautiful rosary of crystal and silver. Ah, what a child. What a strange child.

“But it was God’s will, she stopped coming as the years went on. She had a governess all the time teaching her, and I think she was bored with St. Alphonsus, and they said she could get the chauffeur to drive her anywhere that she pleased. Lionel didn’t go to high school either as I recollect. He started just running around with Stella, and seems it was about that time or maybe a little after that old Mr. Julien died.

“Oh, how that child cried at his funeral. We didn’t go to the cemetery of course, none of the sisters did in those days, but we went to the Mass, and there was Stella, slumped over in the pew, just sobbing, and Carlotta holding her. You know, after Stella died, they said Carlotta never liked her. But Carlotta was never mean to that child. Never. And I remember at Julien’s Mass, the way Carlotta held her sister, and Stella just cried and cried and cried.

“Miss Mary Beth, she was in a trance of sorts. It was deep grief I saw in her eyes as she came down the aisle after the coffin. She had the children with her, but it was a faraway look I saw in her eye. ’Course her husband wasn’t with her, no, not him. Judge McIntyre never was with her when she needed him, or at least that’s how I heard it. He was dead drunk when old Mr. Julien passed, they couldn’t even wake him up, though they shook him and threw cold water on him and stood him up out of the bed. And on the day of the funeral, the man was nowhere to be seen at all. Heard later they’d carried him home from a tavern on Magazine Street. It’s a wonder that man lived as long as he did.”

Sister Bridget Marie’s view of Carlotta’s affection for her sister has been corroborated by many witnesses, though of course Richard Llewellyn would not have agreed. There are several accounts of Julien’s funeral, and in all of them, Carlotta is mentioned as holding on to her sister, and even wiping her tears.

In the months following Julien’s death, Lionel left school altogether and he and Stella went to Europe, with Cortland and Barclay, making the Atlantic crossing on a great luxury liner only months before the outbreak of the Great War.

As travel in continental Europe was all but impossible, the party spent several weeks in Scotland, visiting Donnelaith Castle, and then set out for more exotic climes. At considerable risk, they made their way to Africa, spent some time in Cairo and Alexandria, and then went on to India, sending home countless crates of carpets, statuary, and other relics as they went along.

In 1915, Barclay, sorely missing his family, and very weary of traveling, left the party and made the dangerous crossing back to New York. The Lusitania had only just been sunk by a German U-boat, and the family held its breath for Barclay’s safety, but he soon turned up at the house on First Street with fabulous stories to tell.

Conditions were no better six months later when Cortland, Stella, and Lionel decided to come home. However, luxury liners were making the crossing in spite of all dangers, and the trio managed to make the journey without mishap, arriving in New Orleans just before Christmas of 1916.

Stella was then fifteen years old.

In a photograph taken that year, Stella is wearing the Mayfair emerald. It was common knowledge that she was the designee of the legacy. Mary Beth seems to have been exceptionally proud of her, called her “the intrepid” on account of her wanderings, and though she was disappointed that Lionel did not want to go back to school with a view to going on to Harvard, she seemed to have been accepting of all her children. Carlotta had her own apartment in one of the outbuildings, and went to Loyola University every day in a chauffeur-driven car.

Anyone passing on Chestnut Street in the evening could see the family, through the windows, seated at dinner, an enormous