The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,335

police. “That darling baby needs me now.”

Indeed she took care of Deirdre Mayfair until the girl was five years old.

Finally, Cortland told Beatrice and Amanda to leave Carlotta in peace. Carlotta was the only witness to what had happened. And whatever had gone on that afternoon, surely Antha’s death had been a terrible accident. What could anyone do?

No true investigation followed the death of Antha. There had been no autopsy. When the undertaker became suspicious after examining the corpse and concluding that Antha’s facial scratches were not self-inflicted, he contacted the family doctor and was advised or told to let the matter drop. Antha was insane, that was the unofficial verdict. All her life she had been unstable. She had been committed to Bellevue and St. Ann’s Asylum. She had depended upon others to care for her and her child.

After Stella’s death, the Mayfair emerald was never mentioned in connection with Antha. No relative or friend ever reported seeing it. Sean Lacy never painted Antha with it. No one in New York had ever heard of it.

But when Antha died she had the emerald around her neck.

The question is obvious. Why was Antha wearing the emerald on that day of all days? Was it the wearing of the emerald that precipitated the fatal argument? And if the scratch marks on Antha’s face were not self-inflicted, did Carlotta try to scratch out Antha’s eyes, and if so why?

Whatever the case, the house on First Street was once again shrouded in secrecy. Antha’s plans for a restoration were never carried out. After furious arguments in the offices of Mayfair and Mayfair—Carlotta stormed out once, actually breaking the glass on the door—Cortland went so far as to petition the court for custody of baby Deirdre. Clay Mayfair’s grandson Alexander also came forward. He and his wife, Eileen, had a lovely mansion in Metairie. They could officially adopt the child or just take her informally, whatever Carlotta would allow.

Amanda Grady Mayfair told our undercover society man, Allan Carver, “Cortland wants me to go home to take care of the baby. I tell you I feel so sorry for that baby. But I can’t go back to New Orleans after all these years.”

Carlotta all but laughed in the face of these “do-gooders,” as she called them. She told the judge and indeed anyone in the family who asked her that Antha had been gravely ill. It was a congenital insanity, without question, and might well surface in Antha’s little girl. She had no intention of allowing anyone to take Deirdre out of her mother’s house, or away from darling Miss Flanagan, or from dear sweet Belle, or darling Millie, all of whom adored the child, and had time on their hands to care for her day in and day out as no one else could.

When Cortland refused to back down, Carlotta threatened him directly. His wife had left him, hadn’t she? Wouldn’t the family like to know after all these years just what sort of a man Cortland was? Cousins pondered her slurs and innuendoes. The judge in the case became “impatient.” To his mind, Carlotta Mayfair was a woman of impeccable virtue and excellent judgment. Why couldn’t this family accept the situation? Good Lord, if every orphan baby had aunts as sweet as Millie and Belle and Carlotta, this would be a better world.

The legacy was left in the hands of Mayfair and Mayfair, and the child was left in the hands of Carlotta. And the matter was abruptly closed.

Only one other assault on Carlotta’s authority was ever attempted. It was in 1945.

Cornell Mayfair, one of the New York cousins and a descendant of Lestan, had just finished his residency at Massachusetts General. He was training to be a psychiatrist. He had heard “incredible stories” about the First Street house from his cousin (by marriage) Amanda Grady Mayfair. And also from Louisa Ann Mayfair, Garland’s eldest granddaughter who went to Radcliffe and had an affair with Cornell while she was there. What was all this talk of congenital insanity? Cornell was fascinated. Also he was still in love with Louisa Ann, who had gone back to New Orleans rather than marry him and live in Massachusetts, and he could not understand the girl’s devotion to her home. He wanted to visit New Orleans and the family at First Street, and the New York cousins thought it was a good idea.

“Who knows?” he told Amanda over lunch at the Waldorf. “Maybe I’ll like the city,