The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,341

begged for shock treatment, and was given it twice. She was at this point almost seventeen.

From what we know of medical practice at this period, we can safely conclude that these treatments involved a higher voltage than is common now; they were probably very dangerous, resulting in a loss of memory for hours if not days.

Why a whole course was not pursued as was the custom we do not know. Cortland was dead set against the shock treatment, or so he told Beatrice Mayfair. He couldn’t believe in something so drastic for one so young.

“What is wrong with that girl?” Juliette asked Beatrice finally, to which Beatrice answered, “Nobody knows, darling. Nobody knows.”

Carlotta brought Deirdre home from the asylum, and there she languished for another month.

Relentless canvassing by our investigators indicated that a dark shadowy figure was often seen with Deirdre in the garden. A deliveryman from Solari’s grocery was “scared out of his wits” as he was leaving the property when he saw “that wild-eyed girl and that man” in the tall bamboo thicket by the old pool.

A spinster who lived on Prytania Street saw the pair in the chapel after dark. “I told Miss Belle. I stopped by the gate the following morning. I didn’t think it was quite proper. It had happened in the evening, just after dark. I went into the chapel to light a candle and say my rosary as I always do, and there she was in a back pew with this man. I could scarcely see them at first. I was a little frightened. Then when she got up and hurried out I saw her clearly under the street lamp. It was Deirdre Mayfair. I don’t know what happened to the young man.”

Several other persons reported similar sightings. The images were always the same—Deirdre and the mysterious young man in the shadows. Deirdre and the mysterious young man flushed from their place, or peering out at the stranger in an unsettling manner. We have fifteen different variations on these two themes.

Some of these stories reached Beatrice on Esplanade Avenue. “I don’t know if anyone is watching out for her. And she is so … so well developed physically,” she told Juliette. Juliette went with Beatrice to First Street.

“The girl was wandering in the garden. Beatrice went up to the fence and called to her. For a few minutes she didn’t seem to know who Bea was. Then she went to get the key to the gate. Of course Bea did all the talking after that. But the girl is shockingly beautiful. It has to do with the strangeness of her personality as much as anything else. She seems wild and deeply suspicious of people, and at the same time keenly interested in things about her. She fell in love with a cameo I was wearing. I gave it to her, and she was absolutely childlike in her delight. I hesitate to add that she was barefoot and wearing a filthy cotton dress.”

As fell came on, there were more reports of fights and screaming. Neighbors went so far as to call the police on two different occasions. Of the first occasion in September I was personally able, two years later, to obtain a full account.

“I didn’t like going there,” the officer told me. “You know, bothering these Garden District families just isn’t my line. And that lady really put us through it at the front door. It was Carlotta Mayfair, the one they call Miss Carl; the one who works for the judge.

“ ‘Who called you here? What do you want? Who are you? Let me see your identification. I’ll have to talk to Judge Byrnes about this if you come here again.’ Finally my partner said that people had heard the young lady in the house screaming, and we would like to talk to her and make certain for ourselves she was all right. I thought Miss Carl was going to kill him on the spot. But she went and got the young girl, Deirdre Mayfair, the one they talk about. She was crying and shaking all over. She said to my partner, C. J., ‘You make her give me my mother’s things. She took my mother’s things.’

“Miss Carl said she had had enough of this ‘intrusion,’ that this was a family argument and the police weren’t needed here. If we didn’t leave, she’d call Judge Byrnes. Then this girl, Deirdre, ran out of the house and towards the squad car. ‘Take me