The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,347

bow out.”

“But what did I do? What did I say? Beatrice is an impossible gossip. She tells everyone those stories. I haven’t repeated anything that wasn’t common knowledge.”

“You’ve done a fine job. But there are dangers. Definite dangers. Just do as I say.”

“Oh, she told you that about Carlotta killing people. That’s nonsense. Carlotta’s an old stick. To hear her tell it, Carlotta went to New York and killed Deirdre’s father, Sean Lacy. Now, that is sheer nonsense!”

I repeated my warnings, or orders, for what they were worth.

The following day I drove out to Metairie, parked my car, and took a walk in the quiet streets around Cortland’s house. Except for the large oak trees and the soft velvet green of the grass, the neighborhood had nothing of the atmosphere of New Orleans. It might as well have been a rich suburb near Houston, Texas, or Oklahoma City. Very beautiful, very restful, very seemingly safe. I saw nothing of Deirdre. I hoped she was happy in this wholesome place.

I was convinced that I must see her from afar before I attempted to speak to her. In the meantime, I tried to make direct contact with Cortland, but he did not return my calls. Finally his secretary told me he did not want to talk to me, that he had heard I’d been talking to his cousins and he wished that I would leave the family alone.

I was undecided as to whether I should press the matter with Cortland. Same old questions that always plague us at such junctures—what were my obligations, my goals? I left the message finally that I had a great deal of information about the Mayfair family, going back to the 1600s, and would welcome an interview. I never received a response.

The following week, I learned from Juliette Milton that Deirdre had just left for Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas, where Rhonda Mayfair’s husband, Ellis Clement, taught English to small classes of well-bred girls. Carlotta was absolutely against it; it had been done without her permission, and Carlotta was not speaking to Cortland.

Cortland had driven Deirdre to Texas, and remained long enough to see that she was comfortable in the home of Rhonda Mayfair and Ellis Clement, and then came home.

It was not difficult for us to ascertain that Deirdre had been admitted as a “special student,” educated at home. She had been assigned a private room in the freshman dormitory, and was registered for a full schedule of routine course work.

I arrived in Denton two days later. Texas Woman’s University was a lovely little school situated on low rolling green hills with vine-covered brick buildings, and neatly tended lawns. It was quite impossible to believe that it was a state institution.

At the age of thirty-six, with prematurely gray hair and addicted to well-tailored linen suits, I found it effortlessly easy to roam about the campus probably passing for a faculty member to anyone who took notice. I stopped on benches for long periods to write in my notebook. I browsed in the small open library. I wandered the halls of the old buildings, exchanging pleasantries with a few elderly women teachers and with fresh-faced young women in blouses and pleated skirts.

I caught my first glimpse of Deirdre unexpectedly on the second day after my arrival. She came out of the freshman dormitory, a modest Georgian-style building, and walked for about an hour around the campus—a lovely young woman with long loose black hair, strolling idly up and down small winding paths beneath old trees. She wore the usual cotton blouse and skirt.

Seeing her at last overwhelmed me with confusion. I was glimpsing a great celebrity. And as I followed her, at a remove, I suffered unanticipated agonies over what I was doing. Should I leave this woman alone? Should I tell her what I knew of her early history? What right had I to be here?

In silence, I watched her return to her dormitory. The following morning, I followed her to the first of her classes, and then afterwards into a large basement canteen area where she drank coffee alone at a small table and put nickels into the jukebox over and over to play one selection repeatedly—a mournful Gershwin tune sung by Nina Simone.

It seemed to me she was enjoying her freedom. She read for a while, then sat looking around her. I found myself utterly unable to move from the chair and go towards her. I dreaded frightening her. How terrible to discover