The witching hour - By Anne Rice Page 0,362

had joked bitterly and sarcastically amongst themselves. “Sure, there’s no man in that house,” one of them said. “Nooooo, no man at all. Just those nice ladies.”

“I’ve never seen a man there, have you?” And so on it went.

“Nope, no man at First Street. No sir!”

When cousins came to call on Deirdre, they were told pretty much the same story that Pierce had told at the funeral. Deirdre was too sick to see them. She hadn’t even wanted to see Cortland, she was so sick. And she didn’t know and mustn’t know that Cortland was dead.

“And look at that dark stairs,” said Millie Dear to Beatrice. “Cortland should have used the elevator. But he never would use the elevator. If he had just used the elevator, he would never have taken such a fall.”

Family legend today indicates that everyone agreed the adoption was for the best. Cortland should have stayed out of it. As Ryan Mayfair, Cortland’s grandson, said, “Poor Deirdre was no more fit to be a mother than the Madwoman of Chaillot. But I think my grandfather felt responsible. He had taken Deirdre to Texas. I think he blamed himself. He wanted to be sure she wanted to give up the baby. But maybe what Deirdre wanted wasn’t the important thing.”

At the time, I dreaded each new piece of news from Louisiana. I lay in bed at night in the Motherhouse thinking ceaselessly of Deirdre, wondering if there were not some way that we could discover what she truly wanted or felt. Scott Reynolds was more adamant than ever that we could not intervene further. Deirdre knew how to reach us. So did Cortland. So did Carlotta Mayfair, for what that was worth. There was nothing further that we could do.

Only in January of 1988, nearly thirty years later, did I learn in an interview with Deirdre’s old school friend Rita Mae Dwyer Lonigan that Deirdre had tried desperately to reach me, and failed.

In 1959, Rita Mae had only just married Jerry Lonigan of Lonigan and Sons funeral home, and when she heard that Deirdre was at home, pregnant, and had already lost the father of her baby, Rita Mae screwed up her courage and went to call. As so many others have been, she was turned away at the door, but not before she saw Deirdre at the top of the stairs. Deirdre called out to Rita Mae desperately:

“Rita Mae, they’re going to take my baby! Rita Mae, help me.” As Miss Nancy sought to force Deirdre back up to the second floor, Deirdre threw a small white card down to Rita Mae. “Contact this man. Get him to help me. Tell him they’re going to take my baby away.”

Carlotta Mayfair physically attacked Rita Mae and tried to get the card away from her, but Rita, even though her hair was being pulled and her face scratched, held it tight as she ran through a hail of leaves out the gate.

When she got home she discovered the card was almost unreadable. Carlotta had torn part of it; and Rita had inadvertently clenched the little card in the moist palm of her hand. Only the word Talamasca, and my name, handwritten on the back, could be made out.

Only in 1988, when I encountered Rita Mae at the funeral of Nancy Mayfair—and gave her a card identical to the one destroyed in 1959—did she recognize the names and call me at my hotel to report what she remembered from that long ago day.

It was heartbreaking to this investigator to learn of Deirdre’s vain plea for help. It was heartbreaking to remember those nights thirty years before when I lay in bed in London thinking, “I cannot help her, but I have to try to help her. But how do I dare to do it? And how could I possibly succeed?”

The fact is I probably could not have done anything to help Deirdre, no matter how hard I might have tried. If Cortland couldn’t stop the adoption, it is sensible to assume that I couldn’t have stopped it either. Yet in my dreams I see myself taking Deirdre out of the First Street house to London. I see her a healthy normal woman today.

The reality is utterly different.

On November 7, 1959, Deirdre gave birth at five o’clock in the morning to Rowan Mayfair, nine pounds, eight ounces, a healthy, fair-haired baby girl. Hours afterwards, emerging from the general anesthesia, Deirdre found her bed surrounded by Ellie Mayfair, Father Lafferty, and