Rice, Anne - The Witching Hour

by Greyspid

  Amanda eventually left Cortland when their youngest son, Pierce Mayfair, finished Harvard in 1935, leaving New Orleans forever and going to live with her younger sister, Mary Margaret Grady Harris, in New York.

  In 1936 Amanda told one of our investigators at a cocktail party (a casual chance meeting had been arranged) that her husband’s family was evil, that if she were to tell the truth about it people would think she was crazy, and that she would never go south again to be among those people, no matter how much her sons begged her to do so A little later during the evening, when she was quite intoxicated, she asked our investigator, whose name she did not know, whether or not he believed people could sell their souls to the devil She said that her husband had done it, and he was ’richer than Rockefeller’ and so was she and so were her sons ‘They will all burn in hell some day,’ she told him ‘Of that you can be sure’

  When our investigator asked if the lady really believed this sort of thing, she replied that there were witches alive in the modern world who could throw spells.

  ‘They can make you believe you are some place you aren’t, that you’re seeing things when there’s nothing there They did that to my husband And you know why’ Because my husband is a witch, a powerful witch Don’t quibble over words like warlock It doesn’t matter The man is a witch I myself saw what he could do’

  Asked point-blank if her husband had ever done any evil to her, Cortland’s wife said (to this apparent stranger) that no, she had to confess he hadn’t It was what he condoned in others, what he went along with, and what he believed She then began to cry and to say that she missed her husband, and she didn’t want to talk about it anymore

  ‘I’ll tell you this much,’ she said when she had recovered herself slightly ‘If I wanted my husband to come to me tonight, he’d do it How he’d do it I couldn’t tell you, but he could make himself material in this very room All his family can do things like that They could drive you out of your mind with it But he’d be here in this very room Sometimes he’s in the room with me when I don’t want him to be And I can’t make him go away’

  At this point the lady was rescued by a Grady niece, and no further contact was ever accomplished until some years later

  One further circumstance argues for a close bond between Cortland and Stella, and that is that after Julien’s death, Cortland took Stella and her brother Lionel to England and to Asia, for well over a year Cortland already had five children at this time, all of which he left behind with his wife Yet he seems to have been the instigator of this trip, and was completely in charge of the arrangements and greatly prolonged the venture so that the party did not actually return to New Orleans for some eighteen months.

  After the Great War, Cortland left his wife and children again to travel for a year with Stella And he seems always to have been on Stella’s side in family disputes.

  In sum, this evidence is certainly not conclusive, but it does indicate Cortland might have been Stella’s father But then again, Julien, in spite of his great age, may have been her father We don’t know

  Whatever the case, Stella was pretty much ‘the favorite child’ from the time of her birth Daniel McIntyre certainly seems to have loved her as if she were his own daughter, and it is entirely possible that he never knew she was not

  Of the early childhood of all three children, we know little that is specific, and Richard Llewellyn’s portrait is the most intimate we possess

  As the children grew older, there was more and more talk about dissension, however, and when Carlotta went to board at the Sacred Heart at the age of fourteen, everyone knew it was against Mary Beth’s wishes, and that Daniel, too, was heartbroken, and wanted his daughter to come home more often than she did Carlotta is never described as a happy child by anyone But it is difficult to this day to gather information about her, because she is still living, and even people who knew her fifty years ago are extremely afraid of her, and of her influence, and very reluctant to say anything about her at all.

  The people who are willing to talk are those who most dislike her Possibly if the others were not so afraid, we might hear something to balance the picture.

  Whatever the case, Carlotta was admired for her brilliance from the time she was a little girl She was even called a genius by the nuns who taught her She boarded at Sacred Heart through high school, and went on to Loyola law school when she was very young.

  Meantime, Lionel began attending day school when he was eight years old He seems to have been a quiet, well-behaved boy who never gave anyone very much trouble, and to have been liked He had a full-time tutor to assist him with his homework, and as time passed, he became something of an exceptional student But he never made friends outside the family His cousins were his only companions when he wasn’t at school.

  The history of Stella was markedly different from the start By all accounts Stella was a particularly beguiling and seductive child She had soft black rippling hair and enormous black eyes When one considers the numerous photographs of her from 1901 to her death in 1929, it seems impossible to imagine her living in any other era, so suited to the times was she with her slender boyish hips, pouty little red mouth, and bobbed hair.

  In her earliest pictures she is the image of the luscious child in the Pears Soap advertisements, a white-skinned little temptress, gazing soulfully yet playfully at the spectator By the time she was eighteen, she was Clara Bow

  On the night of her death, she was, according to numerous eyewitnesses, a femme fatale of unforgettable power, dancing the Charleston wildly in her short fringed skirt and glittering stockings, flashing her enormous jewelike eyes on everyone and no one as she commanded the attention of every man in the room.

  When Lionel was sent off to school, Stella begged to be allowed to go to school also, or so she told the nuns at Sacred Heart herself. But within three months of her admission as a day student she was privately and unofficially expelled The talk was that she frightened the other students She could read their minds, and she enjoyed demonstrating the power, and also she could fling people about without touching them, and she had an unpredictable sense of humor and would laugh at things the nuns said which she considered to be blatant lies Her conduct was mortifying to Carlotta, who was powerless to control her, though by all accounts Carlotta also loved Stella, and did make every effort to persuade Stella to fit the mold

  It may be surprising to learn in light of all this that the nuns and the children at Sacred Heart actually liked Stella Numerous classmates remember her fondly, and even with delight.

  When she wasn’t up to her tricks she was ‘charming’, ‘sweet,’ absolutely ‘lovable’, ‘a darling little girl ’

  But nobody could stand being around her very long.

  Stella next attended the Ursuline Academy long enough to make her First Communion with the class, but was expelled immediately after in the same private and unofficial manner and more or less for the same complaints This time, apparently, she was crushed at being sent home, because she regarded school as great fun, and she did not like to be about the house all day with her mother and Uncle Julien telling her they were busy She wanted to play with other children Her governesses annoyed her She wanted to go out.

  Stella then attended four different private schools, spending no more than three or four months in each before ending up at the St Alphonsus parochial school, where she was the only one, among an Irish-American proletarian student body, to be driven to school each day in a chauffeured Packard limousine.

  Sister Bridget Marie - an Irish-born nun who lived at Mercy Hospital in New Orleans until she was ninety - remembered Stella vividly, even fifty years afterwards, and told this investigator in 1969 that Stella Mayfair was undoubtedly some sort of witch.

  Once again, Stella was accused of reading minds, of laughing when people lied to her, of flinging things about by the power of the mind, and talking to an invisible friend, ’a familiar’ according to Sister Bridget Marie, who did Stella’s bidding, which included
finding lost objects and making things fly through the air

  But Stella’s manifestation of these powers was by no means continuous She often tried to behave herself for long periods, she enjoyed reading and history and English, she liked to play with the other girls in the school yard on St Andrew Street, and she liked the nuns very much.

  The nuns found themselves seduced by Stella They let her into the convent garden to cut flowers with them, or took her into the parlor after school to teach her embroidery, for which she had a knack.

  ‘You know what she was up to7 I’ll tell you Every sister in that convent felt that Stella was her special little friend She led you to believe that She told you little secrets about herself, just as if she’d never told them to another soul And she knew all about you, she did She knew things you’d never told anyone, and she’d talk to you about your secrets and your fears and the things you always wanted to tell someone, and she’d make you feel better about it And later, hours later, or maybe even days later, you’d think about it, think about what it had been like to be sitting there in the garden whispering with her, and you’d know she was a witch’ She was from the devil And she was up to no good.

  ‘But she wasn’t mean, I’ll say this much for her She wasn’t mean If she had been, she’d have been a monster, that one God knows the evil she might have done I don’t think she really wanted to make trouble But she took a secret pleasure in her powers, if you know what I mean She liked knowing your secrets She liked seeing the look of amazement when she told you what you dreamed the night before.

  ‘And oh, how she pitched herself into things She would draw pictures all day long for weeks on end, then throw out the pencils and never draw another thing Then it was embroidery with her, she had to learn it, and she’d make the most beautiful thing, fussing at herself for the least little mistake, then throw down the needles and be done with that forevermore I never saw a child so changeable It was as though she was looking for something, something to which she could give herself, and she never found it Least ways not while she was a little girl.

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing she loved to do, and she never tired of it, and that was to tell stories to the other girls They’d gather around her at big recess, and she’d keep them hanging on her every word until the bell rang And such stories they were that she told them ghost stories of old plantation houses full of horrible secrets, and people foully murdered, and of voodoo in the islands long years ago She knew stories of pirates, oh, they were the worst, the things she would tell about the pirates It was positively shocking And all this had the ring of truth to it, to hear her tell it But you knew she had to be making it up What did she know of the thoughts and feelings of some group of poor souls on a captured galleon in the hours before a brute of a pirate made them walk the plank?

  ‘But I’ll tell you, some of the things she said were most interesting, and I always wanted to ask someone else about them, you know, someone who read the history books and really knew.

  ‘But the girls had nightmares from the things she told them and wouldn’t you know it, the parents were coming and asking us, "Now, Sister, where did my little girl ever hear such a thing!"

  ‘We were always calling Miss Mary Beth "Keep her home for a few days," we’d ask For that was the thing about Stella You couldn’t take it day in and day out Nobody could take it.

  ‘And thank the Lord she’d get tired of school and disappear on her own for months at a time.

  ‘Sometimes it went on so long we thought she was never coming back We heard she was running wild over there on First and Chestnut, playing with the servants’ children and making a voodoo altar with the cook’s son, him black as coal, you can be sure of it, and we’d think, well, somebody ought to go round and talk to Miss Mary Beth about it.

  ‘Then lo and behold, one morning, perhaps ten o’clock it would be the child never did care what time she came to school the limousine would appear on the corner of Constance and Saint Andrew and out would step Stella in her little uniform, a perfect doll, if you can imagine, but with a great big ribbon in her hair And what would she have with her, but a sack of gaily wrapped presents for each of the sisters she knew by name, and hugs for all of us, too, you can be sure of it "Sister Bridget Marie," she’d whisper in my ear, "I missed you " 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 Juhen 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 Juhen’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 Juhen 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 Juhen’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 Juhen’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 Lusitama 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

  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 w
ent 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 gathering, waited on by numerous servants, and always lasting until quite late.

  Family loyalty always has made it very difficult for us to determine what the cousins actually thought of Stella, or what they actually knew of her troubles at school.

  But by this time, there are numerous mentions on record of Mary Beth telling the servants almost casually that Stella was the heiress, or that ‘Stella was the one who would inherit everything,’ and even the remarkable comment - one of the most remarkable in our entire record quoted twice and without context ‘Stella has seen the man ’.

  We have no record of Mary Beth’s ever explaining this strange statement We are told only that she made it to a laundress named Mildred Collins, and to an Irish maid named Patricia Devlin, and we received the stories third-hand We were further given to understand that there was no agreement among the descendants of these two women as to what the famous Miss Mary Beth meant by this comment One person believed ‘the man’ to be the devil, and another that he was ’a ghost’ who had haunted the family for hundreds of years.

  Whatever the case, it seems clear that Mary Beth made remarks like this offhandedly at intimate moments with her servants, and we get the impression that she was confiding something to them, in a moment perhaps of understanding with them, which she could not or would not confide in people of her own rank.

  And it is very possible that Mary Beth made similar remarks to other people, for by the 19203 old people in the Irish Channel knew about ‘the man ’ They talked about ‘the man ’ Two sources are simply not enough to explain the extent of this supposed ‘superstition’ about the Mayfair women that they had a mysterious ’male spirit or ally’ who helped them work their voodoo or witchcraft or tricks.

  Certainly, we see this as an unmistakable reference to Lasher, and its implications are troubling, and it reminds us of how little we really understand about the Mayfair Witches and what went on among them, so to speak.