by Greyspid
Rita remembered the long-ago day at St Ro’s, the necklace in Deirdre’s hand. And many years later, Mr Lonigan showing her Stella’s name on the gravestone.
‘And Stella was the one shot by her own brother.’
‘Yes, and that was a terrible thing, to hear Daddy tell it. Stella was the wild one of that generation. Even before her mother died, she filled that old house with lights, with parties going on night after night, with the bootleg booze flowing and the musicians playing. Lord only knows what Miss Carl and Miss Millie and Miss Belle thought of all that. But when she started bringing her men home, that’s when Lionel took matters into his own hands and shot her. Jealous of her is what he was. Right in front of everybody in the parlor, he said, "I’ll kill you before I let him have you.‘"
‘Now what are you telling me,’ Rita said. ‘It was brother and sister going to bed together?’
‘Could have been, honey,’ Jerry said. ‘Could have been. Nobody ever knew the name of Antha’s father. Could have been Lionel for all anybody knew. They even said… But Stella didn’t care what anybody thought. They said when she was carrying Antha, she invited all her lady friends to come up there for a big party. Never bothered Stella that she had that baby out of wedlock.’
‘Well, that’s the damnedest thing I ever heard,’ Rita Mae whispered. ‘Especially in those days, Jerry.’
‘That’s the way it was, honey. And it wasn’t just from Daddy I heard about some of those things either. Lionel shot Stella in the head, and everybody in the house went just plain wild, breaking out the windows to the porches to get out of there. Regular panic. And don’t you know that little Antha was upstairs, and she came down during all that commotion, and seen her mother lying there dead on the living room floor.’
Rita shook her head. What had Deirdre said on that long-ago afternoon? And they said her mother died when she was young, too, but they never talk about her.
‘Lionel ended up in a straitjacket after he shot Stella. Daddy always said the guilt drove him out of his mind. He kept screaming the devil wouldn’t leave him alone, that his sister had been a witch and she’d sent the devil after him. Finally died in a fit, swallowed his own tongue, and no one there to help him. They opened up the padded cell and there he was, dead, and turning black already. But at least that time the corpse came all neatly sewn up from the coroner. It was the scratches on Antha’s face twelve years later that always haunted Daddy.’
‘Poor Dee Dee. She must have known some of it.’
‘Yeah,’ Jerry said, ’even a little baby knows things. You know they do! And when Daddy and I went to get Antha’s body out of that yard, we could hear little Deirdre just wailing away in there as if she could feel it that her mother was dead. And nobody picking up that child, nobody comforting her. I tell you, that little girl was born under a curse. Never had a chance with all the goings on in that family. That’s why they sent her baby daughter out west, to get her away from all that, and if I were you, honey, I wouldn’t meddle in it.’
Rita thought of Ellie Mayfair, so pretty. Probably on a plane right this minute for San Francisco.
‘They say those California people are rich,’ Jerry said. ‘Deirdre’s nurse told me that. That girl’s got her own private yacht out there on San Francisco Bay, tied right up to the front porch of her house on the water. Father’s a big lawyer out there, a real mean son-of-a-bitch, but he makes plenty. If there’s a curse on the Mayfairs, that girl got away from it.’
‘Jerry, you don’t believe in curses,’ Rita said, ’and you know it.’
‘Honey, think about the emerald necklace just for a minute. Two times Daddy cleaned the blood off it. And it always sounded to me like Miss Carlotta herself thought there was a curse on it. First time Daddy cleaned it up - when Stella got shot, you know what Miss Carlotta wanted Daddy to do? Put the necklace in the coffin with Stella. Daddy told me that. I know that for a fact. And Daddy refused to do it.’
‘Well, maybe it’s not real, Jerry.’
‘Hell, Rita Mae, you could buy a block of downtown Canal Street with that emerald. Daddy had Hershman from Magazine Street appraise it. I mean here he was with Miss Carlotta telling him things like "It is my express wish that you put it in the coffin with my sister." So he calls Hershman, I mean he and Hershman were always good friends, and Hershman said it was real, all right, the finest emerald he’d ever laid eyes on. Wouldn’t even know how to put a price on it. He’d have to take a jewel like that to New York for a real evaluation. He said it was the same with all the Mayfair jewels. He’d cleaned them once for Miss Mary Beth before she even passed them on to Stella. He said jewels like that ended up on display in a museum.’
‘Well, what did Red say to Miss Carlotta?’
‘Told Miss Carlotta no, he wasn’t putting any million-dollar emerald in a casket. He cleaned it all off with rubbing alcohol and got a velvet case for it from Hershman and then he took it over to her. Same as we did together years later when Antha fell from the window. Miss Carl didn’t ask us to bury it that time. And she didn’t demand to have the funeral in the parlor neither.’
‘In the parlor!’
‘Well, that’s where Stella was laid out, Rita Mae, right there in that house. They always did that in the old days. Old Julien Mayfair was buried from the parlor and so was Miss Mary Beth and that was 1925. And that’s the way that Stella had said it was to be done. She’d left that word in her will, and so they did it. But with Antha nothing like that happened. We brought that necklace back, Daddy and me together. I came in with Daddy and there Miss Carl was in that double parlor with no lights on and it being so dark in there with the porches and the trees and all, and there she was just sitting there, rocking little Deirdre in the cradle beside her. I went in with Daddy and he put the necklace in her hand. And you know what she did? She said, "Thank you, Red Lonigan." And she turned and put that jewel case in the cradle with the baby.’
‘But why did she do that?’
"Cause it was Deirdre’s, that’s why. Miss Carl never had no right to any of those jewels. Miss Mary Beth left them to Stella, and Stella named Antha to get them, and Antha’s only daughter was Deirdre. It’s always been that way, they all pass to one daughter.’
‘Well, what if the necklace is cursed,’ Rita said. Lord, to think of it around Deirdre’s neck and Deirdre the way she was now. Oh, Rita could hardly stand to think of it.
‘Well, if it’s cursed, maybe the house is too,’ Jerry said, ’because the jewels go with the house, and lots of other money.’
‘You mean to tell me, Jerry Lonigan, that house belongs to Deirdre?’
‘Rita, everybody knows that. How come you don’t know that?’
‘You’re telling me that house is hers, and those women lived in it all those years when she was locked up and then they brought her home like that, and she sits there and -’
‘Now, don’t get hysterical, Rita Mae. But that’s what I’m telling you. It’s Deirdre’s, same as it was Antha’s and Stella’s. And it will pass to that California daughter when Deirdre dies, unless somebody managed to change all those old papers and I don’t think you can change a thing like that. It goes way back, the will — back to times when they had the plantation, and times before that, when they were in the islands, you know, in Haiti, before they ever came here. A legacy is what they call it. And I remember Hershman used to say that Miss Carl started law school when she was a girl just to learn how to crack the legacy. But she never could. Even before Miss Mary Beth died, everybody knew Stella was the heiress.’
‘But what if that California girl doesn’t know about it?’
‘It’s the law, honey. And Miss Carlotta, no matter whatever else she is, is a good lawyer. Besides, it’s tied with the name, Mayfair. You have to go by the name or you can’t inherit anything from the legacy. And that girl goes by the name of Mayfair. I heard that when she was born. So does her adopted mother, Ellie Mayfair, the one that came today and signed the register. They know. People always
know when they’re coming into money. And besides, the other Mayfairs would tell her. Ryan Mayfair would tell her. He’s Cortland’s grandson and Cortland loved Deirdre; he really did. He was real old by the time Deirdre had to give up the baby, and the way I heard it, he was against it all the way, lot of good it did. I heard he really took on Miss Carlotta about that baby, said it would drive Deirdre crazy to give it up, and Miss Carlotta said Deirdre was already crazy. A lot of good it did.’
Jerry finished his bourbon. He poured another glass.
‘But Jerry, what if there are other things that Deirdre’s daughter doesn’t know?’ Rita asked. ‘Why didn’t she come down here today? Why didn’t she want to see her mother?’
Rita Mae, they’re going to take my baby!
Jerry didn’t answer. His eyes were bloodshot. He was over the hill with the bourbon.
‘Daddy knew a lot more about those people,’ he said, his words slurred now. ‘More than he ever told me. One thing Daddy did say, though, that they were right to take Deirdre’s baby away from her and give it to Ellie Mayfair, for the baby’s sake. And Daddy told me something else too. Daddy told me Ellie Mayfair couldn’t have babies of her own, and her husband was real disappointed over that, and about to leave Tier when Miss Carl rang Kerr up long distance and asked if they wanted to have Deirdre’s baby. "Don’t tell Rita Mae all that," Daddy said, "but for everybody it was a blessing. And old Mr Cortland, God rest his soul, he was wrong."’
Rita Mae knew what she was going to do. She had never lied to Jerry Lonigan in her life. She just didn’t tell him. The next afternoon, she called the Monteleone Hotel. The Englishman had just checked out! But they thought he might still be in the lobby.
Rita Mae’s heart was pounding as she waited.
‘This is Aaron Lightner. Yes, Mrs Lonigan. Please take a taxi down and I shall pay the fare. I’ll be waiting.’
It made her so nervous she was stumbling over her words, forgetting things as she rushed out of the house and having to go back for them. But she was glad she was doing this! Even if Jerry had caught her then, she would have gone on with it.
The Englishman took her round the corner to the Desire Oyster Bar, a pretty place with ceiling fans and big mirrors and doors open along Bourbon Street. It seemed exotic to Rita the way the Quarter always had. She almost never got to go down there.
They sat at a marble top table, and she had a glass of white wine because that’s what the Englishman had and it sounded very nice to her. What a good-looking man he was. With a man like that it didn’t matter about his age, he was handsomer than younger men. It made her slightly nervous to sit so close to him. And the way his eyes fixed her, it made her melt as if she was a kid again in high school.
‘Talk to me, Mrs Lonigan,’ he said. ‘I’ll listen.’
She tried to take it slow, but once she started it just came pouring out of her. Soon she was crying, and he probably couldn’t understand a word she was saying. She gave him that old, twisted little bit of card. She told about the ads she’d run, and how she’d told Deirdre that she could never find him.
Then came the difficult part. ‘There are things that girl in California doesn’t know! That property’? This, and maybe the lawyers will tell her that, but what about the curse, Mr Ligktner? I’m putting my trust in you, I’m telling you things my husband doesn’t want me to tell a living soul. But if Deirdre put her trust in you back then, well, that’s enough for me. I’m telling you, the jewels and the house are cursed.’
Finally, she told him everything. She told him all that Jerry had told her. She told him all that Red had ever said. She told him anything and everything she could remember.
And the funny thing was that he was never surprised or shocked. And over and over again, he assured her that he would do his best to get this information to the girl in California.
When it was all said, and she sat there wiping her nose, her white wine untouched, the man asked her if she would keep his card, if she would call him when there was any ’change’ with Deirdre. If she could not reach him she was to leave a message. The people who answered the phone would understand. She need only say it was in connection with Deirdre May-fair.
She took her prayer book out of her purse. ‘Give me those numbers again,’ she said, and she wrote down the words, ‘In connection with Deirdre Mayfair.’
Only after she had written it all out, did she think to ask, ‘But tell me, Mr Lightner, how did you come to know Deirdre?’
‘It’s a long story, Mrs Lonigan,’ he said. ‘You might say I’ve been watching that family for years. I have two paintings done by Deirdre’s father, Sean Lacy. One of them is of Antha. He was the one who was killed on the highway in New York before Deirdre was born.’
‘He was killed on the highway? I never knew.’
‘It’s doubtful anyone down here ever did,’ he said. ‘Quite a painter he was. He did a beautiful portrait of Antha with the famous emerald necklace. I came by it through a New York dealer some years after both of them were dead. Deirdre was probably ten years old by that time. I didn’t meet her until she went off to college.’
‘That’s a funny thing, about Deirdre’s father going off the road,’ she said. ‘It’s just what happened to Deirdre’s boyfriend too, the man she was going to marry. Did you know that? That he went off the river road when he was driving down to New Orleans?’
She thought she saw a little change in the Englishman’s face then, but she couldn’t be sure. Seemed his eyes got smaller for just a second.
‘Yes, I did know,’ he said. He seemed to be thinking about things he didn’t want to tell her. Then he started talking again. ‘Mrs Lonigan, will you promise me something?’
‘What is it, Mr Lightner?’
‘If something should happen, something wholly unexpected, and the daughter from California should come home, please don’t try to talk to her. Call me instead. Call me any time day or night, and I promise I shall be here as soon as I can get a plane out of London.’
‘You mean I shouldn’t tell her these things myself, that’s what you’re saying?’
‘Yes,’ he answered, very serious-like, touching her hand for the first time but in a very gentlemanly way that was completely proper. ‘Don’t go to that house again, especially not if the daughter is there. I promise you that if I cannot come myself, someone else will come, someone else who will accomplish what we want done, someone quite familiar with the whole story.’
‘Oh, that would be a big load off my mind,’ Rita said. She sure didn’t want to talk to that girl, a total stranger, and try to tell her all these things. But suddenly the whole thing began to puzzle her. For the first time she started wondering - who was this nice man? Was she wrong to trust him?
‘You can trust me, Mrs Lonigan,’ he said, just as if he knew what she was thinking. ‘Please be certain of it. And I’ve met Deirdre’s daughter, and I know that she is a rather quiet and -well, shall we say - forbidding individual. Not an easy person to talk to, if you understand. But I think I can explain things to her.’
Well, now, that made perfect sense.
‘Sure, Mr Lightner.’
He was looking at her. Maybe he knew how confused she was, how strange the whole afternoon seemed, all this talk of curses and things, and dead people and that weird old necklace.
‘Yes, they are very strange,’ he said.
Rita laughed. ‘It was like you read my mind,’ she said.
‘Don’t worry anymore,’ he said. ‘I’ll see that Rowan Mayfair knows her mother didn’t want to give her up; I’ll see she knows all that you want her to know. I owe that much to Deirdre, don’t you think? I wish I’d been there when she needed me.’
Well, that was plenty enough for Rita.
Every Sunday after that, when Rita was at Mass, she flipped to the back of her prayer book and looked at the phone number for the man in London. She read those words ‘In connection with Deirdre Mayfair.’ Then she said a prayer for Deirdre, and it didn’t
seem wrong that it was the prayer for the dead, it seemed to be the right one for the occasion.
‘May perpetual light shine upon her, O Lord, and may she rest in peace, Amen.’
And now it was over twelve years since Deirdre had taken her place on the porch, over a year since the Englishman had come and gone - and they were talking of putting Deirdre away again. It was her house that was tumbling down all around her in that sad overgrown garden and they were going to lock her away again.
Maybe Rita should call that man. Maybe she should tell him. She just didn’t know.
‘It’s the wise thing, them putting her away,’ Jerry said, ’before Miss Carl is too far gone to make the decision. And the fact is, well, I hate to say it, honey. But Deirdre’s going down fast. They say she’s dying.’
Dying.
She waited till Jerry had gone to work. Then she made the call. She knew it would show on the bill, and she probably would have to say something eventually to Jerry. But it didn’t matter. What mattered now was getting the operator to understand that she had to call a number all the way across the ocean.
It was a nice woman who answered over there, and they did reverse the charges just as the Englishman had promised. At first Rita couldn’t understand everything the woman said — she spoke so fast — but then it came out that Mr Lightner was in the United States. He was out in San Francisco. The woman would call him right away. Would Rita care to leave her number?
‘Oh, no. I don’t want him to call here,’ she said. ‘You just tell him this for me. It’s real important. That Rita Mae Lonigan called "in connection with Deirdre Mayfair." Can you write that down? Tell him that Deirdre Mayfair is very sick; that Deirdre Mayfair is going down fast. That maybe Deirdre Mayfair is dying.’
It took the breath out of Rita to say that last word. She couldn’t say any more after that. She tried to answer clearly when the woman repeated the message. The woman would call Mr Lightner right away at the St Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Rita was in tears when she put down the phone.