Whatever the case, Julien went to Donnelaith in 1888 and bought the ruined castle. And Mary Beth Mayfair told the story to the end of her days that Lord Mayfair was the father of her poor sweet little daughter Belle, who turned out to be the very opposite of her powerful mother.
In 1892, an artist was hired to paint a picture of the ruin, and this oil painting hangs in the house on First Street.
To return to the chronology, the supposed uncle and niece returned home with baby Belle in late 1889, at which time Marguerite, aged ninety and extremely decrepit, took a special interest in the baby.
In fact, Katherine and Mary Beth had to keep watch on the child all the time it was at Riverbend, lest Marguerite go walking with it in her arms and then forget about it, and drop it or lay it on a stairstep or a table. Julien laughed at these cautions and said before the servants numerous times that the baby had a special guardian angel who would take care of it.
By this time there seems to have been no talk at all about Julien having been Mary Beth’s father, and none whatsoever about his being the father, by his daughter, of Belle.
But for the purposes of this record, we are certain that he was Mary Beth’s father and the father of her daughter Belle.
Mary Beth, Julien, and Belle all lived together happily at First Street, and Mary Beth, though she loved to dance and to go to the theater and to parties, showed no immediate interest in finding “another” husband.
Eventually, she did remarry, as we shall see, a man named Daniel McIntyre, giving birth to three more children-Carlotta, Lionel, and Stella.
The night before Marguerite’s death in 1891, Mary Beth woke up in her bedroom on First Street, screaming. She insisted she had to leave for Riverbend at once, that her grandmother was dying. Why had no one sent for her? The servants found Julien sitting motionless in the library of the first floor, apparently weeping. He seemed not to hear or see Mary Beth as she pleaded with him to take her to Riverbend.
A young Irish maid then heard the old quadroon housekeeper remark that maybe that wasn’t Julien at all sitting at the desk, and they ought to go look for him. This terrified the maid, especially since the housekeeper began to call out to “Michie Julien” about the house while this motionless weeping individual remained at the desk, staring forward as if he could not hear her.
At last Mary Beth set out on foot, at which point Julien leapt up from the desk, ran his fingers through his white hair, and ordered the servants to bring round the brougham. He caught up with Mary Beth before she had reached Magazine Street.
It is worth noting that Julien was sixty-three at this time, and described as being a very handsome man with the flamboyant appearance and demeanor of a stage actor. Mary Beth was nineteen and exceedingly beautiful. Belle was only two years old and there is no mention of her in this story.
Julien and Mary Beth arrived at Riverbend just as messengers were being sent to fetch them. Marguerite was almost comatose, a wraith of a ninety-two-year-old woman, clutching a curious little doll with her bony fingers, which she called her
The doll was reputedly a ghastly thing with real human bones for limbs, strung together by means of black wire, and a mane of horrid white hair affixed to its head of rags with its crudely drawn features.
Katherine, then aged sixty-one, and her two sons were both sitting by the bed, as they had been for hours. Remy was also there, having been at the plantation for a month before his mother took ill.
The priest, Father Martin, had just given Marguerite the last sacraments, and the blessed candles were burning on the altar.
When Marguerite breathed her last, the priest watched with curiosity as Katherine rose from her chair, went to the jewel box on the dresser which she had always shared with her mother, took out the emerald necklace, and gave it to Mary Beth. Mary Beth received it gratefully, put it around her neck, and then continued to weep.
The priest then observed that it had begun to rain, and the wind about the house was extremely strong, banging the shutters and causing the leaves to fall. Julien seemed to be delighted by this and even laughed.
Katherine appeared weary and frightened. And Mary Beth cried inconsolably. Clay, a personable young man, seemed fascinated by what was going on. His brother Vincent merely looked indifferent.
Julien then opened the windows to let in the wind and rain, which frightened the priest somewhat and certainly made him uncomfortable, as it was winter. He nevertheless stayed at the bedside as he thought proper, though rain was actually falling on the bed. The trees were crashing against the house. The priest was afraid one of the limbs might come right through the window nearest him.
Julien, quite unperturbed and with his eyes full of tears, kissed the dead Marguerite and closed her eyes, and took the doll from her, which he put inside his coat. He then laid her hands on her chest and made a speech to the priest explaining that his mother had been born at the end of the “old century” and had lived almost a hundred years, that she had seen and understood things which she could never tell anyone.
“In most families,” Julien declared in French, “when a person dies, all that the person knows dies with that person. Not so with the Mayfairs. Her blood is in us, and all she knew is passed into us and we are stronger.”
Katherine merely nodded sadly to this speech. Mary Beth continued to weep. Clay stood in the corner with his arms folded, watching.
When the priest asked timidly if the window might be closed, Julien told him that the heavens were weeping for Marguerite, and that it would be disrespectful to close the window. Julien then knocked the blessed candles off the Catholic altar by the bed, which offended the priest. It also startled Katherine.
“Now, Julien, don’t go crazy!” Katherine whispered. At which Vincent laughed in spite of himself, and Clay smiled unwillingly also. All glanced awkwardly at the priest, who was horrified. Julien then gave the company a playful smile and a shrug, and then looking at his mother again, he became miserable, and knelt down beside the bed, and buried his face in the covers beside the dead woman.
Clay quietly left the room.
As the priest was taking his leave, he asked Katherine about the emerald. Rather offhandedly she said that it was a jewel she had inherited from her mother, but never much liked, as it was so big and so heavy. Mary Beth could have it.
The priest then left the house and discovered that within a few hundred yards, the rain was not falling and there was no wind. The sky was quite clear. He came upon Clay sitting in a white straight-backed chair by the picket fence at the very end of the frontage of the plantation; Clay was smoking and watching the distant storm which was quite visible in the darkness. The priest greeted Clay but Clay did not appear to hear him.
This is the first detailed account of the death of a Mayfair witch that we possess since Petyr van Abel’s description of the death of Deborah.
There are many other stories about Julien which could be included here, and indeed perhaps they should be in future. We will hear more of him as the story of Mary Beth unfolds.
But we should not move on to Mary Beth without treating one more aspect of Julien, that is, his bisexuality. And it is worthwhile to recount in detail the significant stories told of Julien by one of his lovers, Richard Llewellyn.
As indicated above, Julien was mentioned in connection with a “crime against nature” very early in his life, at which point he killed-either accidentally or deliberately-one of his uncles. We have also made mention of his male companion in the French Quarter in the late 1850s.
Julien was to have such companions throughout his life, but of most of them we know nothing.
Two of whom we have some record are a quadroon named Victor Gregoire and an Englishman named Richard Llewellyn.
Victor Gregoire worked for Julien in the 1880s, as a private secretary of sorts, and even a sort of valet. He lived in the servants’ quarters on First Street. He was a remarkably handsome man as were all Julien’s companions, male or female. And he was rumored to be a Mayfair descendant.
Investigation has confirmed in fact that he was the great-grandson of a quadroon maid who emigrated from Saint-Domingue with the family, a possible descendant of Peter Fontenay Mayfair, brother of Jeanne Louise, and son of Charlotte and Petyr van Abel.
Whatever, Victor was much beloved by Julien, but the two had a quarrel in about 1885, around the time of Suzette’s death. The one rather thin story we have about the quarrel indicates that Victor accused Julien of not
