to New York to get Antha and bring her home.
At an emotional drunken lunch, Amanda Grady Mayfair poured out the whole story to her friend (and our informant) Allan Carver, who made it a point to inquire about her old southern family and its gothic goings-on. Amanda told him all about the poor little niece in Bellevue:
“ … It was simply awful. Antha couldn’t talk. She couldn’t. She’d tried to say something and she’d simply stammer. She was so fragile. The death of Sean had destroyed her utterly. It was twenty-four hours before she wrote down the address of the apartment in Greenwich Village. I went there immediately with Ollie Mayfair, you know, one of Remy’s grandchildren, and we got Antha’s things. Oh, it was so sad. Of course all Sean’s paintings belonged to Antha, as she was his wife, I supposed; but then the neighbors came in and they told us Antha had never married Sean. Sean’s mother and brother had already been there. They were coming back with a truck to take everything away. Seems that Sean’s mother despised Antha because she believed Antha had led her son into this Greenwich Village artist life.
“I told Ollie, well, they can have everything else but they aren’t taking the portraits of Antha. I took those and all her clothes and things, and this old velvet purse filled with gold coins. Now, I’d heard of that purse, and don’t tell me you haven’t if you know the Mayfairs. And her writings, oh, yes, her writings. I packed up all of that-her stories, and chapters of a novel, and some poems she’d written. And do you know later on I found out she’d published a poem in
“When I got back to the hospital, Carlotta and Cortland were already there. They were fighting with each other in the hallway. But you had to see and hear a fight between Carl and Cort to believe it, it was all whispers, and little gestures, and tight lips. It was really something. But there they stood, talking to each other like that and I knew they were ready to kill each other.
“ ‘That girl’s pregnant you know,’ I said. ‘Did the doctors tell you?’
“ ‘She ought to get rid of it,’ Carl said. I thought Cortland was going to die. I was so shocked myself I didn’t know what to say.
“I absolutely hate Carlotta. I don’t care who knows it. I hate her. I have hated her all my life. It gives me nightmares to think of her being alone with Antha. I told Cortland right there in front of her, ‘That girl needs care.’
“But Cortland had tried to get custody of Antha, he had tried it in the very beginning, and Carlotta had threatened to fight him, to expose all kinds of things about us, she said. Oh, she is dreadful. And Cortland had given up. And I think he knew he wasn’t going to get control of Antha now. ‘Look, Antha’s a woman now,’ I said. ‘Ask her where she wants to go. If she wants to stay in New York she can stay with me. She can stay with Ollie.’ Not a chance!
“Carlotta went in to talk to those doctors. She did her routine. She managed some sort of official transfer of Antha to a mental hospital in New Orleans. She ignored Cortland as if he wasn’t even there. I got on the phone to all the cousins in New Orleans. I called everyone. I even called young Beatrice Mayfair on Esplanade Avenue-Remy’s granddaughter. I told them that child was sick, and she was pregnant and she needed loving care.
“Then the most sad thing happened. They were taking Antha to the train station, and she gestured for me to come over to her, and she whispered in my ear. ‘Save my things for me, please, Aunt Mandy. She’ll throw them all away if you don’t,’ and to think I had already shipped all her things back home. I called my son Sheffield and told him about it. I said, ‘Sheff, do what you can for her when she gets back.’ ”
Antha traveled back to Louisiana by train with her uncle and her aunt, and was immediately committed to St. Ann’s Asylum, where she remained for six weeks. Numerous Mayfair cousins came to see her. Family gossip indicated she was pale and at times incoherent but that she was coming along just fine.
In New York, our investigator Allan Carver arranged another chance meeting with Amanda Grady Mayfair. “How is the little niece coming along?”
“Oh, I could tell you the worst story!” said Amanda Grady Mayfair. “You cannot imagine. Do you know that girl’s aunt told the doctors in the asylum she wanted them to abort the girl’s baby? That she was congenitally insane and must never be allowed to have a child? Have you ever heard anything worse? When my husband told me that I told him if you don’t do something now, I’ll never forgive you. Of course he said no one was going to hurt that baby. The doctors weren’t going to do such a thing, not for Carlotta, not for anyone. Then when I called Beatrice Mayfair on Esplanade Avenue and told her all about it, Cortland was furious. ‘Don’t get everybody up in arms,’ he said. But that is exactly what I meant to do. I told Bea, ‘Go see her. Don’t let anyone keep you out.’ ”
The Talamasca has never been able to corroborate the story about the proposed abortion. But nurses at St. Ann’s later told our investigators that scores of Mayfair cousins came to see Antha at the asylum.
“They are not taking no for an answer,” Irwin Dandrich wrote. “They insist upon seeing her, and by all reports she is doing well. She is excited about her baby, and of course they have deluged her with presents. Her young cousin, Beatrice, brought her some antique lace baby clothes that had once belonged to somebody’s Great-aunt Suzette. Of course, it is common knowledge here that Antha never married the New York artist; but then what does it matter when your name is Mayfair, and Mayfair it will always be.”
The cousins proved just as aggressive after Antha was released from St. Ann’s and came home to First Street to convalesce in Stella’s old bedroom on the north side of the house. She had nurses with her round the clock, and obtaining information from them proved very simple for our investigators.
The place was described as “insufferably dreary.” But Millie Dear and Belle took excellent care of Antha. In fact, they didn’t leave the nurses much to do at all. Millie Dear sat with Antha all the time on the little upstairs porch outside her bedroom. And Belle knitted beautiful clothes for the baby.
Cortland stopped by every evening after work. “The lady of the house didn’t want him there, I don’t believe,” said one of the nurses. “But he came. Without fail he came. He and another young gentleman, I believe his name was Sheffield. They sat with the patient every night for a little while and talked.”
Family gossip said that Sheffield had read some of Antha’s writings from the New York days, and that Antha was “very good.” The nurses talked about the boxes from New York-crates of books and papers, which Antha examined but was too weak in general to truly unpack.
“I don’t really see anything mentally wrong with her,” said one of the nurses. “The aunt takes us out in the hallway and asks us the strangest questions. She implies the girl is congenitally insane, and may harm someone. But the doctors didn’t say anything to us about it. She’s a quiet, melancholy girl. She looks and sounds much younger than she is. But she’s not what I would call insane.”
Deirdre Mayfair was born on October 4, 1941, at the old Mercy Hospital on the river, which was later torn down. Apparently the birth presented no particular difficulty, and Antha was heavily anesthetized as was the custom in those days. Mayfairs packed the corridors of the hospital during visiting hours for the entire five days that Antha was there. Her room was full of flowers. The baby was a beautiful healthy little girl.
But the flow of information, so dramatically increased with the involvement of Amanda Grady Mayfair, came to an abrupt halt two weeks after Antha returned home. The cousins found themselves turned away by the black maid, Aunt Easter, or by Nancy when they came for their second and third visits. Indeed, Nancy had quit her job as a file clerk to take care of the baby (“Or to lock us out!” said Beatrice to Amanda long distance) and she was adamant that the mother and the baby not be disturbed.
When Beatrice called to inquire about the christening, she was told the baby had already been baptized at St. Alphonsus. Outraged, she called Amanda in New York. Some twenty of the cousins “crashed” the house on a Sunday afternoon.
“Antha was overjoyed to see them!” said Amanda to Allan Carver. “She was simply thrilled. She had no idea they’d been calling and dropping by. No one had even told her. She didn’t know people gave parties for a christening. Carlotta had arranged everything. She was hurt when she realized what had happened, and everyone changed the subject at once. But Beatrice was furious with Nancy. But Nancy is just doing what Carlotta told her to do.”
On October 30 of that year, Antha was officially declared the recipient and full manager of the Mayfair legacy. She signed a power of attorney naming Cortland and Sheffield Mayfair as her legal representatives in all matters concerning the money; and she requested that they immediately establish a large trust for the management of the
