… And so on it went, the gossip becoming slightly more intimate and reckless as Beatrice continued to pick at her food and smoke Pall Mall cigarettes.
“Deirdre’s oversexed,” she said, “that’s all that’s wrong with her. She’s been ridiculously sheltered. No wonder she takes up with strange men. I’m relying upon Cortland to take care of Deirdre. Cortland has become the venerable elder of the family. And he is certainly the only one who can stand up to Carlotta. Now, that’s a witch in my book. Carlotta. She gives me the shivers. They ought to get Deirdre away from her.”
Indeed, there was already some talk about a school in Texas, a little university where Deirdre might go in the fall. It seemed that Rhonda Mayfair, a great-granddaughter of Suzette’s sister Marianne (this was an aunt of Cortland’s), had married a young man in Texas who taught at this school. It was in fact a small state school for women, heavily endowed, and with many of the traditions and accoutrements of an expensive private school. The whole question was, would that awful Carlotta let Deirdre go. “Now, Carlotta. That is a witch!”
Once more, Beatrice became quite worked up on the subject of Carlotta, her criticisms including Carlotta’s style of dressing (business suits) and style of talking (businesslike), when abruptly she leaned across the table and said:
“And you know that witch killed Irwin Dandrich, don’t you?”
Not only did I not know this, I had never heard the faintest whisper of such a thing. It had been reported to us in 1952 that Dandrich died of a heart attack in his apartment some time after four in the afternoon. It had been well-known that he had a heart condition.
“I talked to him,” Beatrice said, her manner one of great self-importance and thinly concealed drama. “I talked to him the day he died. He said Carlotta had called. Carlotta had accused him of spying on the family, and had said, ‘Well, if you want to know about us, come up here to First Street. I’ll tell you more than you’ll ever want to hear.’ I told him not to go. I said: ‘She’ll sue you. She’ll do something terrible to you. She’s out of her mind.’ But he wouldn’t listen to me. ‘I’m going to see that house for myself,’ he said. ‘Nobody I know has been in it since Stella died.’ I made him promise to call me as soon as he got home. Well, he never did call me. He died that very afternoon. She poisoned him. I know she did. She poisoned him. And they said it was a heart attack when they found him. She poisoned him but she gave it to him so he could go home on his own steam and die in his own bed.”
“What makes you so certain?” I asked.
“Because it isn’t the first time something like that has happened. Deirdre told Cortland there was a dead body in the attic of the house at First Street. Yes, a dead body.”
“Cortland told you this?”
She nodded gravely. “Poor Deirdre. She tells these doctors things like that and they give her shock treatment! Cortland thinks she’s seeing things!” She shook her head. “That’s Cortland. He believes the house is haunted, that there are ghosts up there you can talk to! But a body in the attic? Oh, no, he won’t believe in that!” She laughed softly, then became extremely serious. “But I’ll bet it’s true. I remember something about a young man who disappeared right before Stella died. I heard about it years later. Aunt Millie Dear said something about it to my cousin, Angela. Later on, Dandrich told me about it. The police were looking for him. Private detectives were looking. A Texan from England, Irwin said, who had actually spent the night with Stella, and then just disappeared.
“I’ll tell you who else knew about it. Amanda knew about it. Last time I saw her in New York we were rehashing the whole thing, and she said, ‘And what about that man who strangely disappeared!’ Of course she connected it with Cornell, you know the one who died in the hotel downtown after he called on Carlotta. I tell you, she poisons them and they go home and die afterwards. It’s one of those chemicals with a delayed effect. This Texan was some sort of historian from England. Knew about our family’s past-”
Suddenly she made a connection. I was a historian from England. She laughed. “Mr. Lightner, you better watch your step!” she said. She sat back laughing softly to herself.
“I suppose you’re right. But you don’t really believe all this, do you, Miss Mayfair?”
She thought for a moment. “Well, I do and I don’t.” Again, she laughed. “I wouldn’t put anything past Carlotta. But if the truth be known, the woman’s too dull to actually poison somebody. But I thought about it! I thought about it when Irwin Dandrich died. I loved Irwin. And he did die right after he went to see Carlotta. I hope Deirdre goes to college in Texas. And if Carlotta invites you up for tea, don’t go!”
“About the ghost particularly … ” I said. (Throughout this interview, it was rarely necessary for me to complete a sentence.)
“Oh, which one! There’s the ghost of Julien-everybody’s seen that ghost. I thought I saw it once. And then there’s the spook that throws over people’s ladders. That’s a regular invisible man.”
“But isn’t there one whom they call ‘the man’?”
She had never heard that expression. But I ought to talk to Cortland. That is, if Cortland would talk to me. Cortland didn’t like outsiders asking him questions. Cortland lived in a family world.
We parted ways at the corner as I helped her into her taxi. “If you do talk to Cortland,” she said, “don’t tell him you talked to me. He thinks I’m an awful gossip. But do ask him about that Texan. You never know what he might say.”
As soon as the cab drove away, I called Juliette Milton, our society spy.
“Don’t ever go near the house,” I said. “Don’t ever have anything to do personally with Carlotta Mayfair. Don’t ever go to lunch again with Beatrice. We’ll give you a handsome check. Simply bow out.”
“But what did I do? What did I say? Beatrice is an impossible gossip. She tells everyone those stories. I haven’t repeated anything that wasn’t common knowledge.”
“You’ve done a fine job. But there are dangers. Definite dangers. Just do as I say.”
“Oh, she told you that about Carlotta killing people. That’s nonsense. Carlotta’s an old stick. To hear her tell it, Carlotta went to New York and killed Deirdre’s father, Sean Lacy. Now, that is sheer nonsense!”
I repeated my warnings, or orders, for what they were worth.
The following day I drove out to Metairie, parked my car, and took a walk in the quiet streets around Cortland’s house. Except for the large oak trees and the soft velvet green of the grass, the neighborhood had nothing of the atmosphere of New Orleans. It might as well have been a rich suburb near Houston, Texas, or Oklahoma City. Very beautiful, very restful, very seemingly safe. I saw nothing of Deirdre. I hoped she was happy in this wholesome place.
I was convinced that I must see her from afar before I attempted to speak to her. In the meantime, I tried to make direct contact with Cortland, but he did not return my calls. Finally his secretary told me he did not want to talk to me, that he had heard I’d been talking to his cousins and he wished that I would leave the family alone.
I was undecided as to whether I should press the matter with Cortland. Same old questions that always plague us at such junctures-what were my obligations, my goals? I left the message finally that I had a great deal of information about the Mayfair family, going back to the 1600s, and would welcome an interview. I never received a response.
The following week, I learned from Juliette Milton that Deirdre had just left for Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas, where Rhonda Mayfair’s husband, Ellis Clement, taught English to small classes of well-bred girls. Carlotta was absolutely against it; it had been done without her permission, and Carlotta was not speaking to Cortland.
Cortland had driven Deirdre to Texas, and remained long enough to see that she was comfortable in the home of Rhonda Mayfair and Ellis Clement, and then came home.
It was not difficult for us to ascertain that Deirdre had been admitted as a “special student,” educated at home. She had been assigned a private room in the freshman dormitory, and was registered for a full schedule of routine course work.
I arrived in Denton two days later. Texas Woman’s University was a lovely little school situated on low rolling green hills with vine-covered brick buildings, and neatly tended lawns. It was quite impossible to believe that it was a state institution.
At the age of thirty-six, with prematurely gray hair and addicted to well-tailored linen suits, I found it effortlessly easy to roam about the campus probably passing for a faculty member to anyone who took notice. I stopped on benches for long periods to write in my notebook. I browsed in the small open library. I wandered the halls of the old buildings, exchanging pleasantries with a few elderly women teachers and with fresh-faced young women in blouses and pleated skirts.
