During this time, Carlotta moved back into the house so that she could be close to her mother and, indeed, sat with her through many a long night. When Mary Beth was in too much pain to read, she asked Carlotta to read to her, and family legend says that Carlotta read all of Wuthering Heights to her, and some of Jane Eyre.
Stella was also in constant attendance. She stopped her carousing altogether, and spent her time preparing meals for her mother-who was frequently too sick to eat anything-and consulting doctors all over the world, by letter and phone, about cures.
A perusal of the scant medical records that exist on Mary Beth indicate her cancer had metastasized before it was ever discovered. She did not suffer until the last three months and then she suffered a great deal.
Finally on the afternoon of September 11, 1925, Mary Beth lost consciousness. The attending priest noted that there was an enormous clap of thunder. “Rain began to pour.” Stella left the room, went down to the library, and began to call the Mayfairs all over Louisiana, and even the relatives in New York.
According to the priest, the servant witnesses, and numerous neighbors, the Mayfairs started to arrive at four o’clock and continued to arrive for the next twelve hours. Cars lined First Sheet all the way to St. Charles Avenue, and Chestnut Street from Jackson to Washington.
The “cloudburst” continued, slacking off for a few hours to a drizzle and then resuming as a regular rain. Indeed it was raining all over the Garden District, though it was not raining in any other part of the city; however, no one took particular notice of that fact.
On the other hand, the majority of the New Orleans Mayfairs came equipped with umbrellas and raincoats, as though they fully expected some sort of storm.
Servants scurried about serving coffee and contraband European wine to the cousins, who filled the parlors, the library, the hallway, the dining room, and even sat on the stairs.
At midnight the wind began to howl. The enormous sentinel oaks before the house began to thrash so wildly some feared the branches would break loose. Leaves came down as thick as rain.
Mary Beth’s bedroom was apparently crowded to overflowing with her children and her nieces and nephews, yet a respectful silence was maintained. Carlotta and Stella sat on the far side of her bed, away from the door, as the cousins came and went on tiptoe.
Daniel McIntyre was nowhere to be seen, and family legend holds that he had “passed out” earlier, and was in bed in Carlotta’s apartment over the stables outside.
By one o’clock, there were solemn-faced Mayfairs standing on the front galleries, and even in the wind and rain, under their unsteady umbrellas, on the front walk. Many friends of the family had come merely to hover under the oak trees, with newspapers over their heads and their collars turned up against the wind. Others remained in their cars double-parked along Chestnut and First.
At one thirty-five, the attending physician, Dr. Lyndon Hart, experienced some sort of disorientation. He confessed later to several of his colleagues that “something strange” happened in the room.
To Irwin Dandrich, he confided in 1929 the following account:
“I knew she was almost gone. I had stopped taking her pulse. It seemed so undignified, to get up over and over, only to nod to the others that she was still alive. And each time I made a move towards the bed, naturally the cousins noticed it, and you would hear the anxious whispers in the hall.
“So for the last hour or so I did nothing. I merely waited and watched. Only the immediate family was at the bedside, except for Cortland and his son Pierce. She lay there with her eyes half open, her head turned towards Stella and Carlotta. Carlotta was holding her hand She was breathing very irregularly. I had given her as much morphine as I dared.
“And then it happened. Perhaps I’d fallen asleep and was dreaming, but it seemed so real at the time-that a whole group of entirely different persons was there, an old woman, for example, whom I knew but didn’t know was bending over Mary Beth, and there was a very tall old gentleman in the room, who looked distinctly familiar. There were all sorts of persons, really. And then a young man, a pale young man who was very primly dressed in beautiful old-fashioned clothes, was bending over her. He kissed her lips, and then he closed her eyes.
“I was on my feet with a start. The cousins were crying in the hallway. Someone was sobbing. Cortland Mayfair was crying. And the rain had started to really pour again. Indeed the thunder was deafening. And in a sudden flash of lightning I saw Stella staring at me with the most listless and miserable expression. And Carlotta was crying. And I knew my patient was dead, without doubt, and indeed her eyes were closed.
“I have never explained it really. I examined Mary Beth at once, and confirmed that it was over. But they already knew. All of them knew. I looked about, trying desperately to conceal my momentary confusion, and I saw little Antha in the corner, a few feet behind her mother, and that tall young gentleman was with her, and then, quite suddenly, he was gone. In fact, he was gone so suddenly that I’m not sure I saw him at all.
“But I’ll tell you why I think he was really there. Someone else also saw him. It was Pierce Mayfair, Cortland’s son. I turned around right after the young man vanished, and I realized Pierce was staring at that very spot. He was staring at little Antha, and then he looked at me. At once he tried to appear natural, as if nothing was the matter, but I know he saw that man.
“As to the rest of what I saw, there certainly wasn’t any old lady about, and the tall old gentleman was nowhere to be seen. But do you know who he was? I believe he was Julien Mayfair. I never knew Julien, but I saw a portrait of him later that very morning on the wall of the hallway, opposite the library door.
“To tell you the truth, I don’t think any of those in the sickroom paid me the slightest notice. The maids started to wipe Mary Beth’s face, and to get her ready for the cousins to come in and see her for the last time. Someone was lighting fresh candles. And the rain, the rain was dreadful. It was just flooding down the windows.
“The next thing I remember, I was pushing through a long line of the cousins, to get to the bottom of the stairs. Then I was in the library with Father McKenzie, and I was filling out the death certificate, and Father McKenzie was sitting on the leather couch with Belle and trying to comfort her, telling her all the usual things, that her mother had gone to heaven and she would see her mother again. Poor Belle. She kept saying, ‘I don’t want her to go away to heaven. I want to see her again right now.’ How do people like that ever come to understand?
“It was only when I was leaving that I saw the portrait of Julien Mayfair and realized with a shock that I had seen that man. In fact a rather curious thing happened. I was so startled when I saw the portrait that I blurted it aloud: ‘That’s the man.’
“And there was someone standing in the hallway, having a cigarette, I believe, and that person looked up, saw me, and saw the portrait to his left, on the wall, and then said with a little laugh, ‘Oh, no, that’s not the man. That’s Julien.’
“Of course I didn’t bother to argue. I can’t imagine what the person thought I meant. And I certainly don’t know what he meant by what he said, and I just left it at that. I don’t even know who the person was. A Mayfair, you can be sure of it, but other than that, I wouldn’t make a guess.
“I told Cortland about it all afterwards, when I thought an appropriate amount of time had passed. He wasn’t at all distressed. He listened to everything I said, and told me he was glad I’d told him. But he said he hadn’t seen anything particular in that room.