“Now, you mustn’t go telling everyone this story. Ghosts are fairly common in New Orleans, but doctors who see them are not! And I don’t think Cortland would appreciate me telling that story. And of course, I’ve never mentioned it to Pierce. As for Stella, well, frankly I doubt Stella cares about such things at all. If Stella cares about anything, I’d like to know what it is.”
These apparitions undoubtedly included another appearance of Lasher, but we cannot leave this vivid and noteworthy story without discussing the strange exchange of words at the library door. What did the Mayfair cousin mean when he said, “Oh, no, that’s not the man”? Did he mistakenly think that the doctor was referring to Lasher? And did the little comment slip out before he realized that the doctor was a stranger? And if so, does this mean that members of the Mayfair family knew all about “the man” and were used to talking about him? Perhaps so.
Mary Beth’s funeral was enormous, just as her wedding had been some twenty-six years before. For a full account of it we are indebted to the undertaker, David O’Brien, who retired a year later, leaving his business to his nephew Red Lonigan, whose family has given us much testimony since.
We also have some family legends regarding the event, and considerable gossip from parish ladies who attended the funeral and had no compunction about discussing the Mayfairs critically at all.
All agree that Daniel McIntyre did not make it through the ceremony. He was taken home from the Requiem Mass by Carlotta, who then rejoined the party before it left the church.
Before the interment in Lafayette Cemetery several short speeches were made. Pierce Mayfair spoke of Mary Beth as a great mentor; Cortland praised her for her love of her family and her generosity to everyone. And Barclay Mayfair said that Mary Beth was irreplaceable; and she would never be forgotten by those who knew her and loved her. Lionel had his hands full consoling the stricken Belle and the crying Millie Dear.
Little Antha was not there, and neither was little Nancy (an adopted Mayfair mentioned earlier whom Mary Beth introduced to everyone as Stella’s child).
Stella was despondent, yet not so much that she failed to shock scores of the cousins, and the undertaker, and numerous friends of the family, by sitting on a nearby grave during the final speeches, with her legs dangling and swilling liquor from her famous bottle in the brown bag. When Barclay was concluding his speech, she said to him quite loudly, “Barclay, get on with it! She hated this sort of thing. She’s going to rise from the dead and tell you to shut up if you don’t stop.”
The undertaker noted that many of the cousins laughed at these remarks, and others tried to stop themselves from laughing. Barclay also laughed, and Cortland and Pierce merely smiled. Indeed, the family may have been divided with regard to this response entirely on ethnic lines. One account holds that the French cousins were mortified by Stella’s conduct but that all the Irish Mayfairs laughed.
But then Barclay wiped his nose, and said, “Good-bye my beloved,” and kissed the coffin, and then backed up, into the arms of Cortland and Garland, and began to sob.
Stella then hopped down off the grave, went to the coffin and kissed it, and said to the priest, “Well, Father, carry on.”
During the final Latin words, Stella pulled a rose off one of the funeral arrangements, broke the stem to a manageable length, and stuck the rose in her hair.
Then the closest of the kin retired to the First Street house, and before midnight the piano music and singing was coming so loud from the parlor that the neighbors were shocked.
When Judge McIntyre died, the funeral was a lot smaller but extremely sad. He had been much loved by many Mayfairs, and tears were shed.
Before continuing, let us note once more that, to our knowledge, Mary Beth was the last really strong witch the family produced. One can only speculate as to what she might have done with her powers if she had not been so family oriented, so thoroughly practical, and so utterly indifferent to vanity or notoriety of any kind. As it was, everything that she did eventually served her family. Even her pursuit of pleasure expressed itself in the reunions which helped the family to identify itself and to maintain a strong image of itself in changing times.
Stella did not have this love of family, nor was she practical; she did not mind notoriety, and she loved pleasure. But the keynote to understanding Stella is that she wasn’t ambitious either. She seemed to have few real goals at all.
“Live” might have been the motto of Stella.
The history from this point until 1929 belongs to her and little Antha, her pale-faced, sweet-voiced little girl.
STELLA’S STORY CONTINUES
Family legend, neighborhood gossip and parish gossip all seem to agree that Stella went wild after her parents’ death.
While Cortland and Carlotta battled over the legacy fortune and how it should be managed, Stella began to throw scandalous parties for her friends at First Street; and the few she held for the family in 1926 were equally shocking, what with the bootleg beer and bourbon, and Dixieland bands and people dancing the Charleston until dawn. Many of the older cousins left these last parties early, and some never returned to the First Street house.
Many of them were never invited again. Between 1926 and 1929, Stella slowly dismantled the extended family created by her mother. Or rather, she refused to guide it further, and it slowly fell apart. Large numbers of cousins lost contact altogether with the house on First Street, rearing children who knew little or nothing about it, and these descendants have been for us the richest source of legend and other lore.
Other cousins were alienated but remained involved. All of Julien’s descendants, for example, remained close to the legacy family, if for no other reason than because they were legally and financially connected, and because Carlotta could never effectively drive them away.
“It was the beginning of the end,” according to one cousin. “Stella just didn’t want to be bothered,” said another. And yet another, “We knew too much about her, and she knew it. She didn’t want to see us around.”
The image of Stella we have during this period is of a very active, very happy person who cared less about the family than her mother had, but who nevertheless cared passionately about many things. Young writers and artists in particular interested Stella, and scores of “interesting” people came to First Street, including writers and painters whom Stella had known in New York. Several friends mentioned that she encouraged Lionel to take up his writing again, and even had an office refurbished for him in one of the outbuildings, but it is not known if Lionel ever wrote anything more.
A great many intellectuals attended Stella’s parties. Indeed, she became fashionable with those who were not afraid to take social risks. Old guard society of the sort in which Julien moved was essentially closed to her, or so Irwin Dandrich maintained. But it is doubtful Stella ever knew or cared.
The French Quarter of New Orleans had been undergoing something of a revival since the early 1920s. Indeed, William Faulkner, Sherwood Anderson, Edmund Wilson, and other famous writers lived there at various times.
We have no evidence to connect any individual person with Stella; but she was very familiar with the Bohemian life of the Quarter, she frequented the coffee houses and the art galleries, and she brought the musicians home to First Street to play for her and threw open her doors to penniless poets and painters very much as she had done in New York.
To the servants this meant chaos. To the neighbors it meant scandal and noise. But Stella was no dissolute drunk, as her legal father had been. On the contrary, for all her drinking, she is never described as being intoxicated; and there seems to have been considerable taste and thought at work in her during these years.