Antha Mayfair
With the death of Stella, an era ended for the Mayfairs. And the tragic history of Stella’s daughter Antha, and her only child, Deirdre, remains shrouded in mystery to this day.
As the years passed, the household staff at First Street dwindled to a couple of silent, unreachable, and completely loyal servants; the outbuildings, no longer needed for housemaids and coachmen and stable boys, fell slowly into disrepair.
The women of First Street maintained a reclusive existence, Belle and Millie Dear becoming “sweet old ladies” of the Garden District as they walked to daily Mass at the Prytania Street chapel, or stopped in their ceaseless and ineffectual gardening to chat with neighbors passing the iron fence.
Only six months after her mother’s death, Antha was expelled from a Canadian boarding school, which was the last public institution she was ever to attend. It was a surprisingly simple matter for a private investigator to learn from teacher gossip that Antha had frightened people with her mind reading, her talking to an invisible friend, and threats against those who ridiculed her or talked behind her back. She was described as a nervous girl, always crying, complaining of the cold in all kinds of weather, and subject to long unexplained fevers and chills.
Carlotta Mayfair took Antha home by train from Canada, and to the best of our knowledge, Antha never spent another night out of the First Street house until she was seventeen.
Nancy, a sullen, dumpy young woman, only two years older than Antha, continued to go to school every day until she was eighteen. At that point she went to work as a file clerk in Carlotta’s law offices, where she worked for four years. Every morning, without fail, she and Carlotta walked from First and Chestnut to St. Charles Avenue, where they caught the St. Charles car for downtown.
By this time the First Street house had taken on an air of perpetual gloom. Its shutters were never opened. Its violet-gray paint began to peel, and its garden grew wild along the iron fences, with cherry laurels and rain trees sprouting among the old camellias and gardenias, which had been so carefully tended years before. When the old unoccupied stable burned to the ground in 1938, weeds soon filled up the open space at the back of the property. Another dilapidated building was razed shortly after, and nothing remained but the old garçonnières, and one great and beautiful oak, its branches poignantly outstretched above the wild grass towards the distant main house.
In 1934, we started to receive the first reports from workmen who found it impossible to complete repairs or other jobs on the house. The Molloy brothers told everyone in Corona’s Bar on Magazine Street that they couldn’t paint that place because every time they turned around their ladders were on the ground, or their paint was spilled, or their brushes somehow got knocked in the dirt. “It must have happened six times,” said Davey Molloy, “that my paint just went right over, off the ladder, and poured out on the ground. Now, I know I never knocked over a full paint can! And that’s what she said to me, Miss Carlotta, she said, ‘You knocked it over yourself.’ Well, when that ladder went over with me on it, I tell you, that was it. I quit.”
Davey’s brother, Thompson Molloy, had a theory as to who was responsible. “It’s that brown-haired fella, the one who was always watching us. I told Miss Carlotta, ‘Don’t you think he could be doing it? That fella that’s always over there under the tree?’ She acted like she didn’t know what I was talking about. But he was always watching us. We were trying to patch the wall on Chestnut Street and I seen him looking at us through the library shutters. Gave me the creeps, it did. Who is he? Is he one of them cousins? I’m not working there. I don’t care how bad times are. I’m not working on that house again.”
Another workman, hired only to paint the black cast-iron railings, reported the same “goings-on.” He gave up after half a day during which time debris fell on him from the roof and leaves constantly fell into his paint.
By 1935, it was common knowledge in the Irish Channel that nothing could be done “on that old house.” When a couple of young men were hired to clean out the pool that same year, one of them was knocked into the stagnant water and almost drowned. The other had a hell of a time getting him out. “It was like I couldn’t see anything. I had a hold of him, and I was hollering for somebody to help me, and we were going down in all that muck, and then thank God he had a hold of the side and he was saving me. That old colored woman, Aunt Easter, come out there with a towel for us and she hollered, ‘Just get away from that swimming pool. Never mind cleaning it. Just get away.’ ”
Even Irwin Dandrich heard the gossip. “They’re saying it’s haunted, that Stella’s spirit won’t let anyone touch anything. It’s as if the whole place is in mourning for Stella.” Had Dandrich heard of a mysterious brown-haired man? “I hear all kinds of things. Some say it’s Julien’s ghost. That he’s keeping an eye on Antha. Well, if he is, he isn’t doing a very good job.”
Shortly thereafter a vague story appeared in the Times-Picayune describing a “mysterious uptown mansion” where no work could be done. Dandrich clipped it and sent it to London with the note “My Big Mouth” in the margin.
One of our investigators took the reporter to lunch. She was happy to talk about it, and yes indeed it was the Mayfair house. Everyone knew it. A plumber said he was trapped under that house for hours when he tried to fix a pipe. He actually lost consciousness. When he finally came to himself and got out of there, he had to be taken to the hospital. Then there was the telephone man who was called to fix a phone in the library. He said he would never set foot in that house again. One of the portraits on the wall had actually looked at him. And he thought sure he saw a ghost in that very room.
“I could have written a great deal more,” said the young woman, “but the people at the paper don’t want any trouble with Carlotta Mayfair. Did I tell you about the gardener? He goes in there regularly to cut the grass, you know, and he said the weirdest thing when I called him. He said, ‘Oh, he never bothers me. He and I get along just fine. He and I are just real regular friends.’ Now, who do you suppose this man was referring to? When I asked him he said, ‘You just go up there. You’ll see him. He’s been there forever. My grandfather used to see him. He’s all right. He can’t move or talk to you. He just stands there looking at you from the shadows. One minute you see him. Then he’s gone. He don’t bother me. He’s all right by me. I get paid plenty to work there. I’ve always worked there. He don’t frighten me.”
Family gossip of the period dismissed the “ghost stories.” So did uptown society, according to Dandrich, though he implied he thought that people were naive.
“I think Carlotta herself started all those silly ghost stories,” said one of the cousins years after. “She wanted to keep people away. We just laughed when we heard it.”
“Ghosts at First Street? Carlotta was responsible for that house becoming a ruin. She always was penny-wise and pound-foolish. That’s the difference between her and her mother.”
But whatever the attitudes of the cousins and the local society, the priests at the Redemptorist rectory heard countless stories of ghosts and mysterious mischief at First Street. Father Lafferty called regularly at First Street, and rumor had it that he would not allow himself to be turned away.
His sister told one of our investigators, “My brother knew plenty about what was going on, but he never gossiped about it. I asked him how Antha was doing, and he wouldn’t answer me. But I know he saw Antha. He got into that house. After Antha died, he came over here one Sunday and he just put his head on his arms on the dining table and he cried. That’s the only time I ever saw my brother, Father Thomas Lafferty, break down and cry.”