The Witching Hour (73 page)

A young Irish maid then heard the old quadroon housekeeper remark that maybe that wasn’t Julien at all sitting at the desk, and they ought to go look for him. This terrified the maid, especially since the housekeeper began to call out to “Michie Julien” about the house while this motionless weeping individual remained at the desk, staring forward as if he could not hear her.

At last Mary Beth set out on foot, at which point Julien leapt up from the desk, ran his fingers through his white hair, and ordered the servants to bring round the brougham. He caught up with Mary Beth before she had reached Magazine Street.

It is worth noting that Julien was sixty-three at this time, and described as being a very handsome man with the flamboyant appearance and demeanor of a stage actor. Mary Beth was nineteen and exceedingly beautiful. Belle was only two years old and there is no mention of her in this story.

Julien and Mary Beth arrived at Riverbend just as messengers were being sent to fetch them. Marguerite was almost comatose, a wraith of a ninety-two-year-old woman, clutching a curious little doll with her bony fingers, which she called her
maman
much to the confusion of the attending doctor and nurse, who told all of New Orleans about it afterwards. A priest was also in attendance and his detailed account of the whole matter has also worked its way into our records.

The doll was reputedly a ghastly thing with real human bones for limbs, strung together by means of black wire, and a mane of horrid white hair affixed to its head of rags with its crudely drawn features.

Katherine, then aged sixty-one, and her two sons were both sitting by the bed, as they had been for hours. Rémy was also there, having been at the plantation for a month before his mother took ill.

The priest, Father Martin, had just given Marguerite the last sacraments, and the blessed candles were burning on the altar.

When Marguerite breathed her last, the priest watched with curiosity as Katherine rose from her chair, went to the jewel box on the dresser which she had always shared with her mother, took out the emerald necklace, and gave it to Mary Beth. Mary Beth received it gratefully, put it around her neck, and then continued to weep.

The priest then observed that it had begun to rain, and the wind about the house was extremely strong, banging the shutters
and causing the leaves to fall. Julien seemed to be delighted by this and even laughed.

Katherine appeared weary and frightened. And Mary Beth cried inconsolably. Clay, a personable young man, seemed fascinated by what was going on. His brother Vincent merely looked indifferent.

Julien then opened the windows to let in the wind and rain, which frightened the priest somewhat and certainly made him uncomfortable, as it was winter. He nevertheless stayed at the bedside as he thought proper, though rain was actually falling on the bed. The trees were crashing against the house. The priest was afraid one of the limbs might come right through the window nearest him.

Julien, quite unperturbed and with his eyes full of tears, kissed the dead Marguerite and closed her eyes, and took the doll from her, which he put inside his coat. He then laid her hands on her chest and made a speech to the priest explaining that his mother had been born at the end of the “old century” and had lived almost a hundred years, that she had seen and understood things which she could never tell anyone.

“In most families,” Julien declared in French, “when a person dies, all that the person knows dies with that person. Not so with the Mayfairs. Her blood is in us, and all she knew is passed into us and we are stronger.”

Katherine merely nodded sadly to this speech. Mary Beth continued to weep. Clay stood in the corner with his arms folded, watching.

When the priest asked timidly if the window might be closed, Julien told him that the heavens were weeping for Marguerite, and that it would be disrespectful to close the window. Julien then knocked the blessed candles off the Catholic altar by the bed, which offended the priest. It also startled Katherine.

“Now, Julien, don’t go crazy!” Katherine whispered. At which Vincent laughed in spite of himself, and Clay smiled unwillingly also. All glanced awkwardly at the priest, who was horrified. Julien then gave the company a playful smile and a shrug, and then looking at his mother again, he became miserable, and knelt down beside the bed, and buried his face in the covers beside the dead woman.

Clay quietly left the room.

As the priest was taking his leave, he asked Katherine about the emerald. Rather offhandedly she said that it was a jewel she had inherited from her mother, but never much liked, as it was so big and so heavy. Mary Beth could have it.

The priest then left the house and discovered that within a few
hundred yards, the rain was not falling and there was no wind. The sky was quite clear. He came upon Clay sitting in a white straight-backed chair by the picket fence at the very end of the frontage of the plantation; Clay was smoking and watching the distant storm which was quite visible in the darkness. The priest greeted Clay but Clay did not appear to hear him.

This is the first detailed account of the death of a Mayfair witch that we possess since Petyr van Abel’s description of the death of Deborah.

There are many other stories about Julien which could be included here, and indeed perhaps they should be in future. We will hear more of him as the story of Mary Beth unfolds.

But we should not move on to Mary Beth without treating one more aspect of Julien, that is, his bisexuality. And it is worthwhile to recount in detail the significant stories told of Julien by one of his lovers, Richard Llewellyn.

As indicated above, Julien was mentioned in connection with a “crime against nature” very early in his life, at which point he killed—either accidentally or deliberately—one of his uncles. We have also made mention of his male companion in the French Quarter in the late 1850s.

Julien was to have such companions throughout his life, but of most of them we know nothing.

Two of whom we have some record are a quadroon named Victor Gregoire and an Englishman named Richard Llewellyn.

Victor Gregoire worked for Julien in the 1880s, as a private secretary of sorts, and even a sort of valet. He lived in the servants’ quarters on First Street. He was a remarkably handsome man as were all Julien’s companions, male or female. And he was rumored to be a Mayfair descendant.

Investigation has confirmed in fact that he was the great-grandson of a quadroon maid who emigrated from Saint-Domingue with the family, a possible descendant of Peter Fontenay Mayfair, brother of Jeanne Louise, and son of Charlotte and Petyr van Abel.

Whatever, Victor was much beloved by Julien, but the two had a quarrel in about 1885, around the time of Suzette’s death. The one rather thin story we have about the quarrel indicates that Victor accused Julien of not treating Suzette in her final illness with sufficient compassion. And Julien, outraged, beat Victor rather badly. Cousins repeated this tale within the family enough for outsiders to hear of it.

The consensus seemed to be that Victor was probably right, and as Victor was a most devoted servant to Julien he had a servant’s right to tell his master the truth. It was common knowledge
at this time that no one was closer to Julien than Victor, and that Victor did everything for Julien.

It should also be added, however, that there is strong evidence that Julien loved Suzette, no matter how disappointed he was in her, and that he took good care of her. His sons certainly thought that he loved their mother; and at Suzette’s funeral, Julien was distraught. He comforted Suzette’s father and mother for hours after; and took time off from all business pursuits to remain with his daughter Jeannette, who “never recovered” from her mother’s death.

We should also note that Julien was near hysteria at Jeannette’s funeral, which occurred several years later. Indeed, at one point he held tight to the coffin and refused to allow it to be placed in the crypt. Garland, Barclay, and Cortland had to physically support their father as the entombment took place.

Descendants of Suzette’s sisters and brothers say in the present time that “Great-aunt Suzette” who once lived at First Street was, in fact, driven mad by her husband Julien—that he was perverse, cruel, and mischievous in a way that indicated congenital insanity. But these tales are vague and contain no real knowledge of the period.

To proceed with the story of Victor, the young man died tragically while Julien and Mary Beth were in Europe.

Walking home one night through the Garden District, Victor stepped in the path of a speeding carriage at the corner of Philip and Prytania streets, and suffered a dreadful fall and a blow to the head. Two days later he succumbed from massive cerebral injuries. Julien received word on his return to New York. He had a beautiful monument built for Victor in the St. Louis No. 3 Cemetery.

What argues for this having been a homosexual relationship is circumstantial except for a later statement by Richard Llewellyn, the last of Julien’s male companions. Julien bought enormous amounts of clothes for Victor. He also bought Victor beautiful riding horses, and gave him exorbitant amounts of money. The two spent days and nights together, traveled together to and from Riverbend, and to New York, and Victor often slept on the couch in the library at First Street, rather than retire to his room at the very back of the house.

As for the statement of Richard Llewellyn, he never knew Victor, but he told this member of the order personally that Julien had once had a colored lover named Victor.

* * *

Richard Llewellyn is the only observer of Julien ever personally interviewed by a member of the order, and he was more than a casual observer.

What he had to say—concerning other members of the family as well as Julien—makes his testimony of very special interest even though his statements are for the most part uncorroborated. He has given some of the most intimate glimpses of the Mayfair family which we possess.

Therefore, we feel that it is worthwhile to quote our reconstruction of his words in its entirety.

Richard Llewellyn came to New Orleans in 1900 at the age of twenty and he became an employee of Julien, just as Victor had once been, for Julien, though he was then seventy-two years old, still maintained enormous interests in merchandizing, cotton factoring, real estate, and banking. Until the week of his death some fourteen years later, Julien kept regular business hours in the library at First Street.

Llewellyn worked for Julien until his death, and Llewellyn admitted candidly to me in 1958, when I first began my field investigation of the Mayfair Witches, that he had been Julien’s lover.

Llewellyn was in 1958 just past seventy-seven years of age. He was a man of medium height, healthy build, and had curly black hair, heavily streaked with gray, and very large and slightly protruding blue eyes. He had acquired by that time what I would call a New Orleans accent, and no longer sounded like a Yankee or a Bostonian, though there are definite similarities between the ways that New Orleanians and Bostonians speak. Whatever the case, he was unmistakably a New Orleanian and he looked the part as well.

He owned an antiquarian bookstore in the French Quarter, on Chartres Street, specializing in books on music, especially opera. There were always phonograph records of Caruso playing in the store, and Llewellyn, who invariably sat at a desk to the rear of the shop, was always dressed in a suit and tie.

It was a bequest from Julien which had enabled him to own the building, where he also lived in the second floor flat, and he worked in his shop until one month before his death in 1959.

I visited him several times in the summer of 1958 but I was only able to persuade him to talk at length on one occasion, and I must confess that the wine he drank, at my invitation, had a great deal to do with it. I have of course shamelessly employed this method—lunch, wine, and then more wine—with many a
witness of the Mayfair family. It seems to work particularly well in New Orleans and during the summer. I think I was a little too brash and insistent with Llewellyn, but his information has proved invaluable.

An entirely “causal” meeting with Llewellyn was effected when I happened into his bookstore one July afternoon, and we commenced to talk about the great castrati opera singers, especially Farinelli. It was not difficult to persuade Llewellyn to lock up the shop for a Caribbean siesta at two-thirty and come with me for a late lunch at Galatoire’s.

I did not broach the subject of the Mayfair family for some time, and then only timidly and in connection with the old house on First Street. I said frankly that I was interested in the place and the people who lived there. By then Llewellyn was pleasantly “high” and plunged into reminiscences of his first days in New Orleans.

At first he would say nothing about Julien but then began to speak of Julien as if I knew all about the man. I supplied various well-known dates and facts and that moved the conversation along briskly. We left Galatoire’s finally for a small, quiet Bourbon Street café and continued our conversation until well after eight-thirty that evening.

At some point during this conversation Llewellyn realized that I had no prejudice whatsoever against him on account of his sexual preferences, indeed that nothing he was saying came as a shock to me, and this added to his relaxed attitude towards the story he told.

This was long before our use of tape recorders, and I reconstructed the conversation as best I could as soon as I returned to my hotel, trying to capture Llewellyn’s particular expressions. But it is a reconstruction. And throughout I have omitted my own persistent questions. I believe the substance to be accurate.

Essentially, Llewellyn was deeply in love with Julien Mayfair, and one of the early shocks of Llewellyn’s life was to discover that Julien was at least ten to fifteen years older than Llewellyn ever imagined, and Llewellyn only discovered this when Julien suffered his first stroke in early 1914. Until that time Julien had been a fairly romantic and vigorous lover of Llewellyn, and Llewellyn remained with Julien until he died, some four months later. Julien was partially paralyzed at that time, but still managed to spend an hour or two each day in his office.