She
checked the phone book for Aaron Lightner and the Talamasca, whatever that was. She called information. She begged the operator to tell her if there was an unlisted number. She even ran personals in the Times-Picayune and in the States-Item.
"The card was old and dirty before you ever got it," Jerry reminded her. Fifty dollars spent on personal ads was enough. Jerry's daddy said he thought she might just as well give up. But one thing she could say for him, he hadn't criticized her for it.
"Darlin', don't go back to that house," Red said. "I'm not scared of Miss Carlotta or anything like that. I just don't want you around those people."
Rita saw Jerry look at his father, and his father look at him. They knew something they weren't saying. Rita knew Lonigan and Sons had buried Deirdre's mother when she fell from that window years ago, she'd heard that much, and she knew Red remembered the grandmother who had "died young" too the way Deirdre told Rita.
But those two were closemouthed the way morticians had to be. And Rita was too miserable now for hearing about the history of that horrible old house and those women.
She cried herself to sleep the way she had at boarding school. Maybe Deirdre had seen the ads in the papers, and knew that Rita had tried to do what she wanted.
Another year passed before Rita saw Deirdre again. The baby was long gone. Some cousins out in California took it. Nice people, everybody said, rich people. The man was a lawyer like Miss Carl. That baby would be looked after.
Sister Bridget Marie at St. Alphonsus told Jerry the nuns at Mercy Hospital said the baby was a beautiful little girl with blond hair. Not like Deirdre's black curls at all. And Father Lafferty had put the baby in Deirdre's arms and said to Deirdre, "Kiss your baby," then taken it away from her.
Gave Rita the shivers. Like people kissing the corpse right before they closed up the coffin. "Kiss your baby," then taking it like that.
No wonder Deirdre had had a complete breakdown. They took her right from Mercy to the sanitarium.
"Not the first time for that family," Red Lonigan said as he shook his head. "That's how Lionel Mayfair died, in a straitjacket."
Rita asked what he meant, but he didn't answer.
"Oh, but they didn't have to do it like that," Rita said. "She's such a sweet thing. She couldn't hurt anybody."
Finally Rita heard Deirdre was home again. And that Sunday Rita decided to go to Mass at the Mother of Perpetual Help Chapel in the Garden District. That's where the rich people went mostly. They didn't come to the big old parish churches--St. Mary's and St. Alphonsus--across Magazine Street.
Rita went up there to the ten o'clock Mass, thinking, Well, I'll just pass by the Mayfair house on the way back. But she didn't have to, because Deirdre was there at Mass, sitting between her great-aunts Miss Belle and Miss Millie. Thank the lord no Miss Carlotta.
Deirdre looked dreadful to Rita, like Banquo's Ghost as Rita's mother would have said. She had dark circles under her eyes and her dress was some old shiny gabardine thing that didn't fit her. Padded shoulders. One of those old women in the house must have given her that.
After Mass, as they were going down the marble steps, Rita swallowed, took a deep breath, and ran after Deirdre.
Deirdre at once gave her that beautiful smile. But when she tried to talk, almost nothing came out. Then in a whisper she said: "Rita Mae!"
Rita Mae leaned over to kiss her. She whispered:
"Dee Dee, I tried to do what you asked me. I could never find that man. The card was too ruined."
Deirdre's eyes were wide, vacant. She didn't even remember, did she? At least Miss Millie and Miss Belle didn't notice. They were saying their hellos to everybody passing. And poor old Miss Belle never noticed anything anyway.
Then Deirdre did seem to recall something. "It's OK, Rita Mae," she said. She had the beautiful smile again. She squeezed Rita Mae's hand and leaned forward and kissed her this time, on the cheek. Then her Aunt Millie said, "We should go now, sweetheart."
Now, that was Deirdre Mayfair to Rita. It's OK, Rita Mae. The sweetest girl she ever knew.
Deirdre was back at the sanitarium before long. She'd been walking barefoot on Jackson Avenue talking out loud to herself. Then they said she was in a mental hospital in Texas, and after that Rita only heard that Deirdre Mayfair was "incurably ill" and was never coming home again.
When old Miss Belle died, the Mayfairs called Jerry's dad as they'd always done. Maybe Miss Carl didn't even remember the fight with Rita Mae. Mayfairs came from all over for that funeral, but no Deirdre.
Mr. Lonigan hated opening the tomb in Lafayette No. 1. That cemetery had so many ruined graves with rotting coffins plainly visible, even the bones showing. It sickened him to take a funeral there.
"But those Mayfairs have been buried there since 1861," he said. "And they do keep up that tomb, I'll give them that. They have the wrought-iron fence painted every year. And when the tourists come through there? Well, that's one of the graves they always look at--what with all the Mayfairs in there, and those little babies' names, going back to the Civil War. It's just the rest of that place is so sorry. You know they're going to tear that place down someday."
They never did tear down Lafayette No. 1. The tourists liked it too much. And so did the families of the Garden District. Instead they cleaned it up, repaired the whitewashed walls, planted new magnolia trees. But there were still enough broken-down tombs for people to get their peek at the bones. It was a "historical monument."
Mr. Lonigan took Rita through there one afternoon, showing her the famous yellow fever graves where you could read a long list of those who had died within days of each other during the epidemics. He showed her the Mayfair tomb--a big affair with twelve oven-size vaults inside. The little iron fence ran all the way around it, enclosing a tiny strip of grass. And the two marble vases stuck to the front step were full of fresh-cut flowers.
"Why, they keep it up real nice, don't they?" she said. Such beautiful lilies and gladiolus and baby's breath.
Mr. Lonigan stared at the flowers. He didn't answer. Then after he'd cleared his throat, he pointed out the names of those he knew.
"This one here--Antha Marie, died 1941, now that was Deirdre's mother."
"The one who fell from the window," Rita said. Again he didn't answer her.
"And this one here--Stella Louise, died 1929--now that was Antha's mother. And it was this one over here, Lionel, her brother--'died 1929'--who ended up in the straitjacket after he shot and killed Stella."
"Oh, you don't mean he murdered his own sister."
"Oh, yes, I do," Mr. Lonigan said. Then he pointed out the other names going way back. "Miss Mary Beth, now that was the mother of Stella, and of Miss Carl, and now, Miss Millie is actually Remy Mayfair's daughter. He was Miss Carl's uncle, and he died at First Street, but that was before my time. I remember Julien Mayfair, however. He was what you call unforgettable, Julien was. Till the day he died, he was a fine-looking man. And so was Cortland, his son. You see, Cortland died that year that Deirdre had that little baby. Now I didn't bury Cortland. Cortland's family lived in Metairie. They say it was all that ruckus over the baby that killed Cortland. But that don't matter. You can see that Cortland was eighty years old besides. Old Miss Belle was Miss Carl's older sister. But Miss Nancy, well, she is Antha's sister. It will be Miss Millie next, you mark my words."
Rita didn't care about them. She was remembering Deirdre on that long-ago day at St. Ro's when they sat on the side of the bed together. The emerald necklace had come to her through Stella and Antha.
She told Red about it now, and it didn't surprise him at all. He just nodded, and said, yes, and before that the emerald necklace had belonged to Miss Mary Beth and before that to Miss Katherine who had built the house on First Street, but Miss Katherine was really before his time. Monsieur Julien was as far back as he could recall ...
"But you know, it's the strangest thing," Rita said. "Them all carrying the Mayfair name. Why don't they take the names of the men they ma
rry?"
"Can't," Mr. Lonigan said. "If they do, then they don't get the Mayfair money. That's the way it was set up long ago. You have to be a Mayfair to get Mayfair money. Cortland Mayfair knew it; knew all about it; he was a fine lawyer; never worked for anybody except the Mayfair family; I remember once he told me. It was legacy, he said."
He was staring at the flowers again.
"What is it, Red?" Rita asked.
"Oh, just an old story they tell around here," he said. "That those vases are never empty."
"Well, it's Miss Carl who orders the flowers, isn't it?" Rita asked.
"Not that I know of," Mr. Lonigan said, "but somebody always puts them there." But then he went quiet again the way he always did. He would never really tell you what he knew.
When he died a year after that, Rita felt as bad as if she'd lost her own father. But she kept wondering what secrets he'd taken with him. He'd always been so good to Rita. Jerry was never the same. He was nervous afterwards whenever he dealt with the old families.
Deirdre came home to the house on First Street in 1976, a mindless idiot, they said, on account of the shock treatments.
Father Mattingly from the parish went by to see her. No brain left at all. Just like a baby, he told Jerry, or a senile old lady.
Rita went to call. It had been years since she and Miss Carlotta had that awful fight. Rita had three children now. She wasn't scared of that old lady. She brought a pretty white silk negligee for Deirdre from D. H. Holmes.
Miss Nancy took her out on the porch. She said to Deirdre:
"Look what Rita Mae Lonigan brought, Deirdre."
Just a mindless idiot. And how awful to see that beautiful emerald necklace around her neck. It was like they were making fun of her, to put it on her like that, over her flannel nightgown.
Her feet looked swollen and tender as they rested on the bare boards of the porch. Her head fell to one side as she stared through the screens. But otherwise she was still Deirdre--still pretty, still sweet. Rita had to get out of there.
She never called again. But not a week went by that she didn't walk back First just to stop at the fence and wave to Deirdre. Deirdre didn't even notice her. But Rita did it nevertheless. It seemed to her Deirdre got stooped and thin, that her arms weren't down in her lap anymore, but drawn up, close to her chest. But Rita was never close enough to make certain. That was the virtue of just standing at the fence and waving.