Before leaving New Orleans, we dined together at Galatoire's, a venerable old New Orleans restaurant where I found the food to be delicious, but Merrick was by this time so exhausted that she turned quite pale and fell sound asleep in her chair.
The transformation in her was remarkable. She murmured that Aaron and I must care for the Olmec treasures. "Look at them but be careful," she said, as a matter of fact. And then came the sudden slumber which left her pliant but unconscious, as far as I could see.
Aaron and I all but carried her to the car¡ªshe could walk in her sleep if propelled¡ªand much as I wanted to talk with Aaron I didn't dare risk it, though Merrick slept between us, quite soundly, during the entire ride home.
When we reached the Motherhouse, that good female member of the Order whom I've mentioned before, and will now for the sake of this account call Mary, helped us to carry Merrick up to her room and lay her on the bed.
Now, I remarked a little while ago that I wanted the Talamasca to envelop her in fantasy, to give her everything that she should desire.
Let me explain that we had already begun this process by creating an upstairs corner bedroom for her, which we believed to be a young woman's dream. The fruit wood bed, its posts and canopy decorated with carved flowers and trimmed in fancy lace, the dressing table with its little satin bench and huge round mirror, its small fancy twin lamps and myriad bottles, all of this was part of the fantasy, along with a pair of frilly boudoir dolls, as they are called, which had to be moved aside to lay down the poor darling on her pillow for the night.
And lest you believe we were misogynist imbeciles, allow me to explain that one wall of the room, the wall that was not punctuated by floor length windows to the porch, was filled with a fine general assortment of books. There was also a corner table and chairs for reading, many other pretty lamps here and there, and a bathroom filled with perfumed soaps, varicolored shampoos, and countless bottles of scented cologne and oil. In fact, Merrick herself had bought any number of products scented with Chanel No. 22, a particularly wonderful scent.
By now, as we left her fast asleep and in the gentle care of Mary, I believe that Aaron and I both had fallen in love with her, completely in a parental sense, and I meant to allow nothing in the Talamasca to distract me from her case.
Of course Aaron, not being the Superior General of the Order, would have the luxury of remaining here with her long after I had been forced back to my desk in London. And I envied him that he would have the pleasure of watching this child meet her first tutors and pick out her own school.
As for the Olmec treasures, we took them now to the small Louisiana vault for safekeeping, and once inside, after some debate, opened the suitcase and examined what was there.
The cache was quite remarkable. There were close to forty idols, at least twelve of the perforator knives, numerous axe blades, and many smaller blade shaped objects which we commonly call celts. Every single item was exquisite in its own right. There was also a handwritten inventory, apparently the work of the mysterious and doomed Matthew, listing each item and its size. The note was appended:
There are many more treasures within this tunnel, but they must wait for later excavation. I am already sick and must return home as soon as possible. Honey and Sandra are highly argumentative on this point. They want to take everything out of the cave. But I am getting weaker even as I write. As for Merrick, my illness is scaring her. I need to take her home. It is worth noting while I have the strength in my right hand that nothing else scares any of my ladies, not the jungles, not the villages, not the Indians. I have to go back.
It was more than poignant, these words of the dead man, and my curiosity about "Honey" was all the more strong.
We were in the process of wrapping everything and restoring it to its old order, when there came a knock on the outside door of the room in which the vault is situated.
"Come quickly," Mary said through the door. "She's become hysterical. I don't know what to do. "
Up the stairs we headed, and before we'd reached the second floor we could hear her desperate sobs.
She sat on the bed, still in her navy blue dress from the funeral, her feet bare again, and her hair in tangles, sobbing over and over again that Great Nananne was dead.
It was all entirely understandable, but Aaron had a near magical effect upon people in such states, and he soon quieted her with his words, while Mary assisted when she could.
Merrick then asked through her tears if she could please have a glass of rum.
Of course no one was in favor of this remedy, but on the other hand, as Aaron judiciously pointed out, the liquor would quiet her, and she would go to sleep.
Several bottles were found in the bar downstairs, and Merrick was given a glass of the rum, but asked for more.
"This is a sip," she said through her tears, "I need a glassful. " She looked so perfectly unhappy and distraught that we couldn't deny her. At last, after imbibing, her sobs became softer.
"What am I going to do, where will I go?" she asked piteously, and once again we made our assurances, though her grief was something which I felt she had to express with tears.
As for doubts about her future, that was a different matter. I sent Mary out of the room. I sat down on the bed beside Merrick.
"My dear, listen to me," I said to her. "You're rich in your own right. Those books of Oncle Vervain's. They're worth enormous amounts of money. Universities and museums would bid on them at auction. As for the Olmec treasures, I cannot calculate their worth. Of course you don't want to part with these things, and we don't want you to do it, but rest assured you are secure, even without us. "
This seemed to quiet her somewhat.
Finally, after she had cried softly against my chest for the better part of an hour, she put her arms around Aaron, laid her head on his shoulder, and said that if she knew we were in the house, that we would not leave it, then she could go to sleep.
"We'll be waiting for you downstairs in the morning," I told her. "We want you to make that coffee for us. We've been fools, drinking the wrong coffee. We refuse to have breakfast without you. Now you must sleep. "
She gave me a grateful and kindly smile, even though the tears were still spilling onto her cheeks. Then, asking no one's permission, she went to the frilly dressing table, where the bottle of rum stood quite incongruously among the other fancy little bottles, and took a good slug of the drink.
As we rose to go, Mary answered my call with a nightgown ready for Merrick, and I took the bottle of rum, nodded to Merrick to make certain that she had seen me do it, so there would be some civil pretense of her permission, and Aaron and I retired to the library below.