“Well, what did Red say to Miss Carlotta?”
“Told Miss Carlotta no, he wasn’t putting any million-dollar emerald in a casket. He cleaned it all off with rubbing alcohol and got a velvet case for it from Hershman and then he took it over to her. Same as we did together years later when Antha fell from the window. Miss Carl didn’t ask us to bury it that time. And she didn’t demand to have the funeral in the parlor neither.”
“In the parlor!”
“Well, that’s where Stella was laid out, Rita Mae, right there in that house. They always did that in the old days. Old Julien Mayfair was buried from the parlor and so was Miss Mary Beth and that was 1925. And that’s the way that Stella had said it was to be done. She’d left that word in her will, and so they did it. But with Antha nothing like that happened. We brought that necklace back, Daddy and me together. I came in with Daddy and there Miss Carl was in that double parlor with no lights on and it being so dark in there with the porches and the trees and all, and there she was just sitting there, rocking little Deirdre in the cradle beside her. I went in with Daddy and he put the necklace in her hand. And you know what she did? She said, ‘Thank you, Red Lonigan.’ And she turned and put that jewel case in the cradle with the baby.”
“But why did she do that?”
“ ’Cause it was Deirdre’s, that’s why. Miss Carl never had no right to any of those jewels. Miss Mary Beth left them to Stella, and Stella named Antha to get them, and Antha’s only daughter was Deirdre. It’s always been that way, they all pass to one daughter.”
“Well, what if the necklace is cursed,” Rita said. Lord, to think of it around Deirdre’s neck and Deirdre the way she was now. Oh, Rita could hardly stand to think of it.
“Well, if it’s cursed, maybe the house is too,” Jerry said, “because the jewels go with the house, and lots of other money.”
“You mean to tell me, Jerry Lonigan, that house belongs to Deirdre?”
“Rita, everybody knows that. How come you don’t know that?”
“You’re telling me that house is hers, and those women lived in it all those years when she was locked up and then they brought her home like that, and she sits there and-”
“Now, don’t get hysterical, Rita Mae. But that’s what I’m telling you. It’s Deirdre’s, same as it was Antha’s and Stella’s. And it will pass to that California daughter when Deirdre dies, unless somebody managed to change all those old papers and I don’t think you can change a thing like that. It goes way back, the will-back to times when they had the plantation, and times before that, when they were in the islands, you know, in Haiti, before they ever came here. A legacy is what they call it. And I remember Hershman used to say that Miss Carl started law school when she was a girl just to learn how to crack the legacy. But she never could. Even before Miss Mary Beth died, everybody knew Stella was the heiress.”
“But what if that California girl doesn’t know about it?”
“It’s the law, honey. And Miss Carlotta, no matter whatever else she is, is a good lawyer. Besides, it’s tied with the name, Mayfair. You have to go by the name or you can’t inherit anything from the legacy. And that girl goes by the name of Mayfair. I heard that when she was born. So does her adopted mother, Ellie Mayfair, the one that came today and signed the register. They know. People always know when they’re coming into money. And besides, the other Mayfairs would tell her. Ryan Mayfair would tell her. He’s Cortland’s grandson and Cortland loved Deirdre; he really did. He was real old by the time Deirdre had to give up the baby, and the way I heard it, he was against it all the way, lot of good it did. I heard he really took on Miss Carlotta about that baby, said it would drive Deirdre crazy to give it up, and Miss Carlotta said Deirdre was already crazy. A lot of good it did.”
Jerry finished his bourbon. He poured another glass.
“But Jerry, what if there are other things that Deirdre’s daughter doesn’t know?” Rita asked. “Why didn’t she come down here today? Why didn’t she want to see her mother?”
Rita Mae, they’re going to take my baby!
Jerry didn’t answer. His eyes were bloodshot. He was over the hill with the bourbon.
“Daddy knew a lot more about those people,” he said, his words slurred now. “More than he ever told me. One thing Daddy did say, though, that they were right to take Deirdre’s baby away from her and give it to Ellie Mayfair, for the baby’s sake. And Daddy told me something else too. Daddy told me Ellie Mayfair couldn’t have babies of her own, and her husband was real disappointed over that, and about to leave her when Miss Carl rang her up long distance and asked if they wanted to have Deirdre’s baby. ‘Don’t tell Rita Mae all that,’ Daddy said, ‘but for everybody it was a blessing. And old Mr. Cortland, God rest his soul, he was wrong.’ ”
Rita Mae knew what she was going to do. She had never lied to Jerry Lonigan in her life. She just didn’t tell him. The next afternoon, she called the Monteleone Hotel. The Englishman had just checked out! But they thought he might still be in the lobby.
Rita Mae’s heart was pounding as she waited.
“This is Aaron Lightner. Yes, Mrs. Lonigan. Please take a taxi down and I shall pay the fare. I’ll be waiting.”
It made her so nervous she was stumbling over her words, forgetting things as she rushed out of the house and having to go back for them. But she was glad she was doing this! Even if Jerry had caught her then, she would have gone on with it.
The Englishman took her round the corner to the Desire Oyster Bar, a pretty place with ceiling fans and big mirrors and doors open along Bourbon Street. It seemed exotic to Rita the way the Quarter always had. She almost never got to go down there.
They sat at a marble-top table, and she had a glass of white wine because that’s what the Englishman had and it sounded very nice to her. What a good-looking man he was. With a man like that it didn’t matter about his age, he was handsomer than younger men. It made her slightly nervous to sit so close to him. And the way his eyes fixed her, it made her melt as if she was a kid again in high school.
“Talk to me, Mrs. Lonigan,” he said. “I’ll listen.”
She tried to take it slow, but once she started it just came pouring out of her. Soon she was crying, and he probably couldn’t understand a word she was saying. She gave him that old, twisted little bit of card. She told about the ads she’d run, and how she’d told Deirdre that she could never find him.
Then came the difficult part. “There are things that girl in California doesn’t know! That property’s hers, and maybe the lawyers will tell her that, but what about the curse, Mr. Lightner? I’m putting my trust in you, I’m telling you things my husband doesn’t want me to tell a living soul. But if Deirdre put her trust in you back then, well, that’s enough for me. I’m telling you, the jewels and the house are cursed.”
Finally, she told him everything. She told him all that Jerry had told her. She told him all that Red had ever said. She told him anything and everything she could remember.
And the funny thing was that he was never surprised or shocked. And over and over again, he assured her that he would do his best to get this information to the girl in California.
When it was all said, and she sat there wiping her nose, her white wine untouched, the man asked her if she would keep his card, if she would call him when there was any “change” with Deirdre. If she could not reach him she was to leave a message. The people who answered the phone would understand. She need only say it was in connection with Deirdre Mayfair.