Stuart Townsend was a member of the Talamasca. He first went to the Talamasca when he was twenty-two years old after recovering from a ten year possession.

Description

A wasted, warped invalid, a white-faced boy with a strange sexless voice. A pale-faced "feminine" creature who lived in the attic.^[1]

He stood six feet tall, had ash blond hair, and dark grey eyes. He was lean of build and had a light complexion. He tended to dress elegantly.^[1]

Biography

Stuart had been born in a small town in Texas in the year 1895. His father was the local doctor, a deeply intellectual and widely respected man, Stuart's mother was from a well-to-do family, engaged in charity work of the fashionable sort. He was the firstborn of seven children, they lived in a large white Victorian house. Stuart went to Boarding school in New England when he was six years old. He was from the beginning an exceptional student.

When he was ten years old Stuart came down with a serious fever which could not be diagnosed. His father concluded finally that it was of infectious origin, but no real explanation was ever found. Stuart went into a crisis during which he was delirious for two days. When he recovered, he wasn't Stuart. He was somebody who claimed to be a young woman named Antoinette Fielding, who spoke with a French accent and played the piano beautifully, and seemed generally confused about how old she was, where she lived, or was she was doing in Stuart's house. Stuart-Antoinette cried miserably whenever they saw their reflection and had to be persuaded to live as a boy, becoming known to his family as Tony. They played the piano obsessively, venturing out only to get lost or into some dreadful scrape with the local toughs. At last Antoinette never left the house, and became something of a hysterical invalid, demanding that meals be left at her door, and going down to play the piano only at night.

This situation continued until Stuart was twenty years old. Then one night he fell down the steps, suffering a severe concussion. The doctor, half awake and waiting for the inevitable music to rise from the parlour, discovered his son unconscious in the hallway and rushed him to the local hospital, where Stuart lay in a coma for two weeks. When Stuart woke up he was Stuart. He had absolutely no recollection of ever having been anyone else. Indeed, he believed he was ten years old, and when he heard a manly voice issuing from his own throat, he was horrified. When he discovered he had a grown man's body, he was speechless with shock. He could no longer speak French or play piano.

In late 1916 the Talamasca saw a news article about Stuart's case titled "The Boy Who Had Been Somebody Else for Ten Years," and got in contact with Stuart. The sent him books on possession and informed him that they had a good deal of knowledge about such things and would be very glad to talk to him about it, and about others who experienced the same thing. Stuart at once replied, met with Louis Daly in Dallas, agreed to go to London in September 1917. His first case at the Talamasca was his own possession, followed by a study on every other known case of possession on record. This was his work for five years. In 1920 he went to Paris to find evidence of Antoinette Fielding, but he was unable to discover anything at all. In the late 1920s he turned to active fieldwork, intervening in cases of possession and helping victims recover.

In 1929, Stuart Townsend, who had been studying the Mayfair materials for years, petitioned the council in London to allow him to attempt contact with the Mayfair family. He felt strongly that Stella's cryptic message to the Talamasca on the back of a photograph meant that she wanted such contact. He was told he might go to America and he might make contact with Stella. He wrote the Talamasca to let them know he had made contact and was going to meet Stella for lunch.

Stuarts disappearance was reported to the New Orleans police on July 25, 1929. This was a full month after his arrival in New Orleans. The Talamasca had tried to reach him by telegram and by phone. The St. Charles Hotel, from which Stuart claimed to have written his only letter from New Orleans, denied ever having such a person registered. On July 28, the authorities told the Talamasca's local investigators that there was nothing further that they could do. Stella Mayfair confirmed she had met with Stuart, that they had had lunch together and later dinner, and spent an entire night in talk. She became quite instantly and visibly distressed at the possibility that he had met with foul play. Stella told Arthur Langtry "Look, I don't know what happened to him! I liked him. I really did. He was such a strange man. We went to bed, you know." "I told him not to come around this family. I told him!"^[1]

Stuart was murdered by Carlotta Mayfair, his ghost warned Arthur Langtry to leave the First Street House.

Trivia

• Shared the same name as the actor who portrayed Lestat de Lioncourt in the 2002 movie, "Queen of the Damned".

References