as for her lovers , the talamasca has been able to find out almost nothing about them of a young cousin , alain mayfair , we know the most , and it is not even certain that he was mary beth 's lover he worked for mary beth as a secretary or chauffeur or both from 1911 until 1913 , but was frequently in europe for long periods he was in his twenties at the time , and very handsome and spoke french very well , but not to mary beth , who preferred english there was some disagreement between him and mary beth in 1914 , but no one seems to know what it was he then went to england , joined the forces fighting in world war i , and was killed in combat his body was never recovered mary beth held an immense memorial service for him at first street kelly mayfair , another cousin , also worked for mary beth in and 1913 , and continued in her employ until 1918 he was a strikingly handsome red-haired , green-eyed young man ( his mother was irish-born ) , he took care of mary beth 's horses and , unlike other boys whom mary beth kept , did know what he was doing in that capacity the case for his having been mary beth 's lover rests entirely on the fact that they did dance together at many family gatherings , and later had many noisy quarrels which were overheard by maids , laundresses , and even chimney sweeps also mary beth settled an immense sum of money on kelly so that he could try his luck as a writer he went to greenwich village in new york with this money , worked for a while as a reporter for the new york times , and froze to death in a cold-water flat there , while drunk , apparently quite by accident it was his first winter in new york and he may not have understood the dangers whatever the case , mary beth was distraught over his death , and had the body brought home and buried properly , though kelly 's parents were so disgusted with what had happened that they would not attend the funeral she had three words inscribed on his tombstone 'fear no more ' and this may be a reference to the famous lines of shakespeare in cymbelme , 'fear no more the heat of the sun , nor the furious winter 's rages ' but we do not know she refused to explain it even to the undertaker or the tombstone workers the other 'good-looking boys ' who caused so much talk are unknown to us we have only gossip descriptions which indicate they were all very handsome and what one might call 'rough trade ' fulltime maids and cooks were highly suspicious of them and resentful towards them and most accounts of these young men say nothing per se about their being mary beth 's lovers they run something like this , 'and then there was one of those boys of hers about , you know , one of those good-looking ones she always had around , and do n't ask me for what , and he was sitting on the kitchen steps doing nothing but whittling you know and i asked him to carry the laundry basket down but he was too good for that , you can well imagine , but of course he did it , because she came into the kitchen then , and he would n't dare do nothing to run against her , you can be sure , and she give him one of her smiles , you know and said , 'hello there , benjy '' who knows ' maybe mary beth only liked to look at them .