Hall of Secrets (A Benedict Hall Novel) Read online

  “Good morning, Dr. Margot,” he said. “I hope you have time to sit and drink your coffee. This is like old times.”

  “It’s so good to see you here in the kitchen again,” she said. She took a chair beside the table and slipped her feet into her shoes. “I do have time, as it happens. I’m not due at the hospital for an hour.”

  “You’ll let me cook you a bit of breakfast, then.” He poured coffee and pushed the jug of cream toward her.

  “What I’d like best,” she said, “is for you to pour your own coffee and sit with me. We can worry about breakfast later.”

  He filled his cup and crossed to the table. She noticed he lowered himself into his chair with care, but without any evidence of pain. He propped his cane, the old familiar lion-headed pine stick, against the table.

  “I hope that won’t hinder you,” Margot said, nodding to the cane. “We could certainly get you a better one. A nicer one.”

  “Oh, now, Dr. Margot,” he said. “No need for that. I have a fondness for that old cane.”

  “It’s stained,” she said. “It wasn’t stained before.”

  His gaze met hers without a hint of dissembling. “It’s old wood,” he said. “It has history.”

  “Not much of an explanation, Blake.”

  He picked up his cup and smiled over the rim. “I’ve already told you, young lady. Best you don’t press me on that.”

  She chuckled. “I won’t, then. If that’s what you want.”

  They drank their coffee in companionable silence for a few minutes. Margot didn’t want to rush. The quiet would soon be broken by Hattie bustling in to begin breakfast preparations and the twins pattering around the kitchen readying the trays for the dining room. But for a precious space of time, she and Blake could sit alone in the shining kitchen, smelling the fragrance of freshly brewed coffee, comfortable and comforted.

  Margot rose to refill their cups, waving Blake back to his chair when he started to get up. “Humor me,” she said when he protested. She set their cups down and passed him the cream. “I want to ask you about Sarah Church.”

  He poured a bit of rich yellow cream in his cup, and tipped it to see it swirl into the blackness. “That is a fine girl, Dr. Margot. I feel bad that she gave up her post to care for me, and now she’s without a job.” He glanced up. “Perhaps you could speak to the hospital about engaging her again?”

  “Of course I could, Blake,” Margot said. “Especially if that’s what she wants. But I have this other idea.”

  His white eyebrows drew together, and he looked troubled. “Now, Dr. Margot,” he said carefully, “you know Sarah can’t come work in your clinic. Not that she couldn’t do the job, and do it well, but you can’t take on a colored nurse. You’ll have no patients at all.”

  Margot sighed, tapping her cup with her fingertips. “Isn’t that sad?” she said. “But I know it’s true. Neither right nor fair, but true.”

  His face smoothed. “Well, then. What is it you have in mind for my little Sarah?”

  She leaned forward, elbows on the tabletop, fingers steepled. “There’s going to be a special clinic for women and infants, Blake. A law was passed, and it provided some money. This will be a wonderful clinic, available to anyone, whether they can pay or not. To teach prenatal care, home health and hygiene, and—” She paused. It suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t know Blake’s feelings about contraception. He tended to the traditional in his views, except when it came to her profession. He believed in people knowing their place and respecting it. He believed in the sanctity of the family—at least the Benedict family—and loyalty to it by family members and servants alike. He was not religious, as far as she knew, but he lived as if he were.

  She exhaled, and parted her fingers in an uncertain gesture. “Birth control,” she said, and watched him for his reaction.

  “Well,” he said, nodding. “That’s a fine thing, Dr. Margot. A fine thing to do. Where is this clinic to be?”

  “Right at the edge of the Valley,” she said. She felt a little twinge of shame at having doubted Blake for even a moment. His views were always well reasoned, even when she didn’t agree with them. “Where the women of the colored neighborhood and the Chinese neighborhood, and the Italian farm women, can go on foot, or on the streetcar.”

  “And what do you want Sarah to do?”

  “Pretty much everything. I’ll stop in at the clinic twice a week. We’ll be looking for other physicians to help as well, but she would be the mainstay.”

  “She’s a bit young.”

  Margot nodded. “I know she is. But she thinks for herself, and she’s efficient.”

  “That she is,” Blake said. He rubbed his chin with one finger, staring into the creamy depths of his coffee cup. “I would want to be certain she’s safe,” he said. “That can be a hard neighborhood.”

  “I have an idea about that, too.”

  He looked up, smiling. “You’re thinking of William Lee Jackson.”

  “Yes, him, but even more, his grandmother.” Margot chuckled. “That’s a woman to be reckoned with.”

  “All you have to do is persuade her.”

  “Should I start with Mrs. Jackson, do you think?”

  “No, you start with my Sarah. If she likes the idea, she’ll have some thoughts about how to make it work, I’m sure.”

  “Do you know where she lives? How I might reach her?”

  His smile widened to a grin. He looked, all at once, years younger. He looked more like himself than she had seen him all year as he struggled to recuperate. “Why, Dr. Margot, she’ll be coming by here this very day. She wants to make certain you all are taking proper care of her patient!”

  Margot laughed. “We’d better get ready, then,” she said, and pushed her chair back. “I’ll come back for lunch, Blake. Can you ask her to stay?”

  “I’ll do that.”

  They both rose, and Margot carried their two cups to the big sink to rinse. Blake was putting on his jacket when she remembered, and leaned against the counter to ask, “Blake, did you see anything last night? In the garden?”

  He stopped with one arm in the sleeve of the coat. “See anything? Like what?”

  “I don’t know,” she said and shrugged. “Really, I don’t, I just—I thought there was someone outside, when I went out for a breath of air. Around ten.”

  “Ah. No, I’m afraid I was already in bed. I won’t always retire so early,” he said.

  “Yes, you will,” she responded tartly. “If you’re the least bit tired, I want you to do just that. Doctor’s orders.”

  He touched his silver curls with two fingers. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.

  She was laughing as she left the kitchen. Hattie was just coming in, tying on her apron, with the twins close behind her. Hattie said, “Now, Miss Margot, you go on and sit you down in the dining room. I’ll have some breakfast for you in two shakes.”

  Grinning at Blake over her shoulder, Margot said obediently, “Yes, ma’am.”

  CHAPTER 11

  Allison’s cocktail was called the Bee’s Knees, and Tommy swore it was all the rage in New York speakeasies. It tasted raw and burned her throat. She had wanted a champagne cocktail, like the ones she’d had on Berengaria, but Tommy told her that here they were just cheap gin mixed with ginger ale and sugar, and weren’t really champagne at all, so she nodded, and drank her Bee’s Knees without comment, hoping she looked very grown-up and worldly.

  Tommy Fellowes, it turned out, knew all about how and where to drink, even in Seattle. Allison took another sip of the Bee’s Knees, determined to drink it all. She swung her foot, admiring the strap pump and the shortened hem of her pink georgette dress. It was a little uneven, since she had taken it up herself with inexpert stitches, but she liked the way it draped just below her knees. She touched her side curls to make sure they were still in place. It was hot in this small, crowded room, and she was perspiring with a complete lack of delicacy.

  Of course, she wasn
’t supposed to be here. Papa had forbidden her to go out in the evenings, or in fact to go anywhere without a chaperone. Mother would absolutely loathe Tommy for his lack of money or title or position, which was even better. Even thinking about that made the risk worthwhile.

  Tommy grinned down at her. “Ready for another?”

  She swallowed the last of the harsh gin-and-honey concoction, and nodded.

  Tommy was on his way to Los Angeles, where he said he was going to work in the picture business. He claimed he had made the detour to Seattle just to see Allison. She wasn’t sure she believed him, but that didn’t matter. His appearance at Benedict Hall had been the first diverting thing that had happened since she got off the boat in New York.

  She hadn’t let him into the house, of course. News of his appearance would go straight to Papa if she did, and she could almost feel Ruby spying on her from the upstairs windows. Instead, she took Tommy’s arm and pulled him around to the side garden, where they could talk in whispers behind a bank of rhododendrons.

  “I’m not supposed to see you, Tommy,” she said. “How did you find me?”

  “Clip in the San Francisco papers,” he said. “In the society column.” He seemed to like the clandestine meeting, taking her hand in his gloved one, squeezing it in a way that made her stomach quiver. “It says you’re spending Christmas at Benedict Hall with the Seattle Benedicts—too posh!”

  “That’s just like Mother,” she said. “To put it in the papers!”

  “But here you are,” he said. “So it was true.”

  “Oh, it’s true, but it’s not like that. Papa’s punishing me.” She had begun to shiver, and Tommy put an arm around her, which made her cheeks flame.

  “Punishing you for—you mean, that little party on Berengaria ?”

  “Yes. He says—” She looked down at her feet, embarrassed, feeling that she should be more sophisticated about it all, more blasé. She didn’t know how to be blasé.

  “Says what?” Tommy prompted. He was standing awfully close to her, and the heat from his body reminded her of that night, the sloshing water in the First Class swimming pool, the confusing cries of excitement coming from the cabanas—cries Allison hadn’t really understood and yet felt, somehow, that she should.

  “He says I’m compromised,” she said.

  Tommy barked with laughter, and she shushed him, glancing warily around to see if anyone had heard. “Compromised!” he said in a hoarse whisper. “What is this, the eighteenth century?”

  “I think it is for my papa,” she said forlornly. Her teeth were beginning to chatter.

  “Well, First Class,” Tommy said, squeezing her tighter. “Can’t keep you freezing out here. Let’s spring you from this cage! How’s tomorrow night?”

  Allison simmered with her secret plans as she sat through luncheon with the family the next day. She could see the difference it made in the household to have the butler back. Blake kept everything moving smoothly, the maids popping in and out under his watchful eye, the courses set and removed and replaced with efficiency. Everyone seemed more relaxed, as if they had just been waiting for everything to be set right. Blake spoke very little, but he had an air of authority as well as dignity. When luncheon was over, he changed his coat and put on a cap, and drove Uncle Dickson and Dick back to their offices, and Cousin Margot to the hospital.

  As the women started up the staircase, Cousin Ramona said, “Isn’t it marvelous to have Blake back, Mother Benedict?”

  Aunt Edith responded, “I don’t like that motorcar.”

  Ramona patted her shoulder. “I know. I know you don’t.”

  Allison followed them up, with Ruby at her heels. At her bedroom door she said, “Ruby, I’m going to sleep for a while.”

  “Do you want to change? Shall I help you?”

  “No. Just—go see if you can help the twins, or—”

  Ruby sniffed. “I’m a lady’s maid, Miss Allison. Not a housemaid.”

  “Well, then. Find something else to do.”

  “Yes, Miss Allison.”

  When the door was safely closed, Allison turned the lock, just to be certain. She found her pink georgette frock in the wardrobe, and a tiny painted sewing box she had received as a birthday gift. She had never opened it before, and the needles and thimbles were a little daunting, looking very sharp and shiny, but she meant to use them just the same. There were small spools of thread in different colors, and one of them was a good match. She held the dress up to her in front of the mirror, guessing at how much she dared shorten it.

  As she labored over the stitches, she remembered Berengaria and the excitement of escape, of daring, and of bewilderment.

  It had been great fun at first. Her new friends clattered up the stairs to the First Class pool deck, shrieking when the pitching of the ship made them stumble and crash together. The only light was that of the stars through the skylight. The water in the pool sloshed this way and that with the rocking of the storm, splashing green water up over the tiled deck. Everyone was made careless by the champagne cocktails they had drunk in the Second Class Lounge. A couple of the men didn’t even bother to take off their tuxedoes before they threw themselves into the pool. The others, both men and girls, stripped off every stitch they had on. Brassieres, stockings, underwear, everything went in a colorful pile on one of the chaises longues. Allison, hanging back in the shadows, watched the naked bodies flash through the dark water like a school of great, shining fish.

  They were so heedless, these girls. They climbed out of the water and dove back in, breasts and buttocks gleaming in the starlight, without the slightest reticence. Without any shame.

  Until that night, Allison had never seen another human being nude. She had only glimpsed her own body by accident, always covering her nakedness with a towel or a dressing gown, averting her eyes if she caught sight of herself in her dressing table mirror. It was the way her mother was, and despite their differences, she had absorbed the habit, breathing it in as if it were part of the air of their home. She had never known anything different. Not even Ruby had ever seen Allison without at least some clothes on.

  Despite that, naturally, she knew what a woman’s body looked like. But when it came to men’s bodies, she was completely, utterly ignorant.

  Their silhouettes were familiar: wide shoulders, narrow hips, long arms and legs. Their naked bodies, though, were mysterious, dark, and distorted. They fascinated her, drew her—and terrified her. She wanted to look away, and at the same moment she wanted to see everything.

  Tommy had come for her in her hiding place, seized her hand, and cried, “Come on, First Class! Don’t be a baby!”

  The one thing Allison wanted not to be was a baby. A child. Shyly, she slipped out of her dress and tossed it with her scarf onto an empty chaise. Everything was wet from the sloshing water, and would be ruined, but she couldn’t help that. Tommy, in the same state of undress as everyone else, said, “Hurry up, old thing! Into the water!”

  Allison had taken off her shoes, stripped off her stockings. Tommy flung himself into the pool with a great splash, and Allison seized her moment to step gingerly down into the pool, still wearing her chemise. She waded to a corner and sank up to her neck, hiding herself beneath the rolling water. The buzz of champagne evaporated, replaced by a fog of disquiet and embarrassment.

  Tommy had just turned to find her, calling, “Hey, First Class! Where are you?” when the door to the staircase was thrown open. A shaft of light fell over the piles of clothes, the pale flesh of the men and girls poised at the edge of the pool, and Allison’s face. The purser strode onto the pool deck, and a little gang of stewards followed. Amid shrieks of laughter and denial, only Allison froze where she was, trapped like a goldfish in a bowl. In moments, the Second Class usurpers had snatched up their clothes and disappeared down the staircase.

  Allison, the only person who actually had a right to be in the pool, was caught.

  The scheme to sneak out of Benedict Hall after dark
took more courage than her escapade on Berengaria. Then, she had acted on impulse. Now she had to follow a plan, take deliberate steps. She let Ruby help her into her nightdress, then sent her off for the night. When the bedroom door was closed, Allison went to her dressing table to rouge her cheeks, to use her lipstick, to paste her cheek curls into place. She slipped into the pink georgette, taking care not to step on the hem, which would probably come loose under the slightest pressure. She wriggled this way and that, stretching her arms behind her until, with some difficulty, she managed to do up the fastenings.

  She dared a peek out into the hallway. It seemed the family had gone to their beds and the servants to their rooms. With her heart in her mouth, Allison slipped on stocking feet down the back staircase, carrying her coat over one arm. The kitchen was dark, but a single small light glowed from the garage apartment. Allison stayed in the shadows while she put on her shoes, then dashed across the street to Tommy, waiting for her beside the brick water tower. They hurried down the hill in a wash of brilliant moonlight. At the bottom they caught the streetcar, sitting all the way in the back and giggling together like naughty children.

  Tommy led her down several dark alleys, checking street signs, keeping her hand in his and helping her over curbs or around puddles. They found the building, but they had to pass through several doors, guided by the music that grew louder as they made their way down dim corridors with sticky floors and dingy walls. When they reached the final door, Tommy muttered something to a large, unsmiling man, and this person admitted them into a cramped space. There were perhaps a dozen tables crammed into it, in no particular order Allison could discern. A haze of smoke hung near the low ceiling. A trio of musicians was playing, crowded around an upright piano. There was no space for dancing, but three couples were attempting it anyway, sidling and kicking between the tables. Every table was occupied, but a raucous group at one of them waved to the new couple, inviting them to share.