Benedict Hall Page 15

  “Oh, yes, miss,” Leona said. “In the morning. I do your bed and dust. But now—”

  “It’s not the usual hour, I understand. But it doesn’t matter. No one’s going to notice.”

  “Oh, but he will!” Leona said in an urgent whisper. “If he sees me, he’ll know—”

  “Who?” And when Leona bit her lip and dropped her eyes, she said, “Oh. I see. You’re thinking of my brother.”

  Leona nodded, staring at the pattern in the Oriental carpet.

  “Well. We’ll be careful.” Margot shifted her robe to her other arm, and took her hairbrush from the dresser. “Tell me why you came, and then I’ll see you back to your own staircase.”

  Leona blanched, and gave Margot the wide-eyed look of a frightened doe. “No!” she whispered. “He’s up there!”

  “Ah.” Margot blew out a breath, and leaned her hip against the foot of her bedstead. “Preston did talk to Loena, then.”

  “You knew he was going to?”

  “We’re going to arrange for her to go to a place where she can come to term, and decide what to do with the baby. Preston and I spoke about this a few days ago.”

  “But does she have to go tonight?”

  Margot’s brows drew together. “What do you mean, tonight?”

  “Miss Margot—Doctor Margot, I mean—” Leona broke off, in a fluster of confusion.

  Margot waved a hand, and snapped, “Tell me what’s happened, for God’s sake.”

  Leona’s eyes reddened, and Margot could have kicked herself. Edith was right. She terrified these girls. “I’m sorry,” she said more gently. “I’m a bit tired. Just tell me.”

  Leona stammered, in a voice so faint Margot had to lean forward to hear her, “Loena’s packing her things. He’s taking her somewheres.”

  “Where?” Margot asked sharply, forgetting her intention.

  Leona took a half step backward, and her tears spilled over. “She thinks he’s going to take care of her. But I don’t know if—” She gazed fearfully up at Margot, lips parted, eyes wide.

  “What?” Margot demanded. “What don’t you know?”

  In a rush, as if she were diving into cold water, the girl said, “Begging your pardon, miss, because he’s your brother and all, but I don’t know if I trust him!” Leona choked on a sob, and covered her face with both hands.

  Margot threw her things on the bed, and brushed past Leona on her way to the door. She didn’t bother to put her shoes on, but strode down the hall to the servants’ stair in her stocking feet. Leona sniffled as she trotted behind her.

  Margot took the stairs two at a time, and threw open the door to the twins’ dormer room. It was empty. Two drawers in one of the dressers had been pulled out, and one of the beds was mussed. It looked as if Loena had been in bed when he came to get her.

  Leona came in behind her, and stood forlornly in the doorway. “Where did they go, Miss Margot? Will Loena be all right?”

  Margot set her teeth together. There was little she could say. He had taken matters into his own hands, and though she wouldn’t say it to a servant, Leona was right. Preston’s were not hands to be trusted.

  Margot slept poorly that night, and rose early for hospital rounds. She was in the kitchen, waiting for the coffee to be ready, when Leona dashed in, still tying on her apron. “She’s home, Miss Margot!” she cried. Her eyes shone with relief, and the color had returned to her freckled cheeks.

  Margot, holding her empty coffee cup, turned to face her. “Home?” she said. “Loena?”

  “Yes!” Leona finished the bow on her apron and gave the ends of the sash a final tug. “About an hour ago. She’s in her bed now, resting.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said he took care of her.”

  Margot set her cup down carefully beside the electric percolator. “What does that mean?”

  Leona went to the cupboard to get a coffee cup for herself. She gave Margot a defiant look. “He took care of her. She’s all fixed up.” The percolator ceased bubbling, and she lifted it to pour coffee into her cup.

  “Fixed up.” Margot knew the euphemism. She sank into a chair beside the table, oppressed by a feeling of helplessness.

  “It’s better this way,” Leona said in a determined voice. She blew over the hot coffee, and took a sip. “Now Mrs. Edith doesn’t need to know.”

  Margot picked up her own cup and lifted it to her lips before she realized it was empty. Leona, seeing, unplugged the pot so she could come and pour for her. Margot held the cup in both hands, trying to decide what she should do. “Have you seen Mr. Preston this morning?” she asked in a low tone.

  “No, miss. I haven’t seen nobody yet today, not even Blake.”

  Blake. Blake would know. Margot set down her cup again. She left Leona placidly sipping coffee and gathering flatware for the family’s breakfast. Margot went out the back door, and hurried down the short walk to the converted carriage house. At the single side door, she knocked.

  Blake had his rooms—an apartment, really, though small—above the garage. Margot knew he rose early, and often made coffee in his kitchenette rather than disturb the household. At her knock, he came down the narrow staircase and opened the door. “Dr. Margot?” he said. He was fully dressed, except for his coat.

  “Blake, I need—I have to tell you what’s happened.”

  “Come in, then,” he said. He stepped back, and she went in, turning up the steep stairs. “Have you had coffee?”

  “Not yet.” She hurried up the narrow staircase. It gave directly onto a kitchenette, with a rickety table at which she had first learned to read, years ago.

  As a child, she had been taught to stay out of servants’ rooms. Her mother would have been shocked to learn of the many hours she had spent here with Blake among his books and newspapers, drinking cocoa he made on his hot plate or poring over volumes of an illustrated encyclopedia he kept on a low shelf. Margot had been happy in Blake’s rooms. She had been safe.

  As he set a cup of coffee in front of her, she said, “We need to get you a better table.”

  “Sure,” he said. He pulled a bottle of cream from his tiny icebox, set it close to her hand. “It’s not very cold,” he said. “I’ll get a new block when the cart comes this morning.”

  She poured the cream into her coffee, and stirred, swirling white and black together. “Blake, it’s Loena. Or maybe I should say, it’s Preston. He took her for an abortion.”

  Blake straightened, one hand on the door of the icebox. “When?” He didn’t look surprised. He looked thoughtful.

  “Last night.”

  “Is she all right?”

  Margot gave him a guilty look. “I—I haven’t seen her yet. I came straight here.”

  He nodded, and came to sit across from her. As he set his cup down, the table rocked on its uneven legs. He put out his big hand, and covered Margot’s where it lay on the bare wood. “It will be all right, Margot,” he said quietly.

  “Blake, I sent him to her! I told him he had to take responsibility, take care of her—but I meant a home, a place to come to term, not—not this!” She turned her hand over to grip his, clinging to him as she had done so long ago, a terrified little girl.

  “It isn’t your fault.”

  “It feels like my fault.”

  “But it’s not.” He patted her hand with his free one. “Drink your coffee. Then we’ll go into the house and you’ll have some breakfast. After you’ve eaten, you can have a look at Loena and see that she’s all right.”

  Margot gave him a grateful look. “Do you ever get tired of saving me?”

  His smile brought deep creases to his shaven cheeks. “Never.”

  “You used to let me sit on your lap for hours when I was upset. It was so kind.”

  He shook his head, and released her hand. “Nonsense. Come now, Dr. Margot. Drink your coffee. I’m going over to the kitchen and see that Hattie gets started on breakfast.”

  “Oh—Hattie!” Mar
got said, stricken.

  Blake stood up. His jacket hung neatly from a rack of pegs at the head of the stairs. He picked it up and put it on. “You know Hattie. She’ll think whatever Mr. Preston decided to do was best. Now you just sit there for a few minutes, and come in when you’re ready.”

  Margot listened to his slow footsteps on the stairs, and a fresh wave of guilt made her put her head in her hands. Blake was too old to have to deal with these crises. She should find a way to handle this herself.

  Of course, Father would be the best one to deal with it, but Edith had convinced him long ago that her youngest was misunderstood. Margot had learned by the time she was eight or nine not to go to her mother with complaints about Preston. Bleeding, weeping with fear and frustration, she had turned to Blake instead. He had never failed her.

  CHAPTER 8

  The day after his dinner with Margot, Frank went directly from work to one of the high stalls in the Public Market. He put seventy-five cents on the counter, and an elderly Chinese woman in a padded black coat and wide trousers snatched up the money with a wrinkled grin. She sang, “Ni hao, ni hao,” as she gestured around her, inviting him to choose something.

  The stall was a profusion of flowers and greenery. At the back, a narrow doorway opened on a work space with wooden benches and a foliage-littered floor, where a young girl sat on a stool tying lilies and daisies into bunches. Two little children crouched at her feet, rolling a wheeled wooden toy between them. The girl looked familiar to Frank, but he couldn’t place her. The old woman chattered at him, and he shook his head to show that he didn’t understand. “A bouquet,” he said. He tried to show her, holding his hand a foot above the counter. “A big one.”

  The girl rose and came forward. She, too, wore the jacket and trousers, with some sort of flat shoes. She said, “Grandmother is asking what the occasion is.” Her accent was purely American, but she kept her eyes down, her head slightly bent as if to speak directly to Frank was an imposition.

  Frank said awkwardly, “No occasion. I just want to give some flowers.”

  There was more swift Chinese. The girl translated, “Grandmother wants to give you the right flowers.” She hesitated, looking up into his face for just a moment, then down again. “She says flowers have meaning. If you are proposing marriage, for example—”

  Startled, Frank laughed. “Oh, no! Not a proposal. More like an apology.”

  This brought a flood of chatter, while Frank stood blushing at the counter. The girl said in a soft voice, “For a girl, sir?”

  “Yes. A lady.” He added, a little foolishly, “A doctor.”

  When the Chinese girl translated this, the old woman fixed her bright black gaze on Frank’s face. “Dr. Benedict?” she said. Her lips labored over the foreign words.

  Startled again, Frank nodded.

  The grandmother gave him a luminous smile, showing surprisingly good teeth. She opened her hand, and dropped all of Frank’s money back on the counter. She began pulling colorful stems out of buckets, clipping them with shears, piling them into a cone of butcher’s paper. The girl smiled at Frank, too. “There is no charge for these flowers,” she said. “Not for Dr. Benedict.”

  Frank felt a thrill of something like pride shoot through him. Silly, of course. He had no right to be proud of Margot, but still—he was. And now he remembered this girl. “You worked at the Alexis Hotel,” he said. “But you look different.”

  She touched her temples with her small hands, an odd gesture that made her seem much older. “I was very ill. Dr. Benedict made me well.” Behind her the children trilled in their musical language, and she turned and said something to them. They quieted, and Frank wondered if the girl was their sister. She was surely not old enough to be their mother.

  The grandmother gave a deft twist to the butcher’s paper, and held up her creation with a flourish. It was very pretty, blue and pink and white blossoms among spears of green. He reached for it, and she gave it to him, then pushed his coins toward him on the counter. Frank said, “But—I want to pay you.”

  The old woman said something sharp and short. The girl murmured, “She won’t take your money today. She says you will buy flowers from us another time.”

  He cradled the bouquet in his good arm. “Tell her it’s beautiful.”

  She reached across the counter to point to the flowers. “Hydrangeas, the blue, are for gratitude. Peonies are for peace. Grandmother says she is sorry she has no narcissus, for good luck in business. Dr. Benedict needs luck for her clinic.”

  Frank scooped up his money with some difficulty, careful not to disturb the bouquet. He dropped the coins in his pocket, and nodded to the old woman. “Well,” he said. “Thank you.” To the girl he said, “I’ll tell Dr. Benedict I saw you looking well.”

  She smiled again, and he was struck by her transformation. She had gained weight, and her cheeks bloomed like the flowers around her. Whatever Margot had done, it had made a profound difference. As he walked away, he felt another irrational flush of pride.

  Frank stepped down from the streetcar at the intersection of Broadway and Aloha, and walked up the hill. It was one of the prettiest parts of Seattle, he thought, with great brick and white-painted mansions rising majestically above the street. Elaborate gardens, like private parks, surrounded each of them. He felt the approach of summer in the warmth of the evening, in the mellow light that glowed on rooftops and tree branches. Rhododendrons were already shedding their blossoms, littering the ground with petals of white and scarlet and pink. The big camellia tree in front of Benedict Hall was in full leaf, and adorned with white flowers. As he started up the walk, the Essex emerged from the garage behind the house, and came to a stop in the street. Frank had just stepped up onto the porch when the front door opened.

  A barrage of sudden noise streamed out into the twilight as if a lid had been lifted from a boiling pot. Frank fell back in surprise. Margot appeared, hurrying past him. She was supporting one of the little redheaded maids with her arm. The other maid was at her heels, wailing. From the hallway the cook, whose name Frank couldn’t remember, called, “Y’all hurry now! Leona, stay with your sister! Miss Margot—”

  Blake had come up from the car to the porch, and he and Margot between them helped the ashen-faced girl down the walk. Her weeping twin followed close behind, nearly tripping over Margot’s shoes. Frank stood helplessly to one side, his flowers half crushed beneath his arm. The cook bustled out onto the porch, and she, too, was weeping. Margot, climbing into the Essex, looked back once at Frank. She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness as Blake closed the door. More raised voices sounded from inside the house, a domestic crisis in full spate.

  The Essex pulled away. The cook—Hattie, that was it—sat down on the porch step, threw her apron over her face, and sobbed. Frank heard a man’s harsh voice through the open door, answered by the protesting one of a woman. He heard a voice he knew, Preston’s, soothing his mother, answering the man, whoever that was, his father or his elder brother, perhaps both. Frank, cursing his bad timing, backed away from the door and went down the steps to the walk, careful not to step on the weeping Hattie. He started back down the street, the flowers forgotten in his hand.

  He had gone perhaps half a block when a voice called his name, a new voice, with a different accent. He turned back.

  Coming around the side of Benedict Hall was a heavyset man in a flat wool cap and, incongruously, the khaki tunic of a British Army infantryman. The man crossed the lawn, and loped up to Frank, grinning.

  “Cowboy!” he cried. “Remember me? Carter. Sergeant Carter, that was Captain Benedict’s batman.” He sketched a comic bow. “At yer service, Major!”

  “Carter,” Frank said. “Oh, yes.” He started to put out his hand, then remembered the flowers. He gazed helplessly at the bouquet, wondering what to do with it now.

  “Big ruckus up there in the house,” Carter said with a gurgle of laughter. His voice was high and thin, odd in a big man. “Our Pres
ton’s got his arse in a twist.”

  “What are you doing in Seattle?”

  Carter touched his hat brim with a thick finger. “Invite of Mr. Preston Benedict, that’s what. We do a little business together, here and there.” He winked. “But he’s been having it off with one of the maids, and got caught at it.”

  The front door of Benedict Hall slammed behind them, and Frank heard Hattie yelp. He spun about in time to see Preston hurl himself off the porch, having bumped the sobbing cook with his polished wingtip shoe. She dropped her apron, and called after him, “Mr. Preston! Wait!” He ignored her, stamping out to the street. He caught up with Carter and Frank in three long strides.

  “Goddamn it,” he snarled to Carter. “Who was that butcher you took her to?”

  Carter was a head taller and forty pounds heavier than Preston Benedict, but he took a step backward as if he had been struck. His face and shoulders sagged so he looked like a beaten dog. “You said, find someone fast. I found someone! You can’t blame me if he made a bad job of it!”

  “I can, and I do,” Preston snapped. He started down Aloha toward Broadway, his shoes clicking on the pavement. Carter trotted after him, emitting high-pitched protests.

  Frank followed at a slower pace, the now-bedraggled flowers dangling at his side. Preston ignored him, haranguing Carter with every step. “Fucking great idiot!” he shouted. “Now my mother’s upset, and the whole house is in an uproar, all because you couldn’t do one simple thing for me.”

  Carter tried to interrupt, but Preston was in full cry. If it hadn’t been so obscene, and so serious, it might have been funny. Frank trailed well behind them, but he could hear every word. This was the Preston he had known in the East, with his sneering insults, his curses, his hair-trigger temper. He hadn’t known Carter well, because the batmen stayed in the shadow of the officers, but it was telling to see the thickset man cowering before the slighter man’s onslaught.

  He couldn’t laugh, though. The maid, whichever of them it was, had looked really ill, and the stricken look on Margot’s face told him it was serious.