Hall of Secrets (A Benedict Hall Novel) Read online

  She had won. She had destroyed him. If it hadn’t been for Margot, he wouldn’t be creeping through alleys, sheltering in shadows. She wasn’t clever enough, despite what Father thought, to have effected this damage deliberately, but it was no less devastating for that. Now, if a woman caught a glimpse of him on the street, she averted her eyes. If he was careless enough to let his hat brim lift in the breeze or his muffler slide down his neck, children whimpered and buried their faces in their mothers’ skirts. Men who caught sight of him winced with sympathy. They probably thought he bore the scars of the Great War, but their pity didn’t lessen the revulsion they felt for his ruined face.

  Indeed, he felt it himself.

  The Compass Center, where he had been sleeping for months, had mirrors in the bathrooms. Rev. Karlstrom said they were so the men could shave and make themselves presentable before they went out looking for work. Mrs. Karlstrom—who at least didn’t avert her eyes at the sight of him—advised him to accept his disability as part of God’s grace. God! If there were a God, none of this would have happened. If there were a God watching over him, he could have grown up without having to fight her for every inch of ground. If there were a God who gave a tinker’s damn about him, he would have held his rightful place as the adored son of a fine family. He could have gone on at the Times, writing his column, making his mother proud, acquiring a greater and greater readership that would eventually win even his father’s respect.

  He hated being at the Center, but he had no other place to sleep. He tolerated the sermons and the lectures, accepted the hand-me-down clothes, pretended humility and gratitude. The mirrors, however—reminding him every time he had to piss that his face had become monstrous—were too much. He had taken care of them. He had no choice, really.

  There were plenty of discarded bricks lying around on the streets in Pioneer Square, and it was an easy matter to slip one under the coat they had given him, the coat that didn’t fit and probably had belonged to some repulsive old man. He had carried the brick into the bathroom and made short work of the three mirrors hanging there. He didn’t need to look at his scars every day. He could hardly forget how they looked. He had only to show his face on the street to be reminded, and in the most unpleasant way. It was only fair that, in the place he was forced to live, he didn’t have to see them several times a day.

  The Karlstroms, naturally, never knew who had smashed the mirrors into gleaming splinters. He might look like a monster, but was still good at getting things done.

  He would get this done, too, and do a proper job of it this time. He had made an uncharacteristic error the last time, confused by Parrish’s presence, by the strangeness of Margot and Frank being at the clinic late at night, by a patient being there when the clinic should have been closed. And he had been betrayed by the sapphire, in which he had placed so much trust. More evidence there was no God. And no justice except that which a man achieved for himself.

  This time he would be more subtle. This time he would use a scalpel instead of a pickax. He had remembered, at last, who the girl was living in Benedict Hall. Allison Benedict, little San Francisco cousin, the debutante. A pretty plum, ripe for plucking. She was just the tool he needed.

  Of course his own life was over, and he’d be glad to be shut of it. There was nothing left for him but that achievement of justice, that balancing of accounts. Then he would be finished, and be damned to them all.

  Allison waved farewell to Blake as he backed and turned the Essex to drive downtown to fetch Margot. He rewarded her with one of his generous smiles, a lovely flash of white in his dark face. She walked slowly up the steps to the front door, thinking about Blake, about Cousin Margot, about how different things were here from her expectations. Margot wasn’t the enemy at all. She was—she was everything Allison wished she could be herself. Smart. Educated. Capable. No one, as nearly as Allison could tell, judged Margot by her appearance. They cared about who she was and what she could do.

  The man with the bloody handkerchief had walked out neatly bandaged, all put together again, politely thanking the doctor and the nurse. How marvelous must it be to be able to fix things that way! Nurse Rossi was neither pretty nor particularly well spoken, as Adelaide would have hastened to point out, but like Cousin Margot, she was doing work that mattered.

  The front door was unlocked. Allison let herself in to stand for a moment in the front hall, listening. It was still too early for the twins to be setting the table in the dining room. She could hear their light voices upstairs, above her head. The men had not yet returned from the office, and there was no sign of Cousin Ramona or Aunt Edith. The only sounds came from the kitchen, Hattie’s rich voice humming as she clattered pans and walked this way and that in the kitchen, the floor creaking beneath her weight.

  Allison hung up her coat and hat, then crossed the hall to knock on the kitchen door. The humming broke off, and a moment later, Hattie peeked out. She was drying her hands on her apron as she pushed the door open with her shoulder. “Why, Miss Allison! You were gone most of the afternoon, weren’t you? Would you like a snack? A cup of tea?”

  “Just a cup of tea would be nice.”

  “You go on in the small parlor, and I’ll bring it.”

  “Hattie, really, I—I’d just as soon have it in the kitchen, if you don’t mind. I need to talk to you.”

  Hattie paused, her apron caught up in her hands, a doubtful expression tugging at her plump features. “Talk to me? Is something wrong, miss?”

  “Oh, no!” Allison smiled, and Hattie, after a second’s pause, smiled tentatively back. “I just wanted to talk to you about Cousin Margot’s tea. I know you’re busy, but it seemed like a good time.”

  Hattie’s smile widened. “Why, Miss Allison, of course.” She smoothed down the folds of her apron and stepped back to pull the door open. “You’re welcome in old Hattie’s kitchen just any old time. I always liked the young ones coming in to have a cookie or cup of cocoa. It’s been an awful long while, now they’re all grown.”

  Allison was familiar with the kitchen in her own home. As a child, she had taken her meals there with Rosy, and later, before she came out, when her parents were entertaining. The San Francisco kitchen was dark, set beneath ground level and, like the rest of the house, narrow. This one seemed enormous in contrast, a long, bright room. A shining nickel-plated range sat on one side, and a tall white icebox on the other. The ceiling was high, and cloudy now with fragrant steam from a large bubbling stockpot. Something was baking in the oven, something that smelled of sugar and butter and vanilla. Allison’s mouth watered suddenly.

  Hattie walked to the sink to fill the teakettle, then walked back to put it on the range. “Set yourself down, Miss Allison.” Allison slipped into one of the chrome-backed straight chairs arranged around a long table with a white enamel top. Hattie put a teacup and saucer in front of her, and then, as if she had forgotten—or ignored—Allison’s refusal of the snack, she dipped her hand into a fat pottery cookie jar flanking a percolator. She set a plate of cookies beside the teacup. Now, as the kettle began to whistle, Allison picked up a cookie. It was every bit as sweet and rich as she had imagined, and her eyes closed with pleasure as the crumbs melted on her tongue. When she opened them, Hattie was grinning at her. “Lordy, I do like to see a child eat,” she said with satisfaction. “Those snickerdoodles used to be the children’s favorites. Now, here’s your tea. Have another cookie, and tell me how I can help with Miss Margot’s party.”

  Allison took a second cookie. She was afraid of bolting it, of gorging herself, as she had done at the diner with Tommy. The tea helped, though. She sipped it, and nibbled the cookie, and found she felt all right. Her stomach didn’t feel desperate, and she felt at ease here under Hattie’s approving eye.

  A little swell of contentment rolled over her, a gentle, warm wave that made her smile. “I thought we’d put a table in the reception room,” she told Hattie. “We can put the refreshments there, and you could do some cook
ies and finger sandwiches. If it’s not too much trouble.”

  Hattie, who had crossed to the range to stir what was in the pot, said, “It’s no trouble at all, Miss Allison, no trouble at all. So sweet of you to do all this! I’m sure Miss Margot is real happy to have you help.”

  “These cookies would be perfect, because they’re small. People will be walking around with napkins, I think.”

  Hattie nodded agreement. She crossed to the table and lowered herself into a chair with a little grunt. “Hope you don’t mind if I get off my feet a moment, miss.”

  Allison blinked. “Hattie! This is your kitchen. Why would I mind?”

  “Well,” Hattie said, fanning herself with the hem of her apron, “we do like to do things proper here at Benedict Hall.”

  Allison sipped tea and watched Hattie over the rim of her cup. The cook wasn’t as old as she had first thought. Her forehead was smooth, and the skin of her round cheeks was glossy and plump. It was her eyes that had made her seem older, not wrinkles around them, but the set of the eyelids and the expression they held. Allison said impulsively, “I love the way you do things, Hattie. I mean, here in Benedict Hall.”

  Hattie made a little one-handed gesture. “Oh, well, Miss Allison, this is a good house. It always has been, until—well, until—” Her eyes suddenly reddened, and she looked away.

  Allison said quietly, “I know. Until Cousin Preston died. I’m so sorry.”

  Hattie sniffed and dashed a hand across her eyes, as if the gesture could erase her ready tears. “You’re a sweet girl, Miss Allison. You’re being real sweet to old Hattie.”

  Allison knew her mother would have been appalled to see her sitting in the kitchen with a colored cook, having a conversation as if they were equals. But why should that be? In what possible way did a girl like herself—who didn’t do anything but buy clothes and go to parties—bring more to the world than Hattie?

  She said, with real melancholy, “I’m not a sweet girl, though. I’m a handful. That’s what Papa says.”

  Hattie put one hand flat on the table and looked directly into Allison’s eyes. “All I know is what I see,” she said. She wasn’t smiling now, and her eyes still glistened with the tears she hadn’t shed. “I see a pretty girl being nice to an old servant and offering to help her cousin with a party. Nobody gonna tell me that girl is a handful.”

  “Oh, Hattie,” Allison breathed. Tears started behind her own eyes, and for some reason that made her laugh. “Oh, Hattie,” she said again, giggling and sobbing at the same time. “You just don’t know what I’ve done!”

  Hattie chuckled, too. “Well, you ain’t killed anybody, I’m guessing, and you ain’t got yourself in trouble. You’re a good girl in my book, Miss Allison!”

  Allison was laughing in earnest now at Hattie’s frankness and at her kindness. “My mother,” she sputtered, “would absolutely burst with fury if she heard you say that!”

  Hattie’s grin was wide and accepting. It felt marvelous to laugh with someone, and Allison didn’t care that it was a servant. The fact that her mother wouldn’t like it gave her all the more reason to enjoy it.

  Hattie pushed herself to her feet and fetched the teapot to refill Allison’s cup. “Well, I don’t want to upset your mama. That’s not my place. But everybody got to have someone to talk to.” She picked up a long wooden spoon. “ ’Course, you got that Ruby, don’t you?”

  Allison’s laughter faded. “I can’t talk to Ruby. She spies on me.”

  Hattie, shaking her head, stirred the pot with the big spoon. “Now, that’s a shame,” she said. “If I thought Loena or Leona was doing anything like that, I’d have a word to say about it!”

  By the time she left the kitchen, Allison had Hattie’s promise to make three different kinds of cookies, and to lend the electric percolator so they could make coffee for the reception. The twins came in just as she was leaving, and they glanced at her curiously, standing back to let her pass. She smiled at them. “Hello, Loena. Leona.”

  They bobbed curtsies, and Leona said, “Aren’t you the clever one, miss, to be able to tell us apart!”

  Allison was laughing again as she walked up the main staircase. It had been a day for laughing, and it felt good. It also felt good to walk upstairs without feeling as if she were climbing a mountain. She had felt tired and dizzy for so long she had forgotten what it was like to have energy.

  Yes, it had been a day for laughing and a day for thinking. She felt better in every way than she had for months.

  The night before the reception, the telephone in Margot’s room rang at nine o’clock. She sighed as she reached for it. It would have been nice to have an uninterrupted night’s sleep, to rise in the morning at a reasonable hour, take some care with her hair and her clothes for once. She put the earpiece to her ear and held the candlestick in her left hand. She said tiredly, “Dr. Benedict speaking.”

  “Don’t sound like that,” Frank said. “It’s just me.”

  “Frank!” She wriggled back against her pillows, cradling the candlestick against her chest. “What a nice surprise! I was sure you were the hospital calling.”

  “Nope. Just me.”

  “I’m so glad.”

  “You sound tired. Are you all right?”

  “I’m a little nervous, to be honest. I’m not very good with social things, as you know, and tomorrow—you did get the article I sent you? From the Times? Tomorrow’s the reception at the clinic. Well, Cousin Allison is calling it a tea, so it’s less formal. Very Emily Post!”

  “It sounds nice,” he said. “Big day for you.”

  “For us both, Frank, since you designed the building. The practice is already busy, though. It’s as if they were waiting.”

  “Probably were.”

  “Yes. I suppose they were.”

  “So, your little cousin is handling the party.”

  Margot smiled, thinking of Allison’s trips to the clinic, her solemn conferences with Hattie and with Leona, her order to Ruby—who wasn’t a bit happy about it—to put on an apron and serve. “Allison looks happier than I’ve ever seen her. She even eats at meals—not a lot, but she does eat. She’s quite a clever girl, I think. She just needed something to do.”

  “Good. I’m sure it will be a big success.”

  “I hope so. Some people from the hospital are going to come, which feels odd.”

  “Why? How many of them have their own private practice in their own private building?”

  Margot laughed. “That’s what Father said.”

  “Wise man, your pop.”

  “He is that.” She paused, and then said wistfully, “I just wish you could be here.”

  “I want to be there.”

  “When is Bill Boeing going to let you come home?” She was afraid she sounded a little plaintive, but she couldn’t help it. “You’ve been gone a long time, Frank, and we—” There she did stop herself. She had promised not to bring up their disagreements over the telephone. The calls were too precious for that.

  “Too long,” he agreed. “There’s something I want you to do for me, Margot.”

  “Do you need something?”

  “Sort of. What time does your shindig start tomorrow?”

  “Eleven. I have rounds to make, and then I’m going to come home and change.”

  “Could you ask Blake to drive you out to Sand Point first? Do you know where that is?”

  “I—what? No, I don’t know where it is, but I’m sure Blake will. Why?”

  “There’s an airstrip there. It isn’t much, but a Jenny can land. I’m sending you something, but you have to come fetch it yourself, Margot—you need to be there.”

  She caught sight of her face in the dressing table mirror, nestled among her white pillows. She looked younger and softer at this distance. She should try to smile more often, she thought. Try not to look so forbidding all the time. On a sleepy laugh, she said, “Frank Parrish, if this is a pony . . .”

  He laughed with her. “Not
a pony. I hope you like it, though.”

  The operator interrupted, saying formally, “I’m sorry, sir, but your time is up. Would you like to arrange another call?”

  He said, “Better not. Thanks, operator. Margot, be there tomorrow! Ten o’clock!”

  “I will. Good night, Frank.”

  The operator said, “Good night, sir,” and added, “Ma’am. Thank you for using the Southern California Telephone Company.”

  The final click sounded before Frank could speak again. Reluctantly, Margot replaced the earpiece in its cradle and set the phone on the bedside table. Sand Point Airfield! Now what could that mean?

  She put out her lamp, took off her dressing gown, and slipped beneath the coverlet of her bed. Curiosity had vanquished her bout of nerves. She would, she thought, have a good night’s sleep after all. It was lovely to drift off with the sound of Frank’s voice still in her ear.

  CHAPTER 15

  The morning dawned under a heavy cloud layer that shrouded the tallest buildings of Seattle in folds of mist. Margot hurried her rounds at the hospital as best she could. She saw a little girl in the children’s ward who had burned her arm on the family’s charcoal stove. She prescribed picric acid and explained carefully to the mother how important it was to keep the burn clean. There was a surgical case, an operation at which she had assisted. She examined the incision and found the patient was healing well. She asked Nurse Cardwell to do a final check that afternoon before she released him to his family. Margot stopped to see a man in the charity ward whose stomach she had pumped the day before. She was concerned that the three-dollar gin he had consumed in such quantities could have neurological implications. She pointed this out to him, but she wasn’t sure he was fit to comprehend her lecture. She left orders for him to stay another day, and for the duty nurse to administer a unit of Dakin fluid. Within the hour, she was hurrying home to change.