Benedict Hall Page 25

  Blake had not expected anything different. “I’ve served your family well and long, Preston. I cared for you when you were in short pants. I drove you around when you were in school. I’ve picked up after you and fed you and cleaned up your messes.”

  “So?” Preston’s eyes narrowed. “Your job, old man. And a damned good one, if I may say so. Especially for an ex-convict.”

  “Yes.” Blake pushed a little harder, and Preston was forced to take a step back, trapped between the cane and the rear door of the Essex. “A very good job. I’ve earned the right to have a say in what happens to the Benedict family.”

  “That’s debatable. You’re not, after all, a Benedict.”

  “And you don’t deserve to be a Benedict.” Blake gave the cane a shove. The object under Preston’s shirt slid aside, and the tip of the cane found skin and bone beneath it. “I’ve had to protect Miss Margot from you since she was a tiny girl.”

  “You’d best watch yourself, old man. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.”

  “I think I do.” Blake lessened the pressure on the cane, but kept it poised close to Preston’s shirtfront. “There’s something not right about you, Preston. No one else sees it. No one wants to.”

  Preston’s lips thinned and pulled back from his teeth. He no longer looked angelic. He looked feral. He hissed, “How dare you? Who do you think—”

  “You’ve been trying to destroy your sister for a long time, and this time you’ve nearly done it. I’m not going to let that happen.”

  Preston’s hand whipped up to seize the cane. He twisted it, but Blake was ready. He was a big man. His hands and arms were still strong, and he was prepared. He gripped the cane with both hands, bracing his elbows against his belly. Preston snarled, “What do you think you’re going to do, Blake? Thrash me like a wayward boy?”

  “Yes, sir.” Blake tore the cane free, lifted it high, and brought it down.

  He could see Preston hadn’t thought he would do it, couldn’t believe Blake would strike a Benedict. Only at the last moment did Preston duck, so the cane caught him on the point of his shoulder. He stumbled to one side with a grunt, more of surprise than pain.

  Blake had learned in the camp that once you made up your mind to something, hesitation could be fatal. There was no time for compassion, no more room for discussion. He struck again. Preston threw up his arm, and the cane cracked against the hard bone of his forearm. He tried to scramble out of the way, falling to his knees near the front wheel of the car. He was reaching for his shirtfront when Blake lifted the cane again to slash at his back.

  He missed. In a flash Preston was on his feet, dancing out of Blake’s reach. His grin returned, but there were white lines around his mouth. “You think I’m going to stand here and let you thwack me with that thing?” He backed away, one hand to his forearm. Blake knew how it must sting. He remembered how that Carolina pine could bite into flesh.

  Blake felt a bit out of breath, and he didn’t want to waste it talking. He thought of Margot’s stricken face as she walked out through the hospital doors, and the memory strengthened him. He slammed the rear passenger door of the car with his left hand. Preston said, “You don’t intend to leave me here—” but Blake set his belly muscles and swung the cane again before he could finish the sentence.

  The polished wood whistled through the air, a sound that brought back the smell of the indigo vats and hot Carolina nights, the sensation of bare feet on wood chips, and the face of Franklin Blake, contorted with rage. The cane struck the side of Preston’s head. Blood sprang from his scalp to darken his hair and drip down his stiff white collar.

  Preston roared something wordless. He staggered, and his fingers scrabbled at his shirtfront. Blake struck again, his blow not so swift this time, but wielded with both hands and all his strength. It caught Preston’s forehead with enough force to break the skin above one eyebrow. Blood poured into his eye, and down his cheek. He reeled, and fell. He lay panting on the ground, peering up at Blake with his one clear eye.

  Blake meant to finish it. He had made his decision hours before, on his way home from Dickson’s office. It would be the end of his life at Benedict Hall, but Margot would be safe.

  Preston, half blinded by blood, peered up at him. “You wouldn’t kill me,” he rasped. “You haven’t got it in you.”

  “You have no idea what I have in me.” Blake’s accent was pure, broad South Carolina.

  “Do it, then, old man! What are you waiting for?” Preston’s right hand clung to his chest, and his unbloodied eye glared.

  Blake took a deep breath and lifted the cane high over his right shoulder. Preston pulled something from his shirtfront and held it up, something that dangled on a silver chain and flashed blue in the twilight. “Too late, old man,” he panted. “Too slow.”

  Blake swung the cane, slashing down and to the left, intending to put an end to the whole ugly business.

  The pain that seized his chest, before he could complete the blow, was worse than any he had known, either at Mr. Franklin’s hands or under the overseers’ whips. It was huge, a giant fist seizing his heart, squeezing his lungs, pinching the air from his throat. He groaned, an involuntary sound that rose from his groin and bubbled up from his belly to his throat. The blow he had meant to strike never happened. Instead, the cane slipped from his nerveless fingers to rattle uselessly against the gravel. His knees buckled, and his left arm went numb. The sunny evening turned black around him as he crumpled to the ground.

  Preston laughed as he got to his feet. Blake couldn’t see him. He couldn’t see anything. He could only hear that cold laughter, like a rush of icy water. He felt fingers probe his breast pocket for the car keys, then felt hands tugging at him, lifting him, bundling him into the passenger seat of the Essex. It may have been moments, or it may have been an hour, but the motor sputtered to life, and the tires crunched and spun as the car backed and turned. There was nothing Blake could do. The grip of pain was irresistible, and he longed only for it to end.

  As the car rolled back down the hill toward the main road, Blake struggled to breathe past the boulder crushing his chest. He felt the upholstery of the seat beneath him, the roughness of the unpaved road beneath the tires. He had just time to wonder why Preston hadn’t left him in the woods when a sudden great jolt threw him to the floor. There was a crash as the bonnet of the car struck something hard. Glass burst, and the horn sounded, over and over. The boulder on Blake’s chest grew heavier, until no air at all could get past it.

  He gave up trying to breathe. The pain vanished seconds later, and he felt suddenly light. Free. His chest didn’t hurt. His back didn’t hurt. The blackness receded, and around him the twilight glowed faintly golden.

  Then, in the middle distance, as if someone had opened a window, he heard her. He heard a voice he hadn’t heard in nearly fifty years, and she was calling his name.

  “Abraham! Oh, Abraham!”

  The sweet, husky, familiar sound filled him with joy.

  CHAPTER 15

  The telephone on Thea’s desk rang just as Margot was gathering her things, ready to go out to wait for Blake. Thea spoke into it, then looked up at Margot with wide eyes. “Margot. There’s been an accident.”

  Margot had just pulled on her gloves. She strode to the desk, dropping her hat on the pile of invoices. She took the receiver from Thea’s hand and spoke into it. “What’s happened?”

  “Margot.” Her father’s voice rumbled in her ear. “Blake crashed the car. Hit a tree, apparently, down near Jefferson Park. I don’t know if—I can’t imagine what they were doing there—but they’re both hurt. They’re at Seattle General.”

  “Who’s the emergency physician?”

  “What?”

  By the strain in her father’s voice, Margot knew it must be bad. She was afraid to ask which of them was in real danger. “Who’s the attending physician, Father?”

  “I—I don’t know. Can you just—”

  “Where are
you?”

  “The hospital.”

  “All right, I’m on my way. I want you to sit down, Father. Loosen your collar, and take deep breaths. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  She gave Thea a swift explanation, and a moment later was striding down Post Street, pulling on her hat as she went. The evening traffic was heavy, and she doubted she could find a taxicab without calling for it first. It would be faster just to walk up the hill on her own.

  She hurried, and in fewer than fifteen minutes she was walking into the hospital, stripping off her gloves and hat. The receptionist led her to where her father sat on a straight wooden chair outside the accident room, head in hands, elbows on knees. When he saw her, he grasped her hand in both of his and squeezed it. “Thank God, Margot. They made me wait out here. I was going to call Peretti, but then I thought—I thought you could find out what’s happening. Can you get them to tell you something?”

  “I will,” she said. She circled his wrist with her fingers, and eyed his pale face. “Do you feel all right, Father? Dizzy? Short of breath?”

  He gave her a wan smile. “Stop it, Doctor. I’m fine. Please go see how Blake is.”

  A rush of cold ran through Margot, though she was so warm from her hurried walk. “Blake? I thought it was Preston.”

  “Both of them.” Dickson ran his hands over his face. “Blake wasn’t moving. Or talking. He looked—” His voice broke, and he drew a rasping breath.

  “And Preston?”

  “He’s pretty banged up, but he was conscious. He drove Blake back to the city.”

  “Preston can drive?”

  “I don’t know if he can, but he did. They made it here. The car’s a mess.” He shuddered suddenly, a spasm that shook him from head to foot. “Oh, God. I don’t know why I said that. I don’t give a damn about the car.”

  Margot pressed his hand. “You’re in shock, Father. It’s hard to say the right thing.”

  Her father pressed his shaking hands over hers. “Go and see them, will you?”

  “I’m going in now.”

  “I should telephone Edith.”

  “Yes. That would be good.” Margot helped him up, and he turned down the corridor toward the reception desk. She turned the other way, and pushed through the door into the accident room. It was a forbidding place, with its big sinks and glass and enamel cabinets. Steel surgical instruments ranged on countertops, with basins and jars and, in one corner, a bulky autoclave. Margot hurried past all of this to the four beds in the back. Preston, with a nurse bandaging his head, lay on one.

  The nurse, a young, rather stern-looking woman with her hair pinned into a tight chignon beneath her white cap, glanced up at her as she approached. “Are you family?” she demanded. Margot saw the corner of Preston’s mouth twitch.

  She said evenly, “This is my brother.”

  “Well,” the nurse said crisply. “Dr. Miles has seen him. You don’t need to worry. He’s going to be fine, in time.”

  One of Preston’s eyes was covered with cotton, and strips of linen bound his head. He had a sling over one arm. Gingerly, he turned his head to look at Margot. “It’s Blake,” he said in a sorrowful voice. “I’m so afraid—”

  “Where is he?” Margot demanded.

  The nurse said, “You mean the chauffeur? He’s in the colored ward.”

  “Is there a doctor there?”

  She raised her eyebrows, and Margot was sure that if she hadn’t been a head shorter, she would also have looked down her nose. “I wouldn’t know, of course. I don’t work on that side of the hospital.”

  Margot bit back an irritated remark. She eyed Preston, and saw that his color was good, and the pupil she could see looked normal. She didn’t touch him, but nodded to the nurse. “I’m going to find Mr. Blake,” she said, emphasizing the Mr. She strode out the back of the ward, and started down the long corridor to the far side of the hospital.

  She had been in the Negro wards of the hospital several times, when none of the Negro physicians were available. Most of her colleagues wouldn’t treat Negro patients, but the hospital staff had learned that Dr. Benedict had no objection.

  This section of the hospital was understaffed. The corridors were deserted, and Margot only found the right ward by trying doors. When she opened the right one, she found the room eerily quiet.

  Blake was the only patient, and he lay terribly still. Too still. Margot struggled to sustain a flicker of hope as she hurried across the ward.

  Blake lay beneath a brown wool blanket. His face looked faintly gray, as if someone had dusted him with ashes. His eyes were closed, and his hands lay outside the blanket, one palm up, the other down. She touched the hand nearest her. The fingers curled blankly upward, and it was ice-cold. Freshly alarmed, she reached for her stethoscope, then realized it wasn’t in its usual place around her neck. She had left it behind at the clinic. She put her fingers on his wrist, and found his pulse thready and fast.

  Her heart sank like a stone in a pond. She held Blake’s wrist in her fingers, no longer as a physician, but merely as a friend. A daughter. Someone who couldn’t bear to lose him.

  A nurse appeared in the doorway and crossed to the foot of the bed. She was a dusky-skinned girl with enormous brown eyes and kinky hair pinned back beneath her nurse’s cap. She was small, nearly dwarfed by her voluminous white apron, and her voice was high and girlish. “Excuse me, ma’am—you do know this is the colored ward?”

  Margot answered sharply, her voice edgy with fear. “I do. Is there no doctor?”

  “Not right now,” the nurse said. “There’s only me. They carried this man here from the street, and I—I didn’t know what to do for him. I don’t even know his name.”

  “No one told you his name?”

  “No. They just brought him in and laid him here, and I was so afraid he would—”

  “I need a stethoscope,” Margot said abruptly, to stop her speaking the thing they both feared. “And he’s cold. We need more blankets. Two, at least.”

  “I’ll get them,” the nurse said. And then, with a hopeful expression, she asked, “Are you a doctor?”

  “I’m Dr. Benedict.”

  “Oh! I know your name.”

  “Our patient is Abraham Blake. He works for my family.”

  “Oh! Very good, Doctor. Good! I’ll be right back.” The nurse hurried to a cabinet, and came back with two more of the brown blankets and a stethoscope. As she spread the blankets over Blake, Margot put the earpieces of the stethoscope into her ears and pressed the bell to Blake’s chest.

  Now she could hear the struggle of his lungs, rales and rhonchi all over the chest, and the irregular heartbeat she had already detected with her fingers. She took the earpieces out, and hung the stethoscope around her neck. “Does he have visible injuries?”

  The nurse said, “I checked under his shirt, and I took his shoes off. All I can find is that bruise.” The mark on Blake’s forehead was nearly black against his dark skin, contrasting with the silvery gray of his hair. “They said he was in a crash.”

  “Yes.” Margot gazed down at Blake’s gentle face, the full lips and prominent jaw, the high forehead. His cheeks sagged now, and she saw the wrinkles in them, pale threads like delicate cobwebs stretched across his dark skin. She had not noticed he was getting old, except for the grizzle in his hair. Feeling helpless, she pressed her palm to his cool forehead.

  “Why is he unconscious, Dr. Benedict?”

  “It’s his heart.” The worst possible news. Despite everything they knew about cardiac events and their symptoms, there was a paucity of steps they could take to address them.

  “Is there anything else we can do?”

  Margot glanced up at the nurse. She looked terribly young, hardly older than Loena and Leona. She didn’t look afraid, though her patient was very likely dying. She looked—curious, Margot thought. It was the way she had been herself, when she first began treating patients. Curious about what was wrong, what she could do to help, h
ow she could ease their discomfort or repair their wounds. Margot said, “What’s your name, Nurse?”

  “Church. Sarah Church.”

  “Well, Nurse Church, we’ll want to hydrate him. We’ll see if we can get him warm, and we need to get the rest of his clothes off, make sure there are no injuries we’ve missed. Then . . .” Her voice broke suddenly, in a most unprofessional way, and she clutched at the stethoscope around her neck as if it were a lifeline. Then . . . what? She had to do something. She couldn’t give up. Blake needed her. He had no one else.

  Nurse Church used scissors to cut away his trousers. Margot scanned his legs and ankles, probing them gently with her fingers. She found no trauma. The little nurse watched with interest as Margot palpated his abdomen, not finding anything unusual nor getting any response.

  “He hasn’t moaned, Nurse, tried to move his legs, to speak?”

  “No, Doctor. It didn’t seem right—that is, I didn’t think—” The girl’s voice broke off.

  “What? What did you think?” Margot fixed her gaze on the nurse. She knew she was being abrupt, but Sarah Church seemed to understand. She was a courageous little thing, Margot thought. Any number of more experienced nurses could learn from her example.

  Nurse Church drew a determined breath through her wide, delicate nostrils. She met Margot’s look with a level one of her own. “It didn’t seem right to me that he should be unconscious. The bruise on his head isn’t that big.”

  “I see that.” Margot bent to gently lift Blake’s eyelids with her fingers. The pupillary response was normal, neither fixed nor dilated. She let his eyes close again, and smoothed the blankets over him. “His symptoms are contradictory, it’s true. Prolonged unconsciousness is not good, but no doubt you know that.”

  “Yes,” Nurse Church said sadly. “It seems you were fond of him, Dr. Benedict. I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you.” Margot understood the implication of the past tense, but she thrust the thought away. “Dr. Henderson is the cardiologist. Place a telephone call to him, will you? Ask him to come and see Mr. Blake as soon as possible.”