Hall of Secrets (A Benedict Hall Novel) (11 page)

Allison stammered, “Oh, I’m sorry, Hattie, I—I just—”

Hattie snatched up the hem of her apron and pressed it to her face. In a muffled voice she said, “Never you mind, Miss Allison. Never you mind.”

Allison backed away from the table, her hands twisting in the material of her dress and her heels catching on the edge of the rug. She had never seen a servant weep that she could remember, and this one was so strange to her, with her dark skin and her broad accent. She couldn’t think what to do, or what she could say. Behind the apron, Hattie sobbed twice, and Allison’s heart ached, as if Hattie’s grief were communicable, like a cold or influenza. She wanted to escape the room, but that seemed awfully insensitive, even if Hattie was a servant, and a colored one at that.

After an uncomfortable few seconds, she found herself saying, “Hattie, should I—do you want me to call someone?”

The cook choked back another hard sob and wiped her eyes with her apron. When she let it fall again, Allison could see how her chin trembled with the effort to stop her tears. She was still searching for words when Hattie said, in a voice gone too high, “No, Miss Allison. I’m awful sorry—sometimes I get to thinking about Mr. Preston—” She bit down on her lower lip, shaking her head helplessly as tears slid freely down her face, sparkling against her mahogany cheeks.

Allison stood frozen, her back to the window, the weeping cook between her and the door. She fought an impulse to run to Hattie and take her hands. Her mother had taught her never, never to be familiar with servants. “They won’t respect you,” Adelaide had said, many times. “It’s important to keep your distance.” That was easy with Ruby. If Ruby even
had
personal feelings, Allison was unaware of them. But this woman, so much older, so alien to Allison, looked as if her heart would break, and Allison felt as if her own heart would fall to pieces in sympathy.

At last Hattie took a long, shivery breath. She pulled her slumping shoulders back as if that were all she needed to do to restore herself to calm, and she smoothed her tear-damp apron with both hands. “Oh, my lands, I’m so sorry, Miss Allison. What you must think of me.”

Allison took a step to the side, hoping Hattie would move away from the door and let her pass. “It’s perfectly all right,” she heard herself say. Her voice sounded so cool in her own ears, so much like her mother’s voice, that she could have wept herself. She said, awkwardly, “I was just leaving, to go—to go upstairs.”

Hattie sniffed noisily. “You go on, Miss Allison. Never mind me, I’m just feelin’ teary today.”

Allison took another sidestep, but she couldn’t help saying, “I thought you were happy, because your—because the—Blake—is coming back.”

“Oh, yes, I am, I am,” Hattie said, starting to sound more like herself. “I’m so happy about that, it’s almost like—” She stopped, looking at the ruins of the breakfast Allison had barely touched. “Oh,” she said. She started around the table and picked up the plate in both hands, gazing sadly down at it as if it were the cause of her tears. “I guess you just don’t like what I cook, do you?”

A rush of guilt swept over Allison, joining the throng of her other jumbled emotions. She said desperately, “Oh, no, it’s not that at all.”

“I wasn’t s’posed to cook fancy food,” Hattie said heavily. “I’m just a plain cook, but I needed this job, and Mrs. Edith—”

“No, Hattie, please. Of course I like what you cook. I just . . . I don’t . . .” She couldn’t think how to finish the sentence.

Hattie looked at her, eyebrows raised. She held up the untouched plate as if they were in a courtroom and it was evidence of some crime. “Now, Miss Allison,” she said in a voice so kind Allison’s heart twisted. “What would your mama say about this?”

Allison had taken another step toward the door, but she stopped, folding her arms around herself and looking full into the servant’s eyes. She blurted, “Hattie, my mama would be ever so pleased to see that plate. You can trust me on that.”

Hattie’s mouth opened in surprise. Allison knew she could never explain, nor could she take the words back. She whirled, and blundered out of the dining room. She bumped the door with her shoulder, and caught her foot on the doorjamb, but a moment later she was flying up the staircase, dashing down the hall to her bedroom. She shut herself inside and stood for long moments breathing hard.

She hardly knew what had just happened, what she had witnessed, what she had said. She had almost confessed everything to a Negro
cook!

She didn’t understand anything.

 

Allison spent the morning huddled in the window seat of her bedroom and staring disconsolately into the gloom of the November day. A shifting layer of gray clouds spat rain from time to time. She was accustomed to the fogs of San Francisco, but here the days were so short, the daylight so dim, that she felt as if she were living under a blanket. After the strangeness of the morning, she felt like a saucepan on the boil, the lid rattling and bouncing under the pressure. Every so often she jumped up to pace the room, to pick up a book and lay it down again, to riffle through the dresses in the wardrobe. She thrust her hands through her hair and then had to paste the curls down again. She was ravenously hungry, but she didn’t want to eat. Her tennis racket stood in one corner, but she had no one to play with, and even if she had, this persistent rain would make it impossible.

She heard the purr of the Essex’s motor as it pulled into the drive and around the house to the garage, and flew to the window. Uncle Dickson pulled the motorcar inside, and through the open door she watched Cousin Margot help a colored man out of the back passenger seat and around to the door that led to the garage apartment. Allison leaned close to the rain-streaked glass to get a better look at this Blake they were all so happy to see again.

He was tall, with short silvery curls and white eyebrows, and he leaned on a cane as he walked. Cousin Margot was right beside him, her hands slightly out as if to catch him if he stumbled. He seemed to notice this, turning his head to smile and say something to her. Margot laughed, and so did Blake, but still she stayed close to him, opening the door, standing back to follow him as he disappeared inside. Uncle Dickson stood at the foot of the narrow stairs, his face turned up to watch their progress. After a moment, they all crossed the lawn together toward the back porch. Allison drew back behind the curtains, not wanting them to think she was spying.

She wondered if it would be rude to go down and observe the reunion with Hattie and the twin maids. She was debating this, still haunting the window, when she saw a taxicab come around the corner and halt just short of the driveway of Benedict Hall.

The driver hopped out and opened the back door of his automobile. The passenger climbed out and started digging in his pocket. Allison gasped, and bounced out of the window seat. She flew across the bedroom, opened the door, and dashed down the main staircase. There were voices in the kitchen, the twins and Hattie welcoming Blake home. Allison hurried to the front door to reach it before the visitor rang the bell.

She pulled the door open. He stood on the porch, his hat in his hand and a huge grin spreading across his freckled face.

He said brightly, as if they had only parted the day before, “Hello, old thing!”

Allison cried, “Gosh! Tommy Fellowes!”

C
HAPTER
10

Frank arranged access to the telephone after nine in the evening, in hopes Margot would be at home. He placed the call with the operator, then waited beside the desk in Carruthers’s office for her to put it through. He gazed out onto the empty airfield, made nearly as bright as day by an enormous white moon shining from the clear sky, and wondered if she could see the moon at home. When the phone rang, he picked it up eagerly, balancing the earpiece in his right hand and the receiver in his artificial one. “Margot? Are you there?”

“Frank,” she said, with a warmth that even the great distance between them and the coldness of the telephone wires couldn’t diminish. “It’s so good to hear your voice. How are you?”

“I’m well,” he said. “Very. And you? Tell me what’s happening in Seattle.”

He closed his eyes as she talked, shutting out the spareness of the military office, with its plain desk and stacked wooden cabinets. He pictured her with her dark hair brushed behind her ear so she could press the earpiece to it, her long legs curled under her. Perhaps, he thought, she was already in her dressing gown, getting ready for bed. The old camellia would cast thin shadows in her room, unless the clouds were too heavy for the moon to break through. Everything around her would be orderly, the way she liked it. There would be a book beside her bed, perhaps a glass of water. Her medical bag would rest beside the door, so she could seize it up if she had to make a house call or go to the hospital.

He could see Benedict Hall, too, as she described Blake’s return, walking with his cane, with only a slight weakness of one leg. Blake, she said, wanted to resume the task of driving the Essex, and everyone in the house but Edith was enthusiastic about that. Edith, it seemed, was much as she had been.

“And how’s the young cousin?” he asked. “Has she settled in?”

He heard her hesitate, that familiar little pause that meant she was considering her answer before giving it. “She’s not a very happy girl, I’m afraid. She seems very young for her age, for a girl who’s made the Grand Tour and done the debutante year. She seems—
unformed,
I think would be the best word. More importantly, she’s too thin. Much thinner than when we met her last year, and although she behaves properly when I see her—at dinner and so forth—she gives me the sense that it’s a deception. She seems both fragile and explosive, if that makes sense. As if she’s barely holding herself together.”

“Odd,” Frank said, more to show her he was listening than because she needed a response.

“Well, yes, but if you knew my aunt and uncle you might understand,” Margot said drily. “They treat Allison like a dog to be disciplined.”

“You hoped she might draw out your mother.”

“No joy there, I’m afraid.”

“Is everything finished at the clinic?”

The change in her voice, as she described the completed work, was a thrill to hear. As she told him about the reception room, the two examination rooms with their brand-new beds and sparkling glass-fronted cabinets, the beautiful new desk her father had sent for her office, he felt a glow of pride. He had worked hard on those plans, had supervised everything in the construction, from the laying of the foundation to the Neponset asphalt shingles on the roof. Those would be more fire resistant than the wood shingles of the previous building. He had planned the entrance, discussed the landscaping with the Chinese gardener, chosen the exterior paint, and arranged the glazing of the windows. It was, he thought privately,
their
clinic, though it would be presumptuous to say so.

“I love it, Frank,” she said. “I can never thank you enough for all your work.”

“Don’t,” he said. “I’m just glad you’re pleased.”

“I’m afraid this call is getting expensive,” she said. “But I want to hear how your work is going. Are you almost done?”

He understood the unspoken question.
Are you coming home?
But he couldn’t do that, not yet. He wanted to surprise her, to surprise everyone, but he wasn’t yet ready. “Not quite, I’m afraid. Mr. Boeing has several questions he wants answered, and I—I’m working on them.”

“But you like what you’re doing,” she said.

He thought of the elation he had felt just that morning, as his airplane soared above the valley, shedding the weight of Earth and setting him as free as the birds that dipped and dived below him. He thought of the deftness he was acquiring with his artificial arm, of the mastery that was coming to him, bit by bit. It filled him with a satisfaction he hadn’t ever expected to feel again. With all of this filling his mind and heart, he said, inadequately, “Oh, yes. Yes, I like the work very much.”

 

Margot, thoughtful and frowning, replaced the earpiece on the telephone base. There was something Frank wasn’t telling her. She knew it, with the same instinct that sometimes told her a patient was holding back, out of fear or caution or—what? Why would Frank keep secrets from her?

She got up from her bed and went to wash her face and brush her teeth, telling herself sternly not to turn into a jealous female, imagining slights or suspecting betrayal. He had called, after all. He had spoken with her at length, and it must have cost him a frightful amount of money.

And, of course, she reflected wryly, as she returned to her bed and slipped under the blankets, she was keeping secrets of her own. She would tell him, do her best to explain everything the moment he came home. She could see no reason to reignite their argument now, while they were so far apart.

She hadn’t told her father, either, because he would object at least as strongly as Frank. Her conviction would have to sustain her against their opposition.

She had invited Margaret Sanger to Seattle, and the two men most important to her were going to be angry about it.

The press called Sheppard-Towner the Better Babies Act. That bit of humor offended Margot to her very bones. There was nothing funny about this issue. These were matters of life and death. Infant mortality among the poor was shockingly high, and women of that class still died in childbirth all too often, leaving motherless children behind. Education was the only answer. How could the Italian women, the Chinese women, the colored women, know any more than their own mothers had if no one would teach them? How could they improve the lives of their families if they couldn’t control the size of them?

She reached for the book beside her bed, but then laid it down again, unopened. It had been a long day, and her list of duties for tomorrow was just as long. The first thing she had to do was to find someone to staff the Women and Infants Clinic.

She put out the lamp and rolled over, pulling the comforter up to her ears. Perhaps one of Matron’s nursing students. Or perhaps an older nurse, someone with hospital experience, who was ready for a change. . . .

Or Sarah Church.

Margot’s eyes flew open, and she gazed up at the dark ceiling, suddenly wide awake, energized by the flash of inspiration.

Sarah had left her hospital post in order to care for Blake. She had done so faithfully all this long, slow year of his recovery, and she was now without work. Margot wondered if Blake knew where Sarah lived, where she might reach her.

She sat up, put on her lamp again, and reached for her dressing gown. The oak case clock beside her bed told her it had just gone ten. Blake never slept before eleven. He should still be awake. She pulled on her dressing gown and thrust her feet into her slippers. She opened and closed her door quietly, in case anyone else was sleeping, and walked to the back staircase. She passed Allison’s bedroom on her way. No light shone under the door.

Margot went down to the kitchen, where the appliances sparkled faintly with reflected light. The marine layer had blown away sometime during the evening, taking the rain with it. Now the full moon shone its cold winter light on the gardens of Benedict Hall. She let herself out the back door, and paused on the porch to look across the lawn at the garage.

The windows there were all dark. The curtains were open, but she saw no movement. She leaned against a pillar, thinking how rare it was for her to be awake when Blake wasn’t. Of course he must be tired! It had been a big day for him. Benedict Hall was, she thought fondly, every bit as much his home as her own. Perhaps more, because he would no doubt live out his years here, whereas she—

She put her back to the pillar and tipped up her face to the moonlight. She hadn’t asked Frank about the weather, because that would be such a waste of expensive telephone minutes, but she wondered. He was in the Moreno Valley, where the weather tended to be warm and clear, which was why they put the airfield there. Surely he could see this same moon. She wondered for a moment if he might look up at it, and think of her.

It was, of course, a silly, sentimental notion. She should know better, after her years of medical practice. She had been witness a thousand times to the bleakly unromantic effects of relationships, but that didn’t seem to quench her own longings. Despite all that world-weariness, she was still capable of yearning to see Frank’s tall, lean figure climbing the hill to Fourteenth Avenue, coming in through the gate of Benedict Hall. Wishing to feel his muscular arm around her waist, his cool lips against her cheek.

She took a long breath of icy air, trying to soothe the ache of loneliness beneath her breastbone. Yes, Frank could probably see this moon very well. He was probably considering what effect it might have on navigation!

The thought made her smile, and her heart lifted a bit. She pushed herself away from the pillar, and took a last look at the dramatic disc of the moon, blazing white above her head, before she turned to go inside.

She had just put her hand on the latch when a flicker of movement caught her eye. She glanced around the garden, but whatever it might have been was no longer there. She stood very still, listening. Was that a step on the wet grass? Perhaps a night creature rustling through the dry rose canes? She took one more look, but found nothing. She told herself it was the cold breeze and the ghostly light of the moon that made her neck prickle.

She pulled the door open and went back into the warmth of the house.

 

Margot rose early, showered, and dressed. With her shoes in her hand, she slipped down the back stairs to the kitchen and was rewarded by finding Blake alone there. The electric percolator was already bubbling, and Blake, when he caught sight of her, went straight to the cupboard for a second mug. He was leaning on his cane, she noticed, but he was deft with it, negotiating his way around the table to the icebox without difficulty.

“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.