Hall of Secrets (A Benedict Hall Novel) (26 page)

They stood now beside the half-open drapes, gazing out into the dark garden. The moon was rising above the mountains to the east. The mists of the night before had evaporated, and the moonlight cast shadows across the grass. The cloudless sky meant there would be frost by morning. He was in for a chilly flight until he reached California.

He glanced across at the quiet group by the fire. Ramona was speaking to Dick, and including Allison in the conversation. Allison was nodding, adding short remarks to whatever the discussion was. Frank said, “Your cousin seems to have recovered.”

Margot looked over her shoulder at her family, then turned her face back to the moonlit night. “She’s young,” she said. “It was exciting, but nothing terrible happened, in the end.”

“Depends on your perspective.”

“Oh, yes, Frank. That it does.”

She gazed out into the garden, and he watched her clear profile, the smooth curve of her bobbed hair against her cheek. He said, “And you? Have you recovered?”

She didn’t turn her head. “I don’t know. It was a very close thing, and that’s hard to accept. If you hadn’t come . . .”

“But I did come.”

“Yes. You saved me. In a way, you were the only one who could save me, because of your hand.”

He held up his left hand, the prosthesis now bearing a deep score where he had grasped the straight razor blade. “Don’t forget, Margot, I have this hand because of you. So it balances out.”

She breathed a long, trembling sigh. “Still, it feels odd to think that if you hadn’t come, if something hadn’t brought you there, I might have—” She stopped and swallowed. A moment later she lifted her face to look into his eyes. “Frank. Why
did
you come? You couldn’t fly in the fog, of course, I knew that. But you couldn’t know what was happening, or even that I was at the clinic at that hour. Why were you there?”

He shifted his shoulders to block the view of the people around the fireplace before he dug the envelope out of his pocket. “I came to bring you the damn letter,” he said. “Because it upset you. I never meant that to happen.” He held it out to her. “Burn it, Margot. I don’t want to read it.”

She made no move to take it. “Why would you not read it, Frank?” Her eyes searched his face. “What is it about the letter—a letter from Elizabeth—that gives it so much power?”

He folded the envelope in half. He shoved it back in his pocket and turned away from Margot’s piercing gaze. “Don’t know,” he said dismally. “Don’t know why I didn’t just open it in the first place, and now that I’ve put it off so long . . .”

She moved closer to him, so the lean length of her pressed, ever so slightly, against his hip. Despite everything, despite her parents in the room, the strangeness of the day, the tension of what lay between them, he felt a rush of desire. She said, “You can’t hand this off to me, Frank. You have to deal with it yourself, whatever it is.”

He slipped his arm around her. The urge to kiss her, right here in front of everyone, almost overwhelmed him.

She gazed out at the winter darkness, her face set and still. “If you still care for Elizabeth, Frank . . .”

“Can’t even remember what she looks like, Margot.”

“Maybe she’s sent you a photograph.”

“God, I hope not.” He blew an exasperated breath, and released her. “I wish she hadn’t sent the thing. I don’t want to think about the ranch, or about Montana.”

“But it’s part of who you are.” She tensed beside him and withdrew, just a little. He felt the absence of her body next to his, and it gave him a chill. “You could go back,” she said. “If that’s what you wanted.”

“It’s what my father wants. My mother.”

“Of course they do.”

He said, clumsily, “You wouldn’t want to go, Margot.”

She lifted her chin to meet his gaze. “I wouldn’t want to leave my clinic. Or the position at the hospital I worked so hard for.”

He felt a wave of shame, and had to look away from those eyes that seemed to see right into his soul. The truth was, he supposed, he might have asked her, even knowing how selfish that would be. It would mean moving out to Missoula with him, being a country doctor, making calls on remote ranches, seeing children and old people and ranch hands at all hours of the day or night. In ranch country, the doctors even worked on animals when the veterinarian wasn’t available. Their family doctor had come out more than once to help a cow calve, sew up a horse cut by barbed wire, try to help a sow with a blocked intestine.

He said, “No, Margot, I would never ask that,” but he wasn’t sure she believed him. Wasn’t sure he believed it himself.

By the time he said good night to her, he already knew what he should have said. He should have said that he didn’t want to go back to Missoula, despite his parents’ wishes. He liked his work with Boeing. He loved flying airplanes. He wanted to be part of the future of airplane travel, and that future was here, in Seattle.

The damned letter had confused him, and he couldn’t blame Elizabeth for that. His confusion was all about his mother missing him, his father mourning the lost dream of a bigger ranch, of his son taking over as he grew old. It was all mixed up with the war, and the hard times that followed, and the immense changes they found in their country and in themselves. Why, he berated himself, couldn’t he have found the words to explain all that to Margot?

As he rode in the streetcar back toward Cherry Street, Frank pulled the letter from his pocket and used the stiff metal of his left thumb to slit the envelope open. There was a photograph, as it turned out, one of those careful ones people posed for in photographers’ studios. He didn’t look closely at it, but tucked it back into the envelope and turned to the letter. Elizabeth’s handwriting was familiar to him from the letters he had received when he was out in the East, fighting with the British Army. She had seemed to like that part, sending letters to a soldier, being the girl back home. It was the reality she hadn’t been able to tolerate.

Frank knew the nurse she meant. He laid the letter on his knee for a moment, remembering Rosa Gregorio’s plain features, her New York accent, the grim look in her eyes as she warned him to show Elizabeth his arm before they were married and not after. Elizabeth had proved her right, of course, but Nurse Gregorio hadn’t been happy about it. He could imagine her scolding Elizabeth, telling her exactly what she thought of her reaction. Rosa Gregorio was a plain-speaking woman, and she had fought hard for each and every one of her patients.

That had been an awful moment, watching Elizabeth’s face as he exposed the debacle of his arm to her. It hurt even to remember it. He sighed, and picked up the letter again.

Frank lowered the letter again. He had told his parents about Margot when he went to visit last March. His mother had been nervous about meeting her, a physician, a girl from a wealthy family. His father had scowled and said it was a shame about Elizabeth. Frank hadn’t told them about the painful scene in Virginia. It hadn’t seemed fair to Elizabeth, and now . . .

He shook the photograph out of the envelope and held it up to the light as the streetcar clicked down Broadway. It was a pretty picture. Elizabeth was a pretty girl, with fair, curling hair done up on top of her head, and soft, full lips smiling out of the photograph. She wore a lacy dress, belted tightly beneath her full bosom. Frank smiled down at the picture, remembering how nice it had been to have a sweetheart when he was young, someone to write to when he was off at college, someone who sent regular letters from home when he was at war halfway around the world.

It was interesting that the girl he had lost evidently wanted him back. That was nice, in a way. Flattering.

He put the photograph back in the envelope, tucked it into his pocket, and swung down from the streetcar, feeling sure of himself again. He knew what he had to do. All that remained was to make a good job of it, and it had nothing at all to do with Elizabeth, or Missoula, or even his parents.

He had no doubt there were dozens of men eager to claim a pretty young woman like Elizabeth. He just wasn’t one of them.

C
HAPTER
24

Dickson and Margot sat side by side in the passenger seat of the Essex while Blake steered carefully down Broadway toward Madison. Dickson, wrapped in an overcoat with a thick wool muffler, kept the brim of his homburg pulled low over his forehead, but Margot had seen the exhaustion in his eyes and the tension in the set of his mouth. She wished she had some comfort to offer, but what was there to say to a father who had learned such terrible things about his son?

They rode in silence for a few minutes. Dickson coughed, adjusted his hat with his gloved hands, and said, “I’m sorry you had to do this, Margot. Not very pleasant for you. And the major’s gone? Headed back to March Field?”

“He flew out this morning. Blake and I picked him up and drove him to Sand Point. Bill Boeing was there, too, Father.”

“Was he,” her father said. “That’s something.”

“He wanted to see the airplane.”

“Major Parrish has made a wonderful impression.”

“Yes. Frank was pleased.”

Except Boeing’s presence had meant they couldn’t speak privately. She was trying not to worry about any of it, the letter, Frank’s preoccupation, the question that lay between them. He had, at least, kissed her cheek, right there in the presence of his boss. She would cling to that memory until he returned.

“Is someone covering for you at the hospital?”

“Yes. Matron Cardwell is handling it. I thought I’d go to the clinic this afternoon.”

“Good. Yes, you should do that.” He fell silent again, watching as Blake maneuvered the motorcar onto Yesler and turned cautiously down the steep hill.

The beige brick wedge of the Public Safety Building stood four stories high. During her training, Margot had spent several weeks in the City Emergency Hospital on the third floor. She had never been to the fourth floor, nor had she ever wanted to go there. It was kept separate, with its own elevator, and even from the street, she could see the steel bars on its windows. Now, with her father beside her, she walked into the lobby and turned in the opposite direction from the hospital elevator. They passed several men in suits and bowler hats, and a policeman and policewoman in uniform with a manacled prisoner walking between them. Dickson’s step faltered.

Margot glanced at him, but his head was up, his chin jutting in the familiar way. He would deal with it, she knew. In many ways this was a much harder thing to face than the supposed death of his youngest son, but he was a strong man. He knew how to manage difficult circumstances. And, in this case, he understood the truth of the matter.

Except for the uniformed operator, they had the elevator to themselves. As it carried them to the top of the building, Margot said, “Has Mother asked any questions?”

“No.”

“I thought, after the disturbances the other night—”

“You would have thought so,” her father said. “She doesn’t notice very much these days.”

The elevator stopped, and the operator touched his cap and said, “Fourth floor, sir. Ma’am.”

“Thank you.” Margot took her father’s arm as they stepped out. She felt the tension trembling in his muscles, but his voice was steady as he explained to the supervisor of the jail, a small, dark man with hard eyes, who they were and why they had come. The supervisor gave them sidelong, curious glances as he led them down the central corridor to a heavy locked door. He selected a key from the ring at his belt, and unlocked the door, which opened with a forbidding clang.

They found themselves in a corridor between a row of barren-looking cells. A few prisoners watched listlessly as Dickson and Margot passed by, but no one spoke, and Margot preferred not to look at them, to see the damaged humanity imprisoned here. The whole echoing space smelled of a rather unnerving mix of bleach and boiled vegetables. Beyond the barred windows the open sky was a perfect, cold blue, and it seemed to intensify the sense of despair within.

The cell was just as her father had described it. It was clean, but offered little comfort. Someone had provided Preston a blanket and a pillow and added a thin ticking mattress to the cot. There was no chair or any other furniture. The toilet in the corner had no lid, but the fixture seemed to be in working order. There was a rudimentary sink, rust-stained and slightly askew from the wall, with two taps. A window was set in the outer wall, too high for anyone to look out. The inner wall of the cell was made up only of bars, which meant there was no privacy at all for its inmate. Preston was sitting on the end of the cot, facing the blank wall at the back.

The supervisor said, “You don’t need to go in, right?”

Dickson said, “This will be fine.”

“Just the same. I’ll be right here, sir.” The small man retreated to a spot near the door, but stood with his arms folded, his gaze focused on Preston.

Dickson removed his hat and held it with one hand in front of his chest. His other hand gripped one of the bars, the knuckles white with tension. Margot stood in the center of the aisle, feeling both awkward, because she had no role here, and angry, because she could see how the situation pained her father. Even Preston’s slumped shoulders, the vicious scars she could see on his scalp and neck, engendered only impersonal pity, a feeling she might have had for a stranger. Her brother was her enemy, and though he was pitiful to behold, damaged and powerless, she couldn’t pretend affection for him.

Dickson said, “Preston.”

Preston didn’t move. Didn’t react at all.

“Preston, we need to talk about what to do. We have to make a decision.”

There was no response.

Dickson cast a pleading look over his shoulder at Margot. She hesitated, certain Preston would not welcome her intervention, but her father looked so stricken she couldn’t refuse him. She moved forward just enough to stand at Dickson’s shoulder, and spoke to her brother. “Preston. Father wants to help you.”

At the sound of her voice, Preston stirred. He moved his feet, side to side, forward and back, then settled them on the bare floor and pushed himself up from the cot. Still facing the back wall, he straightened the colorless shirt he wore and tucked the tail firmly into his baggy, unbelted trousers. Margot didn’t know if these were his own clothes, or those of the jail, but she knew how deeply Preston must loathe them. He turned slowly to face them.

Dickson shuddered from head to foot, and Margot realized it was the first time he had seen the full extent of Preston’s burns. She should have prepared him, should have warned him that Preston’s face was disfigured, was unrecognizable.

If Preston felt anything, he didn’t reveal it, or perhaps his scarred features no longer showed emotion. He stepped around the end of the cot and walked toward the wall of bars. Margot had to force herself to hold her ground, despite the protection of thick steel.

Her father put a hand through the bars, though the movement caused the supervisor to take a step forward with a small sound of warning. Dickson ignored him. He touched Preston’s shoulder with his fingers, and said, in a voice of pure heartbreak, “Son.”

“Pater,” Preston said. It should have been a light response, offered with Preston’s old insouciance, but his voice could no longer respond to his intention. “Doc.” He nodded to Margot. “New coat. It’s about time.”

She just stopped herself from touching the shawl collar of the blue wraparound coat Ramona had ordered for her, and had delivered to Benedict Hall. The coat fastened with a single, enormous Bakelite button that had made her laugh at first, but which Ramona assured her was perfect. Preston said, “I could feel bad about spoiling the old one, but really, it was past time for that thing to go.”

Dickson said, “Preston. What does any of that matter?”

Preston leaned one shoulder against the bars of his cell, almost pulling off the man-about-town attitude, despite his ugly clothes and his disfigured face. “What does matter these days, Pater? It’s all over for me, that’s obvious.”

“It’s not all over. It doesn’t have to be. In the end, nothing really happened.”

“That you know about,” Preston said.

“Don’t add to your problems,” Margot said. He shrugged.

“We’re going to send you to Western State Hospital,” Dickson said.

“Western State Hospital for
the insane,
” Preston responded, with emphasis.

“It’s not called that anymore,” Dickson said. “And conditions have improved, I’m told.”

“Oh, I’m sure, Pater. I’m sure now it’s a real treat. A resort. A spa!”

“It’s the only way to keep you out of prison.”

Preston waved a scarred hand to indicate his surroundings. “You hadn’t noticed? I’m already in prison.”

“It doesn’t have to be for long. Dr. Creedy will—”

“Creedy! That clacking old woman. He’ll do whatever you want, won’t he?” Preston’s mouth contorted in his effort to pull off a smile, and Dickson made an involuntary sound in his throat. “Going to have me committed, Pater?”

Margot began, “Preston, listen to reason. If you go to the hospital, we can get you some surgery, improve those—”

She never finished her sentence. Without the slightest warning, he lunged at her. He thrust both arms through the bars, his fingers curved into claws. Margot was standing behind her father, and the clutching fingers fell on him instead, gripping his coat, knocking the homburg from his hand. Dickson cried out, but Preston, showing his teeth like an angry dog, tried to reach past his father to get to Margot. His eyes were awful to see, the pupils swelling, the lashless lids stretched wide.

Margot fell back away from him. She tried to pull her father with her, but he stood where he was, tolerating the scratching of Preston’s hands, the futile grappling. Preston tried to shout, but his voice defeated him. “You
bitch!
” he croaked. “You arrogant
bitch!
” His whole body banged against the bars as he tried to reach Margot. His face distorted, pressed against the bars.

The jailer reached them, wielding his nightstick. He whacked the bars with it, and ordered the prisoner to back away. Preston paid no attention until the next blow of the nightstick fell on his outstretched arm, right at the elbow. Margot was sure it must hurt like the devil.

Preston fell silent. He withdrew his hands, and stood with his arms hanging uselessly by his sides, glaring at Margot.

“Why?” Dickson asked in a low tone. He waved the jailer off, and the man retreated a short distance. “Why did you do it, Preston? Your mother has suffered agonies this entire year. I don’t think she’ll ever be the same.”

Preston’s eyelids dropped, for just a moment, and when they lifted again Margot thought there might be something there, sadness perhaps, some remnant of human feeling. She couldn’t be sure. It might be wishful thinking, a longing to see something that meant her brother was not a complete monster.

Preston said, “Is she coming to see me?”

“I haven’t told her you’re here,” Dickson said. “In fact, Preston, I haven’t told her you’re alive.”

“Good. Don’t.”

“If you’ll go to the hospital,” Margot said swiftly. “If you’ll go willingly, commit yourself, admit your illness, Mother doesn’t need to know what you did. I don’t see the point in telling her.”

Preston’s pupils began to contract again, and in the pale blue of his eyes, Margot saw a shred of the pretty boy he had once been, the handsome young man he had become, who was now lost forever. He said, “How much does she know?”

“She thinks you were trying to put out the fire in my clinic. To save it.”

She was stunned to see tears rise in Preston’s eyes. They swam there, little tragic pools of misery. Despite everything she knew, everything she had been through with him, her heart ached for the grief that lay ahead. He swallowed so hard she could see the reflexive spasm of his throat.

He said tonelessly, “All right, doc. I’ll go to the booby hatch. As long as you don’t tell her about me.” He tossed his head in a grotesque imitation of his old charm. “Let’s allow the mater to believe her boy is a hero, shall we?”

 

Allison lay down on her bed after lunch and was sleeping so soundly that Ruby had to shake her shoulder to wake her. “Miss Allison,” she said. “Miss Allison, Mr. Dickson wants you. Wants everyone.”

Allison could hardly lift her eyelids. She yawned, and tried to pull away from Ruby’s hand, but the maid persisted until Allison blinked, pushed a hand through her hair, and sat up. The little enamel clock on her dressing table told her it was past five. “Oh!” she said. “I slept so long.”

“Mr. Dickson wants you to come to his study.”

“Really?” Allison had never been to her uncle’s study. She understood it to be his private lair, where even the maids were forbidden to go unless he gave express permission.

Ruby didn’t seem to appreciate the novelty of the invitation. She went to the wardrobe and got out the plaid dress. “You might as well dress for dinner now, Miss Allison.”

“Not that dress, Ruby.”

Ruby turned, the plaid frock in her hands. “I thought this would be good. You haven’t worn it for some time.”

“I’m never wearing it again.” Allison pointed to the wardrobe. “The cream chiffon, Ruby. You can take the plaid away.”

“What do you want me to do with it, Miss Allison?”

Allison pushed herself up from the bed and went to her dressing table. “Burn it. Cut it up. Make curtains out of it.” She sat down on the stool and picked up her hairbrush. Ruby, the plaid dress still in her hands, stared at her, open-mouthed. “If you won’t do it, Ruby, I will.”

“But, Miss Allison—Mrs. Adelaide especially likes this one.”

“Let her wear it, then.”

Allison hurried her toilette and, dressed in the cream chiffon, descended the main staircase to the hall. She found Blake waiting for her at the foot of the stairs, and he guided her to the study, which turned out to be much smaller than Allison had expected. There were books everywhere, on shelves, on a low table, piled on a writing desk next to one of Uncle Dickson’s ubiquitous ashtrays. This one was brass, and Uncle Dickson was seated nearby, tapping ash into it in an abstracted way.