Hall of Secrets (A Benedict Hall Novel) (8 page)

She wouldn’t tell him the funding from the Sheppard-Towner Act had come through. The Women and Infants Clinic would soon be a reality, and would teach hygiene, home health care, and contraception to women and girls. There was no point in announcing that, because she was going to do it no matter what Frank might feel or say. All she could do, though it went against her nature, was postpone their conflict until they were face-to-face, until they could decide how big an obstacle it was going to be.

She finished her breakfast and was stowing the butter and cream back in the icebox when Hattie came in, smoothing her printed cotton housedress over her broad figure. “Oh, Miss Margot! Good morning! Let me cook you some eggs.”

“Thank you, Hattie, but I don’t have time. I’m assisting in the operating theater this morning.”

“Oh, my goodness, my goodness, Miss Margot.” Hattie bent to take a fresh apron out of a drawer, pulled it over her head, and began tying the ribbons. “You’re gonna have a long day! Let me send you with a sandwich, at least.”

Margot refolded Frank’s letter and slipped it into her pocket. “I had some toast,” she said. “And I can have lunch in the hospital canteen. No need to trouble yourself.”

That won not one but two resounding clucks from Hattie. As she selected eggs from the pottery bowl on the counter, she said, “Canteen food! Cold meat loaf and overcooked vegetables!”

Margot had to hide a smile. There were evenings in Benedict Hall when the canteen’s meat loaf sounded appealing. Hattie was right, though. It was often cold.

“I wish you’d tell me when you got to make an early start, Miss Margot,” Hattie went on. “I got me a perfectly good alarm clock, same one as you children gave me years ago, and I can sure get up to see you have a proper breakfast.” She was in motion even as she spoke, opening a drawer for the egg whisk, taking a mixing bowl from the cupboard, setting the heavy cast iron skillet on the stove. “You may be a doctor now, but old Hattie knows what it takes to get a body through the day.”

“I know you do, Hattie. Thank you. I’ll try to remember to tell you next time.”

Loena and Leona came in, yawning. It had been uncomfortable at first, Margot having breakfast in the kitchen, but the maids had gotten accustomed to it. They had stopped curtsying every time they saw her, thank God. They merely nodded politely, murmured their good mornings, and moved around her to begin assembling flatware and china for the dining room table, including the thin porcelain coffee cups Margot swore held only three thimblefuls of coffee.

Before she left the kitchen, Margot stepped close to Hattie to speak in an undertone. “Hattie, have you noticed whether Cousin Allison’s appetite is everything it should be?”

Hattie’s eyes came up to hers, a swift flash of whites and a gleam of dark iris, then back to the eggs she was whisking. “You ask me, Miss Allison doesn’t eat enough to keep a bird alive,” Hattie said. “Looks it, too.”

“I don’t remember her being so thin when she was here for her party last year.”

“I’m cookin’ Mrs. Edith’s favorites all the time, tryin’ to get her to eat a bite now and then. Maybe Miss Allison doesn’t like what I’m fixing.”

“It’s hard to tell, isn’t it?” Margot settled her hat on her head and pulled on her gloves. “I should be home for dinner.”

“You have you a fine day, Miss Margot,” Hattie said. “You go and make that poor soul all well who has the operation, and then you have you a fine day.”

“You, too, Hattie.” Margot turned toward the front hall, then thought better of it, and walked back through the kitchen to use the door onto the back porch. Just as she put her hand on the knob, Hattie called after her, “And don’t you go making that bed up there, either. You don’t need to fuss over chores like that. Leave it for Loena.”

Margot, bemused, said, “Yes, Hattie,” and made her escape into the gray morning before Hattie could think of something else to chide her for.

She would write all about this conversation to Frank, she decided. He was always entertained by Hattie, and he understood why Margot and all the Benedicts were so fond of her. It would make something safe, and might fill a whole letter. She wouldn’t be tempted to tell him Margaret Sanger was coming to Seattle. If he stayed in California for another two weeks, he would miss Mrs. Sanger’s visit entirely, and they wouldn’t have to argue about whether Margot should be seen with her.

C
HAPTER
7

Allison heard the porch door open and close, and went to her window to watch Cousin Margot walk around the back of the house and out to the street. She worked awfully hard, Allison thought. She left early almost every morning, and seemed to work late as well. She must be important at the hospital.

Of course, Margot knew she was important. You could see it in the way she walked, that quick, decisive stride, the way she carried her head. The way she spoke to people, looking right at them and acting like she expected an answer every time she asked a question. She was the opposite of all the women Allison knew, women who simpered and spoke in soft voices, who minced when they walked and deferred to men—all men. Cousin Margot certainly didn’t behave that way. What an ego she must have! She spoke to Cousin Dick and Uncle Dickson as if she were also a man, and no one seemed to find that strange.

A surprising stab of emotion shot through Allison’s breast. Was that jealousy? It couldn’t be. It was only her temper. It had to be temper. She was
furious
with Cousin Margot, after all. At least, she was trying to be.

She pulled the comforter from her bed and wrapped it around herself. It was so cold in Seattle, colder and damper even than it was in San Francisco. She shivered with goose bumps half the time, here in this rain-soaked city. Her very bones seemed to ache, as if the chill could reach right inside.

Ruby gave a timid knock on the door, opened it, and put her head in. “Miss Allison? Are you ready to dress?”

Allison turned away from the window. “Yes. I suppose I’d better.”

Ruby came in, already neatly attired in her skirt and shirtwaist and apron. She went to the wardrobe and opened the doors. “What about the plaid frock? You haven’t worn that yet.”

Allison shrugged. “That’s fine. It hardly matters.”

“Mrs. Adelaide wanted me to pack that one especially,” Ruby said with confidence. “She says it makes you look so slim.”

“Yes, I know she does, Ruby.” Allison couldn’t keep the sourness out of her voice. Even Ruby, not sensitive to nuance as a rule, gave her a questioning look.

Allison had liked the plaid dress when her mother brought it home from Magnin’s. It was short, falling barely past her knees, with a dropped waist and a deep lace neckline. There had been one just like it in the last
Harper’s Bazaar
. With her mother watching, she had put it on, tugging it past her hips, then frowning into the mirror. “It’s too small, Mother.”

Adelaide stood behind her, also frowning. They looked very much alike, everyone said, both of them fair, with light blue eyes and fine features. Adelaide’s frown was perpetual, and had plowed permanent furrows in her forehead. Her thin cheeks bore a delicate web of wrinkles, accentuated by the face powder she used. She put her hands on her bony hips, staring past Allison into the mirror. “You’ve gained weight,” she pronounced. “And the Pettersons’ ball is this Saturday.”

“I haven’t gained weight,” Allison protested. “It’s this frock.”

“It’s your usual size.” Adelaide twitched the skirt, but that didn’t help. It still pinched and pleated above Allison’s thighs.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Allison said fretfully. “It’s the way it’s cut. It won’t fit!”

“It will if you lose a bit of weight.”

“Lose weight?” Allison said, startled.

Adelaide pursed her lips, drawing the wrinkles deeper into her cheeks. “For heaven’s sake, Allison! Look at yourself!”

Allison gazed at her reflection. Her hair was still long enough then to be caught back and pinned with a silver clasp. Her cheeks were faintly pink, her lips full, if a bit pale, and her eyes were wide and clear. She had always thought it was too bad her lashes were so light, and her chin perhaps a bit too pointed, but she had never been unhappy about the way she looked. She hadn’t, in fact, thought about it all that much. She had thought much more about her tennis serve than about the size of her hips.

But at that moment, under her mother’s critical eye, the awful truth struck her. She experienced a sinking sensation that made her legs feel weak and her stomach collapse in on itself. She saw for the first time, as if her eyes had only just opened, how she truly looked. Her breasts were too big and too pointed, bending the pattern of the plaid wool crepe. Reluctantly, she turned sideways, and realized that her hips had swelled to humiliating proportions. There was also a hideous bulge around her stomach. She pressed her hand there, fingers splayed. She felt no more than a modest curve, but she knew it was there, right where the lines of the plaid refused to hang straight. She ran both hands down her sides, over the bunched fabric, feeling the lumpiness of her thighs. Even her legs had distorted as if overnight.

What, she wondered in desperation, had happened to her body?

“You’d better try on the blue gown,” Adelaide said with a warning tone. “The one for the Pettersons’. It’s Blue and Silver Night, remember? You
have
to be able to wear it!” She hurried across the bedroom to the wardrobe, pulled open the heavy doors, and rummaged through the clothes until she found the dress. Allison struggled to pull the plaid frock over her head, her throat closing with panic.

Her mother slid the white cotton cover off the gown and held it out. It was a pretty blue silk, shot through with silver thread. There were pumps to match, and an embroidered headband. Adelaide shook the dress, and the silver thread shimmered with light. “I hope to God this still fits, Allison. What have you been thinking? You
know
how important this party is! All the college men have been invited!”

With difficulty, Allison extricated herself from the plaid frock, and she stood with it draped over her hands, staring at her mother. Adelaide Benedict seemed a stranger at that moment, a sort of angry monster, eyes snapping, sunken cheeks coloring beneath their layer of rouge. The hand holding the blue gown trembled, and Allison noticed for the first time how prominent the bones of her mother’s hand were, how fleshless her arms, how fragile her figure. She spoke without thinking. “Mother. You’re
so
thin.”

It had not been intended as a compliment. Compliments were few enough in their family, hard to win, nearly impossible to recognize on the rare occasions they were uttered. What Allison meant was that her mother looked like an assortment of bones held together only by her expensive day frock. That she looked dried up, shrunken somehow, like an apple left too long in the pantry.

Her mother misunderstood. “Of course I’m thin, Allison,” she said. Her voice was dry, too, and edgy, as if it had been sharpened. “It’s hardly an accident, you know. It’s a question of discipline.” She thrust the blue gown forward. “Put it on.”

Allison laid the plaid frock across the back of the white-painted chair beside her bed. She took the blue one from her mother, but stood with it trailing from her hands in sparkling folds. “What do you mean, it’s not an accident?”

Adelaide fixed her daughter with a faded blue stare. “I mean that I take control of my own life. My own mother gained ten pounds with every one of her six children, and I decided early on I wasn’t going to do that. Put the dress on, Allison.”

“I don’t understand. You only had me.”

Allison didn’t know why she had never noticed how sharp her mother’s chin was. Her thinness made her teeth too prominent, her lipsticked smile grotesque. Allison shivered with a feeling that was both shock and revulsion.

Adelaide didn’t notice. She said, “I never wanted children, you know. Your father insisted, and so we had you, but that was all. What I wanted was to keep my figure, and I have. I weigh less now than the day I was married. If I wanted to wear my wedding dress again, I’d have to have it taken in.” This last pronouncement was issued with fierce pride, much the way Allison thought a general would announce that he had won an important battle. That he had defeated his enemy and decided the war.

Perhaps it was a war, Allison thought helplessly. She turned back to the mirror, holding the blue gown before her. Adelaide stepped forward to undo the hooks and eyes in the bodice, to help her drape it over her head, slide it down over her chemise. Allison couldn’t bear to watch as her mother fastened the hooks into the eyes, starting at the top, working her way down. There were twenty of them, tiny silvery fastenings, and as each one slipped into place, the gown grew tighter and tighter. Allison held her breath. She pulled her stomach in until it began to hurt. She felt the tug of the fabric, the pinch of her mother’s fingers, and then the last fastening was done. Cautiously, Allison lifted her gaze to the mirror.

“Well, I guess you’re in luck this time,” her mother said. “You can still squeeze into it.”

Allison looked from her reflection to Adelaide’s, and her heart constricted. She could have sworn that what she read in her mother’s face was not relief but disappointment.

 

Allison took her seat next to Aunt Edith. Cousin Margot was off already, as she knew, but Uncle Dickson, Cousin Dick, and Ramona were all there. All Allison could see of her uncle and cousin was the back page of a newspaper section. Ramona smiled as she sat down and said, “Good morning, Cousin Allison. I hope you slept well.”

“Yes, thank you.” One of the twin maids came in with the coffeepot and filled the small bone-china cup in front of Allison. Allison glanced up at her. “Thanks, Leona.” The maid murmured something and dipped a small curtsy before she made her way around the table to refill the other cups.

Ramona said, “You’re so good at telling them apart, Allison. I still have trouble, and I’ve known them for three years.”

“That’s what Ruby says. I can just see that one is a little thinner than the other, and Leona has a freckle Loena doesn’t.”

Ramona held her coffee cup in her two slender hands. Allison liked looking at her, with her neat finger-waved bob and pretty wool frock. Her wedding ring, a fat ruby circled in pavé diamonds, glittered under the light from the chandelier. “You have an eye for detail,” she said to Allison. “Why not come shopping with us this afternoon? You can help me choose a pair of shoes to go with my new evening dress.”

“I would love that,” Allison said. She felt a little rush of good cheer at the idea of an outing. She had no money for shopping, of course, because Papa had seen to that. It was part of her punishment. Allison didn’t know if Ramona and the others knew, but still, it would be good just to be out. Benedict Hall, despite its elegance, was beginning to feel like a jail. A cold, damp jail.

The maids came in with platters of griddle cakes and rashers of bacon, just as Ramona leaned forward to look down the table at her mother-in-law, who hadn’t spoken yet this morning. In fact, she had barely spoken since Allison had arrived. “Mother Benedict,” Ramona said, in the tone one might use to speak to a child. “Won’t you come, too? We could have tea at Frederick’s. You always enjoy that.”

Aunt Edith turned her face to Ramona, but the gesture was slightly off, sluggish, as if the thought trailed behind the action. “How kind,” she said vaguely. “Thank you, Ramona. I don’t think I feel up to it today.”

“You might feel better for a little air,” Ramona said. “Why don’t we talk about it after you’ve eaten something?”

Loena was at Allison’s elbow, offering her the tray of griddle cakes. They were the loveliest golden brown, crisp around the edges, and smelling of butter and eggs. Allison’s stomach cramped with a sudden hunger that made her mouth water. She looked down at the plaid dress, at its snug fit around her hips, and then back at the platter. She took one griddle cake, the smallest one on the tray, and set it in the center of her plate. Loena waited for her to take more, but she gave a small shake of her head.

Uncle Dickson and Cousin Dick took several each, with slices of fragrant bacon. Even Ramona took three griddle cakes, and when she glanced across the table at Allison’s plate, she raised her delicately painted eyebrows. “This is one of Hattie’s specialties,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll like them.”

Leona came around with a small carafe of warm maple syrup, and everyone took some. Allison poured a few careful drops on the griddle cake. She had refused the bacon. She was relieved when everyone began to eat, the men laying their newspapers aside, Ramona using her knife and fork to cut her bacon into bite-sized pieces.

While everyone was occupied, Allison picked up her own flatware. She cut the griddle cake in half, and then in quarters. She cut each quarter in half, and swirled the tiny pieces in the little bit of glowing maple syrup. She spread the pieces out, then mounded them to one side of the plate, so it looked as if she had eaten most of the griddle cake. She put just one morsel in her mouth, biting back a groan at the rich taste of good eggs and flour and butter, with the tinge of maple sweetness. She chewed it, swallowed it, then laid down her fork. She picked up her coffee cup and looked across its rim at the others.

Ramona and Dick were talking about a piece of furniture they were thinking of buying. Uncle Dickson was chewing huge mouthfuls of griddle cake and bacon, and looking down at the newspaper beside his plate. Allison let her glance slide to her right, to Aunt Edith.

Aunt Edith was perfectly groomed, her hair brushed, her face clean, her shirtwaist ironed and tidy. She managed, just the same, to give the faint impression of disorder. There was something about the cloisonné clip that held her graying hair back from her face, about the odd match of her shirtwaist and skirt, the slightly over-powdered surface of her face, that made her look as if she didn’t quite remember how to put everything together. As if it were Aunt Edith who needed a lady’s maid, far more than Allison did.

Aunt Edith looked up, as if she felt Allison’s gaze. Her eyes drifted to Allison’s plate, then to her own. She showed no reaction, but Allison felt a slight shock, the way you do when you catch sight of yourself in a mirror and realize your buttons are undone or your hair is standing up in the back.