She had struck her mother. She hadn’t done it on purpose, but it had happened just the same. Adelaide had been brandishing the spoon, threatening to stick it down Allison’s throat with her own hand. Allison batted it away, with no more intent than if she were swatting at a buzzing hornet, but something had snapped. She heard it break, and so did her mother. They both froze for one horrible instant, gazing at Adelaide’s forearm, and then Adelaide began to scream.
Allison might have tried to help her mother, might have gone in search of Cousin Margot to set everything right, but she didn’t trust herself to do it. What really drove Allison out of Benedict Hall was the impulse that swept over her, the nearly irresistible urge she felt to put her two hands around her mother’s bony neck and squeeze until the shrieking stopped.
She had fled from that awful impulse, and now—
The man’s breathing rattled as if he had something stuck in his throat. As her eyes adjusted to the dim light, she made out a limp wide-brimmed hat, a drab overcoat of canvas or something like it, and a dark wool muffler. His eyes glinted pale blue, but the rest of his face was hidden, the scarf pulled up over his nose and wound around his neck.
She twisted her arm, trying to loosen his hold.
“Don’t bother,” he said. There was something wrong with his voice, though his accent was cultured. “We’re just going to take a little walk, you and I together.”
“No,” she cried and tried again to jerk free.
He grabbed the back of her neck with his other hand. She felt the pinch of his long nails and shuddered. “You might as well relax,” he said in that awful voice. “I’m going to need you for a little while. When I’m through, I’ll probably let you go.”
“Need me for what?”
“Why don’t you wait and see?” The tone might have seemed conversational if his voice weren’t so ghastly. It was more than just hoarse. It sounded—broken. Shredded.
“No!” she said again. “I don’t want to!”
He gave her a shake, as if she were a recalcitrant puppy. “Used to getting what you want, aren’t you? Spoiled little rich girl?”
“That’s not true!”
“I think it is.” His grip on her neck tightened. “But it doesn’t matter. Let’s go.”
“I’m not going!” She pulled back on both heels, one intact and one broken, and pushed at him with her free hand. He wasn’t tall, but his body was as hard as stone, and she might as well have pushed a brick wall. He shook her again, harder this time, and she gasped at the pain in her neck. “What do you want? Why are you—”
“The more you fight me,” he grated, “the worse it will be.” He loosened his grip just a little, but she still felt the bite of his fingernails at the base of her skull. “I mean that, by the way,” he added offhandedly. “If I have to hurt you, I will enjoy every moment. Seems only fair to tell you that, little cousin.”
“Cou—cousin?”
Another hideous laugh. “Yes indeed!” He pushed her ahead of him, forcing her deeper into the park, down the curving sidewalk lined with dark shrubbery. She fought him at every step, kicking, struggling to loosen his grip on her neck, to turn her head to bite his hand. None of it did any good. She stumbled onward, limping on her broken shoe, her fear rising as they approached the water tower. The top of it was lost in fog. Below the park, only a few streetlights glimmered through the mist. The bay was invisible, but a freighter’s horn blasted its bone-piercing call from somewhere out on the water.
None of it seemed real. The hideous scene in the bedroom, the reckless flight from the house, her mother’s shrill screams, and now—in the rolling fog, with the brick tower looming above her—this man! Was he—whoever he was, whatever he wanted—was he truly going to hurt her?
His breathing was terrifying, each breath rattling in his chest as if it were his last, but his fingers were as implacable as iron claws against her tender flesh. They were as cold as iron, too. Everything was cold, her bare arms, her feet in the thin shoes, her hands, the tip of her nose. She began to shiver and stammered through chattering teeth, “I’m not your c-cousin!”
“Oh, but you are! Allison, isn’t it? Miss Allison Benedict, I believe, debutante of San Francisco.”
“But—who are you?” She twisted again, trying to see his face.
He pushed her forward, and she almost tripped. He said, “Preston Benedict, at your service. Cousin Preston to you!”
She could barely speak for the sheer outrageousness of the idea. She breathed, “No! That’s not possible.”
“And yet”—another push—“here I am!”
“No, no! You’re dead! There was a funeral. There’s a grave, and a tombstone—everything!”
“Sentimental, isn’t it?” He laughed, then coughed. His coughing made a fearsome tearing sound, as if his lungs were ripping apart. Their progress slowed as he fought for breath, and they paused at the foot of the granite stairs leading to the tower entrance.
When he could speak again, he rasped, “They buried an empty coffin, you know.”
“Wh—what?”
“Wh-what?” he mimicked, a bizarre echo in his ruin of a voice. “Didn’t tell you that, did they? There are no bones in that grave. There can’t be, because those bones are right here.” He slapped his chest. “Nothing under that headstone but an empty box.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Why should I care? Now, go.”
Allison, her head spinning, limped up the steps. Ahead, past the curving wall of the tower, the glass walls of the Conservatory shimmered through the fog like the walls of a fairy-tale palace. She could no longer see the lights of Benedict Hall. When she faltered at the last step, he gave her a vicious shove, and she fell to her knees on the landing. Her silk stockings tore, and she heard the beads from the hem of her frock scatter across the granite.
All at once she was angry, and it felt much better than being afraid. She was furious at this person, whoever he was. He was no better than Papa and Mother and Dr. Kinney, all of them doing their best to control her, not one of them caring how she felt or what she wanted, all of them using her to get what they wanted. This man was exactly the same.
Rage cleared her spinning head. “You’re a liar!” she cried, still on her knees. “I’m not your cousin! My cousin Preston is dead!” She jumped to her feet, and with a swift motion, yanked the muffler away from his face.
For one sickening moment they stared at each other.
Allison’s fury died away under a swell of profound pity. This man, whoever he was, had been rendered monstrous. The skin below his eyes was puckered and blurred as if it had dissolved. His mouth was a slash, what was left of his lips distorted, pulled to one side and down. His chin and neck ran together as if the skin had melted and then frozen again into thick, reddened ridges of flesh. His eyebrows were gone, and his eyelashes, too.
No wonder his voice was so awful. He had been in a fire. He must have breathed flame and smoke, destroyed his voice, scarred his lungs.
She realized her mouth was open in horror, and she closed it. He said, “Pretty, aren’t I?” and lifted the muffler again to hide his disfigurement.
She didn’t answer. She tensed her muscles, then spun on her uneven shoes to dash away. His hand shot out, seized her arm, and wrenched her back against him. “I told you, don’t bother,” he snarled.
She struggled now with everything she had. She shouted, but there was no one to hear. She kicked, and fought his hands, but he was as cold as he was hideous. Though she waged her battle until her strength gave out, until her throat hurt from screaming, it was useless.
When she was limp with fatigue, her breath coming in little sobs, he said, “That’s better.” He gripped her elbows and rattled her until she felt her bones crack. “I meant it, you know,” he said, very close to her face. “I like this. Love it, actually.” He gave a little shrug. “It’s the way I am. The more you resist, the better it is.”
Allison, looking into those lash
less blue eyes, believed him.
Margot refused to let Blake drop her in front of the house, though he tried to insist. “I’m not having you maneuver your cane in and out of the damned automobile any more than you have to!” she snapped, and then said, “Oh, I’m sorry, Blake. I’m so tired, and I’m worried.”
“It’s all right, Dr. Margot,” he said mildly. “This has been a hard evening.”
“Awful. Just awful. I want to blame it all on Aunt Adelaide, but I suppose Allison bears some responsibility.”
They left the Essex in the garage and walked together across the lawn to the back porch. Blake said, “I know it’s not for me to have an opinion, but Miss Allison seems far younger than nineteen. A child, in many ways.”
Margot glanced up at him. “I agree, Blake,” she said. “I suppose it’s not unusual, in a family like hers.” He held the back door for her to pass through. She walked ahead of him, through the darkened kitchen, on into the hall. It was dark there, too, but the door to the small parlor stood open, and light spilled out. Margot hurried toward it, with Blake limping behind her.
Empty cups rested on the piecrust table, and a pot with a ladle on a sideboard. Ramona, still in her dressing gown, but now with her hair combed and a thick shawl around her shoulders, jumped up from the divan. There was no one else in the room. The fire had died down, and the air felt chilly. “Margot! How is Aunt Adelaide?”
“She’ll be all right, I think,” Margot said.
Blake said, “Mrs. Ramona, why are you alone, and the fire dying out? Three maids in the house—four, if you count Ruby—”
She shook her head. “It’s all right, Blake. I sent the twins and Thelma to their beds. And Hattie. There wasn’t anything else they could do tonight.”
He said, “But Ruby, at least—”
“Ruby is out with Uncle Henry and Father. Searching.”
Margot said, “Searching? Ramona, you can’t mean—Allison hasn’t come back?” She glanced at the onyx corner clock and exclaimed, “It’s two in the morning!”
“I know,” Ramona said. “She’s been gone for hours, with no coat, no gloves—and it’s freezing outside.”
Margot began stripping off her own gloves. “I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I was so taken up with Aunt Adelaide!”
“Where is she? Still at the hospital?”
“I admitted her. Her arm is set, but I don’t think she’s well in general, and I want Dr. Creedy to give her a full examination in the morning. And, Ramona, you need your rest. You should be in bed.”
“I couldn’t possibly sleep,” Ramona said. She pulled the shawl tight around her shoulders and worried at the fringe with her fingers. “I’m afraid for Allison, poor little thing. If she knows her mother’s hurt, or thinks she was responsible—”
“She should have been back hours ago,” Margot said. “I would have thought the cold would drive her back, if nothing else.” She had begun taking off her coat, but she stopped with one sleeve on and one off. “I wonder if I should join Father and Uncle Henry.”
“No,” Blake said firmly. “I’ll get the Essex out again, and see if I can help. You two ladies should both rest, but I suppose you won’t be able to. I’ll just put some wood on this fire.”
Margot pulled her arm out of her other sleeve and took her hat off. “You’re right, Blake. Ramona, lie down on the divan, at least. Put your feet up.” Ramona did this, and Margot arranged the shawl to cover her. Blake disappeared briefly, and limped back with both his arms full of small logs. “Blake, your cane!” Margot said.
“I’ll get it in a moment.”
“I think I’ll make coffee,” she said. “We’re going to want it.”
When she reached the kitchen, though, she found Hattie already there, with an overcoat over her nightdress and thick knitted slippers on her feet. “Hattie, I thought you were sleeping.”
“Oh, I couldn’t, Miss Margot. I just couldn’t, not with poor Miss Allison out there somewhere in the dark!” She was filling the percolator at the big sink.
“I can understand that,” Margot said heavily. “I can’t sleep, either. I admitted Aunt Adelaide to the hospital, and do you know, Hattie—” She hesitated, knowing her mother wouldn’t approve, then rushed ahead just the same. Hattie and Allison had established a relationship of their own, and Hattie would understand. “Do you know that Aunt Adelaide never once asked about Allison? Just went on whining about her broken arm, and then, when she had an injection for the pain, rambling on about whatever it was Allison was supposed to have done. ‘Ruined,’ she said. What on earth could the child have done that was so awful? I don’t even know if a girl can be ‘ruined’ anymore.”
Hattie was scooping coffee grounds into the top of the pot. “She didn’t tell me about it, Miss Margot, but that girl was awful unhappy. Bored, of course. Lonely, too. She took to arranging your little party like a duckling takes to water. Sat here at my table afterward and actually ate something!”
“She was looking so much better,” Margot mused. She pulled out one of the aluminum chairs and sat down, kicking off her shoes and stretching her legs out with a sense of relief. The percolator began to bubble, and she thought what a comforting sound that always was in the morning, the promise of a full day to come. It was strange to hear it in the wee hours.
Hattie said, “I just don’t know why a young girl like that would go off her eats like she did. She was better, eating a bit every meal. Then, the minute she knows her parents are coming, she goes off again. That ain’t right.”
“No. I agree, Hattie.”
Hattie took the bottle of cream from the icebox and laid cookies on a plate. She had started her Christmas baking, and the cookies were shaped like Christmas trees and angels. They made Margot feel sad, such gay little sweets in the midst of a night of crisis.
When the coffee stopped bubbling, Hattie said, “There now. You go on in the small parlor, Miss Margot. I’ll bring this in.”
“I could wake one of the twins,” Margot suggested.
“Better they get their sleep, if you ask me. We don’t know what tomorrow will be like.”
The truth of this chilled Margot to her bones. She shoved her feet back into her shoes and started into the hall. The front door opened just as she passed it, and the searchers trooped in, red-nosed and tousle-haired. She saw that Blake had returned with the Essex, but had left it parked in the street. She said, “Father? No luck, I gather?”
“None. It’s strange. I don’t see how she could have gotten very far.”
“The streetcar,” she suggested.
“But would she know where to go?” Uncle Henry demanded. “Has she gone off before?”
“No,” Dick said in a tight voice. Margot saw that he, too, was angry. She hadn’t realized how much Allison had become part of the household—part of the family—until that moment. “No, Uncle Henry. She hasn’t gone off before.”
Dickson said, “I think it’s time to call the police, Henry.”
“No! That will mean publicity. Surely the silly girl will come home in the morning.”
The other Benedicts—Margot, her brother and sister-in-law, her father, and Blake and Hattie—stared at him. He turned his back to stamp away up the stairs, leaving the rest of them standing in the hall.
CHAPTER 20
Allison wished she had long sleeves so she didn’t have to feel the ridges of Preston’s burn scars. They seemed to have no circulation. They felt like the cold claws of an animal, without feeling or flexibility, and her skin prickled with revulsion at their touch.
As he forced her toward the door of the tower’s south entrance she said, “That’s locked at night. You can’t go in.”
He barked his ugly laugh. “Always hated people telling me what I can’t do,” he said. He held her arm with one hand while he dug an enormous iron key from the pocket of his disreputable coat. She tried to seize the moment, to wrench her arm free, but only succeeded in making him grip her more tightly. Her arm woul
d be covered in bruises, she knew, when there was light enough to see it.
He had the door open a moment later, and he pushed her through it, closing it behind them with his foot. She heard the heavy lock click into place.
She said, for the tenth time, “What is it you want? If it’s something from the family, why not just ask?” but he didn’t answer.
He drove her ahead of him to the stairs. They were steel, faintly shining in the darkness, and slippery. Preston’s breath whistled in his lungs as they climbed. The exertion briefly warmed Allison. “Where are we going?” she panted.
“Climb,” he gasped. “One hundred six steps, and we’re going all the way.”
“Why?”
“Because I say so.”
She didn’t ask again. She saved her breath for the ascent, and watched him warily for any sign he meant to make her fall. It would be easy in the dark stairwell, and there was real danger in these hard, icy steps. She couldn’t think what it would gain him to throw her down the curving staircase, but he wasn’t in his right mind, which she feared meant it didn’t have to make sense. It was obvious he had no qualms about hurting her. He might even do it just for pleasure. For kicks, as Tommy Fellowes might have said. She placed her feet carefully in the dimness, as he propelled her higher and higher. When they reached the top, he released her, but he stayed close, and she had no doubt he would seize her again if she tried to bolt.
They were in an observation deck, a great circular space surrounded by arched windows. Ironwork grates barred the windows, but there was no glass, and they were open to the icy night air. Allison hugged herself against the cold, the warmth of the climb draining swiftly away. “I’m going to freeze to death,” she said.
The laugh again. “So much more pleasant,” he said, “than death by burning. I know all about that!”
“You really are my cousin, then,” she said sadly.
“Yes, I really am.”
“Isn’t there something the doctors can do for you? For your face, I mean?”
Hall of Secrets (A Benedict Hall Novel) Page 24