Aunt Edith was just as she always was, composed, well groomed, inattentive. Cousin Ramona had roses in her cheeks and a sparkle in her eye, and Allison was sure she was so happy about the coming baby that even her sorrow for Preston couldn’t spoil her mood. Cousin Dick and Uncle Dickson had gone to their office this morning, but come home for lunch, and Hattie had made a special effort. There was a shepherd’s pie, hot and filling on this icy December day, and silver baskets filled with hot bread. The Christmas tree had been delivered, and rested now in all its piney fragrance on the back porch, ready to be brought in on Christmas Eve. Fat new candles, red as rubies, waited to be lighted at dinner, and someone—Leona, Allison suspected, who had the most initiative of all the maids—had made twists of greenery down the center of the table. They filled the dining room with spicy scent.
Allison collected her thoughts enough to ask politely, “How is Mother, Papa?”
This might have been an opening for him to chastise her again for causing the injury, but he looked distracted and uncertain. He said, “Your mother is going to need a long rest, Allison. Dr. Creedy recommended a place he knows in Monterey.”
“Oh! California,” she said.
“We’ll speak about it after lunch.”
Uncle Dickson leaned forward. “Henry. If Adelaide is going to take a cure, why not leave Allison with us? We’ve enjoyed having her so much.”
Allison held her breath. It was said so easily, as if it didn’t mean everything in the world.
Her father said, with his customary scowl, “I don’t want my daughter to be a burden, Dickson.”
Cousin Dick, with a grin at Allison, said, “That could never happen, Uncle Henry. We’ll put her to work.”
Margot said, “You know, Uncle Henry, Allison could take some classes at the University. I did my undergraduate work there. They have excellent courses for young women.”
Allison squirmed in her chair and twisted her fingers together to keep from begging.
On any normal day, under ordinary circumstances, this would have been Henry Benedict’s cue to expound on the pointlessness of higher education for girls. In Benedict Hall, with his accomplished niece sitting just across the table, this avenue of argument was closed to him. Allison could have predicted that.
What surprised her, what she would never have predicted, was the hesitance in his answer. It was unlike her father to doubt himself, but whatever it was that had happened this morning, he clearly doubted himself now.
He said, “Very kind of you. All of you. It might be . . . that is, with Adelaide away, and only Ruby . . .”
Cousin Ramona said sweetly, and pointedly, “Oh, won’t that be marvelous, Cousin Allison? When the baby comes, you’ll be here to help!”
Angela Rossi came to Margot’s office and knocked on the open door to get her attention. Margot glanced up. “Are they here?” She pushed the surgical manual she had been studying back into its place on the shelf beside her beautiful new desk and gave it a satisfied tap with her fingers. Her father had insisted on providing the very newest editions of all the books she had lost, and the up-to-date research was both fascinating and useful.
Angela said, “Yes, Doctor. That is, Miss Benedict is. I believe your driver is waiting in the motorcar. Shall I show Miss Benedict back?”
“Please do,” Margot said. “And if we have no more appointments today, you can go home. I’m sure you have things to do for the holiday.”
“I do,” Angela said. “I have all that baking still to get done, and a few gifts to wrap.”
“Gifts!” Margot breathed. She spread her hands. “I haven’t done a thing about gifts.”
“A bit late now, I think,” the practical Angela said. “But I’m sure your family will understand.”
Margot had to chuckle at that. The Benedicts were used to her never getting around to Christmas shopping, and they were well accustomed to her yearly apologies.
Angela disappeared down the short hallway and returned in a moment with Allison, red-cheeked from the cold. She wore a scarlet wool coat with fur trim on the cuffs, black stockings, and a pair of strapped pumps. Her fair hair had gotten damp somehow, destroying her careful spit curls. It curled charmingly around her head, making her look like one of the cherubs on a Christmas card.
Allison waited until Angela closed the office door, then burst out, “They’re gone, Cousin Margot! I kept worrying Papa would change his mind at the last minute, but he didn’t, and they’re gone! Ruby, too!”
“That was a good choice. You don’t really need a lady’s maid, and your mother can use the help, since she only has the use of one arm.”
“And all her dresses will need altering, to fit over the cast,” Allison said. “I pointed that out to Mother, and that convinced her.” She took the chair opposite the desk, perching on the edge as if she might fly away at any moment. “She is going to be all right, isn’t she? Mother, I mean?”
Margot considered her answer with care. “Her arm will heal, Allison. It will be slow, because she’s not very well, but it should heal well. It was a clean break.”
“And the other—thing?”
“The other ‘thing’ is why I wanted to see you, and see you here, in my office. As a physician.”
The nervous energy seemed to drain out of Allison all at once, and she sank back in the chair and began rather listlessly to fiddle with the buttons of her coat. “Oh. I thought perhaps we were just going to talk about the University.”
“We will talk about that, Allison,” Margot said firmly. “I’m going to help you with your admissions, and if you like, help you choose a course of study. Nothing has changed.”
Allison brightened noticeably. “Oh! Thank you! I can hardly wait.”
“Excellent. Now.” Margot rested her linked hands on the desk blotter. “You know Dr. Creedy suggested your mother spend some time in a sanitorium, Allison. She’s much too thin, and he feels—and I agree—that we need to understand why that is. It’s not only her bones that are affected. She shows signs of anaemia—fatigue, weakness, thin fingernails—some of which you exhibited yourself. I believe there is also some cognitive impairment, which—well, you don’t need to worry about that. Dr. Creedy discussed all this with your father. In the sanitorium, your mother should be able to put on some weight, and—”
“Oh, she won’t,” Allison said with confidence.
“Pardon?”
“She won’t put on weight. She’ll see to it she doesn’t.”
Margot frowned. “What do you mean? How can she ‘see to it’? She’ll have a lot of rest, and nourishing meals—”
“She throws them up, Cousin Margot.” Allison emitted a gusty sigh.
“What—do you mean, she vomits?”
“Yes.”
“Does food make her ill?”
“No, I don’t think so. She does it on purpose. All the time.” Allison spoke with resignation. “Mother stays thin because after she eats she puts a spoon down her throat and—” She gave a slight shudder. “I know it’s disgusting. It’s because she doesn’t want to get stout like her mother did.”
Margot pressed a fingertip to her lips, thinking. In truth, despite all her experience, it was disgusting. She thought back over the papers she had read. Neither Simmonds nor Janet had mentioned behavior like this. After a moment she dropped her hand and said, carefully, “Allison—do you do this?”
“No!” Allison shook her damp curls. “She gave me a spoon of my own, but I—”
“She did what?” Margot stared at her young cousin in horror. “She wanted you to do the same thing?”
Allison fell silent, gazing at Margot with wide eyes and parted lips.
“Oh, my dear,” Margot said helplessly. “I can’t—I hardly know what to say about that.”
Allison looked away, and spoke in a small voice. “I didn’t like it, Cousin Margot, but Mother said I was getting fat. I just—I couldn’t make myself do what she wanted. It was easier not to eat in the first place.�
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“Fat,” Margot echoed. “She said you were fat.” She eyed the slight girl opposite her, nearly swallowed by her scarlet coat. Her cheeks were hollow, her neck slender and fragile-looking. “Allison, you’re not fat. You’re the opposite of fat.”
Allison lifted her eyes to the window, and Margot followed her gaze to the view of the bay. The early winter darkness had already fallen, but white ship lights glimmered here and there like stars dropped into the water. Margot waited, giving the girl time. It was a moment to be silent. To let understanding grow in the empty space that must exist in Allison’s young heart.
Allison let her coat fall from her shoulders and sat hugging herself as she gazed out into the night. “Sometimes,” she said mournfully, “I know I’m not fat. Sometimes I can see it in the mirror, that my stomach and my—my bust—that they look normal. Even sort of thin.” She turned pleading eyes to Margot. “But other times, when Mother’s been telling me, I see this awful shape. My thighs, and my waist, they look like they belong to someone else. Someone I don’t recognize. Sometimes I think I’m hideous.” Shining tears rose in her eyes, and she wiped them away with her fingers. “Sometimes,” she finished in a whisper, “I get so confused I think I must be crazy. Because I don’t know what’s real.”
Margot took a clean handkerchief from a desk drawer and handed it across the desk. She wanted to get up, to put her arms around the girl, but she made herself wait. It was too soon. Just now Allison needed a doctor, not a friend. She spoke as gently as she knew how. “Allison, I think your mother is even more confused than you are. I don’t know if we can help her, but I want to help you.”
“Hattie says my mother loves me,” Allison said, her voice catching in a sob. “Do you think so?”
“I’m not much of a judge of love,” Margot said. “I wish I were better at it.”
Allison blew her nose and dabbed at her wet eyelashes, then crumpled the handkerchief in her lap. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Margot said. “You’re having a natural reaction to an unhappy situation.” She tapped her fingers on her blotter and tried to think how best to proceed.
“Is my mother crazy? Is that why she does these things?”
“I don’t think crazy is the right word,” Margot said cautiously. “But I do think Aunt Adelaide has gone too far. For both of you,” she added. “She’s created a situation, for whatever reason, which has made her ill. My concern is that it threatens to make you ill, too.”
Allison surprised her with a tremulous, tearstained smile. “I’ll be all right, Cousin Margot,” she said. “I’m working on it.”
“May I help you with that?” Margot asked. “One reason I wanted you to come here was to weigh you, check your blood pressure, examine you—because these are the things I know how to do, and because I hope I can help that way.”
“Yes. Yes, we can do those things, and I think it’s really nice of you. Also—” Allison hesitated, her gaze shifting away, and then back. “I hope you won’t think it’s strange, but Hattie helps me, too. I know she’s just your servant, your cook—”
Margot chuckled. “I think you’ve guessed by now that none of us thinks of Hattie or Blake as just servants.”
Allison’s smile steadied. “Hattie’s kitchen is my favorite place in Benedict Hall.”
Margot thought of her early-morning chats with Blake at the white enamel table, while the whole house slept around them. It was nice that even in an enormous place like Benedict Hall the kitchen felt like home, at least to one or two of the family. “Well, then. As long as you’re amenable, let’s get you on the scale, and I’ll record your blood pressure. Can you promise, do you think, that if you feel you’re having trouble, you could come and talk to me?”
“Yes. And I can talk to Hattie. I always feel better when I talk to Hattie.”
Margot knew what her mother would think of such an answer, and even more, what Aunt Adelaide would think of it. But since she herself had relied on Blake countless times, over the entire length of her life, she could only say, “Yes, Allison, you could certainly talk to Hattie. Sometimes we find comfort in the most surprising places.”
In the circle of someone’s prosthetic arm, for example. But she couldn’t think about that now.
CHAPTER 26
When Margot emerged from the hospital, she stepped into a swirl of fat snowflakes that spangled the sleeves of her new blue coat and caught on her eyelashes as she hurried across the sidewalk to the waiting Essex. The automobile looked as if it had been sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar, and Blake’s driving cap, when he stepped out to open her door, was soon glistening with snow.
“We’d best get up the hill before this gets any worse,” Margot said from the backseat. Even a small amount of Seattle snow, wet and slippery, could make Aloha impassable.
“We will, Dr. Margot. Don’t worry.”
“It’s pretty, though, isn’t it, Blake?”
“We’ll enjoy it more from the windows of Benedict Hall.” She laughed and sat back to leave the problem of negotiating the hill to Blake. Christmas Eve of 1921 fell on a Saturday, and Margot had decided that was a good reason not to hold clinic hours. She gave Angela Rossi the day off, and except for three patients at the hospital, she meant to do the same.
The snow thickened on the streets and sidewalks by the time Blake dropped her at the front gate. All the windows of Benedict Hall glowed with light, and someone had looped a string of red and green Christmas lights in the picture window. They twinkled gaily through the flutter of snowflakes, and Margot took her time moving up the walk, savoring the holiday mood. The tree had been set up at the foot of the staircase, towering all the way to the molded ceiling. Boxes of ornaments, dusty from the attic, waited nearby. The hall smelled marvelously of evergreen boughs and Christmas baking.
Margot hung up her coat and was unpinning her hat, smiling a little at the familiar voices sounding from the small parlor. Her father. Dick. Allison and Ramona, laughing.
And—she could hardly believe it—it was Frank she heard with them, just a word or two, but unmistakably Frank!
She hastily straightened her skirt with her hands and tried to sort out her disordered hair. Frank must have heard the front door, because he came out into the hall and strode toward her. He looked wonderful, his hair freshly cut, his jacket some new tweed thing she hadn’t seen before, his eyes bright with pleasure. He didn’t say a word, but folded her into his arms and pressed her against him for such a long time that she began to laugh and wriggle to get free. He kissed her then, firmly and at length. He released her only when Blake, coming out from the kitchen, ostentatiously cleared his throat.
Margot and Frank moved apart, smiling. Blake said, with exaggerated gravity, “How good to see you in Benedict Hall again, Major Parrish.”
Frank’s lean cheeks flushed, but there was laughter in his voice. “Thank you very much, Blake. Merry Christmas.”
“And to you, sir.” Blake, carrying a tray, walked past them and down the hall to the dining room. At the door he turned back and said, “Luncheon is in twenty minutes, Dr. Margot. You and the major have time to join the family for a cup of cider, if you like.”
“We will. Thank you.” When Blake had disappeared, Margot said, “Frank, why didn’t you tell me you were coming? You keep surprising me!”
“Yes, I know,” he said. “But today—well—I had something to talk to your father about.”
“To Father? About what?”
He hesitated, and his cheeks colored even more deeply.
“Frank Parrish, you’re blushing like a boy! What are you up to?”
“Well, Margot.” He coughed a little and let his gaze drift above her head, to the very top of the fir tree. “What do you think a man speaks to his girl’s father about?”
“Oh, Frank, don’t be silly. I’m hardly a girl. I’m nearly thirty. . . .” The impact of his words came a heartbeat too late, and she broke off. “What—you
didn’t!”
“I did.” He looked terribly young with his cheeks so flushed, despite the streaks of silver in his hair. She wanted to put up her hand and touch his face, but at that moment Thelma appeared with a soup tureen, passing them with a bob of a curtsy.
Frank seized Margot’s left hand in his natural right one. “Can’t talk in here, Margot. Too many people around. Let’s go out on the porch.”
“It’s freezing! Did you know it’s snowing?”
“Put your coat back on.”
He was smiling, but she saw that his hand trembled slightly as he helped her into her coat and shrugged into his own. They stepped out onto the porch, where the falling snow sparkled under the lights of the windows. “It’s beautiful,” Margot said. “We don’t get a lot of snow in Seattle.”
“Different snow from Montana.”
“Much wetter, yes.” She turned to him. “Now, tell me, Frank.”
He took her hand again, this time holding it in both of his. “I’ve spoken to your father,” he began.
Margot felt a giggle rise in her throat, from embarrassment, from wonder, from hope. “So old-fashioned, Frank!”
“Old-fashioned cowboy,” he said. “And you can stop laughing. This is serious.”
She put her free hand to her mouth and tried very hard to look solemn.
“Not very convincing,” he said.
“You’re taking too long about it!”
“You’re making it hard.”
“I’m sorry,” she said and reached up to kiss his cheek. “There now, I’m serious.”
He stepped back a little, so he could see her face. “Margot, I—the thing is, when Elizabeth wrote to me, I realized—” He made a little exasperated sound and said, “I’m no good at explaining things.”
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