He let himself out the gate, and started across the street. In a stentorian voice, one he almost never used, Blake shouted, “Miss Louisa! Miss Louisa! Come back to your mama this minute!” He strode toward the park, which was crowded with summer visitors, children and adults playing on the grass, walking along the reservoir, preparing to climb up the water tower. He peered into the crowd, wondering if it were even possible to find a toddler among all those people.
The evening air was warm, even stifling, but Blake’s heart felt as if it were encased in ice.
A friendly streetcar operator explained to Bronwyn all about how to get to Millionaire’s Row. “Gotta change downtown, miss,” he said. “It’s easy, though. Signs everywhere. Then you go up Madison, and change again for the Broadway line. You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you,” she said. She settled onto the bench seat closest to the driver, to make certain she knew where to change. The streetcar stopped often, and men with briefcases climbed on, or women with bags of shopping edged past her to get off. To pass the time, she gazed out at the traffic, and tried to name the automobiles. They were mostly Fords, all of them black. There were a few fancier ones, in different colors. She spotted an Essex, and what she thought was a DeSoto, though she wasn’t sure. They had to stop and wait as the streetcar clanked past. Twice the streetcar had to stop for a horse and cart to go by. Bronwyn shrugged into her coat, feeling chilled now despite the heat of the afternoon. It was the fever, she supposed. It didn’t help that she had eaten so little, only a cup of broth and a bit of bread and butter. She had been careful about water, though, because Dr. Benedict had ordered it.
Meeting Dr. Benedict had put the idea of seeing Benedict Hall into her head. Once she was on the streetcar, it seemed the most natural thing to simply travel all the way to Millionaire’s Row, to have a glimpse of the house she had once dreamed of living in.
She could hardly believe she had encountered the woman from the wedding photograph. Margot Benedict was taller than she had expected. She wasn’t stylish in the least, but her bobbed hair was smooth and shiny, and her eyes were a clear, dark brown. She had an air of command that Bronwyn envied. She gave orders, and people followed them. She wasn’t anything like Preston had been. Something about her made Bronwyn want to see her again, curious to understand how this dark, assured woman could be Preston Benedict’s sister.
The driver, as he stopped the streetcar for two ladies in flowered straw hats to get down, leaned out of his chair to speak to her. “You didn’t say, miss, why you want to see Millionaire’s Row.” He grinned, showing several gaps in his teeth. “Hoping to meet one of them millionaires? Now, that would be a thing, right?”
Bronwyn started to draw herself up, to say something to put a stop to his overfamiliarity, but then she remembered. She wasn’t Bronwyn Morgan of Uptown anymore. She was just a girl on her own. Her hair needed washing and her dress was stained. She had no real explanation for what she was doing. She was certainly of less consequence than this middle-aged man with his home-style haircut and stubbly chin.
She sighed, and sagged back against the slats of the seat. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t expect to meet a millionaire.”
“I guess that’s where they keep ’em!” he teased, as he started up the car again. “Pretty girl like you might get lucky.”
“No,” she said. “I just want—I mean, I would just like to see them. The mansions, I mean, not the millionaires.”
“Never saw ’em, myself,” he said. He stepped on the brake, honked his horn at a knot of pedestrians blocking his way, then shifted gears to drive forward again when the tracks were clear. “I hear they’re big as hotels. Bigger than some, even.”
“I’ll let you know,” Bronwyn said with a faint smile.
He nodded and winked at her. “You do that, little lady,” he said cheerfully. “You just come back on my car and do that.”
When Bronwyn stepped down from the streetcar at Broadway, she cast about for the Aloha Street sign. Instead, she spotted a small, neatly painted sign that read THE CORNISH SCHOOL, with an arrow pointing toward a side street.
A rush of memory flooded her mind, arresting her movement. She had come with her mother, carrying a valise with her dance clothes, brand-new ballet shoes, and a wide white ribbon to tie around her hair. They had taken a taxicab from the hotel, and climbed the shadowy stairwell of a tall brick building. At the top, the doors had opened onto a dance studio brilliant with light from a wall of windows. The polished floor and the long ballet barre along one side shone with sunshine. Bronwyn, nervous but excited, had taken her place with the other dancers, with the sunshine glinting on her hair and dazzling her eyes.
She had been so young, she thought now, and so naive. Her dress of white lace and silk swirled around her ankles as she danced the required patterns to the accompaniment of a grand piano. There had been a dozen girls in hopes of a place at the school, girls whose fathers were ready to pay the tuition, whose mothers were poised to assemble wardrobes and dancing shoes and anything else that would be needed. Nellie Cornish herself had been there, flanked by two dance instructors who looked to Bronwyn like goddesses, long-necked as swans, graceful as birds in flight.
It all seemed very long ago now. Her feet, which had felt so light that day of her audition, seemed leaden and clumsy as she crossed the road. Following the arrow’s direction, she trudged the long block to the school.
It wasn’t the same building. This one was new, all white, with a brass sign over the entrance. She stood under one of the cottonwood trees that lined the street, and gazed up from its shade at the building, which seemed as fantastic and distant as a fairy-tale castle. The upper windows were open to the summer air, and music trickled from them. Tidy shrubs lined the walkway leading to the front door. As Bronwyn watched, several mothers with tiny girls in wide tulle skirts emerged from the double wooden doors into the sunshine. The girls were laughing and chattering together, and one of them pirouetted ahead of her mother as if the music were still playing.
Bronwyn had been no different, lighthearted, confident, happy. But now—now she stood in shadow, anonymous and insignificant, a rather grimy girl peering at the school she had been meant to attend. All her plans had come to nothing. Those little dancing princesses had no idea how quickly their dreams could crumble away.
She tore herself away from the pretty scene, but as she walked painfully back toward Broadway she sent a wish toward the little girls that they would be luckier than she had been, and perhaps wiser.
She had to climb steep Aloha Street to reach Fourteenth Avenue. The afternoon was wearing away, the sun slanting through the trees and burning the lawns and shrubberies that lined the street. Perspiration ran down her cheeks from beneath her hat, and her skirt clung to her white stockings. By the time she reached the hill’s crest, and turned toward its crown of elegant houses, she was nearly at the end of her strength. She felt headachy and confused, and her mouth and throat were terribly dry.
There was no doubt she had found Millionaire’s Row. She gazed up at mansion after mansion, with soaring columns, wide entries, broad, elegant porches, and manicured lawns. The scent of roses hung on the heavy air.
She would always, she thought, think of the perfume of roses when she thought of the neighborhood where Preston had been born. Where their baby, their little fair-haired, blue-eyed boy, should have grown up. She could so easily imagine him tumbling across one of these emerald lawns that it was almost as if such a thing had actually happened. She looked up and down the street, and in her fevered mind, it seemed possible that if she just found the right house, if she just peeked into the right garden, he would be there.
She stumbled along the sidewalk, feeling sticky and thirsty and slow. She didn’t know which of these towering, sprawling homes was Benedict Hall. The photograph she had pored over so often was an indoor view, with a wide, polished staircase and tall vases of flowers. Any one of these houses, these magnificent creations of wood and bric
k, wrought-iron fences and balustrades, cupolas and dormers, could be the one. In her mind, Benedict Hall had been a palace, sitting in solitary splendor at the top of the hill, but this was a row of such palaces, facing one another across a single street, as if—just as the streetcar operator had said—Seattle had gathered its millionaires together and told them where they could live.
She blinked against the perspiration dripping into her eyes, and found herself at the end of the street, crossing it, walking blindly on into a sort of park, where a brick tower soared above carefully planted gardens, and the glass walls of a strange building glittered in the late afternoon light.
Bronwyn wasn’t sure where she was, or how she had gotten there. She felt light-headed, disconnected from the increasing discomfort in her body. She was thirstier than she could ever remember being, and the need for water drove everything else out of her mind. The park was enormous, with long curving sidewalks, a great shining reservoir to her left, and spreading lawns where children were playing, rolling balls back and forth or wading in a pool.
The pool drew Bronwyn to it. A half-dozen children stood knee-deep in blue water, stretching out their hands to the center fountain and its cooling spray. Bronwyn’s mouth had gotten so dry she could barely swallow. Her thoughts were so jumbled she couldn’t organize them. Some part of her knew she should find a cleaner source of water, but desperation drove her. She reached the pool, and sank to her knees beside its rim of pale stone. Distantly, she was aware of several adults watching her curiously as she scooped water in her palm and drank. No one spoke to her, but they stared and whispered. The water was warm and stale, but she didn’t care. It was wet, and it soothed her parched tongue and throat.
She could have drunk more, but when her first intense thirst was slaked, the taste made her stop. She put both her hands into the pool, and stroked her hot cheeks with water. She drew a few rather shaky breaths, blinking in the glare of the lowering sun.
After a time she felt a bit better, and began to be embarrassed by the curious gazes turned her way. She came stiffly to her feet. This had been a bad idea. She could see that now. She hadn’t been thinking clearly at all. She should find her way back to Mother Ryther’s, slip up the stairs to the cramped bedroom, and sleep until she was herself again.
She was gathering her coat and her handbag, adjusting her hat, when she saw the child.
Except for the fact that this child was a girl, in a pinafore and ruffled dress, the child could have been the one Bronwyn had imagined a half hour before. She was rosy from the heat, and the sun shone through her halo of pale curls. Her eyes were a light, clear blue, the same blue that had so enchanted Bronwyn when she first encountered it. The little girl stood waist-deep in the water, and her round face was just crumpling in preparation for tears.
Bronwyn, with a hand to her throat, gazed around the pool, but no one seemed to be watching this particular child. She looked back just as the little girl tried to take a step forward, stumbled, and fell sideways into the water. It was no more than ten or twelve inches deep, but the child was soaked now to her chest, and she emitted a sudden wail of fury at the feeling of it.
Again Bronwyn looked around, but she found the other adults were doing the same thing, searching one another’s faces, looking for the person responsible for the little girl. No one moved. Other children turned to gape at the screaming toddler.
Bronwyn pressed her fingers to her temples as she tried to make sense of the scene. The heat and the glitter of light from the water, her worsening headache, the noise of the child’s wails and the other children playing in the field beyond, all combined to create a sense of unreality. She was trying to sort the details into some sort of rational picture when the little girl suddenly thrashed with her arms, and fell backward into the shallow water. It closed over her head, stopping her wails and leaving a sudden, terrifying silence.
Bronwyn kicked off her pumps, dropped her handbag, and stepped over the rim of the pool. She waded through the water, oblivious of her wet hem and stockings, and lifted the child, choking and gasping, out of the water and into her arms.
As she turned to wade back out of the water, a woman stood in front of her, hands on her hips. “You should watch your daughter more closely, young woman! You want to see your little girl drown?”
It was Bronwyn’s turn to gape, her mouth open and working, but wordless. Her thoughts churned like muddy waves, and she couldn’t find the words to explain that this wasn’t her child.
The other woman stalked away, leaving Bronwyn holding a wet, furious little girl.
She could have been mine, was the thought that surfaced out of the turmoil of Bronwyn’s thoughts. She’s a little younger, but she’s blond, and blue-eyed. She could have been my baby. Mine, and Preston’s.
Energized now, with a purpose, Bronwyn bent to pick up her handbag and her coat from the grass. She shoved her feet into her pumps, cuddled the now-sobbing child close against her, and walked out of the park with determined steps.
Surely this baby was hers now. She had a place to take her, a place where she would be safe. Surely, if she explained, Mother Ryther would allow it. It was no different from leaving a child in the yard, was it?
The woman in the park was right. So was Mother Ryther. People should watch their children more closely.
CHAPTER 14
Blake resisted an impulse to run into the park, to beg people to look for a little blond girl in a ruffled pinafore. It wouldn’t help the family, he reminded himself, for him to have another bout with his heart. He forced himself to use his cane, to walk with steady steps across the road, up onto the sidewalk, on past the brick tower. He looked right and left, searching the crowd. The late afternoon light had a lucent quality he always associated with summer, and in his agitated state, it seemed to him that every man, woman, and child who came into his view was illuminated with particular clarity, like those Renaissance paintings with saints haloed in gold.
There were so many people! It was an ocean of humanity, surging this way and that, blocking his view of the lawn that spilled down toward the reservoir, and of the glass walls of the conservatory, where the iron framework glistened above the heads of the crowd. He reached the point where the sidewalk curved down the hill, and his steps slowed, then stopped. He cast about for some idea, some hint as to which way he should go. It was possible Louisa wasn’t here at all. It was a long way for a toddler to come, although Louisa was, as they were learning, no ordinary toddler.
He felt uncomfortable among so many strangers. There were too many suspicious looks, even wary ones. He supposed he made an unusual sight in this place, a tall Negro in a black suit, wearing neither hat nor gloves, leaning on an ancient marble-headed cane.
He tried not to look into individual faces, but to scan the scene at the level of their knees, hoping against hope to see Louisa’s curly head, the flash of her blue eyes.
The sobbing of a child drew his attention, piercing the noise of the crowd. He would have said, at any other time, that one child’s cry was very like another, but this one didn’t seem that way. It sounded familiar. It sounded like the cry he had been hearing for more than a year from the nursery in Benedict Hall.
It could be wishful thinking. It might not mean anything. Just the same, he threw up his head, and cast about for the source.
Coming across the lawn was a slender young woman carrying a coat over her arm and wearing a dilapidated straw hat. She had a handbag pressed awkwardly under her arm, and she was carrying a child who clung to her, wailing and kicking. Both woman and child were dripping wet.
Blake couldn’t move for several seconds, struck nerveless by the wave of relief that swept up from his belly to his throat. When he could make himself speak, he cried, “Louisa! Miss Louisa, what—what’s happened?”
It was obvious the child couldn’t hear him over the sound of her own weeping, and the girl carrying her didn’t respond. Blake had to step forward, into their path. Cautiously, hoping not to fr
ighten the young woman, he put up his free hand. “Excuse me,” he said. “Miss, please excuse me, but—I’ve been searching for this child.”
The girl carrying Louisa stopped walking. She stared up at Blake with red-rimmed hazel eyes, and her hat fell off, revealing light brown hair that was matted and tangled. She blinked at him, and stammered, “I—why, I know you!”
At the same moment, Louisa twisted in her grasp. When she caught sight of Blake she launched herself out of the girl’s arms and into his. He dropped his cane, throwing up his hands just in time to catch her. She squalled, “Bake, Bake, Bake!” and buried her face against his chest.
He held her tightly, with arms that trembled. He pressed his cheek to her wet hair, though he knew people were staring at the strange sight they made, the tall Negro and the tiny blond child. He said, “Miss, thank you! How can we ever thank you? This little rascal is Louisa Benedict, and she—oh, my goodness. There are no words. What happened?”
The young woman was bending to pick up her hat, and as she straightened, she said, “We’ve met, sir. I’m Bronwyn Morgan, of Port Townsend.”
Blake narrowed his eyes in concentration. “Miss—Morgan, is it?”
“Yes. I’m sorry I can’t recall your name, but you’re—that is, you were—Preston Benedict’s driver. He dined at Morgan House, and you . . .” She broke off.
At her words, the memory came back to Blake, all at once, as if someone had switched on a light. He recalled the long, narrow kitchen with its view of Puget Sound. There had been a sour-faced cook who reluctantly served him a meal, but didn’t speak to him. There was a maid, a nondescript sort of woman who stared at him when she thought he wasn’t looking. Morgan House, that was it. When Mr. Preston was still at the newspaper.
“Miss Morgan!” he said, even as Louisa broke into fresh sobs against his lapels. “I do remember! That was quite some time ago, wasn’t—”
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