The Benedict Bastard (A Benedict Hall Novel)

by Cate Campbell

  He didn’t get to finish his thought. A short man wearing a straw boater and a white linen jacket stalked into his view, and demanded, “What’s going on here? Miss, is this fellow bothering you?”

  The girl started, and turned to face the inquisitor. “What?” she said.

  Blake recalled her well now, remembering a bright, loquacious sixteen-year-old and her youthful, shy mother. Their eyes had struck him, hazel flecked with gold, and he remembered worrying about Preston’s behavior toward them. It seemed, though, at least on that night, that Preston had acted in a gentlemanly fashion. Blake felt reasonably certain that had he not, Mr. Morgan would have intervened. They had driven back to Seattle the next morning, and nothing had seemed amiss.

  The girl had changed more dramatically than just the passage of three years would explain. She looked worn and thin and perhaps not very well. Worse, she couldn’t seem to think of what to say to the man in the boater.

  The stranger said again, “Bothering you, miss? This darkie?”

  Blake stiffened. “Sir,” he began. “I’m the—” but Miss Morgan interrupted.

  She lifted her head to glare at the interloper. “This is Mr. Benedict’s chauffeur,” she said, with a haughtiness Edith Benedict, in her better days, would have been proud of. “We’re acquainted, thank you, sir.”

  The man eyed her doubtfully, and gave Blake the same scrutiny. It was no wonder, either. Miss Morgan was wet to the thighs, and her hat was crumpled. Little Louisa was soaked from head to toe, while Blake, his cane at his feet, was dressed in his usual service coat, with carefully shined shoes and neatly pressed trousers.

  Miss Morgan said again, “Thank you for your concern, sir, but there is no need.” Blake thought she might even have sniffed, once, as if irritated at having to repeat herself.

  The man in the boater touched his fingers to his hat. “Glad to hear it, miss,” he said, though he didn’t sound convinced. He nodded to her, and walked away without another glance at Blake.

  Miss Morgan appeared to wilt again, as if she had pulled herself together just for the necessity of the moment. Her shoulders sagged, and she held her bedraggled straw hat in her two hands as if it didn’t belong to her.

  “It’s Blake, miss,” Blake said gently. He was patting Louisa on her back. Her sobs had subsided to an occasional shudder. She clung to him like an oyster to a rope, arms around his neck, legs scrabbling for purchase around his waist. He held her under his chin, and regarded Miss Morgan above her dripping curls. “My name is Blake. I remember you very well, but I certainly didn’t expect to meet you here.”

  “I—I was just—” Miss Morgan made a helpless gesture with the ruined hat. “She fell in the wading pool!” she finished, which hardly explained anything, but was borne out by the evidence.

  “Will you follow me, miss? The family is in a terrible state. This is Miss Louisa, and she’s been missing for quite some time. Her mother is frightened half to death.”

  Bronwyn, filled with misgiving, plodded after Blake’s tall figure. She had told him her name. She hadn’t meant to tell anyone her name. She had handed over the little girl, realizing in a flash how foolish it was to have thought she could pretend the child was hers. She had stood there, her dress dripping and her hat bent nearly beyond recognition, and defended the poor chauffeur as if she were still someone of consequence.

  Now, she supposed they were on their way to Benedict Hall. She would get that glimpse she had hoped for, but they—the residents, perhaps even Dr. Benedict, which would be humiliating—would see her at her worst. She considered dropping back, letting herself be lost in the crowd, but as she began to slow her steps, the tall Negro looked over his shoulder.

  “Oh, do please come to Benedict Hall, miss,” he said in his deep, elegant voice. “Mrs. Ramona will want to thank you. Perhaps help you with your frock.”

  Bronwyn walked faster, until she was side by side with Blake as they crossed the street. “No one was watching her,” she said, a little defensively. It was silly, of course. Blake couldn’t know—nor could anyone else—that she had entertained, even for a moment, the idea of taking the little girl with her.

  “She slipped away when everyone thought she was asleep,” Blake said. They had reached a scrolled iron gate in a fence surrounding a large white house, four stories at least, with a broad porch and cupolas everywhere. It was three times the size of her own house, Bronwyn thought, tipping up her head to try to take it all in. There was a garage behind it, too, painted white, and broad green lawns edged by rosebushes. An enormous camellia towered at the front, all the way to the top floor.

  The child was quiet now, emitting only a faint, occasional hiccup. With the little girl in his arms, Blake led the way up several steps and across the wide porch to the front door. He opened this, and stood aside for Bronwyn to precede him. When she hesitated he said, “You must come in, Miss Morgan, or Mrs. Benedict will never forgive me.”

  Whether this was true or not, she would never know. At the sound of the door, a pretty, disheveled woman came flying from somewhere at the back of the house. She screeched when she saw the child, and seized her from Blake to hug her and smother her with kisses. She wept and scolded through all of this, and had no eyes for Bronwyn at all. A middle-aged woman in a dark dress and dark stockings came behind her, a little more slowly, and she was weeping, too, though she didn’t scold. She stood beside the younger woman, wearing a look of such remorse on her craggy face that it made Bronwyn avert her gaze.

  Blake stepped away, disappearing down the broad hallway to pass through a swinging door. Bronwyn stood uncertainly where she was, waiting for someone to look up and demand to know who she was and what she was doing there. Before this could happen, the swinging door opened again, and a plump Negress appeared, twisting her apron in her broad hands and crying out, “Oh, thank the Lord! Thank the sweet Lord! Miss Louisa’s home safe!”

  Behind her trailed two girls, a matched set of freckled redheads, grinning and adding their voices to the tumult. The child began to cry again in response to the racket around her, and her mother and the middle-aged woman turned toward the wide staircase.

  Bronwyn, watching them, realized that this was the site of the photograph she had pored over so often. It was the image she had dreamed of, picturing herself on the staircase instead of Margot Benedict, and Preston beside her in place of Frank Parrish. The carved newel posts gleamed in the light from the open front door. A strip of thick carpet ran over the polished wooden steps, and the bottom of the staircase widened as it dropped to the floor of the hall. Preston’s sister had stood just there, with her handsome groom beside her. There had been vases of flowers on the stairs, and glimpses of garlands.

  That had been Margot Benedict. Dr. Benedict. This was her home, and if she found Bronwyn here . . .

  Dr. Benedict thought she was Betty Jones, while Blake knew her to be Bronwyn Morgan of the Port Townsend Morgans. How could she ever explain?

  Clutching her hat and her handbag, with her coat trailing from her arm, Bronwyn edged toward the front door. The women with the little girl climbed the stairs away from her, and the others—the Negress and the two redheaded girls—clustered around Blake, peppering him with questions. No one noticed Bronwyn slipping away, ducking out the open door into the warm evening light. She crossed the porch and descended the steps, hurrying now. If she got away before Blake could stop her, if she hurried back down the hill to the streetcar, he would forget all about her. He would surely forget her name, and not be tempted to try to discover where she was staying, or if her parents knew.

  Bronwyn lifted the sun-warmed latch on the wrought-iron gate and started to pull it open. She gasped when a cold hand gripped her arm. It was a small hand, but surprisingly strong. Bronwyn stared at it for a heartbeat, then lifted her gaze to the face of the woman who had stopped her.

  It was the second time that day she had seen the hair and eyes that reminded her so much of Preston, but this woman’s hair was mixed with gr
ay, and her eyes were faded to a wintry blue. Her fingernails were manicured and her hair dressed, but though she wore a well-pressed linen afternoon frock, there was something oddly unkempt in her appearance, as if all the pieces of her didn’t quite fit together.

  The woman said in an urgent whisper, “Did you find him?”

  A chill ran through Bronwyn. Could this woman, whoever she was, have looked into her mind? How could she have known her reason for being in Seattle, for going to the Ryther Home....

  Bronwyn took a breath, banishing the notion. Of course the woman meant the little girl. She had simply misspoken. Bronwyn gently lifted her arm away from the woman’s grasp. “You must mean little Louisa,” she said, in what she hoped was a soothing tone. “She’s in the house now. She’s fine, ma’am.”

  The woman stood where she was, searching Bronwyn’s face with her pale gaze. Her hand was still extended, the fingers curved, as if she didn’t realize Bronwyn had removed her arm from beneath it. “Not Louisa,” she said, blinking. “The little boy. My grandson.”

  Bronwyn’s chill returned in force. She shivered with it, and wondered vaguely if her fever was rising again. She said, haltingly, “Ma’am? I don’t know what—”

  The older woman slowly dropped her hand, and Bronwyn saw that she was carrying something in her other hand, what looked at first glance like a rock. It was rough-edged and uneven, a weathered-looking gray, and it took a moment for Bronwyn to understand that it was a piece of concrete.

  The woman lifted it, and held it up on her two palms. “I hate this thing,” she said, as if Bronwyn should understand what it was she was showing her. “I saw you from my window, you see.”

  Bronwyn couldn’t see how the two were related, and she suspected the woman wasn’t quite sane. She didn’t want to be rude, but she really did want to get away before Margot Benedict appeared and exposed her deception. She put her hand on the gate again. “If you’ll excuse me, ma’am,” she began, “I really must be . . .”

  In the middle of her sentence, the older woman turned the chunk of concrete over in her palms, and Bronwyn saw the stone embedded in it. Her throat dried, and she stood, wordless, staring at it.

  She had seen that stone before. It was a sapphire. He had worn it around his neck, under his shirt. He told her he never took it off, that it had belonged to a Turkish queen, long ago. Even when he—when they were in the garden together—the jewel was around his neck. It had pressed against her, caught between Preston’s body and her own. Its heavy silver chain had been cool against her bare skin. Later, as she had undressed in her half-dreaming state, the imprint of the sapphire was still there, marked into the soft skin of her breast.

  “It’s so strange, don’t you think?” the woman said, turning the stone so it glowed in the evening light. “I don’t really believe in such—that is, it never made sense to me, but—Preston likes it.” She gazed at Bronwyn’s face. “Is it you, dear?”

  “Is it me?” Bronwyn stammered. “What do you mean?” This woman had to be Preston’s mother. This was Benedict Hall. It was perfectly logical to meet her here, but the circumstances were so strange. Bronwyn raised one hand to her temple and rubbed it, wishing she could understand what was happening. One of them was making no sense, and she wasn’t entirely certain it was the other woman.

  “I think it must be you. Preston described you to me, and when I heard all the noise, and looked out of my window, I thought you might be the girl. It’s your eyes, you know. So distinctive.”

  “He—Preston described me?” Bronwyn found herself gaping in confusion, and forced herself to close her mouth.

  “Oh, yes. Yes.”

  “What are you doing with that?” Bronwyn asked, pointing one finger at the chunk of concrete with its buried jewel.

  “Oh, the stone! He wants me to bring it to him. I’m going to do that.”

  “B-bring it to him? Do you mean, to the cemetery?”

  At this artless question, Mrs. Benedict emitted a sudden, incongruous ripple of laughter. “Oh, no, dear! No. That was all a foolish mistake.”

  “I don’t understand at all,” Bronwyn said. She dropped her hand from the latch of the gate, and leaned weakly against the cold scrolled iron. “Mrs. Benedict, I know Preston is dead. I read it in the Times, all about the funeral and everything. I cried for days.”

  The older woman put a hand under her arm, and turned her about. “You look terrible, young lady. Come in. Let our cook make you a cup of tea.”

  “Oh, no, I can’t. I—” Bronwyn made a feeble attempt to pull away, but what was left of her strength drained away, all at once, as if someone had pulled the stopper in a tub full of water. The frail hand of Mrs. Benedict wasn’t strong enough to hold her, and she sagged to her knees on the brick path. Her vision blurred, and she put out her hands, searching for support.

  The hands that met hers weren’t the cold ones of Mrs. Benedict. They were large and warm and very strong. “If you’ll permit me, miss,” came the deep rumble of Blake’s voice. One of his hands gripped her left hand, and the other slipped under her right arm. He lifted her from the path as if she weighed nothing. She leaned on him, because she had no choice. He felt as solid as a mountain. With uncertain steps, she made her way back up the path, submitted to him assisting her up onto the porch, over the doorsill, into the coolness of the hall.

  She heard Mrs. Benedict fluttering alongside, speaking words Bronwyn couldn’t make out. She longed to lie down for a few minutes, to close her eyes, to stop trying to comprehend this bizarre day.

  She wasn’t sure how much time passed after that. She opened her eyes to find herself in a room that was dim and cool and quiet. Her shoes had been removed, and her wet dress. She was covered by the lightest of blankets, and the curtains were drawn against what remained of the daylight. As she turned her head on the pillow, a voice said, “Oh, there you are, miss! You’ve had a nice lie-down, now, haven’t you? Just be still one more moment while I fetch Mrs. Ramona.”

  Bronwyn wasn’t sure she could have moved even if she had wanted to. She no longer felt feverish, but she was thirsty again, parched. Her body felt somehow empty, and her skin was dry and tender. She knew she should get away, leave this place before she was discovered, but she couldn’t summon the energy to do it.

  The door to the bedroom opened, and the young woman she had met in the hallway appeared. She had a glass in her hand, and as she crossed to the bed, she gave Bronwyn a sweet smile. “Oh, my dear,” she exclaimed in a fluting voice. “How can I ever thank you for finding my little girl? What you must think of us!”

  She settled onto the side of the bed, and with a gentle hand, helped Bronwyn to sit up. The glass held orange juice, and Bronwyn, though a little embarrassed at her greediness, drank it straight down before she said a word. She felt better immediately.

  “So kind,” she murmured, as the woman set the glass on the bedside table. She was lovely, with finger-waved hair and round pink cheeks. “I don’t know what happened.”

  “You fainted,” the woman said. “I think you were just exhausted. You’ll have to explain who you are and what you were doing in the park, but please, please take your time! I’m Ramona Benedict, and I was so frantic about my daughter, I can’t even tell you! It was terrible, just ghastly. You’re our savior!”

  “Oh, no,” Bronwyn said automatically.

  “Oh, yes,” Ramona Benedict insisted. “Blake tells me she fell in the wading pool. She loves that pool, but I never thought she could find her way there all alone! And no one stopped her! It’s just too devastating to think about what might have happened. I’m so grateful to you, my dear.”

  “Not at all,” Bronwyn said politely. Surely she had never contemplated taking the little girl away with her. She couldn’t have. Like this pretty woman, she was a lady. She had been raised properly, and she would never . . .

  But she almost had. And then she had met Mrs. Benedict in the garden. This memory made her sit up straighter, and put a hand to her head.
“Oh!” she breathed. “Mrs. Benedict! It was so odd.”

  Ramona patted her arm. “I know. Mother Benedict can be— well. Sometimes she says strange things. She’s very sweet, though.” She smoothed the blanket over Bronwyn’s legs. “Would you like some supper brought up? Or better yet, let’s run you a bath, and then you can join us all for dinner if you feel up to it. It’s very late, of course, but Hattie was helping search for Louisa. I can find you a fresh frock to put on. Yours was soaked. One of the twins—that is, one of our maids—will put it right for you, but it will take a little time.” As Bronwyn hesitated, Ramona said with a laugh, “And you must tell me your name! I can’t just keep calling you ‘my dear,’ now, can I?”

  CHAPTER 15

  Hattie, flustered and perspiring, was struggling with a roast of halibut that had been delivered that afternoon. “It shoulda been marinating all this time,” she lamented. “It’s gonna be ruined, and here we are with company and all.”

  “Never mind, Hattie,” Blake said equably. He had put on one of Hattie’s aprons, and was sorting flatware onto a tray. “Dinner will be late. Under the circumstances, I’m sure Mr. Dickson and Mr. Dick will understand.”

  There was no one else to help Hattie at the moment. At Mrs. Ramona’s insistence, their unexpected visitor would be staying the night. Thelma had been dispatched, with Loena, to air out a room for her. Leona had gone up to assist Mrs. Edith in dressing for dinner, because Ramona wouldn’t leave little Louisa’s side. The nurse was weeping in the nursery, swearing she didn’t know how it had happened, offering her resignation every five minutes until even Mrs. Ramona, who never lost her temper, snapped at her that if she wanted her resignation, she would ask for it.

  The two men had found their own way home from the office, and now were huddled with their evening cocktails in the small parlor, with the door firmly closed against the feminine ructions above stairs. Blake envied them—not the cocktails, but the ability to shut out the commotion. It had taken some time to calm Louisa down after her adventure, and though Mrs. Ramona had been white with fear for her daughter, it was Nurse who had, in the end, required several whiffs of sal volatile to prevent a bout of nervous hysterics. Blake had overseen all of this, then been called to the front garden to assist the young woman who had found Louisa.