The Benedict Bastard (A Benedict Hall Novel)

by Cate Campbell

  “Of Preston’s outburst, you mean.”

  “Yes, I’m afraid he rather lunged at her. He was shouting, but I couldn’t make much sense of what he said. Oscar was present, naturally—he’s the orderly who keeps an eye on your brother. No real harm came to the young lady, but she ran off, and we haven’t seen her since.”

  “You haven’t medicated my mother since last night, then.”

  “No. My wife managed to get her to take a bit of water, but no food. She’s been sitting very much as you see her now.”

  Margot pushed her fingers through her hair. “I’ve seen this reaction before, Doctor. In my residency, we treated a number of soldiers. We called it shell shock, and it sometimes looked just like that. Apathy. Detachment. It usually resolves in a day or so, but I’ll keep a close eye on her.”

  “Naturally, you can stay here as long as you like, Dr. Benedict.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Dunlap. You and your wife have been very kind.” She rubbed her forehead with her fingers for a moment, thinking. “I understand my father wants to speak to Preston. I want to be with him when he does, and I think having the orderly present is a good idea, too.”

  “We sedated him last night, of course,” Dr. Dunlap said. “An injection of potassium bromide, which is all we had on hand. I didn’t like to do it against his will, but I couldn’t think of any other course.”

  “You did the right thing. My family doesn’t like to think so, particularly my mother, but my brother’s illness is quite unmanageable, I’m afraid.”

  “Would you like another opinion? There are several fine physicians in the town.” He put out a hand, and touched her shoulder in a fatherly way. “This has to be painful for you.”

  Margot gave him a bleak look. “It’s an old, old story,” she said. “My family has protected Preston for years. I suppose that makes it our fault.”

  “You shouldn’t blame yourself. It’s what families do,” he said.

  “I suppose,” she said doubtfully. “I don’t think we can do it anymore, though. We can’t have this happening again.”

  “If I may suggest, Dr. Benedict, this isn’t the time to make big decisions. Take care of your mother—and yourself, too. We can discuss the next step when the current situation is resolved.”

  “That’s sound advice. Thank you.” She glanced back into the room, where her father sat close to Edith, not speaking, but gazing at her as if he might never see her again. Reluctantly, Margot said, “No point in putting this off, I suppose. If Mrs. Dunlap could stay with my mother, you could accompany my father and me. We might as well talk to Preston now.”

  CHAPTER 24

  Bronwyn was jarred out of a heavy slumber by the sound of music. Loud music, in deep, wide chords that erupted out of nowhere, and rattled the floor and the bench beneath her. Her brain was thick with sleep and fatigue, and for a few seconds she couldn’t remember where she was, or why.

  She was lying on something hard, a bench, or a bare floor. She felt beneath her head with her fingers, and found a book serving as a makeshift pillow. Her legs were curled up beneath her sweater, which was drawn over her like a blanket. The bones of her ankles rubbed against the unforgiving wood, and her uncushioned hip had gone numb. She blinked into wakefulness, and when she remembered, she drew a sharp breath of dusty air that made her cough.

  This wasn’t a bench. It was a pew. Her pillow wasn’t a book. It was a hymnal. And the music—

  Another crash of sound came from somewhere above her, the thundering tones of a pipe organ. It surrounded her with an army of notes, prodding her, urging her to get up, to flee.

  The events of the day before came back to her in a fearsome rush, the sight of Preston’s disfigurement, his ugly fury, his scarred hands reaching for her. Most disturbing of all had been the sound of Mrs. Benedict’s hysterical sobs underlying Preston’s shouts and the answering shouts of the doctor and the orderly.

  Bronwyn had run as fast and as hard as she could out into the road, and turned blindly toward the town. She had run until she couldn’t run anymore, and then she had walked until she staggered. All she could think of was getting away, escaping from the sanitarium, from the twisted perceptions of Mrs. Benedict, and from the creature Preston had become.

  The fire had burned away a façade, a false front behind which he had been hiding. That façade had crumbled away, revealing the real man. She had wasted three years dreaming of someone who had never existed in the first place. Where did that leave her?

  She coughed again, and again, trying to muffle the sound with her hands. She was desperately thirsty, and she needed a bathroom.

  The music stopped suddenly. The high ceiling above her head still resounded with the last notes, but also with the echoes of her coughing. Feet clattered somewhere, growing louder and louder, surely those of someone hurrying down a set of uncarpeted stairs.

  Bronwyn, alarmed, pushed herself up. She slid the hymnal back into its slot, gathered up her handbag, and scrabbled under the pew for her shoes. She tried to put them on, but her feet were covered in blisters, and so swollen they wouldn’t fit. Wincing, she tried wriggling her toes, then pulling at the heels, but it was no use. She gave it up. Carrying her shoes in her hand, she sidled between the pews in her stocking feet.

  Light poured through stained-glass windows, coloring the shafts of sunshine that fell across the polished wood of the pews and the inlaid floor. When she had stumbled in here so tired she could no longer stay upright, the church had been dim. She had seen nothing of its interior. She had felt her way to the nearest pew, collapsed onto the bare wood, and despite the nightmare images whirling through her mind, fallen fast asleep. It seemed she had slept right through the night.

  Now she stood in the aisle, the cool marble soothing her aching feet, and tried to orient herself. There were doors on every side, and she had no idea which one she had used when she came in. She turned her back to the altar, where a gold candelabra glittered with colored light, and faced the double doors at the opposite end of the nave. As she started toward them, a small man appeared, a book of music under his arm and a pair of round spectacles shoved up onto his thinning gray hair. His eyes were gray, too, and as round as the lenses of his glasses. He stood in the aisle, blocking her path.

  Bronwyn’s throat was so dry she could barely speak, but she croaked, “Oh! Oh, I’m sorry! I—I fell asleep on the—the—” She pointed to the pew she had just vacated, but a fresh fit of coughing seized her so she couldn’t finish her sentence.

  The man lowered his spectacles, peered through them, then shoved them back onto his head. “You slept in a pew?” he said. His voice was high and startled, and his eyes grew even rounder. “All night?”

  Bronwyn put a hand to her throat. “I didn’t mean to,” she said hoarsely. “I was—I was lost,” she finished. It was hardly an excuse, though it was true enough. She was fairly certain she had reached Walla Walla, but she didn’t know how she had found this church, or even what church it was. For the first time since it had all happened, tears flooded her eyes and closed her throat. Her nose instantly began to run. She swiped at it with her sleeve, coughing and sobbing at the same time.

  The little man reached into his breast pocket, and held something out to her. She glanced down, and saw that he was offering her an enormous white handkerchief edged with black embroidery. The kindness of the gesture broke down the last remnants of her control. She burst into a full bout of tears, burying her face in the stranger’s handkerchief, her shoulders shaking.

  The strange man tutted, and with small, gentle hands, turned her about. He guided her down the aisle between the pews, then on through a door to one side of the altar. Moments later, she was seated at a table in some sort of anteroom. The room was scattered with chairs, and a row of wooden pegs on the wall opposite her held robes and stoles in various colors. The man pressed a glass of water into her hand, and when her sobs had eased enough, she drank it straight down. He refilled it from a fat pottery pitcher, and then
, as she drank again and wiped at her eyes, still sniffling with the aftermath of her tears, he filled a kettle and set it on a small electric range. He opened the enamel doors of a cupboard, and brought out a gaily flowered teapot and two matching cups.

  He didn’t speak again until the kettle had boiled, and the tea was steeping beneath a crocheted cozy. He had laid his book of music on one end of the table, and taken off his black suit coat, leaving him in snowy shirtsleeves and a waistcoat with a satin back. He pointed to a washroom just outside the room, and Bronwyn gratefully went to use it. When she came back, he had set out a creamer and sugar bowl and two silver spoons, and was pouring out the tea. She sat down again, embarrassed at her unshod feet, the state of her reddened nose and swollen eyes, and the dampness of the handkerchief clutched in her hand. She didn’t know what to say, but the small man smiled at her as he placed a full teacup on a saucer and set it before her.

  “Now, my dear young lady,” he said in his high-pitched voice. He took a teacup for himself, and tapped his fingertips neatly on the table, as if calling a meeting to order. “Now,” he said again. “I believe I should introduce myself. I am Mr. Bernard. I’m the interim organist here at the First Presbyterian Church—my practice session seems to have woken you, for which I apologize—and I’m also the caretaker. May I have the pleasure of making your acquaintance?”

  “Bronwyn Morgan,” she said, in a tear-swollen voice. “S-so kind of you, M-Mr. Bernard.” She started to put out her hand to shake his, then realized she was still holding his crumpled, tearstained handkerchief. She withdrew her hand with a little gasp, which made her hiccup. Helplessly, she pressed the handkerchief to her mouth again. When she had regained a bit of control, she said, “Oh, gosh. I’m so sorry.”

  “Now, now, no need for that.” He took a delicate sip of tea. His smile was prim and constrained, but his eyes were bright with interest. “You are a damsel in distress, I believe. I must tell you, Miss Morgan, that I am quite enamored of playing the role of knight in shining armor.” He gave a light laugh. “We musicians tend to be romantic, I’m afraid. You can see by looking at my modest person that in the general way of things, I am not a romantic figure. Perhaps this is my chance.” He gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. “Why not tell me your tale of woe, Miss Morgan? Perhaps I can be of some help.”

  Bronwyn heaved a shuddering sigh, and picked up her teacup to take a steadying sip. She set it down again with a decisive click, determined to hold on to her composure. “I’m in a bit of trouble, Mr. Bernard,” she said.

  His eyebrows drew together. “Are you? Aside from being lost?”

  “Yes.”

  He pressed his lips together, and looked stern. It was an expression that didn’t sit well on his kindly face. “If that is the case, Miss Morgan, I had better call one of the ladies of the altar committee. One of them would be better suited . . .”

  She realized, watching him frown, that he had misunderstood. “Oh, no, Mr. Bernard, not that kind of trouble. I’m not—that is, I—” She picked up her cup again, and stared into its amber depths. “It’s not like that,” she sighed.

  His prim smile returned, and he poured more tea into his cup. “Well, then, that’s a very good thing,” he said cheerfully. “Surely whatever’s wrong can be mended.”

  “I don’t know exactly,” she said. He tipped his head to one side, waiting for her to go on. “It’s just that I shouldn’t be here. It’s a long story, and awfully hard to explain. The thing is—I need to go home. I should go home. But I have spent the last of my money.”

  “Parents?”

  “Yes. My parents must be terribly worried.”

  “Well.” Mr. Bernard twinkled at her above the rim of his cup. “Let’s drink our tea, shall we? Then I believe we can do something about sending you on your way. Where is your home, Miss Morgan? Will a train ticket do?”

  Two hours later, Bronwyn boarded the train once again. She carried with her a lunch packed by Mr. Bernard himself, who, it turned out, lived in the manse right next to the church. He had paid for her ticket with a withdrawal from the church’s charity box.

  “I will repay the cost,” she assured him, as they shook hands at the station.

  “You mustn’t worry about that. It’s what the charity fund is for,” he said. He released her hand, and nodded toward the train already chugging into the station. “Have a good journey, Miss Morgan. I will take pleasure in thinking how relieved your parents will be when they see you.”

  She had recovered from her fit of tears, and had managed to restore her hair and her dress to some sort of order. Her feet were still swollen, and her shoes painful, but at least she had managed, with difficulty, to get them on. She promised herself the moment she was in her seat, she would take them off.

  As distressing as it had been to cry in front of a perfect stranger, her bout of tears had left her mind and her heart clear for the first time in months, and she welcomed that unexpected side effect. She felt as if a bright new morning had broken after a long, long night of storms and darkness, as if the tears had washed away the fog that had clouded her mind for so long. She knew, now, what she needed to do.

  She had said this to Mr. Bernard, her acquaintance of all of two hours, as they walked to the station. “I’ve been lost for some time,” she said. “Not only on this trip, but for much longer. Years.”

  He had bestowed his little smile on her, and nodded so that his spectacles flashed in the July sunshine. “You are very young, Miss Morgan. I believe most of us do things when we’re young that we regret as we get older. I find this to be true of myself, I assure you.”

  “I can’t imagine you making a mistake,” Bronwyn said. “You seem to know just what to say and what to do.”

  “But I’m quite old,” he said. “I have learned some lessons, at least.”

  “Well,” Bronwyn sighed. “It seems that when I make a mistake, it’s a big one.”

  “The thing is,” he said, as they stepped inside the station and crossed to the agent’s window, “you have plenty of years ahead of you to set things right.”

  That was what she concentrated on, as she waved farewell to her unlikely champion from the window of the train. She tugged off her shoes with a sigh of relief, and removed her hat to lay it in the empty seat next to her. She tipped her head back against the shiny velvet upholstery, but she didn’t mean to sleep, at least not yet. She had things to think about. Mr. Bernard was right. She had time to repair some of the damage her mistakes had wrought.

  She wanted to make amends to her parents for the worry and pain she had caused them. She wanted to build a life that was her own, not her mother’s, nor even her father’s idea of what was proper. She didn’t want to live Clara’s life, or Bessie’s. She wanted to live her own life, in her own way.

  All of these things she thought about as the train carried her westward, these and the most important one of all. She would begin, she promised herself, by telling Olive Ryther her real name and her real purpose in coming to the Child Home, and she would ask what had become of her baby. She wanted to assure herself he was safe and cared for. She needed to banish the image of a child abandoned in the yard, sickening and dying all alone.

  Once she knew her baby was all right, she could go forward. It was the most important mistake she had to rectify.

  As she tipped her head back, and let her eyelids grow heavy, she thought, strangely, of Captain Albert and his brave little boat. She was a bit like that boat herself, more than a little battered, but still strong and capable. If someone like Albert could make his own way, she thought, build a life with only a willingness to work, she could, too. Her mother would hate it, and her father would forbid it, but she would stand up for herself. She must. This was the twentieth century, after all.

  CHAPTER 25

  Margot approached Preston’s room with reluctance. She kept her pace steady, and her grip on her father’s arm firm, but that was for his sake. Inwardly, she rebelled at having to revisit a pro
blem that was supposed to be solved.

  The big orderly pulled a ring of keys from his pocket, and sorted through at least a dozen of them before he came to the right one. With a clank of the old-fashioned lock, he pulled the door open. He went in first, stood aside for Dickson and Margot and Dr. Dunlap to enter, then closed the door and stood just inside it, his arms folded and his small eyes watchful. Margot had the impression that Oscar would welcome another opportunity to overpower the intractable patient.

  The room was crowded with all of them inside. It was cooler here than the rest of the building, as there was no outer window, but it was stuffy, smelling of bleach and sweat and something else, something not easy to define. Despair, Margot thought bleakly. Despair, and no wonder.

  When she saw Preston, his arms bound by the long sleeves of a white canvas jacket and his eyelids drooping under the influence of the sedative, she resented the wave of pity that swept over her. He didn’t deserve her pity. And most assuredly wouldn’t want it.

  Preston sat on the narrow cot, his back braced against the outer wall, his chin sagging toward his chest. His eyes were closed, but at the sound of the door, they opened. Without lifting his head, he looked up from beneath his scarred eyelids. His eyes flicked from Dickson to Oscar, and then to Margot. He said sleepily, “A deputation. Oh, joy.”

  Dickson said, “Preston. You’ve shocked your mother.”

  At this, Preston sighed, and turned his head away to stare at the blank wall. He said, “She shocked me, Pater, bringing that girl here.” He wriggled inside his restraints, and Margot knew they must be painful.

  “How long have you been in that thing?” she asked.

  “Too goddamned long,” he said, without looking at her. “I can’t feel my fingers at all.”

  “Dr. Dunlap,” Margot said. “The jacket is tied too tightly. It’s cutting off his circulation.”

  “You can take it off, Doc,” Preston said. He turned his pale gaze up to Margot, and she knew he was speaking to her. He had called her “Doc” ever since medical school. He had never meant it as an honorific. “I’m harmless now.”