“I mean,” the girl said, staring at her hands folded in her lap, “that I didn’t know anything about—about men. I knew I shouldn’t go out unchaperoned, but that was all. I didn’t have any idea about—” Her voice faltered, but she swallowed and pressed on. “About relations between men and women. I had no idea how babies came about.”
Mr. Morgan blustered, “Of course you didn’t, Bronwyn! Nice girls don’t know that sort of thing until they—well, their husbands—marriage is—”
Margot put up a hand. She spoke in the level tone she employed in her clinic, the voice meant to be objective, and which often went a long way toward calming emotions. “You know, Mr. and Mrs. Morgan, I’ve been in medical practice for several years now. I’ve lost count of the unmarried girls I’ve cared for who found themselves in a similar situation, and almost always through ignorance. I admire Miss Morgan’s frankness in speaking of these things.” She turned to Bronwyn to say, “It’s very late to do this, but I have to apologize for my brother’s behavior. He should have known better.”
“He should have stood by Bronwyn, once he knew,” Ramona added fiercely. “I’m quite sure Father Benedict will want to set things right.”
“Oh, no!” Bronwyn exclaimed. She flashed her hazel eyes at Ramona, and then at Margot. “I don’t want anything! I know it looks like that, but I only came to Seattle because I knew the baby was sent to the Child Home.”
At this, Mr. Morgan shot his wife a venomous glance. Margot caught it out of the corner of her eye, but Bronwyn’s gaze was fixed on her, and she didn’t see it.
“The baby wasn’t there, and I was afraid to ask about him. I came to look at Benedict Hall just because I wanted to see where Preston lived. I thought he was dead, you know. The newspaper reports said he died in the fire.”
“Bronwyn, dear, if you hadn’t come, I don’t know what might have happened to my Louisa!” Ramona said. She stretched out her hand to take Bronwyn’s. “Dick and I will always be so grateful. We don’t need to speak of—of the other thing—anymore. Don’t worry about it.”
Bronwyn cast her a grateful glance, and then a wary one at her father. Margot, following this, saw Mr. Morgan turn his face away from his daughter. No forgiveness there, she supposed.
It was the story she had heard too many times, with differing details, at the Women and Infants Clinic. It was as if girls made themselves pregnant, and on purpose. She had never once, in her years of practice, known that to be the truth, but fathers and husbands and lovers behaved as if it were. It was why she risked her reputation by teaching birth control.
She saw Iris Morgan furtively touch her daughter’s hand. Bronwyn gave her mother a small smile, and when she saw Margot watching them, a braver one. Margot smiled back. She liked the girl’s spirit. She hoped Bronwyn wouldn’t allow it to be crushed.
CHAPTER 27
Leona and Loena were setting the places around the long table, arranging stemware and chargers, setting out saltcellars, folding linen napkins. Loena looked up from straightening a candle that had tilted in the candelabra, and said, “Oh! Mrs. Edith! You need something?”
Blake heard her voice from the hall, and crossed to the open door in time to see Mrs. Edith point at the place that was set, as always, to the right of her own chair. “Clear this, Leona,” she said. Her voice was thin, but steady.
“Ma’am?” The twins stood like two identical redheaded statues, staring at their mistress. Blake paused in the doorway, uncertain what Mrs. Edith’s intention was.
“Take the place setting away,” Mrs. Edith repeated. “Preston won’t be returning to Benedict Hall.”
Loena, always the bolder one, bestirred herself, and came around the table to Mrs. Edith. She folded her hands properly over her apron, and said in a gentle tone, “Are you sure, ma’am? You’ve always kept his place there. All this time.”
“I’m quite certain. Remove it, please.”
Loena glanced back at her sister, and gave a subtle nod. Still Leona hesitated, chewing on a fingertip and staring in wonder at Mrs. Edith. Loena whispered, “Go ahead, then.” Leona dropped her hand, and dried her finger on her apron before she picked up the charger and flatware, and placed them on an empty tray. When this was done, Mrs. Edith turned away. She passed Blake in the doorway without speaking to him, and began a slow progress up the front staircase toward her bedroom.
When she was gone, Leona said wonderingly, “Blake, what happened out there in Walla Walla? We been setting that empty place for three years, and she wouldn’t never let us take it away before.”
“Never mind, Leona,” he said gruffly. “She is your mistress, and you do as she asks. You don’t need to know her reasons. Loena, please go and tell Hattie Mrs. Edith might be needing her. I’ll help Leona finish here.”
The newly reunited Morgan family was staying to dinner, at Mrs. Ramona’s insistence. Hattie had put together a cold salmon platter, a salad of tomatoes and sweet cucumbers from the Market, and baskets of fresh bread she had made that morning, “puttin’ all my worries into that dough,” as she confessed to Blake. He heard her heavy steps ascending the staircase now as Loena came back into the dining room with a stack of cut-glass dessert plates for the sideboard.
Blake cast a critical eye over the table and found everything in order. He started back to the kitchen and saw Hattie just coming back down the stairs. He waited for her to reach the bottom, his eyebrows lifted in question. She put a finger to her lips and pointed toward the kitchen.
As soon as the swinging door had closed behind them, Hattie said, “Mrs. Edith just sittin’ up there at her dressing table, cryin’ her eyes out.”
“Do you know what’s upset her, Hattie?”
“Somethin’ about Mr. Preston not coming home no more. I mean, we all knew that, I guess, but she never would believe it.”
“Should we call Mr. Dickson?”
“No, Blake, don’t do that. He can’t help her. She just needs a good cry. Everybody need a good cry now and again.”
He smiled at her. “Everybody, Hattie?”
She was bending to take a bunch of parsley from the vegetable bin, and she straightened with a little grunt, and favored him with a friendly scowl. “Well, maybe not everybody. I don’t s’pose you do much crying, Blake.”
“Not in a very long time.”
“Well. At least for Mrs. Edith, she should feel better afterward.”
“I don’t know, Hattie.” Blake sighed as he reached for a chopping knife and handed it to her. “You might as well know. There’s a child. Evidently, this Miss Morgan and Preston—”
“Oh, I know all about that chile, Blake.”
“You do?”
“Oh, yes. I’ve been hearin’ about that chile for a long time. I didn’t say nothin’. I didn’t believe it.” Hattie ran the parsley under the tap, and gave it a quick shake. As she laid it on a clean kitchen towel, she said, “Mrs. Edith been talkin’ about that chile ever since Mr. Preston was in the state hospital. He told her there was a baby. Her grandson.”
“I wish he hadn’t done that.”
“Baby could be a great comfort,” Hattie said. “ ’Ceptin’ we don’t know where he is. I can’t help thinkin’ Mr. Preston shouldn’t have troubled his mama with it.”
“Mr. Preston will always be a worry to Mrs. Edith, I’m afraid.”
“Not just to her, Blake. Mr. Preston is a worry to all of us. Every blessed one.”
Hattie’s dinner was excellent, the perfect repast for a hot summer evening. The company, in contrast, was as awkward as Margot had ever seen. Chesley Morgan and Dickson exhausted their business conversation early. His wife answered any remarks addressed to her in a barely audible voice, and if her husband cast her a glance, subsided instantly into silence. Ramona did her best to charm the Morgans, to draw Bronwyn out, and to include Edith in any brief flurry of conversation, but she was fighting an uphill battle.
Margot made an effort, too, and received grateful looks from her sister-in-law, b
ut it didn’t help much. Long silences stretched around the table, broken only by the sounds of flatware clinking on china, or the gurgle of water being poured. Margot couldn’t help eyeing Bronwyn, wondering at the connection between this young woman and Preston.
Children born to unmarried girls were an old story, but this baby—this one was her own flesh and blood. Her nephew. She hadn’t wanted to believe he existed. It had been much easier thinking Preston had deceived their mother, spinning the lie to keep her tied to him. He knew he was her favorite. He had always known that. He had never hesitated to use her preference for him to his own ends. But this . . .
Blake sent Thelma in to clear when the main course finally dragged to its end. Blake set the dessert bowls and brought in a large bowl of fresh raspberries, which he served with spoonfuls of sweetened cream. The combination was delicious, but Margot could see that appetites around the table were flagging. Only Dick and Frank ate everything put before them, but then, neither of them knew the full story of Bronwyn Morgan, and its potential impact on the Benedicts. She envied their ignorance in this case. Preston’s last words to her as she left him ran around and around in her mind.
She knew she had to deal with the problem of the child. She would have to speak to Father. He wasn’t going to like it, but she had promised, and she would keep her word. It was tempting to think that a promise to someone like Preston didn’t really count, but that sort of justification wasn’t in her nature. The sooner she discharged the responsibility—at least to the extent of telling her father—the better she would feel.
Ramona said, with forced good cheer, “Shall we have our coffee in the small parlor?”
Margot was certain a change of venue wasn’t going to help, but she trooped with everyone else down the hall, and took a chair. Frank, however, excused himself, saying he had a report to look at before morning. He shook hands with Chesley Morgan, nodded to everyone else, and made his escape. In the doorway he glanced back at Margot and winked. She covered her mouth to prevent an unladylike giggle.
The evening did inevitably draw to a close. The Morgans departed, after effusive and repeated thanks, for the Alexis Hotel. Margot remembered, at the last minute, that Bronwyn needed two more diphtheria injections, and received a promise she would go to her own physician for them. Dickson escorted Edith upstairs the moment the front door closed, and Dick, yawning, trudged after them.
Margot turned to Blake. “Blake, I want you to go to bed. If there’s anything left, we’ll deal with it in the morning.”
He said, “Thank you, Dr. Margot. I am feeling a bit tired.”
“It’s been an endless day. Ramona, you too. You look exhausted.”
“Oh, I am. What a ghastly evening! Aren’t you just worn to a frazzle? The only good thing about tonight was Hattie’s lovely dinner.”
“Be sure to tell her that. Rest well, Ramona.”
“Aren’t you going to bed?”
“Yes, but I need to speak to Father first. I heard him come back downstairs.”
“He’s in his study, Dr. Margot,” Blake said.
“Thank you, Blake. Good night.”
They were all turning to go their separate ways, Blake to the kitchen, Ramona up the stairs, and Margot down the hall to Dickson’s study, when the telephone on the hall table rang. The sound jangled on Margot’s nerves. Ramona paused halfway up the staircase, and Blake, frowning, turned back from the kitchen door.
“Late for a telephone call,” he said.
“Shall I answer it?” Margot said, as it rang a second time.
“No, no, Dr. Margot. You go on and speak to Mr. Dickson. I’ll answer it.”
Ramona went on upstairs, and Margot knocked on her father’s study door as she heard Blake pick up the telephone and speak into it. “Benedict Hall,” he said in his deep voice. “Good evening.”
Dickson rumbled, “Come in.” Margot opened the door, but before she could step into her father’s cramped, smoky study, she heard Blake speak again.
“Good God,” he said. His voice carried down the hall, and it vibrated with shock. “You’re quite right, Doctor. That’s the most terrible news.”
Margot stopped where she was, her hand on the doorjamb, and gazed down the hall to the spot where Blake stood with the candlestick receiver in one hand, the earpiece of the telephone in the other. He turned to face her, and his expression sent a thrill of horror through her body.
She said, “Blake, what is it?”
He spoke again into the receiver, then cradled it against his chest. “Dr. Margot,” he said. “It’s the sanitarium. I think—” His voice caught, and he cleared his throat. She heard the South in his voice, the old accent that only surfaced when he was truly disturbed. Ah think. “I think you’d better call Mr. Dickson to the telephone.”
It was Blake’s task to rouse Hattie, and to climb to the third floor of Benedict Hall to knock on the maids’ doors and ask them to come down. In their dressing gowns, Hattie with a scarf tied around her tousled hair and the twins with their hair in long braids, the staff assembled as requested in the large parlor. Thelma came, too, in curlers and a wrapper and a pair of worn leather slippers. Only Nurse was excluded, allowed to sleep on in the nursery with her charge, but Mrs. Ramona, Mr. Dick, and Mrs. Edith were all there.
Blake noted that Dr. Margot had fetched her medical bag, and tucked it beneath her chair beside the empty fireplace. The house was cool now, the heat of the day dissipated. Mrs. Ramona and Mrs. Edith were both shivering with the shock of the news, but there had been no time to lay a fire. Dr. Margot made her mother sit close to her, and watched her surreptitiously throughout Mr. Dickson’s grave announcement. The major stood behind Dr. Margot, his good right hand resting protectively on her shoulder. Blake saw her put up her left one to touch it.
“This is doubly tragic for us,” Mr. Dickson was saying. “Thelma, you weren’t with us at that time, but we thought we lost Preston three years ago, in the fire that destroyed Margot’s first clinic. Now we have lost our son again. This time there is no doubt. Dr. Dunlap has his—” He had to stop, and swallow a bit of the brandy Blake had supplied him with.
They all had a glass, even the twins. Hattie, her round cheeks glistening with steady tears, hadn’t touched hers. Everyone else had cautiously taken a sip. Thelma’s was nearly gone. Mrs. Edith had drunk down her portion straightaway.
“His remains,” Mr. Dickson finished. His voice faltered, and he drank again. “His body will be sent by train. He will—that is, it will—arrive in Seattle tomorrow night.”
Leona and Loena clung together, eyes wide and freckles standing out on their pale faces. Thelma watched everyone, no doubt wondering at the drama that seemed to erupt so often in this house. Blake thought it would be no surprise if she gave notice after this event.
Mrs. Ramona sniffled softly into a handkerchief, her cheek resting against Mr. Dick’s shoulder. Mrs. Edith was dry-eyed, but her lips were bloodless and her cheeks as pale as snow. She hadn’t spoken a word.
Dick said heavily, “I don’t see how he pulled it off, Father.”
“He got out of his room. I saw that door, and the lock on it. I don’t know how he managed it, but he broke the lock.”
“Did he—leave a note, or anything?”
“He said good-bye.” It was Mrs. Edith, speaking in a flat voice, staring in the empty fireplace.
Every eye turned to her, and Mr. Dickson made a sudden sound in his throat, as if in protest. He said, “What, dear?”
“Preston. He said good-bye, and I knew.” She looked up at her husband, and then around at the rest of them. “He couldn’t live that way. So sensitive.”
Blake saw the twist of Dr. Margot’s mouth, and the tightening of the major’s hand on her shoulder, but neither spoke.
Mrs. Edith said after a moment, almost absently, as if it were now of no consequence, “I took him the sapphire. The one he liked so much. That’s probably how he managed it.”
Now Dr. Margot sat forward.
“Mother—you took it to him? Still with that jagged concrete around it?”
“Oh, yes,” Mrs. Edith said. She moved her hand, limply, then let it fall to her lap. “He asked for it specially, so I took it to him. I tried to get the concrete off—you know, so it would look better—but I couldn’t.”
Blake closed his eyes for a brief moment. He had seen that chunk of concrete, with the old stone embedded in it. He knew Dr. Margot had buried the sapphire, dropped it into wet concrete, and smoothed it down, chain and all. Mr. Preston had pried it out of there, though of course it would never have any value now. He had made use of it anyway, it seemed.
He glanced at Mr. Dickson, and saw that he, too, understood. It would have been enough, that piece of concrete, to smash the lock on Mr. Preston’s door. There were no other patients on the third floor of the sanitarium, and there would have been no one to hear the noise as he splintered the wood.
He had helped carry Preston’s case to his room when he was first installed there. He knew there was no outer window in the room, but the corridor was lined with them. Once he was out, he had his choice.
As a young man, little more than a boy, Blake had seen someone fall from a roof at the Chatham County Convict Camp. The image had haunted him for years, the hideous sight of mangled flesh and bone and a stunning amount of spilled blood. He tried not to think of Preston that way, but he couldn’t help picturing how it had happened—Preston smashing the window, balancing on the sill, drawing a final breath before launching himself into the air, falling to a terrible death on the path three stories below.
It was, as Mr. Dickson had said, doubly tragic. And it was sickeningly cruel to Mrs. Edith, to Mr. Dickson, and to Hattie, who had loved him despite everything.
Blake wouldn’t grieve for Preston. The world was a better place without him. But he could grieve for these people, who had been through so much at Mr. Preston’s hands.
This, he hoped, would be the end of it.
The Benedict Bastard (A Benedict Hall Novel) Page 30