Benedict Hall

by Cate Campbell

  She poured a glass of water, then settled herself at the table with the plate and a knife and fork. She was chewing a bite of rather gluey shepherd’s pie when Preston came in.

  He raised his eyebrows at the sight of her. “Margot! Gosh. You’ve had a long day.”

  She swallowed, and reached for her water glass. “I didn’t think it would ever end.” She put her fork in the shepherd’s pie again, but she didn’t raise it to her lips. Her throat went suddenly tight, and her eyes stung. She gripped the fork with her fingers, willing away the threatening tears of fatigue and fury. She was not, surely, going to cry. Not in front of Preston.

  He bent over the table to see her face. “Oh, Margot. You’ve really had it, haven’t you? What you need is a drink.”

  She took a shaky breath, and looked up at him. He grinned down at her. “Come on, old girl. Let your little brother doctor you for a change.”

  “Preston,” she said in a tremulous voice. “A drink sounds wonderful.”

  She sat taking deep breaths while he fetched the decanter and two tumblers. He poured two fingers of whisky and handed the glass to her, and she took a good mouthful. Now she did close her eyes, feeling the hot comfort of good blended whisky settle in her stomach. “Thank God,” she muttered.

  Preston pulled his chair a little closer. “You want to talk about it?”

  “You don’t want to hear it,” she said. She took another sip of Father’s whisky, and pushed the dinner plate away.

  Preston laughed. “That shepherd’s pie wasn’t any good the first time,” he said. “I can imagine what it’s like now.”

  Out of loyalty to Hattie, Margot said, “Oh, it’s fine. I’m just too tired to eat. And it really was an awful day.”

  “You should tell me all about it,” he said. “I’m a newspaperman now, after all.”

  She looked at him over the rim of her glass. “Really not your kind of story, Preston.”

  He put his hand on his chest in mock hurt, and flashed his white smile. “They’re all my kind of story.” He held out the decanter, and she allowed him to refill her glass. “Come on, doc. You’ll feel better if you get it out.”

  She took another sip, and set her glass down. It seemed he really was trying to help. The war had changed him, she could see that. It wasn’t just that he looked different—that was natural, of course, after more than four years—but he seemed more confident than he had as a boy. He seemed less—desperate, was the word that came to mind.

  She drew a tremulous breath. “There’s a girl in the hospital,” she said, gazing at the caramel swirl of whisky in her glass. “Someone beat her so badly that I—” She broke off. The Sessions clock ticked loudly in the quiet, reminding her that she would soon have to be up again.

  He prompted her. “A girl? Who is it?”

  “One of the crib girls, from down past the depot. I don’t know her real name. Chinese. They bring them in, you know, by promising work. They don’t tell them what kind.”

  Preston leaned back in his chair, and sipped his own drink. She glanced up, and found his blue eyes fixed on her intently. “Well,” he said. “Just a hooker, then.”

  “She’s little more than a child.”

  “You can’t tear yourself up about that sort of—about all your patients, Margot.”

  She sighed again, and finished the whisky in her glass. “I know. It’s just that this was so vicious. The worst I’ve seen.” She stood up to carry her plate to the sink. “Maybe you can get someone to write about it, Preston. Get some attention.”

  “No one will care, Margot. Not about a whore.” His voice had gone hard, and it made her turn to look at him. He waved a negligent hand. “Put it out of your mind, doc. I’m sure you did all you could.”

  She felt her temper flicker, but it was a weak flame. She was just too tired. Others would react the same way as Preston, dismissing the young Chinese prostitute, refusing to waste police hours trying to find who had hurt her. “I’m going to bed. Thanks for the drink.”

  Just as he stood and picked up the decanter, the candlestick telephone in the hall rang. Margot said, “Damn,” and hurried to the instrument before the ringing could disturb the rest of the house. She said, “Yes? Yes, this is Dr. Benedict.” As she listened to Matron Cardwell, the cold crept up from the floor into her bare legs. When she replaced the earpiece and set the telephone down, she found herself shivering from head to toe.

  Preston was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “You’re not going out again?”

  “No,” Margot said. She pulled her dressing gown close around her and started for the stairs on her icy feet. “There’s no point in going back to the hospital. My patient expired.”

  It seemed, as winter wore away, that Preston’s new job agreed with him. He was cheerful at breakfast and dinner. Ramona and Edith glowed in his presence. He called Margot “doc” most of the time, but refrained from making jokes about her struggling practice. He and Dick were cordial, and Dickson made a point of asking him, when they were all together at dinner, how the job was going. If he didn’t go so far as to actually read “Seattle Razz” himself, he reported comments he heard from his secretary, who was, it developed, a faithful reader.

  “So, doc,” Preston said, grinning up at Margot as she came into the dining room one April morning. “You have your picture in the paper!”

  Ramona and Dick were already seated, and Ramona was smiling at Preston as he folded back the page of the newspaper. Margot pulled out her chair. “What are you talking about?”

  One of the twins poured her coffee as she unfolded her napkin. Preston held out the paper. “There you are! It pays to have a brother in the biz.”

  Margot laid the folded newspaper beside her plate and gazed down at it. She hardly recognized herself in the picture at the head of Preston’s column. “My God, Preston. This is awful. Couldn’t you have stopped them running it?”

  He snatched the paper back. “I thought you’d be glad to get some attention for doing good works, Margot! I pulled some strings to have that picture taken.” His handsome face reddened, and when Leona tried to take his plate away, he snarled at her, “Not yet, damn it. You can’t see I’m not finished?”

  Margot said, “Preston, there’s nothing left on your plate.”

  He snared another piece of toast from the rack and slapped it onto the empty plate as Leona shrank back from the table.

  Margot said, “I suppose no one likes their newspaper photos.” Her voice sounded nearly as hard as Preston’s, but it wasn’t just the ugly photograph that was bothering her. She dreaded going to the office today. She and Thea were going to sit down with a pile of bills, and she didn’t know how she was going to pay them. “I’m sorry if I didn’t show proper gratitude, but don’t take it out on Loena.”

  “Leona, doc,” her brother said. He took a huge bite of the toast she was sure he didn’t want, and leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know why you can’t tell the poor girls apart. Loena is the one getting fat.”

  “She is?”

  “You haven’t noticed?” Preston laughed, and crammed the rest of the toast in his mouth. He jumped up, still chewing. Margot watched him warily. He swallowed, then pointed a mocking finger at her. “You should look around you, doc. See what’s happening in the world.”

  “Speaking of photos,” Ramona said brightly, “did you see those pictures from England? From some village called Cottingley? These two little girls took pictures of fairies! Actual photographs! Everyone’s talking about it!”

  “What nonsense,” Margot said snappishly, then immediately wished she had let it be.

  Dick laughed. “Of course it’s nonsense. Ramona, fairies? Really.”

  “They have photos,” Ramona insisted. “And all these spiritualists are traipsing all over that tiny town.”

  Margot put her coffee cup to her lips to keep herself from saying anything else. Preston winked at Ramona, and said, “More things in heaven and earth, right?”

 
She nodded, though Margot doubted she got the reference.

  Leona came back into the dining room with Margot’s eggs. Preston touched his forelock, good mood evidently restored as swiftly as it had dissipated, and tripped gaily out of the dining room. Margot picked up her fork with one hand, and with the other pulled the paper back across the table. The picture was really ghastly. She looked as tall as the Smith Tower, and that dress—the one her mother had ordered from Frederick’s—was a horror. She should have taken the time to go down and be fitted, but it had seemed such a bore. She wondered if Preston might have chosen the least flattering picture he could find, just to spite her.

  Reluctantly, as she ate her breakfast, she read the opening paragraphs.

  The gala evening held to benefit the Good Shepherd Home took place at the palatial home of Mr. and Mrs. Albert Ryan. The cream of Seattle society attended, from Mayor Caldwell to entrepreneur Mr. William E. Boeing of the Boeing Airplane Company. The guests danced to the lively music of the Harry Harrison Band, and dined on caviar and French champagne as an ice sculpture of Mount Rainier gently melted beneath the chandelier.

  The Misses Blackburn sported the latest in evening wear, backless dresses imported from Gump’s in San Francisco. None of the young blades could take their eyes from the young ladies. Mrs. Nellie Cornish and Mrs. Robert King were resplendent in sweeping chiffon gowns, based on a French design. Both ladies swore to this writer they purchased their dresses right here in Seattle, but they had the look of Paris about them. The male guests, to a man, sported fish-and-soup, which—to you uninitiated—means black tie and tails.

  Pictured above, with the Matron of the Good Shepherd Home, is the young woman physician, Dr. Margot Benedict, who recently opened a private office in Post Street. Dr. Benedict—yes, your columnist’s own elder sister—avows that the Good Shepherd Home is a favored project of hers. She lent gravitas to what was otherwise an evening of light hearts and bubbling laughter.

  Margot groaned, and shoved the paper away. “Gravitas, indeed,” she muttered.

  “Excuse me, Miss Margot?”

  Margot glanced up. “Oh, Leona. Nothing. I was just talking to myself.”

  The girl poured her more coffee, and Margot gave her a quizzical glance. “Where’s your sister this morning?”

  Leona’s cheeks flamed, drowning her freckles in pink. “She—” she faltered. “She—Loena’s not feeling well.”

  Margot set down her cup with a click. “Why didn’t someone call me?”

  The flush of the girl’s cheeks subsided in a wave, leaving her pale face sprinkled with cinnamon freckles. “She don’t want to see anybody, miss,” Leona faltered.

  “Nonsense.” Margot stood up, pushing back her chair. “Let’s go and see her right now.” She marched out of the dining room, with Leona skittering nervously behind her.

  As they walked into the hall, Edith appeared on the stairs. “Where are you going, dear?”

  “Loena’s ill, apparently,” Margot said. “But no one saw fit to let me know.”

  Leona made a small noise, like a trapped mouse. Edith said, “Margot, please. It doesn’t help if the servants are frightened of you.”

  Margot turned to Leona. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have things on my mind this morning. I didn’t mean to be—to be harsh.”

  Leona dropped a curtsy, which only irritated Margot more, but she repressed the sniff she longed to make. “Come now. I really do have to get to the office, but I’ll see your sister first.”

  She gave her mother a brief nod, and pressed on toward the back stairs. There she waited for Leona to precede her, and followed the girl up the staircase.

  The twins shared a long, narrow room on the third floor, with a slanted ceiling. A gable-fronted dormer looked down into the tall camellia, abloom now with white, waxy flowers. The morning light shone on the spotless white coverlets of two single beds and reflected from the mirrored tops of the matching bureaus. A rocking chair was drawn into the dormer, and in it sat Loena with some needlework in her lap. Her hair was fiery in the sunlight, but when she turned her surprised face to the visitors, Margot was shocked by the pallor behind her freckles.

  “Loena?” Margot made an effort to speak gently. “Leona says you’re not feeling well. You should have sent for me.”

  “Oh, no, Miss Margot,” Loena said in a trembling voice. “It was just a little stomach upset. I wouldn’t want to bother you.”

  Margot started across the room toward her, but Leona, in a gesture Margot was sure took all her courage, stepped into her path. “I can take care of her,” she said.

  Margot stopped. “I’m sure you can. But why not let me have a look, now that I’ve climbed the stairs?”

  Leona started to demur, but Loena said softly, “Never mind, Leona.” The rocker’s runners clacked as she stood up. She laid her sewing on the window seat and turned to face Margot with the air of one facing an executioner. She wore a loose cotton dress, and no apron. “They’re all going to know soon enough.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Spring in Seattle, Frank found, was a fragile season. It crept shyly on the heels of winter, opening tentative buds, uncurling reluctant leaves, offering its flowers one by one—pale hellebore, vivid tulips, yellow and white daffodils. At last, as if the season were gaining confidence, azaleas blazed forth in white and pink and red. The flower beds bloomed with color around Building 105, a structure everyone fondly referred to as the Red Barn, where Frank worked at one of the long drafting tables beneath tall mullioned windows. The rains of spring were warmer and softer, though still frequent. Frank acquired an umbrella to protect his new camel’s hair overcoat and the Stetson dress hat he had carefully chosen at Frederick’s.

  He felt a little like the spring himself, beginning to bloom in his new life. His mother had asked if he couldn’t take a few days to come home, and he had responded by inviting his parents to Seattle instead. He explained that he didn’t want to take time off from work so early in his new position. What he didn’t tell them was that he knew, if he went home to Missoula, he would be sure to meet Elizabeth. He didn’t want to see her. Didn’t want to remember.

  His rooming house, recommended by the Benedicts’ butler, was on Cherry Street, just down the hill from the twin bell towers of St. James Cathedral. His room was modest but comfortable, a bedroom and a little sitting room, where he could lay his papers out on a round table and sit in an aged but comfortable chintz-covered chair. He shared a bath, an odd space tiled in mauve and brown with a door at either end, with another tenant. His landlady, a widow of about sixty, was pleasant enough, if a bit strict about things like visitors and alcohol on the premises.

  Luckily, Frank thought wryly, he was a quiet drunk. He had found his source. He never bought more than he needed, and he smuggled his supply into his room under his coat. Mrs. Volger never needed to know.

  It had become a ritual. Every evening, when he got off the streetcar, he walked to the diner where he had a bowl of chowder or a sandwich, and the proprietor slipped him a little tin flask under his bill. Frank walked up Cherry, greeted Mrs. Volger if she was there, and went up to his room to drink until the pain in his arm subsided. The pain seemed to lie in wait, dormant through the workday, coming to life once he left the Red Barn and started into the city. It would flicker during his supper, as if to make sure he didn’t forget its existence. By the time he started his walk up First Avenue to Cherry, it began to burn in earnest, making him hurry his steps.

  On this night, when the azaleas lining Mrs. Volger’s front walk were in full bloom, he had a copy of the Times under his arm, and his flask secure in the inner pocket of his coat. He climbed the stairs two at a time. He spread the newspaper on the table and fetched his tooth glass from the bathroom before he locked his door, kicked off his brogues, and sat back in the chair.

  The first sip was bliss, promising relief in the next few moments. He savored the bitter taste of the liquor, knowing it was going to quench the fire in his arm. A se
cond sip, and a third, and the pain began to die down, to flicker out as if it, too, were done for the day. He poured a bit more whisky into the tooth glass, recapped the flask, and began to turn the pages of the paper.

  He stopped when he saw the picture at the head of “Seattle Razz,” Preston Benedict’s weekly column.

  Frank had read Benedict’s column once or twice, but he had no interest in the latest fashions or who was marrying whom in Seattle society. It seemed strange that a man like Preston would be writing about such things, but he supposed even a Benedict scion needed to work.

  The picture was of Margot Benedict, Dr. Benedict, posing for a photographer at a benefit. He had not seen her for months, but he remembered her as a tall woman with a commanding presence. She had, as his mother would have said, a face that would age well, being strong featured and finely cut, a face he had liked. The Times photograph made her look merely plain. Even to his untutored eye, the gown she wore didn’t suit her, hanging too loosely about her narrow waist and hips. Its hem drooped to the toes of her shoes, hiding what he recalled were excellent ankles. She looked like someone’s image of a lady doctor. He wondered if she cared.

  He leafed through the rest of the paper as he finished his whisky. When the glass was empty, he was ready to take off his vest and shirt. He hung them carefully in the wardrobe before he went to stand before the small oval mirror above his bureau, and face the ruin of his arm.

  Would he ever, he wondered, be able to look at that red, swollen flesh without remembering Elizabeth’s horrified face?

  He had tried to warn her in a letter. He didn’t know how he could have explained it any better. In the event, it was obvious he had failed to prepare her.

  When Elizabeth first arrived at the hospital in Virginia, she met him in the lounge, where other wounded soldiers were receiving friends and family. He spotted her from across the room, and made his way through little knots of people, soldiers in hospital-issue dressing gowns, women in straw hats and long, drifting summer dresses, men in boaters standing awkwardly beside them. Elizabeth, her cheeks very pink, came in through the door, led by one of the nurses. Her clothes looked too warm for the Virginia summer, a long skirt and pleated shirtwaist with a high-collared jacket. Her fair hair was gathered into a thick twist at the nape of her neck beneath her wide-brimmed hat. Even from across the room, she looked apprehensive.