Benedict Hall

by Cate Campbell

  Hatless, gloveless, she went out to the Royal, where she ate an enormous meal of steak and potatoes. She had no pocketbook, either, but she ordered the bill to be sent to Benedict Hall, then walked out into the twilit street and turned up the hill toward the hospital.

  She was just inside the entrance when she saw Dr. Whitely emerging from a stairwell. He started to turn away, as if to avoid her, then seemed to think better of it. With short, quick steps that made him look a bit like a gray-haired robin, he crossed the lobby toward her. Margot stopped where she was. She felt exposed, with neither hat, gloves, nor her medical bag. The absence of her bag, in particular, made her feel she was not fully dressed.

  Whitely was wearing an overcoat, despite the heat. He carried his medical bag in one hand, his hat in the other. By the time he reached her, his cheeks were pink with outrage. “Doctor,” he said. “You are forbidden to be in this hospital.”

  Margot strove for a mild tone. “I have a surgical patient to check on, Dr. Whitely.”

  “Oh, I know,” he said sharply. “We all know that. You went against the board’s directive! You deliberately took advantage of an emergency situation to—”

  “As you say,” she interrupted. “It was an emergency.”

  “Repairing a stump neuroma wasn’t an emergency!” His voice rose, and the receptionist and two nurses at the desk turned to look. Visitors were straggling out through the lobby, and they also cast curious glances at him.

  Margot thrust out her chin. There was no point trying to placate Whitely. The deed was done now, in any case. “Is it your professional opinion, then, Dr. Whitely, that it would have been better to sedate a patient twice? One who has already been through multiple traumas?”

  “It’s my opinion,” he snapped, “that you should not be allowed in this hospital ever again.”

  “I believe Dr. Peretti may disagree with you. He observed my surgery last night—that is, this morning—and he can judge for himself.”

  “Peretti! He’s not a surgeon.” Whitely’s plump cheeks grew pinker, and he bounced on his tiptoes, looking more than ever like an angry bird.

  “I don’t think he would appreciate that assessment.” Margot drew herself up, so she could look down at Whitely, make him tip up his chin to meet her eyes. “Excuse me, Doctor. I see Matron Cardwell, and I’d like a report on my patient’s progress.”

  “You’re not to go up to the ward,” Whitely said sourly. He looked over his shoulder at Cardwell. “I’ll make sure Matron knows that.”

  “No need to trouble yourself,” Margot said. She brushed past him, and started across the lobby to where Alice Cardwell was just shrugging out of her cape and pinning on her cap. “I’ll tell her myself.”

  Having learned that Frank was resting well, with no fever or restlessness, Margot secured Cardwell’s promise to watch his postoperative pain. Reassured, she walked back toward the Alexis through a fragrant autumn evening. It was nearly nine o’clock, and the last sunlight still glowed from the western sea. She hesitated at the corner of First Avenue, and then, instead of turning, she walked on down the gentle slope toward the docks. She wanted to stroll along the waterfront, to breathe the salt air. She wasn’t ready yet to go to Post Street and view the ruin that had been her clinic, but she didn’t think she could sleep again so soon.

  The waterfront was quiet, most workers gone home, only a few other walkers about. The surface of the bay was glossy in the evening light. Gentle silver waves rippled away from the hull of a ferry at the dock. Margot paused to watch the ferry chug out of its berth and set out across the water. She found a weather-beaten bench, and settled onto it to watch the light fade. It had been a long time since she’d simply sat, watching sky and water, her hands empty in her lap. Tonight, there was nothing else for her to do. It was strange to sit idle, to feel no pressing need to go to the clinic, hurry to the hospital, answer a telephone. The stillness helped to clarify her mind, to let her consider all that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

  It was hard to take in the knowledge that her tormentor was truly gone. It was even harder to know how to feel about it. Preston, her brother, her mother’s son, had done his best to take everything from her that mattered. He had been willing to do anything to destroy her. She supposed she would never understand that, especially now. She would never comprehend why he had wanted her to fail so much that he had, apparently, destroyed himself.

  Night settled over the city as she sat on, staring at the darkening bay. She struggled to absorb the idea that she was free. She still hadn’t been able to reach her parents, but she knew they would be devastated by Preston’s death. She would have to face that. Help them through it. Her clinic was ruined, but that was something she could consider tomorrow. Frank might never see her in the same light again, and that would hurt more than she dared contemplate.

  But Preston—Preston was gone. It would be interesting to learn how to live without looking over her shoulder at every moment.

  When the moon rose, and strains of ragtime began to float down First Avenue, she roused herself, and walked back to the hotel. One or two men leered at her, but she took long, strong steps, her back straight and her head up, and they didn’t trouble her. She went up to her room, thinking she would have a bath, but when she reached it, she was suddenly exhausted again. She settled for washing her face and brushing her teeth, and fell into bed.

  She slept until seven the next morning, when brilliant sunlight pierced the curtains of her hotel room. Groggy with sleep, she climbed out of bed and went to the window to look down on the street. It was going to be one of those surprising autumn days when, even in Seattle, lawns would be parched and flowers and shrubs would droop in the heat.

  Hatless, gloveless, she set out to walk to Post Street. She felt strong enough now to face the wreckage of her clinic. She hoped that later she would be ready to face the wreckage that was the Benedict family.

  As she passed the rustic café with its GOOD EATS shingle, the proprietor, in his stained apron, came out to follow her. When she reached her destroyed clinic, he stepped up beside her as she surveyed the mass of burned timbers glistening like coal in the sunshine. “Terrible thing, Dr. Benedict,” he said, wiping his hands on his apron. “They say it was arson.”

  He had never spoken to her before. She suspected he disapproved of women doctors, but he was a fellow businessman. Perhaps this disaster made them comrades. She said, “Yes.”

  “They catch the guy?”

  Margot gave him a wary glance. “He died in the fire,” she said. The words felt strange in her mouth, but what could she say? Words couldn’t describe the import of it, the weight of the fact that Preston was gone.

  He raised shaggy eyebrows. “That so? I didn’t hear that. Huh. Died in his own fire.” And then, easily, “Well. Guess he had it coming.”

  Margot remembered the long, thin shriek stabbing through the tumultuous night. It had not been Frank. Norman had already been dead. It could only have been Preston, and he had not died easily. Her feelings about his death were complex, but she wished he had not died in pain.

  “You see the photos in the Times?” her neighbor asked.

  She shook her head.

  “I saved the paper. Yesterday’s edition.”

  “What did it say?”

  “Mostly pictures after the fire was out. A total loss, it says.”

  She stared into the blackened rubble of her clinic as other businesspeople from Post Street gathered beside her. The barber, the Italian grocer, and the shoe repairman came to murmur over the mess, and offer their sympathies. They spoke kindly, and if their assurances were a little paternal, under the circumstances, it was understandable. And forgivable. She did her best to thank each of them for their concern.

  When they disbanded, to go back to their own intact businesses, she approached the mass of burned wood and shattered glass, tiptoeing gingerly around it. It still smelled of chemicals. She peered into the interior, but it didn’t look as if a
nything could be saved. The blackened autoclave lay on its side among other ruined bits of equipment. Somewhere in there was her medical bag, and everything it had contained, all turned to ashes. Everything would have to be shoveled up into wagons or wheelbarrows and carted off. What would be left?

  She finished her circuit of the site. Just as she reached the street again, a spot of red caught her eye in the detritus at the front. She crouched down, and pushed away a chunk of something that looked like charcoal, but which had probably once been part of the front door. Beneath it, charred but intact, was the sign she had so proudly ordered and hung the year before—a lifetime before. M. BENEDICT, M.D., painted in red letters and varnished against the weather. The varnish was cracked now, the cheerful red paint darkened.

  She pulled the sign free, and stood, brushing ash and dirt from the surface. Her eyes stung at seeing it there in her dirty hands. It was ruined. She had lost her hospital privileges, and she had lost her clinic. She might even have lost her family.

  She didn’t know about Frank. Would he be glad about what she had done? Or furious?

  When Margot reached Benedict Hall and opened the front door, an eerie silence greeted her. She glanced inside the kitchen, but found no one. She peeked inside the small parlor, but it was similarly empty. She stood in the hallway for a moment. The house was unnaturally quiet, no sounds of water running or wardrobes being opened or doors clicking shut. She took a tentative step toward her father’s study, and spotted Loena creeping down the staircase on tiptoe.

  The maid put a finger to her lips. “Mrs. Edith is sleeping,” she whispered. “The doctor gave her something.”

  Margot kept her voice low. “What about Ramona? And Hattie?”

  “Mrs. Ramona went with Mr. Dick and Mr. Dickson to arrange the service for Mr. Preston. Hattie’s in her room. She’s been crying all morning.”

  “I’ll go see her,” Margot said. Automatically, she bent to pick up her bag, then remembered. Gone. She could talk to Hattie, but she had no medicine, nothing to give her. “Fetch the brandy bottle, Loena.”

  “Yes, Dr. Margot.” Loena’s eyes were bright and untroubled. No grief here, Margot could see, and probably not for Leona, either. Their illusions about Preston had already been shattered.

  She found Hattie huddled on her bed in her little room behind the kitchen, sobbing into her apron. She looked up as Margot came in. Her round cheeks dripped tears, and her eyelids were swollen. “Oh, Dr. Margot,” she choked. “I keep thinkin’ it ain’t true. That he ain’t . . . that Mr. Preston ain’t . . .” She put both hands over her mouth, shaking her head, swallowing tears. “I can’t help cryin’, but I been stayin’ in my room so I don’t start Mrs. Edith off again.”

  Loena came in with the brandy bottle and, in an unusual display of initiative, a kitchen glass. Margot poured two fingers of brandy, and held it out to Hattie. “Drink, Hattie,” she said.

  Hattie didn’t argue. She took the glass and drank it down. When it was empty, she tried to set it on the bedside table, but missed. The glass rolled across the carpet, and Loena retrieved it. Hattie’s eyes pleaded with Margot. “Mr. Preston—was he trying to put it out? The fire? Is that what happened to him?”

  Margot could find no answer for this. She said, “Hattie, please lie down. Kick your shoes off. I’m going to cover you with your quilt, and pull the curtains. Try not to cry anymore.”

  Hattie hiccuped, and sniffled, but she did as she was told. Margot sat on the single chair in her room, and waited beside the bed for Hattie’s breathing to even out and her tears to stop. She waved Loena out, and leaned her head back, closing her own eyes, listening to the quiet of the house. Time suspended for a few moments, and in the transient peace, her thoughts stilled.

  A slight snore from Hattie told her the brandy had done its work. Margot stirred, and opened her eyes. The dim little room smelled of brandy and soap and that indefinable scent that was Hattie. Suddenly, intensely, Margot longed for Blake, and the comfort of his rooms above the garage. She got to her feet, and slipped out of Hattie’s room as quietly as she could. She went through the kitchen, out the back door, and across the patch of lawn. She let herself in through the side door of the garage, and went up the narrow staircase.

  Everything was just as she had seen it last, even to the teacup in the dish strainer. Through the open bedroom door, she could see that his bed had not yet been stripped. On his nightstand a carafe of water had dried, leaving a faint haze. A clean glass rested next to it. She opened the little icebox where he had always kept milk and butter and bread. It was unnaturally empty, the ice compartment dry and warm to the touch. The air in the apartment was hot and still.

  Margot sat down beside the old table where she had so often sat with Blake, playing checkers or reading one of his books. She knew in her heart it was likely he would never return to these rooms, never stand beside the sink looking across the lawn at Benedict Hall, keeping his watchful eye on them all. She knew the chances of his full recovery were small—perhaps even nonexistent—but her heart yearned to see him here once again. To see everything, and everyone, in their rightful place.

  She started at the sound of the door opening at the bottom of the staircase. “Margot?”

  “I’m here,” she called.

  It was Dick, his footsteps sounding heavy on the treads, nearly as heavy as their father’s. “Loena saw you come over, although I thought she must have been mistaken. Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” He appeared, huffing a little from the climb. “You look exhausted, Dick. I suppose you’ve been trying to hold everyone together.”

  He waved one hand. “Nothing much I could do. It’s a nightmare.”

  “Sorry I wasn’t here. I was up all night after the fire, and I had to sleep.”

  “You couldn’t have helped, anyway.”

  “Where’s Father?”

  “He’s picking out a coffin.”

  “But, Dick—we don’t have Preston’s body. What is the coffin for?”

  “We’re going to bury the bones they found in the ashes of your clinic.”

  She stared at him. “The bones?”

  “Well, what’s left of them. God, Margot, it’s all so macabre. Mother’s falling apart, I’m afraid. She really needs this funeral, even though it seems a bit—what’s the word? Gothic?”

  “It makes sense, I guess. She’ll cope better if she can have a ceremony, and a place to visit at the cemetery. But oh, Lord, poor Father. What an awful task.”

  “He’s holding up all right. Terribly sad, of course, but—it’s almost as if he’s not surprised. As if he was expecting some disaster.” Dick broke off, and stared around him at the tidy apartment. “I haven’t been up here in years. What made you think of coming here?”

  “It’s silly, I suppose. I’ve just always felt safe here.”

  Dick heaved an enormous sigh. “Margot—no one’s telling us what really happened. At your office, I mean.”

  She folded her arms, and regarded her elder brother. “Mother and Hattie will never believe it, but you might as well know. Preston started the fire. He didn’t know there was oxygen in the storeroom. The fire accelerated, and caught him. The firemen thought they had him on a stretcher, but it seems in the confusion he fell off.”

  “What were you doing there at that time of night?”

  “Thea—my nurse—brought her husband in. He was dying, and she didn’t want him in the hospital. We were all in the dark, just waiting. Preston probably thought the clinic was empty—although I don’t know if he would have cared.”

  “Parrish was there.”

  “Yes, sitting with me in the reception room. He ran around the back to try to pull Preston out, but it was too late. Frank burned his hand and his arm, and I went in the ambulance with him to the hospital.”

  “And your nurse’s husband?”

  “He died shortly before the fire started.”

  “So those bones could be . . .” Dick raised his eyebrows. “Talk ab
out Gothic!”

  “I know. It’s better not to think about it too much.”

  “Is Parrish still in the hospital?”

  “Yes.”

  “His hand okay?”

  “It will be.”

  “My God, Margot. If he had lost his other hand!”

  “Unthinkable.” Margot lifted her gaze to the window, where a brilliant shaft of sunlight poured into the quiet apartment. She thought of Frank’s amputated arm, of the repaired nerves, the clean new surgery. A little swell of satisfaction lightened her grim mood. “But he’s going to be fine,” she said.

  “He’s a good man, Margot.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “You two—do you have an understanding?”

  Margot pictured Frank’s Black Irish eyes, his lean face, and heard again the steel in his voice as he refused to let her examine his arm. She looked into her brother’s face, and shook her head. “I don’t know, Dick. After everything that’s happened . . . I just don’t know.”

  CHAPTER 20

  The nurse smiled down at Frank. “There, I’ve opened the window for you, Major,” she chirped. “It’s a beautiful day.”

  He could see that from where he lay, propped on a pile of pillows. Sunshine poured across the linoleum floor, and birds sang exuberantly in the trees outside the hospital. The pain in his arm was different, a healing ache rather than the familiar fire. He woke every morning with a little spurt of surprise at the difference. There had been other men in the ward, but their beds were empty now, with fresh sheets piled on the bare mattresses. “Didn’t think warm weather was ever coming,” he said.