Benedict Hall

by Cate Campbell

  “What do you hear, Mother?”

  “It’s—it’s Preston—” Edith’s eyes swam with tears, and her lips trembled. “Screaming! He keeps screaming, and he won’t stop!”

  Horror made Margot’s belly crawl. She felt the blood rush from her face until she feared she had gone as pale as her mother.

  “Please,” Edith said again. “Take it away! If you take it away, it will stop!”

  “Mother—take what away? I don’t know what—”

  “That sapphire! The jewel—I can’t stand it in the house!”

  Margot stood up abruptly, scraping the legs of her chair on the linoleum. She put a hand under her mother’s arm. It felt as thin and brittle as a twig. “Mother, you need food, and a bath. You need to stop taking so much laudanum. I’ll make you a cup of coffee, and then—”

  Her mother tried to twist away. “No, no, Margot! I don’t want coffee. I want you to take that—that thing—” Her voice rose to a wail. “Take that thing away!” She clamped both hands over her ears, and burst into hysterical sobs.

  Margot stared at her, open mouthed. In seconds Hattie was there, bundling Edith into her arms like a weeping child, urging her out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Loena and Leona came in, shoulder to shoulder, looking at Margot with wide eyes. “What is it? What happened?”

  Margot said, inadequately, “Mother’s upset. Hattie’s taking care of her.” She wrapped her sandwich up again in its napkin, and left Leona and Loena staring after her as she went out of the kitchen and up the stairs to her bedroom.

  Her room looked bereft without her toiletries and books and the little oddments of daily life. The dressing table was bare, its lace-draped stool tucked beneath it. Nothing was left but a few winter clothes in the wardrobe, and some bits of lingerie and jewelry she rarely wore abandoned in her bureau. She crouched, and opened the bottom drawer.

  She had wrapped it in a chemise and left it there, hoping— hoping what? That she would forget about it? That someone would take it?

  She unfolded the chemise, a lacy thing her mother had given her for Christmas, and which she had never worn. The sapphire lay innocently in its folds of silk, a stone as long as the first joint of her thumb. She knew nothing of jewelry, but it looked like a museum piece, with its heavy silver chain and filigree setting. Why hadn’t Preston had it reset?

  She picked up the stone and cradled it in her palm. It reminded her of a time when she was small, when she and the family had picnicked on Alki Beach, on the shores of Puget Sound. Blake had laid a starfish in her hand, and though the creature didn’t move, she felt the potency of its life through her fingers. She had held it gently before laying it reverently back in the tide pool.

  Margot clicked her tongue at her own fanciful thinking. It was nothing but superstition. If she allowed this silly thing to continue to haunt her, it would be as if Preston were still here, badgering her, lying in wait to trip her up. She twisted the chain around the sapphire, and thrust the thing into her pocket. She carried the chemise over her arm as she went out of her room. Perhaps she would find a time to wear it when Frank returned.

  As she went down the stairs, she heard Hattie in her mother’s bedroom, speaking soothing words. Margot paused on the landing, listening, wondering. Edith couldn’t know that Preston had screamed as he was dying the night of the fire. She had told no one. Edith had never met Thea. Frank would never have mentioned it, and certainly not to her mother. So where did Edith get an idea that she heard Preston screaming? And why did she turn to Margot to make it stop?

  Margot walked slowly down the stairs. Her brother’s story was a tragedy, but it had come to an end. She could not allow him to go on tormenting her—or anyone else—from his grave.

  She went out through the back door and across to the garage apartment, where she found an empty coffee can under the sink. She stowed the sapphire in it, and shoved it into the back of the cupboard.

  She spent a quiet afternoon at the hospital. She saw a child with a high fever, and settled him in the children’s ward with plenty of hydration and a nurse to give him sponge baths. The little boy’s color was good, and he was talkative, so she wasn’t worried about him. His mother stayed in the ward with him, and Margot promised to see them again in the morning. She saw a case of alcohol poisoning, which meant she had to pump the man’s stomach. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was routine. Afterward, she sent him up to a public ward with orders to restrain him if he became violent, and to give him as much water as he could drink. She stopped by to visit two other patients, both of whom were resting comfortably.

  At the very end of the day, she was called down to the reception area, where she found a slender, freckled girl in a school uniform waiting on one of the straight wooden chairs. The girl jumped up when she saw her. “Dr. Benedict,” she said. “Do you remember me? Colleen O’Reilly?”

  “Yes,” Margot said, hesitant at first, then smiling. “Of course I do. You’ve had your baby.”

  Colleen’s eyes were bright and clear, her freckled cheeks rosy. “Oh, yes, that was weeks ago. I went to your clinic to see you, but—it’s all burned up.”

  “We had a fire.” Margot tipped her head, assessing the girl’s appearance. “You look very well, Colleen. And you’re back in school.”

  Colleen smoothed her dark vest and pleated skirt. “Well, yes. I’m a year behind my class, though.”

  “I’m glad to see you,” Margot said. “Are you here to see your doctor?”

  The blue eyes, still fresh and innocent despite everything, lifted to hers. “I want you to be my doctor again,” she said. “I didn’t like the Good Shepherd doctor very much. But now your clinic is burned up.”

  “We’re going to rebuild it. There will be a new one in the same place,” Margot told her. “Do you need to see me now? Is there anything troubling you?”

  “No. I’m fine. I just don’t want to see that doctor anymore. I don’t think he liked us much—us girls at the Good Shepherd.”

  “Well. If you need care before my new clinic is ready, you can come to me here.”

  The girl smiled, and put out her hand in a grown-up fashion. “Thank you, Dr. Benedict.”

  As she turned to leave, Margot said, “Colleen.” The girl turned. “You must be back with your family.”

  “I am.”

  “What did you do about your baby?”

  Colleen’s gaze was frank now, and a wise expression came into her eyes. It reminded Margot of the look in Mrs. Li’s eyes, with her toddlers at her side. Mrs. Li was only four years older than this girl.

  “You were right about my family,” Colleen said. “They didn’t throw me out after all. Mama and Pa are raising Peter as their own. Pa said no grandson of his is going to be given away to people he doesn’t know.”

  Margot smiled behind her hand as she watched the dark skirt and shiny Mary Janes swish away from her.

  As she left the hospital for the evening, she encountered Alice Cardwell just coming on for the evening shift. “Good evening, Matron.”

  “Dr. Benedict,” Nurse Cardwell said. “Are you going to rebuild your clinic?”

  “Yes. The builders are going to clear the site next week, and start on the foundation.”

  “But you lost your office nurse.”

  Margot nodded. “She went back to her people in Chicago.”

  “Well,” Cardwell said. She carried a charge book in one hand, her cap in the other. “I have several student nurses who show promise. Let me know if you would like a referral.”

  “I would indeed,” Margot said. “Once the building is under way, I’ll ask you.”

  “Good. Good evening, then, Doctor.” Cardwell walked off, her long apron rustling. As Margot went out through the front doors, she saw Dr. Whitely walking across the lobby with another physician. He looked away, avoiding her eyes.

  She smiled to herself as she stepped out into the Indian summer sunshine. It was a relief not to have to worry about him, or to pretend a respect she didn
’t feel. And it was a damned good thing his wasn’t the only voice on the hospital board.

  She arrived back at Benedict Hall just as Hattie was carrying a leathery leg of lamb into the dining room. Margot would have preferred to take a plate in the kitchen, but Dick and Ramona and her parents were all seated at the dining room table. It seemed better to sit down and make the best of it.

  “Have a good day, Margot?” her father asked.

  “I did, Father, thanks.”

  Ramona said, “Are you really going to live over the garage?” Dick flashed her a look, but Margot smiled.

  “It’s better that way. So the telephone doesn’t disturb you all at odd hours.”

  “It’s just so strange,” Ramona said. “I mean, servants’ quarters—”

  Dick blew out a breath, and snapped, “Leave it alone, Ramona. Margot has a right to live where she wants.”

  Ramona flushed, and Margot felt a flash of sympathy. “It’s all right, Dick. Ramona’s quite right. It’s a bit unusual.”

  “Makes perfect sense,” Dickson rumbled, and began to struggle with the carving knife and the overdone roast. Leona came in with a dish of watery mint sauce and passed it around. “I hear from Peretti you’re going to assist him in the operating theater next week.”

  “Yes. He asked me yesterday.”

  “Good, good. Something interesting?”

  Margot was about to answer, but caught herself. “I’ll tell you about it sometime if you like, Father. Some other time.” The glance Ramona gave her across the table was grateful, and almost sisterly. Margot smiled at her, and Ramona smiled prettily back.

  Margot glanced at her mother, at the end of the table. She looked better than she had the day before. She had bathed, at least, and it looked as if Hattie had tried to help her with her hair. She wore powder, and lipstick, but beneath the cosmetics her face was pale and her eyes were hollow. She kept her eyes down as Dickson put meat on her plate and passed it.

  With her eyes on her mother’s still face, Margot said, “Have you set the date for the funeral, Father?” Dickson answered, explaining that it would happen the next week, that the interment would be at the new Evergreen Cemetery, and that Father McBride would officiate. Edith’s features didn’t change throughout his recitation. It was as if she hadn’t heard the question.

  Or didn’t want to hear the answer.

  It was strange to say good night to everyone, then make her way through the kitchen, out the back door, and across the yard to the garage. It was already dark, the autumn evenings beginning to close in. She switched on the bulb hanging in the stairwell, and climbed the stairs, hearing no sounds but the faint buzzing of electricity and the click of her heels on the treads.

  She was startled, as she reached the top of the staircase, to see that a brand-new candlestick telephone rested on the kitchen counter next to the old hot plate. She smiled, and touched its black surface with her fingers, caressed the shining brass trim. This was her father’s doing, of course. He hadn’t mentioned it, but he must have arranged to have it installed while she was at the hospital. She wished she knew how to reach Frank. She would have liked to hear his voice, but he had been adamant. She had been allowed to doctor him once. No more.

  She turned off the light over the stairs and went into the bedroom to undress in the dark. It was a clear night, and without the camellia blocking her window, she could lie in Blake’s old four-poster bed and watch the stars until she fell asleep. It was comforting, somehow, to climb in between the fresh sheets, lay her head on the pillow, and think that the last person to sleep here had been Blake himself.

  She gazed at the stars beyond her window, and thought about Preston, who had discovered what it was like to die. Margot had seen plenty of death, as any physician would, but though she had watched people breathe their last, seen their bodies go limp and empty, felt that absence in a room that only a death could create, it was still the final mystery, the one all of her science couldn’t solve.

  She rolled on her side. Only one way to find out, she thought wryly. And she wasn’t ready for that for a long, long time. She yawned, and closed her eyes, warm, comfortable, deliciously drowsy.

  When she startled awake, she had no idea how long she had been asleep. Clouds had rolled in to obscure the stars, and she could see only the faintest outline of the window. She sat up, pushing her tumbled hair away from her perspiring face. She shuddered, thinking of the nightmare that had disturbed her sleep, and glad it was over.

  She had dreamed of Preston. In the dream he was a shadow figure, eerily silent, pursuing her through the corridors of Benedict Hall. She couldn’t see his face, but she knew it was him. She fled from him, up to the third-floor servants’ rooms, down to the basement laundry, around the long porch, through the shrubberies of the garden. He was so close behind her she thought she could feel his breath on her neck. She didn’t know what weapon he might carry, but her back, in the dream, tingled with anticipation of whatever violence he intended.

  In the dream, she reached the garage, and managed, barely, to lock the door before he could follow her inside. He still made no noise, but he hovered outside the garage, demanding she give in to him.

  There was something he wanted. Something he believed she had.

  The whole thing was irrational. Preston was gone. He couldn’t hurt her anymore. The dream was no more than a remnant of the years of conflict and misery.

  But somehow, still, she knew he wanted the sapphire.

  Margot lay down again, and pulled the blankets up to her chin. She would not give in to such a pointless fancy. It was no less silly than Ramona and her fairies. Preston might have believed the stone had some sort of special power, but she was a scientist. She knew better.

  Determinedly, she closed her eyes, and willed herself to go back to sleep. She had to get up early to be at the hospital. She needed her rest.

  It was no use. The sapphire filled the little apartment with its presence, imagined or not. Margot berated herself for allowing an illogical idea to take hold of her—as it had her mother—but she couldn’t banish it.

  “Damn,” she muttered, and threw back the covers.

  She fumbled her way through the dim bedroom and the even darker kitchen. She opened the cupboard, and reached into the back for the coffee can, groping with her fingers. When she got hold of it, and pulled it to the front of the cupboard, she gasped, and nearly dropped it.

  A second later she laughed. It was just a stone, after all. A big sapphire on an antique silver chain.

  But when she had first looked into the old coffee can, she had seen—or thought she had—a blue glow coming from the stone, glimmering through the darkness where there was no light for it to reflect. Flickering, as if—

  “Poppycock,” Margot said aloud. She thumped the can onto the counter with unnecessary force. “It’s a rock, and if it keeps me awake all night, so be it!”

  She turned her back, and marched back to the bedroom. She got into bed, plumped her pillow, and pulled the covers over her head.

  CHAPTER 22

  The day of Frank’s return to Seattle was glorious, brilliant with Indian summer sunshine. The cottonwoods along Aloha were shedding the yellow coins of their leaves, sending drifting veils of gold over the streets and lawns. Margot took the streetcar down Broadway, and walked to King Street Station. There she stood beneath the coffered ceiling, watching the reader board for the train’s arrival time, pacing back and forth on the marble floor as the Northern Pacific train pulled in and the passengers began to disembark.

  She caught sight of him as he made his way past the line of cars toward the station entrance. He wore his Stetson at a jaunty angle, and he carried a valise in one hand and—her heart leaped as she saw it—a newspaper in the other. In the other hand. Not really a hand, of course. It was artificial, a Carnes arm, the latest in prostheses. But that didn’t matter. It didn’t matter in the least. He was wearing it, using it, swinging his arms in the most natural way.

>   Margot’s eyes filled with tears of relief. She pressed the heels of her hands to her cheeks, trying to stop them. He shouldn’t see her crying, for heaven’s sake. He should see her smiling, confident, as if she had always known it would work out.

  He caught sight of her, and she saw his grin from beneath the shadow of his hat brim. She hurried to meet him as he came through the turnstile.

  He didn’t say a word when he reached her. He set his valise on the floor, and his newspaper on top of it, then took her in his arms and squeezed her so tightly she laughed. The artificial arm felt slightly stiff against her back, but she felt the flex of the wrist, the bend of the elbow, and her heart swelled with pride. She hugged him back, both arms around his neck, then kissed his ear, his cheek, and finally found his mouth.

  When he released her at last, her tears had escaped despite her intentions, but it didn’t seem to matter. He brushed them away with his right hand, smiling down at her. “Left hand is a bit hard for tears,” he said. “But it works damned well for everything else.” He held it up to demonstrate. The wrist rotated in a clockwise motion so the jointed fingers turned naturally toward him. When he straightened his arm, the wrist turned back. She ran her hand up his shoulder to feel the snug fit of the brace. “Officer’s arm, they call it,” he said with a chuckle. “Best of the lot.”

  “Oh, Frank,” she said, through tremulous lips. “I’m just so—so happy!”

  He took her in his arms again, oblivious to the people swirling past, jostling them. “Good,” he said huskily. “That’s good.”

  Frank had just completed a circuit of the building site, double-checking measurements before the concrete would be poured, when Margot came striding up Post Street. Her legs, long and slim, flashed beneath her skirt, and Frank remembered that her legs were the first thing he had noticed about Margot Benedict, before he had any idea who she was. Today she wore a small white straw hat and white cotton gloves. Her dress was low waisted and narrow, her hair bobbed to swing just below her earlobes.