“Who’s that?” one of the workmen asked, leaning on his shovel.
“Dr. Benedict,” Frank said.
The man gave a low whistle. “I never seen no doctor who looked like that!”
Frank chuckled, and went to meet her. When he told her what the workman had said, she laughed. “You should have seen what I put on first! I got dressed to dig in the dirt, but then Hattie wouldn’t let me out of the house unless I changed. Hattie, who gave me such a look when I cut my hair and shortened my skirts! Now she says my young man shouldn’t see me in a dowdy three-year-old dress.”
She squeezed his fingers, and they walked together up the street to the site.
All the detritus from the fire had been cleared away. To Frank, the bare dirt seemed as full of possibilities as a freshly ploughed bed must seem to a gardener. He could see the new building in his mind as clearly as if he had sketched it in the air, the footings installed, the walls constructed and poured. He pointed here and there, telling Margot where her office would be, where the examining room and the waiting room would stand. In his plans, he had rotated the building so that the window of her office gave her a glimpse of the waters of the bay. The entrance to the building would be wider than it had been, with a short walk to the street. He planned a trellis to make it inviting.
“And I have a surprise,” he said.
She smiled. “Show me.”
He had wrapped it in a piece of canvas, and laid it ready for this morning. As he folded the material back, she exclaimed, “Frank! Where did you get it?”
“It was in the pile of things to be carted off.” With pride, he handed it to her.
She took the sign, and ran a loving hand over its surface. M. BENEDICT, M. D., it proclaimed, in fresh red paint. The new varnish sparkled in the sunlight. “Oh, Frank! This is the nicest thing you could have done for me. Thank you so much.”
“Glad you like it.”
They stood together watching the concrete for the slab flow in a thick, gritty stream onto a neat layer of gravel that had been trucked in from the foothills. By the time the men started smoothing and detailing the slab, the sun was high overhead, and the heat had begun to rise. It was, Frank thought, a fine omen that there was no rain today. The concrete would cure perfectly.
The men wandered off with their lunch pails to find some shade. Frank was about to ask Margot if she wanted to go down the street to the café for some lunch when she released his arm, put her hand in her pocket, and stepped close to the smoothed wet concrete. He followed, wondering, and stood behind her as she crouched next to the northwest corner, where the anchor bolt showed above the level of the soil. He caught sight of the sapphire in her hand, gleaming blue in the sun. It was a beautiful thing, surely a valuable thing. And she was going to drop it into the wet cement.
He said, “Wait!”
She glanced at him over her shoulder. “Why? Do you want it?”
“Margo—a museum, or something—”
She held up the necklace, and the sapphire revolved slowly in the sunshine. “I don’t think so,” she murmured. “I know it’s not scientific—but there’s something strange about this stone. It has an effect on people, real or imagined, and I think it’s better if it’s hidden away.” She grinned. “You’ll think I’m becoming a spiritualist, I suppose.”
Frank crouched, too, his bent knee touching her shoulder. “The thing scared Carter.”
“Preston seemed to think it had some sort of power, but then, my brother wasn’t really sane. Mother is sane, of course, but she’d had a lot of sedation. That might account for her obsessing over it. Everything can be explained in a logical way.”
“But?”
She turned her face up to the sunshine, closing her eyes, drawing a deep breath. “It’s a feeling. It’s like—like when I know what’s wrong with a patient before I really have enough information to make a diagnosis.”
“Instinct.”
“Yes.” She made a rueful face. “Many of my colleagues don’t believe in instinct, of course. They want facts. Evidence.”
“But you—”
“I prefer facts, believe me. But when instinct is what there is . . .”
“Margot.” He touched her shoulder with the fabricated fingers of his left hand. “Do what you want with it.”
She nodded. She held the stone out on its chain, then released it so it dropped into the wet cement, chain and stone lying on the surface in a little crater of gray paste. With her finger, she pushed it beneath the surface. He reached down to help her, pressing down the links of the chain until the whole thing disappeared. He got up, and went to the pile of tools at one side of the foundation to find a trowel. He carried it back, and smoothed the surface of the wet cement.
When they stood up, there was no sign they had disturbed the slab at all. Margot sighed. “It will be safe there,” she said, “for a very long time.”
Frank encircled her with his arm, and bent to kiss her cheek. “Too bad, though,” he said softly, his lips right beside her ear. “It could have helped buy our house.”
He felt the tremor that ran through her, and heard her sudden intake of breath. She said in a dry whisper, “What? What did you say?”
He held her close to him, his cheek against her sun-warmed hair. “Our house,” he repeated. “When we’re married.”
She drew back, and her chin lifted in that challenging way he had come to recognize. “Frank Parrish,” she said sharply. “Is that a proposal?”
He held his ground against her level gaze, but it wasn’t easy, and thinking that made him smile. “Cowboy proposal, I guess.” Her lips parted, but she didn’t speak. He released her, and stood back a little. “Margot—are you surprised?”
“I—” Her chin dropped, and she bit her lip. “I just thought— it was so nice, being together. Having each other. I didn’t think beyond that.”
“But it’s natural,” he said awkwardly. “A man and a girl. The next step.”
Her expression was one of confusion, even fear. He wanted to pull her against him, to kiss away her doubts, but he made himself stand still. She said, “Frank—I’m going to want to practice. To go on being a doctor.”
“Why wouldn’t you?”
She stared at him, her lips parted, her cheeks flushed. “My mother would be so relieved someone wanted me. She would say that now I should settle down. Give up all this foolishness.”
“And my mother,” he said, in as steady a voice as he could manage, “would call that a terrible waste.”
“I want to meet her, Frank.”
“She wants to meet you.”
“Even if . . .” Margot’s voice trailed off. She turned her head away from him, gazing out to the west, where the waters of Puget Sound sparkled bravely in the cool sunlight. “I just never thought I would be . . . a wife, I suppose. Someone’s wife, like someone’s house or someone’s automobile. It has always seemed so—constricting.”
“I don’t want to constrict you.”
“I don’t know if you could help it.”
“But you—you do want to be with me?”
She turned swiftly back to him. “Oh, yes! I want to be with you!” She moved close to him, pressing her cheek to his chest, pushing her little hat askew. “Frank, there are so many things that change when a woman marries. It’s not the same for a man.”
“What’s not the same?”
“A woman is expected to change her name.”
It was his turn to hesitate, to gaze out toward the water in search of answers. He said, searching for the right words, “I’d like you to have my name, but if you don’t want to take it—” He broke off.
She pulled back, and looked up at him as she straightened her hat. “I love you,” she blurted in a rush. “I’m ruining this, I know, but—I warned you I’m not like other women!”
Relieved, he grinned at her. “I don’t want other women.”
“You really don’t mind if I—” Her voice broke, and he saw that her eye
s shone with sudden, surprised tears. “If I go on being—me?”
“Margot!” He gripped her hands, one in his good, flesh right hand, the other in his careful, stiff, but working left. “Sweetheart! I wouldn’t want you any other way!”
“It doesn’t seem possible.” Her chin thrust forward, even as one of the tears trembled on her eyelashes and escaped down her cheek. “But I’m so glad, Frank! You’re just—you’re the most wonderful man!”
At this he burst into laughter. He put his arm around her to guide her away from the building site and down toward the Public Market. “I want to buy you flowers,” he said. “And try to propose properly.” He squeezed her against him. “But only if you promise to say yes.”
She flashed him a sidelong look. “We’ll see,” she said, but she was smiling, and she pressed herself close to his side, their steps matching as they walked. “We’ll just see.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The year 1920 seems in many ways a very long time ago, while in others it feels like yesterday. Medicine and fashion and technology were on the brink of great change, but had not yet stepped over that threshold. I’m deeply indebted to the following for helping me find what I needed to understand my characters and their period: Dean Crosgrove, P.A.C.; Nancy Crosgrove, R.N.; Phyllis Hollenbeck, M.D., author of Sacred Trust; Becky Kyle, medical librarian; John Little, Assistant Curator of the Museum of Flight, Seattle; the librarians of the King County Library System, who so tirelessly search for answers to even the most arcane questions; Hepzibah, a reference specialist in the Special Collections Division at the University of Washington Libraries; and Donald J. Ostrand of the Vintage Telephone Equipment Museum of Seattle.
Heartfelt thanks go to my first reader, Zack Marley. The fine writers Brenda Cooper and Cat Rambo provided discerning and incisive critiques. The Tahuya Writers group—Brian Bek, Jeralee Chapman, Niven Marquis, Dave Newton, and Catherine Whitehead—provided critical ears and emotional support.
A special note of thanks is due to my agent, Peter Rubie, and my editor, Audrey LaFehr: Thank you both for your encouragement and advice. This project wouldn’t exist without your help.
Readers are invited to visit www.catecampbell.net to read more about Benedict Hall and the 1920s.
A READING GROUP GUIDE
BENEDICT HALL
Cate Campbell
About This Guide
The suggested questions are included
to enhance your group’s reading of
Cate Campbell’s Benedict Hall.
Discussion Questions
1. The period following World War I, which ended in 1918, was one of social upheaval. In what ways do the different members of the Benedict family model the changes in society?
2. Margot Benedict faces strong opposition to her struggle for equal opportunities in a male-dominated field, and is working in a time of diminishing numbers of women physicians. Why do you think there is so much resistance to her efforts and those of other women of the day?
3. Do you think professional women face similar obstacles in the present day? What choices do women have now that they lacked in the 1920s?
4. Dickson Benedict and his daughter have spirited arguments over social issues. Do you think Dickson takes opposing views from Margot because he believes them, or purely for the sake of the debate?
5. Fashions for women changed much more swiftly in the 1920s than ever before in western history. Why do you think that was the case? What do shorter hemlines, bobbed hair, discarded corsets, and even the use of cosmetics tell us about how the role of women in society was changing?
6. Preston Benedict is convinced that the sapphire he stole in Jerusalem imbues him with special powers. Do you think his conviction is what creates that power? Do you think his belief speaks to the state of his sanity?
7. Abraham Blake was born free, although his parents were slaves, set free only by the Emancipation Proclamation. He is grateful to Dickson Benedict for his place in Benedict Hall, but do you think he is still, in essence, an indentured servant? Was there any other choice for him?
8. Edith Benedict is a product of her time, a woman accustomed to comfort and wealth and assured of her social role. Her daughter, Margot, grew up with the same advantages. In what ways are these two women different? Are there any similarities between them?
9. Margot Benedict is practicing medicine nearly a decade before the advent of antibiotics. Are you surprised, reading the novel, at the level of medical sophistication being practiced in her day? Are there elements of Margot’s medical practice that remain unchanged almost a century later?
10. Toward the end of the novel, Ramona Benedict reveals her own special talent for fashion, and helps her sister-in-law to choose clothes that flatter her instead of making her look like the dowdy lady doctor, as she did in the Times photograph. Do you think that Ramona and Margot, two such different women, have discovered a basis for friendship?
KENSINGTON BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp. 119 West 40th Street New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2013 by Louise Marley
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
Kensington and the K logo Reg. U.S. Pat. & TM Off.
ISBN: 978-0-7582-8759-5
eISBN-13: 978-0-7582-8760-1
eISBN-10: 0-7582-8760-7
First Kensington Electronic Edition: June 2013
Benedict Hall Page 39
