Hall of Secrets (A Benedict Hall Novel) (10 page)

She got up and crossed to the mirror to comb her hair. It was mussed from the pillow, and the plaid dress was creased on one side. She tried to smooth the dress, peering at herself in the glass. Only this morning she had been sure she was getting fat again. She had heard, in her memory, her mother saying she wasn’t trying hard enough. That it was a matter of discipline. That she should follow her example.

But Margot said she was too thin, that it wasn’t normal. And her monthlies . . .

She stared forlornly at her reflection, trying to see herself through Margot’s eyes. Maybe it was true. Her wrists looked like sticks, and her collarbones stuck out like chicken wings. Yet, despite those things, the plaid frock was too tight, and even in her absence, Adelaide’s critical eyes seemed to peer over Allison’s shoulder, pointing out her flaws.

She swallowed fresh tears and turned away from the mirror, feeling as lost as a child in a dark wood. How could she know whose judgment to trust? She didn’t know which Allison was real. Was it the fat one? Was it the thin one?

She couldn’t tell, and that meant she couldn’t trust herself, either.

 

“I’ve got two people starving to death under my nose,” Margot said. Blake was stretched out in his Morris chair, his chin on one hand, listening with his usual patience as she paced his room, restless and out of sorts. “Mother looks like she’d blow away in a stiff breeze. And Cousin Allison! I know girls think it’s smart to be thin, with styles so boyish these days, but she’s nothing but bones. Hattie does her best—” At Blake’s sudden wry expression, she chuckled. “Well, she does, Blake. It’s hard to go wrong with a sandwich, isn’t it? It was just a sandwich, fresh bread and butter and cheese. The child hardly touched it.”

He smiled up at her. “Now, Dr. Margot, you stop that striding around here and sit down for a moment. You’re looking a bit poorly yourself, you know.”

“Nonsense.” She pulled the straight chair close to him and perched on it, grinning at Blake. “You always say that, but I’m just the same as always. I was never a Gibson Girl anyway.”

“No,” he said. “You’re just you. Just as you should be.”

“There’s a book I need to get my hands on, something about girls who don’t eat. I’ve forgotten the title, but I read an extract somewhere. There might be other cases like Allison.”

“You’ll find the answer,” Blake said with confidence. “You always do.”

Margot exhaled a long, slow sigh. “You place such faith in me! I’m not so sure. There’s something odd about her. She’s nineteen, an adult, really, but in many ways she’s like a child, as if . . .”

“Perhaps her parents have kept her that way on purpose.”

“Yes. Perhaps.” She pushed her fingers through her hair. “So much is happening just now, all at once—the clinic is built, but there are a hundred details to be settled. Work at the hospital is going well, but it takes a lot of time, and then at home, with Mother . . . Well. It never seems to stop.”

“I think,” Blake said with deliberation, “that you are in need of some help. It’s time I came back to Benedict Hall.”

Margot tipped her head to one side, eyeing him. “Let me ask Dr. Henderson for his opinion.”

“Dr. Henderson was here two days ago. He said I’m doing fine, and that he didn’t need to make this long drive down here anymore.”

“He did not!”

Blake chuckled, a deep, easy sound. “Yes, indeed he did, Dr. Margot. I’ve been most fortunate to have not one but two of the best physicians in Seattle, and it seems that one of them has now washed his hands of me!”

“Surely he didn’t advise your going back to work so soon.”

“I’ve been a layabout for more than a year,” he said, with a spark in his eye that assured her the old Blake was still there. And that he had made up his mind. “I am most grateful to feel that I’m needed. I’m sure Hattie will be glad.”

“I know she will,” Margot said. “But, Blake—you will have limitations. You’ll need your cane.”

“I can work with my cane.”

She shook her finger with mock sternness. “I’m going to set strict rules on your hours, I warn you!”

“You do that, Dr. Margot. You just do that. But tell them I’m coming home. Hattie can put fresh sheets on my bed.”

“I’m sure she’ll be delighted,” Margot said. She looked away from him, wondering how to confess that she had been sleeping in his bed all this time.

“And you,” he said with a straight face, “can go back to your own bedroom, where you belong.”

Margot was startled into a laugh. “Hattie told you! She promised she wouldn’t.”

“Of course Hattie told me.” He winked at her. “I have to keep my hand in, don’t I? How else can I see that everything’s done properly?”

“I was sure you wouldn’t like me being in your apartment, but—”

“It wasn’t what I would have chosen for you,” Blake said, more somberly now. “But I know it’s been hard.”

“It hasn’t been hard staying in your apartment, Blake. Actually, it’s been a comfort.”

“Now, how could that be? Your own bedroom must be much more comfortable than my little rooms over the garage.”

Margot struggled to put her elusive feelings into words. “The thing is, Blake—I have always felt safe there. And happy. There were books, and cocoa, and—” She spread her hands and smiled.

“Such small things,” he said.

“I suppose. But it was a place where I felt protected.”

Blake’s eyelids lowered in acknowledgment of this truth. He gazed down at his dark-veined hands, turning them this way and that. “It was difficult at times,” he said. “I’m not sure I did all I could.”

“Of course you did,” Margot said. “You did everything possible. Preston was going to be lost no matter what, Blake. There are some people who are like that, I think. Born that way.”

“Preston’s been gone more than a year, though. Surely you could have moved back into the house. Let Hattie and the twins take proper care of you.”

“It was about Mother. She holds me responsible.”

“Well, that’s not right, of course.”

“I know that, and you do. Father does, bless him. She doesn’t.”

“I guess Mrs. Edith can’t get over losing Mr. Preston.”

“She hasn’t accepted that he’s gone. She keeps his place set at the table, and his room . . .” Margot leaned back in her chair to stare out the window at the dark street beyond. “She’ll never believe it was his own fault,” she mused. “Never. She has to have someone to blame, it seems, and I’m it.”

“She doesn’t really blame you, Dr. Margot.”

“I think she does, Blake. You know, I’m afraid—” She broke off, shifting in her chair, bringing her gaze back to his dark, understanding one. “I don’t think Mother’s quite sane. I wish I had some idea what might bring her back to us.”

C
HAPTER
9

Allison had just taken her seat at the breakfast table when Hattie came in bearing a platter of ham steak and fried eggs. The family was all present except for Margot, who had set off early for the hospital. Uncle Dickson looked up, smiling at Hattie, even setting down his paper to speak to her.

“You’re looking cheerful, Hattie!” he said, sounding unusually cheerful himself. “I suppose Margot told you the news.”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Dickson, oh, yes. Praise the Lord! This is a fine day indeed.” Hattie carried the platter to his end of the table and set it at his right hand. “I’m serving you all this morning so the twins can move Miss Margot’s things back to her own bedroom and get that apartment shipshape.”

Dick chuckled at this. “I’m sure you’ve kept it shipshape all along, Hattie.”

Dickson served himself, and Hattie lifted the tray to carry it to Aunt Edith. “Well, we been trying, Mr. Dick, but you know how Miss Margot is. She don’t like a fuss.”

Ramona said, “It will be such a relief to have everyone back where they belong.”

Allison said, “Cousin Ramona, what is it? What’s the good news?”

Ramona smiled at Allison as she served herself from Hattie’s platter. She took two eggs and a thick slice of ham. Allison watched her. No one raised their eyebrows when Cousin Ramona took toast for her plate, or potatoes, or enjoyed her dessert. She just—just ate. It was curious.

As Hattie moved on, Ramona said, “Blake is coming home today. Our butler. He’s been gone more than a year.”

Allison wanted to ask where he’d been, but she wasn’t sure that was a polite question. Maybe he’d been in jail or something, and no one wanted to talk about it.

“We have to remember,” Uncle Dickson said, “that Margot says he’s not to work too hard. He may not be strong yet.”

Oh. He’d been ill. Allison wondered what had been wrong with him.

“What about the Essex?” Dick said. “Are you going to keep driving, Father, or is Blake allowed to do that?”

“I made a point of asking Henderson about that,” Dickson said. “He thinks if Blake feels up to it, he can drive.”

“Won’t that be nice!” Ramona said. “To have the motorcar to take us places again. I’ve missed that.” She turned to her left and said, “Won’t that be nice, Mother Benedict?”

Hattie had just brought the tray to Aunt Edith and was holding it out to her with a hopeful look. Aunt Edith took an egg and the smallest piece of ham, and murmured vaguely, “The motorcar? Oh, no, thank you. I don’t want to ride in the motorcar.”

There was a long, embarrassed silence around the table, broken only by Hattie coming to Allison and offering her the tray. Allison took an egg and slid it onto her plate. Hattie said under her breath, “Just a bit of ham, Miss Allison. You can manage that.” Allison’s cheeks warmed, but she took a piece of ham, putting it on her plate next to the egg. Hattie said, “There you go, miss. That’s good ham. You gonna like that.”

Allison had been careful to make a good show of eating something at every meal, especially when Cousin Margot was there. She suspected Margot of colluding with Hattie to keep track of what she consumed. Every day she looked in her mirror, watching for signs of bigger thighs and a swelling stomach. Ruby had caught her at that just yesterday, caught her pinching the skin around her ribs. Ruby said, “Miss Allison, what are you worrying about? You’re bony as a bird!” Allison had just shaken her head. She made a point of not telling Ruby any of her private thoughts, because she was sure they went straight to Papa.

Papa thought he knew all the secrets. He was wrong, though. He didn’t know about the spoon.

 

Allison’s mother had refused to send the plaid dress back to Magnin’s. Though the gown for that weekend’s ball still fit, Adelaide announced that Allison should take the incident of the plaid frock as a warning. She bade Allison take off the blue-and-silver dress and restore its cotton covering, then said, “Wait here. I’m going to bring you something.”

Allison was seated at her dressing table, pulling on long black stockings, when her mother returned. Allison glanced up, searching her mother’s hands for whatever it was she meant to bring her. Adelaide shook her head as she shut the bedroom door and turned the lock on the inside. She crossed the room again, moved the ewer from the bedside stand, and lifted the basin to carry it to the dressing table. From her pocket she drew a small silver spoon and laid it beside the basin. Allison watched, mystified.

Adelaide said, in a hushed, almost reverent tone, “This is a secret, Allison. A woman’s secret. You’re old enough to know some things.”

Beginning to feel uneasy, Allison said, “What things, Mother?”

Adelaide’s painted lips curled down at the corners, pulling long, shallow creases in her cheeks. “It’s not easy being a woman in this world. I’m sorry to say that, but it’s true. Our lot in life is to take care of men, to do what they want, to have their babies and raise them. The men never think about what we might feel, about how they hurt us, about how hard it is to keep them happy.”

“Why are we expected to keep—”

Adelaide put up her hand. “Men,” she said, “are slaves to their desires. They can’t help it, and we have to live with it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Allison fidgeted uneasily with the lacy covering of the dressing table. “What does any of this have to do with that spoon?”

Adelaide’s lips pressed so tight they nearly disappeared as she drew a noisy breath through her nostrils. “Listen to me,” she said. “You listen to me, Allison. I know you think you’re smart, but I can tell you, it’s one of God’s little jokes to give women brains. They don’t serve us very well, not the way the world is.” She smoothed her dress over her flat stomach. “The only thing we have to work with, the only weapon we have, is our looks. Our—” Her voice lowered as if she were speaking a dirty word. “Our
bodies
.”

“Mother.” Allison gazed up at her mother, and a chill crept through her middle. She lowered her voice, too, although she wasn’t quite sure why. “Mother—our bodies?”

“I’m afraid so,” Adelaide said, with a tiny shudder. “But we don’t have to talk about
that.
You’ll find out when you’re married. That’s soon enough. That’s when you’ll understand how important it is to a man.”

“How important what is?”

Her mother glanced away. “I don’t like discussing this, Allison.”

“I don’t even know what you—”

Her mother sighed. “This is difficult for me, but if I don’t tell you, I feel I’m failing in my responsibility.” She turned a bleak gaze toward the window, where a San Francisco fog curled in wisps past the glass. “I saw it with my own parents, and I vowed I would never let it happen to me.”

“What? Gaining weight?”

Adelaide blinked and looked back at Allison, startled and frowning. “Of course! Isn’t that what we’ve been talking about?”

“Mother! I don’t know
what
we’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about holding on to your husband. About not letting yourself go so that he looks elsewhere for his—” Her cheeks colored, and she averted her gaze to the window once again. “For his needs.” She cleared her throat and said, “I’m sorry to be indelicate with you, Allison, but this is the truth of a woman’s life.” She coughed again. “My mother—your grandmother—got very stout, and my father was famous for his mistresses.”

“Grandfather?”
Allison couldn’t help a burst of laughter. “He’s so
old!
And he’s awfully stout himself, isn’t he?”

“He wasn’t always old,” Adelaide said. “Nor so stout. Everyone knew what he was doing, and he threw it in Mother’s face every chance he got. He drove her into an early grave, and I swore I would never let Henry do the same to me.” She reached for the spoon and held it out on her palm. “I’m going to show you how to do this, Allison. It won’t be pleasant, but I’ll only have to show you once. You’ll thank me one day.”

To say that it had been unpleasant was an understatement, Allison thought. In all her life she had never seen her mother undressed. She had never observed her in the bathroom or even in the bath. They were a private family, and such things were considered improper and distasteful for people of their class. Yet that day, her mother had pulled another spoon out of her pocket—her own, personal spoon, the silver nearly destroyed from years of use—and put it down her throat. She had vomited into the basin, a nasty thin stream that made Allison’s own stomach spasm and her gorge rise in her throat. Afterward, Adelaide wiped her mouth daintily, cleaned the spoon, and took the basin to the bathroom to empty it. Throughout all of this Allison gazed at her in horror, eyes wide and throat convulsing with nausea.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Adelaide said when she returned from the bathroom. “I felt it was necessary.” She had rinsed the basin and wiped it dry, and she tossed the towel and her handkerchief into the laundry hamper beside the wardrobe. “Believe me, it’s nothing compared with the mess of giving birth.”

Allison was speechless. Even now, more than a year later, the memory made her skin crawl. When she tried the whole thing for herself, she was no less repelled. It was effective, that she couldn’t deny, but it was a hideous practice. She loathed it.

Ultimately, to her mother’s satisfaction, Allison fit into the plaid frock. The early victory went to Adelaide.

What Adelaide didn’t understand, however, was that it was only the first skirmish. A prolonged conflict was to follow, and Allison would fight for her own side with all her strength.

She decided early on that not eating was much simpler than using the silver spoon. Why put food in her stomach only to bring it up again? Meals in her parents’ overdecorated dining room were more about formality than food in any case. She found an added benefit, a private and unexpected satisfaction, in watching her father scowl over her uneaten meals, then turn an accusing look to her mother.

Adelaide didn’t understand at first. She didn’t have, Allison thought, the real subtlety of mind to wage this kind of war. She didn’t comprehend any new tactic.

Allison fit into the plaid frock, but before long, all her other gowns had to be altered, taken in at the hips and bust, tightened at the waistline. Her father, who rarely noticed much about Allison except for the occasional tennis trophy, growled one evening that she looked more like a boy than a girl. He said, pointing a thick finger at her untouched serving of fried fish and buttered rice, “Eat something, for Christ’s sake, Allison.”

Allison said in a mild voice, “I’m just not hungry, Papa,” even as she shot her mother a triumphant glance.

Adelaide had frowned, the thin skin of her face crumpling like dry paper. She looked down at Allison’s plate, and then, her eyes full of suspicion, up at her husband. His attention was already directed elsewhere, but Adelaide must have understood, at that precise moment, just what was happening. The battle was joined, and this time, the advantage was all Allison’s.

That had been a full year earlier. Allison had never intended to stop eating entirely, but somehow, once she got started, it was a difficult custom to break. Her empty stomach, the flatness of her bosom, even the persistent hunger she felt, had all become habitual. It was comforting in the way that any routine, however difficult, can be comforting. Even now, away from her adversary’s eye, she sat at the breakfast table of Benedict Hall, cutting a piece of ham steak into the smallest possible pieces, moving them this way and that, managing to mix the ham and the egg so it looked as if she had eaten most of it. She was fiercely hungry, but she tried to quench her appetite with coffee. She let the ham sit in the broken egg until it cooled and congealed, and no longer held any appeal. When Hattie returned to clear the plates, she said, “Now, Miss Allison, I’ll just let you work on that for a bit.” Everyone else had finished, and Hattie carried the stack of used plates out of the dining room, backing through the swinging door and bustling away with her long apron flying around her like white wings.

No one else seemed to notice that Allison hadn’t eaten anything. Uncle Dickson and Cousin Dick rose from the table and headed out to collect hats and coats and briefcases to go to their office. Aunt Edith stood up, and Cousin Ramona hurried to her side to help her out of the dining room. In the doorway, Ramona cast a glance over her shoulder. “Oh, Allison, I’m sorry to leave you on your own. I need to check that the twins have Margot’s room ready, and I want to arrange to have her telephone moved.”

Allison said, “Can I help with anything?”

Ramona was already halfway through the door with her hand under her mother-in-law’s arm. “That’s sweet, dear. If I think of something, I’ll send Ruby for you.”

Then she was gone, leaving Allison alone at the dining table, staring at the plate of cold ham and crusted egg. The place set at Aunt Edith’s right hand was still there, as it was at every meal, clean plate and unused flatware, a crystal glass, a neatly folded napkin. Her own dirty plate looked even more revolting by comparison.

She heard the quick patter of feet on the main staircase, a sound she had learned was the twins, working side by side. She heard the bang of the big front door as Uncle Dickson and Dick left the house, and a moment later the purr of the Essex pulling out of the garage and down the driveway to the street. A snatch of song wafted from the kitchen, where Hattie was doing the dishes. Allison rose, pushing her chair back, then shifting it into place beneath the table. She would have liked to scrape her plate clean, but that would mean carrying it into the kitchen, and she didn’t know if . . .

She didn’t realize the singing had stopped. As she debated with herself over the plate, the door to the dining room opened and Hattie looked in. She didn’t notice Allison standing uncertainly behind her chair. Her gaze went to the clean place setting, and a sudden, distressing look of grief dragged at her face, making her eyes droop and her round cheeks sag. Allison, seeing, caught a little breath of dismay. Hattie started, turning in surprise. Her eyes had gone red, with generous tears forming in the corners.