Hall of Secrets (A Benedict Hall Novel) (28 page)

“We
will
talk about that, Allison,” Margot said firmly. “I’m going to help you with your admissions, and if you like, help you choose a course of study. Nothing has changed.”

Allison brightened noticeably. “Oh! Thank you! I can hardly wait.”

“Excellent. Now.” Margot rested her linked hands on the desk blotter. “You know Dr. Creedy suggested your mother spend some time in a sanitorium, Allison. She’s much too thin, and he feels—and I agree—that we need to understand why that is. It’s not only her bones that are affected. She shows signs of anaemia—fatigue, weakness, thin fingernails—some of which you exhibited yourself. I believe there is also some cognitive impairment, which—well, you don’t need to worry about that. Dr. Creedy discussed all this with your father. In the sanitorium, your mother should be able to put on some weight, and—”

“Oh, she won’t,” Allison said with confidence.

“Pardon?”

“She won’t put on weight. She’ll see to it she doesn’t.”

Margot frowned. “What do you mean? How can she ‘see to it’? She’ll have a lot of rest, and nourishing meals—”

“She throws them up, Cousin Margot.” Allison emitted a gusty sigh.

“What—do you mean, she vomits?”

“Yes.”

“Does food make her ill?”

“No, I don’t think so. She does it on purpose. All the time.” Allison spoke with resignation. “Mother stays thin because after she eats she puts a spoon down her throat and—” She gave a slight shudder. “I know it’s disgusting. It’s because she doesn’t want to get stout like her mother did.”

Margot pressed a fingertip to her lips, thinking. In truth, despite all her experience, it
was
disgusting. She thought back over the papers she had read. Neither Simmonds nor Janet had mentioned behavior like this. After a moment she dropped her hand and said, carefully, “Allison—do
you
do this?”

“No!” Allison shook her damp curls. “She gave me a spoon of my own, but I—”

“She did
what?
” Margot stared at her young cousin in horror. “She wanted you to do the same thing?”

Allison fell silent, gazing at Margot with wide eyes and parted lips.

“Oh, my dear,” Margot said helplessly. “I can’t—I hardly know what to say about that.”

Allison looked away, and spoke in a small voice. “I didn’t like it, Cousin Margot, but Mother said I was getting fat. I just—I couldn’t make myself do what she wanted. It was easier not to eat in the first place.”

“Fat,” Margot echoed. “She said you were fat.” She eyed the slight girl opposite her, nearly swallowed by her scarlet coat. Her cheeks were hollow, her neck slender and fragile-looking. “Allison, you’re not fat. You’re the opposite of fat.”

Allison lifted her eyes to the window, and Margot followed her gaze to the view of the bay. The early winter darkness had already fallen, but white ship lights glimmered here and there like stars dropped into the water. Margot waited, giving the girl time. It was a moment to be silent. To let understanding grow in the empty space that must exist in Allison’s young heart.

Allison let her coat fall from her shoulders and sat hugging herself as she gazed out into the night. “Sometimes,” she said mournfully, “I know I’m not fat. Sometimes I can see it in the mirror, that my stomach and my—my bust—that they look normal. Even sort of thin.” She turned pleading eyes to Margot. “But other times, when Mother’s been telling me, I see this awful shape. My thighs, and my waist, they look like they belong to someone else. Someone I don’t recognize. Sometimes I think I’m hideous.” Shining tears rose in her eyes, and she wiped them away with her fingers. “Sometimes,” she finished in a whisper, “I get so confused I think I must be crazy. Because I don’t know what’s real.”

Margot took a clean handkerchief from a desk drawer and handed it across the desk. She wanted to get up, to put her arms around the girl, but she made herself wait. It was too soon. Just now Allison needed a doctor, not a friend. She spoke as gently as she knew how. “Allison, I think your mother is even more confused than you are. I don’t know if we can help her, but I want to help you.”

“Hattie says my mother loves me,” Allison said, her voice catching in a sob. “Do you think so?”

“I’m not much of a judge of love,” Margot said. “I wish I were better at it.”

Allison blew her nose and dabbed at her wet eyelashes, then crumpled the handkerchief in her lap. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Margot said. “You’re having a natural reaction to an unhappy situation.” She tapped her fingers on her blotter and tried to think how best to proceed.

“Is my mother crazy? Is that why she does these things?”

“I don’t think
crazy
is the right word,” Margot said cautiously. “But I do think Aunt Adelaide has gone too far. For both of you,” she added. “She’s created a situation, for whatever reason, which has made her ill. My concern is that it threatens to make you ill, too.”

Allison surprised her with a tremulous, tearstained smile. “I’ll be all right, Cousin Margot,” she said. “I’m working on it.”

“May I help you with that?” Margot asked. “One reason I wanted you to come here was to weigh you, check your blood pressure, examine you—because these are the things I know how to do, and because I hope I can help that way.”

“Yes. Yes, we can do those things, and I think it’s really nice of you. Also—” Allison hesitated, her gaze shifting away, and then back. “I hope you won’t think it’s strange, but Hattie helps me, too. I know she’s just your servant, your cook—”

Margot chuckled. “I think you’ve guessed by now that none of us thinks of Hattie or Blake as just servants.”

Allison’s smile steadied. “Hattie’s kitchen is my favorite place in Benedict Hall.”

Margot thought of her early-morning chats with Blake at the white enamel table, while the whole house slept around them. It was nice that even in an enormous place like Benedict Hall the kitchen felt like home, at least to one or two of the family. “Well, then. As long as you’re amenable, let’s get you on the scale, and I’ll record your blood pressure. Can you promise, do you think, that if you feel you’re having trouble, you could come and talk to me?”

“Yes. And I can talk to Hattie. I always feel better when I talk to Hattie.”

Margot knew what her mother would think of such an answer, and even more, what Aunt Adelaide would think of it. But since she herself had relied on Blake countless times, over the entire length of her life, she could only say, “Yes, Allison, you could certainly talk to Hattie. Sometimes we find comfort in the most surprising places.”

In the circle of someone’s prosthetic arm, for example. But she couldn’t think about that now.

C
HAPTER
26

When Margot emerged from the hospital, she stepped into a swirl of fat snowflakes that spangled the sleeves of her new blue coat and caught on her eyelashes as she hurried across the sidewalk to the waiting Essex. The automobile looked as if it had been sprinkled with confectioner’s sugar, and Blake’s driving cap, when he stepped out to open her door, was soon glistening with snow.

“We’d best get up the hill before this gets any worse,” Margot said from the backseat. Even a small amount of Seattle snow, wet and slippery, could make Aloha impassable.

“We will, Dr. Margot. Don’t worry.”

“It’s pretty, though, isn’t it, Blake?”

“We’ll enjoy it more from the windows of Benedict Hall.” She laughed and sat back to leave the problem of negotiating the hill to Blake. Christmas Eve of 1921 fell on a Saturday, and Margot had decided that was a good reason not to hold clinic hours. She gave Angela Rossi the day off, and except for three patients at the hospital, she meant to do the same.

The snow thickened on the streets and sidewalks by the time Blake dropped her at the front gate. All the windows of Benedict Hall glowed with light, and someone had looped a string of red and green Christmas lights in the picture window. They twinkled gaily through the flutter of snowflakes, and Margot took her time moving up the walk, savoring the holiday mood. The tree had been set up at the foot of the staircase, towering all the way to the molded ceiling. Boxes of ornaments, dusty from the attic, waited nearby. The hall smelled marvelously of evergreen boughs and Christmas baking.

Margot hung up her coat and was unpinning her hat, smiling a little at the familiar voices sounding from the small parlor. Her father. Dick. Allison and Ramona, laughing.

And—she could hardly believe it—it was Frank she heard with them, just a word or two, but unmistakably Frank!

She hastily straightened her skirt with her hands and tried to sort out her disordered hair. Frank must have heard the front door, because he came out into the hall and strode toward her. He looked wonderful, his hair freshly cut, his jacket some new tweed thing she hadn’t seen before, his eyes bright with pleasure. He didn’t say a word, but folded her into his arms and pressed her against him for such a long time that she began to laugh and wriggle to get free. He kissed her then, firmly and at length. He released her only when Blake, coming out from the kitchen, ostentatiously cleared his throat.

Margot and Frank moved apart, smiling. Blake said, with exaggerated gravity, “How good to see you in Benedict Hall again, Major Parrish.”

Frank’s lean cheeks flushed, but there was laughter in his voice. “Thank you very much, Blake. Merry Christmas.”

“And to you, sir.” Blake, carrying a tray, walked past them and down the hall to the dining room. At the door he turned back and said, “Luncheon is in twenty minutes, Dr. Margot. You and the major have time to join the family for a cup of cider, if you like.”

“We will. Thank you.” When Blake had disappeared, Margot said, “Frank, why didn’t you tell me you were coming? You keep surprising me!”

“Yes, I know,” he said. “But today—well—I had something to talk to your father about.”

“To Father? About what?”

He hesitated, and his cheeks colored even more deeply.

“Frank Parrish, you’re blushing like a boy! What are you up to?”

“Well, Margot.” He coughed a little and let his gaze drift above her head, to the very top of the fir tree. “What do you think a man speaks to his girl’s father about?”

“Oh, Frank, don’t be silly. I’m hardly a girl. I’m nearly thirty. . . .” The impact of his words came a heartbeat too late, and she broke off. “What—you didn’t!”

“I did.” He looked terribly young with his cheeks so flushed, despite the streaks of silver in his hair. She wanted to put up her hand and touch his face, but at that moment Thelma appeared with a soup tureen, passing them with a bob of a curtsy.

Frank seized Margot’s left hand in his natural right one. “Can’t talk in here, Margot. Too many people around. Let’s go out on the porch.”

“It’s freezing! Did you know it’s snowing?”

“Put your coat back on.”

He was smiling, but she saw that his hand trembled slightly as he helped her into her coat and shrugged into his own. They stepped out onto the porch, where the falling snow sparkled under the lights of the windows. “It’s beautiful,” Margot said. “We don’t get a lot of snow in Seattle.”

“Different snow from Montana.”

“Much wetter, yes.” She turned to him. “Now, tell me, Frank.”

He took her hand again, this time holding it in both of his. “I’ve spoken to your father,” he began.

Margot felt a giggle rise in her throat, from embarrassment, from wonder, from hope. “So old-fashioned, Frank!”

“Old-fashioned cowboy,” he said. “And you can stop laughing. This is serious.”

She put her free hand to her mouth and tried very hard to look solemn.

“Not very convincing,” he said.

“You’re taking too long about it!”

“You’re making it hard.”

“I’m sorry,” she said and reached up to kiss his cheek. “There now, I’m serious.”

He stepped back a little, so he could see her face. “Margot, I—the thing is, when Elizabeth wrote to me, I realized—” He made a little exasperated sound and said, “I’m no good at explaining things.”

“It’s all right,” she said. “You finally read her letter, I suppose.”

“Yes. She said her folks and mine still hoped to put the ranches together.”

Margot drew a breath, but couldn’t think of any response. He tightened his grip on her hand to reassure her. “I miss the ranch,” he said. He inclined his head toward the snowy landscape beyond the porch. “If you think this is beautiful, you should see the Bitterroot Valley in the snow.”

“Frank—the letter.”

“The letter. Yes.” He cleared his throat again, but he smiled down at her. “Elizabeth is a nice girl, but—after knowing you, Margot—there’s no other woman in the world for me. There never could be.”

She closed her eyes, savoring the import of those words, letting the comfort of them—the joy in them—wrap around her like cotton wool, warming her heart, easing her fears. When she opened them again she breathed a sigh. “Frank—all the things between us? Not just your family’s ranch, but the Women and Infants Clinic, my practice?”

“I wrote my mother to explain why I couldn’t come back to Elizabeth or to the ranch. I told her about the clinic, and she said—I should have seen this myself, I suppose, but—”

Margot made herself wait. She was usually good at waiting, at allowing her patients to find the words they needed, to share their secrets, but this was hard. She bit down on her lower lip to restrain her impatience, and she watched Frank search for how to say what he wanted to say.

He finally said, “Mother said some things are too important to be kept secret. I should have known that already.”

“Does that mean you don’t mind anymore?”

“I still have complicated feelings about it—but then, I’m a man. I don’t know what it feels like to be a woman, to have to deal with such things. But you do, and I know you have good reasons for wanting to help.”

“I will thank your mother for her wisdom when I have the chance.”

“She’ll like that, Margot. She’ll like you.”

“Is she terribly disappointed about you and Elizabeth?”

“She didn’t say so. Said she wasn’t surprised.”

“And how are you going to feel if I’m still Dr. Benedict? If I want to keep my name?”

“That’s hard, too, for an old-fashioned man. But you’re the woman I love, and you’re not old-fashioned.” He shrugged. “I guess film actresses do it all the time.”

“Film actresses. Oh, dear.”

The snow began to fall faster, cutting off the outside world, encasing the two of them in a shifting curtain of white. Snowflakes glistened beneath the Christmas lights, ruby and emerald sparks floating through the cold air. Margot gazed at them for a moment and said, almost to herself, “Is everything spoiled, I wonder?”

“Spoiled? Why, Margot?”

“Oh, Frank. Because you carried a letter from your old sweetheart around in your pocket. Because your parents would prefer you to marry a girl from home—and because I’m so different from Elizabeth. From most women, I guess.”

“Sweetheart,” he said. He drew her close to him to kiss her forehead and cradle her against his chest. “No, this isn’t a fairy tale to be spoiled by such things. We’re real people. With real problems.”

Her voice was muffled against his camel’s hair overcoat. “I love you, Frank.”

“I love you, Margot.” He put her away from him, just a little, so he could put his right hand into the pocket of the overcoat. “Now, don’t interrupt me. I practiced this.” He took out a small brown velvet box and held it up on his palm.

Margot opened her mouth to speak, but he shook his head, grinning now. “Nope. Wait.”

He opened the box, and she caught the glisten of jewelry inside as he knelt on the damp surface of the porch. He held the box up to her and said, his eyes twinkling at least as much as the diamond ring in its nest of satin, “Will you marry me, Margot Benedict? I promise to always let you be yourself. And I’ll do anything that lies in my power to make you happy.”

“That was good, Frank,” she said, smiling. She knelt down herself, heedless of the hem of her brand-new coat, and looked up into his face. “Oh, yes,” she said. “Yes, I will most definitely marry you, Frank Parrish. And I’ll do my very best to make you happy, too.”

He held the box in his prosthetic hand while he took the ring in his natural one. It was beautifully understated, a small square diamond in a frame of even smaller ones. It was the sort of ring she could wear all the time, even in surgical gloves, and the thoughtfulness of the choice made her heart flutter. He slipped it on her finger, kissed her hand, then took her in his arms.

When Blake came to call them to luncheon, he put his head out the door, then immediately stepped back inside. He closed the door as quietly as he could, managing to avoid even the softest click. He went to the dining room, smiling to himself, and informed the family that Major Parrish and Dr. Margot would be delayed for a few more minutes. “They would prefer you to begin your luncheon without them,” he said.

Dickson said, with satisfaction, “Excellent, Blake. Just excellent.”