The Benedict Bastard (A Benedict Hall Novel) (16 page)

As Ramona ushered her to a chair, Bronwyn remembered, with a wave of embarrassment, her childish fantasies. The reality shamed her, even though none of these people would ever know that she had once imagined herself becoming mistress of their house.

Two men came in, and were introduced to her as Dickson Benedict and his son, Dick. The elder Mrs. Benedict drifted in after them, looking vague and a little lost. There was an empty chair at her right, with a full place setting of china and silver. Bronwyn watched it anxiously, expecting Margot Benedict to come in at any minute, and exclaim, “Miss Jones! Whatever are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in quarantine!”

Dr. Benedict didn’t appear, however. A crisp salad of greens and yellow tomatoes was served, followed by baked fish and asparagus. Still there was no Margot Benedict. Bronwyn could hardly eat for the nervous expectation that rumbled in her stomach, but dinner progressed with no sign of the doctor. The conversation turned to the events of the afternoon, and Bronwyn found herself the reluctant object of everyone’s attention.

Ramona began by describing everything that had happened, and how relieved she was when Blake and Bronwyn had shown up with the wanderer safe and sound. There were murmured exclamations over the adventure, and expressions of gratitude, as well as criticisms of the child’s nurse, and a brief discussion of whether she should be sent packing.

When the rush of comments subsided, the younger Mr. Benedict, called Dick, said, “How did you come to be in Volunteer Park, Miss Morgan? Are you visiting friends in Seattle?”

“I—well, yes, in a way.” Bronwyn lowered her gaze to her half-eaten dinner, hating to lie to these nice people.

“Oh,” Ramona said. “If you’re staying with friends, they might be expecting you. Will they be worried, Bronwyn, dear? We could telephone to them.”

“Oh, no,” Bronwyn said. “That’s not necessary. The thing is, I—”

“You’re one of the Port Townsend Morgans, I think.” This came from the elder Mrs. Benedict, who had so far not spoken more than three words altogether. It seemed a surprise to everyone at the table. Every head turned in her direction, and there was a suspended moment, empty of conversation.

It was Ramona who broke the silence, with the courtesy that seemed to be her special gift. “Oh, are you, Bronwyn? How delightful. I was in Port Townsend once, when I was just a girl. Where is your house?”

“It’s at the top of Monroe Street, facing east.”

“Oh, I think I remember it! It looks out over the water.”

“It does.”

“And it’s that lovely peach color.”

“Father says it’s the color of raw fish,” Bronwyn said, attempting a smile.

“How amusing!” Ramona said. “You could call it a salmon color, I suppose. That sounds ever so much nicer. In any case”—she reached to pat Bronwyn’s hand—“it’s a stunning house.”

“Thank you, Mrs.—that is, Ramona.” Bronwyn glanced around the elegant dining room. “Of course, it’s much smaller than Benedict Hall. And a good bit older.”

“I don’t believe I know your family,” Dickson Benedict said in a gravelly voice. “What’s your father’s name, Miss Morgan? What business is he in?”

“His name is Chesley Morgan,” she answered. “Morgan Shipping and Supply.”

“Oh, yes,” said the younger Mr. Benedict. “You know them, Father. There was the railroad line they started, and Morgan Shipping was involved with delivering the tracks and managing the labor.”

“Only laid a mile of that railroad, didn’t they?” his father said. “Before it went bust?”

Dick Benedict made some reply, and the conversation, to Bronwyn’s relief, shifted to matters of commerce. The maids came in to set crystal bowls of pink sherbet in place of the dinner plates. It was chilled and slightly tart, and Bronwyn ate every spoonful.

Ramona said, “Isn’t this nice on a hot day, Bronwyn? Our cook makes good use of raspberries. It’s my favorite.”

Bronwyn said, “Yes, it’s lovely.”

“Preston loves it,” Edith Benedict said, with one of those interjections that seemed to startle everyone. An embarrassed silence followed, but Mrs. Benedict turned to Bronwyn as if the statement had been meant for her.

“Excuse me?” Bronwyn stammered, wondering if she’d missed something.

“Preston. My son.” Mrs. Benedict pushed away her own barely touched dish. Her breathy voice cracked, and she took an unladylike sniff. “Poor Preston,” she said, and pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve. “Preston loves sherbet. He just loves it.”

Bronwyn froze. “Mrs. Benedict, I don’t—that is, I thought—”

Dickson Benedict cleared his throat, with a rumble like thunder. “Now, now, Edith,” he said. “I’m sure they have sherbet in Walla Walla.”

Bronwyn, at a loss, turned to Ramona, but the younger Mrs. Benedict gave a subtle shake of the head, and changed the subject. “So, Miss Morgan,” she said, with deliberate cheerfulness. “What friends are you visiting? Will you be staying long in Seattle?”

C
HAPTER
16

Blake waited until the family started toward the small parlor with the intent of listening to a wireless concert. Mrs. Ramona gathered everyone together, like a hen marshalling her chicks. Their young guest followed. In her borrowed frock, she looked a bit like a child playing dress-up, but her manners were impeccable. She clearly knew how to behave, including what flatware to use for which course, and how to sustain a polite conversation.

It had been a strange dinner, with Mrs. Edith bursting out with odd comments now and again, but the young lady had managed quite well in the face of such confusion. The only truly awkward moment had come as Blake stood in the doorway to announce that coffee would be served in the small parlor. He heard Mrs. Ramona asking about Miss Morgan’s Seattle friends, and the painful pause that followed.

The girl had said, haltingly, “Actually, I—I’ve come to—to do some shopping. I understand the fall line is at Frederick & Nelson now, and I . . .”

Mrs. Ramona exclaimed, “Shopping! How lovely. Perhaps you’ll let me accompany you. I haven’t shopped for a
thing
for the autumn, and we have a dinner-dance coming up, don’t we, Dick? What fun! We can have luncheon in the Tea Room. I haven’t done that for just
ages
.”

The moment passed as easily as that, but Blake felt young Miss Morgan’s tension as she moved by him. Though he had never been a parent, he had a sense for young people. He was sure the young lady was troubled by something.

Mr. Dickson was the last to leave the dining room. Blake, standing at the door, cleared his throat as he walked by, and Mr. Dickson looked up. “I know that sound, Blake.”

“Yes, sir,” Blake said impassively.

“You need to speak to me.” It was not a question.

“I do, sir. Perhaps in your study?”

“Very well. I think I can miss the first portion of this concert. Not my cuppa joe, as the longshoremen say.”

Blake inclined his head, and followed his employer down the length of the hall to the door that led to his private room, the book-lined study to which he retreated when he had had enough, he often said, of women and children. His son teased him from time to time about “going to ground,” but Mr. Dickson always shook his head and said, “You’ll learn, son. You’ll learn. Wait till that minx Louisa is a little older!”

The study was quiet now, and dark, its single window open to the night breeze. As Dickson took a cigar from the enormous box beside his padded armchair, Blake bent to turn on a lamp.

Dickson settled into his chair, and snipped the end of the cigar with a small pair of silver scissors. “Problem, Blake?”

Blake took up his usual position, standing beside the bookcase with his hands in the pockets of his serving coat. He waited until Dickson set a flame to the end of his cigar and puffed on it until it caught. He said then, “I’m not sure if it’s a problem or not, sir, but I thought you should know.”

Dickson merely raised his eyebrows, gazing at Blake above the length of the cigar between his teeth.

Blake shifted a little, and cleared his throat again. “Sir, it’s the stone. That sapphire, the one Mr. Preston brought back from Jerusalem.”

Dickson took the cigar from his mouth, and gazed at it as if there were answers hidden in its layers of cured tobacco. “You’ve seen it,” he said dourly.

“Not I,” Blake said carefully. “But Loena. She has—ahem—occasion to recognize it. She came to report to me when she realized that Mrs. Edith has the stone in her room.”

“I thought we got rid of the goddamned thing,” Dickson growled.

“I did, too,” Blake said. He remembered with painful clarity the shock Dr. Margot had received when she found the sapphire, in its casing of broken concrete, lying on her bed. Left there as a message from her brother, who was supposed to be dead. Mrs. Edith had found it after the crisis, stowed in a drawer, and had known instantly what it meant. “I suppose each of us thought someone else had disposed of it.”

Dickson didn’t speak for some time. He chewed unhappily on his cigar, exhaling intermittent gouts of smoke. At last he said, “It’s hard to understand. A Christian woman like Edith, indulging in such foolish superstition. It’s just a stone.”

“Perhaps it’s a symbol for her, Mr. Dickson,” Blake said gently.

Dickson flashed him a look from beneath his thick gray eyebrows. “You’re being kind to Edith, Blake.”

“She’s suffered, sir. I suppose she takes comfort where she can.”

“Could we get rid of the thing somehow?”

“I am loath to take it from her room without her knowledge, Mr. Dickson. She would be terribly upset, I’m afraid.”

“That makes it my job, I guess.” Dickson puffed on his cigar, letting his head drop back against the armchair.

“She told Loena she was going to take the stone to Mr. Preston. I thought you should know. I’m not aware of a planned visit.”

“Creedy says she shouldn’t go. That she’s too fragile.”

“So I understand.” Dr. Creedy had been a regular presence throughout the past year. “Mrs. Edith has seemed a bit better, it seems to me.”

“I believed she was,” Dickson said heavily. “Now I’m not so certain.”

“I’m very sorry, sir. I thought you should know.”

“Quite right, Blake. I’ll have to think about this. Thank you.”

“Thank you, sir. Will you join the others now?”

“No. Make my excuses, will you? And if Edith—well. There’s nothing to be done right now.”

“No. No, I think not. I’ll say good night, then, sir.”

Blake withdrew, leaving Dickson puffing on his cigar and staring at the ceiling. As Blake walked past the small parlor, he could hear the music and voices from the wireless, and the laughter of the family. He wanted to feel relief at having passed his burden on, but he was troubled by a hunch that this was not going to be easily resolved. It felt like the leading edge of a storm. He wished he knew how to prepare.

 

Bronwyn learned, as they were waiting for the radio program to begin, that Margot Benedict was to be away from home for two weeks. Relief over that enabled her to relax somewhat, to smile with the others, to drink a demitasse of coffee and enjoy the cookies served with it. She didn’t know how to escape from the proposed shopping expedition, but she supposed she could manage that somehow. It would have been fun at any other time, but of course she had no money with her, and she hardly dared show herself at Frederick & Nelson, where one of the saleswomen was bound to recognize her. She and her mother made twice-yearly trips to Seattle to buy their clothes, and Frederick & Nelson was always their first stop.

An urgent message, she thought. She would pretend to telephone to her imaginary hotel and receive a pressing message calling her home. Her skills as a liar were already proven.

When the evening was over, Ramona insisted on lending her a nightdress and a dressing gown, as well as a pair of knitted slippers. “And do sleep as long as you like,” Ramona said, as they parted at the bedroom door. “Louisa has her breakfast in the nursery, and I often sit with her. I doubt Nurse will let either of us out of her sight, but I’ll try to join you. Just go downstairs when you’re ready—we have breakfast in the same room where we had our dinner. We have a breakfast room, but it’s small, and we find the dining room more convenient.”

Bronwyn said, “Thank you so much. I’ll be perfectly comfortable.”

Ramona pointed down the hall. “My room is right there if you’re not. And the thanks are still mine. I’ll never be able to thank you enough.”

The events of the day now seemed remote to Bronwyn. She felt stronger than she had in some time, her head clearer than it had been since the baby fell ill at the Ryther Home. She must have been stupid with fever when she walked into the park and came upon Louisa in the wading pool. The whole incident had taken on the aspect of a dream, in which the sequence of actions and reactions had become confused. She washed her face, and brushed her hair with the brush laid out for her use, then gazed for some moments at her reflection. What on earth was she doing here? What had she thought she could accomplish?

Poor Mother Ryther! Someone would go to that little room on the second floor and discover Betty Jones had vanished without a word to anyone. It was shameful, after they had all been so kind.

She should give up. Go back to Port Townsend. She still had Captain Albert’s card in her handbag. She should search him out, board the
Sadie Ann
again, and go home. At least that would make her mother happy, even if she herself had to go on being miserable.

 

Blake learned all too soon that his hunch had been right. There was more trouble to come, and for once it had nothing at all to do with Preston.

He had settled the family in the small parlor, everyone with coffee or tea or, in Mrs. Ramona’s case, a cup of cocoa. Mr. Dick tuned the wireless to the station, and as the music began, Blake withdrew, and went to the kitchen to take off his serving coat and see that the maids and Hattie were finished with their work for the day.

He found the three maids sitting around the enamel-topped table with cups in front of them. Hattie was lifting cookies out of the fat pottery jar on the counter. She arranged them on a plate, and brought them to the table. She gave a slight groan as she settled her weight into a chair.

“Tired, Hattie?” Blake said.

“No, no, Blake,” she said. “Just good to get off these feet. Goodness, what a day! Miss Louisa going missing, an unexpected guest—I hardly knew which way to turn!”

“Yes,” he agreed. “It was a demanding day.” He went to the peg rack to hang up his coat.

Hattie was pushing herself up again. “Oh, Blake, you ain’t had your coffee. Do you want—”

He put up his hand to stop her. “I’ll get it,” he said. “Sit down, Hattie. Rest yourself.”

She nodded, and sank back into her chair. The maids had been chattering about something, and they took their conversation up again as he crossed to the percolator. He was just reaching for a mug from the upper cupboard when a knock sounded on the back door, the one that led to the porch.

Hattie frowned. “Who’s that, do you think? Don’t usually get deliveries at night.”

“I don’t know,” Blake said. “I’ll go and see.” He hesitated just a moment, wondering if he should put on his coat before answering the door. It was the back, though, which meant a deliveryman or some other servant. He decided he didn’t need to take that precaution. With an unhurried step, he went out through the kitchen door to the porch, where a screen door led to the back garden.

He could see her through the zinc screen before he reached it. The summer evening light lasted a long time, until almost ten, and the white of her nurse’s cap glowed through the gloom. Once he realized who it was, he hurried, crossing the porch in two strides, unlatching the screen door and opening it wide.

“Nurse Church!” he exclaimed. “Why, whatever are you doing here?”

She stepped over the sill and into the wedge of light falling through the open kitchen door. He saw that her face was drawn, her full lips trembling and a little swollen, as if she had been crying. There was no sign of her dimple.

“Mr. Blake,” she said, with a catch in her voice. “I’m so sorry to trouble you, but—but I didn’t know where to turn!”

“Come in,” he said. “No need to apologize. Come in, and let Hattie give you coffee. Have you eaten?”

“I couldn’t,” she said, a little obscurely, but she followed him out of the cool shadows and into the warm light of the kitchen.

Leona was speaking to the other maids, but as Sarah Church appeared, she broke off. All three of them stared, open-mouthed, at the petite Negress in her nurse’s cape and cap. Only Hattie seemed to collect herself in time to be polite.

“Why, Blake,” she said, coming to her feet. “Why, this is your nurse, isn’t it? Nurse Church, I recall? Come in, come in, miss, and set yourself down. Old Hattie will get you something to drink. Are you hungry?”

This torrent of kind words brought a tremulous smile to Sarah’s lips, though she shook her head. “No, thank you,” she said. “I’m not hungry. I just needed to speak to Mr. Blake. I need—we need help, Mr. Blake, my family and I.”

“Do sit down,” he said, and held a chair for her. “Let Hattie get you a cup of tea, at least. You seem to be upset.”

She was carrying a large black bag with round handles. She set it on the floor, and accepted the chair from Blake. She slipped out of her cape, and draped it behind her. Hattie bustled to set the kettle to boil and took down a teacup and saucer. Blake said, “Nurse Church, this is the staff of Benedict Hall. Leona and Loena, and Thelma, the third maid. Hattie is our cook.”

Sarah nodded to the assembly. Loena said, “Hello,” in a half whisper. Neither of the other maids spoke, but their faces were lively with curiosity. As Hattie scooped tea from a canister, Blake said, “You three can go on to bed. Hattie and I will take care of our visitor.”

He pretended not to notice the disappointment on their faces. They rose, though with reluctance, and trudged out of the kitchen, casting backward glances at Sarah Church. When Loena dragged her feet, Hattie clucked at her. The girl wrinkled her freckled nose, but she followed her sister and Thelma out into the corridor, and let the door swing shut behind her.

“Now, Sarah,” Blake said. He took the chair nearest Sarah, and leaned on his elbows to look into her face. Hattie set the teacup close to her hand, and settled into a chair on the other side of the table. “Tell us what’s wrong. You can speak in front of Hattie. She’s an old friend.”

Sarah put up her hands to unpin her cap. She removed it, and folded it between her hands. “It’s our house,” she said. “My family’s home.” She bent to open the bag at her feet, and drew out a folded sheet of paper, closely printed. She smoothed it open, and slid it across the table to Blake. “Some men brought this. They made my mother read it, and then they told her we can’t live there anymore. This company is going to build on the empty land behind ours, and they said they will have restrictions. They told my mother our presence ruins the value of the homes they want to build.”