The Benedict Bastard (A Benedict Hall Novel) (33 page)

C
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32

In the days since returning to Morgan House with her parents, Bronwyn had done little but pace in the garden, gazing out at the Sound, remembering what it had felt like to be on her own. Nothing had gone well, and yet she had been independent in a way she never had before. She knew, within an hour of coming back to Port Townsend, that she would never be free if she stayed.

She had barely stepped her foot through the front door before her father commanded her not to leave the house alone. Her mother watched her every move, and found excuses to follow her when she went into the study or the music room, or outside into the garden. Mrs. Andrew cast her sly glances as she served her meals, as if gloating over her fresh imprisonment. Betty Jones scurried around after her as if keeping Bronwyn under control was her personal assignment. Perhaps it was. Bronwyn wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that her father had set Betty to be her watchdog.

Johnnie had learned of her return and slipped a note through her window. She found it on the floor of her bedroom, fortunately spying it before Betty could. Despite his fury on the day she left Port Townsend, his note invited her to meet him at the Cellar.

She wasn’t going to go. She was done with speakeasies. She would drink no more Fallen Angels. She was weary of men thinking she was fast. She couldn’t go on being Port Townsend’s most infamous ruined girl. She hadn’t decided what she was going to do about that, but she intended to do something. She paced, or perched on the stone bench under the hot August sun, staring at the ripple and shine of the water as she pondered.

She and her mother sat down to lunch in the dining room, the two of them at one end of the long table. Mrs. Andrew brought in their salads, and filled their glasses with iced lemonade. She set a small basket of rolls between them. Iris said in her hesitant way, “Some butter, please, Mrs. Andrew?”

The cook heaved a gusty sigh, and stumped off toward the kitchen.

“Mother,” Bronwyn said. “Why don’t you get rid of her? She’s always rude to you.”

“Oh, no, dear,” Iris said, glancing at the door to the kitchen as if afraid Mrs. Andrew had heard. “I don’t want to make a fuss. She’s just—”

“Why shouldn’t you make a fuss? She’s your employee!”

The door swung open, and Mrs. Andrew appeared with a butter dish. The butter was deeply scored in the middle and marked here and there with bread crumbs, as if it hadn’t been refreshed since the night before, or had been used in cooking. She plunked it in front of Iris without speaking, and turned back toward the kitchen.

Bronwyn said, “Mrs. Andrew,” in a tone of such sharpness that the cook stopped in her tracks, looking back in surprise. Her mother stared with parted lips as Bronwyn pushed the butter dish across the table. “Take this away and bring a clean one.”

For a long, pregnant moment Mrs. Andrew glared at her, and Bronwyn thought she might just refuse.

Iris said faintly, “Bronwyn, dear, this is . . .” Her sentence ended in a vague gesture that hovered between agreement and denial.

“It’s not. Do as I ask, please, Mrs. Andrew.”

The cook sniffed, but she came back to the table, picked up the offending butter dish, and disappeared. When she returned a moment later with a cut-glass bowl in which an untouched pat of butter rested, she set it in front of Bronwyn, and raised her eyebrows.

“Thank you, Mrs. Andrew,” Bronwyn said, in what she thought was a creditable imitation of the way Ramona Benedict spoke to her staff.

Mrs. Andrew’s mouth pulled down as if she had tasted something sour, but she muttered, “You’re welcome, miss.”

When she was gone, Iris said, “Bronwyn! I’ve never—I mean, she’s always so—”

Bronwyn covered her mother’s hand with her own. “I know, Mother. But she works for you. She should do things the way you like them.”

“She’ll complain to your father.”

“Let him fire her, then.”

“He hates household arguments, Bronwyn. He likes everything to be quiet and calm when he comes home from the office.”

Bronwyn released her mother’s hand. “What’s he going to do, Mother? Kick you out?”

“He just—he gets so angry.”

“Let him be angry. Let him storm about like a spoiled boy! It all blows over eventually.”

“Bronwyn!” Iris covered her mouth with her hand and stared at her daughter above her splayed fingers. “I don’t know what’s come over you!”

Bronwyn smiled at her mother. Iris’s eyes sparkled with gold in the clear sunlight, and her artfully painted eyebrows arched over cheeks marked with only the finest of lines. “You’re so pretty, Mother,” Bronwyn said. “And so sweet—too sweet. You mustn’t let them treat you so.”

Iris lowered her hand, and though she picked up her fork, she only held it in her fingers, staring at the salad as if it had no appeal for her. “I’m a coward,” she said. Her eyes lifted again, and her gaze caressed her daughter’s face. “But you’re not, Bronwyn. You never have been.”

“Mother,” Bronwyn said. She hadn’t touched her salad, either. She drew a deep breath, and blurted, “I have to tell you something.”

Iris set down her fork again. “I’ve been afraid of this,” she said.

“Afraid?”

“Yes. I think you’re going to leave again.”

“I have to,” Bronwyn said simply. “But this time, I hope I’ll have your blessing.”

The ring of the telephone made them both startle. “Oh!” Iris said. “Who can that be?”

It was true, the telephone sat mostly silent on their hall table. When Bronwyn had been in school, before everything had gone wrong, it had been much used, Bessie and Clara calling almost every day. Even Iris’s friends rarely telephoned these days, creating a sense of isolation at Morgan House. It was Mrs. Andrew’s task to answer telephone calls, although Bronwyn had always hated hearing her snap, “Morgan House,” into the instrument, as if whoever it was had interrupted her in some vital task.

The ringing ceased, and both Bronwyn and Iris gazed at the door to the dining room in anticipation. Mrs. Andrew appeared, smoothing her apron with her hands. “The telephone is for Miss Bronwyn,” she said sullenly. She added, “It’s some woman says she’s calling from Benedict Hall. Long distance.”

Bronwyn and Iris exchanged a glance, and Bronwyn pushed back her chair. She hurried out to the hall, and took up the telephone in her hands. “Hello?” she said breathlessly.

“Bronwyn, dear?”

She recognized the voice instantly. “Mrs. Benedict—Ramona! How are—that is, how kind of you to call.”

“Bronwyn, I have news for you. Some of it is wonderful, and some of it is terrible. I hate to tell you over the telephone, but I feel I must.”

“Yes?” Bronwyn’s heart began to pound, and her hand on the receiver trembled so she was afraid she would drop it.

“I hope you’re not alone there at Morgan House.”

“No, m-my m-mother is here.”

“Oh, that’s good. Is there a chair where you can sit? I think that would be best.”

 

Bronwyn tottered back to the dining room after managing, somehow, to say good-bye to Ramona Benedict. She groped for the back of her chair, stunned nearly to swooning by what she had heard.

“Bronwyn? Dearest, you’re white as a sheet!” Iris leaped up, and encircled Bronwyn’s waist in a surprisingly strong grasp. She helped her pull out her chair and sit, then moved her own chair close so she could chafe her wrists. She called out, “Mrs. Andrew! I need a cup of good strong tea, and quickly.” In a quieter voice, she said, “We’ll put a tot of brandy in it, Bronwyn. There’s some in the sideboard, I’m sure. Now, take a few deep breaths. When you’re ready, tell me what’s happened.”

Bronwyn did as her mother suggested, breathing, sipping the tea with its bite of brandy until the spinning of her head began to slow. Iris held her hand, patting it, warming her cold fingers between her palms. “There now,” she said. “You have a bit of color. Goodness, Bronwyn, I thought you were going to faint!”

“I did, too,” Bronwyn whispered. She cleared her throat. “Oh, Mother. You won’t believe what’s happened.”

Bronwyn was glad, now, that she had made a clean breast of everything that had happened when she fled Port Townsend. Her parents knew all about her search for her child, about the death of the baby from diphtheria, and about her rescuing Louisa Benedict from the wading pond at Volunteer Park. They knew she had allowed Mrs. Benedict to take her all the way across the state on a train. They knew Preston Benedict was alive, restrained in a sanitarium. They knew he had attacked her, and that she had fled on foot and taken refuge in a church, to be sent home courtesy of funds from the charity box and the kindness of an unusual little man.

When she told her mother of Preston’s suicide, the horror of it made her tremble anew, and she gulped at the brandy-laced tea to calm the pounding of her heart. Iris said, “Oh, dear heart. It’s terrible, but you must let it go. His life sounds—oh, my goodness. Truly, it sounds as if his life was already over.”

“Yes, Mother, but you remember how he was—it’s horrible!”

“It’s always sad when a young person dies. But this one—he did terrible things.”

“I know. And all this while, I still loved him.”

“You thought you did.”

“Isn’t that the same thing?”

There was no answer to this. Bronwyn steeled herself to tell her mother the rest of it. She took a deep breath and said hoarsely, “They found him, Mother. They found my baby.”

C
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33

Margot left the clinic early, leaving Angela in charge, with instructions to send any urgent cases to Seattle General. Blake was waiting for her with the Cadillac, and they drove up Madison to Broadway in a tense silence.

“How’s Mother holding up?” Margot finally asked, as they turned up Aloha.

“I believe you would call it a brave face, Dr. Margot. She spends every moment with Master Charlie when he’s awake, and when he’s sleeping she’s on the telephone, ordering children’s furniture or setting an advertisement for another nurse.”

“The rest of them?”

“Worried, I think. No one is saying much.”

Margot could feel the anxiety when she stepped into the front hall, as if it were something cooking in the kitchen and filling the house with its distinctive aroma. As she was removing her hat and taking off her gloves, Hattie came through the swinging door and stood twisting her apron between her hands.

“Tea is all ready for when they come,” she said. “And lemonade.”

“Thank you, Hattie. Do you know where Mother is?”

“She ordered up some clothes for Master Charlie. She’s in the nursery sorting them out.”

“When are the Morgans due?”

“Any minute now, Miss Margot. Any minute. I got some little sandwiches and cookies, but I don’t think anybody gonna eat much.”

“Louisa will,” Margot said. “And Charlie.”

This brought a tentative smile to Hattie’s face. “I do love having little ones in the house. Makes it feel like a home.”

“Yes, it does.”

“You think that Miss Morgan gonna want to take Charlie away?”

“Oh, I hope not. We’ll just have to hope for the best. Is Father coming? Dick?”

“No.” Hattie’s smile faded, and she smoothed the wrinkles she had put in her apron. “No, Mrs. Ramona said this is a thing for women. I heard Mr. Dick ask her to make him a telephone call first thing.”

“Thank you, Hattie. I’ll just wait in the small parlor.”

As Margot walked down the hall, she heard Blake’s deep voice from the back porch. In the small parlor she found Ramona standing at the window, parting the lace curtains with a fingertip so she could peer out. She glanced up with a guilty laugh. “Oh, Margot! I’m glad you’re here. I’m just so anxious—I wish they’d get here, and we could get this over with.”

“It might not be so simple, Ramona,” Margot said. “I hope you’re prepared.”

“Well. As prepared as I can be, I guess.” Ramona took a few restless steps toward the divan, then turned back to the window.

“That’s all you can do.” Margot felt the same anxiety, despite her warning. She forced herself to sit down on the divan, pretending calm, but when Ramona said, a moment later, “Oh! there they are!” she was up again, moving to a different chair, ruffling her hair with her fingers, then trying to smooth it back into place. Ramona turned, and as they caught sight of each other, they both laughed.

“We’re a pair, aren’t we?” Ramona said.

“This is the right thing to do.”

“Of course it is. There’s no doubt about that. It’s just—we’ve already fallen in love with him. And Mother Benedict . . .”

“I know. I’m amazed at the change in her.”

The door opened, and Blake said, “Mrs. Morgan. Miss Morgan.”

Ramona smiled suddenly, her pretty face lighting as if she had never felt a single qualm. She crossed the room with her hand out and spoke with her usual charm. “Mrs. Morgan, how good of you to come. Bronwyn, dear, it’s lovely to see you again! My mother-in-law will join us in a moment.”

Margot greeted their guests, and Blake went off to fetch the tea things. By the time he came back, with Thelma at his heels, the ladies had arranged themselves around the piecrust table. Both the Morgans were pale, their unusual eyes following everything with the same nervousness the Benedicts had been trying to manage. Ramona poured the tea, and Margot passed the silver tray of sandwiches. Everyone took something, but as Hattie had predicted, no one tasted a thing.

Ramona said, “I can’t imagine how you got here so quickly, Mrs. Morgan.”

“Oh—” Mrs. Morgan’s eyes flickered uncertainly to her daughter. “Oh, you see, Bronwyn—”

“I know someone with a boat,” Bronwyn said. “One of the Mosquito Fleet. He was at the dock and brought us straight to Seattle.”

“How kind,” Ramona said. “How fortunate.”

“Yes,” Bronwyn said. Her mother stared wordlessly at her teacup.

After Blake and Thelma withdrew, Margot said, “We want you to know, Miss Morgan, that though we found Charlie in—”

“Charlie?”

“My maternal grandfather’s name. My mother always wanted to call her first grandson after her father.”

Bronwyn took a small, shivery breath. “It’s a nice name,” she said softly.

“We had to call him something, you understand. If he had another name, we never could discover what it was. This place—this farm—where he was living, the conditions were very poor. He’s unharmed, though, as nearly as I can tell.”

“The only real problem,” Ramona said, “is that Charlie doesn’t speak.”

“He doesn’t?” Mrs. Morgan’s eyebrows rose. “Is there something wrong with him?”

“There’s no reason to think that,” Margot said. “I’ve occasionally seen children in whom speech comes quite late, and he’s not three yet.”

Bronwyn broke in. “No one talked to him, Dr. Benedict,” she said sadly. “He was just another baby among a dozen babies.”

“That’s probably a good explanation, Miss Morgan,” Margot said. “Our cook said the same thing. There’s no reason to think he won’t catch up, with time. And with patience.”

Ramona set down her untouched tea. “I expect you would like to see him.” Margot hoped she was the only one who heard the reluctance in her voice.

Mrs. Morgan tried to say something, but it seemed her mouth was too dry to speak. She took a sip of tea, and cast a beseeching glance at her daughter.

Bronwyn put up her chin, and Margot’s heart contracted at the emotional struggle so evident on the girl’s face. Bronwyn’s lips trembled, but she tightened them, and said, “Yes, please, Ramona. If you don’t mind.”

“Of course. Just wait a moment.” Ramona, Margot thought, was doing a better job than she of hiding her anxiety. She rose gracefully, smiled at both the Morgan ladies, and went out of the room.

Margot said, “Miss Morgan, I can see how difficult this is for you. And for your mother.”

Mrs. Morgan turned her face to Margot, and Margot saw that her eyes swam with tears. “My grandchild,” she said. Her voice caught, and broke, and she dropped her gaze again. “We made a terrible mistake. My husband—”

Bronwyn said, “My father was furious. He gave us no choice.”

Margot’s heart sank. It was possible these two expected to carry Charlie away with them. That they wanted to reverse the course they had set three years before. If that was true, Edith—and now perhaps Ramona as well—would be devastated. As the door opened, she stood up, feeling somehow she could be stronger if she was on her feet.

Ramona came in first, holding the door for her mother-in-law. Edith, with more color in her face than Margot had seen in ages, carried Charlie in. She tried to set him down, but he clung to her, and wouldn’t let go. Though he didn’t make a sound, his eyes were wide with alarm, and Margot felt the emotions swirling through the room rise to the drowning point.

Charlie was properly dressed now in boy’s clothes. He wore a white shirt with a Peter Pan collar, and a pair of knee pants with suspenders. He had long socks that stretched to his knees, and a pair of white leather shoes. He was beautiful, soft and fair and slender. How could anyone resist such a child?

Mrs. Morgan was weeping silently, making no move to touch the boy. Bronwyn got up, and crossed to Edith. She didn’t try to take Charlie from his grandmother’s arms, but she did touch him, just her fingertips grazing his fluff of pale hair, running down his back, stroking his bare knees.

She said, “He looks so much like Preston, Mrs. Benedict.”

Margot stiffened, unsure how her mother would react to this, but Edith bestowed a peaceful smile on Bronwyn. “You’re right, my dear. He looks exactly like my son did at this age. Isn’t it the most marvelous thing? My Preston is gone, and I can never have him back. But now there’s Charlie.”

Ramona crossed to the divan, and sat down close to Mrs. Morgan. “I think,” she said quietly, “that it’s a wonderful thing for so many people to care about a child. Don’t you?”

Mrs. Morgan wiped her wet cheeks with a lace-edged handkerchief. “You’re all so kind, Mrs. Benedict,” she said. “I’m sorry about—well—it’s too kind of you to understand.”

Ramona said, “Of course I understand. I’m a mother, too.”

Margot said, “You’d better sit down, Mother.” Bronwyn stepped aside so Edith could move to the armchair. When she was seated, Charlie nestled close against her. His wary gaze took them all in—Bronwyn, her mother, Margot, Ramona. Margot said, “This must be confusing for Charlie. Not so long ago he was living in very different conditions.”

“I feel terrible about that,” Mrs. Morgan said.

“You couldn’t have known.”

Edith said, “The important thing is that Charlie’s safe now.”

“Yes,” Ramona said. She sat up very straight, and turned her face up to Bronwyn, who was standing behind Edith’s chair. “Bronwyn, I think we should be frank about the situation. My husband and I would like—no, we would dearly love—to adopt Charlie and raise him as our Louisa’s big brother.”

No one could miss the surge of color in Bronwyn’s face, nor the fading of it a moment later. Her eyes were stretched so wide Margot thought they must hurt, and she saw the girl’s throat muscles contract. Nevertheless, Bronwyn’s voice was steady as she answered. “Are you asking my consent, Ramona?”

Ramona glanced at Margot for guidance. Margot nodded, but she didn’t say anything. There was no need. Ramona was doing beautifully.

Ramona turned her face back to Bronwyn and said quietly, “I suppose we are, Bronwyn. We would always wonder, if we didn’t consult you, what your wishes might have been.”

“So kind,” Mrs. Morgan sniffled again.

“Yes,” Bronwyn said. She stepped around the chair, and knelt before Edith and the little boy. “Yes, you could have gone ahead without a word to us. I wouldn’t have blamed you in the least.”

For a long moment, she looked into Charlie’s small, anxious face. He shrank back at first, huddling closer to Edith’s body, but when Bronwyn made no move to touch him, he relaxed. He looked into the eyes of the mother he never knew, and Margot had the fanciful idea that an understanding passed between them.

In time, Bronwyn drew a deep breath, and pushed herself to her feet. She turned to Ramona. “I feel as if I love him—but I don’t really know him, do I?”

Ramona gave her a sad smile. “Well, dear, I love him, too, and I only know him a little bit better than you do.”

“Perhaps,” Margot said, “you need some time, Miss Morgan. To think about what all this means—to you and to your family.”

Bronwyn suddenly pressed the palms of her hands over her eyes. Margot thought she was crying, but it appeared, when she dropped her hands, that she had been gathering herself. She drew a long breath and released it before she said, “Thank you, Dr. Benedict, but I don’t need time. I knew before I came today, really.”

She looked around at the group of women, the hopeful, worried, tearful faces. “Charlie has found his home,” she said. “I couldn’t have asked for anything better for him. And I need to grow up myself before I can be anyone’s mother.”

Mrs. Morgan emitted a single sob, and buried her face in her handkerchief. Ramona put an arm around her shoulders. “You won’t object then,” Ramona said softly, smiling up at the girl. “Charlie will be our son, and you won’t mind.”

“I’ll be proud,” Bronwyn said. Her eyes glowed with unshed tears. “Perhaps, once in a while, you could send me news of him.”

“Of course,” Ramona said.

Edith said, “You can come to see him, if you like.”

“No,” Bronwyn said. “It would be too confusing. He needs . . .” She waved her hand, indicating the entirety of Benedict Hall. “He needs to understand that he’s home. That this is where he belongs. That he won’t be taken away, ever again.”

 

Bronwyn held her composure through the polite farewells, the thank-yous, the promises of letters and so forth. She and her mother shook hands with everyone, and Bronwyn took a last look at Charlie, but without trying to touch him or, as she longed to do, give him one kiss. She gripped her hands together in the backseat of the Cadillac as Blake drove her and her mother back to the Alexis. She bade Blake farewell and walked with her mother into the hotel and up to their room. She didn’t cry until the door was closed and they were alone, and then she lay on the bed and sobbed for a very long time.

When she quieted, Iris brought her a glass of water and a damp washcloth. She stroked Bronwyn’s hair, and murmured nonsense words of comfort. When the shuddering aftermath of tears subsided, Bronwyn sat up, wiped her face with the cloth, and took one final sniff.

“Are you all right?” her mother asked.

“Yes,” Bronwyn said. “I am.”

She spoke the truth. The tears were the final step, the last act of the saga of Preston Benedict and herself. Their child was safe, and in the best possible care. She had no more secrets to protect. There was only one final thing to be done, and she would do that now, while she and her mother were alone.

She swung her legs off the bed, and went to stand by the window, looking down at the automobiles and horse carts maneuvering around one another on First Avenue. Tomorrow, Captain Albert would carry her and her mother back to Port Townsend, but after that . . .

She turned to face Iris. “Mother, I’m going to go to Oakland.”

Iris looked up at her with surprise and consternation. “Oakland! Where is that?”