The Benedict Bastard (A Benedict Hall Novel) (14 page)

 

A friendly streetcar operator explained to Bronwyn all about how to get to Millionaire’s Row. “Gotta change downtown, miss,” he said. “It’s easy, though. Signs everywhere. Then you go up Madison, and change again for the Broadway line. You can’t miss it.”

“Thank you,” she said. She settled onto the bench seat closest to the driver, to make certain she knew where to change. The streetcar stopped often, and men with briefcases climbed on, or women with bags of shopping edged past her to get off. To pass the time, she gazed out at the traffic, and tried to name the automobiles. They were mostly Fords, all of them black. There were a few fancier ones, in different colors. She spotted an Essex, and what she thought was a DeSoto, though she wasn’t sure. They had to stop and wait as the streetcar clanked past. Twice the streetcar had to stop for a horse and cart to go by. Bronwyn shrugged into her coat, feeling chilled now despite the heat of the afternoon. It was the fever, she supposed. It didn’t help that she had eaten so little, only a cup of broth and a bit of bread and butter. She had been careful about water, though, because Dr. Benedict had ordered it.

Meeting Dr. Benedict had put the idea of seeing Benedict Hall into her head. Once she was on the streetcar, it seemed the most natural thing to simply travel all the way to Millionaire’s Row, to have a glimpse of the house she had once dreamed of living in.

She could hardly believe she had encountered the woman from the wedding photograph. Margot Benedict was taller than she had expected. She wasn’t stylish in the least, but her bobbed hair was smooth and shiny, and her eyes were a clear, dark brown. She had an air of command that Bronwyn envied. She gave orders, and people followed them. She wasn’t anything like Preston had been. Something about her made Bronwyn want to see her again, curious to understand how this dark, assured woman could be Preston Benedict’s sister.

The driver, as he stopped the streetcar for two ladies in flowered straw hats to get down, leaned out of his chair to speak to her. “You didn’t say, miss, why you want to see Millionaire’s Row.” He grinned, showing several gaps in his teeth. “Hoping to meet one of them millionaires? Now, that would be a thing, right?”

Bronwyn started to draw herself up, to say something to put a stop to his overfamiliarity, but then she remembered. She wasn’t Bronwyn Morgan of Uptown anymore. She was just a girl on her own. Her hair needed washing and her dress was stained. She had no real explanation for what she was doing. She was certainly of less consequence than this middle-aged man with his home-style haircut and stubbly chin.

She sighed, and sagged back against the slats of the seat. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t expect to meet a millionaire.”

“I guess that’s where they keep ’em!” he teased, as he started up the car again. “Pretty girl like you might get lucky.”

“No,” she said. “I just want—I mean, I would just like to see them. The mansions, I mean, not the millionaires.”

“Never saw ’em, myself,” he said. He stepped on the brake, honked his horn at a knot of pedestrians blocking his way, then shifted gears to drive forward again when the tracks were clear. “I hear they’re big as hotels. Bigger than some, even.”

“I’ll let you know,” Bronwyn said with a faint smile.

He nodded and winked at her. “You do that, little lady,” he said cheerfully. “You just come back on my car and do that.”

When Bronwyn stepped down from the streetcar at Broadway, she cast about for the Aloha Street sign. Instead, she spotted a small, neatly painted sign that read T
HE
C
ORNISH
S
CHOOL
, with an arrow pointing toward a side street.

A rush of memory flooded her mind, arresting her movement. She had come with her mother, carrying a valise with her dance clothes, brand-new ballet shoes, and a wide white ribbon to tie around her hair. They had taken a taxicab from the hotel, and climbed the shadowy stairwell of a tall brick building. At the top, the doors had opened onto a dance studio brilliant with light from a wall of windows. The polished floor and the long ballet barre along one side shone with sunshine. Bronwyn, nervous but excited, had taken her place with the other dancers, with the sunshine glinting on her hair and dazzling her eyes.

She had been so young, she thought now, and so naive. Her dress of white lace and silk swirled around her ankles as she danced the required patterns to the accompaniment of a grand piano. There had been a dozen girls in hopes of a place at the school, girls whose fathers were ready to pay the tuition, whose mothers were poised to assemble wardrobes and dancing shoes and anything else that would be needed. Nellie Cornish herself had been there, flanked by two dance instructors who looked to Bronwyn like goddesses, long-necked as swans, graceful as birds in flight.

It all seemed very long ago now. Her feet, which had felt so light that day of her audition, seemed leaden and clumsy as she crossed the road. Following the arrow’s direction, she trudged the long block to the school.

It wasn’t the same building. This one was new, all white, with a brass sign over the entrance. She stood under one of the cottonwood trees that lined the street, and gazed up from its shade at the building, which seemed as fantastic and distant as a fairy-tale castle. The upper windows were open to the summer air, and music trickled from them. Tidy shrubs lined the walkway leading to the front door. As Bronwyn watched, several mothers with tiny girls in wide tulle skirts emerged from the double wooden doors into the sunshine. The girls were laughing and chattering together, and one of them pirouetted ahead of her mother as if the music were still playing.

Bronwyn had been no different, lighthearted, confident, happy. But now—now she stood in shadow, anonymous and insignificant, a rather grimy girl peering at the school she had been meant to attend. All her plans had come to nothing. Those little dancing princesses had no idea how quickly their dreams could crumble away.

She tore herself away from the pretty scene, but as she walked painfully back toward Broadway she sent a wish toward the little girls that they would be luckier than she had been, and perhaps wiser.

She had to climb steep Aloha Street to reach Fourteenth Avenue. The afternoon was wearing away, the sun slanting through the trees and burning the lawns and shrubberies that lined the street. Perspiration ran down her cheeks from beneath her hat, and her skirt clung to her white stockings. By the time she reached the hill’s crest, and turned toward its crown of elegant houses, she was nearly at the end of her strength. She felt headachy and confused, and her mouth and throat were terribly dry.

There was no doubt she had found Millionaire’s Row. She gazed up at mansion after mansion, with soaring columns, wide entries, broad, elegant porches, and manicured lawns. The scent of roses hung on the heavy air.

She would always, she thought, think of the perfume of roses when she thought of the neighborhood where Preston had been born. Where their baby, their little fair-haired, blue-eyed boy, should have grown up. She could so easily imagine him tumbling across one of these emerald lawns that it was almost as if such a thing had actually happened. She looked up and down the street, and in her fevered mind, it seemed possible that if she just found the right house, if she just peeked into the right garden, he would be there.

She stumbled along the sidewalk, feeling sticky and thirsty and slow. She didn’t know which of these towering, sprawling homes was Benedict Hall. The photograph she had pored over so often was an indoor view, with a wide, polished staircase and tall vases of flowers. Any one of these houses, these magnificent creations of wood and brick, wrought-iron fences and balustrades, cupolas and dormers, could be the one. In her mind, Benedict Hall had been a palace, sitting in solitary splendor at the top of the hill, but this was a row of such palaces, facing one another across a single street, as if—just as the streetcar operator had said—Seattle had gathered its millionaires together and told them where they could live.

She blinked against the perspiration dripping into her eyes, and found herself at the end of the street, crossing it, walking blindly on into a sort of park, where a brick tower soared above carefully planted gardens, and the glass walls of a strange building glittered in the late afternoon light.

Bronwyn wasn’t sure where she was, or how she had gotten there. She felt light-headed, disconnected from the increasing discomfort in her body. She was thirstier than she could ever remember being, and the need for water drove everything else out of her mind. The park was enormous, with long curving sidewalks, a great shining reservoir to her left, and spreading lawns where children were playing, rolling balls back and forth or wading in a pool.

The pool drew Bronwyn to it. A half-dozen children stood knee-deep in blue water, stretching out their hands to the center fountain and its cooling spray. Bronwyn’s mouth had gotten so dry she could barely swallow. Her thoughts were so jumbled she couldn’t organize them. Some part of her knew she should find a cleaner source of water, but desperation drove her. She reached the pool, and sank to her knees beside its rim of pale stone. Distantly, she was aware of several adults watching her curiously as she scooped water in her palm and drank. No one spoke to her, but they stared and whispered. The water was warm and stale, but she didn’t care. It was wet, and it soothed her parched tongue and throat.

She could have drunk more, but when her first intense thirst was slaked, the taste made her stop. She put both her hands into the pool, and stroked her hot cheeks with water. She drew a few rather shaky breaths, blinking in the glare of the lowering sun.

After a time she felt a bit better, and began to be embarrassed by the curious gazes turned her way. She came stiffly to her feet. This had been a bad idea. She could see that now. She hadn’t been thinking clearly at all. She should find her way back to Mother Ryther’s, slip up the stairs to the cramped bedroom, and sleep until she was herself again.

She was gathering her coat and her handbag, adjusting her hat, when she saw the child.

Except for the fact that this child was a girl, in a pinafore and ruffled dress, the child could have been the one Bronwyn had imagined a half hour before. She was rosy from the heat, and the sun shone through her halo of pale curls. Her eyes were a light, clear blue, the same blue that had so enchanted Bronwyn when she first encountered it. The little girl stood waist-deep in the water, and her round face was just crumpling in preparation for tears.

Bronwyn, with a hand to her throat, gazed around the pool, but no one seemed to be watching this particular child. She looked back just as the little girl tried to take a step forward, stumbled, and fell sideways into the water. It was no more than ten or twelve inches deep, but the child was soaked now to her chest, and she emitted a sudden wail of fury at the feeling of it.

Again Bronwyn looked around, but she found the other adults were doing the same thing, searching one another’s faces, looking for the person responsible for the little girl. No one moved. Other children turned to gape at the screaming toddler.

Bronwyn pressed her fingers to her temples as she tried to make sense of the scene. The heat and the glitter of light from the water, her worsening headache, the noise of the child’s wails and the other children playing in the field beyond, all combined to create a sense of unreality. She was trying to sort the details into some sort of rational picture when the little girl suddenly thrashed with her arms, and fell backward into the shallow water. It closed over her head, stopping her wails and leaving a sudden, terrifying silence.

Bronwyn kicked off her pumps, dropped her handbag, and stepped over the rim of the pool. She waded through the water, oblivious of her wet hem and stockings, and lifted the child, choking and gasping, out of the water and into her arms.

As she turned to wade back out of the water, a woman stood in front of her, hands on her hips. “You should watch your daughter more closely, young woman! You want to see your little girl drown?”

It was Bronwyn’s turn to gape, her mouth open and working, but wordless. Her thoughts churned like muddy waves, and she couldn’t find the words to explain that this wasn’t her child.

The other woman stalked away, leaving Bronwyn holding a wet, furious little girl.

She
could
have been mine, was the thought that surfaced out of the turmoil of Bronwyn’s thoughts. She’s a little younger, but she’s blond, and blue-eyed. She
could
have been my baby. Mine, and Preston’s.

Energized now, with a purpose, Bronwyn bent to pick up her handbag and her coat from the grass. She shoved her feet into her pumps, cuddled the now-sobbing child close against her, and walked out of the park with determined steps.

Surely this baby was hers now. She had a place to take her, a place where she would be safe. Surely, if she explained, Mother Ryther would allow it. It was no different from leaving a child in the yard, was it?

The woman in the park was right. So was Mother Ryther. People should watch their children more closely.

C
HAPTER
14

Blake resisted an impulse to run into the park, to beg people to look for a little blond girl in a ruffled pinafore. It wouldn’t help the family, he reminded himself, for him to have another bout with his heart. He forced himself to use his cane, to walk with steady steps across the road, up onto the sidewalk, on past the brick tower. He looked right and left, searching the crowd. The late afternoon light had a lucent quality he always associated with summer, and in his agitated state, it seemed to him that every man, woman, and child who came into his view was illuminated with particular clarity, like those Renaissance paintings with saints haloed in gold.

There were so many people! It was an ocean of humanity, surging this way and that, blocking his view of the lawn that spilled down toward the reservoir, and of the glass walls of the conservatory, where the iron framework glistened above the heads of the crowd. He reached the point where the sidewalk curved down the hill, and his steps slowed, then stopped. He cast about for some idea, some hint as to which way he should go. It was possible Louisa wasn’t here at all. It was a long way for a toddler to come, although Louisa was, as they were learning, no ordinary toddler.

He felt uncomfortable among so many strangers. There were too many suspicious looks, even wary ones. He supposed he made an unusual sight in this place, a tall Negro in a black suit, wearing neither hat nor gloves, leaning on an ancient marble-headed cane.

He tried not to look into individual faces, but to scan the scene at the level of their knees, hoping against hope to see Louisa’s curly head, the flash of her blue eyes.

The sobbing of a child drew his attention, piercing the noise of the crowd. He would have said, at any other time, that one child’s cry was very like another, but this one didn’t seem that way. It sounded familiar. It sounded like the cry he had been hearing for more than a year from the nursery in Benedict Hall.

It could be wishful thinking. It might not mean anything. Just the same, he threw up his head, and cast about for the source.

Coming across the lawn was a slender young woman carrying a coat over her arm and wearing a dilapidated straw hat. She had a handbag pressed awkwardly under her arm, and she was carrying a child who clung to her, wailing and kicking. Both woman and child were dripping wet.

Blake couldn’t move for several seconds, struck nerveless by the wave of relief that swept up from his belly to his throat. When he could make himself speak, he cried, “Louisa! Miss Louisa, what—what’s happened?”

It was obvious the child couldn’t hear him over the sound of her own weeping, and the girl carrying her didn’t respond. Blake had to step forward, into their path. Cautiously, hoping not to frighten the young woman, he put up his free hand. “Excuse me,” he said. “Miss, please excuse me, but—I’ve been searching for this child.”

The girl carrying Louisa stopped walking. She stared up at Blake with red-rimmed hazel eyes, and her hat fell off, revealing light brown hair that was matted and tangled. She blinked at him, and stammered, “I—why, I
know
you!”

At the same moment, Louisa twisted in her grasp. When she caught sight of Blake she launched herself out of the girl’s arms and into his. He dropped his cane, throwing up his hands just in time to catch her. She squalled, “Bake, Bake, Bake!” and buried her face against his chest.

He held her tightly, with arms that trembled. He pressed his cheek to her wet hair, though he knew people were staring at the strange sight they made, the tall Negro and the tiny blond child. He said, “Miss, thank you! How can we ever thank you? This little rascal is Louisa Benedict, and she—oh, my goodness. There are no words. What happened?”

The young woman was bending to pick up her hat, and as she straightened, she said, “We’ve met, sir. I’m Bronwyn Morgan, of Port Townsend.”

Blake narrowed his eyes in concentration. “Miss—Morgan, is it?”

“Yes. I’m sorry I can’t recall your name, but you’re—that is, you were—Preston Benedict’s driver. He dined at Morgan House, and you . . .” She broke off.

At her words, the memory came back to Blake, all at once, as if someone had switched on a light. He recalled the long, narrow kitchen with its view of Puget Sound. There had been a sour-faced cook who reluctantly served him a meal, but didn’t speak to him. There was a maid, a nondescript sort of woman who stared at him when she thought he wasn’t looking. Morgan House, that was it. When Mr. Preston was still at the newspaper.

“Miss Morgan!” he said, even as Louisa broke into fresh sobs against his lapels. “I do remember! That was quite some time ago, wasn’t—”

He didn’t get to finish his thought. A short man wearing a straw boater and a white linen jacket stalked into his view, and demanded, “What’s going on here? Miss, is this fellow bothering you?”

The girl started, and turned to face the inquisitor. “What?” she said.

Blake recalled her well now, remembering a bright, loquacious sixteen-year-old and her youthful, shy mother. Their eyes had struck him, hazel flecked with gold, and he remembered worrying about Preston’s behavior toward them. It seemed, though, at least on that night, that Preston had acted in a gentlemanly fashion. Blake felt reasonably certain that had he not, Mr. Morgan would have intervened. They had driven back to Seattle the next morning, and nothing had seemed amiss.

The girl had changed more dramatically than just the passage of three years would explain. She looked worn and thin and perhaps not very well. Worse, she couldn’t seem to think of what to say to the man in the boater.

The stranger said again, “Bothering you, miss? This darkie?”

Blake stiffened. “Sir,” he began. “I’m the—” but Miss Morgan interrupted.

She lifted her head to glare at the interloper. “This is Mr. Benedict’s chauffeur,” she said, with a haughtiness Edith Benedict, in her better days, would have been proud of. “We’re acquainted, thank you, sir.”

The man eyed her doubtfully, and gave Blake the same scrutiny. It was no wonder, either. Miss Morgan was wet to the thighs, and her hat was crumpled. Little Louisa was soaked from head to toe, while Blake, his cane at his feet, was dressed in his usual service coat, with carefully shined shoes and neatly pressed trousers.

Miss Morgan said again, “Thank you for your concern, sir, but there is no need.” Blake thought she might even have sniffed, once, as if irritated at having to repeat herself.

The man in the boater touched his fingers to his hat. “Glad to hear it, miss,” he said, though he didn’t sound convinced. He nodded to her, and walked away without another glance at Blake.

Miss Morgan appeared to wilt again, as if she had pulled herself together just for the necessity of the moment. Her shoulders sagged, and she held her bedraggled straw hat in her two hands as if it didn’t belong to her.

“It’s Blake, miss,” Blake said gently. He was patting Louisa on her back. Her sobs had subsided to an occasional shudder. She clung to him like an oyster to a rope, arms around his neck, legs scrabbling for purchase around his waist. He held her under his chin, and regarded Miss Morgan above her dripping curls. “My name is Blake. I remember you very well, but I certainly didn’t expect to meet you here.”

“I—I was just—” Miss Morgan made a helpless gesture with the ruined hat. “She fell in the wading pool!” she finished, which hardly explained anything, but was borne out by the evidence.

“Will you follow me, miss? The family is in a terrible state. This is Miss Louisa, and she’s been missing for quite some time. Her mother is frightened half to death.”

 

Bronwyn, filled with misgiving, plodded after Blake’s tall figure. She had told him her name. She hadn’t meant to tell anyone her name. She had handed over the little girl, realizing in a flash how foolish it was to have thought she could pretend the child was hers. She had stood there, her dress dripping and her hat bent nearly beyond recognition, and defended the poor chauffeur as if she were still someone of consequence.

Now, she supposed they were on their way to Benedict Hall. She would get that glimpse she had hoped for, but they—the residents, perhaps even Dr. Benedict, which would be humiliating—would see her at her worst. She considered dropping back, letting herself be lost in the crowd, but as she began to slow her steps, the tall Negro looked over his shoulder.

“Oh, do please come to Benedict Hall, miss,” he said in his deep, elegant voice. “Mrs. Ramona will want to thank you. Perhaps help you with your frock.”

Bronwyn walked faster, until she was side by side with Blake as they crossed the street. “No one was watching her,” she said, a little defensively. It was silly, of course. Blake couldn’t know—nor could anyone else—that she had entertained, even for a moment, the idea of taking the little girl with her.

“She slipped away when everyone thought she was asleep,” Blake said. They had reached a scrolled iron gate in a fence surrounding a large white house, four stories at least, with a broad porch and cupolas everywhere. It was three times the size of her own house, Bronwyn thought, tipping up her head to try to take it all in. There was a garage behind it, too, painted white, and broad green lawns edged by rosebushes. An enormous camellia towered at the front, all the way to the top floor.

The child was quiet now, emitting only a faint, occasional hiccup. With the little girl in his arms, Blake led the way up several steps and across the wide porch to the front door. He opened this, and stood aside for Bronwyn to precede him. When she hesitated he said, “You must come in, Miss Morgan, or Mrs. Benedict will never forgive me.”

Whether this was true or not, she would never know. At the sound of the door, a pretty, disheveled woman came flying from somewhere at the back of the house. She screeched when she saw the child, and seized her from Blake to hug her and smother her with kisses. She wept and scolded through all of this, and had no eyes for Bronwyn at all. A middle-aged woman in a dark dress and dark stockings came behind her, a little more slowly, and she was weeping, too, though she didn’t scold. She stood beside the younger woman, wearing a look of such remorse on her craggy face that it made Bronwyn avert her gaze.

Blake stepped away, disappearing down the broad hallway to pass through a swinging door. Bronwyn stood uncertainly where she was, waiting for someone to look up and demand to know who she was and what she was doing there. Before this could happen, the swinging door opened again, and a plump Negress appeared, twisting her apron in her broad hands and crying out, “Oh, thank the Lord! Thank the sweet Lord! Miss Louisa’s home safe!”

Behind her trailed two girls, a matched set of freckled redheads, grinning and adding their voices to the tumult. The child began to cry again in response to the racket around her, and her mother and the middle-aged woman turned toward the wide staircase.

Bronwyn, watching them, realized that this was the site of the photograph she had pored over so often. It was the image she had dreamed of, picturing herself on the staircase instead of Margot Benedict, and Preston beside her in place of Frank Parrish. The carved newel posts gleamed in the light from the open front door. A strip of thick carpet ran over the polished wooden steps, and the bottom of the staircase widened as it dropped to the floor of the hall. Preston’s sister had stood just there, with her handsome groom beside her. There had been vases of flowers on the stairs, and glimpses of garlands.

That had been Margot Benedict. Dr. Benedict. This was her home, and if she found Bronwyn here . . .

Dr. Benedict thought she was Betty Jones, while Blake knew her to be Bronwyn Morgan of the Port Townsend Morgans. How could she ever explain?

Clutching her hat and her handbag, with her coat trailing from her arm, Bronwyn edged toward the front door. The women with the little girl climbed the stairs away from her, and the others—the Negress and the two redheaded girls—clustered around Blake, peppering him with questions. No one noticed Bronwyn slipping away, ducking out the open door into the warm evening light. She crossed the porch and descended the steps, hurrying now. If she got away before Blake could stop her, if she hurried back down the hill to the streetcar, he would forget all about her. He would surely forget her name, and not be tempted to try to discover where she was staying, or if her parents knew.

Bronwyn lifted the sun-warmed latch on the wrought-iron gate and started to pull it open. She gasped when a cold hand gripped her arm. It was a small hand, but surprisingly strong. Bronwyn stared at it for a heartbeat, then lifted her gaze to the face of the woman who had stopped her.

It was the second time that day she had seen the hair and eyes that reminded her so much of Preston, but this woman’s hair was mixed with gray, and her eyes were faded to a wintry blue. Her fingernails were manicured and her hair dressed, but though she wore a well-pressed linen afternoon frock, there was something oddly unkempt in her appearance, as if all the pieces of her didn’t quite fit together.

The woman said in an urgent whisper, “Did you find him?”

A chill ran through Bronwyn. Could this woman, whoever she was, have looked into her mind? How could she have known her reason for being in Seattle, for going to the Ryther Home....

Bronwyn took a breath, banishing the notion. Of course the woman meant the little girl. She had simply misspoken. Bronwyn gently lifted her arm away from the woman’s grasp. “You must mean little Louisa,” she said, in what she hoped was a soothing tone. “She’s in the house now. She’s fine, ma’am.”

The woman stood where she was, searching Bronwyn’s face with her pale gaze. Her hand was still extended, the fingers curved, as if she didn’t realize Bronwyn had removed her arm from beneath it. “Not Louisa,” she said, blinking. “The little boy. My grandson.”

Bronwyn’s chill returned in force. She shivered with it, and wondered vaguely if her fever was rising again. She said, haltingly, “Ma’am? I don’t know what—”