The Benedict Bastard (A Benedict Hall Novel) by Cate Campbell Page A
Authors: Cate Campbell
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“So should she.”
Margot’s smile widened. “Fair enough. So should she.” She leaned forward to put her long-fingered hand on his. He turned his hand over to hold hers as tightly as he dared. The flicker of the small fire in the grate set reflections dancing in her dark eyes. “She can’t help it, Frank. Poor Mother. She just can’t.”
That conversation had taken place during the winter. Preston had just been moved from Western State Hospital, leaving Edith deprived of her weekly visits to him. It was too far, over snow-blocked and poorly maintained roads, to drive. The train journey was an arduous one, south to Portland, east to a tiny place called Wallula, then across the Columbia River. Dickson had forbidden his wife to make the trip in winter. In fact, Margot said her father had forbidden her mother to make the journey with just a maid, as she proposed to do. He would take her himself, he promised, when his schedule allowed.
That hadn’t happened yet, and Edith, though she wrote regularly to Preston, had begun to mope again, to stay in her room, sometimes for days on end. Frank didn’t know if Preston wrote back to his mother, but there were always packages going off to the sanitarium, Hattie sending tins of cookies, Edith collecting books and magazines and toiletries.
Once, when a brown paper package, neatly tied with white twine, was waiting on the hall table for the mailman, Frank had seen one of the twins spit on it. She didn’t know he was watching, and he stepped back quickly into the dining room so she wouldn’t see him. When he told Margot later, she said, “Oh, that must have been Leona. She’s never forgiven Preston for what he did to her sister.”
He had seduced her, Frank remembered. Impregnated her, and then arranged an abortion that nearly caused her death. “I didn’t say anything,” he confessed. “Didn’t think a little spit would hurt him.”
“No,” Margot said wryly. “And it probably made her feel better.”
Edith was another matter. On a sunny June afternoon, Frank came home early, having caught the streetcar rather than telephone for Blake. He meant to go out to the Sand Point Airfield and meet one of the Boeing pilots. Tyndall had been testing the Model 15, the first Boeing-designed fighter airplane, and Frank was going to go up with him, see how the new arc-welding process was working. He hadn’t flown in months, and he was as excited as a boy. When Bill Boeing gave him the assignment he had to school his face to hide the thrill it gave him.
He let himself into the hall through the front door. He would have preferred to use the back, and to climb the back staircase, but too often he encountered the maids there, and they embarrassed him by curtsying and stepping hastily out of his way. He would never, he thought, get used to having servants. They were just not the same as the hired hands he had grown up with. Frank and his father worked side by side with those hands, haying, plowing, rounding up cattle, branding. There was very little difference in their social standing.
He hooked his Stetson onto the coatrack and started up the front staircase with his briefcase under his arm. The house was quiet, but not silent. He heard Hattie humming in the kitchen, and the chirping voices of the twins coming from the dining room, with the lower, rougher voice of the maid Thelma answering. He supposed Louisa was napping, with Nurse watching beside the crib. Often Edith rested in the afternoons, too, rousing only to change for dinner, coming down to preside, in her somnolent way, over drinks in the small parlor and the family gathering for dinner.
On this day, something was different. Frank saw, as he reached the landing, that the door to Preston’s bedroom stood half open, the afternoon sun slanting through it to cast wedges of light on the patterned carpet. He heard a sound from within, a sibilant murmur, the rustle of fabric, the click and slide of drawers being
Margot’s smile widened. “Fair enough. So should she.” She leaned forward to put her long-fingered hand on his. He turned his hand over to hold hers as tightly as he dared. The flicker of the small fire in the grate set reflections dancing in her dark eyes. “She can’t help it, Frank. Poor Mother. She just can’t.”
That conversation had taken place during the winter. Preston had just been moved from Western State Hospital, leaving Edith deprived of her weekly visits to him. It was too far, over snow-blocked and poorly maintained roads, to drive. The train journey was an arduous one, south to Portland, east to a tiny place called Wallula, then across the Columbia River. Dickson had forbidden his wife to make the trip in winter. In fact, Margot said her father had forbidden her mother to make the journey with just a maid, as she proposed to do. He would take her himself, he promised, when his schedule allowed.
That hadn’t happened yet, and Edith, though she wrote regularly to Preston, had begun to mope again, to stay in her room, sometimes for days on end. Frank didn’t know if Preston wrote back to his mother, but there were always packages going off to the sanitarium, Hattie sending tins of cookies, Edith collecting books and magazines and toiletries.
Once, when a brown paper package, neatly tied with white twine, was waiting on the hall table for the mailman, Frank had seen one of the twins spit on it. She didn’t know he was watching, and he stepped back quickly into the dining room so she wouldn’t see him. When he told Margot later, she said, “Oh, that must have been Leona. She’s never forgiven Preston for what he did to her sister.”
He had seduced her, Frank remembered. Impregnated her, and then arranged an abortion that nearly caused her death. “I didn’t say anything,” he confessed. “Didn’t think a little spit would hurt him.”
“No,” Margot said wryly. “And it probably made her feel better.”
Edith was another matter. On a sunny June afternoon, Frank came home early, having caught the streetcar rather than telephone for Blake. He meant to go out to the Sand Point Airfield and meet one of the Boeing pilots. Tyndall had been testing the Model 15, the first Boeing-designed fighter airplane, and Frank was going to go up with him, see how the new arc-welding process was working. He hadn’t flown in months, and he was as excited as a boy. When Bill Boeing gave him the assignment he had to school his face to hide the thrill it gave him.
He let himself into the hall through the front door. He would have preferred to use the back, and to climb the back staircase, but too often he encountered the maids there, and they embarrassed him by curtsying and stepping hastily out of his way. He would never, he thought, get used to having servants. They were just not the same as the hired hands he had grown up with. Frank and his father worked side by side with those hands, haying, plowing, rounding up cattle, branding. There was very little difference in their social standing.
He hooked his Stetson onto the coatrack and started up the front staircase with his briefcase under his arm. The house was quiet, but not silent. He heard Hattie humming in the kitchen, and the chirping voices of the twins coming from the dining room, with the lower, rougher voice of the maid Thelma answering. He supposed Louisa was napping, with Nurse watching beside the crib. Often Edith rested in the afternoons, too, rousing only to change for dinner, coming down to preside, in her somnolent way, over drinks in the small parlor and the family gathering for dinner.
On this day, something was different. Frank saw, as he reached the landing, that the door to Preston’s bedroom stood half open, the afternoon sun slanting through it to cast wedges of light on the patterned carpet. He heard a sound from within, a sibilant murmur, the rustle of fabric, the click and slide of drawers being
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