C
HAPTER
2
Dressed in the same suit he had worn all day, Frank stood on the steps of the Alexis, awaiting the car Benedict had promised, and dreading the evening ahead.
It had not been a good day. The managers of two firms had offered sympathy, but nothing more. With the contraction of the economy, they said, they were letting people go, not hiring. He had to screw up his courage to call upon three more businesses. Two were polite, but not interested. At the third, a company that fabricated boilers and other steel products, the proprietor took one look at his empty sleeve and said, “Major, you’re wasting your time and mine. You’d better take your disability pay and go home.”
Frank stiffened. It was possible that one day a pension from the British Army might reach him. There had been no sign of it yet, but he wasn’t going to say so. It was none of this man’s business. “Sir,” he said, “I can be an engineer with one arm.”
The man looked angry, as if Frank had done something to affront him. “Have you done any drafting since you got out?”
“Happy to demonstrate,” Frank said. “Do you have a drafting table?”
The man blew out a breath. “Look, Major.” His mouth drew down, creasing his heavy cheeks. “I went at this all wrong.” Frank watched his eyes drop once more to the empty sleeve, then rise to Frank’s face. Something flickered in those eyes, some complex emotion, quickly repressed. “I should have just said we’re not hiring.”
Frank looked past the proprietor’s shoulder at the shop beyond. A few men in coveralls were working there. Several wore metal hard hats that looked very much like the helmet Frank had laid down for the last time when he mustered out. In a distant corner, the flare of a soldering iron cast yellow sparks over the cement floor, and in a small office to his right, a woman in a shirtwaist sat typing on a massive Underwood. The struck keys made heavy clanking sounds. Beyond her was an empty desk, holding nothing but a lamp.
“Looks to me, sir,” Frank said stubbornly, “as if you could use some help.”
The man gave him a mulish look, and didn’t answer for a long moment. At first Frank thought he was going to point to the door and ask him to leave, but then he saw the slight tremble of the man’s lip and a mist in his eyes that must have blurred his vision. Frank took a step back. Something was wrong here.
The man started to speak, but his voice cracked, failing him. He cleared his throat, and stared past Frank’s shoulder. Frank knew there was nothing there but the blank stucco wall of the next building. He took another step toward the door. The man was right about one thing—he was wasting time.
The older man finally forced his throat to work. “My son—” he began. He hung his head suddenly, and his fingers clutched the battered wooden counter in front of him, knuckles going white as he struggled to control himself.
Frank stopped where he was. The muscles of his belly tightened.
More than a hundred thousand American soldiers had died over there, from battle injuries, influenza, infections. Twice that many came home gravely injured, hopelessly shell-shocked, or maimed for life. The numbers were even worse for the Brits, who had been in the war three years longer.
Frank could guess at what had caused this man’s misery. The business was supposed to go to a son who had fallen and would never return. Or his position was being held for him in the hope he would one day recover enough to take it. Or the general strike of ’19 had set the business back so far that this man, in the face of his loss, had no more heart for it.
Frank couldn’t bear to hear it. He had no solace to offer. He growled, “Sorry to trouble you,” and turned sharply away. He let the door swing shut behind him. He didn’t look back to see if the man had recovered himself or had buried his face in his hands to weep.
And now, after a day of such disappointments, Frank stood on the steps of the Alexis waiting for a strange car to take him to have dinner with people he didn’t know, and would never meet in the normal run of things. What kind of family would produce a man like Preston Benedict? People of privilege, certainly. Money, advantages, history, good fortune. He would simply have to endure it, tolerate the careful questions and the looks of pity. He would be polite, as he was brought up to be, and he would make his escape as early as he decently could, to go in search of more whisky.
The Essex was a sleek black vehicle, and the driver who stepped out of it, courteously inquiring as to Frank’s name, was every bit as sleek and nearly as black. When he had ascertained that Frank was, in fact, Major Frank Parrish, the driver bowed, very much like one of the British officers’ batmen.
The car was one of the new enclosed sedans, with burgundy velvet upholstery and polished windows shining like crystal under the electric streetlights. The driver introduced himself as “Blake, sir. Mr. Benedict’s butler.” He asked in cultured accents about the suitability of the Alexis, and Frank’s liking for Seattle, as he adjusted dials and choke and headlamps. He pressed the electric starter, engaged the clutch, and began the climb up Madison and away from the city center, driving with the same dignity he displayed in his speech.
Frank settled back on the wide seat to watch the town spin slowly by. The car took a left turn, and he craned his neck to find a street sign. Broadway. They drove for another five minutes, making way for the occasional cart, and once for a streetcar clanging its way along the road, then turned right and wound even higher onto a tree-lined hill.
“Aloha Street, Major,” Blake said as the car followed the twisting road. He turned left at the top of the hill. “Fourteenth Avenue. The Benedicts built their home here thirty years ago.” He pulled to a stop in front of an enormous white building with elegant pillars and a broad porch that wrapped around the three sides Frank could see. For a painful moment Frank simply stared at it. Benedict had called it “the house,” but this was like no house Frank had ever set foot in.
Cupolas decorated every wall. Lights shone from three floors. A tall tree of a type Frank didn’t recognize stretched dark, leafless branches across the façade, and a wide, manicured lawn surrounded it.
The butler said, “Here we are, sir. Benedict Hall.” Frank suddenly longed to change his mind, refuse the invitation after all, but Blake was already out of the automobile, holding the door.
As Frank climbed out, Blake bowed again. “I’ll announce you, Major.”
Frank followed him up the walk, feeling utterly out of place. Such formality belonged, it seemed to him, to a different age. His Montana roots had taught him nothing about such things, though he had seen it in the British forces. The aristocrats, the officers, found it natural that some other man should clean their shoes and oil their rifles, even serve tea in a dirty trench while bullets flew overhead. Frank had never become accustomed to it.
Blake took off his driving cap as he opened the front door, revealing hair curled close to his scalp like gray wool. He left Frank standing in the hall, and disappeared.
Frank unbuttoned his greatcoat and slipped out of it, careful to tuck the empty sleeve of his jacket securely into his pocket. When Blake returned with an attractive woman of middle age, Frank had already hung the coat on a mahogany coatrack and scuffled the dirt off his shoes onto the coir mat inside the door.
“Mrs. Edith,” Blake said. He held his cap in his hands, and nodded toward Frank. “This is Mr. Preston’s guest for the evening. Major Frank Parrish. Major, Mrs. Benedict. Mr. Preston’s mother.”
The woman came forward, holding out a very slim, very white hand. Frank took it. He felt as if he was expected to bow over it, but he couldn’t imagine such an action. He shook it gingerly.
Edith Benedict put her other hand over his and squeezed. “Major Parrish! We are so glad Preston happened to run into you. We’re simply delighted to have you, someone who knew Preston over there, who fought by his side. . . .” Her voice faltered as she caught sight of Frank’s sleeve, flattened into his jacket pocket.
He said hastily, “Thank you, Mrs. Benedict. Kind of you to—”
Her pale cheeks turned rosy. She released his hand, then passed her own over her eyes as if to erase what she had just seen. “It’s just lovely to have one of Preston’s friends here,” she said in a breathy tone. “Just—just so lovely. Come and meet my husband, won’t you?”
Blake walked back out the front door, closing it behind him. Mrs. Benedict led Frank into a room to the left of the hall. “The small parlor,” she said.
Frank supposed there must be a big parlor, or this room could never be called small. There was a fireplace with a fire crackling in it, and an abundance of dark wooden furniture and upholstered chairs arranged on a plush carpet woven in deep colors. He shook the thick-fingered hand of Mr. Dickson Benedict, and the even bigger one of his son, Mr. Dick Benedict. Another Mrs. Benedict, young and very pretty, with painted eyebrows and short hair waved in rows like a washboard, rose from a chair beside a cabinet radio, and came forward to be introduced. Soon they were all seated around a little cocktail table, and the elder Mr. Benedict was offering a bottle of what looked like real, pre-Prohibition whisky. As he poured two fingers into a tumbler and handed it across, saliva flooded Frank’s mouth.
He waited until everyone was settled before he lifted the glass to his lips and tasted it.
He had been right. It was the real thing. His eyelids dropped at the pleasure of its smooth fire caressing his tongue, slipping easily down his throat.
Dickson Benedict, a ruddy, thickset man, smiled across the table. “I see you appreciate good liquor, Major,” he said. “It’s still legal in our own homes, of course. I saw the way the wind was blowing five years ago, and I laid in a supply.”
“Sir,” Frank said, lifting his glass to his host.
Mr. Benedict lifted his glass in return, and took a generous sip. Dick Benedict leaned forward as if to say something, but at that moment Preston burst into the room.
It was the only word Frank could have used to describe his entrance. All conversation halted, and every face turned as he flung himself through the door and strode across the carpet, an energetic figure with shining blond hair, bright blue eyes, and a loud voice. “Parrish!” he exclaimed. “Glad you could make it!” His arrival seemed to diminish every other person in the room. Certainly Frank felt diminished by it, overshadowed and dull, even as he stood to shake his hand.
“Did you meet everyone?” Preston poured himself a drink, then dropped into the chair closest to his mother’s. “Mater, you’re a regular cover girl tonight!” he said. “And Ramona—been to the hairdresser’s? You look like a picture. Dick, you’re a lucky dog.”
Both women bridled with pleasure, and it seemed to Frank that Ramona’s eyes shifted from Preston to her husband and back again, measuring. Mrs. Benedict could hardly take her eyes from her younger son. Frank thought this affection must be the source of the warm welcome she had lavished on him at the front door.
Frank took a draught of whisky while Preston commanded center stage as if a spotlight had been turned on him. “I might have landed a job today,” he announced. “At the
Times
.”
Ramona smiled at her brother-in-law, and when he winked at her, her powdered cheeks colored. She touched her hair in that self-conscious way some women had, as if they were preening birds. Dick, the older brother, stood a little apart, watching his wife and his mother bask in Preston’s glow.
Frank glanced sideways to see how the senior Benedict was taking it all, and was startled to find Dickson Benedict watching him instead of his son. There was something canny in the older Benedict’s dark eyes, a knowing arch to his bristling gray eyebrows. He looked away immediately, reaching for the decanter, but Frank felt as if Dickson Benedict was assessing his reaction to Preston.
Frank put his glass down, and let his empty right hand rest on his knee.
Blake came in a moment later. He had replaced his driving gloves with white cotton ones. He wore a different coat, and he carried a small tray in one hand. He stood in the doorway to announce dinner, and everyone rose.
Dick said, “What about Margot?”
“I’ve just brought her, Mr. Dick,” Blake said. “She went up to change her frock.”
Preston took Frank’s arm. “Come on, Cowboy. We’ll go find our chairs. My sister is always late.”
Dickson Benedict said, “Our daughter is a doctor, you know, Major. She has a private practice downtown.”
Preston caroled, “No practice without patients. Or hadn’t anyone noticed?”
Frank caught the dark look Dick flashed on his younger brother, and a little quiver of intuition vibrated in his belly.
Edith Benedict said mildly, “Now, now, Preston darling. We have to let her try. I’m sure she’ll settle down soon enough.”
There was a slight bustle and press as everyone left the parlor. The dining room was elongated, high-ceilinged, charmingly illuminated by small lamps and a little forest of candles in a silver candelabra. Crystal decanters waited on two immense sideboards. A long oval table covered in white linen was liberally set with silver and china. Stemware and silver sparkled with candlelight. Edith showed Frank to a chair beside Preston’s, and took her own opposite her husband.
They had just settled into their chairs when the sister made her appearance.
Dickson Benedict greeted her with, “At last. Late again, Margot.”
“Sorry, Father. I did my best.”
“Never mind, dear. We’re just glad you’re here,” Edith Benedict said. “Margot, this is Preston’s friend from the army, Major Parrish. Major, our daughter, Miss—that is, Dr. Benedict.”
Margot Benedict was a tall woman with straight, short dark hair and bright brown eyes. She crossed the room with a decisive step, and put out a long, narrow hand. “Major Parrish. How do you do.” Her voice was rather deep, and her gaze was as direct as a man’s.