CHAPTER 10
Frank arranged access to the telephone after nine in the evening, in hopes Margot would be at home. He placed the call with the operator, then waited beside the desk in Carruthers’s office for her to put it through. He gazed out onto the empty airfield, made nearly as bright as day by an enormous white moon shining from the clear sky, and wondered if she could see the moon at home. When the phone rang, he picked it up eagerly, balancing the earpiece in his right hand and the receiver in his artificial one. “Margot? Are you there?”
“Frank,” she said, with a warmth that even the great distance between them and the coldness of the telephone wires couldn’t diminish. “It’s so good to hear your voice. How are you?”
“I’m well,” he said. “Very. And you? Tell me what’s happening in Seattle.”
He closed his eyes as she talked, shutting out the spareness of the military office, with its plain desk and stacked wooden cabinets. He pictured her with her dark hair brushed behind her ear so she could press the earpiece to it, her long legs curled under her. Perhaps, he thought, she was already in her dressing gown, getting ready for bed. The old camellia would cast thin shadows in her room, unless the clouds were too heavy for the moon to break through. Everything around her would be orderly, the way she liked it. There would be a book beside her bed, perhaps a glass of water. Her medical bag would rest beside the door, so she could seize it up if she had to make a house call or go to the hospital.
He could see Benedict Hall, too, as she described Blake’s return, walking with his cane, with only a slight weakness of one leg. Blake, she said, wanted to resume the task of driving the Essex, and everyone in the house but Edith was enthusiastic about that. Edith, it seemed, was much as she had been.
“And how’s the young cousin?” he asked. “Has she settled in?”
He heard her hesitate, that familiar little pause that meant she was considering her answer before giving it. “She’s not a very happy girl, I’m afraid. She seems very young for her age, for a girl who’s made the Grand Tour and done the debutante year. She seems—unformed, I think would be the best word. More importantly, she’s too thin. Much thinner than when we met her last year, and although she behaves properly when I see her—at dinner and so forth—she gives me the sense that it’s a deception. She seems both fragile and explosive, if that makes sense. As if she’s barely holding herself together.”
“Odd,” Frank said, more to show her he was listening than because she needed a response.
“Well, yes, but if you knew my aunt and uncle you might understand,” Margot said drily. “They treat Allison like a dog to be disciplined.”
“You hoped she might draw out your mother.”
“No joy there, I’m afraid.”
“Is everything finished at the clinic?”
The change in her voice, as she described the completed work, was a thrill to hear. As she told him about the reception room, the two examination rooms with their brand-new beds and sparkling glass-fronted cabinets, the beautiful new desk her father had sent for her office, he felt a glow of pride. He had worked hard on those plans, had supervised everything in the construction, from the laying of the foundation to the Neponset asphalt shingles on the roof. Those would be more fire resistant than the wood shingles of the previous building. He had planned the entrance, discussed the landscaping with the Chinese gardener, chosen the exterior paint, and arranged the glazing of the windows. It was, he thought privately, their clinic, though it would be presumptuous to say so.
“I love it, Frank,” she said. “I can never thank you enough for all your work.”
“Don’t,” he said. “I’m just glad you’re pleased.”
“I’m afraid this call is getting expensive,” she said. “But I want to hear how your work is going. Are you almost done?”
He understood the unspoken question. Are you coming home? But he couldn’t do that, not yet. He wanted to surprise her, to surprise everyone, but he wasn’t yet ready. “Not quite, I’m afraid. Mr. Boeing has several questions he wants answered, and I—I’m working on them.”
“But you like what you’re doing,” she said.
He thought of the elation he had felt just that morning, as his airplane soared above the valley, shedding the weight of Earth and setting him as free as the birds that dipped and dived below him. He thought of the deftness he was acquiring with his artificial arm, of the mastery that was coming to him, bit by bit. It filled him with a satisfaction he hadn’t ever expected to feel again. With all of this filling his mind and heart, he said, inadequately, “Oh, yes. Yes, I like the work very much.”
Margot, thoughtful and frowning, replaced the earpiece on the telephone base. There was something Frank wasn’t telling her. She knew it, with the same instinct that sometimes told her a patient was holding back, out of fear or caution or—what? Why would Frank keep secrets from her?
She got up from her bed and went to wash her face and brush her teeth, telling herself sternly not to turn into a jealous female, imagining slights or suspecting betrayal. He had called, after all. He had spoken with her at length, and it must have cost him a frightful amount of money.
And, of course, she reflected wryly, as she returned to her bed and slipped under the blankets, she was keeping secrets of her own. She would tell him, do her best to explain everything the moment he came home. She could see no reason to reignite their argument now, while they were so far apart.
She hadn’t told her father, either, because he would object at least as strongly as Frank. Her conviction would have to sustain her against their opposition.
She had invited Margaret Sanger to Seattle, and the two men most important to her were going to be angry about it.
The press called Sheppard-Towner the Better Babies Act. That bit of humor offended Margot to her very bones. There was nothing funny about this issue. These were matters of life and death. Infant mortality among the poor was shockingly high, and women of that class still died in childbirth all too often, leaving motherless children behind. Education was the only answer. How could the Italian women, the Chinese women, the colored women, know any more than their own mothers had if no one would teach them? How could they improve the lives of their families if they couldn’t control the size of them?
She reached for the book beside her bed, but then laid it down again, unopened. It had been a long day, and her list of duties for tomorrow was just as long. The first thing she had to do was to find someone to staff the Women and Infants Clinic.
She put out the lamp and rolled over, pulling the comforter up to her ears. Perhaps one of Matron’s nursing students. Or perhaps an older nurse, someone with hospital experience, who was ready for a change. . . .
Or Sarah Church.
Margot’s eyes flew open, and she gazed up at the dark ceiling, suddenly wide awake, energized by the flash of inspiration.
Sarah had left her hospital post in order to care for Blake. She had done so faithfully all this long, slow year of his recovery, and she was now without work. Margot wondered if Blake knew where Sarah lived, where she might reach her.
She sat up, put on her lamp again, and reached for her dressing gown. The oak case clock beside her bed told her it had just gone ten. Blake never slept before eleven. He should still be awake. She pulled on her dressing gown and thrust her feet into her slippers. She opened and closed her door quietly, in case anyone else was sleeping, and walked to the back staircase. She passed Allison’s bedroom on her way. No light shone under the door.
Margot went down to the kitchen, where the appliances sparkled faintly with reflected light. The marine layer had blown away sometime during the evening, taking the rain with it. Now the full moon shone its cold winter light on the gardens of Benedict Hall. She let herself out the back door, and paused on the porch to look across the lawn at the garage.
The windows there were all dark. The curtains were open, but she saw no movement. She leaned against a pillar, thinking how rare it was for her to be awake when Blake wasn’t. Of course he must be tired! It had been a big day for him. Benedict Hall was, she thought fondly, every bit as much his home as her own. Perhaps more, because he would no doubt live out his years here, whereas she—
She put her back to the pillar and tipped up her face to the moonlight. She hadn’t asked Frank about the weather, because that would be such a waste of expensive telephone minutes, but she wondered. He was in the Moreno Valley, where the weather tended to be warm and clear, which was why they put the airfield there. Surely he could see this same moon. She wondered for a moment if he might look up at it, and think of her.
It was, of course, a silly, sentimental notion. She should know better, after her years of medical practice. She had been witness a thousand times to the bleakly unromantic effects of relationships, but that didn’t seem to quench her own longings. Despite all that world-weariness, she was still capable of yearning to see Frank’s tall, lean figure climbing the hill to Fourteenth Avenue, coming in through the gate of Benedict Hall. Wishing to feel his muscular arm around her waist, his cool lips against her cheek.
She took a long breath of icy air, trying to soothe the ache of loneliness beneath her breastbone. Yes, Frank could probably see this moon very well. He was probably considering what effect it might have on navigation!
The thought made her smile, and her heart lifted a bit. She pushed herself away from the pillar, and took a last look at the dramatic disc of the moon, blazing white above her head, before she turned to go inside.
She had just put her hand on the latch when a flicker of movement caught her eye. She glanced around the garden, but whatever it might have been was no longer there. She stood very still, listening. Was that a step on the wet grass? Perhaps a night creature rustling through the dry rose canes? She took one more look, but found nothing. She told herself it was the cold breeze and the ghostly light of the moon that made her neck prickle.
She pulled the door open and went back into the warmth of the house.
Margot rose early, showered, and dressed. With her shoes in her hand, she slipped down the back stairs to the kitchen and was rewarded by finding Blake alone there. The electric percolator was already bubbling, and Blake, when he caught sight of her, went straight to the cupboard for a second mug. He was leaning on his cane, she noticed, but he was deft with it, negotiating his way around the table to the icebox without difficulty.
“Good morning, Dr. Margot,” he said. “I hope you have time to sit and drink your coffee. This is like old times.”
“It’s so good to see you here in the kitchen again,” she said. She took a chair beside the table and slipped her feet into her shoes. “I do have time, as it happens. I’m not due at the hospital for an hour.”
“You’ll let me cook you a bit of breakfast, then.” He poured coffee and pushed the jug of cream toward her.
“What I’d like best,” she said, “is for you to pour your own coffee and sit with me. We can worry about breakfast later.”
He filled his cup and crossed to the table. She noticed he lowered himself into his chair with care, but without any evidence of pain. He propped his cane, the old familiar lion-headed pine stick, against the table.
“I hope that won’t hinder you,” Margot said, nodding to the cane. “We could certainly get you a better one. A nicer one.”
“Oh, now, Dr. Margot,” he said. “No need for that. I have a fondness for that old cane.”
“It’s stained,” she said. “It wasn’t stained before.”
His gaze met hers without a hint of dissembling. “It’s old wood,” he said. “It has history.”
“Not much of an explanation, Blake.”
He picked up his cup and smiled over the rim. “I’ve already told you, young lady. Best you don’t press me on that.”
She chuckled. “I won’t, then. If that’s what you want.”
They drank their coffee in companionable silence for a few minutes. Margot didn’t want to rush. The quiet would soon be broken by Hattie bustling in to begin breakfast preparations and the twins pattering around the kitchen readying the trays for the dining room. But for a precious space of time, she and Blake could sit alone in the shining kitchen, smelling the fragrance of freshly brewed coffee, comfortable and comforted.
Margot rose to refill their cups, waving Blake back to his chair when he started to get up. “Humor me,” she said when he protested. She set their cups down and passed him the cream. “I want to ask you about Sarah Church.”
He poured a bit of rich yellow cream in his cup, and tipped it to see it swirl into the blackness. “That is a fine girl, Dr. Margot. I feel bad that she gave up her post to care for me, and now she’s without a job.” He glanced up. “Perhaps you could speak to the hospital about engaging her again?”
“Of course I could, Blake,” Margot said. “Especially if that’s what she wants. But I have this other idea.”
His white eyebrows drew together, and he looked troubled. “Now, Dr. Margot,” he said carefully, “you know Sarah can’t come work in your clinic. Not that she couldn’t do the job, and do it well, but you can’t take on a colored nurse. You’ll have no patients at all.”
Margot sighed, tapping her cup with her fingertips. “Isn’t that sad?” she said. “But I know it’s true. Neither right nor fair, but true.”
His face smoothed. “Well, then. What is it you have in mind for my little Sarah?”
She leaned forward, elbows on the tabletop, fingers steepled. “There’s going to be a special clinic for women and infants, Blake. A law was passed, and it provided some money. This will be a wonderful clinic, available to anyone, whether they can pay or not. To teach prenatal care, home health and hygiene, and—” She paused. It suddenly occurred to her that she didn’t know Blake’s feelings about contraception. He tended to the traditional in his views, except when it came to her profession. He believed in people knowing their place and respecting it. He believed in the sanctity of the family—at least the Benedict family—and loyalty to it by family members and servants alike. He was not religious, as far as she knew, but he lived as if he were.
She exhaled, and parted her fingers in an uncertain gesture. “Birth control,” she said, and watched him for his reaction.
“Well,” he said, nodding. “That’s a fine thing, Dr. Margot. A fine thing to do. Where is this clinic to be?”
“Right at the edge of the Valley,” she said. She felt a little twinge of shame at having doubted Blake for even a moment. His views were always well reasoned, even when she didn’t agree with them. “Where the women of the colored neighborhood and the Chinese neighborhood, and the Italian farm women, can go on foot, or on the streetcar.”
“And what do you want Sarah to do?”
“Pretty much everything. I’ll stop in at the clinic twice a week. We’ll be looking for other physicians to help as well, but she would be the mainstay.”
“She’s a bit young.”
Margot nodded. “I know she is. But she thinks for herself, and she’s efficient.”
“That she is,” Blake said. He rubbed his chin with one finger, staring into the creamy depths of his coffee cup. “I would want to be certain she’s safe,” he said. “That can be a hard neighborhood.”
“I have an idea about that, too.”
He looked up, smiling. “You’re thinking of William Lee Jackson.”
“Yes, him, but even more, his grandmother.” Margot chuckled. “That’s a woman to be reckoned with.”
“All you have to do is persuade her.”
“Should I start with Mrs. Jackson, do you think?”
“No, you start with my Sarah. If she likes the idea, she’ll have some thoughts about how to make it work, I’m sure.”
“Do you know where she lives? How I might reach her?”
His smile widened to a grin. He looked, all at once, years younger. He looked more like himself than she had seen him all year as he struggled to recuperate. “Why, Dr. Margot, she’ll be coming by here this very day. She wants to make certain you all are taking proper care of her patient!”
Margot laughed. “We’d better get ready, then,” she said, and pushed her chair back. “I’ll come back for lunch, Blake. Can you ask her to stay?”
“I’ll do that.”
They both rose, and Margot carried their two cups to the big sink to rinse. Blake was putting on his jacket when she remembered, and leaned against the counter to ask, “Blake, did you see anything last night? In the garden?”
He stopped with one arm in the sleeve of the coat. “See anything? Like what?”
“I don’t know,” she said and shrugged. “Really, I don’t, I just—I thought there was someone outside, when I went out for a breath of air. Around ten.”
“Ah. No, I’m afraid I was already in bed. I won’t always retire so early,” he said.
“Yes, you will,” she responded tartly. “If you’re the least bit tired, I want you to do just that. Doctor’s orders.”
He touched his silver curls with two fingers. “Yes, ma’am,” he said.
She was laughing as she left the kitchen. Hattie was just coming in, tying on her apron, with the twins close behind her. Hattie said, “Now, Miss Margot, you go on and sit you down in the dining room. I’ll have some breakfast for you in two shakes.”
Grinning at Blake over her shoulder, Margot said obediently, “Yes, ma’am.”