Hall of Secrets (A Benedict Hall Novel) by Cate Campbell Read Free Book Online Page B

opinion mattered much.
    Hattie had made what she called her “special cake” on the night Allison arrived. She served it herself, so Allison had to eat a few bites to be polite. It was marvelous, flavored with almond and topped with coconut, and Allison could still taste the sweetness in her mouth when she went to bed that night.
    Uncle Dickson had driven the Essex himself to King Street Station to meet Allison and Ruby. His butler and chauffeur, as Allison had learned from Papa, had suffered cerebral apoplexy the year before, and Uncle Dickson refused to replace him, which meant there wasn’t a single manservant in Benedict Hall.
    In Mother’s view, this was foolish, and created more hardship for Edith. In Papa’s opinion, Dickson Benedict was just looking for an excuse to drive his own motorcar, something no one in his position should do. Whatever the reason, Uncle Dickson had been at the wheel of the Essex, which was quite a respectable automobile. With him, to help with the luggage, was one of the maids, a redheaded, freckle-faced girl named Leona, who bobbed a curtsy every time anyone spoke to her, and whose presence had Ruby stony-faced with resentment by the time the valises and the trunk were wrestled into the back of the Essex.
    Benedict Hall and the other grand mansions of Seattle occupied Fourteenth Avenue, opposite a park with a glass-walled conservatory and a brick water tower soaring toward the leaden clouds. It all would have been beautiful if it hadn’t been for the unrelenting rain, which depressed Allison and made Ruby sniffle.
    While Ruby unpacked Allison’s trunk and stowed her things in the drawers of a massive oak wardrobe, she complained steadily, in a resentful monotone, about having to share a floor with Leona and her twin, Loena. Ruby had her own bedroom, but they all shared a bath, and the twins trotted in and out of her room without asking, as if it didn’t even have a door. “They chatter at me all the time, and I can’t even tell them apart,” Ruby droned, all the while folding chemises and shirtwaists and pairs of stockings. “They’re as alike as two peas in the same pod. I swear if you put ’em side by side even their freckles would match. And they’re just housemaids, besides. There’s no lady’s maid in the house, not a real one. Who am I going to talk to?”
    “Maybe Seattle ladies don’t have lady’s maids,” Allison said absently. It wasn’t an issue she cared about in the least. If Ruby decided she didn’t like living in Benedict Hall, Allison would happily put her on the train back to San Francisco. She could fold her own clothes, surely. She couldn’t mend them, or iron them, but she would get by. She had managed perfectly well on Berengaria, when Ruby was lying in her bunk in Third Class, clutching her stomach and moaning.
    Now, Allison was seated at the vanity mirror, coaxing the sides of her hair into spit curls to frame her cheeks, the way the film star Louise Brooks wore her hair. Of course, Louise Brooks’s hair was dark and Allison’s was so fair it was almost colorless, but she thought the style flattered her small face and pointed chin. The trick was to get the curls to stay. She dipped a fingertip into the tin of pomade, delicately stroked it on, then turned her head this way and that, assessing it.
    “You could be a hairdresser,” Ruby said, standing behind her. “Monsieur Antoine couldn’t do any better.”
    “Oh, he could,” Allison said, pursing her lips. “He invented the bob, after all. And the finger wave.”
    Ruby pushed a strand of her own dull brown hair back from her face and scowled over Allison’s shoulder. “I’d like to bob my hair, too,” she said. “But who knows what the barbers in Seattle are like?”
    “Cousin Ramona must know one. She has a perfect finger wave. Do you want me to ask her?”
    Ruby shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. I’ll think about it.” She turned to shake the wrinkles out of Allison’s pink