by Charles Todd
“No. But I knew your brother. I was with him when he died.”
His dark brows rose. “Arthur is dead? How?”
Had no one told him? Surely they had! Or was it that his mind couldn’t absorb family news? “In the war.”
“It isn’t over? The war?”
“No, sadly, it hasn’t finished.”
“What day is this? What year?”
I told him. He frowned, as if he’d lost track of time.
“How did he die? Arthur?”
“Bravely. At peace.”
“You’re lying.”
Surprised, I said, “Why should I lie to you?”
“Kindness.”
I wasn’t sure how to respond. It was a remarkably rational exchange. But I was saved from answering as Peregrine began to cough. I offered him a drink of water and said, “You must rest now. You’re a little better, but not out of the woods yet. Sleep, if you can.”
Obediently he closed his eyes and was quiet for some time. Then he said, still in that painful whisper, “Why was I brought here?”
“I don’t think there was anyone to take care of you where you were.”
“I want to die.”
“Well, I don’t think it’s up to you,” I said briskly. “Modern medicine can work wonders without your help.”
“I’d rather be dead.”
“No, you mustn’t say that,” I replied, coming to the bed to look down at him. “If God sees fit to spare you, then there’s a reason. Something you need to finish—” I stopped. For him all there was to finish was his life sentence in an asylum.
His mouth twisted. “Indeed.” There it was again, that logical comment, with its touch of irony.
But he slept after that, and when Susan came to the door with my dinner, asking how he was, I said only, “There’s no change. Still, if Mrs. Nichols could prepare a soup for me—nothing too heavy, chicken stock and rice to thicken it, and a little meat, minced fine, and perhaps a little wine too, I’ll see if he can keep it down. He’s frighteningly weak, we must do something.”
“There’s fresh bread as well, for sops,” she told me, and then left without asking to see the sick man.
Two hours later, she brought the soup in a covered bowl and half a loaf of bread wrapped in a linen cloth, handing them in at the door.
I was able to cajole Peregrine into trying a little, and it must have been to his liking because he took nearly a third of a cup. And he kept it down, which I told myself was a good sign. Close to two o’clock, I brought him more, and again at six, finishing the container a little after eight the next morning.
I spent the night in my chair where I could watch him and hear the slightest sound, though by dawn, my cot beckoned, and I felt the stiffness across my shoulders and in my back. The chances of a relapse were very good, and I couldn’t risk that. But as the new day dawned, he was cool to the touch and resting well.
I rested myself that morning, realizing how hard a vigil it had been, and was grateful for the hot water that Susan brought with my breakfast so that I could wash my face and hands. It did very little to wake me fully.
My patient studied me in silence as I moved about the room, and I grew accustomed to finding those watchful eyes on me whenever Peregrine was awake.
“Why are you here?” he asked me late in the afternoon.
“To look after you.”
“No. Why are you here?”
“I was with your brother when he died. There were messages he wanted me to carry for him.”
“Messages?”
“Personal ones. To his brother.”
“Do you carry such messages to the family of every soldier you nurse?”
I could feel myself flushing. “No. But in Arthur’s case, you see, he thought he was recovering. And then everything changed.”
He didn’t reply, and I thought perhaps he’d fallen asleep. If I’d had any doubts about his ability to understand his surroundings, they were erased now. He could think, he could reflect on what was said and draw coherent conclusions, and he spoke like a rational man. But madness had its rational moments, I reminded myself. What’s more, I had no knowledge of what he was like before entering the asylum. Or what help, if any, he was given there.
If his tutor had despaired of him, why was he able to use his brain so well now? And if he had been given treatment that produced this mental agility, why did he not know his brother had been killed, how the war was progressing, or what year it was? It was a contradiction I couldn’t quite fathom.
What he said next shocked me. “A pity it wasn’t Jonathan who died, rather than Arthur.” His eyes were still closed.
“You can’t mean that!” I said, thinking how cruel it was.
“I do. I’ve hated him for years. Ever since I can remember.”
I didn’t know quite what to say. And then I recalled that others had called Peregrine “different.” Perhaps that was why he disliked his brother so intensely—if Jonathan had been held up as an example of what Peregrine ought to have been, and failed to achieve, it would breed jealousy. Frankly, I wouldn’t have put it past Jonathan to tease Peregrine unmercifully. Not after what he’d said about Ted Booker.
Finally, I replied, “He’s your brother.”
“I doubt it.”
I smiled. I had heard children quarrel in much the same vein. But then those dark eyes flicked open, and he seemed to pin me there in my chair. “I was separated from my brothers at an early age. There was little love lost between us.”
“Do you know why you were kept away from them?”
He turned his head to look out the window, agitated. “I always believed it was because my father died.”
I had the feeling that this wasn’t a safe subject for conversation. Until now, Peregrine had made good sense. Sometimes madness turned on small grievances, and I didn’t wish to provoke him into violence.
“That must have been a difficult time for you. You must have been little more than a child—” I’d meant it as conciliatory, but he didn’t take it that way.
“Later I wondered if she killed him or if she persuaded Robert to do it for her.”
That was surely a madman speaking—
There was a tap at the door, startling both of us. We turned toward it, as if expecting—what? After the briefest hesitation, I went to open it. It was Susan with another covered jar of soup.
I took the jar from her and set it on the hearth. By the time I’d spooned half a cup of it into his bowl, Peregrine seemed to have forgotten what we were talking about. I wasn’t about to bring it up again. He drank the soup without comment, and lay back against his pillows, tired enough to sleep.
I went back to my chair. I hadn’t been trained in the field of various forms of madness. We’d been more concerned with the destruction of the body, by illness or weaponry. I wished I could ask Dr. Philips for his opinion.
And now I was uneasy in this sickroom, where I hadn’t been before.
But I needn’t have worried. That was the only time my patient broached the subject of his brothers or his father’s death.
Later that evening as I sat by the fire, Peregrine cried out. It was so sudden I nearly leapt out of my skin. But when I turned toward the bed, he was lying there asleep, one arm flung out and his body half twisted to one side. I realized that he was dreaming. I heard him say, his voice muffled, “Please—,” and again, as if pleading, “Please—.” After that, he was quiet and didn’t rouse again until it was time for his soup at ten o’clock.
It was while Peregrine was finishing the cup that Timothy came to the door, knocking tentatively, to ask about his brother. But when I opened it, he stepped back, as if afraid he might find himself looking into the room beyond.
It occurred to me that the family had expected that my nursing skills were not up to saving Peregrine Graham, and they were now wondering why I hadn’t appeared with the sad news of his death. They had made no effort to send Dr. Philips to the patient. I wondered if they
would have, if I’d sent down to ask for his help.
“I’m cautiously optimistic,” I responded to his question. “It’s too early to say what the outcome may be.”
It was a habit I’d fallen into, working with the wounded. Orders were to find them fit again as quickly as possible and send them back to the fighting—men were in short supply, malingerers not tolerated. I often sought to keep a man who was exhausted, still weak, or pretending he was healed when I knew very well he was not. It made no sense to me to send someone back to die his first day. And I wasn’t convinced that this patient was well enough for the long, cold ride back to that tall, forbidding house behind its high walls. As well, the building clouds at dusk had spoken of snow, and I had seen the winter birds huddled in the bare trees, out of the wind, a sign of foul weather.
Timothy nodded, thanked me, and quickly walked away.
Peregrine, who had overheard the brief conversation, said with some bitterness, “I expect they’re eager to see the back of me. Or else he’s afraid I must be well enough now to overpower you and run amok in the house.”
“We shan’t worry about that until you can overpower your soupspoon,” I retorted. For his hands shook with the palsy of weakness as he tried to drink or feed himself.
When he didn’t reply, I said, “Mr. Graham. Would you wish to see the doctor or the rector? I’ll ask for them on your behalf, if you like.”
The answer was emphatically no.
“I don’t think they are the same men you remember,” I told him. “Your mother made some mention of newcomers.”
He remained adamant.
“Would you like for me to read to you? I’m sure I can find a book that might interest you.”
He shook his head, drifting into sleep almost as soon as I took away his bowl and cup.
I debated leaving him for a while and going to my own room. I hadn’t had a change of clothes for days, and a bath would have been heaven. But I was afraid to leave him alone. I didn’t want to address the reasons why.
And so I settled back in my chair, falling asleep myself to the rise and fall of his even breathing.
I woke sometime later with night creeping through the window and the lamps unlit. As I stirred, I could sense movement from the bed, and an instant of panic swept over me.
Then I realized that Peregrine had pushed himself back on his pillows and was asking if there was any of that soup left.
I got up and drew the drapes across the window, then found and lit the lamp. Susan had brought me a spirit lamp to keep the soup from thickening, and I heated it a little before giving him the cup to drink.
His hand was steadier now, and I left him to hold it for himself.
Over its rim his eyes were speculative, and I was suddenly nervous.
“If they told you what I’d done,” he asked, “why did you allow yourself to be shut in here with me? I don’t remember much about the events leading up to my removal to the asylum. Dr. Hadley kept me heavily sedated. But I have nightmares all the same. If they are true, then I’m a monster.”
“It’s Dr. Philips now,” I reminded him. “Dr. Hadley is dead. As for my agreeing to care for you, I hardly expected a man with terminal pneumonia to present a problem. I’ve had to deal with men raving from pain and from night terrors. I’m stronger than I look. And my father would tell you I didn’t have the good sense to be afraid.” I hesitated, and then asked, “Have you tried to harm anyone since the—the events that put you in the asylum?”
He moved restlessly among the bedclothes. “I’m not a lunatic.”
“I never suggested you were—”
There was a determined knock at the door, and I went to open it. Mrs. Graham stood there in the passage. I thought her eyes were nearly as darkly circled as my own.
“Timothy tells me that my son is going to live. Is that true?”
I thought she was glad, and was on the point of telling her that he would.
But she went on with a coldness in her voice that I was sure Peregrine could hear from his bed, “I shall inform the director of the asylum to send someone to fetch him at once.”
“I don’t think he’s ready to travel—”
“Nonsense. He survived his journey here and he will survive his journey back where he belongs.”
She turned on her heel and walked away.
I shut the door slowly, not wanting to see the look on Peregrine’s face.
He said, “There’s an end to it,” in a clipped voice. I did turn then and caught the expression of despair before it was smoothed away.
His keepers came for him the next morning.
It was the first time I’d ever seen a patient of mine manacled before he was taken away. Yet Peregrine Graham was too weak to walk down the stairs unaided. It took two stalwart warders on either side, and still he was in danger of falling to his knees. Yet somehow he managed it, and I wondered if it was sheer pride.
There was no one in the passage, by the stairs, or in the hall to bid him farewell. I threw a blanket around my shoulders and went out to the ambulance they had sent for him. In the end, I put the blanket around him on the bed to which he was chained, for there was nothing to cover him against the cold.
The driver waited impatiently, and I could see clearly what it was he was thinking—that I was wasting pity on a man who should have been hanged, if his family hadn’t had the money or position to send him to an asylum for the insane instead.
I went back into the house and slammed the door, unwilling to watch the ambulance pull away and turn back the way it had come.
Timothy appeared at the head of the stairs.
“He’s gone, then.”
“An animal would have been treated better,” I snapped without thinking about the fact that I was a guest here and should hold no opinions about circumstances of which I was ignorant.
“He is an animal,” Timothy said. “You saw him ill and weak. Not in his full strength.”
“I’m a nurse,” I said, trying to rein in my anger. “Not a keeper. I look at a patient, not a prisoner.”
“As you did with Booker.”
“Yes.”
“Which says much about your capacity for compassion.”
Timothy turned away and was gone.
I went back to the room to clear away the bedding and the spirit lamp and what was left of the broth, but Susan was there before me.
She said, “I’ll boil these sheets, Miss, and see that everything’s put away.”
I thanked her and went about collecting my own things.
“We was all amazed that he didn’t die. Mrs. Graham said it must be your fine nursing that did it. To tell truth, I don’t know how you could bear it!”
“He was ill. A nurse doesn’t ask who her patient is, or if he’s acceptable in Society.”
“No, Miss. I think his mother would have preferred to see him dead. It was a terrible blow to the family, to have a son of the house taken up for murder.”
“I don’t understand why he wasn’t sent to prison—or hanged.”
“Because he was so young and never right in his mind, Miss. And the doctor and the rector and his tutor all spoke to the magistrate. It was decided that the asylum was for the best.”
“But who did he murder?”
“I don’t know, Miss. It didn’t happen here. Mrs. Graham had taken him to London, to see a specialist. He hadn’t been well, there was nausea and vomiting, and he walked like a drunken man, hardly able to keep his feet. Dr. Hadley didn’t know what else to do. When she came home from there, she was as distraught as I’ve ever seen her, and Mr. Peregrine was locked in a room at the rectory. She sent for the rector and then for the magistrate, and I never saw Mr. Peregrine again, not even when they brought him here the other night. Mrs. Nichols and I were told to stay belowstairs.”
“And then what happened? After Mrs. Graham spoke to these people?”
“He was taken away. And Mrs. Graham cried for days. It was the saddest thing.”
/> “Arthur was here?”
“Oh, yes, Miss, as grim as I ever saw him. He didn’t speak to anyone for days. Master Timothy tried to comfort his mother, he kept putting his little arm around her shoulders. Master Jonathan paced the floor until Mr. Robert came and spoke to him, and after that he was quiet. Still, he sat in his room, pale as his shirt, worrying about his mother because she was crying. I tried to tell him that she was a strong woman, she’d be all right. But he wouldn’t hear me. He was angry with everyone, because he didn’t understand what was happening. Mr. Robert explained that Master Peregrine had been taken away because he was ill in his mind, but they were too young, they blamed him for everything, especially for having to cut their holiday in London short. But Mrs. Graham was strong, she stood up to all of it like the lady she is. All the gossip, the stares. I heard her tell Mr. Robert that those were the worst days she’d ever lived through. No soldier could have been braver. I couldn’t help but admire her.”
“But what about the victim, the person he murdered? Surely the victim’s family came to the inquest and gave evidence against him?”
Susan was confused. “I don’t know—I never heard they were there. And she wasn’t killed here. That’s why the inquest was in London.”
“What was the finding?” I asked.
“I don’t know, Miss, I wasn’t there. But Mrs. Graham came home, her face red from crying. Mr. Peregrine was already in the asylum, had been for days, and she told us all that he’d never leave it, he’d stay where he couldn’t harm anyone else.”
I was more than a little confused. “The inquest was held in London, but Mr. Peregrine had already been taken away?”
“Yes, Miss, it was decided in London that he was in no state to be shut into a prison. There was a doctor at the asylum who treated such cases, and it was his opinion that Mr. Peregrine should be brought to him straightaway. That doctor, and Dr. Hadley, here, the rector, the tutor, the local magistrate, they all sent depositions to London, asking that Mr. Peregrine remain in that asylum where he could be cared for properly. I heard Mrs. Graham tell Dr. Hadley it was a great kindness. She said she couldn’t have faced her husband in heaven, if she’d let his son go to the hangman. But I don’t think it would have come to that. I don’t think they’ve hanged anyone his age in a hundred years. Not at Maidstone, they hadn’t.”