by Charles Todd
I shivered at the thought. “How old did you say he was?”
“He wasn’t even fifteen when it happened and not well, in the bargain. If he’d been taken away and put into prison, it would have been a terrible burden for the family to carry, wouldn’t it?” She collected the bundle of sheets. “I’ve said enough, more than I should.”
I handed her the pillow slips that I’d been removing, and asked, “You aren’t going to have to do all these by yourself, are you?”
“No, Miss, thank you for asking. There’s a laundress comes to see to the washing and ironing.”
After Susan had gone, I stood in the empty room and thought about the man who had lain so ill in that bed.
Perhaps it wasn’t the first time Peregrine Graham had attacked someone. But that was neither here nor there. His brothers had had to grow up in the shadow of his crime of murder, and it must have been exceedingly difficult. While Peregrine had for the most part been civil and seemed perfectly sane, as far as I could judge, who knew what lay beneath the surface? I had glimpsed the force of his anger once, and that had been enough.
It was to his credit that Peregrine acknowledged what he’d done. He hadn’t tried to pretend to me that he was an innocent man, or that he didn’t deserve his fate. He knew very well that he must return to the asylum, and he went back peaceably. But his family, knowing his history better than I did, must have spent a good many uncomfortable nights while he was under their roof.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN WE GATHERED in the dining room for our noon meal, Mrs. Graham was profuse in her apologies for using a guest so poorly, and added her gratitude for saving her son’s life. I wasn’t sure I believed the latter. The Grahams could decently mourn the dead, and admit that they’d loved him. Even if they choked on the words.
How would my own parents feel if I were taken up for murder?
A sobering thought that made the Grahams’ dilemma strike home. And yet I couldn’t forget that they had protected themselves—at whose expense?
“My training wasn’t solely for the battlefield, Mrs. Graham. I was taught to work with the sick as well,” I reminded her.
“We heard almost nothing from the sickroom except the endless sound of his coughing. Did—was Peregrine able to speak? I worry that they were treating him well, that he’d had proper care.”
I knew what she was fishing for. She could have come and asked him about his care herself.
“He was hardly able to speak more than a few words,” I told her. “He asked where he was, and if the war was still going on. He asked what year it was….” I let my voice trail off, as if I were having trouble remembering anything else. I most certainly couldn’t tell her that he believed she or Robert had killed his father.
She seemed to be surprised that he didn’t know what year this was. “But surely they tell him—” She stopped, then went on in a different direction. “Well. He’s always been troubled in his mind. Even as a child. At least he doesn’t appear to be any worse—violent, difficult to manage.”
“I don’t think he had the strength to be difficult.”
We had just finished our pudding when Dr. Philips came to the door and asked to speak to me.
While I was playing angel of mercy, Ted Booker had tried again to kill himself, and it had been necessary to strap him down to a bed and keep him at the surgery.
“I don’t know what will happen to him. I feel I’ve failed him in some fashion. He wants to see you. Meanwhile I must contact the clinic and tell them to hurry. Booker can’t wait six weeks for space. Not now.”
“He’s asking for me? I’m surprised he remembers me at all.”
“I expect his wife may have told him. Will you come?”
Mrs. Graham protested, but this time it was more form than substance.
I went to fetch my coat and stepped out into the still, cold air.
“When I heard that Peregrine was ill,” Dr. Philips said as I preceded him down the walk, “I offered to come. They told me you were managing very well. I wasn’t surprised. I’d already witnessed a little of your skills.”
I turned my head to look at him. “But—I kept wondering why you hadn’t at least overseen what I was doing.”
“I’m sure Mrs. Graham would have sent for me if she’d believed he was truly in danger. It was a compliment that she trusted to your training.”
I opened my mouth to tell him just how ill Peregrine Graham had been, how I’d lain awake hour after hour, worried as he struggled to breathe. And then I stopped myself in time. What good would it do to make him wonder why Mrs. Graham had turned him away?
It hadn’t yet begun to snow, and I made some remark about how heavy the clouds were. Dr. Philips told me snow was unlikely. The awkward moment passed.
We walked in silence to his surgery, cutting through the churchyard. I told him about the rector’s carpentry.
“He’s quite good with his hands. I could wish him a stronger force—he’s sometimes of two minds about what should be done when he ought to be taking a stand.”
“Perhaps he’s chosen the wrong profession.”
“You haven’t heard his sermons. They’re quite good as well,” the doctor assured me. “It’s solving problems of a practical nature where he’s something of a paradox.”
I wondered if he was thinking about the rector’s views on Ted Booker.
The doctor’s housekeeper met us at the door and let us into the surgery, saying as I entered, “You’re the young woman who knew Arthur.”
“I did, yes.”
“We all mourned him. Such a shame.”
What do you say in response to that? I smiled, and she took my coat before leading me back to the small room where they had put Ted Booker.
He lay on the bed, his eyes closed, but he opened them when Dr. Philips said quietly, “She’s here.”
I saw such misery in their depths. My heart went out to him. But I said in my brisk voice, “What’s this I hear about you doing yourself a harm?”
He looked at the doctor, and both Dr. Philips and the housekeeper withdrew, shutting the door softly after them.
Lieutenant Booker said, “I’m a coward. Just as they say. A brave man would have got it done properly.”
“Perhaps it isn’t your time to die,” I replied. It was an echo of what I had said to Peregrine Graham. “Had you thought about that?”
“No.” It was blunt.
“Well, it’s something to consider. Hasn’t your poor wife suffered enough? Even for Harry’s sake? He would be the first to tell you to put the living before the dead. You won’t bring him back by sacrificing yourself as well, you know. And he doesn’t have a son to carry on his memory. But you do, and it’s your duty to see that your own son remembers his uncle with pride and honors him for his courage.”
He held up his wrists, bandaged now. “I couldn’t do it. Not even for Harry.”
“Then I’m proud of you. Something deep inside prevented you, and that means in time you’ll heal. The living must go on living, or we fail the dead.”
“It wasn’t that. I heard my brother crying out to me. As clearly as I hear you now. He stopped me, I didn’t stop myself.”
I digested that, then said, “Which proves I was right. There was some reason for you to live.”
“It shook me to the core.”
I could see that it had. “Of course it did.” I pulled up the only chair in the small room and sat down by the bed. “I expect he watches over you. And always will.”
He stared at me. “I told myself it was proof of my madness.”
“I’d say, rather, proof of your sanity. Why did you send for me?”
“Because none of them has been to war. You’ve come close.” He frowned. “I thought I’d seen you in France. When Harry was taken to the dressing station.”
“It was dark, you were very upset. We look alike in our uniforms.”
“That’s true….” He hesitated. “Will you tell the doctor that I won’t
try again? He won’t believe me. My mother-in-law is set on sending me back to the clinic. I want to stay here.”
“Dr. Philips has already given you one chance. And Mrs. Denton is sick with worry for her daughter. Wouldn’t you be in her shoes?”
“I tried to make her understand about Harry,” he said defensively.
“Oh, don’t be silly, Lieutenant. If you had a daughter and she’d married a soldier who seems bent on breaking her heart if he doesn’t frighten her to death first, what would you do?”
He gave me a twisted smile. “I’d try to knock some sense into the bas—” He broke off. “Beg pardon, Sister.”
“That’s precisely what Sally’s mother feels.”
“Tell them I’m sorry. Tell them to give me one more chance. I won’t let them down.” His eyes pleaded, and I tried to judge whether he meant it at this moment but would succumb to his nightmares again.
There was no way of telling. “I’ll speak to Dr. Philips.”
“I can’t help that the trenches come back—”
“That’s not your fault,” I agreed. “This”—I gestured to his surroundings, the bandages and the straps holding him down—“this is your doing.”
He shut his eyes, and I could see tears beneath the lids. Men don’t like to be seen crying. I turned and quietly left him alone.
I wasn’t sure Dr. Philips believed me when I told him that Ted Booker had promised not to do anything rash again. I could read the skepticism in his face. After all, I was a nurse, and he was the medical man.
Walking back to the Graham house, I was overtaken by the rector—he called to me, introducing himself in the same breath.
“Miss Crawford? I say, I’m Christopher Montgomery, the rector.”
I turned to meet him as he caught me up.
He was a man of middle height, with light blue eyes and fair skin. I put his age at forty, perhaps forty-five.
“I understand you were with Arthur Graham when he died.”
“Yes, I was. I came to Owlhurst with messages for his family. We nearly met before, Rector. I was in the church the other day, when you were repairing something in the organ loft.”
He smiled ruefully. “I must have been making a terrible racket. But the bench was wobbly, according to my organist, Mr. Lessing, and I took it upon myself to find a solution. Thankfully, all four legs of the bench were even when I finished.”
I laughed. “I’m sure they were.”
“I saw you leaving the surgery just now.”
“I was looking in on Lieutenant Booker.”
“Yes, I sat with him earlier. A sad case. I don’t understand what shell shock does to the mind, but I can see very clearly how much he’s suffering. I was a chaplain in the first months of 1915. They sent me home because I had a very bad case of trench foot. Embarrassing, to say the least. But I’ve thought for some time that it might have also been my reluctance to convince men that God intended for them to die for King and Country.”
“There are worse cases than Mr. Booker’s.”
He shook his head. “That’s beyond my ability to imagine.”
We had turned to walk together toward the church gate, where I would take the shortcut to the Graham house.
The rector said after a moment, “I wanted to ask you about Peregrine Graham.”
I was immediately on my guard. It wouldn’t do to gossip about the Grahams behind their backs.
“It came to my ears that he’d been brought home and is not expected to live. Is it true?”
“He’s much improved, I’m happy to say. Someone came for him only this morning.”
“Yes, the neighbors were quick to inform me that the ambulance had returned, but they couldn’t tell me whether it took him away alive or dead. I tried to call one morning, but was turned away. They told me Peregrine had no wish to see me.”
I hadn’t known that he’d called. I said, trying to be judicious, “I don’t think he was really well enough for a visitor.”
“It was kind of you to help the family in their hour of need.”
It hadn’t been kindness, it had been necessity. “I was glad I was here to step in,” I answered instead.
“Where have you served?”
I told him, trying to keep my voice neutral—an experience, but stiff upper lip and all that.
We were halfway across the churchyard now.
He stopped. “It must have been a very nerve-racking experience. I can’t imagine coming so close to drowning. And how is your arm? I see you aren’t keeping it in a sling.”
“Much improved.” I smiled. “Friends at the Front are exhausted from deciphering the letters I wrote with my left hand. It will do much for fighting morale when I am legible again.”
The rector chuckled. Then he said, going back again to Peregrine, “I’ve always been of two minds about Mrs. Graham’s son, and what he did.”
“I didn’t know that you were here, er—at the time.”
“I was not. But my predecessor kept journals for his own guidance, and left them to me for mine. I have read the pertinent passages. He writes that Peregrine had been taken away quietly. He seemed to be comfortable with the decision, he felt that the family had suffered enough. I wonder if that was fair to Peregrine.”
“Would prison have been better? Surely not, if there were doctors at the asylum who could work with him.”
“As to that, I can’t say. My predecessor—Craig was his name—spoke of a damaged mind, and the fact that the poor soul had never successfully been educated. That would have been taken into account, certainly.”
I knew my surprise showed in my face. “Is that what he wrote?”
“He felt Peregrine Graham had the mind of a child.”
Hardly the man I’d just dealt with!
“Was that the generally accepted view? Or just Mr. Craig’s?”
“I can only tell you his given opinion. Apparently the boy had been having some difficulties while his father was alive. The tutor complained he was slow to learn, unable to concentrate on his lessons. But when his father died, the boy’s mind broke with his grief. And so they kept him close to home after that. At any rate, I thought, while Peregrine was ill, I could offer him Christian solace before he returned to that place. I went to Barton’s—the asylum—soon after I took up the living here, but they told me he wasn’t allowed visitors. I was astonished. I thought the family would have—but I was told he was allowed to see no one.”
“Were these the terms of his confinement?”
“That’s possible, of course. Ted Booker told Mr. Craig that one day he was passing the asylum, and there was Peregrine, sitting on a bench under a tree, manacled to it. This was some years ago, well before the war. Booker could see him through the gate, and called to him. Peregrine turned his head away. Booker was shocked by his appearance, and said something to Arthur about it. The rector reported in his journal that Booker was the only person to have seen him since he was taken there.”
And I’d just missed my chance to ask Ted Booker about Peregrine Graham.
I next expected the rector to ask me what I thought of my patient, but he didn’t. It was the journals that were on his mind. I could see that he was fascinated by his predecessor.
“Well, water under the dam,” he went on. “I’ve never spoken to anyone else about the journals, you know. It seemed best. There are comments in there that are more honest than most people could stomach. Mr. Craig believed in the truth at any price.”
“I understand.” I wasn’t to chatter about them.
“I think you do. Thank you.”
We had reached the far gate of the churchyard. He opened it for me, and said rather shyly, “Perhaps you’ll call at the rectory, before you leave. I’d be glad to show you the journals.”
“I should be leaving shortly. I’m awaiting my orders now. With Britannic at the bottom of the sea, I’m sure London is at sixes and sevens trying to decide where to put all of us. One of the nurses on the ship with me has ju
st been posted to Poona, in India.”
“That’s a long way from home,” he said.
I didn’t tell him I’d spent part of my childhood in the East. I simply agreed, and he said good-bye, but then called me back to ask, “Do you think Peregrine Graham lacks spiritual comfort where he is? Is he capable of recognizing his needs in that direction?”
“I think,” I responded slowly, “that he despairs of comfort. But it’s a matter you must take up with the family. Or the doctors at the asylum.”
“Mr. Craig was also chaplain there, but I’ve not been asked to fill his position. Perhaps I ought to speak to someone in charge and see what the need is.”
“Yes, that might be wise,” I said. “Good-bye, Rector.”
We shook hands, and I turned away to walk the rest of the way alone.
There was much curiosity at the house regarding my summons to speak with Ted Booker. Susan was the first to ask, and then over our meal, Mrs. Graham brought up the subject.
Not wanting to add to any gossip about his attempt to kill himself, I merely said, “He felt that I’d been closer to the war than his family. I think he wanted reassurance that his problems are not his alone.”
“I should think a rational man would do his best to heal quickly and return to the fighting. God knows, we need soldiers.” Would she have wished her own son back before his time was up?
I could have answered that it wasn’t surprising—the casualty lists continued to be unbearably long. But I said instead, “It takes time to heal the mind, just as it does the body.”
“Did he ask you about Peregrine?”
“About Peregrine? I don’t believe he even knew your son was at home, ill.”
“No, I meant Dr. Philips.”
I think my guilty conscience for having spoken of Peregrine with the rector must have shone in my face, but I said resolutely, “He complimented me on my skills.”
“You needn’t avoid the question, you know.”