A Duty to the Dead

by Charles Todd

  Susan’s mother nodded. “I was midwife for a time. I just fell into it, because I was the eldest of seven, and my auntie had six, and there was never time to call the doctor to them. When a baby died, I felt guilty, as if I’d done something wrong. I still dream of it, from time to time. Not as much as before, but sometimes. Those wee little faces, so still and pale. No future for them, no love nor laughter nor happiness.”

  “I understand.”

  “I expect you do.”

  We talked for another quarter of an hour, and then I took my leave. She asked me to remember her to her daughter. “For she has no time for visiting just now, with the maids all gone. That’s why I was glad to see what I took for Susan coming down the road.”

  I promised and walked back to the house, coming in again through the kitchen and passing on to Susan her mother’s greetings.

  “My brother’s children are grown now, and she keeps house for him. But this is still her family as well. I expect she was as glad of news of Mr. Arthur as I was.”

  “Hardly happy news.”

  “No. Would you like some hot chocolate, Miss, I was just about to put the kettle on.”

  “Thank you, no.” I was awash with tea. “I’m going up to my room.”

  Susan grinned at me. “Mrs. Graham said you was sleeping. I didn’t tell her otherwise.”

  I got to my room without encountering anyone, and Susan brought me a pitcher of hot water shortly afterward. I sat down in a chair by the window, and the next thing I knew there was a tapping at my door.

  It was Mrs. Graham, inviting me down to the sitting room. I went with her, and we sat by the fire, talking about the war and any expectation that it would be over by the spring.

  “Will you be going back to sea?” she asked me at one point.

  “I expect to be assigned to another hospital ship, yes. But the decision isn’t mine. I might be sent to France.”

  “You’re a brave young woman,” she said thoughtfully. “I shouldn’t have cared to be sunk, as you were. It was in all the papers, you know. But what do you expect of the Hun?”

  “I’m sure the mine was intended for bigger game, not an empty hospital ship.”

  “Where did you live as a child? In Somerset?”

  “No, I traveled with my parents. We lived in India for a time, and then wherever my father was sent by the army. I had a few friends my own age, but most often I got to know the country through the servants.”

  She raised her eyebrows at that.

  I explained. “We had any number of servants in India. My ayah, what you would call a nanny, was particular about where I went and what I did. But sometimes the gardeners or the grooms would take me to market with them. Our cook was a man, and quite good. He would bargain ferociously, and he had a reputation for being a hard man to cheat.”

  “You enjoyed this way of life, did you? Among the heathen and their idols?”

  “I knew nothing else, you see. Since I was an only child, my parents preferred to keep me with them rather than to send me to England to be educated. I realize now how fortunate I was.”

  Jonathan came in at that point, and the subject was changed. He was fretting over his wound. It seemed to be irritated by the wind, and he’d stopped in at Dr. Philips’s, in the hope of being given an ointment for it. “But he has his hands full—two births, and of course Booker. The man’s a coward, he should be shut away with others of his kind.”

  I opened my mouth to argue—and shut it firmly.

  His mother said, “That’s unkind. You’ve known Ted almost all your life. He’s not a coward.”

  “It’s different, Mother, when you’re fighting. You see a man in his true colors then. Whether or not he lets his side down.”

  “Your own brother has been called a coward, because he isn’t wearing a uniform. It has hurt him very deeply. Surely you don’t believe it’s true.”

  “Tim was born with a club foot. It’s not his fault. That’s very different.”

  His brother came in at that moment, and we all sat there with feathers on our faces, as if we’d eaten the canary.

  Timothy looked from his mother to his brother and said, “What is it?”

  “We were talking about Ted Booker. It’s a painful subject for your brother,” Mrs. Graham answered him.

  “Yes, sometimes I think that medal has gone to his head.”

  They glared at each other, but there was a tap on the door, and Robert stepped in.

  “There’s been a message. Peregrine has pneumonia.”

  There was a stunned silence.

  “And what are we expected to do about it?” Mrs. Graham asked after a moment.

  “He needs nursing. They would like to bring him here.”

  Jonathan said explosively, “No!”

  Mrs. Graham spoke over him, saying, “We don’t have the staff to look after a sick man. Tell them that.”

  “They think he’s dying. They would prefer that he do it elsewhere.”

  I could hear Timothy swearing under his breath. “Then we have no choice,” he said to his mother.

  Her face was set, grim. “I want no part of this business. For one thing, it’s not safe.”

  “He’s no danger to himself or others, in his present condition.”

  “Tell the messenger it isn’t possible.”

  Timothy said, “Mother.” It was a warning, and a glance passed between them. “If he’s delirious—”

  “If you like, I could stay a day or two, and care for him,” I said before I’d thought. “I’ve some experience with pneumonia.”

  They turned to stare at me as if I’d offered to climb to the roof and sweep the chimney.

  “It’s what I do,” I said. “Nursing.”

  Robert considered me. He said to Mrs. Graham, “It’s true. She helped Dr. Philips to manage Booker this morning. I saw Mrs. Denton in the stationer’s shop. She was regaling the Marshalls with a full account.”

  “You know that’s not possible. Bringing Peregrine back. God knows what thoughts or memories it might trigger,” Mrs. Graham added forcefully.

  “He’s going to be sent here, whether we like it or not,” Robert retorted. “I’ve told you. They don’t have the staff to care for a dying man.”

  “It will most certainly kill him to bring him out in this cold,” Jonathan put in.

  His mother turned to him, her mind working.

  It was an odd feeling, sitting in the midst of a family that was deciding the fate of one of its own as if he were a stranger. But it occurred to me that after all these years, he might seem to be.

  “If he’s wrapped up well, and there’s a way to keep the air he breathes warmer, he could travel,” I said, doubt in my voice. “I wouldn’t recommend it, but if he’s not likely to be given proper care…”

  “He’s in the asylum,” Timothy answered. “You must have seen it last night when you came from the station.”

  Robert had pointed it out. As if I should know its significance. As if he was certain that Arthur must have told me about Peregrine.

  “The messenger is waiting,” Robert reminded them quietly.

  I was beginning to see that he had more influence in this family than a cousin ordinarily possessed.

  Mrs. Graham bit her lip. “No,” she said finally. “It can’t be done.”

  “Perhaps Dr. Philips could care for him,” I suggested.

  “Absolutely not,” Mrs. Graham responded, not looking at me.

  “Perhaps I should leave you alone while you decide what to do.” I started for the door, but Robert was blocking it.

  “It might be the best course,” he said, ignoring me. “If you think about it.”

  Mrs. Graham stared at him as if she could read his mind. And then she nodded once, as if she understood what he was suggesting.

  “All right, then. Let them bring him here. If Miss Crawford will be kind enough to see to him until it’s over, I would be very grateful.”

  “Mother—” Jonathan began.


  “No, Robert’s right. As usual. This is perhaps the answer we were looking for.”

  “That’s settled, then.” Robert shut the door.

  Mrs. Graham said, “Timothy, if you don’t mind—I’d like a whiskey and water.” She sat down, as if her knees were about to give way. He went to the drinks table and poured a little whiskey into a glass and added the water. She drank it almost thirstily, as if she needed the support it offered.

  Then she turned to me. “I have imposed on you, my dear. It is not something I would have wished. If I’d known—” She broke off, and looked at her empty glass. “When Peregrine arrives, we must do our best to make him comfortable. Timothy, would you ask Susan what is needed to open his room?”

  He left us, and Jonathan said, “Mother, I hope to God you know what you are about.”

  I asked, tentatively, why their son and brother was in an asylum. It was expected of me, and I didn’t want them to know what Dr. Philips had already told me.

  “Because, my dear, he murdered someone. In cold blood, but not in his right mind.” The suffering on her face was real.

  She hadn’t beaten about the bush. I hardly knew what to say. “That’s—it must have been a terrible time for you.”

  “Peregrine’s never been—he had difficulties as a child, you see, but we never suspected—the truth is, you don’t suspect your own flesh and blood of—of having that sort of nature.” There was distress in her voice, a tightness that must have been a mixture of shame and of inexpressible shock as she looked back at the past.

  Her emotional confession made me wonder if perhaps I’d been a little hasty in offering my services. She knew better than I just how safe her stepson was. But I couldn’t take back my offer now. The Colonel Sahib would tell me that retreat was the better part of valor, but I knew for a fact he’d never retreated in his life. I wasn’t about to spoil the family record now.

  She must have read something in my expression because she said at once, “You needn’t fear him. They say he’s become quite docile—he’s accepted his fate.” She squared her shoulders, as if preparing herself to face what was to come. “Robert is right. They don’t have the means to care for my son as ill as he is. So many of the orderlies and the nurses went off to war that they’re fortunate at the asylum to be able to function at all.”

  After that we waited in an uncomfortable silence, expecting the knock on the door at any time that would announce the arrival of the sick man. I thought—belatedly—that I must send a telegram to my parents. I wouldn’t be coming home as planned.

  Finally, almost when we’d given it up for the evening, the door knocker sounded like the crack of doom.

  I went out into the hall with Mrs. Graham, and she opened the door herself.

  A man in a heavy coat stood there, and behind him were two stout men with a stretcher between them. Their breath steamed in the cold air.

  On the stretcher lay a tall man, swathed in blankets.

  Just then I heard him cough, and I knew the worst. His lungs were terribly congested. And the cold air during the journey had done them no good. Nor had standing there in the winter night.

  The stretcher bearers were coming through the door, now, and somehow between them they managed the stairs, grunting and struggling every step of the way. I thought how difficult it must be for the man they jostled and tilted like an egg carried in a spoon, but he never complained.

  I went up after them, but Mrs. Graham stayed below, talking to the third man.

  Somehow Susan had managed to make a room ready, and I watched the stretcher bearers settle their burden in the bed, drawing up the sheets to his chin.

  He lay there, exhausted, his face gray.

  I went to the side of the bed as the two men left, and looked down at Peregrine Graham. As murderers went—and I was most certainly no authority—he didn’t appear to be any different from the dozen of pneumonia cases I’d dealt with on Britannic’s next-to-last voyage.

  He opened his eyes then, and they were dark, pain and exhaustion mixed in their depths. As he struggled to speak, I wondered if he was dumb. His mouth moved, but he appeared not to know how to shape words.

  Finally he managed, “Where am I?” His voice was a husky whisper, I could barely hear the words. “Where have they taken me?”

  I realized that no one had told him what was happening. “You’re in your own home, at Owlhurst. I’m here to take care of you.”

  “Home?” His eyes looked around, as if trying to place his surroundings. “I must be dying.”

  “Early days,” I said, and then watched him start to shiver as the fever came on again.

  I ran to the stairs to see if the men had left any medicines for me, but they were gone, and Mrs. Graham was still standing in the hall, her face turned toward the door.

  I said, “Could you send Robert to Dr. Philips? I need something for a heavy fever, and something as well for a cough and congestion in the lungs.”

  She turned to me, looking up the stairs with shadows on her face that seemed sinister in the low lamplight. “I was told he was dying. That medicines were of no use.”

  “We need to make him comfortable to the end,” I pointed out.

  After a moment’s hesitation, she said, “Robert will see to it.”

  And an hour later, Timothy was at the door with a small box containing the medicines I’d requested. But he wouldn’t come into the room. It was as if he had no wish to see his brother.

  It was a measure of the family’s feelings.

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  CHAPTER SIX

  I LOST COUNT of time. I had almost no rest, sitting up through the nights and again through the days, eating the meals that Susan brought up to me and working hard to make the poor wretch on the bed as comfortable as possible. I’d expected Dr. Philips to appear at some stage, or even the rector, but no one came, not even Peregrine’s mother.

  But then she was his stepmother, wasn’t she? And this son had disgraced the family.

  The only respite I had was a letter sent on to me by my father. It was from Elayne, one of the women with whom I shared the small flat in London. I recognized her sprawling hand at once. Tearing open the envelope, I was immediately lost in her words, so like her voice.

  I hope the arm is healing as it should. I’m eager for news. Here’s mine. You’ll never guess, darling, what has happened to me. I’m in love, and he’s wonderful. I met him on the ship bringing the wounded back from France. He broke his shoulder wrestling a mule. Judging from the size of him, I wonder how the mule fared. Did I tell you he’s Staff? Quite safe behind the lines, so I shan’t fear losing him. He’s coming to visit when he’s out of hospital, and meanwhile, I’m off again to France. He’s asked me to smuggle a bottle of good wine back for him. I’ve left a small package at the flat for you—something I found for you in Dover. If you haven’t received orders by the time I’m home again, come to London and meet Anthony. But mind you don’t fall in love with him yourself—he’s claimed.

  Smiling, I folded the sheets of blue paper and returned them to the envelope. Elayne, dear friend that she was, was tall and plain and had told me she thought she would never marry, like one of her favorite Jane Austen characters.

  Just then, Peregrine twisted in the bed, choking on his own phlegm. Tossing my letter on the bedside table, I bent over the sick man, lifting him, turning him to slap his back, forcing him to eject the heavy plug.

  That exhausted him, and I settled him again, adding an extra pillow under his head, to help him breathe.

  Where was Dr. Philips?

  I asked Susan the next time she brought my meal, but she shook her head and replied that she hadn’t been told he was expected.

  Peregrine’s breathing filled the room, raucous and painful, my only companion, and there were times in those early days when I thought it had stopped altogether. And then he would cough and struggle to find air, and finally slip back into the steady, rough pattern as before.


  Fighting to help him, I used all the skills I’d learned since entering my training. Hot water with the fumes of pungent oils that made my own eyes water, poultices on his chest, cool cloths for his head, aspirin to ease his fever. He soaked the bed time and again with a sour sweat, and I changed the sheets, setting them outside the door to be washed and brought back to me. With an invalid cup, less likely to spill, I fed him sweet tea and broths that Susan brought to me in Thermoses, although much of both wound up on the towel I put across his chest. Still, each time he swallowed a little, it gave him the strength to keep fighting.

  It was easy to see why the asylum had despaired of him, without the staff to sit with him hour after hour, and fearful that the Grahams would accuse them of neglect in his death. How were they to know his family wanted no part of him?

  Despite his thinness, Peregrine Graham was a strong man, and in the small hours of the morning of the fifth day, his fever broke.

  He lay there in utter exhaustion, trying to breathe, still coughing when the breath was too deep, unable to care for himself or even speak. I considered what to feed him, but I didn’t think he could keep anything down, and that the effort of trying would be too much. The broths and the tea would have to do.

  His eyes followed me about the room, and I wondered what was going through his mind. Was he aware that if he lived, he must return to the asylum? Would he have preferred to die? Still, people often clung stubbornly to life, willing themselves to live despite severe injuries or illnesses. Even though he’d appeared coherent in that brief moment on his arrival, Peregrine hadn’t spoken since, and it was possible that he didn’t completely understand his situation. Perhaps it would be a blessing if he didn’t.

  It was not until late into the afternoon of the sixth day that he had the strength to whisper, “Are you Arthur’s wife?”

  I turned quickly from the window where I’d been watching the light fade into the early winter dusk.