A Duty to the Dead

by Charles Todd

  Mrs. Oldsey rambled on, sitting across from me as if we were old friends having a gossip.

  I found the courage to ask her about Peregrine.

  She frowned. “That was another tragedy. He used to come to services with his father. A handsome child with good manners. And then he stopped coming, and later the whispers began that he wasn’t quite right in the head. I thought, often enough, that Mrs. Graham was ashamed of him. Else she’d have seen to it that he lived as normal a life as possible, gossip or no gossip. But she didn’t, and as I never set eyes on him again until he was almost fourteen, who’s to say what was right and what was wrong?”

  “You saw him when he returned from London?”

  “Oh, yes, they brought him here. He was in such a state of shock—white as his shirt, shaking with fright, and unable to utter a word—that I thought he ought to be in his own home and his own bed. But Mrs. Graham wouldn’t hear of it. ‘I’ve three boys to think of,’ she told me, ‘and I can’t go to them until I’ve settled Peregrine. I’ve sent Robert for Inspector Gadd, and Dr. Hadley. Can you find the rector for me, please?’ And she asked me to send for Lady Parsons, Sir Frederick’s widow. I kept the boy down here in the kitchen, trying to warm him up a little, and wash his hands, but he wouldn’t let me touch him, whatever I said. Then they insisted on locking him in one of the bedchambers, without so much as a word of comfort to him. After a bit, they went up for him and took him away, him still all bloody and without a coat, and Rector told me later he was in the asylum. I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy in a place like that, not to speak of my own child. I didn’t learn until later that he’d killed someone. I thought somehow he’d done himself an injury, all that blood. They never said who he’d killed, and when I asked Rector, he told me it was best I didn’t know. That it was horrible beyond human imagination. I never forgot that. Horrible beyond human imagination.”

  She repeated it, as if the words had been imprinted in her memory.

  “Most folks have forgotten Mr. Peregrine, you know. Perhaps that’s for the best.”

  But they’d remember all the whispers soon enough, when he was brought back to Owlhurst to lie next to his father. I had a feeling it would be a brief graveside service, with few mourners, though the curious would be there to gawk.

  She went on with other stories about her years as housekeeper, and after a while, since the rector hadn’t returned, I put on my still-damp shoes and my cloak and set out for the Graham house. The rain had let up, just as Mrs. Oldsey had prophesized, and I was grateful.

  I let myself in the front door. There were no sounds to greet me—no conversation somewhere in the downstairs rooms, and no voices on the first floor as I quietly went up the staircase. I wanted to find Susan and ask her what was happening. But she too seemed to have vanished. I expect she had gone to visit her mother and give her the outcome of the inquest. She had one afternoon off a week.

  I sat by the fire in my room and waited. There was nothing else I could do.

  But it wasn’t Mrs. Graham who came to speak to me—it was Robert. He knocked at my door, and when I opened it, he said gruffly, “Mrs. Graham’s apologies, Miss Crawford, but there’s been terrible news. Mrs. Graham would take it as a favor if you could be in Tonbridge in time for the six o’clock train tonight. I’ll be taking you myself, as soon as you’re ready.”

  I had expected this—and I hadn’t.

  All I could manage to say was, “I can be ready in an hour. I’d like to say my farewells—”

  “Mrs. Graham begs you to forgive her if she isn’t able to wish you a safe journey. I’ll ask Susan to pack a box of sandwiches for you, and a Thermos of tea, to see you as far as London. I’m to send a telegram to your father to meet you there.”

  I could hardly tell him that I would rather leave in the morning than arrive in London so late. Instead I thanked him and added, “I’ll write Mrs. Graham as soon as I reach Somerset. Please tell her she’s been more than kind.”

  I didn’t know what else to add.

  He nodded, and was gone.

  I packed my belongings for a second time, and looked around for Elayne’s letter to me, to read again on the train. I’d forgot the name of the man she was so sure she’d marry. But it wasn’t in my case, and it wasn’t in the little desk between the windows. I’d last seen it in the sickroom, and I went there to find it. It wasn’t on the table by the bed nor on the mantelpiece, and I knew that if Susan had found it, she’d have brought it to me. As a last resort, I got down on my knees and lifted the coverlet to look under the bed. And there it was, the three pages scattered there. I chuckled. Susan hadn’t used the carpet sweeper—my fingers came up with dust clinging to them. I looked again for the envelope, but it wasn’t with the pages. That she might well have found, without the enclosed letter, and tossed it in the grate. I took the letter back to my room, and after closing my case, I left it outside my door with my valise for Robert to take down.

  I was ready when he came for me, and in the dogcart I saw the box with my sandwiches. He handed me warmed rugs as I stepped into the cart, and I settled myself as comfortably as I could. He draped a length of canvas over my baggage and my lap, handed me a large black umbrella, and then mounted the box. No one had come to see me off.

  I watched the house disappear and then the church dwindle to a distant smudge as we turned away, and The Bells with it. And then Owlhurst was gone. I felt like crying. Nothing had happened the way I’d hoped or even expected. And somehow I’d lost Arthur as well. I had liked Dr. Philips and the rector and was sorry not to say farewell to them, but surely they would understand.

  Soon the asylum loomed ahead, in daylight a grim place with no redeeming softness—as grim, I thought, as a prison. At least Peregrine was free of it, and his suffering over.

  Like Ted Booker, he would be buried in a wintry churchyard and forgotten before the spring.

  I was thoroughly miserable when we finally reached the station in Tonbridge, and the train was already there, white plumes of smoke curling about the booking office roof as the engine worked up a head of steam. Robert left me in the cart while he went quickly inside, speaking to the stationmaster. I could see them through the grimy, lamp-lit window. The winter darkness had come down, and it fit my own dark mood.

  And then Robert was back again, my tickets in his hand, hurrying me toward the train. I had forgotten my sandwiches, and with a muttered word, he went back for them, then caught me up. All the while, the stationmaster was fingering his watch, impatience in every line as he stood by my compartment.

  I expected Robert to leave me then, but he helped me up into the train, settled me by the window, then stowed my case and valise where I could reach them if I needed them. That done, he stood for a moment, looking down at me, as if he didn’t know what to say. Finally he took my hand and held it for a moment, like a gentleman telling a lady good-bye. Without a word, he touched the brim of his hat and was gone, and the train started with a lurch almost before his boots had touched the platform again.

  I sat back in my seat and prepared myself for the long journey ahead.

  We were just coming into Sevenoaks when a thought brought me out of my drowsiness.

  I remembered Timothy and Jonathan arguing in their mother’s presence about who should inherit when Peregrine was dead.

  Well, they would soon know.

  I found that I didn’t care.

  In Sevenoaks, I got off the train to send a telegram to my father, telling him I would like to stay in London a few days with Elayne. He had no way of knowing she was in France, and I needed a respite before I faced his sharp eyes or my mother’s intuition. So much for longing for their comfort. That had been a moment of weakness, and I was rather ashamed of it now that I’d put some distance between myself and Owlhurst.

  The train was slow, a troop train taking precedence up the line, and I listened to two elderly women comparing notes on the funeral they’d attended in Tunbridge Wells. I knew Tunbridge—it had once been
a garrison town, and I’d visited friends of my parents there on one of my father’s leaves. But dissecting a funeral was not a comfortable subject for me, and I tried to shut out their voices with a book I borrowed from the gentleman across from me. He had just finished it and was stuffing it back in his case when I asked to see it.

  It was a treatise on the history of the Turkish Empire, and I found it quite absorbing. Our P&O boat had stopped in Istanbul on our return from India, and I had spent an afternoon in a carriage, touring the city.

  I fell asleep all the same.

  And then we were pulling into London, the outskirts a series of back gardens and small industries, depressing in winter garb. But mostly I could see only my own reflection in the glass as I looked out from our brightly lit carriage, and there were circles under my eyes nearly as dark as those I saw in the glass on my way home from Greece in November.

  The two ladies were met by a young man with one arm, his sleeve pinned to his coat. Without a word, the man from whom I’d borrowed the book helped bring down our bags, and then a porter was there to pile them on his cart.

  “There’s no one to meet you?” the book lender asked as I gave in my ticket and stood there, wondering how I was to arrange to have my heavier valise delivered.

  “I daresay they’re late,” I answered, smiling, not wanting a portly knight in shining armor to see me home. The relief at not finding my father on the platform made me feel giddy.

  “Then let me summon a cab and see you into it.”

  I thanked him, and in ten minutes I was in the cab and on my way to the flat. I was tired despite my brief nap, it was late, and I would be glad for a night’s sleep.

  Mrs. Hennessey wasn’t there, and I asked the cabbie to leave my luggage outside her door. She’d see that it was taken upstairs. The dustman always stopped for an early cup of tea, and the promise of a slice of cake or tart would be enough to send him up with it.

  I went up the steps, feeling each one, thinking that all I required would be a warming cup of tea, and then my bed. That is, if Elayne had thought to replenish our dwindling supply of tea. After all, it was her turn. I’d learned long since to do without milk, but we kept a tin of sugar.

  I took my hat off as I passed the landing and had it in my hand as I reached into my pocket for the key. It slid into the lock, the door opened, and I stepped into the silent flat with a sigh of relief. I was home.

  I set my hat on the table near the door, and felt for the light switch.

  It didn’t turn on, which meant that Elayne hadn’t replaced the bulb when it burned out. I fumbled for the candle and matches we kept on a shelf. As it spurted into gold and blue flame, and the candlewick flared and then steadied, I began to remove my coat.

  The flat was chilly, as it always was at night, and for an instant I regretted not going home to fires on the hearth. But never mind. I made myself a cup of tea, drank it to warm me, and then went down the passage to the room at the back that was mine.

  The quiet was comforting, and the sense of being in familiar surroundings was what I needed.

  There was a small package on my pillow—Elayne’s gift.

  I opened it, feeling a surge of happiness. One never knew what Elayne might consider a gift.

  This time it was a pair of black French gloves—heaven only knew where she’d found them—with tiny pearl buttons at the wrist and leather soft as silk. And they actually fit. I smiled. Elayne had borrowed my opera-length gloves often enough to know my size perfectly. I’d have to return the favor next time I saw something that suited her as well as these suited me.

  Feeling more cheerful, I bathed my face and hands, undressed, crawled between damp sheets, and huddled under the layers of comforters until I had warmed a space for myself.

  My last thought as I drifted into sleep was, We must find ourselves a cat—my feet are cold. I didn’t have the energy to heat water for the bottle I kept in the little table by my bed.

  It was close on to three o’clock when I came awake with a shock, hearing something in the front of the flat.

  Elayne. Or one of the others. They’d seen my things downstairs and were trying not to wake me. Which of course is noisier than going about their business quietly.

  I threw on my dressing gown and cringed as I put my warm feet into cold slippers. Opening my door, I walked down the passage.

  A candle burst into life just as I reached the end of the passage, and I caught my breath in alarm.

  There was a man standing in what we euphemistically called the kitchen, his back to me. He was rummaging through the box of sandwiches I’d brought with me. I’d eaten only about half of them on the train. My other luggage was at his feet.

  “Anthony?” I asked, thinking this must surely be Elayne’s staff officer. How had he slipped past Mrs. Hennessey? He turned sharply. “Thank you for—”

  I broke off, knowing in that instant that my heart would surely stop.

  The single candle illuminated his face now, and I couldn’t believe—I was dreaming, there wasn’t—it couldn’t be—

  Feeling faint for the first time in my life, I put out a hand to touch the passage wall beside me.

  “You’re dead,” I whispered finally.

  “I nearly am,” he said, holding one of the sandwiches in his hand. “I haven’t eaten for three days. Do you mind?” He sat down suddenly in the nearest chair. “I’ve lived on tea and that small box of biscuits I found in your cupboard.”

  It was Peregrine, looking as pale as his own ghost, the hand holding the sandwich shaking as if with a palsy.

  He was wearing an ill-fitting suit of clothes, his hair tousled from sleep, and his face drained of all feeling as he watched my changing expressions. The heavy shadow of his beard gave him a sinister cast.

  As my brain began to work again, I could feel a ripple of fear run up my spine.

  “What are you—how did you know—Mrs. Hennessey!” She hadn’t been there when I came in earlier. And this man was a murderer.

  “Is that who she is? I saw her stepping out the door, and waited until she was down the street. I’ve heard her since, coming and going.”

  “She owns this house. She’s my—” I paused, not wanting to tell him too much.

  He was frowning. “Why did you say just now that I was dead?”

  “I saw Robert—it was just after the inquest for Ted Booker—Robert came to find Mrs. Graham and Jonathan. I could tell he brought bad news—Mrs. Graham and Jonathan were very upset, as was Timothy. I saw them from the church as they were walking home—”

  “Ted Booker is dead?”

  “Yes. I thought—they were so upset—”

  “I expect they’d learned I’d escaped from the asylum,” he told me grimly.

  “Did you—you’re wearing someone else’s clothing—what happened to the man they belong to?”

  “I didn’t kill him, if that’s what you’re thinking. I gave him a handful of the powders I took at night. They must have been sedatives—he probably slept the night through in my bed.”

  “Who was he?”

  “One of the doctors—look, do you mind if I eat this? If not, I’ll pass out at your feet.”

  I nodded, and he bit hungrily into the sandwich. I waited, and as he swallowed the first mouthful, he said, “I told them I thought my fever was back. I’d rubbed my face until it felt warm, flushed. The staff doctor was just leaving, and he came to my room to see what the matter was. I’d been given my powders, or so he thought, and I was hardly likely to attack him. He asked me to open my mouth, and as he bent forward to see my throat, I had him in a headlock. No one heard him cry out—there’s too much of that at night, anyway. I knocked him down, turned off the light so that my room was dark, and forced him to eat the powders. Then I changed my clothes for his, and left. That’s the only time the main doors aren’t watched—after everyone has been locked in. The staff can come and go without disturbing the house. I walked through the fields until it was safe enough to return t
o the road. About three miles on, a farm cart offered me a lift to Cranbrook.”

  He went on eating, his hands hardly able to bring the sandwich to his mouth. I stood there, not knowing what to do—whether he would kill me or let me live. Whether I should find a weapon and try to overpower him while he was still light-headed from hunger or try to talk him into going back to Owlhurst.

  Picking up the Thermos, he could hear tea sloshing about inside, and he drank nearly half a cup in one gulp. It must have been lukewarm, but he didn’t seem to care. “God, I don’t know what I’d have done if you hadn’t brought food with you,” he said. “What did my relatives do, send you packing?”

  “They told me they’d had distressing news. I thought—from their faces, I thought they’d been informed of your death. And so I left, to be out of the way. Robert Douglas took me to Tonbridge.”

  “There was money in the doctor’s pocket. I used it for the train, and I walked here from the station.” He gave me a twisted smile. “I’d tied a bandage around my head, so that people would help me. I didn’t remember how to take a train, much less how to reach London. But there wasn’t enough money for food.”

  “They’ll trace you to the train. It won’t be long before they come looking for you.”

  “Not in this direction. I bought a ticket to Dover when I reached Rochester. Then I asked a woman if she would purchase my ticket to London for me. I told her I couldn’t see well enough to know if I was being charged the correct amount. She took pity on me and told me her brother was in France.”

  He could pass for a wounded soldier—he hadn’t fully recovered from the pneumonia, his eyes sunken, his face pale from long years in the asylum.

  “They’ll be looking for a man with a head wound.”

  “Not at first. I expect you’re wondering what to do with me.”

  “You can’t stay here—others live here. They’ll be back soon.”

  “Yes. Elayne. It was her bed I slept in. She’s still in France, I expect.”