Charles Todd - A Duty to the Dead

I shivered, remembering the lights in every room. Was a madhouse better than hanging?

Only Peregrine could answer that. If he understood at all what he’d done and what choices had been made for him.

And then it occurred to me that I’d worried about trouble with a girl-and in a way, perhaps my instincts had been right. But in a far different sense than I could ever have guessed.

Had the dead girl’s family been considered? Or had their wishes, their feelings, been swept away in the rush to protect Mrs. Graham and her children from scandal?

Belatedly, faced with his own death, had Arthur suddenly come to realize that they hadn’t been consulted, that they had been wronged? He would have wanted Jonathan to recognize that revelation as well. At the same time, he wouldn’t have wished for this to distress his mother-and he must have felt that he couldn’t confide the family skeletons to me. Or to paper.

If the girl had come from a poor family, what recourse had they had against the Grahams and their money or influence?

I found myself feeling a new respect for Arthur.

I’d been sitting in that same uncomfortable chair for another half hour, wrestling with my own thoughts, when the outer door opened and a voice called tentatively up the stairs, “Where are you?”

I stepped to the door and answered quietly, “Who is it?”

“I’m Sally Booker’s mother.”

“We’re in here. The bedroom nearest the stairs.”

She came up, heels clicking on the treads, a small, gray-haired woman with lines of worry on her face. “Is he all right?”

She peered in the room, then sighed. “I don’t know what’s to become of him. He was the most wonderful young man. I was so happy when Sally married him. And now look at him.”

“He can’t help it,” I said, in defense of Booker.

“Yes, I know that. It doesn’t matter, does it? He’ll never be the same, and Sally is at her wit’s end. I feel so deeply for both of them.”

“Are there any children?”

“Yes, a boy. He’s away at his cousin’s, thank God.”

She took a deep breath, then said, “I’m Marion Denton.”

“I’m Elizabeth Crawford. I’m here to visit the Grahams. And Dr. Philips commandeered me to help.”

“Yes, that’s what Dr. Philips told us when he looked in to let us know how Ted was faring. Thank you for your help. I don’t know how we would have managed. The doctor said it was easier with a woman here. That surprised me. Sally isn’t able to cope with Ted in these moods.”

“She’s his wife,” I said simply. “That’s harder.”

“True.”

Ted coughed, and then moaned a little in his sleep.

“He doesn’t rest at night, you know. That’s the roughest time for him.”

“He lost his brother, I understand.”

“They were twins. I’m told it’s harder with twins.”

She came in to take the chair that Dr. Philips had occupied, and we sat in companionable silence for a time. Then she said, “How did you come to know the Grahams? Are you a relation?”

“No, I was a nursing sister on Britannic, when Arthur was brought onboard. I was with him when he died.”

“I was fond of Arthur. A very nice boy, who grew into a very nice young man. Timothy and Jonathan seemed to collect trouble the way a dog collects burrs. They’re closer in age, of course, and what one couldn’t think of, the other could. Their father died when they were very young. It isn’t surprising they ran a little wild. Mrs. Graham’s cousin did what he could to manage them, but they were headstrong. Of course they turned out well enough, I must say. I thought for a time that Sally might choose Johnnie or Tim. I didn’t know Peregrine well. The family always claimed he was a little slow. A little different. But I never saw it myself. Still, his tutor despaired of him, and he must know better than I.”

She turned to stare at the man on the bed. “So was Ted a nice boy. I was that fond of him, and he was a good husband to Sally. Look at this house-he saw to it that she wanted for nothing. And now she can’t bear to come here, to him. She’s begged me to send him back to hospital, where they know what to do with his kind. Maybe it would be best after all if he used that shotgun. I don’t know what peace he’ll ever have.”

I was shocked. “He can’t help but relive his brother’s death. He feels the burden of responsibility. It’s not something one gets over easily.”

“But that’s the point, isn’t it? His brother is dead. It’s time to move on and live for his wife and son.”

“It’s not that easy-” I repeated, trying to make her see that his memories were beyond Ted Booker’s control. But she had no experience of war or any other horrendous event that shocks the mind, and her callousness was in defense of her daughter. I might as well have been talking to the wall.

She turned to me. “What’s not easy about remembering your family? The boy is afraid of him, and Sally’s told me that when she promised to love him in sickness and in health, there was nothing said about madness.”

“It isn’t madness. Shell shock is an affliction of the brain.”

“I call it madness, to sit in a dark room and talk to the dead and threaten to use that shotgun. I tried taking it away once, but he came raging over to my house and demanded it back. And I was afraid to say no.”

“It takes time.”

“No, it doesn’t. He needs to brace up, like a man, and say good-bye to his brother and remember he’s still alive, with a family looking to him for love.”

I lost my patience. “You weren’t in the trenches with him, Mrs. Denton. You don’t know what it’s like when one mistake kills dozens of men right in front of your eyes, where a simple lapse in concentration means you’re hanging on the wire, dying, and no one can bring you back without dying beside you. You don’t smell the dead with every breath and know that some of what’s nasty under your boots were your friends before they were blown to bits.”

She replied righteously, “Yes, that’s all very well, isn’t it? That’s in France, where such things happen. This is Kent, and he must learn the difference.”

It was useless. Instead of trying to persuade her, I suggested that she have a long talk with Dr. Philips to see what could be done to help Ted Booker cope.

“ He doesn’t have any answers, except for the powders he gives Ted that make him like this-asleep and useless for hours at a time. How is he ever to earn a living and support a wife and child, I ask you!”

“Perhaps you and Sally ought to visit such a hospital yourselves, before deciding where your son-in-law belongs,” I suggested. I trained in one, and it was heart wrenching. But this woman could only see her daughter’s misery, and the anguish that drove Ted Booker into the past was as foreign to her as the monkey gods of India or the typhoons that killed thousands in the flat deltas below Calcutta.

The outer door opened, and Dr. Philips’s footsteps rang on the stairs. He came in, looked at the two of us sitting there in a huffy silence, and then crossed to the bed to examine Ted.

“Be careful he doesn’t choke,” he said. “He can’t fend for himself just now.”

“Yes, I’ll be careful.”

“Mrs. Graham is very upset with me. She wants you to come back to the house straightaway. ‘She’s a guest,’ she tells me. ‘And not here for your convenience.’”

“Surely you’ve found someone to sit for a while. He’s harmless, poor man, as he is.”

“Yes, I’ve found someone. But she’s nearly as frightened of Ted as his wife is. She needs the money, and so she’ll come.”

“What’s to become of him?”

“Back to hospital, I fear. Mrs. Denton here and her daughter have had enough. I can’t say that I blame them, but Booker is my patient, and I had hoped that in surroundings he knew from before the war, there was comfort.”