Charles Todd - A Duty to the Dead

“What set him off this morning?”

It was Mrs. Denton who answered me. “It’s their birthday-his and his brother’s.”

I felt a wave of sadness. Poor man.

I went on, out of compassion, “I’ll sit with him a little longer, if you like.”

But the doctor answered with a shake of his head. “Mrs. Graham will nail my medical degree to the church door, if I leave you here a moment longer. Can you find your way back? Or do you need a guide?”

“No, I’ll be all right. Stay with your patient. Good-bye, Mrs. Denton. I hope that all will be well with your daughter’s marriage before very long.”

She thanked me, and I went down the stairs and into the street. The wind was at my back as I walked, and I looked at the houses on either side of the Bookers’. Arthur had told me that this was once iron-making country, and so it had prospered. But the trees that fed the furnaces had gone long ago, and now it was pasturage for sheep and fields of corn and hops that kept the villages flourishing.

I found myself thinking that the Grahams had secrets as painful as Ted Booker’s. It wasn’t surprising now that Arthur hadn’t told me about his brother. He’d have had to explain too much, and so it was easier to say nothing. Had Arthur and Peregrine been close as children? They were nearest in age. How had Mrs. Graham managed to tell her remaining sons why Peregrine was being sent away? Surely not the truth, not until they were older. I understood now my feeling when I met her, the feeling that she carried a heavy burden.

The church door was open as I came by, and for a moment I stepped inside out of the wind, not quite ready to return to the Graham house. I stood in the nave and looked up at the stained-glass windows, shining in the bright sun, before walking a little way down the aisle. I didn’t want to go as far as Arthur’s memorial. I just needed the silence here, to wipe away the stress of dealing with Ted Booker and then listening to his mother-in-law wish him dead. She didn’t know how near she’d come this time to getting her wish.

Someone was moving over my head, the sound of a bench being dragged across the wooden floor, the rustle of papers, and I realized that whoever it was must be in the organ loft. Then, without warning, the stone walls filled up with the raw scrape of a saw biting into wood. It was so unexpected that I walked down the aisle and looked up at the loft. All I could see was a man bent over something, and then as the sawing stopped, hammering began. As he stood up, I could see his clerical collar and shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow. He was looking down at his handiwork as if satisfied, and then he gathered up his tools, and moved toward the stairs. I strode quietly up the aisle and was out the door before he could encounter me in the nave.

I HAD MISSEDluncheon and was beginning to wish Dr. Philips’s culinary skills had extended to more than making a cup of tea. But Susan met me at the door with the news that Mrs. Graham had asked her to set my meal aside.

“Mrs. Nichols-she’s our cook-has gone to have a little nap. Come along into the kitchen. It’s warmer there,” she urged, and I followed her.

As she took my plate out of the warming oven, she went on shyly, “I’ve been wanting a chance to ask you about Mr. Arthur. How it was at the end. I’ve not got over his dying. It doesn’t seem real to me, somehow. I think of him away fighting, as I always did, and then must remind myself that he’s not.”

I told her what I’d told the Grahams, and she listened with tears in her eyes. “He never gave up hope,” I ended, “and everyone who knew him was saddened by his death. He was as popular a patient as he was an officer, and it was some time before the staff got over what had happened.” I could feel my own throat tightening. “I don’t believe he suffered,” I lied, for Susan’s sake. “And he was unconscious for the last hours. That was a kindness.”

She nodded, turning her back to me. I saw her lift the corner of her apron and wipe her eyes. She busied herself about my meal until she was sure her voice was steady, then said huskily, “Thank you for telling me. I didn’t feel right asking Mrs. Graham. She took his death hard.”

She set a bowl of soup before me, thick with barley, and then slices of chicken with potatoes and swede. After the tension of dealing with Ted Booker, I was hungrier than I’d imagined, and Susan watched me eat with pleasure.

“Nice to see someone enjoying their food,” she said with a smile. “They never say much, above-stairs. I try to please, but it’s hard to find the meat and vegetables they’re used to. The war and all. I’m at my wit’s end, sometimes.”

“How long have you worked here?”

“Since I was sixteen. I came with my mother, and after she left to live with my brother, I took over as housekeeper, more or less. They don’t call me that, but they might as well give me the title. I do the work.”

“Were there others in service here, before the war?”

Her face clouded a bit, but she said, “Half a dozen. Except for Mrs. Nichols-and she was too old to consider war work-the women left one by one as the men went off to fight. The footman died on the Somme, and we lost the coachman soon after. You’ve only to walk in the churchyard to see how bad it’s been for us.”

“Yes, I noticed the graves.”

“And that’s only them that died at home.”

As I was finishing my pudding, there were footsteps on the stairs, and Mrs. Graham came into the kitchen, frowning. “My dear! I didn’t intend for you to be served here. Susan, what were you thinking?”

Susan went red in the face, and I said quickly, “The kitchen was warm, and I didn’t wish to put her out. It’s my fault, truly.”

As I’d finished my meal, she carried me off to the sitting room, apologizing again for Dr. Philips’s demands on my time and skills. “He has no sense of what is right. You didn’t come here to deal with Ted Booker. A tragedy, I’m sure, but not ours. I don’t know what your parents will think of me, letting such a thing happen.”

“They will understand. I’m trained to help. It would have been difficult for me to say no.” To change the subject, I asked about the rector and the work he was doing in the church.

“It’s the war,” she said with a sigh, as if that explained everything. “Our sexton lost an arm at Ypres, but he can still carry out most of his duties, and so he was given his old position back. But the church needs constant upkeep, and when no one is looking, the rector, Mr. Montgomery, sees to it. There were protests at first, but he reminded us that Christ was a carpenter. And I must say, he’s got quite good at what he does, and it has saved church funds time and again. But it isn’t right, somehow. Call me old-fashioned if you will, but this making do at every turn is trying.”

I said, “Of course his own duties come first, but it must give him a sense of satisfaction to know that the fabric of the church isn’t suffering from the war.”

She tilted her head as she considered that. “I hadn’t looked at it quite that way. But I’m sure you’re right. He was on a ladder, inspecting the stained-glass windows last week, when I went to see to the flowers, and he said the saints were taking the war in stride. I see now that he was pleased. I’d taken his remarks to be rather-irreverent.”

She got up to poke at the fire, though it didn’t need it.

“Perhaps I ought to ask Robert to speak to him. To offer help, if he’ll accept it. Robert has been my right hand for so many years I don’t know how I could have survived without him.” There was a warmth in her voice that conveyed the closeness of that relationship. “He was always my favorite cousin, you know, and the only one who stepped forward in my time of need. I was so young when my husband died, and the responsibility was overwhelming. The estate to run, my sons to care for. I hardly knew where to begin. And all these years later, Arthur’s loss to endure.”