Charles Todd - A Duty to the Dead

As she bustled about, she said, “You’re at the house, you say? I didn’t think they were taking on more servants at present.”

“Actually I came because I knew Arthur Graham and was with him when he died.”

She stopped, her hands holding the saucers. “You knew Mr. Arthur? Oh, my dear, tell me he died peacefully!”

“Yes, it was very peaceful,” I replied. “Did you know him well?”

“I was housekeeper there while the boys were young. Then my son lost his wife and I came to keep house for him and his children.”

“Oh. You’re Susan’s mother.” When I’d been told she’d gone to live with her son, I’d assumed distance, as in Dorset or Hampshire. Not in Owlhurst.

“Indeed I am.” She went on setting cup into saucer, finding a spoon and the jug of milk. “He was my favorite of the lads, though Mr. Peregrine was the eldest, you know. Mr. Peregrine was-different. I was never sure why. His father blustered and tried to make out that the boy was bright, nothing wrong, but his tutor said it was a shame about him. It must have been true. I put it down to his mother dying so young. But then he never knew her, did he? When his father married again, he was still hardly more than a baby.”

“They never speak of Peregrine,” I ventured. “Is he dead?” I felt guilty for lying, but my curiosity got the better of my conscience.

“As good as. I remember him well-happy and busy and strong, he was.”

“Where is he now?”

She looked away. “It’s not my place to tell you, Miss. He got himself into some trouble, and was taken away. Mrs. Graham sobbed and cried, and the doctor feared for her. But I thought it was no more than an act. She never loved Mr. Peregrine the way she loved the others. If she had to lose one of the boys, it would have been Mr. Peregrine she’d have sacrificed.”

“She admitted to me that Arthur was her favorite.”

“He was mine as well. A finer young man you’ll never see. When the word came he was dead, she took to her bed for two days.”

I left the subject, and said, “Susan has worked for the family a long time. She would make a good wife and mother.”

“She’s devoted to the Grahams. They’re all the family she needs. I’d hoped there might be something between her and Mr. Robert, but there never was.”

“It was Robert who brought me from the station.”

“He’s a strange one, keeps himself to himself. But he’s never failed the family, I will say that for him.”

“Mrs. Graham told me he was a blessing, dealing with the boys after her husband died.”

“They were a rowdy lot, right enough. Just the wrong age to lose a man’s firm hand over them. Mr. Jonathan was the worst, always coming up with this bit of mischief or that. I was that surprised he went into the army. Not one to care for discipline, was he? His mother tried to get him off, but he was determined to go. And he got a medal for bravery, as well. Hotheaded, I’d have called him, but I expect in a war that’s useful.”

I smiled. “Sometimes, yes.”

The tea was ready, and she poured my cup, then her own.

“I’m supposed to be having a nap,” I confided to her.

“Yes, well, you’re young. Old bones feel the wind more. How did it happen you were with Mr. Arthur when he died?”

“I volunteered as a nurse. I was assigned to Britannic until she was sunk by a mine. I didn’t want to drive omnibuses or till the land. My father had been in the army, you see, and I felt I had to do something for his sake. Nursing was much harder than I’d dreamed it was. Helping people, yes, I liked that, but watching them suffer and die was dreadful. I’m still not used to it.”

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.