Charles Todd - A Duty to the Dead

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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I LOST COUNTof 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.

“No. But I knew your brother. I was with him when he died.”

His dark brows rose. “Arthur is dead? How?”

Had no one told him? Surely they had! Or was it that his mind couldn’t absorb family news? “In the war.”

“It isn’t over? The war?”

“No, sadly, it hasn’t finished.”

“What day is this? What year?”

I told him. He frowned, as if he’d lost track of time.

“How did he die? Arthur?”

“Bravely. At peace.”

“You’re lying.”

Surprised, I said, “Why should I lie to you?”

“Kindness.”

I wasn’t sure how to respond. It was a remarkably rational exchange. But I was saved from answering as Peregrine began to cough. I offered him a drink of water and said, “You must rest now. You’re a little better, but not out of the woods yet. Sleep, if you can.”

Obediently he closed his eyes and was quiet for some time. Then he said, still in that painful whisper, “Why was I brought here?”

“I don’t think there was anyone to take care of you where you were.”

“I want to die.”

“Well, I don’t think it’s up to you,” I said briskly. “Modern medicine can work wonders without your help.”

“I’d rather be dead.”

“No, you mustn’t say that,” I replied, coming to the bed to look down at him. “If God sees fit to spare you, then there’s a reason. Something you need to finish-” I stopped. For him all there was to finish was his life sentence in an asylum.

His mouth twisted. “Indeed.” There it was again, that logical comment, with its touch of irony.