Charles Todd - A Duty to the Dead

The answer was emphatically no.

“I don’t think they are the same men you remember,” I told him. “Your mother made some mention of newcomers.”

He remained adamant.

“Would you like for me to read to you? I’m sure I can find a book that might interest you.”

He shook his head, drifting into sleep almost as soon as I took away his bowl and cup.

I debated leaving him for a while and going to my own room. I hadn’t had a change of clothes for days, and a bath would have been heaven. But I was afraid to leave him alone. I didn’t want to address the reasons why.

And so I settled back in my chair, falling asleep myself to the rise and fall of his even breathing.

I woke sometime later with night creeping through the window and the lamps unlit. As I stirred, I could sense movement from the bed, and an instant of panic swept over me.

Then I realized that Peregrine had pushed himself back on his pillows and was asking if there was any of that soup left.

I got up and drew the drapes across the window, then found and lit the lamp. Susan had brought me a spirit lamp to keep the soup from thickening, and I heated it a little before giving him the cup to drink.

His hand was steadier now, and I left him to hold it for himself.

Over its rim his eyes were speculative, and I was suddenly nervous.

“If they told you what I’d done,” he asked, “why did you allow yourself to be shut in here with me? I don’t remember much about the events leading up to my removal to the asylum. Dr. Hadley kept me heavily sedated. But I have nightmares all the same. If they are true, then I’m a monster.”

“It’s Dr. Philips now,” I reminded him. “Dr. Hadley is dead. As for my agreeing to care for you, I hardly expected a man with terminal pneumonia to present a problem. I’ve had to deal with men raving from pain and from night terrors. I’m stronger than I look. And my father would tell you I didn’t have the good sense to be afraid.” I hesitated, and then asked, “Have you tried to harm anyone since the-the events that put you in the asylum?”

He moved restlessly among the bedclothes. “I’m not a lunatic.”

“I never suggested you were-”

There was a determined knock at the door, and I went to open it. Mrs. Graham stood there in the passage. I thought her eyes were nearly as darkly circled as my own.

“Timothy tells me that my son is going to live. Is that true?”

I thought she was glad, and was on the point of telling her that he would.

But she went on with a coldness in her voice that I was sure Peregrine could hear from his bed, “I shall inform the director of the asylum to send someone to fetch him at once.”

“I don’t think he’s ready to travel-”

“Nonsense. He survived his journey here and he will survive his journey back where he belongs.”

She turned on her heel and walked away.

I shut the door slowly, not wanting to see the look on Peregrine’s face.

He said, “There’s an end to it,” in a clipped voice. I did turn then and caught the expression of despair before it was smoothed away.

His keepers came for him the next morning.

It was the first time I’d ever seen a patient of mine manacled before he was taken away. Yet Peregrine Graham was too weak to walk down the stairs unaided. It took two stalwart warders on either side, and still he was in danger of falling to his knees. Yet somehow he managed it, and I wondered if it was sheer pride.

There was no one in the passage, by the stairs, or in the hall to bid him farewell. I threw a blanket around my shoulders and went out to the ambulance they had sent for him. In the end, I put the blanket around him on the bed to which he was chained, for there was nothing to cover him against the cold.

The driver waited impatiently, and I could see clearly what it was he was thinking-that I was wasting pity on a man who should have been hanged, if his family hadn’t had the money or position to send him to an asylum for the insane instead.

I went back into the house and slammed the door, unwilling to watch the ambulance pull away and turn back the way it had come.

Timothy appeared at the head of the stairs.

“He’s gone, then.”

“An animal would have been treated better,” I snapped without thinking about the fact that I was a guest here and should hold no opinions about circumstances of which I was ignorant.

“He is an animal,” Timothy said. “You saw him ill and weak. Not in his full strength.”

“I’m a nurse,” I said, trying to rein in my anger. “Not a keeper. I look at a patient, not a prisoner.”

“As you did with Booker.”

“Yes.”

“Which says much about your capacity for compassion.”

Timothy turned away and was gone.

I went back to the room to clear away the bedding and the spirit lamp and what was left of the broth, but Susan was there before me.

She said, “I’ll boil these sheets, Miss, and see that everything’s put away.”

I thanked her and went about collecting my own things.

“We was all amazed that he didn’t die. Mrs. Graham said it must be your fine nursing that did it. To tell truth, I don’t know how you could bear it!”

“He was ill. A nurse doesn’t ask who her patient is, or if he’s acceptable in Society.”

“No, Miss. I think his mother would have preferred to see him dead. It was a terrible blow to the family, to have a son of the house taken up for murder.”

“I don’t understand why he wasn’t sent to prison-or hanged.”

“Because he was so young and never right in his mind, Miss. And the doctor and the rector and his tutor all spoke to the magistrate. It was decided that the asylum was for the best.”

“But who did he murder?”

“I don’t know, Miss. It didn’t happen here. Mrs. Graham had taken him to London, to see a specialist. He hadn’t been well, there was nausea and vomiting, and he walked like a drunken man, hardly able to keep his feet. Dr. Hadley didn’t know what else to do. When she came home from there, she was as distraught as I’ve ever seen her, and Mr. Peregrine was locked in a room at the rectory. She sent for the rector and then for the magistrate, and I never saw Mr. Peregrine again, not even when they brought him here the other night. Mrs. Nichols and I were told to stay belowstairs.”

“And then what happened? After Mrs. Graham spoke to these people?”

“He was taken away. And Mrs. Graham cried for days. It was the saddest thing.”

“Arthur was here?”

“Oh, yes, Miss, as grim as I ever saw him. He didn’t speak to anyone for days. Master Timothy tried to comfort his mother, he kept putting his little arm around her shoulders. Master Jonathan paced the floor until Mr. Robert came and spoke to him, and after that he was quiet. Still, he sat in his room, pale as his shirt, worrying about his mother because she was crying. I tried to tell him that she was a strong woman, she’d be all right. But he wouldn’t hear me. He was angry with everyone, because he didn’t understand what was happening. Mr. Robert explained that Master Peregrine had been taken away because he was ill in his mind, but they were too young, they blamed him for everything, especially for having to cut their holiday in London short. But Mrs. Graham was strong, she stood up to all of it like the lady she is. All the gossip, the stares. I heard her tell Mr. Robert that those were the worst days she’d ever lived through. No soldier could have been braver. I couldn’t help but admire her.”

“But what about the victim, the person he murdered? Surely the victim’s family came to the inquest and gave evidence against him?”

Susan was confused. “I don’t know-I never heard they were there. And she wasn’t killed here. That’s why the inquest was in London.”