“One of these days, he’s going to do himself a harm. He thinks he got his brother killed. Most of the time he’s all right, but today something set him off. His wife sent the man next door to call me. He was as bad as I’ve ever seen him.”
“He’s in torment,” I said. “And it won’t go away. You can’t keep him drugged.”
“No. I’ll take the shotgun home with me and bury it in a closet. I should have thought of looking for a weapon before this, but truth is, I didn’t know it was even in the house until today.”
We sat down on the two chairs in the room, one by the window, and the other near the bed. Dr. Philips looked as tired as I felt.
“A long night?” I asked him.
He roused himself to answer. “A difficult delivery, and another biding its time. There’s no doctor in the next village. I work there as well, when I’m sent for. Where did you serve? France?”
“I was on Britannic.”
“Good God. That explains why you’re visiting the Grahams. Arthur Graham died on that ship.”
“Yes, I was there.”
“A putrid wound, from what I hear.”
“The doctors tried amputation, but the infection had advanced too far.”
“Yes, sadly, once it has got a grip, there’s not much hope. Arthur was a strong young man, but that seems to make little difference.”
“Did you know Arthur well?” I asked him.
“I came here just before his first leave. Dr. Hadley had died. From overwork, if you want my opinion. Another doctor I know suggested I take over his practice. Because of the need.”
“I’m surprised you aren’t at the Front.”
“Yes, well, I’m not fit enough to go. So they tell me. I have a heart condition.”
“And yet you’re working yourself into exhaustion. Because you feel guilty about not serving?”
He smiled. “You are to the point, aren’t you?”
“I was hoping to find someone who could tell me more about Arthur Graham. I took care of him when he was wounded, and I got to know him. So I believed then. I realize now how little that was.”
“Wrong person. Dr. Hadley, now, had been the family physician for most of Arthur’s life. He could have told you about measles and falls from a horse and whatever else you desired to know.”
I smiled. “I’ve met Jonathan and Timothy. But there’s another brother, isn’t there? I’m sure Arthur told me he had three brothers. I was reluctant to ask-he might be dead.”
“They don’t mention him. Apparently he did something rather dreadful and was sent away.”
“To prison?” I asked, taken aback.
“No. He’s in an asylum. If you came down on the train, you must have passed it on the road here.”
The house ablaze with light. “How awful for the family.”
“Peregrine is the eldest, a half brother to the younger three. A tragedy that we can’t cure minds.”
My father had told me that Ambrose Graham’s first wife had died in childbirth. Peregrine would have been her son, then.
“But what did he do?”
“He’s said to have killed someone. One of the old spinsters here in Owlhurst, Mrs. Clayton, told me all about the family skeleton. She said he strangled a girl in a moment of passion.” Disconcertingly, he grinned.
“Small wonder no one mentions Peregrine.”
“I have to take most of that with a grain of salt,” he added in apology. “By my calculations, Peregrine was hardly more than fourteen when it happened. Mrs. Clayton is a wonderful old gossip, I love her dearly, but she has a lively imagination, fed in part by senile dementia. Still, he was banished from Owlhurst at a young age, and in the dark of night, according to what I’ve gathered. Would you care for some tea? It’s the one thing I can manage, along with toast. If my cook left me, I’d starve to death.”
Ted Booker was deeply asleep. After making certain, we went down to the kitchen and Dr. Philips found the tea things, blew up the fire in the stove, and soon had the kettle on the boil. It was fairly decent tea, and I told him so.
Afterward, we went to sit with Ted Booker for another half hour, then Dr. Philips stood up, stretched his shoulders. “I’ll leave you here, shall I? Until I can find someone to replace you. He won’t be any trouble for several hours. He’ll be dry as a desert and have a thundering headache when he wakes up.” He took my hand. “Thank you for volunteering. I hope I haven’t upset any plans Mrs. Graham may have made for your entertainment. How long are you staying?”
“Just the weekend.”
He nodded. “Wretched beginning to your visit. But there you are.”
And he was gone, his footsteps echoing on the stairs. I looked out the window and saw he had the shotgun under his arm, broken open.
I went back to my chair and made myself as comfortable as I could, listening to Booker’s heavy breathing, thinking about his anguished obsession with his brother’s death.
And in the silence, I also considered what Dr. Philips had told me about Peregrine.
“A tragedy that we can’t cure minds…”
Arthur’s words came back to me then.
Tell Jonathan I lied. I did it for Mother’s sake. But it has to be set right.
What had to be set right? Had Arthur objected to his brother going to the asylum instead of prison but said nothing? Was that it? But if he’d gone to prison, surely he’d have been hanged. No, not that young-
I knew little about prisons, but enough to understand that an asylum might well be a better choice for a deranged man. Perhaps the authorities had tried to spare the family the nightmare of a trial and conviction by sending Peregrine to where he might-or might not-get the treatment he needed. At least there he was no longer a threat to anyone. He wouldn’t be the first nor the last to be put away in that fashion.
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.”