She took a deep breath, then said, “I’m Marion Denton.”
“I’m Elizabeth Crawford. I’m here to visit the Grahams. And Dr. Philips commandeered me to help.”
“Yes, that’s what Dr. Philips told us when he looked in to let us know how Ted was faring. Thank you for your help. I don’t know how we would have managed. The doctor said it was easier with a woman here. That surprised me. Sally isn’t able to cope with Ted in these moods.”
“She’s his wife,” I said simply. “That’s harder.”
“True.”
Ted coughed, and then moaned a little in his sleep.
“He doesn’t rest at night, you know. That’s the roughest time for him.”
“He lost his brother, I understand.”
“They were twins. I’m told it’s harder with twins.”
She came in to take the chair that Dr. Philips had occupied, and we sat in companionable silence for a time. Then she said, “How did you come to know the Grahams? Are you a relation?”
“No, I was a nursing sister on Britannic, when Arthur was brought onboard. I was with him when he died.”
“I was fond of Arthur. A very nice boy, who grew into a very nice young man. Timothy and Jonathan seemed to collect trouble the way a dog collects burrs. They’re closer in age, of course, and what one couldn’t think of, the other could. Their father died when they were very young. It isn’t surprising they ran a little wild. Mrs. Graham’s cousin did what he could to manage them, but they were headstrong. Of course they turned out well enough, I must say. I thought for a time that Sally might choose Johnnie or Tim. I didn’t know Peregrine well. The family always claimed he was a little slow. A little different. But I never saw it myself. Still, his tutor despaired of him, and he must know better than I.”
She turned to stare at the man on the bed. “So was Ted a nice boy. I was that fond of him, and he was a good husband to Sally. Look at this house-he saw to it that she wanted for nothing. And now she can’t bear to come here, to him. She’s begged me to send him back to hospital, where they know what to do with his kind. Maybe it would be best after all if he used that shotgun. I don’t know what peace he’ll ever have.”
I was shocked. “He can’t help but relive his brother’s death. He feels the burden of responsibility. It’s not something one gets over easily.”
“But that’s the point, isn’t it? His brother is dead. It’s time to move on and live for his wife and son.”
“It’s not that easy-” I repeated, trying to make her see that his memories were beyond Ted Booker’s control. But she had no experience of war or any other horrendous event that shocks the mind, and her callousness was in defense of her daughter. I might as well have been talking to the wall.
She turned to me. “What’s not easy about remembering your family? The boy is afraid of him, and Sally’s told me that when she promised to love him in sickness and in health, there was nothing said about madness.”
“It isn’t madness. Shell shock is an affliction of the brain.”
“I call it madness, to sit in a dark room and talk to the dead and threaten to use that shotgun. I tried taking it away once, but he came raging over to my house and demanded it back. And I was afraid to say no.”
“It takes time.”
“No, it doesn’t. He needs to brace up, like a man, and say good-bye to his brother and remember he’s still alive, with a family looking to him for love.”
I lost my patience. “You weren’t in the trenches with him, Mrs. Denton. You don’t know what it’s like when one mistake kills dozens of men right in front of your eyes, where a simple lapse in concentration means you’re hanging on the wire, dying, and no one can bring you back without dying beside you. You don’t smell the dead with every breath and know that some of what’s nasty under your boots were your friends before they were blown to bits.”
She replied righteously, “Yes, that’s all very well, isn’t it? That’s in France, where such things happen. This is Kent, and he must learn the difference.”
It was useless. Instead of trying to persuade her, I suggested that she have a long talk with Dr. Philips to see what could be done to help Ted Booker cope.
“He doesn’t have any answers, except for the powders he gives Ted that make him like this-asleep and useless for hours at a time. How is he ever to earn a living and support a wife and child, I ask you!”
“Perhaps you and Sally ought to visit such a hospital yourselves, before deciding where your son-in-law belongs,” I suggested. I trained in one, and it was heart wrenching. But this woman could only see her daughter’s misery, and the anguish that drove Ted Booker into the past was as foreign to her as the monkey gods of India or the typhoons that killed thousands in the flat deltas below Calcutta.
The outer door opened, and Dr. Philips’s footsteps rang on the stairs. He came in, looked at the two of us sitting there in a huffy silence, and then crossed to the bed to examine Ted.
“Be careful he doesn’t choke,” he said. “He can’t fend for himself just now.”
“Yes, I’ll be careful.”
“Mrs. Graham is very upset with me. She wants you to come back to the house straightaway. ‘She’s a guest,’ she tells me. ‘And not here for your convenience.’”
“Surely you’ve found someone to sit for a while. He’s harmless, poor man, as he is.”
“Yes, I’ve found someone. But she’s nearly as frightened of Ted as his wife is. She needs the money, and so she’ll come.”
“What’s to become of him?”
“Back to hospital, I fear. Mrs. Denton here and her daughter have had enough. I can’t say that I blame them, but Booker is my patient, and I had hoped that in surroundings he knew from before the war, there was comfort.”
“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.