“I didn’t mean to suggest-we were speaking of what men at war talk about at the end. When they know they’re dying.”
She smiled. “That was pompous of me, my dear. Certainly there was no one in Owlhurst for whom Arthur and Jonathan had feelings, and it was natural to assume…” There was a brief hesitation. “Of course there’s Sally Denton. Timothy was quite taken with her for a time. But I can’t believe it was a serious attachment.”
“Then perhaps it was something left undone, something that he’d expected to set right when he came home again.”
“Undone? No, surely not. Typical of Arthur, he’d put everything in order before he sailed. Well. I expect we’ll never know what was in his mind. You must be tired, my dear, after your experiences with Dr. Philips’s patient, and I’ve selfishly kept you sitting here talking. Would you like to go up and lie down for a while?”
I wouldn’t, but it was a dismissal, as if she preferred to be alone with her thoughts, and I was very happy to escape this conversation. I said, “Yes, that’s very kind of you. If you don’t mind…”
“Not at all.” She put out her hand to take mine. “I can’t tell you how happy it has made me to have you here.”
I closed the sitting room door behind me and walked toward the stairs. Timothy was standing in the shadows of the hall, and he turned as he heard me approach.
“How is Booker?” he asked.
“Resting quietly when I left.”
“What a nightmare it must be. Is there nothing to be done for him?”
“I’m afraid not. Somehow he must find the will and determination to let go of the past. And often even that isn’t enough. His wife is afraid of him, which doesn’t help matters. They say time…” I let my voice trail off. We didn’t know enough about shell shock to offer hope. But I didn’t want to admit that.
“We were friends before the war. I’ve seen little of him since he came back.”
“Perhaps he needs his old friends,” I suggested tentatively. “To take his mind off his brother.”
“What do I know about war?” Timothy asked bitterly. “It’s not something I could share with him, is it? The experience of the trenches, the fear of dying when you go over the top.”
“It isn’t war he needs to talk about, you see. It’s ordinary things, the life that was.”
“I’d have married Sally, if she hadn’t chosen Ted. There’s that as well.”
Men and their wretched self-importance.
“If Ted Booker shoots himself, there may be another chance for the two of you.”
That shocked him, and he looked at me with surprise and distaste. “I don’t want her that way.”
“Well, think about Ted Booker in his dark world, will you? An effort on your part to save her husband’s sanity will be a gift to her. If you loved her, you’d want to do that.”
He swore under his breath.
“I wasn’t trying to distress you. But I just spent several hours watching a man who wants to die. There are too many dead, Mr. Graham, and I’m heartily sick of bodies to be buried.”
I turned to walk away, and he called to me, “Did you see through Arthur as easily as you see through me?”
“I don’t know that there was anything to see through. He was dying, and that tends to sweep away the trivia of living. He wanted something done, and that’s why I came, because it was so important to him.”
“Were you in love with him? Most of the girls were. He was the pick of the Grahams, you know. Better than all of us.”
I answered carefully. “I liked your brother very much. Perhaps more than I should, but I watched him believe in his future, and then I watched him give up all hope. That made me feel something for him, compassion, pity, affection. Sometimes you see briefly into someone’s heart, and it becomes a bond between you that goes beyond friendship. But not as far as passion.”
“You’re blunt.”
I smiled. “Am I? It’s my training, I suppose.”
And this time I walked on. He didn’t stop me from going.
My intent was to go up to my room, but the house seemed airless, suffocating. I went to the kitchen instead and begged Susan for a cloak from the entry pegs, and walked out again.
This time I didn’t turn in the direction of the rectory but went down the lane on which the Graham house stood. It ran for a short distance, then split, and I took the left fork. The houses here were comfortable, but not as fine as the Grahams’. At the end of this lane, where another crossed it, I found myself in a row of small cottages, some of them very old but well kept up.
I had walked almost to the end of these when a door opened and someone called, “Susan, is that you?”
I turned to see an elderly woman peering out at me, squinting to make out who I was. It was then that I realized that Susan must have lent me her cloak.
“No, I’m afraid not,” I answered. “I’m staying at the house and borrowed her coat to walk a bit.”
“Then you must be half frozen. Come in to the fire, do, and I’ll make you a cup of tea.”
I debated accepting, but she was holding the door open for me, and I turned up the path with a word of thanks as I gave her my name.
“Mine’s West, Matty West.” She shut the door behind me and shivered. “I think it’s colder this winter than last. Though it’s probably my bones a year older.”
Leading the way into the kitchen, she pointed to the kettle on the boil. “It’s nearly ready. Sit down and warm yourself. I’ll see to the pot.”
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.”