“And her last name?” How many hundreds of girls had been named after the Jersey Lily, once the mistress of Edward VII when he was Prince of Wales, and so famous for her beauty that even her lackluster acting skills brought her fame and fortune?
But it was no use. Peregrine couldn’t bring it back. He’d said something about powders they’d given him when he was first put in the asylum. Surely they hadn’t kept him drugged all these years? But then there were the powders he hadn’t taken but had used to keep the doctor quiet while he escaped.
We ate our sandwiches in silence. Clearing away afterward, I said, “You’ve found the house. Or so you believe. What are we to do now?”
“I have no idea.” He put his head back against the cushion again. “I’ve got to get some rest. Remember what I told you. Betray me, and others will pay the price for it.” He lifted his shod foot and placed it on the box with the doctor’s clothing. “I’ve got nothing to lose.”
If I could find a telephone, and call my father, he could alert the police-but even as the thought formed, I knew I wasn’t about to do it. I’d survived so far, and I was beginning to think that if I waited Peregrine Graham out, he might return to the asylum of his own accord. Where else was there for him to go?
He was watching my face as the thoughts passed through my mind.
I found it difficult to judge him. His brain appeared to be clever, able to connect events and reason his way through a problem. I couldn’t put my finger yet on what it was that was wrong with him, what his tutor had seen, what Mrs. Graham might have used as an excuse to keep him segregated from his half brothers.
“What was the Christian name of your tutor?” I asked just as Peregrine was drifting into sleep. Appleby was a fairly common name, surely.
Rousing himself, he said, “His name was Nathan Appleby.”
How would I go about finding someone who had been a tutor fourteen years ago and might be anywhere now, including in his grave?
I sat there thinking as Peregrine slept. I had no idea where else to turn for information Peregrine Graham needed. For that matter, I had no idea whether he would be satisfied if he learned what he’d claimed he wanted so badly to discover.
And then I remembered the journals that Rector Montgomery’s predecessor had kept. But how to get to them? And what excuse could I use to go back to Owlhurst?
It would surely arouse suspicion…
Well, then, who could I send? Mrs. Hennessey wasn’t up to traveling that far in midwinter. Could I ask Dr. Philips to bring the journals to me in Tonbridge?
I was going around and around in my head, trying to see my way through the problem, when the door opened and Diana James, who was another of my flatmates, came in with a smile and a cry of welcome.
“Bess! How good to see you. And how is the arm?”
Before she could reach me to embrace me, Peregrine was on his feet, his eyes wild and his hands clenched.
I leapt into the breach, taking Peregrine’s arm as I said, “He couldn’t find a room anywhere. I had to smuggle him past Mrs. Hennessey. You won’t give him away, will you?”
Diana looked from Peregrine’s face to mine.
“He’s wounded, Diana.” With my free hand I touched my forehead, and after a moment she relaxed.
“As long as he isn’t sleeping in my bed,” she said. “Hallo, Lieutenant.”
“Philips,” Peregrine answered. “Lieutenant Philips. Sorry. I was asleep when you came in.” His hands were trembling, but he stepped back and sat down in his chair again, as if his legs were unable to support him.
Diana brought in her valise and said, “I hope there’s something to eat. I’m starving. The train was so crowded coming up from Dover I could hardly breathe.”
“Yes, there’s food. How long are you here, Diana?”
“Four days. Worst luck. Ralph isn’t here, he’s been sent back. I’d hoped we’d overlap for a day or two.”
I made her a sandwich as she sat down across from Peregrine. “Ralph is my brother,” she was saying. “Where were you wounded, Lieutenant?”
“The Somme,” he said. It was the battle Mr. Stanley had mentioned. “I don’t remember much about it, I’m afraid.”
“Not surprised. Head injuries are the very devil.” She went on, unwinding as she described working at the dressing station along the Ypres line. “Frostbite, trench foot from all the rains, dysentery, fevers, rat bites, lice, even a case of measles. And that’s not counting the wounded.”
She rattled on, a pretty girl with tired blue eyes and blond hair that she had refused to cut even when ordered to do so. It was pulled tight into a bun at the back of her neck, but anyone could see how lovely it was. She’d maintained that the men she treated liked looking at it. I didn’t doubt it.
Peregrine was pale with exhaustion, but he kept up his end of the conversation as best he could, falling back on his head injury when pressed about something he had no way of knowing.
Diana ate her sandwich with zest and asked me about Britannic, and I told her briefly what it had been like. Then she handed me her empty plate and her teacup, saying, “Would you mind if I left you to wash up? I’m going to fall flat on my face if I don’t get a few hours of sleep.”
I sent her off to her bedroom, then said in a low voice to Peregrine, “She won’t be difficult, and she won’t be here very long. And she might be able to help us.”
“Why should she?”
“Because she owes me a favor. Will you be willing to go back to Kent? Will you risk it?”
He watched my face, as if trying to see beneath skin and bone into my brain. “I don’t trust you. I can’t trust you.”
“The sooner you’re satisfied, the sooner I’m rid of you,” I said. “I protected you when you were ill. But I can’t condone your escape from the asylum-you aren’t trying to make amends for what you did, you aren’t even trying to start life anew. You want to relive it.”
“I don’t want to relive it,” he said, his voice tense. “I want to understand it.”
“I’m going back to Kent. There are some things I must do, information I must find. Will you stay here with Diana, and not harm her? She’ll do your marketing, and she’ll be my hostage, if I betray you.”
“I can’t sit here waiting. I’ll go with you.”
“If you do, and you’re recognized-”
“I’ll chance it,” he told me grimly.
And so that evening we set out for Kent again. When we reached Tonbridge, I found a hotel on a side street, bespoke two rooms, and asked if there was anyone who could take me to Owlhurst in the morning. They found a man who was willing, and after breakfast, I left Peregrine cooling his heels in his room while I set out, wondering what I was going to say to anyone.
I watched the villages come and go in silence, for I hadn’t slept well, worried about Peregrine taking it in his head to walk away. He was two people, the sick man I had watched over day and night for nearly a week, and a man obsessed with a bloody moment in his childhood.
I tried to shut out Peregrine, but he was there, a dark figure in the back of my mind. I turned to the middle-aged man driving me. His name was Owens.
“Do you know Owlhurst?”
“Oh, yes. My Aunt May lived there for a time,” he said. “I visited her often enough, boy and man.”
Oh, dear. Mind your tongue, I warned myself.
“Did you know an Inspector Gadd?” It was the first name that came to me, other than the Grahams and Dr. Philips. After all, the man had been dead for some time. It should be safe enough to claim acquaintance there.
To my surprise, Mr. Owens replied, “He lived next house but one to my aunt. Taught me how to ride my first bicycle. Shame about his dying so young. A good man.”
“Yes. Er, do you know if his widow is still living in Owlhurst?”