Part 7 (1/2)

”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 flouris.h.i.+ng.

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-gla.s.s windows, s.h.i.+ning 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 sc.r.a.pe 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 s.h.i.+rtsleeves 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.

CHAPTER FIVE

I HAD MISSED luncheon and was beginning to wish Dr. Philips's culinary skills had extended to more than making a cup of tea. But Susan met me at the door with the news that Mrs. Graham had asked her to set my meal aside. luncheon and was beginning to wish Dr. Philips's culinary skills had extended to more than making a cup of tea. But Susan met me at the door with the news that Mrs. Graham had asked her to set my meal aside.

”Mrs. Nichols-she's our cook-has gone to have a little nap. Come along into the kitchen. It's warmer there,” she urged, and I followed her.

As she took my plate out of the warming oven, she went on shyly, ”I've been wanting a chance to ask you about Mr. Arthur. How it was at the end. I've not got over his dying. It doesn't seem real to me, somehow. I think of him away fighting, as I always did, and then must remind myself that he's not.”

I told her what I'd told the Grahams, and she listened with tears in her eyes. ”He never gave up hope,” I ended, ”and everyone who knew him was saddened by his death. He was as popular a patient as he was an officer, and it was some time before the staff got over what had happened.” I could feel my own throat tightening. ”I don't believe he suffered,” I lied, for Susan's sake. ”And he was unconscious for the last hours. That was a kindness.”

She nodded, turning her back to me. I saw her lift the corner of her ap.r.o.n and wipe her eyes. She busied herself about my meal until she was sure her voice was steady, then said huskily, ”Thank you for telling me. I didn't feel right asking Mrs. Graham. She took his death hard.”

She set a bowl of soup before me, thick with barley, and then slices of chicken with potatoes and swede. After the tension of dealing with Ted Booker, I was hungrier than I'd imagined, and Susan watched me eat with pleasure.

”Nice to see someone enjoying their food,” she said with a smile. ”They never say much, above-stairs. I try to please, but it's hard to find the meat and vegetables they're used to. The war and all. I'm at my wit's end, sometimes.”

”How long have you worked here?”

”Since I was sixteen. I came with my mother, and after she left to live with my brother, I took over as housekeeper, more or less. They don't call me that, but they might as well give me the t.i.tle. I do the work.”

”Were there others in service here, before the war?”

Her face clouded a bit, but she said, ”Half a dozen. Except for Mrs. Nichols-and she was too old to consider war work-the women left one by one as the men went off to fight. The footman died on the Somme, and we lost the coachman soon after. You've only to walk in the churchyard to see how bad it's been for us.”

”Yes, I noticed the graves.”

”And that's only them that died at home.”

As I was finis.h.i.+ng my pudding, there were footsteps on the stairs, and Mrs. Graham came into the kitchen, frowning. ”My dear! I didn't intend for you to be served here. Susan, what were you thinking?”

Susan went red in the face, and I said quickly, ”The kitchen was warm, and I didn't wish to put her out. It's my fault, truly.”

As I'd finished my meal, she carried me off to the sitting room, apologizing again for Dr. Philips's demands on my time and skills. ”He has no sense of what is right. You didn't come here to deal with Ted Booker. A tragedy, I'm sure, but not ours. I don't know what your parents will think of me, letting such a thing happen.”

”They will understand. I'm trained to help. It would have been difficult for me to say no.” To change the subject, I asked about the rector and the work he was doing in the church.

”It's the war,” she said with a sigh, as if that explained everything. ”Our s.e.xton lost an arm at Ypres, but he can still carry out most of his duties, and so he was given his old position back. But the church needs constant upkeep, and when no one is looking, the rector, Mr. Montgomery, sees to it. There were protests at first, but he reminded us that Christ was a carpenter. And I must say, he's got quite good at what he does, and it has saved church funds time and again. But it isn't right, somehow. Call me old-fas.h.i.+oned if you will, but this making do at every turn is trying.”

I said, ”Of course his own duties come first, but it must give him a sense of satisfaction to know that the fabric of the church isn't suffering from the war.”

She tilted her head as she considered that. ”I hadn't looked at it quite that way. But I'm sure you're right. He was on a ladder, inspecting the stained-gla.s.s windows last week, when I went to see to the flowers, and he said the saints were taking the war in stride. I see now that he was pleased. I'd taken his remarks to be rather-irreverent.”

She got up to poke at the fire, though it didn't need it.

”Perhaps I ought to ask Robert to speak to him. To offer help, if he'll accept it. Robert has been my right hand for so many years I don't know how I could have survived without him.” There was a warmth in her voice that conveyed the closeness of that relations.h.i.+p. ”He was always my favorite cousin, you know, and the only one who stepped forward in my time of need. I was so young when my husband died, and the responsibility was overwhelming. The estate to run, my sons to care for. I hardly knew where to begin. And all these years later, Arthur's loss to endure.”

I wondered where she was going with this unexpected confession of vulnerability. She was a strong woman, I'd felt that from the beginning. I should have guessed what her purpose was.

Turning from the fire, she came to sit by me. ”Jonathan has spoken to me. Are you sure Arthur didn't tell you the circ.u.mstances surrounding his message?”

”Absolutely. He entrusted me with that, and nothing more.” I didn't add that my imagination had been busy filling in the blanks.

”Yes, well, it's rather a mystery. Was he perhaps being given morphine? Or was he out of his head with fever?”

”He'd been given something for pain, but he knew what he was saying. I think he died more comfortably, knowing his duty was done.”

”Duty. That's an odd way of putting it.” She sighed. ”I really don't know what to make of it.”

I found myself wondering if that was true and she was intentionally blinding herself to what Arthur wanted. On the other hand, I couldn't help the growing suspicion that she was probing to discover how much I knew about the matter. It was hard to judge what lay behind her sad smile as she stared into the fire, and I was feeling rather uncomfortable.

What surprised me was that Jonathan had confided in his mother. Had she importuned him until he had given in?

I couldn't stop myself from commenting, ”Perhaps he expected Jonathan to understand. The message was meant for him, after all.”

”I did it for Mother's sake....” She repeated the middle of it, as if trying to work it out. ”But what was that?” She repeated the middle of it, as if trying to work it out. ”But what was that?”

”Sometimes it's a girl....”

Her eyes flicked to my face.

”What makes you think such a thing?”

”I've sat with many wounded men, Mrs. Graham. And some of them were in love when they went off to war. But their family or the girl's family refused to let them marry. That sometimes weighed heavily on their minds, at the end. They often wanted the girl to know that they regretted not marrying her.”

”My sons haven't been involved with any young women.” Her voice was harsh. I'd met that resistance before. Mothers who believed that their sons had formed no attachments because they were too young...I knew better, I'd written pa.s.sionate letters to sweethearts from men barely old enough to enlist.

”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 a.s.sume....” 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.”