acdholmesfest | Fic for kindkit: The Revelation of the Tired Captain (Reply)

Title: The Revelation of the Tired Captain
Recipient: kindkit
Author (we will redact until reveal): methylviolet10b
Rating: PG
Characters, including any pairing(s): Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, John Watson/Mary
Warnings: References to several canon cases. Playing fast and loose with canon details – but then again, so did ACD. Victorian attitudes, including those towards gender, crime, physical and mental health, and other issues.
Author’s Notes: Many thanks to my talented betas, spacemutineer and monkeybard. All remaining errors are my own.
Summary: John Watson is brave, loyal, steadfast – and a master of selective truths.
Disclaimer: public domain (pretty much), but ACD created them. I’m just playing with them.

–

John Watson has been called many things: brave, loyal, steadfast. All correct. What he has never been is a truthful narrator.

I stared at the words that had just flowed from my pen almost without my conscious volition. I made a choked noise, shattering the quiet of the Sussex cottage; half amusement at my own folly, half something else entirely.

It was shocking, how much of a relief those words were to write, and so I continued. After all, who was there to see them? I could destroy the sheets with a single flick of my hand, toss them into the fire crackling in the nearby fireplace. And I needed to write, needed words in a way I had rarely, if ever, needed them before. I adjusted my pen and continued to write.

I would never call him a liar. That is not precisely true. He is an honest man, right down to the core of him. Nonetheless, he is a master of telling truth selectively; of omitting certain details that lead readers to make incorrect assumptions; and, when necessary, creating utter fabrications. He can lie on the page in a way he never can in person. And no, not just to me; he’s a terrible liar face to face. One of the many reasons why Watson should never be trusted at a card-game, not with any money at stake. But in one of his stories? Oh, there he is a master of deception, deceit, and outright lies.

I wanted a reference. I picked up a slim volume from where I had set it on the floor next to my chair. I had had it custom-made, just like its fellows: carefully-cut pages from a number of popular magazines bound together with care and surrounded with sturdy leather to protect the contents. It was the work of a moment to turn to the page I remembered. I scanned the well-known words and continued.

Take, for example, his opening to the story he entitled ‘The Adventure of the Naval Treaty.’ In it, he wrote:

The July which immediately succeeded my marriage was made memorable by three cases of interest, in which I had the privilege of being associated with Sherlock Holmes and of studying his methods. I find them recorded in my notes under the headings of "The Adventure of the Second Stain," "The Adventure of the Naval Treaty," and "The Adventure of the Tired Captain."

He goes on to explain to his readers why he cannot give a recounting of the first case (despite dropping a number of small, tantalizing details), and then starts his tale of the second – and in so doing, utterly misleads his readers in several significant ways.

First, and most crucially: the marriage Watson alludes to. Connoisseurs of his work, as well as those who believe they are even remotely familiar with the man, assume that this marriage is to Mary Watson, née Morstan, as introduced in ‘The Sign of the Four.’

This is one of Watson’s greatest, and most enduring, lies.

Oh, Watson was married. You can look into the public records of the time and find the evidence if you really look. I know for a fact that at least seven individuals have gone to the trouble of doing so over the years, and duly found what they sought (in all but one case, much to their – or their employers’ – chagrin). And the recorded name of his wife, in the parish register and in government documents, is Mary. But she was not the Mary of Watson’s romantic tale. Nor was she ever a client of mine. Instead, she was one of his clients, or I should say patients. And she was never truly his wife except on paper, though he cared for her far more carefully than many a husband would have done. Certainly far better than her real husband did, even before his untimely death in a railway accident. Conveniently enough, his name was also John, John Malson.

It was a simple matter to alter it to Watson in the relevant records, and the similarity proved useful in other ways, too.

Mary Malson’s understanding was never strong, and after the loss of her husband, she spiralled down into depression and eventually madness. On the days where she could be convinced to speak or move at all, she often could not remember her own name, or much of anything except that John would be home soon. On her active days, she rarely spoke sense, and one or two incidents suggested she might prove a danger to herself or others if left unsupervised. Various remedies were attempted, but nothing restored her wits or ability to interact normally with the world. However, she was spared the terrible fate of other women in her condition. Instead of winding up on the streets, or locked away in a charity hospital or public sanatorium, she was cared for in a private facility, one with just a few other patients. Her faithful spouse, one Doctor John H. Watson, visited her as regularly as distance and his business allowed. As the beloved wife of a fellow physician and increasingly popular author (one whose friend was famous for his investigative ability), she received the best possible care. Her life was as happy as Watson and I could make it.

After all, she was key to our happiness.

The unhappy fate of Doctor Watson’s wife was one of the worst-kept secrets in London in its day. Those who wondered why he chose to reside with me, why he did not remarry after his reported ‘sad bereavement,’ were quickly informed by those who believed they knew the truth. Watson bore up stoically under those sidelong glances, hasty whispers, and pitying looks.

I did my best to ignore them as well, if only to resist the temptation to laugh in their faces. People see, but do not observe, and never more so than when it came to John Watson.

For he needed no pity. He was well, and happy, and married: married to me, in every way except the eyes and letter of the law. He belonged to me, body and soul, just as I belonged to him.

I first called him my husband that year of the naval treaty case. We had been lovers almost since the start of our acquaintance, but I realized, nearly too late, that my habitual reserve had prevented Watson from knowing the true depths of my devotion to him, and my belief in our permanence. So I called him my husband in private, but in all seriousness. And Watson, true to his nature, chose to celebrate our mutual love and commitment to our relationship publicly, but in a way that only we two would ever understand.

Of course you think I refer to his mention of his marriage. Our marriage.

That is a Watsonian trick. I have studied his methods extensively for years, and so I employ them almost without thought. Yes, he celebrated our change in our status to one another in the reference to his marriage. But he truly declared his commitment to me, to us, in a brief mention that was almost immediately forgotten by the majority of his readers, caught up as they were by his exciting hints of intrigue and mystery.

Only I knew the significance of the case he called “The Adventure of the Tired Captain,” the case he mentioned and then drowned in details of other adventures. The story of the gallant captain, a hero on the battlefield and off, noble by nature but not so by blood, is not one that Watson would ever write up for publication. But I knew the story of love, and sacrifice, and utter determination to live a life with the person that you love, regardless of the judgment of society or laws forbidding such love. The captain had been tired, yes, exhausted mentally and physically. He’d been tested cruelly in the crucible of life, and yet he stayed true. No matter how his lover tried to dissuade him, push him away for ‘his own good,’ he refused to be deterred. And so, rather than give each other up, they gave up everything else and set out together to make a new life of their own.

A single, passing reference, less than a dozen words, yet the message was utterly clear, at least to me. I really don’t give Watson’s writing skills enough credit.

“You only say such things when you’re worried. I’m not that ill, Holmes, not any longer.”

My pen dropped from suddenly numb fingers. I realized two things nearly simultaneously: that I had been speaking my thoughts aloud as I wrote, and that Watson’s eyes were open. He regarded me with exhausted affection from where he lay in his sickbed.

“My dear fellow!” I scrambled to seize one of his hands in my own, and rejoiced to feel him return the clasp with some semblance of strength. “You look better. Have you been awake long?”

He did look better in that his eyes were open and aware of his surroundings, not closed in sleep or half-dazed with fever. He did not sound much better. His voice was still hoarse and rough, and there was a rasp in his breathing that I did not care for at all. Still, in one sense it was a blessing: his long illness had resulted in a discharge. He’d been sent away from the London hospital where he’d been assigned to recover his health in the country air, if he could. Even with this dreadful war dragging on into 1916, and looking to go on for years yet, the Army was unlikely to recall one aged and illness-worn doctor to active duty, not unless things turned even more dire than they were at present.

More fools them. Watson was worth five young, inexperienced doctors. Maybe even ten. I turned loose of his hand and reached instead for the water-pitcher I had previously set nearby to pour him a glass. I’d laced the water with honey from my hives. It seemed to help.

“Not long.” Watson answered the question I’d almost forgotten I’d asked as he took the glass from me. “And I am feeling much better this morning – it is morning, isn’t it? I half thought I was dreaming, seeing you writing so diligently. Working on another monograph?” The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled, and I felt my heart beat more strongly in my chest. “Or have you finally decided to try your hand at writing up one of your cases?”

I would not show him the pages I’d written. We neither of us were so foolish as to commit any of the truths of our relationship to paper, however much we might have wished to do so. At least not to pages that were not immediately destroyed. I hastily tucked the sheets together and folded them, the better to make a convenient packet for the fire. “I thought I might try it, if only to amuse my husband,” I lied. “He likes fanciful stories. I thought it might help pass the time while he gets well.”

Welcome colour rose in Watson’s age-paled cheeks. “Really, my dear?” His smile softened into that private, fond look he only ever shows me. “I should quite like that, husband.”

“Then I will continue my efforts – but first, you must eat something, now that you’re awake. Tea and toast, or do you think you could manage something a bit more substantial this morning?”

Watson tilted his head, considering. The new angle showed me once again just how white his hair had grown, on his head and in his moustache both. “Tea and toast to start, and if that goes well, perhaps something more a little later on. I feel almost hungry today. Is this one of Mrs Levin’s days?”

“It is,” I confirmed. “And I’m sure I could persuade our housekeeper to concoct any number of tempting morsels. She’s been quite worried, you know.”

He gave me a look that said quite plainly he knew Mrs Levin hadn’t been the only one worried, but let it pass. “That has promise. Perhaps I’ll even ask her myself. I should be able to get up today, even if it is only to the sofa. I am quite tired of staying in bed, and of wearing nothing but nightshirts.”

“I trust you won’t overdo things.” I said it mildly enough, but I meant every word – and I also meant to keep a sharp eye on him, just to make sure. He was far older now than when we’d first met, but he’d never learned the habit of looking after himself nearly as carefully as he looked after his patients. “Now let me see about that tea.”

I rose, slipping the pages into the pocket of my dressing-gown as I did so, and leaned over to give him a gentle kiss. His lips were dry but warm against mine, the brush of his moustache against my skin as familiar to me as breathing, and as necessary. “Mmm,” he sighed when I broke our connection. “Hurry back. And don’t forget the toast.”

It was only after I’d adjourned to the kitchen and disposed of my writing in the stove-fire that I realized I’d committed myself to actually attempting to write up a case – or more precisely, a fiction. I suppressed a groan. What would I write about? I would have to portray us as estranged, for there to be any reason for me to write a case at all instead of my long-time ‘biographer’. Watson had suggested as much already in his more recent stories. It was yet one more necessary lie, yet one more private declaration of his devotion. I would do the same. Maybe I’d write up a tale based on that leprosy case1. Or perhaps I’d invent something entirely. One of my scientific correspondents had written me recently about his latest discoveries about jellyfish toxins, of all things. What could be more fanciful than a jellyfish as a murder weapon?2

I chuckled at the thought and started toasting bread.

1 The Adventure of the Blanched Soldier

2 The Adventure of the Lion’s Mane