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acdholmesfestTitle: To Cast Light on Each
Recipient:tweedisgood
Author: [redacted]
Rating: PG
Characters, including any pairing(s): established Holmes/Watson, developing Eugenia Ronder/Elsie Cubitt
Warnings: This is a fix-it for “The Veiled Lodger” and a follow-up to “The Dancing Men.” As such, it references the plots of both stories and includes references to suicidal inclinations, a past suicide attempt, past domestic abuse, as well as non-graphic descriptions of physical disfigurement
Summary: Holmes and Watson are determined to offer Eugenia Ronder more than a sermon.
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the opening poetic quotation is Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s. The concluding song was released in 1901 by Arthur F. Tate and Eileen Newton.
And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
The love I bear thee, finding words enough,
And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,
Between our faces, to cast light on each?
The stifling, anguished atmosphere of the veiled lodger's lonely room followed us back to Baker Street. Side by side on the cab ride from Brixton, we leaned away from each other into our respective corners, morose and silent. The air was thick. A solitary gust stirred as we skirted Hyde Park, throwing up handfuls of grit and dust.
If Watson's eyes spilled over once or twice before we reached home, he had good excuse.
My eyes were dry, but I've always been one of those regrettable types whose distress shades more nervous than melancholy. As soon as our hansom arrived, I swept up the steps to our rooms. While evening set in, I paced and smoked and acted the restless nuisance. Watson left me to it, too well-versed in my tempers to chide.
He supped alone as I made my circuits of the room or huddled at my work table, and I took comfort in the sight of him. He was a little withdrawn, still troubled by all we'd heard. His brow creased and his hands flitted over the tablecloth, smoothing it absently. After the dishes were cleared, he moved to his armchair and looked out the window for a quarter hour, then propped his notebook on his knee and set to writing.
His hair was untidy for once; it had curled in the day's heat and moulded into odd shapes beneath his hat. Growing softer and finer with age, it had come over silver in a concerted rush last year. Even in the unromantic glare of the gas jet, it shone. Surfacing now and then from my agitation, I found my gaze resting there as helplessly as ever.
Eventually, I wore myself down. At half past nine, Watson laid a hand over mine. Had he acted sooner I probably would have brushed him off, but his sixth sense was as attuned to me as mine to him, and at his touch I discovered myself equal to conversation.
There was only one point worth making. 'We must find something better than a sermon to offer her.'
'I know,' he said. 'Of course, we must. We shall.'
He tightened his hand around mine with an encouraging shake, and his smile, though tired, was earnest. 'It's not a problem to be solved in one night, though, Holmes. It's a human life and an independent will we have to deal with. You've done what you could to forestall any immediate tragedy, so don't reproach yourself for that sermon. As for what more might be done, we can sit down tomorrow and rummage through our connexions for anyone who could be of service to the lady. We'll find some leads worth pursuing, I'm sure.'
That practical tone of his—some nights it almost seemed I could catch hold of it, turning over the inflections in my palm like a well-worn pebble. 'I'm glad you were with me today,' I said.
His mouth quirked. 'Likewise.'
Watson had been spending more of his days and nights away from Baker Street. In later years he would write of having taken up his own rooms in Queen Anne Street, but in truth it was to a modest cottage in Sussex, framed in the Queen Anne style, that he retired. We had chosen it together only six months previous—a gentle climax to the recent cataclysm in our personal affairs.
Our apartments had been prey to a series of increasingly desperate and damaging break-ins aimed at the destruction of our case files. This was neither the first nor last time that we had to deal with the paranoia of unscrupulous former clients, but the latest among them combined a superabundance of funds with a corresponding dearth of conscience and had managed to hire the most dangerous ruffians in greater London for his purpose. The most violent of the resulting incidents Watson would eventually recast within a purely fictional frame: while there never were any Garridebs or counterfeiters, there was a real shooting in our own sitting room and a terrible few moments in which I did not know if Watson lived or died.
He has since referred, in terms barely veiled, to the passionate upheaval which resulted from that crisis. In addition to endowing our friendship, at long last, with a far more intimate character, it convinced me that an early retirement was not only an option but a necessity. Watson, had it merely been a question of his own safety, would have dug in and set himself against any course of action that resembled retreat. But he became convinced that if we were to preserve the irreplaceable histories he had recorded during our years together, we would have to take greater precautions. The first step was to remove both the papers and ourselves to a less recognizable address.
Those records he considered most private and precious went into the battered tin dispatch box locked away at Cox & Company. The rest he transferred, bit by bit, to our new home in the country. I began slowly to wind down my business in London, preparing for a bittersweet departure. I had been accustomed to consider my work as my greatest prize, and though I was prepared to exchange it for the sake of one greater, it nonetheless merited a long goodbye.
By contrast, the move out of active casework opened new vistas for Watson in his role as chronicler and archivist. He was freshly determined to make duplicate copies of as much of his collection as his time and health would permit, and along the way he could set aside new rafts of material to write up for Dr Doyle and The Strand. It was this work that lately kept him more often in Sussex than in Baker Street, humming with energy and ankle deep in loose leaf manuscripts, emerging from his study to make arrangements for the furnishings and grounds, and preparing the place to suit us both. Meanwhile I lingered in the midst of my dwindling practice, nerving myself to cut the cord.
Even for a gentleman with every possible advantage—honour behind me, love before me, and wealth to comfortably sustain—it was a hard thing to take the first step into a new life. Our client today had made her way through bleak varieties of pain: brutalized by her husband, left to die by her lover, and shunned by a society that had no use for a woman once her beauty became disfigured. She had wanted the truth of her suffering, and even of her guilt, to be remembered; but by God, what use was it to stand witness to such misery if there was nothing to be done about it?
The stroke of Watson's thumb across the back of my hand pulled me from my thoughts again. His gaze was sympathetic, and he didn't try to tell me that these wretched reflections did no one any good. He merely stood, pulling me to him, and grazed his fingertips across my cheek. For months we had made free with our caresses, but I remained profoundly susceptible even to the least of them.
We crossed the room from light to light, dousing the table lamps and turning off the gas. Hands joined in the familiar dark, we trailed upstairs to bed. Sufficient to the day is its own evil; tomorrow we would grapple with the rest.
Watson rose early—all that country air apparently spread haleness like a contagion—and, true to his word, he had finished his breakfast and covered his half of the table with oversized folios by the time I straggled downstairs. While the majority of our memoranda were already in Sussex, my annotated indexes, full of newspaper clippings detailing names of note from every class and profession, maintained their tidy alphabetical line on the shelf beneath the weather station.
Deliberately unmethodical, most likely for the simple pleasure of winding me up, he had plucked out 'G,' 'L,' and 'S' to start with and made industrious notes whilst I demolished my eggs. Occasionally he would pause as some particular person came to mind whose advice or assistance might prove useful, and he would switch volumes to look them up before he lost the thread. Such an approach left a great deal to chance, but this was not, after all, a case in which efficiency seemed much more likely to succeed than serendipity.
I joined my efforts to his, though with the unavoidable sense that we were searching for a needle in a haystack. I hardly knew what to look for: a nurse, a benefactor, an employer, a companion? How might Mrs Ronder be lured into breaking the monotony of reclusion, and what could give her some relief, raise her spirits, or excite her interest? It seemed the height of arrogance to pretend that two strangers, however well-intentioned, could find any simple balm to the layers of injury she bore. Yet there was nothing to do but try.
We dipped in and out of our scrapbooks all morning and into the afternoon. I was sitting on the floor skimming past pages full of superfluous naval lists when Watson reached for the 'C' tome, muttering about Sir James Crichton-Browne. I knew the name; he was a leading authority on the most modern psychological therapies and just the type of man to be able to refer us to a broad network of specialists. Watson thumbed through the volume in search of his quarry, only to come to a sudden halt with a low and formless exclamation. I caught his gaze and felt immediately that his search had taken an unexpected and promising turn.
'Cubitt,' he said slowly, his finger hovering over the screaming headline from an old Norfolk gazette. 'Mrs Elsie Cubitt.'
I caught my breath at once, seized by the possibilities. What woman could have a better hope of understanding Mrs Ronder, and being understood in turn? It had been more than ten years since the terrible tragedy at Ridling Thorpe Manor. Mrs Cubitt had made a full recovery, which Watson informed me amounted to a miracle. The bullet she had fired into her own head in a frenzy of despair had traversed both hemispheres of her brain, a circumstance which had sharply increased the odds of brain damage. More dangerous still, the bullet had remained lodged there, requiring the most delicate surgery to remove. Her odds of survival had been low, and the likelihood that her mind and personality would remain recognizably her own had been lower still.
Yet she had pulled through, and manifestly she had found a way forward. Surely she must bear the scars of her experience in both body and soul, but her resilience had been formidable. If I recalled correctly, she had taken on the management of her late husband's estate and had gone to notable lengths in support of the poor. Neither Watson nor I had ever met the lady, as she had been invalided throughout our investigation and at the time of Slaney's trial. I felt certain, however, that she would remember our names and our involvement in the case.
'Do you suppose we might introduce them?' Watson asked. 'Such a friendship could do Mrs Ronder much good, don't you think?' He frowned then, biting at his lip. 'But, of course, Mrs Cubitt might find it difficult to be in touch with a lady still struggling with self-destructive impulses. There's no telling how hard it's been for her to put her own behind her.'
It was a fair point. 'We must be careful not to presume too far, you're right. All we can do is write to her and ask.'
Watson drafted a letter of appeal. Without naming names, he conveyed succinctly our client's state of mind and current circumstances. The details of her history he kept private, but he openly described the mutilation of her face so that it wouldn't come as an undue shock should Mrs Cubitt agree to a meeting. What we hoped our client might gain through the introduction, he emphasised, was the support of another lady who could understand her struggles. But, of course, Mrs Cubitt knew best whether she was in a position to reach out without endangering her hard-won peace of mind.
The next day an evil little bottle smelling lightly of almonds and glinting blue beneath its poison label arrived in the post for us, as did Mrs Cubitt's reply.
'I send you my temptation. I will follow your advice,' Mrs Ronder had written.
'Please do bring her up to visit,' Mrs Cubitt invited. 'Would next Sunday suit?'
Watson set the letters side by side on the mantel, hope sharp in his eyes.
Rather to my surprise, once we explained our proposal to Mrs Ronder, it required only a little persistence to persuade her to agree to the journey. Knowing that she had lived so long in seclusion, we feared she might find the prospect of trains, crowds, and unfamiliar company too daunting a gauntlet to run. But her decisive actions in recent weeks—making a long-withheld confession, separating herself from the means of suicide—had nourished a fragile spring of resolution within her. She had no objection to making Mrs Cubitt's acquaintance; on the contrary, she was prepared to take hold of any hand extended to her.
We met by appointment early Sunday morning on the platform for the Midland and Great Northern line. Mrs Ronder naturally retained her black hat with its thick veil, but lightened its mournful aspect with a tidy frock of bottle green and old-fashioned lace gloves. Thankfully we were in the off-season, so the train was not overfull. The three of us settled peaceably into the compartment we'd reserved, each well-fortified with books and newspapers to pass the time. It would take more than five hours to reach North Walsham from London.
As it happened, we spent the majority of that time in conversation. Neither Watson nor I would ever have presumed to try to draw the lady out, but she began by declaring herself a faithful subscriber to The Strand. 'Now that I have the opportunity so many of your readers have surely longed for, Doctor Watson,' she said, 'I really must demand an explanation of the "dreadful Abernetty business" and how exactly it hinged on the depth to which the parsley sank into the butter.'
She surprised a grand laugh out of Watson, who obliged with a marvelous re-telling of that strange and grotesque puzzle. His skills as a storyteller have been amply acknowledged by the reading public, but then, they've never known what they were missing. To laud his publications is to accept the shadow of his talent in place of its true substance. His words, marooned on the page without the nuance of his voice and gestures, lose half their power.
In prose, Watson is competent; in person, he's electric.
While outside our window the miles rolled monotonously past, he advanced from tale to tale in perfect command of his small, rapt audience. He knew quite well the effect he had on me, but was evidently both surprised and relieved that Mrs Ronder smiled to hear him. The cut of her veil left her mouth freely visible, its bright curve an expressive counterpoint to the blank fabric hiding her face.
Once we arrived at the station, we hired a trap for the last leg of our journey to the manor. The shift in Mrs Ronder's manner was immediate and obvious. Previously attentive and engaged, if not garrulous, she withdrew into herself. The sudden downturn of her spirits did not alarm us. My own quicksilver temperament had accustomed both Watson and myself to expect black moods to oscillate, and it would have been of greater concern had Mrs Ronder felt the need to feign false cheer. As it was, her good humour on the train had most likely been genuine, and her anxiety as we neared our destination was perfectly natural.
For our driver we had a local farmer, his boots and wool trousers liberally speckled with the sandy soil distinctive to this parish. A scattering of dark red stains ingrained under his fingernails had excited my attention for a moment, but I'm sorry to report they were more likely due to the scarlet skein of beet-roots than of murder.
With that informality characteristic of Americans, Mrs Cubitt did not wait for her housemaid to conduct us to the parlour, but instead stepped out onto the portico as soon as our carriage arrived and started down the steps to greet us. Her stout figure and ruddy cheeks testified to the habits of an active, healthy life. Long tresses of chestnut hair were pinned neatly atop her head, with a few wispy ringlets left loose to frame her ravaged face. The pucker of the old entrance wound was relatively minor, a mere pock-mark set low on her temple. Her right eye, however, had evidently been so damaged as to require removal, and the framework of skin and bone around the empty socket was sunken in. Faint indentations running diagonally across the skin of her cheek suggested she often covered the eye with a patch, but she had forgone it today. Upon her forehead was the raised, distinctive bump that marked the site of trepanning, and her hairline zigzagged round it. She was unveiled, though the absence of freckles informed me she rarely ventured outside so.
It was generous of her to meet us like that, in barefaced frankness and solidarity. The gesture evidently touched Mrs Ronder in some vital, intuitive way. She quickened her pace and pulled ahead of us, animated by a spontaneous fervency of which she seemed hardly aware, and reached out to clasp Mrs Cubitt's hands. Watson and I halted at the edge of the drive, hanging back for a moment while the two ladies stood close together, both of them tremulous with sincerity as they declared themselves 'so very glad to meet you.'
We went inside and sat down together for tea. The maid poured for us all, as our hostess was prone to spill. The atmosphere was relaxed; Mrs Cubitt and Watson gamely carried the conversation, while both myself and Mrs Ronder were more inclined to keep quiet. But once Watson brought the topic around to literature, she could not resist taking a larger part in the conversation. Books had been the one pleasure in life that had never deserted her, and her opinions—both favourable and unfavourable—were ardent, varied, and vast.
'I wish I were more equal to debating you!' Mrs Cubitt teased. 'But I'm afraid when I was growing up, my parents didn't exactly raise me on a diet of the classics. I just read whatever the other girls were reading, and most of it was rubbish, to be honest. Of course, my Hilton, and his family before him, built up a nice little library here at the manor. I've opened it up to the neighbourhood so anyone can come visit and read what they like. But I haven't often taken advantage of the collection myself, since spending too long with a book strains my eye and tends to tire me out.'
Mrs Ronder nonetheless persisted, and soon discovered a few favourites that Mrs Cubitt did share with her. Watson was able gradually to bow out of the conversation and leave the ladies to debate the relative appeal of different fictional romances. He and I moved to share the settee and smoked a cigarette or two together. Mrs Cubitt surprised us by following our lead and lighting a pipe in the midst of her disquisition on Persuasion, puffing away affably; but on reflection, I might have predicted it. Scent is, to human memory, the surest tinder. Apart from the house itself, her husband's tobacco must have been among the strongest of the evocations of him within which she lived and breathed. I hoped sincerely that she had reached for it over the years as a comfort rather than a penance.
We had arranged in advance to stay the night at Ridling Thorpe before returning to London in the morning. After an excellent supper, we moved as a group to the library and elected Mrs Ronder to read aloud. Her voice and manner were eminently suited to public speaking, she having spent so many years addressing rowdy circus crowds from the center spotlight. The only blemish was that she did have to hold her book awkwardly close to succeed in reading it through her veil. She chose an American author in honour of our hostess, making her way through several eerie and macabre scribblings from that gothic oddity Edgar Allan Poe. (Mercifully, she avoided Dupin.) Mrs Cubitt was wholly unfamiliar with the works and seemed to find Mrs Ronder's performances very pleasantly bloodcurdling; she was full of exclamations and scooted ever closer to the edge of her seat as each tale unfolded. Watson, too, was thoroughly entranced, as he is by all great storytelling.
We applauded her at the conclusion of each story, but upon finishing "The Masque of the Red Death," she stood unmoving at the reading stand, her air slipping visibly into hesitance and grief. We held silent, unsure whether she merely needed a moment of privacy to gather herself. But before any of us could hazard a guess as to her state of mind, she straightened resolutely and addressed herself to Mrs Cubitt.
'You've been so kind. Though it may seem strange to say so on such short acquaintance, this day has meant a great deal to me. I should be more than glad of your friendship, but I cannot take it on false pretenses.' Stepping back from the reading stand, she sank abruptly into the nearest chair with a visible shake in her shoulders. 'I think that I must make to you the same confession I have made to these gentlemen, so that you may judge the truth for yourself. The details are not terribly important, though you may have them if you wish. But what I should tell you is this: I'm not an innocent. There is blood on my hands.'
Mrs Cubitt stared at her in astonishment, taken aback both by her dramatic declaration and by the sudden shift the evening's mood had taken, but Mrs Ronder pressed on. 'My husband hurt me. He was full of rage and jealousy; he used to lash a whip across my back. He was a coward, a bully, and a beast, and I conspired with my lover to kill him. I have suffered for it, more than I thought anyone could suffer, short of hell. But I cannot say I truly repent, even now. I could not have borne another day, another night, as his wife. And he would never have let me go. But you are a good woman, and I can see that you loved your husband dearly. Perhaps you would rather not have to do with me.'
A deep hush fell over the room in the wake of this extraordinary speech. Watson and I knew that it was not our place to break the silence. Mrs Ronder sat with her hands clasped loosely together, every line of her posture weighed down by nervous exhaustion. It struck me clearly then how different this latest confession felt from her first. When she had appointed us to be her witnesses, it had been the calm and clear-eyed act of a numbed soul resigned to death. There had been none of that wavering ache which now threaded through her words; that fear, renewed at last, of having more to lose.
Mrs Cubitt looked at her for a long time, admirably calm. At length, she spoke gently, thanking Mrs Ronder for her confidence. She went on to repay it with one of her own. Watson had not yet published any account of the Dancing Men for the public, so Mrs Ronder learned of that tragedy for the first time from Mrs Cubitt's lips. Grief hovered in her voice as she spoke, poignant and long-settled.
Mrs Cubitt met Mrs Ronder's gaze squarely. 'Abe Slaney never did make me his wife,' she said. 'But I spent long years convinced that he would, terrified that I'd never escape. If my parents had forced the marriage through before I ran away, if I'd been trapped with a violent man I could never love, who's to say what I might've been driven to?' Tears rose and began to trickle down the far side of her face. 'Do you know, my friend—you told the truth about your past tonight, because you thought you owed me honesty. And I can't help thinking how much I wish I'd have had that same courage when it counted. If I had, maybe my husband would still be alive.' She covered her mouth, momentarily overcome.
Mrs Ronder rose in a burst of sympathy, moving across the room toward her. Mrs Cubitt stood likewise, wiping at her cheek. 'There's blood in the past that'll never wash out. But we're still alive, and what we choose to do matters. You're not a danger to anyone, are you? Anyone except yourself. I can understand that, believe me.'
They reached for one another, coming to rest in a gentle sway, half-embraced. They murmured quiet comforts back and forth. Neither Watson nor I could remain unmoved at such a sight. Feeling urgently that they deserved their privacy, we gathered ourselves and unobtrusively withdrew.
Though hardly prone to poetic impressions, I seemed almost to glimpse a light between them; a kindness bright enough to illuminate both, in their painful similarities, unashamed.
post-script
By the next year I had committed to retirement and joined Watson in Sussex. Country life was encumbered by its share of inconvenience, but that was nothing in comparison to the freedoms it offered. Together, we began to allow ourselves more room to love, and be loved, unguardedly.
Watson had bought a small upright piano for our parlour. Like many sister-less boys of our generation, both he and I had learned to play as children. Even then, I'd found the popular standards so trite and plodding that I'd never invested much in the instrument, graduating to the violin with great relief. But Watson had his sentimental favourites. His voice always exercised a certain witchcraft over me, never more than when raised in song. Yet for years, I had been reticent to tell him so.
He had kept no piano at Baker Street, as we hadn't the room for it; but after his marriage, he and Mrs Watson had often played and sung together. On those rare occasions when I accepted their invitations to dine, we had always ended the evening gathered together around the piano bench, skimming through a pile of songbooks. We sang in turns, all together, and in pairs, and their duets were filled with warmth and joy.
I remembered those evenings with wistful fondness, and would never wish to incautiously trod upon ground that was, for him, sacred to her. But Watson reassured me; though naturally there were particular songs reserved for Mary in his heart, that did not mean that he and I might not find our own together with equal joy. I cannot explain why the simple tunes under his hands on that piano should have affected me so deeply, but to sit beside him at our own hearth and hear him singing love songs to me—it touched some flushed and tender slip of my soul.
One cloudy morning in December, we received a letter from our friends at Ridling Thorpe Manor. Not long after our memorable first visit, Mrs Ronder had decided to join Mrs Cubitt on a more permanent basis, taking a room at the house as her lodger. Since then, the manor had acquired the fond nickname of 'the nunnery' in local parlance, thanks to its ample supply of veiled ladies and conspicuous absence of gentlemen.
Mrs Cubitt and Mrs Ronder sent us their best wishes for the Christmas season, and invited us to visit the manor in the new year for a charity benefit. They intended to raise funds for the poorhouse, and hoped we could attend. Their message concluded with expressions of heartfelt gratitude for having brought them together. 'You have done more for us than you know,' Mrs Cubitt wrote. Watson gave me a speaking glance, and we chuckled cheerfully.
'I should like very much to accept their invitation,' he said, and I easily agreed.
Below their signatures, a brief post-script had been added in Mrs Ronder's hand. 'I am glad that I took your advice, Mr Holmes.'
Watson laid his hand on my shoulder, and we held the letter between us a moment longer, touched with admiration and gratitude. Then, as I folded the note carefully away, he sat down at the keys and began to play one of those songs that we had made our own.
I joined my voice to his with a swell of hope for the years ahead.
Dusk, and the shadows falling,
O'er land and sea;
Somewhere a voice is calling,
Calling for me.
Night and the stars are gleaming,
Tender and true;
Dearest, my heart is dreaming,
Dreaming of you.
The End. Somewhere a Voice is Calling)
Recipient:
tweedisgoodAuthor: [redacted]
Rating: PG
Characters, including any pairing(s): established Holmes/Watson, developing Eugenia Ronder/Elsie Cubitt
Warnings: This is a fix-it for “The Veiled Lodger” and a follow-up to “The Dancing Men.” As such, it references the plots of both stories and includes references to suicidal inclinations, a past suicide attempt, past domestic abuse, as well as non-graphic descriptions of physical disfigurement
Summary: Holmes and Watson are determined to offer Eugenia Ronder more than a sermon.
Disclaimer: The characters belong to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the opening poetic quotation is Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s. The concluding song was released in 1901 by Arthur F. Tate and Eileen Newton.
And wilt thou have me fashion into speech
The love I bear thee, finding words enough,
And hold the torch out, while the winds are rough,
Between our faces, to cast light on each?
The stifling, anguished atmosphere of the veiled lodger's lonely room followed us back to Baker Street. Side by side on the cab ride from Brixton, we leaned away from each other into our respective corners, morose and silent. The air was thick. A solitary gust stirred as we skirted Hyde Park, throwing up handfuls of grit and dust.
If Watson's eyes spilled over once or twice before we reached home, he had good excuse.
My eyes were dry, but I've always been one of those regrettable types whose distress shades more nervous than melancholy. As soon as our hansom arrived, I swept up the steps to our rooms. While evening set in, I paced and smoked and acted the restless nuisance. Watson left me to it, too well-versed in my tempers to chide.
He supped alone as I made my circuits of the room or huddled at my work table, and I took comfort in the sight of him. He was a little withdrawn, still troubled by all we'd heard. His brow creased and his hands flitted over the tablecloth, smoothing it absently. After the dishes were cleared, he moved to his armchair and looked out the window for a quarter hour, then propped his notebook on his knee and set to writing.
His hair was untidy for once; it had curled in the day's heat and moulded into odd shapes beneath his hat. Growing softer and finer with age, it had come over silver in a concerted rush last year. Even in the unromantic glare of the gas jet, it shone. Surfacing now and then from my agitation, I found my gaze resting there as helplessly as ever.
Eventually, I wore myself down. At half past nine, Watson laid a hand over mine. Had he acted sooner I probably would have brushed him off, but his sixth sense was as attuned to me as mine to him, and at his touch I discovered myself equal to conversation.
There was only one point worth making. 'We must find something better than a sermon to offer her.'
'I know,' he said. 'Of course, we must. We shall.'
He tightened his hand around mine with an encouraging shake, and his smile, though tired, was earnest. 'It's not a problem to be solved in one night, though, Holmes. It's a human life and an independent will we have to deal with. You've done what you could to forestall any immediate tragedy, so don't reproach yourself for that sermon. As for what more might be done, we can sit down tomorrow and rummage through our connexions for anyone who could be of service to the lady. We'll find some leads worth pursuing, I'm sure.'
That practical tone of his—some nights it almost seemed I could catch hold of it, turning over the inflections in my palm like a well-worn pebble. 'I'm glad you were with me today,' I said.
His mouth quirked. 'Likewise.'
Watson had been spending more of his days and nights away from Baker Street. In later years he would write of having taken up his own rooms in Queen Anne Street, but in truth it was to a modest cottage in Sussex, framed in the Queen Anne style, that he retired. We had chosen it together only six months previous—a gentle climax to the recent cataclysm in our personal affairs.
Our apartments had been prey to a series of increasingly desperate and damaging break-ins aimed at the destruction of our case files. This was neither the first nor last time that we had to deal with the paranoia of unscrupulous former clients, but the latest among them combined a superabundance of funds with a corresponding dearth of conscience and had managed to hire the most dangerous ruffians in greater London for his purpose. The most violent of the resulting incidents Watson would eventually recast within a purely fictional frame: while there never were any Garridebs or counterfeiters, there was a real shooting in our own sitting room and a terrible few moments in which I did not know if Watson lived or died.
He has since referred, in terms barely veiled, to the passionate upheaval which resulted from that crisis. In addition to endowing our friendship, at long last, with a far more intimate character, it convinced me that an early retirement was not only an option but a necessity. Watson, had it merely been a question of his own safety, would have dug in and set himself against any course of action that resembled retreat. But he became convinced that if we were to preserve the irreplaceable histories he had recorded during our years together, we would have to take greater precautions. The first step was to remove both the papers and ourselves to a less recognizable address.
Those records he considered most private and precious went into the battered tin dispatch box locked away at Cox & Company. The rest he transferred, bit by bit, to our new home in the country. I began slowly to wind down my business in London, preparing for a bittersweet departure. I had been accustomed to consider my work as my greatest prize, and though I was prepared to exchange it for the sake of one greater, it nonetheless merited a long goodbye.
By contrast, the move out of active casework opened new vistas for Watson in his role as chronicler and archivist. He was freshly determined to make duplicate copies of as much of his collection as his time and health would permit, and along the way he could set aside new rafts of material to write up for Dr Doyle and The Strand. It was this work that lately kept him more often in Sussex than in Baker Street, humming with energy and ankle deep in loose leaf manuscripts, emerging from his study to make arrangements for the furnishings and grounds, and preparing the place to suit us both. Meanwhile I lingered in the midst of my dwindling practice, nerving myself to cut the cord.
Even for a gentleman with every possible advantage—honour behind me, love before me, and wealth to comfortably sustain—it was a hard thing to take the first step into a new life. Our client today had made her way through bleak varieties of pain: brutalized by her husband, left to die by her lover, and shunned by a society that had no use for a woman once her beauty became disfigured. She had wanted the truth of her suffering, and even of her guilt, to be remembered; but by God, what use was it to stand witness to such misery if there was nothing to be done about it?
The stroke of Watson's thumb across the back of my hand pulled me from my thoughts again. His gaze was sympathetic, and he didn't try to tell me that these wretched reflections did no one any good. He merely stood, pulling me to him, and grazed his fingertips across my cheek. For months we had made free with our caresses, but I remained profoundly susceptible even to the least of them.
We crossed the room from light to light, dousing the table lamps and turning off the gas. Hands joined in the familiar dark, we trailed upstairs to bed. Sufficient to the day is its own evil; tomorrow we would grapple with the rest.
Watson rose early—all that country air apparently spread haleness like a contagion—and, true to his word, he had finished his breakfast and covered his half of the table with oversized folios by the time I straggled downstairs. While the majority of our memoranda were already in Sussex, my annotated indexes, full of newspaper clippings detailing names of note from every class and profession, maintained their tidy alphabetical line on the shelf beneath the weather station.
Deliberately unmethodical, most likely for the simple pleasure of winding me up, he had plucked out 'G,' 'L,' and 'S' to start with and made industrious notes whilst I demolished my eggs. Occasionally he would pause as some particular person came to mind whose advice or assistance might prove useful, and he would switch volumes to look them up before he lost the thread. Such an approach left a great deal to chance, but this was not, after all, a case in which efficiency seemed much more likely to succeed than serendipity.
I joined my efforts to his, though with the unavoidable sense that we were searching for a needle in a haystack. I hardly knew what to look for: a nurse, a benefactor, an employer, a companion? How might Mrs Ronder be lured into breaking the monotony of reclusion, and what could give her some relief, raise her spirits, or excite her interest? It seemed the height of arrogance to pretend that two strangers, however well-intentioned, could find any simple balm to the layers of injury she bore. Yet there was nothing to do but try.
We dipped in and out of our scrapbooks all morning and into the afternoon. I was sitting on the floor skimming past pages full of superfluous naval lists when Watson reached for the 'C' tome, muttering about Sir James Crichton-Browne. I knew the name; he was a leading authority on the most modern psychological therapies and just the type of man to be able to refer us to a broad network of specialists. Watson thumbed through the volume in search of his quarry, only to come to a sudden halt with a low and formless exclamation. I caught his gaze and felt immediately that his search had taken an unexpected and promising turn.
'Cubitt,' he said slowly, his finger hovering over the screaming headline from an old Norfolk gazette. 'Mrs Elsie Cubitt.'
I caught my breath at once, seized by the possibilities. What woman could have a better hope of understanding Mrs Ronder, and being understood in turn? It had been more than ten years since the terrible tragedy at Ridling Thorpe Manor. Mrs Cubitt had made a full recovery, which Watson informed me amounted to a miracle. The bullet she had fired into her own head in a frenzy of despair had traversed both hemispheres of her brain, a circumstance which had sharply increased the odds of brain damage. More dangerous still, the bullet had remained lodged there, requiring the most delicate surgery to remove. Her odds of survival had been low, and the likelihood that her mind and personality would remain recognizably her own had been lower still.
Yet she had pulled through, and manifestly she had found a way forward. Surely she must bear the scars of her experience in both body and soul, but her resilience had been formidable. If I recalled correctly, she had taken on the management of her late husband's estate and had gone to notable lengths in support of the poor. Neither Watson nor I had ever met the lady, as she had been invalided throughout our investigation and at the time of Slaney's trial. I felt certain, however, that she would remember our names and our involvement in the case.
'Do you suppose we might introduce them?' Watson asked. 'Such a friendship could do Mrs Ronder much good, don't you think?' He frowned then, biting at his lip. 'But, of course, Mrs Cubitt might find it difficult to be in touch with a lady still struggling with self-destructive impulses. There's no telling how hard it's been for her to put her own behind her.'
It was a fair point. 'We must be careful not to presume too far, you're right. All we can do is write to her and ask.'
Watson drafted a letter of appeal. Without naming names, he conveyed succinctly our client's state of mind and current circumstances. The details of her history he kept private, but he openly described the mutilation of her face so that it wouldn't come as an undue shock should Mrs Cubitt agree to a meeting. What we hoped our client might gain through the introduction, he emphasised, was the support of another lady who could understand her struggles. But, of course, Mrs Cubitt knew best whether she was in a position to reach out without endangering her hard-won peace of mind.
The next day an evil little bottle smelling lightly of almonds and glinting blue beneath its poison label arrived in the post for us, as did Mrs Cubitt's reply.
'I send you my temptation. I will follow your advice,' Mrs Ronder had written.
'Please do bring her up to visit,' Mrs Cubitt invited. 'Would next Sunday suit?'
Watson set the letters side by side on the mantel, hope sharp in his eyes.
Rather to my surprise, once we explained our proposal to Mrs Ronder, it required only a little persistence to persuade her to agree to the journey. Knowing that she had lived so long in seclusion, we feared she might find the prospect of trains, crowds, and unfamiliar company too daunting a gauntlet to run. But her decisive actions in recent weeks—making a long-withheld confession, separating herself from the means of suicide—had nourished a fragile spring of resolution within her. She had no objection to making Mrs Cubitt's acquaintance; on the contrary, she was prepared to take hold of any hand extended to her.
We met by appointment early Sunday morning on the platform for the Midland and Great Northern line. Mrs Ronder naturally retained her black hat with its thick veil, but lightened its mournful aspect with a tidy frock of bottle green and old-fashioned lace gloves. Thankfully we were in the off-season, so the train was not overfull. The three of us settled peaceably into the compartment we'd reserved, each well-fortified with books and newspapers to pass the time. It would take more than five hours to reach North Walsham from London.
As it happened, we spent the majority of that time in conversation. Neither Watson nor I would ever have presumed to try to draw the lady out, but she began by declaring herself a faithful subscriber to The Strand. 'Now that I have the opportunity so many of your readers have surely longed for, Doctor Watson,' she said, 'I really must demand an explanation of the "dreadful Abernetty business" and how exactly it hinged on the depth to which the parsley sank into the butter.'
She surprised a grand laugh out of Watson, who obliged with a marvelous re-telling of that strange and grotesque puzzle. His skills as a storyteller have been amply acknowledged by the reading public, but then, they've never known what they were missing. To laud his publications is to accept the shadow of his talent in place of its true substance. His words, marooned on the page without the nuance of his voice and gestures, lose half their power.
In prose, Watson is competent; in person, he's electric.
While outside our window the miles rolled monotonously past, he advanced from tale to tale in perfect command of his small, rapt audience. He knew quite well the effect he had on me, but was evidently both surprised and relieved that Mrs Ronder smiled to hear him. The cut of her veil left her mouth freely visible, its bright curve an expressive counterpoint to the blank fabric hiding her face.
Once we arrived at the station, we hired a trap for the last leg of our journey to the manor. The shift in Mrs Ronder's manner was immediate and obvious. Previously attentive and engaged, if not garrulous, she withdrew into herself. The sudden downturn of her spirits did not alarm us. My own quicksilver temperament had accustomed both Watson and myself to expect black moods to oscillate, and it would have been of greater concern had Mrs Ronder felt the need to feign false cheer. As it was, her good humour on the train had most likely been genuine, and her anxiety as we neared our destination was perfectly natural.
For our driver we had a local farmer, his boots and wool trousers liberally speckled with the sandy soil distinctive to this parish. A scattering of dark red stains ingrained under his fingernails had excited my attention for a moment, but I'm sorry to report they were more likely due to the scarlet skein of beet-roots than of murder.
With that informality characteristic of Americans, Mrs Cubitt did not wait for her housemaid to conduct us to the parlour, but instead stepped out onto the portico as soon as our carriage arrived and started down the steps to greet us. Her stout figure and ruddy cheeks testified to the habits of an active, healthy life. Long tresses of chestnut hair were pinned neatly atop her head, with a few wispy ringlets left loose to frame her ravaged face. The pucker of the old entrance wound was relatively minor, a mere pock-mark set low on her temple. Her right eye, however, had evidently been so damaged as to require removal, and the framework of skin and bone around the empty socket was sunken in. Faint indentations running diagonally across the skin of her cheek suggested she often covered the eye with a patch, but she had forgone it today. Upon her forehead was the raised, distinctive bump that marked the site of trepanning, and her hairline zigzagged round it. She was unveiled, though the absence of freckles informed me she rarely ventured outside so.
It was generous of her to meet us like that, in barefaced frankness and solidarity. The gesture evidently touched Mrs Ronder in some vital, intuitive way. She quickened her pace and pulled ahead of us, animated by a spontaneous fervency of which she seemed hardly aware, and reached out to clasp Mrs Cubitt's hands. Watson and I halted at the edge of the drive, hanging back for a moment while the two ladies stood close together, both of them tremulous with sincerity as they declared themselves 'so very glad to meet you.'
We went inside and sat down together for tea. The maid poured for us all, as our hostess was prone to spill. The atmosphere was relaxed; Mrs Cubitt and Watson gamely carried the conversation, while both myself and Mrs Ronder were more inclined to keep quiet. But once Watson brought the topic around to literature, she could not resist taking a larger part in the conversation. Books had been the one pleasure in life that had never deserted her, and her opinions—both favourable and unfavourable—were ardent, varied, and vast.
'I wish I were more equal to debating you!' Mrs Cubitt teased. 'But I'm afraid when I was growing up, my parents didn't exactly raise me on a diet of the classics. I just read whatever the other girls were reading, and most of it was rubbish, to be honest. Of course, my Hilton, and his family before him, built up a nice little library here at the manor. I've opened it up to the neighbourhood so anyone can come visit and read what they like. But I haven't often taken advantage of the collection myself, since spending too long with a book strains my eye and tends to tire me out.'
Mrs Ronder nonetheless persisted, and soon discovered a few favourites that Mrs Cubitt did share with her. Watson was able gradually to bow out of the conversation and leave the ladies to debate the relative appeal of different fictional romances. He and I moved to share the settee and smoked a cigarette or two together. Mrs Cubitt surprised us by following our lead and lighting a pipe in the midst of her disquisition on Persuasion, puffing away affably; but on reflection, I might have predicted it. Scent is, to human memory, the surest tinder. Apart from the house itself, her husband's tobacco must have been among the strongest of the evocations of him within which she lived and breathed. I hoped sincerely that she had reached for it over the years as a comfort rather than a penance.
We had arranged in advance to stay the night at Ridling Thorpe before returning to London in the morning. After an excellent supper, we moved as a group to the library and elected Mrs Ronder to read aloud. Her voice and manner were eminently suited to public speaking, she having spent so many years addressing rowdy circus crowds from the center spotlight. The only blemish was that she did have to hold her book awkwardly close to succeed in reading it through her veil. She chose an American author in honour of our hostess, making her way through several eerie and macabre scribblings from that gothic oddity Edgar Allan Poe. (Mercifully, she avoided Dupin.) Mrs Cubitt was wholly unfamiliar with the works and seemed to find Mrs Ronder's performances very pleasantly bloodcurdling; she was full of exclamations and scooted ever closer to the edge of her seat as each tale unfolded. Watson, too, was thoroughly entranced, as he is by all great storytelling.
We applauded her at the conclusion of each story, but upon finishing "The Masque of the Red Death," she stood unmoving at the reading stand, her air slipping visibly into hesitance and grief. We held silent, unsure whether she merely needed a moment of privacy to gather herself. But before any of us could hazard a guess as to her state of mind, she straightened resolutely and addressed herself to Mrs Cubitt.
'You've been so kind. Though it may seem strange to say so on such short acquaintance, this day has meant a great deal to me. I should be more than glad of your friendship, but I cannot take it on false pretenses.' Stepping back from the reading stand, she sank abruptly into the nearest chair with a visible shake in her shoulders. 'I think that I must make to you the same confession I have made to these gentlemen, so that you may judge the truth for yourself. The details are not terribly important, though you may have them if you wish. But what I should tell you is this: I'm not an innocent. There is blood on my hands.'
Mrs Cubitt stared at her in astonishment, taken aback both by her dramatic declaration and by the sudden shift the evening's mood had taken, but Mrs Ronder pressed on. 'My husband hurt me. He was full of rage and jealousy; he used to lash a whip across my back. He was a coward, a bully, and a beast, and I conspired with my lover to kill him. I have suffered for it, more than I thought anyone could suffer, short of hell. But I cannot say I truly repent, even now. I could not have borne another day, another night, as his wife. And he would never have let me go. But you are a good woman, and I can see that you loved your husband dearly. Perhaps you would rather not have to do with me.'
A deep hush fell over the room in the wake of this extraordinary speech. Watson and I knew that it was not our place to break the silence. Mrs Ronder sat with her hands clasped loosely together, every line of her posture weighed down by nervous exhaustion. It struck me clearly then how different this latest confession felt from her first. When she had appointed us to be her witnesses, it had been the calm and clear-eyed act of a numbed soul resigned to death. There had been none of that wavering ache which now threaded through her words; that fear, renewed at last, of having more to lose.
Mrs Cubitt looked at her for a long time, admirably calm. At length, she spoke gently, thanking Mrs Ronder for her confidence. She went on to repay it with one of her own. Watson had not yet published any account of the Dancing Men for the public, so Mrs Ronder learned of that tragedy for the first time from Mrs Cubitt's lips. Grief hovered in her voice as she spoke, poignant and long-settled.
Mrs Cubitt met Mrs Ronder's gaze squarely. 'Abe Slaney never did make me his wife,' she said. 'But I spent long years convinced that he would, terrified that I'd never escape. If my parents had forced the marriage through before I ran away, if I'd been trapped with a violent man I could never love, who's to say what I might've been driven to?' Tears rose and began to trickle down the far side of her face. 'Do you know, my friend—you told the truth about your past tonight, because you thought you owed me honesty. And I can't help thinking how much I wish I'd have had that same courage when it counted. If I had, maybe my husband would still be alive.' She covered her mouth, momentarily overcome.
Mrs Ronder rose in a burst of sympathy, moving across the room toward her. Mrs Cubitt stood likewise, wiping at her cheek. 'There's blood in the past that'll never wash out. But we're still alive, and what we choose to do matters. You're not a danger to anyone, are you? Anyone except yourself. I can understand that, believe me.'
They reached for one another, coming to rest in a gentle sway, half-embraced. They murmured quiet comforts back and forth. Neither Watson nor I could remain unmoved at such a sight. Feeling urgently that they deserved their privacy, we gathered ourselves and unobtrusively withdrew.
Though hardly prone to poetic impressions, I seemed almost to glimpse a light between them; a kindness bright enough to illuminate both, in their painful similarities, unashamed.
post-script
By the next year I had committed to retirement and joined Watson in Sussex. Country life was encumbered by its share of inconvenience, but that was nothing in comparison to the freedoms it offered. Together, we began to allow ourselves more room to love, and be loved, unguardedly.
Watson had bought a small upright piano for our parlour. Like many sister-less boys of our generation, both he and I had learned to play as children. Even then, I'd found the popular standards so trite and plodding that I'd never invested much in the instrument, graduating to the violin with great relief. But Watson had his sentimental favourites. His voice always exercised a certain witchcraft over me, never more than when raised in song. Yet for years, I had been reticent to tell him so.
He had kept no piano at Baker Street, as we hadn't the room for it; but after his marriage, he and Mrs Watson had often played and sung together. On those rare occasions when I accepted their invitations to dine, we had always ended the evening gathered together around the piano bench, skimming through a pile of songbooks. We sang in turns, all together, and in pairs, and their duets were filled with warmth and joy.
I remembered those evenings with wistful fondness, and would never wish to incautiously trod upon ground that was, for him, sacred to her. But Watson reassured me; though naturally there were particular songs reserved for Mary in his heart, that did not mean that he and I might not find our own together with equal joy. I cannot explain why the simple tunes under his hands on that piano should have affected me so deeply, but to sit beside him at our own hearth and hear him singing love songs to me—it touched some flushed and tender slip of my soul.
One cloudy morning in December, we received a letter from our friends at Ridling Thorpe Manor. Not long after our memorable first visit, Mrs Ronder had decided to join Mrs Cubitt on a more permanent basis, taking a room at the house as her lodger. Since then, the manor had acquired the fond nickname of 'the nunnery' in local parlance, thanks to its ample supply of veiled ladies and conspicuous absence of gentlemen.
Mrs Cubitt and Mrs Ronder sent us their best wishes for the Christmas season, and invited us to visit the manor in the new year for a charity benefit. They intended to raise funds for the poorhouse, and hoped we could attend. Their message concluded with expressions of heartfelt gratitude for having brought them together. 'You have done more for us than you know,' Mrs Cubitt wrote. Watson gave me a speaking glance, and we chuckled cheerfully.
'I should like very much to accept their invitation,' he said, and I easily agreed.
Below their signatures, a brief post-script had been added in Mrs Ronder's hand. 'I am glad that I took your advice, Mr Holmes.'
Watson laid his hand on my shoulder, and we held the letter between us a moment longer, touched with admiration and gratitude. Then, as I folded the note carefully away, he sat down at the keys and began to play one of those songs that we had made our own.
I joined my voice to his with a swell of hope for the years ahead.
Dusk, and the shadows falling,
O'er land and sea;
Somewhere a voice is calling,
Calling for me.
Night and the stars are gleaming,
Tender and true;
Dearest, my heart is dreaming,
Dreaming of you.
no subject
Date: 2020-03-28 06:08 am (UTC)