We have at least a church in mind: St. Giles’s Cathedral in Camberwell. Mrs. Forrester saw to that, as a regular parishioner there. James and I are not particularly adamant churchgoers - I will attend with Mrs. Forrester from time to time, and James is often too occupied with various professional duties - so it was a selection made as a matter of convenience as much as anything else.
In the light of some of the cases he mentions, I do sometimes wonder if he is making excuses. For example, as soon as London was abuzz with stories of the favourite horse in the Wessex Cup vanishing, the next thing I knew he and Holmes were off to King’s Pyland to find him. By this point I was all too familiar with my fiancé’s penchant for gambling - some weeks it can claim up to half his wound pension - and so was mildly concerned. It was only on his assurance that Holmes would be accompanying him - and that he still, for James’s own security, kept his chequebook locked in his desk - that I did not object to the trip.
Both men returned from the country in exceedingly good spirits. Holmes mentioned with a twinkle that he had stood to win on the resulting race.
“Such a breach of your professional ethics, Mr. Holmes,” I chided him.
“You forget, Miss Morstan, that we detectives have none.” He glanced sideways at James. “Unlike doctors, for example - yet you might be surprised how many reprobates our trigger-happy mutual acquaintance has maimed in the course of our adventures. As would the Royal College of Surgeons, I’d wager.”
30 July - The trivial conversation yesterday, and James’s buoyant spirits from his investigations, reminded me of my convictions about his general lifestyle. It is something I have vowed to adjust to, though I cannot imagine it will be a simple matter. He is again absent, and I have every reason to believe that this will be a regular state of affairs.
Mrs. Forrester insists that I should take a firmer line in this regard. However, she fails to appreciate that this is not James’s wish but mine. James had fully intended to cease assisting Holmes at the conclusion of the ‘Sign of the Four’ mystery, and indeed said as much to him when he told his friend of our engagement.
“Why on earth did you do that?” I demanded of him.
“For the simple reason that it is my intention!” he hotly replied.
“I’m sure you must have upset Mr. Holmes terribly.”
“The kind of work involved in Holmes’s cases is not fit to be carried out by a married man. There is no great shakes in risking life and limb as a bachelor, but my obligations and responsibilities to you, my dear Mary, must outweigh my friendship.”
“I wouldn’t allow it.”
James grew apoplectic at my stubbornness, and demanded that I explain myself.
“Knowing both of you from our recent experiences, I can say that without you by his side, Mr. Holmes will take foolish risks and subject himself without thought to appalling dangers. The man has no clue how fast and loose he plays with his mortality. Think how close to death you came in the pursuit of the Aurora on the Thames.”
“Yes, but it always seems like me who gets the poison darts,” he commented ruefully.
“Only because of your protective instincts towards him. Were he on his own, or worse, aided by one of those bungling police officers like Athelney Jones or that Lestrange [2] person, he would be in far greater peril. I’m surprised that someone with your keen observational skills fails to see how crucial you are to his life.”
“I’m certain you’re exaggerating. For all these words, I think Holmes would get on perfectly well on his own.”
“I say that this is nonsense. You are like another distinguished James - James Boswell. And were it not for his self-effacing stability, the genius of Dr. Samuel Johnson would be unsung.”
James seemed quite taken with this comparison. But he remained unconvinced, and redirected the focus of his appeal to me.
“Does that not put an awful burden upon you, my dear? Am I not asking you to share a place in my affections and priorities with a friend, a burden no man should ask of his wife? In view of the demands this particular friend can exercise, am I not even asking for greater priorities, still greater leeway to be given? Any woman would be forgiven for taking a firm stand in such matters.”
“He is your friend, for all his exasperation, for all the high maintenance he demands you expend upon him. And were it not for that friend, I would not have met you, and not be in a position to become the happiest woman in the world.”
I think often of these words, since I have seen so little of James recently. I am glad that I said them, and it makes the wedding well worth any amount of delay.
2 August - The wedding shall finally go ahead! All day I have been flurrying with activity, ensuring that the Banns will be called for the next three Sundays, and everything else is prepared for it. After so long waiting, it seems such a strange contrast.
This came about as the result of yet another late appearance by James at the house. It had been swelteringly hot in London all day, and the house still sizzled at this late hour. Mrs. Forrester was home this time, and almost did not admit him. I suspect that she thought the weather had affected his senses. He assured her it was an urgent matter, and I came to explain that it was all right, and that she could leave us alone. Though Mrs. Forrester is by no means prudish, I did see her purse her lips primly as she departed. And I must give the dear lady credit. For seeing James there, his breathing heavy, his face flushed with the heat, his eyes suffused with a curious mania, I nearly believed he suffered from some brain fever.
I was glad we were alone when James told me what had prompted his visit. He told of a horrifying affair concerning a cardboard box.
“It contained something utterly repulsive, which I am sure you would prefer I not reveal. It is horrendous enough for me to know it.”
“James, please don’t omit any details. It is terribly condescending to me.”
He took a deep breath, and indeed I noticed he was suppressing a shudder. “Very well, then. Remember that I warned you. The box had contained … two severed human ears.”
This mutilation was but the gory post-script to a slow and dispiriting degradation of a man’s love into alcoholism and violent murder. A sailor, Jim Browner, had his wife Susan turned against him by his sister-in-law when he had rejected the latter’s advances. The elder sister introduced Susan to another suitor, and being made a cuckold drove Jim back to drinking, from which he had abstained for many long years - and to violence, which his temper naturally tended him towards. He returned home early from one of his voyages and surprised the couple on a boat, horribly murdering them, cutting off their ears, and then sending them to the sister, Sarah, whose fault Browner considered the whole wretched saga [3].
Watson was moved to tears by relating this case, and I too was very shaken by the end of his account.
“Even Holmes, whom I never expected to have such preoccupations, did not suffer the events lightly. The morbid conclusion of the affair had moved him to ask: ‘What is the meaning of it, Watson? What purpose is served by this circle of misery and violence and fear? It must tend to some end, or else our universe is ruled by chance, which would be unthinkable. But what end? There is the great perennial problem to which human reason is as far from an answer as ever.’”
The thought of Holmes possessing such a sensitive soul was, I admit, a further shock and emotional jolt in this whole account. We both sat there in tears for some time, and James, his hand shaking, gripped my own.
“I sat there with Holmes for a while after this dismal conclusion to the business, and then suddenly was compelled to see you.”
“Why, James? What about this business made you want to see me?”
“Faced with such abhorrent acts, and the desolate motives that prompt them, I can and must marry you, my love, the very first moment that I can. This is the purpose that I see, and in you, I see an ideal far outside that circle Holmes described. I must seize what happiness I can when such random horror seems to close in all around my
life like an inescapable noose. My love, I am so very sorry for having delayed it so long, as though it was something unimportant. Nothing, I swear to you, could be farther from the truth.”
As he bade me farewell, and we had composed ourselves somewhat, I was moved to ponder how high emotions had run in our courtship thus far. It is so comforting to hear James tell me of the depth of his feelings, and I reciprocate them unstintingly. I am so very eager for us to be married.
25 August - We are officially wedded. What an occasion it was! The peal of bells from St. Giles still echo in my head (in the happiest manner of course). The excessive heat that began the month had cooled to tolerable levels, and so the sun shone and it was a golden day in so many ways.
We had realized early on that, since we are both orphans, Holmes would be obliged to perform multiple duties. He served both as best man to James, and led me down the aisle. Both tasks, but especially the latter, he performed with less aplomb than I might have hoped. However, I should not carp, as it once again reinforced how this strange man is the closest to family that either of us have.
We intended to hold the wedding breakfast at a modest venue near St. Giles, but Holmes very kindly furnished us with rooms at Lancaster Gate. Though ferrying the guests from Camberwell to Hyde Park was somewhat cumbersome, the venue certainly made the occasion far grander than I could ever have imagined.
As we proceeded in the brougham to the wedding breakfast, I recalled when Holmes told me of the place a week earlier.
“I am not devoid of sentiment, no matter what Watson may think,” he had said. “And earlier in the year when we investigated the circumstances surrounding Lord St. Simon’s bigamy [4], I thought how charming his wedding sounded. By chance, Lord St. Simon’s father, Lord Balmoral, is an old acquaintance of mine, from that affair and the Wessex Cup business of ‘Silver Blaze’, so it was simplicity itself to arrange it with him. Of course, his son’s happy occasion was marred by the disappearance of the bride at the breakfast. This in turn led to quite a nasty scandal, much grieved in society circles-”
Sensing, I imagine, Holmes distorting this gesture into a penny-lecture about the woes of marriage, James interrupted him harshly. “Thank you for the consideration, Holmes. Why not bore Mary with that another time?”
“I would have thought this the perfect time, since your good selves are about to enter into that happy state, as some have called it.” Holmes made it clear in his tone of voice that he would not have agreed with those people. He added, cattily, “I hope not lightly.”
At this, James had asked that I leave the room, and I had heard some raised voices and even scuffling. It seems scarcely creditable, as I write it, that I describe the behaviour of two grown men.
Holmes’s thinly-veiled hostility to our union had not abated, though I saw little of him between that occasion and this day. So, when the gentlemen only appeared fifteen minutes late, there was a slight worry. I told Mrs. Forrester I was surprised it had not been longer.
I did not doubt, though, that the absence was the result of mere wedding jitters. Their wedding attire was in some disarray, and though James was impeccably clad, Holmes was wearing some virtually destroyed tweeds and a ridiculous cloth cap. He remained firmly inscrutable about what had kept them so occupied.
“It was an unexpected delay, Miss Morstan,” he stated primly. “If you believe that I would keep Watson from his wedding, you forget that I must fulfil any task I am assigned, and merely meeting expectations would not be satisfactory.”
“I must find fault with your reasoning,” I admitted. “Surely if you were to exceed expectations, would you not have conveyed dear Dr. Watson here early?”
He flashed me a simpering smile and insisted, “That would have been quite impossible under these special circumstances.”
James glowered at him, and said little to him during the wedding breakfast.
I was gratified indeed that so many friends attended to share this great day. Mrs. Forrester was doubly excited at the opportunity to see Holmes again. She began her re-acquaintance embarrassingly enough, announcing with inappropriate cheer that Cecil had passed away since she last saw him.
“That is most unfortunate,” he said insincerely.
I left before I heard her continue her advances on Holmes, so it was only later that I learned she had fabricated many implausible scenarios to try to pique his interest. She must have spent nearly half an hour speaking of nothing but suspicious people lingering outside her window late at night, murdered men collapsing through her door, impenetrable ciphers being mailed anonymously to her.
Needless to say, if I could see through these flimsy penny-dreadful scenarios, Holmes could. Later, he remarked ruefully to me, “Your guardian Mrs. Forrester has had so many suspicious deaths around her, I am considering passing her details on to the officials at Scotland Yard. No person could be coincidentally involved in so much intrigue.” Seeing that for a moment I thought he was serious, he added lightly, “However, at the moment I was content to introduce her to their emissary here, Inspector Tobias Gregson.”
I looked across, and saw that she had latched on to him quite enthusiastically.
“Who would have thought, among all your talents, that you would be so skilled a matchmaker, Mr. Holmes?”
James then dragged me away to introduce me to a middle-aged, ex-military man. He was thrilled to see the fellow. “Mary, this is Stamford. He was my old dresser, and it was he who first introduced me to Holmes when I was invalided from Afghanistan. What was it, six years ago?”
“Yes indeed, sir. And from what I’ve read in the papers, your partnership has been highly successful. I never hear from either of you anymore.”
“Well, Stamford, you have my thanks as well then. For had you not introduced Holmes to Watson, Watson would never have met me.”
“You have my thanks doubly then, old chap!” James laughed.
“Indeed, chance is a queer thing,” Stamford observed.
“Perhaps you could assist Holmes now that Dr. Watson shall be looking after me,” I suggested.
Once we had left Stamford among the other guests, James revealed that Holmes’s friendship with him was mainly rooted in his suspicion that the dresser had criminal connections. “This is why we could never have many friends,” he admitted. “I am hoping, my dear, that you might help me become a more sociable fellow.”
A familiar voice sighed behind us. “And in the aid of this ambition, my dear Watson, you have chosen a bride who is an orphan with few friends? I see that your reason is as haphazard as ever.”
There was some unspoken appeal behind Holmes’s words, as though he was asking for forgiveness with these mocking words. He got no reply whatever from James, who did not even look at him and angrily brushed past.
“What is the meaning of this hostility, Mr. Holmes?” I asked him.
“Miss Morstan - forgive me, Mrs. Watson - I should not burden you with my own neuroses on such a day. Suffice to say, and please note that I would never say it to him, Watson is quite right to bear me such ill will. Not only have I been insufferable about his decision to leave my company, but I involved him in near-fatal intrigue only last night.”
It was peculiar that emotions had run so high among friends of the groom. By contrast, my own friends were unburdened by any intrigue. Many of them said nothing more complicated than “Congratulations”.
That is not entirely true. Kate was also there, and I saw her husband Isa for the first time since their wedding last year. It was a pleasure to see her, but I got the impression there was some implicit tension between them. Isa spoke in terse, brusque statements, and had a distracted air throughout the conversation. James noticed this particularly, as he was keen to meet them for the first time, having known Isa’s brother Elias.
“Elias Whitney, D.D., was it not? Principal of the Theological College of St. George’s?”
“Yes, indeed.”
“I was briefly acquainted with him many years ago. Wh
at has become of him?”
“A most untimely death, after a long illness.”
“That is truly sad to hear. He was an exceedingly talented man.”
“He was indeed, Doctor Watson. I am certain that I haven’t quite lived up to his standards, as I’m sure my family will attest. If you’d excuse me?”
“Is anything the matter with him?” I asked Kate.
“I think he’s still getting over his illness,” she said, unconvincingly.
In addition to his temperament, the man also looked exceedingly unwell - a deathly pallor was in his face, and he had lost considerable weight since his wedding. This was underlined by the fact that he wore an old suit, his neck poking through its collar like a pencil. I can only assume it was for his health that they excused themselves so early.
I also spoke for some time with a Scotsman. From the accent, and also his general bearing (he too sported a fine moustache) I thought he might be some relation James had not told me about.
“Not a relative, a colleague,” he said.
“Oh, another detective.”
He chuckled. “No, a doctor.”
However, the man was more interested in discussing mystery than medicine.
“I keep telling Watson that these detective stories will be a craze. All those old ghost stories, sensation yarns, they’re a thing of the past. The one I’ve just written for the Pall Mall Gazette has been very successful. It’s called The Mystery of Cloomber. It’s laid something of a corner-stone for me to give up medicine for a literary career. Have you ever read ‘The Gold Bug’ or ‘The Purloined Letter’? Edgar Allan Poe?”
I knew the name of Poe, but confessed that I had not read those stories.
“He was a brilliant writer, but even he didn’t have the advantage of drawing on real cases, like Watson does. And then there’s that Holmes character. The science of deduction, I tell you! It reminds me of my medical professor at Edinburgh, Joe Bell.”
Best and Wisest Man Page 4