by Ted Riccardi
In the intense darkness, he eventually found his way back to the hotel. It was about eleven when he entered his room. It was but a moment later that there was a knock. He had a visitor. He opened the door and saw there a woman dressed in black, her face veiled. She entered quickly, closing the door behind her. In the dim light, he could make out nothing except that she was tall and graceful.
“Please sit down, Lady Maxwell,” he said.
The woman appeared startled by his addressing her by name. As she sat down, she lifted her veil and said, “You are indeed most clever, Mr. Holmes. How did you know who I am?”
“A guess, my lady, but obviously a good one. Only Sir Reginald, you, and the Viceroy know of my presence. I doubt if an English business man such as Roger Lloyd-Smith would be receiving callers alone at night on his second day in the city, particularly from a woman. It would be far more likely for such a visitor to come to Sherlock Holmes. Hence my well-founded guess.”
Holmes confessed to me that not since the affair of Bohemia many years before had he met a member of the female sex of such beauty and attraction as Lady Maxwell. She had that rare beauty found in some Englishwomen that joins the best features of our race with the grace of the highest breeding. As he studied her, he almost lamented the early decision that had taken from him the possibility of a peaceful life of domesticity with a woman such as this and led him to a lonely life fighting against the malignant evils of our times. He had little time to ponder such things, however, for her state was one of great distress.
“What brings you here, my lady, in the dark night of Calcutta with all the attendant dangers and possibility of discovery?”
“Most assuredly, Mr. Holmes, I should not be here unless it were a matter of the greatest urgency. I am about to depart for England, but I am so unhappy about Reginald that I thought I might explain to you what has happened in our lives that has forced me to leave. I am perhaps not without guilt in what I am about to tell you, but I hope that you will listen with sympathy and, I trust, with the thought of helping your old friend through what I believe will be a most difficult period. Naturally, what I tell you must be held in the strictest confidence.”
“You may speak freely, Madam, and I shall do what I can.”
As she spoke, her dignity seemed to grow with her beauty, and Holmes could only be impressed with the honesty of the motives that had caused her to come on such a difficult errand.
“Let me start at the beginning then,” said she.
She was born in Yorkshire, in the small village of Wyck Rissington. Her name before her marriage to Reginald was Jennifer Hume. Her father, Jeremy Hume, had moved early in his life from Scotland to England, where he met and married her mother. He was a successful barrister, and she was raised with her younger sister in comfort and peace in the English countryside. Their life had all the outward trappings of familial happiness and was for the most part uneventful.
“My father loved us,” she said, “but was morose and rather strict at times, our mother understanding and patient. When I reached sixteen, my parents began to talk vaguely of my eventual marriage to the right person, but I made it clear to them that I would choose my husband myself, if I were to have one at all. My father, interested only in a good social arrangement that would be a match for his financial success, made it evident that he would certainly have a major say in my marriage. There were a few scenes, as I am sure occur in many households, and there matters rested, for I was far too young for immediate worry.”
A year later, however, she met a young man who took her heart. His name was James Hamilton. He lived with his mother in the next village. He had no known father, and his mother took in laundry and did other menial jobs to support herself. There had been rude jokes also, passed back and forth in conversation, about old Rose Hamilton, but they were beyond her comprehension. She had never met her son before, who was judged to be one of the handsomest lads in the region.
“One morning, I had gone to the fields not far from our house to pick wildflowers. I was standing near the road among the flowers when I became aware that someone was watching me. I turned and for the first time saw James and fell in love. He was tall, of slender build, with a beautiful open face, but what stole my heart, Mr. Holmes, was his smile and the clear earnest look in his eyes. We talked embarassedly that day for a few minutes, as young people will do. He asked me if he could help me pick and I said yes. He then accompanied me to the gate of our house and politely bade me good-bye. That evening I could not eat at supper, nor could I sleep for thinking of him and going over in my mind everything that we had said to each other that day.”
The next morning at the same time she went out again to pick the wildflowers. He was there. It was apparent that he liked her company as well. Soon they were talking and laughing. Every day they met thus, sometimes a little farther off, without anyone the wiser.
“In a few weeks, even though I blush as I tell you, Mr. Holmes, our young love began to deepen into the inevitable passion to which we mortals are subject. I took my sister into my confidence and she loyally protected us from intrusion during our trysts. For several months, I was happy in the sweetest love that any woman has ever known on the face of this earth. My darling James became to me my very life.”
Then one day her father discovered them. He made a terrible scene in which he heaped upon her beloved James every filthy insult with regard to blood and origin our English tongue provides. She tried to make him desist, scratching at him and giving him blows. Her poor James stood in a stunned silence until her father’s fury had run its course. Then James looked at her with the saddest face she have ever seen, turned and walked proudly away. She tried to stop him, but he asked her to let him go, saying that he would write to her.
“As he walked away I felt my heart sink and I believe I fainted. I remembered nothing of how I arrived home. I awoke in bed, my mother sitting by my side anxiously. It was already the next morning. James had indeed sent me a note through my sister, who had given it to my mother for me so that my father might not see it. It read:
My dearest love Jenny,
Please know that I love you with all my heart and always will, but your father’s insults have deeply wounded me, and I am determined to seek out my own father, whom I believe to be of gentle birth, and to earn a fortune so that someday we may live together in peace and happiness. Please wait for me, my darling, no matter how long it might take.
Your loving,
James
“The note produced in me a sense of panic despite its protestations of love. I leapt out of bed and ran all the way down the lonely path to James’s house. He was already gone. The house contained only his mother, besotted after an all-night drinking bout. I tried to get her to talk, but it was hopeless. James, and all sign of him was gone. I felt the despair and sense of sickening loss that only those who know the total destruction of their hopes can experience. I returned wearily to the house. That was thirteen years ago. I was not to see James Hamilton again until only a few months ago.”
Holmes paused briefly in his narration. “You may understand,” he said, “and perhaps share even now, my dear Watson, the feelings of compassion and sympathy that filled me as this beautiful woman spoke of her life.”
At this point, he said, she began to lose her composure. It was cold now, for even in Calcutta the temperature can go down in the dead of night in winter. Holmes had only some native arak, raksi as they call it, to offer her. She thanked him and took the merest sip, but the sting on her tongue apparently helped her to continue.
“I have told you of the frailty of a young woman, Mr. Holmes,” she said wearily.
“I make no judgements on honest human weakness, Madam. We are indeed all weak. But the actions caused by human weakness have inevitable consequences, often evil ones. And in these lie my peculiar interests.”
“What has transpired heretofore has had no irremediable consequences, but I am afraid of what may follow. It is to avoid any further h
arm that I have come to you.”
As she continued, Holmes wondered what evil genius could have spun the web in which she had become entangled.
After James left, she said, she lived as if in a trance. She and her father hardly spoke to each other. Her mother and sister comforted her, in vain most of the time, and to their detriment very often, as she was subject to violent storms of tears and anger that left her exhausted. After about a year, she slowly began to mend. By now James’s face had receded from before her to the extent that she could go out and lead an almost normal life. The days were bearable, but the nights still often unendurable in their pain and loneliness. She finished school and then received an offer to become the governess of the children of Mr. Edward Staunton, St. David’s, Pembrokeshire, in Wales. She was glad to leave home and to have what turned out to be a most welcome change.
The Stauntons were a happy couple, with two delightful daughters, aged seven and nine. She and the Stauntons loved and trusted each other instantly. Edward Staunton and his wife were the kindest people she had ever met, and their household was filled with light and good cheer.
“I had worked for them for about three years when events again began to transpire which have brought me here tonight. It was Christmas, some ten years ago now, that Mr. Staunton invited a friend to stay for the holidays. He was an older man, a widower by the name of Humphrey Maxwell, a barrister at law, then living in London. He was a tall, strongly built man in his sixties, but rather unpleasantly gruff in his manner at times. I remember not liking him at first, for there was something in his face that brought forth in me the greatest anxiety, a look perhaps like someone I could no longer place. He was never anything but most respectful towards me, Mr. Holmes, and before he left he became attentive, even kind towards me.”
After the holidays, when he had gone, Mr. Staunton informed her that Mr. Maxwell had a handsome son, a recent graduate, who would be spending a week in the spring with the family. He said also that Mr. Maxwell had become quite taken with her and had remarked on how wonderful a daughter-in-law she might make. It did not take any great intelligence to understand what was afoot, she said. Mr. and Mrs. Staunton, with the very best of intentions, had decided that it was high time that she should marry and that they would take an active role in the search for a suitable husband.
“Naturally, Mr. Holmes, I had never divulged to them my love for James or the difficulties with my father. These were family secrets. For my part, I had decided to wait for James, or, should he never appear, to spend my life in spinsterhood, for I could love no other man.”
In the spring, she continued, Mr. Reginald Maxwell, son of Humphrey Maxwell, came to St. David’s for a visit. He was a most attractive and intelligent young man, who, when she first saw him, made her heart beat fast, for certain of his features so reminded her of James that she thought surely her mind was playing tricks. Reginald was only a few years older than she, in fact only a year older than James, and a young man of great prospects. He was a graduate of Oxford in law and had decided to pursue a career in government abroad. He was now in training in London and at the end of the year would leave for his first post, which was to be Nairobi. He was obviously looking for a suitable wife to take with him.
“I turned out to be his choice. For whatever reasons, Mr. Holmes, Reginald soon fell in love with me and so filled that week’s visit with his kind attention that I began to waver in my resolve. We took long walks along the Welsh coast and we found each other easy company. After he left, I began to think that James would never reappear—all I had was the short note that he had sent me, a note so covered with tears and so pressed by my hand that it was nothing more than a bundled wad of paper—that rather than spend a life living off some brief memories, perhaps indeed I should marry this man. Reginald returned for several visits and despite his obvious love and attention, one thing was clear to me: I did not love him. I loved James and I could not change that. Could I lead a life married to a man whom I did not love, being at the same time secretly in love with someone else?”
By the late summer, it was apparent that Reginald would soon propose marriage. She had decided on a course of action in that eventuality. Should he do so, she would tell him that she had loved a man who left, that she thought that he would never return and was presumed to be dead. She would marry Reginald only if he understood that, and that she hoped some day to love him, but that if they married he would have to be patient and give time for her love to grow and to overcome the past.
“On one of his summer visits, on a short walk from the house one evening, Reginald did indeed propose to me. I informed him of my conditions. He replied that he accepted them, enthusiastically even, for he loved me more than anything in the world and that only being in my presence was enough to make him happy. I made the fateful decision then to marry Reginald Maxwell. I notified my mother and informed her that Reginald was to pay a visit to ask my father for my hand and that I had accepted his offer. Shortly thereafter, Reginald visited my father and received his immediate consent. My father appeared overjoyed at the prospect of the alliance, for Humphrey Maxwell had a certain position and reputation in London society.”
They were married in the early fall and took up residence in London. About a month after their wedding, Mr. Humphrey Maxwell fell ill. Reginald spent his last hours with him and the doctors tried everything, but his heart finally gave out and he died within the week. Reginald was filled with sorrow at his father’s passing, but soon thereafter the couple set sail from Southampton for Nairobi.
The trip was a long and beautiful one. Reginald, she said, seemed to recover from his father’s death, but at times she became tormented, for she felt deeply torn. He was very patient with her, for as long as she felt as she did she could not accept his conjugal advances. But as they talked, trust began to grow between them. He told her much about his family, for he realised that she knew very little about him. They had been married so quickly. His mother had died shortly after his birth, he said, and he was raised by old family servants. His father, grieving profoundly for his dead wife, went on drinking bouts, had terrible brawls, and disappeared for weeks at a time. When he had spent his anger and grief he returned to his infant son, on whom he lavished great attention and affection. Once, in one of his long descriptions, Reginald smiled and said that for years he thought he might have a brother somewhere, for his father had often hinted, saying that someday he would tell him about his little brother. It was finally on his deathbed that he told Reginald that he indeed had a half-brother, and that he should attempt to find him.
“Our life in Nairobi was pleasant, and I decided finally that my reticence and indecision were an unnecessary cruelty to him, and we became truly married. I tried with all my strength to bury all thought of James. On the outside, we were happy and were considered to be a model couple. Reginald received several promotions for his service and, after four years, we were sent to Rangoon. We spent three years there. By now, Reginald was regarded by many as a future foreign secretary. It was at this point that he met the Earl of Kedleston, Lord Curzon, who upon his accession to the viceroyship asked that Reginald be transferred to Calcutta to act as his personal deputy. Reginald and I were thrilled when we got the news, for it meant another major step upwards in his career.”
While they were in Burma, and shortly before their departure for Calcutta, she received word of her own father’s untimely demise. Her sister wrote that her mother was doing well under the circumstances, and that she should not try to return.
“My sister also enclosed a packet of letters for me. They were from James and had come to me regularly for several years. My father had intercepted all of them and had hidden them in his files. At his death, my sister found them, and with the most mixed emotions, sent them to me. You can imagine, Mr. Holmes, with what consternation I looked upon those letters. James had used various ruses, but my father had always succeeded in getting the letters before anyone else. There were fifteen in all. They came fro
m all over the world, mostly America. The last was dated seven years before and was from San Francisco. It was the last because James had decided that I no longer loved him and that he would stop writing. Every idle moment I had I spent reading and re-reading them for a clue as to his whereabouts, all the while cursing my father for what he had done to me and to James. Despite the deep despair that I felt, I managed to conceal my feelings from Reginald.”
They left for Calcutta, arriving about a week later at the port at Hooghly. Quarters were already waiting for them and the move was swift and easy.
At this point, said Holmes, Lady Maxwell paused for breath as if she were coming to the most difficult part of the story. Shortly after ther arrival, she said, they were invited to a large gathering at the home of a wealthy Indian trading family, the Shawsons, one of the leading families of Calcutta. There were many guests there, and the Viceroy and Lady Curzon paid a brief visit.
“As I stood on the veranda looking over the gardens,” she said, “I felt a pair of eyes staring at me from behind. I turned. James Hamilton was standing there only a few feet away, the same look of love and disbelief in his eyes that he must have seen in mine. We could barely speak to each other, but we succeeded in arranging a secret meeting the following day. From that moment on, Mr. Holmes, I began a life of subterfuge here in Calcutta. James, with the same undying love that he has always felt for me, has pressed me to leave Reginald, and to return to England with him, or, if that be impossible, to go with him to America, for he is now wealthy and we could live comfortably anywhere. I have decided on my own, Mr. Holmes, to leave Calcutta and to return to England. Only there, and alone, will I be able to decide what is right. I told Reginald that I thought it best for me to leave for a while, and that I would write to him as soon as I arrived in London. I of course did not tell him about James, but that I had heard from my mother that certain problems had cropped up with the disposition of my father’s estate and hence my presence was necessary. James has pressed me to tell Reginald all, but I have been unable to do so.”