And what was manufactured that was not manufactured in London? Soap, bricks, precision instruments, furniture and clothing, and even ships and railroads! In seeing London she had been allowed to see the world.
I thank my lucky stars. Even on this cold day in early spring—or late winter, some might say, depending on one’s optimism.
“Miss Hudson!” Sherlock commanded. “I am speaking to you!”
I could hardly call that volume speaking. But I am not one to split hairs. “Yes, Mr. Holmes?” she murmured.
“I said why do you fail to perform?”
“I am trying, Mr. Holmes. This is only my third practice with the whip. Please do allow me time to master the skill.”
“There is no time, Miss Hudson! While you daydream and spin about in your game of play, criminals prey on the innocent. For every moment you are idle, someone is being hurt. Do not fail me, girl,” he admonished. Her tormentor standing before her had the physique of a middle-weight boxer and was in the prime of his life, both physically and mentally. He commanded, “Again!”
“Yes, sir.” Whirrr! Mirabella snapped the whip and missed the jar altogether, the sound of the popper slicing through the air, rising above the tugboat horns and the children shouting as they played ball. The crisp air, longing for spring, made every sound and smell more vivid in her mind.
Mirabella knew that she was fortunate by anyone’s estimation. Due to her independent streak and her difficulty in keeping her opinion to herself, she was wholly unsuited to domestic work and had been dismissed from her first London position. She had been unemployed and unemployable when her Aunt Martha, with whom she lived, found her a position with one of her tenants: Sherlock Holmes. Mr. Holmes was a young detective, not even thirty years of age, but fast gaining a name for himself.
Thankfully no one wished to work for Mr. Sherlock Holmes or her present position might not have been available. Sherlock had, one might say, difficulty in social situations.
“I directed you to wrap the popper around the jar, not to wave at it. Are you deaf, girl?”
“I am not,” she murmured, her eyes now fixated on her target. But there is every likelihood I will be soon.
“In that case, if you could be so good as to strike the target,” he commanded.
Her arm was already sore as she lifted the bullwhip over her head, fully two thousand grams in weight! Sherlock had insisted that, though the heavier bullwhips did not lend themselves to fast movement, they were more accurate.
And then the humor of her situation struck her involuntarily. How have I arrived at this strange and unforeseeable place so quickly? She smiled to herself as she estimated the speed of wind blowing eastward by the breeze hitting her cheek.
Initially, she had simply kept the laboratory clean and documented fingerprints—if anything involving Sherlock Holmes could be termed simple. Then Sherlock had needed a female operative. Mirabella quickly learned that the Great Detective had more in store for her than washing jars and labeling specimens: pistol shooting, fencing, boxing, and Jiu-Jitsu. And as if that weren’t enough, finally, the ultimate persecution: Miss de Beauvais Finishing School for Distinguished Young Ladies.
“Miss Hudson! If you could strike in this century, I would be much gratified!”
Her concentration broken, her arm fell, four meters of cord landing on her feet.
She stared at the formidable man before her, so devoid of the social niceties, which annoyed her all the more because she knew very well that he knew how to behave—he simply chose not to do so in her presence. Though the Great Detective did not favor the company of women, he was generally able to wrap them around his little finger. He was almost gentile in the company of noblewomen and “proper” ladies—a class within which he clearly did not place his oppressed assistant.
“Do you not hear me or are you merely inept, Miss Hudson?”
“How could I not hear you, Mr. Holmes?” reiterated Mirabella with a curtsey, turning towards him. She whispered under her breath, “You never stop talking.”
“Ah, the mystery is solved: I must conclude from your reply that you are listening; it is your ability which is wanting. And, my dear girl,” he added, brushing his dark, wavy hair out of his eyes, “when you do it correctly I will cease speaking. Silence is therefore unlikely.”’
She glared at him.
“Do you wish to say something, Miss Hudson?”
“Certainly not. I wish to perform as I am directed.” Simply because you are ill-mannered does not mean I should wish to be so as well!
“An excellent decision, Miss Hudson.”
Ever since the Christmas Ball at Miss De Beauvais Finishing School for Distinguished Young Ladies, Sherlock had been . . . well . . . mean. Cantankerous, easily annoyed, overly critical, unfair—and just plain grumpy! Well, that was Sherlock Holmes, everyone knew that.
But he had been so nice to her at the ball . . . It had seemed almost romantic. If anyone could use such a term in connection with Sherlock Holmes, which, of course, one could not.
“Well?” he demanded. “Why do you not proceed?”
She sighed heavily, turning to face him. “Might you consider, Mr. Holmes, that perhaps you are breaking my concentration?”
“It is ludicrous to suggest that I have any part in your ineptitude, Miss Hudson.” Sherlock paused, rubbing his unshaven chin.
“And why do you ignore your behavior while exaggerating mine, may I ask, Mr. Holmes?” In spite of her best efforts, her anger was mounting. She threw herself into every manner of hardship at Sherlock’s request, had learned everything put before her, and had even assisted in solving one of his cases! Granted because he could find no other female stupid enough to accept the role and to subject herself to his tyranny, but the fact remained that she had played a necessary part.
“The reason for your difficulty in performing the tasks put before you, my dear girl, as you well know, is that you are not concentrating.”
“But can you eliminate your part in my difficulties from the realm of possibility, sir?”
“There is no need to. I have already resolved the question. As to your concentration, I cannot break that which does not exist. Nor would I attempt it.” He placed his hand on his waist, his blousy white cotton shirt open at the chest, revealing his sculpted muscles. His pants were dark and form-fitting.
Mirabella felt her cheeks turning pink and she had no idea why. She didn’t feel angry—precisely.
Well, she did feel angry. Very angry. But she felt something else too, she knew not what.
She averted her gaze, fingering the whip as she contemplated the next jar on the post. “You complain often enough that the sound of my voice is interfering with the workings of your great mind. Could not the reverse be true?”
An uncommon sound met her ears. The sound of Sherlock Holmes laughing.
“Do you presume to compare our respective intellects, Miss Hudson?” She made the mistake of turning to look at him again. His stormy grey eyes, his most terrifying characteristic, were intent upon her. “Amusing.”
But he did not look amused. His gaze was like that of a madman’s; when he looked at her like that she knew beyond a doubt that there was a thin line between genius and insanity. And that Sherlock Holmes walked that line.
“We are both of the human race, after all,” she replied. Except for you. “And anyway, our comparative intellects are irrelevant to my point.” Though she had to admit that, despite his youth, Sherlock was fast gaining a name for himself as a private detective. Certainly Scotland Yard knew of him. In her opinion, it would not be long before they relied on him.
“And your point is, Miss Hudson?” he demanded.
SNAP. She missed the jar altogether.
“I only repeat that which you have oft said to me, Mr. Holmes, that incessant chattering distracts one.”
“How could it be otherwise? But do you imply with your misdirected intellect that Sherlock Holmes chatters?” He indulged in a sudden fit of
laughter as he threw his head back, his dark curls flying every which way. “A preposterous notion, indeed, no doubt brought on by your overly emotional state, a characteristic of the female sex I have observed.”
Pop! The end of the whip grabbed the jar, flinging it to the ground where it shattered. She seethed, “And if you have observed it, sir, it must be so.”
“I cannot ignore the facts: I am rarely incorrect. It would be strange indeed to pretend otherwise.”
“Please do forgive me for pointing out the obvious, Mr. Holmes, but I do not think that you are best qualified to make the current analysis,” Mirabella offered. “Some might claim that the observation and assessment of one’s own mind incorporates an inherent bias.”
She glanced at him sideways and was rewarded to see the Great Detective raising his eyebrows at her.
“And . . .” she added, smiling, “. . . is unscientific.”
She was pleased to note his silence for a long moment as he gaped at her before reclaiming his jaw.
“Sherlock Holmes not qualified for analysis? Sherlock Holmes unscientific? My dear girl, I have introduced forensic science, and, in fact, the scientific method to Scotland Yard. Tsk! Tsk! I never imagined you to be stupid nor insane, Miss Hudson, only inexperienced and incompetent. It is my great hope that competence will come with experience; I pray that I do not delude myself. But look! I told you not to break the jar! Why do you not do as I tell you, girl?”
“I did, Mr. Holmes. My aim was accurate. The whip touched the jar and knocked it over . . .”
“The popper will follow your thumb when the arm is extended. Granted, it takes a bit of extra skill to wrap the leather around the jar—and I have not seen much evidence of skill in your execution—but no doubt you would improve if you would only focus rather than stringing incoherent attempts at language together.”
Why do I stay and tolerate this treatment?
Studying the genius before her, so gifted and yet so oblivious to elementary manners and human kindness, she sighed heavily.
I stay because I have never felt so alive in my life. For a girl to be able to learn more than needlework, music, and water color—well, it was positively thrilling.
In the short time this farm girl had been working for the Great Detective keeping his home and his laboratory in good order—Sherlock Holmes was perfectly slovenly as his mind could not attend to the mundane—she had learned more than in the previous eighteen years. It was the most challenging—and the most exhilarating—time of her life.
She had learned science, forensics, dissection, finger-printing, cataloguing, and autopsy. She could analyze blood stains and identify vegetable toxins. She had learned disguises and accents. The most difficult to achieve of all the things she had learned: to pass herself off as either a lady or as a scullery maid.
Mirabella sighed. The scullery maid had been notably easier, what did that say about her?
She had learned the fighting arts. And now how to use a whip. And yet . . . Sherlock Holmes had taught her that she knew practically nothing.
That is still his favorite lesson to impart.
She had learned to bear the lack of warmth, kindness, and appreciation. And she had learned to put up with his moods, his drive, and his critical and mechanical approach to her.
“You might wish to consider, Mr. Holmes—” she sighed heavily, “—that a teacher who incites his student with unrelenting insult and torment may block the pupil’s access to knowledge.”
“No doubt, but I don’t see how that applies, Miss Hudson. You are blessed to be in the service of the greatest mind of the century. I have shared with you much of what I learned when I was in contact with the Chinese Embassy, knowledge which is unavailable to most Westerners. My knowledge I generously bestow upon you—while paying you no less!” He chuckled. “If one in your situation is agitated, that is a lamentable failing in your character which must be addressed.”
“And you shall no doubt address it,” she seethed.
“Very likely I shall. But not now. Return your too easily diverted attentions to the matter at hand and illustrate that you can wrap the cord around the object without breaking it. You have wasted enough of my time this morning. However amusing you may be, Miss Belle, I am not here to be amused. Which is all for the best, as you have not accomplished that either. Please, dear girl, succeed at something today.”
She turned to face him, livid, even as she stepped back several steps. She knew her great fortune, but that did not make her cross any easier to bear. And being that her greatest flaw was her temper, as her mother was wont to tell her, there were times when she lost the battle with herself.
There was no one who could lead her to battle more quickly than Sherlock Holmes.
A woman is always to be refined, docile, and agreeable. She heard her mother’s voice pleading with her in her head, even as her hand firmly clasped the handle of the bullwhip and lifted it over her head, the two thousand grams of weight suddenly as light as a feather.
But their situations were different, now weren’t they? Her mother had married a country curate and was surrounded by the godly and the pure each and every day. Mirabella glanced at Sherlock. She, on the other hand, was cavorting with the underbelly of London.
Mirabella snapped the popper and quickly wrapped it around the greatest detective the world has ever known and spun him several times before dropping her newest weapon.
“How was that, Mr. Holmes?” she asked demurely.
He glared at her forcefully as he disengaged himself from the whip, but she recognized the appreciative gleam in his eyes, though she had rarely seen it directed at her. She knew she should feel guilty, but that sentiment was strangely absent.
A long silence ensued, and she wondered if she had imagined his reaction.
“That is grounds for dismissal, Miss Hudson.”
“But I meant to grab your hat, Mr. Holmes! You know what an incompetent I am—you said as much yourself!”
Sherlock Holmes was completely silent. Nothing could be worse.
Her heart fell in her chest, but she could not let it go. “Don’t you see, Mr. Holmes? I had to take extreme measures to prove myself capable because you refuse to entertain such a notion. And in proving the great Sherlock Holmes to have made a mistake, I also showed him to be deliberately cruel and unmannerly in his insistence on my inadequacies. What other explanation can there be?”
He stared at her for a long moment, the crease in his brow revealing his twenty-eight years. His slim, muscular structure stood completely erect, appearing even more solidly formidable than usual. “You are, as I recall, still in my employ, Miss Hudson, or at least you were a few seconds ago; you had best remind yourself of that fact. I have my limits—and you are fast imposing upon them, my girl.”
“Yes, sir.” As always, I never know when to stop. She felt her lip shaking now, for the gleam in his eye was gone. She had stepped over the line, she had amused him, but of course she had to take it one step further and turn amusement to anger.
And now dismissal from the most wonderful situation any girl had ever been blessed to have.
Certainly you may always be yourself, but don’t expect other people to wish to have you about when you are doing so. She heard her mother’s admonitions clearly, dismayed that her headstrong daughter had more in common with her boys than her girls.
“I am sorry, Mr. Holmes.” She felt a rumble of anxiety in her chest, always a sign of foreboding for her. “It’s just that I try so diligently to do as you ask—more than anyone else would do—and I do very well, and yet it is never good enough.”
Staring at her accuser, all hope vanished. She knew that when Sherlock Holmes made up his mind there was no turning back.
“If it is not good enough, do you wish me to pretend that it is, Miss Hudson?” His voice was darkly quiet. “I do not pretend and I do not engage in falsehoods. Truth is my quest and my life’s purpose.”
“No, of course not.” And let’
s be honest, Mr. Sherlock Holmes: the game is your life’s quest. “I mean, yes, I—“
“And when a real circumstance arises in which your life or the life of another is at stake and you are ill-prepared, will I have paid you a service to have cosseted your fragile, feminine ego?”
“No.” If, indeed, I had such an ego.
“Excuse me?” demanded Sherlock.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“Yes, you did. Your expression told me everything.”
I cannot be blamed for having a face. God gave it to me, and He no doubt had a purpose in doing so.
“You are not invincible, Miss Belle,” he murmured. “This attitude of yours is precisely what concerns me. You must always be on the alert—and you rarely are!”
I know what that expression means. He means to dismiss me. Terror gripped her as she read the meaning in his dark countenance.
If I lose this position, I will be cleaning the privy—if anyone will have me. I won’t make enough to live on and I’ll never go to university.
How could I have made this mistake again? No one wanted a vocal, intelligent girl with ideas—no matter how good those ideas were, as her last position proved.
Well, technically the reason she had been dismissed was that she had started a fire in her former employer’s laboratory—but she had had an idea to help solve his formula, which had merely backfired. Literally. Honestly, could she be blamed for that?
“Pick up the whip, Miss Hudson.” Sherlock’s silver grey eyes appeared almost slate today, considering her as he frowned. “Describe it to me. Once you truly understand the weapon, perhaps you shall be able to wield it.”
She sniffed, not making eye contact with him, containing her tears with great effort. “Y-you see these four leather strands come together to form the ball.”
“And the end of the whip?”
“T-the end of the whip is the popper,” she whispered.
“Hence its sound. And what causes the sound?”
“The popper travels at some seven hundred miles per hour—surpassing the speed of sound.”
Sherlock Holmes and the Dance of the Tiger Page 2