‘I meant to!’ he insisted. ‘I put it under my bed, I must have forgotten.’
‘What’s all the red marks?’ Wiggins asked.
‘Something Mr Holmes was doing,’ I lied easily, then felt guilty as I met Wiggins’ eyes. He knew I had lied. He turned back to the map, his face full of suspicion. He hadn’t been there when I had used this map before.
‘So,’ Mary said, ‘everyone show me on the map where you saw the Pale Boys.’
They gathered round, trying to match the carefully drawn lines to the crowded, filthy, battered streets they knew. More than a few arguments broke out as they matched road for road, or tried to find an alleyway that didn’t exist on any map.
Eventually, we had a pattern. The sightings all seemed to be concentrated in the streets at the north end of Regent’s Park, near Albert Road.
‘That’ll do,’ Grace said firmly. She had seemed to take the invasion of the kitchen by an army of filthy street boys with equanimity, and they had taken to her, once they realized she was here for me, and not to clean or dose them. But now I was exhausted, and she and Mary guided them out. Wiggins lingered.
‘You lied to me,’ he said, his brown eyes full of repressed anger.
‘Yes,’ I admitted. ‘It was something that it was better for you not to know.’
‘I decide what’s good for me to know,’ he snapped.
‘Not this time,’ I insisted, leaning back in my chair.
He thought about it, then said, ‘Don’t lie to me again.’
‘I can’t promise that,’ I told him, truthfully. He grunted.
‘I deserve better,’ he told me.
‘You do,’ I agreed. And with that he had to be satisfied. He left then.
Grace and Mary came back into the kitchen.
‘What was all that about?’ Grace asked.
‘Just a game,’ I replied. I had no compunction about lying to Grace.
It became dark very early, and the lamps were lit at three. Mrs Turner and Mary went home, Billy went to bed early, and by seven I was ready for my bed too. Grace guided me up the first set of stairs, where I paused by Mr Holmes’ door.
It was slightly open, and swung wide at my touch. The room was a mess, covered in cut-up newspapers and glue pots and big paper books. He and Dr Watson had obviously tried to have a clear-out of his old newspapers and paste them into his reference books, and, like all clear-outs, it had created a huge mess.
He sat in the centre of the floor, and on his lap, unfolded, was the map of London Billy had brought down earlier. I could see the red crosses and lines on the map clearly. I had used those marks, extrapolated from old papers, to track down the blackmailer. Obviously Mr Holmes had known I had used this, but did he know how or why?
He looked at me, with an expression of surprise – not that I was there, but that I had puzzled him. If we had been two normal people, that would have been the time we would have spoken. I would have said it was a trap, and he would have said it was a trap set for him, and how had I worked it out?
But we were not two normal people. We were Sherlock Holmes and Mrs Hudson. He was too proud and I was too reserved. So I merely said:
‘Is there anything else you require this evening, Mr Holmes?’
‘If there is, I’ll get it myself. Go to bed,’ he said, not harshly, but not kindly either. I nodded in compliance, and allowed Grace to take me upstairs.
THE WOMAN WHO WATCHES
Still, Mary and I had two cases to solve. By Friday, only a few days later, I felt better, and was also sick of the house and bored to tears. (Mr Holmes was in Paris, investigating the case of Madame Montpensier’s missing stepdaughter.) I was desperate to get out for a walk, and to have something to do.
I had asked Grace for Eleanor Langham’s address, saying I wanted to visit her now we were both home. I felt the only way to continue my investigation, and also to shake away the dread of the hospital ward, was to visit these women. I wanted to see them not as fellow patients, but as people in their own homes, surrounded by their own things, with their own family. I knew how different people could be in those circumstances. I certainly was. Outside of that ward, I was stronger, no longer the weak, trembling creature afraid of a hospital bed. To my relief, Eleanor handily lived just round the corner, on Park Road.
Grace wanted to accompany me, but I insisted I wanted only Mary.
‘I don’t mean any offence, Grace,’ I told her, ‘but I’m sick of the sight of your face.’
She only laughed, and said patients often felt that way as they recovered. Since Mary, as a doctor’s wife, was perfectly capable of looking after me, we were left to ourselves.
Eleanor Langham lived in a huge white house on the western edge of Regent’s Park. It was ornamented and curlicued and obviously very expensive. It made me pause for a moment – but only a moment.
I presented my card to the very tall, very upright butler. I wasn’t sure if I would be welcomed in, as it was not the conventional time for visiting. Eleanor and I had not got on very well in hospital, but I was relying on her overweening curiosity to see what I wanted. I couldn’t blame her for that: I was just the same.
As the butler went to check whether our presence was acceptable, Mary looked through the cards left on the side table. Silently she held one up for me. Sir Richard Pembury had called – but not been seen, as the folded corner of his card showed.
I was right about Eleanor’s curiosity. The butler showed us up to the first floor, explaining that Mrs Langham was, by reason of her health, confined to a suite of rooms. As we climbed the stairs I heard the laughter of children somewhere in the house, hastily shushed.
Eleanor welcomed us into her drawing room. It was very correctly decorated, everything in its place, everything as all the good guides suggested it should be. It felt like a showplace, but not like a home. It was discomfiting. My own home was neat and tidy (outside of Mr Holmes’ rooms), but had idiosyncrasies that reflected my own taste, such as a lack of little china ornaments, which I despised. You would too if you ever had to dust them. Mary and John’s house was a muddle of papers and books and medical instruments and all kinds of things, but was utterly charming. This room – in fact, all the house I had seen – felt like the contents had been ordered en masse from a pattern book, and never altered.
The wallpaper was a fashionable green, as were the thick velvet curtains. A piano stood in one corner, with an Indian shawl thrown over it. Horsehair chairs were scattered about the room, in between various spindly tables. The only touch of individuality was a mass of photographs placed on the piano, and most of those were of royalty and public figures, rather than family. And in the centre of it all sat Eleanor Langham.
I had never seen her clearly in the hospital. She had sat far away from me, and I had been dazed with pain and fear. Now I could see her, I could tell her body was pulled tight with tension. Her fingers grasped each other so tightly the skin was white. The muscles and tendons beneath her skin were as tense as violin strings. For a moment I thought it was us that had made her like this, but I could see the nap of the velvet-covered arm of her chair was worn where she had pulled at it, and I realized she was like this all the time.
‘How do you do, Mrs Langham,’ I said softly. ‘Do you remember me?’
‘Of course,’ she said, her voice cold and polite. ‘The Mrs Hudson who is not Mr Holmes’ housekeeper.’
‘How kind of you to recall,’ I said sweetly. ‘I heard you were at home, and I realized I lived nearby, and I was eager to see you recovered. And I wished to introduce you to my friend, Mrs Watson.’ I nodded at Mary, who held a hand out to Mrs Langham. She did not shake it. I don’t think she approved of these modern manners of women.
‘Watson?’ Eleanor said.
‘Dr Watson’s wife,’ Mary added, cheerfully. ‘Martha – Mrs Hudson – spoke so often of you, I just felt I had to come and meet you myself.’ Eleanor’s face remained stony in the face of Mary’s effort to charm her. ‘I can see w
hy you made such an impression,’ Mary added.
I sat down in a chair opposite Eleanor. The chair was, as I suspected, stiff and uncomfortable. Mary roamed the room, looking at the pictures. She would occasionally pick one up and then put it down, not quite in the same place. She seemed to be doing this accidentally, but I knew it was deliberate.
‘Good morning, Mrs Hudson,’ Eleanor said, her voice cold. ‘What a pleasure to see you looking so well.’
‘And you also,’ I lied. ‘I do feel that those of us in that ward formed a bond, a companionship of sorts, don’t you?’
‘Of sorts,’ Eleanor said, not really paying attention. She was trying to see what Mary was doing. Mary had wandered behind her to the window. She pulled back the curtain to show me a telescope on the windowsill, on a stand, trained on the park. Eleanor must be able to see a great deal from up here.
‘I hear only Florence Bryson is left now,’ I said, trying to keep the conversation going.
Eleanor snorted. ‘That woman treated the place more like an hotel than a hospital. I do not believe she was really ill at all.’
‘Well, perhaps,’ I said gently. ‘She was very close to Emma, though. It was such a shock when she died.’
‘I’m only surprised she lasted that long. She had a very wicked life,’ Eleanor said. I was beginning to remember why I disliked her so much.
‘She did die very suddenly,’ I insisted. ‘One minute she was well, the next dead in the middle of the night, when everyone was asleep.’
‘You weren’t asleep,’ Eleanor said, and her voice grated on me, catching, like a thread on a broken nail. ‘You had nightmares. You had nightmares every night. You would scream. Tell me, what was that about?’
I swallowed, though my throat was dry. I knew I had dreamed, but I had no idea I had called out loud. What else had I said?
‘It was a story my nurse told me when I was little,’ I said to her. ‘It has given me nightmares ever since. Ridiculous, for a grown woman.’
‘Ridiculous,’ Eleanor agreed. Mary returned to the photos.
‘So if you were awake to hear me call, you must have been awake when Emma died,’ I suggested, determined to get my answer and get out of that room. It was stifling me.
‘No, that night I slept,’ she said, frowning. She was annoyed! She was annoyed she had missed Emma’s death.
‘So you saw nothing?’
‘What did you expect me to see, the Angel of Death?’ she said, smirking. ‘What did you see?’
What did I see? Well, I saw a ward full of sleeping women, including her. I remembered clearly seeing her shape under her bedclothes.
‘Nothing,’ I said firmly. ‘The ward was so dark, and the lamps threw such shadows.’
‘Shadows,’ Eleanor repeated. ‘I didn’t . . . Put that down!’
The last was directed at Mary, who had picked up a picture of a boy. The picture was old, and I could barely see it, but it did have a black ribbon wound through its ornate silver frame.
‘I’m sorry,’ Mary said, putting the picture back down carefully. Eleanor reached for it, though, and Mary handed it to her. Eleanor snatched it, and wiped the picture with her sleeve, as if Mary had made it filthy by touching it.
‘Your son?’ I asked. ‘I think I heard him downstairs.’
‘That was my other sons,’ she said dismissively. She smiled at the picture. ‘This was my eldest son, James. He died, eleven years ago.’
Oh, now I understood. I knew that pain, the loss, the aching emptiness of losing a child. I knew how the agony could twist and bind you, until just breathing hurt, and you hated the entire world for being alive. I had my work to sink into, but what had she had? Just an endless round of courtesy and tea and long days of nothing, allowing her grief to dominate her.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I said softly. ‘I too have lost a son.’
‘Yes, I remember you and Florence made good friends over your dead boys,’ Eleanor sneered at me viciously, and I drew back, shocked by the venom in her voice.
‘How do you know Sir Richard Pembury?’ Mary said quickly. She still stood behind Eleanor, who had to twist to face Mary. ‘I noticed his card downstairs.’
‘He is an old family friend,’ Eleanor said, proudly. ‘I have known him since I was a child.’
‘He’s an impressive man,’ Mary said, leaning in a most unladylike way against the windowsill. ‘I met him myself a few days ago.’
‘Most impressive,’ Eleanor murmured, smoothing the worn nap on her chair.
‘And do you know Lord Howe?’ Mary asked, pushing the point.
‘No more than anyone else in my social circle,’ Eleanor snapped. ‘Why are you asking these questions?’
‘I’m being nosy,’ Mary told her.
‘But why those men?’ Eleanor snapped. ‘Why do you want to know about them? Why are you hiding behind my chair? Come out into the room where I can see you! Get out of the light!’ she screeched.
It was at that moment that the door opened, and the tall, older man with the military air that I had seen visit Eleanor in hospital came in. He went straight to her and kissed her on the cheek, stroking the back of her hand where it grasped the picture. She did not respond, not to the kiss, the love in his eyes, nor when he took the picture from her, and replaced it on the piano.
‘This is Mrs Hudson,’ Eleanor introduced me. ‘She was in the hospital with me. And her friend, Mrs . . .’
‘Watson,’ Mary said, holding out her hand to Mr Langham. He shook it, slightly surprised. At the repeated name ‘Watson’ Eleanor’s eyes had widened and now she stared at me suspiciously.
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you,’ Mr Langham said. ‘It’s kind of you to visit. Eleanor doesn’t get many visitors.’
‘Can’t think why,’ Mary murmured.
‘We were just leaving, actually,’ I said, standing. I felt quite shaken. ‘Such a pleasure to see you again.’
‘I think we’ll take a walk in the park,’ Mary said lightly. ‘You might see us.’
‘The park looks lovely today,’ Mr Langham said. ‘The nurse has just taken the boys over there. I thought I might join them.’
‘No!’ Eleanor cried, and her hands pinched each other so tightly one of her nails drew blood. ‘I need you here,’ she said in a softer voice. Mr Langham shrugged, and agreed, and showed us to the door.
I looked back as we left. Eleanor didn’t see me. She was staring at her husband. Whilst he had looked at her with love, she stared at him with absolute hate.
AT THE PARK
We really did go over to the park. Regent’s Park was large and sprawling, but we stuck close to the paths beside the boating lake. In summer these would be flower-lined, but now it was all just mud and damp grass and bare trees, and mist hung in the distance, obscuring the bandstand and the cafe. I was tired and wanted to sit down, and Mary wanted to see if she could find Eleanor Langham’s children. Or so she said – we followed the same path the boys had seen the Pale Boys on.
‘She knows them both,’ Mary said, diving straight in. ‘Lord Howe and Sir Richard.’
‘That doesn’t really prove anything,’ I said, glancing back at the house. ‘She’s rich, very rich, judging by that house, and everyone at that level of society knows each other.’
‘Sir Richard didn’t start off rich. Not when she was a girl, anyway. His political career didn’t even start until his mid-thirties, after he’d made his fortune in business, and trade and high society don’t mix. They couldn’t have known each other then.’
‘No,’ I said. No doubt there was an explanation for that too. I was very tired, and not really thinking.
‘I hated that home,’ Mary said to me, as we walked towards the boating lake.
‘Not attractive,’ I agreed.
‘Not just that,’ Mary said. ‘It was the feeling in the house – not even really a home. As if everyone was hiding something, or not telling something – I can’t quite say what it was.’
‘Hiding some
thing, I think,’ I said, as we walked along the lake. ‘She was like that in hospital, always watching.’
‘You watch,’ Mary pointed out.
‘She was always judging, then, and finding the worst of everyone. You can’t accuse me of that.’
‘No, no one could accuse you of that,’ Mary said, squeezing my arm affectionately. ‘Look, I think that’s them.’
Ahead of us were two boys, around ten and seven, playing with an excitable spaniel. They looked ordinary in their dark suits, light brown hair flopping over their eyes. They were being followed by a young plump girl with rosy cheeks – obviously their nurse. She called after them, in a voice with a thick Irish accent, trying to get them to behave, but both she and the boys were laughing. They looked happy, but with an air of nervousness, as if they had escaped and were waiting to be caught.
The spaniel, recognizing someone who would love him, ran straight up to Mary. She bent down and ruffled his fur, calling him gorgeous, and immediately endearing herself to the boys.
‘I’m going to sit down. You charm the boys,’ I said, heading for a bench. Mary was better with strange children than I was. I never knew what to say to them. Except the Irregulars, of course, but then Wiggins took care of them, and I never really considered him a child.
It was a cold day, but sunny. It had been damp lately, but not today. The air was sharp and bright, and felt good to breathe. I could hear children laughing, and ducks quacking over at the boating lake. I could see soldiers in their bright red uniforms strolling with pretty girls, well bundled up, and a caretaker painting a bench with as much care and pride as a Royal Academician painting a masterpiece. I sat in the sunshine and smiled and watched.
I had so nearly lost all this. I had so easily closed my eyes and drifted away.
The sense of sorrow at the thought that I might have left all this made me gasp, and I leaned back on the bench. I closed my eyes, feeling the sunshine on my face, trying to calm myself down. My thoughts wandered away from the park, away from the day to that night in the ward, the shadow by the bed, the women asleep in their beds.
The Women of Baker Street Page 11