The Bird and The Buddha

by A S Croyle

  “Aunt Susan, it’s late.”

  She shook me by the shoulders. “I don’t care how late it is! Your uncle is in dire need of guidance in such a matter!”

  She dropped her hands and tucked wisps of her dark hair back into her bun. “I shall return as soon as I can. Will you ask Martha to attend to things? The dishes and-”

  I touched her arm. “I’ll see to it.”

  “Oh, and Sherlock, I did not say goodbye. I must-”

  “He let himself out, Aunt Susan.”

  “But I should have bid him a good evening. I should have-”

  “Aunt Susan, don’t think about that. Don’t think about anything except Uncle.”

  “I rather doubt I will be able to remember so much as my name until your uncle’s name is cleared.”

  29

  I slept fitfully... I think I finally drifted off shortly before dawn, and a few hours later, I woke to light tapping on my door. Martha had come to offer breakfast, but I had no stomach for food. She also brought me a note from Aunt Susan.

  Poppy, your uncle is still at the Yard. Mr. Havershal is there with him. I came home to change and for food to take to Ormond. Do not fret, we will sort this out. Go to work.

  “Work,” I said to myself. I had not been there for a week. “I should go,” I said, again in a whisper.

  I washed up, put on a brown morning dress that reminded me of the drab nursing uniform I had been forced to wear at the nursing school before I went on to medical school, and left the house. But instead of my office, I ended up at the British Museum. There might be clues there. The fact that all the men had been found near the museum had to mean something. There had to be clues to the identity of the real killer somewhere.

  I went to the room with the Buddha statue. Staring at it, I thought, What are you trying to tell us?

  I felt a presence. Someone was in the room with me. I swirled around and my eyes landed on a young man, standing in a dim corner. He was seventeen or so, and his brown skin, black hair, and sharp features betrayed his origin - India.

  He approached me, smiling. Not sure if he spoke English, I simply nodded.

  “It is beautiful, yes?” he asked.

  Surprised, I agreed. “Yes, very beautiful. You’re visiting here?”

  His reply was delivered in impeccable English, but with a short, staccato accent. “I am in England to study.”

  “Here, in London?”

  “No. Well, yes,” he corrected. “I attend school here in London but I live in Hove. “It’s in East Sussex on the south coast near Brighton. Do you know of it?”

  I nodded.

  “I live with my nephew and niece, my brother’s children, and their mother, in a house my family owns.”

  “And your parents?”

  “My mother died when I was very young and my father travels a great deal. He wants me to become a barrister, so I now study at the University of London.”

  “That’s very admirable.”

  “But I do not like the law. I wish to study Shakespeare and Coriolanus and Antony and Cleopatra.”

  I noticed his notebook and pen. “You wish to write?”

  He nodded. “I have written poetry. And some stories and dramas.” He bowed. “My name is Rabindranath Tagore. People call me Rabi.”

  “My name is Poppy. I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

  He bowed again. “I have not heard this name.”

  I laughed. “It’s a nickname. A pet name. A shortening like ‘Rabi.’”

  “I see.”

  “And what are you writing now, Rabi? About the Buddha?”

  “No. But Buddhism teaches things I write about. I write about the essence of the love. And about time. Moments in time.”

  The essence of the love, I thought. With so much death and suffering and grief all around me, often I wondered if there were such a thing.

  “May I hear it?” I asked.

  “It is not finished.”

  “May I hear what you have so far?”

  “The title, I think, shall be Unending Love.”

  He had my attention. I seemed to be confronted by unending suffering these days, and I wondered if unending love was obtainable. Except that my love for Sherlock Holmes seemed never to end, and I so often wished it would.

  Or did I?

  “I call my poem this because ‘unending’ means that love is everlasting and immortal. It is a force felt by the entire universe,” Rabi said, “not just one person. It is unquantifiable, and I think that the love we feel in this life will be passed on in the next and the next.”

  “I would like to think that, Rabi. Please, read me what you have.”

  “I have finished only the first and the last stanza. The first goes like this.”

  He read from his notebook. “I seem to have loved you in numberless forms, numberless times /In life after life, in age after age, forever/My spellbound heart has made and remade the necklace of songs /That you take as a gift, wear round your neck in your many forms/ In life after life, in age after age, forever.”

  “That is so beautiful. For one so young, you have a profound belief in the beauty and importance of love.”

  He shrugged. “I think the love we have will be felt in the next life, in all lives after, for once it is given to someone worthy, love merges with the memories of the universe. It becomes like an ancient tale, repeated over and over, and people who have met and loved in previous lives will meet again and again.”

  “I like that. The concept of timelessness.”

  “The moments we have now, Miss, in the present, are part of something bigger, something that is important in the past and the future. Our experiences are a part of something else, something larger, not just who we are, but who we were or might have been or might become. It is all connected.”

  I took in a deep breath. This boy was an old soul. “Is there more?

  “A little bit. As I said it is not finished.” He read from his notes again. “The love of all man’s days both past and forever/Universal joy, universal sorrow, universal life/The memories of all loves merging with this one love of ours - /And the songs of every poet past and forever.”

  “My uncle says always follow your dreams,” I told him. “You have a talent, Rabi. Don’t become a barrister. Write.” Then I looked at the watch pinned to my cape. “I should go.”

  “You look sad.”

  I felt a flush to my cheeks. “Do I?”

  “Yes. I am sad as well. I am missing home.”

  “Well, I hope you enjoy some of your time here in London.”

  “Thank you, Miss. But soon I will return to Hove, I think. And then, perhaps, back to Bengal. “

  “Good luck to you, Rabi. I may not see you again.”

  The shadow of a knowing smile crept across his face. “Oh, but, Miss, of course, you will.”

  30

  My office was musty and dim. I opened the drapes and windows to let in fresh air and light. I’d found notes on the door from two prospective patients I had missed, so after some housekeeping, I locked the door again and, with a pang of guilt, set out to their homes. By late afternoon, I had treated a woman who had burned her arm when she spilled hot water from a tea kettle and a boy with a sprained ankle.

  I was reminded once again of Sherlock - of the day my dog bit his ankle and the severe sprain he’d suffered when he fell on the cobblestone. I’d had one of my brother’s medical textbooks with me that day, and I read the symptoms of a fracture to Sherlock, partly to show him I had some medical knowledge, but mostly to distract him from his suffering and the irritating voice that accompanied it. Now, so much more certain of my abilities, I quickly examined the boy’s ankle, wrapped it, told him to elevate it, and directed his mother to bring him crutches and keep
him off his feet.

  When I’d finished treating the boy, I hailed a hansom cab to go to Michael’s home. He generally worked the night shift these days, so I hoped I would find him at home with the baby. They lived not far from a home Charles Dickens had once shared with his wife at Tavistock Square, near Tottenham Court Road, where Mycroft had purchased the Stradivarius for Sherlock. I needed to tell him about Uncle, and I longed to hold my little nephew Alexander in my arms. He was just eighteen months old and already resembled his mother Effie so much that it nearly broke my heart each time I saw him, yet I somehow felt close to her whenever I was with him.

  When I arrived, Michael’s housekeeper told me that Michael had taken Alexander with him to have lunch at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub on Fleet Street.

  “He took the baby to a tavern?”

  “The boy likes the parrot, Miss.”

  “The African grey? Yes, Michael told me about her.”

  “I think her name is Polly. The bird lightens up the place. She chatters away, but rude she is, so I’m told,” she added with a wink.

  I hailed another cab and set out for the pub, a dim place with dark wood panels and vaulted cellars that some said were part of a Carmelite monastery many centuries ago. I paid the cabbie, navigated the narrow alleyway and went inside.

  I spotted Michael with the baby on his lap right away. I felt my lips turn downwards. Since Effie’s death, I feared that Michael drowned his sorrows far too often. He was in the company of two men. One was Michael’s friend, Dr. Jonathan Younger, who had been his best man. The other man had his back to me.

  I waved to Michael as I removed my cape, and he said a few words to his friends, picked up his pint and Alexander and came over to me.

  “Poppy, what on earth are you doing here? And coming into a pub unaccompanied? Mum and Papa would be mortified.”

  “And when did that ever stop me?”

  “I don’t think you should-”

  “Michael. Stop.”

  “Can I not be protective of you? Big brother’s prerogative.”

  We sat down at another table, and I held my arms out to take Alexander. As he settled on my lap, he curled his pudgy little fingers around one of my curls. I was about to tell Michael about Uncle when he explained, “I’m just here to say goodbye to a colleague. You remember the chap who shares your birthday, John Watson?”

  “Yes, you’ve mentioned him.”

  “Well, he’s done at Bart’s and off to Spike Island.”

  The name did not register.

  “Netley?” he prodded.

  “Oh, yes,” I answered. “Royal Victoria Hospital. And he’s the one who has been wanting to join the Army, yes?”

  Michael nodded. “He was just telling us about it. It’s a vast place, almost a town in and of itself. It has its own gasworks and there are stables, a bakery, and a swimming pool. Two hundred acres, I think John said.”

  I’d never been there, but I certainly knew that Florence Nightingale, a woman I greatly admired, had lobbied fiercely for a place to address the issues of the soldiers and their care. The Lady with the Lamp had served nobly during the Crimean War at the military hospital in Turkey and advocated for better sanitation, healthy food, and good health care, provided by well-trained doctors and nurses, for the wounded and sick. Thousands of British soldiers had died during the war and many fell to the ravages of cholera rather than the spray of bullets.

  Uncle had attended the opening of the Sixth Session of the Army Medical at Netley when it replaced the school at Fort Pitt, which had always been regarded as a temporary measure. Later he joined the health reform movement to provide a better facility for the disabled soldiers. He had said that it was essential for England to have a medical school that flourished from the abundant wealth and professional knowledge that streamed so constantly to civil hospitals, so that the doctors who tended to sick and wounded soldiers understood their specific needs, much as railway physicians specialized in locomotive injuries.

  “John says Netley even provides married quarters and a ballroom.”

  “A ballroom?” I asked, remembering my brief dance with Sherlock in the ballroom of Victor’s home... the ballroom where they had come to blows over me.

  He nodded.

  “Is he married?” I asked.

  “John?” Michael laughed. “No. But he’s quite the ladies’ man. He thinks... he seems to have a feeling that the treaty with the Afghans may not hold and there is some concern for the envoy in Kabul. So, like our friend Victor, he may be off to India - to join the British-Indian Army just across the border. They-”

  “Michael, stop. Stop talking as if the Army is some sort of glamourous life. War is not glamourous.”

  “Exciting, though,” he replied. “And I am single now, so.”

  “Stop it. You have a son,” I reminded him, stroking Alexander’s pale hair. “Now listen to me, I’ve come with some urgent news.”

  Finally, he seemed to see the worried look I knew I wore and asked, “Poppy, what is it?”

  “Have you been told of what’s happening to Uncle Ormond?”

  He looked puzzled and shook his head.

  I recounted the events of the previous evening and his face flushed with anger.

  “How dare he? Uncle Ormond a murderer. It’s outrageous,” he spat. “How dare Mycroft Holmes do such a thing? I’ll contact Mr. Havershal at once.”

  “Aunt Susan already has, Michael,” I said, bouncing the baby whose eyes were fixed on the parrot who kept exclaiming, “Rats!” as a new customer came through the door.

  Michael gulped down his drink and said, “I shall go to the Yard at once.”

  I waited at the door while he bid goodbye to Younger and Watson. Then we left and hailed a hansom. Alexander settled on my lap and I hugged him close. “He’s getting so big. Before we know it, we’ll be playing noughts and crosses.”

  Michael said, “Beatrice will watch him for me tonight.”

  “Beatrice is a housekeeper, not your nanny. I can watch him until Levina arrives, Michael.”

  “Touch wood, we shall get this all sorted out and I won’t be long, but Alexander would wear you out. You already look as tired as he is,” he said, rubbing his palm over the sleepy child’s blonde wisps of hair. “You spread yourself too thin, Poppy.”

  “As did you. And, Michael, I am concerned about you, too. About your health.”

  I paused a moment. I knew what grief was like. Hideous to experience and impossible to escape. I did not want to nag him about his drinking, but given the saturnine state of Michael’s world, the melancholia was spiraling into ever-decreasing concentric circles, and I could not allow him to get trapped like a rat in a maze. “You must be strong and healthy to look after your son,” I added.

  “I know,” he mumbled. “It’s just sometimes... I miss her so, Poppy.”

  “So do I.”

  I looked out the window as we headed north toward Camden Town. I forced a smile. “Remember how happy we were not so long ago, Michael?”

  “You mean when you had time to read Dickens and Eliot and Hardy and sail the Broads and still manage to study medicine? When Effie was about to open her millinery shop and planning our wedding?”

  “Yes, all of that. I miss it.”

  I looked out again as we passed the British Museum and headed toward Marylebone Road. “We’re almost home, Alexander,” I said, cuddling him. “Will you give Aunt Poppy a kiss?”

  He smiled and said, “Rats!”

  Michael and I laughed. “You see? Happier times shall come again, Poppy.”

  I stared at him a moment and thought, Will they, Michael?

  31

  Michael immediately left for the Yard. I bathed and fed Alexander, then sat by his bed for a long time, watching him sleep. I could not s
top thinking about the young poet I’d met at the museum. He seemed so certain of his faith, so confident that we would meet those we love again and again, that love would endure. I did not like to believe that losing a loved one meant losing a part of yourself forever. I knew that there was no way to inoculate oneself from the devastation of such a loss - unless you were Sherlock Holmes - but I did not like to think that Effie’s parents, Michael and I to be so consumed by memories and the pain they induced that we could find no joy in living. I pondered the illusion, the hallucination I’d seen in the restaurant when I’d lunched with Oscar... the translucent figure with golden hair. I recalled Rabi’s beautiful poem about unending love. If that were true, did that mean I would see Effie again? That she would see her son? And if I had that to hold on to, perhaps I could force the rawness of grief to subside. Perhaps I could let go if I found a very real reason to go on.

  Pulled from my thoughts by the sound of Levina opening the front door, I ran to greet her, told her that Michael had been called into the hospital and that Alexander had been fed and bathed. Then, I hurried home.

  It was almost dinner time when I got back to Uncle’s house. I wondered if Aunt Susan had returned with any good news. I called to Martha and Genabee and when neither answered, I assumed they were below in the kitchen, preparing the evening meal.

  It appeared that Sappho and my dog were the only ones present to greet me, which they did - Sappho with her loud ‘meow’ and Little Elihu with his happy whine. After I petted them, I released Little Elihu from the little cubbyhole beneath the servant’s staircase, where he was kept when no one was about. We took a brief, brisk walk; then I gave him food and water and returned to the foyer. As I placed my cape on the coat stand, I lingered a moment and touched the stand tenderly. It was made of oak, in which Uncle’s initials O. R. S. - the R. stood for Remington, his mother’s maiden name - carved into it. The hooks were cattle horns from his grandfather’s farm in Herefordshire, and the rail had been fashioned from parts of an old haywain. Uncle rarely spoke of his father; he had no use for him. But he’d exhibited fond memories of time spent on his grandparents’ farm.