A Monstrous Regiment of Women (12 page)

When she had gone, he seemed to forget my presence. He started to pace again, smoking furiously and stopping occasionally at the window to stare out into the dark garden. He was thin, a good stone less than when the suit was made (an exquisite suit, in need of cleaning), and something in his nervous hands reminded me of Holmes, and of Holmes’ lovely lost son. The hands of this young man trembled slightly, though, as Holmes’ never did, and the nails were unkempt. The handkerchief he pulled from a pocket was little better. He blew his nose and wiped his watering eyes, lit another cigarette, paced around the room, and ended up at the black window again, where I could see his reflection in the glass. (Sure sign of a disturbed household, I thought irrelevantly: curtains that remained drawn back after darkness has fallen.) He yawned hugely and looked for a long minute at his ghostly face in the glass before his hand came up and covered his eyes. His shoulders drooped, and I could see the moment of helpless capitulation come over him. I rose swiftly and moved two steps to stand, if only briefly, between him and the door, and when he turned around, he saw me and dropped his cigarette in surprise. He bent quickly to retrieve it and rub the sparks from the pile, and when he came up, the terrible brightness was back in place.

“Dreadfully sorry, old thing, you were so quiet—stupid of me, I forgot you were there. Awfully rude, I know. I’m not normally quite such a bounder—”

A bell rang. It cut off his drivel; it delayed my need to acknowledge that I had no right to keep him from his needle. Slow footsteps went down the corridor, the front door opened, and the heavy wood of the library door was pierced by the voice of a man, clear, high, and utterly unmistakable.

“Why, if it isn’t Edmund Marshall. How are you, my good man?”

“Mr—Mr Holmes! Well, I never. It’s been…”

“Thirteen years, yes. Is there a Miss Mary Russell here?”

“Yes, sir. She’s in the library with Mr—with Lieutenant Fitzwarren.”

The object of this sentence was frozen in the attitude of a hound listening for the faint trace of a horn. Or perhaps, rather, the fox at the sound of distant baying.

“Excellent. Here, take my stick, too, Marshall. This door, I believe?”

He was in the doorway, and his eyes immediately took in my position in the room and Miles Fitzwarren’s physical and mental state—as well as the curtains, my hemline, and the chess pieces on the fireside table, knowing him.

He was wearing the dress of the natives, in this case a raven black suit of a slightly old-fashioned but beautifully tailored cut, with a sharp white collar and just the edge of brilliant cuff peeking out at the sleeve. Judging from the indentation in his hair, he had given Marshall a silk top hat. His trouser creases were like razors, his shoes mirrors, and he moved confidently into the opulent library with the politely bored attitude of a potential but unenthusiastic buyer. I subsided into a chair. He shot me an approving glance and strolled nonchalantly over to the chessboard.

“I must have just missed you twice this afternoon, Russell,” he commented, reaching down to move a black knight. “First at your club and then at the home of Miss Beaconsfield, where a riot was just in the process of being quelled by a highly competent young Belgian lady. She told me in her tongue where you had gone.” He pursed his lips and shifted a white bishop three spaces. “Your Miss Beaconsfield appears to have some… interesting friends.” Another pause while he moved the black king to the side, and then he seemed to tire of it. He clasped his hands behind his back and continued around the room, his eyes examining the rows of leather-bound spines. At the window, his gaze dropped to the carpet, and he put out his left hand and began to run one finger slowly along the pleated back of the long maroon leather settee, then under the fringe of the lamp shade, across the space to the gleaming mahogany of the desk, touching its carved ivory pen holder lightly before he came to a halt before the rigid figure of Miles Fitzwarren, who was standing still for the first time since I had met him. Holmes stood in contemplation of the intricate crystal paperweight that had appeared in his hand, then slowly raised his eyes to those of the younger man, fixing him with a grey gaze that seemed to come from a great height.

“Good evening, Lieutenant Fitzwarren,” he said with the voice of gentle Fate. The man jerked upright and tried to find his mask.

“Evenin’, sir. I, er, I don’t believe I’ve had the honour.”

“We have met, but it was some years ago. The name is Holmes, Sherlock Holmes.”

The younger man blinked his eyes rapidly and tried unsuccessfully to laugh.

“Awkward name, that, don’t you find? People mistakin’ you for that detective chappy? Magnifyin’ glass and deerstalker and all that.”

“I am that detective chappy, Lieutenant. And I have been in this house before, a trifling matter of some jewels, when you were but a lad. I expect you might remember if you turned your thoughts to it.”

“Good Lord. I do. I mean, I thought it was my imagination, but I do remember meeting Sherlock Holmes.” The awe had knocked out his silly-ass act, and he looked slightly stunned. “What are you doing here? I mean to say, is there anything I can do for you?”

“I came here to ask the same of you.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Do you mean about Iris? The police seem to be—”

Holmes held up a finger and cut him to silence.

“Lieutenant Fitzwarren,” he said clearly, “you can be helped.”

The young man gawped and swallowed. “Yes? Er, well, that’s terribly kind of you,” he began uncertainly before Holmes cut him off again.

“Young man, you have made the unfortunate and all-too-common discovery that the compound formed by the acetylation of morphia is highly addictive both physically and mentally. I cannot help you with your mental dependency on heroin, but I can help you rid yourself of the physiological one. It is not a pleasant process. You will feel as you do now for an unbearably long time, and you will for a shorter time feel considerably worse. At the end of it, you will feel weak and empty and filled with shame, and the craving for the drug will eat at your very soul, but you will be clean, and you will begin to remember who you are. If, as I believe, the desire for cleanliness and memory is growing in you, I can help. You, however, must make the decision.”

“But… why? I don’t even know you. Why should you…”

“For four years, you did for me what I could not, in the trenches, and this is the price. I have been in your debt since you set foot on the troopship. I can now begin to pay off that debt, by taking over a small part of the price that you paid. You need only say the word, and I am your man.”

A clock ticked slow seconds. Half a minute passed, then a minute. I listened in agony for the approach of footsteps that would interrupt the two men (the one young and racked by the drug pulling at his nerves, the other implacable and utterly solid) and their wordless confrontation.

It was hard to say who moved first, but as the young man gasped for breath, his hand came up, and as Holmes took it, his other hand came around to seize Fitzwarren’s shoulder in support and approval.

“Good man. Where’s your hat?”

“My hat? Surely you don’t intend—”

“I do intend.”

“But, my mother…”

“Your mother will be infinitely better served by knowing that her son is returning to himself than if she were forced to be around him in his present state. She will forgive your absence at the funeral. Besides, if ’twere done, best ’twere done quickly.” He took the elegantly clad elbow and politely but inexorably propelled his charge towards the door. “No, young man, you asked for my help, and as many have found, you must take it as it comes, inconvenient as that may be. Russell, you will make our apologies to the family and give out some explanation or other, will you? Also, would you be so good as to telephone Mycroft at the Diogenes Club and tell him that we are on our way to the sanatorium and please to inform Dr McDaniels that we shall meet him there.”

The startled Marshall had scurried to retrieve the belongings of the two men, and Holmes took the hat from the butler’s hand and slapped it onto Fitzwarren’s head, jammed his own on, and gathered up the two proffered coats.

“Good-bye, Russell. You can reach me through Mycroft.”

“
Mazel tov
, Holmes.”

“Thank you, Russell,” he said, and added under his breath, “I shall need it.” Ignoring the hovering butler, he draped the young man’s shoulders with a coat and shrugged into his own. The poor servant leapt for the door and held it until both men had been whisked away by the waiting taxi, and then he turned to me with a faint air of reproach.

“Does madam wish anything?” he murmured.

“Madam wishes only that that man can find a way out of his troubles,” I answered absently.

He looked startled, but his training held.

“Indeed, madam,” he said, only a fraction more emphatically than necessary.

I went back into the library, made the telephone call, and felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Only part of it was Miles.

EIGHT

Thursday, 30 December

Woman compared to other creatures is the image of God, for she bears dominion over them; but compared to man, she may not be called the image of God, for she does not bear rule and lordship over man, but obeys him.

—Saint Augustine

«
^
»

With Holmes out of the way and Miles out of my hands, life looked somewhat more manageable. I played Holmes’ game six moves to checkmate, poured myself a glass of predictably excellent sherry from a crystal decanter, and went to browse through the books.

I was twenty-three pages into a late-seventeenth-century Italian work on the doges of Venice when Veronica came back.

“Sorry to have been so long, Mary. Where’s Miles?”

I closed the book over my finger. “Ronnie, your Miles is off taking the cure.”

“What are you talking about?”

I told her briefly what had taken place.

“That was all? As simple as that?”

“A beginning, perhaps, nothing more.”

She burst into tears and threw her arms around me, then flew out of the door and upstairs. I returned to the doges and was on page ninety-two (I found the archaic Italian slow going) when the door opened again. I rose, placed the book back on the shelf, and joined a happier Veronica Beaconsfield than I had seen since Oxford, with colour in her cheeks. I considered a warning, decided against it, and allowed Marshall to help me with my coat.

“I shouldn’t be so happy,” she said on the street. “Iris is dead, and I know that this hope for Miles is only a faint one, but I can’t help it, I feel so very grateful to God that I happened to spot you that morning. Do you want to walk for a while, or take a cab to a restaurant?”

“Let’s walk and see what we find on the way.”

What we found was a corner stall run by a Sicilian that specialised in curry, flavoured buns and sweet spiced coffee. The food was odd, but eatable, and on the way to the Temple we found as well a deeper level of companionship than we had yet come to. Despite the cold and the knowledge that the Temple service was beginning, we continued to walk slowly, arm in arm, talking about our futures.

“And what of you, Mary? Will you become an archetypical Oxford don, or will you marry and have fourteen horrid and brilliant little brats?”

“I cannot envisage the latter, somehow.” I laughed.

“It is stretching the imagination,” she agreed, “although I can imagine you in almost any other situation.”

“Thank you very much,” I said primly.

“Oh, you know what I mean. None of the traditional choices really apply now, do they? Not for people like us, anyway. What about your Mr Holmes?”

“My Mr Holmes is nearly sixty. Rather late to break up bachelorhood.” I kept my voice natural, humorous, mildly regretful.

“I suppose you’re right. It’s too bad, really—he’s dreamy, in an impossible sort of a way.”

I was startled. “You mean you find Holmes attractive?”

“Oh, yes, heaps of s.a. Why, don’t you?”

“Well, yes, I suppose.” Although I shouldn’t have called it ‘sex appeal,’ exactly.

“But you sound surprised.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you—Why does he appeal to you?”

“Oh, he doesn’t, not really. I mean, I’m sure he’d turn out to be totally maddening, in reality. It’s because he’s so unavailable.” She thought for a few steps, and I waited, intrigued. “You know, when I was fifteen—this was just before the War—someone at school had the bright idea of sending the top members of our form to Italy for the spring term. One of the girls had an uncle there, with a huge, dusty villa in the countryside not far from Florence, and the idea was that we hire a charabanc to transport us in every day to view the treasures. Of course, the thing broke down continuously, or the driver was on a drunk, or we rebelled, so in the end I think we spent two days in the city and the rest in the small town three miles from the villa.

“There was a priest in the village—there were several, of course, but one in particular—I don’t know if it was the Mediterranean sun or our glands or just sheer deviltry, but all of us developed a Grand Passion for the priest. Poor man, it must have been so painful to have ten English misses on his heels, mooning about and bringing him fruit and sweets. He was good-looking, in a bony kind of way, very elegant in his black robe, but it was his air of unreachability that was so utterly electrifying. A challenge, I suppose, to break through that ascetic shell and set loose the passion beneath. Because one could feel the passion. My God, you couldn’t miss it, in his eyes and his mouth, but it was under iron control. He kept it directed no doubt to his prayer, but you couldn’t help but want to break his control and see what lay beneath.” She reviewed what she’d said, then laughed in self-deprecation. “At least it seemed that way. He was probably terrifically repressed and scared to death of us, and no doubt he had all sorts of boring habits, as I suppose your Sherlock Holmes would prove to have. Repressed and cerebral, a deadly combination. Still,” she said, blithely unaware of the shattering effect her words were having on me, “there must be plenty of unrepressed and agreeable older men around, the sort who mightn’t normally expect to marry again but would allow themselves to be convinced. Doing their part for England’s ‘surplus women’.”