A Study in Lavender: Queering Sherlock Holmes (16 page)

Holmes held up his hand and said, “Young Mr Tanner, be that as it may, I will take your case and I will try to find your lover. But I have an inflexible condition you must meet in return. In view of the tale you just told us, you will suspend practising your profession until I either produce Eric or admit that I cannot. Once I do, we will discuss the matter again.”

“Agreed.”

“Good. Tell me about Eric Selden.”

“I should take up my previous story where we left it. Financially, the departure of Mr Kent left me in the position he had predicted. The interest from my investments would give me enough for the necessities of life. However, my observations of the young men in the hotel lobbies and restaurants made me understand immediately the significance of Mr Kent’s remarks about them. I followed their example. As I said earlier, the work is not unpleasant. Nor is it dangerous, since I am careful about disease. I have been able to bring in a steady income that allows me to live decently while reinvesting my interest and even adding to the principal. My security steadily increases.

“I found that the young men whose ranks I was joining had a kind of fellowship. At the end of an evening, those without clients would sometimes go home together, in a friendly sort of way without pretending to be in love. I usually would not do this, and I never brought anyone to my own room, although I did make friends by being helpful in small ways and by referring to others any clients I didn’t need. Before that birthday, I would have been astonished to learn that so many exceptionally attractive young men would be available to me and that I would forego them. But, after the emotional tangle with Mr Kent, I felt that if being with men was a business, then let it stay a business. I didn’t want more than that.

“The one thing that did continue to give me great satisfaction was my room, and its books and its piano and the view of the tree outside its window. I kept it up carefully and bought more books.

“Two years went by.

“Sometime in February, after my eighteenth birthday, a young man named Eric Selden appeared among our number. He was remarkably like me in every respect – height, weight, age, colouring. I saw him and admired him, thinking that whoever had made me had, to the same specifications, done a far better job in making Eric. In odd moments, I longed for him. But no chance came that brought us together for more than a word or two. I chastised myself for not making such a chance happen. He too seemed to want it. But I was set in my ways. We remained apart.

“In that year, 1892, you remember there was a depression in the stock market. That meant fewer travellers in the hotels and less money to spend on hiring a young man for an evening. Every night, more of us failed to find clients. I was not bothered. I got more clients than most. I knew that stocks would eventually rise, and I had money to tide me over. Each evening, if I didn’t find a client early, then, rather than wait with increasing futility, I would go home, make my own dinner inexpensively, and play my piano or happily curl up in my chair with a book.

“One night in early June, I was in the lobby of the Northumberland Hotel, in exactly that situation – no client and no inclination to bore myself in waiting.

“I got up to leave and found Eric in front of me. He gave me the most lovely smile.

“‘Hello, Tanny,’ he said. ‘You know, for the sake of our
amour propre
, we ought to treat each other even more kindly than we treat our clients… What? No nice dinner tonight? No nice afterwards? Merely because no stockbroker buys it for us? …I propose that you and I offer each other dinner. We could pretend – just pretend, mind you – that we’re each worthy of the other’s attention, and then afterwards discuss the possibility of afterwards.’

“His wording in this speech was arch, as was his careful elocution. While he spoke, the small beginning of a laugh quivered in his cheek muscles. Friendliness flickered in his lovely eyes.

“He must have known my reputation for solitude – that, given the slightest excuse, I would turn him down. So, he humorously provoked me. He played a game with me and coaxed me to join in.

“I marvelled at how beautiful he was.

“We were close enough that I could smell the fresh scent of his male body, and I drew it in. He observed this and he replied with a subtle sniff in my direction and then a joking nod and a slight lift of his eyebrows, indicating his approval.

“Then he returned to his comically affected style of earlier: ‘Might I suggest – not for ourselves, but solely, only, merely for the sake of the pretending – that we start with an apéritif?’

“We laughed, and the phrase ‘for the sake of the pretending’ became our watchword for the evening, to be repeated with mock earnestness and grammatical variations.

“Most of our talk was more substantial. I’d found that, with clients, the literacy Mr Kent taught me should be used in moderation. A man may seek it in a dinner partner, but too much of it scares people. Eric, though, was as literate as I, and he knew Greek and Latin. We had no need to hold back but happily followed wherever the conversation led us.

“We spent a fine dinner together, pretending to pretend we would care better for each other than we would for a client.

“Afterwards, for pretending, I invited Eric to my room. He was the only person in two years to have been with me there.

“In the morning, waking to find him was like waking to sunlight flooding past the green leaves of my tree outside and in through the window. He gave me a sense of ease that I now discovered I’d sorely lacked. In another way, though, I wasn’t sure I was ready for more. Nor was I sure, from the light-hearted way he acted, that Eric was ready, not for anything lasting.

“I joked that he was a swindler who’d cheated his way into my bed. He replied with a show of indignation, and he offered to reimburse me the usual fee for a night of my company.

“After breakfast, we gave a friendly kiss and he left, but with no specific plan to meet again.

“I didn’t see Eric for several days. One evening, I was entering a restaurant with a client and he was at a table with a client of his own. We gave discreet, friendly nods. I manoeuvred to get a seat that would afford me the pleasure of looking at him. He looked at me in return.

“We went on in a contradictory way for a few months. When together, we were happy; but we would make no arrangement for another meeting. In our random meetings there was often no chance to talk. Each time we parted, I would daydream about him and then would become anxious if the intervals without him lasted too long.

“Late that summer, 1892, word circulated about a grand party, organized by several wealthy inverts, to take place on September 10th. It was to be held on the river, atop a beautifully decorated barge drawn up, for privacy, next to a warehouse that would be deserted on a Saturday night.

“The mood among inverts at that time was restless. Many remained deeply angry that a strident bigot like Henry Labouchère had succeeded in attaching the ‘gross indecency’ provision to the Criminal Act of 1885. The vagueness of its language allowed prosecutors and juries to send us to prison essentially just for being inverts – just for existing – since no clear standards of conduct or of proof were required. It increased our susceptibility to blackmail. Later, we had to regard it as a kind of victory when the government was able to soundly defeat the same Labouchère’s attempt to expose them for protecting the inverted aristocrats and royalty in the Cleveland Street scandal. Now, some were eager to press back by joining defiantly in a party that, although not publicized, would be less restrictive than any previous event.

“I regarded such a mass gathering as likely to provoke the police. Still, the party was the fashionable rage. Everyone talked about it. Everyone planned to attend. Services like mine were in demand, and dizzying fees were bid for us by gentlemen who wanted to appear with someone at their side more elegant than the scruffy boys from the streets or the brothels. Against my better judgment, I agreed to go.

“At the party I was in a group with Eric and our two clients. As I looked around, my feeling of danger increased. The only routes onto or off of the barge were provided by two gangplanks drawn up at either end. It was clear that if policemen came down them, we would be trapped. Diving into the water would be useless for me since I could not swim and would only have to climb back onto the barge. Eric agreed. Our clients, however, reassured us that, since there had been no public announcement of the party, the police would never attack a group that included so many of the noble and the influential, whom they would then have to explain away.

“As the evening went on, the behaviour of some guests grew unrestrained. My anxiety increased, for surely the police had smuggled informants among us. Eric and I confronted our clients. We told them we were leaving in any case, and they were free to come with us or stay behind. They chose to stay, ridiculing us for our timidity.

“We hurried to one of the gangways. Before we were on it, we were already too late. Policemen appeared at its top. We tried to run back, but the crowd was thick. A constable captured Eric. I would not to leave him. In my desperation, I saw that the wooden crossbeams embedded in the dock side offered perhaps enough handholds and footholds to enable two agile young men to climb out. The policeman briefly left off his grip on Eric as he lunged to catch another victim. I bumped the policeman with my shoulder, knocking him over the side and into the water. Then I grabbed Eric’s hand.

“We scrambled to the top of the dock wall and across the railroad tracks that ran parallel. Other partygoers saw us and emulated our example. Several fell, and those who reached the top were promptly chased by policemen. The only place Eric and I could go was into the warehouse. With the others after us, we retreated up the stairs to the second story and then up again and onto the roof. The building was huge and filled with crates and merchandise, so there were many places to hide. However, the police searched systematically, and from time to time we would hear shouts and a scuffle as they made one capture after another. It would only be a matter of time before they found Eric and me.

“At the end of the warehouse lay a second one. From a distance, the space between them looked not too great to jump. We ran the length of the roof toward it, with Eric in the lead. His athletic ability, there and when we had climbed the wall, was thrilling. As we got closer, the jump seemed impossibly wide. I called to Eric not to try it. He ignored me, sped up, and leapt safely. He turned to watch me. I was not confident I could do the same, but I never found out. Before I got to the edge, I stepped through a rotten board at full speed. My ankle twisted viciously and, suppressing my scream, I fell flat on the roof surface.

“I signalled urgently to Eric to go ahead without me and save himself. He did move off a distance. But then he turned back toward me, running fast. I knew what he was about to do. At worst he would fall between the buildings to the ground. At best he would be stranded on this side with me, awaiting the police. I called, ‘No, Eric!’

“Again he jumped successfully. He sat down at my side and cradled my head in his lap.

“Grief overcame me. The penalty from the law would be bad enough. But more, I was touched that Eric, who I’d thought only wanted casual friendship, had sacrificed himself for me. Now we would be torn from each other.

“I said, ‘Eric, I know it’s late to tell you this. I never sensed you wanted to hear it. But I love you so deeply. I would happily spend my life with you.’

“He smiled down at me. ‘You silly goose. I’ve been waiting, keeping my distance, and patiently longing for you to come out of hiding to say exactly that. I’ve loved you hopelessly from the first time I saw you, Tanny, from the first time I heard your voice. There could never be anyone else.’

“We could hear that the police had spread their search to the second floor and would need only one more stage to reach us.

“It was impossible that Eric and I could be having this conversation there, of all places. My ankle was in extreme pain. We were dirty, out of breath, in torn clothes, helpless on the broken roof of a warehouse by the river.

“I said, ‘How could someone as beautiful as you love me?’

“He said softly, ‘Again, Tanny, you’re confused. It’s you who are beautiful – inside and out.’

“I laughed. ‘I disagree, but perhaps this is an argument we could fruitfully have on another occasion – when we’re not in imminent danger.’

“’We do need to do something – and immediately.’

“But it was hard to see a solution.

“Do you know the sounds a railroad train makes as it starts in motion? The engine pushes back into the other cars and causes a clank as each pair successively collides, thereby ensuring their connection. Then it reverses and pulls them away with a second series of clanks as the couplings extend. There is a slow, metal grinding noise as wheels first turn along the track. We heard that series of sounds begin on the long side of the warehouse, between it and the river.

“Eric warned, ‘Tanny, that’s it! Hurry!’

“He helped me stand. With my arm across his shoulders, we hobbled to the edge of the roof, where its border slanted down. He had us sit, several feet apart, our legs over the side. The train crept along below us, very slowly still. He told me to push myself off after him and he would catch me. But I must do it just at the right moment, after he was settled but before the train carried him away. He waited for a tall freight car and then he slipped off onto it and I followed. There was again a pain in my ankle, and I had to swallow my cry. Eric grabbed for me and steadied my position on the car roof.