The Mary Russell Companion (11 page)

“I could add that it explains why you never spoke to Dr. Watson about your childhood, as someone so solid and from such a blatantly normal background as he is would doubtless have difficulty understanding the special burdens of a gifted mind. However, that would be using his words, or rather lack of them, so it doesn’t count. Without being too prying, I should venture to say that it contributed to your early decision to distance yourself from women
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, for I suspect that someone such as yourself would find it impossible to have an other than all-inclusive relationship with a woman, one that totally integrated all parts of your lives, unlike the unequal and somewhat whimsical partnership you have had with Dr. Watson.” The expression on his face was indescribable, wandering between amusement and effrontery, with a touch each of anger and exasperation. It finally settled on the quizzical. I felt considerably better about the casual hurt he had done me, and plunged on.

“However, as I said, I don’t mean to intrude on your privacy. It was necessary to have the past as it contributes to the present. You are here to escape the disagreeable sensation of being surrounded by inferior minds, minds that can never understand because they are just not built that way. You took a remarkably early retirement twelve years ago, apparently in order to study the perfection and unity of bees and to work on your magnum opus on detection.
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I see from the bookshelf near your writing desk that you have completed seven volumes to date, and I presume, from the boxes of notes under the completed books, that there are at least an equal number yet to be written up.” He nodded and poured us both more wine. The bottle was nearly empty. “Between yourself and Dr. Watson, however, you have left me with little to deduce. I could hardly assume that you would leave behind your chemical experiments, for example, though the state of your cuffs does indicate that you have been active recently—those acid burns are too fresh to have frayed much in the wash. You no longer smoke cigarettes, your fingers show, though obviously your pipe is used often, and the calluses on your fingertips indicate that you have kept up with the violin. You seem to be as unconcerned about bee stings as you are about finances and gardening, for your skin shows the marks of stings both old and new, and your suppleness indicates that the theories about bee stings as a therapy for rheumatism have some basis. Or is it arthritis?”

“Rheumatism, in my case.
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”

“Also, I think it possible that you have not entirely given up your former life, or perhaps it has not entirely given you up. I see a vague area of pale skin on your chin, which shows that some time last summer you had a goatee, since shaven off. There hasn’t been enough sun yet to erase the line completely. As you don’t normally wear a beard, and would, in my opinion, look unpleasant with one, I can assume it was for the purpose of a disguise, in a rôle which lasted some months. Probably it had to do with the early stages of the war. Spying against the Kaiser, I should venture to say.
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”

The Strand, September 1917

His face went blank, and he studied me without any trace of expression for a long minute. I squelched a self conscious smile. At last he spoke.

“I did ask for it, did I not? Are you familiar with the work of Dr. Sigmund Freud?”

“Yes, although I find the work of the next, as it were, generation more helpful. Freud is overly obsessed with exceptional behaviour: an aid to your line of work, perhaps, but not as useful for a generalist.”

There was a sudden commotion in the flower bed. Two orange cats
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shot out and raced along the lawn and disappeared through the opening in the garden wall. His eyes followed them, and he sat squinting into the low sun.

“Twenty years ago,” he murmured. “Even ten. But here? Now?”
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He shook his head and focussed again on me. “What will you read at University?”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it; I knew just how he was going to react, and I smiled, anticipating his dismay.

“Theology.”

His reaction was as violent as I had known it would be, but if I was sure of anything in my life, it was that. We took a walk through the gloaming to the cliffs, and I had my look at the sea while he wrestled with the idea, and by the time we returned he had decided that it was no worse than anything else, though he considered it a waste, and said so. I did not respond.

Chalk cliffs

The automobile arrived shortly thereafter, and Mrs. Hudson came out to pay for it. Holmes explained our agreement, to her amusement, and she promised to make a note of it.

“I have an experiment to finish tonight, so you must pardon me,” he said, though it did not take many visits before I knew that he disliked saying good-bye. I put out my hand and nearly snatched it back when he raised it to his lips rather than shaking it as he had before. He held on to it, brushed it with his cool lips, and let it go.
[53]

“Please come to see us anytime you wish. We are on the telephone, by the way. Ask the exchange for Mrs. Hudson, though; the good ladies sometimes decide to protect me by pretending ignorance, but they will usually permit calls to go through to her.” With a nod he began to turn away, but I interrupted his exit.

“Mr. Holmes,” I said, feeling myself go pink, “may I ask you a question?”

“Certainly, Miss Russell.”

“How does
The Valley of Fear
end?” I blurted out.

“The what?” He sounded astonished.

“
Valley of Fear.
In
The Strand.
I hate these serials, and next month is the end of it
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, but I just wondered if you could tell me, well, how it turned out.”

Valley of Fear
in
The Strand

“This is one of Watson’s tales, I take it?”

“Of course. It’s the case of Birlstone and the Scowrers and John McMurdo and Professor Moriarty and—”

“Yes, I believe I can identify the case, although I have often wondered why, if Conan Doyle so likes pseudonyms, he couldn’t have given them to Watson and myself as well.”
[55]

“So how did it end?”

“I haven’t the faintest notion. You would have to ask Watson.”

“But surely you know how the case ended,” I said, amazed.

“The case, certainly. But what Watson has made of it, I couldn’t begin to guess, except that there is bound to be gore and passion and secret handshakes. Oh, and some sort of love interest. I deduce, Miss Russell; Watson transforms. Good day.” He went back into the cottage.

Mrs. Hudson, who had stood listening to the exchange, did not comment, but pressed a package into my hands, “for the trip back,” although from the weight of it the eating would take longer than the driving, even if I were to find the interior space for it. However, if I could get it past my aunt’s eyes it would make a welcome supplement to my rations. I thanked her warmly.

“Thank you for coming here, dear child,” she said. “There’s more life in him than I’ve seen for a good many months. Please come again, and soon?” I promised, and climbed into the car. The driver spun off in a rattle of gravel, and so began my long association with Mr. Sherlock Holmes.

              ***

I find it necessary to interrupt my narrative and say a few words concerning an individual whom I had wanted to omit entirely. I find, however, that her total absence grants her undue emphasis by the vacuum it creates. I speak of my aunt.

For just under seven years, from the time my parents were killed until my twenty-first birthday, she lived in my house, spent my money, managed my life, limited my freedom, and tried her worst to control me. Twice during that time I had to appeal to the executors of my parents’ estate, and both times won both my case and her vindictive animosity. I do not know precisely how much of my parents’ money she took from me, but I do know that she purchased a terrace house in London after she left me, though she came to me nearly penniless. I let her know that I considered it payment for her years of service, and left it. I did not go to her funeral some years later and arranged for the house to go to a poor cousin
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.

Mostly I ignored her while she lived with me, which maddened her further. She was, I think, gifted enough herself to recognise greatness in others, but instead of rejoicing generously she tried to bring her superior down to her own level. A twisted person, very sad, really, but my sympathy for her has been taken from me by her actions. I shall, therefore, continue to ignore her by leaving her out of my account whenever possible. It is my revenge.

It was only in my association with Holmes that her interference troubled me. It became apparent in the following weeks that I had found something I valued and, what was worse in her eyes, it offered me a life and a freedom away from her. I freely used my loan privileges with Mrs. Hudson and had run up a considerable debt by the time I came into my majority. (Incidentally, my first act at the law offices was to draw up a cheque for the amount I owed the Holmes household, with five percent more for Mrs. Hudson. I don’t know if she gave it to charity or to the gardener, but she took it. Eventually.) My aunt’s chief weapon against my hours with Holmes was the threat to stir up talk and rumours in the community, which even I had to admit would have been inconvenient. About once a year this would come up, subtle threats would give way to blatant ones, until finally I would have to counterattack, usually by blackmail or bribery. Once I was forced to ask Holmes to produce evidence that he was still too highly regarded, despite having been purportedly retired for over a decade, for any official to believe her low gossip. The letter that reached her, and particularly the address from which it had been written, silenced her for eighteen months. The entire campaign reached its head when I proposed to accompany Holmes to the Continent for six weeks
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. She would very likely have succeeded in, if not preventing my going, at least delaying me inconveniently. By that time, however, I had traced her bank account, and I had no further trouble from her before my twenty-first birthday.

So much for my mother’s only sister. I shall leave her here, frustrated and unnamed, and hope she does not intrude further on my narrative.

             
Two

              The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

             
One came hither, to the school of the bees, to be taught the preoccupations of all-powerful nature…and the lesson of ardent and disinterested work; and another lesson too…to enjoy the almost unspeakable delights of those immaculate days that revolved on themselves in the fields of space, forming merely a transparent globe, as void of memory as the happiness without alloy.
[58]

Three months after my fifteenth birthday Sherlock Holmes entered my life, to become my foremost friend, tutor, substitute father
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, and eventually confidant. Never a week passed when I did not spend at least one day in his house, and often I would be there three or four days running when I was helping him with some experiment or project. Looking back, I can admit to myself that even with my parents I had never been so happy, and not even with my father, who had been a most brilliant man, had my mind found so comfortable a fit, so smooth a mesh. By our second meeting we had dropped “Mr.” and “Miss.” After some years we came to end the other’s sentences, even to answer an unasked question—but I get ahead of myself.