The Mary Russell Companion (32 page)

LRK
: How so?

MRH
: I have decided that there is a distinct advantage in being thought fictional.  We have had considerably fewer American hiking boots tramping through our garden since that belief has taken hold.

LRK
: So that’s good, then.

MRH
: Yes, it was a pleasant discovery, although it still rather takes me aback when I discover that I am fictional.

LRK
: [Laughs] I’m glad I could help.

MRH
: So, you were saying it is the anniversary of our little joint venture.  Are you intending to mark it in some way?  Apart from coming here to visit, that is?

LRK
: Yes, there are a number of events going on this year.  Not the least of which is a Companion volume, with background information on the various, er, novels.

MRH
: A whimsical compendium?  What a good idea.

LRK
: Of course, in it we will treat the stories as…

MRH
: As what?

LRK
:  As, well, your… memoirs.

MRH
: [Silence]

LRK
: Since most of the people who will be interested in it are your enthusiastic readers, you see—and they’re much more interested in playing “the Game” than in analyzing fiction.

MRH
: [Silence]

LRK
: [Hurriedly] Really I don’t believe you’ll find it makes the least bit of difference, to you personally.  It’s like any public figure—the fantasy life of the fans takes over, and becomes more important than any firm and verifiable fact.  I mean, take this house of yours: you’re not on any map.  The only people who find you have more or less stumbled across the garden wall, isn’t that right? 

MRH
: Well, true enough.

LRK
: In fact, you and I once had a laugh about how anyone wanting to find Sherlock Holmes would be better served by reversing any map built from the information in your memoirs.

MRH
: I remember.

LRK
: Basically, other than you living on the Sussex Downs, the clues you provide are so deceptive, a person might as well set out blindfolded from the Eastbourne pier.

MRH
: I believe a few of them may have tried that.

LRK
: So, can you tell your, er, fans—

MRH
: ‘Readers’?

LRK
: Yes, that’s better: your readers.  Can you tell those who read this interview something about—

MRH
: I trust you are not about to ask me about my personal life?

LRK
: Good God, no.  I won’t make that mistake a second time.  No, I was going to say that they would be interested to hear something about your life at present.  What you and Mr. Holmes are doing these days?

MRH
: Holmes and I?  Yes, let me see.  Many of our activities cannot be spoken of.

LRK
: Because you and he are private people, we all understand that.

MRH
: I suppose, yes.  But I was thinking more of the Official Secrets Act.  We are legally bound to silence on much of what occupies us, these days.

LRK
:  You mean…espionage sorts of things?

MRH
:  Some of it could be categorized as such.

LRK
: Really?

MRH
:  You think us too antique to be of use to Her Majesty’s Government?

LRK
:  Oh no, no. 
I
don’t, not for a minute.  But I’m surprised the government doesn’t assume you and he are…

MRH
:  The phrase is, I believe, ‘past it.’

LRK
: Exactly.

MRH
.  It took some persuading.  I had even to learn to knit in order to convince them that there is no person more invisible and less suspicious than a white-haired lady.

LRK
:  Well, I guess I can see that.  But what about Holmes?  Surely he doesn’t knit?

MRH
: He mumbles.  A frayed collar, a smear of egg-yolk on the lapel, and a habit of muttering aloud enable a person to listen in on any conversation in the world.  Men who are rabidly paranoid about satellite cameras and listening devices in the trees will sit down on a park bench in full hearing of an old coot with uncombed hair.  Of course, it does mean that Holmes must remain unkempt for rather longer than he cares to.  But if it is in service to Her Majesty, he will do so.

LRK
:  That picture may entirely change my attitude toward the homeless.

MRH
:  I am glad.  And now, I fear I must end this.  I have a commitment on the docks in Portsmouth.  It would appear that drugs smugglers are often absurdly vulnerable to the soft appearance of grandmotherly types.  I will need to excavate my knitting project from the laboratory before I leave.  Tell me, Ms King: do infants actually wear fuzzy woolen sweaters any more?

LRK
: Probably not.  But I don’t imagine that a drug smuggler knows that.

MRH
: Very true.  Thank you for coming to visit.  And do please wish my... readership many happy returns of the day.

LRK
: And a happy twentieth anniversary to you, as well.  Good luck with your drug smuggler.

MRH
: Luck, my dear Ms King, has little to do with it.

Five:

Addenda, I-III

My mind was both empty and occupied, all of the thoughts buzzing far below the surface.  (
Language of Bees
)

*

When Holmes stoops to wheedle, God help us all. (
Justice Hall
)

*

The night air moved up the Downs, washing over the sea and orchard.  I breathed it in, and knew that henceforth, loneliness would smell to me like fermenting apples.  (
Language of Bees
)

I

Recipes

(from Mrs Hudson)

Perhaps to acknowledge that she was not always the most forthcoming co-respondent in the above interview, a few days after the above conversation took place, Laurie received an envelope containing the following recipe.  One does not need to ask if Miss Russell herself attempted the cookies: this is a woman who can reduce a tin of Heinz beans to carbon in minutes.

The recipe, which the good landlady converted to American terms for the purpose, makes tongue-in-cheek reference to “The Naval Treaty”, in which Holmes compares that earlier Mrs Hudson’s idea of breakfast to those of a Scotchwoman.

A Scotchwoman’s Shortbread Biscuits

Cream together ½ pound (1 cup) warm butter with ¾ cup dark brown sugar.  Work in 2 ¼ cups flour—slightly less if the mixture is too dry to hold together.

Chill briefly, then divide in half.   Pat out in two 8-10” circles on a large baking sheet (thinner for crisper, thicker for more cake-like).  Cut through with a knife into eight equal wedges, but do not separate the pieces.  Prick all over with a fork, and bake in a slow oven (325°) until golden.

Re-trace the cuts on the circles while still hot, then break apart when cool.

Better the next day, if that is possible.

Scones

(flavoured with outrage, optional—see “My Story”)

Mix together:

2 cups flour

4 t. baking powder

¾ t. salt

2-4 T. sugar (depending on whether scones are to be sweet or savoury)

Cut into the flour mixture:

1/3 cup butter

When the mixture looks like coarse breadcrumbs, add any flavourings (handful of grated cheese with herbs, and green onions; lemon rind; dried cranberries, currents, or blueberries, etc).  Beat together:

¾ cup milk or cream

1 egg

Stir into the dry mixture.  Turn out onto a floured surface and knead three or four times, then roll out to ¾ inch thick and cut into circles with cutter, or pat into one large circle and cut that into wedges. 

Bake at 400 degrees 15 minutes, or until golden.  Can brush the top with egg and sprinkle with coarse sugar before baking, if desired.

Some years ago, Miss Russell asked the original Mrs Hudson to write down her thoughts on two of the beverages most in demand in the Holmes household: tea, and coffee.  What follows are transcriptions of Mrs Hudson’s recorded thoughts.

Mrs Hudson’s Tea

They tell me tea came to this country just before the Great Fire of London.  I wouldn’t know about that, but I do know that everyone drinks it, and everyone has a different idea about it.  I remember when Mr Holmes had some guests who nearly came to blows over tea.  One of them was Mr Blair, who wrote a couple of very uncheerful books, one of them about animals.  He sat down at my kitchen table and asked me about my herb garden, and told me all about a newspaper article he was writing, about how to make a nice cup of tea. I agreed with most of what he had to say, even though he was just a little, how’d you say, pedantic about it?  Seemed to me there was enough of that in this house.

Anyway.  I’ll start by saying that I do not have tea bags in my kitchen.  I know that Certain Others keep tea bags in other parts of the house, but in my kitchen, proper tea is used.

My own favourite tea is Assam, but then, I drink it with milk.  If I have a guest who prefers lemon, I usually use Darjeeling, a more delicate leaf.

The best tea-pot is of earthenware or china, rather than silver, and must be heated beforehand, either with boiling water or setting it on the hob.  As for quantities of tea, that is a matter of taste, but I begin with a teaspoonful for each cup, and go from there.  Again, no silk bags or metal strainers.

Carry the teapot to the kettle, so as to surprise the dry leaves with the water.  Immediately top the teapot, then cover snugly with a padded cosy.  Let sit for three or four minutes, then uncover and wobble the pot around a little to mix it.  One can stir it, but not before guests: a gentle gesture towards a wall painting or two does the trick nicely.

I prefer my tea without leaves, so I use a silver strainer.  I also prefer a taller cup to the shallow, thin, porcelain of most tea-sets (in fact, call me uncivilised, but I admit that when I’m alone, I prefer a mug.) 

The other question is the milk.  The best kind is slightly skimmed, since too much fat in milk chokes the tea.  And I understand that there’s great disagreement over whether one puts the milk into the cup first, or pours it into the tea.  The Holmeses had an old friend out once who told me a very complicated joke about pre-lactarian and post-lactarian, which seems to have to do with the Fall of Man.  Oxford men often make jokes that are difficult to understand.

So, that takes us to tea, pot, cups, and milk.  The only question left is sugar.  If a person likes the flavour of tea, why add sugar? 

However, there are times when a cup of tea is curative.  On a day when the cold penetrates the bones, or the news is bad, or when a client of the Holmeses comes to the door having suffered a shock—well, that is when a spoon of sugar can settle the soul, a little.

Mrs Beeton’s coffee mill and kettle, 1923

Coffee, the greater stimulant

If tea has many interpretations, it is nothing to coffee.  Mr Holmes, truth be known, prefers his coffee boiled in a pan over his Bunsen burner in the laboratory, I don’t call that mud coffee.

One benefit of an interesting and wide-spread collection of friends such as the Holmeses have made over the years is that many of them send lovely presents.  Wine from a tiny French vineyard, lengths of Japanese silk—and once a month, a packet of green coffee beans from a place called Yemen.  It arrives in a diplomatic bag, a thing all stamped with red ink.  These tiny little knots that look like nothing and come mixed with pebbles and dirt clots, but that cook into the most glorious odour in the pan I use for roasting.

Water should be not quite boiling, and like the tea, the pot itself should be warmed.  I’ve used many coffee pots over the years, some of them contraptions that belong upstairs in the laboratory, but the one that I go back to is the press pot.  It leaves a little grit in the bottom of the cup, but the drink is all the better for it.

And personally, I like the richness of cream in coffee, but then, unlike Others, I only drink a cup or two a day, not a couple of dozen. 

II

Lines to Tibet:

W. H. King and the Dalai Lama

A lengthy project such as the Russell Memoirs invariably upturns any number of odd coincidences and points at which the lives of the principals intersect.  One is the heavy use of the Green Man figure (
God of the Hive
) in the chapter house of Southwell Minster, where Laurie King’s husband spent his early days as a rector.  Another point of intersection is found in far-off Tibet.