AFTER THE WORST DAY
Grimy torrents of rain magnified William Murdoch's sense of anguish as he cycled doggedly through the turbulent city center of Toronto. Almost home. Correction: approaching that monthly renewable reservation at the Windsor House Hotel he and his wife Julia presently called "home".
His maelstrom of thoughts must have finally resolved into some blessed state of mental vacuity because he didn't register the explosive impact that must have occurred until several minutes after he made catastrophic acquaintance with a roadside potato stand.
Perhaps an automobile had clipped his bicycle, but the offending vehicle had already sputtered off into the gloom.
By virtue of his preternatural luck, William wasn't seriously injured. But he had a few scrapes, and his good work suit was soiled and ripped beyond repair. Worst of all, the brim of his homburg had been bent out of shape: so much for his reliable friend of a hat.
He gave the dismayed potato vendor his card so they could discuss compensation for the street-mashed potatoes at a later date. Then he put on his crushed hat, and he began to push his broken bicycle home. To the hotel. Through the grimy rain.
It was dusk by the time William slogged across the massive puddle surrounding the delivery entrance of the Windsor House Hotel. His wife Julia came rushing out to meet him before the valet could even take the wreckage of his bicycle from his hands.
"Oh, William-" Julia cupped his face, turning it this way and that to check for damage, heedless of the rain that pelted them both. "What happened?"
"I was struck by...an automobile, I think." William said vaguely, twisting the macerated remains of his hat in his hands.
"Margaret called." Satisfied that her husband had sustained no critical injuries, Julia collected him in her arms, and urged him indoors. "She told me about Hodge."
"It was a murder of a constable." William explained in erratic fits and starts as his head dropped heavily on her shoulder. "One of our own. I had to investigate. Everyone was a suspect, even Giles. All I wanted was for Giles to tell me the truth."
"I know." Julia squeezed him tighter, fending off appalled looks from the swanky denizens of the hotel as she steered her bedraggled husband across the lobby. "Come upstairs and tell me about it."
Though William had begun to shiver violently as soon they crossed into the warmer temperature zone of the hotel, somehow Julia managed to get him into the elevator and up to their suite. William barely seemed to notice what was going on as she helped him out of the drenched shreds of his suit. She did a more thorough check for injuries as he sat on the edge of their bed, wrapped only in a quilt that Mrs. Kitchen had given them as a wedding gift. William duly responded to her questions and followed her finger with his eyes. He didn't seem to be suffering any head injury even if his glum mood bordered on an altered state.
"Why does the truth destroy people?" William asked with a bleak sigh as Julia gently settled him into a bath infused with relaxing oil of lavender.
Julia stepped in to join him, and lay against his chest, thinking carefully before she answered. "Perhaps because people have secrets. That might be what it means to be human."
"It didn't feel right when Giles confessed." William mused as his wife kneaded his tired muscles. "Nothing was won today. There is no victory in condemning an upright man who has always led the Constabulary in maintaining the primacy law."
"But there was an irksome question...?" Julia guessed, .
"Yes. I had to pursue the irksome question." William's voice broke, and he floundered a bit, searching for the sponge.
"You were pursuing the truth." Julia said, pressing against him, hoping he'd feel her weight as the weight of truth. As the weight of inevitability.
"I pursued the truth." William agreed miserably. "...and it led to...Hodge."
"I'm so sorry." Julia fit herself into the crook of William's neck and held him tightly. She hoped this confession would be the worst of it.
"I might as well be sending my own grandfather to prison." William began to ramble furiously, "Hodge would never hurt a fly. He gave me a tour on my first day at Station House 4, and he's been bringing me tea and the Toronto Gazette ever since. He calls me "William", and sometimes even "son"."
Julia felt tears sliding from her own eyes at that point.
"All Hodge was trying to do was protect a good detective, his former partner, from a vile traitor in our own ranks! It was an accident!" William choked out, "Now he will lose his pension, go through the humiliation of a trial, do time in jail all because I couldn't leave well enough alone! He was like my grandfather, Julia!"
Julia considered some platitudes about the law not always being just, but these all seemed too trite and coarse in the face of William's grief. This was a man who was so bereft of kin that he had grasped on to the rough brotherhood of the Constabulary as his family. In the end she just nodded and murmured in agreement at supportive points.
When the bathwater cooled Julia urged William out, dried him off briskly, and helped into a warm flannel nightshirt and socks. After she settled him in bed, she changed into a soft quilted nightgown she wore on cold nights when she wanted to cuddle.
Over William's objections she slipped out of the bedroom, and left him to settle back into the pillows with a copy of Popular Mechanics. A few minutes later room service knocked at the door, and Julia rolled a dinner trolley right up to the bedside.
Julia lifted the silver cover from the repast with a flourish, "Hot cocoa and snickerdoodles ."
"A sensible dinner." William couldn't help smiling as Julia set up the tray across his lap. He held the tray steady as Julia slipped into her side of the bed and snuggled up next to him.
" Life in the hotel isn't so bad after all, is it?" Julia teased William. "This chocolate is so delicious it might be a sin."
"Maybe after I wrangle the matter out with Father Clemens in church tomorrow." William shrugged ruefully. Perhaps noble austerity was more of a thing for youth.
" I could help you release some tension, too." Julia suggested as she tipped her head up to kiss the underside of his jaw, and she felt a tremor run through him in response.
"I'd appreciate that." William granted, trying to sound casual. Marriage had only recently given him the opportunity to address his tensions this way, and his rejoinders often entailed an embarrassingly over-eager squeak. But tonight he was so troubled and exhausted that his voice just trailed off into a sort of question.
"Then I might need more room to work." Julia nudged, and William obligingly maneuvered the dinner tray back on to the trolley.
"I've never told you much about my studies with Freud." Julia straddled William's lap and pushed him back against the pillows, and held him there with one hand as she unbuttoned her nightgown. "Because in your view his theories would abound with wickedness. You know for Freud all motives derived ultimately from sexual urges."
William's eyes widened, and he jerked beneath her slightly. Nothing amused Julia more than shocking her conventional husband with the avant-garde and the uncouth. Bringing up Freud would no doubt horrify as well as titillate him. But Julia adored that vulnerable look in his eyes as William's traditional ideas fought against wish to be modern in every way. In those moments Julia had the urge to tie William to the bed frame and make a prey of him. Maybe another night, though. Tonight he just needed a more gentle approach.
Julia unbuttoned the top buttons of her gown, freed her breasts, and leaned forward to let her husband peruse her intimate flesh. William studied them as he weighed them in his hands, as if assessing his dainty treasure. Then, shooting Julia a grateful look, and then fell to suckling one and then the other as he clutched Julia tightly.
Though Julia could barely move in his embrace, she managed to fumble free his burgeoning erection from his nightshirt, and at the same time he was surreptitiously rutching up her nightgown until his hands were firmly grasping her buttocks. She let him continue to feast on her bosom as she guided him into her, but the astonishment of their intimate union brought him up to gasp for air. He ceased all but to rest his damp forehead against her heart, breathing in measured breaths, presumably trying to refrain from exploding on the spot.
Julia lifted his face to hers for a kiss and rocked him to an easy climax.
Afterward, they turned off the remaining nightstand lamp, and he held her close.
"After careful consideration." William said, compulsively stroking her back , "I like this nightgown even better than the translucent one with all the ribbons you wore during our honeymoon."
"You like Mama Bear better than the Scarlet Seductress? This is unexpected." Julia chuckled.
"I just like holding you in my arms, when you're warm and soft." William whispered, nuzzling into her hair. "And falling asleep together like this."
"By tomorrow all these terrible things will have happened yesterday." Julia promised. And whether William precisely said it or not, Julia knew that her being there made all the difference for him. After all the difficulties of their courtship, William had not let a day go by without somehow reminding Julia that she was the most important person in the world to him. Now, secure in his embrace, Julia realized, perhaps for the first time, that what she had to offer sustained and nourished William in much the same way.