Thanks to Hades Lord of the Dead for the prompt: Holmes in a party hat
...
6th January 1895
Dessert was brought into the dining room, and for some reason this sparked a spirited discussion among the children. My French was not quite good enough to follow a conversation between seven children all shouting at once, but as far as I could tell, the object of the argument was to determine who was the youngest.
Madame Gauthier soon stepped in to restore order. I watched her send her sons and daughters, nephews and nieces back to their places at the table. She had the Holmesian nose, and it was odd to see it on that pink-cheeked, good-natured face. I hadn't quite worked out how exactly she was related to Holmes, but it was a very distant connection.
Holmes himself, sitting to my right, had been engaged in desultory conversation with Madame Gauthier's brother-in-law - he who had first written asking for Holmes' help. At the commotion they had broken off speaking, and now Holmes turned to me.
"La galette des rois," he murmured, nodding at the cake, which now sat in pride of place on the table.
"Ah," I said, though I still didn't understand why the children were so excited.
I sat back, content to simply wait and see. I was in a relaxed, indolent mood. The room was full of good cheer, good food, and good company. This last case had almost been the straw that broke the camel's back, but it was over now at last, thank goodness.
When Holmes had first received the letter from his distant cousins, appealing for his help after the mysterious disappearance of one of their number, I had been dismayed. Holmes was exhausted, at the end of a difficult, month-long case. He was in a rather peculiar mood throughout our journey to France and our stay there, and even the ease with which he located the young lad, when all previous efforts had failed, was not enough to cheer him up. When Madame Gauthier invited us to stay a few days longer for the feast of the Epiphany, I had expected Holmes to refuse. To my surprise, he accepted. I had rather been hoping the party might bring him out of himself, but so far the festive atmosphere had had no effect on him. Had he been in one of his habitual black moods, of course, no evening of mere good cheer could have helped, but this was something different.
Now, I watched as the smallest child, a three-year old in pigtails and a festive cotton smock, was sent under the table. Egged on by the adults, she pointed at random to different corners of the table, directing the distribution of slices of cake up above. Finally, I was beginning to understand the process. One of the slices must contain some small object, rather in the manner of the sixpence in our Christmas pudding.
"A broad-bean," Holmes said in my ear. He had been following the path of my thoughts, of course.
The distribution of dessert took a long time, with so many people at table, but finally we were all sitting with a slice of golden brown pastry before us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Holmes break into his slice of galette with his fork, and then hesitate.
For a moment I thought he might hide the bean, or even swallow it, but the sharp-eyed young lady opposite him - daughter of a neighbour, I believed - had already sent up an excited cry.
"La feve ! C'est lui qui a la feve !"
I knew Holmes well enough to see he was extremely reluctant to rouse himself from his sombre mood, but he was always courteous above all else, and courtesy obliged him to go along with the ritual. Soon he was wearing a crown fashioned by the children from coloured crepe paper, and designating as his queen the little girl who'd distributed the slices.
After we'd eaten, space was cleared for music and dancing. Holmes, no longer the centre of attention, met my gaze then and gave me a wry smile.
"Very fetching, Holmes," I said with a smirk, nodding at his lopsided crown. He scowled at me, but there was no heat in it.
An hour or so later, I looked up from my conversation with the local doctor and was surprised to see Holmes, on the far side of the room, laughing aloud.
"What an extraordinarily pleasant evening," I said later, as we climbed the stairs at the end of the evening. "It brings back happy memories of childhood."
Holmes hummed in a noncommittal way.
"Didn't you once say you spent all your childhood Christmases in France?" I said then, struck by a sudden memory.
"My branch of the family were never very keen on festivities," Holmes said in an offhand manner.
But there was no bitterness in his voice, and his sombre mood seemed to have lifted.
As we said goodnight at the door to my room, I noticed he was still wearing his party hat.