A/N: This story (in five parts) is meant to fill in the missing scenes merely alluded to in my last story, The Tell-Tale Heart. It can be read alone, but I would recommend reading The Tell-Tale Heart (A Victorian Sherlolly story) first.
To summarise, the characters are BBC Sherlock in appearance and some degree of manner, with a fair selection of Victoriana thrown in. Sherlock Holmes is a famous and feted detective, John Watson his biographer and friend and Molly Hooper a poor mortuary assistant at Great Scotland Yard, with plenty of potential. There has already been a spark between her and Mr Holmes.
If you have already read it, then let us commence - the story is afoot!
Emma x
"Now Watson, the fair sex is your department," said Holmes,
with a smile, when the dwindling frou-frou of skirts
had ended in the slam of the front door. "What was the
fair lady`s game? What did she really want?"
(The Second Stain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Part one: The Secondary Appointment
24th December, 1895
Baker Street,
London.
A quarter of two o`clock.
"Will there be a reply, Mr Holmes, sir?"
Fresh snow dapples the unruly curls of Wiggins as he bounces impatiently upon my doorstep, attempting to retain the warmth acquired from his run across town. Truly, the December air holds its chill as evening seems a mere lamplighter`s reach away, and I can hardly fail to note the threadbare appearance of his muffler and scarcity of winter woollens (street boys are rarely warm and always hungry).
Thus, I attempt focus again on the neatly penned missive, slightly smudged by an errant snowflake, and inwardly curse my sudden lack of focus. I know there should be a reply, hastily scrawled and passed to Wiggins to return to the sender of this message, and I most certainly do not wish to keep the poor creature waiting upon me a moment longer than necessary in this climate, however …
`I should like to request a further visitation upon you this afternoon, if convenient. – M. Hooper.`
I read the fourteen words (and signatory) for most probably the seventh time, and vacillate again. Wiggins hops from one foot to the other, attempting to warm his chilblained toes. The boots Mrs Hudson passed onto him are already half a size too small.
"Need more light, Mr Holmes?" His lantern (though scarcely needed) is held aloft, casting a faint sheen of amber across the rough paper. It smells of formaldehyde. And soap.
The penmanship is hasty, yet compressions show firm purpose and decisiveness; a certain strength of character and aura of confidence in their mission; a request, yet n`er an expectation of rebuttal.
And suddenly, I find I am nodding down at the note, and that I have an answer for the impressively patient Baker Street Irregular on my doorstep (Mrs Hudson, being inordinately embroiled in the fate of her culinary preparations, has temporarily refused all butlering duties until her oven and her pantry are replete) and I scribble upon the paper, folding it and bidding him away with a tuppence for his trouble before I can amend my choice.
Three little words.
`And if inconvenient? SH.`
It is, therefore, with unrestrained glee that I meet little Billy the Page upon the stair, barely twenty-five minutes later, and exchange with him a shilling (!) for Wiggins` promptness for the folded note (further amended with the blue-black ink of a woman`s hand).
`Then I shall come all the same. M. Hooper.`
And as I shroud it away into the pocket of my waistcoat, I find I can do nought but smile.
~x~
Part two: An Evocation of Loss
24th December, 1895
221B Baker Street.
A half hour after four o`clock
As I raise my gloved hand to the bell pull, I inhale deeply (despite the bite of the cold air entering my oesophagus), and momentarily close my eyes against the polished blackness. I have cause to be familiar with the frontage of 221B Baker Street since it is my second visit today, yet my current, unescorted visit serves to fuel my heart with trepidation, and there is a slight element of hesitation as I ring the bell and throw my fates recklessly into the mercies of a cold December afternoon. As my dear father would have said, without venture there can be no gain. What on earth would that fine and decent man do if he were here today to see the plight of his daughter, calling unattended upon a man she has barely known one week.
What would he think of such a man?
A small, flaxen-haired boy answers the door, and I am momentarily relieved to note a lack of landlady (housekeeper?) to make imagined judgements. He nods solemnly, taking my name and leading me along the darkened hallway, lined with green carnationed wallpaper and gas mantles already lit and flickering; there are seventeen stairs leading upwards and they could easily be a perilous mountainside. I adjust the small package in my hand, wrapped in brown paper and mortuary string, and prepare to ascend.
I pass a well-populated coat rack, complete with a large and familiar black greatcoat, top hat and muffler and several walking canes. An odd familiarity suddenly strikes me as I tread upon the fourth stair (the creaky one, as I now recall) and a forceful and redolent image pushes its way into my brain. A polished, blackened mahogany cane with filigree silvered top (I turn to see it once more amongst others in the rack), almost identical to my father`s favoured stick and long since sold to raise funds for those left behind. I turn hurriedly to face the retreating back of the young Page, but it is already too late and I am there again; at his ending.
~x~
Soft and muffled, the sobbing is impossible to either ignore or assist, and the heavy, dust-laden curtains block out the bright July sunshine in a manner so alien and bizarre as to be almost offensive to my already over-stimulated brain. I want to rip them open and show the Lord in his heaven this scene; my father – my beloved protector, the man who would lift me high above his shoulders and tell me how I could achieve so much in this world if my spirit was true and honest – struggling; gasping; drowning in plain sight, and there being nothing anyone stood around him in that darkened room could do to offer relief or succour. Recent months have been witness to a cruel and crushing ebbing of the strength of such a once powerful and charismatic man. By this time, he has been barely able to lift a kerchief to his face or a cup to his lips, and the look in the eyes that sought mine betrayed a sense of fear, confusion and shame – what is this? How can this be? Hands, pale and ghost-like, clutching starched white sheets (how are they so bright in such tenebrous circumstances?) and the smell of carbolic, antiseptic and the miasma of despair, all pervasive and penetrating all inhabitants of that dreadful chamber.
I kneel beside a bed (a huge receptacle for such a tiny, shrunken patient) and I grasp that hand, attempting to imbue it with my own warmth and life force; a tether to the world.
"You must stay," I whisper.
"Little Molly, I cannot." A voice of crackling, dried leaves, yet a voice with strength of purpose.
"I cannot afford your loss." A solitary tear trembles and threatens to spill, opening untold floodgates. "It cannot be borne."
My throat is tight and my body a stretched wire; taught and pulled to an almost impossible tension.
He smiles at me. My daddy.
"I have to go," he says.
And that is all.