This takes place just after Doyle recovers from his ergot poisoning, but before Stratton finds the threatening message in the file.
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An After Near-Disaster Early Edwardian Picnic
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"Are you sure he's up for this?" Adelaide asked Harry as the small group walked onto the common.
"Couldn't be helped, he said," Harry told her, each of them regarding the friend up ahead of them who was too caught up in watching his children race around to be aware of their conversation. "The kids expressly asked for you and I to come too, and since today's your half day, here we are."
"He's still very peaky looking though."
"You're telling me! And those dark circles under his eyes - "
Just then Doyle interrupted. "Come along, you two!" he called back. The children say they've found the perfect spot."
"Yeah, well trying being us pack mules for a bit and see how quick you are!" Harry shot back good-naturedly. All three adults were loaded down, but since Doyle, after being poisoned by a doctor from Bedlam, had only just got out of the hospital the day before, Harry and Adelaide had left the lighter items to him, namely the blanket and Harry's surprise, which was large and somewhat awkward but very insubstantial. The two of them, meanwhile, were lugging one extraordinarily large basket of food between them, with Harry using his other arm to carry a second basket containing plates, glasses, and cutlery, and Adelaide using hers to carry two bottles of lemon squash.
"Children!" Doyle cried to Mary and Kingsley, "Come and help Miss Stratton with the lemon squash!"
"What? No help for me?" Harry protested. "I'm wounded, Doyle!"
"Aren't you always the one bragging about his superb physical condition?" Doyle asked.
The children snickered as Mary took the bottles from Adelaide. Kingsley instead went up to Harry. "Is that great big basket too heavy for you, Mr. Houdini? Would you like me to carry it for you?"
Adelaide bit her lip trying not to laugh at Kingsley's tone. Harry rolled his eyes, but all he said was, "Nah, it's all right, Kid. I got it." Kingsley smirked, then took a bottle from his sister.
The children, as per whispered instructions from Harry just before they'd set out, had found a clearing that sloped steeply away and gave a wide, clear, grassy path down to the pond. Doyle spread out the blanket and then helped Harry and Adelaide lay out the provisions packed by Mrs. Blake. There were a variety of sandwiches, cold roast chicken, sliced tomatoes and cucumbers with a small pot of salad cream, a small box of devilled eggs, cheese, strawberries and peaches, and a gooseberry tart with clotted cream for dessert.
Worried about the two types of cream spoiling in the sun, they decided to eat first. It was when passing the plate of roast chicken to Kingsley that Doyle's hand shook, causing Harry to raise an eyebrow. Doyle, catching the look, darted his eyes towards the oblivious children and shook his head. Adelaide caught the exchange as well, and both nodded.
After lunch, and a bit of a rest as they all listened to Doyle read War of the Worlds to Mary and Kingsley, the children got restless and declared they wanted their father to play hide and seek with them. Harry quickly jumped up to intervene.
"Actually, I think now is the perfect time for my surprise!" Houdini said, grabbing the large cloth bag he'd insisted they bring. Tugging open the drawstring, he pulled out…
"Corrugated boxboard?" Doyle asked in sceptical bewilderment. "That's your surprise?"
"I don't understand, Mr. Houdini," Mary said.
Harry winked at her and Kingsley. "Just watch." Then, to the whole party's utter amazement, Houdini - piece of board in hand - tore off towards the hill, leapt into a sitting position on the board, and shot down the hill like a runaway train!
Tumbling off at the bottom, he sprung to his feet. "Summer tobogganing!" he shouted, waving his board above his head in triumph.
Mary and Kingsley, screaming with delight, grabbed their own pieces and were off and down the hill before their father and Miss Stratton could blink.
"At least there's not many people about on a Thursday," Doyle said. "Goodness knows how many children we'd be encouraging to break their necks on a Sunday." Visions of trying placate hordes of fist-waving parents danced through his brain.
"Uh oh, I sense trouble," Adelaide warned, spotting the children and Houdini whispering together in a huddle.
"I think you're right," Doyle agreed, as the trio turned their ridiculously conspiracy-minded faces towards the pair at the top of the hill.
"What do you say, my young friends?" Houdini asked as he and the children reached them. "Seems like we got two scaredy-cats here!"
"No, no, no!" Abigail exclaimed, stepping back. "I am not getting grass stains on my best summer frock!"
"Come on, live a little, Addie!" Harry prodded.
"Please, please, please, Miss Stratton?" the children begged. "If you do it, then Father has to!" Mary added.
"Oh no, not me!" Doyle said.
"Please, Father?" Kingsley pleaded. "Please?"
The doctor looked at the constable. The constable looked at the doctor. Both wordlessly admitted their defeat.
"Oh, I'm going to regret this…" Doyle moaned, as his children dragged their father towards a large piece of board.
"Now, I don't think the Doc's up for the necessary run and jump to get up speed, so we're all going to have to give him a push," Harry said as he gleefully manoeuvred Doyle to a seated position.
"Why do you have your eyes closed, Father?" Kingsley asked.
"Push really hard! All together, now!" Harry chanted once they'd all placed their hands on Doyle's back. One! Two! Three! GO!"
"Ohhhhhh NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Doyle cried all the way to the bottom.
The children cheered as they ran and tumbled down after him, with Harry and Adelaide quick on their heels.
"Monsters. Monsters, all of you," Doyle was groaning when they reached him.
"Are you all right?" Adelaide asked, trying not to laugh.
"Didn't break anything, did ya Doc?"
"Did you see how fast you went, Father?" Kingsley asked. "I bet anything you went even faster than Mr. Houdini!"
"Nah, he's too fat," Harry said.
Doyle glared at him as he attempted to sit up. However, Houdini's smirk briefly evaporated as Doyle's eyes suddenly went a bit glassy and the man flopped back down.
"Doyle? You all right?"
"I'm fine," Doyle said, sounding as if he was merely weak with laughter, so Harry hid his suspicions and gracefully (or not so gracefully) gave the other man an out.
"Come on, everybody, let's get the old man on his feet and up the hill," Harry ordered. He and Adelaide grabbed Doyle's hands as the children pushed from behind. Between all of them, they managed to pull Doyle back up the slope and deposit him on the blanket.
"Are you really old, Father?"
"Terribly old, I'm afraid, Kingsley my boy. Next door to being in my dotage, I shouldn't wonder."
"What does that mean, Father?" the little boy asked. "Are you going to be in your dotage tomorrow?"
"Oh no - next weekend at the earliest," Houdini reassured him.
"Don't worry, son. I think I'll be a bit younger by tomorrow."
"Father, that's silly!" Mary put in, as she sat down next to him. "One can't possibly get younger."
"Yeah, Father, that's silly!" Harry agreed, sitting down himself after giving Adelaide a hand. Adelaide gave him a shove.
"So I can never, ever get younger?" Doyle asked plaintively. "Not even if I wish really, really hard?"
Kingsely shook his head, backing up his sister. "No. It's positively impossible."
Doyle laid back and put his hands beneath his head. "For the best then, I suppose. What if I wished myself back into childhood? Who would take care of Mr. Houdini then?"
"He does get into an awful lot of trouble," Adelaide pointed out, forestalling any comment from the magician.
Mary gasped. "What if you wished yourself back to before Kingsley and I were born?"
"Now there's a thought," Doyle said, pretending to consider it.
"Be serious, Father!" Kingsley reprimanded.
"I am! I love you two like mad, but I'm not certain I'd want to relive your infancy. Not when I take into account what absolutely horrid, horrid babies you were. Absolutely frightful little terrors. Neighbours didn't even want to visit, for Heaven's sake! Kept asking if we had demons in the house."
"Were we really horrid babies, Father?" Mary asked.
"Most assuredly."
"But you still loved us?" Kingsley wanted to know.
"Well, you were both attractive little sprogs, at least. Why, we could barely even see Kingsley's devil horns when he was born, and Mary only had little bumps on her forehead."
The children goggled, wondering if their father had suddenly gone mad. Harry and Adelaide, however, were shaking with amusement.
"And you did both have the most beautiful fur," Doyle went on. "Soft as those stuffed bears they sell at Harrod's. Mary's was a dark sky blue and Kingsley, yours was as green as the grass. Other little boys tend to be the colour of spinach someone has sicked up and then left on a plate for a fortnight. Most unappealing!
"Don't be silly, Father," Mary said. "We never had fur."
"Are you certain? I seem to remember it most clearly. That and your charming little fangs. Oh, and you both had such wonderful tails! Pity those fell off, you were both so dexterous with them. Can you imagine? Other people's babies couldn't even get to the trees, let alone climb them. But there the both of you were! Admittedly, it was a bit of a chore getting Mary down every night, though. She just had to hear one note of birdsong and up she'd go, right to the top, and guess whose job it was to go after her?"
"Didn't I go to the top?" Kingsley asked.
"No," Doyle said, poking Kingsley in the belly. "YOU liked to hide in the trees like a bat and fly out to scare me."
By now, Doyle's whole audience was laughing wildly, partly at his descriptions and partly at the shock that he could be so fanciful.
"You still thought we were nice-looking though, Father?" Kingsley asked, snuggling next to Doyle.
"You were both beautiful and wonderful and I couldn't have loved you more. Even with all the crying you did."
"Regular banshees were they, Doc?" Harry asked.
"I didn't cry!" Kingsley insisted. "Well, not that bad."
"Foghorns had nothing on these two for volume. And eating! My word, the eating! You'd scarce credit it, but they wanted to eat every day!" Doyle exclaimed, pretending he'd never heard anything so scandalously unbelievable in his life. "I was driven near to distraction trying to catch enough rats for them to have for their tea!"
"Father!" both children moaned, and collapsed against him. Whatever were you supposed to do with such a parent?
-x-
A short time later, after Houdini and the children went back to their tobogganing (and after Harry had flashed his constable friend a look), Adelaide asked Doyle if he truly was well.
"A tad tired, that's all," Doyle assured her. "The fever and the convulsions took a fair bit out of me, but I'm on the mend."
"And the children?"
Doyle's eyes took on a grave cast for a moment. "They've had a few nightmares these past few nights. I've woken up to one or the other shouting out more than once since I've been home." He turned to her. "But I really want to thank you and Harry for today."
"Thank us? You and Mrs. Blake are the ones who provided us with this wonderful picnic."
"It's more than that." Doyle's worried gaze wandered back to his children. "The three of us… We've been under a great deal of strain for a very long while. Mary and Kingsley have changed so much since Touie fell ill. They're getting older, yes, but too quickly I think, and not just because I'm a father who doesn't want to see his children leave him. They've been so much more serious, so subdued, so much on their best behaviour all the time because they don't wish to worry me. So it's nice to see them run about in the sunshine and enjoy themselves. And it's been nice for me as well. To have a day where everything is almost normal."
"We're glad to have helped, Arthur," Adelaide said gently.
"Hey!" Harry said, suddenly beside them. "I seem to remember someone hasn't had their turn at tobogganing!"
"Oh no!"
-x-
"I have mud stains on my elbows."
"I'll buy you a new dress."
"And…ugh, I think I have half the field in my hair," Adelaide complained, plucking bits of grass out of her now tousled bun.
"I'll buy you new hair. By the way, I think you look charming with your hat all askew over one ear like that," Houdini told her.
"You would!"
"Admit it: you enjoyed it!"
"I did not enjoy it!"
"You did."
"I most certainly did not!"
"Now, now, children," Doyle chided.
"You're setting a bad example for Mary, you know," Harry said. "You don't want her to grow up all prim and proper like all the other girls, do you?"
"Actually, I was rather hoping that, Houdini," Doyle put in.
"Oh please, Doc! You want her to be a bad sport? Nothing but an ornament? Too concerned with keeping her clothes clean to have a bit of a thrill once in awhile?" Harry asked him.
"Well, when you put it like that…"
"A certain level of propriety is still a virtue, Harry," Adelaide argued.
"Holy Cow, do they take everyone in this country and pull them aside when they're twenty-one to amputate their sense of fun?" Houdini danced around and started walking backwards so that he could face the constable. "Come on, you liked it!"
Adelaide couldn't stop a tiny grin from tugging at one side of her mouth. "I may… may," she stressed, holding up a finger at the magician, "have liked it. A little. But that doesn't mean I enjoy being bullied into doing something."
"Distinction noted," Houdini said.
"And no doubt just as promptly ignored," Doyle commented dryly.
"Only when we're discussing you, Doc. You've got kids who still deserve a few happy days in their childhoods."
Doyle stopped and looked at him. "They do at that," he agreed softly, then sighed. "Speaking of which… Mary! Kingsley! Do come along! It's time to go home," he called.
"Can't we slide just a little while longer, Father?" Kingsley pleaded.
"I'm afraid not; Mrs. Blake likely has tea on by now." Doyle turned to his friends. "You will both come, won't you?"
Adelaide made a face. "It won't be rats, will it?"
"Only for the children," Doyle said.
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Author's notes: This is my first fic for "Houdini and Doyle", so I hope you like it. Oh, and I hope I got the name of the housekeeper right. I also couldn't remember if the children called Doyle "Daddy" or "Father", and was especially confused since I want to say Kingsley used both during the Bedlam episode. So I went with "Father" because it suited the time period, and I also wondered if Kingsley only slipped back into the more juvenile "Daddy" when he was scared for Doyle's life. But if I'm wrong, feel free to correct me.