I lifted an eyebrow. "Well," I said to nothing in particular.
Watson noticed my questioning look. "A schoolgirl friend of hers from Lowell wanted to meet her, Elizabeth Rogers. Just arrived from the United States after a three year sojourn in the country where she promptly fell in love and married a prospector from the California gold fields. They are going to Covent-garden Market for some coffee," Watson explained.
"Obviously a habit Miss Rogers acquired from America," I added.
The Doctor gave a distracted 'Hum' and a slight nod, and he lay back further into the settee, stretching his legs and putting both hands behind his head. His blue eyes wandered around the room, the solemn gaze passing me a moment and finally resting on the floor.
I rose from the chair by the fireside, "Would you like some brandy?" I offered.
"Yes, please," he replied, eyes still bent on the carpet.
I went to the low cabinet and poured a glass of brandy from the decanter. "There is some tobacco on the old Persian slipper, if you like," I said.
"No," Watson said. "That is, I brought some cigarettes." He pulled a silver cigarette case from his pocket. It was of a different style than the one he usually used, slightly wider and with a different design embossed on the cover.
"What happened to the old one?" I asked, referring to the plain silver case with the engraving within. The one I bought in a rare fit of magnanimity after one of our minor investigations. There was no genuine reason why I did it; I simply needed to give everything I had to the man, even if I knew he would refuse.
He would accept a cigarette case, though, in the name of blasted camaraderie. Those were the times when if John Watson were to tell Sherlock Holmes to jump off Westminster Bridge and onto the Thames he would have done so merrily.
He would do it still, and with equal merriment.
"I left it at the surgery," he said, pulling a cigarette and placing it between his lips. "This one is from Mary's father," he mumbled.
I handed him the snifter. "It's beautiful," I said, pulling my matchbook from my trouser pocket. "Here, let me-" I pulled a match and struck it on the side surface, the instant reaction between the phosphorous and chlorate producing a small flame. Watson placed both hands on the settee, tilting his chin to me and I brought the flame to the tip of his cigarette, which began to glow red from the heat.
I kept my eyes fixed on the match, but I could feel his gaze directed to my face. I ventured to look at him, and when I did, his eyes flicked away to the side and he pulled away from the fire. I shook the match, and watched it as the smoke rose in whorls.
"Thank you," he said.
I migrated to the bow window, watching the flurry on the street below. The rest of all life is so distant, it seems, when the whole world is perched upon my settee, carelessly smoking a cigarette.
"How does married life suit you?" I asked, lighting my own pipe. I looked at him and saw his back turned to me. I returned my gaze to the street.
"This place seems different," Watson mused, "and yet nothing's changed." He seemed to pause, and I thought he did not hear my question when he said, quietly, "I do not know."
"And your practice? Never mind, I am sure it would do well, Doctor," said I. "I have all confidence in your medical abilities."
"There, you moved your chemistry table," he pointed. "It is now against the window."
"You are better, now, I think, and I suppose your gambling proclivities would soon fade-"
"And the crystal cabinet, you pushed it to the wall-"
"-Now that you have a family to support-"
"What else has changed?"
What else has changed? You have changed. You and everything about you; I do not know you. There, by the table where your stack of medical journals used to be are now in a box at some address in Paddington. There, over the desk where your manuscript and pens used to be, now gone. There, at the book case where your yellow-backed novels were, now in a parlour where it doesn't belong. There, at the space where the Colonel's portrait used to hang, now remains empty.
Were anyone to view these rooms, they would hardly see anything missing, there still is the mass of papers stacked by the odd corner, the chemistry set, the dining table. The morning light still slants by the window in the same way. That gasjet by the bookcase still sputters when you twist it too much.
There was so little of you in these rooms, my dear Watson, so I held on to each of them as you would fragile bone china. It was your things that made me understand the meaning of home.
You took the word when you left, threw it in the trunk along with your journals and your novels and your hat that used to tell me you were here.
I woke up that day and sat up in panic; I did not know where I was.
I drew air from my pipe, filling my lungs with a draught of tobacco and smoke, wondering how it would feel to drown in simply air. "Changed?" I repeated. "Oh, I don't know Watson. You know I hardly notice these things. Excepting the things you have mentioned, which I did simply to maximise the space, I have done nothing else," I paused and released a breath of smoke. "I cannot see the difference."
Watson smiled, but his eyes remained cheerless. "That is very distinct of you, you know," he said. "I suppose you never see sentimental value in anything you have."
"You are right," I answered. "They are merely objects, my dear fellow. I don't see why I should do so. They can be broken; they can be replaced."
He looked to the corner where my violin leaned. "Even your Stradivarius?"
I eyed Watson severely. "Even the Stradivarius," I said.
He got up and made his way to the decanter. "You mean to say," he said, "that even in your youth you were never loath to part with things?"
"Hardly; I was used to not possessing them in the first place," I recalled. But better not dwell on the dead past, it is busy burying its dead.
Watson grew quiet, obviously wondering what could have deprived me of the simple joys of childhood. "How about now?" he asked. "Anything you are loath to part with?"
I tapped my pipe impulsively against the cold glass of the window to the cadence of Dvorak's String Quintet. No. 2, of course, for the first sounded rather dismal.
"Not a thing," I said, keeping rhythm. "I haven't a jot of these maudlin sentiments you speak of, Watson. I think that is your area entirely," I stopped and turned, pointing the pipe in his direction. I shall never be able wrap my mind around the Doctor's inclination for asking obtuse questions.
"So you have often said," Watson admitted, eyeing the arm of the settee with a stern gaze. He scratched his fingers over the upholstery. "Then you will understand that I have never really forgiven you."
I looked up in surprise and saw him staring at the cigarette between his fingers as though it were an ancient artifact. "Pray," said I, "what transgression of mine could possibly warrant you pardon?"
Watson got up from the settee and shook his head in disbelief. "You were absent at my wedding!" he exclaimed, deeply hurt. "I expressly requested you to be at my side, Holmes."
I shrugged, a useless attempt to deflect the stifling air that suddenly hung over the room. "And I expressly declined, and early enough to pull a cousin of yours in my place, too," I replied.
"Cousin Berney, yes, Holmes, well, thank God for that. I haven't even seen him before in all my life," he said. I did not expect him to be so affected by my refusal, after what he has done to me in the first place.
"And you have known me for scarce a year," I said, applying my logic to the matter, no matter how it pricked me at the side.
Watson stopped; he seemed to understand the irony of it all, but I could tell he was still cross. We have not yet reached the heart of the matter. "But seriously, Holmes," he said softly, with an underlying note of disappointment, "a telegram?"
Of course, I knew the subject would come up. My Watson could not let it pass, I shall be let down if he did, and so I have formulated my response to such a question. I put down my pipe, walked towards him and met his gaze directly with my own. "I am terribly sorry, my dear fellow," I said in hushed tones. "I had a case that took me from London that day. I was observing a gang involved in counterfeiting. It was a critical time for me and the Yard," I sank helplessly to the settee and placed an arm over my eyes. "We arrested them that day, and had we done it any sooner or later it would not have happened."
I felt a dip on the settee; I removed my arm in a start and saw that Watson sat beside me. I knew it would only be a fraction of a second before I become fully aware of his proximity; a full one before my heart would beat faster in anticipation of what I do not know precisely; another before I hear the question, "Do I dare? Do I dare disturb the universe?" (I always reply to the negative); another before I invariably notice the dark flecks in his eyes or other such nonsense; another before I remember that I needed breath to be alive; another before I smell Watson's rough scent too sharply; another before it causes any cohesive mental process to go awry; and in the final throes of my damaged psyche, I watch its towers crumble and erupt in an enormous cloud of pulverized passion.
It always takes a little over five seconds for John Watson to reduce me to a bubbling mess. It takes me another five to recover what has occurred in the interim, and to hope that I have not done anything as embarrassing as letting my jaw slack shamelessly or allowing my eyes to roll to the back of my head.
Watson, thankfully, had not noticed anything, as per usual. "Holmes," he said, "Why then did you not visit me to give notice?"
I sighed. Because, you ignorant boob, I could not bear to look at you knowing that you are promised to someone else while at the same time wanting to pull you by the hair and sodding you until your voice is hoarse with carnal frenzy. It shall confound me until the men in white come and drag me away to Bedlam.
I shifted slightly away from him. "Because, my dear fellow, I have not the time," I explained. "I thought a telegram would suffice."
"Hum, it should, shouldn't it?" Watson said with his head tilted to the side. "Tell me, Holmes, why is it you disapprove of my marriage."
I twitched in frustration and slight fear. The Doctor has found his aim, and he will pull the trigger and the bullet shall pass neatly through my heart. I am miserable, but I have no plans on dying so early. I stood up and ambled to the desk, pulling a small box in wrapping paper from the left-side drawer, and then I made my way to the low cabinet and procured a rectangular woodbox.
"You are entirely mistaken, Doctor," I said, taking my place beside him. "When I said I cannot congratulate you, you may have misapprehended my meaning."
"Pray, tell me what you truly meant," he asked, still sullen.
"I was merely surprised at the sudden turn of events," I clarified. "For one who does not feel the softer emotions, you see, your actions have appeared highly illogical, and that is why I said what I had said. After thinking upon the matter I realised that you could not possibly rein the dictates of your heart and it was not for me to decide upon anything," I cast my eyes down apologetically. "I suppose what I should have done as a true friend was to hold you to your word. I thought I could rectify that," I said, and handed him the boxes.
"What are these?" he asked, sliding the larger box open. It was an eighteen sixty Chateau Lafite claret from Medoc, not fairly known for their low-cost. I had it housed inside a decorative wine box, personalized with Watson and Mary's initials, made upon request by a brilliant but dubious craftsman at the East End who owed me a favor and was more than willing to return it.
"A small addition to the parlour," I replied.
Watson placed the wine down on the settee, and proceeded to open the smaller box. He pulled the item inside and placed it upon his palm.
"A watch?" He said. It was a new gold fusee pocket watch from Thomas and Co. at Liverpool.
"Plain cock, split balance, flat hairspring, the most beautiful gilt plates, there, and here," I said, pointing it to him, "a stylised gold hour and minute hand. You could lay your brother's watch to rest."
Watson ran his fingers over the crannies of the watch, examining it minutely. His smile made it clear that the article had more than met his approval. It was, after all, a superior watch. I even had the engraving made by Mr. Thomas himself.
He turned the watch to its back and looked up at me. "There's an engraving?" he asked.
Of course there's an engraving, you fool. I can't give you a thought now, can I? It would be most unnatural. Now, if I could slap it on the back of an expensive object, on the other hand, then it becomes an inoffensive token that you perhaps would appreciate. I smiled mysteriously at him, "Read it," I said.
"Tempora mutantur," he whispered, too softly that I can only read his lips. That was the engraving above, there was still another below it, done in a smaller script. "Spero nos familiares mansuros, SH," he continued, and for a moment he seemed to grow quiet, just running his thumb over the engraving repeatedly.
Stillness seemed to have taken over the both of us, him still looking down gravely at the watch as though it were a rock that weighed him down. I could not wrest my eyes away from it as well, but I looked at his hands and those fine digits that held the watch. My eyes traveled to his fine wrist, that subtle crook that bent so gently. I wanted to place my lips over those lines and trace the width until I rest upon his pulse. I will feel it throb beneath his skin, to behold the rush of blood within his arteries, the river that keeps the one I adore alive and breathing as his whole self does to me. I want to traverse its embankments and memorise its every twist and curve until I could describe it from memory. I wanted to know every single sensitive hair on his forearm, run my cheek upon them so lightly as to produce the most delicious shudder. I would touch and stroke the whole length of his flesh, repeatedly and with rising fervour until I am sick and shaking with desire and I have no other choice but to taste it.
The way it burnt, I am sure it would taste of fire.
I lifted my eyes and saw Watson looking at me with disgusting amicability, his wistful smile so simple and innocent that I swallowed the urge to wipe it off his face. I want to crush those lips, make them stop being so damnably naïve; I want to bruise them a little as a lesson, just so at the corner, so it would not be so annoyingly perfect. Then they would learn that they belonged only to my skin, in worship of my whole aching flesh, and seek nothing but.
"Yes," Watson said, looking intently at me. "Of course."
I must have looked confoundedly at him. "Hum?"
He grazed his hand over my own, which rested on my lap. "I meant we are still friends, despite these things," he muttered, looking pensively at the watch once more, and, as swift as a breeze, his touch was gone. My hand prickled sweetly in turn, the nerves beneath rushing which every way, not knowing what to do with a John Watson as well. Were I could help them, but I do not know what to do either.
"I am sorry I snapped at you, Holmes," he said. "It was uncalled for."
"No," I said, rubbing my hand furtively. "I needed it. There is nothing to apologize for."
Watson grew easy at my acceptance. "Well, that is rather unfortunate," he said. "I was planning to make it up to you in turn."
I stopped; he gave me that particular smile of his, that little twitch at the side when he is rather amused by something. Watson ran a hand over his hair. "I was wondering whether you would consider taking me along tomorrow to do the case," he said sheepishly.
There really is no appropriate response to a small surge of hope but to accept it in the cup of your hands, and make sure that nothing slips past. I could do nothing but nod silently.
"Is that a yes then?" he grinned, getting up from the settee. I looked at him as he towered over me.
"Yes," I croaked. "But I still must wait for Lestrade's telegram this evening. It will give us more information, but you may go to the station tomorrow at a quarter past ten in the morning and find me there. We leave by the ten-thirty train," I said.
Watson shrugged into his charcoal black coat and picked up his cane from beside the settee. I handed him the presents. "Thank you, Holmes," he said, with a gravity that made me know precisely what he was grateful for.
He shook me with a gloved hand by the door, "Goodbye Holmes," he said. "See you tomorrow." I waited and listened as his footsteps grew more and more distant until it was completely gone.
I returned to the sitting room, rushing about to get my own coat and hat and walking about the room extinguishing the gasjets until the room was enveloped in the fading light of the evening. I slipped my kid leather gloves on and checked my pocket watch. Five after six. Perfect.
It was my turn to make a visit.
