Chapter Ten
Why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable, which refuses to be healed?
Jeremiah 15:18
From the day after Sarah's debut, the other dancers in the company treated her quite differently. They already saw her as a bit of an outsider due to her strangely advanced technique and accent, but now she was treated as the 'star' with far more deference and respect than any modern ballerina would ever be shown by fellow dancers.
Despite this new attitude, a particularly pretty corp de ballet member sidled up to Sarah during a break in rehearsals a couple weeks after the debut. It was obvious it had taken her awhile to screw up her courage to speak to Sarah.
"I saw you had guests after your debut," she said shyly.
Sarah smiled at her. She liked Miranda. She was very young, not even eighteen and had a very sweet and unassuming nature.
"Yes, some friends of mine. They were kind enough to come to the debut. I hadn't been expecting them, so it was a nice surprise," Sarah replied as she continued to repair a ribbon on one of her shoes. It wasn't strictly accurate to call Holmes and Watson friends, but what else could she say?
"Yes, you're very lucky to have such nice friends. I thought one of them was very handsome," Miranda said hesitantly and blushed prettily.
Sarah felt a bit startled. It had never occurred to her that either Watson or Holmes was handsome.
"Which one was that?" Sarah asked, genuinely curious.
"Oh, the one with the kind brown eyes, of course," Miranda said as though it were obvious. Her blue eyes were shining at the memory.
"Oh, Dr Watson," Sarah replied, "I suppose he is rather nice looking. I hadn't thought about it," Sarah mused aloud.
"How can you not think about it when you see him all the time? I wouldn't think about anything else," Miranda said with a dreamy smile on her pretty face. "And he's a doctor, too? How marvelous," she added. "So, Dr Watson isn't your beau then?" she asked curiously, "I assumed he was, being so handsome and all."
"Oh no, not at all!" Sarah said, feeling alarmed about who else may be thinking the same thing.
"Do you wish he was?" Miranda asked wistfully.
"No, I like Dr Watson but I had never thought about him in those terms," Sarah replied with complete honesty.
"Oh, is your beau the other gentleman then? The very tall man?" Miranda asked ingenuously.
"No," Sarah said, feeling oddly rattled by the idea.
"Is he nice too, like Dr Watson?" Miranda asked, wide-eyed.
"It's hard to describe Mr Holmes," Sarah said honestly, a peculiar expression on her face, "You would have to know him. He's an unusual man," she replied, unsure of what else to say.
"Unusual how?" Miranda persisted.
"Mr Holmes is all brain and his work is his entire focus. He doesn't really like or trust women although he can be very chivalrous I believe," Sarah said frankly. Although, she thought, if Holmes could be chivalrous she only knew that from reading Watson's stories, not from her own experience of him. "I believe he's rather self-destructive, but I don't know why. He says exactly what he thinks, regardless of any consideration such as good manners…. He's a very cold person," she added after a thoughtful pause, talking more to herself than to Miranda.
"He sounds very strange. So, you don't like either of them?" Miranda asked incredulously.
"I like both of them, but I'm not in love with either of them," Sarah replied, not sure she was being altogether honest. She liked Watson, but did she like Holmes? Not really. Admiring someone and being a bit fascinated by them was not the same as liking them.
"Do you think one of them is in love with you?" Miranda asked wide-eyed.
"Definitely not!" Sarah said with a genuine laugh. Now that really was a ridiculous idea, she thought.
"It's very strange. You're so pretty and now you're so famous. It's the famous dancers who get the good husbands. Girls like me don't stand a chance. If I'm lucky, I'll marry some government clerk," Miranda said with a disconsolate sigh.
"You're the prettiest girl in the corps de ballet. You could marry a doctor, but I don't know enough about Dr Watson to recommend him to you, I'm afraid. You're right about one thing though, he is very kind," Sarah said comfortingly.
Miranda's face brightened at the thought and she went away happy.
Holmes went home that evening and dispensed with his stage hand's disguise which had used on quite a few occasions quite successfully.
He sat cross-legged on the chair in front of the fire and smoked his pipe, letting his supper go cold on the table and reflecting that eavesdroppers seldom heard well of themselves.
Firstly, he discovered that Watson was considered the handsome one which he would have acknowledged himself but it stung when a young, pretty woman said as much. It was interesting however, that Sarah herself had not made the distinction between them. She was unsure which of the two of them the little blonde was talking about at first. He wasn't sure this wasn't the greater insult – Sarah appeared to have not even noticed they were two eligible males!
Secondly, he had to see Sarah look startled at the idea that Holmes was her beau as though the idea was quite disturbing, a reaction which had cut through him like a stiletto knife. It took a while to remember to breathe again after that. He knew he deserved it. He had been offensive the last two times they had met, but how else did try and maintain his objectivity and discover the truth? He could not make accurate deductions if he was distracted in her company. The foolishness of her admirers, the behaviour of whom he had had plenty of opportunity to observe recently, served as a caution to Holmes. It was impossible to be objective in the grip of passion or infatuation.
Thirdly, he had to listen to Sarah's rather accurate potted summary of his character. He would have described himself in the same way on some points, but he felt being assessed as disliking and distrusting women was too harsh. He knew that he had been cold with her, so he had only himself to blame there. However, she had made him seem some like something inhuman. And was he? Or was it simply a case that Sarah barely knew him and had only encountered him in his most extreme detective mode when intense suspicion and a cool, impartial head were strictly necessary?
Lastly and most importantly, where did she get the notion that he was self-destructive? Mycroft had once said the same thing to him many years ago when he was still at university, but no-one else had ever noticed, not even Watson. Had she already observed and intuited so much about him in such a short space of time? It made him deeply uncomfortable. He liked to know far more about others than they knew about him. Thus far in his life, very few people had been at all interested in knowing or understanding him. His brother knew him by blood. Watson had studied him but really did not have the intellect to comprehend anything but the surface of his life and the face he showed the world. Watson could not penetrate the mask that Holmes presented to him and knew nothing more than Holmes chose to show him. Now Sarah had come along and pierced right through his carefully constructed armour into the heart of one key aspect of his character and personality. What else had she seen?
He sighed deeply. If he was honest with himself, he knew that Sarah had in fact been kind. She could have said far worse things. She could have said he was rude, odious, difficult and unpleasant in just about every way.
He covered his face with his pale hands, rubbing his eyes tiredly and then winced when the bruise on his face stung. He needed more sleep but hadn't slept well lately. He seemed to be constantly keyed up. It wasn't just the riddle of Sarah's origins or even the riddle of his feelings for her. It was also the enigma of why he was the way he was which Sarah's appearance had suddenly shone a bright, white spotlight on.
Sarah casually asked Dr Watson if he thought their youngest corps de ballet member was quite pretty and he got quite flustered. Sarah thought it was because he had noticed Miranda and did think she was very pretty. Actually, it was because Watson realised that Sarah had not noticed him at all and was busy matchmaking. With a sinking heart and unsure of what else to do without appearing ungallant, Watson politely agreed to be introduced and found that Miranda was not only more than quite pretty but also gentle natured, modest and obviously admired him very much. It was irresistible to a warm-hearted and warm-blooded man like Watson to have an appealing pair of blue eyes watching him with such shy and obvious hero-worship. The young woman's eyes shone and her cheeks were pink. Sarah thought it was the cutest thing ever.
Sarah often played chaperone and the two did get well acquainted over a period of a year or more before the tour. Sadly, Miranda got a terrible case of pneumonia and despite Watson's best efforts for her; she succumbed before her nineteenth birthday. Before she died, Dr Watson married the young woman as it was her final wish but Miranda only had her dream come true for a few days before she was lying cold in the ground. Dr Watson did not court anyone else before he was to meet Mary Morstan. As for Sarah, Miranda's shy, gentle, shining blue eyes were to haunt her for the rest of her life, but it was a comfort to her that Miranda married her doctor.
Within one month of Sarah's debut, she had established herself in Oxford Street and was quite comfortable. Her rooms were kept quite Spartan to allow her to practice on the wooden floors but she had plans to acquire a comfortable chair so she could sit in front of the fire for a little while before going to bed. Perhaps she could afford it by the end of the following month, she calculated. Sarah had decided to start a savings plan. Dancers could not dance forever. She only had another 12-15 years if she was lucky. Sarah knew that she would need to earn enough to live on for the rest of her life if she could not make it back to the twenty-first centuary.
At the end of that first month of Sarah's success, the Artistic Director from the Paris Opera Ballet approached her and offered her an enormous sum to move to France and dance with his company. Sarah was tempted until she remembered that she could not speak a word of French but also knew no-one in France. At least in London she had Mrs Laidley and Dr Watson to go to in any trouble.
The ballet world in Europe was obviously a small one, Sarah found. No sooner had the Paris Opera Ballet approached Sarah than her own Artistic Director, Vladimir, made a counter offer that topped it considerably. Sarah didn't have the heart (nor was she silly enough) to tell him she had already turned the French down.
"We are moving to a bigger theatre!" Vladimir said excitably. He said everything excitably and passionately. There were times Sarah could not tell the difference between the Russians and the French but that was probably due to having spent most of her life in Australia.
"People are demanding tickets to see you and we cannot fit them into the theatre," he continued volubly. "I am leasing a bigger theatre."
"Which one?" Sarah asked with interest.
"Covent Garden," he said, his dark eyes shining with anticipation.
Goose bumps broke out on Sarah's skin. All her life she had dreamed of dancing at Covent Garden. Now that dream was happening. In some ways, Covent Garden was less convenient being a few extra blocks from her new Oxford Street home but she decided it wasn't a problematic distance as everything in London was comparatively close and she could now certainly afford to take as many cabs as she wished.
"We can change the choreography to be far more athletic on that larger stage," Sarah said, enthusiastically. She had been to Covent Garden out of curiousity at least once in her free time since being in London and she knew the far larger size of the stage.
Vladimir stared at her. "You could do more with a larger stage?" he asked disbelievingly.
"Of course! I could do far bigger jumps and much more complex traveling enchainments," Sarah replied with satisfaction, "When do we start rehearsing there?"
"Next month. We can start selling tickets for the shows now," he said with evident gratification, "We will be able to make a great deal more money per show with so many extra seats to sell. I may put the prices up for the ones you appear in too."
"I hope people will continue to attend then," Sarah said wryly.
"People visiting from across the Channel are making a point of coming to see you already," Vladimir said confidently, "Soon people from all over Europe will be eager to come and see you perform when they are in London."
"No point touring then," Sarah said a bit cheekily.
"We will tour within a year," Vladimir said, "But we must have repertoire ready first."
Sarah nodded. She could foresee exciting times ahead.