Ringout, wildbells, to the wildsky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ringout, wildbells, and let him die.
He wasn't home, of course. It was a holiday and he was working. Later she would learn against her will that he was putting himself into the fringe of East London and pulling a young family away from too much gin and flames.
It was cool that year, the last day of the year. The snowmelt made the air so heavy, heavy enough that the lungs had to strain to breathe outside and the coal-fired stoves shocked the senses once one was indoors. Call it significant; call it poignant for the burning and the loss of lives that followed in that chill, wet night. It was still just...only...one more night to the majority of London. They might want to believe it is something greater and more significant...but if debts wait for no holiday, why should they even observe? It is another night; another chance to work or huddle up by the flame and stay warm and hope for the warmth of spring.
The Old New Year, in springtime, makes more sense than marking a year in the bitter slog of winter. What's to celebrate about living long enough to see January? Make it March again, like it was in the old days. One could be proud of that. One could believe in the immortality of one more year to see that winter was gone and the rest was crisp winds and brief chills melting under the shy sun.
Ringout the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ringout the false, ring in the true.
Tonight her family would be at home, their home, her first time without their presence. They would be drinking and singing endless songs while the children and long-extended relations played about and too much cheer for the furnishings to bear. She had given her regrets; pleaded excellent reasons for her health…and perhaps later she would feel some small amount of guilt for the relief she felt for being away from their stifling influence just this once.
Ringout the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ringout the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.
Tonight her husband will come in late. He will be tired but not too tired to set his collar and cuffs into the linen-basket for the Monday Wash. He will most likely give a summary of his day in the most basic language and then collapse on top of the bedcovers as soon as he knows he is clean enough to do so. London is his livelihood; not a celebration. One might say it happens but once a year. He will retort that it happens EVERY year, and that is enough for his sensibilities.
Ringout a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Later she will learn that he spend half his evening at the nearest police-station, staffed with battered women nursing their black eyes and cracked bones on their way to the hospital. They will admit to the damages, but it will all mean six fruitless hours of trying to get the women to admit there is anything wrong with their men. The men of their friends, sisters, mothers and daughters are different…but admit that their own men are un-manned enough to strike them in drink or anger? That would be a blow to the last pride they posses.
Inspector Lestrade expects no successes on these or any such nights. He tries anyway. Because that is the law. And who knows? Someday it might be different.
Ringout the want, the care the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ringout, ringout my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.
The buskers along the canals plied their trade un-accosted this year—a small miracle left over from Christmas no doubt—but they were still witness to the ugliness of the city. They played for the well-dressed landed gentry on their way to and fro the parties in their silk hats and boutonnières, but the solitude of their snowy serenades were marked by the small, dark shadows of the children huddled up in the alleyways, wanting to hear some music without being told to scarper off.
Ringout false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.
Years later, she will learn that a young girl stood up and testified against her own father, and saved the life of her mother. The Bobbies that arrested him will swear to that. When they brought him in it was with the sacrifice of several teeth and intact ribs. Small steps. She only knows that a young girl with eyes enlarged from hunger and fear comes to her school on the morrow.
Missie, as she wants to be called, isn't the smartest girl in her school. She isn't the cleverest. But while it takes her time to learn something, it sticks once it's in, and three years later she is an instructor for many of the girls. She can speak the language of the East End, without causing shame or harm when she tells them to clean up or boxes the ear for impertinence. She's of their kidney, and she reaches them were the Mistress of the School cannot.
Ringout old shapes of foul disease,
Ringout the narrowing lust of gold;
Ringout the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.
The Bobbies walk in heavy shoes that raise blisters and wounds without layers of stocking and an awkward shuffle of the feet. Many of them disrupt quarrels that night; and too-eager festivities. They accept wild, drunken swings and punches deflected through the heavy wool of their coats and hard brass buttons. The verbal blows come from a distance, with the confidence of the dog that yaps at its betters on the other side of the fence. Those they can only ignore. The plainclothed detectives are hardly better off if they have freedom of movement without the heavy coats. Their shoes are thin leather and not proofed against the frozen puddles as they chase after the drug-addled man with the knives in each hand. They splash through soggy, half-congealed puddles and rotting black snow and stinking garbage with swifter movements but less protection. It falls to their side to pull out the whistles and truncheons faster, for it is their blood that will get spilled the faster.
Mr. Holmes was there, she hears later in the warmth of her kitchen between kettles of steaming soup and pan-breads. Him and the doctor too. A criminal wanted on three government warrants for his crimes. Why would he come to London to hide, of all places?
She hears the girls chirp their wonder as she stirs, but she knows why. Because London is one of the largest cities in the civilised world. Because it is one of the most crowded…and because it is the land of opportunity. A place where a man will hope to vanish within the throngs and melt into the masses with his crimes unspoken and intact.
And she does not doubt, sirrah, that it might work for them. Crimes go unnoticed and unavenged on a daily basis. Her husband's hollow eyes are proof of that. But if the sort is so poor as to take the attention of Mr. Holmes…why then, she doubts even London is large enough of a rabbit-warren. Because he can pull out of work-hours and needs no desk. He can spend as much time as he needs to track. And track he does.
One more criminal; one more arrest.
London safer by one more life.
One less thing creeping about that her husband and his folk have to worry about. Perhaps, she tells herself, one less grey hair, one less line about the face.
One more year to live.
Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ringout the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.