Chapter fifty-two: Home, sweet home

26th August 1887

"Boxes and glasses round me crammed/ and instruments in cases hurled/ ancestral stuff around me jammed/ That is your world! That's called a world!" Goethe's Faust

On the following day, Watson and Mary came early to fetch Mrs. Hudson. I wrapped the old lady in her scarfs and carried her hat-boxes out to the cab, and I also needed to hold the umbrella when she, resting on Mary's arm, stepped out of the house and climbed into the vehicle, for the weather had not improved one iota.

Solitarily I stood on the rain-splashed sidewalk and listened to the landlady's anxious prattle. She had not left London in almost twenty years and like myself was going to Brighton for the very first time. I still stood in the same spot when the cab started to move. The Watsons were to drive Mrs. Hudson to Victoria, to drop her for the southbound train.

Holmes had not shown up to say adieu, he had not moved one single finger. Only now that I remained looking after the cab, which steadily went down the street and disappeared amongst carts and carriages, a window on the upper storey was flung open, just above my head.

"Kitty! Come back into the house, ere you catch a cold!"

With a small sigh I craned my neck to look up, but the window had already been banged shut and all I was left to do was oblige and return inside. Slightly shaking my umbrella in the hall, I heard Ginger Jack meow and a moment later, Holmes came down the stairs, sneezing artificially.

"This mephitic wretch. But please! Do not concern yourself with the state of my health. I shall be fine, I reckon!" he said venomously, putting on his frock and top hat and reaching for his cane.

"I think so, yes. When I perceive you are going out to indulge in some sportive activity, your health cannot be so very precarious," I retorted, significantly glancing at his unusually bulky bag.

"Indulge!" He huffed. "Don't be daft. I would certainly not waste time on exercise if it were for mere pleasure. It is just possible that my skills as a swordsman may be required in the foreseeable future, so I intend to improve on them at short notice. If I might have your kind permission?"

I tersely shrugged my shoulders. "Come, Ginger Jack!"

"Remember to keep him out of my rooms!" Holmes exclaimed petulantly, evidently intent on picking up a quarrel, but I did not deem his remark worth a reply. His irascibility fuelled by my stoicism, he rushed out of the house, hopefully not to be back in short time.

oooOOOooo

The morning of my first day as an autonomous housewife was spent in cleaning and tidying Holmes' inconceivable mess. Sweet Lord! It was high time. How had he even come up with the idea of keeping his cigars in the coal scuttle? His tobacco in the Persian slipper? His correspondence fixed against the mantle with a jack knife?

I burned loads of outdated newspapers, emptied the various vessels he used as ashtrays and scrupulously waded the floor of his bedroom, strewn all over with shirts, waistcoats and multi-coloured scarfs, all carelessly tossed about in search for today's outfit. The only place where a certain order seemed to prevail was the workbench where he conducted his chemical experiments, but I did not dare to touch that anyway, since I did not know about the possibly hazardous properties of the different substances.

Furthermore, I decided the time had come for a set of new curtains on his windows. I had always abhorred the bold, hideous floral print, and I was convinced that the tobacco smoke had infested them so profoundly over the years that every attempt at lavation was a priori damned to futility.

When everything was about as nice and trim as I wanted it to be, I did my hair and prepared to leave the house. There was some shopping to be done. But first, I had another errand to get through…

oooOOOooo

"Oh, it's you. Do come in."

Lorenzo was clearly not overjoyed at my call. I seemed to be less and less welcome on every visit that I paid him.

"Lorenzo, I jus'….came ter say sorry fer not tellin' ya…"

"Uh-uh. I've heard that before." He shrugged his shoulders forbiddingly. "So, what do you want? Do you want us to continue the picture that I might give it to high and mighty Lord Lewis for his oh-so-important exhibition?"

"Well – something of the sort", I conceded nervously. " Ya sees, I met Phoebe the other day an' she told me…"

"That I am in money trouble, I presume." Lorenzo laughed shortly. "So what? As measured by Phoebe's new standards, we all of us are pretty much destitute."

"It is not only that.". I regarded him earnestly. "Lorenzo, what is the matter? You seem so strangely changed, recently…"

"I?" He snorted ungracefully. "I am changed?"

I cast my eyes to the floor. "Please, stop talking like that. Could we jus'…I mean…"

"Could we?" he stepped a little closer. I took in the smell of the colours that had stained his working clothes, thousand and thousand layers of them, like a picture of its own. "Could we – what, Kitty?"

"Not argue." I lifted my gaze and extended my hand to him. "Friends?"

I saw Lorenzo hesitate a little. His lashes lowered and were raised again before he gave me a tiny smile. Only now that it had been mentioned to me, I could discern how much indeed he resembled Mr. Holmes. Although he was wearing his hair a bit longer, and his complexion had that southern impact, the physique was undoubtedly similar.

"Friends", Lorenzo said, placing his hand in mine and squeezing it briefly. "Always friends."

"Oh – good."

Behind him, my picture was still standing in the same spot as on my last visit, in the centre of the room, on the same old scaffold. The set scene had also remained where it was, unchanged. Even a fresh blue iris had been placed in the water glass on the washstand. He has not been working on something else in the meantime, it passed my mind.

"However – we cannot go on workin' terday, Lorenzo. I am rather busy. Our landlady has fallen ill, ya knows…"

He nodded seriously. "Tomorrow, then?"

"Why – sure." My eyes returned to the painting on the scaffold behind him, complete and finished to the common beholder; painfully imperfect and unsatisfactory to its creator. "Tomorrow."

oooOOOooo

When Holmes returned home in the evening, it was just time for dinner. He seemed much more even-tempered than earlier in the day, perhaps an effect of the physical exertion, but that did not keep him from being gravely peeved by the embellishments I had applied to his rooms.

"I could not find my tobacco today", he complained, "It was not in the Persian slipper. Who told you to put it in the tobacco box? What an extravagant flight of the fancy! I need it for my lactose tablets!"

"Them whitish pills? I threw them away."

Whereupon he wailed as if over an irreparable loss, relating to me with all variants of foolish woman above pain level. "And what about the curtains? I insist you put them back up this instant!"

"They were an insult to the eye. I am astonished Mrs. Hudson did not long replace them."

"They were as good as any others! And you brought – flowers - !" He suspiciously examined a pretty chrysanthemum bouquet on the sideboard.

"Well yeah, I 'appened ter pass the flower stand when shopping at Covent Garden", I defended myself, but refrained from reminding him that flowers actually came into his department as my husband.

"It is an outrage! I refuse to live in an outpost of feminine cleaning frenzy. What will you come up with next, hm? Antimacassars on the backrests of my seats?"

"Next, I'll help ya t'yer dinner, an' ya will be so kind as ter eat it", I reprimanded him, setting out plates, cutlery and tureens before I rid myself of my cooking apron.

"it remains an outrage, all the same", he grumbled, finally obeying and sitting down. "What's it, then? Not vegetables, I hope. I am quite averse to vegetables today."

"Not at all. It is Windsor Soup and partridges", I outflanked him.

"Well, that's better than nothing." Still in a huff, he placed his napkin on his lap and started to eat. "But don't imagine you will get away with the liberties you took just because you can cook."

"So I can – can't I?" His irreconcilable look amused me infinitely. "May I ask, Mr. 'olmes, what necessity it is that urges you to abandon your usual routine to work on your non-intellectual qualities?"

"It is a plain necessity of life", he shrugged uncommunicatively.

"So is cooking. But you know what I was up to all day."

"I don't care if you know. Someone's trying to kill me."

"Oh?" I was but mildly surprised. "Who is it, this time?"

"A very amiable young man in the London Fencing League. I found out most of his triumphs were owed to crude fraud, and in order to rehabilitate his shattered reputation, the bounder has proposed to stab me with his rapier. Which is why I am carrying this with me at all times", he observed, lifting up his cane, which, as I perceived, was not at all his usual, silver-topped walking stick, but a rather delicate looking ebony implement. However, the impression was deceitful. There was a sudden Snap! and a long, sharp blade darted out of its interior.

"Oh, Mr. 'olmes! D'ye think this will do against a professional swordsman with his rapier?"

"Quite. Remember, he is but a fraud when all is said and done. And I may say, without any desire to boast, that I am myself not so very abysmal with the blade."

Abysmal. The word recalled to me the photograph with Victor Trevor, but of course I could not relate to that. "You'll 'aver ter be careful, nonetheless."

"I am. Always." A smile flitted over his lips. Reclining in his chair and stuffing his after dinner pipe from the objectionable tobacco box, he observed: "My day was certainly not without interest, but in intellectual terms, rather less than stimulating. However, my mind has not been lulled so far as to miss the fact that you had quite an unsettling experience in its course."

I had risen to collect the crockery, and at his words did my best to appear even busier than I was. "Ah yes? What makes ya think so?"

"Nothing but a certain thoughtful gravity in your expression. You were, if I may say so, in a somewhat more belligerent mood when last I saw you, hence my surmise that whatever troubled you happened during the previous ten hours."

"Yes…yes….a trifling misunderstanding…"

I suddenly felt a lump rise in my throat and was unable to proceed. Holmes did not press me. He remained silent while I gathered our things and carried them downstairs into the kitchen. After I had returned, he changed the subject to something quite different.

oooOOOooo

"Well, ma'am? Whatcha think?" The young man wiped his nose with his sleeve for the umpteenth time in less than half an hour. "Any good?"

I looked about in the small flat, my brows raised and my nose wrinkled. "It is frightfully loud. You understand that my friend is of a very delicate constitution, and that her nerves must be treated with the utmost care."

"Ah yeah, but it's jus' because we've got all o' them windows open. Shut #em an' ya'll think yer twenty miles outta town. Anyways, a li'lle noise cannot be avoided so close to the City center…it's a first rate location."

"Well, if something's not first rate, it's yer plumbing", I returned snippily. "The smell is re'lly abominable."

"Right, but that's being seen to."

"Maybe. However, these things always take longer an' longer an' then jus' a li'lle longer, an' I re'lly don't think I can 'ave me friend stay in a polluted atmosphere such as this fer weeks an' weeks on end. She's a genuine lady, she is."

"Well…." The youth seemed a little worn out. "P'raps we could come to an agreement over that inconvenience, ma'am?"

"Tell me."

He took off his cab and turned it in his short, stubby fingers. "What about we promise the plumbing's done till end o' next month, an' yer lady friend's goin' ter stay rent-free those four weeks?"

"Hummm…." I was extremely reluctant to agree, but the sweating lad had already produced the rental contract from out of nowhere, making alterations in Natasha's favour.

"If ya please, ma'am? Yer friend could move in any time from today's date."

"Aw-right…." Hesitantly I took the proffered pen as though it might be infested with loads of pathogenic germs, and signed the paper.

"Thank you, ma'am. Here's the keys. I'll see ya out…"

Still babbling, he went out into the hall, heading for the front door. I directed one last glance at the spruce, irreproachably well-kept little flat, furtively looked after the man to make sure he did not see me, and with a wicked grin closed a triumphant fist in the air.

Haha, in real life the lessor always keeps the upper hand! What a nice change being able to take him in, even if it's only in fiction… ;-)

Love, Mrs.F