I stood there for several seconds, deliberating from the relative safety of the landing, but I had not yet decided to either enter or continue upstairs when movement sounded from the sitting room.
"Hold a moment, please," Holmes' voice said. "Doctor Watson is signaling me."
I had done no such thing, but I normally would have joined them immediately. He had probably noted my cane climbing the stairs and thought I had stopped to hide a problem. Footsteps crossed the room to stand in the cracked doorway.
"Alright, Watson?" he asked.
I nodded, quickly stepping out of sight when he opened the door further.
"Watson?"
"What does he want?" I finally asked. My words were quiet enough that Edward could not hear, but that did not prevent the disdain from leaking into my tone.
Holmes reflexively glanced back toward our guest, then pulled the door shut to join me on the landing. "He is a client. How do you know him?"
"He is not here for me?" I asked, ignoring the question.
He shook his head. "He arrived less than five minutes before I heard you downstairs, asking for me. He did not react when I used your name and title."
Watson was a common enough name that he may think nothing of it, but that did not necessarily mean I wanted to be nearby when he connected the information. I hesitated for a long moment, weighing my options.
If I went upstairs, he could be here indefinitely, and there was a sizeable chance Holmes would take Edward's case. My choices would become avoiding the case entirely or dealing with the man for an extended period of time. If I took my place at Holmes' side, however, I might be able to hurry the interview, and there was the possibility of an altercation that would make him leave sooner.
That decided it, but Holmes spoke before I could wave him back into the room.
"Watson, do I need to get my revolver?"
I shook my head. "He is not dangerous," I answered, trying not to scowl at what I was about to do. Anyone who could abandon their relatives over hobbies was no family of mine, and I felt nothing but irritation at the thought of interacting with Edward for any length of time.
"Then why are you searching for ways to make him leave?"
I directed my scowl at Holmes. He knew I hated it when he did that, but he did no more than smirk as he waited for me to answer.
"You might remember him better as Rubio Falco," I finally replied. I had described Edward once before, when Holmes and I had made a wager during a break in cases. The goal had been to fool the other with a disguise for a certain amount of time, and in the disguise that had ultimately succeeded against Holmes, I had become an Italian searching for the uncle that had abandoned me as a child. Much of the "case" had been true, though well over twenty years old, and Holmes had tried several times to discover the real names in my tale.
I had thwarted him until now.
He glanced again at the sitting room, as if able to see where Edward presumably waited for us on the settee. "Do you want to wait upstairs?" he asked.
I shook my head. I had made my choice, and I would hold to it.
"I reserve the right to throw the first punch, though," I muttered, waving him into the room.
Holmes had not expected that, but he masterfully covered his amusement as Edward looked up at the opening door.
"My apologies, Mr. Kendrick," Holmes said as I entered.
"I can come back later," Edward offered, "if that would be better."
Holmes waved the comment aside. "The matter is resolved for now." He gestured toward where I limped behind him. "My colleague, Doctor Watson."
"Edward Kendrick," he said with a nod of greeting.
I returned it, relaxing slightly at the obvious lack of recognition. Perhaps he truly was a prospective client.
"Pray, start at the beginning," Holmes said as I took my seat, pen and paper in hand. "What brings you to London?"
"The Hope Fest," Edward began. "As I was telling Mr. Holmes before you arrived, Doctor, the Birmingham Museum sends me to craft fairs around the isle, and sometimes to the continent, searching for up-and-coming artisans."
I carefully blanked my expression, resisting the urge to comment. Edward had made a career out of the very "feminine" thing that had made him disown us.
"I specialize in jewelry," he continued, "mostly watches, but other things as well, and they asked me to oversee our booth when one of my coworkers fell sick. The fair is what brought me to London, but it is only indirectly what brings me to you." He pulled a piece of paper out of his jacket. "I am hoping you can help me find my sister. She and I had a falling-out many years ago. Both of us—mostly me—said things we should not have, and I ended up storming out of her house." He paused, apparently oblivious that I had stopped writing. Holmes glanced at me as Edward slowly continued, "To my eternal shame, I stopped trying to contact her for years, letting time slip past as I pridefully waited for an apology I should have delivered myself. Nearly ten years later, I finally wrote her a letter. She responded tersely, but only once." He paused again. "I thought it was because of our argument and my long silence, and I kept trying, hoping she would eventually answer. I have written probably thirty or more letters over the past years, without a single reply. I finally stopped at the house when I attended a small craft fair in Edinburgh about a month ago, only to find out she has moved. That explains her silence much better than a grudge—my sister is not the type to carry resentment, especially for this long—but the current residents do not have a forwarding address."
"Do you think he will ever come back?"
I forced a snort. Edward had stormed out mere hours ago, and the pain of abandonment was still far too fresh for me to welcome such a question.
"Of course not," I replied. "You heard him just as well as I did. He hates us because of hobbies." The word came out closer to a huff than the deriding scoff I intended. "Let him go, Harry. He's not worth your time."
"What will you do if he does come back, Little Brother?"
"He disowned us," I countered, avoiding the question. "He's not coming back, and you know it."
I picked up a nearby book and left my chair, ostensibly to replace the book on the shelf though I had not touched it all evening. I felt Harry's gaze on me from across the room, but he let the subject drop. He never referenced Edward again, but Mother and a few others did, occasionally. I eventually started leaving the room whenever the subject arose. I had no wish to think of the man who would abandon his nephews, disowning them and leaving without even a farewell over something so trivial. He had made it abundantly clear that he wanted nothing to do with us.
Yet here he was, trying to hire a detective to find the sister he had abandoned a lifetime ago. Silence reigned as Holmes waited for me to answer.
"Her name?" Holmes asked when I could not find my words.
Edward flushed, realizing his omission. "Ada," he replied, "and her husband's name is Watson."
"You are the one who ran off and married a landowner, Ada, and for what? So you can teach two boys to be girls and pretend to be a businesswoman? Is your 'business,'" he sneered the word, "even producing anything?"
"I do not see how that is any of your concern," Mother replied calmly, "nor do I see how you are in a position to judge, considering you have yet to stay in any given position for more than six months."
My hand started cramping, and I forced my fingers to loosen, setting my pen and paper aside. I had sent Edward a death notice the day after the accident, solely because of the letters in her dresser, but I had thought nothing of his absence at the funeral. I had thought almost nothing of him since.
It seemed that might have been a mistake.
"You will not find her," I said simply. I would treat Edward as any other client to whom I gave bad news. He had wanted to find his sister, not me. He did not want his nephew; he wanted someone with information, and I wiped my expression as he tore his gaze away from Holmes.
"What do you mean 'I will not find her'?" he asked, glancing between us. "That is a strange way of saying you will not take my case."
"I am not saying we will not take your case," I replied, my tone very carefully blank. "I am saying I already have the answer you seek. Ada Watson née Kendrick died in '78. She and her husband were on their way to town when he had a heart attack. She died when the horses panicked and overturned the cart."
He stared at me. "How do you know that?" he asked incredulously.
"You are just going to let them wander?" he asked incredulously. "How can you possibly set them up for success if you do not teach them about the world?"
"They are learning, Edward. They are learning far more than you can ever hope to find in those dense texts you seem to enjoy. Harry is drawing scenes so accurately we have discussed sending him to art school for a year or two before he takes over the estate, and Johnny is beyond skilled at the viola. Johnny has also—"
"The viola?!" he interrupted. "Art school?! Are they young boys or young girls?"
"They are my children, Edward, and they are your nephews—"
"They are no nephews of mine! My nephews will not end up beggars, unable to take care of themselves because they chose arts and crafts as a career!"
Footsteps had pounded towards the door, and we had hurried away, ducking out of sight as Edward stormed out. He had slammed every door behind him and never returned. Harry and I had denied his existence ever since.
"I lived in that town at the time," I answered, pushing the memory away. "I know a death notice was sent to you."
"It never arrived," he replied immediately, thickly. He took a breath, trying to quell his grief in favor of answers. "What about her husband? Did he survive losing her?"
"He died first. The heart attack took him instantly. She passed shortly after."
His expression crumpled, and he put his head in his hands, saying nothing for two slow breaths. "What about their boys?" he eventually asked, the words full of sorrow. He looked back up at me. "My nephews, Harry and John. Do you know where they are?"
Holmes opened his mouth, probably to voice the comment I struggled to suppress, and I lifted a hand to stop him. Edward did not recognize his own nephew from five feet away. Why should he care where either of us was now?
"Harry Watson died in '87," I answered carefully, "maybe '86."
Holmes readjusted in his seat. He had not known I had a brother until I had foolishly let him deduce my watch just before the case that had introduced me to Mary, but Edward's eyes remained fixed on me, lines of mourning deeply creasing his face.
"What happened?" The words were quiet. Either Edward was an amazing actor, or he was honestly grieved at the news.
"Unclear," I replied, "but probably alcohol related." I was not lying. Edward did not need to know the few details I had.
"Alcohol?" he repeated in amazement. "He started drinking?"
He was undoubtedly remembering his uncle. Edward and Mother had warned us more than once about the dangers of drink, solely because of their own childhood.
"Yes, in 1880." He had fallen so deeply that he had not recognized me on my return from Maiwand, and Mother's warnings along with Harry's actions had been a large part of why I had never sunk into the bottle after Mary's death.
"Why? How?"
I shook my head. "I never heard. I was not home at the time, and I did not return until he had already sold the house." I had returned from war to find my house sold, my belongings scattered, and my brother drunk in the local tavern. Only Martha, our old housekeeper, had prevented me from living on the streets for the first few days after my discharge.
He did not answer immediately, struggling to speak around the grief of his sister's passing, and I waited patiently. I would answer his questions to a point, but I would not volunteer anything.
"And John?" he asked when he had mastered himself.
They are no nephews of mine!
I debated how to answer. I would not lie to him, but he had waited over two decades past Mother's death to begin his search, and then only for his sister. Why should I say anything more than that "John" was alive and living in London?
His grief strengthened with every moment I wavered, adding years to his face. "Not even one of them is left?" he nearly whispered when I waited too long.
The pain in his words struck me. Could his anguish be at all the deaths, instead of just Mother's? I considered a moment more before making my decision.
"Have I truly changed so much, Edward?"
Confusion flickered briefly on his face, then changed to understanding. "Doctor Watson," he murmured, staring at me. "Johnny?"
I nodded once. "I did not choose 'arts and crafts' as a career, but I have done fairly well. I have lived here in London since I returned from Afghanistan."
Several questions crossed his face at once, and he struggled momentarily what to ask first.
"'Arts and crafts'?" he repeated.
"I do find it rather ironic," I told him, still carefully controlling both words and tone, "that you eventually settled in a career so like the ones for which you disowned us. It does not appear to have beggared you."
He stared at me, stunned. "You heard that?" Again, the words were nearly a whisper, but this time the lack of volume probably came from embarrassment rather than grief.
"We both did." My leg and shoulder twinged my position, and I readjusted. "Harry and I were looking for you and Mother, hoping for more stories of when you were children. We heard the entire argument, including where you disowned us because Harry liked to draw and I could play the viola. Rather flimsy reason to disown your sister and nephews, you know."
His mouth moved without sound, remorse clear on his face. "I'm sorry," he finally managed, the apology nearly strangled.
"I am sure you are," I replied, deciding the apology was for us overhearing. "It is much easier to think you left two boys without so much as a goodbye than that they heard you disown them on the way out. And over hobbies." I shook my head. "I never did understand that, Edward. What does it matter what a child does for fun?"
He found his words from the careful blankness in mine. "No, John. That's not what I meant. I'm sorry you heard it, of course, but I am more sorry I said it. You might have heard that argument, but you did not hear every one that led up to it. Ada and I had been arguing for months by that point. I was trying to start a business of my own, and I wanted to train you boys to help me. You had just come back from Australia, and helping me would have taken you away from home for another year or more. I got angry when she would not let you leave, and I refused to listen when she suggested opening the possibility in a year or two. She staunchly protected your childhood when I foolishly would have started teaching you how to run a business. My irritation finally exploded that day, and I said many things I did not mean. I tried to say as much to Ada in my letters, but I have no idea if she read more than the first one."
"She had two letters from you when I cleaned out her dresser."
He relaxed slightly. "Good. She at least saw my apology, then, even if she did not accept it, but what about you, John? Will you accept my apology? I said much that day that I should not have."
I did not answer immediately, assimilating this information as I studied him. He was not asking me simply to acknowledge an apology, and there was a difference between accepting an apology to move on and accepting an apology to try again. I had not needed one to move on, but did I want to give him another chance?
Well, funny how family matters are not always as they appear. What do you think Watson will do?
Thank you to the 4 who reviewed last chapter, and internet cookies to the three who recognized Edward without so much as a name. I didn't expect anyone to tie the pieces together until this chapter, so well done :D (::) (::) (::)