EPILOGUE
The spectre of Holmes is no longer a secluded shadow in my house; now he is free to roam the daylight as he pleases, or to rest firmly in the Sussex ground. I would prefer that he take the latter choice.
The text contained in these pages was not easy to relate and I don't expect that it will be easily taken in. Perhaps the reader wishes to thank me for my decision to contribute to the understanding of a important and highly-regarded figure, or perhaps instead to curse my arrogance in exposing the intensely private memoirs of a defenceless, deceased man. Either way, please forgive me a few more words before I withdraw, for the sake of clarity.
Guilty conscience or no, a man would not write so many words if he did not wish them to be read. When of all of Holmes's words are added together--and there are more than 30,000 of them here--what is their sum? I have no intention of fighting for their validity or assessing their value, for although I am committed to their release it is not for me to decide their ultimate meaning. I am too subjective for critical judgement, and that is for yourself or others to contemplate. But I do know that the answers provided by this journal do not outnumber the questions lingering in my mind.
I still have questions--so many questions. And they are only answered with silence.
There is one question I can answer for myself. I realise that anything I may declare is obviously my own insignificant opinion, but I must be allowed a brief turn in my--and Holmes's--defence. I will simply state this: Holmes's words do not condemn him; they exonerate him. He withheld the truth not because he was careless, selfish or insensitive, but because he did not wish to destroy the lives of those he cared for. His silence erected a protective shield around himself, and in turn, his family, who were better served by his isolation, and his sacrifice culminated in a great gift to the world. His pain was his own, in long silence, until the threat of eternal silence brought pen to paper--one of the only truly selfish acts in his long life.
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Now that my contribution is complete, all my energies are directed toward pushing it to the back of my mind. This was an easy enough feat for Mr. Holmes in his prime, but it is an agonising one for a wrung-out old woman. Emotionally, though inexplicably, I almost feel as though the scribbled, barely legible phrases of the bee-keeper's diary are my adopted children: carefully collected, laid out neatly, lovingly dressed with punctuation, and sent on their way into the world. They may be my only progeny, but I am not an over-protective mother, and I have confidence in their character and ability to stand alone.
My memory is occasionally unkind, jabbing my mind's eye with facsimiles of the scrawled, yellowed pages of that notebook, and even more cruelly, the images of those other papers tucked away among Dr. Watson's crumbling journals. Before my transcription began I noticed three similar notebooks marked with the title Bee-Farming Diary--dated 1927, 1928, and 1930--but these have never been opened, and in my present state of mind it is most likely that they never will, whether their contents accurately reflect their titles or not. The heavy, musty trunks with their mysterious inventory have been entrusted to a hidden, safe place, which, as far as I am concerned, is where they will stay until the end of my days.
Dr. Watson's face still smiles over the dusty piano lid. He is forever neatly framed and displayed, while Mr. Holmes suffers no such fate; never locked in a photograph, his spirit still pervades the air of my musty house, even though I believe the air is now more clear. I know that I made no promise to Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and I feel no shame of betrayal by placing his writings before your eyes. But I often wonder what John H. Watson, M.D., felt when he read Holmes's words (if he did, indeed, read those words), and I wonder if he felt ashamed of his betrayal--after all, he did not destroy the diary.
In closing, I feel that it is appropriate to give Mr. Holmes the last word, as he usually had in life:
Well, my friend, I hope you have not been too disappointed by this clumsy endeavour of mine. I swear, on my soul, that even now I can hear your confounded questions ringing in my ear, though you are many miles away--and indeed, when you read this, on another plane of existence. As these questions hang on your lips I hope you will keep this in mind: if I have left questions unanswered, it is with great deliberation.
You may now understand why my privacy permitted no unsolicited queries, much to the disappointment of you and your legion of followers; but, in your ignorance, all of your lingering, unanswered questions brought you no repercussions, and therefore no pain. I hope that you will not allow it to bring any pain into your wonderfully happy and cosy family life. Enjoy your time remaining--that is most important. You should find no difficulty in keeping my little exposé in the dark; it is a decidedly trifling episode, and should not arouse great interest after the passage of so many years. The problem merely exposed my lack of method, analysis and good deductive reasoning--in fact, the only significant feature of the whole affair is my shocking failure to recognise the obvious. You have a much richer and more impressive store from which to choose if you desire to reveal any more of my little adventures, or even if you wish to conjure one yourself. In all honesty, I no longer care.
I am quite surprised by my feelings upon completion of this manuscript; somehow, I feel that I should thank you. It is certainly remarkable how much my mood has improved since this miserable winter began. The stirrings of the innermost mind are not for us to understand, I believe--Dr. Freud notwithstanding. It is a noble attempt, but a futile one.
Now, perhaps it is possible for me to grasp a small moment of serenity in my final days. Although there are few remaining pleasures in this life, I must admit my admiration for Mr. Edison and my genuine appreciation for the existence of the Gramophone. Closing my eyes to the spinning disc, I can almost press the strings beneath my fingers, smell the rosin dust, and feel the vibrations of the wood beneath my chin as the bow glides in an exquisite arc; I can disappear between the faded lines of the score, and become manifest in fleeting moments of fragile perfection. Music connects us to the ubiquitous soul, through which we can hear the whisperings of the supreme and the infinite.
FINE