Chapter 14 Remembrance of Honey Wine
"Have you heard anything at all? It's been a week since he was supposed to return." Mary Russell clutched the telephone receiver in an unaccustomedly sweaty hand. Not again… Holmes had disappeared off the face of the earth, or so it would seem. Damned inconsiderate sod, she thought, as she listened to John Watson wittering on about Holmes' penchant for impromptu side-trips and unexpected departures to points unknown, oblivious that anyone should worry about him.
"I know, Uncle John, but he was going to Edinburgh for three days to present a monograph at a conference, not to investigate a case!"
"What does Mycroft say? Has he heard aught of him?" She could tell that John Watson was disturbed; his voice trembled slightly.
"Mycroft's not heard a word from him, but he did say that Holmes had mentioned walking in Ayrshire for a bit after the conference. You know Holmes; he's always prepared for a tramp through woods or over moors. I asked Mrs Hudson if he had taken anything unusual along; she said he'd taken his Wellington boots and that awful old cranach of his, so she tucked some extra biscuits and a tin of kippers into his kit."
Mary leaned against the wall, suddenly tired of talking. "Uncle John, I'm going to ring off, I'm terribly weary. If you hear from Holmes, please let me know."
"I shall, my dear. Now Mary, get some rest. Good-bye, Mary dear, and don't fret. You know how Holmes is; he'll appear when you least expect him."
Mary bade him good-bye and hung up the receiver. Not much comfort there; he's as concerned as I am, she thought. She had a vague sense of foreboding, an unexplainable feeling of disquietude. The beauty of late spring did little to distract her. Term was just about over, and she looked forward to returning to Sussex, but without Holmes… She tramped upstairs to her rooms and flung herself down across the bed. Oh, very well, Russell, you might as well admit it. You miss him terribly. She had tried time and again to analyse exactly what it was she missed when Holmes was away. There was the to and fro of spirited discourse, with a racketing good argument thrown in periodically, to be sure. There was the ease of being herself, totally herself, with her acerbic tongue, rough edges, and encyclopaedic knowledge. There was the astonishing feeling of losing her self-awareness, sinking, as it were, into Holmes' presence as she opened her mind without reservation and drank thirstily from the spring of his intellect.
And then, and then….she rolled over, wrapping her arms around a large pillow, holding to it tightly, and (fighting herself every inch of the way) admitting that she wished it were Holmes, that she not only missed, but hungered for, the hard, thin, muscular arms that had enfolded her on certain unforgettable occasions; the strong chest and shoulder on which she had found refuge. She had wanted him never to release her, to hold her forever, and when, inevitably, he had let her go, she had hastened to find a solitary place where she could weep in frustration, slam her fists against a wall and curse him hideously for wakening her from her innocence.
She was nineteen and he was fifty-eight, more than three times her age. But that is not where our ages lie, she argued with herself. She knew herself to be an 'old soul,' him to be ageless. His clear, chill grey eyes pierced her; she felt herself drawn into him. It happened all the time; it happened every time they were together. Working in the laboratory, the light brush of his long fingers against her arm summoning her to look into the microscope or observe a chemical reaction; his shoulder against hers as together they pored over a document or teased apart a fragment of fibre from a crime scene; the heat of his body penetrated her skin and warmed her to her most secret places.
He had no feelings. Oh, he could be roused to smouldering anger, he could also laugh without inhibition. But, she reasoned, he did not, could not know that the casual touch of his palm on her shoulder caused the contraction of muscles she had only recently learned existed; oh, they existed, and caused her a dull pain in her lower abdomen and a host of unwelcome fantasies, grinning harpies that were only reluctantly driven off by her attention to their presence in her most private moments.
She had often thought that it would be better if she stayed in Oxford, made it her habitation and her community, and never returned to the Sussex Downs, to the cosy and welcoming cottage whose gardens overlooked the Channel; to the hum of bees and the taste of summer trickling down her throat, the honey wine with which Holmes had bewitched her years ago. If she never again slept in the soft bed made up with puffy down quilts and pillows, and drowsily felt Holmes' light step as he drew the cover up to her shoulders, and the brush of his lips, so soft, across her brow, before he left, closing the door to her room. He would be horrified if he knew that I wanted to reach up and pull him down with me on that bed every time I felt his lips; he would be mortified if he suspected that I starve for his touch, and that every fibre of my being wants more than his mind, more than his spirit, wants to be his completely. She buried her head under her pillow. Tears leaked slowly down her cheeks.
Resolutely, she sat up and dried her face with her hands. I will not be a helpless ninny mewling about like a kitten because the Master is gone, she said to herself. The word, 'master,' evoked in her a growing anger. Damn him. I will not be reduced to a snivelling wreck by his absence. I shall send a telegram to the general post in Ayrshire, and if I do not get an answer by tomorrow, I shall call Scotland Yard.