Disclaimer: I don't own Holmes, Watson, or any other references to Conan Doyle's stories you may find in here. Special thanks to Moliere for the chapter title, which comes from one of his plays.

Chapter 2: The Misanthrope

The next morning found Holmes and I on a train headed for the Shields family estate, isolated in the beautiful English countryside. I relished the idea of escaping the suffocating London air, anticipating the tremendous relief of being free of the dark, oppressive buildings and thick, smothering fog that characterized the great cesspool. However, neither of my companions seemed to share my sentiments. Holmes, ever attentive to the job at hand, sat contemplating the carpet, clutching his empty pipe in his hand and tapping it against his teeth. His taciturn mood was familiar to me, but I found it rather irritating, none the less.

Miss Shields sat opposite us, staring out the window, and just as uncommunicative as Holmes. She seemed less than thrilled to be traveling back to her birthplace, but considering the circumstances in which she had last visited, I found this hardly surprising.

Needless to say, the train ride seemed interminable to me, and by the time we had rumbled into the station, I found myself entertaining a mild case of claustrophobia. The station at which we alighted was so small it was almost nonexistent. Luckily, we did not have to wait there long, for a carriage waited for us on the other side of the little hut that passed for the waiting area.

Its driver silently took our luggage, piling it on the back of the vehicle. In no time we were being bumped and jostled down a dirt road toward our final destination. After 30 minutes of driving, Miss Shields turned to Holmes and me, acknowledging our presence for the first time since we had boarded the train. She indicated the landscape outside the window with a nod of her head. "You are now entering my father's estate. Everything you see from now until we reach the house belongs to my family." She stated it matter-of-factly with no hint of pride or shame in her voice.

The Shields estate was quite extensive, and soon I found myself wondering if the house was disguised to blend into the trees, we passed so many forests and groves. I said as much to Violet, hoping to lighten the mood slightly, and she smiled back at me. "The estate was father's pride and joy, he spent his life expanding and cultivating his land. It was one of his two passions," she said a trifle wistfully.

Holmes looked up at her sharply. "What was the other one?" He enquired.

"Middle eastern artifacts. There is a large collection of them at the house. I will show them to you when we get there, if you are interested." At her mention of this strange passion of her father's, our reason for being in the country resurfaced in my mind. This was not a weekend outing, but a serious murder investigation, I reminded myself forcefully. Could this peculiar hobby have some bearing on the case I wondered? The manner in which Violet made the statement told me that she had been thinking similarly.

"Middle Eastern artifacts? Singular." Holmes replied, almost under his breath. It was all the confirmation that I needed.

We spoke no more the rest of the drive and then suddenly, when I felt certain I would throw myself screaming from the carriage if we were forced to travel a moment longer in the beautiful, but seemingly endless forest that surrounded the mansion, we drove out of the shade of the trees and into the waning sunlight of the day.

To say the estate was grand would be a gross understatement. It was an enormous and imposing building of stone, as unfriendly a home as I had ever seen. It accomplished its purpose perfectly, however, and I was immediately struck by the obvious wealth and grandeur of the family that inhabited it. I regarded Miss Violet Shields from my new perspective, wondering how she had managed to remain as modest as she appeared to be when she had been brought up in such a structure.

"Welcome to Blandwood Mansion." Miss Shields said with a touch of irony in her voice.

"Blandwood Mansion?" I echoed, wondering what in the world was bland about the mansion or, for that matter, the woods that surrounded it.

Miss Shields seemed to understand the meaning behind my words and she laughed at my consternation. "Evidence of my father's rare, and rather off, sense of humor. There is a kind of wood found in the forest which the natives call 'bland wood' because of its dull-grey appearance. It is not found many other places in the world. The mansion is named after this colloquialism. It is a strikingly inappropriate name, is it not?" She asked with a mischievous grin.

"Indeed, it is quite an oxymoron." I replied, sharing the joke. Holmes nodded in agreement and we stared at the austere structure in silent mirth. The carriage pulled to a stop outside the mansion's front doors, which opened on cue seemingly of their own accord.

The interior of Blandwood Mansion matched the exterior perfectly. Its high vaulted ceilings and rich tapestry-covered walls gave the impression of stepping into the medieval castle of a feudal lord. The hall which we entered seemed even larger and more uncomfortable that it might have felt had it been more richly furnished, but the only furniture in the entryway, which was large enough to hold the carriage and horses easily, was a small end table and three glass cases. Upon the end table, there sat a fresh bouquet of flowers, obviously picked earlier in the day for the benefit of the guests, a small attempt to make the room seem more welcoming. Sadly, it failed entirely for the splash of bright color seemed oddly out of place, and more disconcerting than friendly.

Holmes nodded over to the glass cases saying to me "You see, Watson, evidence of the late Mr. Shield's passion for middle eastern curios. A mere sample of his collection I dare say." He was right, of course. The cases were the most prominent objects in the room, and they were all three filled with a variety of pot shards, tools, and small statues organized into neatly labeled rows.

A man I had neglected to notice when we first entered, moved to shut the doors behind us. He was every inch the gentleman's gentleman from his stiff and slightly old-fashioned suit to his emotionless expression, the kind of butler I had always associated with appallingly rich English families. "Welcome back, Miss Shields. I hope you find everything to your satisfaction?"

"I do Bradley, thank you. You have kept the place up admirably." The strange expression had found its way back into her eyes. There was some secret about her life, some memory that this mansion sparked in her. I remembered the anxiety I had sensed when she had departed Baker Street yesterday, and wondered what she was hiding.

"Shall I show your guests to their rooms?" Bradley, the perfect butler, asked.

"Have their cases taken up, Bradley, I shall show them to their rooms myself." Miss Shields replied, "I will give you a brief tour of the mansion on our way," she said, directing her statement at Holmes, thus effectively turning her back on Bradley, who left unobtrusively.

"Come this way." She said, leading us up a set of stairs. "I will not show you the whole house now, I daresay you won't have the stamina for such an endeavor until you have eaten and rested. There are enough corridors and staircases in this estate to keep an army in good training," she said, laughing at the joke she had made. She had a musical laugh that seemed to fill the space with light. Holmes chuckled and I glanced at him briefly. His normally cold, piercing grey eyes seemed to glow with fire. I marveled at the red light of the sunset streaming in through the high windows and when I looked back at Holmes, the strange light was gone. An effect of the setting sun, I thought, or perhaps I had imagined it. Sherlock Holmes avoided strong emotion; it clouded his mind like "grit in a sensitive instrument" as he so often told me.

In spite of her assurances to the contrary, it seemed a long time before we had finished the tour. We had very little time to settle into our rooms before dinner, and Holmes didn't even bother to change. The meal was not, by any means, a sumptuous feast, but it was edible and filling so I had no cause for complaint. After the meal was finished, we retired to a drawing room almost as sparsely furnished as the front entranceway. Holmes curled himself into an uncomfortable-looking armchair, which he pulled up to the fire and fixed our hostess with a steady gaze. "Tell me about your father, Miss Shields."

"My father?" She faltered, as if searching for something to say. "I have told you the important facts already, what more do you need to know?" Her voice had taken on a defensive quality that seemed very inappropriate to the situation.

"Let me decide what is important and what is not, the smallest details can solve a case." Holmes said gently. She looked at him and sighed.

"I knew it would have to come up sooner or later. I suppose I should have told you from the start, foolish of me to try and conceal it. Of course you cannot hope to solve the case without all the background. I…I have never been close to my father. After my mother died, he pushed away everything that reminded him of her. It is an old story, this kind of thing has happened many times, but no matter how many times I reminded myself of that, it never seemed to comfort me."

"Of course not," Holmes said, his voice and eyes registered only sympathy.

"As soon as I was old enough he sent me away to boarding school. When I would come back to this house on the holidays, he would always meet me at the station with a smile and a hug, and that would be all I saw of him until he took me back to the station a week later. This house never felt like home to me. I was isolated here, and more alone than I was at boarding school. I am grateful to him now, for it taught me to be independent, and that skill has served me well over the years."

"Now," she stood as she spoke, "you must excuse me. I fear I must get some sleep or I shall fall asleep in my chair, and that is not a pleasant experience in these chairs, believe me. I only managed to do it once and in the morning I vowed never to let it happen again," she said laughing, lightening the dark mood her story had cast on the room. "Good night gentlemen."

We murmured a good night to her as she made to leave the room. At the door she turned to look back at us, a mischievous glint in her eyes, "If you do not want to risk getting lost on your way back to your rooms, ring for Bradley. He has made maps of the house which I have often found quite useful." Her laughter rang in the room long after she had closed the door.

After she had left, I stirred in my seat and turned to Holmes, who was staring at the fire deep in thought. "I think I shall go to bed too, Holmes. I am impossibly tired after that long train ride."

"Traveling does tend to tire one out, I find. Singular, is it not? Why should sitting still for eight hours feel just as tiring as going for a brisk jog?"

"A valid point, Holmes."

"Some mysteries I fear I shall never solve," he muttered to himself, bringing his pipe out of his pocket. I took this as a sign that he planned to sit up a while longer, and stood to take my leave.

"Do not tire yourself out before you have even begun to investigate the mystery, Holmes," I cautioned.

"I began to investigate the mystery from the moment Miss Shields entered our rooms at Baker Street, Watson," he replied with a raised eyebrow.

"You might try, for once, operating on a decent night's sleep. Even a machine cannot function without fuel."

"You are right, Watson, as always. I promise I shall go to bed at a reasonable hour. I shall even wash behind my ears," he said sarcastically.

"That will not be necessary, Holmes," I replied, exasperated and took my leave, knowing full well I would probably find him sitting in that same chair when I woke in the morning.

A/N: Thanks to my reviewers. I love comments, criticisms, praise, whatever you feed me as long as it's feed back!

Lowell: I would never dream of creating a Lowell voodoo doll! (Besides I used up all my supplies on my drama teacher who assigned a 12-page play analysis due in 2 weeks. Naturally I'm writing this instead.) Your corrections were very helpful. Did you notice I tried to fix them? Keep reviewing, and don't apologize! Be as blunt and nit-picky as you want. Sometimes it's the only way I'll improve.

Baskerville Beauty: The run-on sentence is my arch enemy and we have been doing battle for many, many years. I shall try, for the sake of my readers, to vanquish my foe. Then I'll write a great novel about our struggles and dedicate it to you :o)

Hermione Holmes: YOU ROCK! You picked up on something that's quickly going to become a theme in this thing-Violet's inconsistency. I wanted to hint at it obliquely from the start, and I'm so happy someone actually caught on to it:-D Keep your eyes on her, she's gonna become even more of a mystery when this case really gets off the ground.