Epilogue

Author's Notes: This is it, at last – the end of our travels with Sherlock and Beatrice. Thanks for sticking around! Roger Casement (look him up) was hanged in August, 1916. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle pleaded for clemency. This chapter should answer all lingering questions about them and their life together. I owe inspiration to Federico Garcia Llorca via Leonard Cohen's song, "Take This Waltz." This chapter is how it all began, and both The Great Hiatus and Curtain Call have been leading back to this. Enjoy.

None of the people present that evening in the ballroom of the Hyde Park Hotel paid much attention to the couple who strolled in at half-past seven. Even the wait staff were slightly dismissive as the pair were seated and served. They were not very remarkable, after all – a little older, certainly, than the majority of the crowd, composed as it was of soldiers home at last from the war and the women who had waited for them. This pair seemed too old to have even been involved in that noble endeavor. The man was tall and gaunt, but he did not have a military bearing. He had instead a slight air of bohemianism, no longer popular among the young mustachioed men in dinner jackets and lithe young women in tunic dresses. His head was almost entirely white, but instead of giving off an impression of senility, it seemed instead to further highlight his piercing grey eyes. The lines on his face were set into a stern and thoughtful expression.

His slightly younger companion was a petite woman with an alert expression; her eyes glanced around the room, alighting on this or that. She was dressed in a pearl-grey satin and chiffon gown, a fur-trimmed brocade wrap draped over the back of her chair. Her black hair, although shot through with silver, was dressed in the latest style – piled high at the back, with waves framing her face. Her features were still soft and round. She looked to be about fifty.

And so, the hotel guests seated at the neighbouring tables, set closely together to make space for a dance-floor in the centre of the room, were oblivious to the strangers in their midst. But had they cared to listen carefully, straining to hear over the music being played by the band on the stage, they might have overheard the conversation of Sherlock Holmes and his secret wife.

"It hasn't all been for naught, Martha," he said, nodding slightly towards the young men and women who passed their table.

"I told you that nearly three years ago when they hanged Casement," Beatrice replied irritably. "Was it not you who first warned the government about the Clan na Gael? Did you not discover the German-Irish plot two years before he even approached the Germans?"

"It did not do me any good then," frowned Holmes, fingering the stem of his wine glass. "It did not do anyone any good. There was still war, at home and abroad. How many friends quarreled over politics? How many families were destroyed, only to have these few survive?" He nodded again towards the young people.

Beatrice did not seem to have an answer. She turned her head away from the dance floor, and gazed into the dim distance, black eyes filled with sorrow.

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They had returned from somewhere – it wasn't important, now, where they had been – to find their son, young Garridan, waiting in the front room. His cheeks were flushed, and he had been pacing. He was nervous. He ran his fingers through his hair, then brought them to his lips, as though requesting a cigarette. He couldn't smoke in the house; Beatrice had forbidden it. He fumbled with something in his pockets. They watched this performance silently, not inviting the words they knew would shock them.

"I've volunteered," he declared finally, his voice breaking a little, like it had not so many years ago.

There was a little pause, and the air in the room was heavy.

"What?" asked Beatrice, though she had heard.

"I've enlisted, Mother," Garridan repeated. "I am going to war. Charles signed up, too. We're going to be shipped off together."

"But why?" Beatrice asked. It was a ridiculous question, in the circumstances, but it seemed to buy her time.

Garridan snorted and turned away from them, stuffing his fists into his trouser pockets. He began speaking at the fireplace mantel. "Why? Because I have to, Mother. Because all of Europe depends on it. Because even though your generation has done it's best to spoil everything, I still think it's worth fighting for."

"Spoiled? What have we spoiled?" interrupted Beatrice.

Garridan whirled around to face her. His lip curled in contempt. "What haven't you spoiled? I look around, at you and your friends, and all I see is how greedy you all are, and how your politics are tied up in pathetic medieval disputes, and how you have no regard for anything that is beautiful or spiritual!"

Beatrice shook her head violently. She bit her lip and drew a breath before speaking. "Very well," she said, throwing her hands up in the air. "Let us assume for a moment that what you have said is true. Why, then, dear boy, would you agree to feed yourself to enemy fire?" She looked at him earnestly, and he flushed and looked away.

"Because there is nothing else for me to do. There'd be a war anyway – if not with the Huns, then with the Irish. Father was there, and look what he earned for his efforts: glorious obscurity in the English countryside!"

Beatrice stood up to face her son. Her lips drawn back tightly over her bared teeth, she forcefully whispered, "You have no idea what your father has done for this country. You could not comprehend the scale of his work. What he, your uncle, your cousin, even myself – what we have done to preserve peace…"

She felt a firm grip on her shoulder as Holmes stood behind her. He had watched the scene, his arms crossed across his chest, his eyebrows knotted in concern and concentration. His hot breath rolled over her neck and into her ear. "Enough," he whispered. He gave her shoulder a small squeeze and pushed it down gently to encourage her to sit. She sank back into the chair and covered her face with her hands. Garridan, his cheeks flushed with mingled shame and pride, looked expectantly at his father.

"It was never my desire," Holmes began slowly, painfully, "to have a child of mine go to war." Gods, he felt old. As he spoke, memories flooded his brain – day after day, year after year of people, and travel, and work. When was the last time he had advised anyone on how to live their life? How little he understood of motivations, and of youth. How powerless he was before an adversary that knew no fear, nor logic. How helpless he was before love. He continued, his voice stronger, his back straighter, his shoulders squared. "But I find that before me is not a child, but a man; and as a man, he is bound by the laws of this country. As much as it grieves me, I must believe that his government means well and would not deprive a mother of her son if it did not believe it to be absolutely necessary." He looked down at Beatrice. Her shoulders were shaking and a single great tear rolled down her cheek. Her hands trembled in her lap. Holmes stepped forward and extended his hand to Garridan. "When do you leave?" he asked.

"Thursday," his son replied, returning the gesture. To Holmes, it was the blackest Thursday in the history of the world.

It was a matter of weeks. Standing in the garden one day, facing the ocean, Beatrice thought she saw Garridan. He stood by the rose bushes, in full uniform, buttons gleaming in the sun. He made to move, and the reflected sunlight blinded her. She winced, but when she looked up again, he was gone. She did not have to open the telegram to know what news it contained.

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The music stopped for a few minutes, and couples returned to their dinner tables from the dance floor. A few cast curious glances at the man and woman sitting across from each other at a small table, occasionally exchanging soft words, as is the habit of couples who have grown comfortable in each other's company over time.

The orchestra struck up again, the band leader coming to the front of the stage and signaling the other instruments. A plaintive chord sounded from an accordion, punctuated by a fierce staccato rhythm. It was the tango, which had been all the rage before the war, when it had crossed the Atlantic from the disaffected beer halls of the Argentinean working class to the elegant Europeans eager for new scandal at their parties. On the dance floor, young men awkwardly embraced their partners, and they giggled as they mimicked the angry steps of the dramatic dance.

Few noticed as the older couple stood and arm-in-arm, stepped onto the dance floor. Few saw how his arm tenderly but jealously encircled her waist, or how her head turned at a haughty angle and her mouth set in a determined line. But as the strings soared above the dancers and grew to an almost unbearable pitch, all eyes turned to this pair. They danced as if possessed, their feet leading them in a long-remembered dance of stifled passion, as if all the emotions which had been put away in the corners of their hearts were now expressed in interlocking, skipping feet. They did not dance together -- they danced as one, making each movement like a phrase in an intimate conversation. They never exchanged a glance; one body led another. Not a word was spoken between them. The dizzying whirl of motion echoed the music, until the melody lurched and stopped. The pair stopped, too, their heels ground into the wooden floor. It had all lasted a few moments. From the hanging silence came a smattering of applause. The man gave a curt nod to his wife, and released her from his arms. They walked off the dance floor to their table. There were tears in her eyes; there may have been some in his.

As they sat down, he whispered to her again, "It hasn't all been for naught."

The orchestra played waltzes for the rest of the night.

FIN

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