The worst of days – Part 4

Harriet:

Kissing my husband good-bye, I waited expectantly for Tom, and punctual like clockwork he arrived – a little out of breath, as he had been running all the way from the station to Baker Street. He looked much the same as he had done when I had last seen him. From his shabby, many-layered clothes to the cut on his forehead, with the stitches I had given him and that by now desperately needed to come out. His eyes widened when he saw me and in a child's unabashed affection, he threw his arms around me. Hugging him, I was touched by this heartfelt gesture the little waif graced me with.

"Welcome home, Tom," I said at last with a smile, holding him at arm's length.

"I never thanked you, madam. - Are you really a doctor?"

"Do you doubt it?"

He shook his head vigorously.

"Good. So then come into the house. I reckon we should get you clean first – and then take out these stitches before they get inflamed."

"Is that really necessary, Doctor…? - I don't even know your name."

"My name is either Doctor Holmes or Mrs Holmes. I would prefer the latter. And yes, it is necessary for you to get clean, in order to work here and it is also necessary to get out these stitches, Tom."

"Damn!"

"Tom – no swearing!"

Blushing, he promised he would try, assuring me, that he did at least not mind the cleaning himself bit of my order.

"Very well, then – come in and I show you the bathroom. Jane has prepared some warm water for you and the tub is waiting."

"I take a bath?" he beamed up at me. "Wicked!"

A grin stole across my face, that just would not be repressed.

"Oh, sorry, I forgot – no swearing. But I had not had a bath in such a long time..."

As we walked to the laundry downstairs, at the back of the house where Mrs Hudson and the servants took their baths, I carried on talking: "You'll find fresh clothes laid out for you. Though they might be too big for you yet."

"Oh, that does not matter. I rather have clothes that are too big, than clothes that are too small – or dirty. They are never very comfortable and one is never quite covered by them." he assured me, very happy at the prospect of getting clean and decent and it had me wonder, how he had ended up on the streets. He was well-spoken, he had polite manners and he was lacking the overall rebelliousness I had met so often with the species of the London guttersnipe.

An hour later Mrs Hudson, Jane, Tom and myself sat unceremoniously in the kitchen, each a steaming mug of tea in their hands. The landlady had already shown him his little attic chamber and I had taken out his stitches carefully and now the little boy sat there among us three women, looking form one to the other, not quite sure what was expected of him. At last, he could bear it no longer, and picking up his courage, he asked: "So, what is it, I am supposed to do?"

"You, my boy, will help Jane in her duties. Particularly in cleaning out the grates and bringing down the ashes, as well as other refuse. I suggest you follow her for the next week or two, to know your way around. Apart from that, you will help to serve the meals – meaning bringing them upstairs -, attend the door, clean and polish the shoes, run errands and so forth."

Unlike so many other boys, Tom did not look the slightest bit taken aback at the prospect of doing household chores – on the contrary.

"So what shall I do first?" he asked eagerly.

"You'll come with me," I answered, "I need to pick up a couple of things from my house in Chiswick. But before that, we need to go and see a friend of mine and pick something up from her, that we need to take back to my house."

"Wick..." he trailed off as he reminded himself of his promise and I could see Jane grin, well knowing what he had been about to say.

xxx

"We are taking a cab?" Once more Tom was stunned at his good luck when I hailed a four-wheeler.

"For sure. Chiswick is quite a distance from here and remember, we first need to go and see my friend, who lives in Hampstead. It would be too far to get everything done on foot."

"You said your house was in Chiswick. Do you not live with your man?"

"I do live with him. - But we have only just gotten married and still need to arrange a good many things. Our living arrangements are one of them."

"And what happened to you, you seem injured?"

"The exact same thing that has happened to you, Tom. And at the hands of the very same people."

The small boy shivered.

"They have been truly evil."

"Yes."

"Mr Holmes, is he a policeman?"

"A consulting detective."

I could see from the confusion spreading over his face, that he did not know what was meant by that and so I explained it to him, till we reached the house of Anne Fraser.

When I had dropped off Louise, I had promised her to pick up the large and impractical pram within the next few days and now the beaming mother opened the door herself, baby in her arms.

"Harriet!" she exclaimed happily. "It is so good to see you are getting better. Two days ago you looked horrible!"

"Thank you for your frankness," I remarked dryly, making her grin ruefully. "But I was very tired then, and my lesions still troubled me."

"Won't you come in and take some tea? - Then you can tell me all about..." she shifted the tiny bundle in her arms and pointed at her own forehead to indicate she meant my injuries.

"I would love to, but I am afraid I cannot do so today. Could we postpone our chat to in a week? I am on my way to Chiswick to drop of the pram and pick up some things and then I'll need to return home."

At this point, Mrs. Fraser looked already puzzled.

"And my husband has hired a new page boy and he has only just arrived this morning, so I'll be rather busy today with running errands."

The confusion on my friend's face had grown with every word I had spoken and once again the need for an explanation for my rather unusual situation arose.

"Excuse me, but who did you say, hired a page boy?" she asked after a few instances of complete perplexity.

"My husband."

I have to admit, that at this point I began enjoying these queer situations as much as Sherlock seemed to do. Particularly since so many of my friends – Anne Fraser among them – had repeatedly offered to find a suitable husband for me. As if I could not possibly cope without a man!

"Your husband?" she stared at me in disbelief. "You have a husband?"

"Yes."

"Is there something else you are keeping from me? Do I need to congratulate you on more than your wedding?" her gaze darted towards my midsection and I wondered what kind of impression I must have left with my friends and family, that my brother did not put it past me that I might have an illegitimate daughter and now the actual mother of that child thought, I had needed to get married pretty much for the same reason.

"No, only for the wedding," I assured her.

"But why did you not say anything? Why this secrecy? Is he someone your brother might not approve off?"

"There is no secrecy. It was only a very speedy decision, that is all."

"Just how speedy? I did not even know you were engaged to be married."

"Well, last time you saw me, I wasn't. - Apart from Wednesday of course, but then again, then I had been married already."

"So, the man that had accompanied you, was your husband? - But when did you meet him? And where?"

"Yes, that was my husband. And I met him on Thursday last week, when I basically woke up in his arms, lying on the floor of his living room – where I had collapsed."

To say my friend Anne Fraser was shocked at this revelation would have been an understatement. She was now so thoroughly perplexed, that it took her some minutes to recover.

"But when you only met him then and were married already last Wednesday, when on earth did you marry?"

"A week ago, today."

"Are you out of your mind? - What will your family say? Your brother?" she cried out and then her face grew compassionate as she gasped: "Has he forced you?"

"My family approves of him – since my husband has met them, my mother and brother, to be precise, and is still alive and well. No, I was not forced – at least not by him, but by circumstances and thank you very much, but I am perfectly sane."

From Sherlock, I knew that Doctor Watson had asked the exact same question at his friend's revelation of having married.

"Well, he looked sensible enough..." she admitted.

"He is a very sensible man. And a very good one."

Anne just shook her head, but a grin had appeared on her pretty face and it eventually turned into a heartfelt laugh.

"Then I presume I should call the maid, so we can get this monstrous pram of yours into the cab."

"It is Cedric's pram."

"If you keep up with that speed, you'll need it soon enough."

When the heavy thing had been stored with the help of Tom and the cabby, and I had climbed into the cab also, she held my hand, adding: "You know, you look very happy – and I am sure he must be a very good and deserving man."

"I don't think, I could wish for a better."

"Then you will have to come to dinner soon. I am very intrigued by your husband, Mrs. -?"

"Holmes. Mrs Holmes, I am now."

"Oh, that I can remember! You know James and I like reading these detective stories. Brilliant, I tell you. I know you are not too keen on them, and I dare say, a man like that Sherlock Holmes must be very daunting, indeed. Wouldn't you agree?"

"A bit perhaps," I answered, before it dawned on me, that Anne had meant the man she had read about and not the man she had met, not venturing to think it was actually one and the same person.

How on earth could I have forgotten about these publications? I had always tried to stay out of the limelight and now… - Oh, dear! I made a mental note to read the stories at last. Perhaps I could even persuade the hero of these stories to read them to me? - No, probably not, I inwardly chuckled. The man I had met did not strike me as a person who felt too comfortable in the spotlight either.

"Harriet?" I heard my friend say, "Will it suit you if I send you a dinner invitation for in a fortnight?"

"That sounds lovely. Of course." I answered still somewhat distracted.

"And what address will I have to send it to?"

"Either my Chiswick address or to 221b Baker Street."

"221b? I'll write it down immediately."

And so, with the kindest regards to each others families, Tom and I, at last, drove on.

xxx

Reaching my Chiswick home, once again Tom seemed awestruck – and yet there was something else in his countenance I could not place.

"This is beautiful!" he exclaimed, as we entered through the garden gate. It certainly was in summer. But now the plants began to wither from the increasingly cold weather and the lawn had gotten a bit too long and shaggy over the last couple of weeks and it was only fortunate that it would now grow only very slowly.

"My father was a gardener," Tom added, longing in his voice at his reminiscence. "We used to live on an estate close to Winchester. But then he died and mother married again, so we would not starve, as she called it. But..."

He stopped, eyes looking into the distance, though unseeing. But the boy did not need to say anymore. It was the same old story and what he had said was already enough to be fairly certain what had happened after the stepfather had come into the picture.

We did not stay long, as I knew what I wanted and as I entered my house, only the hook and the cracked ceiling indicated, what had happened here over a week ago, though I knew that blasted dress form was still stored away in my disused horsebox. But perhaps I should thank that man Wright for having scared the wits out of me… I gathered my things together, which meant some items of clothing, a quilt, a rag rug and some curtains for Tom's room and my personal correspondence. The letter to Caroline Briggs was long overdue to be sent – and I found yet another epistle she had written in the basket attached to my letterbox. And so after about twenty minutes, we left for home, only stopping briefly at a haberdashers shop and at St. Anne's to sort out my return and pick up some more, this time professional, correspondence.

We arrived at Bakes Street just in time for tea.

"You were fast," the maid exclaimed, looking secretive as if she was up to something.

"I knew what I wanted, needed and where to find it." I laughed. "And now, I will make the boy's room a bit more habitable – if you don't have any objections, that is."

With that last sentence, I had addressed Mrs Hudson, who had just joined us, with the same expression the maid had sported. And I dearly hoped she was not one of those employers, that did not like their staff to have some comfort in return for providing it for the ones they served.

"No, not at all," she replied. "Had I known he would not bring anything with him, I would have done so myself already."

That was good news.

"Will you help me, then?" I asked her innocently, knowing she was up to something.

"I am currently busy..." she answered rather sheepishly.

"Perhaps I can give you a hand first?" I offered.

"You are just as bad as your husband!" she exclaimed, before admitting: "I have organised a wider bed for the two of you – it was supposed to be a surprise."

"It is one. - And I won't tell Sherlock."

xxx

When dinnertime came, Doctor Watson joined me, but my husband was still absent.

"Did he not say, when he would return?" the doctor asked.

"No, only that it might get late and that we should not wait for his return."

We had of course just finished our meal, and the doctor had just excused himself to retire early, for he had slept little over the last few days, when Sherlock did arrive, looking tired and worn, also.

"Good evening, my dear." he greeted with a weary smile.

"Good evening, my love," I replied, getting up to first help him out of his overcoat and then to fetch his dinner. He had slipped into his dressing gown, while I was gone and as he tucked into his meal I saw the bloody bandage around his left-hand thumb.

"What happened to you?"

"Nothing, I just cut myself."

"Do you want me to have a look at it? It looks as if you managed to harm yourself quite severely."

He looked up, smiling: "If you must, Doctor Holmes."

"I must, Mr Holmes. - And also, do you care to share your worries?"

"Is it that obvious I am troubled?"

"Yes."

"It was a trying day. This business is getting to me more than it should. It is just so devastatingly sad."

And with that, he began telling me all he had learned. When he had ended, I knew why he had looked so tired upon entering, I was hard pressed, not to cry in compassion for these poor people I have come to value so greatly.

"So, can I help you with anything?" I enquired.

"Perhaps you could search through some notes for me tomorrow? Mrs Watson has drawn an image of a coat of arms, she says she has seen – and I would also like you to find any references about the attempted assassination of Prime Minister Gladstone in '93. - I am not sure though, if I have anything in my own papers, as I was out of the country at that time. But would you mind searching in the newspaper archives? - The Times is perhaps a good starting point."

"I don't mind in the least. Why would I?"

"Perhaps you might think it to be a boring task?"

"Nonsense!" I exclaimed with emphasis, clearing the table and ringing for Jane to pick up the dirty dishes and bring up some tea.

"And how is Tom behaving? I presume you have sent him to bed early?" Sherlock asked me when the tea had been brought up and we had walked over to the sofa where my husband had pulled me down onto his lap, carefully removing the pins from my hair.

"I did. He was very tired and he was looking forward to sleeping in a proper bed again. But he did really well. The boy is attentive and eager to learn. I would like to teach him how to read and write."

"I had hoped so – but read and write he can, and well. He will need some further education though."

By now he had managed to take out the last of the pins and his fingers ran through my hair absent-mindedly. I enjoyed his tenderness, the comfort of peacefully sitting there in his arms, head leaning against his shoulder, with no further need for idle conversation. I caressed his face and neck and as the time passed I began to feel a welcome sense of drowsiness, a tranquillity I had never experienced before.

"I think we should go to bed, dear," Sherlock suggested at some point, where both our eyes began drooping.

"And I think you are right with that." I yawned, moving to get up.

"I see you have been busy, during the day..." he mused as he saw the new bed. "at least now it is getting more difficult for you to steal the blanket from me."

"I don't steal blankets!" I mumbled, as once again I snuggled up to him.

"Oh yes, you do. You stole my blanket and my heart, you little thief!"