This chapter is really short, so I'll put it up along with the previous one. So you get a bonus chapter today. :) I hope you like this one.


Since the arrival of the evacuees, Sherlock had not yet demonstrated his talents upon the violin. To be perfectly honest, he had quite forgotten to practise, what with everything that had happened: his mind was turmoiled, and it was only when he reached the height of his annoyance at having to share the house with more people than usual that he decided to try to calm himself down, and so took up his violin and his bow and began to play the first thing that came into his head.

John and Harriet were perhaps surprised to hear this virtuosic playing coming from the depths of his bedroom. They had perhaps guessed that the family was musical – there was a piano in the living-room, and an entire shelf of sheet-music; and John had been in Sherlock's room, and so couldn't have failed to notice the violin-case and music-stand. But they had not known that there would be such a remarkable talent.

'Is that Sherlock playing?' asked Harry in astonishment, her eyes widening. She enjoyed live music as well as the next person, free as it was from the crackles on the wireless, but she found herself utterly captivated by this playing, drawn entirely out of her previous thoughts by the expansive piece and its brilliant rendition.

'It must be,' replied John.

They didn't know what it was he was playing, but it was an interesting piece. Soaring sections, ones that seemed to rise and rise with no end in sight, were interrupted intermittently by something akin to the twittering of a bird, or by a snatch of something like a folk-song; and there was an underlying theme to the piece that hinted at nothing less than an immense sadness or nostalgia. As they did not know the piece, they could not tell if he was playing it correctly or not, but they could very much tell that he played well, because it was beginning to tug on their heartstrings. Sherlock's strident, passionate playing hinted at an outpouring of pure emotion from the player. It was quite unlike anything they had heard before.

It was evidently a long piece, because he did not stop for a good twenty minutes; but at last the house fell silent, and yet still seemed to ring with the heart-wrenching notes that he had flung into every corner. John and Harry could not move or speak for more than a second.

'We should go and congratulate him,' he said at length.

Harry nodded and stood, and they went together to Sherlock's room and knocked on the door. After a few moments a voice from within invited them in.

Sherlock was running a cloth down the strings of a beautiful violin, and did not look up at their entrance, merely saying: 'Ah, it's you.'

'Sherlock, what were you playing?' John asked.

'The Lark Ascending.' Sherlock indicated the music with the end of his bow. It looked very complicated. 'By Ralph Vaughan Williams.' Seeing that the Watsons did not recognise the piece or the name of the composer, he added: 'It's supposed to have an orchestra backing the violin, but I don't have an orchestra. It describes the flight of a skylark.'

'Skylark?' asked Harry.

Sherlock furrowed his brow, and them remembered that the pair had not until now left London, and were finding a good deal of things about the countryside bewildering. Still, he was surprised they had never heard of skylarks. Sherlock saw them all the time round here. 'They're birds. They nest in fields, and sometimes fly up really high into the sky, singing all the while. They're quite common. Get Mummy to show you one next time you go for a walk.'

'You played really well,' John said then.

Sherlock smiled very slightly. 'Not really.'

'Yes, really,' John persisted. 'I thought you were brilliant.'

The slightest hint of a blush came into Sherlock's impossibly pale cheeks, and he brushed off this compliment. 'It's a good piece. It's hard to make it sound bad.'

'It was a nice piece,' agreed Harry. 'But it was quite sad.'

'It was written during the Great War,' Sherlock replied, shrugging. 'I thought it would be fitting...'

'It was,' said John. 'Sherlock, you should play more often. You're really good.'

Sherlock did not, could not reply. It was very rare that people paid him genuine compliments, and it was obvious from the expressions on the Watsons' faces that these were very genuine. He merely tried to smile, not knowing quite how one was supposed to take a compliment, and went back to tending to his instrument.