Prompt 08: From Wordwielder – Cheese left out for Basil and Dawson.
Gift
Mrs. Hudson was in Baker Street, elbow-deep in flour as she bunched and kneaded a stretch of dough on the kitchen table. The repetitive action caused puffs of white to cough upwards on each turn, specks drifting to land on her cheeks and hair.
She paused to brush the back of her hand across her forehead, when there came a familiar footstep. She turned and was not at all surprised to see Holmes stood in the doorway. The sigh she released was weighted, fell into the space between them.
"Mr. Holmes, how many times have I told you not to creep up on me?"
She fancied she saw a smile tug at the corner of his mouth.
"I can hardly be accused of such an offence as 'creeping up', Mrs. Hudson, when you turn before I have made it over the threshold."
The impertinence of the man fair made her cheeks puff out. She wiped her hands on a tea towel and mentally prepared herself for a battle of wills as to her communicative choices.
"What can I do for you, sir?"
Expecting a request of lunch forthcoming, she was surprised when he took a small parcel from his coat pocket and held it out to her. It carried with it a peculiar smell and she eyed it like it might combust.
"What is it?"
The look he gave her was one of familiar impatience.
"Really, Mrs. Hudson, you have lived within the residence of London's foremost consulting detective for six years. Surely your proximity has enlightened you to some deductive skill?" At her murderous glare and the tightening of her hands on the tea towel, he cleared his throat and added quickly, "It is cheese."
"Cheese?"
"Yes. Camembert, to be precise."
"Camembert?"
"My dear lady, really, must we continue this conversation in echoes?" He gestured to the parcel still resting on his gloved palm. "Am I to take it you do not want it?"
"Why ever would you give me that?"
She knew she sounded ungrateful, but Holmes's tendencies to experiment put her on guard. This was more so whenever he brought food stuff to their home, as the task often fell to her to carry out some unusual recipe. He himself had no desire to 'waste his time on culinary efforts', as he had once so eloquently put it; a comment which had resulted in a damp rag thrown at his head and remonstrations from the good doctor, an ever-faithful ally in her exasperations of living with the most infuriating man in England. Since then, Holmes stayed on the edge of her domain, only intruding when he saw fit.
"It is a token of appreciation from a recent client," said he, eyes glinting with amusement at her hesitance. "As I have neither the inclination nor use for it, I could think of no better recipient."
"Very well," she relented. "I suppose I could find some use for it."
"Oh, I have no doubt."
His tone suggested he knew, but no sooner had he relinquished his quarry he wished her good day and retreated upstairs.
Later, she took up a plate of cheese and freshly baked biscuits for her lodgers. The living room was quiet, its occupants individually engaged. Doctor Watson was sat at his desk, his pen darting across a sheath of paper whilst words poured out of him like a tap filled solely with ink. She set down the plate. He paused long enough to thank her, ever polite, and she poured him a cup of tea to grow cold at his elbow.
Mister Holmes was sat in his armchair, smoking his pipe, and glanced at her curiously as she did the same for him. As she put the teacup on the side table, she noticed his wrist was bandaged and a bruise graced his jawline which had been unblemished six hours prior. Not for the first time she wondered when the day would come when he returned home in a worsened condition, or did not return at all.
She shook her head of the image and bade him goodnight.
A softening of his eyes suggested he knew the dark path her mind had just wandered, and he nodded before turning his attention back toward the fire. Flames sparked in his pupils, solutions rising from the embers that only he could see.
She returned to the kitchen, cut several neat cubes of Camembert to leave by the hole in the wall, wondering what adventures awaited the other residents of 221B.
End