A Pocketbook of Insanity. Part VII
And the last.
=April Monday 19th=
A tardy record of yesterday’s drama.
Visiting hours were eleven until three, and since Holmes’ note had not been very explicit as to the precise timing of my arrival I thought early would be better than late. Not that I had any notion of what he was up to, nor how he was so certain he’d have his evidence by now. (I suppose he thought after a week he’d either obtain the proof he needed or have to admit defeat.) With this in mind I did my utmost to look professional and (despite the best efforts of the Southern and District Railways) arrive at eleven.
Things proceeded quite apace once I reached Parkhouse.
I’d been welcomed, led into the parlour, and was about to surrender my hat and coat when an almighty hue and cry was sounded from above. It was Holmes (naturally), running barefoot down the main staircase with two broad-shouldered but less-nimble orderlies in laboured pursuit. Whilst running his gaze was given to pulling out the correct key from a chain he held - although how he spared the attention for them whilst careering down a flight of stairs and not breaking his neck I couldn’t imagine. He leapt the last few steps and pushed forward with renewed momentum before spying me as he traversed the hall. He skidded, spinning to a brief stop.
“No Lestrade?” he asked, eyebrows quirking. He was pale, dishevelled - eyes and cheeks fever-bright - poised: all potential energy a beat away from freefalling into kinetic again. He looked in fact, the perfect picture of a maniac.
I opened my mouth to say a great many things (none of which were the answer to his question.)
“Late again!” A look across his shoulder at his approaching adversaries. The sort of glance of a fox who knows that despite the hounds’ gross stupidity, base numbers and not cunning may prove victorious. “Watson, lend a hand would you?”
And god help me, I did. (Perhaps only because if anyone was going to give Holmes a kicking, it was going to be me.)
Being in the army, one learns a great many things not fit for polite society, but eminently suited to the rougher side of life. Swearing, innumerable card games, drinking (closely followed by parading whilst barrel-blinded) how to sleep anywhere at any time and wake in an instant, how to shoot, and of course, how to brawl. The latter I became quite proficient at.
Holmes himself possessed a fighting style I’ve only witnessed once or twice amongst Chinamen at the docks: he executed a bare-heeled kick to the orderly’s chest that landed the man flat out and winded. I disposed of mine by taking his knee out with my cane - as an action it held less finesse, but it would make him think twice about following.
My flatmate grinned at me, eyes blazing with life, and hared off - no, not outside as I foolishly supposed, but further into the asylum - leaving me to follow, or not, as I chose. I followed, obviously, cursing his turn of speed verses the clumsiness of my leg. (I said it was getting better, I never claimed I could win a two hundred yard sprint through unmapped corridors.)
The reason for his urgency soon resolved itself. Behind a particular locked door (a ‘hydrotherapy room’ - or bleak bathhouse as we laymen might term it) Dr Tobias was about to douse a protesting, grey smocked and fragile young lady in an ice-bath. Holmes lost no time in remonstrating with the doctor (who was also, unsurprisingly, Mr Renton Priestly.) He didn’t appear to require my assistance so I took it upon myself to aid the young lady (the much mistreated Amelia) and offer her the use of my coat. It was around this time that Lestrade and four of the Yard’s best made an appearance, followed by an earnest-looking constable called Clarkey accompanying Miss Isobelle Charles on his arm.
And, rather like the final act of a melodrama, all the elements were brought together and resolved themselves into a satisfactory conclusion. The proof of Ms Priestly’s sanity and the Superintendent’s villainy had been borne out by their behaviour. (Proving Holmes’ sanity might have been more of a stretch, but he sidestepped all issues by announcing he was Sherlock Holmes, not Sheridan Hope; and with all that had transpired and the addition of Lestrade’s dour presence, that was an end to the matter.)
Priestly/Tobias (‘a rotter by trade’ as Holmes commented with schoolboy humour) was taken into the Yard’s custody. Miss Charles and her sister were reunited amidst torrents of emotion. And Holmes demanded to know if I’d brought his pipe.
Exeunt omnes.
Holmes and I took a cab back to Baker Street as he was in no fit state for the train. He also was still barefoot, having shown no interest whatsoever in reclaiming his shoes.
He looked - given the circumstances - obscenely pleased with himself. I was still of half a mind to punch him, but found the anger hard to maintain beside his twined equanimity and exhaustion.
Keeping hold of a negative emotion over the course of several days or more is the most tiring thing; it is one of the reasons why the bereaved sleep so much. I’ve found that the body - ever efficient - when the surfeit of emotion has been held overlong will simply discard it at the first opportunity. So it was with my anger over Holmes. I’d passed days in tense anxiety and a further time in such an acidic rage I’m surprised my blood didn’t transform to vitriol. But when faced with him, faced with an opportunity for setting forth my complaint at his behaviour, the anger deserted me. I satisfied myself with berating him in a more general manner for his disregard for his own health and personal liberty.
His wrists were bruised as was his cheek, something he explained as ‘an altercation - trifling but necessary’. From his sallow complexion it was also clear he’d eaten little (‘I disapproved of their culinary chemistry, old boy’ - by which I take it the food was dosed.) I am morbidly curious to know how far is ‘too far’ in the successful attainment of one of his cases... but I doubt I would approve or care for the answer.
“Your feet are going blue,” I pointed out.
“Most remiss of them.”
“Why didn’t you let us look for...”
“Because I know precisely where they are. Lawrence has my shoes. Emmy has my socks and waistcoat.”
“That was my waistcoat...”
“She was cold. The socks purchased information. The waistcoat was because I am a gentleman - I knew you’d do nothing less.”
“Serves you right if you got frostbite.”
Tired as he was he quickly wearied of my prying attention. “Stop fussing. You’re such a bloody mother hen.”
“Holmes...”
The cab turned a corner and he slid against me, collapsing against my shoulder with a softly huffed breath.
“You’re an idiot,” I told him, but couldn’t keep the smile from my words.
(He heard it too because his lips curled slightly in acknowledgement although he didn’t move. If anything he settled more solidly against me as if I was a bolster on a chaise lounge; his injured arm cradled against his chest, much as it had been the night I stitched it.)
“Holmes...” For a moment I considered hefting him upright again, but instead rested my arm across his shoulder and let him sleep.
And so I sat in the cab as it travelled North across the river and towards Marylebone, with my arm blanketing my flatmate as he used me as a pillow... And punching him (most assuredly what he deserved) was not in my thoughts. My thoughts were for Baker Street and the comfortable pandemonium that held court. For how much trouble Holmes had caused at Parkhouse - surely he’d caused a great deal? For company and not having to pay the rent on my own. For having done something worthwhile of measurable merit. And above all, for the dark-haired iconoclast currently curled against me who had managed to both batter senseless and reinvigorate facets of my character I’d thought lost to bullets, fever and cynicism. Which made him owed a bloody nose and dinner.
I said the anger had left me. That did not of course mean that it was beyond being summoned back. In my relief and uplifted-spirits I had neglected to recall that my flatmate was the most vexing man I’ve ever encountered.
The peace lasted throughout our journey (although a sharp and unworthy thought whispers this is only because he was asleep, and even his powers of distemperment aren’t great enough to effect one from Morpheus’ kingdom.)
Baker Street at last; Holmes pulled reserves of energy from somewhere, managing to be both pleased to see Mrs H whilst off-handedly rude at the same time and then to bound upstairs with a demand for tea and luncheon thrown carelessly over his shoulder. In the sitting room he made a beeline for his pipe but abandoned it in preference of his violin, settling the instrument against his shoulder with a small sigh of contentment. He raised the bow and played the beginning of a fugal piece before spiralling into something both disharmonic and horribly compelling.
I winced. “Holmes - what is that?”
There was a flash of devilry in his look before he canted his head to the side, his eyes focused on the middle distance above my left shoulder. “I perfected it at Parkhouse although I was unable to test it. Anti-aetherical scales in a minor key...”
And in that instance, all tranquillity vanished. Before I had thought about either the deed or the consequences I had closed the distance between us, knocked his violin from his grasp, and was forcing him to back the scant steps to the bookcase until we were toe to toe. The medical journals bruised against his spine as I held him pinned by the upper arms. He remained still, although I don’t know if it was surprise or exhaustion that stopped him from breaking my hold.
“I have endured being used, deceived, taken advantage of and played for a fool but if you mock me and what you’ve put me through then by god I will thrash you to within an inch of your life!” I have no notion whether it was a threat I could have carried out, but my feelings were sufficiently turbulent that the words were voiced without such considerations. I leant my head close to his, my words an angry hiss. “You made me believe you’d lost what scant reason you possess and sought your own destruction!”
His gaze was bright and dark as polished jet, and with only an inch between us I fancied I could see the thoughts in his mind, calculating and recalculating with each additional piece of data like a Babbage Engine with limitless punch-cards.
I pressed him harder against the bookcase to emphasise my point. “Do you understand?” I laid my anger entirely at his door, but I was also disquieted by the depth of my own emotion. It sent a thrill of fear coursing through me when I thought of my world without Sherlock Holmes - and a second followed on its tail for entirely different reasons.
We held that tableaux for what seemed like forever - feeling each other shivering with ire, with fatigue, with I don’t know what - as I stared at him and tried to convey what I no longer had the words for.
“I wasn’t aware you’d be so affected,” he said at length. His voice held a quiet note of contrition overlaying something else far harder to define. “A miscalculation on my behalf - it won’t happen again.”
The fear stilled in me, the anger drained, leaving a singularly strange mixture of relief and vexation. “You’re bloody right it won’t happen again. If you want to involve me in your exploits then you can involve me from the beginning or not at all. I’m not at your beck and call like some...”
Mrs H entered with a luncheon tray and appeared unsurprised at the scene which greeted her. “Doctor,” she warned wryly, “if you do him injury you’ll only be making work for yourself. Although some would say it was worth the effort,” she muttered as she placed the tray down and swept towards the door. “I’ll set some water boiling for the carbolic, shall I?”
Holmes and I exchanged a look; Mrs H’s blithe manner did nothing but highlight how childish she felt we were being and her growing amusement at our expense. I cleared my throat, releasing my hold on his shoulders; Holmes fidgeted. “No, Mrs Hudson, that won’t be necessary, thank you.”
Holmes waited until the door was closed before giving in to petulance. Neither the mood nor the expression marred him for long however, he discarded both and turned his gaze to me with an open perspicacity that was as breathtaking as it was unnerving.
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Nanny has spoken,” he muttered with a significant look. His voice was such as it made me a welcome co-conspirator, one included and bound to his world when all others were locked from it. “Thankfully we were not so very bad as to be banished to bed without repast.” So saying he picked up the tray, kicked over some books that were piled by the coal scuttle and balanced our meal atop the mess with a flourish.
I find myself in not so much of a hurry to rejoin the rest of humanity.
I’d rather we stay here, eating luncheon on the floor like a pair of hopeless reprobates (I sprawled a-top a Turkish cushion whilst Holmes lounges across the tiger-skin rug Nero-like) perfectly content in each other’s company. He steeples his fingers and speaks low, encouraging one to lean close. He tells me odd stories, snippets of his past designed to make me laugh - his gift and peace-offering. In turn I tell him of Afghanistan and find the sting of the memories lessened, a chapter of my life I am able to leave in peace at last; a weight I am no longer forced to carry.
No... I have no need for the rest of the world.
It would only disappoint me.
=========
Much love to everyone who read it - especially if they enjoyed it =) Most love of all to tziganka who when she started reading this thought it was my life and I was just being a little peculiar in my journal-writing style.
You're all darling xx
=April Monday 19th=
A tardy record of yesterday’s drama.
Visiting hours were eleven until three, and since Holmes’ note had not been very explicit as to the precise timing of my arrival I thought early would be better than late. Not that I had any notion of what he was up to, nor how he was so certain he’d have his evidence by now. (I suppose he thought after a week he’d either obtain the proof he needed or have to admit defeat.) With this in mind I did my utmost to look professional and (despite the best efforts of the Southern and District Railways) arrive at eleven.
Things proceeded quite apace once I reached Parkhouse.
I’d been welcomed, led into the parlour, and was about to surrender my hat and coat when an almighty hue and cry was sounded from above. It was Holmes (naturally), running barefoot down the main staircase with two broad-shouldered but less-nimble orderlies in laboured pursuit. Whilst running his gaze was given to pulling out the correct key from a chain he held - although how he spared the attention for them whilst careering down a flight of stairs and not breaking his neck I couldn’t imagine. He leapt the last few steps and pushed forward with renewed momentum before spying me as he traversed the hall. He skidded, spinning to a brief stop.
“No Lestrade?” he asked, eyebrows quirking. He was pale, dishevelled - eyes and cheeks fever-bright - poised: all potential energy a beat away from freefalling into kinetic again. He looked in fact, the perfect picture of a maniac.
I opened my mouth to say a great many things (none of which were the answer to his question.)
“Late again!” A look across his shoulder at his approaching adversaries. The sort of glance of a fox who knows that despite the hounds’ gross stupidity, base numbers and not cunning may prove victorious. “Watson, lend a hand would you?”
And god help me, I did. (Perhaps only because if anyone was going to give Holmes a kicking, it was going to be me.)
Being in the army, one learns a great many things not fit for polite society, but eminently suited to the rougher side of life. Swearing, innumerable card games, drinking (closely followed by parading whilst barrel-blinded) how to sleep anywhere at any time and wake in an instant, how to shoot, and of course, how to brawl. The latter I became quite proficient at.
Holmes himself possessed a fighting style I’ve only witnessed once or twice amongst Chinamen at the docks: he executed a bare-heeled kick to the orderly’s chest that landed the man flat out and winded. I disposed of mine by taking his knee out with my cane - as an action it held less finesse, but it would make him think twice about following.
My flatmate grinned at me, eyes blazing with life, and hared off - no, not outside as I foolishly supposed, but further into the asylum - leaving me to follow, or not, as I chose. I followed, obviously, cursing his turn of speed verses the clumsiness of my leg. (I said it was getting better, I never claimed I could win a two hundred yard sprint through unmapped corridors.)
The reason for his urgency soon resolved itself. Behind a particular locked door (a ‘hydrotherapy room’ - or bleak bathhouse as we laymen might term it) Dr Tobias was about to douse a protesting, grey smocked and fragile young lady in an ice-bath. Holmes lost no time in remonstrating with the doctor (who was also, unsurprisingly, Mr Renton Priestly.) He didn’t appear to require my assistance so I took it upon myself to aid the young lady (the much mistreated Amelia) and offer her the use of my coat. It was around this time that Lestrade and four of the Yard’s best made an appearance, followed by an earnest-looking constable called Clarkey accompanying Miss Isobelle Charles on his arm.
And, rather like the final act of a melodrama, all the elements were brought together and resolved themselves into a satisfactory conclusion. The proof of Ms Priestly’s sanity and the Superintendent’s villainy had been borne out by their behaviour. (Proving Holmes’ sanity might have been more of a stretch, but he sidestepped all issues by announcing he was Sherlock Holmes, not Sheridan Hope; and with all that had transpired and the addition of Lestrade’s dour presence, that was an end to the matter.)
Priestly/Tobias (‘a rotter by trade’ as Holmes commented with schoolboy humour) was taken into the Yard’s custody. Miss Charles and her sister were reunited amidst torrents of emotion. And Holmes demanded to know if I’d brought his pipe.
Exeunt omnes.
Holmes and I took a cab back to Baker Street as he was in no fit state for the train. He also was still barefoot, having shown no interest whatsoever in reclaiming his shoes.
He looked - given the circumstances - obscenely pleased with himself. I was still of half a mind to punch him, but found the anger hard to maintain beside his twined equanimity and exhaustion.
Keeping hold of a negative emotion over the course of several days or more is the most tiring thing; it is one of the reasons why the bereaved sleep so much. I’ve found that the body - ever efficient - when the surfeit of emotion has been held overlong will simply discard it at the first opportunity. So it was with my anger over Holmes. I’d passed days in tense anxiety and a further time in such an acidic rage I’m surprised my blood didn’t transform to vitriol. But when faced with him, faced with an opportunity for setting forth my complaint at his behaviour, the anger deserted me. I satisfied myself with berating him in a more general manner for his disregard for his own health and personal liberty.
His wrists were bruised as was his cheek, something he explained as ‘an altercation - trifling but necessary’. From his sallow complexion it was also clear he’d eaten little (‘I disapproved of their culinary chemistry, old boy’ - by which I take it the food was dosed.) I am morbidly curious to know how far is ‘too far’ in the successful attainment of one of his cases... but I doubt I would approve or care for the answer.
“Your feet are going blue,” I pointed out.
“Most remiss of them.”
“Why didn’t you let us look for...”
“Because I know precisely where they are. Lawrence has my shoes. Emmy has my socks and waistcoat.”
“That was my waistcoat...”
“She was cold. The socks purchased information. The waistcoat was because I am a gentleman - I knew you’d do nothing less.”
“Serves you right if you got frostbite.”
Tired as he was he quickly wearied of my prying attention. “Stop fussing. You’re such a bloody mother hen.”
“Holmes...”
The cab turned a corner and he slid against me, collapsing against my shoulder with a softly huffed breath.
“You’re an idiot,” I told him, but couldn’t keep the smile from my words.
(He heard it too because his lips curled slightly in acknowledgement although he didn’t move. If anything he settled more solidly against me as if I was a bolster on a chaise lounge; his injured arm cradled against his chest, much as it had been the night I stitched it.)
“Holmes...” For a moment I considered hefting him upright again, but instead rested my arm across his shoulder and let him sleep.
And so I sat in the cab as it travelled North across the river and towards Marylebone, with my arm blanketing my flatmate as he used me as a pillow... And punching him (most assuredly what he deserved) was not in my thoughts. My thoughts were for Baker Street and the comfortable pandemonium that held court. For how much trouble Holmes had caused at Parkhouse - surely he’d caused a great deal? For company and not having to pay the rent on my own. For having done something worthwhile of measurable merit. And above all, for the dark-haired iconoclast currently curled against me who had managed to both batter senseless and reinvigorate facets of my character I’d thought lost to bullets, fever and cynicism. Which made him owed a bloody nose and dinner.
I said the anger had left me. That did not of course mean that it was beyond being summoned back. In my relief and uplifted-spirits I had neglected to recall that my flatmate was the most vexing man I’ve ever encountered.
The peace lasted throughout our journey (although a sharp and unworthy thought whispers this is only because he was asleep, and even his powers of distemperment aren’t great enough to effect one from Morpheus’ kingdom.)
Baker Street at last; Holmes pulled reserves of energy from somewhere, managing to be both pleased to see Mrs H whilst off-handedly rude at the same time and then to bound upstairs with a demand for tea and luncheon thrown carelessly over his shoulder. In the sitting room he made a beeline for his pipe but abandoned it in preference of his violin, settling the instrument against his shoulder with a small sigh of contentment. He raised the bow and played the beginning of a fugal piece before spiralling into something both disharmonic and horribly compelling.
I winced. “Holmes - what is that?”
There was a flash of devilry in his look before he canted his head to the side, his eyes focused on the middle distance above my left shoulder. “I perfected it at Parkhouse although I was unable to test it. Anti-aetherical scales in a minor key...”
And in that instance, all tranquillity vanished. Before I had thought about either the deed or the consequences I had closed the distance between us, knocked his violin from his grasp, and was forcing him to back the scant steps to the bookcase until we were toe to toe. The medical journals bruised against his spine as I held him pinned by the upper arms. He remained still, although I don’t know if it was surprise or exhaustion that stopped him from breaking my hold.
“I have endured being used, deceived, taken advantage of and played for a fool but if you mock me and what you’ve put me through then by god I will thrash you to within an inch of your life!” I have no notion whether it was a threat I could have carried out, but my feelings were sufficiently turbulent that the words were voiced without such considerations. I leant my head close to his, my words an angry hiss. “You made me believe you’d lost what scant reason you possess and sought your own destruction!”
His gaze was bright and dark as polished jet, and with only an inch between us I fancied I could see the thoughts in his mind, calculating and recalculating with each additional piece of data like a Babbage Engine with limitless punch-cards.
I pressed him harder against the bookcase to emphasise my point. “Do you understand?” I laid my anger entirely at his door, but I was also disquieted by the depth of my own emotion. It sent a thrill of fear coursing through me when I thought of my world without Sherlock Holmes - and a second followed on its tail for entirely different reasons.
We held that tableaux for what seemed like forever - feeling each other shivering with ire, with fatigue, with I don’t know what - as I stared at him and tried to convey what I no longer had the words for.
“I wasn’t aware you’d be so affected,” he said at length. His voice held a quiet note of contrition overlaying something else far harder to define. “A miscalculation on my behalf - it won’t happen again.”
The fear stilled in me, the anger drained, leaving a singularly strange mixture of relief and vexation. “You’re bloody right it won’t happen again. If you want to involve me in your exploits then you can involve me from the beginning or not at all. I’m not at your beck and call like some...”
Mrs H entered with a luncheon tray and appeared unsurprised at the scene which greeted her. “Doctor,” she warned wryly, “if you do him injury you’ll only be making work for yourself. Although some would say it was worth the effort,” she muttered as she placed the tray down and swept towards the door. “I’ll set some water boiling for the carbolic, shall I?”
Holmes and I exchanged a look; Mrs H’s blithe manner did nothing but highlight how childish she felt we were being and her growing amusement at our expense. I cleared my throat, releasing my hold on his shoulders; Holmes fidgeted. “No, Mrs Hudson, that won’t be necessary, thank you.”
Holmes waited until the door was closed before giving in to petulance. Neither the mood nor the expression marred him for long however, he discarded both and turned his gaze to me with an open perspicacity that was as breathtaking as it was unnerving.
A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Nanny has spoken,” he muttered with a significant look. His voice was such as it made me a welcome co-conspirator, one included and bound to his world when all others were locked from it. “Thankfully we were not so very bad as to be banished to bed without repast.” So saying he picked up the tray, kicked over some books that were piled by the coal scuttle and balanced our meal atop the mess with a flourish.
I find myself in not so much of a hurry to rejoin the rest of humanity.
I’d rather we stay here, eating luncheon on the floor like a pair of hopeless reprobates (I sprawled a-top a Turkish cushion whilst Holmes lounges across the tiger-skin rug Nero-like) perfectly content in each other’s company. He steeples his fingers and speaks low, encouraging one to lean close. He tells me odd stories, snippets of his past designed to make me laugh - his gift and peace-offering. In turn I tell him of Afghanistan and find the sting of the memories lessened, a chapter of my life I am able to leave in peace at last; a weight I am no longer forced to carry.
No... I have no need for the rest of the world.
It would only disappoint me.
=========
Much love to everyone who read it - especially if they enjoyed it =) Most love of all to tziganka who when she started reading this thought it was my life and I was just being a little peculiar in my journal-writing style.
You're all darling xx