The Marriage of Mary Russell Read online

  The Marriage of Mary Russell is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental

  A Bantam Books Ebook Original

  Copyright © 2016 by Laurie R. King

  Excerpt from The Murder of Mary Russell by Laurie R. King copyright © 2016 by Laurie R. King.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Bantam Books, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  BANTAM BOOKS and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  This book contains an excerpt from the forthcoming book The Murder of Mary Russell by Laurie R. King. This excerpt has been set for this edition only and may not reflect the final content of the forthcoming edition.

  eBook ISBN 9780425284483

  Cover design: Carlos Beltrán and Joe Montgomery

  Cover photograph: © Collaboration JS/Arcangel Images

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Marriage of Mary Russell

  By Laurie R. King

  About the Author

  Excerpt from The Murder of Mary Russell

  Marriage is a contract, a formal acknowledgement that two individuals—and their families—are legally bound together. Yes, for some (particularly the young and impressionable) marriage is also the end point of wild infatuation, romantic fantasies, and physical urges, but when the two people in question are undeniably mature and constitutionally level-headed, they keep matters rational.

  At least, they try to.

  —

  It was February 1921*. I had known Sherlock Holmes for the best part of six years, during which time he had gone from unexpected neighbour to demanding tutor to surprisingly co-operative partner-in-detecting. I had recently turned twenty-one and stepped into the responsibilities of my inheritance, but even before that, I found myself deliberating the benefits, and disadvantages, of the married state in general and to one specific male person in particular.

  This was, remember, a time when the Great War still loomed. A quarter of my generation was dead. Those who remained were often physical and emotional shadows of the men they had once been. Being unsuited to nursing, and unwilling to lower my demands, I was left looking at the man I had met during the War, the Baker Street detective-turned-Sussex-Downs beekeeper, who had taken me on as his apprentice, his equal, and finally, his partner.

  On the one hand, the very idea was absurd. Marriage, to Sherlock Holmes? He was the least marriageable man I knew. On the other hand, we were already partners. And having that piece of paper—that otherwise meaningless piece of paper—would undoubtedly ease such matters as border crossings, hotel rooms, and claiming one another’s body in the event of a fatal mishap. Marriage would also keep me from the temptations of pure academia, a world that, especially for a woman, could become terribly enclosed.

  Marriage—this marriage—would ensure that I was never bored.

  So, it was a rational decision, a sensible choice for two intelligent and level-headed people, the obvious next step in our partnership.

  Ironic, really, that it would be Holmes who complicated matters with the emotional. And I am fairly certain that the mild concussion I was suffering at the time of the proposal had little to do with it.

  One might imagine that, given his devoutly Bohemian nature and my own youthful disdain for societal mores—and considering how little family either of us had—marriage might not have been high on our list of necessities. This was, after all, the modern age, when the exhilaration of those who had survived the War looked to be ushering in an era of high spirits: even at its early stages, the Twenties showed little interest in Victorian, or even Edwardian, niceties.

  As for the concerns of The Book of Common Prayer (our society’s guide to the rituals of life): neither of us had any intention that the procreation of children enter into matters. Nor did we anticipate being tempted by the sin of fornication—that such persons as have not the gift of continency might marry, and keep themselves undefiled—since defilement seemed a Medieval sort of concern, easily dealt with by a solemn vow not to pull the other aside into a nearby fornix for the purpose of gratification. If anything, the Prayer Book’s third concern came closest to defining our choice: for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.

  Experience had already proved that adversity was inevitable. And as the Anglican rites agree, there’s nothing like a signed contract to make one stick to one’s commitments.

  Still, we would have been just as happy to spend the rest of our lives in a state of amiable sin, regardless of the ease with which we might be abandoned and the risk to our immortal souls—except that we each had one person whose disapproval filled us with dread. In Holmes’ case, this was Dr John Watson. The two men had met in 1881, going from flat-sharing to friendship over the years, until Watson became as much a brother as Holmes’ actual blood relation. (As for Mycroft Holmes himself, Holmes’ older brother did not factor into our debate: it went without saying that Mycroft’s concerns would be less the state of our souls than how my presence might affect his brother’s continued availability.) And although Holmes appeared to have spent much of the last forty years actively thwarting Watson’s expectations, in fact, he was always aware of his friend’s opinions on matters. The thought of that sadly reproving gaze would have been trying even for Holmes.

  As for me, I had neither judgemental friend nor family pressures. What I did have was a housekeeper.

  A housekeeper may not be a young woman’s usual conscience, but I had been orphaned at fourteen. From that time, my life was far too complicated for the easy intimacies of close friendship. As for extended family, my American grandparents lived on the other side of an ocean—literally as well as figuratively—while my English mother’s relations were either dead or estranged from me. I had come into the Holmes household as a fifteen-year-old girl, overtly proud and internally empty. Mrs Hudson had instantly sensed the aching void and stepped in, offering her ears, her arms, and all the forms of nourishment an orphan could need.

  If I had any family, it was she.

  —

  The actual marriage proposal had come when my head was spinning (I having been knocked unconscious, deliberately—by Holmes) and his head was dripping wet, grease-clotted, and thoroughly scorched from the fiery, mid-Thames boat wreck that claimed the life of our most recent villainous opponent. Miraculous survival, one’s own and of one’s most significant attachment, has a way of adding its own spin to the head. Or perhaps it was just, as I mentioned, the concussion. In any case, when Holmes emerged from the filthy surface of the Thames, there followed an astonishing, unexpected, and remarkably…stimulating physical encounter, right there on the docks. Namely, we kissed.

  I believe this reminder of the physical surprised Holmes as much it did me. Certainly, both of us took care, over the next days, to maintain a cool and distinctly Victorian degree of propriety, even—particularly—when we were alone. Although we had addressed the primary negotiations of the marriage contract then and there (Holmes: I promise not to knock you unconscious again, unless it’s absolutely necessary. Me: I promise to obey you, if it’s something I’d planned on doing anyway.), the next stages were somewhat less straightforward.

  Fortunately, we had other matters into which we could retreat, saving ourselves from awkward silences and intense contemplati
ons of the view out of the window. We returned to Sussex a few days after the Margery Childe case finished, spending the first half of the trip wrestling with the compartment’s heater and the case’s more difficult conundra, then the next twenty miles reaching the delicate decision that perhaps we would not tell anyone quite yet about our change of status. I then made some passing and humorous remark about the ceremony itself. A moment of silence descended, before his cautious question:

  “You wish an actual…wedding?”

  He’d have sounded less dubious had I suggested matching tattoos. My first impulse was to laugh it off, but I controlled myself long enough to think it over. “I don’t know that I particularly want one, but marriage is said to be a community event. And there are people to take into account.”

  “You want my brother to walk you down the aisle?”

  “Of course not. Nor do I have any great wish to see Watson standing beside you with a boutonnière.”

  “You prefer a Jewish ceremony, then.”

  I had not even considered the possibility until that moment, and allowed myself a moment to dwell on Holmes, kippah on head, standing beside me beneath the chuppah, signing the ketubah, and stomping on the glass, then me lifted high in a chair—

  “I think not.”

  “Broomsticks? Hand-fasting? The anvil at Gretna Green? An arch of sabres?”

  “I suppose a registry office would do. Unless you happen to have a family chapel?” I added, as a joke.

  “Ah,” he said. “Well, as a matter of fact…”

  My gaze snapped away from the passing countryside. “You don’t! Do you?” He had a house in Sussex and half a dozen secret boltholes scattered across London, but…could the man actually own a chapel?

  “Strictly speaking, it belongs to Mycroft.” Well, I thought, this sounds unusually promising. “If it’s still standing.” Maybe not so promising. “And if we could get at it.” I eyed him warily. “Although it would have to be a night-time affair. And Mycroft may insist that we transport our witnesses either with masks, or behind blacked-out windows.” I opened my mouth to say that, really, a registry office would do. “Plus, there’s the shot-guns to consider.”

  I closed my mouth.

  If ever I’d imagined that Sherlock Holmes did not know precisely how to snag my interest in a matter, that delusion ended right there.

  “Shot-guns,” I repeated.

  “Yes. You see, there is some disagreement, amongst the wider reaches of the Holmes family, over who inherited the rights to the estate upon my father’s death. Since neither Mycroft nor I care to bury ourselves in the depths of the Midlands, we rarely assert our claim. However, nor have we given the place over to our cousin entirely. The name Jarndyce comes to mind.”

  “And your…cousin who lives there would turn a gun on you?”

  “It has been known to happen.”

  “Do I want to ask why you don’t press matters?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Do you—or, Mycroft—want the house?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then why even mention it?”

  “Because you asked if I owned a chapel. And…” He stretched out a hand for his pipe, which even at my young age I well knew was a man’s way of hiding emotion. When he got it going, he finished his sentence. “…my ancestors have been baptised, wed, and buried in the family chapel since the days of Bolingbroke. It would be mildly irritating for the usurper to keep me from my rights.”

  Sherlock Holmes was the least sentimental person I had ever encountered. If he was admitting to mild irritation, it meant that the longing for his home chapel went bone deep. It mattered not that we had no right to it, or that I was Jewish, or that armed men stood ready to repel us.

  He had my attention.

  Still: “Night-time, under the threat of immanent attack, and with our guests literally in the dark as to its location. Would the bride wear black? Paint her face?”

  “A dark blue overcoat should be sufficient.”

  “With a revolver tucked into my bouquet. Holmes, this all sounds a bit…”

  “Piquant?”

  “Memorable.”

  “It needn’t be. Two witnesses and a priest—I’m sure Mycroft could come up with three experienced soldiers to fill the two categories. Twenty minutes, in and out. Even if the family are wakened by dogs, it would take that long for them to rouse the butler.”

  “Holmes, I think—”

  “I wonder if they have changed the locks. Perhaps we should allow twenty-five minutes.”

  “Holmes, what about—”

  “Or we could seize an opportunity to solve the problem once and for all by setting fire to the opposite wing. That would distract them nicely.”

  “Holmes, unless you’re planning on keeping our married state a secret for the rest of our lives, or having another ceremony in your sitting room, the repercussions of a clandestine wedding would be considerable.”

  “And illegal,” he mused. “Since 1754.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Clandestine marriages. Illegal since Lord Hardwicke’s 1753 Marriage Act. Is that not what you were talking about?”

  “I’m talking about our friends. Being left out would break Dr Watson’s heart. Mrs Hudson would finally hand in her notice, and your brother…well, I can’t imagine what your brother would do.”

  “Retreat to the Diogenes Club, as usual.”

  “Either that or manipulate two colonies into declaring war on each other, in a way that would require your presence for the next five years.”

  “You suggest we make a community ceremony out of it?”

  “Unless you plan on moving permanently to Tibet or West Africa.”

  “You may be right,” he allowed. “However, I don’t know that I’d want to put Watson under fire. He’s not as fast on his feet as he once was.”

  “What about Mycroft? Or Mrs Hudson?”

  “Nothing can kill Mycroft.”

  “But you don’t mind someone taking pot-shots at your landlady? For heaven’s sake, Holmes, she must be seventy!”

  “Mrs Hudson is sixty-five, and there may be more to her than you realise. However,” he went on before I could object further, “I do see your point. A registry office it is.”

  Reluctantly, I agreed.

  But I could not get his regretful tone out of my mind. If he had let me see the longing—if he had gone so far as to let himself see it—then that family chapel represented something important to him.

  It was, of course, ridiculous. A marriage is a contractual arrangement, formalising the bonds between two individuals, their families, and the generations to come. However, given our circumstances—no family, no shame, no children—a piece of paper was less an essential component of life than a convenience, for deferring certain minor nuisances that might occur down the line.

  No: when it came to family chapels and putting those we loved in danger, a registry office would do just fine.

  And yet…

  I could not shake the feeling that to accept a cold and utilitarian setting for this signing of contracts would begin an already challenging enterprise on a note—however faint—of failure. Surely, if there was to be any romance whatsoever in this relationship, it ought to be there at the start?

  This man Sherlock Holmes, nearly three times my age and with long decades of history behind him, had spent the past six years rearranging his entire life around first an apprentice, then a partner-in-crime. He now, with no hesitation—no visible hesitation—proposed to change himself even further, sacrificing his independence to become half of a whole. There was nothing I could do about my youth, or about the coach and horses that marriage was going to drive through his orderly existence. Both those things meant that I should have to be even more sensitive than most wives about what parts of our life I could impress control over.

  Such as, taking note of his look of regret at being denied the chapel.

  —

  Monday morning was c
old, the sky lowering with the threat of snow, but I laced on my boots and trudged across the Downs to hunt down my…fiancé?

  As I approached his old flint house, close enough to the coastline that one could hear the waves at Birling Gap, I was surprised to see all the windows flung open wide. I went in the back door, gingerly venturing a head inside the kitchen.

  “Mrs Hudson?”

  I did not need to go any farther to know why the Downs air was being invited inside. I hastily dug out a handkerchief to clap across my face. The door to Mrs Hudson’s quarters, which had been firmly shut, opened a crack. One brown eye gazed out at me: brown, but bloodshot.

  “An experiment gone awry?” I asked her.

  “The man will kill us all,” she declared.

  “Any idea how long…?”

  “He said the worst of it should be gone by noon.”

  That seemed optimistic, but there was no need to say that to her. Mrs Hudson had survived two decades as Holmes’ Baker Street landlady before—for reasons I still could not fathom but attributed to a deeply pathological need for self-mortification—she had followed him in retirement down to Sussex and become his housekeeper.

  Many things I did not understand about Mrs Hudson. However, as I said, when I appeared on her doorstep in 1915, she had opened her arms and her heart to me, and was now as near to a mother as I would ever again have.

  No, I thought, as I studied her bloodshot eye: it would not be possible to wed Sherlock Holmes without the participation of Mrs Hudson.

  “I don’t suppose he’s still up there?” I asked.

  “In the laboratory? No, he discovered some urgent task elsewhere.”

  “Of course he did. Any idea what direction?”

  “He put on his Wellingtons.”

  That meant either towards the sea, or up the Cuckmere. I thanked her, and beat a hasty retreat from the noxious fumes.

  A few snowflakes danced around me at the Birling Gap cottages, where I followed the sound of a hatchet to ask the young man—the son of one of the lighthouse keepers—if he had seen Holmes go past. He said no, and pointed out (with patience, as if to a sweet but stupid child) that in any event he’d not have got far, since the tide was in.