The Marriage of Mary Russell Page 4

  “My feet learned these paths as a boy,” he replied, and set off again, leaving me to consider Sherlock Holmes as a bare-kneed lad.

  The next time I caught him up was beside a stone wall where the air smelt of horses. He lowered his head to speak into my ear. “This next bit is complicated. You wait here while I go through to unlatch the door. I’ll be two minutes.”

  I tugged my coat lapels together against the cold, and felt more than heard him move off.

  Now that I was still, I could hear the night: the faintest of breezes through the leaves; the cry of a vixen in the woods; from a window over my head, the snort of a horse reacting to a stranger’s scent. No dogs yet, thank God. Then I tensed: voices.

  They were far off, possibly near the front of the house where the glow was coming from. I could not make out the words, although I thought there were two men. Still, they came no closer, and soon faded away, leaving me with the fox, a far-off owl, and the tiny shift of pebbles beneath my shoes.

  A scraping noise came, and a creak, followed by footsteps, hurrying down a stone stairway as if by daylight. Then Holmes was again touching my elbow, leading me up a flight of deeply worn stone steps in the direction of a dim rectangle.

  The warm odour of honey told me where we were before I stepped through the doorway: a tall, fragrant beeswax candle hung over the altar, filling the world with sweetness.

  The chapel was small: forty celebrants would have been a crowd, with a small gallery over the back for a choir of at most half a dozen. It was old: those windows might have come from the thirteenth century, and the vaulted ceiling not much later. And it was simple: hand-hewn stone, time-smoothed floors, three tapestries whose colours had faded into abstract patterns, carved wooden pews in need of polish—none of the clutter of statues, memorials, and religious bric-a-brac that family chapels tended to collect over the centuries.

  With one modern exception. Beside the door, gazing across the intervening pews at the altar, was the portrait of a woman: thin, grey-eyed, with a nose too aquiline for conventional beauty. Her force of personality dominated the silent room.

  And something else: the silver-and-pearl brooch at her throat. My hand rose of its own volition to touch this very necklace, resting against my own skin, a most uncharacteristic present from Holmes on my eighteenth birthday. Inside it was a miniature image of his grandmother, the sister of the artist who had painted it, Horace Vernet. That side of the Holmes family—a family otherwise composed of stolid English country squires—proved to his mind (as he had once mused to Watson) that art in the blood was liable to take the strangest forms: surely only the artistic gift for observation and deduction could explain the marked abilities of both Holmes brothers.

  The tiny miniature did not give much scope for the artist’s gift of observation, but this portrait manifestly did. She appeared to be about my own age, but even in youth, she shone with the same blazing intelligence and understanding as the man at my side.

  “Your mother?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  She had died when Holmes was eleven. But for all his reaction now, the portrait might not have been there. When he had closed the door again, Holmes walked past me to the centre of the room and spread out his arms to declaim at the altar:

  ‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings.

  Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!’

  Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

  Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

  The lone and level sands stretch far away.

  His voice, by nature somewhat high-pitched, was gathered by that vaulted ceiling and ushered back down at us, resonating like a struck G string. When he stopped speaking, the stones continued to murmur the words to themselves. Something like a whispering gallery, only delivering its sounds to all corners simultaneously.

  I was struck by a thought. “You’ve played the violin in here, haven’t you?”

  He turned and grinned. “Only when the vicar was out of earshot. If he caught me, I’d get a beating.”

  For a brief fraction of an instant, I saw the boy beneath the greying man. At my startled reaction, his humour faded. “What?” he asked.

  “Oh, Holmes. I wish—I wish we’d met when you were young.”

  “You’d have found me priggish, cocksure, and impatient. Just ask Mrs Hudson.”

  “Did she…? Oh, of course—you couldn’t have been more than, what, twenty, when you let rooms from her on Baker Street.”

  “About that. Though we’d met somewhat earlier.”

  “Had you? I feel I know so little about your past.”

  He snorted. “Yet the rest of the world seems to think it knows me all too well, thanks to Watson and his friend Doyle.”

  “When did you—”

  “Russell, this is hardly the time. I’d like to take a closer look at what’s going on at the front of the house, before we bring our ‘guests’ here.”

  Meekly, I followed. But as we passed out of the chapel, his gaze rose in a brief, pained, and involuntary glance, telling me beyond doubt that tonight’s labours were well justified: this place mattered to him.

  We spent an hour exploring first the grounds nearest the chapel, then what we could see of the house itself. As we stood pressed among the rhododendrons that flanked the entrance drive, my mind trying (and failing) to see any signs of Holmes in this most conventional of English façades, a sudden play of head-lamps came from the lane behind us. We ducked down, watching a lorry pass by. To my surprise, it came to a halt at the front entrance. A man in formal dress came out of the door, followed by a footman and maid who, under the other man’s direction, helped the lorry’s driver unload a number of anonymous crates.

  “Odd place for a delivery, isn’t it?” I said.

  He made a noise suggesting agreement.

  “I don’t suppose you can make out any marks on those crates?”

  This time, his grunt expressed irritation.

  As we watched, a second lorry arrived, and the same ritual followed. When both deliveries were received, the lorries drove off and the servants went back inside, leaving the powerful lights burning.

  “Is this not also an odd time of day for deliveries?” I asked Holmes.

  “Particularly from lorries with no company names on their sides.”

  “Was that your cousin, in the high collar?”

  “The butler,” he said.

  “You think the family are at home?”

  “Not many lights burning upstairs,” he pointed out.

  “That would be nice,” I said. “Still, it’s odd the servants took a delivery at the front door. Feels rather like drinking the master’s port when his back is turned.”

  “True, they were none too furtive about it.”

  As we waited to see if another lorry would arrive, I played with this little mystery. There could be any number of explanations, from the innocent (a day-time delivery with mechanical break-down?) to the criminal (a servants’ romp? a drugs party? a below-stairs smuggling operation?) I rather liked one of the latter possibilities—although in all fairness, just because Holmes had a disagreement with his cousin, I would not wish a servants’ revolt on the man. And I found that, although Holmes might be happy with cutting all ties with the house, I nonetheless felt somewhat protective about it. The house that had shaped the boy deserved better than larcenous care-givers.

  “Hard on a household, when the servants can’t be trusted,” I reflected. “Not that I’ve ever run a house this size, but it’s such an oddly intimate relationship. Can you imagine, if Mrs Hudson were getting up to something behind your back?”

  At the thought, I had to stifle a guffaw. Holmes, on the other hand, made no reply. In fact, he seemed remarkably silent.

  “Wouldn’t you agree, Holmes?” I pressed.

  He pulled out his watch to check its luminous hands. “Time we were on our way.”

  Ah, I thought: something touchy from his past, involving a servant and trust b
etrayed. Not the best time to ask, perhaps.

  I took another glance at the house, brightly lit but uninformative. These servants, faithless or not, weren’t using the chapel for their drugs party or illicit hoard: the minor puzzle of a front-door, after-hours delivery did not affect our own clandestine plans.

  We extricated ourselves from the shrubbery, and left the front of the house to itself. When we were across the stream and the path had grown wide again, I came up beside him.

  “Holmes, are you quite certain?”

  “That we will not be discovered? I see no reason to fear it.”

  “No—well, that too, I suppose, but I was thinking of the house itself. You know, until I signed all those papers for my coming-of-age last month, I didn’t realise how much money I have. It’s quite a ridiculous amount. You and I haven’t—that is, at some point we’ll need to decide how to arrange finances, but I suppose…” In truth, I had no idea if Holmes was well off or skirting the edge of penury—one more part of his life where I was in complete ignorance. “Holmes, are you sure you don’t wish to buy this place?”

  I could feel his gaze on me, although it was rather too dark to see. “My dear Russell, are you proposing that you turn your inheritance over to your husband?”

  “No! Well, not exactly. But…Holmes, we’re a partnership. Pooling resources and energies are a part of that. I’m just saying that if you’ve changed your mind, if you decide that you want this house, I’ll back you.”

  “Ah. No, thank you, Russell. The occasional visit—once every twenty years or so—should prove quite sufficient. Beyond that, a visitation threatens to become…a haunting.”

  I wished I could see his face. I wished I knew more, that I understood his past, that I felt certain about…Ah, but no: here I was on firm ground. Certainty was the one thing I did have, when it came to this man at my side.

  I submitted to an urge and tucked my arm through his, letting his sure feet lead us both through the night.

  —

  When the big motorcar had come back down the lane and gave up its passengers, I braced myself for emotional excess: exclamations and cries—tears, even. But to my astonishment, our two witnesses appeared to have worn out their enthusiasms on the train up. Mrs Hudson (showing no signs of laudanum) merely gave me a hard embrace and began deftly rearranging my hair, while Dr Watson harrumphed and shook Holmes’ hand with only a degree more emphasis than necessary.

  Mycroft drew his brother’s attention to a set of clothing on the front seat, then launched his massive form off in the direction of the house. Holmes ripped the top off the box and folded himself into the back of the car, rapidly divesting himself of the hansom-driver’s raiment (thank goodness!) while I introduced myself to the car’s fourth passenger: a small, ginger-haired fellow with a surprisingly firm hand-clasp and an unexpectedly rich voice that had begun life in Wales. Hearing it, I instantly regretted that the marriage service was not to be sung, since that voice in the chapel would be a thing of beauty.

  However, loosing that voice in song would rouse the household, if not every other one for miles: best not.

  The driver handed me a trio of shaded hand torches, one for each guest. Our progress down the hill was considerably slower and less silent than it had been with just the two of us. Holmes, shiny now from evening shoes to silk hat, caught us up before the stream. Mycroft, despite his bulk, was in the chapel when we arrived.

  And there, dear reader, I married the only man who mattered in my life.

  Reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of…well, perhaps not of God, but certainly of prowling cousins with shot-guns, we vowed that we knew of no impediment to our joining; we swore that we would love, comfort, honour, and keep, in sickness and health; and we entered into the state that was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity.

  (Did I imagine it, that brief glance Holmes shot towards the portrait that hung beside the door, as the vows were being said? I do not think I did.)

  Our Welsh friend romped us through a nice brisk service, trimming away any references to obedience, skipping over the part with the rings (we’d both forgot about rings), and glossing over all mentions of children, Christ and the Church, or St Paul (indeed, pretty much the remainder of the Service). He fell to the temptation of acoustics and sang his portions of Psalms, although his voice was throttled down considerably from what he so clearly wanted. At the end, Mrs Hudson was in tears, Dr Watson was bright pink, the vicar was beaming, and even Mycroft looked moved as he reached inside his breast pocket for a pen.

  We hadn’t even been interrupted by gunfire.

  The forms were signed, congratulations exchanged, the vicar handed an envelope.

  Then Mycroft cleared his throat. “Er, Sherlock. Mary ought to see the Hall. Just this once.”

  There was a solemn but silent exchange between the two brothers. At the end, Holmes said, “Cousin Rudy is sure to have sealed the doors. Wouldn’t you think?”

  “One way to know.”

  Holmes’ gaze slid sideways to where the other three stood. Mycroft, rightly, took this as agreement, and reached for his overcoat. “I will escort our guests.”

  The four of them filed out. Holmes slid the ancient oaken bar across the door, and in the honey-scented silence delivered the traditional salute of the bride-groom. We then passed up the length of the little chapel to the narrow chancel door. Outside, a dim electrical bulb revealed one of those odd collection of angles that result when an ancient house falls victim to a later generation’s urge for grandeur: to the right, a long, trim eighteenth-century wall; to the left, a jumble of stones considerably less even and more spotted with lichen. An archway into the darkness was stained at the centre from generations of passing rush-torches.

  Under the archway we went, into a narrow passage open on the left like a diminutive cloister. Three doors opened in the right-hand wall, none of which appeared to have been used since gentlemen wore breeches. At the third, Holmes reached up to pat along the ledge created by a long, protruding stone. He located what he was searching for, but had to prise at it with his pocket-knife (which he had kept despite the change to formal wear) before his hand came away with a key so old it had rusted into the stones.

  But not, it seemed, quite rusted through: the lock mechanism gave way before the key’s shaft did.

  The air inside was no warmer; on the other hand, no roomful of servants sitting around a fire looked up at our entrance. Although the space could have concealed any number of servants, since its lack of windows meant it was completely black.

  Holmes reached out his hand and, with the eagerness of a boy, led me with sure feet into the house where he had been born.

  Along the dusty stones of unused corridor, up some narrow and equally gritty wooden stairs, through a many-windowed room that seemed to contain shrouded furniture, down more stairs, and through another corridor.

  By the time we climbed a spiral stairway—the ancient clockwise sort designed to free a swordsman’s arm against invaders—I would not have sworn that we weren’t on the outskirts of Oxford, if not London. Down the next passage, Holmes let go of my hand. His clothing rustled, then he went still, the only sound his breathing. He had his ear pressed to the wall—or, I realised on perceiving a faint outline in the stygian dark, to a door.

  Perhaps two minutes went by with the sound of our breath and the odours of dust and horse-hair and a faint but dangerous mushroom smell of dry-rot (one of any old building’s “cart-load of mundane nightmares”). At the end, he straightened, and began to explain.

  “Below us lies what was once the Great Hall, although by the time I was born, it was little more than a very cold formal dining room—the tapestries had disintegrated, the dais was levelled, and the screened rooms were turned into a butler’s pantry. One could see the bones of the original hall, just, beneath the plaster and modernity. Up here was the minstrel’s gallery.
Mycroft and I used to stretch out here to analyse the guests, trying to deduce their histories, their medical conditions, and their secrets. Step away a bit,” he suggested, adding, “We’ll see if it’s been nailed shut.”

  I retreated until my back was against the opposite wall. There came the sound of metal against metal—a noise alarmingly like the cocking of a revolver—and the faint line grew sharper. The door gave way with a sudden crack, and we froze, waiting for exclamations from below.

  None came.

  Radiating embarrassment, Holmes licked his thumb to rub spittle against the hinges, then tried again.

  This time, nothing but a mild creak betrayed the door’s movement.

  Holmes made a quick survey below, then stood back, allowing me to peer around the frame of the door. The electrical lights in the high-ceilinged room were on, but it was empty of people, so I dared to venture out onto the narrow balcony. A pair of long tables had been arranged against the wall below: one had been laid with plates, cutlery, glasses, and an unlit chafing dish, while the other held unidentifiable shapes beneath linen drapes. Late-night party, or preparations for a formal breakfast? This being the Season, it could be either, or both. If the much-despised cousin had daughters—granddaughters?—of coming-out age, they might be bringing home house-guests after a nearby dance. Or perhaps they rode with the local hunt, and had a meet scheduled for the morrow. For all I knew, it was a household of Miss Havishams, laying out a banquet for a party that would never come.

  Then I noticed what the air was telling me: the room was not only lighted, it was far from cold, and bore all the signs of incipient life: wood-smoke, furniture polish—and food.

  These were not preparations for a hunt breakfast, nor were they a madwoman’s decaying feast. The servants here were no criminal cabal—the lorries we had seen were delivering food and drink for immediate use. Guests were expected, and soon.

  Holmes had reached the same conclusion. His hand came down on my left shoulder, and he began to say, “Russell, I think we—”