The Mary Russell Companion Page 5

  The face that looked down at me was no longer fishlike. In fact, it resembled amazingly a captive eagle I had once seen, perched in aloof splendour looking down the ridge of his nose at this lesser creature, cold disdain staring out from his hooded grey eyes.

  “My God,” he said in a voice of mock wonder, “it can think.”

  My anger had abated somewhat while watching the bees, but at this casual insult it erupted. Why was this tall, thin, infuriating old man so set on provoking an unoffending stranger? My chin went up again, only in part because he was taller than I, and I mocked him in return.

  “My God, it can recognise another human being when it’s hit over the head with one.” For good measure I added, “And to think that I was raised to believe that old people had decent manners.”

  I stood back to watch my blows strike home, and as I faced him squarely my mind’s eye finally linked him up with rumours I had heard and the reading I had done during my recent long convalescence, and I knew who he was, and I was appalled.

  I had, I should mention, always assumed that a large part of Dr. Watson’s adulatory stories were a product of that gentleman’s inferior imagination. Certainly he always regarded the reader to be as slow as himself.[16] Most irritating. Nonetheless, behind the stuff and nonsense of the biographer there towered a figure of pure genius, one of the great minds of his generation. A Legend.

  And I was horrified: Here I was, standing before a Legend, flinging insults at him, yapping about his ankles like a small dog worrying a bear. I suppressed a cringe and braced myself for the casual swat that would send me flying.

  To my amazement, however, and considerable dismay, instead of counterattacking he just smiled condescendingly and bent down to pick up his rucksack. I heard the faint rattle of the paint bottles within. He straightened, pushed his old-fashioned cap back on his greying hair, and looked at me with tired eyes.

  “Young man, I—”

  “‘Young man’!” That did it. Rage swept into my veins, filling me with power. Granted I was far from voluptuous, granted I was dressed in practical, that is, male, clothing—this was not to be borne. Fear aside, Legend aside, the yapping lapdog attacked with all the utter contempt only an adolescent can muster. With a surge of glee I seized the weapon he had placed in my hands and drew back for the coup de grâce. “‘Young man’?” I repeated. “It’s a damned good thing that you did retire, if that’s all that remains of the great detective’s mind!”[17] With that I reached for the brim of my oversized cap and my long blonde plaits slithered down over my shoulders.

  A series of emotions crossed his face, rich reward for my victory. Simple surprise was followed by a rueful admission of defeat, and then, as he reviewed the entire discussion, he surprised me. His face relaxed, his thin lips twitched, his grey eyes crinkled into unexpected lines, and at last he threw back his head and gave a great shout of delighted laughter. That was the first time I heard Sherlock Holmes laugh, and although it was far from the last, it never ceased to surprise me, seeing that proud, ascetic face dissolve into helpless laughter.[18] His amusement was always at least partially at himself, and this time was no exception. I was totally disarmed.

  He wiped his eyes with the handkerchief I had seen poking from his coat pocket; a slight smear of blue paint was transferred to the bridge of his angular nose. He looked at me then, seeing me for the first time. After a minute he gestured at the flowers.

  “You know something about bees, then?”

  “Very little,” I admitted.

  “But they interest you?” he suggested.

  “No.” This time both eyebrows raised.

  “And, pray tell, why such a firm opinion?”

  “From what I know of them they are mindless creatures, little more than a tool for putting fruit on trees. The females do all the work; the males do…well, they do little. And the queen, the only one who might amount to something, is condemned for the sake of the hive to spend her days as an egg machine. And,” I said, warming to the topic, “what happens when her equal comes along, another queen with which she might have something in common? They are both forced—for the good of the hive—to fight to the death. Bees are great workers, it is true, but does not the production of each bee’s total lifetime amount to a single dessertspoonful of honey? Each hive puts up with having hundreds of thousands of bee-hours stolen regularly, to be spread on toast and formed into candles, instead of declaring war or going on strike as any sensible, self-respecting race would do. A bit too close to the human race for my taste.”

  Honey bees on honeycomb

  Mr. Holmes had sat down upon his heels during my tirade, watching a blue spot. When I had finished, he said nothing, but put out one long, thin finger and gently touched the fuzzy body, disturbing it not at all. There was silence for several minutes until the laden bee flew off—northeast, towards the copse two miles away, I was certain. He watched it disappear and murmured almost to himself, “Yes, they are very like Homo sapiens. Perhaps that is why they so interest me.”

  “I don’t know how sapient you find most Homines, but I for one find the classification an optimistic misnomer.” I was on familiar ground now, that of the mind and opinions, a beloved ground I had not trod for many months. That some of the opinions were those of an obnoxious teenager[19] made them none the less comfortable or easy to defend. To my pleasure he responded.

  “Homo in general, or simply vir[20]?” he asked, with a solemnity that made me suspect that he was laughing at me. Well, at least I had taught him to be subtle with it.

  “Oh, no. I am a feminist, but no man hater. A misanthrope in general, I suppose like yourself, sir.[21] However, unlike you I find women to be the marginally more rational half of the race.”

  He laughed again, a gentler version of the earlier outburst, and I realised that I had been trying to provoke it this time.

  “Young lady,” he stressed the second word with gentle irony, “you have caused me amusement twice in one day, which is more than anyone else has done in some time. I have little humour to offer in return, but if you would care to accompany me home, I could at least give you a cup of tea.”

  “I should be very pleased to do so, Mr. Holmes.”

  “Ah, you have the advantage over me. You obviously know my name, yet there is no one present of whom I might beg an introduction to yourself[22].” The formality of his speech was faintly ludicrous considering that we were two shabby figures facing each other on an otherwise deserted hillside.

  Sussex near Beachy Head

  “My name is Mary Russell.” I held out my hand, which he took in his thin, dry one. We shook as if cementing a peace pact, which I suppose we were.

  “Mary,” he said, tasting it. He pronounced it in the Irish manner, his mouth caressing the long first syllable[23]. “A suitably orthodox name for such a passive individual as yourself.[24]”

  “I believe I was named after the Magdalene, rather than the Virgin.”

  “Ah, that explains it then. Shall we go, Miss Russell? My housekeeper ought to have something to put in front of us.”

  It was a lovely walk, that, nearly four miles over the downs. We thumbed over a variety of topics strung lightly on the common thread of apiculture. He gestured wildly atop a knoll when comparing the management of hives with Machiavellian theories of government, and cows ran snorting away. He paused in the middle of a stream to illustrate his theory juxtaposing the swarming of hives and the economic roots of war, using examples of the German invasion of France[25] and the visceral patriotism of the English. Our boots squelched for the next mile. He reached the heights of his peroration at the top of a hill and launched himself down the other side at such a speed that he resembled some great flapping thing about to take off.

  He stopped to look around for me, took in my stiffening gait and my inability to keep up with him, both literally and metaphorically, and shifted into a less manic mode. He did seem to have a good practical basis for his flights of fancy and, it turned out, had ev
en written a book on the apiary arts entitled a Practical Handbook of Bee Culture.[26] It had been well received, he said with pride (this from a man who, I remembered, had respectfully declined a knighthood from the late queen[27]), particularly his experimental but highly successful placement within the hive of what he called the Royal Quarters, which had given the book its provocative subtitle: With Some Observations Upon the Segregation of the Queen.

  Practical Handbook of Bee Culture

  We walked, he talked, and under the sun and his soothing if occasionally incomprehensible monologue I began to feel something hard and tight within me relax slightly, and an urge I had thought killed began to make the first tentative stirrings towards life. When we arrived at his cottage we had known each other forever.

  Other more immediate stirrings had begun to assert themselves as well, with increasing insistence. I had taught myself in recent months to ignore hunger, but a healthy young person after a long day in the open air with only a sandwich since morning is likely to find it difficult to concentrate on anything other than the thought of food. I prayed that the cup of tea would be a substantial one, and was considering the problem of how to suggest such a thing should it not be immediately offered, when we reached his house, and the housekeeper herself appeared at the door, and for a moment I forgot my preoccupation. It was none other than the long-suffering Mrs. Hudson, whom I had long considered the most underrated figure in all of Dr. Watson’s stories. Yet another example of the man’s obtuseness, this inability to know a gem unless it be set in gaudy gold.[28]

  Dear Mrs. Hudson, who was to become such a friend to me. At that first meeting she was, as always, imperturbable. She saw in an instant what her employer did not, that I was desperately hungry, and proceeded to empty her stores of food to feed a vigorous appetite. Mr. Holmes protested as she appeared with plate after platter of bread, cheese, relishes, and cakes, but watched thoughtfully as I put large dents in every selection. I was grateful that he did not embarrass me by commenting on my appetite, as my aunt was wont to do, but to the contrary he made an effort to keep up the appearance of eating with me. By the time I sat back with my third cup of tea, the inner woman satisfied as she had not been for many weeks, his manner was respectful, and that of Mrs. Hudson contented as she cleared away the débris.

  “I thank you very much, Madam,” I told her.

  “I like to see my cooking appreciated, I do,” she said, not looking at Mr. Holmes. “I rarely have the chance to fuss, unless Dr. Watson comes. This one,” she inclined her head to the man opposite me, who had brought out a pipe from his coat pocket, “he doesn’t eat enough to keep a cat from starving. Doesn’t appreciate me at all, he doesn’t.”

  “Now, Mrs. Hudson,” he protested, but gently, as at an old argument, “I eat as I always have; it is you who will cook as if there were a household of ten.”

  “A cat would starve,” she repeated firmly. “But you have eaten something today, I’m glad to see. If you’ve finished, Will wants a word with you before he goes, something about the far hedge.”

  “I care not a jot for the far hedge,” he complained. “I pay him a great deal to fret about the hedges and the walls and the rest of it for me.”

  “He needs a word with you,” she said again. Firm repetition seemed her preferred method of dealing with him, I noted.

  “Oh, blast! Why did I ever leave London? I ought to have put my hives in an allotment[29] and stayed in Baker Street. Help yourself to the bookshelves, Miss Russell. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He snatched up his tobacco and matches and stalked out, Mrs. Hudson rolled her eyes and disappeared into the kitchen, and I found myself alone in the quiet room.

  Sherlock Holmes’ house[30] was a typical ageless Sussex cottage, flint[31] walls and red tile roof. This main room, on the ground floor, had once been two rooms, but was now a large square with a huge stone fireplace at one end, dark, high beams, an oak floor that gave way to slate through the kitchen door, and a surprising expanse of windows on the south side where the downs rolled on to the sea. A sofa, two wing chairs, and a frayed basket chair gathered around the fireplace, a round table and four chairs occupied the sunny south bay window (where I sat), and a work desk piled high with papers and objects stood beneath a leaded, diamond-paned window in the west: a room of many purposes. The walls were solid with bookshelves and cupboards.

  A Sussex Flint House

  Today I was more interested in my host than in his books, and I looked curiously at the titles (Blood Flukes of Borneo sat between The Thought of Goethe and Crimes of Passion in Eighteenth-Century Italy[32]) with him in mind rather than with an eye to borrowing. I made a circuit of the room (tobacco still in a Persian slipper at the fireplace, I smiled to see[33]; on one table a small crate stencilled LIMÓNES DE ESPAÑA and containing several disassembled revolvers; on another table three nearly identical pocket watches laid with great precision, chains and fobs stretched out in parallel lines, with a powerful magnifying glass, a set of callipers, and a paper and pad covered with figures to one side) before ending up in front of his desk.

  I had no time for more than a cursory glance at his neat handwriting before his voice startled me from the door.

  “Shall we sit out on the terrace?”

  I quickly put down the sheet in my hand, which seemed to be a discourse on seven formulae for plaster and their relative effectiveness in recording tyre marks from different kinds of earth[34], and agreed that it would be pleasant in the garden. We took up our cups, but as I followed him across the room towards the French doors my attention was drawn by an odd object fixed to the room’s south wall: a tall box, only a few inches wide but nearly three feet tall and protruding a good eighteen inches into the room. It appeared to be a solid block of wood but, pausing to examine it, I could see that both sides were sliding panels.

  “My observation hive,[35]” Mr. Holmes said.

  Observation hive

  “Bees?” I exclaimed. “Inside the house?”

  Instead of answering he reached past me and slid back one of the side panels, and revealed there a perfect, thin, glass-fronted beehive. I squatted before it, entranced. The comb was thick and even across the middle portion, trailed off at the edges, and was covered by a thick blanket of orange and black. The whole was vibrating with energy, though the individuals seemed to be simply milling about, without purpose.

  I watched closely, trying to make sense of their apparently aimless motion. A tube led in at the bottom, with pollen-laden bees coming in and denuded bees going out; a smaller tube at the top, clouded with condensation, I assumed was for ventilation.

  “Do you see the queen?” Mr. Holmes asked.

  “She’s here? Let me see if I can find her.” I knew that the queen was the largest bee in the hive, and that wherever she went she had a fawning entourage, but it still took me an embarrassingly long time to pick her out from her two hundred or so daughters and sons. Finally I found her, and couldn’t imagine why she had not appeared instantly. Twice the size of the others and imbued with dumb, bristling purpose, she seemed a creature of another race from her hive mates. I asked their keeper a few questions—did they object to the light, was the population as steady here as in a larger hive—and then he slid the cover over the living painting and we went outside. I remembered belatedly that I was not interested in bees.

  Outside the French doors lay an expanse of flagstones, sheltered from the wind by a glass conservatory that grew off the kitchen wall and by an old stone wall with herbaceous border[36] that curved around the remaining two sides. The terrace gathered in the heat until its air danced, and I was relieved when he continued down to a group of comfortable-looking wooden chairs in the shade of an enormous copper beech. I chose a chair that looked down towards the Channel, over the head of a small orchard that lay in a hollow below us. There were tidy hive boxes arranged among the trees and bees working the early flowers of the border. A bird sang. Two men’s voices came and receded along the other side of the wall
. Dishes rattled distantly from the kitchen. A small fishing boat appeared on the horizon and gradually worked its way towards us. I suddenly came to myself with the realisation that I was neglecting my conversational responsibilities as a guest. I moved my cold tea from the arm of my chair to the table and turned to my host.

  “Is this your handiwork?” I asked, indicating the garden. He smiled ironically, though whether at the doubt in my voice or at the social impulse that drove me to break the silence, I was not certain.

  “No, it is a collaboration on the part of Mrs. Hudson and old Will Thompson, who used to be head gardener at the manor. I took an interest in gardening when I first came here, but my work tends to distract me for days on end. I would reappear to find whole beds dead of drought or buried in bramble. But Mrs. Hudson enjoys it, and it gives her something to do other than pester me to eat her concoctions. I find it a pleasant spot to sit and think. It also feeds my bees—most of the flowers are chosen because of the quality of honey they produce.”

  “It is a very pleasant spot. It reminds me of a garden we once had when I was small.”

  “Tell me about yourself, Miss Russell.”

  I started to give him the obligatory response, first the demurral and then the reluctant flat autobiography, but some slight air of polite inattention in his manner stopped me. Instead, I found myself grinning at him.

  “Why don’t you tell me about myself, Mr. Holmes?”

  “Aha, a challenge, eh?” There was a flare of interest in his eyes.

  “Exactly.”

  “Very well, on two conditions. First, that you forgive my old and much-abused brain if it is slow and creaking, for such thought patterns as I once lived by are a habit and become rusty without continual use. Daily life here with Mrs. Hudson and Will is a poor whetting stone for sharp wit.”

  “I don’t entirely believe that your brain is underused, but I grant the condition. And the other?”