The Heart Of The Matter

by Maer, aka 'merely a whim'

1.

The cottage shook from the slamming guestroom door. Mrs. Martha Amelia Hudson sighed over the tea tray she was preparing. Something will have to be done about the poor girl, and soon. Holmes, too. They're quite the pair, those two. Just like twins and there's nothing like twins in a tantrum to make your life a trial and a blessing. There, that should do it. A plate of ham sandwiches followed a dish of locally produced pickles. Martha put the covered teapot square on the tray and took it in to Holmes. Twins! And at my age, too...

Holmes sat brooding in his favorite basket chair before the cold fireplace (left unused for the heat of the summer), an unlit pipe held forgotten in one hand. Martha eyed the set of his shoulders and the lines on his face. She shook her head. First Mary, and now him. Well, this has gone on long enough. It ends here. She put the tray down hard enough to rattle the dishes and when she had his attention, she made a show of taking a seat opposite his.

"I need a word with you, " she said in a tone that meant business, her old mind-your-mother voice which she hadn't used in years. "The chess set, Mr. Holmes, is the absolute last straw. Something must be done about this situation and you must decide - today - how you're going to go about it. You're no help to Mary this way. She's been hurt, Mr. Holmes, deeply hurt."

"Of course, she's been hurt. She's been shot."

Martha gave him a look normally reserved for smart-mouthed six-year-olds and cleared her throat. "Don't change the subject. Ever since Mary has come home from the hospital, and ever since it has become clear to me that she has not recovered as she should, I've been worried about her. She's been hurt, Mr. Holmes, well and truly hurt. She needs help and only you can help her."

"I have been." Holmes said in the manner of a doctor soothing an anxious parent. Martha was not fooled for a second. She heard the bitterness behind his words. "I stood for her against that harpy of an aunt and established Russell here. I have seen to it that she lacked for nothing in the way of food, comfort, shelter, or medical care. I have given her the breathing room she has said she needed to come to grips with this whole affair. All these things I have done, without scrimp or scruple, and yet now you sit there and tell me that I am not doing enough - really, Mrs. Hudson! You go too far." Holmes finished brusquely, offended.

"Our Mary has been hurt." Martha reiterated firmly for the third time, not in the least bit cowed by Holmes' outburst. How long had she known this irksome and moody, learned and brilliant, highly celebrated and fiercely private man? Nigh on to forty years. Yet, despite the passage of time and the experience thereby gained, it was amazing that there were some things the man apparently could not fathom. In matters of the heart, Sherlock Holmes was an innocent. Martha caught and held Homes' angry grey eyes with her determined blue ones.

"She just isn't bouncing back to her usual cheerful, levelheaded self. I tried to sound her out about it, and though she made some nice noises about being grateful, I could tell that she really didn't want to hear what I had to say. She's been broody, Mr. Holmes. She's not sleeping right, she's not eating right, and I daresay, if I hadn't been laying out her clothes the night before, on some mornings she wouldn't even be dressing right - ."

"Mrs. Hudson, if you come anywhere near a point, please make it."

"Very well, the heart of the matter is this. You and Mary are alike: all brilliant mind and unacknowledged heart. You two put your faith in reason and intelligence highest and first, and you leave your hearts for last. But where does faith come from, I ask you that? Intellect is carried and nurtured by reason, but faith and trust are birthed and borne in the heart. So what happens when you cannot trust your reason and intellect to guide you when your faith in them has been utterly destroyed, destroyed because your heart has been manipulated and deceived...by a trusted and beloved mentor's feigned affection, convincing you that all you held dear in your heart, all that you knew for certain truth in your mind, was nothing but a cruel lie?"

"Can't you see it, Mr. Holmes? You are Mary's dearest friend and mentor. She wants to trust you, but given what she's been through, how can she be certain you won't betray her as that Donleavy creature has done? Her faith in her reason and intellect - her self-confidence - was her anchor, her compass, and now she doesn't trust it anymore. She doesn't dare. So, she walks, talks, and looks like our Mary, but inside she's gone."

Martha saw Holmes' reserve weakening, could see in his eyes that she was getting through that thick skull of his. She pressed on to the finish.

"A wise man once said, 'Faith and Reason are like two shoes on your feet. You cannot go far if you are not wearing both.' That, Mr. Holmes, is the point. That is what that Donleavy woman has taken from our Mary, when she shot her." Martha saw that she had gotten through at last. "Now that horrid woman is dead and I wish the Devil well with her. But unless you want to send Mary along to keep her company, I suggest you focus your mind and your heart on finding a way to stop her downward slide. Those cliffs are far too close for my peace of mind, Mr. Holmes. Far too close. You just think on that.

"Now eat your lunch."