Hedges

by Maer, aka 'merely a whim'

3.

By the end of May, the friendship struck between Sherlock Holmes and Miss Mary Russell was firmly entrenched, so it was not unusual to see them in and about the cottage, bent over a book, a test tube, or a clue as Holmes began teaching his newfound friend his arcane and singular trade.

The "loan account", as we all took to calling it, saw some heavy activity in those early days for, however resourceful young Mary was, there were certain areas of clothing that her beloved father's wardrobe could not fill. Shoes were one, as I had noted that very first day. Suitable underthings were another. Fully cognizant of her prickly adolescent pride and the justifiable embarrassment she would feel upon being asked about such matters, I simply gauged her size with a mother's practiced eye and bought those things she needed on a special trip to London. I made sure to purchase items with the minimum of frills and lace, tending toward warmth and practicality, knowing her distaste for fussiness. Given the wartime restrictions, it took some doing, but find them I did. I passed these on to her as part of a provisions package and let her discover the surprise in the privacy of her own room at home. Mary thanked me when she returned with genuine gratitude for both my thoughtfulness and discretion, and when she next went off with Holmes on a cold early morning's exercise in tracking, I saw her go with the comforting knowledge she was -- finally, at last! -- warm, well shod and well fed. She would never again be forced to make do or do without, not if I had anything to say about it.

As the world warmed with the season, the comfortable routine of Mary Russell showing up at our door every few days for more lessons (and meals) marked the passage of the time as surely as the grandfather clock in the front hall. It was on one such morning in May that I accepted a fairly heavy packet by post and took it in to Holmes in the sitting room.

"A package for you, sir."

Holmes looked up from his desk in the midst of sorting through rafts of paper -- his current draft of the next chapter of his magnum opus on detecting, which he was to have Mary review when she arrived today -- and his eyes, alighting on the package I carried, narrowed with a certain grim satisfaction.

"Ah, yes. The parcel I was expecting from San Francisco. Came by way of the Cape instead of the Canal, I see. That explains its tardiness. Thank you, Mrs. Hudson. You may leave it, um... here --" Holmes hastily cleared a chair of a ream of foolscap.

"Very well, sir."

I got a glimpse of a name, followed by medical initials in the American fashion, before the face of the packet was buried by a slithering pile of notes from the desk and a muttered curse from Holmes.

As I had mentioned in my most recent report to Mycroft, Holmes was still quite irritable from a self-imposed withdrawal that began -- as nearly as I could pinpoint it -- the evening of Mary's first visit. Almost a week had passed before I was certain the level in the little bottles upstairs remained constant, the hypodermic dry and unused.

So engrained was his habit and so addicted was his body to the drug, it was inevitable Holmes would have a rather difficult time of it. Though he made every effort to maintain a pleasant face whenever Mary was present, his temper and his nerves savaged him internally. No matter how they harried him, he kept any sign of it suppressed. It was only later, on particularly trying days and only after she'd gone, that Holmes would vent his frustration and nervous energy in a flurry of chemical experiments, in bouts of writing round the clock, or scraping for hours at his violin. A few times he'd fled across the Downs on long walks, returning well into the wee hours of the morning. Once he'd disappeared into London for a span of nearly three days. Apparently Holmes was doing whatever he could to occupy himself during the keenly felt absences of the cocaine and of Mary Russell.

So far, his self-discipline had held fast and Holmes, though near impossible to live with at times, continued on without any sign of relapse. So far, the level in the bottles stayed the same.

They had remained so since That Day in April.

We were now a week shy of June.

I retreated to the kitchen before the air could turn blue about my ears and left Holmes to dig out his parcel. There I found Old Will, leaning against the Irish dresser with its gleaming china in his grubby work clothes, filching from the bowlful of last fall's apples I'd brought out from storage. He'd just come in from the orchard, to judge from the mud on his boots and the tracks on my just-cleaned floor -- it was a distinctive sort of dirt that liked to stain what it touched, whether it be shoe leather or flagstone. I tried not to sigh.

"Good morning, Will." I took the bowl away from him, sat at the table, and began peeling the apples for the tart I'd had in mind for tea. If I sliced the apples thin, I might be able to salvage dessert.

"The hedge is coming along nicely," Will announced. "We've replanted it and the replacements have taken well." Not the least bit discouraged by my obvious ploy, Will followed me to the table (after stepping carefully over the cat) and took a chair.

"That is good news," I said as I swatted his hand away from the bowl. He might be "old", but he still ate like a much younger man. I finally moved the bowl under the table to the safety of my lap. Will shrugged, losing gracefully. He bit into the one he'd selected with relish, and after chewing for a moment said to me:

"Certainly. And if some poison ivy should take hold there, I wouldn't be sorry."

"You didn't!" I gasped as the meaning of his statement sank in. I wagged my paring knife at him for emphasis, "And what if the hedge tunnellers were children -- think of the rashes you've given them! For what, I ask you?"

"Country folk would know the difference. Strangers from the city wouldn't. Do you know of a better way to single out the culprit without bringing undue attention to ourselves?" Will gave me a predatory grin. "It's nothing that couldn't be cured by a trip to the chemists, Mrs. Hudson. I've already had a word with Mr. Phillips about it and he's agreed to notify me if anyone asks for the remedy."

"That's assuming, Will, that this tunneller of yours is someone with a grudge on for Mr. Holmes and would return to do him harm. You're convinced this business with the hedge isn't children pranking about but the actions of someone less innocent, then?" Less innocent and over what, I didn't care to dwell on too closely. If the time came to deal with it directly, as I'd had to one night long ago involving that madman with the air gun, then so I would. Until then, I preferred to leave Will to worry about it. It was, after all, more in line with his special talents rather than mine.

"Let's just say that the Peterson place up the hill from us, whose border is the hedge, was recently sold through local intermediaries to city folk. London was as far as the paper trail went before it came up cold. The owners haven't shown up to take possession but the sale cleared the banks. It seems legitimate." Old Will paused and contemplated the apple core he held in his hand. He continued, "I still have a few inquiries to make. I may yet be able to turn up something. However, I don't think this has anything to do with the business Mr. Holmes was involved in from last August. This has a different feel to it. Entirely different." Will finished the apple in two bites as he hauled himself to his feet and made for the kitchen door.

"What have you told Mycroft?" I asked.

"I've told him everything. He's set his agents pursuing the cold trail in London as we speak. Have you told him of Miss Russell?"

"Yes, of course. After all, the task he'd assigned me did stipulate 'drastic changes in health or habits.' Holmes' improvement these past weeks would certainly qualify, wouldn't you agree?" I looked over my shoulder at Will behind me.

"Just think of it! He'd been doing so poorly for so long that I had nearly given up any hope for a turnaround. But he's done it, Will. He's done it. He's come out of it of his own free will, and not once has he backslid. Not even once. I truly believe he's taken control of himself again, Will, and because of that, I'm certain we won't have to spy on Holmes for much longer." And maybe then my conscience would finally give me a bit of rest. I placed the last of the peeled apples in bowl with the rest of its mates. There would be enough for that tart, I judged, with maybe an apricot preserve glaze to make up for the lack. I looked back up at Will.

"Well, he's had help, of course," I amended. "Heaven knows, I've been on my knees every night since they'd met thanking Divine Providence for bringing Miss Mary Russell here. She's made a world of difference to him, Will, a world of difference."

"She certainly has. And I'll tell you something else. Holmes isn't the only one she's affected, by the by." Will paused to retrieve his cap from the dresser. "She'd fair won over Seth yesterday with that throwing arm of hers. He's halfway in love with her himself and he doesn't even like girls. He couldn't stop talking about her the whole way home. Ginny told me he was still going on over her at breakfast this morning." Will chuckled and shook his head over his smitten grandson. "Who would have thought it possible? Well, I'm off."

Will donned his cap and, clucking his tongue at the cat rolling on a sunny patch on the floor, left for his various chores. I got up in search of lemon juice for the apples and a broom for the mud.

The cat, for his part, simply purred.

"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson. I daresay having Russell about has propelled your culinary efforts well beyond your usual standard of excellence." Holmes smiled wryly as he raised his post-prandial glass of port to me.

It was fulsome praise indeed from a man who more often than not took little notice of any food one put in front of him. I noted again his lack of proper address: they'd dropped the formality of "Mr." and "Miss" by their second visit so that now, a little over six weeks into their association, it no longer seemed odd that Holmes should so address Mary, nor she likewise do so with him.

As for our Mary (as I'd taken to calling her in the privacy of my thoughts) exerting an influence on my cooking, Mr. Holmes was only partially correct: while it was true I did make more when Mary was visiting, I cooked as I always have, and any perceived improvement of the menu was due entirely to a commensurate improvement of Holmes' appetite. In that regard, I would be the first to admit that Mary was indeed the cause and not anything I may have done. Furthermore, that influence also extended to any meals at which she was not present, as the dinner debris I just now cleared from the table mutely testified.

Today had been a good day for Holmes, I decided as I turned toward the kitchen. He seemed quite at ease, as if his distempers of the past month and a half had given him a respite, if they hadn't actually left him altogether. I certainly hoped so. Perhaps now his nerves would let him alone and the atmosphere in the cottage would be more pleasant...

"By the way, Mrs. Hudson, if I might have a word," came his most forbidding tenor at my back.

Or perhaps not.

"Sir?"

The tone in his voice had told me everything I needed to know. I had been found out. Holmes had discovered I had been spying on him. I turned to face him with the tray still in my hands. He indicated the chair opposite him and I sat, heavy inside with dread and a thoroughly appropriate sense of guilt and remorse. That I should have had the temerity to spy on my employer --! I should be turned out with nothing but the clothes on my back with nary a pence in my pocket nor a reference to my name, and the devil take any clemency my white hair might otherwise garner me. Of all the parts I'd played over the years, that of traitor was entirely ungrateful and completely unforgivable. I sat, with the taste of shame sharp in my mouth and waited for the axe to fall. At least, it's finally over. My days of skulking behind his back are done.

"It has been brought to my attention that rumours have been circulating as to the unique friendship that exists between myself and Russell. No doubt the car rides home have had something to do with it. I suspect our neighbor-turned-cabdriver to be the rather talkative sort. Wouldn't you agree?"

Relief flooded in and I studied my folded hands a moment before I could trust myself to speak normally. You've dodged the bullet, Martha Amelia. Look lively now.

"It seems likely, what with Tillie Whiteneck's place being on his way home from the Klein Farm. No one's approached me about it, sir, when I've been out to the Village on Market day." I dared raise my eyes to the tray between us. "But if our neighbor is the source of the rumours, how if we should simply remove the object of his speculations? Have Mary go home by other means."

There, I thought. Please let him turn his attention to that and leave me be, before those eyes of his saw through me.

"I suppose if one had to be grateful for the bloody tourist trade for something..." I thought I heard the man say to himself. I looked up and saw him staring abstractedly out the night-darkened window. His gaze met mine in the reflection. "I understand there's a brisk trade in bicycles this time of year. I should think a bicycle would be just the thing for Russell's transportation needs, now that the weather has cleared for the season. We could put it on the loan account, couldn't we, Mrs. Hudson?" He looked at me directly for conformation of the necessary funds. I nodded an affirmative and Holmes continued, " Please let Russell know that any reasonable expense at the bicycle shop in the Village may be billed to it."

"I would be glad to, sir. In fact, I was actually thinking of sending her home with a hamper, if a way could be found of transporting it easily. I know she's a strong girl, Mr. Holmes, but she's recovering yet and I don't like the idea of her lugging that heavy thing all the way back to the Farm by herself. A bicycle would be perfect for the task."

"Very well, then. It's settled."

"I'll see to it, sir."

I stood and made to leave with the tray.

"Oh, Mrs. Hudson, about the far hedge. I trust Will has informed you of it?"

Stifling a sigh, I turned about to face my employer.

"Yes, I believe Will mentioned it to me."

"I trust the poison ivy is keeping the more persistently inquisitive tourists at bay?"

"I'm sure it has, Mr. Holmes. Was it you who suggested it, by the way?"

"I?" Holmes laid a hand on his breast in the exaggerated manner of a vaudevillian protesting his innocence before an audience. "Why, what a devious mind you have, my dear woman."

I turned about for the kitchen. "Oh, I doubt that I have, sir."

"Yes," Holmes said dryly. "I'm sure Mycroft thought differently."

Blast him and his infernal penchant for the dramatic, I very nearly lost the tray! I mastered myself and turned yet again to face him. Any more of this and I shall get dizzy.

"Sir?"

Instead of being angry with me, I realized Holmes was actually enjoying himself. Shaking his head and manfully restraining himself from laughing, he waved me back to my place at the table.

"Please have a seat," said he.

I sat.

"My dear Mrs. Hudson, you needn't look so crestfallen, I assure you! Simply tell Mycroft in your next communiqué that he needn't resort to this transparent little subterfuge if he desires information concerning my habits. Tell him I am quite prepared to answer truthfully any question he may ask. He need no longer go round me through you. Nor Old Will, for that matter."

"How long have you known?" My fear, oddly enough, was gone, quite used up in my fright the moment before. I was now only curious as to the details.

"I confess I was alerted rather early on. Mycroft, you see, had made some noises about my habits on several of my earlier visits in London. Let us see... that would be about late 1909 or so. When the frequency of his queries grew at a steady rate over the months following but then inexplicably ceased, I began to wonder. When Old Will appeared on my doorstep not a fortnight thereafter, he with the hands of a gardener and the moves of a veteran spy of the Northwest Frontier, I began to suspect. However, when the key to the upstairs cabinet, and I believe you know exactly which one I mean, was misplaced and miraculously found in a ridiculous location, I knew."

Holmes tipped back his chair and regarded the ruby depths of his port.

"I lacked just one bit of information to confirm my hypothesis." He caught my eye and twitched a smile at me, saying:

"That last bit was you."

"I, sir?"

"Indeed. The doorknob."

"The doorknob."

"To the lab."

"To the -- lab, sir?" Oh, for heaven's sake, I sound like a parrot. "Oh, no. You don't mean the smudges on the... they were a code, then?"

"Crude, perhaps, but effective. Furthermore, it was a code specifically devised for a particular receiver... in a backward fashion. By so scrupulously not cleaning up certain obvious signs of dirt and dust, coupled with the unmistakable evidence that you had cleaned elsewhere, you gave yourself away." Holmes sipped delicately at his port and set down the glass. "In short, by refusing to disturb the scene of the crime, you irrefutably proclaimed you had been there."

"Ah. How stupid of me."

"Not at all. You just noticed and avoided the wrong set of details. Mycroft chose well in choosing you for the job and Old Will trained you equally well. However, neither of the men would have succeeded, nor could you have, if you hadn't already possessed the innate abilities the task required."

I decided to ignore that somewhat backhanded compliment.

"Why didn't you call me on it before, when you first found me out?"

"At the time, I admit I didn't much care." Holmes had the good grace to look uncomfortable. "I had made up my mind, you see, and the opinion of others mattered not a jot. I had chosen my fate and had merely wanted to get on with it. Since then, however, I have come to realize the full extent of my folly and have been paying for it, as you have seen. Addiction extracts a steep price for its pleasures, with interest."

We both considered the balance of that particular account and the interest accrued therein. I broke the silence.

"Where do we go from here, Mr. Holmes?"

"I expect you, my dear lady, will retire to the kitchen with that thrice-damned tray and sleep tonight the slumber of the fully exonerated. Whereas I shall catch the next train to London and take off for Mycroft's to tell him in rather strong and quite unequivocal terms that in the future if he wishes to pry, best he do so openly. I will not have him suborning my employees! From now on I will submit reports to him, if necessary. You needn't do so any longer. That should free you up to do what you do best." Holmes let his chair drop to all four of its legs with a smart crack on the oaken floor. I took that as a signal our little interview had ended and got up to leave, thrice-damned tray in hand. Holmes rose with me, ever the gentleman, saying: "Thank you, Mrs. Hudson, for this opportunity to catch my brother in a lie. Such occasions are more rare than hens hatched with teeth. And Mrs. Hudson, I --"

Holmes' voice hoarsened and he paused before he continued.

"I want you to know that I fervently hope I may someday make amends for all the pains you've taken on my behalf -- no, pray let me finish. I realize it could not have been easy for you to so thoroughly compromise your principles as Mycroft required. I also realize that these past several weeks have tried your patience and peace of mind quite horribly. For all these things and more, I most humbly and sincerely apologize and pray that you could find it in yourself to forgive me my utter and complete selfishness. Would that I could prove myself worthy of your regard, little though I may deserve it, and may Almighty God allow I might somehow repay you for your steadfast faith in me."

With the attitude of a penitent before his confessor, the great Sherlock Holmes begged for my forgiveness. I was quite simply floored. He had understood everything -- everything! In addition, though by rights I should have been ignominiously sacked, he'd absolved me of any and all wrongdoing and had asked me (if indirectly) to stay. I had witnessed before the generosity of his heart and spirit toward others. Never, however, in all my many years had I ever expected to be the recipient of it in so great a measure. Never again would I doubt this man.

Ever.

Would that I could prove myself worthy of your regard.

"You just did, sir." I said, granting him absolution in return. I took a deep breath against the prickle of incipient tears and got back to business. "Now, before we get all maudlin and thoroughly embarrass ourselves, Mr. Holmes, will that be coffee or tea before you go?"