Legacy

by An Oxford Punter

"Earth to Gran. Hello, is anybody in there?" Christian folded himself into the chair opposite mine and, with a grin, reached out to tap one long finger against my earphones. Obediently I slipped them off and stopped the cassette player with only a little reluctance; the tape was of a lecture by Professor Alan Prestbury detailing theories on the psychological need of mankind throughout history for religion and things sacred. "What are you doing at nine o'clock tonight?"

"Well, I shall have to consult my busy social calendar." I smiled. "Why?"

"I want you to watch something with me on television."

"Oh?" I studied him, sensing beneath his surface poise and sophistication--acquired at far too young an age--a bubbling boyish excitement. "What is it?"

"I'd rather not say. Just watch it with me, please?"

"Well, it seems a simple enough request." I narrowed my eyes. "But, being the suspicious person I am, I am forced to wonder why you don't wish to tell me what this program is. Do you suspect, for example, that it might be something I would not initially choose to watch? That I might find its contents objectionable in some way?" Then the answer came; there was only one thing he would be so enthusiastic about and know at the same time I would not. It was one of the few issues of contention between us in an otherwise amicable relationship. "Oh child, you know very well how I despise those things."

"Gran--"

"No." I held up one hand. "I no longer pay attention to such nonsense and you know it."

"Yes, I know," he agreed impatiently, his tone one of patent dismissal. "But I thought this time--"

"And what is so different about 'this time' that I should put aside Professor Prestbury's lecture in favor of it?" I tapped the cassette player. "You ask a good deal in more ways than one; I have been waiting to give this topic my full attention for several weeks now. Satisfy my morbid curiosity, therefore, if you please; what is the name of this latest pretender who has managed to embolden you to ask such a thing of me?"

"Brett. Jeremy Brett." His grey eyes kindled with interest. "I caught the first program last week; evidently it's one of a series." He shook his head. "It wasn't like anything I've seen before."

"High praise indeed." And so it was, coming from this knowledgeable student of his great-grandfather's work. "And did it actually resemble one of Uncle John's stories this time?"

"'A Scandal In Bohemia'," he supplied helpfully, hoping no doubt to pique my interest.

"Hmph," I snorted, "if you are hoping to tempt me by dangling Irene Adler in front of my nose, you will wait in vain. I made my peace with her a long time ago, and she with me. You will need better bait than that to hook this fish, boy."

"Oh." His obvious disappointment brought a smile to my lips. "Well, they're showing 'The Dancing Men' tonight. I thought maybe you could make an exception, just this once--"

"I know." He watched me for another moment, faint lines of disappointment forming between his brows. Then his expression smoothed...and closed. I had seen that look many times before, on several different Holmesian faces. They wore it like protective armor or hid behind it as circumstances warranted, and in my experience it usually proved to be impenetrable once in place. This particular face had buckled it on more and more lately when dealing with his beautiful, calculating mother but never before with me and I did not relish being the cause of such a first, however inadvertently. "Okay. I understand." He sighed. "Well, I have some work to do for class tomorrow. I'd better get to it if I'm going to finish before this evening."

And as quickly as that he was gone, from the room and from my reach, and I was left the victor in a battle I had not meant or wanted to join. With a sigh of my own, I replaced the earphones and turned on the cassette player, determined to return to my research.

But I did not hear a word of the rest of the tape. Instead I found myself pondering my great-grandson's request. I certainly knew of the attempts of others to carry on where Dr. Watson left off, to further immortalize Holmes in plays and movies and books. It was a process which had begun even before Holmes left Baker Street for retirement in Sussex, and I had occasion to ponder it frequently in the early days of our marriage.

I could easily name my own reasons for being drawn to him from that first day upon the downs. Initially I recognized that we were kindred spirits, fiercely intelligent, frequently misunderstood by others; in time I came to appreciate other aspects of him--his wisdom gleaned from years of vast and varied experience, his courage in the face of great censure and hardship, and yes, the depth of his love for me and for our children. We each learned, in the ensuing years, to complete and compliment the other, and the intimacy of our daily life together had shown me repeatedly the awe and respect which his abilities and personality were so capable of fostering in those around him, myself included.

But what of the reasons of those countless others not so intimately connected with him who snatched up every issue of the Strand magazine containing Dr. Watson's stories? What of those who, upon learning of Holmes's presumed death in the falls of Reichenbach, went about their business sporting black arm bands of mourning upon their sleeves? The members of the press were forever after him for a word on this or that, be it related to matters criminal or not, and he was invariably the center of attention at social gatherings once his illustrious name became known. We even occasionally had to contend with strangers, men (and, by far the more annoying of the two, women) who came to Sussex in search of him not to obtain his assistance in the solving of a case, but simply to discover his whereabouts, to perhaps meet him and spend time in his irascible company. His celebrity seemed to actually grow rather than diminish as the years passed, and it was one of the few occurrences engendered by his life's work which always irritated and often puzzled him. He could not understand the interest of others in him apart from his work; to him the solving of a puzzle was of paramount importance, the observation of what was not obvious, the deductions made from such observations. As far as he was concerned, he was no more than a tool, like the magnifying lens and the commonplace books, merely a means to an end, that end being the discovery of the truth.

At the time I came into his life, he had begun a firm campaign to ignore all such apocrypha emerging about him, and I soon learned to adopt a like attitude. The immense popularity in America of his adventures had already fueled the careers of such notables as William Gillette on stage and John Barrymore in the very infancy of film before I even met Holmes. In the twenties and thirties I had been too busy living a wide assortment of my own adventures with him as his wife and partner to pay much heed to the spurious chronicles of others, adventures which included the rise of my own career in theological research and the birth and rearing of two children. I had not seen the crop of movies about him that came to the screens of theaters in the 1940s either; my grief had been too fresh to permit it. It was not until years and a new generation later that I was able to sit down with grandchildren and critically view the performances of such actors as Norwood, Wontner, and Rathbone.

Later of course came the books, stories purportedly about Holmes, just as purportedly written by Dr. Watson, lost cases miraculously discovered in a variety of interesting and improbable ways. A few of these were entertaining, and served a purpose after a fashion, bringing new readers to dear Uncle John's stories so that they might in turn learn of the brilliant man he had befriended and been befriended by. But the vast majority were inferior imitations, ranging from the relatively harmless to the highly ridiculous, and I soon tired of them. The real Holmes, my Holmes, had gradually become lost, obscured beneath a confused, contradictory weight of material so vast and pervasive I could not find him in any of them after awhile, and as each member of each generation presented himself or herself for my hopeful inspection with no sign of the elusive qualities that had set him apart from ordinary men and women, I began to believe that even within his own family his bright, brilliant star had at last dimmed and disappeared, never to be seen again.

But then, from the body of a woman who cared nothing for the glittering presence of Sherlock Holmes in the lineage that was her husband's beyond what said presence could offer her in terms of wealth and prestige, had come this slip of a boy, the last of my great-grandchildren, containing within his slender frame and truly formidable intellect more of Holmes himself than I had seen in all of the children, the grandchildren and the great-grandchildren put together. From the time he was old enough to listen while I read Dr. Watson's stories aloud and understand that the legendary detective in them was his own great-grandfather, he had been on a fervent quest to discover this elusive figure from his own history. I suspect the absence of his father was responsible in part for a significant rise in importance of the presence of his great-grandfather, or perhaps it was just that, like myself that day upon the downs so long ago, he had recognized in Holmes aspects of himself and reached out to those similarities in an attempt to compensate for the vast differences he perceived between himself and so many others around him. Whatever the case, he had taken on the study of Holmes with the same tireless energy and thoroughness he gave to his many other pursuits, watching the movies, reading the books, analyzing the analyzers in his search for the most accurate theory or the truest depiction. More often than not he searched in vain, and his delicately deadly summation of their faults and failings frequently offered more entertainment for me than the material in question.

But now, out of nowhere, had come this seemingly frivolous request to sit down with him and watch yet another pretender, even knowing as he did my aversion to the same plethora of imitators and 'experts' he pursued so relentlessly. It was the frivolous request of a young man who was not in the habit of making requests of any kind, let alone frivolous ones, and I did not need Sherlock Holmes to tell me what deduction I should make from such an occurrence. There was, it seemed, only one thing to be done.

At precisely five minutes before nine o'clock, therefore, I made my way to where he was, slouched into the recesses of the sofa cushions, long legs propped on the table before him, eyes on the ever-changing images of the television screen. He glanced up as I entered, and I found his surprised delight balm enough for having to put aside Prestbury's lecture. "Gran! I thought--"

"I know." I chose a seat for myself close to the television so that I might see better. He had ostensibly purchased the television with a much larger view screen for me, that I might be able to see the programs on it clearly, although in truth he tended to watch it more than I. "Have I missed anything?"

"No, not yet." He sat back, but his smile lingered. All was right once more with his complex, fragile world. "What made you change your mind?"

"You." I turned in my chair to look at him and found in his features a rare, unguarded glimpse of what truly bound us together.

"You know, Gran, I wouldn't have asked if it weren't important," he said, softly.

"And I would not be here if I did not already know that." I returned my attention to the view screen. "Ah. I believe this program of yours has begun."

Indeed it had. I was familiar enough with the case that I could easily recognize the mystery of the odd behavior of Hilton Cubitt's wife upon glimpsing the rows of tiny stick figures which the title implied, and was beginning to enjoy the style and scope of the production, remarkable in itself compared to certain other predecessors, when the world abruptly tilted and I was tumbled into a chaos of past and present, inextricably tangled together.

The scene had shifted to one depicting the Baker Street rooms. The camera pulled back from a view of the windows to show a mustached man reading a paper on the settee which could only have been my dear Uncle John. I got barely a glimpse of him, solid and reassuring, before the camera angle shifted again... and there he was, seated at an old-fashioned microscope. My heart lurched painfully, unexpectedly. Dark hair swept severely back from the high, pale forehead, grey dressing gown, long fingers delicately adjusting the eyepiece--all these things registered in an instant. Then he sat back from the thing and I gasped audibly, hot and cold all at once.

It was Holmes.

It wasn't, of course. There were differences, both glaring and subtle, that I would see later. But, oh, that face! That fine, proud face with its large intelligent eyes beneath frowning brows. It hurt to look upon it, and yet I could not look away. This man, this Brett, with his sidelong, knowing glances, velvet voice first soft and purring and then snapping sharply with irritation, and his slender, stylish elegance...was Holmes, my Holmes so very nearly that tears welled in my eyes and overflowed in a gentle shower of surprised grief. I have seldom wept in my long life, seldom shed conventional tears over the events one might expect to punctuate with a show of emotion. It took years for me to come to terms with the loss of my parents and brother, to be able to release the guilt and rage their deaths caused me and weep at last for their absence in my life. I was married almost before I knew it; circumstances made our swift ceremony and hasty departure for the continent a necessity and there was no time for happy tears then. Not even with the birth of my children did I give in to maudlin weeping. Both were times of great pain and great exaltation. The pain I forgot; the exaltation will be with me until I breathe my last.

Only the death of the one person who so effortlessly completed me in every way moved me to tears torn from the heart. At the time of my loss, I had had to be strong for my children, too young yet to know the ways of grief for and anger at their father, gone too soon from their lives. My only acknowledgement of the depth of my own sorrow had come much later, after the funeral was over and the mourners had all gone home to allow us to gather up our sundered lives and somehow find a way to go on without him. I had been trying for some days to save one of the hives, his hives, the pursuit of his quiet years, but without success; on a chill morning I stepped out to find it silent and still, bereft of the bees that gave it life. The sight of it thus released some wild demon inside me and, fetching an ax, I chopped up the desolate box until it was no more than kindling wood, smashed it utterly in a fury that left me panting and shaken, then stood over the splinters and wept as I have never wept before or since, wept for the loss of much more than just bees.

And now, all the long years later, had come tears again at the simple sight of an actor skillfully practicing his art of illusion. Maudlin they might be, these tears, but I could not have stopped their flow to save my life.

"Gran--" Christian gathered himself to come to me, but I waved him to stay where he was.

"Hush, child," I commanded. "Let me watch."

I sat and absorbed it all, every moment of that hour, hardly daring to breathe lest I miss some word, some nuance of the spell this man wove over us. I watched him peel away ever-deepening layers of my husband's complexities with the skill of a trained archaeologist intent on unearthing the most precious of artifacts, but I saw with my mind Holmes himself as he might have been in his Baker Street days--agile, daring, prowling London in search of his chosen prey with his dearest friend at his side. And, unaware, I began to smile through my tears. The swift assurance of those gestures, the pale languidness one moment followed by bursts of crackling energy the next, the intense concentration, the fleeting half-smile when deductions were confirmed. He had it all, or nearly so; for heaven's sake, even the drape and swish of his dressing gown was a dagger at my heart. So young he seemed to my ancient eyes, even though at the time I met the original I had looked upon him as old. But I had been only fifteen then, and foolish. I did not know that advancing years did not necessarily mean deteriorating abilities. Holmes had been my teacher in that as well, and as my own years advanced, I had in this as in all other things been his apt pupil.

But above all, what this man, this Jeremy Brett had that the others who had donned the deerstalker before him did not was a sense of presence, an elusive air of momentous things about to happen which Holmes had worn as naturally as his old dressing gown. It was that which had come through Dr. Watson's stories to draw countless readers, that promise of incredible happenings, of dark deeds done and discovered, of wrongs righted which had drawn--and continued to draw--people to the mystery of the man behind the mysteries. Such a small thing, so often missed, yet so absolutely essential; one could don the ear-flapped traveling cap, could take the pipe in hand and mouth the famous though erroneous words, but if one did not understand the heroism of the heart that beat beneath that black frock coat, all the rest was nothing more than caricature, without substance, without meaning.

"Come here, child." I beckoned to the boy seated beyond me. He obediently folded his long frame up beside my chair. I gestured at the screen. "That is your great-grandfather, or as nearly so as I've ever seen with the exception of yourself. But you already knew that, I think, or you would not have been so anxious for me to see this man tonight."

He nodded, and turned to watch the image of a man portraying a man he could never know, yet knew so well. His clear-cut profile betrayed his own legacy from the same man. "I thought that was what you'd tell me, but I wanted to be sure."

"Why? Why was it so important to you that I confirm something you admit you already knew?"

His expressive brows drew down and I felt his reluctance to answer in the pull of his hands beneath mine as they lay curled over the chair arm. But I held them prisoner and after a moment the frown softened into one of introspective contemplation.

"Great-grandfather has been such a large part of my life, ever since I can remember, just as you have." Christian turned again to look at the television screen and the actor there who, feature for feature, could have been a vision of himself in thirty years. "It doesn't seem right that he shouldn't be here as well. I think I've always been looking for him in some way, trying to fill in the blanks his absence has left me with, that he might be here also in some small way."

"And why do you feel the need to do this?" I asked, watching him closely.

"I don't know." He turned then and smiled; Christian was never one for long personal introspection. "He's a part of me I don't know, I suppose. He helps to make me who and what I am. I think I understand him, or what I know of him; I'm like him in ways I haven't even found out about yet. Does that make any sense?"

"Yes." And I understood what he meant precisely. It was nothing less than what I had discovered on a warm day in early April a lifetime ago. "You know, I find I am genuinely sorry that this episode is nearly finished. I should very much like to see it again."

"You can." He sat back with knowing smile his great-grandfather would have worn very well. "I recorded it. I plan to record them all."

"Do you indeed?" I chuckled and waved a hand at the shelves of machines he had accumulated. "Well, I've never thought much of all this expensive equipment of yours, but I am forced to admit that they do occasionally have their uses. Tell me, boy, did you by chance also record 'A Scandal In Bohemia'?"

His grin was all the confirmation I needed. "Shall I play it, Gran?"

"Yes, do." I settled back in my chair. "Let me see what this talented collection of people did for 'the woman'."

"Don't you mean 'the other woman'?" Rising, he retrieved the videotape and slipped it into the machine. Strains of violin music filled the room. He curled himself up next to my chair like a lean, lithe cat and I rested a hand on his dark head as the television screen filled again with visions of an actor portraying the man who bound us all together so completely.

Jeremy Brett. A name to remember, surely. Perhaps, with the help of this charming, charismatic chameleon, the world was at last ready to receive the image of a new Sherlock Holmes, not Doyle's Holmes, but a man who could meet me after the Baker Street days were over, take me on as his apprentice, love and marry me, and begin a whole new series of adventures with me at his side.

The time had come at last to find out.