Upheaval: Family Matters

Part III

by An Oxford Punter/Her Much Learning Hath Made Her Mad

To this day I do not know what woke me. Perhaps it was my husband, closing the bedroom door to insure I would not be awakened, which had brought me up out of sleep. He had seen me tucked securely into the guest bed earlier when I threatened to fall asleep in my chair and had placed a kiss on my forehead before returning to his conversation with Mycroft. Perhaps it was only the needs of my body, changing to accommodate our growing child. Perhaps it was yet another day of travel to London and this last visit to the BM. Whatever it was, it had done its work well, for I was suddenly wide awake with no desire to close my eyes again.

Throwing back the covers, I donned my robe and slippers and padded to the door, intending to visit the facilities down the hall, then perhaps do a little reading before trying to sleep again. All things considered, other than a lingering tendency to tire in the evenings, I was weathering the progression of my pregnancy rather well. I had been able to maintain my weekly routine of travel between Oxford and Sussex and had, with Mrs. Hudson's help, interviewed several prospective nannies. We had also begun work on the nursery, painting and papering and planning what would be needed and where each item would be placed. It was very satisfying and I was generally satisfied. The only problem continued to be this child's father. Holmes, while not having said or done anything against the eventual arrival of his son or daughter, had still thus far not said or done anything in favor of it either. It was difficult enough for him, I knew, to feel any attachment to a child he could not touch and hold, but to be separated from a child he had not initially wanted anyway was too much for him, and he remained a distant, slightly bemused onlooker as the weeks had passed and the child grew within me.

As I stepped into the hallway, the rise and fall of male voices greeted me, both familiar, both loved. They were obviously in the midst of a conversation, Holmes and my mysterious brother-in-law Mycroft. I paused to listen. What did these brothers, singular and singularly gifted as they were, discuss between them when no one else was near? Did they deign to stoop to the topics of concern of mere mortals like myself, or did they perhaps instead amuse themselves each by trying to out-deduce the other? I smiled to myself at the memory of past verbal duels I had been witness to, prolonged and complicated and obviously relished by both participants. What unusual children they must have been, these comradely two, and what an unusual family to have spawned two such disparate yet harmonious individuals. Mycroft's gentle rumble, a cello to his brother's violin, reached my ears first.

"Do you still wish me to send cases your way?"

"Yes, for awhile longer anyway." My husband's voice, brisk and business-like; his public voice, belonging to Sherlock Holmes, the detective of Baker Street the world knew so well. "But it is unlikely that you will be able to engage Russell's services. If she feels up to it she will spend much of her remaining time at Oxford trying to complete her latest monograph."

"I thought her first book well-reasoned."

So Mycroft had read my book. My pleasure at the knowledge was tempered by a sharp desire to hear his opinion on it. My original destination forgotten, I lingered silently in the hallway.

"You read it?"

"I got an advanced copy from the head of her publishing firm. He is a member of the Diogenese."

"You did not have anything to do with its publication, did you?"

"Of course not, Sherlock. I respect Mary's abilities, and the gentleman in question does not even like me. I knew that his firm had recently acquired another and that they were looking to restore credibility to their academic divisions. I merely passed him Mary's name as a suggestion. He only took it out of respect for my position as founding member of the club. He passed it on to one of his employees. I doubt he's even met Mary."

"She would not be happy if she thought you interfered with her life at Oxford."

Holmes was quite correct; I had been inordinately proud of my first literary offering and to find out that it had not made its way in the world solely on its own merits would have stolen any small satisfaction I felt at its favorable reception.

"She would have found a publisher, of that there is no doubt; I just sped up the search a little. Besides my round-about introduction is far less intrusive than having her former landlord in your employ during her first years there."

Holmes again, sounding disgruntled. "That was for her protection. I only know of her life there from what she has told me."

Then he did not know of my gentleman with the automobile. The information pleased me, for his sake. It could not have been easy for him to feel as he had about me and remain silent while I went my own way amongst the returning veterans of the Great War, any one of whom might have taken an interest in me which I could have reciprocated, let alone learn how close I had come to very nearly doing just that. I heard the sound of a striking match; Holmes was lighting his pipe, and his tone when he spoke was one of inquiry, prompted no doubt by an expression of his brother's.

"What is it, Mycroft?"

"I was just thinking that if the mother did not have to come with it, I believe I would have liked to have been father to a child."

"Ha! Fatherhood is the last thing either one of us need."

My amusement at their conversation evaporated abruptly. Holmes's reluctance about his impending fatherhood was certainly nothing I was not already aware of, but it hurt nonetheless to hear him voice it, even to his brother. Mycroft spoke my own gentle rebuke.

"Sherlock."

"Mycroft, I have absolutely no business being a father. I am old and set in my ways."

"I seem to recall you saying the latter when you first realized your feelings for Mary."

So there had been a discussion about me.

"Even in retirement danger and injury find me."

"So it will not be dull."

"Vladivostock was more than 'not dull'."

"So you will have more reason to watch your back and take with you the full compliment of men I wish to send with you, rather than insisting on the bare minimum."

He had faced death in that alley without all the help he could have taken? That would certainly be an issue for me to raise should he take on another of his brother's cases.

"I do not know the first thing about fathering a child."

"If that were true we would not be having this discussion." Mycroft's tone became one of gentle teasing and sarcasm. "Even I know the first thing about fathering a child."

Holmes's snort was disgust incarnate. "Hmmmf. I do not know anything about being a father."

"Perhaps not. You will learn, however."

"I had a son and I did not learn."

The silence, though prolonged, was alive with what was left unspoken. Mycroft broke it at last, gently.

"My dear brother, I shall always regret that your son was not a greater part of our lives, but you were not his father truly. You beget him, but his mother never permitted the boy to have a father and she never gave you the opportunity to be his father... .If anything, he was raised to be any man's son but yours. Take his talents and his restlessness and put them to use as you did similar qualities and he might have... .seen a different end. Do not judge yourself by him."

I felt both men lose themselves in their own thoughts for a moment, and I wondered if they had held a similar conversation after Jamie's death. This time it was my husband who broke the silence.

"We did not exactly have a good role model ourselves."

"Our father was a fool; well-intentioned perhaps, but a fool nonetheless. He disowned you because you refused to become an engineer. Your skills would have been completely wasted. The world needs another engineer about as much as it needs another politician."

Here was news indeed. I had known that Holmes had alienated himself from his family, but he had never told me why. That his father had initiated the separation, and over his son's choice of occupation, seemed singularly cruel, as cruel as wishing to force such a vital, strongly individualistic personality as his son possessed anywhere or into any place it did not wish to go. My admiration for my husband soared, that he had managed to accomplish so much in the face of such adversity and censure. Holmes spoke again.

"I never did ask. Did he disown you because of your refusal to disassociate yourself from me, or did you turn from him because of me?"

"A little of both perhaps, but he vowed to disown me, too--when was it--about five years after your separation I seem to recall."

"The reason?"

"He had found me a wife and as the eldest it was my duty to produce an heir. She had the personality of toast and only slightly more intellect. I told him to mind his own bed and stay out of mine." Perhaps time had dulled the argument; Mycroft sounded as if he were reciting the day's weather and I suspected that would have been a lively scene. Mycroft paused, then continued. "Two sons to go their own way. He was not a happy man in his later years. But an ironically proud one according to the letters Mother managed to write before his death. Secretly and silently proud of his sons' accomplishments, and yet too proud to ask them to come to his side. Do not worry, brother mine, you will make your own mistakes with this child, all parents do, but you will not make his mistakes. And though Mary occasionally reminds me of Mother in her manner, she is unlikely to make the mistakes mother did."

"No, I have no doubt that if there is ever a separation between myself and this child, she will side with the child and leave me to fend for myself." Holmes again, wryly amused.

"She knows you can fend for yourself, just as mother did. One of the few things I admire about women is their protective nature; unlike the animal world human women always tend to the weakest." In my mind I could picture my brother-in-law favoring Holmes with a sharp sidelong glance.

"Sherlock, did you want this child?"

"My wants hardly matter at this point, but no I did not desire to be a father."

"And now, do you want this child?"

"Yes, I suppose I do. I find to my amazement that I want a son--or daughter--more and more every day. And more and more every day I am terrified by the prospect. What can I offer this child? What kind of father will I be?"

"One who knows from personal experience and the mistakes of his father to let the child find his or her own way. All you have to do is clear the path."

"And if like Russell's father I die before I get the chance?"

"Then like Mary's father, you do your best to prepare the child to find the path on its own. And you hope the child finds the right people to help clear it until he or she is able to do it alone."

"You and Russ are more convinced than I."

There was a smile now in Mycroft's voice. "Still, it does promise to be a grand adventure. Does it not?"

Glasses clinked. "A toast then. To Mother Russell, Uncle Mycroft, and Father Sherlock."

A toast indeed. I mentally added the clink of my own glass to theirs, and, as their conversation drifted away into other channels, I went on my way down the hall, gratified that Mycroft Holmes was wise not only when it came to the secrets of the British government but also the secrets of the soul of a certain famous detective, now retired. Holmes could not long hold out against all of us; if we were persistent, if we allayed his fears at every turn, he might yet come to care for his child. Time--and patience--would tell.

Humming 'Brahms' Lullaby' to myself, I began to consider the potentials this evening's eavesdropping had yielded.