A Walk Toward the Falls
by "'I'm getting too old for this,' he muttered..."
Sherlock Holmes had a headache. It had been with him since he lifted his head from the pillow in the morning, and now, at a time when Mrs. Hudson should be close to announcing luncheon, it seemed to have concentrated its forces and was making a vicious assault from the back of his head to the front. Holmes laid down the pen with which he had been trying to revise his current monograph--on the utility of typing automobile tires for use in criminal investigation--and raised an impatient hand to his neck, trying to massage the stiff muscles into some kind of malleability. The resultant relief was only temporary and he allowed himself a soft oath.
Holmes was not much given to headaches, or indeed to any of the minor ailments that distracted humankind. Oh, he was as likely to come down with something as any other generally robust individual, but his response to such inconveniences was to ignore them, and he had seldom been laid low by anything less than a bullet, a beating--or, he acknowledged, the damage to his system brought on by his own abuse of it. Still, he was finding it increasingly difficult to ignore this particular headache and, as a consequence, he was irritable with the pain and accordingly displeased with himself. It was only a headache. He should have thrown it over hours ago. Nonetheless he was finding it difficult to concentrate and for the moment at least, he was disinclined to go back to the precise distinctions between the tires of British roadsters made from 1915 to 1917.
His gaze wandered to the expanse of windows across the room, framing a view of the terrace, a few branches of the old copper beech that stood off to the side, the orchard with its ranks of beehives, and the sparkling cobalt of the water beyond. At any hour and in every season he generally found the view satisfying, but today the light dazzled and hurt his eyes. Despite that, he took note of the thick leaf buds in final formation on the copper beech, the extraordinarily clear sky, and the vibrant yellow of the forsythia that edged the path down to the orchard. It was one of those deceptively warm, spring-like days that sometimes occur in March, too early really to be either expected or depended upon but offering a promise of finer days to come. Perhaps after lunch he should go for a walk, he thought; clear his head, take advantage of weather that, more likely than not, would vanish by tomorrow into cold, wind, and drizzle. The difficulty was that, at the moment, he could summon up no enthusiasm for either lunch or a walk. "You're tired, Holmes," he told himself, and his mouth twitched in a grimace of distaste. It had been three days since he'd returned from France, and while the case had been physically taxing, requiring a good deal of lurking about in seamier parts of the city and melding unobtrusively into crowds of undesirables, there had been nothing intellectually draining about it. A few years ago he would have arrived home from such an adventure, grabbed an hour or two of sleep, and been hard at work in the laboratory before the sun was up. Today he could barely muster the energy to compose a sentence, and he'd overslept as well. Was this what it felt like, growing old?
That line of inquiry led only to one of his black moods and this was not the day for one of those, headache or no. He pulled his eyes away from the window and back to his desk, blinking once or twice as his eyes adjusted to the more moderate light of the room. He went to pick up his pen again, but paused as he registered the date on the calendar. The middle of March; the end of Hilary Term at Oxford. Russell would be on her way home; she might even be on the journey now. At this thought, his mood brightened and an absurd little bubble of delight filtered up through his chest. Lord, he had missed her. It had been three months since she'd been in Sussex, and since they were not a pair for newsy letters or regular telephone calls, he'd not had much contact with her. She'd sent him a postal card or two, generally with some teasing query on the back; he'd sent her a cutting from the Times, reviewing a new theological tome in which he supposed she'd have an interest. A month or two ago he'd gone up to London to consult with Mycroft on some matters and worked in a side trip to Oxford; they'd gone to dinner and a concert at his old college. But that was all, and it was not enough. He'd missed their walks, the time together in the lab, their chess games--resumed con brio once Russell had recovered from her post-Patricia Donleavy aversion to the game--even their spirited and frequently irksome arguments. It was a good four weeks between the Hilary and Trinity terms at Oxford and he surmised that, if Russell was true to form, she'd spend the bulk of those 28 days with him. He wondered if she would take the train down, or drive that ridiculous little motor of hers. The Morris, most likely; she'd want it, after all, to tool about Sussex at her whim. Would she stop at her own farm first, drop off her things, check in with her aunt--or come directly here? Oh, here, surely, he concluded; she despised her aunt and, as close as Russell was to her majority, the woman had essentially lost all control over her. No, she'd come here first. He glanced at the clock. It was a good five hour drive from Oxford; if she'd left first thing this morning, she could be here any minute.
His head gave a particularly savage throb and just for a moment, an image leaped into his mind: the room in shadows. Himself stretched out on the old, overstuffed sofa in front of the fireplace, facing away from the light, his aching head in Russell's lap, her cool hands massaging his temples, easing out the pain... his body began to relax into the vision, only to be brought up sharp by his intellect, which shouted a silent but effective "Holmes, for God's sake, what are you thinking!?." He drew himself up with a jerk that did nothing to improve the state of his head and slammed his hand down on the desk. "Dear God, Holmes," he muttered under his breath, "this headache is turning you into a maundering old fool." The busy noises from the kitchen ceased and in a moment, Mrs. Hudson's voice reached into the room. "Mr. Holmes, was that you? Do you need anything? Luncheon should be on in about fifteen minutes."
He drew a deep breath. "No, Mrs. Hudson, do not be concerned, I simply dropped a book. I'm going upstairs for a moment or two. Let me know when you're ready to serve." Nothing, he reflected, could be of less interest than food. Aspirin, he thought, suddenly; aspirin. Like anyone of his generation Holmes had spent most of his life enduring moderate discomfort and, when necessary, resorting to the home remedies that had been used for generations. Many of them were quite effective. Acetylsalicylic acid, a compound that as a chemist he was quite familiar with, had been available in capsule form--aspirin, they'd called it--for only a handful of years; it had not occurred to him, until this moment, to turn to it for pain relief. Ridiculous, he told himself, if you'd taken one or two of those this morning, you'd be right as rain now. A fine condition you'll be in for Russell if you don't get a handle on this. He shoved back his chair and got to his feet, turning in the direction of the hall and the stairs. As he rose to his full height, he felt suddenly lightheaded, and put out a quick hand to steady himself against the back of the desk chair. Sitting too long, he told himself; getting up too suddenly, at least with this headache. In a moment or two the feeling passed and he set out resolutely toward the stairs, moving a little more tentatively than was his wont. His head hurt so that he felt as if he were balancing it on his frame, as if a step too hard or fast would cause it to tip and roll off his shoulders, split in half.
He went silently through the hallway and up the stairs, hoping that the aspirin would be where he expected and that he would not have to summon Mrs. Hudson for assistance. For the world's first and foremost consulting detective, she sometimes declared, he was mightily useless at finding household objects where they were supposed to be, and she'd more than once inquired as to why he could find a blackmailer in the middle of London but was unable to lay a hand upon his favorite cufflinks. The reflection made him smile a little. "Detective second, man first," she'd muttered once. He wasn't quite sure what she'd meant by that.
Holmes stepped into the lavatory off the wide hallway to the bedrooms and opened the mirrored oak medicine cabinet above the sink. Just as he prepared to survey the contents for the bottle of aspirin he recalled seeing there, he was frozen in place by an astonishing sequence of stabbing pains that ripped through his chest, abdomen and back. These were followed almost immediately by a violent wave of nausea. He doubled over--he could do nothing else, his body reacted of its own accord--and vomited copiously into the sink. Indeed he could not seem to stop vomiting. The retching went on for what seemed like hours, and with every heave of his chest he felt as if he were being ripped apart by the claws of some large and malevolent animal. When it ended, he was left clinging to the sink, barely upright, panting as if he'd been running. Tentatively, he raised his eyes to the mirror and almost recoiled. He was a pasty white, his face gleaming with a greasy sweat. Dark circles under his eyes made him resemble one of those half-frightful skulls that American children liked to brandish on that unique holiday of theirs that they'd created out of All Hal low's Eve. What in God's name was the matter with him?
Holmes splashed cold water on his face and ran the taps for some period of time, making an effort to wash away the evidence of his abrupt illness. Thank God his stomach had had little in it, come to consider it, his appetite had been off since last night. His mind was geared toward solving puzzles, and as wretched as he currently felt, that finely tuned instrument continued to cast determinedly about, seeking a pattern, a reasonable template for these symptoms. Might this be a so-called "sick headache"? His mother had been afflicted with them, and while he had not experienced one thus far in his life, perhaps this was some new accoutrement of his age. He had a distinct childhood recollection, though, that once she had been sick, his mother's headaches had rapidly improved and that she had been up and about not long thereafter. This headache was no less present than before. And what to make of those astonishing pains, which hovered around the edges of his consciousness, waiting to attack again? Those seemed unexplained by a sick headache. (A possible explanation, in the form of newspaper headlines that he'd seen throughout the course of the last year or more, scrawled across his memory, but it was not an answer that he cared to entertain at the moment. He shoved the idea into the back of his mind before it could take firmer hold.)
Cautiously, Holmes removed one hand from the sink, looked again for the aspirin bottle, found it, unscrewed the lid--keeping his thighs pressed against the sink for balance--and dry-swallowed three aspirin. There, that should help. Lunch, however, was out of the question. He'd best go to the head of the stairs and call down to Mrs. Hudson that he would not be dining. Then he'd close the door to his bedroom and lie down for awhile, until he felt better. She'd be annoyed but with any luck, she'd attribute his absence at the table to some project in which he'd become involved, and not to the fact that he was unwell. If she suspected the latter, she'd be on him in a moment, offering hot water bottles and camphor rubs. It was one of the distinct characteristics of Holmes' nature that, the worse he felt, the less he wanted to be clucked over. Like an injured cat, he wanted to retreat somewhere dark and private and curl up alone, either to recover or to die. (Mrs. Hudson, had she had an opportunity to comment, would have pointed out that a concerned pet owner retrieves the cat and drags it, protesting all the way, to some comfortable spot where the seriousness of its illness can be determined and some comfort given, however futile.)
Holmes emerged from the lavatory, trailing a hand along the hallway wall for assurance if not support, and turned toward the stairs. He'd gone only a step or two, however, when he observed a strange phenomenon. The floor of the hallway had gone liquid, the pattern in the Persian rug rippling and swirling like one of the streams on his property. At some level he recognized that this was impossible, but nonetheless he attempted to place his feet carefully, to remain on solid ground, to avoid the watery bits. The dark torrent seemed to widen and rise, however, so that it began to obscure the lower part of his vision. He should have been concerned, but the sensation was remarkably peaceful, and he was, indeed, very tired. It was not long until he gave it up; even the great Sherlock Holmes, he accepted with the last part of his consciousness, could not walk on water.
I'd slowed down and maintained a decorous, ladylike pace through the main street of Lewes, even nodding and waving a hand to the newsagent (who was sweeping the pavement in front of his store) but as I reached the edge of town and pointed the bonnet of the Morris due south, I let out the throttle. It was a beautiful day and I was prepared to enjoy the last remaining stretch of reasonably decent road before I came closer to Eastbourne and the turnoff to Holmes' cottage. As I picked up speed, the wind caught the edge of the scarf I'd tied over my head and several tendrils of hair broke loose, threatening briefly to obscure my vision but finally just streaming out behind, so that I felt rather like a Valkyrie. Wonderful, I smiled to myself, I shall arrive at Holmes's wind burned and with my hair looking like a bird's nest. Ah well, it's not as if he cares a jot about such things! He'll probably greet you by handing you a Petri dish and asking you to identify the contents, Russell, I lectured myself, and pressed down a bit harder on the accelerator. The little roadster, recovering from the curve I'd just taken, responded with a satisfying burst of speed.
Holmes might be unsentimental about reunions of this nature but I knew that he would be glad to see me, just as I was undeniably excited about the prospect of seeing him in what--fifteen minutes or so? I was not a woman to spend an inordinate amount of time in picking over my own emotions, but today I had no hesitation in admitting that I was in a state of pure, conscious happiness. Yesterday I had submitted my last paper to a tutor, received highly satisfactory reports on the two examinations I had sat for, and gone out with friends for a typically exuberant end-of-term dinner. I had drunk a bit too much wine and had a slight hangover as a result, but not in such degree as to dim my contentment. This morning I'd arisen early, thrown a few things in a bag--I did not generally require a wide variety of costume changes when I was in Sussex, and if Holmes took a notion to go elsewhere, I could always buy something, or find it in his surprisingly rich store of disguise-worthy clothing items--and set out on the road south. I was young, healthy, I had four weeks of freedom from tutors before me, and I was going to see Holmes. "Your Holmes," Mahmoud had called him, when we were outside that terrible villa in Palestine. I was afraid to delve too deeply into what he'd meant, or indeed why the prospect of being close to Holmes again produced this extraordinary sense of peace and joy. For the moment, I was simply content to accept the feeling and savor this moment for what it was. At barely twenty, I'd had enough bleakness in my life to recognize and cherish happiness when I came upon it.
I sped along between hedgerows and past open vistas of long, rolling hills dotted with sheep. The dark thumbprints of trees clustered at various points, a variation on the multiple shades of light green on every side. The thing about England, I said to myself, is that a great deal of it really does look like a landscape by Constable. It was certain that Constable had never moved through it at this pace, however. At certain points the land rose steeply to my left and dropped abruptly away to a shallow valley on the other side of the road, so that the occasional grazing ewe, balancing on the upward slope of the hill, presented something between a high wire act and a traffic hazard. From this part of the road one could not yet see the ocean, but once I'd turned southwest, toward Holmes' cottage, it would come into view. I whipped around another curve and grinned as the rear wheels slid a little and then found their grip. Holmes' voice rang in my memory, "Did you see that cow?" "That was a very fine tree you nearly clipped back there!". Poor man, I had seen him look fearlessly down the barrel of a gun but he seemed to be genuinely apprehensive about my driving. If the days continued to improve as they should as we moved into April, I would have to see if I could persuade him out for a spin. He would enjoy it, I told myself, if I could just get him to relax.
A large stand of rhododendron, not yet in bloom but encouragingly budded out, loomed a quarter mile or so up on the left and heralded the turn-off onto Holmes' property. It was a sharp turn and I braked well in advance to take it. I had no intention of exacerbating Holmes' already dim view of my driving by hanging the motor up in his own shrubbery. It was about a mile and a half down the narrow, graveled road to Holmes' cottage and now I wanted to take it slowly, to anticipate the moment when the road would dip, then climb again over a small rise and reveal Holmes' house nestling in the hollow below, with the garden and orchard beyond it and the sea spreading at its back. Soon enough, though, I was at the top of the hill and sprinting down the remaining distance perhaps too quickly; suddenly I no longer cared what he would say about my driving, I just wanted to see him, to get a warm embrace from Mrs. Hudson--to be home.
I pulled up in the yard with a spray of gravel, turned off the engine and jumped out of the car, stamping my feet once or twice to work the stiffness out of my legs. Pulling the scarf off my head, I did what I could to push and prod my hair into some semblance of order, and then picked up my purse and the assorted small packages I'd dumped on the passenger seat, a few tokens for Holmes and Mrs. Hudson. Tobacco for him, from an Oxford shop he'd favored since his student days; a bottle of rosewater and the latest romantic novel for Mrs. Hudson (she'd do her best to keep Holmes from seeing her with it).
My arms loaded, I paused a moment, waiting to see if someone would emerge from the house, but there was so sign of movement. There was nothing especially strange about that. Holmes might well be up in his windowless laboratory, deep in some messy experiment, and this close to the lunch hour, Mrs. Hudson was likely absorbed in her cooking. I quickly covered the distance to the house and entered through the back door, dumping my load of parcels on the pantry counter and noting briefly, with some surprise, that there was no sign of Mrs. Hudson in the kitchen, although at least one pot was simmering atop the stove in a threatening manner. I stepped over to turn down the burner and called out in the direction of the hallway. "Holmes? Mrs. Hudson? It's Russell--I've come--"
The response came from Mrs. Hudson, and from upstairs. "Mary, thank God, come up here, we need you." Somehow she did not sound like a woman struggling with some mundane household task. I flew through the kitchen door, down the hallway, taking an abrupt right turn to go up the stairs. At the top of the stairs, I stumbled to a halt, momentarily turned into stone by what I saw.
Sherlock Holmes was crumbled on the floor in the middle of the wide hallway. He was in a curious position, almost face down, but with his torso curled over his legs, as if he'd been walking and, losing strength, had simply folded down on himself. His left arm was underneath him and his right, stretched out before him on the carpet. It wasn't clear as to whether he'd tried to catch himself, to break his fall; he might have done. Certainly he appeared to be completely unconscious. At least I hoped he was only unconscious; from this angle, I could not see him breathing. Mrs. Hudson was standing over him, one hand pressed to her bosom and looking as if she might be the next one on the floor. It was this entirely too likely possibility that prodded me into movement.
I stepped quickly over to where Holmes lay but before seeing to him, grasped Mrs. Hudson by the shoulders and gave her a gentle shake. "Mrs. Hudson," I said, "Mrs. Hudson!" She tore her terrified gaze away from Holmes and looked at me. "Did you just come upon him like this?," I asked. "Did this just happen?"
"Y-yes," she replied. "I was taking the casserole out of the oven and I heard a great crash from upstairs. I couldn't imagine what had happened, so I turned off the oven and I came up and--he was like this. I was just trying to think what to do when I heard you come in the back door."
"Thank God," I said, "at least he hasn't been lying here for a long time." I knelt down beside him. As I reached out to touch his shoulder, Holmes stirred, groaned, and rolled away from me, ending up on his back, his legs still curled to the side. His right hand came up to touch his brow, but his eyes remained closed. His color was bad and his skin shone with a thin layer of sweat. "Holmes," I said softly, bending over him, "Holmes, what happened? Do you know where you are?"
At last his eyes opened, remained unfocussed for a moment or two, and then cleared and met my own. "Russell?" he said and then again, more a statement than a query, "Russell." Suddenly his whole frame shook with a violent spasm of coughing, and he turned his head away to spare me the effects. It was a terrible cough, the sort that sounds as if the victim's lungs are coming with it, and it appeared to hurt him. Something in my stomach clenched and then turned over, slowly.
I looked up at Mrs. Hudson. "Mrs. Hudson, I think the best thing for you to do right now is go down and ring the doctor. I'll stay with him."
Mrs. Hudson was not a flighty or foolish woman and she had already begun to recover from her initial shock. "Of course," she said, "please God he's to be found." She moved so that her face was in Holmes' line of sight. "You do what Mary says, Mr. Holmes, this is not the time for your pigheadedness." Holmes closed his eyes; I thought that if he had not been half in a daze, he might have chuckled. Mrs. Hudson turned and went down the stairs with a step and pace that would have done credit to a woman half her age. In a moment or two I heard her voice on the telephone, the tone urgent.
As he rolled over, Holmes' right arm had remained raised above his head and I took his wrist and felt for the pulse. His heart seemed to be steady enough, and the fact that he'd recognized me and spoken my name clearly would appear to mitigate against a stroke or a blow to the head. His eyes remained closed as I released his wrist and reached to unbutton his collar. My hands brushed against his cheek and I realized that his skin felt hot. "What happened, Holmes?" I said again. "Do you remember?"
He made an effort to lift his head and dropped it back almost immediately, wincing. "Don't try to get up yet," I told him. I pulled off my jacket and folded it under his neck. He made no effort to answer my question and I rose, stepped carefully over him, and went into the lavatory where I ran a hand towel under the cold tap and filled a glass with water, as well. Returning, I carefully ran the towel over his face, wiping away the perspiration and, I hoped, cooling him down a bit. I slid my hand under his neck and lifted his head until he was able to manage a few sips of water. Whether because of that or simply because he'd had time to gather his wits, he spoke.
"I passed out," he told me, softly. "I've had the devil of a headache all morning and I came up here to get some aspirin. The next thing I remember is looking up at you." This time the ghost of a smile really did touch his lips. "Which I don't object to doing, after such a long hiatus."
"Or I you," I said, "although I'd have preferred to see you with both of us upright." I laid a hand over his. "How do you feel now? Still have the headache? Does anything else hurt?"
"Yes, I still have the headache, and pretty much everything else hurts, but if you mean did I break or bend anything when I fell, no. This is a recent development, however," and his voice trailed off into another series of wracking coughs. He was again soaked with perspiration and again I wiped his face, trying to help without appearing unduly concerned. Even flat on his back as he was now, I knew Holmes hated being fussed over. As we both waited for this latest bout to pass enough for him to manage another mouthful of water, Mrs. Hudson came back up the stairs. Reaching the top tread, she said, "Dr. Chapel is out on his rounds in the county but his wife has a fair idea of where he's going, and she'll call ahead to the houses that are next on his route--someone will tell him to come." She looked down at Holmes, whose coughing spasm had finally abated, and, a little stiffly, knelt to join me on the floor beside him. Her gaze was a curious mixture of concerned older sister and martinet.
"You need to be in bed," she told him, "and don't be giving Mary and me any trouble about it."
Holmes was not so sick as to be free from exasperation. His response had an encouraging edge of the same sarcasm he'd been known to inflict on us when he was in full health. "Believe it or not, Mrs. Hudson, that was my original intention, and that's where I shall go as soon as I can get on my feet. Russell, your arm if you would be so kind?"
"Of course, Holmes," I told him, "But only if you will start by trying to sit up, first. I'm not convinced that you will remain on your feet if you attempt to stand, just now." He gave a faint nod in assent, and wordlessly stretched out his right arm. I clasped my left hand on his bicep, and in return he circled my upper arm with his long, strong fingers. "One, two, three," I counted off, and pulled. It took more effort on my part than I would have expected--I think he was surprised by his own weakness--and in the end we got him into a sitting position only with Mrs. Hudson's assistance. Once there, he remained motionless for a good two or three minutes, breathing shallowly. It seemed strange to me that only a few minutes ago he'd been strong enough to walk upstairs; clearly this, whatever it was, had hit him very hard and very suddenly.
Holmes painfully drew up one leg until he could rest an arm on his knee. He lowered his head to that point, perhaps fighting off dizziness. "God," he murmured, "I feel done in." Mrs. Hudson and I exchanged thoughtful glances. Sherlock Holmes complaining of feeling "done in" was both unprecedented and deeply troubling. We'd both seen him injured, painfully, and on those occasions, when he was conscious, he'd made a joke of the situation. I knew from Watson's stories that Holmes had more than once pushed himself to the edge of a breakdown and then fiercely resisted the rest that would avoid a complete collapse. This sudden admission of exhaustion was singular. I touched his shoulder. "If we help you to get up, can you walk?"
He raised his head and met my eyes. His were bright with fever but calm. "Yes, if you'll lend me your shoulder. It's not far, after all." I nodded and slowly got to my feet. "All right," I told him, "You go about it as seems best to you--just tell me when you want our help." Holmes nodded, considered the matter for a moment, and then gathered his legs under him and started to push up, putting most of his weight on his right arm. He gotten perhaps a third of the way up when he said "Russell?" in a tone of some urgency and Mrs. Hudson and I each seized him under an arm and leveraged him up the rest of the way. I found myself glad of Mrs. Hudson's assistance. I was a strong young woman in those days, but while Holmes was thin for his height, he was thin as a greyhound is--solid muscle and a good deal heavier than he looked. And while he'd been far from a dead weight, it was clear that without our support he might not have been equal to the task of getting up.
We stood there briefly, Holmes unquestionably standing under his own power but leaning against my frame in order to remain fully upright. He slid his arm over my shoulder, and at the same time my arm circled his waist. His body radiated an extraordinary level of heat. I could feel his breathing, fast and shallow. We were so nearly of a height--Holmes was only about three inches taller than I--that we fit together remarkably well, a fact that at the time was lost on me but which I had cause to reflect on some time later. Mrs. Hudson surveyed us up and down, satisfied herself that I was coping and that Holmes was reasonably steady on his feet, and then said, "I'll go and turn down the bed covers." She set out in the direction of Holmes' room. I glanced up at him. "Ready?," I asked.
"Ready," he repeated, and we set out deliberately, his steps a bit wobbly at first, toward the end of the hall.
Sinking back into the softness of his bed, Holmes' first sensation was overwhelming relief. For the last few minutes, since Russell had helped him to his feet, he'd felt like a man running a marathon, and not one that he was guaranteed to finish. The two of them had covered the distance to his bedroom slowly and carefully, and she'd maneuvered him through the door and close to the bed with the practiced skill of a woman who had done some nursing. He'd hardly been aware of it when she'd turned him around and bent her knees so that he could slip his arm from around her shoulders and slide down onto the edge of the bed, and she'd unclasped his waist and stood up so smoothly that he could almost forget that he'd needed her support to walk some 25 feet. Mrs. Hudson, who'd already retrieved his pajamas from the bureau, stepped forward as if to help him undress, but he'd waved her away almost angrily. "Leave off, Mrs. Hudson," he'd grumbled, "I'm still perfectly capable of undressing myself." She'd looked dubious, but retreated. Later on, as through a haze of fever and lightheadedness he'd worked clumsily to unbutton his shirt, he'd wondered why he'd been so sharp about it, and decided that it had been a pathetic and ultimately futile effort to avoid the reality of his condition. His instincts were telling him that he was about to be helpless for some days to come; his spirit was fighting the situation with all its strength.
He'd had no time to protest, though, when Russell simply reached forward, slipped his jacket off his shoulders, removed his tie, and then knelt without comment to unlace his shoes and remove his socks. Those tasks done, she placed the clothes on the chair near the bed, handed the shoes to Mrs. Hudson, and turned back to Holmes. "I only did the things that you might find hardest to do yourself. Go ahead and get yourself into bed, Holmes. Mrs. Hudson and I will go down and have a bite of that lunch she's had on the stove. And I should ring my aunt and tell her where I am." Mrs. Hudson started to object but Russell gently took her elbow and began to guide her toward the door. As the two women stepped into the hall, Russell lingered a moment. "One of us will be back to check on you, so be careful." With that, she turned, exited, and closed the door.
The effort to get into bed had taken longer, and more out of him, than he'd anticipated but he'd accomplished it at last. His clothes lay strewn around or on the bed--not that Mrs. Hudson would consider that unusual--but he'd gotten into his nightclothes and thus was at least temporarily relieved of one concern, that he'd faint again in a less than decently covered condition. (Despite his declaration to the women, he'd been afraid of passing out again almost from the time Russell had helped him sit up.) Now, stretched out on his bed, he was fully aware of how exhausted he was, and how unwell. The only thing he craved at the present was oblivion, and he had a need for sleep that came very close to hunger. If he could only find a reasonably comfortable position...
It was not long, however, before he was forced to conclude that, in his situation, a comfortable position was not to be had. After a few minutes of tossing, turning, and a weak attempt to rearrange pillows in the hope of finding some relief, he gave up the struggle and carefully rolled onto his right side, drawing his knees up toward his stomach in an almost child-like effort to shield himself from the pains that were wracking his body. Normal breathing hurt--each breath appeared to start the pains on a wild circuit chest to spine and back again--and coughing was excruciating. He wrapped his arms around himself, buried his head in the pillow and began to focus his powerful will on breathing carefully and resisting the impulse to cough as long as possible. To distract himself, he cast his mind back to the morning and to the onset of the headache, and then even further back, to his days in France. He would treat this disease as he would any suspected villain, he thought; already he had a strong presentiment as to its identity, but he would continue to assemble data. A little fuzzily, he reminded himself, must not theorize in advance of the data... but the data was accumulating steadily. It would not be long before he would be able to point a finger at his assailant. A faint thread of dismay began to thrust itself up through his consciousness and he pushed it away impatiently. Be afraid when you're sure, he told himself. At least if you're sure, you'll know what you're fighting.
Mrs. Hudson was annoyed with me as we moved down the stairs, and said so. "What were you thinking, Mary, leaving him to take care of himself, and in that condition? We could have him on the floor again before we get downstairs."
"You're right, Mrs. Hudson," I admitted, "but come now--you've known the man far longer than I. Do you think arguing with him would have done any good, or been any less exhausting for him than letting him undress himself?"
We crossed the hallway and made our way into the kitchen, which appeared strangely ordinary and cheerful in light of what we'd just been through. The room was bright with afternoon sun and still smelt of the casserole so lovingly prepared and now sitting neglected in the cooling oven. Mrs. Hudson heaved a sigh and dropped down in one of the sturdy chairs by the well-used, and accordingly battered, table. Her expression was rueful. "Well, when you put it like that, no. Mr. Holmes has a will of iron and I've no more luck getting him to mind his health in Sussex than I did in Baker Street." She paused and her gaze drifted in the direction of the hallway. "I've not seen him this sick before, though. Indeed the last time I saw him taken this bad, he was putting on a show for us!" I smiled; she was referring to the case that Uncle John had titled, "The Dying Detective," during which Holmes had convincingly faked his own poisoning in order to draw out a murderer. While acknowledging the astuteness of her analogy, I was not happy with the obvious conclusion. Holmes was not faking this time, and he was indeed in a bad state. "What do you think it is?," Mrs. Hudson asked.
I had my own theories but I was not about to reveal them. "I think we'd better wait for the doctor for that, Mrs. H.," I replied. "Holmes has been abroad, and we have no idea in what circumstances. It may not be serious--there are a number of illnesses that make one quite wretched but which aren't life-threatening, after all." She nodded thoughtfully, although I had an inkling that my nonchalance was unconvincing.
"Did you really want a bite to eat?," she asked, presently, getting up and moving over to the stove to retrieve the neglected casserole. I shook my head. "No, I have to confess that seeing Holmes in that condition drove all thoughts of hunger out of my head. I just thought that it would be better for him if he believed we weren't too perturbed by his illness. But I do need to ring my aunt."
Mrs. Hudson had begun to summon some of her accustomed nurturing skills. "You might as well have a bite of this nice shepherd's pie, it should not waste, and you've had that long drive from Oxford. Go ring your aunt and get it over with and then come back and sit down with me. If we leave him for a little while, perhaps Mr. Holmes will sleep. He looked worn out."
He looks worse than worn out, I thought, but knew better than to say so. I left the kitchen and went out into the hall, where Holmes' seldom-used telephone (he hated the instrument, viewing it as both intrusive and likely to encourage imprecise communication) sat on a small round table near the hall tree. I asked the operator to ring my farm, and in all too short a time was connected with my aunt. True to her usual disposition, she was furious--if not surprised--to find that I had stopped first at Holmes', and even more indignant when I told her I might not be coming to the farm that night or perhaps for the next few days. She was well launched into a tirade concerning Holmes' ulterior motives, my poor judgment, and the likely opinion of the neighborhood when I interrupted to inform her that Holmes was extremely ill; it was too soon to know how seriously, but there was a good likelihood that his illness was catching. If she really insisted and was that solicitous of my reputation, I told her, I would most certainly hasten home, unquestionably bringing both my reputation and the illness with me. Faced with that declaration, she sputtered into silence, then expressed a doubtless insincere wish for Holmes' speedy recovery, and suggested that I take the utmost care of my own health, avoiding any further contact with Holmes until I could safely return to the farm. Since I had no intention of doing anything other than assisting Mrs. Hudson in caring for him, should that be necessary, I thanked my aunt for her concern, told her that she would see me when I found it possible, and rang off before she could utter any further inanities. How do I come to be related to that woman?, I wondered, and retreated back to the warmth of the kitchen and of the woman who had been a true mother to me since the loss of my own.
Mrs. Hudson had supplied our plates with a modest helping of Shepherd's pie and, perhaps sensing a need for fortification, had poured two glasses of an excellent but inexpensive red wine of which Holmes was fond. We sat together, sipped our wine, and picked at her excellent concoction, neither of us very hungry and both of us (I suspect) finding it hard to believe that less than an hour ago we'd each been lighthearted in our own way, she content in her kitchen and me flying down the road toward a much-anticipated reunion. All was quiet from upstairs, but I could think of nothing but Holmes. Eventually a sufficient amount of the shepherd's pie vanished and Mrs. Hudson replaced it with a piece of good cheddar and a cup of strong coffee, both of which I accounted for with alacrity despite my indifferent appetite. Preoccupied, we didn't talk much; I replied politely to her queries about the term at Oxford, and she reported on the latest news from her son in Australia and one or two particularly piquant items of gossip from the neighborhood. Eventually, the clock in Holmes' parlor/study struck three, and I pushed back my chair. "I'm going up to see how he is," I told her, and she nodded. "Let me know if you need me," she said, "I'll just wash up here and start on a concoction I make that might help his cough. Oh, and Mary, since you're going up, I should take his temperature--I thought he looked feverish."
Upstairs, I stopped in the lavatory and found the thermometer, then went to Holmes' room. I turned the doorknob carefully as I entered, so that the latch made no sound. The room was dim, but after a second or two I could see the bed and that Holmes was on his side, curled in on himself as if against pain, his face half-buried in the pillow. The day clothes he'd managed to get out of were scattered on the floor, except for his trousers which he'd left bundled up at the foot of the bed. I could not tell whether he was asleep, or not, but I moved as quietly as I could as I approached the bed, retrieved the clothes from their various locations, and began to fold them over my arm preparatory to depositing them on the worn old chair near the bed. I was standing at the head of the bed when Holmes opened his eyes and cleared his throat. "Is that you, Russell?," he queried. His voice was so weak that I had difficulty making it out. I leaned down to him, dropping the pile of clothes on the floor. Housekeeping seemed of little importance just now.
"It's I, Holmes," I told him, "Mrs. Hudson will not be so upset with me, now that I can report that you're safely in bed." He smiled, or tried to. I wanted to put my hand against his cheek, both to see if he did have the suspected fever and because I thought we both needed the comfort, but I did not know how'd he take such a gesture. I contented myself with touching his shoulder. "Can I get you anything?"
He drew a sharp breath and I saw the muscles in his jaw clench as another wave of pain came over him. Finally he said, "I'm very cold, Russ. Might you find another blanket for the bed?". The day was temperate and the temperature in the room was far from cold, but I could see him shivering. He's definitely got a fever, I told myself. There was a large, battered old blanket chest at the foot of the bed and I wrestled it open to find an enormous down quilt that would more than meet the need. Pulling it out, I spread it over the bed, making sure that it covered his shoulders. For good measure, I tucked it tightly around his body. Holmes closed his eyes and sighed. "That's better, thank you."
"Is the aspirin helping at all?"
Any response he intended to make was interrupted by a fierce bout of coughing that sounded terrible and obviously exhausted him. I'd left the glass of water by the bed and I stooped to lift his head and get a little liquid between his chapped lips, in the hopes that it would end the spasm. Eventually he managed to swallow enough to ease the coughing but I could see tears forcing their way through his lashes, perhaps from the coughing, perhaps from the pain it caused him. When he finally spoke, his voice was faint and congested. "I'm sure the aspirin is doing some good. But what's left of the pain is bad enough."
Holmes and I were alike in more ways than one; above all else, we both want to know. If one knew, one could plan a strategy. "What sort of pain?" I asked.
His response came faint and slow, but curiously detached. One would have thought he was talking about someone else. I had a brief image of the Baker Street years, of Holmes reciting a list of observations about a visiting client. He did not look at me. "The headache is--very bad. I think it very likely the worst I have experienced. My bones ache; I've taken a beating once or twice, you know, and this is much like that, except that in this instance the discomfort is in all my bones. And I've pains, stabbing pains, all through my body. They come and go without warning but when I cough--" (his voice faltered) "--when I cough--well, it's most unpleasant."
I eased down to sit beside him on the bed, trying not to jostle the mattress. "Yes, the cough," I said, "and the fever. I'm going to take your temperature in a minute or two, but I think the thermometer will tell us that you have a high fever." Holmes slowly and gingerly stretched out his long legs and rolled onto his back, keeping the covers pulled up to his chin. He moved like a man who expected a blow at any moment. When another coughing fit held off and the phantom pains did not recur, at least so far as I could tell, he opened his eyes and for the first time since I'd entered the room met my gaze directly.
I'd always thought it curious that Uncle John had been so precise about the color of Holmes' eyes, when he had been so careless about so much else. Unto this day his readers argue about exactly where Watson was wounded when in Afghanistan, how many times he married (twice, I could have told them), and even which house on Baker Street was actually 221B, but there was never any question about Holmes' eyes--they were gray. Watson had described them repeatedly. Looking into them now, I decided that Watson was meticulous about them not because of the color (though they were a beautiful, clear shade) but because Holmes' eyes were extraordinary--looking into them, you could see that exceptional intelligence, the ruthless desire for truth over conjecture and indeed, the passion that he kept so carefully restrained in his speech and behavior. You could not hide from what those eyes saw; you could not lie to them. "It's the influenza, Russell," Holmes said.
"Oh, Holmes, no, don't say that--wait for the doctor, please."
Holmes' eyes did not waver from mine. "Russ, that is not worthy of you. You have been cataloging these symptoms as carefully as I, and since you read the newspapers as rapaciously as I you are no less informed about this disease. You know what this is."
I looked away. I would have preferred to avoid answering but I was dealing with a man who was notoriously persistent, once on the scent. I was holding the small leather case holding the thermometer and I turned it over and over again in my hands, staring at it as if it were a rare and priceless artifact. The silence became noticeable and finally I summoned the courage to respond. "Yes," I admitted, "One cannot ignore the evidence as it presents itself." We simply looked at one another. There did not seem anything else to say. If he was correct, and I knew he was, we had a mass murderer in the house. After two years of mounting casualties the papers said that this particular epidemic was fading away, but it was not gone altogether. And this was no ordinary flu. Some decades later, scholars would name it "The Great Influenza," but in 1920 we called it "Spanish Flu," though it was not Spanish, and there were those who argued that it was not influenza, either. Some actually thought that it was the Plague, as if some ghost from the Middle Ages had chosen to return, attracted by the ongoing carnage of the War. Perhaps there was some truth to that. It had begun in America in 1917, had crossed the Atlantic with the American troops, and upon reaching Europe had transmuted into something extraordinarily deadly. It raged through Europe and returned to America, stronger and more vicious then when it had left. It thrived on the crowded conditions of the large cities and of the military camps. It was highly infectious, and it killed. It had killed hundreds of thousands, some said millions. The most terrifying thing about it was that unlike its unpleasant but less lethal predecessors, which took easy prey--the very young and the very old--this flu killed the young, and the strong. It decimated the ranks of healthy young men in army camps and troop ships, killed young mothers and fathers, plucked off businessmen in the prime of life as they made their way to work. And as with the Plague, there were stories of victims arising healthy in the morning, dead by nightfall. I suppose I should have taken some comfort in the fact that Holmes was older, well outside the demographic that this killer seemed to favor, but I could not find much relief in that. There was a reason that Holmes was consistently taken to be a good twenty years younger than his actual age--he had an iron constitution and he was in exceptional condition for a man approaching 60. It struck me in a moment of despair that his robust health might be exactly what this homicidal germ sought to destroy. That moment of apprehension must have shown in my face because Holmes withdrew an arm from the covers with some difficulty and placed his hand over mine.
"Don't look so scared, Russell. I shall undoubtedly feel miserable for a few days and then be up and about, good as new. I only hope that I haven't given this to you and Mrs. Hudson." He trailed off into another series of coughs. I blinked away an inconvenient tear that had come out of nowhere, squeezed and released his hand, and returned my attention to the thermometer, now removing it from the case.
"We'll be fine, and I'm sure you will, as well. Perhaps we're both wrong about this thing. It's not as if we're doctors. And don't apologize, you didn't choose this, Holmes. Anyway, I said I was going to take your temperature," I informed him. He grimaced but I shook the thermometer down and placed it between his lips and he accepted it more docilely than I'd expected. While we waited for his temperature to register, I thought back over what he'd said to me and identified the echo that had been nagging at my brain.
"That's what you said to Watson, you know," I reminded him. Unable to reply so long as the thermometer was in his mouth, Holmes raised his eyebrows in query and I repeated, "'Don't look so scared, Watson'--that's what you told him when he rushed to Baker Street after you'd been roughed up by Baron Gruner's toughs. You told Watson not to be scared."
Holmes removed the thermometer from his mouth and handed it to me without looking at it. "I believe Gruner's thugs were less effective than this wretched bug," he said, wryly. I maneuvered the slim piece of glass until I could read the red line, and frowned. His temperature was climbing past 39 degrees Celsius. I read it to him, and he looked away from me. "Not so bad," he said.
"Not so good, either," I replied. Holmes returned his eyes to mine. "I didn't want Watson to worry, Russ. I wish you wouldn't worry, either. There's nothing to be gained by it." His eyelids were beginning to drift shut. I would have hoped he was falling asleep, but I suspected that he was in too much discomfort for that. He was simply too tired to keep his eyes open. I put a hand lightly on his chest and leaned down to whisper in his ear.
"Not something you can prevent, Holmes," I told him. If he heard me, he gave no sign.
Mrs. Hudson and I spent the rest of that afternoon in turns at Holmes' bedside, in what felt like a fruitless attempt to keep him comfortable. Not long after I'd added the heavy quilt to the bed, he began to twist irritably underneath the covers and try, without great success, to push them off. Far from shivering now, he was flushed and again had come out in a heavy sweat. His coughing, intermittent but persistent, did little to help the situation. I got up from my chair, folded the quilt down to his waist, and said "Wait, Holmes, stay still and let me try to help you." Holmes had an old-fashioned ewer and basin in the room, which I suspected Mrs. Hudson kept supplied with water despite the fact that there was a lavatory with running water down the hall. I crossed the room, lifted the ewer--pleased that my surmise had been correct and that it was full--and, after pouring a small quantity of water into the basin, returned to Holmes' side. I took the cloth that had been on the washstand, soaked it in the water, twisted it, wiped Holmes' face, then folded the cloth and laid it over his forehead. I was not sure how much good this actually would achieve in bringing down his temperature, but I remembered my mother doing it for me when, as a small child, I had been feverish. It had some effect, certainly, because Holmes murmured, "Feels good." His lips barely moved and the comment came out on a breath, hard to hear. "I'm so hot. Hot, then cold... I'm sorry, Russ."
"I know," I said, "It's this wretched fever. But you can't have all the covers off, we have to keep you warm." The washcloth had begun to take on some of the heat from his body and I removed it, returned it to the basin, and repeated the earlier process. For a few minutes he seemed to be reasonably comfortable, and then without warning he began to shake so violently that his teeth literally chattered. I put the basin and washcloth aside and pulled the down quilt back over him. The chills had returned. This fever was like some large predator toying with its prey, I thought, clamping down in one area of attack only to release and savage the victim creature in another way. It was frustrating, it was infuriating, and it was exhausting. I could not imagine how Holmes must feel, battered back and forth between these two extremes and in pain besides. Where was the wretched doctor?, I thought, watching Holmes begin to quiet beneath the quilt and wondering how long his relative peace would last.
He had gone through several additional cycles of fever heat and violent chills by the time Mrs. Hudson entered the room, bringing a mug of her "concoction" which, I learned later, benefited from Holmes' honey and a good portion of whisky, along with some herbs that had long been known to ease a cough. She must have sensed my mounting frustration, because she came over to the bed, took me by the hand and said, "Mary, my dear, why don't you go downstairs and take a little break. The doctor should be along any time now and you can show him up. I'll sit with Mr. Holmes for awhile--I need to see if he'll take some of this, anyway." I started to protest, then realized that wearing myself out at Holmes' bedside would do nothing for him and would, indeed, make me of less help in the long run. "He's still coughing," I reported, "and he's been having alternating waves of chills and heat ever since I came up. And he does have a fever--39." Mrs. Hudson bit her lower lip and shook her head. "Poor man," she said, "he's certainly picked up something nasty."
Standing up, I kept hold of her hand. "He thinks it's the influenza," I said, and was not surprised when she went pale.
Holmes had initially tried to resist Mrs. Hudson's honey-scented cough medication, turning his head away like a petulant child. The smell was repellent to him and although at some level he had enough sense left to realize that the drink had to be medicinal, he simply did not want to expend the energy to lift his head and swallow it. He recognized, eventually, that a woman who had been a wife, a mother and a long-suffering landlady to "London's worst tenant" was not going to be put off by a mere turn of the head. She sat down on the bed beside him, got a surprisingly strong left arm under his shoulders, propped him up so that he was half-resting against her, and held the mug to his lips with her other hand. "Now Mr. Holmes," she enjoined, "what did I say to you about being pig-headed? Just try a swallow or two of this, I promise that it will help your cough." Obediently, he let her tilt the mug and he managed to swallow a mouthful or two of the liquid before he began to struggle against a wave of nausea. Sensing it, she set the mug down on the bedside table and eased him back against the pillow. "Relax," she said softly, "try to breathe through your mouth. It will pass in a moment" On the heels of the nausea, a pleasant warmth had begun to spread through his throat and chest. To his surprise, he realized that she was stroking his forehead, smoothing the damp hair back, as if he were her son. He was not accustomed to that sort of tender, soothing touch and he would not have sought it. Yet, strange how comforting a gesture like that could be. Strange that he so wanted it to be Russell. He was not thinking very clearly, he realized, the fever was beginning to toy with his brain. He tried to drag his thoughts away from Russell, it would not do to let those yearnings wander from his mind to his tongue. "Hush, hush," Mrs. Hudson murmured, and he was frightened that he might have said something already. But then he realized she was only making the sort of random, soothing noises that one made for a sick child, just to let him know that you were there. He remained very hot, he noted, but at least he was not coughing. Mrs. Hudson was still sitting on the bed and he turned his head so that his temple rested briefly against her, wanting her to know that he was grateful for her kindness. Presently he drifted into a sort of half-stupor. He was vaguely aware when Mrs. Hudson rose and sat in the chair next to the bed, but after that there seemed to be nothing but the heat, and the cold, and the terrible ache in his bones. Someone was addressing him, repeating his name in a fashion so persistent as to be irritating. "Mr. Holmes. Mr. Holmes!" It felt oddly like a morning on Baker Street, trying to sleep late after a strenuous night, with Mrs. Hudson or Watson attempting to rouse him for an early client. He had not, in truth, been sleeping but he felt embedded in a great cocoon of fever and discomfort and weariness, so that it was really too much trouble to respond, even by opening his eyes. The voice would not go away, however, and indeed seemed to be coming closer, and so finally he rolled his head impatiently on the pillow, setting the headache off again, and looked up. A face was looming above him, the face of a young man, be-speckled, in imminent need of another shave, and wearing an expression of calm concern that Holmes had come to associate with Watson. The room was dim with the shades drawn against the light of the lengthening spring evening, but Holmes took hazy note of two figures standing toward the foot of the bed... Mrs. Hudson and Russell, he reminded himself. It was good that they were here... he wondered briefly when Russell had come. It seemed like a very long time ago...
"Mr. Holmes?" the young man spoke again, and Holmes made a determined attempt to focus.
"Doctor."
"Ah, you know me, I was concerned in that we have not met before."
Holmes moistened his lips, tried to make his voice audible. "In the circumstances, a stranger hovering over my bed is unlikely to be anyone other than the doctor, unless of course he were to be the undertaker." From the foot of the bed, Holmes heard two characteristic reactions, a gasp of mingled shock and concern from Mrs. Hudson, and an awkward chuckle from Russell. She of all people would appreciate his attempt at humor, and would probably understand, as well, the disquiet that ran beneath it. The doctor, to speak well for him, looked bemused but in no way offended. "It is my task, Mr. Holmes," he said, "to keep the undertaker as far away from my patients as possible. And thus, I need to examine you if you are willing."
Among those in the room, Holmes doubted his vote counted for much. Nonetheless he acknowledged the courtesy. "Of course," he murmured, "at your convenience." He found his eyes drifting shut again. The next few minutes were a series of disconnected and vaguely annoying impressions. Lifting, pressure on his wrist... the doctor taking his pulse, he realized. Again, a thermometer, cool and wet in his mouth, then removed, a buzz of conversation over his head that he did not trouble to understand. The voice again--"Can you sit up for me, Mr. Holmes?" When the sense of the words sank in he made an effort, only to feel an arm at his back helping him to comply. Sitting, he found himself dizzy and braced himself with his arms to remain upright. He opened his eyes but found it too difficult to focus his gaze, and closed them again. A hand unbuttoning his pajama top, something cold on his chest... a stethoscope... "Breathe for me, please, sir..." then, following, the same touch to his back, a request to cough. Since he'd done little but cough for the last several hours, at least until the brief respite brought by Mrs. Hudson's hot drink, he found irony in that. At last the voice said, "Ease back, Mr. Holmes," and he sank gratefully down to the pillow, that same strong arm assisting the transition. The change of position seemed to have awakened the savage pains that had been tormenting him off and on for hours and he gasped in distress, then clenched his teeth against any further indication of discomfort. His name again--"Mr. Holmes? Mr. Holmes?" This time he found it difficult to conceal his exhaustion.
"Yes. What? Can you not let me rest?"
"Soon, sir, bear with me. Miss Russell has recounted your symptoms to me. When did you first feel unwell?"
Holmes considered. Was it still the same day? He wasn't entirely sure, but was reluctant to reveal his confusion. "I believe it was this morning," he replied, cautiously. "I awoke with a severe headache." Mrs. Hudson's voice floated up from the foot of the bed. She knows I don't know how much time has passed, he thought. She is worried... "It was just about 1 p.m. when he fainted, doctor."
"Thank you, Mrs. Hudson," Dr. Chapel replied, and turned again to Holmes. "Are you still in pain? Head, bones aching, stabbing pains all over?"
Holmes nodded, slowly so as not to jar his head. "Yes. Yes... it is the influenza, is it not?" He opened his eyes and found the doctor's.
Dr. Chapel smiled, but his eyes were grave. "A great detective obviously makes a fine diagnostician. Yes, Mr. Holmes, I fear you have contracted the influenza. I'm sorry to say that you are likely to feel a good deal worse before you feel better. But you are a strong man and in good general health; we'll get you through this." Holmes, who had built his life on looking hard facts squarely in the face and accepting them as they were, appreciated the fact that the young doctor cared about his morale and spirits but was not reassured. He had followed the story of this epidemic with enough attention to know that people as healthy as he, as strong as he, and assuredly younger than he, had died of this. He had no intention of dying, if it could be avoided, but thought it foolish to dismiss the possibility. Holmes was, however, a gentleman; the young man's thoughtfulness deserved a response. "Thank you, doctor," he murmured.
Chapel turned away and began rummaging in his bag. "I'm going to give you something for the pain," he said, "and it should help you sleep as well." Holmes waited, felt his sleeve being rolled back, the cool of alcohol on his arm, and then the familiar, sharp bite of the needle. In a shockingly brief period of time, the pain began to recede; it did not so much vanish as begin to seem irrelevant. Morphine, he thought. Curious how the absence of pain, after hours of its presence, could be so distinct a sensation. He wanted to revel in the abrupt cessation of anguish but as it appeared, there wasn't time; his consciousness began to slip away along with the pain. With a sense of unexpressed gratitude, Holmes fell deeply asleep.
Until I saw Holmes' body relax into unconsciousness, I had not realized how much discomfort he'd been in. From the time I'd helped him to his feet and into his bedroom, I saw now, he had been holding himself rigid; even in his bed, he had somehow remained vigilant against the pain, as if being prepared for it could somehow ward it off. The contrast now, as his conscious mind let down its defenses, was disconcerting, and sad.
Dr. Chapel straightened up and replaced the syringe in its case, to be disinfected later. He then carefully lifted Holmes' limp arm, tucked it beneath the covers, and pulled the blankets up to the sleeping man's shoulders. He turned to me and Mrs. Hudson. "He should sleep now for five or six hours. He needs it--one of the ways this disease kills is through simple exhaustion." I heard his words but could not seem to form a response. Gradually I became aware that my left hand had crept forward and was resting on the covers over Holmes' feet. The doctor took one last quick glance at Holmes, and then gestured to us to accompany him out of the room. "I'd like to speak with you for a few minutes," he whispered.
We filed silently out of the room, the doctor pulling the door quietly shut behind us. As we walked toward the stairs, Mrs. Hudson asked, "Would you care for a cup of tea, Doctor? You look as if you've had a long day."
"Indeed, Mrs. Hudson," he replied, "let us all sit down for a few minutes. You ladies are doubtless tired, and you have a few long days before you. Mr. Holmes will be quiet now for a few hours, and you should take the opportunity to rest, yourselves."
In the warm kitchen, we sat down around the table. The room was dim now, as the sun was finally waning, and Mrs. Hudson clicked on two of the lamps before she turned to put the kettle on. "Mr. Holmes likes Indian tea," she said, in a voice that threatened tears, "will that be satisfactory, Doctor?"
"Of course," he replied, and we watched without further talk as she went about the familiar business. At last, she placed the teapot on the table to steep, laid out cups, saucers, and plates for us all, and set down a selection of biscuits. I noted dully that some of them were ginger snaps, of which Holmes was particularly fond. Mrs. Hudson poured tea for each of us and dutifully inquired of the doctor as to his preference for milk or sugar. Part of me wanted to scream at the utter ordinariness of it all under these circumstances, but at the same time I recognized that the ordinary was the very thing that Mrs. Hudson needed just then. I stirred sugar into my tea and glanced at the doctor. He cleared his throat.
"I reassured Mr. Holmes, of course," he said, "and there is no reason for you to be unduly concerned. The majority of people who've gotten this flu have survived it. However, this is a dangerous disease and one of the reasons for that is that people have underestimated it. They feel that it is simply the flu and that that one must simply endure it and then it will be over and all will be well. The fact is that this is a tricky business and it is most dangerous when it appears be abating. I feel I must tell you what to expect, and as best I can, what you can do to help." He paused as if collecting his thoughts. "Thus far, Mr. Holmes' symptoms are very typical of this influenza. He is going to be a very sick man for at least three to four days, and then we may hope that he will begin to mend. The cough and the high temperature are typical; the cough, unfortunately, is not producing any result in the way of phlegm and it is not unusual in these cases for a patient to sustain internal injuries from the violence of the spasms. We must hope that that does not happen here or that if it does, that it is of a minor nature. In that respect, Mrs. Hudson, if he can tolerate that cough medicine of yours, and if it is helping, continue to give it to him, within reason of course.
"The fever is likely to rise and fall over the next several days. Fever in itself is not a bad sign, it is an indication that his body is fighting the infection. Obviously it is uncomfortable for him and can be debilitating if it remains high over too long a period. Give him aspirin every four hours, that will help. If his temperature rises sharply and continues above 40c for any length of time, do not be surprised if he becomes delirious. That is also quite common with this influenza. Do what you can to bring the fever down. A high fever sustained too long--well, some patients have suffered lingering mental aftereffects." Dear God, I thought to myself, Holmes would rather be dead than have his mind blunted in any way. The doctor continued with his grim advice. "The fever may not break for some time, but a sponge bath, or bath with tepid water, will often help. Do not use cold water or ice, however, tempting--it shocks the body and may make things worse. Get as much liquid into him as you can, because dehydration is a great danger with this illness. All of this will help fight the effects of the illness but it will also make him more comfortable. Now, as to the most important thing." I stared at him, still speechless. What could be coming next? The doctor took a few thirsty swallows of his tea; this was obviously trying for him, as well. "The most pernicious thing about this illness is that it can go into pneumonia, and often just when it appears that the patient is recovering. And once it goes into the lungs, it is almost impossible to treat. All we can do then is attempt to bolster the patient's strength and hope that he can hold on until the infection subsides or the body's own defenses triumph. As our sad experience has demonstrated thus far, many people are simply not strong enough to survive the struggle." Chapel hesitated, put down his cup, and then looked carefully at each of us, as if to make sure he had our attention. "Mr. Holmes already has some involvement in the lungs."
Our expressions must have conveyed our distress because the doctor held up a hand, warningly. "As I said to Mr. Holmes, he is a strong man and in good health, though I could wish he were not a smoker. That said, the congestion in the lungs is not yet far advanced and perhaps can be managed, but he will need vigilant and careful nursing. I know that you will do all you can. I will, of course, check in with you daily but if at any time you notice his breathing change, become more labored, ring me immediately. Unfortunately this is a disease that can change direction very swiftly. Now, have you any questions?" After so full an explanation, we had none, and in due course the doctor finished his tea, collected his hat and coat from Mrs. Hudson, and bade his farewells, urging us again to contact him quickly if we noticed any change for the worse in Holmes' condition. As we stood at the door watching the doctor reverse, turn and drive down the long road that led away from the house, I turned to Mrs. Hudson.
"Mrs. Hudson, I believe I will stay the night, if you have no objection."
Mrs. Hudson patted my arm. "Of course, Mary, I was assuming you would wish to stay. I'm glad of it." She looked up at me shrewdly. "You will be a help to me, my dear, but the important thing is that Mr. Holmes will be the better just for your being here."
I started to demur but she shook her head. "Oh, come, Mary, surely you know he's fonder of you than he admits to himself? He's a different man when you're here." I found myself speechless in response to this and Mrs. Hudson smiled, turned and started back toward the kitchen. "Never mind, dear, I'll go freshen up the guest room. Didn't you have a bag in your auto?"
As it happened, I remained at Holmes' house for more than a week. The four days after the doctor's initial visit passed quietly, in a period of beautiful weather that seemed to mock both Holmes' illness and my consequent low spirits. Mrs. Hudson and I took turns in sitting with Holmes or, if he seemed quiet, looking in on him, and so I had some time to stretch my legs on the Downs or walk to the sea. The exercise cleared out the cobwebs in my brain--I'd been sleeping poorly--but it felt lonely and aimless without my customary companion (that seemed odd in itself; certainly I'd walked this country often enough alone). My heart was no way lightened by periodic courtesy calls to my aunt, who continued to express eagerness to have me return home and concern for Holmes' condition, both in a patently insincere manner.
As the doctor had predicted, Holmes was a very sick man over the course of those days. I suppose I had not expected otherwise, given the violent onset of the disease, but it became clear to me by the end of the third day that he was not improving. His system, however strong to begin with, was being battered by a series of assaults that, coupled with the inability to eat and the lack of real rest, were obviously wearing him down.
Holmes had slept heavily most of that first night, and it was not until about 3 o'clock in the morning that I was awakened by his tearing cough. Mrs. Hudson's room was on the ground floor, out of hearing range, and so when the coughing did not abate I arose, wrapped one of Holmes' old robes about me, and tiptoed into his room. He had thrown off most of his covers and was again curled on his side; I took from this that the fever remained strong and that the pains had begun to surface through the drug he'd been given. Without speaking, I helped him to sit up and got a swallow or two of Mrs. Hudson's cough medication into him, followed by a few sips of water, then propped some pillows at his back so that he could relax without lying flat. I pulled the covers over him again, but folded the quilt downwards to spare him excessive warmth. The angle and the liquids seemed to help and in a little while he appeared to sleep again. I suspected that whatever the doctor had given him still had a hold on his system, even if it was losing its effectiveness against the pain. I waited until his even breathing told me he was truly asleep and then quietly slipped out into the hall. I was not even sure that he knew who it was who had come into the room.
He dozed on and off for most of the next 72 hours, although it is probably more accurate to say that he existed in a state not quite awake, but not fully asleep. If you spoke to him, and were persistent about it, he would respond, but he made no attempt to communicate and seemed indifferent to what was going on around him, a state most unnatural for Holmes. The headache had gone--at least moving his head did not seem to hurt him--and he had ceased having chills, but the other symptoms persisted. He seemed indifferent to it all. The coughing spasms returned with frightening persistence but he simply endured them, too weak even to raise a hand to his mouth. I remembered hearing that one of the characteristics of this influenza was an extreme prostration, and there was no other word for his condition. A disinterest in food was hardly surprising, but running such a fever, he must have been thirsty--– yet he made no requests for water and we had to disturb him periodically to force it into him, and to get him to take aspirin. Mrs. Hudson's soothing drink genuinely seemed to help with the cough, but in about half our attempts to give it to him, he either had no strength to swallow or became so nauseated that we had to desist. More than once one of us had to sit, watching helplessly, blotting his lips for him, until he coughed himself out.
And he bled. He bled from the mouth, the nose, and once from his eyes. The blood stained the sheets and the collar of his pajamas, made Mrs. Hudson become white as a sheet, and precipitated, on my part, a frantic telephone call to Dr. Chapel. Chapel assured us that the bleeding was a common symptom of this influenza and unless it continued indefinitely, or seemed of great quantity, was not serious; the disease evidently weakened the membranes in the skin, causing blood to seep through in places it should not. The bleeding happened two or three times and then stopped, although I learned later that some patients with this vicious flu had had severe hemorrhages, and died as a result. A doctor might not have regarded Holmes' bleeding as serious, but for the rest of my life my nightmares included that vision of Holmes, drawn and gray and with tears of blood running down his thin cheeks.
The fever remained persistent. It was lower in the mornings, but always two or three points above normal, enough to make him uncomfortable. As the day lengthened, his temperature climbed, and by mid-afternoon it was high enough to cause him to fight the covers and wander in his mind. If I was there when his temperature spiked, I would call Mrs. Hudson, and she would banish me from the room and sponge him down with tepid water, a treatment I was banned from both as an unmarried girl and because Holmes would not have wanted me to see him in so vulnerable a state. Late in the day on Saturday, even that treatment was ineffectual and we called in Old Will, who helped carry Holmes into the lavatory and lower him, pajamas and all, into the bathtub that Mrs. Hudson had half-filled with lukewarm water. I had gone downstairs but turned and started back up when I heard Holmes cry out. "What's happened?" I asked, to be answered by Mrs. Hudson, her voice trembling a little.
"Nothing, Mary, it's all right. His temperature is just so high that the water feels cold to him. It will be better when the fever comes down a bit." When I returned to his room a half hour or so later, I was relieved to see that the fever had slackened and that he was resting more easily. I smiled to note that Old Will had gotten him into fresh pajamas, and had even brushed Holmes' hair back into an approximation of its usual neat, slick-backed style. It was a brief moment of respite in a long, trying day. A few hours into that night, the fever soared again.
When his fever was high and the delirium came it was not of a dramatic kind; he did not shout or flail about. Being there was like walking with someone through a series of dreams, some disturbing, some pleasant. Holmes would move restlessly in the bed and mutter, often unintelligibly. He did not always speak in English; sometimes the sounds were not words at all, only the groans of pain that, in his senses, he refused to release. With those one could only whisper comforting words and hope that some of them got through to him, although if one of these spasms coincided with a visit from Dr. Chapel he would administer a shot and knock Holmes out for a few hours. Sometimes, it was clear that Holmes was back in the Baker Street days, embroiled in one of those cases that Watson had made famous to the world, but just as often, his murmurings were of his other life, the life outside Watson's stories. Many of the images that arose in his fevered dreams were obviously of those lost years, the years, as he sometimes said, "when I was dead." Others were from his boyhood, which I knew had been painful although I did not know in what way. I hoped I would not find out in this fashion; it seemed wrong for him to reveal in his delirium what he had guarded so carefully throughout his adult life. Some dreams, to the extent I could decipher them, were intimate, not ones he would have wanted me to hear, and when one of those began I would wipe his face, rearrange the covers, talk over his mumblings, do what I could to distract him--or myself. Once or twice he whispered "Darling, my darling," and I both wondered of whom he spoke, and was afraid to know. Only on one occasion did he become truly agitated, and I realized with a start that he was back in that villa in Palestine, in the hands of Karim Bey. As must have been the case then, he said little other than a few guttural words in Arabic, but his jaw clenched and he began to push himself upright, clearly preparing to fight for his freedom. The expression in his eyes made it perfectly obvious that he was confusing the pain of the moment with what he had endured more than a year ago, and that, as before, he felt liked a trapped animal. It was very nearly unbearable to watch. I had been sitting in the chair by the bed, but now I launched myself up, grasped his arms, and gently pushed him back to the pillow.
"Holmes," I said, "Holmes, you're all right, you're not in Palestine, you're not in that room--you're right here in your own bed. It's Russell, Holmes, I'm with you, you're all right. You're safe. You have a fever, that's why you're burning, but you're going to be all right... I'm here, nothing is going to hurt you..." I repeated this and a variety of similar assurances, over and over, holding his arms tight so that he could not try again to get up. He fought me for a few seconds, feebly because the illness had left him so weak, and then quite suddenly relaxed. To my considerable surprise I found myself looking into his eyes and realizing that, at least for the moment, he had returned to his senses. It seemed extraordinary, then, to see the Sherlock Holmes I knew gazing at me from that drawn face. He frowned and I recognized that my grip was hurting him. I released his arms and slowly sat up; his eyes did not shift from mine.
"I'm sorry, Russell. Was I raving?" he asked.
"No, of course not. But the fever--you thought you were back with Karim Bey." He flinched.
"Dear God. That must have been pleasant to listen to."
"Don't be silly, Holmes, you were just telling them to sod off in Arabic." (At that vulgarism, so inappropriate for a well-brought-up young woman, he ventured a drowsy smile.) I continued, "Nevertheless I didn't think you should live through it again, even in your head."
"No, poor judgment on my part..." Holmes sank back into the pillow; he was beginning to drift again. "Am I home?" he said, finally, and I replied, "Yes, yes, you're home, don't worry. Go to sleep." He slipped back into that uneasy doze, but thankfully his dreams seemed to have moved on elsewhere. I sat and watched him for awhile and then, moved by something I could not have named, I bent down and kissed him on the forehead, as he once done to me. His skin was hot under my lips.
The doctor returned early in the day on Thursday and repeated his examination, frowning a little when he listened to Holmes' chest. Holmes' fever had receded in the wee hours of the morning and for the first time in three days he seemed almost comfortable, although I noticed that his breathing was slightly labored. Despite the retreat of the fever, I could not think that Holmes was on the mend. On Chapel's last visit Holmes had been capable of talking and even joking with him; this time, he was completely indifferent to the doctor's presence. As he felt for Holmes' pulse, Dr. Chapel asked if Holmes continued to manifest the painful, dry cough and I gazed at the wall while I listened to Mrs. Hudson answer. No, she said, a bit hesitantly, starting the previous evening he had begun to bring up a yellowish, nasty looking substance--surely it was good that he was freeing that from his lungs? The doctor did not reply, but suggested that we begin to apply hot compresses to his chest every hour or so, and keep him from lying flat. "He is beginning to have difficulty breathing," Chapel said, when Mrs. Hudson and I exchanged questioning glances; "we need to make it easier for him if we can, and keep the strain off his heart." I fixed the doctor with what I feared was a steely gaze.
"Are you telling us that he has full-fledged pneumonia?"
"Yes, Miss Russell, "I'm sorry to say that that is the case. We must hope it does not go into both lungs. I am going to give him something to stimulate the heart; his pulse is slower at the moment than I like." His words came from a great distance away and I had difficulty sorting them into English; they had come to me in a meaningless babble of sound. Some moments had evidently gone by when Mrs. Hudson's voice finally penetrated the fog that had closed in around me.
"Mary--I think we must send for Dr. Watson. And--and ring Mr. Mycroft."
Afterward, Holmes would have no memory of that time, at least no memory that he could date, put into order, or separate from his dreams. He had become a thing entirely of the physical, and those few days in March were a long sequence of sensations which he was unable to understand, analyze, or prepare for. He was painfully hot most of the time, and so when he felt the coolness of water on his skin, or the touch of clean sheets, the sense of relief was profound although he could not have said where the coolness came from. Time had lost any sense of structure; through his half-closed eyelids, he could feel the room growing dark, shading into gray, and then becoming suddenly and vividly bright again, but he had no sense of hours or days passing. His body ached without mercy, the only variation the paroxysms of coughing and the round of agonizing pains that, had he known it, caused him to moan aloud. From time to time hands would lift him into a half-reclining position, a cup would come to his lips, and he would feel wetness in his mouth, but he could not always summon the energy to swallow and sometimes the liquid would run down his chin and neck, feeling curiously pleasant if doing little to quench his thirst. There was no line between dreams and reality, except for the fact that in the dreams he was not in pain--afraid, perhaps, or angry, or aroused, but not in pain. For that reason he was grateful for the dreams, even when they frightened him and were accompanied by an almost unendurable sense of heat. Once, he came back from a particularly terrifying dream, his heart beating violently, in a panic, to find himself looking into Russell's blue eyes--they were like an anchor thrown to a drowning man. He spoke to her and she answered him, told him he was safe, but he could not hold on to her, he felt himself beginning to sink back not into the dream but into the meaningless, thoughtless void of sensation that was all he had left. In the moment before she receded away from him, he wanted to tell her to hold onto him, that he was afraid, but the words had left him. At some point later--though there was no time in this place--they were outside, beneath the copper beech, and strangely, she was sitting in his lap, and he was kissing her mouth and throat; her skin felt smooth and warm to his mouth and he could feel her pulse against his lips. "Darling, my darling," he whispered, overjoyed to be holding her at last. But then she was gone and he was somewhere else, or nowhere.
Eventually, Holmes came to understand that although he could not see it, he had somehow come to be buried beneath a soft, warm, all-enveloping blanket of sorts, one that covered him from his face to his feet and which, improbable as it seemed, was enormously heavy. It muffled sound, made everything in this place seem distant and insubstantial. He wanted to speak, but knew that those outside the blanket would not hear him. He wanted to move his arms, to cover his mouth when the coughing spasms hit, even to sit up under his own strength, but the invisible blanket was like a sheet of lead. It kept him pressed to the mattress and to the pillows that were at his back and he simply did not have the strength to shift it from him. Take the blanket off, he pleaded, silently, although he could not have said to whom... it's crushing me... When his chest began to hurt, he felt no surprise; it was no wonder, given the weight of the thing above him. He tried to draw a deep breath, preparing to throw the blanket from him, but found that it was impossible; his lungs could not expand with such an enormous weight on them. Presently he sank somewhere below the level of dreams, borne down by the blanket, unaware that his breathing had become a series of rasping, painful gasps.
"You should have sent for me sooner, Mary." John H. Watson, M.D., my Uncle John, faced me from across Holmes' bed, his eyes eloquent with concern and hurt. He was holding Holmes' wrist, monitoring the pulse, and it was not lost on either one of us that Holmes was unaware of his presence. Indeed, over the course of the last two days, since Dr. Chapel had confirmed that Holmes had pneumonia, it had become clear to me that Holmes had left us, at least in terms of consciousness. Earlier in the illness, he had been exhausted, responding only when one pressed him, but he had been there, nonetheless; even in the midst of his fevered dreams, he had managed at least once to look into my face, to speak to me. Now, with each breath sounding as if he had to fight for it, his mind had gone somewhere else, perhaps to a place where the pain could not follow. It was as if his intellect had declared this case commonplace, beneath his talents, and departed, leaving only his body and his great heart to continue the battle. I suppose I should have been glad--if he was truly unconscious, he could not be suffering in the manner that his tortured breathing conveyed--but without that unique intelligence in the room, I only felt alone.
"I know, Uncle John, I'm sorry." I could think of no words to excuse our dereliction. In the beginning it seemed foolish to panic; we had not wanted to worry Watson; we had a perfectly reliable local physician; Holmes habitually turned to Watson's medical skills only at the last minute and then with considerable grumbling (although Watson was the only doctor he trusted). All of these were true but feeble when one considered that this was Holmes' oldest and loyalist friend, that he had only learned of Holmes' illness last night, only just arrived in Sussex. Neither one of us wanted to believe that he had, perhaps, missed his only chance to say goodbye to his friend of forty years. Mrs. Hudson, who thus far had been a tower of calm and commonsense, had opened the door for us as I delivered Watson from the station, accepted his hat and coat, and abruptly burst into tears, fleeing from the room. I was sure that it was as much for Watson's bruised feelings as for Holmes' condition.
Uncle John released Holmes' wrist and laid a couple fingers against the sick man's jaw, turning Holmes' head so that he could get a good look at his face. After a moment he looked up at me and somewhat to my surprise, his eyes were kind. "I understand, Mary, you and Mrs. Hudson had time only to think of him. I'll sit down with Mrs. Hudson later. Do not apologize. I'm here now." Not for the first time, I had reason to reflect on Watson's generous spirit. Holmes had been fortunate in his friends.
Watson, however, had long since let go of any personal hurt and had shifted into his natural role, that of a seasoned physician. He spoke almost as if to himself. "He's still got a high fever. Note, Mary, the faint shade of blue around his lips and nostrils. He's not getting enough air--Fluid is building up in his chest. You've been applying the hot compresses?"
I nodded. "Yes, Uncle John--I think they give him some temporary relief but that's about all."
"And Chapel gave him something to stimulate the heart?"
"Yes, digitalis I believe. He's due back here in a couple of hours, you can ask him then."
Uncle John nodded. "I shall--you must remember that Holmes is Chapel's patient now, I am here but as a friend. But I shall certainly offer my assistance. I wonder if Chapel has considered an injection of hydrogen peroxide, some recent articles have indicated that it may help by increasing oxygen in the blood..." He trailed off and, removing his jacket, leaned down to slip an arm beneath Holmes and pull him a little higher on the mound of pillows that kept him in a semi-reclining position. "For the moment," he said, "I shall help you as best I can to keep him comfortable and ease his breathing."
Our conversation was interrupted by Holmes, who was suddenly convulsed by a wrenching series of coughs. These were different from the earlier spasms; you could hear something vile, thick and wet roiling in his chest. Watson quickly reached into his medical bag, withdrew a handful of gauze, and held it to Holmes' mouth, using his strong left arm to brace Holmes against each seizure. Presently a great quantity of yellow, blood-streaked phlegm soiled the gauze and Watson calmly folded it into the material, tossed the gauze into the waste bin, and wiped Holmes' mouth with the clean, moistened cloth I'd handed him. He never looked at me, but slipped his arm from behind Holmes and let him sink back onto the pillows. Holmes' breathing was beginning to sound like a series of gasps; it occurred to me that he could not be getting much air that way. Watson took Holmes' hand, patted it once or twice. "See here, Old Man," he said, "this is no way to go on; we must be of more help to you than this. I fear that you've gotten yourself into a pinch that you cannot get out of alone. But never fear, Mary and I come to your aid before and we'll do it again, won't we Mary? You just have to help us, Holmes, you must fight on no matter how hard it is."
I could not tear my gaze away from Holmes' face; he looked terrible. His skin was putty-color, except for the fever flush on his cheeks, and his cheekbones, always high, were now so prominent that one could easily envision the skull beneath the skin. His eyes were sunken in the sockets, the skin around them dark and bruised-looking. The fever had left his lips chapped and he had coughed so much that he had torn the skin, leaving bloody patches that were painful to see. He looked sicker than I had ever seen him. "Uncle John," I said slowly, "is he dying?"
Watson did not respond immediately; he continued to rub the back of Holmes' hand, almost absently. Finally he straightened up and turned to me with a fierce expression unlike any I'd ever seen on his gentle, open countenance. "No, Mary, he is not. Not today and not under my care. Do not even think it."
Dr. Chapel made his appearance mid-afternoon, and expressed a delight in meeting Watson that appeared to be entirely genuine. To our surprise, Chapel brought with him a small portable oxygen apparatus; it would not, he said, clear up Holmes' lungs but at least it would increase the amount of good air that got into his system. Watson exclaimed "Good man!, excellent thinking!" and I smiled when Chapel blushed with pleasure. While I suspected that a good deal of Chapel's initial cordiality in greeting Uncle John arose from shaking the hand of the second most famous person in the "Sherlock Holmes" stories, the young man was by no means dismayed to have a senior physician on the premises.
Once the professional amenities had been observed--Watson expressing a desire to assist without intending to intrude, Dr. Chapel insisting that he would be only too delighted to seek the older man's counsel--the two of them set off to Holmes' room, Chapel carrying the oxygen tank and Mrs. Hudson and I trailing in their wake. As we climbed the stairs, I heard Chapel's sotto voce query to Watson. "You have examined him?"
"Yes."
"And you think...?"
"He has an advanced case of pneumonia. The influenza has already weakened him. If something drastic is not undertaken..." Watson did not finish the sentence nor did Chapel seem to expect him to. Our concerned little party moved down the long hallway and the two physicians led us into Holmes' room. He was lying very still, his only discernible motion the regular heaving of his chest as he struggled for air. Chapel made his way to the bed, set up the oxygen tank, and started to place the mask over Holmes' mouth and nose. Holmes tried to fight it, turning his head away, and Watson quickly stepped forward to assist. "Steady on, old son, we're not trying to smother you--" He looked over at us, explaining as he finally got the mask in place. "Often patients try to fight the mask when they're like this," he said, "I believe that they are struggling so hard to breathe that the mask at first feels like an attack." It was unlikely that Holmes heard or understood him but once the mask was on, he appeared to relax; within a startlingly short period of time his color had improved slightly. Chapel surveyed him for a moment and then leaned down to commence his examination.
We watched, Watson standing at the bedside with his arms crossed and head bowed as if in thought, but missing nothing. In due course the younger man straightened up, glanced toward the foot of the bed where Mrs. Hudson and I had assumed our customary positions, and then addressed Watson. "I'm afraid this is very serious, ladies, Dr. Watson. He has declined rapidly since yesterday and it would appear to me that his lungs are seriously affected. We have done all that is called for and certainly I shall administer more digitalis to support his heart, but I think we must prepare..." Watson interrupted him, courteously but with a steely undertone to his voice.
"With respect, Doctor, I would suggest that there is at least one other measure we might try. It is somewhat out of the ordinary for a treatment in the home and not without risk, but at this stage in the game he has little to lose. When Miss Russell told me of Holmes' condition, I took the liberty of placing a few additional items in my bag."
Chapel turned a vivid pink, but seemed less irritated than curious. Doubtless, I reflected, young medical men were accustomed to being second-guessed and redirected by their elders. He cleared his throat and said, "What do you have in mind, Dr. Watson?"
Watson turned to his bag, withdrew and held up several small vials of liquid. "This is antipneumococcic serum," he said. "As you know, Dr. Chapel, it kills the pneumococcus bacteria that are the cause of most pneumonias. It was developed only a handful of years ago and is being used quite extensively in the United States, less so here. One of the reasons for that is that it is yet difficult to produce it in sufficient quantities. Nonetheless thanks to a contact of mine I have managed to procure enough and I advise that we begin giving it to Holmes immediately. The sooner it is used in a case of pneumonia, the better the hopes for recovery."
Chapel stepped closer, took one the vials from Watson and regarded it curiously. "I have read of this," he said. He chewed at his lower lip. "This treatment is most commonly undertaken in hospital." Watson nodded.
"Indeed. But the nearest hospital is some distance and he is in no condition to be taken to it. I doubt he would survive the journey. " At this I heard Mrs. Hudson gasp and I reached out to take her hand. Dr. Chapel continued to examine the small bottle, turning it around in his hands as if he expected to find a clear direction in its depths. "From what I've read, serum is not always effective, Dr. Watson. Indeed I believe it can actually be dangerous."
"When it works," Watson replied, "it produces a remarkable recovery. But it does not always work; those who have been working with it do not yet know why. It may have something to do with the type of pneumonia from which the patient suffers. The tests to determine that require a long time and we do not have that time in this case. Some patients have had serious reactions to the serum itself; it is, after all, produced using the blood of an animal, a horse for example. If the patient is in any respect allergic to the antibodies in the serum, the reaction can be fatal. In this case, however, we must ask ourselves where the greater risk is--doing nothing, and trusting that he will pull out of this, or taking a chance that the serum will work its wonders." He paused for a moment. Watson had been addressing his remarks to Chapel but now he turned and looked directly at me. "And of course, we must ask what he would want."
I did not reply just then and the room fell silent. In the quiet, we could hear Holmes' harsh breathing and the steady hiss of the oxygen. He could not be on oxygen continuously, I thought; there was not enough of it, even if Chapel had brought a second tank. I released Mrs. Hudson's hand and walked over to stand at the side of the bed, looked down at Holmes. He was deeply unconscious. I continued to gaze down at him while I found my voice. "He would never back away from a fight," I said. "But Uncle John, if you are addressing your argument to me, you must know I have no status to make this decision for him. I am--I am not a relation. I'm not even of age. Should we not ask Mycroft?"
Watson smiled. "You are not a relation, Mary, but you are more like Holmes than any other human being I have ever known. You know what he would want because you know what you would want. Nonetheless I am well aware of the legal barriers in expecting you to make the decision, not to mention the emotional cost. I would not expect that of you." He reached over and took the vial from Chapel's hand. "But as to contacting Mycroft, how do you think I managed to find a sufficient quantity of this so-far elusive serum? Mycroft urges that we try this. He moved heaven and earth to get it." He turned again to Chapel.
"Well, Chapel? He is your patient." The younger physician shook his head, contemplated Holmes for a few moments, then tucked back his shoulders and met Watson's gaze.
"What is the course of treatment?"
"It needs to be given slowly and in large doses. If you have saline available at your surgery, an intravenous drip would be best. We may begin with an injection; that will tell us if we are to face any difficulties with an allergic reaction. If he takes the injection well, we can follow in due course by the IV. Have you adrenalin with you?"
"In case of an allergic reaction? Yes," Chapel responded. He went on, "And this Mycroft--if I remember from your stories, Dr. Watson, a brother?"
At this I spoke. "Yes, Dr. Chapel, his older brother. He would be the legal next of kin."
Chapel took this in. "And you avow, Dr. Watson, that Mr. Mycroft Holmes has approved this treatment."
"Yes. Indeed his--connections--make it possible. He would have come himself but the affairs--" Watson broke off, realizing that Mycroft's unique role in the government was hardly something to discuss openly even in a sickroom in Sussex. "His obligations made it impossible for him to come with me," he continued, "but he intends to follow shortly on..." Mycroft journeying down to Sussex, I thought; please G-d let Holmes be here to see and appreciate it.
Chapel finally nodded. "All right, then, let us make an effort. Dr. Watson, if you will prepare and give the injection, I will stay here until we see the initial result. If all goes well, I will go straight to my surgery and bring back the necessary items to set up an IV drip." He turned to me and Mrs. Hudson. "Ladies, I will leave it to Dr. Watson and yourselves to monitor Mr. Holmes until I return; give him about twenty minutes on the oxygen and then remove the mask and see how he does."
Mrs. Hudson moved over and sank down in the chair beside the bed; her hand reached out to rest on Holmes' shoulder. How long had she been looking after him, I thought, nearly forty years, surely? We both watched as Watson removed a syringe from his case, injected it into one of the small vials, and withdrew a small amount of the serum. Chapel rolled up the pajama sleeve on Holmes' right arm, tapped the inside of the elbow to raise a vein and quickly cleansed the area with alcohol; Watson, as if they'd done this together a hundred times, leant down and smoothly, without hesitation, slid the long needle into the vein, drew a little blood into the needle, and then depressed the plunger. Holmes did not react; clearly now he was beyond feeling a minor hurt. We waited. I noticed that Chapel, while Watson was still injecting the serum, had filled another syringe and was standing by, holding it at the ready. The adrenalin, I realized. They were prepared for Holmes' heart to stop, or for his windpipe to close, or for something of a sudden and catastrophic nature.
Nothing happened. Holmes remained still, his head turned away from us, his breathing still harsh but slightly less labored than before. When fifteen minutes had passed, Chapel laid the syringe down on the bedside table, drew a deep breath, and said "Dr. Watson, if you will show the ladies how to manage the oxygen, I'll be off to Eastbourne and my surgery; I'll bring back what we need, and we will see if this antipneumococcic serum does the trick for him. Miss Russell, I'd appreciate a further word with you--will you be good enough to see me out?" Watson and Mrs. Hudson regarded Chapel curiously but did not inquire what he wanted of me; Watson simply nodded and said, "We'll keep an eye on him until you return, Chapel." As Chapel and I stepped out of the room, I saw Mrs. Hudson take the washcloth from the basin by Holmes' bed, wring it out, and gently bathe Holmes' face; Watson was again holding Holmes' wrist, tracing his pulse. It was little enough, but at least they were doing something. I went silently down the stairs with Dr. Chapel, feeling young and helpless, as I had when I had stood beside Holmes' cot at the kivutz in Palestine.
Chapel said nothing as I retrieved his coat from the hall tree, helped him into it, and walked with him out into the late afternoon sunshine. The weather had cooled a bit but the foliage and grass around us seemed to be getting greener by the day, and there was a smell in the air that comes only with spring. It was good to be out of the house, which, deprived of Holmes' relentless energy, had somehow been entirely taken over by the dreary and tense atmosphere in his sickroom. The doctor and I walked slowly in the direction of his motor, and then, with his hand on the machine's door, Chapel turned to me and spoke, cautiously, as if he was considering each word and uttering it only after much thought. "Miss Russell," he said, "I know that you and Mr. Holmes are close. It is said in the county that you have become as a daughter to him." Since our weeks in Palestine and the bloody conclusion of the Patricia Donleavy business, I had been contemplating the nature of my relationship with Holmes more frequently and I suspected that he, at least, did not see himself in any sort of a parental role where I was concerned. This, however, was not the time to try to dissect our complex and unlikely friendship for the doctor. I decided to take the simplest road out.
"Yes, he has been a wonderful friend and mentor to me. You may know, Dr. Chapel, that I was orphaned at the age of 13 and--" Chapel interrupted me.
"And it is said in the county that your legal guardian, an aunt, is--not congenial." At this I raised an eyebrow.
"You are remarkably well informed by the county, Dr. Chapel." The doctor had the grace to look embarrassed.
"Country doctors are in and out of people's houses every day, Miss Russell, one cannot help but gather some intelligence." I smiled to indicate that I had taken no offense and Chapel continued, more hurriedly now as if he wished to be sure that he did not lose the thread of his message. "Miss Russell, whatever the history it is evident that with Mr. Holmes you are in a position of great trust and friendship. I agreed to this experiment because I have great respect for Dr. Watson and I am a great admirer of Sherlock Holmes. The nation owes him much and his is not a life to be lost without a fight. But I do not want to leave here today without you realizing and accepting how very ill he is. He is close to death, Miss Russell. If this treatment does not work, I doubt he has more than 24 hours."
I was not a woman given to fainting but for just an instant, the greenness around me faded in and out, as if a light bulb had been dimmed, recovered and then dimmed again. When the light reasserted itself strongly, I put a careful hand on the automobile to steady myself and cleared my throat before answering him. I was fairly sure that Chapel had not noticed my momentary weakness and was determined that my voice not tremble. "Dr. Watson feels--"Chapel interrupted me, gently but inexorably.
"Dr. Watson is his oldest friend. He is emotionally involved. Mrs. Hudson is--well, I suppose she is almost a mother to Mr. Holmes, or at least has motherly feelings. You are the person, Miss Russell, who Dr. Watson himself said was most like Holmes. You are the one who Mr. Holmes himself would most want to face this and to deal with whatever is to come. I pray to God that he does not die but if he does, you are the one who will have to deal with it and be strong for the others. I simply could not drive away from here leaving you to believe anything else. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
I straightened my shoulders and drew myself up to my full height. "You're saying, doctor, that we can put our hope in this serum but that in your view, he will surely die if it does not work. I would presume that you are also saying that he may die before it can work."
Chapel looked pained, as if this blunt reiteration of his message was harsher than he would have wished. "Again, I sincerely hope not, but yes, that is what I'm saying. Hope is a wonderful thing, Miss Russell, but I would not want hope to prevent you from facing reality." He looked at me closely for a moment, waiting for a reply, and when it did not immediately come, opened the door of his auto and climbed in. As he was leaning forward to engage the starter I tapped on the window and he lowered it. A wave of anger swept over me.
"Dr. Chapel," I told him, "if you believe, as Dr. Watson does, that I am like Holmes, then you must also accept that I am not one to ignore the facts of a situation. I too am praying that this serum will work, but I am not blind to what is happening here, and in truth I cannot believe that Dr. Watson or Mrs. Hudson are, either, no matter how emotionally engaged they are. And I must also remind you of one other thing."
"Yes, Miss Russell?" The motor was running and Chapel's hand tapped on the gear shift. Having discharged his duty to prepare me the worst, he was now clearly anxious to be off in pursuit of the treatment that might avert it.
"Watson and Mrs. Hudson have already lived through Holmes' death once, and survived it, long before I was born. You must remember that they did not know that he had walked away from Reichenbach Falls. Not for three years. They will not need me to show them how to deal with saying goodbye to him."
Holmes was walking on a trail that led through one of the high Alpine meadows, the stark majesty of the Alps all around him, and at his feet a wide expanse of waving grass, dotted here and there with small scarlet blossoms. The sun was shining down from a cloudless azure sky, and it was splendidly warm for such an elevation; one could almost have foregone a jacket. How clear and pleasant the air was; it was a pleasure to draw in, as sweet and cool as spring water. Clearly it was high summer and he was conscious of an oddness about that, a gap where there should have been spring and the early days of the season, but he noted this without being concerned about it. Nor did it bother him that he was alone, or that he could not precisely recall the journey here. It seemed to him that Watson had been with him when he started on this hike, but that he had turned back, yet that did not feel strange. Had it not happened here once before? This time he had no guide with him, not even an unreliable young boy, but it did not matter; Holmes was confident in his direction. He was heading for the trail that led to the Reichenbach Falls, and he was eager to get there. In another mile or so, the meadow would blend into the darkness of the pines, and the path would begin to rise, growing steeper and steeper until it came to the pool at the bottom of the falls, started up the side, and followed a torturous and twisting route to the top, where one could look down into that fearsome and seductive chasm.
The last time he had made this journey, it had been with a sense of foreboding. Looking back at it now, he could admit that he had been afraid; he could never have allowed Watson to know it at the time, of course. He had been reasonably sure that Moriarty was waiting for him at the falls, and Holmes was young then, barely thirty, and no more anxious to die in his prime than any other man. But he'd had a duty, and he had been sincere in saying to Watson--and to Moriarty--that he would consider his life a small price to pay if he lost it ridding the world of "the Napoleon of Crime." So he had gone on to the falls alone, and fought his terrible battle with Moriarty, and lived to walk away. Lived to travel, to make love to Irene Adler, to father a son, to lose them both, to rid the world of more criminals. To retire, to keep bees... to meet Russell... at that thought a cloud seemed to sweep briefly across the sunlit meadow and he shivered a little. It was not as warm as he'd thought.
The sun made a swift return, however, and he continued on his upward journey toward the falls, grateful for the fact that there was nothing to fear this time. Indeed, he found himself anxious to get there. Although this had not been a strenuous walk so far as he could remember, he was strangely tired, and the warmth that he had been appreciating earlier was proving a bit oppressive. Perhaps he had dressed too heavily for this degree of exertion. He knew, however, that when he reached the pine forest that it would be cool, and cooler still as he got closer to the falls. He could rest there. The pine needles would scent the air and the roar of the falls would drown out the jarring sounds and sensations from the real world, the world that too frequently tore at his heart and made him use his powerful mind as both sword and shield against it. Watson's image of the falls had been oppressive, frightening, but it was not like that to him now. The pool at the bottom was dark and cold and quiet. There was no pain there; there was nothingness there, oblivion, sleep. It was not frightening at all; it was peaceful. It a way it had had its attractions even thirty years ago, when he was tired of London, tired of mucking about in an endless maelstrom of the worst human impulses and actions. He drew a deep breath, straightened his shoulders, and tried to pick up his pace--the dark row of trees that marked the end of the meadow was in sight now. He wanted to leave this brightness, this heat; he wanted to sleep, to be quiet and peaceful in the dark.
I watched Chapel's motor vanish out of sight over the hill and then turned and went into the house. I could not face going upstairs immediately and instead walked through the kitchen into the scullery, where I splashed some water on my face and battled the impulse to have a good, tension-releasing cry. I could not decide whether I was angry at the doctor for his insistence on the likely outcome of Holmes' situation, or for his condescension to Uncle John and Mrs. Hudson. By the time I'd dried my face, re-tidied my hair into a loose knot, and found and consumed a somewhat battered apple from the ice chest, I'd chosen to let the anger go. Chapel's intentions had been good and he had no way of understanding the network of strength, weakness and dependency that entwined and supported my three remarkable friends--that had existed before I was born.
Dr. Chapel had been gone about twenty minutes by the time I collected myself and got back upstairs. Mrs. Hudson was making an attempt to tidy up in the room, which like most long-occupied sickrooms had become a welter of dirty glasses, medicine bottles, tubes of salve, and discarded reading material abandoned after someone's watch. Uncle John had replaced Holmes' oxygen mask and was fiddling with it, making sure that it fit closely without being too tight. He glanced up as I entered. "What did Chapel want, Mary?"
"Nothing important, Uncle John, I think he just wanted to make sure that I understood--well, that the serum might not work."
Watson snorted. "A nice young fellow and no doubt a good doctor, but no judge of women, I'd say. Does he think you are blind?"
I smiled back at him. "No, just likely to be too hopeful. I believe he thinks the same of you."
Watson glanced down at his patient, who looked not much better but who was clearly benefiting from the pure oxygen that was reaching his lungs. "Perhaps that's because I've seen him come back from the dead once before, Mary." I forbore telling him that I'd made much the same point to Chapel myself.
I approached the bed and took Holmes' hand in mine. I saw Mrs. Hudson make note of it; she looked pleased, as if she'd wanted me to do it, or wanted him to have the contact. I stood there, holding his hand, and then said, "Look, you two, you both look done in. The three of us needn't all be here like this. I'm younger than you and I've had the most recent break and you, Uncle John, are going to be needed when Chapel gets back to set up the IV. Why don't you both go down and have a cup of tea and let me watch him for awhile? If I need you, I'll call."
In truth I had suddenly been overcome with an almost violent need to be alone with Holmes, to talk to him. It was perfectly obvious that he was far, far away from being able to hear me, but the need was real and painful. Perhaps Chapel's pessimism had had some effect. I would not have said that I was blind to Holmes' situation, but I had a new sense of urgency and a feeling that I had to reach him, wherever he'd gone. There were things that I had not said to him, things that until this moment I had not known that I wanted to say. My two old friends must have sensed it because Mrs. Hudson rose, handed me the cloth with which she'd been cooling Holmes' forehead and addressed Uncle John. "Come along, Doctor, we'll make some tea and I'll bring a cup up for Mary, as well. The two of us could stand a little sit-down, in any case." Watson smiled and offered her a small bow.
"One can hardly refuse such a generous invitation from a lady. Mary, call if you need us--I'll be back up when Dr. Chapel returns." With that, the two of them left the room, Watson glancing back briefly as he pulled the door shut.
I released Holmes' hand long enough to move the chair closer to his bed, so that I could rest my arms on the mattress. I took up his hand again; it was limp in mine, unresisting. I held it for a long time, gently rotating my thumb across the delicate bones of that strong, accomplished hand, hoping that he would sense my touch. For a few minutes I simply sat and watched him, my mentor, my teacher, my dearest friend. Despite the disparity in our ages it was almost inconceivable to think of losing him. Dr. Chapel's warning had made that a reality despite my fervent conviction that it could not be so, and I was finding the prospect both terrifying and enlightening. Terrifying that Holmes could be gone, so suddenly, not slain in the midst of a dangerous case but by a faceless, impersonal bug; enlightening in what that possibility was doing to my heart, my stomach, my soul. The fact was that Holmes' unconsciousness--the effective absence from this room, from this house, of that unique, powerful mind and personality--was offering me a bitter foreshadowing of what would be gone from my life if he died. That towering brain, so relentless, so quick, often testing mine, such a joy to engage... his strength... the warmth and kindness, always there, not flaunted but like a foundation under everything I did, everything I tried. His patience as a teacher. His impatience when he knew I was not performing up to my capabilities or his expectations, which for me were extraordinarily high. His gray moods... his gray eyes... his unique smell and feel, tobacco, tweed, sandalwood soap, that hard, wiry frame that felt so like a fortress on the rare occasions when he'd embraced me. The way he liked to touch my hair... I realized suddenly that he did like to touch it, that it gave him comfort and pleasure in some way that he could not articulate. He loves me, I thought, dumb struck by the revelation, and then, almost as quickly, I love him. I didn't know what that meant, what sort of love I had acknowledged, but love it was... and could it be ending here, like this? It was unthinkable.
I thought of how he'd chosen me as his apprentice, defying not only the conventions of the day but his own ingrained distrust of women, how he'd defended my intellect and my capabilities to the police, and to Mahmoud and Ali, to Lestrade... how he'd taken me with him on cases where my presence threatened to embarrass him, or taint his reputation, and how he'd faced the critics down... how proud he'd been of my abilities, and even of my stubbornness, so like his... of how he had delayed our rush to Jerusalem so that I could swim in the Dead Sea... of the way he had looked when he first realized that, if we were to defeat our enemy, we had to manufacture an estrangement. I remembered the camp at Ar Megiddo, his arms around me, his steady heartbeat against my cheek... and how he had come to my aunt's to apologize to me, a naïve young girl, after I had said something simplistic and horrendous, seeming to justify murder, and he, appalled, had snapped back at me, and hurt me. Sherlock Holmes apologizing to a adolescent girl, and scaling a wall to do it!.. and he'd allowed me to order him about, urging him to eat lunch or rest or otherwise alter his behavior... a girl less than half his age... Of course that was love, Mary Russell, I said to myself, all those things were love--you have been a child until now, a child, or you would have known it. I can't lose him now, my heart said, not like this, not to this foul disease...not when there is all this love to be sorted out...not when I don't even know the depth of what will be lost. He's too great a man to be lost like this...he's too good a man. My intellect replied that of all people, I should know that good people died, died in cruel ways, and seemingly at random. Not this time, I swore silently. Not this time.
I wove my fingers into his and brought his hand to my cheek. Earlier I had worried about how he would receive an intimate gesture, but there was no worry about that now. He was far away, on a journey without me. I held his hand against my cheek as I spoke. I felt my eyes begin to brim with tears and this time I let them flow, removing my spectacles which at this point were useless. There was no one here who could see me and label me a frail and distraught female. But I was distraught, I realized, the thought of him dying was making me distraught. The tears rolled down and dampened his hand as I held it against my cheek. "Holmes," I said, "it's Russell. I don't know if you can hear me now, or if you even want to, but you need to know I'm here. All of us are here, the ones who love you--Mrs. Hudson, and Watson, Watson is here--and Mycroft, Mycroft is coming, do you know that? Fancy, he never stirs from London for any reason but he's coming for you. And we've all been taking care of you--you probably haven't known that, or known who was doing what, but we've all been here. Just now, though, I need you to know that this is me--see, I'm holding your hand, and I'm resting it against my cheek--that's so you can remember what it is to be alive, Holmes, to touch another human being. You see, I suspect that you're thinking about dying, and you mustn't, you really mustn't. I know that it's logical in a way--you're very ill, and you've been fighting this for a long time--and it's so hard for you to breathe, I know it is--you must be terribly tired. You want to rest, don't you, just rest... and wherever you are now, it's very quiet and peaceful..."
Holmes moved his head slightly on the pillow, as if he was uncomfortable, and I paused to re-adjust the oxygen mask, trying to see what I was doing through a haze of tears. When he was still again I recaptured his hand and continued. "Here's the thing, Holmes," I told him, "your life isn't just yours to lose anymore. All your life you've been so alone, so singular. You wanted it that way, didn't you, you put up all kinds of barriers to keep it so... you've always been able to live your life as you wanted, to gamble with it if you wanted... you could take on the Moriarty's of this world, go up to Reichenbach falls knowing what was waiting there--and you could take that risk without consulting anyone, without thinking of how losing you would hurt someone, because it was only your own life you were playing with, that's the way you saw it... you let Watson go back down the mountain that day, away from the danger, let him walk away without knowing he might never see you again... you made that choice for him, though, didn't you? ...you didn't want to ask him what he wanted because you couldn't deal with what he'd say... you care about Watson, and Mycroft, and Mrs. Hudson, I know you do, you care enough to risk your own life to protect them... but not quite enough to live for them, not if it meant taking those barriers down... that's why you could walk away from Reichenbach falls and let Watson and Mrs. H think you were dead for three years... you would have done the same to Mycroft if you hadn't needed his help, wouldn't you? ...you said that you needed that kind of isolation, that coldness, for your work, for your brain to be clear... but it's something else, isn't it, you've been afraid of that kind of feeling... of having... what do they call it?--hostages to fate? Maybe if your son had lived, or if you'd known about him sooner... but you were afraid of that, too, weren't you?... You're afraid of love, afraid to acknowledge it, afraid to accept it... Well it's too late, now, Holmes, it's too late--you've gotten me to love you, without even trying, without even wanting it--I don't know how I love you, surely it can't be romantic love, that would probably appall you, but it's love nonetheless--and what's worse, you love me, you do, you know, whether you can admit or not... I'm your hostage to fate, Holmes, I'm the person that now, you have to live for... because if you die, you'll break my heart, Holmes, you'll break my heart... it's not just your life now. You have to accept that... even if living doesn't seem very congenial to you right now, even if you're more tired than you've ever been... and I'm the worse sort of hostage, you can't push me away because I'd be a burden to you... because I'm not calling you back to ask you to be careful, or to change the way you live, or to take care of me... I want to live that life with you, Holmes, I want to help you right wrongs and put evil people away... or keep bees if it comes to that... I want you to come back to me as Sherlock Holmes, not as some watered-down, tentative version of him... I don't want to be your partner so we can be safe, Holmes, but so that we can be ourselves... so I can be the Russell that you've helped make, and you can be the Holmes who loves her... and is the same man he ever was...
"You and I have a story, Holmes, and our story isn't over yet. Oh, I know, you get furious with that man Doyle because between his publicity and his taking advantage of Watson he's managed to make half the world think that you're just a story, but that world, Baker Street, the fog, the hansom cabs... those stories belong to you and Watson. That world is yours, it will be always be yours, I have no place in it. I'm talking about our story... you know there is one. I don't know what sort of story it's supposed to be, or how many chapters it has, or even if it has a happy ending. But the one thing I do know is that you and I have our own story, and it's only beginning. If you leave now our story will never get told.
"You know I'm not saying that if you die, if you leave now, that I'll die, too. People don't usually die from broken hearts, you'd be the first one to say that. You wouldn't, you'd go on... you did go on, after your son died... You hate that kind of emotional blackmail and you are the senior partner here, you will do what must be done. You may not even be the one making the decision. If you die, broken heart or not, I'll go on, I'll have a good life--I'll even make you proud of me. I shall be the first female, Jewish, theologically trained consulting detective and scholar, and I'll do a good job at it. It may be difficult to get cases without your name on the letterhead, but I'll find them. I'll be happy again, too, although I'm not going to lie to you and tell you it will happen overnight. I'll have my own story. But here's the thing, Holmes, it won't be the story that was supposed to be, not without you. You must know that. So wherever you are now, Holmes, don't stay there. Watson has gone to a great deal of trouble to find this serum for you and you have to give us time to let it work, Holmes--you have to try. I think that Dr. Chapel believes that you are going to die, but--all right, I admit it, I refuse to believe it. I will not believe it, I will not accept it. You can come back to us, Holmes. You have to come back to us. All right, I'll say it, I love you, Holmes, I love you in whatever way you'll permit to love you... but you have to come back to me. You have to let yourself know that you love me, and come back. Come back."
Holmes' hand moved slightly in mine. It was impossible to know whether it was a response to something he had understood, or simply an unconscious reaction to an event taking place in a dream. I took some comfort from it, though, and I squeezed his hand gently in response and then let his arm drop softly back to his side. A sudden wave of exhaustion came over me and I lowered my head to the bed for a moment, letting my cheek rest against his arm. As I did, my hair--clumsily pulled into a knot when I was washing my face in the scullery--came loose and spilled over the bed, over his hand. Annoyed, I started to pull it back and then stopped. He likes your hair, I thought; remember how gently he touched it, that time when you were crying so? Leave it alone, my heart said; perhaps he'll sense that it's you. So I remained there for a few moments, his skin hot against my cheek even through the sleeve of his pajamas, my hair lying lightly over his motionless hand. Then he began to cough again and I straightened up, brushed my hair back and ran a hand over my eyes to wipe away the last of my tears. Enough. I couldn't afford to fall apart like this again, not if I was going to help him, ease him through whatever journey he was determined to make. I patted his hand one more time and then removed his oxygen mask and went over to turn off the flow from the cylinder. I rested my hand briefly on his forehead. As I'd known already, he was still burning up.
I had replaced a damp cloth on his forehead and was trying to get him more comfortably situated on the pillows when the door opened slowly and Mrs. Hudson inched into the room, balancing a tray with a cup of tea and a few biscuits. She placed the tray on a low table near the windows and turned to me. From a glance at my face, it must have been all too clear to her that I had been weeping, but she was an intelligent woman and remembered the fierce pride and self-consciousness of the young and independent. "Well, Mary, " she asked, "did you tell him what he needed to know?" I looked at her in astonishment.
"How did you--? Mrs. Hudson, you are developing some of Holmes' tricks!" Mrs. Hudson smiled and shook her head.
"Hardly, Mary. I've wanted to say a thing or two to him, myself, this last day or so, and I did a little talking to him last evening when you'd gone out for a breath of air. We must hope that he's heard us. Now here, sit down and have your tea while it's hot." I adjusted Holmes' blankets one more time, patted his chest gently, and went to sit by Mrs. Hudson. We sat there for some time, watching him, listening to his ragged breathing, each of us wondering if he knew were there--and if he'd heard what we'd needed to say.
I had finished my tea and accounted for several of Holmes' favorite ginger biscuits when we heard the slam of automobile doors and Dr. Watson's voice, heralding Chapel's return. In due course the bedroom door opened to reveal the two men, carrying between them a box of medical supplies, and a tall pole which clearly would serve to hold the solution to be administered. Having discharged his duty to make me face reality, Chapel seemed to have relaxed and returned to fighting mode, as determined as Watson to pull Holmes back from the brink. We watched as the two medical men set up the IV drip to Holmes' left side, hanging the bottle of saline and serum and attaching it to a long sterile tube with a clamp that I assumed was there to regulate the flow. Watson prepared a hypodermic and, turning Holmes' left arm outward, slid the needle into the flesh, pausing briefly to draw a little blood to show that he was in the vein. Once the needle was properly in place, he taped the syringe securely to Holmes' arm and gestured to Chapel to affix the tube's connector. It seemed unlikely to me that Holmes was going to move much--he had been very quiet for some hours--but taking no chances, Watson secured the sick man's left arm to a splint that would keep it straight and still. He checked to make sure all was correct, and then straightened up to open the clamp and initiate the steady drip of serum into Holmes' bloodstream. "This should take about an hour and a half," he said. "After that we'll see if there is improvement, or if he requires more."
I watched the clear liquid make its way into the tube and thought about it blending into Holmes' blood, making its way to his heart and from there, throughout his system. Would the serum kill the bacteria that was killing him, or would it be overwhelmed by a stronger and more effective enemy? Would it make him sicker? We would not know for some hours yet.
It was after 7 p.m. by now and Mrs. Hudson had retreated to the kitchen, where she began to pull materials together for a light supper. Chapel had taken his leave to return to his family, and Watson established himself in the chair at Holmes side, taking up a pile of newspapers and other neglected reading. "It won't be the first time I've done this for him, Mary," he said, and feeling momentarily superfluous I went downstairs to offer some help to Mrs. Hudson. While I had no talent as a cook, under her patient guidance I had become a serviceable assistant and thus I occupied myself, chopping carrots and potatoes and other vegetables for the stew she was creating. The two of us bustled in the kitchen, chatting idly and doing our best not to think about the sick man upstairs, with that potentially lifesaving elixir dripping into his veins.
When the stew was finished, Mrs. Hudson warmed up some bread and laid out a table for the two of us in the kitchen. "I'll take a tray up to Dr. Watson," she said, "he won't be wanting to leave Mr. Holmes."
"I'll do it, Mrs. H.," I volunteered, and shortly was maneuvering the laden tray up the stairs, silently commending Mrs. Hudson for having managed this several times a day for all those years in Baker Street--and for a man who was as likely to forget eating as not. I backed my way into the room with the tray and Dr. Watson, not a man to lose his appetite easily, looked up from his newspaper gratefully.
"Ah, thank you Mary," he said, "that smells wonderful." He rose and pulled a low table over to his chair, and I set the tray down on it. "Don't thank me, Uncle John, I only chopped and stirred. Mrs. Hudson is the magician in the kitchen." I glanced over at Holmes, who remained very still. Was it my imagination, or did his breathing sound a little less difficult? The bottle hanging from the IV pole was about three-quarters empty. "How is he?," I asked.
"He's still very sick, but I would say he's resting a bit more comfortably. The oxygen has given him some help, as did Chapel's digitalis. Too soon to tell about the serum." Watson tried a spoonful of the stew and nodded appreciatively. "Mrs. Hudson remains a wonderful cook. Anyway, Mary, I've decided to hang a second bottle of the serum when this one is finished. Everything I've read thus far seems to indicate that massive doses are sometimes needed and that they're better given early than late in the course of the illness. Indeed we're somewhat behind times as it is. He's not showing any negative effects, so I intend to bombard his system with the serum and trust that it will work as we hope."
My hand fell on Watson's shoulder. "I think he'd approve of that, Uncle John, you know how he never does anything halfway."
Watson pressed a napkin to his mouth and chuckled. "Indeed, Mary, and a good many gray hairs he's given me over the years as a result. But look here, I suspect your dinner is waiting--go down and dine with Mrs. Hudson. And I think the two of you should go to bed at your regular hours tonight, I'll sit up with him. Doctors are accustomed to night watches and I'm the one who needs to be here should--well, should he take a turn for the worse."
I eyed Watson dubiously. "All right, Uncle John, I admit I could use an early night. But only if you promise to call me if there's any significant change, good or bad."
My Uncle John took my hand and patted it as only he could. "I promise, Mary. If Holmes comes out of this, he'll want to see you. And if he doesn't, well, he'd want you near..." He paused, cleared his throat, and concluded, "Now hurry on downstairs, I should be finishing this fine stew while it's hot."
I obeyed him. Mrs. Hudson and I lingered over our meal, she telling me some stories from Baker Street that I'd never heard, including of the days when Holmes was barely a few years older than I was now. "Never let him fool you, Mary," she laughed, "He was a handful and no mistake, blowing things up with his experiments, going through the house like a tornado, letting all sorts of riffraff into the house--and heavens! he was just down from Oxford and not by any means as sure of himself as Dr. Watson's stories would have you think, he put a foot wrong once or twice, he certainly did, although you'd not think it to know him now." She lowered her voice. "And he might not have had time for the ladies in those days but there were a good many who would have made time for him, let me tell you. Many's the time that I escorted a young lady client downstairs and she with a dreamy look in her eye..." Eventually we realized we'd sat on the hard kitchen chairs long enough and got up to wash dishes and put away the remnants of our meal. It was getting on to 11 o'clock and Mrs. Hudson announced that she was worn out and ready for her bed. I hunted through Holmes' library for a book sufficiently interesting to keep me engaged for awhile without encouraging insomnia, and retreated upstairs, carrying my prize, a first edition of The Hound of the Baskervilles. After all, I knew how it came out. On the way to my room, I stopped by Holmes' room, cracking the door slightly to peek in without revealing my presence. Holmes was still unconscious, breathing raggedly but regularly enough without the oxygen mask. Watson had hung another bottle of medication and was dozing in the bedside chair, his newspaper clinging precariously to his lap. Deciding that they were well enough in one another's care, I shut the door quietly and made my way to the guestroom.
As he had predicted, the temperature dropped pleasantly when Holmes entered the forest and the dim light was soothing after the brightness in the meadow. The path to the falls wound ahead, moving ever upward but curving often enough to make the climb achievable even for a hiker who was in less than peak condition. Holmes found himself unwilling to walk at his usual brisk clip; the tiredness he had noted earlier persisted and he found himself more short of breath than he had been, the last time he had taken this path. No wonder, he thought, I'm nearly thirty years older than I was then. And the air was thin at this altitude. Well, it was not as if he had to hurry; the falls would wait.
At first he could not hear the roar of the water but as he moved forward, it began to make itself heard, a faint background murmur at first and then a steady roar, growing in volume as he proceeded up the path. The sound drew him, made him want to submerge himself in its relentless coolness. He was weary, though, and he wondered if he would have the strength to get where he wanted to go, where he could simply lose himself in the power and darkness of the water. Curiously, his very tiredness seemed to be the impetus that was pulling him forward, making him put one foot in front of the other. By now, this far into the walk, Holmes knew that he was moving toward death, that the rest he sought was the one that was unending. It should have upset or frightened him, but he felt nothing but a weary anticipation. Faces moved across his mind, Mycroft's, Watson's, Mrs. Hudson, ...Russell. They would be terribly upset, he supposed, by his death--and he was breaking his promise to Russell, dissolving their partnership before it had hardly begun... she would be sad... he had wanted to do all he could for her, give her more than he had ever given another human being... but he could not seem to hold on to the train of thought through the ever-growing cacophony of the falls, which was wiping out memory along with fear and calling to him to continue his journey upward. Holmes had never believed in an afterlife but he had a sudden and poignant vision of his mother's face, young and lovely as it had been when she died, and he wondered if he might see her, once he had given himself to the falls. Certainly he had no expectation or wish to see his father, who was undoubtedly in hell if there was one. He thought suddenly of Irene, had a vision of her dark auburn hair spilling over his chest... his son had had hair just that color. My life is passing before my eyes, he realized, in some wonder.
He was nearly there now; the top of the falls and the long, silent fall to the pool beneath was just around the next bend, perhaps thirty feet in front of him. He was straining for air now and his limbs were unbelievably heavy, but the journey was almost over, his long awaited rest was at hand. He wondered if he would be afraid at the last, when the time came to step over the edge, if it would hurt when he hit the dark pool at the bottom, when it closed over his head. It would be cold, very cold he supposed. No, it would not hurt... it would simply be a coolness and then a nothingness. And if the fall was frightening, it would not last long...
As he reached the last bend in the trail before the falls, he caught a flash of color just out of the corner of his eye--something behind him. It was dim on this trail and such colors as there were, the pines and the pine needles and the sparse high altitude foliage, were muted, the greens so dark as to be almost black. This had been a vivid color, a flash of rich, dark green, and completely out of place. He did not want to halt his progress by stopping and turning around, but a lifetime of curiosity could not be undone even this close to its conclusion. He stood still, drew a shallow breath--his chest hurt so--and turned to face whatever or whoever was behind him.
It was Russell. She was standing on a curve of the trail, about 150 feet below him, looking directly at him. Somehow a shaft of light must have made its way through the pines because she glowed extraordinarily bright in the midst of this gloom, all green and gold. Holmes was overcome with a sense of relief and joy; Russell was going to come with him, as she had done so often before. He would not have to complete this walk alone. Abruptly, though, he pushed the joy away, as he had so often pushed away the desire to take her in his arms, to make love to her. Russell could not come with him now; she was young, beautiful, intelligent, at the very threshold of life. The falls could have no attraction for her, even if she were to go there with him. He could not accept her companionship on this walk, even if she were to offer it. He realized, rather late in this journey, that he was lonely.
She was not, however, offering to go with him. As he looked down to her, thinking it curious that she was wearing the frock that she worn to her 18th birthday party, the one that had literally rendered him speechless--it was most unsuited for a hike in the mountains--she stretched out her left arm to him, the hand beckoning in a gesture as old as time. "Come to me, Holmes," it said. He hesitated. He saw her lips move but he could not hear her over the roar of the falls, which continued to call to him. His chest hurt and he ached all over. Russell was calling to him, and he had never failed to respond to her need, but never before had he been so infernally exhausted. To go down there, to retrace his steps along that path, would be to take it all up again, the danger, and the tedium, and the frustrated longing... the memories that were so painful that his only defense against them was constant movement, or cocaine... the struggle to keep control of his feelings, often raw and unruly... such a battle to master them, to deny that they existed... and he had almost reached an end of it all. She was calling him back to her, but to all that as well.
They stood on the mountain path, the roar of the falls all around them, and looked at one another. Russell's hair was coiled up toward the back of her head, in that style that Mrs. Hudson had called a "Psyche knot." What curious terms these females adopted for their fashions and accoutrements... how lovely her hair was. Although he could not see any sunlight, Russell's hair gleamed in the dimness of this place as if it were lit from within. He had always loved her hair, loved to touch it when he could do so without it being inappropriate. As if she could hear his thoughts, Russell raised her right hand to the back of her head, fiddled with something for a moment, and then let her hair come tumbling down, falling in a cascade to her waist. It was another sort of falls, he realized, warm, bright, soft... everything that the Reichenbach falls were not. It came to him that, when he was with Russell, the chaos in his heart and his brain's endless demands for novelty seemed to ease considerably. Of a sudden he wanted desperately to be with her. The apathy that had closed around him began to release its grip, although now he was fully conscious of his weakness and of how hard a return journey down the trail would be. He tried to ignore the thunder of the water behind him, so near, so powerful, now finding it oppressive instead of soothing. He took a step toward Russell, then another. For the first time she smiled, and now she was holding out both arms. Now he could hear her voice, strangely, because she was far away and the falls were much closer, much more powerful. "Come back to us, Holmes," she was saying. "Come back to me."
Holmes began walking steadily down the hill, finding the steepness frightening, afraid of falling in his weakness and somehow being pulled back toward the falls. The oblivion that had been so appealing was now an enemy, a wall that would cut him off from Russell forever. Something stronger than that dark water, stronger than death, was pulling him toward her. He wished that she would move forward to meet him halfway but apparently she could not; he supposed that her shoes were not suitable for climbing. Why had she come here, dressed so? It did not seem like his sensible Russell. He was cutting down the distance between them, though, and she remained standing on the trail, holding her arms out to him, her smile drawing him toward her as the sound of the falls had recently drawn him toward that dark water. Now it was harder and harder to stay on his feet, and he badly wanted to reach Russell, to feel her body against his, to lie down with his head against her breast and rest. He was close, five feet, three... he was very close, close enough to smell her scent--lilac--and to see that her eyes were full of tears. She was wearing the pin that he had given her, the pin that had been his grandmother's. "Come to me, Holmes," she said, and he went into her arms, felt them close around him, warm and loving and alive. He buried his face in her neck and felt her hair against his face, soft as a benediction.
Holmes opened his eyes. The room was dark and for a while he could see nothing, but his conscious mind had still not returned from the walk toward the falls and so this did not disturb him. It had been dark there, too. He could still feel the pressure of Russell's arms around him, the warmth from her body. Both sensations faded and he felt momentarily abandoned. Then that feeling faded, too. He lay motionless, staring into the darkness until his pupils adjusted and recognizable shapes began to emerge from the gloom. A bureau across the room, a chest of drawers, the faint outline of a window. A small table and chair. He could identify these things but they meant nothing to him. He remained still, breathing still a struggle, letting his eyes wander around the room. Suddenly, without any conscious effort, he knew that this was his bedroom, in the house in Sussex. There, in the corner of the room was the "fainting couch" that had belonged to his mother. He drew his brows together in a puzzled frown. Last night, surely, it had been a muddle of books, manuscripts, newspapers and cast-off clothes; Mrs. Hudson was always at him about it. Now it was clean.
For some reason he was accurately aware of his body, of the physicality of it. He felt light, insubstantial, as if the muscle and bone that had carried him throughout his life had drained away, leaving a shadow of itself behind. Slowly and with considerable concentration he raised a hand to his face and drew it away, surprised, when he encountered several days' worth of beard. It tired him to keep his arm raised and he let it drop back to the bed. Why was he so weak? He cast his mind back, groping for his last memory before waking here, but for the moment there was nothing except a faint echo of pain and a rapidly fading dream. He sensed a presence in the room, and tentatively moved his head to the right, expecting the movement to hurt and finding himself surprised at the expectation. There was no pain. His whiskers itched and scraped against the soft linen. Presently he made out a human shape in the chair next to his bed, normally a repository for the day's cast-off clothes. He started at the shape for some time, trying to make sense of it. Why was someone sitting there? Surely it had to be an obscene hour of the morning. His past was full of ghosts and for just an instant he was afraid--Moriarty? Moran? Gruner? Donleavy? No, they were long dead and unlikely to begin haunting him in Sussex, of all places. The shape stirred slightly and muttered and instantly Holmes knew... Watson. It was dear old Watson, sitting as his bedside as he'd done a time or two on Baker Street. But if Watson was here, here in Sussex, and sitting with him at such an ungodly hour, then he must have been ill, very ill. But he could not remember.
Holmes continued to stare at his old friend, willing his brain to begin working in its accustomed fashion. He felt like an infant, overwhelmed and surrounded by large and threatening things he could not understand. He needed to know why Watson was here, why he, Holmes, felt so strange... but he was getting very sleepy. Just as he was beginning to lose focus, mentally and visually, Watson started, jerked awake, and sat abruptly upright. His eyes met Holmes' and the two friends gazed at one another, Holmes' eyes confused and Watson's by turns surprised, then warm, then filled with tears. Holmes, fighting the need to go back to sleep, saw Watson's broad smile and tried to respond with one of his own but could not seem to make his lips form the shape. "Holmes," Watson told him, "you've decided to return to us."
Holmes could not make much sense of this. He was glad to see Watson, though, and wanted him to know, especially Watson seemed so overjoyed to see him... had it been so long? He gathered all of his present strength and breathed out a word. "Watson." He was not sure that he had actually produced any sound, but at least his lips shaped the name. Watson rose and leaned over the bed, still smiling. "Yes, it's me, Old Man, don't worry. You've been very sick but I think you've turned the corner, now." He put his hand on Holmes' forehead. Holmes could not keep his eyes open for another moment; he was overcome with the need to sleep. It seemed ungracious to leave his friend so abruptly. "Sorry, Watson," he managed. "Sleepy." Watson's voice followed him in the pleasant darkness. "Of course you are, go back to sleep." As he drifted off, he could feel the gentle weight of Watson's hand on his head.
Someone had me by the shoulder and was shaking me roughly. "Mary, Mary, wake up--wake up!" At first I was mightily annoyed. I was not to see my tutor until 2 p.m. and there was certainly no need to be up before 9, even with some last minute reading to do. Moreover, I had no roommate--why had someone ventured so rudely into my room? The shaking continued, though, and in another few seconds my brain righted itself and declared that I was in Sussex, not Oxford, and in Holmes' guest room, at that. The correct geography recalled me immediately to the reason I was here and when I woke up sufficiently to realize that the hand on my shoulder was Uncle John's, my stomach knotted in fear.
"Uncle John, is he -?"
Dr. Watson shook his head rapidly, stepped back from the bed, and smiled in a way that caused my stomach to relax. "The fever's broken and he woke up a little while ago, for just a moment or two. I listened to his heart and it's stronger, not laboring so. He's coming out of it. Still got a bit of a mess in his lungs but if this serum is indeed the answer those should be clearing up over the next few days. I'm sorry to wake you at this hour but I thought you'd want to be with him when he wakes up again."
I sat up. "Oh, Uncle John, thank G-d--just let me splash some water on my face and tie back my hair and I'll be right there. Mrs. Hudson...?"
"I'll get her shortly--it's only 4:30 and I thought I'd let her sleep for just awhile longer. He's not likely to be making a good deal of sense immediately, in any case." Watson left the room and I arose, donned Holmes' old robe--which was rapidly becoming mine--and made my way to the lavatory for a quick wash. I ran a comb through my hair, impatiently because as usual it had managed to become a mass of tangles despite having been in a braid, tied it into a queue, and headed straight for Holmes' room.
At some point in the night Watson had removed the IV and several of the pillows that had propped Holmes up, and Holmes had turned gratefully onto his right side, his left arm lying relaxed against his chest. His breathing sounded wet and harsh, but it was regular and his color was better, a little closer to his natural complexion. He appeared asleep, rather than unconscious; it was curious that one could note the difference. The blue tinge had left his lips. I glanced at Watson and grinned. "He is better."
"Yes."
I walked close to the bed and laid my hand on Holmes' forehead. For the first time in days it was cool. "Oh, Holmes," I said, "I'm so glad you decided not to die." Watson looked at me, started to make a comment, and then simply smiled.
"Mary, if you wouldn't mind staying with him for awhile, I'm going to go down and wake Mrs. Hudson and then try to get a few hours of kip myself. I nodded off a bit in the night but at my age, sleeping upright in a chair all night isn't at all the thing, you know."
I laughed, quietly so as not to wake Holmes. "Of course, Uncle John, I'll stay here. I need to be here if he wakes up, anyway." Watson patted my shoulder, gazed at Holmes with a blend of deep affection and professional satisfaction, and left the room.
I sat, my hands folded in my lap, and watched Holmes sleep.
I had been there for about ten minutes when he stirred, moved his dry lips as if trying to speak, and then rolled onto his back. I watched as his eyes opened. He seemed content to lie there, gazing at the ceiling, and I let him take his time. I got up, cautiously, retrieved a glass from the bedside table, and used the old ewer to fill it with cool, clear water. Returning, I stood for a moment by the bed, smiling at him. He turned his head, looked at me. Looked at me for a long time. There was something in his eyes that I could not identify, happiness to see me, certainly, but something else. Gratitude? Acceptance? His eyes were those of a man who'd made a tough decision. He tried to wet his lips and I sat on the bed beside him and made a gesture with the glass. "Are you thirsty?"
A nod. I placed my right hand behind his neck and lifted his head enough for him to drink. He took a few swallows and then closed his eyes, shook his head slightly. "Enough?" I asked.
"Yes. Thank you." His voice was hoarse, unaccustomed to use. He continued to look at me, that strange expression in his eyes. Finally he said, cautiously, "You were there."
Watson had said that he might not be making a great deal of sense at first. I decided to take this curious declaration in that context. "Yes?" I replied. "Where do you mean, Holmes? We've been many places together."
He was too weak to manage exasperation but the slightest tinge of puzzlement darkened his gray eyes. "There. At the falls."
I had no idea what he was talking about but he had been dreaming a great deal; this might have been one of his dreams. Go along with it, I thought, there's no point in upsetting him with an interrogation. "Yes, of course I was there."
At that he smiled. His eyes closed again. The next words came in a drowsy slur. "Such a beautiful frock. Silly to have worn it there, though. Quite impractical. But so beautiful... so glad you came..." His voice trailed away and he was asleep again. I sat beside him for a few minutes, and then rose and replaced the glass on the table, wondering what on earth he could have dreamt. Holmes was generally not one to notice what I wore, even when he was well, and fully awake. A few minutes later, the door opened and Mrs. Hudson tiptoed in, beaming, bringing me a cup of tea. She handed me the saucer and then turned, leaned over the bed, and kissed Holmes on the forehead. I grinned and she turned to me and said, "You must never tell him I did that, Mary, it's not suitable."
"Of course not, Mrs. Hudson," I said, and then we embraced, and cried a little.
A little over two weeks later, Holmes and I were sitting in the shade under the copper beech, the remains of a hearty lunch on the table between us. Over the course of his illness, Holmes had dropped more than half a stone from his thin frame, and Mrs. Hudson had made it her personal mission to put it back. For the last several days she had outdone herself with meals planned to tempt the recovering appetite and a truly astonishing range of baked goods available throughout the day. We were awash in a flood of ginger biscuits and assorted muffins. Unfortunately, Holmes was an erratic eater at best, and his appetite had not entirely recovered; he ate well enough, for him, but I was the one whose waistbands had grown tight under this onslaught of fine English home cooking. I was due to return to Oxford the day after tomorrow and I almost looked forward to the predictable student diet of overcooked vegetables, stewed prunes and not-entirely-identifiable meat.
The day was a warm one for April but with a soothing breeze to cut the heat. It was particularly pleasant in the shade, especially since the prior week had been more typical of early spring on the coast, damp, raw and foggy. Having eaten as much as he could, Holmes had pushed back from the table and worked for some moments over a pipe, but abruptly he laid it aside and stretching out his long legs, rested his head against the back of his chair. He sighed softly, probably thinking I did not hear. I watched him discreetly from the corner of my eye, noting that he looked much more like himself today. We'd set out earlier this morning on our longest ramble over the Downs since Watson had declared him fit to resume normal activity, and I knew Holmes was pleasantly tired. The distance had been about half of one of our typical walks, but still an accomplishment considering how weak he'd been a few days ago. Now, he appeared genuinely relaxed and quite prepared to doze the afternoon away in my company. He's glad to be alive, I thought.
I had returned to my own farm the day after Holmes' first sign of recovery, aware that the word of his improvement would spread across the county and that I had thus lost any viable reason for remaining at his house. Besides, a telegram had arrived that morning to say that Mycroft would be with us shortly, and with his arrival, Holmes would be out of guestrooms were I not to depart. (Mycroft was not of a disposition, or of a shape, to sleep on the daybed in the study). In any case, I had no intention of spending much time at the farm, beyond a few pleasant hours with Patrick, my farm manager. I arrived at my own place in the afternoon, carried my things into the house, exchanged a few terse words with my aunt, and then spent the rest of the dwindling hours until dinner with Patrick, reviewing crop reports and discussing expectations for the spring planting. I managed to share a meal with my aunt without us actually coming to Words--largely because I had little to say--and withdrew to my room as soon as it was decently dark. Early the next morning, before my aunt had arisen, I slipped out of the house, hopped into the Morris, and drove straight back to Holmes' house. I planned to live at Holmes' farm so long as I was in Sussex; where I slept was of little moment.
If not literally confined to bed, Holmes was kept on invalid status that first week by the combined insistence of his two doctors, each of whom--having pulled him back from the brink of death--now took a fierce personal stake in his continued recovery and return to health. The influenza, Chapel declared, had a nasty habit of killing people who returned to their normal routines too soon, under the impression that they were fully recovered. Quite right, Watson agreed, and declared that Holmes would remain in or near his bed for another week or he, John H. Watson, M.D., would not answer for it. The fact that Holmes submitted to this declaration with no more than a token protest underlined for me how sick he'd been.
He'd slept for the greater part of the first 24 hours, waking occasionally for a brief conversation or to eat a few mouthfuls of food at Mrs. Hudson's urging, but seemingly unable to keep his eyes open for any length of time. At first this worried me, but soon Uncle John noticed my concern and advised me not to fret. "His body fought an almighty battle with that disease this week, Mary," he told me. "It's just catching up on its rest." Sure enough, by the following morning, Holmes felt well enough to ask after his long-neglected post and inquire of Watson as to how he'd feel about reverting to the old surgical skill of barbering; a week's growth of whiskers was most annoying and his own right hand, alas, was not yet steady enough to undertake the task. Courageously, Watson agreed, and I sat in the chair by the bed and amused both of them as Uncle John went about the delicate business with Holmes' lethally sharp straight razor. Once clean-shaven, Holmes clearly felt better and looked more like the man I'd stumbled across on the downs five years before, if a bit more gaunt.
He improved steadily over the next few days, aided by a naturally strong constitution and, I had no doubt, by Mrs. Hudson's cooking, which was helping him to regain his strength. Watson examined him daily, paying special attention to his lungs; Holmes was still plagued by a nasty cough, which would be with him for some time, but which was at least helping to expel the build-up of fluid in his chest. Both doctors declared themselves relieved that he had avoided a plural effusion and the resulting withdrawal of fluid by needle that would have been necessary to treat it. He still needed to nap in the late afternoon, but Holmes was alert and again taking an interest in the world around him. He quizzed me about my recent studies, was sufficiently himself to make a few barbed comments about the pointlessness of spending so much time on theology, and then averted an argument by telling me of a recent experiment he'd undertaken which had gone wrong in an especially odiferous fashion. "Mrs. Hudson was ready to take her broom to me," he said, and laughed. "And her cat didn't speak to me for a week." It was good to hear him laugh again. He caught up on his post, dictated a few replies to me when he discovered that writing tired him overmuch, combed through a handful of newspapers and magazines, and plied Watson for news on London crime and some of their mutual acquaintances (at least a third of whom were members of what Lestrade would have declared The Criminal Classes). Mycroft stayed for two days and then retreated happily to London, relieved that he had not made the trip to attend at his brother's deathbed. Before he departed the two of them were closeted in Holmes' room for several hours, discussing matters that could not be shared even with Watson or me.
Holmes was out of bed by the middle of the week, although he needed help to cross the room and sit in his favorite chair, and downstairs a day or so after that. When he appeared for breakfast on Friday morning, Mrs. Hudson confessed to me later, she'd greeted him, inquired as to what he'd like for breakfast, and immediately burst into tears, which was, in her words, "Nearly enough to send him back upstairs, if you know what I mean, Mary." As it happened, he'd patted her awkwardly on the shoulder and then asked for "a boiled egg and toast, if it would not be too much trouble, Mrs. Hudson." She'd retreated to the kitchen and prepared them, along with some bacon, kippers, and baked tomatoes, should his appetite be up to it. Watson, arising late that morning and coming downstairs to find Holmes sitting at the dining table making a tentative assault on a kipper, declared his friend recovered and announced that he'd be taking his leave on the afternoon train. "You've no more need for a doctor, now, Holmes," he said, "and I've stayed far too long for an ordinary houseguest."
Perhaps I should say here that both Holmes and Watson, despite the incredible depth of their friendship, were nevertheless uncomfortable with emotional display. I was afforded a glimpse of this later that day when Uncle John asked me if he might trouble me for a ride to the station. I waited in the hallway for him to take his leave of Holmes, and then concluded, as the two old friends faced one another awkwardly, that this might be an occasion when my presence could be dispensed with. Over his years of association with Holmes, Watson had learned to travel light and had with him only his medical bag and a small valise; I muttered something about helping him to the car, picked the items up and made for the front door. As I opened it, I had a quick glimpse of Watson offering his hand to Holmes with a "Well, goodbye Old Chap;" Holmes responded by grasping the proffered hand between both his own. He leant forward and said something to Watson, very quietly, very intensely, something that I was unable to hear. I closed the door, deposited Watson's bags in the infinitesimal space available in the Morris, and got behind the wheel to wait. When Uncle John came out and got in the car, his eyes were wet. We had driven some distance before he pulled out his handkerchief, wiped his eyes and blew his nose vigorously. When I did not ask him what had moved him, he simply said, "He told me that he owed any future that he has to me, Mary, and that he had never properly thanked me for being so great a friend to him in the past." At that I felt my own tears begin to gather and I had to slow down so as to see the road safely. Fortunately in keeping with Watson's sensible disposition we had left for the station early.
Holmes and I began to resume our regular routine, or at least the routine we'd assumed since I'd been up at Oxford. He was still not up to resuming his experiments, but we discussed some ideas he'd had while resting in bed, and he briefed me on a couple of current cases that were ongoing but which had been set back by his illness. Almost from the day we'd met we'd had the gift of easy silences, and so we did a good deal of sitting in the garden or in his parlor/study, sometimes reading or writing, but just as often lost in our own individual thoughts. Each day, when the weather cooperated, we ventured out on a walk, initially around the orchard or the garden but, as Holmes' endurance returned, farther on the downs or to the cliffs overlooking the sea. Today, our round-trip had covered nearly three miles, not bad for a man who had been close to death barely two weeks ago.
I glanced again at Holmes, who remained with his head back, eyes closed, in one of those dreamy states that had been familiar to Dr. Watson. I wondered what he was thinking about, if anything. I wondered if any of his dreams, the wanderings from his delirium, had lingered. It had become clear as his recovery progressed that he had virtually no memory of the week of his illness. His last clear recollection was of the first day, when he'd fainted and Mrs. Hudson and I had helped get him to bed; the rest of that dreadful week was a complete blank for him. I thought it was just as well given what he'd been through during that period. Still, I found it surprising that he was not more interested in learning more about what had happened to him. His studied lack of curiosity seemed atypical. Oh, he listened attentively to Watson's account of finding and applying the antipneumococcic serum, and thanked Mycroft warmly for his part in procuring it, but asked few questions and smoothly changed the subject to postwar Germany and the likely success of the League of Nations, a subject upon which Mycroft could wax eloquent. Perhaps, I thought, he feels that the details are unimportant, now that he has recovered. Or, I answered myself, perhaps he is afraid to hear how low he was, or of what he may have said during so many hours of delirium. That train of thought took me back to his curious remark about seeing me "at the falls." What could he have meant by that?
I had been staring vacantly at the terrace and at the greenhouse wall that abutted the house, when I had the sense that I was being watched and turned to find Holmes' gray eyes considering me pensively. I smiled at him. "I thought perhaps that you had dozed off, Holmes," I said.
"On the contrary," he replied, "I was just digesting Mrs. Hudson's rather over-the-top lunch and reflecting on the last few days. You are returning to Oxford the day after tomorrow?"
"Yes, I'll have to start out early in the morning if I'm to be there in time to get settled in--the term starts on Monday."
There was a long silence. Then Holmes said, "I shall miss you." I absorbed that comment with some surprise; it was unlike him to offer comments so redolent of his personal feelings. I opened my mouth to tell him that I would miss him, too, but he clearly his throat awkwardly and continued, "I am sorry that so much of your holiday was spent in dancing attendance on a sickbed."
Holmes could sometimes be remarkably obtuse sometimes. "Don't be an ass, Holmes, a fine holiday I would have had if you'd died. With you in that condition I should have come from Oxford in the middle of the term, had it been necessary. And besides, you would have done as much for me." He continued to look at me with that unreadable expression in his eyes, and I saw a muscle twitch in his thin cheek. After a moment he nodded, looked away, and began fiddling with his pipe again. I thought of how I'd once told him that I might take up pipe smoking, "for the sheer eloquence of the thing." I watched his lean, sensitive fingers pace through the mechanics of preparing the pipe to be lit and finally decided to ask him the question that had been bothering me on and off for the last two weeks.
"Holmes," I said, "about when you were sick--may I ask you a question?" He struck a match, lit the pipe, took a few experimental draws on it, all without looking in my direction. He began to cough, fished in his pocket for a handkerchief, and I said, "You know that Watson would tell you that you should not be smoking yet." This drew a glare and a feint to change the subject.
"What did you want to ask me?," he queried, when he could catch his breath. He replaced the pipe in his mouth as if to declare his emancipation from the rule of doctors, Watson included. "Of course you may ask your question, Russell, so long as you accept the fact that I remember very little of this illness."
"Thank you, Holmes," I said, watching the fragrant smoke begin to curl up around his head, "The last day or so of that week, you were in a coma. You were--" I could not bring myself to utter the words. "You were very, very sick. But then Watson and Chapel got the serum into you, and eventually you woke up--" Holmes straightened up irritably, his fingers tapping impatiently on the arm of his chair. He was still avoiding my eyes.
"I've heard all this, Russ, I hardly need to go over it again. What is it you wish to know?"
"When you woke up," I continued, speaking very slowly and deliberately, "you looked at me and said, 'You were there.' And when I asked you what you meant, you said, 'at the falls.' Do you remember?"
Holmes got up suddenly and walked a few feet away, turning so that he faced the sea, his back toward me. He said nothing for several minutes and I sat watching him, sensing that I had upset him in some fashion but afraid that speaking again would only make it worse. At last he said, "Russ, when I was so ill--did you talk to me?"
I found this a curious question from a man to whom I spoke constantly, at least when we were within speaking distance. I wondered if he was attempting to deflect me from the original question. Puzzled, I said "Of course I talked with you, Holmes, although for most of the time you were hardly capable of an extended conversation!"
He turned back to me, abruptly the irritable, querulous Holmes who found it difficult to suffer fools. "I did not ask you if we had a conversation, Russell. I asked you if you talked to me. When I was in the coma. Did you talk to me?"
There was a strange intensity in the question. His eyes had shifted from their usual crystalline color to a dark gray, like the smoke from his pipe. I felt my cheeks growing hot as I contemplated my response. Finally, I nodded. "Yes, Holmes," I said. "I talked to you." Oh G-d, I prayed, please don't let him ask what I said. I was babbling, I hardly know what I said, but I suspect it was embarrassing. I can't tell him everything I said, he'll be horrified... He looked at me for a long time, something like apprehension in his eyes. For the first time since I'd known him I realized that he was struggling with himself, trying to make a decision about what to tell me. Perhaps even deciding whether to answer my question, at all. Finally he laid the pipe aside, ran a hand over his face as if to clear something away, and returned to sit down. He dragged his gaze away from me and focused on the grass at his feet.
"This is difficult for me, Russ. It ventures into places I do not normally go, that I do not normally acknowledge." Holmes paused and drew a deep breath. "In truth, I do not remember much of anything from that week. Watson said it was the fever, that it affected my brain in that fashion. But I do remember that I had a dream. I call it a dream because it was most certainly not real, but it was very--very vivid. I never felt as if I was dreaming, not once. I cannot even tell you when I was dreaming... I thought I was there for hours." He looked up at me, his face drawn. "It was real, Russ. It was real to me. I was back at Reichenbach Falls."
I must have caught my breath in dismay because he shook his head and gestured impatiently. "No, no, it wasn't like that. I wanted to be there. I was hiking up to the falls and I was tired and emotionally drained and I knew that if I could get there, I would be able to rest. At first I was in an open field, and it was very beautiful with the mountains all around me, but I was very hot, uncomfortable... but I kept going and then I was in the woods and it was cool, and I could smell the pines..." His voice trailed off and I thought, He's gone back there, just for a moment. Holmes cleared his throat, reached for the half-empty glass of wine that remained on the table, took a mouthful. His hand shook, ever so slightly. He continued. "The trail went up through the pines to the falls and I could hear the water, getting louder and louder... and the strange thing is, Russ, by this time I knew I was dying, I knew it. But it was all right--I wasn't afraid, I just wanted to get there and have it over with. That roar, that wiping out--it sounded good to me. I wanted it." At this he looked up and met my eyes. "I'm sorry, Russ, it makes me ashamed of myself, you must think me weak... But I wanted it."
This was tearing at my heart. "Holmes," I started to say, "Don't--" He interrupted me again. "No, let me finish this, I need to tell you this. I was almost there. I was at the last curve in the trail, before one comes out at the top of the falls, and I was beginning to become a little fearful, not of the falls but of--of the step over the edge that I knew I'd have to make. But you see by then I couldn't stop, the falls were pulling me toward them, and I knew it would be over soon, I was resolved... and then I saw you." He hesitated. "You were standing on the trail below me. You called to me. At first I couldn't hear you, but I knew it was you because--because you were wearing that frock that you wore at your 18th birthday party, do you remember? Why I should have recalled such a thing I can't imagine--of course it was a trick of the brain, I know that, but still--I thought, 'how foolish, why would Russell wear a party frock for a hike in the woods?' So I stood there, and looked at you--and you stretched out your arms, and called to me. You said, 'Come back to us, Holmes. Come back to me.' And you just stayed there, as if you would not take 'no' for an answer. And suddenly I knew I couldn't go on to the falls, I had to go to you, to come back. And so I did. I turned away from the falls, and I started back down the trail. That's the last thing I remember before I woke up, in my own bed. Is that not extraordinary?"
I stared at him. I'm sure that my mouth was open. I should have been capable of an intelligent response but I was simply too stunned to form one. Holmes' eyes cleared and became gentle. He leaned toward me. "Is that what you said, when you talked to me, Russ, when I was in the coma?--'Come back to me'?".
I swallowed hard, and was taken aback when my voice came out at its normal pitch. "Yes. Yes, almost exactly those words. But you couldn't have heard me--you were completely unconscious." I thought again, I can't tell him the rest of it; I can't. We sat there and gazed at one another, two people who saw themselves as scientists, one perhaps more inclined to believe in miracles than the other. Eventually Holmes smiled. "Who knows what we can hear when we're unconscious, Russell? Obviously I must have heard you. Otherwise we would have to believe that somehow I was on my way to the death I'd missed at Reichenbach Falls, until you, or your spirit rather, came to call me back."
I shook my head. "It doesn't matter, Holmes. The point is that you did come back." A breeze from the sea swept through, stirred the napkins on the table and made the dark red leaves of the copper beech dance. We could smell the distinct, fishy tang of the ocean. Below us, in the hollow, the new leaves on the apple trees gleamed a tender, pale green. Something hung in the air around us, something enormous and sweet and unsaid. Something not to be said today. I turned to Holmes, struck by an idea from what now seemed a long time ago.
"Holmes," I said, "if the weather is fine tomorrow, would you like to take a drive? Perhaps Mrs. Hudson would pack us a picnic lunch, and we could drive for awhile along the coast--you know, just tool along without a care in the world. It would be a fine way to end my hols, and to get you away from here without tiring you out."
Holmes produced one of his rare, boyish grins. His eyes danced. "Having brought me back from the brink, you now propose to frighten me to death?" I drew myself up indignantly and he laughed. "I should be delighted, Russell. I am like a cat beginning on my seventh life and it's high time that I adjust to the motoring style of the modern young woman. I am at your disposal."
"Capital, Holmes; I shall ask Mrs. Hudson to have something in the way of a lunch ready by 9 a.m. tomorrow. And I will do my best not to alarm you, or at least no more than is reasonable and good for your spirits."
Somewhat to my surprise, Holmes reached over, took my hand, and held it between his two. "Russ," he said, "Would you let me drive, at least part of the way?" With my hand in his, I paused for thought. Finally I answered.
"Only on the way back, Holmes, only on the way back." My old friend and teacher raised my hand to his lips and kissed it, a distinguished Victorian gentleman saluting the hand of a young woman of whom he was fond.
"Agreed, Russell. I'll drive us home."
Eventually, I came to hear the full story of Holmes' walk to Reichenbach Falls, but not until some years after we had married, and after I had told him my own part of the story. It was a few weeks after our return from our first trip to California, and appropriately enough, the conversation took place in the big bed in our room in the Sussex house, the same room in which I'd nearly lost him. In the year that preceded, death had been a frequent visitor to our lives, and perhaps for that reason, neither one of us could sleep that night. It was late and somehow we fell to talking of death, of whether it had any meaning, of how it should be faced. We even touched on the one subject that I usually refused to let him address, the substantial difference in our ages and the likelihood that I would be left to walk some years in the world without him. Somehow, without even knowing how it happened, I found myself relating what I'd said to him four years before, how I'd asked him to stay, to finish our story--but also that I had promised him, if he had to go, that I would live, be happy, have my own story. Holmes listened without speaking, his breath warm against my temple, and when I had finished he started to speak. He spoke of coming down the trail to me, how tired he'd been, how reluctant to go back into the pain and confusion of life, and of how I'd opened my arms to him and taken him in. "You put your arms around me," he murmured, "and you held me so tightly, and you didn't let go. I was glad, very glad, that I had made the decision to come back... when I first woke up, I swear I could still feel the pressure of your arms around me, in that dark room. Bit by bit it faded and I knew it was a dream but... it was then that I knew how much I loved you, what you meant to me. And I knew, too, that you loved me. You were the thing that anchored me to this world. I just couldn't tell you, not then, you weren't ready yet...not for this kind of love." I started to cry. It was not like me and I wondered if Holmes would be appalled but I could not seem to stop. I cried until my tears soaked through the shoulder of his pajama top and he turned, drew me into his arms, and held me as tightly as I'd held him in that dream embrace. After awhile my tears ceased and his mouth found mine, and we made love, tenderly and fiercely, as if death would never have anything to say to either one of us.
"In 1918 an influenza virus emerged--probably in the United States--that would spread around the world... before that worldwide pandemic faded away in 1920, it would kill more people than any other outbreak of disease in human history... the lowest estimate of the pandemic's worldwide death toll is twenty-one million, in a world with a population less than one-third today's... it is almost certainly wrong. Epidemiologists today estimate that influenza likely caused at least fifty million deaths worldwide, and possibly as many as one hundred million...
"The disease has survived in memory more than in any literature... nearly all those who were adults during the pandemic have died now... Memory dies with people. The writers of the 1920's had little to say about it... John Dos Passos was in his early twenties and seriously ill with influenza, yet barely mentioned the disease in his fiction. Hemingway, Faulkner, Fitzgerald said next to nothing of it... Katherine Anne Porter was ill enough that her obituary was set in type. She recovered. Her fiancé did not. Years later her haunting novella of the disease and the time, Pale Horse, Pale Rider--is one of the best--sources for what life was like during the disease...
But the relative lack of impact it left on literature may not be unusual at all... people write about war. They write about the Holocaust. They write about horrors that people inflict on people. Apparently they forget the horrors that nature inflicts on people, the horrors that make people less significant. And yet the pandemic resonated. When the Nazis took control of Germany in 1933, Christopher Isherwood wrote of Berlin, 'The whole city lay under an epidemic of discreet, infectious fear. I could feel it, like influenza, in my bones." (John M. Barry, The Great Influenza: the Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History, Penguin Books, 2005)
As always, thanks to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Laurie R. King for the creation of these wonderful characters (with the exception of Dr. Chapel, who's mine!). And special thanks to Maer/"Merely a whim" and Fran/"It saved me from ennui" for their patient and creative suggestions to improve this pastiche; they did nothing but make it better, any remaining flaws are surely mine!--"'I'm getting too old for this,' he muttered"/Merrily