Will

by Maer, aka 'merely a whim'

It was a perversely wintry day one autumn less than a year after Old Will Thompson had come to the cottage that Sherlock Holmes (a man beloved by millions of readers round the world and also my employer) had chosen for his retirement when the following account took place. Will had apparently been brought by chance and a discreet advertisement in the London Times seeking a position of groundskeeper for the household gardens and property, but in fact had actually been delivered by the deliberate maneuvering of the great detective's brother. Ever the enigmatic figure of His Majesty's government, Mycroft Holmes had soon seen the necessity of positioning a reliable set of eyes on the property, the better to keep an alert watch out for Sherlock Holmes' -- and England's -- many enemies.

The advantages of the detective having selected for his retirement a place on England's south-southeastern coast with a commanding view of the Channel that was yet a fairly remote and a thoroughly unprepossessing property for such a celebrated figure to inhabit hadn't been lost on Mycroft for a second. Just as the sleepy Sussex shore would be the perfect place for any hostile foreign nation to land any number of spies, much as it had been a favorite haunt of smugglers in previous centuries, so was it an excellent place for England to install any number of her faithful guardians as well. And whereas one could say Holmes had retired from the Game in the great cesspool of London, one could not say he had retired from the overall Game completely. The very nature of his mind and temperament precluded that, as well as the active influence of his brother Mycroft working his own cat-and-mouse game on a vastly larger global scale. So long as those two men worked each in his own way in the twin worlds of detection and espionage, singly or together, there would be enemies made, spies thwarted, and the necessity of having a bodyguard. Will Thompson, so it seemed, had been vetted to fit that particular post. A post, I might add, he acquitted with unwavering dedication and surprising ease. But I'm getting ahead of myself, as usual...

Will Thompson, as I have said, had applied for the position of groundskeeper for Holmes's property in that brief lull of grounds work between late winter and early spring of 1910. It was fast coming up on one of the busier and therefore less convenient times of year to go lacking and yet, for reasons I have never found out, our previous groundskeeper served up his notice quite unexpectedly. It was around noon that I had opened the front door to the ringing of the front bell, only to be taken aback by the person who stood waiting on the step. He was tall and broad shouldered, deep-chested and soft-spoken, politely respectful in the manner of a big man familiar with the effect his appearance and strength would have on others: his grip when we later shook hands was feather light, as if he held a new-hatched baby bird instead of the sturdy fingers of a fifty-six year old woman whose hands had seen nearly a half-century of hard work. Holmes looked up as we passed him at his desk, whereupon he pushed back his chair and followed us in.

We all three of us sat in the sunny kitchen and I looked over the impressive references Will gave me whilst Holmes began the interview. It took a mere ten minutes and though it concluded satisfactorily for all sides involved, I got the sense that the whole business had been a little too pat, a little too neatly resolved. There was something about Will that made me wonder who he really was and how he'd seen the advertisement so quickly after my having sent it in to various papers in London only two days previous. I suppose after having worked for Holmes all these years I had come to adopt some of his suspicions regarding human nature and I found myself studying Will quite intensely throughout that interview. He seemed legitimate enough. However, there were lines on his face that had come not only from long hours in all weathers or from his age but from activity that hinted at a life far different from the occupations listed in the resume he'd handed me the moment we'd settled at the kitchen table (a resume, I must add, at which Holmes had given but a cursory glance). If I'd had to make an educated guess, I would have said Will Thompson was marked by something from his past. In short, Will Thompson was the keeper of a deep secret.

However, my employer's approval of the man was obviously genuine and being ever mindful of Holmes' probing questions during the interview -- the answers to which had apparently satisfied him -- I welcomed Will to the small world of our cottage life. It was the work of a moment to draw up his initial schedule of duties and thus I saw him off, thinking all the while that here was a man with a mystery attached, one not likely to be revealed for quite some time -- if at all.

So it was with some surprise I got to hear his story that wintry day barely eight months later from the man himself.

It was autumn of 1910 and still too early for snow, but the weather off the Channel that day was bitterly cold with a grey bank of cloud that stretched from one end of the famous chalk cliffs to the other and which presented to the eye no discernible junction twixt an amorphous sky and a likewise hazy sea. Some of the weather wise in the nearby village of Covingdean had predicted an early snowfall this year, as they invariably did every year after a pint or two at the Monk's Tun, but as I eyed the weather offshore I had to admit that for once they might be right. The clouds had that peculiar color and density that presaged snow. I shook my head as I poured hot water over the tea leaves and snugged the teapot into a cosy to ward it from the chill.

The wind was picking up and I shouldn't like to be working near the cliff edge right about now. Wasn't Will saying something about checking the stability of the cliff off the eastern pasture today? I looked up and spied movement beyond the kitchen windows; it was Will himself coming in for tea. I glanced at the clock ticking away on the Irish dresser. As punctual as ever. An icy draft skirled across the floor and took possession of my ankles as he walked in, stamping the debris from his boot soles on the threshold before shutting the door.

"Good afternoon, Will," I greeted him as he hung his greatcoat on the pegs mounted near the cook stove to dry. "Do you think it will actually snow today?" I pointed with my chin in the general direction of the Channel as I poured us both a steaming cup of Earl Grey. The uplifting scent of bergamot mingled with the savory aroma of hunters' stew and rolls fresh from the oven. I added a plate of sliced sharp cheddar to the variety of dishes on the table and we sat down to our substantial repast.

For his part, Will delayed answering until he'd put a fair amount of food inside of him. A man used to the outdoors and hard work, with the weathered face and hands to prove it, Will understood the importance of replenishing one's body whenever the opportunity arose. I sympathised completely and so took my own meal in companionable silence, thinking that perhaps I should have added an extra sprig or two of rosemary to the stew and also surreptitiously examining the man across the kitchen table from me.

In height Will Thompson came about even with Sherlock Holmes, both men being noticeably above six feet tall. Both had thinning hair, though Holmes' was still darker than Will's silver, and both preferred to be clean-shaven. Both men had light-coloured eyes, though Will's were blue to Holmes' grey. But whereas Holmes was lath thin -- even painfully so, by my standards -- Will had more mass. And whereas both men possessed a dancer's grace whether crossing the sitting room or the Downs, I got the distinct impression that Holmes' elegance of movement had been polished by the ballroom and other gentlemanly sports, whilst Will's had been honed by the necessity of keeping one's skin intact in a hostile environment -- I had long ago learned to spot that knife's edge agility in the self-sufficient orphans that claimed the teeming London thoroughfares as their home. Will's assertion that he'd been originally from Yorkshire and had worked as a gardener at the local manor here as a younger man did not quite match what my practiced eye told me, accustomed as I had become to the physical effects rural life had on those who pursued it. Yet from everything I could observe of the man, he knew his way around a garden plot and kept everything about the cottage in fine shape.

So here he sat, the end product of several decades of living a life decidedly different from his pastoral roots and initial occupation, tantalizing hints of which would occasionally be revealed in the choice of a word, a turn of his head (as if sensing things undetected by others), and an almost military precision in maintaining the cottage grounds.

I had said before that Will was a man harbouring a secret. Doubtless his past hid many. I wondered again what they were as he pushed back from the table with a swipe of his napkin and a satisfied sigh.

"Very likely it will," he said, picking up the conversation where we'd left it. "You can taste it, snow, just on the tip of your tongue. A funny sort of wet, if y' ken my meanin'." He turned his chair to face the fire burning in the grate of the Yorkshire range that had been fitted in the hearth by the cottage's previous owners. It was an old Albert Kitchener from the early 70's that bravely held its own despite the presence of the modern freestanding iron cook stove sitting opposite of it. When it was cold, I would have both the range and the stove going to warm the stone-floored kitchen, as indeed I did today. I rather liked the whimsy of the two old yet still feisty natives of that northern English shire facing each other on that cold day, each staring down the autumn of their years and stubbornly proving their worth. I put the teapot on the range hob to keep it hot and joined Will at the fire.

"At least the harvest is in. The hard work's done for the nonce. Which reminds me, how is Ginny doing with Seth all by herself?" I asked, alluding to his daughter's widowing by dock accident in London earlier that summer, a good man lost to a crate that had gone tumbling off a hoisted pallet. Will had convinced his daughter Virginia to come live with him in his small cottage closer in to the village, arguing shrewdly that her little boy would benefit from having a man about the house and the expansive Downs to grow up in. Virginia's only child and Will's grandson, Seth Walker, was a precocious three and simply fascinated by everything his grandfather did. In addition to learning his grandfather's gardening trade, Seth was showing great promise at learning his letters. I suspect Virginia had a hand in that. (As I should well know. My Jamie was as like to Seth at that age as two peas from the same pod, despite the thirty-one years that separated their births. And I had lavished my own son with books and a love of reading as soon as I possibly could. The fat letters he sent me without fail on a monthly basis bear testament to that fact, and it is rare indeed that he failed to mention something he'd recently read in them. I could take a mother's pride in the knowledge that however hard his life was on that cattle station Jamie always took the time to read before seeking his rest from a long day's work.)

"Oh, aye. She's doing splendid, all things considering. My pension, and my pay here, accommodates us very well, thanks for asking. Ginny wanted me to thank you, Mrs. Hudson, for your kindness the other day. She swears that cream you've given her has improved her hands practically overnight."

"It was my pleasure, Will, and you can tell her from me if she ever runs out, I can make up another jar of it just as easy as you please. I used to take in laundry myself, back when I was young, and I remember the toll it takes on a woman's hands. I take it she hasn't quit the business, then?"

"Nah, she wants to build up a nest egg, 'for later', she says. I think she's got plans for Seth, ones that involve costly tutoring." Will poured us both a fresh cup from the teapot. "I keep telling her to leave off, there's enough for all of us but 'nah', she says. 'There's no tellin' what the morrow'll bring.' Ginny's already been caught unprepared once, with her Justin dyin'. 'Never again,' she says, not for her. Rather like her mother, she is, wantin' to keep summat' laid by..." Will's northern accent crept into his speech as he went on -- a sign of disquietude, as I was to learn over the years of our acquaintance. Today, however, I just noted it as a curiosity, thinking the farmhouse atmosphere of the kitchen and the range had Will harkening back to his younger days.

I sipped my tea and waited for Will to continue. When he didn't, I turned from watching the mesmerizing flicker of flames at our feet and fastened my gaze on Will's profile. What I saw there took me by surprise.

Oh, dear. What have I done?

"Will? If I have said anything to distress you, I..."

Will Thompson sat contemplating his tea, the flames setting the tears a-glitter in his eyes. At the sound of my voice, he breathed deeply and shook his head, raising his hand in a strangely placating fashion. His voice held no trace of his accent, Will having regained control of himself again.

"Just a man's memories catching up with him, Missus Hudson. It takes me from time to time, on days like this. Have you anything you need to do at the moment?" he asked me with the air of a man having come to the decision to share a confidence.

I ran through my mental list of tasks and came up with nothing pressing.

"Not at all, Will. My time is yours." Oh, now my curiosity was making me fairly fidget in my chair, for this is what I had sensed in him that first day, that shadow behind his blue eyes that I now understood was sorrow, a hidden sadness that sat openly now on his face. I topped off both our cups and Will began, his words filling the empty places in the dimming kitchen, weaving a tale of love, dedication, and the hot desire for revenge. As the clouds off the coast closed in, Will told me the following story.

"Emily Lenore Cooper was her name, the dark haired daughter of the Head Groom of _____," and here he mentioned the place I'd seen at the head of his references, during that interview several months ago. "She loved roses, all kinds, but there was one variety she loved best. It's the one I've planted at Ginny's front door, by the by. The parti-coloured one that everyone asks about, you've seen it I'm sure. The red and the white of it just brought out the violet in her eyes, did Emily's. That was how we'd first met, Emily and I. Over those roses in the gardens I kept for the manor."

Will went on to tell me a little of their growing attraction toward each other and their courtship -- not entirely smooth, as they were servants in the employ of a lord and manor and as such there were the inevitable conflicts between duties and freedom. I will decline going into detail here, as what Will told me of his courtship and early married life is his own to tell. Suffice it to say, he and Emily were quite happy, having been given leave to marry and a little cottage on the manor grounds to start their family in.

As was all too often the case for women of that era, Emily was able to quicken, but unable to bear to term. Still, they made the best they could of the situation and life continued on in its shared joys and setbacks such as all young couples encountered. Then came the day, so Will told me, they could expect their first child!

"She was ever so calm about it, Missus Hudson, not wanting to get her hopes up only to have them cast down again, like all the other times. But she confided in me that this time felt different, it felt right. I believed my Emily, and she was right, in the end. She did carry Ginny to term and was delivered. A healthy, rosy cheeked little sprite with the dark hair of her mother and her sunny, loving disposition. Her eyes took after me, we found out later. Emily was everything to me, and now we had our Ginny. My joy was tripled and I tell you now, Missus Hudson, that every time I saw my little girl smile, I thanked God for blessing me so. I had everything I'd ever wanted and was content to continue thus to the end of my days.

"God, however, had other plans."

"You needn't go any further, Will," I said gently when the silence grew long between us.

"Do y'know, I don't believe I've ever told anyone the whole of it. Not about Emily's dying or about tracking down of the dog that did her in." Will looked me in the eye and in the bright blue of them I could see resolve build and take form. "I think it's time I did. Some secrets need keeping. Others need airing, or they fester. I've held onto it long enough. It's time to let it go."

Will took a long pull of tea and resumed.

"It was, let me see... about a year after Ginny was born that we found Emily was expecting another child. She didn't say anything about it to me at first. I could see something was bothering her and it took a solid week of trying on my part before I got her to confide in me. As she'd had with Ginny, she had a feeling about this baby and, unlike before, it wasn't good. Still, when she saw how happy I was at the news and how well Ginny was getting along, how later on Ginny would enjoy a brother or a sister to keep her company... well, Emily put a brave face on it and hoped for the best.

"She'd a month an a half more to go when she went into labour. The lord of the manor, my employer, couldn't be faulted a thing, Missus Hudson. I cannot place any blame on the man, he did what he thought was right. He sent for the midwife, and when it became apparent that Emily was having more trouble, he sent further help in the form of a doctor.

"He was a learned and educated man, was my employer, and his friends were likewise the same. His lady wife was a great one for entertaining, so there would always be someone about the place in those days. Lawyers, clergymen, doctors -- all quite respectable and trustworthy, I'm sure. As it happened, the day Emily began to deliver -- a day very much like this, and at this time of the year -- an Army doctor on leave from one war or another happened to be stopping for the weekend. If I recall correctly, Hunting Season was upon us, not that I paid any real attention to the comings and goings except where it intruded on my duties and charges on the grounds -- dogs and horses being unkind to the lawn and the flowerbeds, you know. Well, he heard that the midwife down at the Village had arrived and stuck his head in, like, at my employer's urging and offered his assistance."

Will's lips thinned grimly.

"I was too relieved at first to make much of his appearance or manner. He said he was a doctor and as a doctor was what was needed, for Emily was having a hard time of it -- and because childbirth is a frightening and agonizing thing for a young man to bear inflicting upon his wife -- I gratefully opened the door to him and looked no further. I allowed him into the bedroom and from there, this... learned man proceeded to override the midwife's authority and experience (which she'd amply demonstrated by turning the babe from breech to a more proper position) and go on to botch what the midwife later said was a simple procedure. I have only the midwife's word on it, as I was waiting the next room over, but Mistress Calloway was of excellent reputation and had brought many a mother and babe through childbirth safely. Our daughter was born alive but didn't last the day. Emily lingered on but two days beyond that.

The official finding was that she'd died from complications due to childbirth, common enough in those days. And it was true that she'd sustained some injury from the whole affair, a fairly serious one, and all the worse for it being avoidable. I'm sure you follow me. But just between you and me, Missus Hudson, I think she just couldn't bear to live after holding her new baby daughter and watch the life go out of her like that. It was simply too much for her."

Will paused a moment to deal with his ghosts whilst outside I heard the first hiss of snow off the Channel. Its whisper blended subtly with the sizzle of the sap in the burning wood of the fire and outside the wind picked up, making the flames dance wildly. I rose and adjusted the damper of the flue, grateful for something to do whilst I, greatly stirred by this account, got my emotions under control. It wouldn't do to distress Will with evidence of my own upset. He had enough to handle already with the reliving and the retelling of that horrid day.

"He denied being drunk, denied everything, that so-called 'doctor' when I'd found out just how many he'd knocked back during the Hunt and afterwards at the Manor, when he'd come to Emily. Back then, when I let him in, I'd put down his squinting and careful movement about the cottage as caution against the dimness from the nasty weather outside, rather than an exaggerated effort to keep himself upright. I don't remember if he reeked of the stuff he'd poured down his throat, or if he didn't. Gin most likely, his being an Army man. If only I'd paid just a little more attention, I might have... No. It's done. There's no going back, no changing what happened.

"There was no official charge made against the man, though there was a heartfelt apology on the part of my employer, and a covering of all the costs entailed with the burials. The doctor left immediately our daughter had died and took off for London to join his regiment. At least, as far as anyone at the Manor knew.

"All I knew was my little Ginny was bereft of her mother and I was bereft of any real reason to go on, but for the sake of my little girl. I limped along for a year before I realized I could go no further. So I gave my employer my notice in time for Michaelmas -- the man was kind enough to release me from service with a generous gift "for your girl," he'd said -- and gave my Ginny over to my sister Alice to care for in Yorkshire. I knew the money I'd received over the years and at my leave taking would keep my daughter well provided, and my sister genuinely loved her niece. I knew I could leave her with a clear conscience. So I bade my little girl be good, kissed her good-bye and took off to find the man who'd done my Emily in."

"I won't prolong the tale by telling you exactly how I tracked him down, Missus Hudson. Let's just say I followed him all over the Empire, dogging his footsteps in the wake of his Army Regiment and even beyond, when even the Army wouldn't have him any more and gave him the sack. Through gin palaces and opium dens, in white man's country and elsewhere, through every conceivable circumstance, I followed the news of his passing. I nearly fetched him up almost a dozen times but he always gave me the slip or a miserable trick of timing would bring me to his last known position a day, an hour, once even ten minutes too late. He was a hunted and driven man by then, you see. My Emily wasn't the only one to die at his hand, nor was she the last or the most powerfully connected. But one of his victims was -- enough to strip him of the title and prestige of 'Doctor' and make him a wanted man, enough that even the most desperate of hospitals daren't let him in.

"Amazing, don't you think? Drunk enough to kill yet sober -- or cunning -- enough to avoid being hauled up for justice. I finally caught him in an alley behind a... well, some would call it a sporting establishment, in some stinking cesspit portion of the world, a corner of the Empire that even the old Queen herself would have disowned had she known it existed, and confronted him with his crime. I told him the whole of it and told him I was here to make him pay for what he did. After nearly three years of chasing his shadow, I would get my Emily her justice and myself my revenge. I drew my knife, the knife I'd sharpened during the many sleepless nights of all those years, and grabbed him by his greasy unshaven neck, the better he could see his last remaining moments amongst the living reflected in the blade I held before his eyes.

"I hope never to see the like of it again, I don't. He was nothing like he'd been that day three years ago, supremely confident and condescending, when he'd ripped nearly everything I held so dear away from me.

Now, I'll allow that the intervening years hadn't been kind to me, Missus Hudson, not one whit, but they'd spared me plenty when compared to their effect on him. He was a ruined wreck of a man and when he saw who I was and what I'd intended, well, he slithered free of my grasp, his bones turned to water, and he broke down like a green recruit facing his first encounter with the enemy, his nerve completely gone. As I said, Mrs. Hudson, I hope never to witness the like of it again."

The fire claimed his attention once more and I ventured into the quiet that lay between us.

"And what did you do to him, now that you had found him?"

Will closed his eyes to whatever he saw in the flames and said:

"I stood there in that foreign land, stood there under a blistering hot foreign sun, with the sweat and the filth jostling for space over every blessed inch of me, and watched him drag himself through the dirt, begging for his life in the most wretched manner imaginable. And as I stood there and watched him grovelling and crying out for mercy, I slowly came to realize that Emily had gotten her justice after all. She was the reason why he'd ruined himself with drink, drugs and low women, endured days made hellish by hangovers and worse, only to crawl out of whatever hole he'd found to do it all over again. She was the reason he'd so ruined his career that the Royal College of Surgeons took back his honours and degree, stripping him of the right to practice. He drank and drugged himself to forget what he'd done; he had gone from one low den to another, from one town to another, from one country to another, always one step ahead of the bar keeps and bill collectors and whomever else he'd angered during his binges, all to forget what he'd done. My being there had brought it all back.

"I tell you now, killing him would have been a Christian kindness."

"And did you do the Christian thing, then?" I asked delicately when the silence grew long again.

"That depends on what you'd consider Christian, wouldn't it?"

Will opened his eyes and looked at me, his voice soft and steely. "No. I left him there in that stinking gutter and left him to face whatever fate God had in store for him. As for myself, I put up my knife and simply walked away. I spared his life and regained mine.

"Perhaps it would have been kinder to kill him, Missus Hudson, but I confess I didn't have the compassion to do it. If at that moment God had chosen to strike me down and damn me to hell for it, it would have mattered very little to me. Hell would have been familiar ground, given what I'd already endured, and not much of an adjustment."

Will drained the last cold dregs of his tea, signalling the end of his incredible account.

So there it lay between us, the secret Will carried. We sat, Will and I, and listened to the wind moaning in the chimney. Even the cats, who had crept in during the telling of the tale, huddled silent nearby, their eyes lambent points of light in the murk of the firelit kitchen.

"I am so very sorry, Will. I wouldn't have agreed to hearing any of this if it -- ."

"Bothered me?" He finished for me when I could say no more. "Nah, don't fuss yourself over it, Missus Hudson. It was long ago and far away. I was a different man then." Just like that, he dropped the mood that had prompted the tale and stood up to leave. Guilt stricken, I could only look up at him, my emotions still unsettled over what I had heard and what his words had made me see. Something of it must have been apparent in my expression, for his face softened and he gave my shoulder a reassuring pat.

"I've got my Ginny. She loves me still, despite all the time I spent away from her when she was little, and I've got my Seth. I've got good work to do, a place to call home and folk to call family. It's all I need, really."

Will paused and stretched, shaking himself slightly -- whether ridding himself of his sad memories or of any lingering stiffness from sitting so still in a chair a touch too short for him, it was even odds either way.

"Well, I'm off," he said.

"In that?" I finally found my tongue again, aghast at his intention to go out into the weather. It had turned nastier outside as Will recounted the story of his past. I got up and joined him at the door, putting a hand on his arm as he shrugged into his coat. "If you won't stop for the night, Will, at least wait until the snow stops."

"It's only a little snow, nothing like what you'd get on the heights of Afghanistan. Mind you, the snow there gets deep enough to swallow a man whole. This is hardly enough to get one's boots wet. See? It's fair visible out there yet."

I looked out the window over the scullery sink and could clearly see the giant copper beech at the far end of the terrace, despite the snow whipping about outside. I stepped back.

"If you're certain, then." I said, not at all certain myself, taking my hand from his coat sleeve.

"A stroll in the park."

And with that parting remark, Will quit the warmth of the kitchen and strode off along the gravelled path, his lug-soled boots providing firm traction on the accumulating white. I leant around the doorframe to watch him, his great-coated back unbent by the long years and hardships endured in far-flung climes, his silvery head well enveloped by a fur-lined cap he'd once claimed to have taken from a Cossack in exchange for a bottle of Scots single-malt whiskey. As I watched him walk off into the lowering dark, I recalled what he'd said to me before the fire:

"I've got my Ginny," His words echoed in my head. "And I've got my Seth... I've a place to call home and folk to call family. It's all I need, really."

All you need and more. Godspeed, Will, and may you find yourself safely home.

With that benediction whispering softly in my heart, I closed the door firmly against the snow and the cold, and soberly gathered up the remainder of my day.