I skimmed through the book again and found another section on compassion. It was underlined and it struck me like a bullet had pierced my chest.
The definition is: wanting others to be free from suffering.
This compassion happens when one feels sorry with someone, and one feels an urge to help.
The near enemy is pity, which keeps other at a distance, and does not urge one to help.
The opposite is wanting others to suffer, or cruelty.
A result which one needs to avoid is sentimentality. Compassion thus refers to an unselfish, detached emotion which gives one a sense of urgency in wanting to help others.
Wanting others to be free from suffering. I actually felt dizzy as I read the words. I sat down near the fireplace.
Hadn’t Uncle professed to exactly this belief? That true compassion requires “an unselfish, detached emotion which gives one a sense of urgency in wanting to help others?” In slightly different words, he had often explained this detachment to people who saw him as cold and aloof despite his dedication to his patients and the medical profession. Didn’t he subscribe to precisely the Buddhist philosophy of relieving all suffering, extinguishing all suffering?
I slammed the book closed.
I called to Martha again and still getting no response, I finally went downstairs to the kitchen. I found her sitting at the long table where she rolled out dough and skinned rabbits, smiling, clearly rapt in awe of the man sitting across from her.
I took a step backwards and steadied myself for a moment. Seated across from Martha, sipping a glass of wine, was Sherlock Holmes.
32
“Sherlock!”
He rose and returned my greeting. “Poppy, I’ve been waiting for you.”
I glanced at Martha, whose cheeks had reddened to a deep rose. Martha was a pretty little thing, about my age, with a face blooming with innocent beauty - a pert nose, pink lips, curls that cascaded down her back, thick and red such that any woman would cherish. I felt plain by comparison. I’d always felt too thin and too tall, too sharp-featured, and certainly too sharp-tongued. The angst I felt in that moment, the notion that Sherlock had spent hours entertaining her with stories, ogling her across the table, and she engaging him in her quiet way... the rising jealousy, the sinking feeling that Sherlock might prefer this beautiful but dull little wren who would simply listen instead of arguing or informing or infinitely attempting to display her intelligence, startled me and made my face flush with heat.
Martha rose as well and said, “I just made a roast chicken, Miss. I was just finishing when Mr. Holmes arrived.”
“Thank you, Martha. I am not hungry but I am sure Aunt Susan will be famished when she returns,” I said, as sweetly as I could conjure, though I believe it was through gritted teeth.
“She was here and left again,” Martha said. “I’m to take some of the chicken and the other fixings to the Yard for your Uncle.”
“Good. That’s what you should do then.”
I turned to Sherlock. “Have you any news?”
“I do,” he said.
“Shall we sit in the parlour?”
“The library.”
I glanced again at Martha, as she pushed a gleaming, stray tendril beneath her cap. For an anxious moment, I imagined her sitting at a dressing table in a voluminous teagown, in pale green, or perhaps peach, with lace at the edges of its dolman sleeves. A ‘cinq à sept’, worn during the hours when lovers were received, called this because, it was said, ‘five to seven’ was the only time of day when a maid wouldn’t need to be there to help a lady undress and, therefore, discover her secret. I actually shook my head to judder the image from my mind. Then I turned and walked briskly up the stairs to the library with Sherlock at my heels.
I filled my wine glass again and offered more to Sherlock. He nodded and as I poured more wine into his glass, I asked, “So tell me, what news have you?”
“News aplenty. I’ve had my street urchins flushing out bits and pieces.”
“Your street urchins? Oh, the orphans you employ to assist you in your investigations. I believe you fancy yourself an imitation of Fagin.”
He laughed. “Indeed not. I’m certainly not a kidsman. Besides, I believe I should take offence, given Dickens described Fagin as grotesque,” he laughed.
He was in unusally good spirits despite the dire straits Uncle was in and the fact that he was in the middle of investigating a serial killer. One who did not know - or understand - him might find his elevated mood odd or distasteful, but that was Sherlock, at his most ebullient when he was in the thick of working out a mystery, the more complex, the better. Banish the more parochial puzzles. Restless, always questioning, his merry, mischievous irreverance was always transient, as he clamored for something new, something less boring, even if it meant dueling with a criminal mastermind, a terrorist or a tyrant.
“And Fagin,” he continued, “kept his troop of children captive and used them to pick pockets. I encourage no criminal activities. Nor do I beat them or leave them to be hanged.”
“Sherlock, I was teasing.”
His face shadowed. “I may have to resort to taking that persona, however.”
“What do you mean?”
“In light of a rather surprising turn of events, I may have to morph into Fagin Holmes, keeper of children I teach to steal goods to exchange for food and shelter.” He took from his breast pocket an envelope and handed
