I remain to this day somewhat overwhelmed with the pain of loss, for I never quite recognized myself after we parted, and I could never quite reconcile ‘Before Sherlock’ with ‘After Sherlock.’ The pendulum would swing back and forth. Even after all these years, even as I approach the age of ninety and the end of my life, I am as perplexed as ever about the rejection - his of me and mine of him.
But everything between still sparkles
Chapter 1
25 December 1879
Christmas Day 1879 was attended with nocturnal darkness in London. My parents would later tell me that even in the Broads of Norfolk from which I hail, the fog was remarkably thick throughout the day there as well.
I should have liked to share the festivities with my parents at our home, Burleigh Manor. My Aunt Susan, her ward, little Billy - the baby brother of one of Sherlock’s homeless messengers - and my nephew, Alistair Alexander were there. I longed to be there to watch Alexander open gifts and to gaze at his joyful countenance; he so resembled his mother, my brother’s late wife, my best friend Effie.
As doctors, we were needed in London. My brother Michael and my uncle, Dr. Ormond Sacker, both physicians at St. Bart’s, had decided to forego the holiday celebration in the Broads, as had I. A great fog had sneaked into London, covering her with a thick and ominous blanket, the blackest fog I ever saw. It was causing hundreds of people to become deathly ill. That very Christmas morning, Uncle had been summoned to treat the seventy-eight-year-old mother of the First Earl of Kimberly, John Wodehouse. Though she bore her illness with great fortitude, Uncle feared the worst. Disease and injuries caused by the fog had fairly devastated the city.
Sherlock had sent one of his homeless boys, whom he used as messengers and who helped him gather information, with a note in which he requested that I meet him “immediately at Bart’s.” Certain that my medical office was empty as it usually was, and worried that Sherlock might be ill, I made my way from Regent’s Park, where I resided with Uncle Ormond and Aunt Susan, to St. Paul’s. The entire time my face was masked in a thick wool scarf.
I stopped for a few moments to pray, and then continued on my way, crossing Newgate into Giltspur Street until I reached St. Bart’s Hospital.
I stopped to chat with Michael in the hallway but just for a moment. “Is he ill?” I asked.
“No, he’s in the lab. Must be off, darling,” Michael said.
“He” was Sherlock Holmes.
A bit miffed at the summons, I made my way to the lab. Sherlock was looking out the window. He did not turn around when I entered. As I removed my hat, scarf, cape and gloves, he said, “It’s like a brown mass, isn’t it, Stamford? Rising and hanging like a still, thick curtain between the world and the sky. It blots out the sun and the moon. I suppose this is rather propitious to amatory encounters. I’m told that the nymphs of the pave do unusually good business in this weather. Even I could be bold, perforce leave off my work and for a shilling or two accost a petticoat. If I were so inclined,” he added.
I felt myself blush.
“Of course, for my young friend Archie, it’s rather a good atmosphere for grave robbing as well,” he continued.
The ‘Archie’ to whom he referred was Archibald William Wiggins, the oldest of the homeless boys who ran errands for Sherlock, but he was known on the streets as Bill Wiggins. His little brother Billy now resided, off and on, with my Uncle Ormond and Aunt Susan because the boys’ mother was unreliable, but Wiggins refused to completely relinquish his place in Billy’s life. Sherlock often said he hoped to turn little Billy into a proper page one day.
“This dense fog chokes our fair city, Stamford,” Sherlock sighed. “The blacks cover and obscure everything from view. Very bad for the bees, you know. The damnable flying particles of soot settle everywhere. London stinks of the coal age.
“I would wager the casualty department here is filled with victims today. Omnibus and cab accidents,” he said, still staring out the window. “I heard someone say that a man driving a horse and gig toward town ran up against a granite wall and was thrown with great force upon the footpath. Another man ran into a shop window on St. James and broke upward of forty squares of glass. The other night, some drunkards ended up falling into the Thames and drowned. I am surprised we have not heard of another collision on the river, like the one at Vauxhall Bridge or the Princess Alice sinking.”
I cringed, remembering the terrible collision on the Thames River the previous year when the Princess Alice, a paddle-boat steamer, was cut in half by a large cargo ship.
“But London is never swathed in ordinary darkness, is she?” he added as he turned around. Seeing me, he exclaimed, “Poppy! What are you doing here?”
“You sent for me, Sherlock.”
“Where did your brother go? I was just speaking to him.”
“He left several minutes ago, Sherlock. It is I who heard your soliloquy.”
“Michael left?” he asked, a puzzled expression on his face. “I did not notice.”
Of
