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Adventure in Little Cheatham	By : sweetelysium Category: Titles in the Public Domain > Sherlock Holmes > AU/AR Views: 3669 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: This is a work fiction, based on the Sherlock Holmes series by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

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Disclaimer: The works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle are about as much mine as Tibet is. What is mine, however, is the story herein. Enjoy it, love it, but please don’t steal it. ‘Tis my (very neglected) baby.

***

Chapter 4 -- Upstairs, Downstairs

The next morning, there was a note for me from Sherlock on the stand next to the bed.

------
My dear W. --
A late breakfast is being served at 10.30 in the breakfast room. I have arranged for you to be helped with your toilette at 9.30. No doubt the maid will be young and talkative. Do try and make use of this.
Ever yours,
-- S.
------

A grin broke over my face. As already witnessed on our arrival at the train station, I had no problem playing the innocent -- I even preferred it. Playing the innocent, or rather, acting as a very normal middle-class wife, all quiet and retiring, allows one to blend in and be easily forgotten. An intelligent, forthright woman is always suspect. She is somehow unnatural. The world will forgive a gossip and will welcome with open arms a wife and mother, but will look askance a woman who challenges with questions and smiles a man’s smile, that cat-in-cream grin which speaks of triumph and knowledge not found in any ladies’ monthly magazine. She leaves an impression and, worst of all, is not easily forgotten.

It is much safer and easier then, at this point in my life and indeed my husband’s as well, to be meek and mild with strangers, especially potential sources of information. Surely my reputation as anything more than Mrs. Sherlock Holmes cannot have preceded me this far? After all, I play a very minor role in Sherlock’s fame. If mentioned at all, I was alluded to as “his secretary and cousin, Miss Johanna Watson” prior to our marriage, and afterwards in such exhilarating sentences as “Mr. Holmes resides at 221B Baker Street, with his wife, Mrs. Johanna Holmes née Watson, formerly of Scotland and Australia.” (There are moments when the anonymity of married life is useful, but others when it is galling.) Lady Loudon had not referred to me at all in her letter; I was merely accepted as an accessory, though I must say I make a very pretty attaché.

I had a little time before the maid would appear, so I began to wander our room, confirming my suspicions of the night before. In the brighter light of morning, the room looked much as it had before, if a little shabbier. The carpet was going threadbare in places and the upholstery on the chairs was worn along the arms and on the seat. Touching the back of one, I could feel where a tear had been mended, but could not see it until I stooped and peered closely at it. Going into the dressing room, I could see that the silver had begun flaking off the back of the mirror on the dressing table. The table itself was scratched and chipped, though an obvious effort had been made to repair it. Everything had obviously been of the highest quality at one point in time, but no longer was.

It was all very curious. A quick survey of the room would show that everything was in perfect order and shape. But who would put guests in a room that was filled with tattered finery?

Mrs. Jones, perhaps, I thought amusedly.

The state of the room, however, was disconcerting. It upset the very British part of me that needed there to be neatly compartmented classes -- upper, middle, lower. Oh, god forbid the time when an Englishman cannot find his position in society! That my own parlor was in better repair than a guest bedroom of a baronial mansion did not sit well. Something was not right.

Unless, of course, I was entirely overestimating our worth. Perhaps we didn’t figure so largely in Lady Samantha’s mind and we had just been crammed handily into any room -- why waste a beautiful one when adequate will do?

This is preposterous. Sherlock never has to bother with analyses of social niceties and domestic politics in his investigations. It’s all tracking down the appropriate brand of tobacco and discovering that the guilty party wore a cloak woven of Merino wool imported from New York State through Young & Sons Trading Company, which will lead the guilty party to purchase a new one in High Street, where he will be apprehended and brought to justice.

Oh, I exaggerate. Nobody would wear a cloak woven of wool imported from America; it’s not keeping with the national spirit.

My thoughts were interrupted by a discreet knock at the door and a quiet voice saying, “Mrs. Holmes, madam, I’m to help you dress if you are ready.”

“Just a moment,” I answered and put on my dressing gown over the chemise and drawers I had put on in the dressing room. “Please come in.”

The girl who entered was no more than sixteen. She was still young enough that the splash of freckles across her nose made her look fresh and innocent, rather than sun-worn. In her dress, you could see Mrs. Jones’ influence. Every pleat, cuff, and collar was precisely ironed, if not quite as manically as the housekeeper’s. There wasn’t a spot on her clothing either, which was extraordinary, considering she had probably been up and working since dawn or before.

She was carrying a pitcher of water, from which wisps of steam rose. She glanced shyly down at it and did not make eye contact with me. When she spoke again, it was quite soft, almost too soft to be heard. “Where would you like to begin, madam?”

“Oh. Dear. Washing my face, I think.” Yes, slightly flustered and none too bright would be exactly the course to take.

After depositing the pitcher on the washstand, she moved around the room in silent efficiency, picking up the clothing that we had shed on the way to bed. Finding the chemise of the previous day and noting a torn seam (when had that happened?), she made the only unsolicited comment of the morning: “Would you like me to mend this, madam?” After my absent refusal, she folded the chemise neatly and laid it away in a drawer with my other undergarments. I watched her in the mirror. While her movements were quiet and competent, there was a jerk at the end of every one, as if she was aiming for crispness and falling far short or as if she was trained not to linger too long over what she had done.

While I dressed my hair, trying all the while to get her to respond past a hesitant “yes” or “no,” she unpacked our bags and selected an outfit for me, a green polonaise over a gray and modestly bustled skirt. Butterfingered, as I turned to be certain she had chosen the right under things (always travel with a pair and a spare), I dropped my hairbrush and it hit with a solid thwack against the edge of the vanity and then a loud clatter beneath it. She jerked compulsively, like a rabbit at a sudden sound, and made eye contact with me for the first time. Her eyes were wide and she was white around the mouth. Very interesting, this reaction.

“Oh, my dear girl,” I said, “I do beg your pardon. Did I startle you?”

She shook her head jerkily and lied. I realized I did not know her name.

I looked more closely at her and saw that her eyebrows were nearly black, while the wisps of hair escaping from beneath her cap were an alarming red, turned that color by a chemical process of which I’m sure my husband could inform me in excruciating detail. Oh so very interesting, this red hair, in light of the hair found in the wax seal the previous day.

She took a deep breath and moved towards me. Without a word, she helped me off with my robe and into a corset. As she laced me up, I asked with a giggling sort of laugh, “Do you know that you haven’t told me you name? I really would like to know, so that I can compliment Mrs. Jones on your service.” I caught a glimpse of her face in the mirror as she paused drawing the laces through the eyelets. A shuttered face was reflected there.

“Jane,” she said at last. “Jane Brown.”

Drat. Common as dirt. There was no taste of the district in it at all. The were a hundred Jane Browns all over England. No help tracking her down there.

“A very pretty name, Jane. Do they ever call you ‘Janet?’ I had a doll named Janet when I was a child. She had a china face and some poor lady's blonde hair. Her petticoats had real lace on them.” As I went on my purely fictional and inane ramble, Jane grew more and more tense. I went on and on, watching her nostrils flare and quiver. I did like the way things were developing.

When we were finished, I bid her a good morning and she gave me a well-practiced curtsy before fleeing. I felt quite evil for antagonizing her so, but the way she reacted to the great detective’s silly little wife was astonishing. She definitely held something more beneath her hat than that ridiculously red hair.

Past my ear and out the window flew Sherlock’s assumption that she would be young and talkative. This would definitely be filed away for later reference. Perhaps for the next time he set one of his shirts on fire with ashes from his pipe. It really was quite curious the way she had moved so silently and surely and then tensed up when I became familiar; it was almost as if obedience and reserve had been scared into her. Or as if she were afraid of me, which is preposterous. I’m about as threatening as day-old bread.

Musing on the already extraordinary morning, I made my way to the breakfast room, guided by the little map that Sherlock had so obligingly provided. Upon entering the room, I saw my husband engaged in polite conversation with a woman who had to be our host. Her back was to the door and she was haloed in the bright sunlight which filled the room. I squinted against it and at the moment Sherlock spotted me.

“Ah, Johanna,” he said, rising and stretching his hand out to me. “Lady Loudon, allow me to introduce to you my bride, Dr. Johanna Watson-Holmes.”

As I crossed the room to take his hand, a voice from my past rose to greet me. My step faltered.

“Johanna Watson?” it said. “Not Johanna H. Watson of Australia?” The owner turned to look at me and I saw that she still had the same little pointed chin and dark brows, her face still framed by clusters of dark curls. Saw that she still had the ink stains along her right index finger and beneath her nails.

“Sam,” I breathed.

And it all came pouring back. The hot, dry summers in Australia spent sweltering indoors as our mothers tried to teach us to be ladies, only to have us sneak off to our own pursuits -- my father’s books on medicine for me and for Sam reams of poetry by Keats and Byron and Shakespeare and most of all, Elizabeth Barrett Browning. Sherlock was forgotten for the moment in that rush of childhood memories.

She struggled to rise now and I moved forward quickly to pull her up. She was quite round. Always short, she now looked as if she could roll away if given a good hard push, never to return until she made it all the way around the globe.

“Hello, Jo,” she said solemnly in that curious mix of upper and lower class that announces Australia in every syllable.

“Oh, Sam,” I replied, embracing her. “Samantha. You’ve gotten so . . . so . . .” I moved back a step to look at her. “So very pregnant.”

****
AUTHOR’S ENDNOTE
Looking at my star rating, I see it has taken a nosedive since the last time I checked, from five stars to three. If there’s something you don’t like about this fic, let me know constructively please. If it’s just that I haven’t updated in eons, I’m terribly sorry -- that’s college. But if you dislike my story so much you give me a rating of one star, I’d like to know why. Thanks.

Stay tuned for the next installment, completely random Bat-time, hopefully reliable Bat-channel! Still seeking beta. Contact me via AIM or MSN Messenger if you're interested.

CORRECTION: In the previous chapter, I referred to the lady of the manor as Lady Elizabeth. This is incorrect. Her name is most definitely Lady Samantha. It’s fixed now.

JJ: I can’t tell you whether or not Monsieur et Madame Holmes-Watson saw an actual ghost, as that would give away a rather large piece of the plot. That wouldn’t be much fun, now would it? I will tell you, however, that are a couple of very Dickensian-with-a-twist happy coincidences ahead. Heh. I feel so very evil, ‘cuz I’ve got something up my sleeve. But is it herring or does it merely smell of fish?

DID YOU KNOW that according to canon, Holmes is actually two years younger than Watson? Jerk that I am, I messed that about, and Johanna Watson is now six years younger than her husband, who is 34 at the time this story takes place. Watson is an ancient 28.
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Adventure in Little Cheatham