Mycroft Holmes Page 4

  Finally, he sent a messenger with a tip to guarantee a table at an exclusive West End restaurant with the reputation for a particularly hearty turtle soup. The entire affair would cost him as much as five guineas, but as this was the one-year anniversary of his engagement to Georgiana, surely it was worth every sou in his pockets.

  On the way to fetch his beloved, Holmes stared out the window at the nightmare of London traffic, a bottleneck growing worse by the day. Roads built in the last twenty years, from Victoria to New Oxford Street, were already proving less than up to the task. There were so many carriages, carts, horses, mules—even the occasional team of oxen or flock of sheep—that getting across town in a timely fashion was all but impossible. Given the great number of Adam’s spawn in the streets, he had to assume that every house, hovel, tenement and pub in London must be deserted.

  As his carriage lurched around and through the madness, Holmes was struck by a disconcerting thought. Why wasn’t the War Office alerted to the disappearances in Trinidad? They could presage some tribal conflict, at the very least… What else is being kept from us?

  The notion that Britain’s War Office might not have pertinent information sent a chill through him that began at the nape of his neck and traveled south, tightening his stomach with anxiety.

  How absurd, he thought. I cannot take personally every mystery transpiring across the globe, or my career shall be quite short-lived.

  Yet, in spite of his best efforts at rationality, he still felt very much out of sorts. When he could not eradicate the feeling, he chalked it up to the Armagnac. It brought to mind that line from A Christmas Carol, when Ebenezer Scrooge first laid eyes upon the specter.

  “‘You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!’”

  “Sir?” the cabman called out inquisitively. “Is you be wantin’ sumfin’, then?”

  “No, no!” Holmes replied—mortified to realize that he had been quoting Dickens aloud. “Carry on!”

  He sighed. What is the matter with me? He could only hope that this last thought, he had kept to himself.

  He leaned his head back on the seat and was gratified to note that it did not, as in lesser carriages, stink of pomade, sweat, and old perfume. Thus appeased, he tried to think of something more edifying.

  Georgiana immediately sprang to mind.

  Just her name created an image so clear that she could have been sitting beside him. Blond, with cream-colored skin, pink cheeks and sparkling blue eyes, Georgiana Sutton was the quintessential English rose. Nothing about her hinted she’d ever been outside of London proper, or had endured any jostling about at all. But in fact, beneath that very proper British exterior, she possessed something of the exotic. She had been born and bred in Port of Spain, where her ancestors had resided for more than 200 years, and where her parents still ran the family’s large—and by all accounts prosperous—sugar plantation.

  Holmes recalled with pleasure the day of their engagement.

  Georgiana was wearing a peau-de-soie dress the color of fallen leaves, cinched at the waist, her hair done up high. He had pulled the ring from his jacket pocket, declaring his intentions. She had looked down at it and drawn a breath, her eyes brimming with tears.

  “Oh! How lovely!” he recalled her saying.

  “From South Africa,” he’d confided. Then, to her astonished look, he’d explained, “Indian mines are close to failing these days, my love. In a few weeks’ time, this African cache shall become public knowledge and Cape Colony awash with prospectors. But for the moment…”

  That is when he had slipped the diamond onto her finger.

  “…it helps to be a secretary in a war office!”

  He’d assumed this little bit of knowledge would delight her, but she had remained silent, pondering the ring, studying it. He wondered if perhaps she thought it wasn’t up to the quality of Indian gems, and if he should hint as to its worth—though he could not imagine how to do so without sounding vulgar.

  “Cape Colony, you say?” Georgiana murmured.

  “Yes, dearest. So far, the bulk of the diamonds has been found on land owned by two Dutch farmers, surname de Beer…”

  She’d looked up at him then, eyes shining, as if she’d just had the most improbable, the most beautiful thought in the world.

  “Mycroft!” she said. “Wouldn’t it be exciting to invest in a diamond mine?”

  He had laughed.

  “Dearest,” he’d said. “You of all people should know that I am not given to speculation when it comes to money. Even on so-called ‘sure things.’”

  “Yes, but this one time,” she’d replied. “It seems a certain bet, and think of the good we could do with the earnings.”

  He had taken her in his arms.

  “Georgiana,” he’d murmured, brushing his fingers across her cheek, “perhaps I am too ordinary, or perhaps too risk averse, but that is something I cannot bring myself to do.”

  A shadow crossed her face, just for a moment, one that had given him a small shudder.

  “My dearest,” he had assured her, “I cannot promise you a terribly exciting life, but I can promise that you shall be greatly loved.”

  He took her hand and turned it palm up. On the band, engraved in the gold, was the outline of a small key.

  “There you have it,” he’d said. “The key to my heart.”

  She had thrown her arms about his neck that day. Her tears and embrace were all he’d needed.

  The following week, when Holmes had informed his brother Sherlock of the engagement, the lad had looked down his long nose.

  “She hails from Port of Spain?” he had sniffed, one eyebrow cocked as if Holmes had just confessed that his betrothed worked as a heaver on the London wharves.

  “Georgiana is better educated than many of her peers,” Holmes protested. “A year at Cheltenham Ladies’ College, now a transfer to Girton!”

  “Girton! So terribly avant-garde!” Sherlock had opined.

  Yes, it was true—Girton dared to teach men’s subjects such as Latin, Greek, and mathematics to the weaker sex. And though it pained Holmes that Georgiana was, in certain circles, frowned upon as a libertine for pursuing an education at all, he was proud of her nonetheless for daring to venture forth in that manner—and proud of himself, too, for holding such progressive views.

  He told Sherlock as much, making it clear that he would abide no foolish talk when it came to Georgiana. But Sherlock could be like a bloodhound on the scent.

  “She is pretty too, I’ll wager,” his younger brother muttered, spitting out the word “pretty” as if it were a pejorative. “Marrying a pretty girl is the height of folly. You shall never have a moment’s peace.”

  But his brother was wrong. Holmes was sure of it. Georgiana was pretty, yes, but she was no femme fatale. Men did not swoon at her feet. Yet though they might not vow to die for her, several had vowed to live for her—and she had rejected them all, choosing him.

  Now he was determined to spend the rest of his life ensuring that she would never for one moment regret that decision.

  Then again, this day’s small luxuries will have to last a while, he thought with a sigh. His first and most important duty in Georgiana’s regard was to save for their future home, for they could not marry until that was secured.

  Within eighteen months, he would have enough for a terrace in Pimlico, with perhaps two maids, a cook, and possibly even a coachman. Once their future children were born—Holmes was hoping for three: two boys and a girl—they would relocate into one of those new, semi-detached villas in St. John’s Wood, with their own small gardens, and bathrooms that were being constructed as separate rooms altogether.

  Thus strengthened by his musings, Holmes dared to peek out the window of the cab again, only to notice a beggar with his hand out. The carriage was snarled in traffic, and Holmes could easily read the wretch’s s
ign:

  If that is a former sailor, Holmes thought, I am the King of England. As if giving proof of what he had surmised, the old man spit deftly out of the wrong side of his mouth. There you are, spitting to windward, Holmes thought impatiently. A thing no sailor on earth would ever do.

  But there it was, another shiver—as if that filthy creature were a harbinger of something, instead of some silliness he had spotted in the road.

  The brougham began again and was making a bit of headway when, through the window, Holmes spied two funeral mutes standing sentry at the front door of a residence, dressed in black from head to toe. They stared straight ahead, holding brooms draped in black crepe, impassively silent, as they were paid to be. An expensive way to “announce” that someone in the home had died.

  For the third time in that rather short trip, Holmes felt the now-familiar shiver travel down his back.

  He shut the curtain impatiently. Then, when the carriage finally took a turn off Glamis Road in the East End, he suddenly felt more hearty, more like himself.

  What in the world possessed me? he wondered.

  And thank heavens it is done with!

  6

  GEORGIANA WAS JUST SETTING FOOT OUTSIDE AN OLD WORKHOUSE when Holmes’s carriage pulled up. She was demurely dressed, with no elaborate overskirts or bustle. She wore only a simple little hat placed rather low on her forehead, hair piled up underneath, ringlets peeking out.

  Holmes thought those blond ringlets were most becoming, as was the mauve shade of her frock and hat. As he stepped out of the cab, he eyed the mangy group of boys, aged twelve to fourteen, whom she had just finished tutoring, and who all looked adoringly upon her. And why wouldn’t they? Teaching children to read, especially children such as these, was no easy task. The great majority already served as pauper apprentices to some overseer or another, and would never be required to read much more than their own indenture papers.

  Yet Georgiana fervently believed that society could be better than it was, that the past did not have to define the future. Holmes was as delighted with the earnestness of her beliefs as with the exquisiteness of her face and silhouette—though he himself was uncertain that the world was likely to change much.

  If at all.

  As she laid her hand upon his arm, he could just detect, under the frilly sleeve of her blouse, the only visible symbol of her native homeland. It was a bracelet intertwined with red and black seeds. Even more noticeable, however, was the small but exquisitely cut diamond on her ring finger.

  As he walked her to the waiting carriage, the boys called out “Evening, Miss Sutton!” in Cockney so thick it made his jaw ache to hear it. And they seemed thrilled down to their thrice-mended shoes when she waved and called back in kind.

  Inside the cab, Georgiana leaned toward him and rested her hand gently on his bicep. He was immediately conscious of flexing that bicep, of the ridiculous longing to impress her with his sculpted physique—which to this point in his tenure on earth was more nature’s endowment than his own doing, more the luck of the genetic draw.

  Yet for all he possessed, from pleasing appearance to his acumen in worldly matters, he seemed forever at sixes and sevens when it came to Georgiana. Simply put, she unnerved him. And if a bit of bicep flexing could help equal the score, thus it would have to be.

  “So. Eyes shining, distracted, either you’ve made a good bargain of something, my dear, or you’re a bit in your cups,” she said, appraising him.

  “Well I… in truth, I won a nice little wager earlier this morning,” he replied without mentioning the Armagnac. “But that was not what I was thinking at the moment.” Then, because he couldn’t very well confess that he’d been contemplating his bicep, he added, “I’ve just left my friend Cyrus Douglas.”

  “Oh, yes…?”

  As he and Georgiana bounced lightly on the padded seat, Holmes tried to sum up Douglas’s concerns, downplaying some of the more bizarre aspects of his tale, such as children’s bodies drained of blood and left lifeless on the beach. But Georgiana honed in on the very portion he had chosen to brush past.

  “Did you say there are douen involved?” she asked. “They are calling children to come out and play?” Her voice was entirely earnest.

  “Well, yes…” Holmes admitted.

  “You are saying that children have died?” she demanded in harsher tones. “Mycroft, please, I am aware of the culture, and I am not so very fragile—you cannot keep such things from me!”

  “Well, yes,” Holmes said again, “that is the rumor, but I hasten to repeat that it is only—”

  “How many?” she said, interrupting him.

  “How many children?” Holmes asked. “Well, three, but…”

  Georgiana turned very pale. She seemed about to speak, but then covered her lips with her hand.

  “Douglas has written to his suppliers,” Holmes said, seeking to reassure her, “and he hopes to receive letters with further insight.”

  “Suppliers?” she asked. “You mean suppliers at various ports of call…?”

  “Why yes, dearest, whatever else could I mean? I’d hoped that you had heard something that might put his mind at ease, as well, so he does not do as he has threatened, and make that wretched voyage back to Port of Spain.”

  Georgiana nodded, looked away, then back. She smiled weakly.

  “Well, how… how very strange,” she said. “Such turmoil, and no, I haven’t heard a word!”

  “Ah!” Holmes said, smiling. “And so whatever is taking place there, it cannot be as bad as all that.”

  “I wish it were that simple, my love,” Georgiana responded, and his smile faded. “But Douglas’s family and mine are on opposite ends of the island. Though Trinidad is small, and people inclined to talk, it is just as likely that the left hand, in this case, has no notion what the right is doing. I can only hope it is fuss over nothing…”

  She seemed suddenly distracted, even a bit impatient.

  “Oh, what a lot of traffic! Where are we headed, then?” she asked vaguely, glancing out.

  It was to be a surprise, but the evening wasn’t going as planned.

  “A lovely little establishment with wonderful food but an unfortunate view,” Holmes responded, “in that it catty-corners the Tower of London, and I am not the sort who appreciates gallows humor.”

  He expected Georgiana to laugh. Instead, she looked at him, quite pale, then glanced out the window again.

  “Oh! How lovely the water looks,” she said, “with the moonlight playing upon it. Would we be so desperately late if we were to get out and walk a bit?”

  “My dear, you have lived in London four long years—does the Thames still charm you?” Holmes asked. The river was lined with wharves, and crammed with so many ships and boats and barges that the water itself seemed an afterthought. The city’s commercial vigor could certainly be called impressive, but romantic it was not.

  “And there’s barely a moon at all,” he added for good measure, “what with the fog rolling in. A week from now, nine days to be exact, it shall be full. Perhaps then we could—”

  “My love,” Georgiana interrupted tersely. “I could use a bit of air.”

  They were still in a less-than-wholesome part of the city, nearing the decrepit Westminster Bridge. Holmes could smell coal fires, glue from a distant factory, even a brewery or two. He was about to counter that the air here was probably in short supply, but Georgiana looked very nearly done in, and in truth he could deny her nothing.

  So he reluctantly called out through the trap door for the cabman to halt, hoping his now-grumbling stomach would wait without acrimony. The driver pushed the lever that released the doors, and Holmes held out his arm to help Georgiana down.

  7

  HOLMES AND GEORGIANA STROLLED ALONG THE RIVERBANK. THE fog lifted off the water, then rose to quickly obscure what little moonlight there was. He could feel Georgiana’s pulse racing underneath his fingertips, as if he were holding a tiny bird in his hand.
>
  She was quiet at first, confessing only to a sudden headache. But as they reached the yellow light of a gas lamp, she at last turned to him and, with haunted eyes, confessed.

  “My parents did write me of mysterious disappearances. They are quite concerned…”

  Holmes was taken aback. “But then why not tell me immediately, my love?”

  “Because I assured them it was nothing,” Georgiana declared, “for that is what I fervently hoped.” Holmes watched as her tears fell. She looked so gloriously beautiful that it was all he could do to keep himself from kissing her that very moment.

  “When you gave me the news,” she went on, “it startled me. My mother is prone to mild histrionics, as I may’ve mentioned in the past, and so the hope did not seem unfounded. But surely Douglas is not given to flights of fancy, nor to groundless panic.”

  “No,” Holmes acknowledged. “He is as steady a chap as can be.”

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “He is that. So now I know what I must do.”

  “And what is that?” Holmes said, taking her hand and holding it to his chest.

  “I must leave for home immediately!” she replied, staring into his eyes.

  Holmes could not have been more shocked had she announced she was joining a nunnery.

  “Home? You mean Trinidad?” he said. “But—”

  “Oh, don’t you see?” Georgiana said, interrupting him. “I must.” Without giving him a moment to respond, she snatched her hand away and waved for the carriage. “Cabbie!” she called out, and she hurried off.

  Holmes ran after her and took hold of her arm.

  “I do not understand any of this!” he cried.

  “Mycroft, please,” she protested. “Let me go.”

  Reluctantly, he released her arm, then followed mutely behind her as she reached the carriage. The driver dutifully released the lever and opened the doors, and she began to climb aboard. Then she turned back.

  “Forgive me, my darling, I am quite resolute.”

  “Georgiana,” Holmes said, “but what of your life here? What of your studies?” What of me? he wished to add, though he did not.