Chapter 16

I walked down Regent Street toward Piccadilly Circus where I was to meet Jonathan at The Criterion Theater and Restaurant. Built on what had once been the site of a coaching inn called the White Bear, it had thrived for over a century but was demolished in 1870 and rebuilt. I was just fourteen and my uncle and I watched from a distance. He had squeezed my hand and said, “We must never forget the past, Poppy, what’s gone before. It is alive in the present if we keep it so.”

Ground for the new building was broken in 1871; a restaurant and a bar opened in 1873 and the theater presented its first performance, An American Lady, in 1874, the year I met Sherlock. I stood at the entrance for a moment. Many, many years later, I would revisit that site where a statue, Eros, was erected a few years after that luncheon, which I came to regard as the real turning point in my life. Ultimately the decision to meet Jonathan that day set into motion a series of events that altered the course of my existence.

I spotted Jonathan and when he saw me enter the restaurant, he gallantly rushed to escort me to our table, took my cape and handed it to a waiter as he held my chair out for me to be seated.

It was a lovely setting with clean linen tablecloths, neatly pressed napkins, plated silverware, pewter pots and finger glasses. We were immediately offered a choice of cheeses and pulled bread. A waiter handed me a bill-of-fare but Jonathan quickly suggested flounder and potatoes and I simply nodded.

“We can order something else, if you prefer, Poppy.”

“No Jonathan. Flounder is fine.”

“My father,” he said, “often likes to tell me about all the restaurants he and my mother frequented when he was a young solicitor before he became an MP in Suffolk. I believe his favorite place was George Reeves on Cornhill and Lombard. He used to rave about the roast beef and mutton cutlets and hashed duck and new potatoes.”

We sat there, me rather stiff and uncomfortable as Jonathan rapidly recounted his days at Harrow with my brother Michael and his struggle to decide whether to follow his father’s footsteps into the law or to pursue medicine.

On this subject, medicine, we found common ground and conversation eased through the rest of lunch... until he asked me this: “What is the nature of your relationship with Sherlock Holmes? Why do you keep company with him?”

I dabbed my lips with my napkin, took a sip of water and said, “Pardon me?”

“I asked what your relationship to him is.”

My mind flitted from one memory to another, from the day I met Sherlock on the grounds of Oxford to our long afternoons by the river in the Broads when he visited Victor Trevor, to his disappearance to sort out a blackmail scheme against Victor’s father. He’d summoned me to Holme-Next-the-Sea to seek my counsel as to how to tell Victor about his father’s sordid past from which Mrs. Hudson’s estranged husband’s blackmail scheme was hatched. It was at that seaside cottage that we had finally displayed our affection toward one another. I thought of the criminal cases we had worked together. I often placed myself in danger to do so. I thought of our meetings at the British Museum where he researched certain Buddhist practices as they related to our last case. I saw in my mind his lodgings on Montague, which I had seen only once. The roaring fireplace, the mantel where he kept notes and pipes. And the tavern at which he often stopped, the one across the street from the museum. There were many public houses but this was his favorite and I pictured him sitting in there, nursing a beer and thinking through a problem.

Finally, I thought of the way my feelings waxed and waned toward Sherlock.

“Poppy?” Jonathan asked, snapping me back to the present. “I do not mean to offend but I have wondered...”

“Sherlock is my very dear friend, Jonathan. We have known each other a long time and worked together on many cases.”

“Cases? You? But you are not a detective.”

“I lend my medical expertise occasionally. And I assist in other ways.”

“So it is a business relationship.”

“No, we are friends,” I said again. “Why does this matter to you?”

“Michael has told me a great deal about Sherlock Holmes. I think he is... well, he is not suitable for you.”

I smiled to myself. Then I laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“That is almost precisely what Sherlock said to me about you.”

“He doesn’t even know me,” he protested. “What makes him think that I am unsuitable for you?”

“Jonathan, it really does not matter to me what either one of you think. I go my own way and I shall make my own decisions. Men - even ones for whom I have affection - do not make them for me.”

Now Jonathan laughed. “I knew you were different, Poppy. Independent. As I told you, I find it exciting. I should like to see you again.”

I glanced at the watch pinned to my bodice. “I must be going, Jonathan,” I said as I stood and waved to a waiter to retrieve my cape.

Jonathan stood and said, “Poppy, let me hail you a cab or-”

“No, thank you, Jonathan. As I told your page earlier, I prefer to walk.”

As soon as I had my cape, I drew it around me, tied it, thanked him for lunch and headed back to my office.

Men, I thought. Men! Is there not a single man in the world who would allow a woman to be - well, whatever she wishes?