Chapter 5

It was dinner time when I returned to Uncle’s house in Regent’s Park. But these days I rose, went to the office, worked, and returned home in darkness, so it was hard to keep mark of the time. Sometimes my biological clock was completely confused by the perpetual night in the Metropolis.

Due to the infernal fog, I often left an extra scarf and gloves at the office, so I’d had an extra scarf to give to Penelope Potash that day. I placed my cape, scarf and hat on the oak coat tree in the hall and dropped my gloves on the table. It was then that I noticed the note from Aunt Susan leaning against the silver bird perched on the rim of the ornate calling card holder on the marble table. I unfolded it and read it; it was dated two days before Christmas.

Happy Christmas, sweet Poppy. As you, Michael and my stubborn husband refuse to join us to celebrate at Burleigh Manor, I’ve arranged for the Cheadles’ cook to make a proper Christmas dinner. I know you shall not supply the sustenance.

Of course, I would not prepare dinner. I almost laughed out loud. Sherlock had said once that he could never be a proper husband to me. I was certain I’d never be a normal, suitable wife. I could barely manage to properly steep a pot of tea.

I knew the Cheadle brothers’ cook and the men she worked for. They were employed by my uncle’s solicitor, Mr. Havershal. They lived in a run-down century-old home in Holburn, a very tall and ugly edifice that they kept talking about renovating into a law office of their own should they ever leave Mr. Havershal’s employ. Their home was dingy with smoke and dirt and sadly in need of a hand of repair. The window frames barely boasted the last remnant of paint and the iron fence was red with rust. Their culinary talents were even less impressive than my own, but they did employ a few servants, one of whom was a plump Irish woman named Fiona McMonagle, who cooked and baked.

I was surprised Mrs. McMonagle had stayed on there for there was no comfort or joy or cosiness in that house. It certainly wasn’t gold coins or sterling that kept her there, for though the Cheadle brothers were excellent barristers, very sharp practitioners, they were miserly in the highest degree. She toiled and moiled, but perhaps her pitiable earnestness belied her goal to accumulate enough money before her gray hairs thinned to baldness and her strength failed her. I think she hoped to buy a place of her own, rent out private rooms, and sit, content, by a tiny fire burning in the grate to gladden her spirits, just as Mrs. Hudson did. Mrs. Hudson, Victor Trevor’s former housekeeper, had been caught up in a blackmail scheme orchestrated by her husband against Victor’s father, but Sherlock had befriended her because of her assistance in bringing that case to a close. Now she owned a building on Baker Street and rented out rooms for an income.

I continued reading Aunt Susan’s note as I walked toward the dining room.

There will be everything from goose to Christmas pudding and all the trimmings in between waiting for you when you, Michael and Ormond have finished your work for the day. I shall miss you, Poppy.

Love,

Aunt Susan.

P. S. Gifts from your uncle and I are in the morning room and on the tree. Presents from your parents, however, are waiting for you at Burleigh Manor until your next visit, which my sister urges you to plan soon!

I pivoted and turned to walk down the hallway to Aunt Susan’s morning room. I surveyed the beautifully-wrapped presents that were stacked on her piano. I sat down at the piano, placed my hands on the keys, and pecked out The Sussex Carol, the only Christmas carol I did not fumble over. My hands could hold a scalpel steadily, but my fingers turned into sailor’s knots on the ivories. I had almost finished the first stanza when I heard Uncle say, “Happy Christmas, Poppy.”

I turned my head and saw him standing near the door. “And to you, Uncle.”

He strode across the room and pecked me on the cheek. “You worked rather late.”

“I had a room full of patients, Uncle. For the very first time! I should be glad of it, but the reasons for it bring me no joy.”

“I know,” he sighed. “The queue today curled round the hospital and The Square was more crowded than a prison yard during a hanging.”

I cringed at the reference. I had attended two hangings with Sherlock and wanted no reminders of those occasions.

“Dinner will be served shortly,” he said.”I was amazed Mrs. McMonagle actually found her way through the fog to deliver it. And Genabee is making everything ready for us now.”

“I thought Genabee was spending the day with her family.”

“She did. But yesterday she kindly offered to help out here this evening. She’s a good girl.”

And she is not unaware of your kindness and generosity, I thought. She will be compensated handsomely for her loyalty and inconvenience.

“Thank heavens she made it here in one piece,” Uncle said. “Most people stayed in today, whether they could have a proper dinner or not. One of the doctors at St. Bart’s said the only reason he would have Christmas dinner was because the servants to whom he had given duck and plum pudding were willing to share.”

I nodded in understanding. As I had traveled home, I could barely see my hand in front of my face. People were actually asking where they were and house numbers were indecipherable.

“Go wash your face and hands now and come to dinner. Michael and Sherlock are waiting.”

“Sherlock? Sherlock is here? But I didn’t even hear Little Elihu bark.”

Uncle laughed. “Oh, he and Sherlock have become fast friends since your last adventure when that madman attacked the two of you. Elihu saved your lives, remember?”

How could I forget? The serial killer we had tracked down was about to kills us both when my dog sank his teeth into him.

“I invited Sherlock to dinner, Poppy. He was in the lab most of the day and I thought I should see if he had any plans with Mycroft, which he did not. And he was obviously not going home to spend the holiday with Sherrinford and his family. That isn’t a problem, is it?”

I shook my head. “Of course not.”

“Good. We were just having a port in the library. Now go get ready for dinner.”

When he left, I rose to go up to my room, but the array of gifts tempted me. I had to open at least one to brighten my spirits.

I unwrapped a package wrapped in green marbled paper. It contained a curled paper decorated tea caddy. The box was a hexagon with a lid with steel hinges, a brass lock and a brass handle of axe-head form. The top and all the side panels were encased in mahogany banding inlaid with chequered boxwood and ebony. The curled paperwork decoration extended to all the panels with yellow, green and gilt ground contrasting paper and the interior had traces of tea box pewter lining and a base of green woven cloth. A note in Aunt Susan’s hand read “For your hope chest.”

My hopeless chest, I thought.

I then turned to the smallest box, recalling Sherlock’s gift of a locket. Often the finest gifts come in the smallest packages. When I unwrapped it, I found a small wooden keepsake box, the lid of which was decorated in Berlin work, a counted thread design in brilliant shades. Aunt Susan had left another note inside. “To keep your secrets or your fine jewelry... as you wish. Now solve the puzzle to find your next gift.”

I glanced at the note below. She’d decided to make me play the new game called Doublets, created by Lewis Carroll and recently described in Vanity Fair. To play, one had to use several words to change one word into another, using only one letter from the previous word. All the words between the first and the last had to be actual words. As an example, Carroll charged the reader to change the word PIG into the word STY, with five words in between. Aunt Susan did not tell me the last word, though; she’d decided to make it even more difficult. Instead, to find my gift, I had to change the word Noel “into a component of a game, using only Christmas-related words.”

My aunt loved such games and she and Uncle were quite good at it, but I had failed miserably each time I tried. Brows furled, my nose in a pinch, I tried for several minutes to work it out. I heard Sherlock say, “What’s keeping you, Poppy? I am famished.”

I looked up and then held the note out to him. “It’s a game Aunt Susan is forcing me to play to find a gift. A riddle of sorts.”

He took the note. “Ah, yes. Doublets. I’ve heard of this.” He took a pen from his pocket and scribbled on the back of the note. A few moments later, he said, “Ah! I’ve got it.” He handed the note back to me. He’d written the following words: Noel, Angel, Carol, Song, Sing, King. So he’d taken the ‘e’ from Noel and used it in the word Angel; then he took the ‘a’ in Angel and used it in the word Carol. And so on.

“King?” I asked. “But I’m to use only Christmas words.”

“Isn’t Christ the King? As in King and Queen. Components of the game of chess. I believe you are receiving a chess set. Look there, in the large box on the left.”

I quickly opened the largest present. Inside was a beautiful chess set made of ebony and ivory with another note. “You do not do very well on the ebony and ivory in this room. Perhaps you shall excel at this pastime. I look forward to the challenge.”It was signed ‘Uncle Ormond.’

“Oh!” I cried. “Oh, my heavens. Sherlock, do you play?”

“I have a time or two.”

“Splendid. We shall have a game after dinner.”

“If you don’t hurry along, I shall be dead before your Uncle carves the goose.”

I told them about my patients during dinner. “My last patient reminded me of Fantine and Cosette,” I said.

“Who?” Sherlock asked.

“The mother and daughter in Les Miserables.”

He looked totally mystified.

“The novel by Victor Hugo about the French Revolution. Have you not heard of it? It was just published here in London. Fantine is forced into prostitution when she loses her job so that she can support her daughter Cosette. My patient has a little girl. She was as thin as a rail and came to me because of a cough and other symptoms. I am wondering if she has consumption like Fantine did. Maybe I misdiagnosed her. Consumption causes weight loss, fever, and a cough. But I blamed it on the fog.”

“Laënnec died from it,” Uncle said.

“Laënnec?” Sherlock asked. Suddenly he was interested in the conversation. “The man who invented the stethoscope?”

“Yes, and he used it to support his findings about pulmonary diseases before he died,” Uncle explained. “If this young woman is suffering from consumption rather than bronchitis, she needs to go to a sanitorium. One just opened in Falkenstein... it’s a place where patients can rest and get fresh air and their food intake can be monitored.”

“I don’t know anything about her, Uncle. She said her name is Penelope Potash but I don’t know where she lives. But she promised to return for more vibratory treatments for a female problem.”

“Hopefully she will return soon, then,” Uncle said. “If she suffers from this illness, time is of the essence.”

Then the conversation drifted, of course, to the fog, always the fog.

“I just heard today from my friend Dr. Mitchell.” Uncle said. “He’s compiling statistics to submit an article to the Journal of the Scottish Meteorological Society. The penny post is a marvelous thing, isn’t it? We can give each other updates almost daily on statistics regarding mortality rates as well as atmospheric measurements that Sherlock provides. Dr. Angus Smith has been measuring the noxious qualities in the air near Manchester as well. He has an uneasy feeling about the situation.”

“I have also,” Michael said. “Most expect it to linger for several more weeks. And if the fog does not abate-”

“Many more will die,” I croaked, tossing my napkin on my half-eaten dinner.

“I hope that this horrible weather does not adversely affect Her Majesty,” Michael said. “She is getting up in years.”

“She is but sixty,” Sherlock said.

“Which is not young,” Michael replied.

“I plan to live to be a hundred. Or forever!” Sherlock answered.

“At any rate, I hope she does not fall ill,” Michael said.

“Nor do I,” I said. “I do not relish the thought of Prince Edward becoming King just yet.”

“You besmirch the Prince?”Michael asked.

“While I wish she had not withdrawn from public life after Prince Albert’s death,” I said, “it certainly shows the depth of her love and commitment, whereas her son is an adulterer. He has not inherited his mother’s moral fiber.”

“Poppy!” Uncle said. “Those are rumours.”

“Oh, I think it is more than rumour. The prince has built a little love nest for his mistress, Lily Langtry,” I retorted. “Oscar Wilde knows her and he told me of this.”

Michael shrugged. “They are royalty,” he said. “They are different.”

“Why? Why are they different? And why should we look the other way? I shall not apologize for the fact that it bothers me that there are so many poor and homeless and wretched on London’s streets and the monarchy does so little about it. They are privileged. They are born privileged. I have far more respect for the commoner who pulls himself up by his bootstraps and carves out a living or manages to get a good education despite the odds against it. Like Uncle.”

“You have concerns about the prince, Poppy,” Uncle said. “About his disregard for his wife’s feelings and the Crown’s reputation... I understand that,” Uncle said. “But unfaithfulness does not necessarily equate to an inability to rule justly. Though the Prince may suffer from some moral ambiguity, this does not mean he abandons fairness and justness. People cannot be neatly nor uniformly sorted into kind, tolerant, and trustworthy on one side, and lying, venal, unfaithful and bigoted on the other. Mankind is complex. So the prince’s moral deficiencies and his ability to rule are separate issues.”

I wanted to agree with Uncle. I loved his humour, his intelligence, his wisdom and kindness... his ability to lift you with a word or his capacity to fell you with a look. The intransigence which made him the great surgeon that he was because he settled for nothing less than the highest standard. I loved his ineffable and cynical wit, the clarity with which he saw most things, including me, and the fact that he never spared me the view. I had learned a lot from him. But on this point I disagreed.

“Are they separate issues, Uncle? I think they are linked. I think that one’s moral compass guides an individual in all things, and if good judgment is lacking in one place, then it may also be deficient in another.”

My dinner companions were saved from further discourse because Genabee brought dessert to the table. I think I saw all three of them heave a sigh of relief.

Sherlock joined me after dinner for a game of chess. I knew the rudiments of the game, but it became clear quite quickly that it would take a long time to excel at it. I admitted this to Sherlock, who said, “To excel in chess is the mark of a scheming mind. You are too altruistic to be much of a schemer, Poppy.”

I set about to prove him wrong, of course, but in no time he bested me. He castled the King’s rook and announced, “Mate in two moves.”

I mentally retraced his last several moves. Uncle undoubtedly would have known how to keep Sherlock from being able to castle on the King’s side. With a huff, I laid down my queen and crossed my arms.

“What are you doing?”

“Conceding,” I groaned.

He tipped over the king and said, “You don’t lay down the queen. You lay down the king. Another game?” he asked, grinning.

I shook my head. “Absolutely not!”

Michael came into the library with two glasses of sherry and handed them to us. He sat down next to Sherlock. “I received a letter from Victor. He heard from a friend of his in the military that things are heating up in Afghanistan. His friend is a doctor who had just set up a charitable dispensary in Kabul. It sounds very bad. Syphilis, leprosy, especially amongst the Hazaras. And many other diseases like asthma. The hospital was ransacked, but we have regained control and apparently it will be up and running again by next month. They have treated a number of wounded as well.”

Sherlock abruptly excused himself and I turned to Michael. “What of your friend John? The doctor who went off to Netley last year?” I asked. “Have you heard from him?”

“Oh, yes, Watson. He wrote that he expects to join the 5th Northumberland Fusiliers or the 66th Berkshire Regiment.”

Sherlock returned with a small package and gave it to Michael.

“What is this, Sherlock?” Michael asked.

“Something I picked up at Morse Hudson’s gallery. A small picture frame. I thought perhaps you could frame a photo for your son.”

Michael’s face shown his surprise. “That was very thoughtful, Sherlock. Thank you.”

Sherlock waved in the air. “Do go on. I did not mean to interrupt.”

Michael looked down.

“What is it, Michael?”

“According to my friend John, they are about to deploy to Kandahar. And Ayub Khan hates the British and wants to expel them completely and set himself up as the Amir. Things could get very ugly.”

“I shall pray for him.”

Perhaps because Sherlock could see that I was uncomfortable with this talk of the war, he said, “Let us not engage in discussion on the follies of mankind over land, religion, title and profit. Poppy, let’s talk about the swans.”