Chapter One #3
Alice slid a long pin through the crown of her hat; her eyes met his in the mirror.
“That was also my first thought. But when they’ve wanted to bow out of Sunday dinners before, they’ve always said that Eleanor wasn’t feeling well.
This is the first time Barnaby has been cast in that role and a part of me wonders whether it’s true, that he really is ill. ”
Treadles shrugged into his coat. “You’re not going to drag me to call on him, are you?”
“No, but I might, in the evening.” She smiled at him again. “You put up your feet and enjoy your day off, Inspector.”
Charlotte Holmes stood before the window of her room and took in the greenery of Regent’s Park across the street. A soft mist drifted across the lake, which was just visible beyond a colonnade of mature trees, heavy with rain and foliage.
She relished a good winter downpour, but she enjoyed a summer shower almost as much—that is, when she had a proper roof over her head and no pressing concerns about losing said roof.
Odd to realize this, but she was in a finer town residence than any she had ever occupied.
Her father, Sir Henry Holmes, baronet, had once owned a house in London. But that was sold well before Charlotte had her first Season. Every year Charlotte’s mother, Lady Holmes, lamented the loss. Oh, how much better it would have been to arrive at one’s own house, rather than a hired property.
The houses they hired were in more fashionable parts of the town than Mrs. Watson’s, but that made them expensive—and never large enough for Lady Holmes’s needs.
A dinner of more than sixteen was out of the question and proper balls were daydreams. The best they could do for dancing was to push all furniture out of the drawing room and pray that gentlemen who dared to waltz were skillful enough not to crash their partners into other guests.
Those houses did not offer views or the latest advances in plumbing. And certainly not electricity, which she was still slowly coming to terms with. Her parents never employed a cook as fine as Madame Gascoigne or a butler as efficient as Mr. Mears. She had, in fact, never had a room to herself.
Charlotte had the unnerving sensation that she did not deserve such good fortune—or at least, that she hadn’t earned it.
And she did not know how to reconcile herself to the fact that the seed of this good fortune had been bestowed upon her by Lord Ingram, whose aid she had not sought, even in her most desperate hour, because she had not wished to be indebted to him.
But now she was, always and forevermore.
The rain had started only after they’d returned from their walk, during which Miss Penelope Redmayne, with steadfast cheerfulness, worked on Mrs. Watson’s resistance. Mrs. Watson remained resistant. Charlotte had maintained—without any effort, it must be said—her complete neutrality.
At the moment Mrs. Watson enjoyed a respite from Miss Redmayne’s determined appeal: The ladies were at church.
Charlotte had not been to church since she ran away from home.
God likely wouldn’t mind if she stepped inside His house—Jesus voluntarily associated with women of less-than-pristine repute—but His followers tended to be less magnanimous.
In any case, she had a prior appointment, one she hadn’t mentioned to Mrs. Watson.
Umbrella in hand, she made her way to 18 Upper Baker Street.
The house belonged to Mrs. Watson and was usually let to a tenant.
But recently it had been turned into a dwelling for the fictional Sherlock Holmes, who was stricken with a mysterious illness that left him bedridden and incommunicado by ordinary means, leaving his sister as the oracle with whom his clients must consult, in order to gain his great and terrible insights.
Normally Charlotte played the role of the sister, though Mrs. Watson had also, on occasion, taken the part.
The parlor of 18 Upper Baker Street was of a good size, furnished with comfortable chairs clustered around a fireplace.
The air held whiffs of whisky and tobacco, enough to hint at a masculine presence, but not so much as to put one in mind of a public house.
There was also the scent of convalescence, of camphor and linseed oil.
And floating serenely above it all, the fragrance of flowers, courtesy of the fresh bouquet that always bloomed on the seat of the bow window.
At precisely eleven o’clock, the doorbell rang—Lord Bancroft, like his brother, possessed exquisite punctuality, one of the few traits they shared.
“You look well, Miss Holmes,” he said, as he settled himself into the seat she offered, his tone somewhat surprised.
Charlotte had timed a kettle to boil over the spirit lamp for his arrival. Now she warmed a teapot and set two spoons of first-growth Ceylon leaves to steep. “Thank you, sir.”
In some ways he was the antithesis of his brother.
While Lord Ingram radiated physicality and magnetism, Lord Bancroft was devoid of any personal charisma.
But instead of being forgettable, the consensus was that those stuck next to him at social functions emerged mere shadows of their former selves.
His “blandness” consisted of a singular lack of warmth, a dogged social persistence, and a heavy application of skepticism.
Livia had been his dinner companion once.
She was obliged to answer questions for hours on end, from the Holmes girls’ practically nonexistent education to all the minutiae of a parliamentary election in their rural borough, in the wake of their father’s unsuccessful attempt at standing for office.
Lord Bancroft had demanded that she source each fact and justify every opinion, while he played devil’s advocate and asked why she didn’t believe in the exact opposite of what she did.
Livia, who already suffered from a lack of confidence, came home in tears, convinced that she was the stupidest and most ignorant creature alive.
His social conduct did not stem from malice, but obligation as he understood it: One ought to keep the conversation going at table, and keep it going he would.
But he had few interests and no hobbies, did not want to inform anyone what they should have learned from books and newspapers—and of course could not possibly recount to mere debutantes the clandestine work he did on behalf of the crown.
And so he asked questions of those with whom he socialized, men and women alike.
Charlotte had heard gentlemen swearing foully after an encounter with him, because he had interrogated them on their management of estate, friendship, and horseflesh, and they had come away feeling as immature and incompetent as Livia had.
Charlotte, on the other hand, got along well with Lord Bancroft.
She sourced her facts and was not particularly attached to her opinions—opinions, by their very nature, were subject to change.
Possessing neither the desire to please nor the need to impress, she answered his questions as long as he had questions to ask and when he ran out of them, she was happy to eat in silence.
As she did now, nibbling on a slice of excellent pound cake while Lord Bancroft looked around the parlor.
“Pleasant surroundings,” he said, after a while. “And very fine pound cake.”
“Thank you,” she said.
Many people, women especially, she had observed, responded to a compliment by explaining what they had—or hadn’t done—to merit it.
But with Lord Bancroft, simple, unembellished answers were the way to proceed, unless one stood ready to verify the provenance of one’s chairs by producing affidavits from long-dead carpenters and upholsterers—or to admit that said chairs were inexpensive reproductions manufactured in Leeds.
Though in this case, she was half tempted to say something about the pound cake, which deserved every praise. She touched the side of the teapot, gauging the temperature of the brew within. “You wished to see Sherlock Holmes about something, my lord?”