Of – attraction.
When I sipped at my coffee again, it had gone bitter.
Fog rolled in.
London drifted through the hazy sea for days, damp seeping drearily into the corners of Baker Street, settling an uneasy silence over everything like a thin coating of dust. My leg and shoulder ached constantly, but no matter how high the fire was built, I could not shake the chill.
The sober atmosphere seemed to set Holmes on edge as well, and he was in and out of our rooms at all hours of the day and night with barely a word to me. His long absences left me feeling as alone as I had been before moving into 221B, and I could not help but wonder whether he had been driven out into the night by something he had seen in me – something I was only barely starting to see in myself.
It would not have been the first time Holmes had known something about me before I knew it myself, after all. He knew so much at a single glance – there was no telling what sharing rooms with someone might reveal to him.
Outside, the fog curled thick and yellow against the windowpanes, and finally I took myself to bed to escape from it. I would find no resolutions that night anyway, no answers: the darkness was too impenetrable, and the future, I feared, too bleak.
Chapter Five
I was going to call it A Study in Scarlet, I had decided, but now as I flipped through the pages, I wondered whether it was fit for publication after all, even with an offer to print already on my desk. Each of my exclamations of awe and admiration now seemed illicit, written proofs of a prurient curiosity. As filthy and felonious as the murderer Holmes had brought to heel.
But it hadn't been like that, I knew. Whatever new thing had sprung into my chest, it was a young, weak thing, and it had nothing to do with the impression Holmes had made upon me when first we met, nor anything to do with the healing I had undergone at 221B Baker Street, nor with the decision to write our adventure down. Was I now to let this callow thing paint my memories with so red a brush?
No.
There was no danger, I told myself, because A Study in Scarlet was not about me in any way. It was about Holmes, and Holmes deserved it: the credit, the understanding. I would not allow my cowardice to take that from him now.
I would accept this offer to publish; I was determined. I put aside my fears and, swallowing hard, instead picked up the letter from the publisher at Beeton's.
Yet, haunted by my own mind, I could not sleep. Every muted clink of glass from the sitting room resonated along my nerves; every hint of Holmes' presence beyond my bedroom door left me straining to glean something from the clues and impressions his quiet movements gave me.
I could imagine him, still sitting exactly where I'd left him hours before, still tense and silent at his microscope. His hands would be careful, his long fingers graceful and gentle with his delicate instruments. His great working mind would be a palpable energy in the room, vibrating with white-hot intensity as he built and connected and deduced and understood.
My imagination slipped away from me then, into an onslaught of images that left me choking for air: my hand on his shoulder, warm; his eyes lighting with recognition, with response. Those extravagant fingers, entwining with mine, pulling me closer. Arousal slid heavily into my veins.
And then: the soft strains of a violin melted through the door. Holmes had heard my breath stop, I realised, had been keeping part of himself wary for sounds of distress. Had mistaken my gasp of arousal for one of fear, of a nightmare. Had abandoned his work to soothe me.
I lay awake, listening to the sound as though it were a penance. My eyes burned.
Holmes' breath blew a visible plume into the night air. 'Soon,' he promised, unprompted, and I did my best not to grumble. The rooftop we had made our seat was not a comfortable lookout, exposed as it was to the wind; I was exhausted from a lack of sleep the night before and longed for the warmth of Baker Street.
'If it isn't soon,' I returned, 'you'll be taking home a frozen statue instead of a man.'
Holmes did not answer, but his lips twitched – a smile he wasn't ready to give in to but couldn't help. I reminded myself forcefully that whatever I felt to see that smile, it was a feeling I alone experienced. That Holmes had noticed my discomfort was only indicative of his nature as a detective. He was a friend to me, a good one – and I was not a very good one in return.
Perhaps I had simply grown too used to Holmes' company, I thought; perhaps I had grown too unused to the company of women. Perhaps I ought to apply myself to finding a wife, to building a separate home and a separate life.
Yes, I resolved. A wife.
I was leaning into Holmes, I realised, seeking protection from the cold. I flushed, embarrassed, and shifted away, sliding further down our makeshift bench.
The terrible business of Pondicherry Lodge was, at once, the best and the worst case I could have imagined.
It was clear that Holmes could not do without a case a moment longer. He had been indulging in his cocaine for weeks, and no argument could be had to stop him; he had turned melancholy and despondent. Looking back on that period, years later, I would wonder whether it was my own despair that prompted his, but at the time, I foolishly thought Holmes too wrapped up in his drugs and dramatics to notice my troubles.
But then there was Miss Mary Morstan.
Miss Morstan was a fair, wide-eyed creature, with the sort of grace only bad luck can grant a person, yet still with an inordinate amount of hope. Whether I was merely drawn to her out of the juxtaposition to Holmes, or whether because she herself was drawn to me, I could not say. The facts remained: we were drawn to one another, and though the case turned out to be a dark and wicked affair, I would not soon forget standing in the gardens of Pondicherry Lodge, holding her hand, turning toward each other for protection and comfort.
Her hand was a soft, warm thing – so very unlike Holmes', which were, I recalled, always so scarred and battered.
'Miss Mary Morstan,' Holmes drawled, interrupting our comfortable silence with a disdainful tone. 'A singular woman, to have caught your eye.'
I looked up from my papers. I wanted to defend myself against the implication that I had been in some way ensnared, but in truth I had been, these last weeks, so I flushed instead of denying it. Miss Morstan had been charming, kind, gentle: everything any reasonable man hoped a wife might be.
The subject of which was fast becoming something of a pressing interest. I felt it was only a matter of time before Holmes determined that there had been a change in the nature of my devotion to him, if he hadn't already. The appearance of Mary Morstan as soon as I had decided to start looking earnestly for a wife seemed like an act of providence, and I thought – I hoped – that I could love her. I at least intended to try my hand at it.
'You liked her as well,' I said, in a poor attempt at deflection.
'I did,' he agreed. 'She was an ideal client. But I suspect you intend to make more of her than that.'
'I intend nothing,' I lied, but I immediately felt guilty for it. I tried to shrug it away. 'It's hard to say what fate will bring.'
As my association with Miss Morstan began growing deeper, so did my association with Holmes begin to grow fragile.
At first I put this down as a natural consequence of spending many of my evenings elsewhere, but I soon came to realise that even when I was at home, Holmes seemed withdrawn, unlikely to ask for assistance or an opinion. The invitations to this or that lecture or opera dwindled rapidly,