A Study In Scarlet Women (2 page)

“I am afraid that would be impossible.”

Inspector Treadles almost took a step back at his friend's expression: a flare of anger that bordered on wrath.

“I understand that you are engaged this evening, my lord,” Treadles explained hesitantly. “My note requires no haste and needs be relayed only at your lordship's convenience.”

“I didn't make myself clear,” said Lord Ingram. All hints of rage had left his countenance. His eyes were blank, the set of his jaw hard. “I can't—nor can anyone else—convey any notes to Holmes. Not anymore.”

“I—I don't—that is—” Treadles stuttered. “Has something terrible happened?”

Lord Ingram's jaw worked. “Yes, something terrible.”

“When?”

“Today.”

Inspector Treadles blinked. “Is . . . is Holmes still alive?”

“Yes.”

“Thank goodness. Then we haven't lost him completely.”

“But we have,” said Lord Ingram, slowly, inexorably. “Holmes may be alive, but the fact remains that Holmes is now completely beyond my reach.”

Treadles's confusion burgeoned further, but he understood that no more details would be forthcoming. “I'm exceedingly sorry to hear that.”

“As am I, to be the bearer of such news.” Lord Ingram's voice was low, almost inaudible.

Treadles left Burlington House in a daze, hounded by dozens of unhappy conjectures. Had Holmes leaped from a perilous height armed with nothing but an unreliable parachute? Had he been conducting explosive experiments at home? Or had his brilliant but restless mind driven him to seduce the wrong woman, culminating in an illegal duel and a bullet lodged somewhere debilitating but not instantly lethal?

What
had happened to the elusive and extraordinary Sherlock Holmes?

Such a tragedy.

Such a waste.

Such a shame.

“T
he shame. Oh, the shame!” Lady Holmes screeched.

From her crouched position before the parlor door keyhole, Livia Holmes glared at the young maid peeking around the corner.
Back to your duties
, she mouthed.

The girl fled, but not before giggling audibly.

Did no one understand the concept of privacy anymore? If there was any spying to be done in the midst of a reputation-melting scandal, it ought to be left to a member of the family.

Livia returned her attention to the
sturm und drang
in the parlor. Her view through the keyhole was blocked by her mother's skirt, a ghastly mound of heliotrope silk that shook with Lady Holmes's outrage.

“How many times have I told you, Sir Henry, that your indulgence of the girl would prove to be her undoing? How many times have I said that she ought to have been wed years ago? Did you listen? No! No one heeded me when I warned that letting her reject perfectly suitable gentlemen one after another would only serve to make her unfit for marriage and motherhood.”

Her mighty bustle oscillated from side to side as she lurched forward. She lifted her arm and brought down her hand. An explosive
thwack
reverberated. Livia flinched.

She and Charlotte, the recipient of this resounding slap, had once discussed their mother's talents, or lack thereof. Livia was of the view that a segment of the population was inherently middling. Charlotte, of a more charitable bent of mind, believed that even those who appeared incurably undistinguished must possess some hidden skills or aptitudes.

Livia, not convinced, had brought up Lady Holmes as an example of utter mediocrity, a person who was unremarkable in every observable trait. Charlotte had countered, “But she has an extraordinary technique at slapping, the backhand especially.”

Now Lady Holmes produced just that, a dramatic backhand the force of which wobbled the lace trimmings on her skirt. “The worst has happened. No one will marry her and she can never show her face in Society again.”

It was the eleventh time she had spat out these lines this evening. Livia's neck hurt from the strain of crouching so long before the keyhole. How many more iterations before Charlotte would be allowed to escape to her own room?

“You haven't only caused your own ruin, Charlotte. You have also made us laughingstocks the rest of
our
lives.” Lady Holmes was still plowing through the remainder of her tirade, though her voice was becoming hoarse. “You have perpetrated a crime against Livia's chances at a decent marriage. If Henrietta hadn't already secured her Mr. Cumberland we would have nothing but a passel of spinster daughters.”

The contempt in Lady Holmes's voice—spinster daughters might as well be thieving whores. Livia lived with that scorn daily, a woman of twenty-seven, eight Seasons under her belt and no marital prospects whatsoever. Still she winced.

If history was any indication, Lady Holmes would storm toward where her husband sat and berate him some more. Then the entire diatribe would begin again.

Lumbering bustle in tow, Lady Holmes marched on, clearing the line of sight from the keyhole to Charlotte.

It never failed to astonish Livia that, after having known Charlotte all her life, sometimes she was still surprised by her sister's appearance. Especially at moments like these—well, there had never before been a moment quite like this, to be sure, but Charlotte had been dumbfounding her family for as long as Livia could remember.

When Livia was six and Charlotte four, one cold but clear Saturday afternoon on a family stroll around the village green, they'd come across a drawing that had been pinned to the noticeboard. There were four images on the piece of paper: a well, a horseshoe, the Virgin, and a kitten that was only half the size as the other images, a round, quizzical head floating on the top half of the paper.

Lady Holmes had sniffed. “How strange.”

“Rather interesting, I should think,” replied her husband.

“But what is it?” asked Henrietta, the eldest of the Holmes girls, her voice high-pitched and whiny.

“It's a message, of course,” Livia told her impatiently. “Must be something about the children's Christmas party.”

“What about that party? I don't see how that can be.”

How anyone could live to be ten years old and still remain so thick Livia had no idea. “The Virgin gave birth to baby Jesus at Christmas. The other drawings are games that will be there.”

Henrietta looked doubtful. “What kind of games?”

Before Livia could enumerate her guesses, Charlotte said, loudly and clearly, “It isn't about games. It's a proposal.”

All attention immediately turned to her.

Charlotte did not speak. In fact, their mother had been fretting for some time that Charlotte might turn out to be the same as Bernadine, the second oldest Holmes girl. At nine, Bernadine was no
longer taken on family outings: She'd become too disconcerting, a lovely child who paid no attention to anyone or anything. If she had any thoughts at all, she never shared them with a single person.

Charlotte, with her blond ringlets and big blue eyes, resembled Bernadine almost exactly. But whereas Bernadine was rail-thin—nothing Cook made ever agreed with her—Charlotte was a roly-poly dumpling, her cheeks full, her limbs round, her hands adorably chubby.

A cherubic girl, one who was as silent as the small hours of the night. She nodded, shook her head, and pointed, if necessary. Cook insisted that one time, in answer to the question
How many pieces of apple fritter do you want, Miss Charlotte?
, the girl had given a beautifully enunciated
Twelve
. But no one else had ever heard her say so much as
Mamma
.

One time Livia had overheard Lady Holmes weep about her family being cursed.
Not only can I not have sons, but half my daughters are imbeciles!
Livia had come away feeling both relieved that she herself wasn't an imbecile and heartbroken that Charlotte, whom she found darling and hilarious—she never failed to smile at the sight of Charlotte attacking her food—might someday become as unreachable as Bernadine.

But now Charlotte had spoken her first full sentences. Livia would have been indignant had anyone else corrected her so unceremoniously, but
Charlotte
had spoken and Livia had—no, not butterflies, but a whole stampeding herd of wildebeest in her stomach. With everyone else still dumbstruck, she shook Charlotte's mitten-clad hand, which she held in her own, and asked, “Do you mean a proposal of marriage, Charlotte?”

“Don't be ridiculous, Livia,” Lady Holmes scoffed. “She doesn't know what that is.”

“Yes, a proposal of marriage, Mamma,” Charlotte answered. “I
know what that is. It is when a gentleman asks a lady to become his wife.”

Again, stunned silence all around.

Sir Henry got down on one knee, a feverish gleam in his eyes. “Charlotte, my dear, why do you say these images constitute a proposal of marriage?”

Charlotte cast a critical eye at the picture, her expression amusingly grown-up. “It isn't a very good one, is it?”

“Maybe not, poppet. But why do you say it's a proposal in the first place?”

“Because it says
Will you marry me
. Actually, it says
Well you marry me
.”

“I can see a well. And I can see that the horseshoe opens up and looks like a U. And the Virgin's name is Mary,” said Sir Henry. “But how is the cat ‘me'?”

“Exactly,” Henrietta joined in. “That makes no sense.”

Livia would have liked to shove a snowball deep down the front of Henrietta's frock. But Charlotte didn't seem to mind. “The cat is in the middle of a meow. But since there's only half a cat, it's half a meow. And half a meow is ‘me.'”

Henrietta pouted. “How do you know half a meow isn't ‘ow' inst—?”

“Henrietta, shut up.” Sir Henry placed his hands on Charlotte's pink cheeks. “That is remarkable, poppet. Absolutely remarkable.”

“Are you sure?” said Lady Holmes. “She might be making things up and—”

“Lady Holmes, kindly shut up, too.”

“Well!” Lady Holmes sputtered. But she wasn't as easily silenced as Henrietta. “But you must tell Charlotte that since she is able to speak, she may no longer be so rudely silent.”

Sir Henry sighed. “Do you hear your mother, poppet?”

“But Papa, why should I talk when I've nothing important to say?”

Sir Henry barked with laughter. “Why, indeed. You're wise beyond your years, my dear poppet. And you have my blessing to be as silent as you'd like.”

This was said with a glance at Lady Holmes, the corners of whose lips turned down decidedly. With an exaggerated half bow, Sir Henry offered his wife his arm; she flattened her lips further but took it. Henrietta grabbed his other arm. Livia and Charlotte resumed walking hand in hand.

The next day was Sunday. After the sermon, the vicar announced from the pulpit that Miss Tomlinson had made him a very happy man by consenting to be his wife. Soon news was all over the village that those odd pictures on the noticeboard had been the vicar's way of proposing, as he and Miss Tomlinson were both fond of puzzles and rebuses.

Sir Henry pranced around the house, looking delighted and smug. Livia was happy for Charlotte, a little jealous that she wasn't the one to decipher the message, and strangely despondent. It would take her a long time to understand that the asphyxiated feeling in her chest had nothing to do with Charlotte but everything to do with their parents.

Sir Henry disdained his wife as Lady Holmes disdained her daughters. They weren't happy together but Lady Holmes was the far unhappier one.

It had been frightful for Livia to understand this. Her mother had seemed immensely powerful, an Olympian figure striding about her fine country house, emanating command and superiority. But she was impotent before her husband's contempt.

Nor was she, in the end, the kind of household authority figure that Livia had first believed. What control Lady Holmes exerted was
largely illusory, maintained tenuously and with frequent outbursts of anger and violence—that extraordinary slapping technique had not come about without assiduous practice. The servants despised her, Livia barely tolerated her, and Bernadine's condition was always worse when she was near. The only one with whom she got along was Henrietta, who happily flattered and even emulated her.

Once in a while Livia came upon this domestic despot sitting by herself, in a corner of the parlor, looking pale and lost. But then Lady Holmes would see her and shout at her for being a disagreeable sneak who never knew when she wasn't wanted and Livia's sympathy would evaporate as she broiled in humiliation.

She was twelve when she realized that the same could happen to her. That she, too, could marry a handsome, well-liked man and still be miserable.

That very same week Charlotte made her observation about Mrs. Gladwell.