Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Sword Princess (9 page)

Mirabella sighed self-consciously.
 
She had heretofore believed herself to look presentable if not becoming in a white lace blouse, a black velvet choker with a pale blue cameo, a blue linen skirt, and a straw hat with peonies on it.

She bit her lip.
 
Her own beauty, or more likely the lack therein, had absolutely nothing to do with the subject at hand, and well Miss Bickers knew it.
 
The point was, as much as Mirabella felt that the poor deserved the same opportunities as the rich, even she would prefer to see the girls trained to work in servitude to the middle and upper classes—like herself—than to have no training in anything at all.
 

That was a recipe for disaster.

“Is that what you want, miss?
 
To marry well?” Miss Bickers inquired in an acerbic politeness.

“Oh, no!
 
I want to enter university and study science.
 
I’m saving all my money to do so.”
 
Again, she felt a twinge of guilt.
 
She was supposed to be focused on chemistry and biology—and, for some reason, the thought of detective work had her giddy with excitement.

Perhaps Sherlock Holmes’ madness is contagious.

“I sees.
 
You have a job and you want to enter university.
 
And what would happen after that?”

“Well, I would be a scientist.
 
I have ideas, you know.”
 
And I certainly will not feel guilty for having dreams!

“Ah.” Miss Bickers replied.
 
“I have ideas too, but the money don’t fall out of the sky.”

Having delivered her commentary along with undisguised regalement, Miss Bickers left the room and returned with a tin box.
 
The older woman scrutinized Mirabella’s receipts, pulling several crisp, new pound notes out from the tin box which contained a great deal of cash to Mirabella’s way of thinking.
 

Miss Bickers made very neat entries into a ledger, adding the numbers accurately in her head, and handed the notes to Mirabella.
 
It appeared that the headmistress was qualified to teach elementary mathematics at least.

“I hope you do not take offence at my interest in the curriculum, Miss Bickers,” Mirabella murmured contritely.
 
“I only think of the girls’ futures.”

“Their future, you say?” Miss Bickers’ eyes scrutinized her with both disdain and ridicule.
 
“Let me tell you about my
past
.”

“Well, certainly, Miss Bickers, if you think—”

“First of all, many of these childrens here was abandoned.”

“Yes, I expect so.”
 
Mirabella did know that child abandonment was rampant.
 
London was a young town, with one-third of the population youth, many of them on the street.

“Did you know, miss, that in some places such as this, the nurses administer Godfrey’s Cordial to the young-uns, for the colic in babies?”

“A cordial?
 
What do you mean, Miss Bickers?”

“A mix of opium and treacle,” Miss Bickers replied.

Gasp!
 
Mirabella threw her hand over her mouth.

“What do you know about the workhouses, missy?” Miss Bickers persisted.

“Well . . . I . . . only what I read . . .” Mirabella replied, somewhat startled at the intensity of Miss Bickers’ gaze.
 

“You don’t know
nuthin’
, miss,” snapped Miss Bickers, scowling.
 
“Just as I thought.
 
What you read
.
 
You and your book learnin’ makes you think you know everthin’.”

“And were you . . . did you live . . . ?” asked Mirabella, suddenly concerned.

“I’ll tell you somethin’, Miss Hoighty Toighty.
 
These girls are as lucky as can be.
 
They have food and they only works a few hours a day.
 
Most of ‘em ain’t sick—and when they is, we have a
real doctor
.
 
I rarely discipline the little knee biters and I lets them do as they please.
 
Do you know how’s orphans on the streets get their next meal?”

“Oh, yes, I keep my eyes open, Miss Bickers,” she replied confidently, nodding her head.
 
“I’ve seen children employed as chimney sweeps, errand boys, shoe blacks, and selling matches and flowers.”
 

And reporting on criminal activity.
 
Sherlock Holmes’ street urchins, a most industrious group of boys termed the
Baker Street Irregulars
, made up to a shilling a day—and sometimes up to a guinea if they produced some piece of truly important information.
 
“And I suspect that charity steps in to help.”

“Charity?
 
Ha! Ha!
 
They ain’t no charity in London,” she spat.
 
“Leastways very little.
 
No, the youngin’s live meal to meal by begging, crime, working in factories, mines, and sweatshops.
 
And by selling themselves to
prostitution
, that’s how.”

“Oh, my!” Mirabella reddened.

“Does the suffering of others embarrass ye, miss?” asked Miss Bickers.
 
“Prepare to be embarrassed.
 
You well-to-dos don’t know nuthin’ of what the poor endure.”

“Well-to do?
 
I am not rich!
 
I am a working girl.
 
Why, I work night and day for my employer, as needed, and when I’m not working, I am studying.
 
I also help my aunt with her chores.”

Miss Bickers rolled her eyes at her.
 
“Work?
 
You don’t know nuthin’ about work, miss.
 
Me pa he worked in the glue factory and me ma made soap.
 
They never stopped workin’ and we almost starved.
 
We lived in a tenement house with a dirt floor and a tin roof until me pa died of cholera and me ma died of typhus, as did most of the younguns.
 
When me ma and pa died, I went into a workhouse at the age of twelve.
 
Most of those who entered wif’ me is now dead.”
 
She sniffed.
 
“My family was real people to me what I loved—they was not insects!”

“Oh, Miss Bickers,” whispered Mirabella, wiping her eyes.
 
“I am so sorry.”
 
She admonished herself for her insensitivity.
 
It was not that long ago that two thousand open sewers drained into the Thames, the river being the source of London’s drinking water.
 
Cholera and typhus, along with other water-borne diseases, were, not surprisingly, rampant.
 
No effort was made to solve the problem until the odor of the Thames offended Parliament itself, huge noses peeking out from under white wigs in dismay.
 

Mirabella did the math in her head; Miss Bickers would have been about ten years old at the time of “The Great Stink,” in the summer of eighteen hundred fifty eight.

“What with the Poor Law which divided the poor into the deserving and the undeserving,” Miss Bickers replied with a sneer.
 
“Guess which one we was?”

“But the Poor Law established aid for the poor!” exclaimed Mirabella, astonished.

“See what your book learnin’ did for ye?” Miss Bickers chuckled though she did not appear amused.
 
“The Poor Law done away with all forms of aid.
 
Except fer the workhouses which are no more than prisons!”

“Prisons for the poor . . .” murmured Mirabella.

“They’s no visitors allowed inside and
no passes out
.” Miss Bickers lowered her voice and moved closer to her.
 
“What’s more, do you know that families are separated when they enters the workhouses?
 
They even separated mothers from their babies.
 
I know of one woman who wanted to nurse her infant who was sick, and the guard took away the woman’s clothes and beat her for crying fer her child.”
 

Mirabella gasped, stepping back and involuntarily running her hands along her pale blue linen skirt.
 
The sound of her brown boot hitting the stone floor was the only sound to reach her ears.

“You see, miss,” Miss Bickers shrugged, the misplaced brown velvet bow on her chest somehow intimidating.
 
“There ain’t no English and science classes in the workhouses.
 
The fourteen-hour work days don’t allow much time for that.”

Mirabella felt ashamed of her earlier internal commentary on Miss Bickers’ English skills and wondered how the older woman managed to learn anything—and to live.
 
“How did you survive, Miss Bickers?”
 

“By using this.”
 
Miss Bickers tapped her index finger on her forehead.
 
“Here we lives in the richest country in the world.
 
But the rich likes to blame the poor for their own misfortune.
 
The Whigs made the workhouses because they want to punish the poor for bein’ poor.
 
They likes to say as how the poor ‘as learned to work the system.
 
But if you asks me,” Miss Bickers continued, “the rich is the ones who ‘ave figured out how to work the system.”

“And yet, every now and again, someone slips through the cracks and advances, like yourself, Miss Bickers.”

“We will all finish in the station we was born into,” Miss Bickers slammed the tin box shut.
 

Not if I have anything to say about it.

“Good day, Miss Bickers.
 
My class awaits.”
 
Mirabella curtseyed and thanked Miss Bickers.
 

“I’m not accustomed to bein’ idle meself.
 
Go study your science.”
 
Miss Bickers turned on her heel and walked away, the ‘click, click’ of her brown leather shoes hitting the stone floor with some force.
 

As Mirabella walked to her classroom, it struck her as odd that a person with such a background as Miss Bickers would have an expensive ruby as a family heirloom.
 
Wouldn’t the parents have sold it for food and medical care?
 
Unless it had enormous sentimental value, which was difficult to envision.

“Good morning, class.”
 
Mirabella entered the meager room with grey stone floors and worn wooden walls and once again wished they had a
real
science laboratory.
 
She could not help but think of the fine laboratory—though small—in Sherlock Holmes’ flat with gleaming glassware, nicely labeled jars, and state-of-the art equipment.
 

The laboratory I have been forbidden to use
.

“Good morning, Miss Hudson,” her class of three—no
four
—beamed at her.
 
She was honestly surprised when anyone but Amity came back even though there were some seventy girls in the orphanage.
 
Most of the girls in the hallway had a vacuous expression, unlike these four, as bright as rays of sunshine.

“Amity.
 
Susan.
 
Gloria.
 
And who do we have here?”
 
Mirabella nodded to a red-headed cherub.

“My name is Candice,” the little girl replied, smiling, adding proudly.
 
“My father was a police constable.”
 

“How very impressive!” exclaimed Mirabella.
 
“And do you have an interest in science, Candice?”

Candice shook her head.
 
“No, but I do like these other girls.
 
And I heard there was food.”

A hand shot up.

“Yes, Amity?”

“Did you get a new position, Miss Hudson?” the little girl whose parents had died in a fire asked.
 
Somehow Amity and her younger sister, Susan, had escaped the fire.
 
“After you lost your other job?”

“Why, yes, Amity, how did you know?”

“I listened,” the always alert and watchful child with short honey-toned hair and large golden brown eyes shrugged.
 

“Who told you, Amity?” Mirabella asked.

“A beautiful, tall girl with
black
eyes riding a horse and carrying a sword.”

“How interesting, Amity,” Mirabella replied.
 
It was not unusual for children who had lost everything to have overactive imaginations—although Amity had had her eleventh birthday now and was a bit old for such wild tales.
 

Still, Mirabella could not bring herself to correct Amity; she was glad for any comfort the children could find.
 
Ironically, Amity—who rarely emerged from her fantasy world—was the only one of her students who appeared to have a natural ability in math and science.
 
The child had a way of knowing.

“But the sword is very sharp,” Amity shuddered.

“First,” Mirabella reached into her bag, pulling out four beautiful red apples—one for her and one for each of . . . oh no, five total today.
 
She felt her stomach growl.
 
Oh, she couldn’t bear to ask anyone to share, they always looked so hungry, and how their eyes lit up to see those apples.
 

Ignoring her own hunger, Mirabella murmured, “Nourishment is important for the brain to work at its best.”

“That’s right!” the girls nodded in vehement agreement.

“May I ask you, class, why you always seem so
hungry?
 
Aren’t you fed here?”

Everyone moaned in unison.

“What is it class?”

“Mr. McVittie is
horrible,
” Susan remarked, evincing a contorted facial expression.

“Who is Mr. McVittie?” she asked softly.