Chapter Text
Family had always been a rather thorny topic, as far as Holmes was concerned.
Professionally, as in all things, he was astute. I had witnessed Holmes pry apart the complicated connections between the eldest grandmother and the youngest toddler, to understand household management by a polished hat-stand or a linen closet.
Were a bottle to be thrown overboard a ship, Watson, Holmes had once pondered, One would only need to investigate the currents to see where it went. Such is the case for a murder in the home.
As for his personal life, he had said little. Certainly, Mycroft Holmes occasionally made call, but they never talked for very long or very intimately. I had found that even in adult siblings, one could observe how they might have tolerated each other in childhood. When Mycroft Holmes and Sherlock Holmes were in a room together, I could rarely observe anything but my own spinning head.
But of his childhood itself he made little remark. I could not tell you the birthplace of the man I shared rooms with, could not tell you whether Mycroft was indeed his only sibling. Not a word of childhood friends, a country estate, boyhood hobbies, a dog – it was as if Sherlock Holmes had stepped out of the cobblestone roads of London, as much a part of the city as the Thames.
Only on rare occasions did I push, but Holmes’ wit was as quick as his fisticuffs. It soon became clear that it was not Holmes’ occasional cloudy-headedness which kept him from speaking, but a purposeful recalcitrance. I refused to push any man on the topic of his childhood unless it were of medical importance, so I soon let it rest.
Our friendship was blooming in the autumn. There was always a particular lull of cases around this time of year, so different from the fever-mad summer and the cruel, icy winters. At that moment, we had been without cases for an entire week, and Holmes was in danger of falling into his usual languid stupor.
With those, I knew very little that could get him out of it but a case (and his usual chemical interventions, though they made me wary). Failing that, only patience until one turned up.
Holmes stood at the window with his violin in hand. He had cracked it open just slightly, loud enough for me to hear the insistent pattering of rain outside atop his pealing melodies. They had turned slower and thicker throughout the day; I had no doubt that by tomorrow, he couldn’t bear to raise his bow at all.
I had just returned from acquiring our mail, as Mrs. Hudson was out. Holmes always received several missives – not always cases, but remarks of gratitude, threats of terrible description, and curious individuals who had read my accounts in the paper. It was for that last reason Holmes usually preferred me to sort through the mail. In giddy moods, he would sometimes entreat me to read the threats out loud, a practice I found terribly macabre and told him as such.
The paper was set aside for later perusal, to see if anything had managed to break through the autumnal stupor in London. Several other letters did not catch my attention in particular. I was about to reach for the letter opener when I came to the last.
It was not the address that surprised me. A village west of London that I did not recognize at all. However, there was a great deal of weight to it, like someone had mailed Holmes a novel manuscript. I quirked an eyebrow and entreated to open that first.
“Holmes,” I spoke aloud for the first time in hours. Holmes’ bow came to a pause. “Are you aware of anyone in Adderbury?”
Holmes’ cut a striking profile against the open window to London. I witnessed that some of the rain had made its way inside, collecting on the windowsill and ruffling his hair from the humidity. He had not changed yet from his dressing gown. Despite this state of somewhat indignity, I could not help but regard this figure as stoic.
“Some,” he returned. “The message is from whom?”
“A solicitor’s office.”
That caught Holmes’ attention more than I expected, even if it was a slight gesture. Holmes turned his head to peer at me from over his shoulder. One eyebrow was raised, like a dog that had caught the scent.
“I see. It is addressed to ‘Mr. Sherlock Holmes’? Not ‘Mr. Holmes’?”
“Yes, I see it written here. They have sent something of considerable importance. If it is a financial matter…”
I trailed off, somewhat uncomfortable. While Holmes and I had consolidated our finances over the past year or so (at Holmes’ insistence, despite my claims that there was such a personal disparity between us that any auditor would find him mad), I did not stake claim to any of his business nor he mine.
Holmes’ hesitation made me want to hand him the letter altogether. Some wrinkles of worry folded into his forehead, but they were dismissed within an instant. He turned to the front window again.
“Feel free to read it aloud, Watson, if you are not overly bored by legal matters. I can think of several things it may be, all trifling.”
Another melody began to play, even more lilting than the rest. Holmes’ entire body seemed to swing with it, like a leaf in the breeze. An errant wind trickled in through the window and made his dressing gown shiver.
Foolish as it might have been, I trusted Holmes’ word implicitly and felt my own concerns settle. Legal matters tended to be a burr in Holmes’ tail for one reason or another, though never serious enough to stress him or I particularly. I opened the letter.
Not a pamphlet, as I had expected, but a stack of thick paper folded against each other. In the front was a thinner sheet of looseleaf, this one written in an extraordinarily neat hand.
“Oh, my word,” I said softly, eyes drawn to the large signature across the bottom. “There’s an additional letter here, Holmes, signed by your brother. What business do you suppose he has in Adderbury?”
Holmes’ playing stopped, but I had not raised my eyes from the letter. They were affixed to its contents.
It was a matter I was not unused to, holding the trajectory of a man’s life in my hands. As a surgeon, it was a peculiar kind of secret – to open a man’s abdominal cavity, or to witness a blown pupil, or to be the only one to hear that last, fateful rattle. Some surgeons may have held some pride over that, but not I. To me, it was only a pity. It was always only a pity. When it came to informing others, I always found myself at a loss to even begin.
Such was the case now. The message I held in my hand might as well have been dripping with blood.
“Watson,” said Holmes as he placed his violin back into its case. It was a smooth gesture. When he turned to me, I raised my eyes to him. He had gone rather grey. “Perhaps you ought to give that letter to me.”
Mostly, I had delivered news to grieving families by letter. Such was the plight of an Army doctor. Now, I stared him right in the face. The emotion brewing in my breast was palpable; indeed, I could not properly express the depths of my sympathy and pity for my friend.
“H-Holmes.” I whispered, but gave him the letter. He did not read it, only tucked it away in his breast pocket. “Holmes, it is news of your father. It appears… it appears…
oh,
Holmes. I am so sorry.”