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On reading my stories, one might believe that Holmes and I have always been as we became, co-conspirators in everything. This was not at all the case. To begin with, I was a little in awe of him. Sherlock Holmes is possessed of an abundant and unreasonable vitality, while I had entered upon our association in broken health. I was a young man, then, but moved like an old one, having compounded the effects of fresh war-wounds with the constitutional damage wrought by a dangerous fever, contracted in the recovery wards of Peshawar. On my return to English shores, amid the slow rebuilding of my strength--painful walks on warmer days and silent nights in our rooms, studying the medical advances which I could not yet put into practice--stretching my shoulders and shifting my hip against the aching trail of the Jezail bullets--I felt my limits keenly. Holmes seemed limitless.
I had had enough of human suffering by then to weary me deeply. I bore a kind of exhaustion of the soul which put me in precisely the frame of mind to appreciate Holmes' endless speculative talk, his boundless enthusiasm. I listened, first amused by the extravagance of his confident assertions, and then astonished to find him capable of proving every one. He was more than talk; he was action, decision, adventure. His singular spirit animated a body which, slender, and used more to study than to sport, still seemed capable of exceeding the energy of every criminal in London. When presented with a question he could not solve by talk alone, he would begin his own investigations; put on the clothes of a gentleman and infiltrate glittering clubs and great men's homes, or affect a workman's tongue, and go among builders and craftsmen in search of information. As I went to my rest, I would see him just leaving, poorly dressed to maintain his anonymity, for a sleepless night about in the vile miasmas of the back alleys of London. He never seemed to suffer for it. Upon conclusion of such a case he would sleep until noon for three days running, and then return to an ordinary schedule, with the constitutional elasticity of a boy in school. He delighted in the demands of his work. I only saw him restless and worn under the pressure of several weeks of perfect peace.
So I thought little of it when he appeared in our sitting room, muffled, but thinly shod, and in a sorrowfully threadbare coat, at ten o'clock of the evening, and announced that he was going out; though I'd heard him coughing lightly several times amid the day's quiet, and the April night carried a chill. A vile fog had dropped London into untimely dusk hours before. The late laborers would be wending their way home through it; Holmes could easily reconnoiter the streets and shops amidst them unremarked. He hadn't told me the details of his task; I only knew he'd been engaged yesterday morning by an elderly widow to restore her late husband's reputation. I watched him out the door with a pleasant warmth about my heart. It was a relief to see him active: his last client had closed her case a week ago, and some days of serene contemplation, and engaging little improvisations on his violin, had given way to furious ennui. I had been subjected to aggrieved laments on a too-virtuous population, which had left him without any crimes to be solved. But now he was happy, radiant with purpose.
I went to bed; woke up in the wee hours to the soft sounds of him moving about the sitting room. The floorboards creaked. I heard the crackle and rush of the banked fire settling in as he pushed the coals back, and a muffled throat-clearing. I listened, half in a dream, until his door closed, and then fell back into the warm depths of sleep.
I came again to myself at half past eight; went out to find the sitting room bright with sunlight, but silent and deserted. I was surprised. It was rare for Holmes to sleep late, even after such a night as that. When I had had my morning pipe and paper, the first stirrings of unease pushed me into the hall to listen at his door. There was no sound. I returned to my chair and endeavored to study the new Dublin Quarterly, just arrived, until at last (it was nearly ten) there was a thump from his room, followed by the splashing of his basin. Some minutes later he emerged, freshly dressed, with a gleam of satisfaction in his glance which told me his night's work had not proved vain.
"Ah, coffee," was his first comment, his voice gruff with sleep. He busied himself pouring it out; gathered up the morning's telegrams and letters from the sideboard, and sat sideways at the table to read them, trailing his dressing gown behind him. A moment's contemplation, and then: "Watson, I shall have to go out again immediately. I have an appointment at the milliner's."
I set down my journal. "The milliner's."
"Yes; I need to see him about the hat my wife has had on order for the past two weeks. No workman's guise today; I'm a man of means. If this goes as I expect I shall have all I need to conclude the case." His expression was alight with mischief, but his voice still strained. He cleared his throat, twice; then pulled out his handkerchief and coughed into it--not the light, dry cough of the day before; a deep cough, with substance.
"Holmes," I said, and my concern and surprise must have been audible. He looked up.
"My dear doctor, I'm quite all right. The fog's got into my lungs a bit, last night; that's all."
"Must you go out? Mightn't you take your appointment here, and keep yourself warm?"
"No. It's a fair day out. I'll be fine."
I saw him out the door muffled properly, and gloved, and in his thickest coat; heard his cheerful farewell, and felt a little silly for my fears. I soon forgot them in writing out a letter I intended for the Times, urging reformation of the pay of the working women I met in the wards of the Voluntary Hospital, where I spent a Saturday when I was well enough--finding them more often than not ill through exhaustion, their day's work by necessity ending so late as to deprive them entirely of the sight of their children, and of the majority of their rest. I became so absorbed in the composition that I noticed neither the slow departure of the sunlight, nor the rising wind, and so was surprised at last by the sudden rush of a heavy rain against the windowpane.
"Holmes," I said aloud, and went to the window to look for him; but I could not see into the street below, it was coming down so fast. I found myself unable to concentrate until at last I heard the sound of his step on the stair. He entered dripping, soaked in mud up to his ankles, clearly having walked some way through the storm to find a hansom. "Watson," he said in greeting, with a shiver. I poked up the fire into a better blaze, while he worked off his boots and his sodden stockings. Barefoot, he approached the glow of the hearth and held out his reddened hands to it, sighing; accepted the measure of brandy I brought him with thanks, and sipped, but grimaced a moment before he swallowed it.
"Holmes," I said, "is your throat sore?"
"Quite sore," he admitted.
"And does your head ache?" He was rubbing at his forehead with his free hand; he stopped, and looked at me.
"It does. Yes, Doctor," wryly, "you were entirely right. I oughtn't to have gone out after such a night, but I dismissed your advice, and now I've caught cold. Never mind; I'll do just as you say now I am ill. Does that please you?"
It rather did; I had not been expecting that conclusion, but I fixed him with a sober look and said, "It will have to do," which unwonted sternness from me surprised him, and made him laugh; and that started him coughing again, a hoarse, dry cough he winced at. I winced in sympathy. "You have what information you wanted?"
"I have. Everything is quite clear now. I needn't go out again. I'll just change my clothes, and send a message to my widow vis-à-vis the results, and then I shall tell you all about it."
For the remainder of the day, as he walked about the table, checking the progress of his experiments, or settled back onto the sofa with a monograph, or sprung up in search of an article to show me, the cough continued to trouble him, and progressed until it was leaving him breathless. Still he showed himself unexpectedly patient. He allowed me to apply hot flannels to his neck, and touch his cheek to test for fever; sat still and watched me with bright eyes as I listened through my stethoscope for any sign of real danger in his breathing. There was none, but he did not improve. By evening his colour was still poor, his eyelids drooping with weariness. I watched him in the firelight. When he began to doze in his chair, I said bluntly, "Holmes. Go to bed; you're done in."
I braced for the possibility of his offense; I was his fellow-lodger, not his doctor, in spite of his indulgence; but he came awake with a start, and blinked at me, and his gaze warmed with a surprising affection. "You're quite right," he said; "Good night," and he gathered himself and left the room without any sign of petulance. I sat smoking and thinking for some time after. It appeared he had no objection to being directed by me when we were on my grounds of expertise. My estimation of him was rising. Stubborn he might be, but not too proud to let me help him.
I woke at twelve, and two, and four, to hear him coughing in his bed. In the morning, he had lost his power to speak. He whispered his greetings to me with a smile, and waved away my exclamations, but submitted with good grace to another examination. There was no evidence of infection; only his larynx was over-strained. I hadn't pictured Holmes voiceless. He spent hours daily in consultation, describing the secrets of men's lives from the set of their hat or the scars on their hands, making mysteries into sober facts; and when his clients left he would sometimes seek me out and tell me their troubles and his ingenious solutions. He seemed to take enormous pleasure in startling me with his capacity to explicate the inexplicable. And he would read aloud to me passages from works which interested him; he would explain his chemical conclusions; he would attempt to educate me on the subtleties of the classical composers. In short, I hadn't realized how often he spoke to me throughout the day until he could not. By the end of the morning he'd been frustrated repeatedly when his whispered remarks to me went unnoticed amid the rustling of my papers, or the clinking of my teaspoon. I swallowed my dozenth apology as he buried his face in his hands, exasperated.
Five minutes later a warm hand was laid on my shoulder as I sat reading. The friendly pressure was followed by a German journal placed on top of my page for me to look at, open to an article about a point of law, and he whispered in my ear its connection with a case of family blackmail. I murmured my interest. The extent and eccentricity of his knowledge was a continual fascination to me; I couldn't begin to imagine who had directed his education. His explanation complete, he withdrew. After that the day went easily. When he wished to tell me something, a touch on my arm or my back would draw my attention. In the absence of his voice I began to speak almost in a whisper myself. The coals settled in the grate, and the clock ticked, and even the din of the street below hushed beneath the rain. It had been a very long time since I'd felt such stillness in my own mind. Holmes seemed to feel it too; his eyes grew dreamy in the quiet, his movements languid. As evening drew in, he laid himself out on the sofa in his dressing-gown and sunk into sleep. The firelight played over his face, fallen into unconscious innocence, his lips parted on a breath. I'd been going over my accounts, but I laid down my papers and smoked a while, and listened to the wind whistle round the eaves; and at last I covered him up with a shawl and went to bed.
We went on so for several days, in increasingly easy camaraderie; and then I entered our sitting room one morning to find him properly dressed, sharp-eyed, and already at work over his chemicals, and, "Good morning," he said cheerily, aloud--his voice a little rough but very comfortably audible.
"Wonderful morning," I said, pleased. "You're better."
"Much better. We have been indoors too long--we should attend a concert. Scharwenka is playing at St. James's Hall to-day. What do you say?"
This was the first invitation of the kind he had extended to me. "I say yes," I answered, and sat down for my breakfast with a rising happiness in my heart. As I ate, he began to tell me about the reagent he was testing upon several scraps of fabric filched from Mrs. Hudson's work-basket.
But as rapidly as it had risen, my happiness soured. We had been close, those last few days; we had found a kind of domesticity I hadn't realized I wanted. He had regained his energy, and I ought to have been glad, but I sat silent with the realization that he would go on about his business, now, and I would be left behind with my cane and my books and my aches. I supposed that was the extent of the trouble, and told myself that I was getting better, that I could find work soon, and be out in the world again; but still my sorrow grew. I nodded while he talked, and smiled, and suffered inexplicably, until Holmes, holding a spotted scrap, came up behind me and leaned over my shoulder with the piece in his hand, and showed me how he had treated its stains, his delicate hands gesturing, his voice low and eager in my ear, and an entirely unreasonable joy pierced my heart at his proximity; and I began to understand what my trouble was--what I had let myself in for.
The sensation was not new; the power of it was. I went out with him to the concert hall. He watched the stage; I watched the pleasure visible on every listening line of him. He helped me on with my coat, after. I walked home beside him through the midday crowds. He wound his arm into mine and drew me nearer to his side, and I let myself be drawn in. I'd had thoughts, at times, since boyhood, which had baffled me; had known men in Candahar, in Maiwand--even at Netley--who did more than think; and I had recognized the possibilities open to me; but I'd felt no need to know what it was like, what it could mean. I had assumed that when I was ready, in the ordinary course of things, a wife and home would satisfy me. I had assumed that I would return from war essentially unchanged.
I had not imagined Maiwand, or Peshawar, as they would be; and after that awakening, I had not remotely reckoned on the reality of Holmes. Now he was there, no passing thought, no moment's wish; he was with me daily, from the time of his illness often hourly; he required my aid; he blushed at my praise; he demanded my attention; he delighted, baffled, needled and provoked me. His effect on me grew absolutely terrifying. I could not think, I could not be rational. He ran, and I followed; he talked, and I marveled; he played for me, and every note sank into my soul. I began to write about him. Every day I watched wonders being done by him almost carelessly: I couldn't bear to allow them to pass into history unremarked. He scoffed at my stories, which were as unscientific an account of his capabilities as could be imagined, and Holmes as rational a miracle-worker as a man can be. He thought so little of the romance in his work; meant only to do a bit of good, and support himself, and occupy his mind. It was utterly captivating.
It was untenable. In the end, after seven years of silent glories and terrors, I fled him by means of marriage. I can say little in my defense, except that Mary was tender and brave, and needed me, and I knew what I could give her would be welcome--would be a blessing to her, and no curse; and I had no idea of being necessary to him. I was a danger to his respectability, I was a torment to myself, I was all hunger and no hope of respite, I was alone always in his company, and with him even when alone. Things could not continue as they were. I told him of my engagement without any warning, any sort of preparation for him; I had not expected his bitter hurt. I had not thought to lose his society entirely. I did not understand it when it happened. We saw one another for some time after my marriage, and then we simply stopped. I supposed I had become inconvenient to him--ordinary John Watson, settled into an ordinary life; too far out of Holmes' way for him to fetch me for an adventure, now that I was no longer at his exclusive service. I could not summon up the nerve to simply ask him about it. I could not speak freely; there was too much unsaid.
Still I found an unconscious security in the knowledge that he was there, in our rooms on Baker Street, pacing the hearthrug in the lamplight far into the night, pinching a bowlful of sweet tobacco from the Persian slipper while he thought, slipping out the door in scurrilous disguise; saving England time after time, and never telling anyone. I felt that he was a sort of stabilizing influence on the world; that I could feel it, even away from him. And though injured men had died under my watch every day in the mountains of the Orient, in spite of all that I could do--though I understood logically that having need of a man's existence did not mean he would in consequence live--still I had not really realized that death could take Holmes, who'd cheated every villain in London of their schemes. I had expected him to talk his way out of mortality itself, somehow.
But he did not. He died. I was left as I had been ten years before: crippled in soul, without hope of healing. Two years later, my wife also died; and I was alone.
So I believed; but Holmes has ever loved an impossibility.
He came back in the midst of a dull, grey, blustery March. I have recorded elsewhere how it happened; how I knocked into an elderly bookseller by accident in the middle of the road; how he followed me home without my noticing; came into my study, and mocked the state of my bookshelves, and offered his wares with a cheery impudence I rather admired; how as I turned from the admitted disarray of my shelves to look at him again, I surprised him just removing a wig and whiskers, which he tossed onto my desk, and straightened up, and smoothed back his own dark curls with a slightly unsteady hand, while beloved grey eyes regarded me. For an instant I believed myself quite mad, because it was him--it was Sherlock Holmes; pale, and weary, but bright with intent and very much alive.
I was overwhelmed. I believe I lost consciousness for a moment. When my vision cleared he was bending over me, his hands cupping my face, his own familiar voice begging my forgiveness. I clutched at his arm; I exclaimed, dizzy with wonder. He was strangely solicitous of me; but when I'd convinced him I was well enough, he settled himself into a chair and began to tell me everything. I have written the gist of it before, but I did not record what it meant to me to see him there, alive, alight, and asking--demanding--expecting my help that very night--ordering my assistance in pursuit of a murderer, as soon as we had eaten something--talking eagerly, searching my face for affirmation and interest, like the shade or echo of his long-ago self. But there was a new depth of feeling in his expression; a kindness in his voice when he finally mentioned Mary, nothing like the mockery he had offered me when I'd said I meant to marry her, years before. He said he had read of her death in my last story; had found a copy of the Strand in France and taken it up for old time's sake, and learned I was alone. He was returned to England now, permanently--had arrived that very day--had been to our rooms in Baker Street. He promised me work; said he wanted me there; that my chair by the fire awaited me. I nodded my assent, not trusting my voice.
We ate together in the lamplight; he overflowing with words, stories of his travels through Soudan and Arabia and Tibet, of wild fights and silent moonlit journeys over broken trails, of accomplices and unexpected friends, of thieves and scoundrels; I, observing the simple exhaustion just beneath the pleasure in his face; his newly-silvered hair, the deepening lines around his mouth; the way his movements grew broader and freer the longer we sat together at table, as though some long-held constraint had been relieved, and he just beginning to feel the release; the way he offered me his memories, the extraordinary things he had been doing all on his own, without pride or consciousness. I was mesmerized. I followed him out into the night, and sat beside him in the cab he hailed, his hand resting steadily on my knee; allowed him to clasp my wrist and lead me into the empty house where we were to await our man. In the shadows, Holmes kept close beside me--took glances at me from time to time, as if to reassure himself that I was really there. My wonder grew. It was too like too many years' best dreams. But the cool night wind breathed through the open window, making me shiver, and the dust spun and danced in the moonlight, and his thin shoulder pressed against mine as we stood side by side in the dark, quite real.
I have written about our first glimpse of the culprit, entering rifle in hand, unwary of being watched; Holmes springing upon him like a tiger, grappling with him, his strength almost overcome by the man's desperation; the fiend's bitter astonishment when I in turn set upon him and knocked him to the floor, and held him there while Holmes whistled for the police. They came. He stood triumphant, imperious, ordering our captive's arrest for triple murder. When it was done he turned with shining eyes to ask me back to 221B; just for a half hour, he said; just to talk. Of course I went. To walk through the door, and see it all as it had been--to see his papers on the desk, and his violin set carelessly atop them; to approach our chairs, drawn up close to the hearth, and recognize with joy the very pattern of the cushions on them--the relief was astounding. I watched the play of expression over his face as he paced and talked, explaining our activities that night, the history and the means of our man's capture, as though it were necessary for me to know. He spoke to me as though we had parted yesterday, instead of years ago; as though I had always been part of his work; as though there had never been any trouble between us; and all at once I began at last to wonder. All that night my mind had been so absorbed in the amazement of his being alive as to leave no room for any other observation. But now I found the temerity to ask myself if he could possibly need me as I needed him. He was orbiting around me like a moon, radiant under every word of praise I offered. He had always done so. Hours before he had said that he wanted nothing more than to have me there, and all that night his hands had strayed toward me whenever we stopped for breath. It was possible to think--I doubted, I wondered, I looked again. If I were wrong--! But then, if I were right!
Absorbed as I was, I startled when the clock struck four. He paused; glanced at me, hesitating; then he crossed the room and held out a hand to me. "You should sleep," he said; "you should go--home." He smiled down into my eyes; a remarkable smile, fond and wistful. It decided me. I stood, and took the hand he offered, travel-roughened, warm, familiar; held it in both my own.
"I missed you," I said.
A spark of surprise kindled in his face; then, "And I missed you."
A little courage having come into my grasp, I reached for more. "I should not have left you. Can you forgive me for it?"
He was startled into half a laugh. "I believe that should be my apology."
"You have already made your apology. But I left you first."
"You did." Softly, so softly.
"I was afraid."
"Of what?" Startled; almost hurt.
"Of the strength of my affections." The worst that could happen was that I lose him honestly, instead of by cowardice. "Of you." He stared; but he did not withdraw his hand. I raised it to my lips and kissed it slowly.
Colour sprang into his face; his lips parted. I let him go, with a racing heart. “Have I insulted you?”
He shook his head; attempted twice to speak before he managed it, half in a whisper. "Watson, what--?"
“Tell me to stop, and I will listen. Tell me I have done you wrong," I told him. He shook his head again, but I persisted. “Tell me to stay away from you. I can, if I must.”
"I will not--What are you doing?"
"I am trying to confess, Holmes. Sherlock." I reached again for his hand, and he stepped back, his colour deepening; looked at me with fear and astonishment and tenderness.
“Wait!” He was begging. "I cannot--I will not ruin you."
"Ruin me? How would you?"
"Think of our work! Think of the unscrupulous men we must meet and grapple with continually, who would gladly set upon your reputation. Think of the careless world. They'll cast you out!"
Tears had come into his eyes. He dashed them away and glared at me ferociously. I had never seen him so moved. It was magnificent. I could have faced a whole rank of blackmailers, backed by every gossip in London and the full force of the law, and cared not a whit. "God damn the world," I told him. "The world has had me as it liked me for forty-two years; little good has it done me."
"I want you safe." His voice shook.
"You cannot have me safe. You can have me as I am--in love with you--or not at all."
It was out. I subsided, breathless; placed my hand over my mouth. We looked at each other.
"You love me," he said. I could not answer. There was a long moment in which the keenest eyes in all England measured the depths of mine; and then they softened.
"God damn the world, then," he said, and I knew he was mine.
To hold the man I had loved ten years without hope of a return was goodness enough. To do it after I had thought him dead; to kiss him, and kiss him; to tell him all the years’ withheld words, and watch his joy kindle beneath my hands--that was goodness unspeakable. The world will never know of it; the world does not believe such glories exist; they talk of darkness and depravity, while in our own home we have light.
We go on together, now, the two of us, as we were meant to. I remain somewhat in awe of him; I know no other man who would take a ramble across three continents to escape a broken heart. He still charms my mind, and inspires my pen. He manages to be indulgent of the resulting stories, irrationally sentimental as they may be. We know we are ridiculous; we rather like it. And the world has not disturbed us yet. If our luck holds, against all reasonable odds, someday we shall go away to find a little quiet. I will write, and grow flowers behind the house, and he will concoct experiments, and ruin our crockery with them, and summon me from our bed in the middle of the night to watch Mars rise over the silent fields; and we will be happy together as long as we can.