A Monstrous Regiment of Women - Laurie R. King [62]
I shall wait until tomorrow to post this, when I have seen Margery. Is it possible that she was moving under a deep hypnotic trance (prayer-induced?) which, when it breaks, will leave her with her cracked ribs and sore face? Will she show me a way to hide swollen flesh and cuts with invisible makeup? If so, I shall destroy this and feel exceedingly foolish. Still, I cannot help but wish that someone other than Marie had seen the damage, as well.
Yours, R
Postscript, Friday: I saw MC briefly this morning; by the mere fact that you have seen this, she is obviously in perfect health. Holmes, is this possible, or have you seen previous signs of madness in me and not mentioned them?
—MR
I was, as the letter reveals, badly shaken. I sent it to Holmes via his brother Mycroft, whose all-seeing eyes and octopus fingers would surely find him more quickly than the post office. Indeed, I received a reply the next day, a telegram that followed me from the Vicissitude to the Temple, where I was helping Veronica lay out shelves for her library. I opened the flimsy envelope with my dirty hands, read the brief note, then gave the boy a coin and told him that there would be no reply.
“What was it, Mary?”
I held it out for Veronica to make of it what she could.
“From Marseilles. ‘Ab esse ad posse.’ ‘From “it is” to “it is possible,” ’ ” she deciphered, sounding none too sure of herself. “What on earth does that mean? Who sent it?”
“A wandering expert on early Rabbinic Judaism,” I extemporized. “Someone at the British Museum came across a first-century inscription that seems to indicate that a woman was head of a synagogue in Palestine. I wanted to know if it was possible. Not a terribly informative reply, though.”
“Odd,” she said, studying the paper for hidden meaning. I distracted her.
“A better translation might be, ‘If it happened, then it is possible.’ A good slogan for the feminist movement, don’t you think?”
“Surely not, Mary. The possibility must come first.”
I plucked the sheet from her hand and pushed it into the pocket of my trousers.
“History is littered with odd happenings that were allowed to fade away into nothing, instead of being seized on as a new beginning.”
The discussion moved away into Jean d’Arc, Queen Elizabeth, the women of the New Testament, George Sand, and on into the trackless wastes of theory.
That afternoon, I had a tutorial with Margery. Marie showed me in and then carried in the tea things, and without speaking or meeting my eyes, she managed to convey an attitude of scorn, superiority, and profound dislike. She had contrived to forget the state of her mistress’s face, remembering only that I had tricked her and maltreated her and made a fool of myself. I sat and studied my hands until she had unloaded the tray and the door clicked shut behind her. I then looked across at Margery.
“What happened, Margery? How did you heal yourself?”
Amazingly, she laughed.
“You, too? Marie seemed to think I was on death’s door the other night—why, I can’t think. I’d have thought you have more sense.”
“And you weren’t.”
“Of course not! I cut my finger on a broken glass and must somehow have rubbed it against my face.” She held out her left hand. There was a plaster around the middle finger.
“Your dress was torn,” I noted.
“Yes. I caught the lace on a rough spot on the bookshelf,” she said evenly.
“Why did you burn it?”
“You are very inquisitive, Mary. I find the sight of blood repugnant, and bloodstains make me quite faint.”
“May I see your finger, please?”
With a tiny shrug, she held