The Beekeeper's Apprentice - Laurie R. King [153]
Summer wore on, and my body gained strength, but there were no suggestions that I move back to my own farm. Holmes and I began to talk, short, tentative discussions about Oxford and my reading. He was away a great deal, but I did not ask why, and he did not tell me.
One day I came into the sitting room and saw the chess set laid out on a side table. Holmes was working at his desk and looked up to see me standing there with what must have been an expression of extreme loathing on my face as I stared at those thirty carved figures, the salt cel-lar, and the nut-and-bolt king on their teak and birch squares. I turned on him.
“For God’s sake, Holmes, haven’t you had enough chess for one lifetime? Put it away, get rid of it. If you wish me to leave your house I will, but don’t ask me to look at that thing.” I slammed out of the room. Later in the afternoon I came back through to see its box and board sitting closed up but still on the table. I said nothing but avoided that part of the room. They remained on the table. I remained in the cottage.
I began to find Holmes more and more irritating. The smell of his pipe and the odours from his laboratory plucked at raw nerves, and I retreated outside or behind the closed bedroom door. His violin sent me on walks into the downs that left me trembling with exhaustion, but I did not go back to my house. I began snapping irritably at him, but his response was invariably reasonable and patient, which only made me worse. Rage began to stir but lacked the consummation of open battle, for Holmes would not respond. In the last week of July I made up my mind to leave the cottage, gather my belongings, and re-turn to Oxford. Next week.
Into this state of mind fell a letter. I was outside, on a hilltop away from the cottage, a forgotten book in my lap as I stared out across the Channel. I did not hear Holmes come up behind me, but suddenly there he was, his tobacco smell and his gently sardonic face. He held out the envelope between two long fingers, and I took it.
It was from little Jessica, addressed in her childish printing. I had a quick image of her bent over the envelope with a pencil in her small hand, laboriously copying my name. I smiled, and it felt strange on my lips. I took out the single sheet of stationery and read the child’s words aloud.
Dear sister Mary,
How are you? My Mama told me a bad lady hurt your arm. I hope it’s all right now. I am fine. Yesterday a strange man came to the house but I held Mama’s hand and I was brave and strong like you. I have bad dreams sometimes and even cry but when I think of you carrying me down the tree like a mama monkey I laugh and go back to sleep.
Will you come to see me when you are better? Say hello to Mr. Holmes for me. I love you.
Jessica Simpson
“Brave and strong, like me,” I whispered, and started to laugh, a sour, bitter sound that tore my throat and sent pain shooting through my shoulder, and then it turned to tears and I cried, and when I was empty I fell asleep in the simple sunshine as Holmes stroked my hair with his gentle, clever hands.
When I awoke the sun was lower in the sky and Holmes had not moved. I turned awkwardly onto my back to ease my shoulder and looked up at the bowl of the sky. Holmes reached for his pipe and broke the silence.
“I need to go to France and Italy for six weeks. I shall be back be-fore your term begins. Would you care to come with me?”
I lay watching his fingers fill the pipe, tamp down the black shreds of leaf, strike a flame, draw it down into the bowl. The sweet smell of burning tobacco drifted across the hillside. I smiled to myself.
“I believe I shall take up smoking a pipe, Holmes, for the sheer elo-quence of the thing.”
He looked at me sharply, and then his face began to relax into the old attitude of humour and intelligence. He nodded, once, as if I had given an answer, and we sat watching the sun change the colour of the sea and sky until the wind came up. Holmes knocked his