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He smiles when Yujin tells the story; it’s well-rehearsed and entirely believable. Nobody would doubt Yujin’s sincerity. Granted, eventually he will have to tell Iris the truth but not now, not today.
“The Lady Baskerville wouldn’t object to her name being used in such a way.”
That’s all Barok has to say about the matter but, between them, it’s clear that he’s always known the truth. They’ve spent the last ten years pretending not to recognise each other but Barok is not a fool. It’s just that he’d played his part to perfection; he’d even convinced the great Herlock Sholmes that he was oblivious. Herlock can laugh at himself for ever thinking that now. They’d been children when they’d last seen each other but he is still, obviously, himself. There weren’t many country squires who had been granted their lands for service to the van Zieks family during the Glorious Revolution nor, of those vassals, where there that many with platinum blond hair as a defining trait. There were other families of course but most of them didn’t have children of a suitable age to be playmates for the youngest van Zieks. There was only a two-year age gap between them after all; it had no doubt made sense.
Of course Herlock’s father had been flattered to be singled out to have his youngest child selected as a companion. If he’d been content with forging bonds of friendship and familiarity it might even have worked out well enough but he hadn’t been. He’d tried to play the hand that fate had dealt him and had played it extremely badly. It did make a certain sort of pedestrian sense when Herlock thought about it; why wouldn’t a simple landowner try to marry his daughter off to the younger brother of an Earl? It was certainly a valid strategy for family advancement. It was just that that daughter hadn’t actually been a daughter at all.
Herlock had learnt of his father’s plans quickly enough and had run off at the age of fourteen in order to escape his otherwise inevitable fate. He’d gone to London at first and had found a way to scrape by and save enough money to make his way to France, to his grandmother’s people. His grandmother, sister to Claude-Joseph Vernet himself, had always moved in the sort of artistic circles that his father had disapproved of.
“Art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms.”
His father had said it disparagingly. His mother had just nodded along agreeably. From what he had always understood, his mother had been glad to marry a staid country squire and live a dull life of domesticity, in comparison to her much more unrestrained upbringing in Paris. Still, he’d grown up hearing a great deal about his grandmother’s scandalous ways. She’d been friends with philosophers and actresses; she’d taken no pains to hide her sharp wits either. Such unthinkable behaviour for a woman. So of course he’d gone overseas to find, if not her, but her comrades.
In Paris he’d learnt to play the violin, to speak French as if he was a native and, most essentially, the art of disguise. His grandmother’s chosen family, so often disparaged by his father, were the ones who taught him how to use theatrics to present himself, as he chose, to the world. He’d learnt how to use stage makeup to his advantage, how to secure under-layers to hide and change his shape, how to wear clothing of certain cuts and styles to create the illusion of who he actually was in the world. There were ways and means to hide what needed to be hidden and ways to do it safely without accidentally damaging his ribs.
And for a while it had been enough. Disguise through fabric and bandages and theatrics had carried him through but it was precarious. He’d grown tired of having to bind up his chest every day, worrying about what he would do if he was awakened unexpectedly in the night, fighting with fabric and the urge to wrap everything far too tight. So it had made sense to look for another solution. A dangerous solution. He’d been prepared to risk it; the most obvious unnecessary parts being cut away by some back alley surgeon if only to make life more bearable. But once again the disreputable people his grandmother had embraced had come to his rescue and he’d been provided with safer and more reliable options across the border in Germany.
In Dresden he’d discovered that while he healed there wasn’t going to be much opportunity for violin playing so instead he’d learnt to speak more fluent German and had studied up on the most recent medical advancements. Once mostly recovered he’d in fact lingered far longer than he’d expected to and had eventually made his way back to France via Lichtenstein and Switzerland. Then, at last, it had made sense to go back to England. He was Herlock Sholmes; the dilettante when it suited him, the student of sciences, the Englishman returning home.
It had been easy enough to establish himself in London, to make a name for himself in the pursuit of solving crime as the eccentric, capricious, ever observant, great detective. That had been the easy part. London was a bustling hub, the centre of the world, a place where any and everyone could meet; of course there’d been no reason to worry about his past. But a great detective, often involved in high profile cases with Scotland Yard, was always going to eventually find himself face to face with the Director of Public Prosecutions. He’d walked right into that meeting feeling confident in his own position; he was solving cases that even Scotland Yard’s best couldn’t manage after all. It had never even occurred to him to actually pay attention to the Director of Prosecution’s name.
Klint van Zieks had recognised him immediately and just like that six years of remaking himself had vanished in an instant. But Klint wasn’t a cruel man and simply shook his hand and proceeded to enquire about a recent case that would soon go to trial. Herlock hadn’t really known what to do so had wasted much of his time trying to see if he could dig up any secrets he could exchange for his own security. What he’d uncovered in the end were nothing but rumours and dark ones at that, so much so that he’d felt compelled to warn Klint rather than try to threaten him.
He’d been trying to get Klint to take the threat of such gossip seriously, over tea at Baker Street, the first time Klint had complimented him. It had begun so simply and had qualified to Herlock that at least some of those rumours were true.
They’d flirted on and off after that but it had gone no further. It hadn’t been until much later, in the whirlwind of frantic casework, terrible rumours and not being sure at all if he regretted telling Yujin the truth, that playful flirtation had turned into something more. They’d been careful of course, until they hadn’t been. He’d discovered that he was pregnant around the time that the ‘professor’ murders were really beginning and by then it had been essential that he hide the matter. A man shouldn’t have the means to give birth to a child and if he wanted to carry on being Herlock Sholmes then nobody could know. He’d hidden himself away then and had affected a self-indulgent ennui.
Yujin’s talk of a torturous birth had described the real thing; he’d been the one to name Iris because at one point it had seemed like Herlock’s death would be imminent. But he’d survived. And while he’d recovered he’d at last decided to look at the letters Klint had been sending him during his withdrawal from society, letters he had deliberately ignored in his panic, and had discovered that Klint had suspected that there was a child. When the whole truth is revealed, many years later, it even transpires that Klint’s last request of Genshin had been to aid the mother of his child. A request that Genshin had passed on to Yujin, never realising that the description given to him was that of the man with which Yujin already shared a home.
Thus finding himself face-to-face with Barok some years after Iris’ birth had been interesting to say the least, especially when the prosecutor had played at not recognising him at all. And now, the truth of all of it has emerged; Herlock has a daughter who will one day need to be told of the unusual circumstances of her birth, and dear friends that he will one day apologise to for his lies. Though he does have the impression that Yujin’s daughter already suspects that there is more to the tale.
Eventually, perhaps when Iris is at least fourteen, he will tell the whole truth at last. He will tell her all about a grandfather who was fixated on social advancement, a journey across Europe to remake himself, a kind and loving nobleman, and said nobleman’s equally compassionate but also cantankerous brother. He’ll tell her all the secrets that have been kept for so very long. He might even agree to Barok’s request that he write a confession of sorts to be hidden away, in the van Zieks family archives, to be unearthed in a later, more understanding, time.
“One-day society might realise that restricting opportunities along such lines is quite foolish.”
“I do think that my father rather hoped I’d marry you.”
“That might have worked out in some fashion.”
“Really?”
“Though I’m not sure what he would have thought if I was the one to wear the wedding dress.”
Herlock had laughed: “Does Asougi know?”
A raised eyebrow had been all the answer required.
He’d raised his teacup in a toast: “Well then, I trust that age will not wither nor custom stale our infinite variety.”
Barok had returned the gesture: “Quite so.”