Chapter Text
Jim had left Marie a small sum of money, but it wasn’t enough to live on. Besides, she needed something to do, something to keep her busy so that she didn’t keep reliving the aeroplane crash over and over in her mind. It had been almost a year, and it was time to make herself move on. So when she saw the advertisement in the newspaper for a housekeeper, she decided to apply for the position.
Marie knew that half of the boys at the airfield would have been happy to marry her once a decent mourning period had passed. But she couldn’t imagine wanting another husband, not after Jim. They had been so happy, so in love, and then he had been cruelly snatched away from her.
The brick house on Baker Street seemed like the perfect spot to spend a quiet and retiring widowhood in honest employment, with its little flower garden and tall, tobacco-scented bachelor. Mr. Sherlock Hound had been a perfectly charming gentleman at their first meeting. He hadn’t pried into her affairs or asked how her husband had died, only inquired as to whether she could cook a decent black pudding and if the bedroom by the back stairs, papered in a pale lavender, would be to her satisfaction.
What he guessed about her was another matter, of course. Although she supposed she should say “deduced,” as entirely more proper for a private detective of Mr. Hound’s caliber.
*
Her first morning at Baker Street she awoke to the smell of something burning. Hastily pulling on her dressing gown, she opened her door and found the hallway filled with a noxious green smoke.
“Mr. Hound!” Coughing and holding her sleeve over her nose, she made her way to his bedroom. A knock elicited no reply and gathering her courage, she turned the doorknob. The room was dark, and no one had slept in the bed, for the blankets were still turned down just as she had left them the night before.
The smoke had gotten thicker when she reemerged into the hallway. She started running, torn between dashing outside to call for help but afraid that Mr. Hound had succumbed to the fumes and was perhaps suffocating to death at this very moment.
The study proved to be the source of the smoke, and she didn’t even bother knocking, just ran inside. “Mr. Hound!”
He blinked at her, surprised, a test tube in one hand and a beaker of liquid in the other. His clothes were rumpled, sleeves rolled above his elbows, and his pipe added its own puffs of smoke to the hazy air.
“Whatever are you doing?” she asked, picking up an old newspaper from the settee and fanning it to try and clear the air.
He set down the beaker and test tube and scratched a notation on a piece of paper. “Oh, just an experiment into the qualities of magnesium. The air has gotten a bit thick, hasn’t it?” Going over to the window, he lifted the sash and a cool breeze washed into the room.
Marie was suddenly very aware that she was standing in her employer’s study in nothing but a dressing gown, feet and head bare. Mr. Hound seemed to come to the same realization, for his ears flattened a bit in embarrassment and he became very interested in a pile of books collecting dust on the mantel.
“Breakfast will be ready shortly,” she managed in a faint voice and fled the scene.
In the dining room a while later Mr. Hound yawned over his kippers and rustled through the morning news. Marie darted in now and then to refill the teapot and marmalade jar but held her breath every time she did so, not quite sure how to start a conversation after the way the morning had begun. Did you sleep at all last night? and How often do you conduct these chemical experiments? both seemed far too impertinent for one’s first full day in a new position.
"Oh, Mrs. Hudson,” Mr. Hound said during one of her appearances. “It’s probably best if you don’t tidy up in the study. My notes and music, the books, not to mention the, er, volatile substances—it would be far too much trouble.”
“Of course,” she agreed, relieved to hear it.
He disappeared behind the paper again, and she retreated to the kitchen.
When she had finished the washing up, she tied on her hat and went out into the garden. Perhaps Mr. Hound would agree to plant something besides foxgloves and tulips. Some pink roses by the gate and a cluster of marigolds in the corner, for example.
She lost herself in the scent of moist earth and gardening plans, getting so far as an ornamental topiary before she came back to the present to find it was almost noon and Mr. Hound was smiling down at her, dressed in a deerstalker cap and long trench coat.
“Oh,” she said, wondering how long he had been standing there.
“Would you mind helping me with the car?” he asked and held out his hand to help her to her feet.
“Do you have a case?” she asked as they walked towards the garage.
“Possibly,” he said around his pipe stem.
“Will you be back in time for tea?”
“I should imagine not, given how much progress Lestrade is likely to have made.” They pulled open the garage doors. “That is, if it isn’t another false alarm.”
He started the engine and climbed onto the seat, tipping his hat at her as he went past. She closed the door behind him and latched it, then watched as the car rattled down the street, catching glimpses of his hat in the gaps between carriages.
He hadn’t returned by the time she went to bed, and the house was still empty in the morning. A fog had rolled in during the night and around nine it began to rain. She was doing some mending by the fire when she heard the door open, and she quickly went out onto the landing.
Mr. Hound was standing at the bottom of the stairs, dripping all over the carpet.
“Why you’re soaked!” she exclaimed, hurrying down and helping him take off his coat. “I’ve got a fire on in the drawing room. You can dry off there.”
“Splendid,” he said, his drooping ears perking up a little.
“Were you working on the case all night?” she asked as they entered the drawing room.
“Yes—it turned out to be much more interesting than I imagined. Someone stole two thousand pounds from an underground vault. I believe the criminal used quite an ingenious device to accomplish the theft.” He gravitated towards the table, bypassing the fire entirely, and began sketching a diagram on the blotter.
“Let me just dry your fur—the ink will smudge,” she said, approaching him with a towel. “Not to mention the carpet.”
“Hmmmm?” He looked up, then down at his shoes, which had left a muddy trail from the hallway. “Oh, dear.”
She wrapped the towel around his shoulders and gave his fur a good rub in between his ears. When she took the towel away, they found themselves almost nose to nose. They both blinked, and then his eyes crinkled, and her mouth twitched into a smile.
“Would you be so kind as to fetch my slippers, Mrs. Hudson?” he asked. “Otherwise I shall track mud all through the house.”
She did so and while he was changing out of his wet shoes, she peered at the diagram he had been sketching. It appeared to be a strange cross between a motorcar and a steam shovel. “There must have been several levers connecting the shovels to the engine,” she said, pointing.
Mr. Hound looked and then nodded. “Quite so.” He added them in, and then raised his eyebrows in her direction, asking a silent question.
“I’ve a bit of mechanical experience,” she admitted.
“I see.” He returned his attention to the drawing. “The criminal must have begun digging a tunnel several miles away. With enough force, the wall of the vault could have been punctured…hmmm….”
Clearly when Mr. Hound was on a case, such mundane considerations as sleep, breakfast, and dry clothes were forgotten. At least she’d managed to get him into the slippers.
*
For several weeks she continued to feel like a stranger in the house. Sometimes when she woke up she still expected to be in her bed in the little cottage she had lived at with Jim. Then the old ache would tighten her chest, and she would squeeze her eyes shut to keep back the tears. But slowly she began to feel more settled. She became used to the odd hours Mr. Hound kept, resigned herself to battling with the drafty flue in the drawing room chimney on a daily basis, and grew to expect the sounds of a violin emanating from Mr. Hound’s study on foggy afternoons. In October her aunt became ill, and Marie went to stay with her for a few days. She was surprised to find that she missed the smell of tobacco and the wistful notes of the violin and was glad to return to Baker Street.
Mr. Hound met her at the train station. She waved to him from the platform, and he lifted an arm in reply, smiling.
*
After the chemistry experiments and Mr. Hound’s skill at holding a conversation while simultaneously smoking his pipe, she wouldn’t have thought anything else at Baker Street could surprise her. Indeed, Mr. Hound’s comment on his return from his latest trip—“So sorry I’m late for tea, Mrs. Hudson. We ran into some trouble with pirates, and the Navy escorted us to port.”—had not startled her in the least. But that evening she found him kneeling on the floor in the second bedroom packing up some of the books that he had stored there. When she inquired as to why he was doing so, he replied, “Oh, I’ve invited a chap I met on the boat to stay here for a while. He should be arriving in a few days.”
“A guest?” she stammered. Mr. Hound had seemed such a solitary creature. He never took tea with friends or went to concerts with anyone. The thought of him inviting a stranger to Baker Street—!
“Yes. You’ll be kind enough to air out the room, won’t you, and give it a thorough cleaning?”
“Of course.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson.”
“What is the gentleman’s name?”
“Doctor Watson.” He sat back on his heels, smiling. “He was very helpful with the pirates. And do you know, he also admired my car! Called it a work of art!”
Marie waited until she was out in the hallway before indulging in a fond smile. She thought that she would quite like this Doctor Watson.