The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline (13 page)

Leaving Mrs. Tupper downstairs to exclaim over the ruin of her home, I ran up to my room—soon no longer to be mine anymore—where I thrust into a carpet-bag only my most compromising or irreplaceable possessions: my wig, facial emollients, and various other essentials of disguise, my extra dagger, all my money, and the little handmade booklet, decorated with watercolour flowers, which had been my mother’s last gift to me.

Running downstairs again with baggage in hand, I found Mrs. Tupper—showing more intelligence than I had credited her—waiting by the door, clutching to her bosom the carved wooden box that contained her meagre lifetime of documents and mementos, with the most forlorn look on her face.

“Miss Meshle, don’t leave me ’ere alone, not after wot’s ’appened,” she implored. “I don’t feel safe ’ere an’ it ain’t ’ome to me no more. Take me wit’ you.”

Time seemed to spin in a circle, then come to a teetering, off-balance halt. Take her along? If only my mum had taken me along with her!

But where—in what way—how could I possibly—

Explosively my mind countered its own consternation: Never mind the difficulties. Blast and confound Sherlock Holmes and Mycroft Holmes, too, hang any danger they might pose to me, I simply could
not
leave Mrs. Tupper.

Time whirled into motion, centred now. “Come along then, quickly!” Her crumpled old face cleared as I took her by the hand. Together we scuttled to the cab.

“Where to now, miss?” the driver asked.

Quite cheerfully I told him, “I have no idea!” Although surely I would, soon enough; I had learned to trust the peculiar workings of my heart and mind. “Just drive west.”

Thus, forth we sallied into London City.

“I CANNOT CREATE EMBROIDERY ANYMORE,” Florence Nightingale remarks with nostalgia but no self-pity as she fingers a quantity of blue ribbon, winsomely stitched with five-petalled daisies and little round roses, that her visitor has deposited upon the counterpane of her bed. “My hands can no longer manage a needle.” Indeed, they are misshapen from constant writing, which is far more important. Needlecraft is a frivolous pursuit. Such are the thoughts of the once-famous Lady with the Lamp as she turns her placid attention to her visitor. “You say Lord Rodney Whimbrel wishes me to have these. Why?”

Standing over her—for he has not been invited to have a seat; even though she has engaged Sherlock Holmes to help her, still, his intrusion must not last long—the famous detective responds, “Lord Whimbrel hopes in this way to convey that the matter is ended completely, and that he remains your most loyal admirer.”

“And he wishes me to forget how the matter began?”

“Although Lord Rodney takes responsibility, Miss Nightingale, still, one must consider his brother Geoffrey the instigator. And he shall instigate no more. His other choices being only worse, he has agreed to take ship to the colonies.”

“Then I shall withhold judgment, and hope that Lord Rodney shows increased moral fortitude in the future.”

While speaking, thoughtfully Florence Nightingale scans the tall, lean, angular man of action, so exceedingly vertical in her serene horizontal surroundings. In his “Miss Nightingale” she has heard gallantry, yes, but also a hint of condescension. She had not intended to speak to him of a certain tall girl of action, but . . .

Thrusting the embroidered ribbons to one side, she gestures for Sherlock Holmes to take a seat. When he has done so, she tells him in her customary soft and gentle manner, “Doubtless you wonder why I did not attempt to stop your quite remarkable sister from taking such precipitous departure a few days ago. No”—as he scowls and flings up one gloved hand, trying to halt this conversation—“let me speak. While I had no idea, until you told me so, that—Enola, is that her name?—Enola is a mere child of fourteen—”

With far less than his usual courtesy, Sherlock Holmes interrupts. “It would not matter if she were, as she appears to be, twenty-four! Would you let
your
daughter, if you had one—”

But Florence Nightingale interrupts the interruption, sweetly and apparently tangentially: “I knew your mother, you realise, Mr. Holmes.”

Evidently he does not realise, and the revelation staggers him somewhat, for he sits back in his armchair and watches the invalid—a remarkable woman, with her smooth face, her sleek hair parted in the old-fashioned manner and shown off by her peculiar headgear—he studies Florence Nightingale from beneath troubled brows.

“Eudoria Vernet Holmes. A thoroughly admirable woman,” the Lady with the Lamp speaks on, “totally and efficiently committed to reform. She chose to espouse women’s rights, whereas I turned my attention to the plight of the sick and wounded, but we quite respected each other. Have you had any word from her, Mr. Holmes?”

“You are aware that she is missing, then? No, I have heard nothing.” He hesitates only an instant before asking, “Have you?”

Ah! He did care for his mum.

“I am sorry to say I have not. Perhaps she has run off to the Crimea?” Mocking herself slightly, Florence Nightingale speaks lightly yet with care. “Being who I am, I would hardly restrain any woman, no matter how tender her years—”

Sherlock Holmes leans forward, cutting her off with a gesture like a jujitsu chop. And, interestingly, he speaks not of Enola Holmes, but of Eudoria. “My brother and I had quarrelled with Mother. Now, looking back, it all seems like a great deal of nonsense,” he says bluntly and with unexpected bitterness. “Still, there was no reason for her to—”

“But can you not see,” Florence Nightingale interjects with greatest soft-spoken authority, “that from her point of view, there was every reason, obviously? And your sister, also, a few days ago, seemed to have the most compelling reason for her actions.” Miss Nightingale hesitates, then decides to say it. “She seemed quite terrified of you.”

Although he does not actually wince, she sees how her words strike like a blow. Leaning his forearms upon his knees, he clasps his hands and looks down at them.

Patiently Miss Nightingale waits for some other response.

“I cannot deny it,” he says at length, “yet I cannot by any application of my considerable mental abilities understand why she fears me so. I would never do anything to harm her, and she knows that, I’m sure; she has from time to time displayed unmistakable affection for me.”

A good nurse knows when to be silent and let the patient talk. Florence Nightingale waits some more.

“My brother Mycroft and I want for the girl only what would be in her own best interests,” Sherlock Holmes goes on. “Some further education, at a good boarding school—”

“Ah!” Suddenly and completely Florence Nightingale understands. “You have threatened her with boarding school!”

Sherlock Holmes raises a puzzled, almost boyish gaze to her face. “Why, what ever is the threat—”

“Good heavens, didn’t your mother tell you?” Although, actually, his ignorance is no more extensive than that of other males. “The sufferings of an upper-class girl in a typical boarding school are only slightly less severe than those of an imprisoned criminal upon a treadmill. I speak of painful physical rigours that result invariably in deformity and sometimes in death.”

The great detective sits with his mouth ajar, evidently at a loss.

“My good man,” Florence Nightingale tells him gently, “please forgive me for being quite unconscionably blunt and, indeed, coarse, but I am an old woman, and as such, I will say what others won’t: thumbscrews are merciful compared with a fully tightened corset.”

It is a word never spoken in polite society, much less in mixed company. Hearing it, the man of action raises both hands in protest, and a flush of pink can be seen in his aquiline face. But Florence Nightingale perseveres.

“Why,” she challenges his intellect, “do you think fashionable women constantly faint? And die of the slightest ailment, much less childbirth? Or occasionally fade away and succumb even before reaching childbearing age? It is because they are compressed at the waist in a practise no more civilised than the binding of a Chinese woman’s feet! Far beyond comfort, beyond health . . . small wonder your sister fears you. In fleeing boarding school, she is literally running for her life.”

“But—but it simply cannot be as bad as you say,” exclaims Sherlock Holmes. “Tradition—elegance—generations of ladies have survived—”

“One might with similar logic say that traditionally, generations of soldiers have
survived
wars,” remarks Florence Nightingale. But then, with the diplomatic instinct that has seen her through a lifetime of dealing with authoritative males, she turns the conversation mildly aside. “I have never had a child, but I
have
had a sister, and I quite sympathise with your concern for yours,” she assures her visitor. “Perhaps Mrs. Tupper can tell you something of her whereabouts?”

From downstairs the piano resounds, filling the house with the majestic measures of Beethoven, and although neither the great detective nor the great reformer can see Mrs. Tupper right now, both know where she is: sitting directly beside the instrument, entranced and ecstatic because she can actually hear the music.

With a bleak chuckle Sherlock Holmes leans back in his chair. “No, there is nothing to be got out of Mrs. Tupper, as I’m sure Enola knows quite well. The sheer audacity of the girl,” he goes in, in tones of mingled wonder and exasperation, “never ceases to astonish me. For her to venture here when a mere block away at Whimbrel Hall I was still casting about for her trail, for her to drop off the old woman as if she were an expected visitor—”

Smoothly Florence Nightingale puts in, “But I am delighted to care for Mrs. Tupper in her old age.”

“Very good of you, I am sure,” he retorts rather abrasively, but then he corrects his tone. “Would you also be so good as to send for me if my sister comes here to visit her?”

Florence Nightingale scarcely hesitates before she speaks, seemingly not addressing his question. “You have an older brother, I recall.”

“Mycroft. Yes.”

“Also a bachelor, a recluse, a misanthrope, indeed, a misogynist, and quite set in his ways?”

How on earth does she know so much? The great detective scowls. “I flatter myself that I have some small influence over him.”

“Nevertheless, Mr. Holmes, his is the legal authority. Now, how would I know if your sister were to come here?” says Florence Nightingale with sweetest, wide-eyed innocence. “I never go downstairs.”

Sherlock Holmes, who also possesses the instincts of a diplomat, knows when an impasse has been reached. Without further comment he rises. “Miss Nightingale, I am delighted to have met you,” he tells her, standing by her bedside to take one of her half-crippled hands and bow over it. “If I can ever be of further service, please do not hesitate to call upon me.”

His thoughts, however, as he takes his leave, are far from delighted. As he stalks past Mrs. Tupper in her rocking-chair by the piano, Sherlock Holmes considers that Enola is sure to visit that elderly woman. Therefore, by deploying the Baker Street Irregulars, his troop of street urchins, to watch the house, he has a very good chance of catching his sister, confound and bless the daredevil, oh-so-clever girl—

But then what?

Is there possibly any truth to the distressing and indelicate things that Florence Nightingale has told him?

If Mum were here, might she tell him likewise?

Ye gods! Is he losing his world-famous mind, wishing now that he could ask for the advice of his mother, which he would have utterly disregarded a year ago?

His mother, whom he has been unable to locate? Confound everything! Why did that eccentric woman run away? And why did his sister then flee as well, and why does she continue to do so? Perhaps—and this is a very difficult thought for the man of action to admit—perhaps he has been going about things all wrong, thinking he must take Enola in hand?

For her own good?

As he exits Florence Nightingale’s gracious home, for the first time the great detective’s brilliant mind asks what, really, his sister’s
own
good might be. Boarding school, education in the social graces, introduction to polite society, preparation for marriage—however proper and traditional, still, are these necessarily the best plans for
Enola
?

Concerning the Crimean War and Florence Nightingale, I have done my best to adhere to documented facts. However, there is no evidence that Florence Nightingale engaged in secret communications; her use of code is my own invention. After the war, the famous nurse did spend the rest of her life as an invalid. Why so is a question hotly debated among scholars. As no one is certain what caused Florence Nightingale’s peculiar conduct, I took the liberty of giving it my own interpretation. She did indeed live in Mayfair, with a view of Hyde Park, although my description of her house is necessarily imaginary, as the original is gone. While it is true that Florence Nightingale was quite influential in politics and affairs of court, Lord Whimbrel and his sons are fictitious characters.