The horror of it sometimes invaded my sleep, waking me to my own screams, tears streaming. Two years of him alive and vital had not erased the terror or my guilt. I had left him, knowing we faced an implacable and dangerous enemy, to aid a stranger. He’d confronted Moriarty in solitary jeopardy. I, who had sworn to be with him in his time of sorest need, had deserted him, leaving him to meet death alone. It did not matter he’d triumphed; I had abandoned him when he needed me most.
“Ah, my dear Watson.” Holmes focused on the ornate canopy of the bed, but I doubted he saw it. “Indeed, I would have been greatly shocked had you acted any differently.”
“Still…” Try as I might, I had never been able to purge that singular shame from my soul. It haunted me when I believed Holmes dead because I had fallen for a deception, adding to my grief. It remained with me now, two years after his return rekindled the joy of living for me.
“Oh, my dear!” Holmes shifted to gather me closer. “You could not have known. I never told you the note was false. Indeed, I encouraged you to go.” He smoothed the hair at my temples. “I could not allow you to come with me those last fateful steps. I would have done all I could to send you away. Moriarty would have killed you. He’d have shot you down without the least remorse before he turned his attention to me. Had he done so, I would not have returned from the gorge.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps I’d have shot him first. I’ve often thought of it. When I saw him striding up the path to the falls, I should have known him. And I should have simply shot him as he deserved. He walked right past me! Dear God, I was so oblivious to the danger to you. And because of my negligence, you…” I found I could not shake off the memory once it flooded my soul, and swallowed back the heaviness in my throat. Tears stung the corners of my eyes. “I thought…well, you already know what I thought. You saw me, after all.”
“Yes, I did.”
Something in his tone drew me to look at him. He still stared at the canopy, but now the light inside seemed different, no longer blazing, but golden and warm. He swallowed before he continued. “I have never seen anything more heartbreakingly beautiful.”
“Beautiful?” His words from our reunion came back with not a little sting. “You said it was…‘most sympathetic and inefficient’…‘totally erroneous’…” I looked away for a moment. “I don’t see how ‘beautiful’ applies.”
“Ah, you shouldn’t take my criticism of your deductive methods as a criticism of you personally. Your deductive powers far exceed those of Lestrade and his ilk, but you did draw all the wrong conclusions, as I prayed you would.” A ghost of a smile touched his lips. “You cried. You wept for me.” He swallowed again and his eyes closed. “Oh, Watson, when I saw you, so wracked by grief, I nearly went to you. Indeed, I moved to do so and only caught myself at the last instant.” He pulled in air slowly and released it with equal care. Some great revelation lurked behind that breath.
“The selfish part of my nature knew if I went to you then, revealed myself and told you how I felt, you’d have forsaken your marriage vows. I would have had all I’d dreamed of. And you would have been dead within six months. Had any of Moriarty’s creatures an inkling of the love I feel for you, they would have taken you to use against me. Your life would not have been worth a shilling.
“If we’d fled to Asia to assure your safety, you would have abandoned Mary in the basest fashion, leaving her to face ridicule and scandal. I could have faked our deaths, but you would still know the truth and bear that guilt forever. As much as I wanted you, as much as I knew it my one chance to have you, I could not. The immense love I feel for you stopped me.”
And in those few words he laid a balm over my guilt, healing the deepest and worst of it. The rest would probably remain with me always, but I could breathe again. I drew him close and kissed him with all the tenderness in my heart.
The glow about him shone brightest yet when I, in all reluctance, pulled away for a little air. He stroked my cheek with the greatest emotion I’d ever seen on his face. “I had to assure Moriarty’s men believed you knew nothing. The only way to do so was to make it truth. I had to protect you.”
It was all he’d not told me, there in my consulting room the day my life began again. All he could not, until this moment. The words felt inadequate, but I had to say them. “Thank you.”
“No, Watson. It’s to you I owe gratitude. Seeing you there beside the falls, weeping for me, I realized while I could never—for so I thought at the time—have your body, I had your heart.”
His hand found mine. “Have you never wondered why I hung a painting of so horrible a place over our mantel? It isn’t to remember Moriarty, my dear. It is to remember how very much you love me. And in that, there is great beauty.”
It seemed a moment for quiet. I laid my head on his breast, marveling yet again at how very much I had missed seeing in the depths of his soul. There were other things I wished to ask him, but now did not seem the time. It would wait.
—
excerpt from “Kissing Sherlock Holmes”
by T.D. McKinney and Terry Wylis
