The Marriage of Mary Russell Read Free Page A

no move to fetch me a seat.
    I had a word with the innkeeper, returning to the fire with another chair. As I arranged it as close as I could get to the heat without risking combustion, my foot brushed something that clanked. I looked down—noticing first the distinctive black hairs on my trousers that betrayed my encounter with the lighthouse keeper’s dog, then the object on the floor.
    “What on earth is that?”
    “It would appear to be a sterling silver flail.”
    Did I want to know? Wellington boots; a peasant’s weapon made from an aristocratic metal; its source in the tiny hamlet of East Dean—the combination bore all the hallmarks of one of his outré cases, and I wished merely to get the matter of the Holmes family chapel off my mind. However, he took my brief pause as an invitation, and launched into an unlikely tale that seemed to involve a well-digger, the restoration of a nearby abbey, a lesser title from an Eastern European country, and strange marks on a stone bridge. Or perhaps it was an aristocratic bridge-restorer and strange digging marks in an abbey: I admit I was not paying much attention.
    My bowl of cock-a-leekie soup was half gone before he drew breath, but I did not leap to interrupt him. I was enjoying the sensations of the moment: the fire at my knees felt as if it had been burning for two centuries, the beer in my glass was cool, the soup was a comfort within. The satisfaction made me aware that, once we were married, we could come here anytime, day or night, with no concern for village proprieties.
    This startling idea kept my mind well occupied until he leant forward to crack the dottle of his pipe into the fire. I noticed that his glass—and apparently his story—had come to an end, and I cast a quick glance around us to make sure we were not overheard before speaking.
    “Look, Holmes, about the…the wedding.”
    “Have you another regiment of guests we would offend if they went uninvited?”
    I opened my mouth to deliver the speech I had so carefully composed, about how sorry I was that we weren’t able to use his family chapel, and what we might do instead…and yet I heard a very different set of words coming out. A set of words, moreover, that said one thing, but meant another.
    “Do you suppose your cousin could be bought out?”
    The moment I said it, I knew what the question represented: the bride’s gift to her husband.
You’ve spent your life straightening out the problems of others,
I was telling him;
let me do this for you.
    “It’s not his to sell,” he said automatically. “And if it were, he’d refuse to sell it to
me
.” Then he paused, his right eyebrow quirking up as he turned his gaze from the fire. “Do you mean, would he sell to you? Good Lord. Why would you want that old pile?”
    “I don’t especially want another house. But buying it might simplify matters. For you and Mycroft, that is. Unless—is the property entailed?”
    He let out a bark of laughter and sat back, fingers laced across his waistcoat. “The Holmes family is hardly grand enough to entail a property in the interests of primogeniture. And I assure you, ownership of that house would trade one small and symbolic problem for a cart-load of mundane nightmares. No, I for one am perfectly happy to allow my cousin to continue fretting over tax bills and the state of the roofs and the return from the tenant farmers. I merely refuse to withdraw from the field of battle and cede my rights of access and usage.”
    “Oh,” I said. “Well, in that case.”
    “Yes?”
    I took a deep breath. “Holmes, if we can keep Mrs Hudson and Dr Watson from being peppered with bird-shot, I should be honoured to accompany you in breaking into your family chapel and having the words of marriage recited at speed over our heads.”
    —
    However (Why is it, I wonder, that my accounts of adventures with Holmes so often employ that word?), our window of opportunity promptly slammed down upon our fingers, a bare