28. THE CASE OF THE WISE WOMAN

A tragic event reminds Watson of a past misery

I had come upon the old cottage during a ramble on my own, back when I was mourning the passing of my Mary, and had met a crone who had seen some of the sadness that suffused my whole being. Mary had been my angel and my strength and without her I could barely see any future for me and I had sunk into a pit of personal despair. Every moment with her had been a veritable Heaven on Earth, and both were no more and their loss weighed so heavily upon me.

“Young man,” the crone had said, standing by her gate, a wooden picket affair and barely in one piece. She was dressed in a long black dress of some kind and over her head and shoulders she had a shawl that managed to fill in a gap between black and brown. Her face was that of a truly old woman, lined and corrupted by the demolition that age imposes on human flesh.

But that was all years ago, yet I can still recall the conversation we had, word for word.

“Young man,” she repeated, “I see an aura about you and would weep for you. I detect that you have lost someone dear to you...”

“My wife, Mary,” I replied, unable to stop myself, and the uttering of those three words brought the whole sorry affair back to me, the agony of her last few days, the sadness in her eyes when she admitted that she was going to leave me, and the unbelievable pain of that final parting.

Then she was gone.

There is nothing less human and vital and alive than a corpse. And nothing more painful than that moment when the one becomes the other.

“The memories will stay with you, but the grief will slowly fade,” she said. “I know that truth. For I have felt it, too, and the years have replaced the black of my grief with the lighter shades of a succession of new days, each with their own chinks of fresh light. Come, my young friend, and share a drink with me. You will feel better for it!”

I don’t know what impelled me other than her invitation, but I followed her into that cottage.

Inside it was what I might have expected had I given any thought to it. Quaint in an untidy way probably fits the bill better than any other collection of words, and cluttered with too much furniture and too many trinkets for so small a space. And she welcomed me into it with a warmth that was disproportionate to our brief acquaintance.

She poured a foaming liquid from a stone jar into a mug, and handed it to me. “This will do little to take the weight from your shoulders, but it may help to lighten your heart,” she said, “let me tell you of my own sorrow.

“I was but a young woman when I met my heart’s desire. He was tall and fair and when the call came he became a soldier for the queen. He went to a far off land with others, all young men and all firm of limb and good of heart, and they took with them weapons of war. But not one of them returned. I received a note saying he died in glory for his country, and that was that. His nobility was death. But my heart was broken and I wanted to follow him along the road to that bitter ending. I wanted to be with him in the Hereafter, wherever he went, whatever force had called him. But my destiny was to spend the next fifty years alone in my cottage, the one we planned to share when he returned from the wars, this very little home. And then, today, I met another with the same grief...”

“You did?” I asked.

She smiled. “You know I did,” she said, smiling sweetly, “for that person is you...”

“I am a doctor of the flesh,” I said, “but I couldn’t save her...”

“Take a sip of your drink,” she said, coyly, “just a little sip if that is all you want, and then if you are lucky you will receive assistance when it is most needed.”

I did what she told me to do. I was without a mind of my own. The liquid was more foam than drink, but it tasted good. It reminded me of far off things, of the sweet flavours of innocence when I whipped my top down the street, of a heady night with close friends in a tavern in the town with my first taste of ale, of days and moments I had learned throughout my life to treasure. It also had a hint of my own efforts in wars effervescing in its foaming depth, of comradeship in battle, of friendship during the darkest of nights, and I drank it all. I had to. And no sooner had I finished it that I felt the strangest calm fall over me and as I closed my eyes I knew that somehow I had been drugged…

When I came round the day was well under way and I was sitting in the same seat, and she was watching me with a smile hovering on the corners of her rambling lips.

“You are a little better,” she told me. “I sense it.”

And I did feel… not less sad, not less grieving, but, well, better…

And it might have been that I had all but forgotten that day and that crone but for something Holmes said as he read that day’s issue of The Times.

“Miss Peabody has passed away, and her cottage reduced to ashes” he said.

“Miss Peabody, Holmes … do I know her?” I replied, frowning.

“You surely must, Watson! But I have her down as the oldest human being who was alive until yesterday, when her saints took her. She lived in a little cottage on a country lane where lovers walk and those who mourn seek solace, and that too, has gone, reduced to dust as her flesh was reduced to dust…”

“I know it!” I exclaimed, “and I know of her, but I had no idea her name was Peabody.”

“She spoke of you, Watson,” said Holmes, cryptically. “She said she helped you with a great weight.”

“If it’s the old woman I think you’re trying to remind me of then I’m surprised she was still alive, for even when I spoke to her she was old as the hills, and lined and wrinkled.”

“She was a comfort to me,” said Holmes, uncomfortably. “I have not always been as you see me, Watson, filled with the vigour of a relatively young man, but I had moments when I found her help, without seeking it. So I mourn her too. I recall that she foretold that upon her death everything she owned would follow her down unknown paths, and she owned that cottage.”

“Then she was some kind of witch?” I asked, cynically.

Holmes shook his head. “You know that tales of witches are told to frighten children,” he said, “and that there is no such thing under the light of day! No, she was a wise woman, plain and simple.

“And she gave you her medicine?” I suggested, remembering the foaming tonic that had been my salvation years ago.

He nodded. “It was what started me, and for that she is blessed” he murmured.

“Started you, Holmes? Started you on what? A journey? A life in detection? Your pipe?”

He shook his head. “No,” he almost whispered, “it’s what started me on cocaine. Yes, her tincture was the purest, most heavenly, tincture of cocaine, foaming as it was, and tasting of ...”

“Of memories, Holmes?” I suggested.

He nodded his head. “That’s it, Watson, it tasted of memories. My boyhood, the good times before the world took over… Memories.”

“Then we were both fortunate to have known her, however briefly, Holmes,” I said.

“Fortunate indeed,” he agreed.

© Peter Rogerson 17.08.17