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Authors: Laurie R. King
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it was stifling. When I turned up the lights, she cried out as if she’d seen a snake in the room. She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong, but the maid said she’d started the morning completely normally, then after breakfast suddenly retreated into the room, and stayed there all day.
“I coaxed her to eat and put her to bed. The next morning she seemed better. She laughed when I asked her what had happened, and said something odd about being unaccustomed to happiness.
“She wouldn’t let me stay home, insisted she was fine, tried to pretend she was herself again. But she wasn’t. I could see that something was eating at her, but I thought perhaps it was simply as she had said, that when one has spent one’s life tensed against life’s next blow, security and comfort can themselves seem untrustworthy. I vowed to myself that I would sustain her comfort, until she became convinced that it was real, and permanent.
“Since then, I’ve done my best to convince her of her worth. I took her to Brighton for a few days, to amuse her, bought her books, even went to her favourite church with her. And I thought I was succeeding. Her friends started to drop by again, she’s been out a few times—generally with a mundane purpose, to shop or visit the lending library, but the haunted look seemed to leave her, and she spent less time behind closed curtains.
“Until she disappeared.” Holmes sat back, one finger resting across his lips; I sat forward. “This was Friday. Three days ago. I’d been up late Thursday, working, and I fell asleep in the studio—I keep a bed there, so I don’t disturb the household with my comings and goings.I slept until noon, then went home. The maid, Sally, told me that Yolanda had gone out first thing that morning with a packed valise, saying she wasn’t sure when she would return.”
“Had she received a letter? A telegram?”
“Not that Sally knew, and the only time she’d been away from the house was when she went to the greengrocer’s Thursday afternoon. I was more puzzled than alarmed—Yolanda does this sometimes, goes off for a day or two. She calls them her ‘religious adventures.’ Still, she always tells me when she’s going to be away, and with her recent uneasiness in mind, I found myself distracted. Twice I left my painting to walk home and see if she had come back. She hadn’t.
“So on Saturday I woke up early, and when there was still no sign of her, I sent Sally out to do the round of Yolanda’s friends, to see if any of them knew where she was. While she was doing that, I went around Yolanda’s favourite churches and temples and the like, but no-one had seen her in days. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went back to the studio, but I couldn’t settle to work.”
“You didn’t wish to notify the police?”
“No. Not until, well, considerably longer. And then when I returned to the house around tea-time, Sally gave me an envelope she’d found under my pillow, where Yolanda had put it before she left. It could have sat there for days, if I’d continued to sleep at the studio, but when Sally’d come in, she couldn’t decide what to do with herself, not knowing if we were in for dinner and all, so she’d decided to strip the beds.”
Holmes made a small gesture of impatience with his finger, and Damian abandoned the question of out-of-sorts maidservants.
“Anyway, this is what she found.”
Damian reached around for his jacket and fished out not one, but two envelopes. He half-rose to hand the light blue one to Holmes. For a moment, the slip of blue linked two near-identical hands, then Holmes’ long fingers were pulling at the contents, tipping the page so that I, too, could read the words. They were written in a precise, bold hand:
Dearest D,
I am going away for awhile, on what I suppose is one of my religious adventures. This time I’ve taken E with me. I must ask you to be patient, although I know that you always are.
Your loving Y
P.S. I
“I coaxed her to eat and put her to bed. The next morning she seemed better. She laughed when I asked her what had happened, and said something odd about being unaccustomed to happiness.
“She wouldn’t let me stay home, insisted she was fine, tried to pretend she was herself again. But she wasn’t. I could see that something was eating at her, but I thought perhaps it was simply as she had said, that when one has spent one’s life tensed against life’s next blow, security and comfort can themselves seem untrustworthy. I vowed to myself that I would sustain her comfort, until she became convinced that it was real, and permanent.
“Since then, I’ve done my best to convince her of her worth. I took her to Brighton for a few days, to amuse her, bought her books, even went to her favourite church with her. And I thought I was succeeding. Her friends started to drop by again, she’s been out a few times—generally with a mundane purpose, to shop or visit the lending library, but the haunted look seemed to leave her, and she spent less time behind closed curtains.
“Until she disappeared.” Holmes sat back, one finger resting across his lips; I sat forward. “This was Friday. Three days ago. I’d been up late Thursday, working, and I fell asleep in the studio—I keep a bed there, so I don’t disturb the household with my comings and goings.I slept until noon, then went home. The maid, Sally, told me that Yolanda had gone out first thing that morning with a packed valise, saying she wasn’t sure when she would return.”
“Had she received a letter? A telegram?”
“Not that Sally knew, and the only time she’d been away from the house was when she went to the greengrocer’s Thursday afternoon. I was more puzzled than alarmed—Yolanda does this sometimes, goes off for a day or two. She calls them her ‘religious adventures.’ Still, she always tells me when she’s going to be away, and with her recent uneasiness in mind, I found myself distracted. Twice I left my painting to walk home and see if she had come back. She hadn’t.
“So on Saturday I woke up early, and when there was still no sign of her, I sent Sally out to do the round of Yolanda’s friends, to see if any of them knew where she was. While she was doing that, I went around Yolanda’s favourite churches and temples and the like, but no-one had seen her in days. I didn’t know what else to do, so I went back to the studio, but I couldn’t settle to work.”
“You didn’t wish to notify the police?”
“No. Not until, well, considerably longer. And then when I returned to the house around tea-time, Sally gave me an envelope she’d found under my pillow, where Yolanda had put it before she left. It could have sat there for days, if I’d continued to sleep at the studio, but when Sally’d come in, she couldn’t decide what to do with herself, not knowing if we were in for dinner and all, so she’d decided to strip the beds.”
Holmes made a small gesture of impatience with his finger, and Damian abandoned the question of out-of-sorts maidservants.
“Anyway, this is what she found.”
Damian reached around for his jacket and fished out not one, but two envelopes. He half-rose to hand the light blue one to Holmes. For a moment, the slip of blue linked two near-identical hands, then Holmes’ long fingers were pulling at the contents, tipping the page so that I, too, could read the words. They were written in a precise, bold hand:
Dearest D,
I am going away for awhile, on what I suppose is one of my religious adventures. This time I’ve taken E with me. I must ask you to be patient, although I know that you always are.
Your loving Y
P.S. I
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