The Marriage of Mary Russell Read Online Free Page B

midnight, but still.
    Once the decision was made, I managed to settle into something resembling honest work, and got through Wednesday with an awareness of solitude that was merely pressing, not grinding. I did not look for a reason to delay Mrs Mark when she had finished for the day, nor did I set off to waylay villagers or passing strangers to engage in conversation. In the evening, I only checked all the doors and windows twice, and I shut down the lights in a few of the more distant rooms. When I went to bed, the hallway light alone was sufficient to let me fall asleep. After a time.
    Truth to tell, I’d scarcely dropped off when a 3:00 a.m. clamour of the bell ripped me from my warm slumber. I jerked bolt upright, listening to the fading echoes and wondering if the fire brigade were about to arrive. But silence followed rather than the crash of axes meeting wood: my brain began to order itself, and came up with an alternative meaning.
    “Holmes?” I croaked. I threw back the warm covers and shivered my way to the window, sticking my head out into the icy air. This time my voice functioned a bit more clearly. “Holmes, is that you?”
    “Have you another man in the habit of presenting himself at this hour?” rose from the dark below. He sounded revoltingly cheerful. I closed the window, and made him wait on the doorstep until I had re-plaited my mussed hair, found my glasses, and put on a few more layers of clothing.
    “Holmes, what on—” But I was talking to his back, as he swept past into the house. He was dressed for Town, from his high silk hat to his patent leather shoes, but atop the finery there were indications of a day’s harder work: smuts from a train on his white shirt-linen, mustard on his neck-tie, engine grease on one cuff, and Sussex soil up to his ankles.
    Then he was gone, the hallway empty. The sound of water running into the kettle came from the kitchen. I became aware that a great deal of cold air was wrapping itself around me, and hastened to shut the door, finding as I did so that there was something in my hand. An envelope. Since I hadn’t brought it downstairs with me—I didn’t think I had—Holmes must have handed it to me in passing.
    Yawning, I followed him to the kitchen, which was lovely and warm from the stove’s banked fire. I dropped the envelope and set my chin into my hands, closing my eyes, only dimly aware of the sounds of tea preparation.
    I came awake when a cup nudged my elbow. As I reached for it, I noticed the envelope I had let fall on the table. It was large, and of paper so lusciously thick, it tempted the hand. “What is this?” I asked, at the moment more interested in the toast he had slathered with butter and was now drizzling with some of the honey I had helped him process the previous summer.
    “A gift. For the, er, bride.”
    I jerked back, nearly upending my laden cup over the pristine rag paper, and eyed first Holmes, then the luxurious rectangle, with equal misgivings.
    Holmes stood propped against the sink, grey eyes studying me over the top of his cup. I rubbed my palms down my dressing gown, and gingerly picked up the envelope.
    No writing: a red wax seal on the flap. I fetched a knife—one free of butter, honey, or even a fleck of dust—and edged it under the seal.
    The paper inside, thrice-folded, was similarly blessed with red: an embossed seal, a strip of meaningless ribbon, a second embossing down below, a formal signature. It began:
Randall Thomas, by Divine Providence, Archbishop of
CANTERBURY,
Prince of all England, and Metropolitan, to our well-beloved in
CHRIST
~
    Sherlock Escott Leslie Holmes of the Parish of Saint Simon and Saint Jude in the County of Sussex a Bachelor and Mary Judith Russell of the Parish of All Saints Oxford a Spinster ~
    GRACE and HEALTH. WHEREAS ye are, as it is alleged, resolved to proceed to the Solemnisation of true and lawful Matrimony and that you greatly desire that the same may be solemnised in the face of