Chapter Text
There is a strange compulsion that visits a man in his old age. It is a restlessness, a heating of the blood, a thirst not dissimilar to the one that comes upon him in youth. A young man may look forwards, into the years upon years in which he may slake that thirst. An old man's years, though, are behind him. To quiet the restlessness in his bones, he must look back.
It is that restlessness that compels me to at last recount the story of my years at Bakerfield Hall and the extraordinary, near-supernatural events that transpired there.
I began those years in a deep sleep, ruined by violence and adrift in the world, firmly of the belief that I would continue in that state until I went to my grave. Chance—or fate—brought me to the one man in God's creation who could have delivered me. I tell you, no man was ever closer his mate as I have been to him. Though I sometimes knew weariness of his company and he of mine, he taught me what it was to live entirely for and with what I love best on Earth. To have had such intimacy with him, the best and wisest man I have ever known, I hold myself supremely blest.
We pull back the curtain in October, 1842. I had spent the years prior in Kabul as a surgeon, attached to the 44th Foot. The grim events that saw me back from Afghanistan to London in the previous autumn have been well-discussed in the press. I do not wish to reiterate them here, though eventually they may come to have immediate relevance to events and conversations I intend to relate. I suppose that, at that point, I shall bring myself to revisit those times, though I think them better forgotten.
For the time being, it should suffice to say that a Jezail bullet to my left shoulder had destroyed my future as a doctor, and the consequent infection had nearly destroyed me altogether. Upon my return to London in October, I was granted nine months' pension. It was money enough to live off of, but only just. I was without friends, family, or means. London was quite as expensive a place to live in then as it is now, and as soon as I showed sufficient recovery, I held nothing back. The passing weeks saw my health improve and my debts grow in equal quantities. By the New Year, I was near destitute.
I was saved from the almshouse by a stroke of luck. One Michael Stamford, an old school friend, wrote me, and mentioned passingly that he knew of a gentleman in search of a private physician. I wrote back with haste, requesting further details. The next letter I received was from a Mrs. Hudson of Bakerfield Hall. Enclosed were a request for my history and references and a detailed description of the position and its requirements. I was to have as my patient only one man, a Mr. Holmes, the master of the house, whose ailments were described only vaguely. I would be given the option to consider complaints from the rest of the household, but Mr. Holmes was to be my principle concern, and there was a physician in the village who was available to receive anyone I did not see.
It was a somewhat odd description, and I knew that many gentlemen of my station would consider employment of such a nature to be beneath them. But a man as desperate as I could not afford pride. I replied immediately with the requested documents. Within a fortnight, I was packing my few possessions and boarding a carriage bound northwest for Derbyshire.
Thus came I to be in a foreign place, with nothing to my name but a small trunk, a medical bag, and the clothes on my back. I have heard men complain that it is an unsettling sensation to be so entirely unattached; to me, though, it has always been a welcome one. Fear can thrill the blood and invigorate the senses as nothing else can. This sort of mild trepidation was a poor substitute for the chaos of war, but that was behind me. I had to accept what little excitement I could.
Reader, you may picture me, a man of forty, sat by the hearth and warming my hands before the fire. My hair was not yet full grey then, but a dirty yellow, as if the desert sands had dyed me permanently. Though I have never been a truly handsome man, I was once at least passing comely. Afghanistan, though, marked me so dramatically, it was some months before my reflection ceased to be a stranger to me. By the time I left London, I had gained back most of my weight and lost the hungry look I'd had about me. I walked with a cane, which I called an affectation, but which was equally for to lean on during passing spells of lightheadedness.
I was wrapped tightly in my coat, but it proved scant protection against the frigid February air. I made a note to acquire a better one posthaste. Momentarily, I wondered if there was even a competent tailor in town, but what sort of town has no tailor? Even here in the country, men had to dress. I should endeavor to ask Mr. Holmes, when the chance arose.
If the chance arose. I had not been met by anyone at the coach. I went to summon a waiter and enquired as to the location of a Bakerfield Hall, but he passed me over. It was brutally frigid out of doors, so I entered the nearby inn and took my seat by the fire. Perhaps someone would find me here?
I waited at the hearth for near to an hour and attempted fruitlessly to chase the chill from my bones. As it neared sunset, I despaired of the idea that an envoy of the house would know me by sight, and hailed a waiter.
"Is there a place nearby called Bakerfield?" I asked him.
"Bakerfield? I don't know, sir. Let me inquire at the bar."
He vanished, but reappeared straightaway.
"Are you Dr. Watson?"
"The very same," I replied.
"Someone at the bar for you, sir."
I set down my hat, stuffed my gloves into my pocket, and hurried over to the bar. A rough-looking man straightened at my approach.
"Dr. Watson?" said he.
"I am."
He pointed at my things by the fire. "That all?"
"Indeed."
Without another word, he strode over to the hearth, hoisted my trunk up, and carried it outdoors to a waiting carriage, leaving my medical bag to me. I followed as quickly as I could.
When I was shut in the carriage and he in his seat in front, I knocked on the window and asked, "How far to Bakerfield Hall?"
"Hour and a half yet," came the response.
I sighed, pulled my coat tightly around myself, and fortified myself for the journey.
As we traveled through the village of Bakewell and out onto the country road, I thought of my patient. Mrs. Hudson's letter had given me just the vaguest sketch of his condition. It occurred to me only then that I did not even have information so basic as his age. Briefly, I wondered if I were mad, to accept employment so far in the country and under such mystery. But I soon recalled the circumstances that saw me out of London: my empty mailbox, my ruined arm, and the expressions of mixed horror and sympathy on the faces of every senior physician to whom I disclosed my history. No, this position was my last and only option.
In any case, it suited the man I had become. Monsters and madmen belong in such places.
The countryside out the window was grey and barren, spring being still some weeks off. I tried to imagine the fields green, bright, and lush, as they must have been in summer, but found it a difficult endeavor. As we left the town further and further behind us, the roads grew rougher, and the driver was obliged to walk the horses. The air ahead was murky and nigh-impenetrable in the fading light. The hour and a half seemed to stretch into two and onward. Just as the heaviness of my eyelids began to overtake me, I chanced to look out the carriage window. At that very moment, the carriage rounded a turn, and Bakerfield Hall came into sight.
The tallest towers seemed to loom out of the mist from where it was set atop a small hill. The rest emerged in increments: the crenellated battlements, the austere stone walls, the tall, narrow windows, and the arched gateway we drove under on the approach. On both sides were dormant garden plots, where still stone fountains were being gradually overtaken by vegetation. At the end of the path was a set of massive wooden doors. As I climbed down from the carriage, I noticed the line of stones some yards from the entrance that continued around the walls as far as the eye could see. After a moment, I recognized the remains of a moat. Bakerfield Hall was the descendant of a grand medieval castle, an instrument of warfare, now tamed.
The driver of the coach hopped nimbly down, fetched my trunk over, and knocked on the door. It was opened by an elderly woman in a black gown, apron, and widow's cap.
"Mrs. Hudson, I presume?" I said, and found my teeth chattering.
"Indeed," said she. "Come in, Doctor, come in!" She ushered me in, and the man followed. "Take Dr. Watson's things to his room, Jack, will you?" Mrs. Hudson said to him. To me, she said, "Jack drives so slowly, you must have left town before supper! We've cleared everything away, but I'm certain I can send for something from the kitchens."
Though I was famished, I was, more pressingly, exhausted, and I told Mrs. Hudson so.
"Of course, sir," she said. "Just follow Jack up the stairs, he'll show you right to your rooms. I'll show you round and introduce you to Mr. Holmes in the morning."
I can scarce remember making my way to my room or undressing. Despite my exhaustion, I passed the night restlessly, beset by nightmares. To the best of my knowledge, I had resigned myself to a life of loneliness in this partial exile.