Echoes of Sherlock Holmes: Stories Inspired by the Holmes Canon(93)

“Heavens.”

“He was a stage-door Johnnie and no bones about it. He saved her.”

“Good for him,” said Miss Grant. “From what?”

“Oh, she was in with a very rough crowd. Down in a part of New York called the Bowery or the Battery or some such outlandish place. She was mixed up with a jewel thief and if Edward—my husband—if my husband had not swept her away she might have ended up in some rather hot water. I sometimes think, uncharitably perhaps, that she used him.”

“I wouldn’t wonder.”

“His family cut him off.”

“I wouldn’t wonder about that either,” said Miss Grant, trying to imagine a hoochie-coochie-dancing daughter-in-law being introduced to whatever blameless merchant or banker had been Mr. Coulter’s father. “And am I right in thinking that the marriage was not a success? She left him?”

“The marriage wasn’t even a marriage!” said Mrs. Coulter. “Yes, she left him. As soon as he’d got her out of New York, out of America, she abandoned him.”

“And divorced him?” said Miss Grant. For surely not even Sir Stephen and Lady Larbert would care about an indiscretion that left a man a widower.

“She had no grounds!” cried Mrs. Coulter. “My husband is as loyal as the day is long.”

“Too loyal to divorce her?” asked Miss Grant.

“He could have,” Mrs. Coulter said. “He had photographs of her in her costumes; he had the costumes themselves. Any judge in the land could see a woman like that would never be faithful.”

“They can be sticklers for hard evidence,” said Miss Grant, thinking of Brighton boarding houses and what good livings there are for indiscreet chambermaids.

“And besides, he didn’t need to,” Mrs. Coulter said.

“She died?”

The woman had the strangest look on her face, Miss Grant thought to herself. She dabbed her lips and folded her little napkin before she spoke again.

“She may have died for all we know. But what I meant was that he had no need to divorce her. He applied for annulment.” Miss Grant waited a moment or two but Mrs. Coulter said nothing, so she prompted her.

“On the grounds that . . .”

“Yes.” Mrs. Coulter did not blush and did not hang her head. On the contrary, she put her chin in the air and stared down her nose at Miss Grant, daring her to speak.

Miss Grant was always one for a dare. “And the same judge who’d never believe she was faithful refused to believe she was chaste?” she said. “Dear me.”

“We had both been so sure it was a mere technicality!” Mrs. Coulter said. “We had already told my parents we were engaged. We couldn’t find the words to describe our difficulty. So we went ahead with the wedding.”

“Dear me,” said Miss Grant again. Then, as all the ramifications arrived in her brain together, she said in quick succession: “But that—So you’re—The children—” before she managed to press her lips closed again.

“We are married in the eyes of God and in our own two hearts,” Mrs. Coulter said.

“Well good then,” said Miss Grant, thinking that two hearts and the eyes of God were all very well but did not explain weeping on an omnibus or living behind a barber’s.

“Money, however, has become a problem,” Mrs. Coulter conceded. “As I said, my husband was cut off when he married . . .”

“Za-Za-Zita,” Miss Grant supplied.

“But I had a settlement, a very generous portion, from my father. All was well until my sister, whom I turned to for help and comfort, to still my troubled thoughts, betrayed me. My own sister. And do you know why?”

“Because your portion was a wedge cut from the same pie as hers?” Miss Grant guessed, making the other woman blink. The Hon. Miss Elizabeth had gone from castle to villa to rooms without becoming inured, it seemed, to plain speaking.

“My mother, while she lived, gave me a little income from her own,” said Mrs. Coulter. “But when she died, even that money stopped. My father warned my husband not to try to get work: “worming his way in to the homes of respectable men by passing himself off as one of them.” I shall never forget those ugly words! And every penny that was meant for my children is gone.”

“Gone?” said Miss Grant.

“Gone to my sister. My father could reverse it if he cared to. I went to him just days ago and begged him again. My older son is finishing school. He should be going to Oxford. I begged him. But he just sat there glaring at me, telling me that when his father set the terms the words were mere formalities.”

“What words?” asked Miss Grant gently.

“Legitimate issue,” whispered Mrs. Coulter. “I begged. I told him we were desperate. That my husband was very foolish, but nothing more. He was bedazzled by her. She was a temptress and a trickster and she has ruined all our lives.”

With that she stood, put her chair neatly under the table, said good-bye and walked away, leaving Miss Grant a-quiver.

She had not met many Americans in her life and none of them burlesque dancers, but those she had come across were dazzling. There had been that one, years ago now, not long after she had arrived here. He was walking along the road, just walking along the road, swinging a carpet bag and singing a music-hall song at the top of his lungs, his voice as rich as treacle. His hair had been like raven’s feathers, his skin like milk, and his teeth when he smiled at her had glittered in the sunshine.