A Study in Satin

by Tigger
© 2000, all rights reserved

 

Part I: Semper Cogitus

Chapter 17: Revelations

 

Jenny Deavers stepped down from the cab without waiting for the cab driver to offer to assist her. Once on the street, she looked up at the small building immediately in front of her. The windows of the second floor rooms were shaded and dark - much like her roiling emotions.

She'd been thinking about this fateful meeting ever since yesterday when *that* girl had left the shop. For the third day running, Maisie's hemlines had been too long and also for the third day, they had needed to tighten the laces on the corset. Maisie was the best, most conscientious seamstress she'd ever employed. She *might* have made an error measuring the hem once, perhaps even twice although Jenny could scarcely credit that possibility. Three times? No way on God's green earth!

Goodness, as for that damned corset, they should have replaced the appliance the day before because they'd been able to draw the two sides together. Yesterday, the girl could have stood another half inch or more and hardly noticed it. Corset-training simply did not work that way! And then there were those incredible heels she had worn trying to pretend she was the same height - she'd never gotten those things at Madame Jeanne Marie's shop. Not a bit of it! Why, Jenny hadn't seen shoes like *that* since. . . . well, since she'd been in a much different line of work for that one gentleman that had inspired Joan's and her plan for that bastard solicitor. . . well, that was a completely different time and place - and a very different Jenny.

Something was very, very wrong, and Jenny feared she knew what that something was. Whoever this "Joan Hanks" truly was, Jenny was convinced she was taking advantage of Mr. Holmes. Well, Jenny Deavers *owed* Mr. Sherlock Holmes a great deal, and Jenny Deavers ALWAYS paid her debts. There was NO WAY she would permit some thieving little bitch take unfair advantage of him - particularly if he was truly ill and unable to care for his own needs. So she would, by God!

~-----------~

At that precise moment, *Miss* Holmes was indecorously sprawled on the sitting room settee, huddled into the soft folds of the comforter she'd stolen from her bed. She was not particularly concerned that she was not presenting, as she had promised she would make every effort to do, a demure and ladylike front. she felt bloody damned awful and nothing she had thus far done had relieved the symptoms he'd been suffering from since the wee hours of the morning.

The symptoms were all there as they had been from that first night. Over-sensitivity, over-emotionalism and a harsh cramping tightness in her lower abdomen. Only those were far more prominent this time than they had been at any other withdrawal onset - and the other symptoms were there, as well, if somewhat less intense, or even somehow different. The burning heat was now a fever alternating with chills. She still had bouts of dog-like (or was that bitch-like?) panting but this time, that symptom always seemed to portend a violent bout of nausea. That *was* notably different from anything she had been forced to deal with thus far.

She had already administered two doses of the precious drug trying to dispel these withdrawal symptoms. One when she had awakened at just past two A.M. in the morning and another when her need to relieve herself had roused her a little more than three hours later, only to find the symptoms recurring before she had managed to leave the water closet. Now she was awake again, suffering again, and not at all certain that she should use the drug again. It was the same, and yet it was different. Grimly, Joan tried to analyze the situation and determine a course of action.

Her concentration was broken by the jarring report of her doorbell. Joan determined to ignore it, but whoever was outside simply would not take the hint and continued pealing the bell. When Joan's overly acute senses and pounding head could not take anymore she roused herself from her nest and went to the door. A check through the peephole revealed her visitor was "Jenny?"

Joan opened the door and an angry-visaged Jenny swept into the room. She came to a stop inside the foyer and rounded on Joan. "All right, Missie, where is your sister?" she demanded furiously.

Caught completely off guard by that attack of this avenging Valkyrie, Joan momentarily goggled at the other woman before managing a weak, "My sister? What sister, Madame?"

"Oh, just stop the playacting, Missie, because I know everything."

"You . . you do?" Joan stuttered in disbelief.

Jenny sighed and gave the girl a sardonic smile. "I am a dressmaker, you silly girl, and have been for a good many years. Only rarely before have my customers grown smaller in the waist, but *never* have any of them grown shorter. Something that *you* have supposedly accomplished every day you've visited my shop for fittings. For god's sake, girl, why are you and your sisters taking advantage of Mr. Holmes when she has given Joan fair employment?"

"But I am Joan," Joan tried one more time, "and I don't have any sisters."

Jenny only shook her head. "Stuff and nonsense, Missie! Look at yourself in the mirror, girl. You are much prettier than Joan. Not only do you lack her unfortunate nose, the rest of your face - your eyes, lips and cheekbones - is much more attractive than hers. For another thing, you are a good two, perhaps even three inches shorter than the woman who came to my shop a week ago and your figure, with the exception of that lovely bosom, is much more petite than Joan's. Good lord, Missie, even your hair is longer, fuller and more richly colored than hers. The pair of you are simply too different in appearence for you to hope to carry off this charade."

*Well, I knew she was intelligent,* Joan thought ruefully, *And as I deduced in my journal last night, in her business, she needs to be able to assess the female form quickly and accurately. I never should have gone back there yesterday, but it was in all likelihood already too late. She had to be suspicious before that if she is this upset and certain now. Now what do I do?*

Unfortunately, Joan never had time to reach a solution before her stomach rebelled against the bit of milk he'd just forced down into it. Frantically, she put her hand to her mouth and ran to the water closet.

Bemused, Jenny Deavers followed in Joan's wake, but at a more sedate pace. She had just turned the corner in the hall when a horror-filled feminine shriek bid fair to deafen her. "Oh God, I am bleeding! Down THERE??!? That means. . . God DAMN you, Moriarty, to the darkest pits beyond HELL!"

Jenny was inside the water closet in an instant and saw the terrified girl, holding up her skirts and petticoats to reveal a pair of drawers stained a bright, wet red. Relief and then disgust flooded Jenny. "Oh, have done with it, girl," she ordered. "By the size of your bosom, I would say you are well old enough for this not to be your first flux."

Somehow, the words penetrated Joan's emotion-ridden mind, and she looked at her in confusion. "Flux?" she somehow got out.

Jenny shook her head. The girl simply did not know when to give up a bad game. "Your monthly flow, as you very well know, you little schemer. Your little act is not accomplishing anything so just stop this foolishness now."

But Joan never heard Jenny. All she could think of was that the transformation had actually reached the point where she was subject to a woman's lunar cycle. "My god, it's really happened. I am menstruating. Now, what do I do??!?" Joan almost shrieked in her complete dismay.

*She certainly sounds as confused as she is trying to appear,* Jenny thought, *Well, I won't get anything more out of her until she's dealt with this so I might as well move her along.* "Oh, come along," she huffed. "Let's get you cleaned up and then I am going to see Mr. Holmes and get to the bottom of this."

Fifteen minutes later, Joan was back on the settee, cleaned up thanks to a rather ruthlessly applied scrubbing from Jenny, with a cup of weak tea in her hand, some dry toast on a plate in her lap, and a hot water bottle on her still cramping abdomen. And she did not even like to think about the wad of clean rags Jenny had oh-so-very-carefully showed her how to position between her legs.

"All right, young lady," a stern faced Jenny said as she swept back into the sitting room, "where is Mr. Sherlock Holmes? The figure on that bed is nothing more than a very clever wax dummy image like those at Madame Tousseau's museum. Tell me quickly, girl, for I am about one minute away from calling in Scotland Yard and sending you and your thieving sisters to the dock.

Joan sighed, and gave in. She trusted Jenny - always had for some reason she never quite understood - but she had not wanted to confide in her because there had seemed to be no point. After all, how could Jenny. . .ANYONE. . . possibly believe her? And beyond that, she did not want to make Jenny known as her accomplice to any of Moriarty's still unidentified henchmen. There was certainly no way Joan could possibly protect her friend if those villains decided Jenny would make a suitable hostage against her. But now, there appeared to be no other course, at least none that presented itself to her in her current mentally reduced condition of feminine overload.

"I will tell you everything, Jenny, although there is every reason to expect that you will not believe me." Jenny stood there, waiting without comment. "Please, sit down, and pour yourself some of this lovely weak tea. This will take a while."

Jenny sat quite primly, Joan noticed, in one of the straight-backed chairs he'd always kept for female clients. "Do you trust Sherlock Holmes, Jenny?" she asked gently.

"What kind of question is that," Jenny retorted, her color rising furiously.

"A very simple question, Jenny," Joan replied, "for example, do you trust that Holmes would keep a confidence for you, once you asked him to guard your secret?"

A sharp nod of her head gave emphasis to Jenny's immediate reply. "Mr. Holmes is the soul of discretion. His word is worth more than gold."

"Very well. Then let me tell you how you and I actually first met. Then you may ask me any questions you like and I will answer them honestly and completely."

"But we never met until just a few days ago," Jenny retorted firmly. "No, that is not correct. The person I met then had to be your older sister, Joan. You and I met only yesterday!"

"Not so, Jenny," Joan said, "let me tell you a story - a story that only you and one other person should know . . "

"In 1891, you, along with the former mistress of the Duke of Connamoragh, were victims in a blackmail scheme hatched by the Duke's younger brother. The youthful fool had been gambling in the wrong gaming hells and unless he somehow managed to pay his rather large debts very quickly, his life was in grave danger. Instead of going to his brother for assistance and a well deserved tongue lashing, he used certain information gleaned from his brother's diaries to locate and blackmail women who had at one time been mistresses to his brother and his brother's friends, but who had since become respectable members of Society in one fashion or another."

"How do you *know* that?" Jenny asked, her face no longer stern.

"Let me finish," Joan asked. "You were afraid for two reasons, Jenny. First, if it became known what you had done before becoming Madame Jeanne Marie, you would likely have lost a significant portion of your more class-conscious high society clientele. The second reason was you did not want the name of your last protector made public knowledge because you feared for his marriage to an American Heiress if that became common knowledge. Since the Duke and his brother have both passed on, only you and one other person know the name of that gentleman."

Jenny looked at the young girl laying upon the settee. "And you want me to believe that *you* know that name? Not bloody likely, Missie. Mr. Sherlock Holmes would die before betraying such a promise."

Joan drew herself up into a very erect posture, her face very solemn, "And so *I* would," she said quietly and very distinctly, "though in many respects, one might say that 'dying' is precisely what *I* have done."

Jenny's eyes drew sharply together as she looked at the disheveled girl before her. Something in that voice - despite the high register, and something in those eyes - *something* made that outrageous claim she had just heard seem imbued with the very integrity that had so defined Sherlock Holmes.

And then Joan, again employing that same precise, clipped manner of speech, told Jenny the name of the popular and well known English Lord whose marriage would have ended had the facts of his youthful infatuation and liaison with a young Jenny Deavers become public knowledge.

Shocked beyond words, Jenny gasped, for once cursing the usually-comforting constriction of her own corset, and said, "YOU are Sherlock Holmes?"

"At your service, madame," the girl replied, the formal words so at odds with her appearance. And yet . . .

"You ARE Sherlock Holmes," Jenny declared, as much to herself as to the woman who she had just been convinced was in fact the great Sherlock Holmes. "But. . but. . ."

"Jenny, ask me any question you wish about that case. Let me prove to you that I am in possession of information that only Holmes could possibly know."

For almost a minute, Jenny stared at the young girl who claimed to be Mr. Sherlock Holmes. *Well, we'll just see about that!* she thought grimly, and began firing off questions only to have them answered in their turn - concisely, precisely and without hesitation. "And where did Mr. Holmes and I make love to celebrate his victory," she finally asked.

That brought forth a burst of laughter from the girl - quite unfeminine laughter, and at the same time, hauntingly familiar laughter. "That's not a fair question, Jenny, since just a few days ago you told me the answer to that question. We never made love, Jenny," Joan said in a more gentle tone. "In all truth, I was so absorbed in the case and the thrill of the chase, I never noticed that you had evidently made the attempt to offer me the great gift and pleasures of your bed. I apologize for that, for I now see that my indifference hurt you and I never intended that."

Jenny's mouth opened and closed twice before she finally managed to find her tongue. "I almost believed you until that last line, girl. Mr. Holmes apologizing?"

"I am a rather different Mr. Holmes, would you not say, Jenny? While the gentler human feelings are often still quite alien to my nature, I have, in recent times, become on a somewhat more familiar basis with them. Thus, I know that, without meaning to have done, I hurt you."

"You certainly don't talk like a young lady just out of the school room," Jenny said wonderingly, "but if you are really Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and I find that I truly believe that you are, what happened to you?"

Joan quickly recounted Moriarty's scheme, leaving out the part about his intention to take his own life, and the events up to that very day.

"Well," Jenny said with just a hint of smile, "That certainly explains you damning this Moriarty fellow to the. . .how did you put it? To the darkest pits beyond hell when you found out you were suffering from your flux."

"Damn you, Jenny, don't you dare smile at me like that. This is definitely NOT funny!" Joan said with exaggerated bluster, "And suffering is precisely accurate, Jenny. Not only that, but I evidently expended two of my precious doses of the drug to no real purpose. That will cost me at least a day of searching time - once I am physically able to take up the search again."

"Well, I hear tell the first flux is always the hardest, even on girls who have been taught what to expect by their Mums. Must be really hard on a fellow who thought he'd slip through life without ever tasting that little gift of Nature's."

"Just so," Joan replied drily earning a not-very-sympathetic laugh from Jenny.

The older woman's smile became thoroughly wicked as she considered the possibilities. "Ah, Holmes, if only you knew how many times I had wished this exact condition on one of my former protectors. The arrogant, strutting little peacocks, calling *me* unclean when they'd leave me disappointed after arriving at my door unannounced and wanting a bit of sport during my time of the month. It was as if they were convinced I did it on purpose," Jenny snarled and then smiled, a very female, very devious little smile. "So, Holmes, that potion really does what you say it does? Each time you get a little younger, a little smaller and a little more feminine?"

"Yes, although since this is, in fact, a woman's cyclic response to the moon I am suffering through at the moment, I am hard pressed to come up with any changes that would be more feminine than this." It was said with a weak smile that surprised Joan.

"Pregnancy is said to be the most feminine of conditions," Jenny offered ever-so-sweetly.

"Which, praise the merciful providence, requires the physical intervention of another person - an intervention which I can assure you will not take place."

Jenny shrugged before smiling again. "So, about that formula, Holmes. Know how to get more of it? I really do think I have a use for some of it."

Joan managed a laugh, hoping she'd meant that as a joke. Still, she wasn't truly certain because she simply kept smiling that very unnerving smile. "Sadly, Jenny, I do not have the recipe nor the ingredients - only that one small bottle that has barely a week's worth of the drug left. And since I cannot reproduce the formula for you, I wouldn't recommend you go hunting for your former protectors with a hypodermic needle in your reticule."

"Too bad," Jenny grinned in gentle commiseration. "I guess that is true enough, Mr. Holmes. . . Lord, but you being so small and pretty laying there, calling you Mr. Holmes feels. . .well, cursed strange."

"Joan is fine for now, if you prefer that form of address, Jenny. Actually, I made a promise to myself to become as womanly and feminine as possible in the future - especially when I am with you. My thinking being that you and Maisie could, unwittingly, help me perfect my disguise."

"I don't think this is the disguise anymore, Joan, not if the changes are really as permanent as you say."

"Much the same conclusion I arrived at last night myself, Jenny. However, it is not as if I am going to have to live with it much longer in any case. As I said earlier, I wasted a dose of my paltry hoard of the drug today because I thought this 'flux' was another flare up of the withdrawal symptoms," Joan said resignedly before something peaked her interest. "I must say, Jenny, that you were easier to convince than I would have been in your place."

"Nonsense, dearie. As I said, Mr. Holmes' word was always good as gold. Only two ways you could have known the story and the name you just told me. Either because Mr. Holmes told you the story or because you are, as unbelievable as that sounded, Mr. Holmes. The thing is, Joan, I simply found it more unbelievable that Mr. Holmes would have dishonored a promise like that."

A tear formed and ran down Joan' cheek. *The effects of an over actively female constitution,* she scoffed mentally as she batted the tear away. "You humble me, Jenny," she said quietly.

"So, what happens now, Joan?"

"Time is running out for me and I have found nothing here in England to further my investigations. At some point, I will have to give up on my inquiries here and go to the Continent," Joan laid her head back. "Somehow, I need to get papers - and a passport. And I just don't have much time left."

"Papers aren't difficult," Jenny said firmly.

Joan eyes shot open and she looked at Jenny sharply. "I beg your pardon?"

"Now, now, we'll have none of that, if you please, Missie!" Jenny scolded with a mischievous smile. "What about your promise to be womanly in my presence? In any case, what I said was that obtaining papers is not difficult. I have some friends in the Home Office. Actually, I have some friends whose husbands are in the Home Office. Who do you want to be?"

The quiet confidence in her voice convinced Joan who remembered how many women owed the kindly shop owner who had made them beautiful when they ventured into the Marriage Mart. "Well, I have a plan, such as it is, that might permit me to reclaim my home and property if I survive this experience." Joan said hesitantly.

"You mean there is a chance you might survive? I thought you said the withdrawal was ultimately fatal."

"Moriarty is trying to perfect the drug and eliminate the side effects and the addiction problems. There is a chance that, if I can find him, I might be able to survive."

Jenny heard the barest hint of hope in the softly feminine voice. "All right, Joan. Tell me what to do."

Joan nodded and managed a smile for her friend. "My final will and testament has not changed since Watson died, Jenny. He was my primary heir. His wife died, leaving him only a brother. Suppose that brother had a heretofore unknown daughter."

"By the name of Joan, Joan-dear?" Jenny said with a smile.

"Just so, Jenny."

"Well, that might work, if Watson did not have any other relatives, Joan, either real ones or believable frauds."

"None at all," Joan replied with certainty, "I have checked through my own sources."

"Come now, dear, you are a man. . .err . . woman of the world. The Holmes estate, thanks to your brother Mycroft, is substantial and many a fortune hunter will be looking for ways to get his or her hands on it before the government can become involved and tie everything up for years."

"So?" Joan asked, "there really isn't much I can do about that, is there?"

"It seems to me that the state would be your executor, then, would they not?" Jenny asked?

Joan puzzled over that for a moment. "As I understand English law, Jenny. Why do you ask?"

"If you, as Mr. Sherlock Holmes, were to write a letter to Watson, or in his death, your legal executor, acknowledging paternity of your unacknowledged girl child, a Miss Sherla Joan Holmes, and directing him to ensure that she is granted her just birthright? If there were such a document, would they not comply with your wishes?"

Joan snapped upright, sitting up and staring at the grinning Jenny. "Explain yourself," she ordered, just barely remembering to speak with Joan's soft, feminine lilt."An unacknowledged girl child, Jenny? Confound it, Madam, what are you talking about?"

"Bear with me, Joan, and please *do* remember to behave like a lady and not some crude male. Would the government be required to comply with the wishes in such a letter?"

Something in the nature of a hidden codicil to my final will?" Joan mused. "That would need to be witnessed and sealed, in much the same way as the will to work."

Jenny's lovely face fell. "Oh, that is too bad."

"Ah, but that's not the real problem, you see, for the solicitor who wrote my will and the witnesses thereto, my brother Mycroft and Dr. Watson, are all deceased. As to the existence of such a signed and witnessed document, I am, or rather, I was, a rather skillful forger when the situation demanded it in the past."

"But can you do it now, Joan?"

"Well enough, I suppose. My eye is still good enough to tell if it s a good forgery. I suspect that I can manage quite handily. Mother unknown?"

Jenny's eyes twinkled merrily as she smiled at Joan. "Well, let's just think about that, Miss Sherla Joan Holmes, shall we? Would not the existence of a maternal parent who could provide corroborating evidence be useful as well?"

"This is becoming too bizarre, Jenny. Just what are you proposing?"

"Well, Sherlock Holmes and I were together, dear, twenty years ago. You could almost pass for twenty years old now, and presuming you continue to take that drug, you will do so easily in the very near term. We will say that Holmes and I had an affair, and I, Madame Jeanne Marie became enceinte."

"That won't pass muster, Jenny. The only man with a more misogynistic reputation than Sherlock Holmes was my brother Mycroft."

"Foolish boy. . . I mean, girl, of course it will be believed. Misogynist or not, that was the height of the Victorian era - a period of English history known for public morals and private debauchery. Of course Society will believe you are his daughter because that is what Society will want to believe, regardless of the facts. Especially if I say you are my daughter by Holmes. Then, when they search your papers for your will, if they also find records such as a ledger of you making child support payments to me or paying tuition to some Swiss boarding school, or a copy of a birth certificate with your and my names on it. . . oh blast!" Jenny broke off.

"What's the matter," Joan asked, greatly amused by Jenny's enthusiasm.

"The papers will be brand new. They won't look twenty years old. And besides, that bastard Carroll would have had a copy in the records turned over to him by your old solicitor, wouldn't he?"

Miss Holmes chuckled deep within her throat. "Not necessarily, if it was a secret codicil of a very special nature -which this one would have been. As to the aging of the documents, let me worry about that. There are chemical processes available to me that will age those papers so that not even another expert will be able to discern any difference between them and actual documents of that time frame. It does seem odd, however, that I, that is, *Sherla*, would turn up suddenly without anyone knowing about me through my father or through you," she noted.

"Nonsense, dear, that is how many children born on the wrong side of the blanket are dealt with in Society. After all, the great Sherlock Holmes had no interest in raising children, and my reputation would have been utterly ruined by having and then raising some man's love child. We'll say you were raised from infancy by a nanny and a governess in the country - some nice remote place like the far reaches of Cornwall - and then you were sent to a foreign boarding school on the Continent when you were old enough. Of course, as your Mother, when I heard that Mr. Holmes, *your* father, had died, I, of course, summoned his daughter to come and collect her inheritance. We could even say that is why you went to his apartments, disguised as Joan, so you could take care of him in his last hours."

"And you believe we could pull that off?" Joan asked warily.

"With the right papers?" Jenny reposited, "yes, I do." She stood and walked over to Holmes and cupped the younger woman's chin in her hand. Jenny turned Holmes' face to the right, then to the left and then looked directly into her eyes. "You even have the look of a younger Holmes," she mused aloud, "If one looks hard enough for him in your visage. Although, the resemblance does seem to be less each day, doesn't it? You are really becoming quite lovely."

Miss Holmes jerked her head back and glared at Jenny. "Thank you ever so much."

"Oh, don't go on like that. If you are going to be a woman, and you evidently are, my dear, it is far better to be an attractive woman than an ugly one. You gain much more power that way, trust me."

Sherla snorted, then realized how unladylike that sounded and managed a little sniff. *Well, I had already concluded much the same things in my journal last night. Still, it won't serve to let her get too much of an upper hand in this partnership. "We'll see. As to this little disguise, haven't you forgotten one thing? Won't this little scheme unmask you as an immoral woman to Society? Won't that endanger your business?"

"It might," Jenny agreed, "but then again, it might not. It really doesn't signify at this point in my life as I don't need to work any longer, Sherla. I have more than enough blunt put aside with Mr. Nickleby to last many more years than I have left on this earth. Besides, being the Mother of Sherlock Holmes' daughter just might make me the toast of the town."

"You're quite sure you are not only willing to do this," Miss Holmes asked softly, "but want to do it?"

Jenny nodded, a suspicious sheen in her eyes. "I told you, didn't I, that I always wanted to be a Mother?"

"Yes, but I am a little beyond the age of needing one, Jenny," the newly named Sherla smiled.

"There you are wrong, dear. You are like a baby you know so little about being a woman. You need Mothering now more than you ever needed it as a young lad."

"Well, that would not be difficult since my mother was a weakling who had been beaten into submission by my bastard of a father."

The tears did flow from Jenny's eyes now. "Then you definitely need a little mothering, dear. Both of you do.

"If you say so, Mother - Jenny."

"I say so, Sherla. Now, let me get something to write with and you can tell me what papers and other credentials you are going to need me to obtain for you."

 

 

 

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© 2000 by Tigger. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.