January 3rd, Inspector Hopkins came to call. The man that had stabbed her turned himself in. It was Mr. Merryweather’s caretaker. The mean faced man whom I never cared to learn his name. He told Hopkins that he had no knowledge of whom he stabbed. It was a way to keep the constables from chasing him. Their attentions would be focused on an injured person not him. He denied even knowing the person was a woman. It was just a way of escape for him. The knife he had used to stab Lizzie; he had used to butcher at cat earlier that day.
After the death of Mr. Merryweather, his family lost its income. No one wanted to hire him because of the information circulating around about Wiltshire. He had moved his family to London, in hopes of finding work. Still, to the same end. So his family had been eating whatever they could find to survive. He stole the goose for Christmas dinner. Though; when he realized he was going to get caught, panicked.
“It was happenstance.” Lizzie had pulled herself up and walked in to the parlor wrapped in a bed cover.
Holmes put his arm around her and guided her to the couch. This was the first time she had been up since Christmas Eve.
Hopkins knelt in front of her. “How do you know?”
Holmes never left her side.
“I have a gift Inspector. I can tell you that you are going to have two children. A boy and a girl; they will both give you grandchildren.” She paused. He was stunned. “I can tell you that your wife is going to die before you though I know not how.” Hopkins turned pale. “Your wife is pregnant now.”
“No one knows that.”
Holmes cleared his throat and took a deep breath. “Did you know this was going to happen?”
“No.” She whimpered.
“Ara?”
When he called her name, I heard it. I heard the reason why she would only allow him to call her that. I heard that whispered breath, the slight elevation in tone to pronounce the R; ending again with the whispered breath. I watched how they both softened; he in the saying, and her in the hearing. If ever there was a secret between two people, here was one.
She slumped over on him. He closed his eyes and held her.
Hopkins and I went into the hall. “Is she telling me the truth about her gift?”
I related to him the story of Mrs. Mary Tarter and encouraged him, that if he had not read her journal, he needed to do so.
Indeed, Hopkins did read her journal. He and his wife named his daughter Elizabeth Grace. It was his prayer that is daughter had an ounce of the passion that our Lizzie had.
I had been doing little things for her. Little things is what she would allow me. It was never my knowledge as a doctor; it was my friendship to Holmes that made her keep me at bay.
The events of that day are seared into my brain. We were in the middle of a blizzard. It felt as much. Wind blew snow down Bakers Street with force. Snow was so deep that definition between sidewalk and street disappeared. All morning long, my chest burned. Holmes paced like a man possessed. We were scared witless by a crash from her room. Holmes stared at me, I at him. Instantly, we ran to her. She was piled up in the floor unable to move. Her skin was gray and brittle to the touch. We put her back in bed.
Holmes set beside her, “where were you going?” He stroked her thinning hair.
“To you,” she whispered.
I felt her take my hand. Her touch was so cold. “Thank you doctor. Thank you for everything. You are the kind doctor that I prayed Sherlock would meet.” I kissed her forehead. It was all I could do not to break down. As I reached the door, she spoke to me one more time. “Watson, Victoria will make a devoted wife.”
In the end, it was she and Holmes. The amount of time that passed was unclear to me. It was not sobbing or waling that came to my ears. These were sounds I expected. It was nothing. The sound of silence. A deafening silence. All the life had been drained from the room.
Mrs. Hudson entered the parlor. Not a word passed between us for her to understand what was happening.
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