Fic: Chambers: G
Mar. 5th, 2016 11:06 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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holmes_minorTitle: Chambers
Rating: G
Characters: Watson, Holmes, Nathan Garrideb, nurse
Word Count: 498
Warnings/Content: Post-“The Three Garridebs.” Quotes from and poem inspired by “The Chambered Nautilus” by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Author’s Note: Watson catches a second glimpse of Holmes’s great heart. For the March 2016 prompt: small but perfectly formed.
Readers with keen memories may recall that I described the climax of the case presented to the public as “The Three Garridebs” as ‘the only and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain’ of my friend Sherlock Holmes. A lie. There was another instance, related to the very same case.
As we entered the Brixton nursing-home, Holmes’s expression was thoughtful, unchanged since we had learned the fate of his former client, Nathan Garrideb. He sat down opposite the old man and produced a handkerchief-wrapped bundle, which, when unfurled, was revealed to be a shell, one I recognized as having adorned the mantelpiece of 221B Baker Street.
“Exquisite!”
The nurse gasped. It was, I later learned, the first word she had ever heard her patient utter.
“For your collection,” said Holmes as he opened the shell, which was split in two with a thin gold hinge linking the halves. “Nautilus pompilius, one of the smaller of its kind, but perfectly formed.”
“Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!’ The poet, also a Holmes. Any relation?”
“Regrettably, no.”
The old man turned his gaze to the shell’s spiralled interior. “What is it of Nature, Mister Holmes, that makes poet of the philosopher-collector?”
It was in the reply that my friend showed his great heart once more. He smiled, shook his head, and said,
“I may, one day, pen a sonnet on bees, but there is wisdom in both poetry and Nature.
‘Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!’”
The old man covered Holmes’s hand with his own.
“Thank you, Mister Holmes. You have come to my aid twice.”
Some weeks later, Holmes dropped a letter on the table beside me, and as I read, a bittersweet melody sang forth from his violin.
The Ship of Pearl
By N. Garrideb
This is the ship of pearl, which bids the old man feign
Sailor-poet and deign
To dream of bark that flings;
Of where the Siren sings; of purpled wings;
Of gulfs; of reefs; of far-off places, things;
Of sea-maids sun-dried hair,
Where the old man hies and hides from daylight’s glare.
Each cell a home forsaken, small yet perfectly coiled,
Dwelling, dweller unspoiled
By eyes, by cries, by hue.
He never looked behind when passing through
Each shimmering, beckoning archway new;
Not grieving, bereaving more
Collections, recollections of old walls four.
Beneath cloud-castle ruins a buried soul
Silent, entombed, but whole,
Awoke. Thy message hast
Like Jericho’s trumpet, a sea-roar’s blast.
‘Arise and build, for this chamber shan’t be thy last!
This ship of pearl shall be, for thee,
Vessel, companion, guide for life’s unresting sea!’”
I can recall Holmes playing that particular melody only once more: the day that the nautilus returned to its resting place on the mantelpiece of 221B.
Rating: G
Characters: Watson, Holmes, Nathan Garrideb, nurse
Word Count: 498
Warnings/Content: Post-“The Three Garridebs.” Quotes from and poem inspired by “The Chambered Nautilus” by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.
Author’s Note: Watson catches a second glimpse of Holmes’s great heart. For the March 2016 prompt: small but perfectly formed.
Readers with keen memories may recall that I described the climax of the case presented to the public as “The Three Garridebs” as ‘the only and only time I caught a glimpse of a great heart as well as of a great brain’ of my friend Sherlock Holmes. A lie. There was another instance, related to the very same case.
As we entered the Brixton nursing-home, Holmes’s expression was thoughtful, unchanged since we had learned the fate of his former client, Nathan Garrideb. He sat down opposite the old man and produced a handkerchief-wrapped bundle, which, when unfurled, was revealed to be a shell, one I recognized as having adorned the mantelpiece of 221B Baker Street.
“Exquisite!”
The nurse gasped. It was, I later learned, the first word she had ever heard her patient utter.
“For your collection,” said Holmes as he opened the shell, which was split in two with a thin gold hinge linking the halves. “Nautilus pompilius, one of the smaller of its kind, but perfectly formed.”
“Its irised ceiling rent, its sunless crypt unsealed!’ The poet, also a Holmes. Any relation?”
“Regrettably, no.”
The old man turned his gaze to the shell’s spiralled interior. “What is it of Nature, Mister Holmes, that makes poet of the philosopher-collector?”
It was in the reply that my friend showed his great heart once more. He smiled, shook his head, and said,
“I may, one day, pen a sonnet on bees, but there is wisdom in both poetry and Nature.
‘Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last,
Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast,
Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life’s unresting sea!’”
The old man covered Holmes’s hand with his own.
“Thank you, Mister Holmes. You have come to my aid twice.”
Some weeks later, Holmes dropped a letter on the table beside me, and as I read, a bittersweet melody sang forth from his violin.
The Ship of Pearl
By N. Garrideb
This is the ship of pearl, which bids the old man feign
Sailor-poet and deign
To dream of bark that flings;
Of where the Siren sings; of purpled wings;
Of gulfs; of reefs; of far-off places, things;
Of sea-maids sun-dried hair,
Where the old man hies and hides from daylight’s glare.
Each cell a home forsaken, small yet perfectly coiled,
Dwelling, dweller unspoiled
By eyes, by cries, by hue.
He never looked behind when passing through
Each shimmering, beckoning archway new;
Not grieving, bereaving more
Collections, recollections of old walls four.
Beneath cloud-castle ruins a buried soul
Silent, entombed, but whole,
Awoke. Thy message hast
Like Jericho’s trumpet, a sea-roar’s blast.
‘Arise and build, for this chamber shan’t be thy last!
This ship of pearl shall be, for thee,
Vessel, companion, guide for life’s unresting sea!’”
I can recall Holmes playing that particular melody only once more: the day that the nautilus returned to its resting place on the mantelpiece of 221B.
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no subject
Date: 2016-03-06 06:25 am (UTC)The last paragraph is very strong.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-06 12:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-06 12:16 pm (UTC)I have added your author tag.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-06 12:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-03-06 02:13 pm (UTC)I love that you continue Nathan Garrideb's story a little more - ACD did give him such an abrupt conclusion. And I love that Holmes cares enough to go and visit Garrideb and understands how to give him hope. Oliver Wendell Holmes' poem fits so well. (I believe Holmes may have been named after him). And the poem that Garrideb writes in response is beautiful - the last stanza especially.
Your ending is done with such subtlety and delicacy: very sad but oddly positive too. Bittersweet indeed.
no subject
Date: 2016-03-06 03:00 pm (UTC)