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holmes_minorTitle: Deja Vu
Author: gardnerhill
Fandom: ACD
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Word Count: 457
Rating: G
Warning: None
Summary: It’s a new century, but some things don’t change.
Author's Notes: Written for the October 2024 Holmes Minor monthly prompt, "Cycle."
Story on Dreamwidth
Story on AO3
Watson did not look up from weeding the onions when he heard the rumbling on the road; motor vehicles had become ubiquitous in the past two decades and were hardly the marvel they had been at the turn of the previous century. But when the rumbling grew louder as it approached their cottage, then stopped instead of fading, he lifted his head out of curiosity, and gaped.
A middle-aged woman in brown jacket and trousers stood by her parked Triumph Model H just outside the door of Hyacinth Lodge and looked at him. “Are you Major Watson? Late of the Royal Army Medical Corps?”
He rose to his feet. “I am.” There was something familiar about that queenly older woman, frank and regal as if she surveyed troops on a battlefield, and he recognised the uniform. “You were in the WAAC yourself. A Controller.” The Women’s Auxiliary equivalent of a Colonel. No wonder she looked so queenly.
She smiled. “Dr. Watson, it is you! I’d heard you’d moved out here. It’s been a few years since you and Mr. Holmes saved me from a dreadful fate in Surrey.”
Watson subtracted twenty-five years, and memory clicked in. “Mrs. Violet Morton. Neé Smith!” He looked at the Army motorcycle and laughed. “I see you’re still a cyclist!”
Mrs. Morton smiled sadly. “And solitary again, I’m afraid.”
Her husband Cyril had been an electrical engineer. Yes, he’d have been invaluable to any unit heading to France. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. I joined up afterward to keep busy and do my part; I was a natural for messenger work. I’ve been traveling around the country ever since the war ended, giving talks about women’s suffrage. I couldn’t rattle around at home by myself.”
Watson frowned. “I thought Parliament granted women’s suffrage.”
“Women with property, yes. I can vote. But suffrage should be for all women, not just rich ones.” Her face was grim, seeing an old horror from her past. “If my uncle had died as poor as we’d thought him to be when I first came to you, I’d still be as voteless as our American sisters.”
Of course. Her legal inability to control her own fate or money had nearly led to a horror in the Surrey woods. Suffrage would have been a natural step for her.
“We do have a small but determined suffragist movement in Sussex. Did you come to speak to them?”
She grinned, and now he remembered that bright beautiful smile. “And see old friends.”
He shook her hand. “Good to see you again. I’ll give Mr. Holmes my best the next time I see him.”
He watched the solitary cyclist depart. Pity she couldn’t stay till after Holmes came back from the shops.
Author: gardnerhill
Fandom: ACD
Pairing: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Word Count: 457
Rating: G
Warning: None
Summary: It’s a new century, but some things don’t change.
Author's Notes: Written for the October 2024 Holmes Minor monthly prompt, "Cycle."
Story on Dreamwidth
Story on AO3
Watson did not look up from weeding the onions when he heard the rumbling on the road; motor vehicles had become ubiquitous in the past two decades and were hardly the marvel they had been at the turn of the previous century. But when the rumbling grew louder as it approached their cottage, then stopped instead of fading, he lifted his head out of curiosity, and gaped.
A middle-aged woman in brown jacket and trousers stood by her parked Triumph Model H just outside the door of Hyacinth Lodge and looked at him. “Are you Major Watson? Late of the Royal Army Medical Corps?”
He rose to his feet. “I am.” There was something familiar about that queenly older woman, frank and regal as if she surveyed troops on a battlefield, and he recognised the uniform. “You were in the WAAC yourself. A Controller.” The Women’s Auxiliary equivalent of a Colonel. No wonder she looked so queenly.
She smiled. “Dr. Watson, it is you! I’d heard you’d moved out here. It’s been a few years since you and Mr. Holmes saved me from a dreadful fate in Surrey.”
Watson subtracted twenty-five years, and memory clicked in. “Mrs. Violet Morton. Neé Smith!” He looked at the Army motorcycle and laughed. “I see you’re still a cyclist!”
Mrs. Morton smiled sadly. “And solitary again, I’m afraid.”
Her husband Cyril had been an electrical engineer. Yes, he’d have been invaluable to any unit heading to France. “I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. I joined up afterward to keep busy and do my part; I was a natural for messenger work. I’ve been traveling around the country ever since the war ended, giving talks about women’s suffrage. I couldn’t rattle around at home by myself.”
Watson frowned. “I thought Parliament granted women’s suffrage.”
“Women with property, yes. I can vote. But suffrage should be for all women, not just rich ones.” Her face was grim, seeing an old horror from her past. “If my uncle had died as poor as we’d thought him to be when I first came to you, I’d still be as voteless as our American sisters.”
Of course. Her legal inability to control her own fate or money had nearly led to a horror in the Surrey woods. Suffrage would have been a natural step for her.
“We do have a small but determined suffragist movement in Sussex. Did you come to speak to them?”
She grinned, and now he remembered that bright beautiful smile. “And see old friends.”
He shook her hand. “Good to see you again. I’ll give Mr. Holmes my best the next time I see him.”
He watched the solitary cyclist depart. Pity she couldn’t stay till after Holmes came back from the shops.
no subject
Date: 2024-11-01 08:55 am (UTC)Couldn't have more women than men who could vote, could they!
no subject
Date: 2024-11-24 06:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-11-24 08:52 pm (UTC)