"Tiger Tracks" (Rated G, June 2018 Prompt)
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holmes_minorTitle: Tiger Tracks
Author: gardnerhill
Form/Wordcount: 500
Characters/Pairings: None
Rating: G
Warnings/Content: None.
Summary: A letter left at the top of the stairs.
Author’s Notes: For the Holmes Minor June 2018 prompt: Mistaken Identity. Set during my story Tigress which re-writes the ending of the ACD Canon story “A Case of Identity.”
***
Mr. Windibank:
I trust you will forgive me for omitting the “dear” from the salutation. I am aware of your true nature now, you see, and nothing endears you to me – not for mother’s sake, nor for propriety’s, nor for the appearance of amiable family life. Nor for the love I genuinely felt for the man I thought of as Hosmer Angel.
You may have noticed that I am no longer in the house as of the time you find this letter. Perhaps you will wonder to where your silly, love-struck stepdaughter has vanished. Perhaps. But I do know that you will indeed notice when your banking account no longer fattens at the rate of £28 a quarter-year. You may shed a crocodile tear or two for the loss of your legal flesh-and-blood, but you will truly grieve now that the ducats have vanished along with the daughter.
Both you and mother will see that I left no forwarding address with either of these two notes. That information I leave in the hands of my two agents, Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson of 221b Baker Street; if you wish further contact with me it must be through them. Mr. Holmes in particular wished me to quote him: “Be sure to let Mr. James Windibank know that I would greatly appreciate his reappearance at my door, for I have unfinished business with him of which he is very well aware.” I find myself wondering at the ways of a world in which two strange men have treated me in a far more fatherly manner than my stepfather ever did.
Mother has her own note. I do not know if you coerced her to be a part of this farce, or if she truly did not know, or if she knew and kept silent, preferring to adhere to her duties as a loyal wife rather than as a protective mother by permitting me to be gulled by your disguise. I cannot trust her either, so she too will receive no contact from me save through the channel mentioned above.
No doubt you laughed in your sleeve to see me grieving over a false identity. If that is so, then we were both duped. You mistook me for a gold-egg-laying goose, and I mistook you for a father.
Ironically, your deception has the effect you wished to create while I was homebound and mourning my lost Hosmer: I will have no more to do with the whole of your sex romantically, forever. You taught me a valuable lesson, stepfather: Men are not to be trusted – not the best of them. I have a saleable skill and an annuity, so I have no fears for my future security; while I remain unmarried my money stays under my control and none others’. I might even begin to enjoy the fruits of my own labours for the first time.
Find yourself another goose, or else learn to live upon your own earnings.
Mary Sutherland
Author: gardnerhill
Form/Wordcount: 500
Characters/Pairings: None
Rating: G
Warnings/Content: None.
Summary: A letter left at the top of the stairs.
Author’s Notes: For the Holmes Minor June 2018 prompt: Mistaken Identity. Set during my story Tigress which re-writes the ending of the ACD Canon story “A Case of Identity.”
***
Mr. Windibank:
I trust you will forgive me for omitting the “dear” from the salutation. I am aware of your true nature now, you see, and nothing endears you to me – not for mother’s sake, nor for propriety’s, nor for the appearance of amiable family life. Nor for the love I genuinely felt for the man I thought of as Hosmer Angel.
You may have noticed that I am no longer in the house as of the time you find this letter. Perhaps you will wonder to where your silly, love-struck stepdaughter has vanished. Perhaps. But I do know that you will indeed notice when your banking account no longer fattens at the rate of £28 a quarter-year. You may shed a crocodile tear or two for the loss of your legal flesh-and-blood, but you will truly grieve now that the ducats have vanished along with the daughter.
Both you and mother will see that I left no forwarding address with either of these two notes. That information I leave in the hands of my two agents, Mr. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson of 221b Baker Street; if you wish further contact with me it must be through them. Mr. Holmes in particular wished me to quote him: “Be sure to let Mr. James Windibank know that I would greatly appreciate his reappearance at my door, for I have unfinished business with him of which he is very well aware.” I find myself wondering at the ways of a world in which two strange men have treated me in a far more fatherly manner than my stepfather ever did.
Mother has her own note. I do not know if you coerced her to be a part of this farce, or if she truly did not know, or if she knew and kept silent, preferring to adhere to her duties as a loyal wife rather than as a protective mother by permitting me to be gulled by your disguise. I cannot trust her either, so she too will receive no contact from me save through the channel mentioned above.
No doubt you laughed in your sleeve to see me grieving over a false identity. If that is so, then we were both duped. You mistook me for a gold-egg-laying goose, and I mistook you for a father.
Ironically, your deception has the effect you wished to create while I was homebound and mourning my lost Hosmer: I will have no more to do with the whole of your sex romantically, forever. You taught me a valuable lesson, stepfather: Men are not to be trusted – not the best of them. I have a saleable skill and an annuity, so I have no fears for my future security; while I remain unmarried my money stays under my control and none others’. I might even begin to enjoy the fruits of my own labours for the first time.
Find yourself another goose, or else learn to live upon your own earnings.
Mary Sutherland
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