Arthur & George

buttons. In front, folds of the cloth fell softly at either side of a lace chemisette. The dresses were by Maison Dupree, Lee, B.M.’
    He scarcely understood a word of this. It was as mysterious to him as the words the dress’s wearer had uttered the day before.
    He wondered if he would ever marry himself. In the past, when idly imagining the possibility, the scene would always taken place at St Mark’s, his father officiating, his mother gazing at him proudly. He had never been able to picture his bride’s face, but that had never bothered him. Since his ordeal , however, the location no longer struck him as plausible, and this seemed to undermine the likelihood of the whole event. He wondered if Maud would ever marry. And Horace? He knew little of his brother’s present life. Horace had declined to attend the trial, and had never visited him in gaol. He managed an inappropriate postcard from time to time. Horace had not been home in several years. Perhaps he was married already.
    George wondered if he would ever see Sir Arthur and the new Lady Conan Doyle again. He would spend the next months and years attempting to regain in London the sort of life he had once begun to have in Birmingham; while they would go off to whatever existence world-famous authors and their young brides enjoyed. He was not sure how things would go between them if a common cause was lacking. Perhaps this was being over-sensitive on his part, or over-timid. But he tried to imagine visiting them in Sussex, or dining with Sir Arthur at his London club, or receiving them in whatever modest accommodation he might be able to afford. No, that was another implausible scene from a life he would not have. In all probability they would never meet again. Still, for three-quarters of a year their paths had crossed, and if yesterday had marked the end of that crossing point, perhaps George did not mind so very much. Indeed, part of him preferred it that way.

FOUR
    Endings

George
    ON THE TUESDAY , Maud passed her
Daily Herald
silently across the breakfast table. Sir Arthur had died at 9.15 the previous morning at Windlesham, his home in Sussex. DIES PRAISING HIS WIFE announced the headline; and then ‘ YOU ARE WONDERFUL!’ SAYS SHERLOCK HOLMES’ CREATOR and then NO MOURNING . George read how there was ‘no gloom’ in the house at Crowborough; the blinds had deliberately not been drawn; and only Mary, Sir Arthur’s daughter by his first marriage, was ‘showing grief’.
    Mr Denis Conan Doyle talked freely to the
Herald
’s Special Correspondent, ‘not in a hushed voice, but normally, glad and proud to talk about him. “He was the most wonderful husband and father that ever lived,” he said, “and one of the greatest men. He was greater than most people knew, because he was so modest.”’ Two paragraphs of proper filial praise followed. But the next paragraph made George embarrassed; he almost wanted to hide the paper from Maud. Should a son speak like this about his parents – especially to a newspaper? ‘He and my mother were lovers to the end. When she heard him coming she would jump up like a girl and pat her hair and run to meet him. There had never been greater lovers than these two.’ Apart from the impropriety, George disapproved of the boasting – the more so as it followed close upon the assertion of Sir Arthur’s own modesty. He, surely, would never have made such claims for himself. The son continued: ‘If it had not been for our knowledge that we have not lost him, I am certain that my mother would have been dead within an hour.’
    Denis’s younger brother Adrian corroborated their father’s continuing presence in their lives. ‘I know perfectly well that I am going to have conversations with him. My father fully believed that when he passed over he would continue to keep in touch with us. All his family believe so, too. There is no question that my father will often speak to us, just as he did before he passed over.’ Not that it would be entirely straightforward: ‘We shall always know when he is speaking, but one has to be careful, because there are practical jokers on the other side as there are here. It is quite possible that they may attempt to impersonate him. But there are tests which my mother knows, such as little mannerisms of speech which cannot be impersonated.’
    George was confused. The instant sadness he felt at the news – as if, somehow, he had lost a third parent – was deemed to be