Chapter Text
George Crabtree is quite confused, but he doesn’t say a word when Doctor Ogden takes her ring off a few months later. It is her decision and he shall not pry.
(Even if he really wants to, and it might be a clue that she and the detective have-)
Nope.
He will resist the urge to ask anybody about the ring. This is a matter not meant for interference, whether his or anyone else’s.
Emily mentions Doctor Ogden’s ring (or lack thereof) at one point 一 at George’s breaking point 一 and in a conspiratorial fit worthy of one of Murdoch’s chalkboards, he unleashes. Doctor Ogden’s hardly been married and she certainly didn’t look brighter when she came back from her honeymoon, and who on earth wants to venture to New Jersey with the limited holiday you’ve secured, and isn’t it noticeable? Unbearable? The elephant in the room has been trampling him, what with all this not-mentioning and not-staring, and-
Now Emily is staring.
And then he pauses.
“I believe I may have said too much. Sorry.”
Emily finishes washing her hands at the sink and dries them with a cloth. “I wouldn’t say so.” She shrugs. “Tell me more, constable. I’ve been curious for weeks.”
“You too?”
Her eyes are wide, her interest piqued. “I’ve only just met Doctor Ogden - you know, before she moved - and I already wonder what on earth led her to marry Doctor Garland,” she says, quick. Heaven knows when anybody else might walk into the morgue. Emily couldn’t live with herself if Detective Murdoch were to overhear; he’s having a hard enough time already.
“He had a ring,” George tells her. “He never had a chance to give it to her.” He weaves a tale of courtship and dinners cut short by mystery, interjecting every few sentences with stories about his novel (“this was when I was writing chapter seven, so I consulted Doctor Ogden for research on the health state a mummy would have if he rose from the grave, and the detective kept smiling at her across the stationhouse - now, I only saw because I’ve been improving my skills of deduction recently-”)
Emily laughs and wonders just how many longing looks George has witnessed over the years.
“If you’d like to take me someplace else, somewhere warmer,” she shivers in the cold of the morgue, “I would be glad to discuss this further.”
George links his arm in hers. They share stories about the detective over dinner.
Julia married the wrong man, past tense.
The annulment comes gently. Perhaps too swiftly, but she doesn’t want to wait; there is no sense in waiting, or at least very little dignity left to spare when you and your husband prolong the inevitable. Signing her name to the court documents is easier than she would have expected.
She apologizes. Darcy does as well. He, too, had been in search of a love that fit well on paper, yet felt rough and jagged anyplace else. And, honestly, who wants to spend their honeymoon in a hotel in New Jersey?
Darcy moves back to New York. He is honorable enough to embrace her at the train station on his way home.
“Were we - were we kidding ourselves?” he asks.
“Courting so briefly, I suppose we were.”
He says goodbye before getting on the platform.
The sound of the whistle reminds Julia of her departure for Buffalo, waiting until the last possible minute to board.
Julia writes him letters. In the cover of his boarding house, away from the prying eyes of constables, he covets her words. Soft phrases held close to her heart, sentences flying to the brim of the page, anecdotes about childhood, about how her braids tangled in tree branches as she climbed.
He covets the words.
She writes William letters. He responds, thin paragraphs at first, his pen scared of spilling too much ink on the page. But Julia writes to him more than anyone else, and William’s replies grow.
And grow.
I checked out a mystery novel at the library yesterday. I thought you might have liked it, William writes. For once, the butler was accused and then exonerated. It was a refreshing change. It reminded me of the case we worked on approximately two years ago, at the Longbourne residence. There had been a burglary. Handheld mirrors and old family maps had gradually disappeared, and then the silver was gone. Do you remember?
She responds right away. I do. We apprehended the suspect, the neighbor and best friend of the wife, at the train station attempting to board, yes?
Thank goodness you’ve a recollection of that case. I’ve been reading past records of the rare non-homicides I’ve we’ve worked, and Higgins cannot for the life of him remember this instance. He swears it must have occurred prior to his employment.
Julia grins at the scratched-out ‘I’ve.’ That sounds about right for Higgins. He can be slightly aloof at times, especially if he’s no motivation to remember. Ask him if he recalls being asked to wipe down every last fork and salad spoon with silver polish after the goods were recovered, and I bet you’ll have your answer then.
She has no clue how to convey her laughter on the page (what is she to do, draw small hearts next to her signature?) so she hopes her stories carry meaning of their own.
I saw a yellow lady-beetle today, William says. George insisted upon taking one of the glass containers in my office, still rolling around from the experiment I’d run during the Aberdeen case, and has now adopted her. I wish I could send a picture. Just know that Miss Lavender ー George’s idea, not mine ー is very comfortable in her new home. I, on the other hand, cannot walk past his desk without smelling the plants he keeps in his drawer. George insists she deserves some luxury before he returns her to the natural world, and that apparently means she should frolic among flowers he has plucked from the fields outside the stationhouse.
Julia laughs. She pores over the first paragraph again, trying to savor his words. There are not many of them now. She can still read William’s words in his voice, but she may lose that particular skill if they remain apart for the foreseeable future.
Henry has posited the argument that, if George can take a lady-beetle as a pet, he surely deserves a squirrel of his own. What has this world come to?
Inspector Brackenreid, naturally, has been excluded from the situation. If he were to find out, Miss Lavender would be evicted before he could snap his fingers.
I’m not sure why I need to explain this, even, he continues. You know how the inspector is. You were always far better at reading people’s faces and reactions than I. In fact, that’s one of the characteristics I miss about you.
I hope you are well. Everyone at the station house asks that I say hello on their behalf. And, Julia… I hope I do not speak audaciously when I say that I miss you most of all. How could I not?
She keeps his letters tied together in red ribbon. It frays at the ends after she unties it one too many times.
Julia likes the way he writes her name, with a little curl at the end of the ‘J.’ The pad of her thumb swipes over that word more times than she’d care to admit.
Dear William, Julia writes. Then she’s tapping her pen at the page once more. I hope you are well.
Then, with whatever courage she has accumulated, I miss you. I have been moving my belongings lately, between Buffalo and Toronto, two cities in separate countries still so close. I have wanted to leave Buffalo.
Little by little now.
I have wanted to return to my hometown. To you.
Oh, she hopes this won’t become yet another letter destroyed in the kitchen sink. That’s how she would abandon old drafts and letters as a girl; no one ever taught her to use a fireplace, and water was the next best thing that could make the ink run away.
I have wondered, she writes with emphasis on every last stroke, if we might see one another again.
Darcy and I have parted ways. I am
There’s that pen tapping again. ‘I am afraid that I made a mistake?’ She considers.
I am afraid that I committed to the wrong decision in marrying him. I was… over-correcting in my endeavors, too insistent that I should find somebody plain and righteous and, well, a good match, as far as societal standards go.
I would very much like to see you again. I do not know whether asking for reconciliation is simply asking too much of you, and despite the fact that I did not see you at my wedding, Julia bites her lip and lets the ink flow, I can put my feelings aside no longer.
A few more paragraphs of desperate truth, and she ends with a humorous Besides, I might like to meet Miss Lavender before, I imagine, her untimely passing? Given George’s past history with small pets ー the incident with the baby bird springs to mind ー I should see you sooner rather than later. I will arrive in Toronto on the 13th.
Can I see you?
She shivers as she plucks a stamp and places it onto the envelope’s corner. It isn’t too late to drown this… this confession in the kitchen sink. Julia knows she has already written William a letter, the one she sent prior to her wedding. Perhaps he has already made up his mind. There are plenty of women walking the streets of Toronto who can give him children and home-baked meals, women with far fewer demerits and scratched-out mistakes on their records. Women who have not, for example, honeymooned in New Jersey with well-coiffed but conversationally empty doctors.
Julia can imagine William with someone far more pleasant than she. A conventional girl with lily-white hands, whose aprons are covered in flour rather than ruddy stains and the sour smell of formaldehyde.
And yet,
I would love to see you, his reply comes. In his enthusiasm, or perhaps in haste, William has written the words too largely, and the loops of his ‘y’s dangle down the page like overripe vines. For the grace of your presence, ever bright, for conversations littered with anecdotes of your university days and statistics you cannot distinctly recall from the latest medical journals ー was the efficacy thirty or thirty-five percent?ー I could not wait a moment more. I must confess that I am somewhat relieved that your relationship with Doctor Garland has run its course. I know I should not take pleasure in another’s misfortune, particularly when it comes to the end of your relationship with him, but
Julia turns the page.
I loved you before we parted ways. I have loved you ever since. I have not broken my silence out of respect and, admittedly, some amount of shyness and the expectation that I remain chivalrous up to and during your wedding. I will explain.
I must tell you that I had followed the spirit of the law, rather than the letter of the law, during an investigation shortly before your wedding. There had been, and his words grow shaky, a woman who killed a man who had interfered with her. I’d met her before. Years ago, I was the reason her attacker had not been convicted. I gave the defense a technicality through which the man won his freedom.
She had now met this man again. In defense of herself and of every woman to come, to remove all possibility that he might act again ー she and I both knew that he would; it isn’t as justice would protect her as it had him ー she killed him, and I could not see her die for protecting herself. I set her free the day you married Doctor Garland. As with the letter you wrote me, I could see disadvantages no matter my decision. Should I set her free or let her hang for defending herself? Should I upstage your wedding or watch you marry another?
And I, in shallow thought, let her go, and I tried to let you go, and I thought I could make peace with your leaving if you left me for a good man. But I could never forget you and move on with my life, Julia. I was foolish to think it possible.
Every few days, I again wish that I had made my feelings clear in the days before your wedding. I had not wanted to control you, or to act too brashly. In vain I also tried to keep your reputation, and mine, clear of rumors. I am no longer acting in vain. I miss you as well. The morgue is different without your goldfish swimming and your Handel bouncing off the tile walls. Sometimes a woman wearing a skirt like yours, or a hat you owned three years ago, will walk past and I still fall for it before I catch myself.
When can I see you again? Reputations be damned, I must see you again. I can hold myself back no longer.
William is safe and warm and enveloped in the ashy smog of the train station when she spots him once more. Julia grabs a fistful of his familiar red scarf as she kisses him. She is careful not to pull too hard; George’s Aunt Rosemary had knitted it last Christmas, and she would hate to damage the wool.
“Hello,” William says, somewhat out of breath. He is still clutching her. Nose to nose, he cannot ever get enough of her. “Where have you been since I last saw you?”
“Down a bad path. But I’ve returned now.” Julia grins. She won’t admit it, but a tear (or two) is gathering in her eyes. She kisses him again. “Where have you been all my life?”
He shrugs. “Nova Scotia for a while, I suppose.” It is impolite not to ask about the length and quality of her journey from Buffalo, yet he has more important questions. “Can I accompany you home?”
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
Down shoddy sidewalks and patches of grass filled with white flowers, William walks with her. He carries Julia’s suitcase to her boarding house. He kisses her on the cheek before saying good-bye. “Sleep well, Julia.”
“Oh, I will.” She smiles and squeezes his hand before he departs.
William won’t tell anyone, but he glows the whole way home.
In her suitcase Julia has tied all of William’s letters together with red ribbon, and she keeps them safe in the hidden compartment in her luggage. Only the best for the words he has given her.
Miss Lavender is somehow, miraculously alive, and has given birth to a dozen more lady-beetles like herself by the time Julia makes her acquaintance.
“Doctor Ogden!”
She envelops George in a hug. “A pleasure to see you again. I hope Doctor Grace has been helpful in my absence?”
“Oh, most helpful. Even if she did try to quash my dreams of owning Webster-”
Julia frowns.
“His pet spider,” William explains. Behind him, Emily nods.
“This is his new hobby,” William says stiltedly, and Julia hides her laugh beneath a cough, and George describes how he identified Webster’s species from a library book.
George only spots the faintest of interactions between the doctor and Detective Murdoch, a brush of the hands as she walks through the door, and still he makes eye contact with Emily. She nods back at him eagerly.
When George can be alone with her, she whispers, “I told you they had reconciled!”
“Thank goodness! I mean, they’re just made for one another, and I could tell he had been concealing his feelings ever since she moved away the first time-”
“It was clear from the very beginning.”
“Perhaps they’ll be married someday,” Emily murmurs loftily.
“Oh, don’t get ahead of yourself, they’ve only just begun living in the same city again-”
“You never know!”