Canon Discussion: The Speckled Band
Aug. 10th, 2014 08:49 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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sherlock60This week we’re having a look at The Speckled Band. As usual, I’ve typed up a few thoughts to get the discussion going.
The events in question occurred in the early days of my association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors in Baker Street. …working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth… This is perhaps intriguing. What is Holmes’ financial situation? In STUD Stamford explicitly reports to Watson that Holmes needs someone to share the rooms at Baker Street because they are too expensive for him. Yet here, still in the relatively early days of his career, he’s not worrying about money. Holmes is a gentleman but that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s wealth in the family... Still, maybe some kind of modest private income..?
…I have reasons to know that there are widespread rumours as to the death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott which tend to make the matter even more terrible than the truth. Rumours even more terrible than “he murdered one stepdaughter via poisonous snake, and the snake killed him when he was attempting to murder the other”? I wonder what these rumours could have been. That Roylott committed suicide using the snake? Or perhaps that Miss Helen Stoner murdered her stepfather?
"Farintosh," said he. "Ah yes, I recall the case; it was concerned with an opal tiara…” Any thoughts on this case?
"When Dr. Roylott was in India he married my mother, Mrs. Stoner, the young widow of Major-General Stoner, of the Bengal Artillery. My sister Julia and I were twins, and we were only two years old at the time of my mother's re-marriage.” I wonder what the story is here. Mrs. Stoner had her own money, so surely there wouldn’t be a pressing need to remarry. Did she feel the need to give her children a father? Was it love? When I read this story I always imagine Major-General Stoner as being the complete opposite to Roylott, but perhaps Mrs. Stoner made the same mistake twice—maybe Roylott reminded her of her late husband.
And what about Helen Stoner’s feelings towards her stepfather? I would imagine if you’d had a stepfather since you were two, you’d think of him simply as your father—even if the man didn’t love you. But, of course, Roylott was in prison for a long time, and wouldn’t have been directly involved in her upbringing then. That would perhaps have broken any bond. We know from what Helen Stoner tells us that her mother died when Helen and Julia were about 24, soon after the family returned to England after Roylott’s release. But I’m not sure exactly how long ‘a long term of imprisonment’ would have been, and what age the children would have been when Roylott went into prison.
Again, I wonder about the now Mrs. Roylott waiting for her husband instead of taking the children back to England immediately. I suppose India was their home, but was she actively waiting for her husband to be released? Did she want to take him back, or did she feel she had no choice?
“A month ago, however, a dear friend, whom I have known for many years, has done me the honour to ask my hand in marriage.” I suppose in modern terms this is a case of two people ‘settling’ for each other. After all, Percy Armitage could have asked Helen to marry him years ago. I know Miss Stoner calls him a ‘dear friend’ and seems fond of him but he does appear to be a bit of a wash-out. Miss Stoner knows she can’t call on him to help her—she has to go to Holmes instead. I wonder does she go on to marry Mr. Armitage. I got the impression she was getting married primarily to escape the loneliness of her life with her stepfather.
Next Sunday, 17th August, we’ll be having a look at The Engineer’s Thumb. Hope you can join us then.
The events in question occurred in the early days of my association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors in Baker Street. …working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth… This is perhaps intriguing. What is Holmes’ financial situation? In STUD Stamford explicitly reports to Watson that Holmes needs someone to share the rooms at Baker Street because they are too expensive for him. Yet here, still in the relatively early days of his career, he’s not worrying about money. Holmes is a gentleman but that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s wealth in the family... Still, maybe some kind of modest private income..?
…I have reasons to know that there are widespread rumours as to the death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott which tend to make the matter even more terrible than the truth. Rumours even more terrible than “he murdered one stepdaughter via poisonous snake, and the snake killed him when he was attempting to murder the other”? I wonder what these rumours could have been. That Roylott committed suicide using the snake? Or perhaps that Miss Helen Stoner murdered her stepfather?
"Farintosh," said he. "Ah yes, I recall the case; it was concerned with an opal tiara…” Any thoughts on this case?
"When Dr. Roylott was in India he married my mother, Mrs. Stoner, the young widow of Major-General Stoner, of the Bengal Artillery. My sister Julia and I were twins, and we were only two years old at the time of my mother's re-marriage.” I wonder what the story is here. Mrs. Stoner had her own money, so surely there wouldn’t be a pressing need to remarry. Did she feel the need to give her children a father? Was it love? When I read this story I always imagine Major-General Stoner as being the complete opposite to Roylott, but perhaps Mrs. Stoner made the same mistake twice—maybe Roylott reminded her of her late husband.
And what about Helen Stoner’s feelings towards her stepfather? I would imagine if you’d had a stepfather since you were two, you’d think of him simply as your father—even if the man didn’t love you. But, of course, Roylott was in prison for a long time, and wouldn’t have been directly involved in her upbringing then. That would perhaps have broken any bond. We know from what Helen Stoner tells us that her mother died when Helen and Julia were about 24, soon after the family returned to England after Roylott’s release. But I’m not sure exactly how long ‘a long term of imprisonment’ would have been, and what age the children would have been when Roylott went into prison.
Again, I wonder about the now Mrs. Roylott waiting for her husband instead of taking the children back to England immediately. I suppose India was their home, but was she actively waiting for her husband to be released? Did she want to take him back, or did she feel she had no choice?
“A month ago, however, a dear friend, whom I have known for many years, has done me the honour to ask my hand in marriage.” I suppose in modern terms this is a case of two people ‘settling’ for each other. After all, Percy Armitage could have asked Helen to marry him years ago. I know Miss Stoner calls him a ‘dear friend’ and seems fond of him but he does appear to be a bit of a wash-out. Miss Stoner knows she can’t call on him to help her—she has to go to Holmes instead. I wonder does she go on to marry Mr. Armitage. I got the impression she was getting married primarily to escape the loneliness of her life with her stepfather.
Next Sunday, 17th August, we’ll be having a look at The Engineer’s Thumb. Hope you can join us then.
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Date: 2014-08-10 12:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 05:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 03:06 pm (UTC)I imagine the rumours might have taken a supernatural turn. Rare, poisonous snakes preying on the family, blood-curdling screams in the night, gypsies lurking about on the grounds--it not hard to imagine the superstitious townsfolk believing that there was a curse on Stoke Moran and the Roylott family, or that the Devil was involved (hence the snake), or whatever else one's imagination can dream up in the dead of night, rather than the truth.
Waston is a man of science--a supernatural explanation would indeed be "worse" in his eyes.
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Date: 2014-08-10 05:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-08-10 06:04 pm (UTC)I admit I thought when I read the story last, that Watson might have been covering for Holmes or himself being the one to kill Roylott. A hearing, trained, rope climbing snake? And I really can't believe a careful autopsy would have missed snakebite. I wonder if Roylott invented the brides in the bath method?
I hope the cheetah and the 'baboon' (a hanuman monkey?) got better homes with the gypsies.
edit - The Roylott girls do seem to have picked losers, don't they? Julia's fiance seems to have accepted her death with the greatest fortitude, and it never occurs to her to ask him for help.
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Date: 2014-08-11 12:37 am (UTC)Oooh, what an interesting idea! That does make a lot more sense, doesn't it? What is Watson not telling us?
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Date: 2014-08-11 01:18 am (UTC)There might have been things about that household she wouldn't have liked known, even after her death.
And the bit with the snake is such a good read!
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Date: 2014-08-11 12:52 am (UTC)I think you might be being a bit hard on Julia's fiance - it seems to me that Julia was uneasy but didn't believe herself to be in danger. And we don't really have any information on how he reacted to her death.
But Armitage on the other hand - Helen says explicitly that she can't ask him for help, and we know that she's terrified. I wonder if after her stepfather's death she decides not to get married at all. There would be no financial pressure on Helen as she would have her own money. Perhaps she would carry on living with her maiden aunt.
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Date: 2014-08-13 01:27 pm (UTC)I was wondering about this bit in Watson's tale: Right in the begining he says that he can tell the story now because he is released of his promise to Helen by the untimely death of the lady. So it seems she died rather young. The story is set in April of 1883, and Watson says it has been one of the cases from the last eight years of his acquaintance with Holmes. It's not entirely clear when exactly he penned the story (and thus had been absolved from the promise to Helen) but it seems to suggest to me that she could have been no older than 40 when she died. Not sure what this means in terms of her marriage to Percy, but I don't think she had a happy life.
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Date: 2014-08-13 11:30 pm (UTC)I hope if Miss Stoner did marry Armitage, that they were happy enough. (They weren't soulmates, and it was never going to be a grand passion.) I hadn't liked to think about it, but you're quite right - she can't have been more than 40 when she died. She had of course suffered many terrible, stressful experiences, which would perhaps leave her open to becoming ill.