Discussion Post: The Beryl Coronet

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

This week, the canon story we’re looking at is The Beryl Coronet, and the chosen topic is The Underground.


A few facts:


🚂 The Metropolitan Railway, which served London from 1863 to 1933, was the world’s first underground railway.

🚂 Its first passenger journey was on the 9th January 1863. The line ran from Paddington Station to Farringdon Street Station—about three and a half miles away.

🚂 In 1884 there were over 800 trains running around all or part of the Inner Circle every day. [Independent, 2013]

🚂 The first underground trains were of course steam powered. From 1890, they were gradually replaced by their electric equivalents.

🚂 The Underground’s other name, The Tube, comes from the Central London Railway’s nickname the Twopenny Tube. The Central London Railway opened in 1900 and now forms the central section of the Central Line.


Some additional information courtesy of garonne:

🚂 The Underground was extraordinarily popular on the day the first line was opened, such that the number of people who wanted to travel in it was several times larger than the number of people who could fit it. 25,000 people were carried on the first day. [The Times, 1863]

🚂 You could only read your newspaper in the Underground when the train was at a station, because when the train was moving the draft made the gas lamps flicker too much.


Some useful resources:

Underground Trains 1863 on the British Library's website

Victorian London – Overground, Underground on History in an Hour

15 Victorian Photos Of The London Underground Being Built on BuzzFeed

History of the London Underground on Wikipedia

150 facts for 150 years of the London Tube from the Independent

A brief history of the Underground on Transport for London



Please feel free to discuss this topic in the comments.

Please also feel free to comment about the canon story itself or any related aspects outside this week’s theme. For example, any reactions, thoughts, theories, fic recs, favourite adaptations of the canon story… Or any other contribution you wish to make. And if you have any suggestions for fic prompts springing from this week's story, please feel free to share those in the comments as well.

Comments

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

It always surprises me Holmes using the underground as little as he does. Although possibly when he's taking on a particular character he travels that way, as being more in keeping.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Holmes took cabs for relatively short distances because catching a cab was still more flexible at that point - as soon as they needed to be off for a case, they could immediately catch a cab on Baker Street without having to wait for the next train.

But then - they are next to Baker Street Station and apparently in 1884 there were over 800 trains running around all or part of the Inner Circle every day. It does seem odd.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

I enjoyed those Underground facts, thank you! It's evocative to imagine them sitting in that flickering gas light in the dark underground on their way to adventure. Though my impression is that Holmes usually used hansom cabs instead. (Were they more expensive or cheaper than the trains, I wonder?) I imagine the poor light made the Tube carriages good hunting ground for pickpockets!

I've always been very fond of this story, and I am not aware of any adaptation of it. Does anyone have one to recommend?

My favorite part is the bit where Holmes says that he would have been proud to see a son of his behave as young Mr. Holder did, if he were ever to have one. It's such an unusual sentiment from Holmes -- the only equivalent that springs to mind is in Copper Beeches, when he comments that he would hate to see any sister of his take a similarly sketchy job. I like these little moments where he expresses a kind of familial affection for his clients, who are often very young people who find themselves in danger or grief through no fault of their own.

I wish that Mary had confessed her part in the crime in the note she left before she disappeared, I would have respected her more if she hadn't left her cousin in such a bad position. But perhaps she thought that once she was gone he would be free to admit the truth, and assumed that he would be believed once they had gotten away with the remaining jewels.

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

I imagine one of the advantages of taking a cab was being able to go directly to the destination, without having to either walk on arrival, or change underground train. Quite often Holmes needs to go somewhere outside the Inner Circle.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Oh, good point. Holmes is often called to the less accessible corners of the city for his cases, that makes sense.

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

It really takes me aback that the Underground opened in 1863 - and that there were steam locomotives pulling underground trains. There must have been some kind of ventilation for the engines, and the Times article mentions passengers getting enveloped in steam - but still... ^^"

Good point about the cost of cabs versus the Underground. My automatic thought was that the cabs must have been more expensive. But the Underground was still only about 20 years old at the time this story takes place - could it have taken a while for prices to come down? There were third class carriages - but presumably Holmes and Watson wouldn't have travelled in them (unless they were in disguise, as Small Hobbit suggests).

My favorite part is the bit where Holmes says that he would have been proud to see a son of his behave as young Mr. Holder did, if he were ever to have one. It's such an unusual sentiment from Holmes -- the only equivalent that springs to mind is in Copper Beeches, when he comments that he would hate to see any sister of his take a similarly sketchy job. I like these little moments where he expresses a kind of familial affection for his clients, who are often very young people who find themselves in danger or grief through no fault of their own.

In ILLU Holmes also says about Violet de Merville: “I was sorry for her, Watson. I thought of her for the moment as I would have thought of a daughter of my own." These sentiments are a little surprising coming from Holmes - but perhaps it's simply a reflection of Holmes himself being a much-loved son and brother? (I just put it forward as a possibility - obviously we know nothing about Holmes' relationship with his parents.)

I wish that Mary had confessed her part in the crime in the note she left before she disappeared, I would have respected her more if she hadn't left her cousin in such a bad position. But perhaps she thought that once she was gone he would be free to admit the truth, and assumed that he would be believed once they had gotten away with the remaining jewels.

You know, I've never thought about this before. Of course, ACD is being vague in the note for the sake of the story. But looking at it from Mary's POV... I wonder if she was just so consumed by guilt that she wasn't able to look at things dispassionately and logically. I feel that I have brought trouble upon you, and that if I had acted differently this terrible misfortune might
never have occurred. That is a confession of a sort. In her emotional confusion, perhaps she simply didn't realise her uncle wouldn't understand what she meant. Perhaps she didn't realise she had to spell out her crime.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

Oh, great catch with his quote about Violet in ILLU, I'd forgotten that one!

perhaps it's simply a reflection of Holmes himself being a much-loved son and brother?

That's a nice idea! I guess I'm a bit struck, though, by the way that all these warm sentiments are expressed in terms of relationships he never actually had in his life (a sister, a child). He does a similar thing in DEVI, when he imagines how a furious, grieving lover might feel but makes it clear that he has never loved and is thus speaking with imaginative empathy rather than drawing on personal experience. I think it's interesting that some of his warmest expressions of feeling are framed in that hypothetical way. He clearly possesses very deep wells of sympathy, and perhaps it's easier for him to display that than it is for him to admit more directly to his personal feelings.

I'm sure it's just a coincidence rather than anything deliberate on Doyle's part, but it is rather interesting that Holmes never refers to anyone as being like a father or mother to him, or as being like a brother to him (not even Watson). Of course, we know his relationship with Watson is nothing like his relationship with Mycroft, so I guess that's understandable! And the Holmes parents remain a mystery :) The fandom often casts Mrs. Hudson in a motherly role, which I love, but I don't really see that in canon, myself. Holmes trusts her and is fond of her, but I think there is more of a social barrier there as well.

Regarding Mary's letter, I think I see more careful and deliberate obfuscation in it than you do. She does obliquely refer to quite a lot of what she's done, but in ways that seem designed to be misinterpreted and to buy her and Burnwell time. She tells her uncle she feels guilty, which is true, but doesn't explain why. She says she'll be well provided for, which I take as a reference to the jewels she thinks Burnwell still has. She urges her uncle not to set the police or anyone else to trace her whereabouts, which is obviously an attempt to buy time for herself and Burnwell to dispose of the jewels and get away. But she frames everything she says in a way that sounds innocent and appeals to her uncle's view of her. I expect that she believed he would discover the truth eventually, and would then read the note for its real meanings and feel assured that she was sorry, but also determined to live what she expected to be a comfortable and happy life far away. I think she wrote every line with a double meaning intentionally.

The sense I get from that letter is basically, 'I'm sorry to have hurt you, but not sorry enough to give back what I stole. I'll be fine, don't try to find me. Love, Mary.' Sigh.

I do think she was shocked, though, that her cousin got arrested. I'm sure she never intended for anyone in the household to be blamed -- the coronet was supposed to have just disappeared cleanly.

[sanguinity]

Perhaps I am confused about the timeline, but wasn't the story fully discovered by the time Mary ran away with Burnwell? There was that whole clapping-a-pistol-to-Burnwell's head business, and Burnwell's regret that he could have gotten a much better price from Holmes... It would only take a few words from Burnwell for Mary to learn that the story was out. (And wasn't that the reason they were fleeing, anyhow? They didn't flee the day before, because it would have drawn suspicion, but now that Holmes knew everything...) It must have seemed a surety in her mind that Arthur's name was as good as cleared. I read her note as obfuscating why she did what she did, while working from the assumption that everyone already knows -- or is about to know -- the what.

:: I'm sure she never intended for anyone in the household to be blamed -- the coronet was supposed to have just disappeared cleanly. ::

No one in the family, certainly, but she began setting up Lucy and Frank for the fall before she'd even stolen the thing.

[rachelindeed.livejournal.com]

It would only take a few words from Burnwell for Mary to learn that the story was out. (And wasn't that the reason they were fleeing, anyhow? They didn't flee the day before, because it would have drawn suspicion, but now that Holmes knew everything...)

Those are very good points, and you could certainly argue that Mary knew the game was up by the time she wrote that letter. A fair amount depends, I think, on how you imagine her relationship to Burnwell. For myself, I actually assume that Burnwell didn't tell her about his confrontation with Holmes. The way I see it, he's been lying to her from the beginning and making this whole thing seem like some kind of romantic adventure and pretending she can trust him to make her dreams come true for their future together. I assumed that they always planned to elope once he sold the jewels, and that she was waiting for his word. I imagine he told her all was well, he had the money, it was time to be off on their grand new life, say goodbye to her family (oh, and see if you can't put your uncle off of calling in that detective fellow about your departure right away, dear, we want to be sure to have time to reach Gretna Green, etc...)

If she knew that the truth was going to come out within a few hours, I don't really understand why she would have written so many obfuscations into her goodbye letter. It just struck me as evidence that she still believed that she and Burnwell were ahead of the game and that some purpose could still be served by pretending she wasn't leaving with him and the profits of the theft. I think her attitude throughout the story combined selfishness with naivete, and to me her last letter seems of a piece with that.

As for Burnwell, I think he would have told her whatever seemed most likely to keep her trusting, agreeable, and off her guard so that he could have his way with her and then dump her without her being apprehensive that their 'adventure' was already falling apart. But that's obviously a lot of speculation on my part! A Mary who is more in the know is also a possibility, of course.

Yes, you're right about Lucy and Frank. At first I thought that it was in her panic once the burglary had gone wrong that she'd started casting suspicion on the servants because she thought it was likely to stick, but looking back more closely at the story I see that you're right and that she was drawing attention to the two of them even before the crime. So she must have meant them to take the fall for it, if anyone was going to be suspected or jailed. What a nasty move, Mary.

[sanguinity]

There's certainly a lot left open for interpretation about Mary and her motives! I've been reading her obfuscations as shame, now that the romantic adventure has collapsed around her ears and brought ruin to her family's doorstep. Ruin has been averted, now that Arthur's name will be cleared by Holmes, but her shame is not lessened for that. It's one thing to write that she feels guilty, but as long as she's speaking in vague generalities, she doesn't have to say right out why she did any of it, which would be far more excruciating.

But either way, whatever her own conception of what she was doing, there's rich potential for a fic there.

While we're on the topic, it's Mary and Burnwell fleeing together that I find most confusing: I would have thought it made more sense for Burnwell to ditch her and run alone. It's not like she could implicate him more than he already was, and surely a man alone can run farther and faster than the two of them together?

[thesmallhobbit.livejournal.com]

Maybe Burnwell reasoned that while Mary was with him Holder would not risk doing anything which would result in Mary either being hurt or bring her name into disrepute. Also, Burnwell strikes me as the sort of man who would continue to believe he could have everything his own way and would wait to dump Mary until she became just a liability (probably when she became pregnant).

[scfrankles.livejournal.com]

I really like your theory. Because at first glance it does seem as though Burnwell has no reason to run at all - Holmes has promised him that he won't be prosecuted, and I can't believe he's actually in love with Mary. But it would make a lot of sense him treating Mary as an extra bit of insurance - hoping that having her with him would mean that Holder would leave him alone too.

[sanguinity]

Ah, that makes a lot of sense, thank you.