The Men With the Twisted Marriages

"The Man With the Twisted Lip" gives us glimpses into three extraordinary marriages of the Victorian-era: those of Isa and Kate Whitney, Neville and the unnamed Mrs. St. Clair, and John and Mary Watson. Let us look at each of these relationships in turn.

Kate Whitney had apparently been enduring Isa’s indiscretions for some time. She knew exactly where her opium-addicted husband might be found at The Bar of Gold, a vile den in Upper Swandam Lane. In today's parlance she might be considered an 'enabler' or even a 'co-dependent' regarding his addiction.

Although Mrs. St. Clair apparently had not been ill served by her husband before the events recorded in this case, she displayed unusual trust in not showing more curiosity about how he spent his days in the City. Of course, although such unquestioning trust would be unthinkable in our time, wives in the Victorian era were often shielded from the details of their husbands' careers. Think of Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope in 'The Second Stain,' who claimed to Holmes that her husband told her nothing of politics. Yet, Neville St. Clair's deception was of a much higher order of magnitude.¹

On the surface the Watsons seemed to be a happy couple, but let us examine the record more closely. Only a few weeks earlier, Holmes had asked Watson to neglect his wife and medical practice to accompany him to Boscombe Valley in the West of England on only half an hour's notice. Watson had duly dashed off to Paddington Station to meet Holmes, apparently with Mrs. Watson's blessing. But was Mrs. Watson really so accommodating, or was Dr Watson’s devotion to Holmes a source of friction between husband and wife? Let us carefully read the words that passed between them on that occasion with an ear to sarcastic undertone:

“What do you say, dear? Will you go?”

“I really don't know what to say. I have a fairly long list at present.”

“Oh, Anstruther would do your work for you. You have been looking a little pale lately. I think that the change would do you good, and you are always so interested in Mr. Sherlock Holmes' cases.”

“I should be ungrateful if I were not, seeing what I gained through one of them.” [Emphasis added.]²

Also, consider Mary's astonishing remark when Kate Whitney unexpectedly arrived late in the evening at the Watson home: “Should you rather that I sent James off to bed?” James? Every student of Watson's writings knows that the good doctor's first name was John. How happy was a marriage in which the wife couldn't even remember her husband's name?³

If we accept John Henry Cardinal Newman’s Victorian-era statement that It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who never inflicts pain,⁴ then we must find that each of the husbands in this case failed to behave as gentlemen. Let us look at each in turn^.

Isa Whitney had been away from home for two days without a word to his wife.

After Mrs. St. Clair had spotted her husband in what she assumed was a life-threatening situation, he seemingly disappeared and didn't communicate with her for four days.

Contrary to the probable expectations of both Kate Whitney and Mary Watson that Dr Watson would see Isa Whitney home safely from the opium den and then return to his own home, Watson instead left Whitney in the care of a cabman, left a note with the cabman to deliver to Mary saying that Watson had ‘thrown in [his] lot with [Holmes]’ and went off with Holmes to stay overnight at the Cedars, in Lee, not to return home until the next morning. Whether Mary was an accommodating wife or not, she could not have been pleased with this irresponsible, callous conduct.

And how did these three marriages survive the ungentlemanly behavior recorded in this tale?

Try to imagine the scenes at each of the three households when the husbands and wives were finally reunited. Faced with a cold glare, each husband would stammer, “Well, you see Dear, it was like this...”

Isa Whitney likely would have pleaded for “just one more chance” and vowed to change his ways. Would Kate have given him that chance?

Did Neville St. Clair tell his wife the truth that he had been earning his handsome living in the City by masquerading as a beggar? Or did he concoct a story about having been abducted, perhaps through a case of mistaken identity? Either way, he would have had much explaining to do. And what about the family finances? Since in exchange for his freedom he had vowed to put to rest forever his alter ego, the remunerative beggar Hugh Boone, how would St. Clair continue to provide for his family in the style to which they had become accustomed?

To mollify Mary, Dr Watson might have disclosed everything that had happened while he was away, including the details of the St. Clair situation. After having heard the story, Mary might have felt sympathy for Mrs. St. Clair. Watson tells us that “folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds to a lighthouse.” We can speculate that Mary might have been ahead of her time in dealing with personal issues and had organized a self-help group. She might have called on Mrs. St. Clair and asked her to join herself and Kate Whitney in the fledgling group Long-suffering Wives Anonymous.

Whether in a self-help group or in the privacy of their individual homes, let us hope that these three much put-upon women eventually were able to forgive their callous husbands and to untangle the knots in their twisted marriages. Even in the most trying of times, love can conquer all.

John Bergquist
May, 2001

¹ Some Victorian husbands were similarly content to trust their spouses about matters in their pasts. Think of Grant Munro not questioning Effie [YELL] and Hilton Cubitt not questioning Elsie [DANC].

²The friction between the Watsons may eventually have led to a serious breach. Christopher Morley theorized that the ‘sad bereavement’ Watson refers to in ‘The Adventure of the Empty House’ was the loss of Mary’s companionship through separation, not by death.


³ Many theories have been put forward about the John/James problem. For many Holmesians, Dorothy L. Sayres put the matter to rest in her essay Dr Watson’s Christian Name, in which she opined that ‘James’ was merely Mrs Watson’s anglicization of the Scottish Hamish, which could well have been John H. Watson’s middle name.

⁴ From The Idea of a University, 1852.