Where’s the love for Violet Hunter, Sherlock Holmes Fans?
Where is the love for Violet Hunter?
Her entrance:
As he spoke the door opened and a young lady entered the room. She was plainly but neatly dressed, with a bright, quick face, freckled like a plover’s egg, and with the brisk manner of a woman who has had her own way to make in the world.
With one exchange, Watson notes she has impressed Holmes:
I could see that Holmes was favourably impressed by the manner and speech of his new client. He looked her over in his searching fashion, and then composed himself, with his lids drooping and his finger-tips together, to listen to her story.
Her problem is ill-defined and bothers Holmes and Watson for days:
As to Holmes, I observed that he sat frequently for half an hour on end, with knitted brows and an abstracted air, but he swept the matter away with a wave of his hand when I mentioned it. “Data! data! data!” he cried impatiently. “I can’t make bricks without clay.” And yet he would always wind up by muttering that no sister of his should ever have accepted such a situation.
She is clever. She tells Holmes and Watson:
They were always very careful, I observed, to turn my face away from the window, so that I became consumed with the desire to see what was going on behind my back. At first it seemed to be impossible, but I soon devised a means. My hand-mirror had been broken, so a happy thought seized me, and I concealed a piece of the glass in my handkerchief.
She is also observant and daring. She bides her time before sneaking into a boarded up set of rooms. She’s curious.
Of course I might have fled from the house, but my curiosity was almost as strong as my fears.
Holmes thinks her “exceptional.”
“You seem to me to have acted all through this matter like a very brave and sensible girl, Miss Hunter. Do you think that you could perform one more feat? I should not ask it of you if I did not think you a quite exceptional woman.”
Watson thought Holmes might like Violet, though Holmes truly only liked the puzzle. Violet continues to make her own way in the world. Watson’s last note of her is not of her marriage, but rather her profession.
As to Miss Violet Hunter, my friend Holmes, rather to my disappointment, manifested no further interest in her when once she had ceased to be the centre of one of his problems, and she is now the head of a private school at Walsall, where I believe that she has met with considerable success.
Now, tell me, why is there not more love for one Miss Violet Hunter?
Violet Hunter is a BAMF. (Re)Read The Copper Beeches this instant.
