This began as a description of Helen Stoner from Watson's point of view, but it came to include her sister as well, so I anticipate breaking this up and otherwise refining it for other sections of the novel. I think it is an interesting attempt to clearly define each sister's individuality, as well as trace how Helen comes to take on many of Julia's traits after her death.
Barring the grey, she possessed a peculiar shade of red-orange hair, softened and brightened to a sparkling rust by the sun. The Indian sun, no doubt, for it appeared that she seldom stayed long in the English sun these several years. Her complexion spoke of hours indoors in the lamplight of a study, or perhaps her own bedroom, considering the tomes that stood on her nightstand. Her milky skin, only faintly freckled, had touches of pink at the ears and joints of her fingers. She kept her hair mainly neat, but only with a struggle against the naturally unruly tousle of her loose curls. Beneath such a lion's crown of locks stood the long, pointed eyebrows and eyelashes that remarkably opened up her blue eyes with their paleness--not at all like the brown or black lashes of most women, even if fair.
In her figure Watson had detected the absence of a corset, with some surprise, but he soon reflected that she had done so very little entertaining or social visiting for years now and would find the daily troubles of fashion a wasted effort. So comfortable in the habit so as to forget it completely, she blushed at finding that he stared at the stitchwork along the seams. His eyes had discovered the alteration she'd done on her dresses, due to the scarcity of clothing available in her size. She looked away with an anxious slinking of her posture, and he was sorry that he'd made her feel awkward. She was already somewhat discomfited by her height, comparable to Holmes himself, and by her figure which, though certainly slender, remained a far cry from the wasp-waist requirements of fashion. He wished to tell her that he found her pleasantly lovely all the same, but that would only embarrass her more. Afterwards that day, if ever she found him watching her, she would move self-consciously and tug repeatedly at the arrangement of her full bustle, (her only attempt at disguising the healthiness of her waistline). He consequently avoided her eyes and slipped even further into the background than usual. Yet, in obliquely observing her more assured dealings with Holmes, Watson could tell that despite her pallor and her misleadingly meek demeanour, she was distinctly not some dainty doll of society.
[I have forgotten to include here some indication of Helen's religion, for most certainly she is that "deeply Christian woman" mentioned at the Reichenbach scene. Those tomes at her bedside are often abstract philosophical tracts, classical histories, and old texts of the Reformation and of Catholic theology. I believe such deep, analytic reading kept her sane for those eight years in isolation at Stoke Moran. Unlike her sister, Helen wasn't up to trying to explore around town or demanding their rights to visit their aunt. I also believe her Christianity, devotedly learnt from her mother, is an interesting reason for her humility and patient ability to take Roylott's behavior with logical coolness for so many years. More than a mere device, Helen's spiritual nature adds a nice dimension of thoughtfulness and constancy to her. Her faith was probably also a convenient excuse for Holmes to consider avoiding her affections. Yet even still, after reading her explanation of Immanuel Kant's philosophy of the beauty of nature, he murmurs oddly enough, "Our highest assurance of the goodness of Providence seems to me to rest in flowers." (NAVA)
And please don't tell me how this sounds like Laurie King's Mary Russell. These ideas, as well as Rebecca Bohner nee Anderson's "Case of the Winning Woman" pastiche, I'm sure, had formed before even hearing of King. If anything, I think Carole Nelson Douglas's Irene Adler books truly influenced me more. See my Irene sketches. :) So, why are women who are intrigued by theology attracted to Holmes? I've no idea. --Why did he name his Strand article "The Book of Life"?]
Julia possessed a much more pink and rosy skin, though carefully devoid of freckles due to the well-placed shade of several rakish hats and coquettish shawls that she flatteringly wore. Her hair had lightened to a strawberry blond in the sun, and in contrast to her bookish twin, she generally had a cheerful feel of outdoors, fresh air, and adventure. She could, though, enjoy a serious novel often and could argue well about poetry whenever she had a chance to a worthy opponent--sometimes her sister, if she could be gotten away from her tiresome medieval texts for the moment to read of moderns like Shelley and the Rossettis.
Both sisters, it was noticed, were prematurely streaked with hair to be by no means called blond, but snow-white. In Helen's hair it would appear to be an overall peppering of grey, but in Julia's the lightness showed most in a dramatic colourless patch at the front of her head. This, and her height, gave her an air of the exotic, which she used to social advantage sometimes, but not always. She had sufficient sensitivity to defer to her sister's sense of shame, and she would in public only vaguely refer to "a bad shock in childhood" as the cause of her peculiar pigmentation.
In private, though, she would calmly tell the story to the persistent and trustworthy, revealing that the bad shock had been the brutal beating to death in India of their family's butler by their stepfather. The twins had been twelve at the time, and poor Helen had become so distraught that she ran whimpering from the sight. The mother Fidelia [As Westphail sisters, the names Honoria (Honour) and Fidelia (Loyalty) seem naturally to go together, don't they?] had hurried away, too, to send for emergency medical aid for the butler, and for the police authorities to come help restrain the savage Roylott. Julia, however, refused to be shifted or to have her eyes covered by the maid who struggled to pull her from the room. Julia could not witness such brutality and just leave it. It was as much her duty to stay as it was that of the footmen and other servants who were desperately trying to pull Roylott away from the poor, helpless butler. Against the tenacious dragging, Julia fought to maintain her full adolescent height, shouting repeatedly at her stepfather to stop. "Let him go! Let him go! Stop it, you monster!" She shouted the most horrible insults and obscenities at Roylott to try to draw his anger onto her. What did it matter if he beat her, a strong and wiry youth, so long as he let off of that much-abused servant who was too frightened to fight back? She'd willingly take physical abuse, if only to release that poor man from snivelling and ducking and begging for mercy to no avail. "You fiend! You coward! My father would have been nothing like you! Beating a poor wretch who can't defy you! Who will you hit next? Children? You and your heavy, cowardly cane! You come here and see if I don't make you choke on it!"
Several times Roylott would pause and glare at her, even taking a step toward her, but he would turn at the approach of the others to the bleeding servant, fighting them all away. His groundless fury and bloodthirst still not spent, he would resume shouting his accusations at the butler and beating him. Julia broke away and rushed forward to pull, push, or kick Roylott herself, but at that moment Roylott struck an unmerciful death blow.
Before her very eyes, she saw and heard the gruesome shattering of, not ribs or other bones, but the skull. It was hideous. This 'doctor' had destroyed all that was living and breathing and innocent in their native butler, had slaughtered him like some animal, not a human being. Shaking, unable to raise her eyes to her stepfather's cruel face, she fell pale and breathless, fainting.
Since then her hair had grown white from the root at that patch above her right temple. It took eleven years' imprisonment until Roylott was released, but less time for mother to forgive him. She had not witnessed the killing, after all, and Roylott had had soothing, conciliatory words for her when his fury had been spent. He told her how his inherited maniacal temper, which he had controlled for so long, had been worsened by the heat of the Indian sun, and he promised her solemnly that his abuse would not break out against anyone, especially Fidelia or her children, ever again. Julia strongly doubted the medical foundation of his apology. Helen doubted it too, but then sometimes she considered the extraordinary fierceness which the Indian sun had bred in Julia, and she doubted her doubts. In any case, mother had been willing to believe him, and the family consequently moved to London to start over. There was difficulty in establishing the practice, though, and Fidelia considered the possibility of unburdening the household somewhat. The twins were twenty-four, after all, and very prime for marriage if suitable matches could be found for them. Roylott protested that they had hardly the time or money for entering the social whirl of marriage prospecting just now. Though she offered to tap into her inheritance, Roylott insisted stubbornly that he would not spend Fidelia's money. Besides, Roylott had hardly seen anything of the girls for years now, so why should there be a rush to leave the nest?
So the subject was postponed for the moment, and after mother's eventual death, they had all moved to Stoke Moran. Roylott's appeals to their familial instincts had been soft, soothing, almost... plying. Helen insistently talked Julia into coming, "for only a short while" as she had thought, out of deference to mother's wishes that they all grow closer as a family. Much of mother had rubbed off on Helen by now, actually, and she seemed to view the old man as someone to be pitied and taken care of. Julia wondered at her sister's credulity, but then, Helen did not wish to suspect or challenge anyone. She had not witnessed the killing either. Anyway, perhaps Roylott was a changed man after all these years? Perhaps imprisonment had reformed him? Julia doubted her doubts.
So they were comfortably settled for a time. Until the gypsies came, and the animals, and the explosions of temper.... Perhaps the servants who left had had the right idea?