by Olivia Waite
The fox likeness of Orator Hunt is, I think, particularly good.
Reverence for the Queen is suddenly the standard by which public figures are to be judged in the public eye. Lord Wellington was accosted by the throng and forced to declare Caroline innocent—“and may all your wives be like her,” he is said to have added. Jubilant mobs have been breaking windows in the palaces of the mighty—unless said windows blaze with candles in her honor. Flags and cheers and laurels greeted the Queen at every point between Dover and London.
The rumors of her infidelity are in all the streets cried down as scandalous—especially considering the King’s own well-known penchant in that direction—and her innocence is trumpeted even (perhaps especially) by those who really ought to know better. The city at all hours is full of shouts and songs in the common quarters, while the gentry board their doors and prepare as if for invasion.
In France the revolution began by bringing down a queen; here in England, we may well begin by lifting one up.
Griffin
My dear Griffin,
Believe me, the evening conversations in the Four Swallows have touched on little but Queen Caroline for weeks. Every proclamation, every public letter she writes is cast over for secret messages to her fellow radicals and revolutionaries—for many of the locals have no trouble believing that a woman raised in the lap of luxury is somehow also speaking to and for poor farmers and artisans like themselves. The announcement that her name was to be struck from Church liturgy has offended the more devout parishioners more than I believe the King realizes.
Even Lady S, Melliton’s staunchest and most loyal monarchist, has been heard to murmur support for the Queen: Her Majesty is a woman wronged, a mother deprived of her child, a wife denied her due titles and the respect of her proper rank. Some of this is very difficult to argue against—though, considering the source, one very much still wants to.
However, it is another queen entirely I must write to you about. Your hive is nearly ready with their first honey harvest of the summer! If you’d be able to make your way to Melliton for the occasion, you might enjoy, as you said, making off with the fruits of their labor.
I do hope you’ll come.
Flood
Well, what else could Agatha do but agree? She made arrangements for Eliza and Sydney to run the print-shop for two days, sent a note asking Mrs. Stowe if she wouldn’t mind having a guest for a night, and gathered up this month’s silk samples to take with her again.
At least she could be efficient that way. Or so she told herself. Though such small economies had never made her heart race or her hands fidget like this before.
The drive to Melliton was even more interminable than the last. But at length it did end, and she pulled up to the print-works beside the river, and there was Mrs. Penelope Flood, in trousers and a man’s old jacket, turning from her wheelbarrow to grin at Agatha as she handed the horse’s reins over to young Ashton.
Agatha almost had to step back, as that smile hit her with all the force of a blow.
Mrs. Flood’s eyes were sky blue. Had Agatha forgotten, or simply not noticed? Her grin was wide and warm, and her gold-and-silver curls tossed lightly in the soft morning breeze.
Agatha gasped through the vise squeezing her chest as the reality stole her breath: this was no longer the face of a stranger, but of a friend and confidante.
“Mrs. Griffin!” Mrs. Flood gave a little laugh and held out a hand.
Agatha took it, unable to resist. Palms clasped warmly together, then Mrs. Flood let go. Agatha’s skin chilled at once—too soon. She’d barely had time to register the touch.
“Mrs. Flood,” she said. Surely it was the dust of the road that had her voice sounding so low and rough. “So good to see you again.”
“You as well. Are you ready to harvest your first honey crop?” Mrs. Flood asked. “Or do you have things to see to first?”
Agatha looked behind her. Mr. Downes had already begun directing the journeymen to unload the silk samples from the wagon. He met her gaze and nodded, dark, curly hair bobbing, to let her know he could take things over from here.
Agatha flexed her hands to stop their shaking and turned back to Mrs. Flood. “Where do we start?”
Mrs. Flood cocked her head. “You change, if you’re going to be working with the bees.” When Agatha hesitated, Mrs. Flood pulled several garments out of a bag in her wheelbarrow. “I usually borrow my brother’s things, as he’s near my height, but as you are a fair bit taller, I’ve brought you some of Mr. Flood’s to wear for the occasion.”
They were sturdy garments but not shabby: a light sailor’s jacket in deep blue, a linen shirt, and a pair of country trousers.
Agatha hesitated, conscious of the weight of her skirts and the eyes of her curious employees. “I am a respectable widow, Mrs. Flood.”
“The bees don’t care about that at all, Mrs. Griffin,” Mrs. Flood said, but then went on in a quieter tone. “I understand if it seems improper—but bees have a terrible habit of getting caught in skirts and petticoats, and stinging one badly in self-defense. Better to be safe, if a little eccentric, than to suffer so much unnecessary pain. And the bees don’t know you yet—when you’re better acquainted, you’ll be able to dress more as you’re used to doing.”
Agatha accepted the clothing with hands made awkward by novelty. “Better safe than stung,” she said, more bravely than she felt.
Mrs. Flood laughed, and Agatha’s heart jolted to hear it. “Exactly right.”
She changed in Mr. Downes’s office. It was odd, undoing the buttons on her brown cotton and putting a man’s long shirt over her light stays. The jacket buttoned high but hung rather loose, and the trousers bagged down to the knees and tucked easily into the tops of Agatha’s own leather boots—which were tough enough to deal with London cobbles, and so could probably weather a day or two on the soft earth of Melliton’s roads and fields.
She met Mrs. Flood back behind the print-works, where the morning sun sparkled on the waves in the river. Every step across the turf felt like a new one, with no long panels of fabric swirling around her as she moved.
“I haven’t worn trousers since I was a girl,” she explained, swinging one leg back and forth experimentally. “Sebastian—my brother—used to lend me an old pair of his so we could sneak out into the city at night.”
Mrs. Flood chuckled. She was leaning against the brick wall, one leg bent, the smoker dangling from her hand as she idly pumped to keep it lit and puffing proudly. “Hopefully this afternoon’s work will involve a trifle less mischief.”
“Only larceny,” Agatha replied. “As promised.”
Mrs. Flood laughed again, the sound finding a thrumming echo somewhere deep in Agatha’s belly. “Let’s begin.”
Mrs. Flood was already wearing her gloves and a hat with a veil; she instructed Agatha how to tuck the fine muslin tight—but not too tight!—at the neck, and began pumping the bellows of the smoker more frequently while Agatha pulled on a pair of thick gloves. The muslin veiling her face was very fine, and only seemed to cast a light morning mist over the scene before Agatha’s eyes.
“First thing to do when harvesting,” said Mrs. Flood, “is to smoke the bees. It takes a few minutes to have an effect.” She placed the spout of the smoker near the hive entrance and puffed out long jets of white smoke.
Scents of grass and herbs rose up, tickling the back of Agatha’s throat almost enough to make her cough. Already the few bees she saw were moving lazily, staying close to the hive entrance and disappearing into the straw coils of the skep.
Mrs. Flood placed a hand on top of the skep’s upper portion. “You saw the basic skep hive before; once the bees had taken to their new home I made some modifications so the honey is easier to get to.” She lifted the top bell of the skep and the segment came away.
Agatha gaped behind her veil. Now sitting on the top of the hive was a glass jar, about the same size and shape as a gas lamp’s globe. Honeycomb coiled i
nside it and pressed up against the walls, a golden, living labyrinth spotted with laboring bees. Beneath the jar, a flat wooden circle with a hole cut in allowed bees to scurry up and down between the main hive body and the jar.
Enchanted, Agatha moved closer. The glass was, as Mrs. Flood had promised, almost entirely full—she could see the capped honeycomb chambers where the sweetness was safely stored.
“It’s a good sign, this much honey so early in the season.”
Agatha swallowed a gasp of surprise. Mrs. Flood was at her elbow, her veiled head inclining toward the bees as fondly as a mother watching over her children.
Sunlight caught the muslin of her veil and made it glow like a saint’s halo.
Agatha had to force her gaze away, or else she’d never stop staring. She turned back to the honeycomb, and the bees who even now worked to cram more wax and sweetness into every nook and cranny.
“I’ve seen such jars for sale in the market, every summer and fall. I thought they’d been filled by people—I didn’t know the bees did all this,” Agatha replied, her tone hushed. She felt . . . reverent, admiring, in a way she hadn’t on that first day. These weren’t invaders any longer: they were her bees. Tenants, Mrs. Flood had said, and now Agatha could see exactly what she meant.
Mrs. Flood’s breath rippled the muslin as she explained. “They’re not quite as common as plain skeps, but they’ve got two great advantages: first, they let a beekeeper actually observe the bees at work, which is the best way to learn about them; and second, they let you take honey without having to slaughter the entire hive.”
“The entire . . .” Agatha blew out a breath, and tried again, more calmly. “Is that done often when stealing honey?”
Mrs. Flood’s hat and veil bobbed once, sharply. “Very. Traditionally you hold the skep over burning sulfur until all the bees drop off. You get more honey that way, since you don’t have to leave any for the bees to live on during the winter—but it’s wasteful. More than wasteful: it’s cruel. And I’m far from the only beekeeper who thinks so.”
“Then why do it?”
Mrs. Flood puffed a little more smoke over the hive before she answered. “Tradition. Change is difficult, and beekeeping is ancient. And a lot of cottage beekeepers can’t afford the glass for this method—not when the straw skeps are so much cheaper. It does take a little more specialized knowledge to get the bees to fill the jars properly. The sides need to be rubbed with wax first on the inside, for instance. Otherwise the bees will just slip off and never leave anything there for you to harvest. There are a few other hive designs trying to solve the problem, but most of them are available only to the scientific classes: your gentlemen beekeepers and lady gardeners and such. Mr. Koskinen has quite a fine one; perhaps he’ll let me show you someday. Still, every year people bring out more new designs—because many other beekeepers and scientists hate seeing the same awful cycle over and over again, every year. Capturing wild swarms in the spring, only to kill them all in the autumn. Never letting a colony grow or thrive from year to year, or trying to learn how it is they make honey, or uncovering the secrets and mysteries of the hive.”
Agatha blinked. “Mrs. Flood, that was almost . . . poetic.”
Mrs. Flood laughed, though there was a bitter note in it this time. “I know by now that isn’t a compliment, coming from you.”
“It ought to be.”
Mrs. Flood’s head snapped up, and toward Agatha. The veil seemed suddenly more opaque than before.
Agatha felt her face flush, and hoped it wasn’t obvious beneath the muslin. “Maybe I simply don’t have the necessary capacity for poetry, to understand its true merits.”
“Maybe you simply haven’t encountered the right poem,” Mrs. Flood countered. She angled her face to peer down into the hive entrance, blowing lightly on the few bees still buzzing there, then straightened.
A knife appeared in her hand, long and sharp; she offered it to Agatha handle-first. “Would you like to do the honors?”
Agatha grasped the knife, made sure it was steady in her gloved hand, and took a deep breath. Under Mrs. Flood’s direction, she placed one hand on the top of the jar to steady it, and slid the knife blade between the lip of the jar and the wooden board beneath. It cut cleanly through the base of the honeycomb, and Agatha tipped the jar up and stepped back.
Mrs. Flood was ready with a new vessel to place atop the hive, then showed Agatha how to blow away the few bees remaining in the jar in her hands. They spun irritatedly into the air and made brief, angry orbits around Agatha’s head before returning to the security of the hive.
Mrs. Flood waved her gloved fingers at them as they departed.
A bit of cheesecloth tied tight around the neck of the jar came next, and then Agatha was officially possessed of what felt like several pounds of rich, golden bounty.
“Congratulations,” Mrs. Flood said. The two veils between them hid most of her smile from Agatha’s eyes, but it was there in her voice, as lush as the honey weighing down Agatha’s hands.
Agatha stood there with her hands full of wealth, in Mr. Flood’s borrowed clothes, and realized she wasn’t ready to go back to ordinary life. She wanted more of . . . whatever it was they were doing here. The two of them, together. “Is that it?”
Mrs. Flood stiffened, then turned away to set the skep dome back on the hive to protect the empty jar from sunlight and rain. The laughter had fled from her voice when she finally replied, “It’s really not that difficult a task.”
“No, I meant . . .” Agatha sighed and set the honey down at her feet. Her gloves came off next, and the veil with them. Color returned to the world around her, painfully vivid, searing her eyes for a moment before they recovered. “You said you have other hives you look after, around Melliton. Couldn’t we . . . couldn’t I help you with that?” She tugged on the cuffs of Mr. Flood’s jacket. “I’m already dressed for it, after all.”
Oh, it was hard to tell what Mrs. Flood was feeling, behind that muslin veil. But then she lifted it, and her mouth was solemn, but her eyes glowed. “I would like that,” she said. “Very much.”
Agatha bent to pick up the honey jar again. Relief made it weigh half as much as she’d thought before. She felt she could have lifted the world, if she’d been asked. “At your service, Mrs. Flood.”
Mrs. Flood’s mouth crooked at the corners. Those blue eyes moved leisurely down from Agatha’s face, to the blue jacket, to the loose trousers, and the leather boots. Then away.
Agatha shivered, as if the sun had ducked behind a cloud. You’re wearing her husband’s clothes, Agatha reminded herself, and felt extremely queer about it.
They bundled Mrs. Griffin’s dress and petticoats into a cloth bag and added it to the gear in Penelope’s wheelbarrow. They made a brief first stop at Mrs. Stowe’s house, so Mrs. Griffin could leave her things there for the night.
Mrs. Stowe was deadheading her roses. She took her daughter-in-law’s masculine attire in stride and admired the honey, before Mrs. Griffin went inside to ask Miss Coningsby where best to put her things.
“I’d have introduced you years ago,” Mrs. Stowe said, “if I’d known you could make my daughter-in-law a beekeeper so quickly.” She sent Penelope a sidelong wink that made the heat flare up in her face.
Mrs. Griffin returned before Penelope could reply, and Miss Coningsby waved shyly to Penelope from the kitchen window. Then Penelope and Mrs. Griffin were off again.
It was a good day for checking the hives: clear but crisp and not too hot. The spring blooms were yielding pride of place to summer flowers, scents of lilac and cherry blossom fading in favor of lavender and rose. Penelope introduced Mrs. Griffin by name to each cottager—and, just as carefully, to each beehive.
The printer’s eyebrows rose sharply the first time Penelope did this, but over time Mrs. Griffin lapsed into quiet amusement at what she clearly had chosen to perceive as an eccentricity.
They made the whole south circuit together, from Knots Down
past Ilford Hall and into the wood. It was the opposite of the order Penelope usually walked it, and it gave her the odd sense that she was winding a clock backward and making the hours run the wrong way round. If they kept this up, she imagined the two of them growing younger and younger with each step—Mrs. Griffin’s hair turning rich black and Penelope’s gold, the creases at the corners of both their eyes and mouths smoothing away, aches and pains and stiff joints loosening as limbs grew lithe with youth again.
Then the wheel of the wheelbarrow struck a rock and jolted Penelope right to her teeth. She stopped for a moment to shake the tingle from her hands, as the full weight of her forty-five years thumped down on her.
Well, it had been a nice daydream while it lasted.
“Shall I take over pushing that for a while?” Mrs. Griffin asked, cocking an eyebrow.
Penelope shook her head. “Oh, no, it’s nothing—I was just distracted for a moment.”
They resumed their walk, and Penelope tried to keep her mind from wandering by fixing it on her companion.
Of course, this risked another kind of distraction.
Agatha Griffin strode with her hands clasped behind her, head tilted back, dark hair balled at the base of her neck. The deep blue of John’s old coat suited her, especially as the climb up the road into the wood brought out the roses in her cheeks and made her breathe rather hard.
At your service, Mrs. Flood.
Oh, would that were true. Or better yet, the other way around—Mrs. Griffin was very obviously what Mrs. Stowe called the managing sort, and in past liaisons Penelope had thoroughly enjoyed being, as it were, managed.
Not that this was a liaison. It still hovered well under the protective aegis of friendship. Some of it Penelope would have been tempted to read as flirtation from other sources, but despite the growing warmth in her letters, Mrs. Griffin seemed more skittish than seductive. Penelope had not missed the way she tugged at the cuffs and collar of her borrowed coat, or how she starched up whenever Penelope brushed cautioning fingertips over her elbow to guide her down a turn of some of the less obvious paths.