by Olivia Waite
Probably just a passing fancy on Penelope’s part. No doubt it would vanish soon enough.
After they left the fourth cottage, whose busily buzzing hives only needed a little trimming of the grass to keep the entrances clear, Penelope turned to her companion. “You know why I talk to the bees, don’t you?”
“Because there’s more bees around here than people?”
Penelope laughed, even as she shook her head. “So they know who we are. The more familiar bees are with a beekeeper, with their scent and their movements and their voice, the less fuss they make when the beekeeper approaches them. Or, say, starts shuttling hives around, or removing comb, or any one of a hundred other things that would make wild bees turn on you in outrage. You stop being a threat to them, in short.”
Mrs. Griffin tilted her head. “That . . . actually sounds quite sensible.” She quirked her lips. “Familiarity breeds contempt, as they say.”
Penelope shook her head. “Familiarity breeds trust, Griffin.”
“So long as you don’t expect them to talk back.”
Penelope chuckled. “Of course I don’t.” She cast a sly look at the other woman, from the corner of her eye. “I do recite my favorite poems to them, though. Pastorals, usually.”
Mrs. Griffin’s mouth twitched. “It’s a wonder they don’t try to sting you for that alone.”
They walked on.
Mrs. Griffin frowned lightly, the toes of her boots scuffing the stones out of the road and out of her way. “Does Mr. Flood help you with the bees when he’s not at sea?”
Penelope adjusted her grip on the wheelbarrow handles. “He did, once or twice, when we first met,” she replied, smiling to remember. John had frowned at the bees as though he suspected them of teasing him by flying in curves and squiggles rather than straight lines. “But he’s at sea for such long stretches, and he mostly only comes back home in the winters, when there’s very little hive-work to be done.”
Mrs. Griffin kicked another rock. “How long have you been married?”
“Oh . . . ten years this August.”
Mrs. Griffin’s gaze was carefully pointed elsewhere. On the grassy banks, on the treetops—anywhere but at Penelope. “No children?”
Penelope laughed before she could stop herself. “No children, no.”
She waited breathlessly for the next question—fully ready to drop her usual hints about her intimacy with John, or rather the lack of such—but Mrs. Griffin’s curiosity had apparently exhausted itself for the moment.
Only the birdsong filled the air between them for the next quarter mile.
Afternoon waned into evening. Because they were moving backward, the south circuit terminated where it usually began: Penelope’s home on the edge of the wood, just where it met the main road. To the west were the farmlands and high street; to the east the road wound through a mile of semiwild woodland until it split and sent tendrils to each of the larger estates that lay in a long curve on the wood’s far side.
And here, where road and wood and farmland all met, on a slight rise looking over the river, was Fern Hall, two centuries old and still in the prime of its youth, as buildings went. Light from the lowering sun cast it red against the shadowed trees behind. Stone and wood, plaster and paint, glass and a small garden—but what Penelope saw when she looked at it wasn’t the structure of the house itself.
She saw all the places where her family wasn’t.
The Stanhopes hadn’t built Fern Hall—that was some other clan, whose name Penelope had sadly forgotten—but as soon as Alexander Stanhope had purchased the place it had become the center of the family’s world, a combination home and storehouse and navigational reference point.
Even now, with her siblings and their children all scattered to the far corners of the map, Penelope could feel the presence of all those long-loved objects pull at her like the tug on a compass needle: the embroideries her mother had sewn onto chair covers and sofa cushions, the papers her father had stored in the study, the bedrooms still full of toy boats and schoolbooks and outgrown, outworn clothes that had passed down from sibling to sibling.
Penelope had never been able to shake the thought that despite the distance between them all, if she tried to throw any of these things away, five brothers would descend on her in an instant with shouts of the most strident objections. She had, by default, become something of a steward for the memories of her siblings. The one remaining root that held the family tree in familiar ground.
She had conceded only this much: she had moved everything out of one bedroom to make space for Joanna to stay. Penelope was still fighting the urge to confess it all to Michael in a letter—she’d fretted and flinched as Daniel the footman and George the gardener had moved hobbyhorses and emptied all those bookshelves. As though her brother would hear the ruckus all the way across the ocean in Canada.
According to Mrs. Braintree, the Stanhopes’ stalwart cook and housekeeper, their guest was having one of her feral days, as she termed them, and had retired to her room with a request that she not be disturbed for anything short of fire, flood, or cold-blooded murder. (Presumably, with the latter, she’d either want to watch or offer tips for how to hide the body.) “I am sorry you won’t get to meet her,” Penelope said. “She’s still very much in mourning for Isabella. I’m sorry you never had a chance to meet her, either.”
Mrs. Griffin’s eyes turned thoughtful. “Mrs. Molesey was her companion, you said?”
Penelope met her gaze boldly and directly. “For thirty years. After Isabella’s husband died, they traveled together and shared a home.” She wasn’t quite courageous enough to put it more plainly than that—Mrs. Griffin was a Londoner, and certainly didn’t seem inclined to a too strict observance of propriety, but people could always surprise you.
Some secrets weren’t Penelope’s to reveal.
Mrs. Griffin’s gaze widened in understanding.
Penelope braced for the worst.
But all the printer did was say: “It’s so difficult to lose a loved one. I hardly knew myself in the first days of my widowhood. Please convey my sympathies to Mrs. Molesey.”
Somewhere, deep in Penelope’s breast, a knot she’d only barely been aware of untied itself. She breathed a little easier for it.
It made her feel briefly bold, so she squared her shoulders and asked Mrs. Griffin: “Would you like to come for dinner at the Four Swallows with me?”
To her small surprise and vast delight, Mrs. Griffin blushed and said yes.
Chapter Six
Agatha had never seen Mrs. Flood in skirts before. Granted, they’d only met twice now, but Agatha was mortified to realize that after the first shock she’d assumed Mrs. Flood wore men’s clothing perpetually, and not only when she was minding bees.
Instead, Mrs. Flood stepped out of her house in a cinnamon frock, the color bringing out the gold lights in her short curls and turning the hue of her eyes into something like sapphire.
She looked, in a word, delicious, bobbing forward to lead the way through the deepening twilight.
Agatha could only follow helplessly, in the plain gray dress and a faded paisley shawl she’d changed into at Mrs. Stowe’s. If Mrs. Flood was a rare spice, savory and sought after, Agatha was a lichen scraped off some dismal northern crag. She had never felt so ancient.
Respectable widow, indeed. She almost wished for the blue coat back again: at least it had some color to it.
Dear god, when was the last time she’d cared at all about her appearance beside the usual category of Are there stains on this skirt? or Is this sleeve going a bit threadbare at the elbow? Not since . . .
She almost stopped walking as realization staggered her: not since Thomas. And, before Thomas, with Kate. The two times in her life she’d spent ages before her mirror, turning this way and that to check the fall of a gown, the line of a seam, the placement of a necklace or ribbon. She clenched her hands together and for a moment felt the ghostly pressure of the wedding band she hadn’t
worn in two years.
She was so distracted by the revelation that before she realized it, she walked into the Four Swallows and into a raging battle.
Halfpennies were flying through the air like musket fire. They pinged against the floor and off the wall behind a chestnut-haired woman standing in the front corner. One tan hand held a drooping sheaf of ballad sheets. The other was raised to snatch flying coins out of the air. Any she caught she tucked into the deep front pockets of her overskirt, which bulged with rolled-up broadsides, lyrics, and songs. Behind her a boy of ten or so scurried about, gathering up fallen coins. He had the same chestnut hair, but skin a shade paler than his mother.
Agatha batted one poorly aimed halfpenny away from her face, and started as a hand tugged on her elbow.
She turned to see Mrs. Flood laughing and shaking her head. “Looks like Nell’s performing tonight—come on, we’ll be out of range in the back.”
Once past the front cluster of the audience the crowd calmed somewhat. Agatha nodded at Mr. Downes and a few other pressmen at the long central tables, sharing drinks and food and conversation. Another group in one corner was playing cards; a solitary figure at the bar was hunched over her ale with a book in her hand. Agatha recognized the other three beekeepers from her first meeting with Mrs. Flood, sitting variously around the room.
Agatha and Mrs. Flood found an empty pair of chairs against the wall. The barmaid brought two foaming tankards and promised them pasties, as the ballad singer’s voice rang out to start her next song.
Agatha took a swallow of beer and paused, blinking. “This is quite good.”
Mrs. Flood leaned back, radiating smug local pride. “Has the poor beer you find in London taught you that every tavern waters down its ale?”
Agatha snorted, then lapsed into silence. She couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t hurried over a meal, trying to get back to work as quickly as possible. But there was no project waiting for her at the end of tonight. Nothing left undone, nothing hovering anxiously over her shoulder. It made her feel restless, and she shifted in her seat.
The girl came by again with the pasties, and Agatha was relieved to have an excuse for being tongue-tied. It helped that the pasty was at least as good as the ale, if not better: curried mutton with onion and peas.
They did not have the corner to themselves for long: Mrs. Flood seemed to know everyone, or everyone seemed to know her, and soon Agatha had been introduced to brown-skinned Mr. Biswas, Mr. Koskinen all pale and red-haired, his curly-haired wife with intelligent eyes, and two young men, tall Mr. Thomas and broad-shouldered Mr. Kitt. Mr. Thomas lived on half pay from the army, and Mr. Kitt half pay from the navy, and between them both they cobbled together a household and argued affably over whose turn it was to buy the beer. Mr. Biswas owned the Four Swallows—“named for my tattoos: one swallow for each crossing of the Equator,” he’d explained, one hand tapping proudly on his barrel chest—and like any good host he rose every so often to make the rounds, checking in on the clusters of sailors and farmers and the few solitary drinkers, putting an oar into a well-worn argument, ducking into the kitchen to confer with Mrs. Biswas.
It was not that Agatha was bothered by all the noise: London had a way of making noise comfortable that Agatha had long embraced. But Agatha had spent the whole day out of her element, and now she faced a group of friends whose shared jokes had long since carved grooves and furrows into one another’s metal. She watched Mrs. Flood lean over her tankard, laughing at Mr. Thomas teasing Mr. Kitt, and wondered how to fit into the picture.
A peal of notes rang out, and the whole group turned back toward the ballad singer at the front of the long room. Nell had pulled out a small guitar and was tuning it carefully. A sense of excitement visibly washed over the crowd, expressions rippling like waves beneath the gust of a new wind.
Agatha cast a sidelong glance at Mrs. Flood, whose cheeks were flushed with anticipation and whose eyes were bright as stars.
When she caught Agatha staring, she winked.
Agatha’s face flamed.
She was saved from having to say anything by the start of Nell’s song:
“Come listen, friends, and hear the tale
Of a gay young pair of lovers
They had no care for any fair
Unless ’twas one another.
They wed one bonny summer’s day
And deemed the match successible—
But the lass was seen to turn pure green
When he wore his Inexpressibles!
As he walked up and down the town
Every maid’s eye turned to goggle
At calves and thighs of marvelous size
All in those buckskins coddled.”
The sly gesture Mr. Kitt made while singing along with coddled made Agatha snort half a tankard’s worth of ale up her nose. Listeners hooted approval. More halfpennies rang out against the wall.
Nell grinned acknowledgment and the song went on:
“She chose her day of vengeance well,
By her spouse it went unguessable:
In she did stride, he almost died—
She wore his Inexpressibles!
He hollered up and down the lane
A-cursing her uncladness
She shouted higher, ‘It’s your attire
That drove me to this madness.’
Whene’er the row began to fade
Another shout revived it
When dawn appeared, the town crept near
To see who had survived it.
The wife emerged all bathed in smiles,
Her joy quite irrepressible
Sprawled out in bed, poor husband said:
‘She wore out me Inexpressibles!’”
Half the crowd was shouting along by the end, from the young farmers’ wives to the old salted sailors. The piece was clearly a local favorite—Agatha’d heard and printed a great many ballads in her time, but never this one. She cheered and clapped until her hands ached, and when Nell’s son came around with the broadsides she pulled out a halfpenny of her own and asked him for a lyrics sheet.
He shook his head. “That’s one of Mum’s own. Never been printed. I’ve got ‘Jenny of the High-Way’ or ‘The Milk-Maid’s Complaint,’ if you like.” He brandished samples of ballad sheets and caricatures, some plain black ink, others painfully bright with cheap color.
Agatha glanced down at the sheets, and with a little start realized many of them were Griffin’s printings, from the London workshop. She glanced at Mrs. Flood. “Can I ask you for one more introduction?”
Mrs. Nell Turner gave the guitar over to her son and shook Agatha’s hand. “A pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”
“The pleasure is mine,” Agatha replied. “But I have to ask you—how did you come to sell Griffin’s broadsides here in Melliton? I wasn’t aware we had any wholesalers outside of London.”
“My husband works for Birkett’s,” Nell explained. “He brings me the latest ballads when he comes home on his days off.”
“When he remembers,” the younger Turner muttered.
Nell cuffed him softly on the shoulder.
Agatha pulled her sketchbook and pencil out of her pocket. “I wonder if I might interest you in a more direct arrangement . . .”
A quarter of an hour later Agatha had the lyrics to “His Inexpressibles” jotted down to be set and printed, with more generous payment terms and a new wholesale arrangement for Griffin’s other broadsides, signed with both her name and Mrs. Turner’s.
“That was kind,” Mrs. Flood said, as they waved farewell to their companions and stepped out into the night.
“Kind?” Agatha snorted. “It was business. I plan to sell ‘Inexpressibles’ all over London. And just wait until the plagiarists catch wind of it—they’ll be singing it in Ireland and Scotland by summer’s end, I promise you. And neither Mrs. Turner nor myself will ever see a penny of those sales.”
“But she will see quite a few more pennies now,
thanks to you.”
Agatha snorted again, but more softly. “Save your compliments for when I’ve done something altruistic, and not merely mutually beneficial. I plan to profit off Mrs. Turner’s clever songs, make no mistake.”
The pub-deafness was wearing off, and she was suddenly aware of how sweet and musical the night was, here just on the edge of the lantern light. The river murmured a lullaby, and the wind sighed harmony in the willow branches.
“Mmm.” In the dimness, Mrs. Flood’s smile was a thin line of gold where the light touched her lips. “Does this mean you’ll be coming to Melliton more often?”
“It might.” Agatha’s throat was dry, adding a low, rough note to her voice. “If Mrs. Stowe will have me.”
“I’ll have you, if she won’t.”
Agatha sucked in a breath.
Penelope Flood turned her face skyward, taking the measure of the moon to see how far along the night had gone. Moonlight and lamplight mingled on her cheeks, silver warring with gold.
On nights like this, standing beside a woman who looked like that, it was extremely trying to remain a respectable widow. Agatha clenched her hands so tight her knuckles creaked.
Mrs. Flood sighed. “I’d best be heading home. Good night, Griffin.”
“Good night, Flood,” Agatha replied. She spun on her heel and strode down the lane, letting the night wind put distance between herself and temptation.
Chapter Seven
The post had been busier than usual in the two days Agatha’d been away. There were letters from the musical reviewer in Paris and the hotelier from the Alps, along with others whose handwriting she didn’t quite know by sight. So much paper, speeding back and forth over land and sea—and it never ended.