by Olivia Waite
Mrs. Turner by now had fallen into a well-honed storyteller’s cadence, and Agatha found herself leaning forward in anticipation, one elbow on the table. If her heart kicked up in a quicker rhythm when Mrs. Flood grinned and watched for her reaction, surely that was only because the tale was so exciting.
Mrs. Turner went on, her voice low and playfully mysterious. “The Armada sailed up around the north coast of Scotland. Supplies were running low, ships’ hulls bound with cables to hold the rickety planks together. Winds drove them onto the Irish coast. Every hull shattered and sank. England celebrated a Providential escape—and John Calbert came home a hero. He married, had children, and came to live at Melliton, alongside so many other sailors and retired navy men. When he died fifty years later, he left his journal to his grandson Jack.
“Jack was a sailor on a merchant ship. He was also a smuggler, though one clever enough to know how dangerous—and short—a life that was. When he saw the map in his grandfather’s journal, he thought of Spanish doubloons and colonial emeralds, though the Florencia was a ship fitted for invasion, not one sailing back rich from conquest. He showed the map to his crew one winter night, at midnight in the pub—though it was called the King’s Arms, then—and they made a plan to sail out and search the wreck for treasure.
“The only other person there that dark night was the barkeeper’s daughter, Molly, Jack’s betrothed. She begged him not to go—said it was too risky, the shoreline rocky and treacherous with currents and shifting sandbars. Especially in wintertime, when the sea was murderous cold.
“Jack only laughed, and promised he’d be at her side again by Christmas. He and his eight—or six, or eleven companions, depending on who you ask—set out the next morning. They found the spot on the map, and Jack went down in the diving bell. When he came up, he swore he’d found the wreck, and it would make all of them and their wives and children rich.
“But a storm came up, and dashed their boat against the rocks. Cold water and the sea floor below them and a storm above . . . not a single man survived.”
Even in the warmth of the room, Agatha shivered.
Flood’s hand brushed her elbow, then away.
Agatha caught her breath.
Mrs. Turner’s eyes glinted as she continued her tale. “All the Melliton families grieved the loss of their sons. Molly’s father hung black bunting from the walls and closed the tavern on Christmas Eve. But just as he and Molly were heading up to bed—or in other versions, just as St. Ambrose’s bell struck midnight—someone knocked three times at the door. One—two—three.”
Agatha jumped, as Flood’s knuckles rapped the table at each count. Flood, troublemaker that she was, only grinned.
Mrs. Turner leaned in, voice low and urgent. “Molly opened the door, ready to shout down whoever was disturbing their mourning. And there was Jack—laughing, prideful, handsome Jack, with a spectral greenish glow about him. ‘Didn’t I tell you I’d be back by Christmas?’ he asked, and strode into the tavern. All his men trooped in after, ghostly green, their clothing ragged, their salt-roughened voices calling for meat and ale and pudding. Trembling, Molly and her father brought out everything they’d saved for their own Christmas dinner. They spread the table as well as they could, and then hurried up the stairs and didn’t come down until morning. But when they did . . . they found the room swept and the kitchen scrubbed, as if the feast had never happened. And in the center of the table was a gleaming, golden stack of Spanish doubloons.”
“Nine or seven or twelve of them, depending on how many ghosts,” Flood added.
“I like nine,” said Mrs. Turner. “A proper folklorish number, is nine.”
“And that’s why the Four Swallows is always closed the night before Christmas,” Flood finished.
Mrs. Turner nodded to confirm. “Molly married and she and her husband ran the pub after her father passed, and so on down through the family until Mr. Biswas married Molly’s great-great-great-granddaughter, and they renamed the tavern the Four Swallows.”
“There are people living today,” said Flood, “who will swear they’ve seen an eldritch green glow about the place on Christmas Eve—and heard the sound of ghostly voices singing.”
Mrs. Turner let out a skeptical snort. “People enjoy frightening their neighbors, Mrs. Flood.”
Flood pursed her lips and tilted her head primly. “Jack Calbert’s ghost is more benevolent than frightening, I always think . . .” Flood caught Agatha’s eye and popped to her feet. “And now there are other hives we must see to—good afternoon, Nell.”
Agatha murmured her own farewell, and they left Mrs. Turner shaking her head with a wry smile on her lips.
Flood led them eastward, along the fenced field. Wheat stalks swayed in the breeze, protective spikes at the top gleaming like strands of silk. “The Turners used to farm here, when this was all commons,” Flood explained, waving her hand at the acres and acres of future harvest. “But Squire Theydon—he’s the other magistrate, along with Mr. Oliver—bought this whole piece up during enclosure. And Mr. Turner had to look elsewhere for employment. Mr. Oliver was all for sending him to the workhouse at St. Sepulchre’s, but Miss Coningsby knew someone at Birkett’s so Mr. Turner ended up there. He rooms in a boarding house during the week, but makes sure to come home to take Nell and Arthur to church of a Sunday.”
“So he remembers church, but he tends to forget his wages in town on Fridays,” Agatha guessed.
Flood’s mouth pinched. “It’s disgraceful of him. Imagine having a husband who disregards one so completely. I’d be hungry to be noticed, too, in her place.”
Agatha looked at her sharply, but Flood’s face was turned up to the sun, untroubled. Perhaps that wasn’t an allusion to Mr. Flood at all. Perhaps Flood’s husband wrote marvelous letters, enough to bridge the gap of his long absences.
Perhaps Flood was simply loyal, and Agatha was pining hopelessly.
The path led them into the wood, then cut north and sloped upward. Agatha knew the route by now: they would emerge from the high wood outside Abington Hall, then turn west and walk down the soft meadows of Backey Green, where Mr. Scriven’s goats and hives coexisted in cordial mutual disdain.
For now, it was a relief to be in the cool, dark shadows of the trees, with bird calls echoing in the branches. Flood’s hair looked more gold than silver here, as she strode forward with easy swings of her legs in her brother’s baggy trousers.
Agatha’s heart was less serene. “Does Mr. Flood often send wages home?” she asked.
Flood nodded. “He and Harry both do, though not directly to me. Whenever they make landfall they both send money to Nathaniel in London: he’s head of the company—Stanhope and Sons, right there on the letterhead—and he takes in the profits from every venture and redistributes them to the shareholders. Of which I am one.”
One of the tight worries banding Agatha’s heart eased a little. “Your father set that up, I assume?”
Flood’s smile was sly and more than a little smug. “We’re a merchant family, Griffin—we know how to take care of our own. I wouldn’t call us wealthy—”
Agatha made a noise of disbelief. “Wealthy folk always say that.”
“—but we enjoy a very comfortable living.” She took another couple of steps, boots scuffing the dirt in the road. “That’s why John married me, you see—only family members can be shareholders.”
She spoke breezily, casually, but Agatha felt that fact strike her like a blow to the belly. Her feet walked on, while her brain went floaty with the realization: Penelope had been married for her fortune. “And John wanted to be a shareholder.”
Flood nodded, eyes on the path. “He and Harry wanted to get a ship together—Harry would captain, and John would come along to manage the books and cargo. He’s extremely good at it. Has a very efficient head for risk and figures, John does.”
“So . . .” Agatha swallowed against a dry, gravelly throat. “So it was not a love match, then.”
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p; Flood snorted and shook her head, gold curls bouncing. “Not on his part or on mine.” Her voice softened, and her eyes gleamed as they rested on all the greenery around her. “John was terribly relieved, though. He and Harry are . . . close. Now they’re family in the eyes of the law.”
Agatha’s breath hitched when she caught Flood’s meaning, but she schooled her features swiftly back to nonchalance. She’d been trusted with a secret, here in the greenwood, and she had to let her friend know such trust was not taken lightly. “I’m glad they found their way to happiness,” she said, and paused a moment. “Only . . .”
“Only what?” Flood’s face was tilted up, watching the play of light through layers of leaves and branches. Gaze directed away, until the topic was not quite so dangerous.
These were delicate waters.
Agatha watched a slender beam of sunlight pass over the planes of her friend’s cheeks. It caught on the soft hair at the corners of her mouth, and the creases that spoke of the years she’d survived. The sight plucked the words from Agatha’s throat, unbidden: “Only it seems to be such a sacrifice for you, Flood. You deserve better than second place in someone’s affections. You deserve to know what it’s like to be loved by someone who worships the very earth beneath your feet, who adores you for yourself alone—and just what the hell is so damned funny?”
For Flood had stopped walking to double over at the waist, hands braced on her knees, hooting with helpless laughter until the only sound she could make was a strained wheeze.
Agatha planted her hands on hips. “Are you quite done?”
“Oh, Griffin!” Flood shook her head and wiped at the corners of her eyes. “I’ve lived forty-five years in the same small town. Of course I’ve been loved—or had a good few fucks, which is what I think you mean—it’s just that none of them were from my husband, that’s all.”
“Well,” said Agatha, feeling grumpy and puritanical. “Well, good. That’s good.” So Flood didn’t feel terribly restricted by her marriage vows. Agatha had known plenty of couples who took them as a suggestion rather than a law, and it had never bothered her before.
It bothered her now—but not for any of the tedious reasons someone might declaim from a pulpit. No, Agatha was troubled because Flood made it all sound like a lark, when Agatha had been tying herself in sullen knots about it.
She didn’t even know if Flood preferred women or men or both. And she couldn’t ask without risking the loss of a friendship that had become impossibly dear to her. Vital, even.
And she remembered what Flood had said in the Four Swallows: I would have to think about the consequences. Agatha couldn’t risk doing anything that might jeopardize Flood’s standing in Melliton.
Flood’s smile turned fond. “You are sweet to worry about me.”
Agatha grumbled and tugged at the cuffs of her coat. “Glad I amuse you.”
Flood’s eyes cut toward her, as they began walking again in unspoken accord. “You must have loved your Thomas very much, I take it.” She kicked a clod of earth off into the underbrush. “People who married for love always want everyone else to do the same.”
How did one sum up twenty years of marriage in one answer? Agatha had been trying since the day of the funeral, and had never yet succeeded.
She was suddenly desperate for Flood to understand.
“We were devoted to each other—but we didn’t start that way,” she began slowly. “Our fathers knew one another. They’d worked together on a few books, even. His father pointed me out to him as someone who might be worth marrying, and so Thomas came courting. It wasn’t quite an arrangement, but pretty nearly. I’d certainly never noticed Thomas before—had an eye at the time for the flashier types, your silver-tongued rascals and scoundrels and such. Thomas was quieter. Self-effacing. But I wasn’t pretty enough to have many suitors, so I had to look carefully at any who turned up.” She curled her hands in the pockets of her coat, unable to keep from smiling at the memory. “Other boys brought ribbons and thimbles and such, cheap trinkets they could carry easily and could give out to any girl who happened to be handy. Thomas brought tea—good tea, the kind you wouldn’t ever feel like you could buy for yourself even if it wasn’t just about the cost. It was . . . It was something you could save up, and keep to yourself—or could share with the household, if you chose.”
Flood’s smile blossomed. “And I bet you thought of him gratefully every time you made a pot.”
Agatha laughed. “I certainly did. Much more strategic a courting gift, in the end.”
“Strategic—but kind, too.” Flood smiled, her eyes far away down the path ahead of them. “I wish I could have known him.”
Agatha’s face felt like cracked glass, a pane about to shatter. “He’d have loved you.” She swallowed hard. “You could have talked about poetry together, and saved me from it.”
Flood’s laugh rang out like birdsong as they emerged from the wood. The great stone front of Abington Hall glared at them, distrusting all merriment.
From this approach, the shortest way to the bee garden in the back took them through the hedge-maze. Agatha followed Flood through the turns—and nearly bumped into the beekeeper when she pulled up short in the heart of the maze.
“How dare she . . .” Flood hissed.
There was more venom in her voice than Agatha had ever heard before. Alarmed, she stepped around to Flood’s side to see . . . nothing.
But a very new nothing. A great and palpable emptiness where once the paired statues of the nymph and the dryad had stood. Flood growled at the space, buzzing with fury.
Agatha’s jaw tightened with dismay. “Lady Summerville?”
Flood nodded sharply, hands clenching into fists.
Agatha looked around again at the nakedness of leaves and lawn and the pebbled path. “Where do you think she moved them?”
“I’m not convinced she only moved them,” Flood said. “I fear she destroyed them.”
Agatha went icy with realization. This wasn’t simply about the loss of a beautiful object. This was an attempt to destroy every intimate thing Miss Abington had thought and felt most deeply. It was vicious, and cruel, and very, very personal. And if Agatha could see that, how much worse must it be for Penelope Flood? She’d found such hope in that statue.
Agatha was shocked at her own eagerness to lash out at anyone who dared destroy Penelope Flood’s hopes.
“She had every right,” Flood was saying angrily. “I know she did. Those statues were left to her by Isabella. I heard the terms of the will, from the lawyer’s own lips. But Lady Summerville never appreciated the sculptures, and never would. I cannot for the life of me think why Isabella did it.”
The last sentence was almost a cry, a sound of pure and baffled pain.
Agatha lifted a hand, paused, then tentatively rested it on Flood’s shoulder. “Lady Summerville may have been within her rights to move the statues—or destroy them—but you’re allowed to despise her for having done it.”
Flood’s eyes glittered ominously, somewhere between fury and tears. She shook her head. “Times like this I wish I were the sort of person who could sustain anger. I’m like a candle: I burn, and then I melt, with little light and no heat to speak of.”
Agatha’s fingers tightened convulsively. “I think you’re one of the warmest people I’ve ever known,” she whispered.
Flood’s left hand lifted up and covered Agatha’s, pressing it hard against her shoulder. Fingers interlaced at the tips—not quite grasping, but not separated, either.
“Thank you,” Flood whispered. “I’m going to find out what happened. I have to know.” She turned her head, and Agatha saw that silent tears had made silver paths down her cheeks. The beekeeper’s gaze tangled with hers, eyes blue as the center of a flame.
Agatha burned, and knew it for what it was.
Then Flood stepped away and jammed her hat on top of her head again. The muslin veil came down, hiding her face. “Shall we see to the hives?”
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bsp; “Of course,” Agatha replied. When what she wanted to say was: While you see to the hives, I’ll be at the hall, setting the whole miserable place on fire in the name of thwarted, impossible love. Her breath rattled like a tinderbox in her lungs.
As though one would offer arson instead of a bouquet, to win a lover’s heart. High crimes were probably better suited to a betrothal than a mere courting gift: you couldn’t just start burning things down in hopes the other person found it romantic. You’d want to be sure.
At present, Agatha was sure of only one thing: Penelope Flood deserved more than she’d been given.
Chapter Ten
The Queen’s trial began in August. The country talked of nothing else. Scientific discoveries, foreign wars, significant agricultural developments, even the most ghastly deeds of criminals and murderers—all these were ignored in favor of endless dissection of the minutiae of the Queen’s daily life in exile, as described in detail by newspapermen transcribing the words of the government’s witnesses. These folk, servants and sailors mostly, sat for days on end answering questions put to them by the Lords, who flocked like ominous black-robed ravens. Was the Queen ever alone with this man? How was she dressed? How was her manner?
Since so many of these witnesses were Italian, many of whom had little to no English, the trustworthiness of Italians and servants as a class became a contentious touch point of the overall debate.
Mrs. Biswas’s reading of the Times’ accounts became an every-evening event in the Four Swallows, with the whole pub ready to cry out in protest or mockery, whichever caught their fancy in the moment. To some it was a meaningful political event that would have repercussions in future elections and parliamentary proceedings; to others it was the closest thing to theater that could be had for the price of the beer you were going to buy, anyway.
It made for tumultuous nights, and during the days Penelope was more than usually glad to be so often out of doors and on her own. Though, if she were being brutally honest with herself, the solitude of beekeeping was less soothing than it used to be.