The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows

by Olivia Waite

  Perhaps she did.

  Penelope got her breath back, and managed half a smile. “If I were,” she said, “I surely would deny it.”

  “Of course,” Miss Crewe agreed. “But the manner of your denial would be telling.” Her lips quirked, and her eyes sparkled. “In fact, it was.”

  “And just what did it tell you?” Penelope inquired.

  Miss Crewe swallowed the last of her bread and folded her hands demurely while she considered. She was quite a pretty girl, and her hands showed the marks of labor: visibly calloused in places, strong and sure. A silk weaver, Mrs. Koskinen had said.

  At last, Miss Crewe sighed. “Your answer tells me that you’re just as my cousin has described you, Mrs. Flood—very earnest, and very kind.”

  Penelope pinkened, and sought a less squirmworthy subject. “I wonder if you can explain to me something Mrs. Buckhurst said in her speech . . .” she began.

  The silk weaver was a font of information, even more than Sydney, and Penelope listened avidly until Griffin jogged her elbow some time later.

  “Flood.” Agatha Griffin’s face was luminous, bright with so much joy and awe that Penelope’s heart gave a little kick and knocked the breath from her. “I’ve just learned something wonderful. Is there a chance you’re ready to leave?”

  “Quite.” It had been a lively evening, but politics was exhausting work. They made their farewells to Mrs. Koskinen and Miss Crewe. Then Griffin took Penelope by the wrist and began towing her through the crowd toward the stairway.

  It’s just so we don’t get separated, Penelope reminded herself. And then a treacherous thought followed: She doesn’t want to lose me. “What about Eliza and Sydney?” she stammered, bumping from stair to stair.

  “Oh, I already told them we were leaving. They’re young—they’ll be up until dawn with the rest of the political crowd. And they’re well able to find their own way home when they’re ready.” The engraver cast a sly glance back over her shoulder. “I’m getting too old to see sunrise from the wrong side without a terribly good reason.”

  “I can think of one,” Penelope said automatically, then bit her lip as the heat rose in her cheeks.

  Griffin snorted, but she didn’t let go, not even when they reached the relative freedom of the stairs. They walked down, past endless debates in other spaces—admittedly, less magnificent ones than the Grand Assembly Room. It was a relief to emerge into the cool evening air, as the first few stars began sparkling in the lilac curve of the sky.

  In the chill, Griffin’s fingers around her wrist felt like the warmest thing in the world.

  The printer towed Penelope south down Arundel Street, to the banks of the Thames, where the law courts kept their halls and libraries. The buildings here were ancient, frosted over with white stonework and narrow, imperious windows.

  Griffin slipped a couple of coins to a gatekeeper, who obligingly let them into a court that led to a garden, then another garden, turn after turn until Penelope began to feel like she’d stepped into a fairy maze from a folktale and they’d never find their way out again.

  “Good thing I had that barrister draw me a map,” Griffin muttered, and pulled out her sketchbook. Pages of women in white and green flashed by, then a penciled path in an amateurish hand. Griffin took a few more turnings. “Left, then right, then two more lefts, and . . . ah. Here we are.”

  Penelope looked around. They were in a small pocket courtyard, a timeless bubble of peace in the center of the city. The branches of an old willow sifted moonlight and shadow into ripples on the ground, and the sound of water from quite close had Penelope peering around for the unseen fountain.

  Griffin dropped Penelope’s wrist—her absent fingers left behind a cold, lonely little band of air around the skin there—and pulled the willow branches aside like she was raising the curtain on a Drury Lane stage.

  The fountain Penelope heard was underneath the willow tree: a small tilted basin that poured water into a curve around its roots.

  Also underneath the willow tree: Isabella’s nymph and dryad.

  Penelope was afraid to move. Surely she must be dreaming. As long as she didn’t move, she would never have to wake up. She held so still her muscles began trembling with the effort of it, as her eyes traced every line of the familiar marble. “It wasn’t destroyed,” she whispered at last. “I can’t believe it. It wasn’t destroyed.”

  “A barrister by the name of Mr. Loveney told me about it,” Griffin said softly. “He bought it from an art broker here in town, not three weeks ago.”

  Penelope let out a breath, far too light and fragile to be a laugh. “And put it here?” Here meaning the legal heart of the kingdom. But also here meaning in this magical, sheltered space.

  Penelope’s mind could not take it in.

  Griffin’s smile was slow as moonlight. “Isabella Abington was a sculptor of no small renown. It will take more than a year for the world to forget her.”

  Penelope let out a sob and flung her arms around Griffin’s neck.

  The other woman went instantly pokerish.

  Penelope assumed it was only surprise. She would not be put off: her arms tightened. “Thank you,” she whispered. Tears spilled over her eyelids and down her cheeks. She pressed her face harder against the taller woman’s shoulder, hoping the dark color of the fabric would hide the telltale dampness. She swallowed hard. “I don’t care how many years pass: I will never, ever forget that you brought me here. Some kindnesses leave a mark, you know. Like a scar, but the reverse.”

  Griffin’s arms came around Penelope’s shoulders—carefully, as though she feared Penelope might break. Her hand patted Penelope’s curls once. Twice. “You might bring me around to poetry yet, Flood,” she said gruffly.

  Penelope let herself hold on for one more long, shuddering breath, then reluctantly pulled away.

  Griffin fussed at the fabric of her gown, her blush apparent even in the moonlight’s silvery rays. “Home, then?” she asked.

  “Home,” Penelope said on a sigh. As though it were the truth and not only a wish.

  The Queen’s Larder pub on the corner was in full carouse when they returned, but inside the print-shop all was peaceful and still as they undressed for bed. Penelope settled back against the pillows, frowning up at the ceiling. “Did Mr. Loveney tell you which art-broker he purchased the statue from?”

  “He did not. Sydney introduced us, though, so I’m sure it wouldn’t be difficult to find it out.” Griffin had pulled a nightdress on first thing, and was wrestling her stockings off underneath the skirts.

  It was charmingly prudish of her, especially after all the mutual unlacing they’d just done, and it made Penelope instantly begin wondering what else was underneath that billow of fabric. She knew she oughtn’t let herself think of it—but it had been such a long and trying day, she simply didn’t have the strength to keep her imagination in check.

  She’d be more virtuous tomorrow, she promised herself, and fixed the sight of Agatha Griffin’s ankles in her memory.

  Griffin put her stockings to be washed before she lay down carefully on the other half of the bed. Blankets pulled up to her underarms. Hands folded over her chest like a funeral figure on a monument.

  It made Penelope feel half-feral by way of contrast, so she made a bit of a show of nestling into the pillows and blankets, like a creature burrowing in for a long winter’s hibernation.

  Griffin peered down her long nose at Penelope. The stern effect of this was rather softened by the long black-and-silver braid of her hair, which looked temptingly soft and strokeable. “Why do you want to talk to the art broker?”

  Beneath the mounds of bedclothes, Penelope attempted a shrug. “Only curious.”

  “You aren’t going to talk him out of buying the other statues, are you?”

  “Certainly not,” Penelope said loftily. “I’m just happy to know they aren’t being smashed or broken or burned, or anything like that. It’s actually a relief to see one making it
s way through to an appreciative collector.”

  “You might buy one or two yourself, you know.”

  “Ha—I couldn’t afford them. Not even one of the smaller satyrs.”

  Griffin winced. “None of those satyrs was particularly small, Flood.”

  “Besides, where on earth would I put him?”

  “Where would he fit?”

  Penelope chortled, and Griffin went red. Her eyes slid away toward the wall, her mouth tightening.

  Penelope’s amusement faded. “Thank you again for letting me stay. I hope it hasn’t been too much trouble for you.”

  “No trouble,” Griffin said, still looking at the wall.

  Penelope screwed up her courage. “I’d like to return the favor, next time you come to Melliton.”

  Griffin glanced at her then—a swift, piercing look that dried any other words on Penelope’s tongue. The printer’s gaze slipped down to Penelope’s mouth, then away. Penelope worried she’d erred somehow, but then . . .

  “I’d like that,” Griffin said, and some of Penelope’s anxiety eased away. “I’ve worried I’m intruding too much on Mrs. Stowe and Miss Coningsby’s privacy. They each prefer a bit more solitude than my visits have been giving them.” She yawned, working her shoulders deeper into the pillow behind her as her eyes fell shut once more.

  Penelope settled cozily onto her side, her blanket-burrow warming slow and steady as an oven. “Then it’s settled,” she said. “You can stay with me and Joanna and give us advice on how best to approach the vicar about the snuffbox. She’s frustrated enough that she’s concocting . . . plans. Or rather, schemes, the more dramatic the better. Bribing the household staff to filch the item. Sneaking into Abington Hall when the family’s away and rifling through cabinets until she finds it. Hiring a brilliant thief from the great criminal underbelly of the metropolis, who arrives in Melliton in disguise.” Her lips quirked. “And who then ends up murdered, forcing Joanna to unmask the real killer to clear herself of the crime.”

  Penelope paused, waiting for Griffin to snort or scoff or otherwise comment on the absurdity of this.

  A light snore was the printer’s only response. Her lips were slightly parted, her hands still folded tight on her chest. As though if she didn’t keep them there, her heart would escape clean out of her breast.

  Or maybe that was just Penelope’s imagination again. She buried her face in the pillow, and told her own heart to behave.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The print of Penelope Flood at Brandenburg sold through two printings before the public’s attention moved on. Agatha found this immensely gratifying—not only for her skill as an artist, but also for the way Flood blushed whenever Agatha gently teased her about it.

  Summer became fall, and the drones began dying.

  “Typical,” said Joanna Molesey. She was wearing black striped with red, which seemed to help her feel more herself again. “The men perish young, and the ladies trudge on toward winter.”

  “Plenty of women die too young.” Agatha swirled her glass so the last drops of wine chased each other around and around in the bottom of the bowl.

  Joanna’s eyes flashed. “In the race of man, too many hurry to the finish,” she proclaimed.

  Agatha rolled her eyes. “Please don’t write poetry in public. It’s not decent.”

  Joanna laughed and improvised a second line, her voice falling into cadence like a falcon finding the updraft.

  Agatha protested a little more, but only to be contrary. She’d been fully prepared to find the poetess a cynical, tempestuous, sharp-tongued termagant—and Joanna was all those things, without a doubt, but she was also witty, warm, thoughtful, and fiercely principled. She raged out of love, and that lit some answering spark in Agatha’s soul.

  Agatha now stayed at Fern Hall whenever she came to Melliton. She would stop by her mother-in-law’s and see if Mrs. Stowe and Miss Coningsby needed anything—Mrs. Stowe’s joints were aching as the weather grew colder, but that was nothing new, and Miss Coningsby was quietly but earnestly relieved to have the house to herself again.

  So now there was a small guest bedroom that was essentially Agatha’s own space in Penelope Flood’s house. The blue coat and old trousers lived in a chest of drawers there, having long since become Agatha’s, and with them were stored a few other articles the engraver had brought along for convenience’s sake: a cake of her favorite soap, a spare set of underclothes, and a light wool gown. Just essentials. Not like she was joining the household. Not like she really, truly lived there.

  So what if her room directly adjoined Penelope Flood’s? It wasn’t as though Agatha spent any time in bed imagining what Flood was doing on the other side of that wall. In a bed that must have smelled of her, sprawled out warm and soft and sleepy-eyed, as the autumn moonlight danced through the window and spilled onto the antique carpet . . .

  Agatha stopped her thoughts before they could betray her further, and set her wineglass down with a sharp click. “Have you had any luck with the Napoleon snuffbox?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

  “None,” Mrs. Molesey confirmed, with a twist of her lips. “I think our dear vicar has actively begun avoiding me. I caught a glimpse of him from the window when I came up the lane, but when I knocked the housekeeper told me he’d just gone out.” She snorted. “Out the back door, no doubt, as though all Hell’s minions were in pursuit.”

  “As if you’d need minions to bedevil anyone,” Flood teased.

  Mrs. Molesey only huffed in irritation. “I’m horribly tempted to shout at him about it again—but he’d only say again he’d ask his sister, and then we’re right back where we started.” She made a curt, cutting gesture with one hand. “I might as well waltz down to Westminster and shout at the king.”

  “They’d arrest you for sedition,” Flood chuckled.

  “Treason is beginning to look attractive,” Mrs. Molesey murmured darkly.

  Agatha fiddled with the base of her glass, remembering Brandenburg. “People do shout at the king, though. Pamphlets. Letters.” She smiled, thinking of Mrs. Turner. “Ballads.”

  Mrs. Molesey sat straight up in her chair. “Ballads, you say?”

  Agatha clapped a hand over her mouth as the phrase “Oh no” escaped between her fingers.

  Mrs. Molesey leaned forward avidly. “Rhyme and meter and melody, you mean. Just the sort of thing a poet is expert in.”

  Flood chuckled, and refilled Agatha’s glass. “Now look what you’ve done.”

  “Please, Mrs. Molesey, forget I said anything,” Agatha grumbled, and swallowed half the new glass in one go.

  “It could be quite a challenge for a poet,” Joanna said thoughtfully, “considering the last name.”

  Agatha frowned at her, but had to ask: “Whose last name?”

  “Lady Summerville’s, of course,” Flood explained. “Summerville’s only the title. The viscount’s family name is actually Spranklin.”

  “It’s what?” Agatha half shrieked.

  “If it weren’t for the courtesy title,” said Joanna, “she’d be Mrs. Archibald Spranklin.”

  “Just try finding a rhyme for that,” Flood said, with relish. “I dare you.”

  “Oh,” said Mrs. Molesey. She rolled the syllable off her tongue, like the word was some rich and savory delicacy. “If it’s a dare, then . . .” She rose from the table. “I’m going to get started, while the muse is still singing with fury. Good night to you both.” She strode out the door and up the stairs, spite crackling in every limb and line of her.

  “Now you’ve really done it,” Agatha sighed.

  “You’re the one who brought up ballads,” Flood said, and giggled into her wine.

  Agatha Griffin, it transpired, had severely underestimated both Joann Molesey’s swiftness of composition, and the lengths to which she could be motivated by pettiness. The very next week saw Griffin back in the Four Swallows, choking on her ale, while Nell Turner sang at least six different lines that rh
ymed with Spranklin, three of which were obscene, and all of which were insulting.

  Penelope grinned at her friend, as the crowd roared for Nell to sing it again. “Nobody but yourself to blame, Griffin!”

  “Crankling isn’t even a real word!” Griffin sputtered. She set down her beer and shook her head. “I’m just surprised the authoress didn’t come down the pub herself to hear it performed.”

  “Oh, she’d never,” Penelope replied, as the third verse got an even bigger laugh the second time around. “She hates reading her poetry in public. Very much a creature of the pen, our Mrs. Molesey.” She smiled, as a hail of pennies rained down on Nell as she bowed her thanks. “But she knows how to reach an audience.”

  The ballad became the hit of the Four Swallows, and before long it could be heard on the lips of shopkeepers, customers, and children going about their business on the Melliton lanes and byways. When asked who’d written it, Nell only smiled and answered: “A lady.” The gossip moved so fast, and caused so much uproar, that three days later Penelope was unsurprised to find her breakfast interrupted by the vicar himself, with his cheeks very flushed and his cravat hastily tied.

  “Is that daft Mrs. Molesey up?” he demanded.

  Penelope had been about to stand and say a polite good morning, but such a question in such a tone rather made her knees go shaky, and she stayed in her chair. Lord, but would she ever not cringe at a quarrel? “She hasn’t come down yet,” she said soothingly, and gestured at one of the empty chairs. “But if you’d like to join me, Mr. Oliver?”

  “I’m afraid I have no appetite, Mrs. Flood,” he sniffed. But he sat down, anyway, and accepted the cup of tea Penelope poured for him. His mouth was flat with displeasure, his face hastily and indifferently shaved. “I assume you’ve heard this scurrilous ditty that’s been making its way through our virtuous town?”

  Scurrilous ditty? Penelope bit her lip to keep her mouth from showing her amusement. “I heard Nell sing it, yes—and Miss Coningsby’s nephew has learned all the words by heart, she tells me.”