The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows - Olivia Waite Page 0,14
bringing the pewter tankard to his lips.
Mr. Biswas was laughing silently, gray whiskers shaking against his brown skin.
Penelope had started to laugh, too, but it had turned into a cough that left her breathless, with tears leaking from smoke-reddened eyes. “Enough, Mr. Painter! It makes me dizzy.”
“Aye,” the man said, between puffs on the pipe, “but it makes the bees dizzy, too, doesn’t it? Goes to show: tobacco smoke beats wood smoke for tending hives.”
“Unless the tobacco makes the beekeeper so disoriented she stumbles and knocks over the skep,” Penelope countered with a wheeze. “Besides, it adds a bitterness to the honey. Give me a good base of pine needles and vary the aromatics: lavender for spring, dried roses in summer, orange peel for fall.”
“I find puffball mushrooms are best, myself,” Mr. Biswas offered.
Penelope was horrified. “Miss Abington always warned me that would kill the bees!”
“No, not if you’re careful.” Mr. Biswas pursed his lips and confessed, “If you’re truly careful, you wrap some linen around your mouth when you use it. For caution’s sake.”
Mr. Painter went back to smoking normally, and the air soon cleared again. His mouth worked thoughtfully around the pipe stem. “What do you use, Timo?”
Timo Koskinen tilted his shaggy red head and considered the question. He’d been a sailor before his marriage, but now he was perhaps the most learned beekeeper in Melliton: his octagonal glass observation hive was a marvel of engineering, and he’d read just about everything there was to read on the subject.
Perhaps the weight of all that knowledge was a burden, because Timo Koskinen could never, ever be rushed when someone asked him a question about bees.
A swallow darted by, flirting with the surface of the river. Beneath the willow branches a trout appeared, snapping at mayflies that hovered just out of reach.
Mr. Biswas twisted a section of his whiskers idly between his fingers.
Mr. Painter tapped the ash out of his pipe and refilled it, tamping the brown leaf down into a sturdy pack. Likely his own product, imports of which had bought him one of the finest houses in Melliton.
And still Mr. Koskinen considered. Lazily he raised one calloused finger and scratched his weather-reddened chin.
Penelope’s attention wandered, caught by the ripple of wind on water and pulled downriver by the speed of the current. So she happened to be looking in the direction of the print-works and the old military barracks when the woman appeared.
She was in close-tailored gray, with streaks of silver snaking through her dark hair and a flush of agitation blooming in her pale face. Her eyes sparkled with irritation; her mouth was a stern slash. Penelope knew at once that when she spoke, her tone would be sharp, and her patience with waywardness thin.
Beneath the collar of her shirt, Penelope felt her neck grow hot.
Oh. Oh, dear.
The woman came to a stop, hands on hips, eyes on Penelope. “Are you Mrs. Flood?”
Penelope knew what she must look like: a round, graying woman in trousers and a man’s coat, skin dusted with tan and freckles, hair cropped at her ears, battered old boots, rather plain and potato-shaped in all. Sitting—and drinking—with a group of weathered former sailors in the middle of the day. “That’s me,” she said cheerfully.
The woman narrowed her eyes. “I am Agatha Griffin. My husband’s mother said I might find you here.”
“I know plenty of husbands,” Penelope replied, and grinned. “Even more of their mothers.”
Mr. Biswas sputtered out a surprised laugh, but subsided under the blade of Mrs. Griffin’s gaze.
Penelope cocked her head. “It would be Mrs. Stowe who sent you?”
The woman’s gaze slid back to Penelope. It had lost none of its steel in the journey. “I need your help with some bees.”
All four beekeepers sobered. Penelope drained the last of the ale in her tankard and rose to her feet. “Gentlemen,” she said, with a nod of farewell. “Let me know what Mr. Koskinen’s answer was.”
Mr. Biswas chortled and Mr. Painter gestured regally with his pipe.
Mr. Koskinen swallowed his feelings along with another pull of his beer.
Penelope turned to Mrs. Griffin. “We’ll have to stop by my house first to gather a few things. I live on the edge of the wood, just west of town.”
Mrs. Griffin nodded, and Penelope shouldered her pack and began leading the way.
It was a fine day for a stroll, but no matter how sweet the breeze or how cheerfully the birds swooped and sang, Mrs. Griffin’s mouth stayed in that set, irritated line.