The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows - Olivia Waite Page 0,19
printer fixed her with that searching look. It was all Penelope could do not to spread her arms and turn around to be inspected.
But then Mrs. Griffin straightened, and her eyes met Penelope’s again. “I’ll call Mr. Downes in to help.”
Penelope had brought a small stool in the wheelbarrow, fortunately, anticipating something like this. Together she and Mr. Downes lifted the bottom board with the skep—gently!—and walked it out through the print-works and around to the side of the warehouse. From here the river was a gentle burble, and the meadow beyond beckoned.
Mr. Downes helped situate the hive, then returned to the print-works. Mrs. Griffin hovered, gazing at the scenery as though she suspected it was trying to pick her pocket. Penelope considered the location. The fences to either side of the property should keep the hive safe from local wildlife, but Penelope made a mental note to come back and build a proper small fence sometime soon. She took down the printer’s London address, and gave her own direction in return, promising to write as soon as there were any developments with the hive.
“Congratulations, Mrs. Griffin,” she said, tucking the slip of paper into a pocket. “You are now a beekeeper.”
“Thank you,” the printer said. “I think.”
“You’re welcome, I’m sure.”
When she left, Mrs. Griffin was standing beside the skep, arms crossed and frowning. Still as vexed as before, but puzzlement softened it—she resembled nothing so much as a bee gone out early for forage, who had come back to find the rest of the hive had swarmed without her.
Time, Penelope knew, could work wonders. So could bees.
She couldn’t wait to see what effect both would have on Mrs. Griffin.
Chapter Four
Dear Mrs. Griffin,
I write with good news: your new beehive is thriving and the colony is hard at work. I will let you know as soon as your first honey crop is ready, or if any problems arise.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Penelope Flood
Bees were a country thing. Or so Agatha would have thought. But they suddenly seemed to be everywhere in the city: buzzing on the signs for sweet shops and grocer’s, hovering over taverns and public houses, carved into the decoration of churches and cathedrals. Even embossed on covers by the bookbinderies, where Griffin’s brought their finest manuscripts to be encased in leather and gilt.
When Agatha stepped out behind the workshop three days later for a breath of fresh air, and found herself hypnotized for a quarter of an hour by one particularly fat bumblebee’s progress across the stretch of mischievous weedy wildflowers at the back, she threw her hands in the air, gave in to Fate, and wrote back.
Dear Mrs. Flood,
Thank you for keeping your expert eye on the hive’s progress. I admit it makes me a trifle anxious to think of them working away out of doors, while I sit at my desk plotting to make off with the fruits of their labor. Normally one pays wages or offers room and board for that sort of thing.
Regards,
Mrs. Agatha Griffin
The reply came two days later.
Dear Mrs. Griffin,
Well, you did provide the bees with shelter and land, albeit only a very small parcel. Think of them as journeymen, if you prefer, or tenants. Farmers, not factory workers.
I should caution you, though, they are liable to resist enclosure with more than usual ferocity.
Sincerely,
Penelope Flood
Agatha snickered out loud at that, and was reaching for pen and paper in almost the same instant.
Mrs. Flood,
Clearly bees are more radical than I would have expected, considering that they are so famous for their royalty. My son, Sydney, would be delighted to hear of their democratic sentiments—he is of a rather radical persuasion himself, though I have every hope he will soon grow out of it. Nineteen is still young enough to be wrong and recover from it, wouldn’t you think?
Perhaps the next time he announces his intention to hear one of Mr. Carlyle’s seditious speeches in the Crown and Anchor, I will tell him to go sit in a beehive instead. Surely that would be safer than letting him stroll so often into that wasp’s nest of anarchists and Jacobins.
As it happens, Griffin’s has just received the first finished copies of a new book on bees written by a very learned Scotswoman. I am no expert, but the first pages have intrigued me—I include a copy as a gift, and beg you will tell me if the book is all grand new scientific revelations, or the wise observations of ancient generations.