the very floorboards beneath their feet.
Soon only Eliza was left in the shop, still wringing her hands. “We only wanted to help,” she murmured.
“You can help by doing what you’re told,” Agatha said. “Why don’t you catch me up on the music reviews for next month’s Menagerie?”
Eliza whispered an inaudible yes ma’am and hurried out to get the latest letters. Agatha was truly alone now, as the gray rain murmured worries against the windowpanes, and the large central table stood bare and glaring in the middle of all of it.
The shop bell jangled suddenly as the door opened and a customer came in, beaver hat shining and kid gloves protecting his hands. His face was all excitement—until he took one look at Agatha’s face, blanched, turned around, and strode right out again into the wet.
The printer snarled silently at his back, but it did nothing to relieve her feelings.
Chapter Sixteen
Penelope was too anxious to sleep. Normally this would have been a cause for frustration—but it was autumn, and time to prepare the hives for the winter’s rest. Which meant making sure both the skep hives and the glass observation hive were free from the depredations of wax moths, who devoured the comb.
And that meant staying up several nights with the light traps. So, for once, a little anxiety was more helpful than otherwise.
After weeks when she’d demurred and remained in London, Griffin was finally returning to Melliton, and had promised to sit up and keep Penelope company during one of the long watches. Griffin had written Penelope about the Widow Wasp, and about the soldiers’ visit to the shop, and in addition to all Penelope’s worries for her friend’s livelihood and safety, well . . .
She also worried Griffin would blame Penelope for the ugliness. It was a selfish little worry, a miniscule flaw she ought to have been able to ignore, like a hangnail of the soul. She worried at it until it was raw and red and angry.
After all, Penelope was the one who’d introduced Agatha to Joanna Molesey in the first place. Penelope’s failure had therefore directly led to the catastrophe: if things with Mr. Oliver and Lady Summerville had been properly sorted out in Melliton, there would have been no need for Joanna to remove to London, and she would have never started writing those ballads with Sydney and Eliza.
Penelope felt like she’d failed everyone, and they were simply too kind to mention it.
Plus, there was the matter of yesterday’s letter from Harry, tucked in her bureau just across the room, making her squirm with a shallow, cowardly dread.
Griffin arrived mid-afternoon, and Penelope tried to assuage some of her guilt by presenting Griffin with a truly overwhelming amount of food at tea. “Seedcake? Sandwiches? Ginger biscuit?”
“Lord, no,” Griffin said, leaning back to sip at her tea. She looked more worn today than when Penelope had seen her last: the lines on her face more deeply carved by tension and tiredness. “I stopped for one of Mr. Biswas’s curried pies on the walk over. I’ve missed them terribly.”
“You can’t get curry in London?” Penelope said.
“I can. It’s not the same.” Griffin took another sip of tea, her eyes lowered.
She was deflecting—which, Penelope realized with a flash, she wouldn’t have done if she were feeling angry at Penelope. No, Agatha Griffin wasn’t the sort to hide irritation. If she was upset at you about something, she would make certain you knew.
Some of the tightness in Penelope’s chest eased at this. She picked up a ginger biscuit, and let the spicy-sweet flavor burst on her tongue. It tasted like relief. “I’m sure the curried pies have missed you, too.”
Griffin went utterly still.
Penelope swallowed the last bite of biscuit, and her eyes darted helplessly over to the bureau. She should tell Griffin about the letter, at once. Get it all out in the open.
Instead, she stood up. “Shall we set up the light traps, then?”
Penelope always set up three traps, each of which consisted of a lantern fitted over a small box with slanting sides: fluttering moths were drawn in to the light, then funneled by the box shape into the hollow darkness beneath. A small switch in the watcher’s hand was useful to knock down stronger flyers and larger specimens who might have otherwise escaped. Penelope would gather all the fallen the next morning and bring them to the Four Swallows—Mr. Koskinen swore that wax moths made the best lures for fly-fishing.
She and Griffin had the lanterns lit by