The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows Read online

  Penelope drained her cider and followed obediently as the solicitor led the way to the study, collecting Mr. Oliver and Lord and Lady Summerville along the way.

  Chapter Two

  The library was the primary battlefield in the war between order, as represented by the housekeeper and her strictly trained staff, and chaos, as embodied solely but sensationally by Joanna Molesey. Stacks of books the poet pulled out for use in her writing would be cruelly tidied away before she was finished with them; as a counterattack, she would rearrange selected shelves in unusually frustrating ways and see how long it took Mrs. Bedford to notice the Shakespeare volumes were out of order because Joanna had set them alphabetical by first line, or reshelved the history section in order of ascending length of title.

  Today it looked as though Mrs. Molesey was carrying the war: half the Shakespeare was off the shelf and strewn about the room, and Penelope recognized a goodly number of volumes of Byron, Herrick, Moody, Dante, and Donne on the grand oak desk before Mr. Nancarrow shifted them so he could sit with his hands barristerially folded in front of him.

  Viscount Summerville immediately sprawled on the sofa with a whoosh of breath like a horse just come from a hunt. He was a mass of muscle and heartiness, from the wind-tousled auburn hair to the ruddy cheeks. His wife took a seat beside him; he shifted to ensure they weren’t touching. Not out of any concern for propriety, Penelope knew—rumors said his lordship had a mistress and three children two towns over, and that he spent as much time away from home as he possibly could.

  Perhaps that was why Lady Summerville had always guarded her status as if it were rare porcelain. She had a great deal of venom to pour on those who failed to treat her with proper care, as though her position and authority were one chip away from a shatter.

  Mr. Oliver pulled out a spindly chair next to his sister, patting her hand solicitously, and Mrs. Molesey settled into her usual armchair as if it were a throne. Her face was serene, but Penelope saw how her hands clenched and unclenched on the riveted plush of the arms.

  Penelope made her way over to the window, where she could stay more or less out of the way and steal glances at the garden all the while.

  At least it shouldn’t take terribly long. The Abingtons had been absurdly rich in prior centuries, when the hall had been built, but the family had been in decline for generations, and now both their fortunes and their family tree were decidedly scanty.

  Mr. Nancarrow picked up the papers with a look of dread as if he spoke at his own funeral, not his client’s. After the usual introductory statements—Penelope half listened while watching the clouds scudding across blue sky—the solicitor harrumphed a little for fortitude and moved on to the essential clauses.

  “Mrs. Abington left behind a sum of two thousand, three hundred and forty-seven pounds, as well as Abington Hall. Fifty pounds will go to Mr. Oliver, Miss Abington’s nephew. The house and grounds will go to Lord and Lady Summerville, along with . . .” He took a breath, then plunged forward. “. . . Along with the collection of statues in the sculpture garden.”

  Lady Summerville sucked in a gasp.

  Mr. Nancarrow shut his mouth, flinching slightly.

  “Which statues?” the lady choked out.

  “The ones . . . exterior to the house,” the solicitor confirmed miserably, eyes on the printed sheets in his hand.

  “The ones where my aunt—where she—with no—with all the . . .” The viscountess’s voice vanished into a horrified whisper.

  Mr. Nancarrow ducked his head and tried to sink his long chin protectively against his chest. Either that or embarrassment muffled his voice. “The ones your aunt only showed to select visitors here at the Hall, yes, my lady.”

  “The erotic statues,” Mrs. Molesey said loudly and with evident savor.

  Lord Summerville let out a hum that rose at the end like a curious question.

  The glance his wife sent him could have carved his heart into ribbons before he even had time to bleed.

  The vicar went cherry red in the face and cleared his throat. “What about the rest of the estate?” Mr. Oliver asked.

  Mr. Nancarrow straightened the papers unnecessarily, still hunched as if bracing himself against a coming storm. “The remainder goes to Mrs. Molesey, with affection, in gratitude for her years of faithful companionship.”

  Lady Summerville’s whole body clenched like a fist.

  The poet merely inclined her head, evidently unsurprised by this news.

  “Along with . . .” Mr. Nancarrow cleared his throat, closed his eyes, and swallowed hard. “Along with a diamond snuffbox of particular sentimental value to them both.”

  “The Napoleon snuffbox?” For a moment Lady Summerville looked as though she were going to lunge right up from the couch and grab the solicitor by the throat—then she recalled herself and clutched to her husband’s arm as if seeking support. He curled his lip but made no move to dislodge her. “Surely not!” the lady cried. “Surely such a valuable and historic heirloom should remain with a loving member of the family!”

  Mrs. Molesey leaned forward in her chair. “You are quick to name yourself family now, are you? Yet you’ve visited only twice in the past ten years, though you live only two towns over.” She narrowed her eyes. “If that’s how family behaves—”

  “Ladies, please,” Mr. Oliver broke in, in his best Sunday voice.

  Mrs. Molesey bit back whatever accusation she’d planned, glaring fiercely at the interrupter.

  The vicar went on, tones rolling around the room like church bells. “Perhaps there has simply been some mistake.” He rose from his chair and approached the desk, smiling gently and holding his hand out for the will. “Surely you got those bequests confused, Mr. Nancarrow? Surely the snuffbox was meant to go to my sister, and the statues to Mrs. Molesey? They are . . . rather more to her taste, I believe.”

  The lady in question snorted again at this euphemism.

  Mr. Nancarrow’s timidity went icy at this affront to his professional competence. “I assure you, Mr. Oliver, there has been no mistake. Mrs. Abington made herself perfectly clear in this point on several occasions.” Two spots of red appeared in his cheeks. “Though I beg you to spare me from quoting her remarks verbatim.”

  “Of course he’s not mistaken,” Mrs. Molesey said with a sharp little laugh. “What would be the point of leaving me all those pretty statues, and nowhere to show them off? But you, Ann—you have such a charming home, with so many charming corners to fill. You can place Bella’s artworks where all your charming friends can admire them.”

  She laughed harder as Lady Summerville spluttered, and the viscount began to look alarmed at the way his lady’s hand fisted tighter and tighter on his arm, pulling the fabric of his coat dangerously taut.

  Mr. Oliver saw this and moved hastily, coming around to his sister’s side and bending down toward her ear for a fiercely whispered conference.

  Penelope edged toward the solicitor, who was mopping at his brow with a handkerchief. Poor man, he must have been dreading this. “Was there a bequest for me, Mr. Nancarrow?”

  “Hmm?” The solicitor blinked, then basked in relief at having been asked a simple question in a friendly tone. “Oh, did I not say? I am terribly sorry. Let me see . . . yes. You, Mrs. Flood, are bequeathed the Abington beehives. Or rather the care of them, since it specifies they are to remain at Abington.”

  “The hives?” Penelope exclaimed.

  Mr. Oliver’s head came up, and his surprised eyes met hers.

  “But . . .” She swallowed her objections for poor Mr. Nancarrow’s sake. Yet it was such an odd bequest: the vicar was an able beekeeper in his own right, more than capable of handling half a dozen simple skeps in addition to his own more scientific hives.

  What on earth had Isabella been playing at?

  She retreated to the window again, uncomfortably aware of the vicar’s eyes following her, his expression one of careful, virtuous consternation.

  Lady Summerville wa
s whispering in a low hiss like a kettle on the boil, and her husband was blustering back as he tried to free himself from her grip.

  Mrs. Molesey was sitting regally back to watch, as if the rest of the party were fools capering to entertain her.

  Penelope looked out the window—which had an excellent view of both the bee garden and the maze that held Lady Summerville’s new statue collection—and imagined she could hear Isabella’s mischievous laugh on the wind, one final time.

  There was no sweeter privilege of motherhood than knocking at dawn on the door of one’s self-indulgent son, only to observe when the door creaked open that he was spine-shudderingly, knee-wobblingly, and stomach-churningly hungover.

  “Good morning, my dear,” Agatha trilled extra-brightly, smugness wrapping around her like a warm, comforting shawl.

  Sydney managed a pained whimper in response. Heavens, but he looked like he’d been turned inside out and then back again and his skin no longer hung quite correctly on his bones.

  Agatha let her voice turn syrup-sweet. “What say I make you something special for breakfast? Kippers and bacon? Eggs and gravy? Jellied eel in a brandy sauce?”

  Sydney’s face went from white to green and then gone, as he slammed the door in her face—presumably to have a private tête-à-tête with his chamber pot.

  The slam of the door and Agatha’s full-throated cackle brought Eliza blinking out of her room, leaning on the door and peering around into the hall. “Ma’am?”

  “You’ll have to run the shop today,” Agatha told her. “Sydney’s a little the worse for wear, and I must drive to Melliton with the Crewe silk samples.” Yesterday she had set one of the newer apprentices, Jane, to cutting the bolt of shimmering brocade into precise squares, ready to be tipped in with the printed pages and bound with the magazine.

  It had been one of Thomas’s best ideas, including fabric from all the finest weaving works—not only silks, but wool and chintzes and patterned calicos, and the occasional lush velvet in winter. It also gave them an excuse to solicit advertisements from London modistes, to tempt ladies who wanted something more complex or ambitious than their own needles and skills could supply.

  “Of course, ma’am,” Eliza said, tucking an errant lock behind her ear. “Will you be stopping over in Melliton?”

  Agatha was impressed despite herself: the girl’s question had almost sounded innocent. Though she was obliquely asking if she and Sydney were to be left alone for an entire night.

  “Absolutely not,” she said repressively, and had the satisfaction of seeing her apprentice’s face fall just a little. The print-shop always took precedence over romance; it took precedence over everything. “We have Mr. Thisburton coming round tomorrow morning, remember.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Eliza bobbed a curtsey—an occasional tic from her old life as a maid in the Countess of Moth’s house—and hurried to wash her face and dress for the day.

  Agatha made her way downstairs to unlock the workroom and let in the half-dozen workers clustered on the threshold. They all streamed in with the dawn, nodding to their employer. Soon the early morning quiet yielded to noise as everyone went about the makeready: preparing formes, woodblocks, paper, and ink for the day’s jobbing. Eliza had gathered her tools and a pewter plate readied with musical staves, then settled into the shop front, tidy and smiling and ready to punch notes and hand-engrave crescendos until the day’s first customers arrived.

  Agatha paused in the doorway between shop and workroom and surveyed her small kingdom, letting herself briefly bask in the sounds of a machine in good working order. The business would probably tick along steadily until evening—but Griffin’s Menagerie was still the bulwark on which the business stood firm. For now, anyway. And the Menagerie had to be printed on the speedier press at Melliton.

  So Agatha buttoned up her coat, climbed into the wagon, took the reins firmly in her gloved hands, and made her way northeast.

  The roads weren’t bad, especially once she got out of the city. The hired horse, Augustus, was a focused, plodding sort of animal, and Agatha had only to keep a little tension on the reins to guide him on the way. The sun was out and the wind was fresh and birds were singing in the meadows and fields on either side.

  Agatha cordially loathed all of it.

  It wasn’t that it wasn’t beautiful. It would have made a very salable engraving. Wildflowers and birdsong and all that rot. Such picturesque scenery ought to have been peaceful, according to every poet that she’d ever heard of. The problem was that getting outside London, away from high walls and narrow streets and the press of people, made Agatha feel every inch of the loneliness she usually was so good at distracting herself from.

  The wide, blue stretch of sky that arced above only served to remind her that she carried something just as blue and stark and empty inside her breast.

  She chewed her lip and distracted herself from the pangs by listing off every color she would use to illustrate the scene: lapis and azure and aquamarine, of course, then lead white, ochre, vermillion . . .

  Finally, just when Agatha was about to perish from impatience—roughly an hour—she turned off the main road, followed the drive a half mile more, and turned the last corner before the printworks itself.

  A journeyman spotted her from a window and ran out to begin hauling in the bundled silk samples, while Agatha made sure one of the printer’s devils saw to the horse’s comfort. Once Gus was brushed and fed and cropping happily at the small fenced field to one side, Agatha reluctantly turned toward the building itself.

  The Melliton printworks had started life as a flour mill, and there was still something bakerish about the way the light warmed the red brick and wooden beams. Here was where they printed the Menagerie and book-length works, as opposed to the single-page broadside prints and pamphlets produced by the London shop. Thomas had built an extra wing on one side of the building to store Griffin’s collection of stereotype plates, and converted the central space into a light and airy workshop. Behind the printworks the river Ethel was running high and frothy today, muttering like a mob with a grievance. The same water entered the building through a pipe to feed the ever-hungry boiler in the basement. Agatha had been down there only once, when the steam engine was first installed, but still felt her throat close up when she remembered the sounds and the heat and the hiss of it.

  Enough wasting time, she chided herself. There was too much work to be done.

  She brushed the dust of the road from her skirts, squeezed her fists for strength, and made her way toward the entrance on the south corner. The windows were wider here, letting in the early summer sun. Those sweet golden rays warmed everything except the hard, icy core of Agatha’s heart.

  This place, more than anywhere else, reminded her of Thomas, and even after three years it gave her a jolt of grief to cross over the threshold.

  It shouldn’t have been such a shock, should it? After all, aside from the fact that the press here was steam-powered and therefore faster, it wasn’t that much different from the London shop. Roughly the same size, the same smell of ink and metal and oil. The same anxious nods and greetings from journeymen and apprentices and devils, though the staff was smaller and the names were different: Downes and Jarden and the Ashton brothers.

  Except Agatha had only ever been here occasionally, until Thomas died. He’d selected the building and hired everyone who worked here, making trips out while Agatha ran things in London. Three years later, it still felt as though they were all of them, Agatha included, simply carrying on temporarily until his return.

  She took a seat at her usual worktable, brilliant with light from the tall front windows. Downes wasted no time in pleasantries, but promptly brought her a proof of the next issue as the two young Ashtons went to the stacked manuscripts and began inserting one silk sample near the end of every set.

  “Mind you keep the corners neat for the binders,” Agatha said, mostly to have something to scold them for. She preferred to keep her appr
entices on their toes.

  She cast a skeptical eye over the proof but Downes knew his business, and the thing looked as neat as human labor could make it. Some new fashions in curtains, a view of Rome in ruins—copied from a painting Agatha had seen in last year’s Summer Exhibition—the next thrilling chapter of a sentimental serial. And at the end of it all the Crewe silk brocade, sky blue bordered with bouquets of wildflowers, lustrous and bright as high summer.

  It twigged something in her memory, both painful and pleasant. She frowned forcefully down at the blossoms until her brain dredged up the answer: ah, yes, an old scrap of verse, back from when Agatha and Thomas were newly betrothed—he’d printed the lines for her special, on the sly, setting the type in secret late at night after the shop had closed. Something about to weave fresh garlands for the glowing brow, or thereabouts.

  Her husband was not, of course, the poem’s author. Thomas adored poetry, but never attempted it himself. This was fine by Agatha, who had neither an eye nor an ear for poetry.

  But she did like Thomas—and she liked to be thought of.

  Griffin’s had published that poet, and the plates for her volume were stored not fifty yards away from where she sat.

  “Anything amiss, ma’am?” Downes inquired, an edge of unwonted anxiety in his tone.

  “Hmm?” Agatha said, then shook herself. “No, Mr. Downes, just strategizing.”

  Those poems would make a very tempting little book at this time of year, when love hovered in the air, waiting for young lungs to breathe it in like so many wildflower scents.

  Agatha let herself stroke one finger over shimmering brocade before handing the pages back and pronouncing the issue approved. “I’m going to pull some old plates from the back for reprinting,” she said. “What’s the queue like at the moment?”

  “Not as full as I like to keep it, to be honest. We’ve got ten or so more pages in the new edition of Celestial Mechanics and then we’re clear,” Downes replied. “I’d planned on getting started on some of next issue’s embroidery plates, but there’s room if you want to add something.”