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, trulylivedthere.
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 sharpclick. “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’swhat?” 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 adare, 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 rhymed withSpranklin,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!”
