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 the time the sun vanished; three small lights on the lawn, pushing back against the twilight. Daniel the footman hauled two cushioned chairs out—more comfortable for long hours than garden benches—and Griffin and Penelope wrapped themselves in blankets against the autumn chill.
The sky drifted from pink to purple to navy blue, and the first brave stars came out.
The moths came with them, dancing toward the lantern lights, wings looming large against the glow and casting flickering shadows over the small space of Penelope’s apiary. She left the larger, fancier types alone—they weren’t a threat to the bees—and focused on using little flicks of the switch to knock the pale, mottled forms of the wax moths down into the box. One by one, moth by moth, as the breeze whispered warnings in Penelope’s ears. It was far too late now for wildflowers, so the breeze carried only the earthy,memento moriscent of fallen leaves from maple, ash, and hawthorn trees in the forest behind Fern Hall.
Griffin reached into her coat and pulled out a flask. “I brought a little something to help us keep warm.”
She handed it over, and Penelope took an experimental pull.
Brandy rushed over her tongue, strong and sweet with that alcohol haze that settled into one’s throat like steam. She swallowed appreciatively. “This is good.”
“It was Thomas’s favorite,” Griffin replied. She settled back against her chair, woolen shawl wrapped around her throat. “French. Hard to come by during the war, unless you wanted to pay smugglers’ prices for it. We hadn’t bought any for a few years, when he died.” She took the flask back, tipping it up against her long mouth. “So I drink it now in his honor.”
Ah, yes, Griffin’s lost husband. Did she still pine for him, in the secret places of her heart? Penelope felt heat prickle in the corners of her eyes, and tilted her head up as she stared at the stars. But they offered her no clear answers, only a cold and distant glitter. “You must miss him awfully.”
“If I could wish him back, I’d do it in an instant,” Griffin replied. “Though there would be some awkwardness, I expect. He’d notice all the ways I’ve changed in the past three years. So many days, so many hours, and I had to figure out how to get through each one without him. It... left a mark, you might say.”
“A crucible transforms the metal,” Penelope replied.
“Just so.” Agatha took another long pull of brandy, tongue slipping out to catch one errant amber droplet from the silver rim of the flask’s mouth.
Penelope felt heat clench low in her belly. It was the brandy, that was all, sucking the air from her lungs and sending that lick of flame through her veins.
She reminded herself they were speaking of Griffin’s late husband. And grief. Penelope was far too familiar with grief.
“I know precisely what you mean,” she murmured. “It’s so easy to think you’re living your life as the same person you always were. You don’t notice all the new little thoughts and feelings you’ve had, hour by hour, each one turning you slightly this way or that—until he comes back at the end of the voyage and you notice how far out of alignment you’ve become. Things you didn’t even think were important enough to say aloud, but taken all together they accumulate.”
A short silence. “When who comes back?” Griffin asked carefully.
Damn.
So much for secrets. Penelope shifted in her chair, and flicked another moth away from the light and into the darkness. But there was no graceful way out—only the direct way, straight through awkwardness into whatever lay on the other side. “My husband, John. And my brother, Harry.” She kept her eyes fixed so tightly on the flame that the rest of the world faded into darkness. “They wrote to say they’d be back at Christmas.”
“That’s good,” Griffin said. “Isn’t it?” She cocked her head, lamplight gleaming off the silver hair at her temples. Her eyes turned cold as the stars overhead. “Forgive a blunt and indelicate question but: Does Mr. Flood expect to share your bed when he returns?”
“Lord, no.” Penelope let out a short burst of a laugh, that settled into her chest like lead. “He’d be horrified if I even suggested it.”
