Chapter 23
Chapter
Bee Cottage was, as the tearoom waitress had told us, unmistakable.
It might have begun life as a modest dwelling of simple proportions, but the years and someone’s fancy had altered it extensively.
The roof was low and thatched and neatly trimmed, while the rest of the place was an exercise in whimsicality.
There was not a right angle or plumb line to be found; every window was aslant, every wall askew.
It rambled from side to side and front to back with haphazard additions and little pockets of gardens, each embellished with some small feature—a tiny pond shimmering with golden carp, a cherry tree thick with pale blossoms, a copper statue of a philosophical frog.
An enormous sculpture of a bee skep sat in pride of place upon a plinth next to the gate, and vines of wisteria lay heavily over the lintel of the front door, each raceme crowded with fragrant purple petals.
Gentle blue forget-me-nots jostled the earliest pink blushes of the peonies, and through all came the steady hum of bees working the newly budded flowers.
It was a distinctly peaceful place, every element, higgledy-piggledy as they were, working harmoniously with the rest.
There was no reply to my brisk knock at the door, and I had almost resigned myself to a second disappointment, when Stoker cocked his head. “Do you hear something?”
Without waiting for a response, he headed around the nearest corner of the cottage, following a narrow path that wound through a little shrubbery that would in summer, I guessed, have been thick with roses and delphiniums. Never one to be left behind, I followed hard upon his heels, and I heard what had attracted his attention—the gentle buzz of beehives.
On the other side of the concealing shrubbery, we emerged into a sort of clearing.
Here the noise was fairly thunderous, the source a selection of hives that throbbed with activity.
Tending them was a tall, gaunt figure who puffed fragrant smoke towards the agitated creatures, soothing them with the heavy, soporific clouds.
It was a scene familiar to any apiarian, but what made it so extraordinary was the fact that the figure was enveloped in an enormous nightdress, folds of white linen encompassing it from neck to mid-calf, revealing lower legs encased in thick woolly socks, gaiters, and heavy brogues.
Atop its head was a headdress shaped like a great horned moon, the two points rising up from just above either ear.
Over this had been draped a long, thick veil of pink tulle, vast swathes of it that were knotted at the waist to provide a sort of protective cocoon for the beekeeper.
He wore spectacles with thick lenses and a pair of long leather gauntlets that stretched to the elbow.
Stoker stood, mouth agape at the utterly mad figure before us, but I smiled in delight.
Here was an original personality indeed.
I called a “halloo” over the noise of the bees—a nearly deafening roar this close to the hives.
The figure swung about, clouds of smoke swirling around the veils and horned headdress and giving the appearance of a sort of wizard, sprung from the pages of a child’s storybook.
“Hello to you!” he called. “Do not mind me. I’m only setting a new queen for this hive. Won’t be a moment. Wait inside the cottage lest you get stung. They’re a trifle fractious at present.”
He waved us towards the rear door of the cottage, and Stoker and I obediently retreated.
Inside, the house was as rambling and curious as I had expected.
Every surface was stacked with books or papers or some interesting oddity.
A window ledge held a collection of plants in various degrees of health; a fat, lazy goldfish swam in a glass bowl resting on a harpsichord.
A Persian pipe stood on the hearth, and the armchair beside it was heavily draped in assorted kilims from Turkey.
I seated myself to wait whilst Stoker made a study of the bookshelves.
“I do not believe it,” he said, extracting a heavy volume and blowing it free of dust. “He has a first edition of Heughmann’s A Study of Mammalian Anatomy, volume one. Do you realise how rare that is?”
“Is it?”
“Heughmann only ever wrote the first volume,” Stoker said, thumbing the pages with considerable excitement. “It was intended to be a comprehensive study of all mammals, but he only made it as far as Bactrian camels.”
“Why?”
“He was kicked by one and lost his nerve,” Stoker said, turning the book to display a watercolour of an enormous furry camel with two humps.
I had always been a great admirer of Bactrian camels—they are far more comfortable to ride than the decidedly ill-tempered and more common dromedary—but before I could express my sentiments, our host appeared, still garbed in his outlandish costume and rubbing his hands together as he gave a jovial exclamation.
“Visitors! One does so enjoy visitors. I put out a bottle of plum wine this morning and biscuits,” he said with a nod towards a low table where a dusty bottle of purple wine and a biscuit tin reposed.
“This morning?” I asked. “How did you know—”
“The bees,” he said, laying a finger to the side of his nose in spite of his veils. “The bees know all and tell me most.”
He glanced to Stoker. “Admirer of Heughmann, are you, my lad?”
“Indeed,” Stoker told him. “I find his detailed studies of mammalian circulatory systems to be some of the finest I have ever seen. Although I must take exception to his thoughts on aardvarks.”
Before Stoker could furnish us with those thoughts, I turned to the gentleman beekeeper. “We ought to introduce ourselves. I am Veronica Speedwell, and this is Revelstoke Templeton-Vane.”
“Templeton-Vane! Never say you are the fellow who fitted up the water buffalo Lord Maysbury keeps in his entry hall?”
“I am,” Stoker said modestly.
“Good god, man, you are legend!” He strode to Stoker and pulled off one of his heavy gauntlets, thrusting a bony hand to grasp Stoker in a violent handshake. “Professor Charles Winthrop Baddlesmere. Batty Baddlesmere, the boys used to call me when I was headmaster,” he said with a grin.
“One wonders why,” I murmured. But the professor’s hearing was excellent, for he turned and blinked at me, his eyes wide behind his thick spectacles. “Oh! My costume. Quite unusual, I admit. But all chosen with great care to provide protection from the bees when they are in a temper.”
“Not from a conventional supplier of equipment for beekeepers, I presume,” I said with a friendly smile.
“No, indeed! Every bit of this was got from the church jumble sale. The amateur dramatic society donated costumes, you see. They had just done a cracking Richard III, and these horned headdresses were quite the fashion for ladies in the Middle Ages. Most perfectly Plantagenet, one might say. The nightdress was a castoff from the vicar’s wife—a lady of robust proportions, as you can see.
And the veils were from last year’s May Day celebrations.
The parade for the queen of the May featured pink tulle clouds to disguise the hay wagon she rode in.
Very effective it was too.” With each mention of a garment, he cast it off until he was standing before us in a set of ancient breeches and his shirtsleeves and braces.
He pulled on a strange, voluminous knitted garment—the sort of jumper a fisherman might wear if he were fond of stripes—and settled into his chair with an expression of delight.
“How wonderful indeed to have visitors. Miss Speedwell, if you would oblige by pouring out the plum wine, and Mr. Templeton-Vane, if you would be so kind as to hand round the biscuit tin, we can get properly acquainted. Do you mind if I smoke?”
The next few minutes were passed in supplying ourselves with little glasses of plum wine and plates of honey biscuits while the professor used a small pair of tongs to pluck a coal from the fire and apply it to his Persian pipe.
Soon the room was filled with the scent of apple-laced tobacco, and from another room a cat appeared, fat and sleek and with a face that looked as if it had been pushed against a window for too long.
She gave us a cool, assessing gaze, then leapt upon her master’s knee to regard us with the disdain of royalty.
With his pipe in hand and cat upon his lap, the professor turned to me, his eyes brightly inquisitive.
“I say, Speedwell! That name is familiar. Are you perchance a relation to the V. Speedwell who wrote so forcefully on the subject of the carnivorous habits of the male common buckeye butterfly for the Quarterly Journal of the Butterfly Enthusiast?”
“I am the author,” I said with a modest smile.
“How very fortuitous! I was just about to compose a letter to the editor upon the very subject. I am afraid I take the opposite view entirely, Miss Speedwell. One cannot say definitively that the male of the species is the only one inclined to eating carrion. In fact…”
Those words, as the astute reader will have realised, were an invitation to a spirited discussion in which the professor and I proceeded to quarrel genteelly for the better part of half an hour.
The mantel clock was just chiming the hour when Stoker roused himself from the slight doze into which he had fallen.
“My god, are the pair of you still at it?” he asked, rubbing his eyes. “Have you not finished yet?”
“Very nearly,” I promised him. “I have almost persuaded the professor that the effort involved in securing a selection of imagoes of Junonia coenia would be well worth it given the variety—”
“Ah, but is it?” the professor began, rubbing his hands together gleefully. “If you will but attend my argument more closely, Miss Speedwell, I think you will find—”
“Enough,” Stoker pleaded. “I beg you both. Before I must do myself a mischief with the fireplace poker.”
“Oh, very well,” I said with little grace. I turned to the professor with my most charming smile. “You have not inquired as to the purpose of our call.”
His bushy white brows rose skywards, and he gave a great laugh, startling the cat.
“So I have not! I was that delighted to receive callers. Very well, why have you come? Wait! Wait a moment. Such a wonderful argument as we have had leaves a body hungry. We must have sustenance! I shall cut sandwiches and then you will tell me your meaning in coming to see me.”
He rose, popping the cat to his shoulder, and left us, the cat’s tail waving jauntily in the air as they went.
In a very few minutes he reappeared, a plate of thickly cut sandwiches in hand.
They were all ham, and the bread was spread with the finest new butter and he did not stint with the slabs of cheese nor with the liberal applications of a truly excellent chutney.
Stoker applied himself with a tiny moan of pleasure, and I admit to enjoying one or two myself.
As we ate, the professor turned his bright-eyed gaze upon us. “Now then. The purpose of your visit.” He broke off pieces of ham, little titbits for the cat, who accepted them as daintily as a princess grooming herself thoughtfully between bites.
“This afternoon we paid a call at Little Saints, but I am afraid we were unable to secure a meeting with the headmaster,” Stoker began.
“Ah! Well, Mr. Garvey can be a bit high in the instep,” he said with a rueful look. “A good enough fellow, to be sure, but he feels the weight of his office very heavily indeed.”
“Did you not?” I asked him. “Being headmaster, responsible for the shaping of so many young minds, their characters and their futures. It is a formidable task.”
“Formidable but rewarding! And one must never forget to have a sense of humour about the business. A bit of levity now and again can accomplish more than all the sermonising in the world, particularly with boys. What business did you have with Garvey that you think I could accomplish in his stead?”
The eyes were suddenly shrewd, and I realised then his attitude of bonhomie was—although in no way false—not the complete picture of the man. He was sharp as a new pin, perceptive, and discerning, as he would have to be in order to run a school with any degree of success.
“We are looking for answers, Professor. We have encountered a man who we believe has a connection to Little Saints, but we cannot say what it may be,” Stoker explained.
The professor rubbed his hands together. “A mystery! Say on, dear fellow.”
“The man calls himself Lord Ruthven, but we know this to be a pseudonym. He is perhaps forty, possibly a little less. He uses hair dye to conceal a few grey threads, we believe. He is almost exactly of my height, although a little slighter of build. He has very expressive dark eyes and is conversant in Latin, I think. And he has made a careful study of mesmeric tricks.”
The professor, who had been shaking his head at the beginning of the description, suddenly looked alert. “Mesmerism? A nasty business sometimes.”
“How so?” I asked. “I thought the point of hypnosis is that it cannot persuade someone to perform an action against their character.”
“In theory,” he said, stroking the cat thoughtfully. “In practice?” He shrugged. “I have seen too many attempts to circumvent that limitation to think the activity a healthful one. It cannot be moral to seek to overthrow the free will of another human being.”
“Can you think of anyone who fits that particular description?” Stoker asked. “I know it is vague, but perhaps there was someone connected with Little Saints? A pupil?”
“A teacher,” the professor corrected. He pushed the cat gently off his lap and went to one of the overflowing bookshelves beside the fireplace.
He ran a crooked forefinger along the volumes until he came to the one he sought.
He removed it and blew gently, unsettling a modest amount of dust. The cat sneezed, almost pointedly, and removed herself from the room.
The professor thumbed the book for several pages, stopping at a photograph.
He passed it over to us, and we saw the image was of a group of young scholars, the entire student body of Little Saints, it seemed.
Arranged in the front, on a long bench, were the faculty, dressed in their formal robes of academia.
Directly in the center, in pride of place as headmaster, sat a younger version of the professor, his beard grey rather than white.
And at the far end, in the most junior seat of the staff, an unmistakable and familiar face.
“That is he!” I cried. “That is Lord Ruthven!”
“No, my dear,” corrected the professor. “That is Miles Hegarty.”