The Beekeeper's Apprentice Read Online Free

Observations Upon the Segregation of the Queen.

    We walked, he talked, and under the sun and his soothing if occasionally incomprehensible monologue I began to feel something hard and tight within me relax slightly, and an urge I had thought killed began to make the first tentative stirrings towards life. When we arrived at his cottage we had known each other forever.

    Other more immediate stirrings had begun to assert themselves as well, with increasing insistence. I had taught myself in recent months to ignore hunger, but a healthy young person after a long day in the open air with only a sandwich since morning is likely to find it difficult to concentrate on anything other than the thought of food. I prayed that the cup of tea would be a substantial one, and was considering the problem of how to suggest such a thing should it not be immediately offered, when we reached his house, and the housekeeper herself appeared at the door, and for a moment I forgot my preoccupation. It was none other than the long-suffering Mrs. Hudson, whom I had long considered the most underrated figure in all of Dr. Watson’s stories. Yet another example of the man’s obtuseness, this inability to know a gem unless it be set in gaudy gold.

    Dear Mrs. Hudson, who was to become such a friend to me. At that first meeting she was, as always, imperturbable. She saw in an instant what her employer did not, that I was desperately hungry, and proceeded to empty her stores of food to feed a vigorous appetite. Mr. Holmes protested as she appeared with plate after platter of bread, cheeses, relishes, and cakes, but watched thoughtfully as I put large dents in every selection. I was grateful that he did not embarrass me by commenting on my appetite, as my aunt was wont to do, but to the contrary he made an effort to keep up the appearance of eating with me. By the time I sat back with my third cup of tea, the inner woman satisfied as she had not been for many weeks, his manner was respectful, and that of Mrs. Hudson contented as she cleared away the débris.

    “I thank you very much, Madam,” I told her.

    “I like to see my cooking appreciated, I do,” she said, not looking at Mr. Holmes. “I rarely have the chance to fuss, unless Dr. Watson comes. This one,” she inclined her head to the man opposite me, who had brought out a pipe from his coat pocket, “he doesn’t eat enough to keep a cat from starving. Doesn’t appreciate me at all, he doesn’t.”

    “Now, Mrs. Hudson,” he protested, but gently, as at an old argument, “I eat as I always have; it is you who will cook as if there were a household of ten.”

    “A cat would starve,” she repeated firmly. “But you have eaten something today, I’m glad to see. If you’ve finished, Will wants a word with you before he goes, something about the far hedge.”

    “I care not a jot for the far hedge,” he complained. “I pay him a great deal to fret about the hedges and the walls and the rest of it for me.”

    “He needs a word with you,” she said again. Firm repetition seemed her preferred method of dealing with him, I noted.

    “Oh, blast! Why did I ever leave London? I ought to have put my hives in an allotment and stayed in Baker Street. Help yourself to the bookshelves, Miss Russell. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” He snatched up his tobacco and matches and stalked out, Mrs. Hudson rolled her eyes and disappeared into the kitchen, and I found myself alone in the quiet room.

    Sherlock Holmes’ house was a typical ageless Sussex cottage, flint walls and red tile roof. This main room, on the ground floor, had once been two rooms, but was now a large square with a huge stone fireplace at one end, dark, high beams, an oak floor that gave way to slate through the kitchen door, and a surprising expanse of windows on the south side where the downs rolled on to the sea. A sofa, two wing chairs, and a frayed basket chair gathered around the fireplace, a round table and four