A Taste for Honey by H. F. Heard Page B

remember showing for a very long time, unless it was when I broke away from the tentacles of Mr. Mycroft, “Alice, please get on with your work”—the breakfast table was half cleared, half the china was already marshaled on its transport tray for the kitchen, half still held its position on the table—“and I will get on with mine.”
    What that was, as I had been looking out the window when the attack had been launched, was not very clear, but I felt I must soften my rebuke by showing that we both had duties which forbade further waste of time. But Alice was wounded. I was being, I could see, not merely rude—that was an employer’s right, but “not sensible,” and that is something which the rustic mind finds far more upsetting than insult. The wound led to a further hemorrhage of words.
    â€œWell, sir, I was never one to hoffer advice hanywhere, not even in the right quarters” (advice again!), “but I did think it seemed positively silly-like to get yourself with no honey—you being that fond of it and suspicious-like of shop things, as indeed I’m myself; an’ all I meant, and no imperence intended and never was, that I’d ’eard that, maybe, you might again be able to be getting yer honey at Heregrove’s.”
    I couldn’t help starting a little. Alice was no doubt encouraged by this sign that her attack had made some impression.
    â€œM’young man works up in fields beyond Heregrove’s place and ’e’s sure ’e’s seen Heregrove tending bees as before.”
    I did want to know more but I was determined even more strongly to check Alice before after-breakfast conversations became established as a precedent.
    â€œThank you, Alice,” I said. “I will look into the matter myself.”
    I was cold and stiff. I was rude. But I was being sensible. I was not being “simply whimsey.” The stiffness, therefore, did not matter. It might wound, but the cut was aseptic. Alice was quite content. She had, of course, not had her talk out, as no doubt she would have liked, but she had made me do something. That was even more important. The gentry had been made to mobilize. I had been compelled to take command. Off she sailed, contented in her way, and soon the drone-drawl of “Abide with me” mixed with crockery clackings came through the baize door—a sure sign that Alice was enjoying that sentimental sense of having sacrificed herself to make someone else uncomfortable, which I believe bitter-sweetens the whole lives of the industrious poor.
    But as I realized Alice’s victory I was not so pleased. I should have to do something. I couldn’t and wouldn’t go back to my old bore in Waller’s Lane. He, no doubt, would be glad enough to overlook my unavailing struggle to escape his hold. Alice’s victory must not lead to a rout.
    Then there was nothing left to do but to go and see whether what Alice had said about Heregrove was true—to spy out the land. And, after all, if he was again tending bees, there was nothing wrong in that. Of course he had got rid of the mad hive which had attacked his poor wife. If no one else could keep bees in the district, why shouldn’t he? No doubt he was skillful—that was all, “bee-handy.” These epidemics—foul-brood, Isle of Wight disease, etc.—were always wiping out hives. I had long ago dismissed old Mycroft’s romances. All the demonstrations he gave me could easily, I concluded, have been staged by a clever eccentric. Probably he was the dangerous person to be in touch with—a borderline case. As to Heregrove, it was not my duty to boycott an unfortunate and skillful man. If other people chose to do so—well, it was an ill wind which blew no one any good and I should benefit by being his sole customer.
    I went over all these points—small ones, they may seem, and no doubt are. “Why all this