Note: This is a one-shot with no connection to the previous stories.

Thanks to ArnettinCA for this suggestion. It probably isn't what you were thinking of, but it is the story that my twisted mind came up with.

This story will take a little bit of personal history. My grandfather was a beekeeper. You might have noticed my reference to this profession in one of my other stories? We were once on a stroll together and I was stung. When it happened, I instantly swatted at the bee and squashed it. He took care of the injury quickly and managed to reduce the sting with a little wet mud. After we returned home he cautioned me to wash my hands and neck thoroughly so that "my bees don't catch the scent of a rival swarm." He went on to explain that each hive has its own identifying scent and that intruders into another territory attract immediate attention from the soldier bees. If you approach the hive with the other scent, you could
be attacked.

Years later, I haven't been able to find definitive proof in research as to this phenomena, but he and his fellow beekeepers believed it. This story is based upon the idea that it is true and not just lore.

Caution: This story contains the implication of abuse and a murder, so it might bother some at a very personal level. Please don't read if this is you. I will not describe anything, I promise, but even
the little I include could bother some readers.

Chapter Ten – Hive mentality

The cook at Hunsford Parsonage had a very personal dislike for abusive people...

Henrietta Piper knew a mean man when she saw one. She should, since she was married to one for eight very long years. Happy indeed was the day that her man made the mistake of getting behind a skittish horse and received a well-placed kick in the head for his crime. That was many years ago now. She never had children. She never remarried. In fact she was quite content to serve as the cook and housekeeper for a string of parsons who had the living at Hunsford for the past twenty years.

They had been a mealy-mouthed, spineless bunch, the lot of them. That was the only type that the patroness of Hunsford, Lady Catherine de Bourgh, would tolerate. They preached the words she put in their mouths, mumbled the platitudes that she used, and reported any infractions among the Hunsford populace directly to her. Still, until now they had been a mostly harmless bunch. Not so with the new parson.

Mr. William Collins had all of the same mannerisms of the rest, but underneath his obsequious exterior there lurked a man with hard eyes... a man who liked to hurt people. Henrietta Piper knew those type of eyes. He was reserved at first, but slowly, as he began to settle in, Henrietta could see the way his wandering eyes sought out a target. When the man began to fixate on young Marjorie, the girl Henrietta had recently hired to assist her, Henrietta took steps to protect the girl.

Henrietta was a fixture in the Huntsford community, so when she presented herself at the door of Baron Weston and asked to speak to the housekeeper, she was shown right in. After only a half hour of discussion, young Marjorie had a new position.

Mr. Collins was tied up for most of the morning with his "noble patroness." When he returned to the parsonage, his eyes silently looked for the young maid. After a while he began to wander about his home until, in frustration, he demanded to know where the girl was. "Oh, Sir. She was only here temporarily. She works for Baron Weston at Benton Abbey."

The parson fumed throughout his dinner before finally stomping out of the door and heading into town. Reports of the man drinking and whoring reached Henrietta at just about the same time as they reached Lady Catherine de Bourgh... at which time the great lady demanded that her parson get himself a wife. Her additional suggestion, that he find his wife from among his relatives in another county, was a great relief for Henrietta. It meant that the man would be gone for a full month. Who knew, perhaps he would have a carriage accident?

oOo

A month later Mr. Collins returned, quite pleased with himself. From what reports drifted back from the servants at Rosings, his cousins had the good sense to refuse the man, but he had secured the hand of no less than the daughter of a knight. Henrietta could only pity the woman. Everything went on as usual until Mr. Collins rode back to marry his bride.

It was mid-December when Mr. and Mrs. Collins returned to Hunsford Cottage. Henrietta liked Charlotte Collins immediately, though she almost wished she did not. It was clear from the peaceful expression on the woman's face that she had not yet learned the truth about her husband. That was remedied that first night. Henrietta heard the poor woman's screams as Mr. Collins did his best to make the marriage bed a nightmare. Not being able to endure the sounds or the memories, the housekeeper went outside.

Thirty minutes later, while she sat hunched in a dark corner of the garden, she watched as Mr. Collins stepped out and hitched up his pants with satisfaction. Mrs. Collin's sobs could be heard in the room above. Henrietta felt sick as she watched the man look up with a self-congratulatory smile. If she had the courage, the housekeeper would have run a pitchfork through the man right then and there.

Little or nothing changed over the next several months. During the day Mr. Collins played the role of the obsequious and groveling lickspittle servant to Lady Catherine. At night he would terrorize his wife. Somehow, just as Henrietta had done years before, Charlotte Collins would go through her days pretending that all was well.

The one good result which came out of Mr. Collins' enthusiastic attentions was that Mrs. Collins became with-child. That was when Henrietta knew that it was time to take action. She had once carried a child for her husband. It was the single, bright spot in her life at the time. But one day her husband, in a moment of anger, had struck her and knocked her down the stairs. He blamed her afterwards for losing his child. The housekeeper would not stand idly by and see this happening to Charlotte Collins.

Among the multitudinous instructions handed down to Mr. Collins by Lady Catherine, there was the directive to place beehives in his large garden. Henrietta Piper had watched with more than a little amusement as the man complied, paying a local beekeeper to do the job and then taking personal responsibility for carrying the task on... after all, that was what Lady Catherine directed.

Henrietta Piper had grown up around beehives. Her father not only had a large farm, but his hives provided honey for most of the community before his passing. As a child, Henrietta had often accompanied her father on his work, so she knew everything that should and should not be done around a hive.

She waited until the perfect morning, one where Mr. Collins would be gone until noon while being instructed by his noble patroness. Once her own chores were done, she gathered her supplies and walked briskly down the road, off on a trail, and onward until she found the wild hive she had been looking for. Just as she had been taught, she found wood with lots of sap and started a fire beneath the hive. Then she added moss, creating more and more smoke until the hive was silent.

She doused the fire completely and gathered her canvas bag. Working quickly, she climbed up to the hive, wrapped it in the bag, and broke it from its branch.

Though it saddened her to do it, she then sealed the bag and crushed its contents thoroughly. Then she carried everything back to Hunsford Cottage.

After making sure that Mrs. Collins was nowhere close, Henrietta found the coat Mr. Collins always wore when working with the beehive. Opening the bag, she began smearing its grisly contents on the coat. It was too early in the season for there to be much honey in the hive, but she was still careful that what little had been in the bag did not touch Mr. Collin's coat. What she wanted was for the scent of the wild bees to be pervasive. She paid special attention to the neck and wrists.

Her work done, she then carefully wiped away any bee carcasses so that Mr. Collins would not suspect a thing. Then she hid the canvas bag away and hung Mr. Collin's coat back on its hook.

Henrietta was going over the dinner menu with Mrs. Collins when the parson came home, whistling as if he did not have a care in the world. As expected, he hung up his visiting coat and hat, donning his garden wear instead. Then he went out to his garden to tend to his flowers, his vegetables, and his bees. Not five minutes after he stepped out, the two ladies were startled to hear a man's terrified screams. Rushing to the door, they saw what had to be Mr. Collins running about, swatting and cursing and covered in angry bees so thickly that his face could not be seen through the swarm. The ladies could do nothing but watch in horror as the man collapsed. It took another twenty minutes before the bees finally left the body.

News of this horrible tragedy spread far and wide around the community and beyond. The fact that Lady Catherine was the one who had insisted on her parson raising bees also became the subject of much discussion. Of course that lady denied any part in the failures of "that idiot Collins." While Charlotte Collins was making funeral arrangements, her father, sister and dear friend arrived for their scheduled visit. Those three, along with the housekeeper, aided Mrs. Collins greatly in taking care of arrangements. Lady Catherine was so incensed at being blamed that she would have tossed her parson's wife out on the street. Thankfully her nephews, Mr. Darcy and Colonel Fitzwilliam, arrived just in time to forestall such an action.

The two men had little attention for their aunt during this time as they worked to help Mrs. Collins in her hour of need. Their caring attitudes and helpful actions were noticed by everyone, but most especially by Mrs. Collins and her dear friend Elizabeth Bennet. Henrietta, watching with satisfaction from the shadows, was pleased with what she saw.

By the time that the funeral was over another week had passed, Mrs. Collins had been gently transported back to Hertfordshire. Elizabeth Bennet had altered her impressions of Mr. Darcy enough that she was willing to overlook his rather insulting proposal. She did scold the man for his words, but she also said "yes." One year after the death of Mr. Collins, Colonel Fitzwilliam made an appearance at Lucas Lodge and offered a much more acceptable proposal to Charlotte. She had needed to work through her fears, but she accepted as well.

Charlotte was delivered of a healthy and surprisingly cute baby girl. Mrs. Bennet, who had feared a boy child, wanted to throw a ball in celebration. Charlotte didn't mind. She named the sweet child Henrietta.

[Flashback] Charlotte Collins watched from her kitchen window as the housekeeper returned to the house. The woman had acted oddly that morning, but Charlotte was too sore and frightened to give it much thought. Mr. Collins had been especially cruel for the last two days and she was ready to find a way to kill the man, if only to save the child she now carried.

She watched the housekeeper and cook as the woman laid down Mr. Collin's garden coat and opened the sack she had been carrying. What is that? She thought, but then she recognized what looked like a portion of a beehive. Oh Lord! Is she truly...? Sir William had supported a hive on Lucas land since he first purchased the estate. The normally easygoing man had warned each and every one of his children with great seriousness about what not to do around his bees.

Charlotte watched in awed silence as murder was being planned right in front of her eyes... the murder of her husband! But she did not make any move to stop the crime. Instead she laid a comforting hand on her belly and simply watched.

Soon after that the two women sat at a table and began planning the menu for the day... and waited for the screams...

[end flashback]

oOo

Henrietta Piper continued to serve at Hunsford Cottage for another year after the death of Mr. Collins. The next parson was just as useless, but not mean-spirited. He did not raise any bees.

At the end of the year, Henrietta happily replied to an invitation from Mrs. Charlotte Fitzwilliam asking her to become the head housekeeper at her and her husband's new estate in Derbyshire. Not only would she have a distinguished position, but when she retired she was promised her own little cottage on the estate.

One week later she boarded the carriage that was personally sent for her and she never looked back.

Author's Note: This was a darker story than I usually like to write. I recently heard of an abusive situation that someone close to my family endured. I would honestly have liked to handle the man responsible in just this way. I will never understand such people.

I'll try to make the next story more uplifting.