Student Question
Why is Miss Claythorne in chapter 11 of And Then There Were None laughing and asking about bees and honey?
Quick answer:
In And Then There Were None, Miss Vera Claythorne was "crying out in a high shrill voice, shaken with bursts of laughter" asking about bees and honey because she had just discovered that the key to the murders on Indian Island was the old nursery rhyme "Ten Little Indians," a copy of which was prominently displayed over the mantlepiece in the main room and in every bedroom in the mansion.
Philip Lombard said:
"She's not a hysterical type."
Armstrong agreed.
"Oh, no. Good healthy sensible girl. Just the sudden shock. It might happen to anybody." (Chapter 11)
Just two days earlier, Captain Philip Lombard had been sizing her up a she sat across from him in the third-class train carriage from Paddington on their way to the Oakridge station on the Devon coast.
"Quite attractive—a bit schoolmistressy perhaps..."
A cool customer, he should imagine—and one who could hold her own—in love or war. He'd rather like to take her on. (Chapter 1)
Miss Vera Claythorne was traveling to Indian Island, just off the coast, to begin her employment as a secretary to Una Nancy Owen. The Skilled Women's Agency had sent her, and she was looking forward to no longer being "a games mistress in a third-class school" (chapter 1). Lombard was going there, too, but she didn't know that...
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at the time, he was sizing her up.
Vera had gone back to the kitchen with Emily Brent after the butler Rogers's body was found that morning in the wash-house across from the big house.
Within just a few minutes, however, she was standing in the yard again, laughing, and she cried out in a high, shrill voice, "Do they keep bees on this island? Tell me that. Where do we go for honey? Ha! ha!" (Chapter 11).
Dr. Armstrong, Mr. Blore, and Mr. Justice Wargrave looked up sharply from Rogers's body and stared at her in stunned amazement.
"Don’t stare like that! As though you thought I was mad .... Haven't you read that idiotic rhyme? ...We might have come here straightaway if we'd had sense. Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks. (Chapter 11)
Rogers was chopping sticks for kindling for the kitchen stove when he was killed with a chopper that was much bigger than the one he was using to make kindling.
"And the next verse. I know the whole thing by heart, I tell you! Six little Indian boys playing with a hive. And that's why I'm asking—do they keep bees on this island?" (Chapter 11)
Then she laughed again.
"Isn't it funny?—isn't it damned funny...?" (Chapter 11)
As mad as she seemed at the time, standing in the yard, laughing wildly, asking crazy-sounding questions about bees and honey, Vera was already one step ahead of everyone else—perhaps even one step ahead of the murderer.
When discussing Vera's reaction here, it would be useful to consider the background context which informs this scene. In And Then There Were None, a group of strangers are invited onto an island where they are each accused (by gramophone recording) of being a murderer and proceed to be killed off one by one by an unknown antagonist (in a manner that reflects the lyrics to the song for which the novel is named). In chapter 11, they discover that the butler, Mr. Rogers, has been killed; he was struck from behind while lighting the fire. It is here that Vera is described entering into hysteria.
There are two factors to keep in mind when discussing Vera's reaction here. The first is the general circumstances which these characters face. They don't know which one of them is next, and, furthermore, all evidence suggests that the murderer is one of them. Thus, they can't even trust one another, resulting in a great deal of stress and paranoia.
Furthermore, there is Vera's own psychological profile to consider as well. As Agatha Christie presents her, she is actually not particularly psychologically stable, especially when placed under the stressors that the murderer inflicts upon her. Remember that she is a killer herself, directly responsible for the drowning of a young boy placed in her care. This past crime seems to haunt her as the book continues, with Vera experiencing flashbacks and, at the end of the book, even being driven to commit suicide.
In this respect, it is the extreme levels of anxiety, fear, and stress that their circumstances place upon them and her own psychological fragility that influence her hysterical reaction to the discovery of Rogers's death.