“This is lovely!” Grace sighed, relishing the feeling of the slimy riverbed beneath her feet.
Freddie plunged under the water, then shot up like a torpedo. “Cold!” he exclaimed, throwing himself in again up to his neck. He swam farther out to where the limpid water gleamed in the sunlight.
“How’s your arm?” she asked.
“Better.” He didn’t seem to want to dwell on that embarrassing episode. Instead, he showed off his front crawl, cutting smoothly through the water. Freddie might have been afraid of a beesting, but he was brave and adept at swimming. Grace preferred to loll about near the edge and watch him. She’d find a frog or toad to inspect, or forage about for snails.
“Why don’t you dive off the bridge?” she shouted across the water.
“All right,” he replied. Delighted to be given the opportunity to impress her, he swam over to the bank and climbed out. He was strongly built and athletic, on the brink of manhood. She watched him run around to the bridge. It was a pretty stone bridge, built of the same pale-yellow Dorset stone as the houses in the town. Freddie climbed up onto the edge and stood tall. His father had told him on many occasions not to dive, in case his head hit the bottom. But Freddie was a good diver and knew how to keep it shallow. He put his hands in the air, checked that Grace was watching, then bent his legs and sprang off. His dive was straight, his body stiff, his head between his arms. Grace caught her breath as he sliced through the water, just below the surface. A moment later his head appeared like a duck, and she clapped wildly.
“No one dives better than you, Freddie!” she cried.
He swam over to join her. “No one applauds louder than you, Grace!” He waded out and went to sit on the bank in the sun to dry. She followed and laid her towel on the grass beside him.
“You’re brave in the water,” she said, sitting down.
Her comment pleased him and he grinned at her broadly. The sun had made his freckles come up and he was a little red across the bridge of his nose. “So, not a big girl then, after all!” he joked.
She nudged him playfully. “Of course not. I was only teasing. You did make a fuss about the sting, though.”
He laughed and held her eyes for an extended moment. A sudden shyness crept over them, and they both felt strangely awkward. He turned to look out over the river.
“Hungry?” she asked.
“Not really. I’ve just had my dinner.”
“Me, too.” She lay on her back and closed her eyes. “Ah, this is nice.”
He lay back as well. The heat spread over his body and dried the water that had collected in drops in the dip of his belly. “Nothing nicer than a lazy afternoon,” he said. They lay a while in silence. Grace found her mind wandering back to the morning at the church, and the thought of Rufus made her feel warm inside.
“Freddie, what are you going to be when you’re a grown-up?” she asked after a while.
“Work on the land. As long as I’m not inside doing a boring desk job like Dad, I don’t really mind. Why?”
“Rufus asked me this morning. He asked me whether I was going to be a beekeeper.”
Freddie’s mood deflated at the mention of Rufus Melville. “What did you say?”
“I said yes. I think it’s a nice life looking after bees.”
“It doesn’t really matter what you do, because you’re a girl. With any luck you’ll marry a rich man to keep you,” he said grudgingly.
Grace rolled onto her stomach. “Chance would be a fine thing! Girls like me don’t marry rich men, Freddie!” She laughed carelessly and plucked a daisy.
Freddie sat up. “I’ll look after you, Grace,” he said in a rush of enthusiasm. Grace looked surprised. “I know I’m only fifteen. But one day, when we’re older, I’ll look after you.” She frowned; she had never thought she’d need looking after. At fourteen she hadn’t ever contemplated life beyond the present, where she lived very contentedly with her father, and as for being looked after, she would say she cared for her father as much as he cared for her.
She smiled softly and twirled the daisy between her finger and thumb. “You’re adorable, Freddie.”
“I’ll work hard, make lots of money, and buy you anything you like,” he said, warming to his subject.
Although Grace was younger than Freddie, she sometimes felt older. Being motherless, she had had to grow up faster than other girls in order to look after her father. She now smiled at Freddie in the indulgent way adults do when children share impossible dreams. “That’s nice,” she replied. “I’d like a red dress, then.”
“A red dress? Why red?”
“Because there’s something wild about red, don’t you think? It’s a wicked color. Nice girls like me don’t wear red.”
He grinned. “Then I’ll buy you a red dress.”
“Good.” She rested her head on her arms and closed her eyes. “You’d better think of doing something other than working on the land, then, because Dad works on the land and he doesn’t earn much.”
“Your father doesn’t care to be rich. Mum says he’s content just to be. But I’m ambitious. I’ll run the entire estate one day, you’ll see.”
“That is ambitious.”
“If you don’t aim high in life, you won’t get anywhere.”
She giggled. “Who told you that?”
“Dad.”
“Well, he’s right, I suppose. Anyway, by the time you’re old enough to get a job, Mr. Garner might be dead, so there’ll be space for you.”
“Old Peg Leg.” He closed his eyes and thought of Mr. Garner, who had lost his leg at Ypres. “I suspect an old walrus like him will go on forever.”
“Do you think you’d be brave in war, Freddie?” she asked, thinking of the war her father had fought in but never spoke of.
“I don’t know.”
She laughed, remembering his beesting. She didn’t imagine he’d be brave at all. “I suppose it’s hard to tell until you’re there,” she said tactfully.
“I hope I’d be brave,” he said.
“God willing, we’ll never know,” said Grace, and she pushed the talk of Hitler’s menacing maneuvers that she heard on the wireless and read about in the papers to the back of her mind.
• • •
They ate their sandwiches as the early evening light grew mellow. Grace suggested she’d better be getting home to help her father in the garden. She felt guilty lying about all day like a lady of leisure, even though it was Sunday. They slowly made their way back through the village with their wet bathing suits rolled up in their towels. Grace’s hair had dried into thick curls that tumbled down her back, and the sun had bronzed her arms and chest to a warm honey color and turned her cheeks pink. When they reached Freddie’s house, she put her towel in her bicycle basket and made to leave. “Will I see you tomorrow?” she asked.
“I’m going to help out with the harvest,” Freddie said. “Mum says I’m old enough now and they’ll pay me.”
“So you’ll be busy?”
“Yes, I meant to tell you.”
Grace was a little disappointed she was going to lose her playmate. “Well, they always need more hands,” she reasoned.
“I’m going to see Mr. Garner tomorrow and put myself forward.”
“Careful he doesn’t see you have your eye on his job!”
He laughed. “I don’t imagine he’ll see me as a threat.”
“Not if he sees you getting stung by a bee!” With that, she began to pedal off.
“You’re never going to let me forget that, are you?” he shouted after her.
“No!” she shouted back, laughing. “Buzz buzz buzz!”
• • •
On the way back to the cottage, Grace stopped to look at the big house again. This time there was only the Alfa Romeo parked outside. It gave her a frisson of pleasure to think
that Rufus was still at home and she wondered what he was doing in that enormous house. With all those rooms to choose from, how did he decide which one to sit in?
When she reached the cottage, she was surprised to see the marquess’s grand black Bentley parked on the grass in front. It looked incongruous there, all gleaming metal and glass, beside the rustic simplicity of the thatched house. She wondered what Lord Penselwood wanted with her father and where the chauffeur had gone. He usually sat in the motorcar in his hat and gloves, looking important.
She pushed open the door to find the little stone hall crowded with people. When she saw that one of them was Rufus, her heart stalled before hastily spluttering to life again. She was immediately self-conscious, with her crumpled dress and her unbrushed hair hanging in damp tendrils down her back. “Ah, there you are,” said Rufus happily, as if he’d been looking for her. He took off his hat.
“Grace?” inquired her father, shooting her a bewildered look.
Grace glanced at the frail woman who was holding on to Rufus’s arm and realized with a sinking feeling why they had come. “Good afternoon, Lady Penselwood,” she said shyly, not sure whether or not to curtsy. The dowager marchioness didn’t respond. Grace turned to Rufus.
“Grandmama doesn’t hear very well, so you have to shout like this: She said good afternoon, Grandmama.” He raised his voice in his grandmother’s ear.
The old lady looked Grace up and down with large, hooded eyes and gave a little sniff. “So you’re Mr. Hamblin’s daughter, are you?”
“Yes, m’lady.”
“Do you have green fingers as well?”
“I’m learning,” Grace replied.
“From the very best, my dear. Ah, the wonders I created with your father’s guidance and expertise, and now I’m reduced to a sedentary life and can only look from afar and imagine what more could be done in those borders. At least I have my greenhouses. Yes, I’m not too crippled to enjoy those.”
“Shall we go through? I think my grandmother should sit down,” Rufus suggested.
“Please,” said Arthur, leading them into the sitting room. He raised his eyebrows inquiringly, but Grace didn’t have time to explain.
Rufus was so tall that he had to bend his head to pass beneath the door frame. “What a nice place you have,” he commented jovially, sweeping his eyes over the room. “Very cozy in winter, I suspect, with the fire lit. Goodness, look at all your books. You must be an avid reader, Mr. Hamblin.”
“Where are the bees?” asked the dowager marchioness, scanning the room impatiently. Her voice was unexpectedly shrill for her small, birdlike frame.
“Hopefully not in here,” Rufus replied dryly.
“They’re outside,” Grace interjected. She watched Rufus settle his grandmother into an armchair, then take a seat on the sofa and cross his legs with a satisfied sigh. He was much too big for that small room. Beside him her father looked like a dwarf. Grace perched at the other end of the sofa as her father sank uneasily into his favorite chair opposite Lady Penselwood.
“So, you’d like to look at the bees, Lord Melville?” Arthur asked, trying to understand why he suddenly had the honor of their company.
“Not exactly,” Rufus replied slowly. He glanced at Grace and smiled apologetically. “Your daughter told me that beestings cure arthritis, and I happened to mention it at lunch. Grandmama suffers terribly, so I thought . . .” He looked at his grandmother. “Well, she thought, to be more accurate, that she’d like to give it a go.”
“But beestings are very painful,” Arthur explained anxiously. “Not to mention dangerous. I’ve known people bedridden for a week with swellings.” Grace remembered Freddie and the fuss he had made, and felt a twinge of guilt.
“It’s a trifle,” said the dowager marchioness stoically. Grace and her father caught each other’s eye.
Arthur kneaded his hands. “I’d hate to be responsible for your discomfort, Lady Penselwood,” he began. “I’m really not sure it’s wise. You might have an allergy, for example.”
She stared at her gardener imperiously. “What did you say?” she demanded. Arthur raised his voice and repeated his sentence. “Nonsense!” she trilled. “I’ve never heard anything so silly. I won’t hold you responsible, young man.” Grace stifled a giggle. Her father was in his forties. “So, where are they, these bees?”
Grace looked at the old woman’s hands and realized that her arthritis was nothing like the mild stiffness her father suffered. Her fingers resembled the claws of an old crow. They looked very painful, too. She felt a stab of compassion and hoped that the bees would cure her. If they did, Rufus would think very highly of her—but if they didn’t? She felt the sweat collecting in beads on her forehead. Rufus smiled at her encouragingly. “Well, let’s go and set the bees on Grandmama!”
Arthur led them into the sunshine and round to the hives, which were shaded by plane trees and placed in a row along the side of a border thick with bee-loving sedum, angelica, and potentilla. Rufus put his hat on and walked slowly with his grandmother leaning heavily on his arm. “What a charming little cottage. I’ve never been here before,” he said. “You’ve done wonderful things to your garden.”
“Your father knows every inch of the estate,” interjected Lady Penselwood stridently. “And so should you. It’s your duty, Rufus.” She said the word duty with emphasis, as if little else mattered in life but that.
“Yes, yes, Grandmama,” he replied, dismissing her effectively with his weary tone.
“I’d be very surprised if Arthur Hamblin’s garden was anything less than marvelous,” she continued. “He’s the best gardener Walbridge has ever had, and we’ve had a few.”
“Thank you, m’lady,” said Arthur humbly. “You’re much too kind.”
Rufus grinned. “I assure you, Grandmama is not at all kind. If she says you’re a genius, you must be nothing less,” he said, his voice low enough for his grandmother to miss it. “Ah, the hives. Good.”
Lady Penselwood looked them up and down with an imperious gaze. “So, what do I do? Put my hand in?” she asked.
“No, no, m’lady. I place a bee on your hand and let it sting you,” Arthur explained. “If you’re . . .”
“Good God, young man, it’s only a sting. It’s not going to blow my hand off, is it?” She gave an impatient snort and held out her claw. “Go on, then. Let the bee do its worst.”
Grace winced as her father placed a bee on the bony joints and made it sting her by covering it with his hand. The old lady didn’t even flinch. Arthur wasn’t sure she had been stung until he looked at the red mark and the ensuing swelling. The bee flew off, but Grace knew it would die and suffered a moment of anguish. Rufus looked at her and arched an eyebrow. “Well, that was painless,” he said. Then raising his voice he turned to his grandmother. “How does that feel, Grandmama?”
“I hope it’s doing some good. Are you sure I don’t need another one?”
“Absolutely sure,” Arthur replied. “One should do the trick.”
“Well then, I’ll pray for a miracle.”
“So will I,” Rufus agreed. Grace wanted to offer garlic to stop the pain, but she sensed that Lady Penselwood would refuse. She was certainly made of tougher stuff than Freddie. She couldn’t wait to tell him.
Rufus walked his grandmother round to the Bentley and helped her into her seat. Grace was impressed by the soft leather and shiny wood interior. She had never been so close to such a motorcar in all her life. It was like a rare and beautiful beast. “Thank you, Grace, for your advice. If it works, you’ll have the whole of the county queuing up to be stung.” Grace felt a stab of panic and blanched. If the whole county came to be stung, how many bees would die? Rufus laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m only teasing,” he said, his face suddenly creasing into a frown. “Few are made of steel like Grandmama!”
“She is very brave,” Gra
ce agreed.
“They should have sent women like Grandmama to the front line. We might have won the war sooner.” He chuckled at the thought. “Well, I’ll let you know if it works. Now I’ll need a miracle to get her back into the house without my parents finding out. I’m not sure they’d wholly approve of this rather unorthodox treatment.”
Grace and Arthur watched him drive off. He waved cheerfully while his grandmother sat stony-faced, staring ahead. “What was that all about?” Arthur asked his daughter once they had disappeared into the lane.
“I simply mentioned that you allowed yourself to be stung on purpose to cure your arthritis,” she explained. “I never thought anything would come of it.”
“When did you talk to Lord Melville?”
“Outside church, this morning. I was lying on the grass, playing with a bee, and he came up and said hello.” She paused. “Do you think it’ll work?”
“It might do. It certainly helps me.” He walked back into the cottage. “Old Lady Penselwood is a cold fish.”
“Perhaps because she’s in pain. Those hands look really bad.”
“Or perhaps because she’s just sour.”
“Sour people are unhappy people. You told me that, Dad.”
“I also told you that there are exceptions to every rule,” he replied with a grin.
• • •
Darkness crept up slowly. The twittering of roosting birds grew silent and the flutelike calling of a cuckoo was replaced by the eerie hooting of an owl. Arthur sat in his chair, smoking his pipe, reading glasses on the bridge of his nose, a history book on his knee. His spaniel snoozed at his feet. Grace stared at the pages of her novel, but although her eyes scanned the words, her thoughts were elsewhere. It had been a shock to find Rufus in her hall, but now he had gone, she found herself going over every moment of their encounter and wishing she had behaved differently.
She was only fourteen, so there was no reason why a young man like Rufus Melville should even notice her. But since he had spoken to her, and not as a man speaks to a child, but as equals, she wished she had been somehow wittier. There was a light tone to his voice that suggested he found most things amusing. She wondered what sort of repartee he was used to with his friends at Oxford. She imagined they were all very clever, like him, and witty, too. She could be funny with Freddie. He thought everything she said was clever, but with Rufus she had felt gauche, immature, and self-conscious. And her hair—oh, how she wished he hadn’t seen her with her hair damp and tangled.
The Beekeeper's Daughter Page 6