9
Elizabeth entered Nutty's room and, seating herself on the bed,surveyed him with a bright, quiet eye that drilled holes in herbrother's uneasy conscience. This was her second visit to him thatmorning. She had come an hour ago, bearing breakfast on a tray,and had departed without saying a word. It was this uncannysilence of hers even more than the effects--which still lingered--ofhis revels in the metropolis that had interfered with Nutty'senjoyment of the morning meal. Never a hearty breakfaster, he hadfound himself under the influence of her wordless disapprovalphysically unable to consume the fried egg that confronted him. Hehad given it one look; then, endorsing the opinion which he hadonce heard a character in a play utter in somewhat similarcircumstances--that there was nothing on earth so homely as anegg--he had covered it with a handkerchief and tried to pullhimself round with hot tea. He was now smoking a sad cigarette andwaiting for the blow to fall.
Her silence had puzzled him. Though he had tried to give her noopportunity of getting him alone on the previous evening when hehad arrived at the farm with Lord Dawlish, he had fully expectedthat she would have broken in upon him with abuse and recriminationin the middle of the night. Yet she had not done this, nor had shespoken to him when bringing him his breakfast. These things foundtheir explanation in Elizabeth's character, with which Nutty, thoughhe had known her so long, was but imperfectly acquainted. Elizabethhad never been angrier with her brother, but an innate goodness ofheart had prevented her falling upon him before he had had rest andrefreshment.
She wanted to massacre him, but at the same time she told herselfthat the poor dear must be feeling very, very ill, and should havea reasonable respite before the slaughter commenced.
It was plain that in her opinion this respite had now lasted longenough. She looked over her shoulder to make sure that she hadclosed the door, then leaned a little forward and spoke.
'Now, Nutty!'
The wretched youth attempted bluster.
'What do you mean--"Now, Nutty"? What's the use of looking at afellow like that and saying "Now, Nutty"? Where's the sense--'
His voice trailed off. He was not a very intelligent young man,but even he could see that his was not a position where righteousindignation could be assumed with any solid chance of success. Asa substitute he tried pathos.
'Oo-oo, my head does ache!'
'I wish it would burst,' said his sister, unkindly.
'That's a nice thing to say to a fellow!'
'I'm sorry. I wouldn't have said it--'
'Oh, well!'
'Only I couldn't think of anything worse.'
It began to seem to Nutty that pathos was a bit of a failure too.As a last resort he fell back on silence. He wriggled as far downas he could beneath the sheets and breathed in a soft and woundedsort of way. Elizabeth took up the conversation.
'Nutty,' she said, 'I've struggled for years against theconviction that you were a perfect idiot. I've forced myself,against my better judgement, to try to look on you as sane, butnow I give in. I can't believe you are responsible for youractions. Don't imagine that I am going to heap you with reproachesbecause you sneaked off to New York. I'm not even going to tellyou what I thought of you for not sending me a telegram, lettingme know where you were. I can understand all that. You weredisappointed because Uncle Ira had not left you his money, and Isuppose that was your way of working it off. If you had just runaway and come back again with a headache, I'd have treated youlike the Prodigal Son. But there are some things which are toomuch, and bringing a perfect stranger back with you for anindefinite period is one of them. I'm not saying anything againstMr Chalmers personally. I haven't had time to find out much abouthim, except that he's an Englishman; but he looks respectable.Which, as he's a friend of yours, is more or less of a miracle.'
She raised her eyebrows as a faint moan of protest came frombeneath the sheets.
'You surely,' she said, 'aren't going to suggest at this hour ofthe day, Nutty, that your friends aren't the most horrible set ofpests outside a prison? Not that it's likely after all thesemonths that they are outside a prison. You know perfectly wellthat while you were running round New York you collected the mostpernicious bunch of rogues that ever fastened their talons into asilly child who ought never to have been allowed out without hisnurse.' After which complicated insult Elizabeth paused forbreath, and there was silence for a space.
'Well, as I was saying, I know nothing against this Mr Chalmers.Probably his finger-prints are in the Rogues' Gallery, and he isbetter known to the police as Jack the Blood, or something, but hehasn't shown that side of him yet. My point is that, whoever heis, I do not want him or anybody else coming and taking up hisabode here while I have to be cook and housemaid too. I object tohaving a stranger on the premises spying out the nakedness of theland. I am sensitive about my honest poverty. So, darling Nutty,my precious Nutty, you poor boneheaded muddler, will you kindlythink up at your earliest convenience some plan for politelyejecting this Mr Chalmers of yours from our humble home?--becauseif you don't, I'm going to have a nervous breakdown.'
And, completely restored to good humour by her own eloquence,Elizabeth burst out laughing. It was a trait in her characterwhich she had often lamented, that she could not succeed inkeeping angry with anyone for more than a few minutes on end.Sooner or later some happy selection of a phrase of abuse wouldtickle her sense of humour, or the appearance of her victim wouldbecome too funny not to be laughed at. On the present occasion itwas the ridiculous spectacle of Nutty cowering beneath thebedclothes that caused her wrath to evaporate. She made a weakattempt to recover it. She glared at Nutty, who at the sound ofher laughter had emerged from under the clothes like a worm aftera thunderstorm.
'I mean it,' she said. 'It really is too bad of you! You mighthave had some sense and a little consideration. Ask yourself if weare in a position here to entertain visitors. Well, I'm going tomake myself very unpopular with this Mr Chalmers of yours. By thisevening he will be regarding me with utter loathing, for I amabout to persecute him.'
'What do you mean?' asked Nutty, alarmed.
'I am going to begin by asking him to help me open one of thehives.'
'For goodness' sake!'
'After that I shall--with his assistance--transfer some honey. Andafter that--well, I don't suppose he will be alive by then. If heis, I shall make him wash the dishes for me. The least he can do,after swooping down on us like this, is to make himself useful.'
A cry of protest broke from the appalled Nutty, but Elizabeth didnot hear it. She had left the room and was on her way downstairs.
Lord Dawlish was smoking an after-breakfast cigar in the grounds.It was a beautiful day, and a peaceful happiness had come uponhim. He told himself that he had made progress. He was under thesame roof as the girl he had deprived of her inheritance, and itshould be simple to establish such friendly relations as wouldenable him to reveal his identity and ask her to reconsider herrefusal to relieve him of a just share of her uncle's money. Hehad seen Elizabeth for only a short time on the previous night,but he had taken an immediate liking to her. There was somethingabout the American girl, he reflected, which seemed to put a manat his ease, a charm and directness all her own. Yes, he likedElizabeth, and he liked this dwelling-place of hers. He was quitewilling to stay on here indefinitely.
Nature had done well by Flack's. The house itself was morepleasing to the eye than most of the houses in those parts, owingto the black and white paint which decorated it and an unconventionalflattening and rounding of the roof. Nature, too, had made so manyimprovements that the general effect was unusually delightful.
Bill perceived Elizabeth coming toward him from the house. Hethrew away his cigar and went to meet her. Seen by daylight, shewas more attractive than ever. She looked so small and neat andwholesome, so extremely unlike Miss Daisy Leonard's friend. Andsuch was the reaction from what might be termed his laterReigelheimer's mood that if he had been asked to define femininecharm in a few words, he would have replied without he
sitationthat it was the quality of being as different as possible in everyway from the Good Sport. Elizabeth fulfilled this qualification.She was not only small and neat, but she had a soft voice to whichit was a joy to listen.
'I was just admiring your place,' he said.
'Its appearance is the best part of it,' said Elizabeth. 'It is adeceptive place. The bay looks beautiful, but you can't bathe init because of the jellyfish. The woods are lovely, but you daren'tgo near them because of the ticks.'
'Ticks?'
'They jump on you and suck your blood,' said Elizabeth, carelessly.'And the nights are gorgeous, but you have to stay indoors afterdusk because of the mosquitoes.' She paused to mark the effect ofthese horrors on her visitor. 'And then, of course,' she went on,as he showed no signs of flying to the house to pack his bag andcatch the next train, 'the bees are always stinging you. I hope youare not afraid of bees, Mr Chalmers?'
'Rather not. Jolly little chaps!'
A gleam appeared in Elizabeth's eye.
'If you are so fond of them, perhaps you wouldn't mind coming andhelping me open one of the hives?'
'Rather!'
'I'll go and fetch the things.'
She went into the house and ran up to Nutty's room, waking thatsufferer from a troubled sleep.
'Nutty, he's bitten.'
Nutty sat up violently.
'Good gracious! What by?'
'You don't understand. What I meant was that I invited your MrChalmers to help me open a hive, and he said "Rather!" and iswaiting to do it now. Be ready to say good-bye to him. If he comesout of this alive, his first act, after bathing the wounds withammonia, will be to leave us for ever.'
'But look here, he's a visitor--'
'Cheer up! He won't be much longer.'
'You can't let him in for a ghastly thing like opening a hive.When you made me do it that time I was picking stings out ofmyself for a week.'
'That was because you had been smoking. Bees dislike the smell oftobacco.'
'But this fellow may have been smoking.'
'He has just finished a strong cigar.'
'For Heaven's sake!'
'Good-bye, Nutty, dear; I mustn't keep him waiting.'
Lord Dawlish looked with interest at the various implements whichshe had collected when she rejoined him outside. He relieved herof the stool, the smoker, the cotton-waste, the knife, thescrewdriver, and the queen-clipping cage.
'Let me carry these for you,' he said, 'unless you've hired avan.'
Elizabeth disapproved of this flippancy. It was out of place inone who should have been trembling at the prospect of doom.
'Don't you wear a veil for this sort of job?'
As a rule Elizabeth did. She had reached a stage of intimacy withher bees which rendered a veil a superfluous precaution, but untilto-day she had never abandoned it. Her view of the matter wasthat, though the inhabitants of the hives were familiar andfriendly with her by this time and recognized that she came amongthem without hostile intent, it might well happen that among somany thousands there might be one slow-witted enough and obtuseenough not to have grasped this fact. And in such an event a veilwas better than any amount of explanations, for you cannot stickto pure reason when quarrelling with bees.
But to-day it had struck her that she could hardly protect herselfin this way without offering a similar safeguard to her visitor,and she had no wish to hedge him about with safeguards.
'Oh, no,' she said, brightly; 'I'm not afraid of a few bees. Areyou?'
'Rather not!'
'You know what to do if one of them flies at you?'
'Well, it would, anyway--what? What I mean to say is, I couldleave most of the doing to the bee.'
Elizabeth was more disapproving than ever. This was mere bravado.She did not speak again until they reached the hives.
In the neighbourhood of the hives a vast activity prevailed. What,heard from afar, had been a pleasant murmur became at closequarters a menacing tumult. The air was full of bees--beessallying forth for honey, bees returning with honey, beestrampling on each other's heels, bees pausing in mid-air to passthe time of day with rivals on competing lines of traffic.Blunt-bodied drones whizzed to and fro with a noise like miniaturehigh-powered automobiles, as if anxious to convey the idea of beingtremendously busy without going to the length of doing any actualwork. One of these blundered into Lord Dawlish's face, and itpleased Elizabeth to observe that he gave a jump.
'Don't be afraid,' she said, 'it's only a drone. Drones have nostings.'
'They have hard heads, though. Here he comes again!'
'I suppose he smells your tobacco. A drone has thirty-seventhousand eight hundred nostrils, you know.'
'That gives him a sporting chance of smelling a cigar--what? Imean to say, if he misses with eight hundred of his nostrils he'sapt to get it with the other thirty-seven thousand.'
Elizabeth was feeling annoyed with her bees. They resolutelydeclined to sting this young man. Bees flew past him, bees flewinto him, bees settled upon his coat, bees paused questioningly infront of him, as who should say, 'What have we here?' but not asingle bee molested him. Yet when Nutty, poor darling, went withina dozen yards of the hives he never failed to suffer for it. Inher heart Elizabeth knew perfectly well that this was becauseNutty, when in the presence of the bees, lost his head completelyand behaved like an exaggerated version of Lady Wetherby's Dreamof Psyche, whereas Bill maintained an easy calm; but at the momentshe put the phenomenon down to that inexplicable cussedness whichdoes so much to exasperate the human race, and it fed herannoyance with her unbidden guest.
Without commenting on his last remark, she took the smoker fromhim and set to work. She inserted in the fire-chamber a handful ofthe cotton-waste and set fire to it; then with a preliminary puffor two of the bellows to make sure that the conflagration had notgone out, she aimed the nozzle at the front door of the hive.
The results were instantaneous. One or two bee-policemen, who weredoing fixed point-duty near the opening, scuttled hastily backinto the hive; and from within came a muffled buzzing as otherbees, all talking at once, worried the perplexed officials withfoolish questions, a buzzing that became less muffled and morepronounced as Elizabeth lifted the edge of the cover and directedmore smoke through the crack. This done, she removed the cover,set it down on the grass beside her, lifted the super-cover andapplied more smoke, and raised her eyes to where Bill stoodwatching. His face wore a smile of pleased interest.
Elizabeth's irritation became painful. She resented his smile. Shehung the smoker on the side of the hive.
'The stool, please, and the screw-driver.'
She seated herself beside the hive and began to loosen the outsidesection. Then taking the brood-frame by the projecting ends, shepulled it out and handed it to her companion. She did it as onewho plays an ace of trumps.
'Would you mind holding this, Mr Chalmers?'
This was the point in the ceremony at which the wretched Nutty hadbroken down absolutely, and not inexcusably, considering theseverity of the test. The surface of the frame was black with whatappeared at first sight to be a thick, bubbling fluid of somesort, pouring viscously to and fro as if some hidden fire had beenlighted beneath it. Only after a closer inspection was it apparentto the lay eye that this seeming fluid was in reality composed ofmass upon mass of bees. They shoved and writhed and muttered andjostled, for all the world like a collection of home-seeking Citymen trying to secure standing room on the Underground at half-pastfive in the afternoon.
Nutty, making this discovery, had emitted one wild yell, droppedthe frame, and started at full speed for the house, his retreatexpedited by repeated stings from the nervous bees. Bill, moreprudent, remained absolutely motionless. He eyed the seethingframe with interest, but without apparent panic.
'I want you to help me here, Mr Chalmers. You have stronger wriststhan I have. I will tell you what to do. Hold the frame tightly.'
'I've got it.'
'Jerk it down as sharply as you can t
o within a few inches of thedoor, and then jerk it up again. You see, that shakes them off.'
'It would me,' agreed Bill, cordially, 'if I were a bee.'
Elizabeth had the feeling that she had played her ace of trumpsand by some miracle lost the trick. If this grisly operation didnot daunt the man, nothing, not even the transferring of honey,would. She watched him as he raised the frame and jerked it downwith a strong swiftness which her less powerful wrists had neverbeen able to achieve. The bees tumbled off in a dense shower,asking questions to the last; then, sighting the familiar entranceto the hive, they bustled in without waiting to investigate thecause of the earthquake.
Lord Dawlish watched them go with a kindly interest.
'It has always been a mystery to me,' he said, 'why they neverseem to think of manhandling the Johnny who does that to them.They don't seem able to connect cause and effect. I suppose theonly way they can figure it out is that the bottom has suddenlydropped out of everything, and they are so busy lighting out forhome that they haven't time to go to the root of things. But it'sa ticklish job, for all that, if you're not used to it. I knowwhen I first did it I shut my eyes and wondered whether they wouldbury my remains or cremate them.'
'When you first did it?' Elizabeth was staring at him blankly.'Have you done it before?'
Her voice shook. Bill met her gaze frankly.
'Done it before? Rather! Thousands of times. You see, I spent ayear on a bee-farm once, learning the business.'
For a moment mortification was the only emotion of which Elizabethwas conscious. She felt supremely ridiculous. For this she hadschemed and plotted--to give a practised expert the opportunity ofdoing what he had done a thousand times before!
And then her mood changed in a flash. Nature has decreed thatthere are certain things in life which shall act as hoops ofsteel, grappling the souls of the elect together. Golf is one ofthese; a mutual love of horseflesh another; but the greatest ofall is bees. Between two beekeepers there can be no strife. Noteven a tepid hostility can mar their perfect communion.
The petty enmities which life raises to be barriers between manand man and between man and woman vanish once it is revealed tothem that they are linked by this great bond. Envy, malice,hatred, and all uncharitableness disappear, and they look intoeach other's eyes and say 'My brother!'
The effect of Bill's words on Elizabeth was revolutionary. Theycrashed through her dislike, scattering it like an explosiveshell. She had resented this golden young man's presence at thefarm. She had thought him in the way. She had objected to hisbecoming aware that she did such prosaic tasks as cooking andwashing-up. But now her whole attitude toward him was changed. Shereflected that he was there. He could stay there as long as heliked, the longer the better.
'You have really kept bees?'
'Not actually kept them, worse luck! I couldn't raise the capital.You see, money was a bit tight--'
'I know,' said Elizabeth, sympathetically. 'Money is like that,isn't it?'
'The general impression seemed to be that I should be foolish totry anything so speculative as beekeeping, so it fell through.Some very decent old boys got me another job.'
'What job?'
'Secretary to a club.'
'In London, of course?'
'Yes.'
'And all the time you wanted to be in the country keeping bees!'
Elizabeth could hardly control her voice, her pity was so great.
'I should have liked it,' said Bill, wistfully. 'London's allright, but I love the country. My ambition would be to have awhacking big farm, a sort of ranch, miles away from anywhere--'
He broke off. This was not the first time he had caught himselfforgetting how his circumstances had changed in the past fewweeks. It was ridiculous to be telling hard-luck stories about notbeing able to buy a farm, when he had the wherewithal to buydozens of farms. It took a lot of getting used to, this businessof being a millionaire.
'That's my ambition too,' said Elizabeth, eagerly. This was thevery first time she had met a congenial spirit. Nutty's views onfarming and the Arcadian life generally were saddening to anenthusiast. 'If I had the money I should get an enormous farm, andin the summer I should borrow all the children I could find, andtake them out to it and let them wallow in it.'
'Wouldn't they do a lot of damage?'
'I shouldn't mind. I should be too rich to worry about the damage.If they ruined the place beyond repair I'd go and buy another.'She laughed. 'It isn't so impossible as it sounds. I came verynear being able to do it.' She paused for a moment, but went onalmost at once. After all, if you cannot confide your intimatetroubles to a fellow bee-lover, to whom can you confide them? 'Anuncle of mine--'
Bill felt himself flushing. He looked away from her. He had asense of almost unbearable guilt, as if he had just done someparticularly low crime and was contemplating another.
'--An uncle of mine would have left me enough money to buy all thefarms I wanted, only an awful person, an English lord. I wonder ifyou have heard of him?--Lord Dawlish--got hold of uncle somehowand induced him to make a will leaving all the money to him.'
She looked at Bill for sympathy, and was touched to see that hewas crimson with emotion. He must be a perfect dear to take otherpeople's misfortunes to heart like that.
'I don't know how he managed it,' she went on. 'He must haveworked and plotted and schemed, for Uncle Ira wasn't a weak sortof man whom you could do what you liked with. He was veryobstinate. But, anyway, this Lord Dawlish succeeded in doing itsomehow, and then'--her eyes blazed at the recollection--'he hadthe insolence to write to me through his lawyers offering me half.I suppose he was hoping to satisfy his conscience. Naturally Irefused it.'
'But--but--but why?'
'Why! Why did I refuse it? Surely you don't think I was going toaccept charity from the man who had cheated me?'
'But--but perhaps he didn't mean it like that. What I mean to sayis--as charity, you know.'
'He did! But don't let's talk of it any more. It makes me angry tothink of him, and there's no use spoiling a lovely day like thisby getting angry.'
Bill sighed. He had never dreamed before that it could be sodifficult to give money away. He was profoundly glad that he hadnot revealed his identity, as he had been on the very point ofdoing just when she began her remarks. He understood now why thatcurt refusal had come in answer to his lawyer's letter. Well,there was nothing to do but wait and hope that time mightaccomplish something.
'What do you want me to do next?' he said. 'Why did you open thehive? Did you want to take a look at the queen?'
Elizabeth hesitated. She blushed with pure shame. She had had butone motive in opening the hive, and that had been to annoy him.She scorned to take advantage of the loophole he had provided.Beekeeping is a freemasonry. A beekeeper cannot deceive abrother-mason.
She faced him bravely.
'I didn't want to take a look at anything, Mr Chalmers. I openedthat hive because I wanted you to drop the frame, as my brotherdid, and get stung, as he was; because I thought that would driveyou away, because I thought then that I didn't want you down here.I'm ashamed of myself, and I don't know where I'm getting thenerve to tell you this. I hope you will stay on--on and on andon.'
Bill was aghast.
'Good Lord! If I'm in the way--'
'You aren't in the way.'
'But you said--'
'But don't you see that it's so different now? I didn't know thenthat you were fond of bees. You must stay, if my telling youhasn't made you feel that you want to catch the next train. Youwill save our lives--mine and Nutty's too. Oh, dear, you'rehesitating! You're trying to think up some polite way of gettingout of the place! You mustn't go, Mr Chalmers; you simply muststay. There aren't any mosquitoes, no jellyfish--nothing! Atleast, there are; but what do they matter? You don't mind them. Doyou play golf?'
'Yes.'
'There are links here. You can't go until you've tried them. Whatis your handicap?'
'Plus two.'
; 'So is mine.'
'By Jove! Really?'
Elizabeth looked at him, her eyes dancing.
'Why, we're practically twin souls, Mr Chalmers! Tell me, I knowyour game is nearly perfect, but if you have a fault, is it atendency to putt too hard?'
'Why, by Jove--yes, it is!'
'I knew it. Something told me. It's the curse of my life too!Well, after that you can't go away.'
'But if I'm in the way--'
'In the way! Mr Chalmers, will you come in now and help me washthe breakfast things?'
'Rather!' said Lord Dawlish.