‘It’s the honey bee we need for your grandmother.’
‘How are we going to get it to her?’
‘That’s easy. I’m sure one of your gardeners has a flowerpot we could use. I don’t want to frighten the bee by carrying it in my hands.’
Rufus called to one of the gardeners. While the man hurried off to get a pot, he crouched down to watch the bees. ‘Extraordinary, aren’t they?’
‘They’re the most brilliant creatures,’ Grace agreed, and before she could stop herself she began to share her knowledge with great enthusiasm. By the time the gardener returned, Grace had told Rufus the differences between the honey bee and the bumblebee and how the honey bee dances to communicate the location of food sources to other bees. Rufus listened with interest. He seemed impressed by how much she knew.
‘You really are a little bee, aren’t you?’
She laughed. ‘I love them, that’s all.’
‘I can’t think of a nicer thing to love,’ he said, grinning at her as a brother might smile on a cherished younger sister.
Grace set about preparing the pot. She put some lavender inside, then picked an ear with a bee on it and put that in, too. Finally, she covered the entrance with her hand. She heard the bee buzzing inside, much too busy with the lavender to notice it had been imprisoned. They returned across the lawn to the house to find Lady Penselwood’s dog waiting by the conservatory door to be let in.
‘Silly animal. It’s more like a toy than a dog,’ said Rufus. ‘Most dogs like going for walks, but not this one. She’s been very spoiled. Haven’t you, Amber?’ He opened the door and let her in.
‘Did she do her business?’ the Dowager Marchioness asked.
‘She did everything,’ Rufus lied.
‘Good girl!’ Lady Penselwood exclaimed. ‘Off you go now! Johnson, take her to the kitchen. I don’t want her to jump on me with muddy paws.’
Grace brought over the pot. Lady Penselwood put out her hand. Grace hoped the bee wouldn’t fly away. Carefully, she lifted it out, still clinging to its piece of lavender. It pained her to place it on the old lady’s hand, even more so to squash it onto her skin as her father had done, giving it no choice but to sting and thus end its own life. Once again the Dowager Marchioness didn’t react. It was only when Grace saw the sting, and half the creature’s abdomen sticking into her flesh, that she realized the deed had been done. She felt her eyes well with tears. In spite of her efforts a fat tear plopped onto the old lady’s hand.
‘My dear child, don’t shed a tear for me,’ said Lady Penselwood gently. The old lady seemed surprised by Grace’s compassion. ‘How old are you, Miss Hamblin?’
‘Fourteen,’ Grace replied with a sniff.
‘You’re very grown-up for fourteen. I suppose that comes of having to look after your father. Most girls your age are still playing with their dolls, I should imagine.’ Grace put the bee back in the pot and watched it crawl about at the bottom in bewilderment. Another tear fell into the lavender. ‘You’re a very kind girl. Your bees are making me better and I’m very grateful to you. Now, Cummings will drive you home.’ Rufus took the flowerpot and handed it to the butler, who had returned with a silver coffee pot on a tray. ‘Good, my mid-morning coffee. Don’t be alarmed, Johnson, it’s a little bee sting. A mere trifle. I can’t feel a thing.’
Rufus escorted Grace into the hall. Before opening the door he turned to her, a troubled expression clouding his face. ‘You’re upset because of the bee, aren’t you?’ He looked down at her sympathetically. ‘So it’s true that bees die when they sting?’
She nodded. ‘Not all bees, but the female honey bee, yes.’
‘Silly Grandmama thought you were crying because it had hurt
her
, but I knew better. You love those bees, don’t you?’
‘Yes, I do.’ She took a deep breath.
‘I’m sorry we had to kill another one. I tell you what, we’ll make a deal. We’ll keep this secret so you don’t have all the ladies in the county killing bees to cure their arthritis. I’ll make sure Grandmama doesn’t tell any of her friends. If they notice her hands, we’ll make something up. She whacked me for being insolent, for example. What do you think?’
‘That’s a good deal,’ she replied gratefully.
‘Now, no more tears. Those bees are in heaven now, where they can sting to their heart’s content, to no consequence.’ She nodded. ‘Come, I’ll drive you back. It doesn’t feel right leaving you to the mercy of Cummings’ ill humour. In all the years I’ve known him I haven’t seen him smile once, and that’s not for want of trying. I’ve often wondered whether he has some terrible affliction that prevents his mouth from widening. But I doubt it. I think he’s just sour, like a lemon. In fact, from now on I’m going to call him Lemon.’ Grace laughed and wiped her eyes. ‘That’s better. Now I’ll give you a ride in my Alfa Romeo. It’s much more exciting than Papa’s boring old Bentley.’
Rufus was right. His open-topped motor car was much more exciting than the Bentley. With the wind raking through her hair and Rufus by her side, Grace didn’t think she’d ever been so happy. She wanted to laugh out loud. Rufus turned and grinned at her and those dark, kind eyes twinkled with affection. In that moment time seemed to stand still and allow her to commit his face to memory. She blinked and he turned his gaze back to the lane, but Grace would treasure that look for years to come, like a picture postcard imprinted on her memory and secretly cherished.
‘Look after those bees, now,’ he said as she climbed out of the car.
‘I will,’ she replied and thanked him for driving her home. He smiled and motored into the lane. She remained there long after the car had disappeared, trying to make sense of the strange longing that pulled on the tender strings of her heart.
Chapter 7
Tekanasset Island, Massachusetts, 1973
‘Grace?’ It was Freddie. He walked out onto the veranda with his habitual glass of gin and tonic, followed by the dogs. ‘What are you doing sitting here all on your own?’ he asked.
‘Watching the sunset,’ she replied, sighing for the past that now slipped away with the sun.
‘May I join you?’
‘Sure.’
He sat down beside her on the swing chair and swirled the ice around his glass. ‘Where’s Trixie?’
‘She’s gone to a beach party.’
‘With that boy, I suppose.’
‘Yes, Jasper.’
‘I don’t like it,’ he said, taking a swig. ‘I don’t like it at all.’
‘But you didn’t stop her seeing him.’
‘Because I knew how upset
you
would be.’
‘That’s very considerate.’ She smiled, silently forgiving him for interrupting her reverie.
‘And I don’t want a fight on my hands. You rein a horse in and it will only want to bolt. Give it a loose rein and most likely it’ll put its head to the ground and graze.’
‘I hope you’re right.’
She dropped her gaze into her empty wine glass. ‘I was remembering the first time you got stung by a bee.’
Freddie’s jaw stiffened. ‘I’ve never liked bees, as you know,’ he said, taking another swig. He didn’t relish talking about the past. It was as if he had wilfully left it behind when he moved to America all those years ago.
Grace sighed and stared out over the ocean. ‘Sunsets make me sad, but in a nice way,’ she said, suddenly feeling very alone, for Freddie wouldn’t understand the bittersweet blend of pleasure and pain.
‘What’s nice about being sad?’ he asked.
She smiled wistfully. ‘It gives me pleasure to think of my father, but it hurts too, because I miss him.’
‘He was a good man, your father,’ Freddie acknowledged, nodding thoughtfully.
‘He was all I had,’ she said softly. In the old days Freddie would have replied, ‘You have me, too.’ But that Freddie had gone, like her father.
‘Then nothing good comes from thinking about him,’ he said.
Grace felt the need to take Freddie’s hand. When they’d been young, she would have held it and he would have squeezed hers affectionately. But the war had changed him. It was as if he had left his love on the battlefield with his eye. Gone was the tenderness. Buried deep were his recollections of happier times. Fierce was his determination never to look back. He was no longer playful, but serious and troubled. In the early days of his homecoming it was as if he resented her for not understanding what he’d been through, even though he never gave her a chance to understand by sharing his experiences. He had shut her out and she had felt shunned. But they had remained together. Duty was the bond that tied them to each other, bitterness the impediment that kept them apart.
But he had mellowed a little over the years. His resentment had eased into a less aggressive form of detachment. A politeness of sorts, which, although desperately inadequate for a passionate woman like Grace, was something she could live with, not unhappily. Moments of unexpected ardour had brought him to her bed, only for her to find herself deliberately disregarded in the morning as he buried his face in the newspaper and sipped his coffee, settling back into the security of routine. As long as he didn’t deviate from the mechanical rituals of that routine, Grace knew he felt safe from intimacy. She often wondered whether things would have been different if Freddie had come back from the war with open arms and an open heart. If she had felt loved by him she wouldn’t have pined so.
‘But I had you,’ she said, and hoped that he’d respond to the encouragement in her smile and perhaps look at her with the eyes of the boy she had grown up with, not with the impassiveness of the man he had become.
Instead he finished his drink and stood up. ‘Shall we eat? I’m starving.’
She turned her thoughts to dinner; anything rather than dwell on the hurt his coldness inflicted. ‘Yes, the chicken pie will be ready by now.’
‘Good. I want to tell you about my weekend.’ His voice was injected with enthusiasm as he turned the conversation around to work. Grace took the pie out of the oven. She had no choice but to listen. There was no place in Freddie’s life for sentimentality; somehow the war had taken that, too.
Trixie ran down to the beach. The party had already begun. A crowd of people were standing around a huge fire on the beach in front of the club wearing summer dresses and open-neck shirts, drinking sangria, their animated faces illuminated by the orange glow of the flames. She looked around for Jasper, but caught the energetic waving of her friend Suzie instead. ‘So how much trouble were you in?’ Suzie asked when Trixie joined her.
‘I thought it would be worse. That Lucy Durlacher’s a snitch!’
Suzie grinned triumphantly. ‘But guess who chatted her up this morning in the diner?’
‘George,’ Trixie replied, grinning.
‘Correct. I suggest we encourage that as much as we can.’
‘Mrs Durlacher would have a fit if she knew.’
‘Let’s hope the relationship is given a chance to blossom before she finds out. That way the impact will be all the more horrible.’
‘You’re terrible, Suzie.’
‘Don’t pretend you don’t want to inflict the greatest pain on Evelyn Durlacher!’
‘My mom is a great believer in karma.’
‘What goes around, comes around. Well, I’m just helping it along.’
‘She’ll reap what she’s sowed, whether we help it along or not. Where are they anyway?’ She scanned her eyes over the faces of people she had known all her life.
‘They’re coming. They promised they would. Oh, I’m totally mad for Ben. If he doesn’t throw me up against a wall and kiss me soon, I think I’ll die!’ She tossed her sun-bleached hair and sighed melodramatically. ‘English boys are so reserved, it’s driving me crazy!’
‘There’s nothing reserved about Jasper,’ said Trixie. ‘In fact, he’s voracious.’
‘Don’t make me jealous.’
‘Then I won’t tell you,’ Trixie teased.
‘OK, so how far have you gone?’
Trixie’s eyes gleamed with jubilation. ‘The whole way.’ She took Suzie’s hands and sprang up and down on the sand. ‘He’s amazing!’
‘Calm down. I want details. How was it?’
Trixie stopped bouncing. ‘He makes me feel like a woman,’ she said seriously.
‘That sounds like a bad song.’
Trixie shrugged. ‘There’s truth even in bad songs.’
‘Was he better than Richard?’ Suzie asked, referring to the lover Trixie had had the summer before.
‘Oh, forget Richard, Suzie. He was part of my experimental phase.
This
is love.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Don’t breathe a word to anyone. I’m going to go on tour with them in the fall.’
‘Has he asked you?’
‘No, but he will.’
‘Then I’ll come too, with Ben,’ Suzie suggested.
‘That’s a great idea!’ Trixie exclaimed happily. ‘We can go together.’
‘Oh, Ben! Where are you?’ Both girls looked out over the growing number of people. Suddenly, Suzie pointed to a small group walking towards them up the beach. ‘There!’ she exclaimed. ‘At last!’
‘Play it cool, Suzie. Play it real cool!’
Suzie flicked her hair and pinched her cheeks. ‘How do I look?’
‘Irresistible.’ Trixie giggled.
‘Just think: you, Jasper, me and Ben, travelling around America in a tour bus. It’s just too wonderful.’
‘With Lucy and George?’ Trixie raised an eyebrow.
‘Oh, George will have tired of her by then!’ said Suzie, wiggling her denim hot pants and striding off down the beach. ‘Or her mother will have sent her to a convent!’
Jasper’s face lit up when he saw Trixie. ‘Hi, beautiful,’ he said, hooking his arm around her neck and pulling her face close so he could kiss her. His guitar hung over his other shoulder, promising a rendition or two, and a cigarette smoked between his fingers. She pressed her lips to his and savoured the taste of beer and tobacco. Suzie walked alongside Ben, her hand slipped into the pocket on the back of his jeans. Ben put his arm around Suzie’s waist and asked her how the party was going. Trixie sensed he’d kiss her friend tonight. The idea of travelling around America in their tour bus seemed more real than ever.
They reached Captain Jack’s, where the boys started to set up their equipment on the terrace. The girls rushed off to bring them drinks. When they returned, the band was surrounded by miniskirted girls with heaving breasts and starry eyes. They were like bees around a honeypot, Trixie thought resentfully. ‘Beers coming through,’ she shouted, pushing past them to where George was arranging his drums while Jasper and Ben were soaking up compliments like a pair of happy sponges.