‘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 motor car 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 in her crumpled dress with 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?’ enquired her father, shooting her a bewildered look.
Grace glanced at the frail woman who was holding onto 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 enquiringly 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 cosy 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 favourite 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 honour of their company.
‘Not exactly,’ Rufus replied slowly. He glanced at Grace and smiled apologetically. ‘Your daughter told me that bee stings 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 bee stings 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 marvellous,’ 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 motor car 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,’ Grace 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 flute-like 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 wet and tangled.
She closed her book with a sigh. Her father raised his eyes over his glasses. ‘You all right, Gracey?’
‘Yes, Dad. I think I’ll go upstairs now. I’m rather sleepy.’
‘Too much sun. That’s what it does to you, dries up all your energy.’
She bent over him and kissed his cheek. ‘Night, Dad.’
‘God bless,’ he replied, patting her gently. ‘Sweet dreams.’
A little later she knelt by her bed and prayed. She prayed for her father and for her mother who was in God’s keeping. She prayed for Freddie, Auntie May and Uncle Michael; for Freddie’s sister, Josephine, even though she didn’t like her very much, and she prayed for Rufus. Her prayer for Rufus went on and on. It was more like a confession than a prayer.
When she climbed into bed she lay on her side, staring into the black-and-white photograph of her parents that she kept in a frame on her bedside table. Her mother had a long face, like hers, and deep-set hazel eyes, although one couldn’t tell the colour from the photograph. They just looked dark. She had a kind face. The sort of face one could trust to keep secrets. Grace was sure that, were she alive, she would listen to her daughter with understanding and indulgence, and Grace would tell her everything. She would sit on Grace’s bed and stroke her cheek and gaze at her lovingly. She might laugh at the absurdity of Grace’s infatuation, but she wouldn’t make her feel ashamed. She wouldn’t belittle it. Of course, nothing would ever come of a crush such as this. But there was no harm in admiring him. It made Grace happy to think that he was in the world. Happier still that he knew
she
was in it, too.
So Grace whispered the contents of her heart to the one person she could trust to understand.
Chapter 6
The following morning Grace was in the garden picking vegetables for lunch when the black Bentley rumbled onto the grass in front of the cottage. She stood up and wiped her hands on her apron. Her heart began to thump hard against her ribcage. Like a fist, it was, and her stomach felt as if it were full of bees. She put her hand up to shield her eyes from the sun. To her surprise she saw the chauffeur climb out and walk towards her. ‘Miss Grace,’ he said. His tone was officious.
‘That’s me,’ she replied.
‘I’ve been sent by the Dowager Lady Penselwood. She requests your presence most urgently.’
Grace felt sick. She envisaged all sorts of terrible things that might have happened as a consequence of the bee sting. Perhaps the old lady’s hand had swollen so badly that she was now in greater pain. She wished her father could come with her, but he was working in the gardens up at the Hall and there wasn’t time to find him. Why couldn’t someone have summoned him instead? After all, he was already there?
‘Does she want me to come now?’ It was a silly question, for clearly the lady demanded her presence immediately.
‘Most urgently, were her words, Miss Grace.’