The Beekeeper's Daughter (22 page)

‘Oh, I’m sure if we had met him properly we would have noticed that he was well bred. Lucy did say he had impeccable manners,’ said Evelyn.

Belle watched the butler retreat inside. ‘Who’s
he
?’ she hissed to Evelyn.

Evelyn smiled smugly. ‘He’s my new butler. He’s called Henderson and used to work in the British royal household.’

‘What does that mean?’ Blythe asked.

‘He worked for the royal family.’

Belle took a cigarette from the packet Sally held out for her. ‘How did you find him?’ she enquired.

‘From a wonderful agency in New York,’ Evelyn replied. ‘When he’s got to know me a little better, I’ll ask him for all the gossip.’

‘Ooh, do pass it on,’ said Sally excitedly, blowing out a cloud of smoke.

‘You can always count on me,’ Evelyn replied. She brought her cocktail to her crimson lips, making sure she didn’t leave a mark on the glass.

‘So, is their career truly over?’ Belle asked. ‘Poor boys, what a disappointment.’

There was no such sympathy in Evelyn’s voice. ‘Lucy told me that Trixie expects to go and join him in England. Now, what do you think the chances are of that? Hmm?’ She gave a little sniff. ‘I imagine she’ll grow old waiting for him to make an honest woman of her. Trixie is the sort of girl a man has fun with but doesn’t marry.’

‘I agree,’ echoed Sally. There had never been a time when she hadn’t agreed with Evelyn. ‘Men marry the nice girls, not the naughty ones.’

‘Poor Trixie,’ Belle sighed. ‘She must be brokenhearted.’

‘More brokenhearted now she knows that he owns a vast estate. Do you think he’s titled?’ Blythe asked. ‘I mean, don’t estates come with titles?’

‘Most certainly,’ said Evelyn. ‘I’ll ask Henderson. He’s bound to know that sort of thing.’ She glanced at her manicure. ‘He would have done better to have fallen in love with Lucy. She’ll make some man a very good wife one day.’

‘Oh yes, she will,’ Sally gushed. ‘You’ve brought Lucy up to be a
nice
girl.’

Trixie waited. She trusted that Jasper would send for her eventually, and her sorrow at their parting was replaced by a blind optimism for their future. He wrote her letters from England, which took over a week to arrive. She was impressed by the stiff white envelopes, embossed on the back with the crest of a lion and dragon, and she was thrilled by his writing paper, headed with the letter
J
in gleaming crimson. His handwriting was flamboyant but the contents of his letters were depressing. He wrote of his mother’s despair, his sisters’ fighting and the struggle he was having stepping into his brother’s shoes when he knew nothing about how to run an estate. He wrote about the high expectations everyone had of him and his fear that he would disappoint.

Trixie began to feel apprehensive. Judging by the grand stationery and the fact that the estate was passed down the generations through the male heirs, it was clear that the Duncliffes must be a grand and important family. While Jasper doubted he could run the estate, Trixie doubted she’d be good enough for his family. He had said his mother would disapprove of her and she now knew why. Trixie wasn’t from a wealthy family. Her father was a farmer, her mother was a gardener and she was a waitress. Her confidence deflated like a balloon the morning after a party. It was Jasper’s duty to marry one of his own sort. Even he had said she’d be ill suited to his life in England. She began to wonder if he wasn’t right.

While her optimism about their future flagged, her confidence in their love remained strong. She longed for his physical presence with such vigour that her whole body ached. She wrote him emotional letters but kept her reservations to herself. Jasper always ended his with a paragraph about how much he loved her and missed her and yearned for the day when they would be reunited. Those parts she read and reread, wearing his name out with her kisses, replacing her fears with the hope that everything would turn out all right in the end.

Jasper had been gone four weeks when he telephoned. Grace shouted up the stairs with urgency and Freddie came out of his office to see what all the excitement was about. ‘It’s Jasper!’ she exclaimed. ‘He’s calling from England!’ Trixie ran down the stairs and into the kitchen where her mother was holding out the receiver, looking as surprised as Trixie felt.

‘Hello?’ she said.

There was a short delay, then Jasper’s voice could be heard faintly down the crackling line. ‘Trixie. I just wanted to hear your voice.’

‘Oh, Jasper, you sound so far away!’

‘I
am
far away.’

‘I miss you!’

‘I miss you, too. You have no idea how much. I wish I was in Jack’s boathouse with you in my arms.’

‘So do I,’ she breathed into the receiver. ‘Is it getting easier?’

‘A little. I’m learning the ropes. I have a lot of good people around me who know what they’re doing, thankfully. It’s my mother who’s driving me mad.’

‘How is she driving you mad?’

He hesitated. ‘She’s just making life very difficult for me.’

‘Have you told her about us?’

‘Of course I have.’

There was a long pause. Trixie could feel his anxiety through the wire. ‘You can’t expect her to like someone she’s never met, and she probably isn’t too happy about me being American. Have you told her my parents are English?’

He sighed. ‘It’ll be fine. Don’t worry. I love your letters.’

‘Oh, I love yours, too. Did
you
put the lion on the back of the envelope?’

He laughed. ‘No, the lion and dragon is our family crest, Trixie.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’ll be your family crest when we’re married.’

‘Oh, good, so I’ll get to have elegant stationery, too, with the letter B on the paper?’

‘Yes, Beatrix, you will.’

‘I’m so excited. Please send for me soon. I’m going crazy here missing you.’

‘I know. Just a little longer. Keep writing to me, won’t you?’

‘You bet.’

‘I think of you all the time, Trixie.’

‘And I think of you, too.’ Her throat constricted with emotion. ‘I love you, Jasper.’

‘And I love you, too. Don’t ever forget it.’

‘I won’t.’

‘I kiss you all over.’

She laughed through her tears. ‘And I treasure every one.’

Grace sat on the swing chair and strained her ears to hear her daughter’s conversation. From the little she picked up, it sounded positive. Since the news that Rufus had died she hadn’t been able to sleep. Her nights had been spent here on the swing chair, gazing out over the ocean, remembering. She never felt alone. There was always the silent presence of her invisible companion. Somehow, in the darkness, she felt him stronger, closer, and there was something about his company that she found soothing.

If Trixie married Jasper, she would have to return to Walbridge and confront her past. She’d have to revisit the cottage, the scene of her father’s death, the river where Freddie proposed, the church where they were married – and she’d be faced with having to unravel all that came after.

When Trixie hung up the telephone, Grace went back inside. ‘He says I have to wait a little longer,’ she told her mother.

‘Oh, darling, I’m sure it won’t be much longer,’ said Grace.

‘I sense his mother is being very difficult, but I’m sure she’ll like me when she gets to know me.’

‘Of course she will,’ said Grace, remembering the icily beautiful Lady Georgina with a shudder. She didn’t suppose she was any less formidable now, over thirty years later.

‘It’s going to be OK,’ said Trixie happily. ‘Jasper loves me. I mean, he telephoned all the way from England just to hear my voice.’

‘I don’t doubt that he loves you, darling. Poor thing, having to deal with a death in the family as well as a sudden change in his career plans. His life really has been turned upside down.’

‘But I’m going to fly over and put it the right way up again.’

‘I’m sure you will.’

‘Don’t look so sad, Mom.
I
don’t doubt that it’s all going to work out fine, so neither should you.’ Trixie put her arms around her mother. ‘I’m going to be Mrs Jasper Duncliffe. How does that sound?’

‘Different,’ said Grace, fighting her impulse to tell her the truth. But if she did, she’d have to confess how she knew. If she confessed how she knew, Trixie would wonder why neither parent had mentioned the coincidence. If she
did
marry Jasper, they’d have to tell her that they, too, came from Walbridge and hope that Trixie wouldn’t be hurt. And she’d have to tell her about Rufus.

She could feel her daughter quivering with excitement. Why hadn’t Jasper told her? Did he think Trixie would love him less if she knew he was the Marquess of Penselwood? Or did he know in his heart that a man of his background could never marry a girl like Trixie?

The days passed, growing shorter as summer slipped into autumn. Grace extracted the honey from the hives. Trixie worked hard at Captain Jack’s. August was busy with tourists and city-dwellers flooding the island for their summer break. Trixie worked long hours, serving demanding clients with an unwavering smile. She didn’t have much time to pine for Jasper. But once everyone had gone, the island was left slightly shaken, like a city after carnival. The first leaves began to turn. The wind blew in chilly and damp and Trixie felt the first niggle of doubt about Jasper.

At first Grace didn’t realize it, because Trixie was working, or out with Suzie, but as September was swallowed into October and Jasper still hadn’t sent for her, she noticed her daughter becoming withdrawn and uncharacteristically solitary. She would sit for hours on the beach, staring out to sea, smoking endless cigarettes, or wander the shore like a solitary gannet, searching the sand for sea glass. She stopped going out with Suzie and went to bed early, hiding beneath the quilt, sleeping until midday on Sundays. Grace tried to be encouraging but even she noticed that Jasper’s letters grew fewer and shorter just as Trixie’s grew more frequent and desperate.

Freddie was concerned but resigned. He didn’t say ‘I told you so’, because he didn’t have to. Grace knew as well as he did that Jasper’s will was weakening. He wasn’t going to send for Trixie. He was going to put duty before happiness, as his sort always did. Grace thought of Rufus. Why had she ever thought Jasper would be any different? Her heart went out to her daughter. If she had been able to wave a wand she’d have granted Trixie the life with Jasper that she craved. She’d do anything for her daughter’s happiness. She’d return to Walbridge if she had to and walk among her memories, even though every step would hurt. But there was no magic wand, only a terrible not-knowing, until in early November Trixie received a final letter from Jasper.

Trixie was too upset to read it out. She handed it to her mother and ran onto the veranda to cry on the swing chair. Freddie looked over Grace’s shoulder and read the words he had anticipated seeing for a long time.

My darling Trixie,

This is the hardest letter I will ever have to write. Things have been very difficult over the last few months. I have fought endlessly with my mother and tried desperately hard to make it work for us, but I fear the battle is lost. I cannot bring you here, my love, knowing how unhappy you will be. I cannot let you sacrifice your life for me. I have given up singing and put my guitar away because the sight of it and what it represents only makes me miserable. I love you with all my heart and treasure the memories of those precious weeks together on Tekanasset. I won’t ever forget you. But please forget me. You deserve better.

With love always, Jasper

‘Just as I thought,’ Freddie groaned. ‘How I wish I’d been wrong!’

‘How could he?’ Grace exclaimed. ‘He’s gone and broken her heart, just as you predicted.’ She turned to face him. ‘Oh Freddie, could I have done anything to prevent it?’

‘She’s a wilful girl, Grace, you know that. I tried to warn her but she wouldn’t listen.’

‘What’s she going to do?’

‘She’s going to do what we all do when we are let down or disappointed or brokenhearted. We carry on.’ He clenched his teeth and frowned. ‘We get up, dust ourselves down and try to make the best of it. She’ll go to college and she’ll get over him – and perhaps we shall never hear the names Duncliffe or Melville or Penselwood again.’

Grace felt her face flush. ‘I’ll go and talk to her,’ she said and went outside.

She sat beside her daughter and pulled the sobbing girl into her arms. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said gently.

‘I should have listened to Daddy. He knew. Why didn’t I listen?’

‘Because you were in love,’ Grace replied.

‘I hate him!’

‘No, you don’t. You should, but you don’t.’

‘You don’t understand, Mom. You’ve never been there. You’ve only ever loved Daddy. You don’t know what it’s like. I hate him with all my heart. I never want to hear from him or see him ever again.’ Trixie buried her face in her mother’s sweater, and Grace smiled sadly because in spite of the most terrible suffering, the heart goes on loving; that is the beauty of love.

Chapter 16

There are many ways to break a heart because wherever there is love there is the possibility of pain. Trixie had suffered a direct hit to hers, but Evelyn Durlacher’s heart would be broken in a different way. While Grace made sure that her daughter’s unhappiness did not become fodder for the gossip-mongers, Crab Cove golf club was awash with the news that Lucy Durlacher had run off with one of the two remaining band members. And it wasn’t the one she had
supposedly
been seeing, but Ben, the one who had
supposedly
been seeing Suzie Redford.

Big claimed she had seen it coming. ‘I feel a certain sympathy for Evelyn; one would have to be very hardhearted not to, but at the same time I feel the silly woman brought it upon herself. If she hadn’t pounced like a greedy old vulture onto the lame and wounded, she might not have attracted such disaster. What goes around comes around. There’s a lot of truth in that.’ Big and Grace sat in the tea room at the golf club, and although most people spoke in hushed voices, Grace sensed they were all talking about Evelyn and Bill.