The Beekeeper’s Cottage: An absolutely unputdownable feel-good summer read

by Emma Davies

  She turned to look at Amos, his dark curls glinting in the golden light, his eyes closed with pleasure as he allowed a chunk of chocolate to dissolve in his mouth, exactly the same way she always did, and she smiled at his obvious enjoyment. Tomorrow she would have to start thinking seriously about what she was going to do, but, for tonight at least, she was happy to just let things drift.

  ‘Would you really do that for me?’ she asked after a moment.

  ‘Do what?’ Amos’s voice was thick with chocolate.

  ‘Do the viewings on this place?’

  ‘I would, if you wanted me to. You’d be surprised how little it takes to put someone off something. Most people are entirely suggestible, once you’ve worked out what their susceptibility is. Play up to that and it’s not that difficult at all.’

  Grace tipped her head to one side. ‘That sounds like you might be speaking from past experience?’

  ‘Well, I hope it won’t be necessary,’ he replied. ‘The house isn’t on the market yet, Grace. There’s still time for a halt to be put on proceedings.’

  ‘And you didn’t answer my question,’ she said, teasing him gently. ‘You don’t give much away, do you?’

  Amos gave a small smile. ‘I meet a lot of people,’ he said. ‘And mostly what I’ve learnt is that folks like to talk. But, more than that, they like it when someone listens. If you do that, you’d be surprised at the things people will tell you.’

  Grace smiled and popped another piece of chocolate in her mouth. Hadn’t she done just that herself? ‘And who listens to you, Amos?’ she asked.

  He grinned at her. ‘Would you be fishing for information now, Missus Maynard?’ he asked, adopting his country-bumpkin voice from earlier. ‘Because I’m just a simple gardener, don’t reckon there’s anything much to tell, truth be told.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for a minute,’ Grace volleyed back gently. Then she sighed. ‘So, what do I do, Amos?’ she asked, changing the subject. She would leave Amos to his secrets, for now anyway. ‘I guess it will be a few days before the details on the house are ready, but do I wait and see what happens, or do I press ahead with things? I haven’t heard a thing from Paul yet.’

  ‘You forge ahead,’ said Amos, without even a flicker of hesitation. ‘You’ve made the hardest decision, Grace, and now that you have, believe that you’re going to be able to keep the house and act accordingly. The only reason to delay in carving out the future you want is if there’s any doubt in your mind about what you want to do.’ He looked over at her.

  ‘No,’ she said, quickly. ‘There’s no doubt.’

  ‘Then there’s no point in waiting. I can look at the house with you tomorrow if you like, through your eyes this time, and decide what things need to be done to turn you into a guest house extraordinaire.’ He broke off and grinned at her. ‘And my minimum payment for doing so is one beekeeping lesson.’

  She gave him a wry smile. ‘You have a deal,’ she said, and then grew more serious. ‘And I need to phone my solicitor too,’ she added.

  ‘Yes,’ said Amos gently. ‘You do.’

  The exchange signalled the end of their conversation, but it was well over half an hour before either of them stirred.

  Despite the relaxed few hours she had spent in Amos’s company, Grace’s head filled with anxiety the moment she laid her head on the pillow. It was one thing to talk about what she was going to do, but another entirely to make it happen. Even if everything turned out exactly the way she planned, there would be massive change accompanied by huge emotional turmoil; she would be foolish to think otherwise. And that was if things went well, there were any number of points along the way where it all could go wrong…

  Given the nature of her thoughts it was no surprise that by two in the morning, Grace was once again wide awake. She had fallen asleep relatively quickly, the tiredness and stress of the day catching up with her, but even if she was not consciously thinking about her problems, her unconscious was doing a marvellous job all by itself. She threw back the covers, feeling stifled by the warmth of the bedroom, and turned over her pillow seeking to find a cool spot.

  Another hour of tossing and turning had Grace heading for the kitchen to get a glass of water. She wasn’t especially prone to insomnia, but there had been times in her life before when it had plagued her for nights on end. She had always found that writing down her worries helped to take the weight of anxiety from her head enough to allow her to sleep again. She collected a notepad and pencil from a drawer in the kitchen and took them to the table with her drink.

  With the moon approaching fullness, she found she could still see well enough to write without turning on any lights, and, angling the paper towards the glow from the moon, she allowed the pencil to trace line after line of silvery thoughts.

  After a while she realised that her attention was drifting from the paper to trace the outline of the pots of daisies that stood outside on the patio. She got up and slid open one of the glass doors, feeling the silky coolness of the night air rush in. It enticed her outside in a moment.

  Grace was never scared being alone at night. Paul’s work often meant that he was away from home, even when she had considered their marriage happy. Nowadays of course he was more likely to be away due to an illicit liaison rather than any work commitment but, despite the size of the house and its grounds, Grace had never felt uncomfortable. She wandered out past the seating area and onto the lawn, feeling the softness of the grass beneath her feet. Far in the distance an owl hooted, answered seconds later by another, while closer to home the air rustled with tiny creatures scurrying through the undergrowth. Grace walked on, picking her way down the path that led through the apple trees and out onto the rougher grass. She had no real thought as to where she was headed, until she arrived at the top of the slope where the beehives lay. She smiled at the thought of Amos’s antics that afternoon, picturing the scene being played out as Amos had described it. She doubted that Amos’s intervention would have had any real effect on the agent, but even if it meant that the house details were not quite up to their usual standard, that at least was something. She might not have much choice in the house going on the market in the first place, but she didn’t have to let Paul have everything his own way.

  She walked on carefully to the point on the slope where the cover from the trees grew thinner and she was able to look out across the fields planted with flowers. They looked as if they were sleeping under their silvery blanket. She took a couple more steps but then stopped suddenly, her heart leaping into her mouth at the sight in front of her. On the slope below lay Amos, not injured as she had first thought, but instead, fast asleep. A blanket had been spread on the ground and Amos lay flat on his back, one hand resting on his chest with the other held loosely by his side. His head was turned slightly to one side, allowing moonlight to play across one cheek.

  Crouching down where she stood, a feeling of enormous calm stole over her and Grace touched a hand to her heart without even knowing that she had done so. It felt as if she had never seen a man asleep before, but she must have. There would have been nights, surely, when she and Paul were first together, when she would have gazed at his face as he slept, but for the life of her she couldn’t remember doing so. In fact, Amos looked more peaceful than she could ever remember seeing anyone look before and the more she tried to tell herself that it was wrong to be watching him without his knowledge, the harder she found it to tear herself away.

  A faint golden glow began to breach the horizon and within minutes it seemed the first glint of the sun’s glowing orb became visible, streaking the sky with bright orange and fading to a delicate pearlescent pink. She watched the shadow lift from Amos’s face, saw the slight flicker of his eyelids as perhaps, subconsciously, he registered the first stirrings of the dawn. And still she sat, quiet as a mouse, listening to the swelling excitement of birdsong around her.

  She had no idea who this man was, nor where he had come from. They had spoken about all the
things that Amos might help with, both in her house and across at the farm, but that still didn’t explain the mystery of why he was there in the first place. The thought should have filled her with anxiety, but strangely it didn’t seem to matter at all. And even though she knew that it was an odd thing to find a man lying asleep in her garden, and that sitting watching him was equally weird, what was just as bizarre was that instead of making her feel like Amos was an intruder, what she felt was that she was no longer alone.

  As the sun continued to bring light to the day, Grace got slowly to her feet and crept from the garden, walking through her house with feet damp from the dew and utterly at peace; something she hadn’t felt in a long time. She was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow.

  Just below her, on the gentle slope of the hill, Amos shifted slightly in his sleep and smiled.

  11

  Grace awoke to the jarring sound of the telephone ringing. She lifted her head from the pillow but it felt so heavy that she immediately let it rest back down again, snuggling into the dent she had already made. She felt languid, deeply relaxed and incredibly comfortable and, given the choice, would happily have stayed in bed. Most unlike her.

  The telephone stopped ringing and she closed her eyes, thankful for an end to the awful noise, but no sooner had she drifted off to sleep again than it rang for the second time. And kept ringing. She dragged herself into a semi-upright position and tried to focus, eventually managing to lift the phone from the receiver beside the bed.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’ said the voice from the other end.

  There was only one person who would speak to her like that.

  ‘Paul,’ she said, closing her eyes in resignation. ‘Do you mind not yelling at me down the phone? If you’ve got something to say perhaps you could say it politely.’

  ‘When you tell me what game you think you’re playing with the estate agent, I might consider it. Don’t try and be clever, Grace, it doesn’t suit you.’

  Grace pulled herself up into a sitting position, glancing with horror at the clock as she did so. She switched the receiver to the other hand and tried to concentrate.

  ‘I really have no idea what you’re talking about, Paul.’ She sighed.

  There was a huff of indignation from the other end. ‘Evan Porter?’ he intoned. ‘The estate agent, who made an appointment with you yesterday to take down the house particulars and was given the runaround by some idiot gardener.’

  ‘Oh, Amos you mean.’ She gritted her teeth. ‘Well, firstly, he’s not an idiot, and second, he did me a favour by standing in for me, actually. I got called away at the last minute. He was trying to be helpful, that’s all.’

  ‘What utter rubbish, Grace. I don’t know what you think you’re going to achieve but it won’t make any difference. The house is going to be sold no matter how many silly games you play.’ He paused for a moment to speak to someone in the background. ‘Besides, we don’t even have a gardener, and I better not be bloody paying for him.’

  ‘Actually, Amos is working for free, which is just as well given the amount of time it takes to keep the grounds of this place looking at their best.’

  ‘Payment in kind, is it?’ he sneered. ‘Very creative, Grace… or should I call you Lady Chatterley?’

  Grace could feel her pulse begin to quicken and was about to bite back when she stopped herself. She’d had enough of her husband’s insults and jibes and it was about time she refused to let them affect her.

  ‘I’ve always known in which direction your moral compass points, Paul, you don’t need to remind me. But as far as the garden goes, perhaps you’d prefer me not to bother with it… see how those prospective purchasers like the house when the garden looks a complete mess… It’s peak growing season just now, Paul, and it really wouldn’t take long for it to look completely overgrown.’ She let her words sit with him before adding, ‘Was there anything else you wanted? Only I’m rather busy.’ She stretched out her legs languorously.

  ‘Just get it sorted out. And next time the agent needs to call, make sure you’re there.’

  ‘Yes, of course, darling,’ she replied. ‘Anything you say.’ And then she dropped the receiver back on its stand and scrambled from the bed.

  She stood in the middle of the room full of indecision. There were so many things she would normally have done by this time in the morning she didn’t know where to start. But then, out of nowhere, came a burst of laughter as Grace realised that she didn’t care. She felt free for the first time in years.

  Looking back towards the telephone she made a rude gesture at it, quickly covering her mouth as if someone might see her naughtiness. That was so unlike her as well. She stared at herself in the tall mirror on the other side of the room, gave a nod of satisfaction and went downstairs to make a coffee.

  There was a text waiting for her on her mobile.

  Morning! it said, followed by a sunny-face emoji. We’re drawing up battle plans for the milking shed at lunchtime, come over if you fancy it… and bring your notebook. About one. Flora xxx

  Grace looked at the clock again: 10 a.m. That was perfect. She texted back a reply to say that she would be there and crossed the room to throw open the patio doors. She stood there for a moment, half expecting to see Amos’s curly head of hair bobbing about somewhere, but knowing that he would have woken hours ago and would certainly no longer be in her garden. The image of him sleeping under the stars last night still made her smile. Pouring hot water into the cafetière, she picked up her mobile phone again, only this time she rang her solicitor.

  It didn’t matter how many times she saw it, Grace always thought the table and chairs laid out under the trees at the farm was like a 1950s’ advert for the quintessential family day out. The table was covered in a red-checked cloth, a huge vase of flowers stood on top, and dish after dish of lovingly prepared food was laid out ready. Add to this a big pitcher of lemonade, several happy people and a backdrop of lush greenery and it was nigh on perfect.

  Flora waved the moment she saw Grace walking towards them.

  ‘Can you go and fish Amos out for me please?’ she asked, as soon as Grace was close enough to speak to. ‘He’s round the back of the cottage. I’ve tried to get him to stop working and come and have some lunch but he’s said he’ll only be five minutes about twenty times now.’

  Grace grinned and nodded, walking further on down the yard past the table and chairs on the triangle of green. She could hear the rhythmic tapping of a hammer as she drew nearer. Disappearing around to the rear of the low building, she found Amos hard at work, easing out the mortar from between the old brick joints.

  She waved her hands. ‘Lunch!’ she shouted.

  He pulled down the mask that was partially covering his face. ‘Hello, Grace.’ He smiled. ‘Just give me five minutes.’

  ‘Uh oh, no you won’t,’ replied Grace. ‘I’ve been told to fetch you now.’ She could see the desire on his face to finish the bit he was working on, but he shrugged easily enough.

  ‘In that case, I’ll pop and have a quick wash. Food doesn’t taste so good when it’s covered in a layer of brick dust. I’ve discovered that the hard way.’ He put his tools down and followed Grace back around to the front of the building.

  ‘And how are you today?’ he asked. ‘Did you sleep well?’

  The question surprised her, but then she realised that Amos didn’t actually know the answer to his question, it was just her that felt as if he had somehow been with her the whole time she had slept. The thought brought an immediate blush to her cheeks and she kept her head turned away slightly so that he wouldn’t see.

  ‘I was very lazy,’ she replied. ‘I’m normally up with the lark, but this morning I slept in until almost ten. I don’t think I’ve done that since I was a teenager.’

  ‘Well, other than missing an exceptionally beautiful dawn, I don’t think it will have done you any harm at all,’ he replied. ‘You must have a lot on your mind just n
ow. Sleep doesn’t always come easily at such times.’

  ‘No,’ replied Grace, thinking of his peaceful face as he slept. ‘Well, I think plans are afoot,’ she added, drawing them away from what felt like a strangely intimate discussion. ‘I can see you’re very busy, but I hadn’t forgotten I promised you a beekeeping lesson, so perhaps when we’ve heard what Flora has to say, we could fix up a time?’

  They were standing by the cottage door. ‘I’d like that,’ said Amos simply, indicating that he should go inside. ‘I’ll catch you up, Grace,’ he added. ‘I won’t be a minute.’

  Grace made her way back to the others, taking a seat next to Hannah who was busy passing around dishes of salad amid a hubbub of conversation.

  ‘Amos is on his way,’ she reported.

  ‘Good,’ said Ned. ‘Because if you’ve seen the number of things to do that Flora has on her list, he’ll need feeding up – the poor man is going to be busy for the next seven years…’

  ‘Oi!’ replied Flora indignantly, slapping his arm playfully. She turned towards Grace. ‘I’ve been trying to come up with some ideas for the best way to utilise the milking shed, which is why I’m really keen to hear what you might have in mind for your place. It strikes me that there could be a lot of crossover between what we’d like to accomplish here and what you might like to develop for your own business.’