The Beekeeper's Daughter A Novel

by Santa Montefiore

  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.

  ‘I suppose she has always fed off the misfortunes of others,’ said Grace.

  ‘She most certainly has. But still, her daughter has run off and Bill and Evelyn have no idea where she is. The girl left a note, but she didn’t say where she was going. You see, she doesn’t want to be found and she certainly doesn’t want to come back.’

  ‘Poor Suzie.’ Grace sighed. ‘Trixie and she make a sorry pair, don’t they?’

  Big pulled a face. ‘Oh, Suzie will recover; she has a very shallow heart, but Trixie, now she’s the one I feel most sorry for.’

  ‘She’s desperate, Big, and it grieves me so much to see her like that.’

  ‘What a cad to promise marriage and then let her down.’ Big’s face hardened. ‘If I were his mother . . .’

  ‘I’m afraid I think it’s his mother who has prevented the marriage,’ Grace interrupted.

  ‘Really? Why would she d
o that?’

  Grace put down her teacup. ‘Because they are a very grand family and it’s his duty to marry one of his own.’

  ‘What’s the name?’

  ‘Penselwood. Lord Jasper Duncliffe’s elder brother died without an heir, so the title has passed to his brother. Jasper is now the Marquess of Penselwood.’ Grace dropped her gaze into her tea.

  ‘Now, I know that name,’ said Big slowly, narrowing her eyes.

  ‘You do?’ Grace asked, surprised.

  ‘Of course I do. My father knew the Marquess of Penselwood. What was his name? It was a funny one.’

  ‘Aldrich?’

  ‘That’s the one. Aldrich Penselwood. You know, he had a house here on Tekanasset. He used to summer here with his wonderfully eccentric wife, Arabella, and their children. I remember about three or four mighty beautiful children. One of them was very naughty. A darling little boy called Rufus. Yes, Rufus, I remember now. He was delightful.’

  ‘Jasper is Rufus’s son,’ said Grace. ‘What a coincidence that they used to summer here.’

  ‘Coincidence? I don’t think so. Surely that’s why Jasper was here in the first place.’

  Grace felt as if she had just been stung. Why hadn’t she thought of that? ‘Why did they stop coming?’ she asked.

  ‘The war, I imagine. I don’t know. They never came back after that and we lost touch with them. My father was very fond of Aldrich. They were both keen golfers, and if I remember rightly, Aldrich loved boats. He used to collect them, proper ones, expensive ones, and have them shipped to England in crates. And he used to make model boats, too. I felt sorry for Arabella. I don’t imagine he gave her much attention.’ She shrugged. ‘Then again, perhaps she was very frosty in the bedroom and that drove him to seek solace in his boats. I don’t remember her smiling very much. But he had a twinkle.’ She summoned a waiter and ordered two slices of cranberry pie.

  Grace’s mind was busy making sense of the fact that Rufus had been to Tekanasset. She recalled the time she had gone to Walbridge Hall and momentarily glimpsed his father’s study with all those model ships and paintings of the sea. She realized he must have bought them here.

  ‘You know, I’m sure I have photos of Aldrich. My father was a keen photographer and my mother was very scrupulous about keeping his photographs,’ Big continued. But Grace wasn’t listening. Was it a coincidence that Freddie had chosen to move here? ‘Grace, what are you thinking about?’ Big asked, staring at her with narrowed eyes.

  Grace blinked and reddened. ‘Oh, nothing. Just that Trixie doesn’t know Jasper is titled,’ she said.

  ‘Why not? What does he have to hide?’

  ‘I think he knew all along that he would never be able to marry her.’

  ‘Then why put her through the agony?’

  ‘Because he wanted to, and while he was here it seemed possible. Once he got home and faced his mother, who I imagine is as formidable as her mother-in-law was, he realized it wasn’t going to work.’

  ‘Look, I’m old-fashioned, but surely gone are the days of arranged marriages?’

  ‘You’re right, they are gone, but still the aristocracy retain a sense of duty. Jasper will need to find a partner who can help him run the estate. She’ll have to hold grand dinners for the county bigwigs, arrange charity functions in their ballroom, the summer fête in their garden, lunches to raise money for the church. She’ll have to rub shoulders with the royal family at Royal Ascot and hobnob with dukes and duchesses during the London season. Can you imagine Trixie living that sort of life? She’d loathe the formality and the duty.’ Grace’s spirits deflated as Rufus’s voice seemed to reverberate across the decades. ‘The only women capable of that are the ones who are bred for it,’ she added, but it could have been Rufus, speaking through her.

  ‘Then Trixie has had a lucky escape,’ said Big firmly.

  ‘I think she has, but right now she believes she’ll never love anyone again.’

  ‘She will, and if she doesn’t she’ll end up like me and I haven’t done too badly.’

  Grace smiled fondly at Big. ‘Did you ever come close?’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Big’s eyes sparkled and she cut the corner of her cranberry pie with her fork. ‘I had many suitors.’

  ‘But none of them was good enough?’

  ‘None of them came close to my Pa.’ She popped the piece of pie in her mouth and chewed enthusiastically. ‘They were all diminished by him. He was such a great man, he made them look inadequate. But I have no regrets. My Pa was God’s greatest gift to me and not a day goes by when I don’t miss him.’

  Grace thought of her own father and felt a pang of homesickness. ‘I miss mine, too, Big. Do you think we ever grow too old to miss them?’

  ‘Never!’ Big was certain. ‘They’re our first loves, and in my case, my only love – although poor Pa was always trying to marry me off. He and Ma wanted grandchildren. They despaired. But that’s just the way it was. I wasn’t going to budge an inch.’ Big patted Grace’s hand and chuckled. ‘Enough about me. Trixie will love again and one day she’ll look back on her past and thank the good Lord she didn’t marry Jasper, because she will have found happiness with someone better. One has to be philosophical.’

  ‘Trixie’s not at all philosophical. She and Suzie are talking of going to New York. Freddie would like her to go to college, but she doesn’t want to go. She wants her life to start right away.’

  ‘I suppose it’s time they made their own way in the world.’

  ‘Trixie wants to work for Vogue. If she’s lucky enough to get a job, she’ll start at the bottom making the tea. But she’ll work her way up, and if she’s clever enough, she might end up where she wants to be.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘Editor, probably, but more likely writing about fashion and seeing a bit of the world.’

  Big’s steely eyes glinted. ‘Is she serious about wanting to work in fashion?’

  ‘Yes, she’s a bright girl and she writes well.’

  ‘Then let me see what I can do for her. I know one or two people who might be useful to her.’

  ‘Thank you, Big. That would be wonderful.’

  ‘Think nothing of it,’ said Big. ‘It’s what friends do.’

  When Grace returned home it was getting dark. She called for Trixie, but the house was silent except for the excited panting of the dogs. She looked at her watch. She had just enough time to take them for a walk up the beach before sunset. They wagged their tails and bounded onto the sand. There was a strong wind and Grace wrapped her coat tightly around her. She thought of Evelyn and her heart went out to her, for she knew what it was to suffer. As much as she disliked the woman, she wouldn’t wish that kind of heartache on anybody.

  As she strode up the sand she thought of Rufus. When she left England after the war she had assumed she was leaving every shadow of him behind. For each corner of Walbridge was haunted by his memory, and as long as she was there she knew she’d never be free of him. But now she realized his shadow reached Tekanasset. Perhaps he had walked up that very beach. He would most certainly have gone to Crab Cove golf club. How strange that all these years she felt so far away from him, she was actually walking in his footsteps.

  The fact that his family had once taken a house here explained why Jasper had come to the island with his band. Maybe Rufus’s parents had known Joe Hornby and given Jasper his details. She wondered when and how Rufus had died. In her memory he was still the young man she had fallen in love with. She couldn’t imagine him older. She certainly couldn’t imagine him dead. The thought made her go cold and she put her head down to walk against the wind.

  It was getting dark now. She could barely see the dogs. She turned around and walked with her back against the wind, which was much easier. She mulled over these new, troubling revelations as the dogs bounded over the dunes, frolicking in the long grasses. When she reached home she was greeted by Freddie, waving at her from the veranda. She quickened her pace, hoping that Trixie
was all right. She had been so down lately. Grace was unable to see Freddie’s expression from where she was, but as she approached she saw another person through the glass door, standing in the kitchen.

  She rushed up the garden path, the dogs at her heels. Freddie opened the door to let her in. There, standing with her back against the counter, was Evelyn Durlacher. Grace was astonished. She didn’t think that, in all the years she had lived on Sunset Slip, Evelyn had ever visited her home. ‘Hello, Grace,’ said Evelyn, smiling tightly.

  Grace took in her immaculately coiffed hair, her perfectly applied lipstick and nail polish, her pearls and her fine cashmere twinset in the palest grey, and couldn’t think of anything to do other than smile back. ‘Hello, Evelyn. What a surprise.’

  ‘I know, it’s long overdue. Freddie has sweetly given me a drink. You must have heard the news about Lucy. I imagine the whole island is chattering about nothing else. I’ve never needed a drink more than now.’

  ‘Shall we go into the sitting room? It’s not very comfortable here in the kitchen.’

  ‘Oh, I’m easy,’ she replied, but Grace led her into the sitting room anyway. Evelyn was the sort of woman who was a stranger to kitchens, especially her own.

  Grace had a flair for gardens, but she did not have a flair for interior decoration. The sitting room was undoubtedly the cosiest on Tekanasset, but nothing coordinated and in spite of Freddie’s obsessional tidiness, it was pleasantly scruffy and disorganized. Freddie gave a grunt of irritation and disappeared into his study, where nothing was out of place. But this was Grace’s room, full of potted plants, ornamental bees and books that overflowed from the bookcases onto every surface, along with newspapers, magazines and Grace’s garden designs drawn on pieces of paper.

  Evelyn moved a pile of sketches off the sofa and sat down. Grace chose the armchair and the dogs flopped onto the rug in front of the empty fireplace. ‘What a lovely room,’ said Evelyn, sweeping her eyes over it.

  Grace knew she was just being polite. She had seen Evelyn’s exquisitely decorated sitting room. ‘Thank you,’ she replied, all the same. She wasn’t going to apologize for the chaos.