The Beekeeper's Daughter (13 page)

George got to his feet, put his hands behind his head and started to pace the lawn. ‘We’ll wait for you, mate,’ he said. ‘As long as it takes.’

Jasper shot him a look that told him he was being ridiculous, but Trixie didn’t understand why. ‘I don’t know,’ he mumbled. Then he stood up angrily. ‘It was all going so well, and now
this
!’

‘How old was your brother?’ she asked.

‘Older than me, and that was the best thing about him,’ Jasper said harshly, then looked like he was going to burst into tears. ‘No, that’s unfair. I loved him. He was a good man. The best. Better than me, anyhow, and now I have to fill his shoes and I’m totally inadequate. In every way, I’m inadequate.’

‘So what will you do?’ she asked.

‘Go home.’

‘But you’ll come back?’

He looked at her steadily. ‘Walk with me, Trixie. I need to get out of here.’

Ben drained the beer bottle. ‘Take as long as you want. We’ll hang here. George, roll one, will you?’

They set off up the beach. He took her hand. For a long while they walked in silence. Trixie had so many questions, but she didn’t want to press him until he was ready to talk. Finally he stopped and turned to face her. She could barely look into his eyes for the desolation there.

‘I love you, Trixie. I love you with all my heart.’ Jasper placed his hands on her shoulders. ‘I love you more now that I know I might lose you.’

‘What do you mean?’ Her heart began to hop about like a frightened cricket.

‘I have to return to England and I might not come back.’ His words winded her and her eyes filled with tears. ‘Don’t look at me like that, my darling. I can’t take it,’ he groaned.

‘You can come back, surely? Why wouldn’t you?’

‘Because my destiny is no longer to be a rock star, but to run a great estate.’ He said it as if it wasn’t a great estate but a great curse.

She screwed up her nose. ‘I don’t understand.’

He smiled and traced her jawline with his thumbs. ‘Of course you don’t. How could you? You know nothing about me. My brother was . . .’

‘I’ll go with you,’ she interjected suddenly.

It was his turn to look bewildered. ‘You mean that?’

‘Of course I do. If you want me to come with you, I will.’

A look of relief momentarily swept the shadows away. ‘Are you serious? You’d give up everything for me?’

‘I’d follow you to the ends of the earth, Jasper. I know we’re meant to be together. I feel it.’

‘Then we must marry. I can’t expect you to come all the way to England without a promise of commitment.’

Her spirit soared with happiness. ‘If you want me as your wife, I’ll marry you.’

‘I want you, full stop, Trixie.’ The shadow of doubt darkened his features once again. ‘But you’re so young. You want to work in fashion and travel the world. I couldn’t ask you to give all that up for me. You don’t know what sort of life awaits you in England. I’m not entirely sure you’d be suited to it. I’d hate to make you miserable. You’d only end up loathing me.’

‘What are you talking about, Jasper?’

‘Being my wife would mean you’d have to give up all your dreams. You wouldn’t be able to work in fashion and travel the world to attend the fashion shows. You’d be holding meetings to raise money for the church roof and throwing dinner parties for the High Sheriff and his wife. It’s a commitment I’m not sure you’d relish. I don’t think it would make you happy.’

‘I’ll be happy to be with you, wherever that may be.’

He sighed and cast his gaze out to sea. He seemed to weigh up the possibilities. ‘OK, here’s the plan,’ he said, turning back to her. ‘I’ll go home and attend my brother’s funeral. Then, when I’ve sorted everything out, I’ll send for you.’

Trixie felt the world adjust into sharp focus. Her nerves tingled as she began to sense everything more intensely. This was drama at its most exciting. It was what one read about in novels but never actually lived. Now she was really living. She always knew she was too big for a small island like Tekanasset. ‘I’ll wait for you, then,’ she replied.

He bent down and kissed her passionately. ‘My career might be in shreds but I still have you, Trixie.’

‘You’ll always have me, Jasper. I’ll wait as long as it takes.’

Chapter 9

Grace was putting the pastry on top of an apple pie when Freddie arrived home. She heard the screen door bang and his familiar footsteps in the hall as he put his briefcase on the floor, hung up his jacket and patted the dogs, who rushed in to greet him. She could sense his anger and her heart contracted. She had grown used to his distance, and her memories and the gardens compensated for that, but his anger hurt her every time anew.

She dipped the brush in the melted butter and glazed the top of the pie, anticipating his entrance at any moment and preparing herself for whatever it was that was upsetting him. She heard him go into his study and the clinking of the decanter told her he was pouring himself a whiskey. A moment later she heard the light tapping of dog paws on the wooden floorboards in the hall and Freddie strode in.

She could tell from his face that he was hurt more than angry and she couldn’t imagine what had caused it. ‘What’s happened, Freddie? Are you all right?’

He walked through the kitchen and out onto the veranda where he put a hand on his hip and gazed out to sea. Grace took off her apron and followed him. ‘It’s Trixie,’ he said at last, without looking at his wife.

‘What about her?’

‘It’s this young man she’s seeing. I don’t like it at all.’

Grace’s anxiety lifted. ‘You have to let her go, darling,’ she said. ‘She’s nineteen.’

‘I don’t like the boy.’

‘Have you met him?’

He shook his head and took a swig of whiskey. ‘I don’t like the sound of him.’

She sighed, a little impatiently. ‘Then you must meet him and judge him from having met him rather than what you hear about him.’

‘We come all the way out to America, thinking we’ve left England behind, and it finds us, all the way across the Atlantic. Can you believe it?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘This Jasper . . .’

‘Yes?’

He took another swig. ‘I’m not sure. I could be wrong. After all . . .’ They both heard the front door open and the rattling of the screen door banging shut. He glanced fearfully at his wife.

‘After all, what?’ she whispered. But it was too late. Trixie was marching through the kitchen, her jaw set into a determined scowl.

‘I need to talk to you both,’ she said, joining them on the veranda. Grace suddenly felt weak in her legs and sat down on the swing chair. She noticed her daughter’s white face and the purple shadows beneath her eyes that betrayed tears shed and wiped away. ‘Jasper is going to England and he won’t be coming back,’ she announced dramatically. Grace and Freddie were both taken aback. Having imagined endless possibilities, Jasper leaving Tekanasset was the only one they hadn’t thought of. Grace felt the impulse to reach out and embrace her daughter. But there was something about Trixie’s determined jaw that told her there was more and that she wasn’t going to like it. She remained in her seat and braced herself for what was to come.

‘I’m going with him,’ Trixie declared. ‘He’s asked me to marry him.’

Freddie’s face flushed such a deep crimson Grace thought he was about to suffer a seizure. ‘You’re not marrying him, Trixie,’ he said, and his voice was as hard as granite.

‘Wait a minute, everybody. You’re both one step ahead of me,’ said Grace, struggling to keep calm. ‘Darling, why is he going back to England? I thought he wanted to be a rock star.’

‘His brother has died,’ Trixie replied.

‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ said Grace. ‘How terrible. How did he die?’

‘In a car crash.’

Freddie drained his glass and turned to his daughter. The way he looked at her made Grace’s heart freeze over. ‘Tell me, why can’t he come back?’

‘Because he has to run his estate, apparently.’

Freddie nodded slowly. ‘Because he has to run his estate.’ He glanced at Grace, almost accusingly. ‘What’s his full name, Beatrix?’

‘Jasper Duncliffe,’ Trixie replied. Now
she
was beginning to feel uneasy. ‘Why? Do you
know
him?’

Grace felt the ground spinning away from her. Jasper
Duncliffe.
Her mind began to race as the blood shot to her temples, where it pounded painfully against her skull. If he was who she thought he was, then the brother who died would be his
elder
brother, which was why the responsibility now lay with him to run the estate. If
he
had to run the estate that would mean his father was also dead. She took a sharp breath as if her own heart had been stabbed. Her hand shot to her chest.
Not necessarily. Not necessarily
, she thought, searching desperately for another possibility. She stood up. ‘I’ll be back in a moment,’ she gasped, hurrying into the kitchen.

She leaned against the counter and stifled a sob. She could see Freddie and Trixie talking on the veranda. She had to remain calm. There was no way that after all these years she was going to let down her defences and give in to the pain. She opened the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine. With a trembling hand she reached into the cabinet for a glass and poured it unsteadily. She took a large swig. Her neck felt sore from straining against the incoming tide of emotion that threatened to break through the barriers that had remained steadfast and strong for nearly thirty years, and her head was now throbbing. She wanted to run to her bed and cry beneath the covers, but she couldn’t. She had to return and continue the conversation as if this had nothing to do with her own broken heart, with her own grief, with her own past.

She took three deep breaths and wiped the sweat off her brow with the tea towel. Then she lifted her chin and walked outside. ‘He
will
send for me,’ Trixie was saying, and her voice was thin as if she, too, was struggling against her own tide of emotions.

‘Beatrix, you know nothing about what it means to marry a man like Jasper. He’ll return to England and once the funeral is over and reality dawns, he’ll realize that he can’t marry a flighty young girl like you. A man like Jasper will put duty before his own desires.’

Grace sat on the swing chair again, but this time her body was stiff, as if it belonged to someone far stronger than she. ‘Your father is right,’ she said. Freddie wasn’t expecting the support of his wife. Neither was Trixie, who began to cry. ‘He will put duty before his own desires and marry one of his own kind. That’s what men like him do. They put family first. If he inherits a great estate he will take his responsibility very seriously.’

‘I don’t understand you British,’ Trixie snapped. ‘You’re not human.’

‘We’re only trying to prevent you from being hurt, you foolish girl,’ Freddie growled.

‘Because we love you,’ said Grace and her eyes began to well with tears at the mention of the word
love.

‘Well, I’m going to wait for him. I’ll wait as long as it takes, but I
will
marry him.’

Encouraged by his wife’s surprising support, Freddie decided to strike a deal, one that he was sure would turn out to his advantage. ‘If he sends for you, you have my blessing,’ he said slowly.

Grace swallowed hard. ‘And you have mine, too,’ she added.

Freddie nodded and there was a glimmer of warmth behind his eyes. ‘Then that’s settled.’

Trixie was reassured. The colour returned to her cheeks. ‘You mean that?’ she asked. ‘You really mean that?’

‘I mean that,’ her father confirmed. He took a cigarette out of his breast pocket and lit it, then he turned and leaned on the balustrade and looked out over the sea. ‘If he sends for you I will admit that I’m wrong and that I’ve misjudged him.’

Trixie was suddenly filled with excitement. ‘Then I must go and tell Jasper right away!’ she exclaimed, her face now pink and smiling elatedly. She ran into the kitchen, grabbing an apple from the fruit bowl on the way, and out through the hall. The screen door rattled then slammed and the house was left silent and still.

Grace and Freddie remained on the veranda. The dogs, who had sought refuge in the kitchen, now wandered out sheepishly, sensing perhaps that the air was strained with thoughts too anguished to articulate. Freddie smoked pensively, Grace sipped her wine. They had united briefly and yet, still, they felt oceans apart. Grace tried not to think about herself. She thought of her daughter, setting out on the first adventure of her life, her heart filled with love and optimism, just as hers had been all those years ago. Trixie believed, as Grace once did, that love has the power to burn away all obstacles, that it is a virtue that negates any wickedness committed in its name. Grace could tell her she was wrong, as she herself had been, but what was the use? Her father had told her that wisdom cannot be taught. ‘Knowledge can be taught, but wisdom must be learned through experience,’ he had said. Trixie had to make her own way and learn from her own mistakes. That was the purpose of life.

‘What’s for supper?’ Freddie asked, turning away from his melancholic pondering.

Grace looked at her watch. ‘The apple pie will be ready now,’ she said.

‘Apple pie? That’s good,’ he replied.

‘I’ve made chicken escalopes to fry.’

He smiled. ‘Good. I don’t imagine Trixie’s going to come home to eat.’

‘No, she’ll be eating at Joe’s, I should think.’ She stood up and followed him into the kitchen. ‘How sad for the boys. Do you think their dream of being a famous band is now over?’

Freddie nodded. ‘I think so. From what I heard, Jasper has the voice.’

‘And the money to finance it,’ she added quietly.

‘Indeed. I think the most disappointed will be Joe. He must have seen Jasper as a pot of gold.’

‘Poor boy. He came all the way out here to escape his family and live his dream and it’s all shattered.’

‘They’re different from us, Grace.’

‘I know,’ she replied softly.

‘We’re going to have to be strong for Trixie.’

‘Yes, we are.’