The Beekeeper's Daughter (15 page)

But then Michael Valentine came back from the bar with a trio of beers for himself, Freddie and Arthur, and the happy news just relayed to him by the publican. ‘Lord Melville has found himself a bride,’ he announced cheerfully, sitting down.

‘How wonderful,’ gushed May. ‘Who is the lucky lady?’

‘Some duke’s daughter. I don’t know.’ Michael shrugged and sank his lip into the foamy head of his beer.

Josephine blew a stream of smoke out of the side of her scarlet mouth like a dragon. ‘How dreary,’ she sneered. ‘There’s nothing
wonderful
about an arranged marriage, Mum. Their lot are all so dry and unemotional. It’ll be a very dull wedding, I suspect.’ Grace watched them discussing the news through the cloud of smoke, as if she were a ghost. She remained very still, internalizing her misery so that no one would know that the news had just broken her heart.

‘You’re wrong, Josie,’ said Arthur. ‘Lord Melville’s not at all like his father. He’s a fun-loving and witty fellow, straight out of a Noel Coward play.’

‘I’m not saying he’s not amusing, Arthur. He’s certainly handsome. I’m rolling my eyes at his obvious choice of bride.’ Her pointy lips extended into a thin smile. ‘I’d admire him more if he eloped with a barmaid or something. Marrying the daughter of a duke is so bloody predictable.’

‘So what?’ Freddie cut in. ‘He has to marry one of his own.’

‘Why? So that when the Marquess dies and he inherits the estate, she can hold big garden parties as graciously as her mother-in-law. Well, you’re right about that, I suppose; a barmaid wouldn’t know how to behave like a marchioness.’

‘
You
wouldn’t know how to behave like a marchioness, Josie,’ Freddie laughed. He turned to Grace, who was sitting quiet and still beside him, as if the news had turned her to stone. ‘What do
you
think about it, Grace?’ His question sounded more like a challenge than an enquiry.

‘I don’t really have an opinion. I mean, I don’t know either of them, so . . .’ Her voice trailed off and she gave a little shrug and a sniff to hide her awkwardness.

‘You see, Grace is right,’ interjected Josephine. ‘Why is it that people get overexcited about a wedding when they don’t even know the people getting married? It’s the same madness as when a member of the royal family gets married, but at least they’re public figures and we all know a bit about them. I admire the King for abdicating in order to marry naughty old Wallis. Now that showed a lot of spunk! Lord Melville should have found himself a wicked American divorcee like her!’

Freddie elbowed Grace in the ribs. ‘Do you remember when you had a crush on Rufus, as you called him?’ He laughed scornfully.

‘You called him Rufus?’ Michael asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise. ‘That’s familiar.’

‘Really? Did you have a crush on him, Grace?’ Josephine joined in, narrowing her eyes. ‘Lord, I didn’t know you had it in you!’

‘I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,’ Grace replied, feeling her face grow hot.

‘Yes, she did. He chatted her up after church once,’ Freddie told them.

‘And then he brought his grandmother to our home to be stung by a bee to cure her arthritis,’ Arthur added proudly.

‘Now I’ve heard everything!’ Michael chuckled.

‘The Dowager Marchioness in your little cottage?’ said May, impressed. ‘Why ever didn’t you tell us?’

‘She’d never been to the cottage before. It was a great honour,’ said Arthur.

‘What was she like?’ May asked. ‘I’ve only ever seen her from a distance at church.’

‘She was as deaf as a post,’ Arthur added, warming to the subject. ‘We had to shout, didn’t we, Grace?’

‘You never told me that,’ said Freddie grudgingly, turning to Grace.

She shrugged. ‘It wasn’t important.’

‘Then the following day she sent her chauffeur for Grace,’ Arthur continued, directing his speech at May, who gazed at him wide-eyed with fascination.

‘Why? Did it work?’ May asked in delight.

‘It worked so well, she wanted to be stung on the other hand,’ he said. They all roared with laughter. ‘So, my Gracey goes off in the Bentley and Lord Melville shows her around the house and garden –
my
garden. I think he took a shine to you, Gracey,’ he added tipsily.

‘If he saw you now, I think he’d call off his engagement,’ Michael added with an appreciative nod. Now it was Freddie’s turn to go quiet and internalize his resentment.

‘Those gardens are the loveliest in the whole of England. Don’t you think, Grace?’ said May. ‘Your father’s a wonderful gardener. You only have to look at your garden to see what a magician he is with flowers. Arthur’s got green fingers
and
toes!’ She smiled affectionately at him.

‘Yes, he has,’ Grace replied, fighting tears that began to prickle behind her eyes.

‘So, did he kiss you behind the garden wall?’ asked Josephine, glancing irritably at a chip on her crimson nail polish.

‘Of course not,’ Grace retorted, appalled. ‘I was fourteen.’

‘That never stopped anyone having a kiss,’ said Josephine.

Freddie baulked. ‘What, you think he’d have kissed you if you’d been twenty?’

Grace felt she was drowning in his teasing. ‘That’s silly,’ she replied unhappily, trying to keep her head up.

‘He might have. You’re a pretty girl, Grace. Men like Lord Melville can have anyone they want.’ Josephine’s ice-grey eyes bored into hers through the ribbon of smoke that wafted up from the cigarette poised in front of her mouth. ‘Would you have let him, then?’

Grace didn’t like her bullying tone. ‘I was fourteen, Josie,’ she repeated.

‘Oh, I’d have let him, all right,’ Josephine declared nonchalantly. ‘I think he’d make a lovely kisser. He’s got a good mouth. Shame he’s wasted on some frigid duke’s daughter. He’ll never know true passion.’

‘How do you know his lady’s not passionate, Josie?’ her mother asked. ‘You don’t know anything about her.’

‘I’m jumping to wild conclusions,’ Josephine replied with a wicked grin. ‘
Much
more fun to be cynical. What are the aristocracy for if not to be made fun of?’

When they all left the pub at ten, Freddie didn’t even say goodnight to Grace. May and Michael waved to Grace and Arthur as they cycled off up the lane, while Josephine linked arms with her brother and inclined her head to share a joke, which, coming from her, was bound to be at someone else’s expense.

Grace pedalled furiously, longing to be alone with her unhappiness. It was too dark to cycle through the woods, so they went the long way round up the lane, their bicycle lights showing the way. She seethed with fury at Freddie for being unkind, and for ignoring her for the rest of the evening, after having teased her so meanly about Rufus. Fond as she was of Freddie, he could be very cruel. She fought back tears.

Once in the privacy of her bedroom she threw herself onto the bed and sobbed. She knew she should never have hoped, she should never have dreamed. Hoping and dreaming only gave the heart false expectations.

Assuming his daughter was simply tired, Arthur went into the sitting room to read on his own. The nights were still chilly so he lit a fire and sat in his chair, reading and puffing on his pipe, as he did every night. He didn’t imagine that his daughter was crying herself to sleep, wishing she had a mother to share her grief with. He didn’t guess that she could be anything other than entirely happy. Pepper snoozed at his feet. He turned the page. He thought no more of Lord Melville and his engagement.

Until a hand-delivered invitation arrived the following week. The envelope was addressed to Mr Arthur Hamblin, but on the stiff white card inside, Mr Arthur Hamblin’s name was followed by Miss Grace Hamblin, which was a novelty because until that moment Arthur had only ever been invited to the Hall on his own. Now that Grace was a young woman, however, she was invited to accompany her father in the place of a Mrs Hamblin. The pleasure of their company was requested on Saturday 7th May at 4 p.m. at a tea to celebrate the engagement of the Earl of Melville and Lady Georgina Charlton. Arthur soon discovered that all the men and women who worked on the Walbridge estate were invited to meet the lady who would one day be the new Marchioness of Penselwood.

Grace received the invitation with a mixture of elation and dread. The thought of seeing Rufus again filled her with a sharp and painful yearning, yet the knowledge that beside him would be the woman he had chosen to spend the rest of his life with cut her to the quick.

Freddie was invited, too, but he grumbled about it and pretended he really didn’t care and was only going out of politeness. May set about helping Grace find a suitable dress. ‘You have to look your very best,’ she gushed, dragging her into the only shop in town which sold dresses smart enough for an occasion such as this.

‘But I don’t have the money to buy a new frock,’ Grace protested.

‘Michael and I are going to buy it for you,’ May insisted. ‘I’m the nearest thing to a mother you’ve ever had, so it’s my treat. Fortunately, summer frocks are less dear than winter ones.’

Grace tried on a number of dresses and settled on a pretty blue-and-yellow floral tea dress with buttons down the front and on the short, puffed sleeves. ‘I have just the hat to go with it,’ said May, giving it a tweak here and there. She stood back and admired her. ‘You look like a real lady,’ she added, moved. ‘It’s a shame your mother isn’t around to see you. She’d be as proud as punch, she would. Still, you’ve got Arthur and I can’t wait to see his face when he sees his little girl, all grown-up.’

‘It’s a beautiful dress, Auntie May,’ said Grace, looking at her reflection in the mirror. May was right, the dress made her look sophisticated. Her spirits lifted. Perhaps when he saw her . . .

The day of the tea, May spent most of the morning curling Grace’s hair and pinning it back on one side in a loop. Her hair was thick and glossy and took May much longer than she had anticipated. She then positioned her hat at a coquettish angle on her head. Josephine brought over her vanity case of make-up and insisted on applying it herself. Grace looked at her overplucked eyebrows and the bright scarlet lipstick, painted on in the famous ‘Crawford smear’, and shuddered. She had never worn make-up in her life and the thought of looking cruel and fake like Josephine filled her with horror. But May intervened and a pretty rose-coloured lipstick and a smudge of rouge for her cheeks were decided upon. Her eyelashes were left alone and the blue eyeshadow that Josephine lifted out of the case was promptly put back again. When Arthur came in from the garden to change, he was astonished by the sight of the young woman in the hall, who looked so like his late wife. He was lost for words and his eyes shone with a mixture of pride and sorrow. May jumped to the rescue. ‘Doesn’t she look lovely, Arthur?’ she gushed. ‘She’ll be the belle of the tea party, for sure.’

‘Not a lot of competition,’ said Josephine sourly.

‘Oh, I don’t know, when the ladies doll themselves up, you’d be surprised how pretty some of them can look,’ May retorted.

Arthur managed a small smile. ‘You look beautiful, Gracey,’ he croaked.

‘There, I told you your father would be proud. You have every reason to be, Arthur, with Grace on your arm.’ She laughed. ‘Freddie will be jealous, won’t he, Josie?’

‘He’s not going to be jealous of Arthur, Mum.’

‘He’ll wish she was on
his
arm.’

‘Then he should have asked her, rather than bottling it all up like a bashful child.’

May swept Freddie aside with a deliberate smile. ‘You’re going to have such a nice time. I want to hear all about it. Every detail. You won’t forget anything, will you? I’ll be longing to hear.’

‘I’ll leave the details to Gracey,’ said Arthur. ‘But I’ll tell you all about it in the morning.’

May clapped her hands. ‘Well, I’d better go and see how my Freddie’s getting on.’ She picked up her bag to leave, but hesitated by the door. ‘Have a lovely time, won’t you.’ She smiled at Arthur and her expression was full of wistfulness. Grace knew she was thinking about her mother and wished she had known her as they had.

Josephine followed May outside, tossing back a casual ‘have a nice time’ as she left.

‘Well, I’d better go and smarten up, or I’ll let you down, Grace,’ Arthur said, making for the stairs. Grace wandered into the sitting room and stood in front of the mirror which hung above the fireplace. The glass was tarnished and the light was dim, but she could see enough to be surprised by the transformation. From the photo of her mother, even
she
could see the resemblance. She stared hard and little by little she detached herself from the reflection and saw, in her place, the gentle countenance of her mother, gazing lovingly back at her. She felt her heartbeat quicken and the sweat begin to break out on her skin. She smiled and her mother smiled back. Her heart overflowed with love for the woman she had never known, but always felt close to, and as her eyes glistened so glistened the eyes of her mother. It didn’t matter that the thoughts she tried to assemble were too tangled to communicate, because her mother understood the feelings behind them.

‘Are you all right, Gracey?’ It was Arthur, standing in the doorway.

The vision quickly disappeared as Grace was wrenched out of her trance and the face in the mirror was hers once again. ‘I wish my mother was here,’ she said softly.

‘So do I, Gracey,’ Arthur replied. ‘She’d have loved getting you ready. She loved dressing up.’

‘Am I like her, Dad?’

His face turned pink with pleasure and he nodded. ‘So very like her.’

‘I feel her sometimes. I know she hasn’t left us.’

‘She wouldn’t leave us, Gracey. I know that, too. And today, of all days, she’ll be watching from wherever she is. Come, we don’t want to be late, do we?’

‘No, we don’t.’

‘I hope there’ll be Victoria sponge.’

‘Oh, Dad,’ she laughed. ‘You’re always thinking of your stomach!’

Arthur and Grace cycled to Walbridge Hall. They took the shortcut through the woods and arrived at the house down the back drive. The mansion was bathed in sunshine and guests were already walking through the gate in the hedge, onto the lawn. Grace recognized most of them, even though some of the women were almost unrecognizable in smart tea dresses and lavish hats. There was a receiving line and Grace craned her neck to see beyond the crowd to where Rufus stood with his fiancée, shaking hands and greeting the guests. Everyone would get a chance to meet his bride, but Grace hadn’t thought a great deal about
her
. Seeing Rufus again was all that had occupied her mind since the arrival of the invitation. Now she felt the butterflies grow agitated in her stomach as they neared the front of the queue. She felt, too, the unfamiliar pain of jealousy as she glimpsed the tall, white-skinned woman with thick blonde hair cut into a fashionable bob. Grace’s head swam. Lady Georgina was a beauty, but more than that, she had the poise and elegance of a woman born into the highest echelons of society – attributes that Grace, however hard she wished for them, could never possess.