Elizabeth could hardly control her voice, her pity was so great.
‘I should have liked it,’ said Bill, wistfully. ‘London’s all right, but I love the country. My ambition would be to have a whacking big farm, a sort of ranch, miles away from anywhere–‘
He broke off. This was not the first time he had caught himself forgetting how his circumstances had changed in the past few weeks. It was ridiculous to be telling hard-luck stories about not being able to buy a farm, when he had the wherewithal to buy dozens of farms. It took a lot of getting used to, this business of being a millionaire.
‘That’s my ambition too,’ said Elizabeth, eagerly. This was the very first time she had met a congenial spirit. Nutty’s views on farming and the Arcadian life generally were saddening to an enthusiast. ‘If I had the money I should get an enormous farm, and in the summer I should borrow all the children I could find, and take them out to it and let them wallow in it.’
‘Wouldn’t they do a lot of damage?’
‘I shouldn’t mind. I should be too rich to worry about the damage. If they ruined the place beyond repair I’d go and buy another.’ She laughed. ‘It isn’t so impossible as it sounds. I came very near being able to do it.’ She paused for a moment, but went on almost at once. After all, if you cannot confide your intimate troubles to a fellow bee-lover, to whom can you confide them? ‘An uncle of mine–‘
Bill felt himself flushing. He looked away from her. He had a sense of almost unbearable guilt, as if he had just done some particularly low crime and was contemplating another.
‘–An uncle of mine would have left me enough money to buy all the farms I wanted, only an awful person, an English lord I wonder if you have heard of him?–Lord Dawlish–got hold of uncle somehow and induced him to make a will leaving all the money to him.’
She looked at Bill for sympathy, and was touched to see that he was crimson with emotion. He must be a perfect dear to take other people’s misfortunes to heart like that.
‘I don’t know how he managed it,’ she went on. ‘He must have worked and plotted and schemed, for Uncle Ira wasn’t a weak sort of man whom you could do what you liked with. He was very obstinate. But, anyway, this Lord Dawlish succeeded in doing it somehow, and then’–her eyes blazed at the recollection–‘he had the insolence to write to me through his lawyers offering me half. I suppose he was hoping to satisfy his conscience. Naturally I refused it.’
‘But–but–but why?’
‘Why! Why did I refuse it? Surely you don’t think I was going to accept charity from the man who had cheated me?’
‘But–but perhaps he didn’t mean it like that. What I mean to say is–as charity, you know.’
‘He did! But don’t let’s talk of it any more. It makes me angry to think of him, and there’s no use spoiling a lovely day like this by getting angry.’
Bill sighed. He had never dreamed before that it could be so difficult to give money away. He was profoundly glad that he had not revealed his identity, as he had been on the very point of doing just when she began her remarks. He understood now why that curt refusal had come in answer to his lawyer’s letter. Well, there was nothing to do but wait and hope that time might accomplish something.
‘What do you want me to do next?’ he said. ‘Why did you open the hive? Did you want to take a look at the queen?’
Elizabeth hesitated. She blushed with pure shame. She had had but one motive in opening the hive, and that had been to annoy him. She scorned to take advantage of the loophole he had provided. Beekeeping is a freemasonry. A beekeeper cannot deceive a brother-mason.
She faced him bravely.
‘I didn’t want to take a look at anything, Mr Chalmers. I opened that hive because I wanted you to drop the frame, as my brother did, and get stung, as he was; because I thought that would drive you away, because I thought then that I didn’t want you down here. I’m ashamed of myself, and I don’t know where I’m getting the nerve to tell you this. I hope you will stay on–on and on and on.’