If you take down your Encyclopaedia Britannica, Volume III, AUS to BIS, you will find that bees are a "large and natural family of the zoological order Hymenoptera, characterized by the plumose form of many of their hairs, by the large size of the basal segment of the foot ... and by the development of a "tongue" for sucking liquid food," the last of which peculiarities, it is interesting to note, they shared with Claude Nutcombe Boyd, Elizabeth"s brother, who for quite a long time-till his money ran out-had made liquid food almost his sole means of sustenance. These things, however, are by the way. We are not such sn.o.bs as to think better or worse of a bee because it can claim kinship with the Hymenoptera family, nor so ill-bred as to chaff it for having large feet. The really interesting pa.s.sage in the article occurs later, where it says: "The bee industry prospers greatly in America."
This is one of those broad statements that invite challenge. Elizabeth Boyd would have challenged it. She had not prospered greatly. With considerable trouble she contrived to pay her way, and that was all.
Again referring to the "Encyclopaedia," we find the words: "Before undertaking the management of a modern apiary, the beekeeper should possess a certain amount of apt.i.tude for the pursuit." This was possibly the trouble with Elizabeth"s venture, considered from a commercial point of view. She loved bees, but she was not an expert on them. She had started her apiary with a small capital, a book of practical hints, and a second-hand queen, princ.i.p.ally because she was in need of some occupation that would enable her to live in the country. It was the unfortunate condition of Claude Nutcombe which made life in the country a necessity. At that time he was spending the remains of the money left him by his aunt, and Elizabeth had hardly settled down at Brookport and got her venture under way when she found herself obliged to provide for Nutty a combination of home and sanatorium. It had been the poor lad"s mistaken view that he could drink up all the alcoholic liquor in America.
It is a curious law of Nature that the most undeserving brothers always have the best sisters. Thrifty, plodding young men, who get up early, and do it now, and catch the employer"s eye, and save half their salaries, have sisters who never speak civilly to them except when they want to borrow money. To the Claude Nutcombes of the world are vouchsafed the Elizabeths.
The great aim of Elizabeth"s life was to make a new man of Nutty. It was her hope that the quiet life and soothing air of Brookport, with-unless you counted the money-in-the-slot musical box at the store-its absence of the fiercer excitements, might in time pull him together and unscramble his disordered nervous system. She liked to listen of a morning to the sound of Nutty busy in the next room with a broom and a dustpan, for in the simple lexicon of Flack"s there was no such word as "help". The privy purse would not run to a maid. Elizabeth did the cooking and Claude Nutcombe the housework.
Several days after Claire Fenwick and Lord Dawlish, by different routes, had sailed from England, Elizabeth Boyd sat up in bed and shook her mane of hair from her eyes, yawning. Outside her window the birds were singing, and a shaft of sunlight intruded itself beneath the blind. But what definitely convinced her that it was time to get up was the plaintive note of James, the cat, patrolling the roof of the porch. An animal of regular habits, James always called for breakfast at eight-thirty sharp.
Elizabeth got out of bed, wrapped her small body in a pink kimono, thrust her small feet into a pair of blue slippers, yawned again, and went downstairs. Having taken last night"s milk from the ice-box, she went to the back door, and, having filled James"s saucer, stood on the gra.s.s beside it, sniffing the morning air.
Elizabeth Boyd was twenty-one, but standing there with her hair tumbling about her shoulders she might have been taken by a not-too-close observer for a child. It was only when you saw her eyes and the resolute tilt of the chin that you realized that she was a young woman very well able to take care of herself in a difficult world. Her hair was very fair, her eyes brown and very bright, and the contrast was extraordinarily piquant. They were valiant eyes, full of spirit; eyes, also, that saw the humour of things. And her mouth was the mouth of one who laughs easily. Her chin, small like the rest of her, was strong; and in the way she held herself there was a boyish jauntiness. She looked-and was-a capable little person.
She stood besides James like a sentinel, watching over him as he breakfasted. There was a puppy belonging to one of the neighbours who sometimes lumbered over and stole James"s milk, disposing of it in greedy gulps while its rightful proprietor looked on with piteous helplessness. Elizabeth was fond of the puppy, but her sense of justice was keen and she was there to check this brigandage.
It was a perfect day, cloudless and still. There was peace in the air. James, having finished his milk, began to wash himself. A squirrel climbed cautiously down from a linden tree. From the orchard came the murmur of many bees.
Aesthetically Elizabeth was fond of still, cloudless days, but experience had taught her to suspect them. As was the custom in that locality, the water supply depended on a rickety windwheel. It was with a dark foreboding that she returned to the kitchen and turned on one of the taps. For perhaps three seconds a stream of the dimension of a darning-needle emerged, then with a sad gurgle the tap relapsed into a stolid inaction. There is no stolidity so utter as that of a waterless tap.
"Confound it!" said Elizabeth.
She pa.s.sed through the dining-room to the foot of the stairs.
"Nutty!"
There was no reply.
"Nutty, my precious lamb!"
Upstairs in the room next to her own a long, spare form began to uncurl itself in bed; a face with a receding chin and a small forehead raised itself reluctantly from the pillow, and Claude Nutcombe Boyd signalized the fact that he was awake by scowling at the morning sun and uttering an aggrieved groan.
Alas, poor Nutty! This was he whom but yesterday Broadway had known as the Speed Kid, on whom head-waiters had smiled and lesser waiters fawned; whose snake-like form had nestled in so many a front-row orchestra stall.
Where were his lobster Newburgs now, his cold quarts that were wont to set the table in a roar?
Nutty Boyd conformed as nearly as a human being may to Euclid"s definition of a straight line. He was length without breadth. From boyhood"s early day he had sprouted like a weed, till now in the middle twenties he gave startled strangers the conviction that it only required a sharp gust of wind to snap him in half. Lying in bed, he looked more like a length of hose-pipe than anything else. While he was unwinding himself the door opened and Elizabeth came into the room.
"Good morning, Nutty!"
"What"s the time?" asked her brother, hollowly.
"Getting on towards nine. It"s a lovely day. The birds are singing, the bees are buzzing, summer"s in the air. It"s one of those beautiful, shiny, heavenly, gorgeous days."
A look of suspicion came into Nutty"s eyes. Elizabeth was not often as lyrical as this.
"There"s a catch somewhere," he said.
"Well, as a matter of fact," said Elizabeth, carelessly, "the water"s off again."
"Confound it!"
"I said that. I"m afraid we aren"t a very original family."
"What a ghastly place this is! Why can"t you see old Flack and make him mend that infernal wheel?"
"I"m going to pounce on him and have another try directly I see him. Meanwhile, darling Nutty, will you get some clothes on and go round to the Smiths and ask them to lend us a pailful?"
"Oh, gosh, it"s over a mile!"
"No, no, not more than three-quarters."
"Lugging a pail that weighs a ton! The last time I went there their dog bit me."
"I expect that was because you slunk in all doubled up, and he got suspicious. You should hold your head up and throw your chest out and stride up as if you were a military friend of the family."
Self-pity lent Nutty eloquence.
"For Heaven"s sake! You drag me out of bed at some awful hour of the morning when a rational person would just be turning in; you send me across country to fetch pailfuls of water when I"m feeling like a corpse; and on top of that you expect me to behave like a drum-major!"
"Dearest, you can wriggle on your tummy, if you like, so long as you get the fluid. We must have water. I can"t fetch it. I"m a delicately-nurtured female."
"We ought to have a man to do these ghastly jobs."
"But we can"t afford one. Just at present all I ask is to be able to pay expenses. And, as a matter of fact, you ought to be very thankful that you have got-"
"A roof over my head? I know. You needn"t keep rubbing it in."
Elizabeth flushed.
"I wasn"t going to say that at all. What a pig you are sometimes, Nutty. As if I wasn"t only too glad to have you here. What I was going to say was that you ought to be very thankful that you have got to draw water and hew wood-"
A look of absolute alarm came into Nutty"s pallid face.
"You don"t mean to say that you want some wood chopped?"
"I was speaking figuratively. I meant hustle about and work in the open air. The sort of life you are leading now is what millionaires pay hundreds of dollars for at these physical-culture places. It has been the making of you."
"I don"t feel made."
"Your nerves are ever so much better."
"They aren"t."
Elizabeth looked at him in alarm.
"Oh, Nutty, you haven"t been-seeing anything again, have you?"