Chapter X: Hester's Bees

"YOU will excuse my coming at this hour of the morning, but I am on my way home from the station, where I have been seeing mother off to town. And I want you to come back and spend the day with me. I have no attractions to offer you except my bees. Minnie is in Scotland. Will you come and keep me company for the day?"

It was Hester Chesney, who spoke from her high dog-cart, and Hope stood on the doorstep looking at her with wistful eyes.

"I can't have too many holidays," she said, with a little laugh. "I spent a day out fishing, only last Wednesday. I'm afraid I can't come. I'm helping my brother pack for Canada. He is going the end of this week."

"He will spare you for a day. You are looking white and fagged. Ask him. I want to talk to you."

If it had been Minnie Chesney, Hope would have found no difficulty in refusing, for she knew the talk would be of the very lightest description, but there was something about Hester that always made Hope want to know her better. She turned back into the house and sought Brian, who was in the dining-room packing a case of books he wanted to take with him.

"Brian, would you mind if I left you to-day? I feel, when you are gone, I shall be absolutely tied to home, so this will be my last chance. Miss Chesney wants me to spend the day with her. I shall not stay late. They will drive me back in time for supper. I won't go if you want me."

"Oh, go," said Brian, trying to speak graciously. "I'm sure you ought to get the chance if you want it. I'll be here all day."

So a short time afterwards Hope was bowling along the country roads in her friend's high dog-cart.

"I wonder if you would mind paying a visit with me," Hester said. "I want to see a Miss Rill, who really started me with my bees. She's an interesting woman, though only a farmer's daughter, and I think you will like to see her little place. It is such a pretty one."

"I shall be delighted. How good it is to get out of the town! Sometimes I wish we lived in the genuine country. Kayminster is neither country nor town."

"You rather interest me," said Hester, in her slow deep voice. "I have been likening you in my mind to a certain foreign lily we had in one of our hothouses, and which I was convinced would do better in the open-air. It was transplanted, and for a time it caused me some anxiety, for though it fought bravely with its changed circumstances, we had some unusual storms and it nearly succumbed. After an awful night of wind and rain, I visited it early in the morning, and to my supreme satisfaction, though it was very battered, it was raising its head cheerfully towards the sun."

There was silence. Hope's lips were smiling, but her eyes were misty. Then she touched Hester's hand caressingly.

"Thank you for your little parable. I will remember it."

"Do you know anything about bees?" Hester said abruptly.

"No, I'm an absolute ignoramus. Tell me about them."

Hester plunged into her hobby, which by her very enthusiasm she made intensely interesting to the town girl beside her.

And by and by, after a drive of some eight miles, they came to their destination. Hester turned up a narrow lane from the highroad, then drove into a field along a rough cart track, and stopped at a white gate the other side of it. Hope uttered an exclamation of delight. There was a red-brick flagged path leading up from the gate to a quaint old-fashioned cottage. On either side of the brick path were low apple-trees interspersed with clumps of dahlias and summer chrysanthemums, forming a border up to the old green wooden porch. The house was of rough stone with a red-tiled roof, now mossy and mellowed with age. A row of beehives was in front of it, and its walls were covered with climbing roses.

Hester left her trap outside, tying her horse to the gatepost, and she and Hope walked up the little path. To the right and left of them was a green orchard, and fowls seemed to be in all directions. A row of fowl-houses and coops ran the whole length of the orchard at the back.

"It is a small poultry-farm," explained Hester. "Miss Rill is wonderfully successful with it, and she has worked it entirely herself, with a farm lad to help. She has made such a success of it that she is going to retire, and is wanting me to buy the whole concern from her. I wish I could. I have visions of moving myself and belongings into it, and having my bees in the orchard. But they're dead against it at home. She will sell the whole for a mere song. I would like to take up poultry."

"What a pity you cannot," said Hope sympathetically. "I should love to live in a little place like this. It looks a perfect haven of rest. What a charming old well by the side of the cottage!"

"Yes, isn't it a picture? And the water is so good. The fact is, Minnie will not be at home much longer. Her affair with Herbie Aubyn is coming on again. I shall be the only one left to look after mother, and you can't fancy her living in an ideal cottage like this!"

They had reached the door, which stood partly open, and Miss Rill came out to greet them. She was a little fresh-faced woman, though her forehead was lined and puckered with many a wrinkle; thick grey hair rolled back from her forehead, and her eyes were full of the most remarkable wistfulness. Her skirts were short; a big blue print apron covered her; but she looked, as Hope remarked afterwards, as if she had stepped out of a bandbox.

She shook hands with them, and ushered them into her sitting-room. Hope looked about her with interested eyes. There was a tiny square space inside the front door and a steep flight of stairs facing it. To the right was the sitting-room, a very fair-sized room with low long window and deep window-seat. I It was plainly furnished. Two old oak cupboards stood on each side of the fireplace, and a round table in the centre of the room. A horsehair sofa against the wall, a glass bookcase, two shelves of china, and a few odd chairs, completed the furniture. But everything was spotlessly clean and bright.

Seeing Hope's admiration in her eyes, Miss Rill asked her if she would like to look over the house. She took her into the kitchen the other side of the passage, and this was the picture of cosy comfort. A beautiful old oak dresser, a grandfather clock, and an old oak bureau were evidently relics of Miss Rill's farmhouse home. There were copper and brass pans which shone like burnished gold. The deal table was scoured as white as if it were new. The red-brick floor, with the coloured rug before the blazing fire, and a row of scarlet geraniums in the window, gave a tone of brightness and colour to the room.

"Oh," exclaimed Hope, "this is where I should like to spend my days!"

"Yes," said Miss Rill, with a smile, "it is a nice room to my liking. But I'm out of doors half my days, and the other half goes in cooking and cleaning. I have a woman twice a week to help me, and my lad is useful, but it is a busy life, when all's said and done."

"You are looking forward to a rest?" said Hester.

Miss Rill gave a dubious smile.

"I'm going to enjoy the 'fruit of my labour,'" she said. "Isn't that Bible words? Now let me show you my dairy, and then my four bedrooms."

The dairy was perfection in Hope's eyes. The bedrooms, though with sloping roofs, were wonderfully light and airy. Then the little woman insisted upon giving them a glass of milk and some of her home-made cake. Hester and she began to talk about bees, and Hope sat still and lapsed into daydreams. Presently she caught the word "London."

"All my life," said Miss Rill, "I've longed to see it. And these five years gone, I feel as I've been linked with it, so to speak, supplying it with eggs and poultry and honey. You know, I send straight to the Army and Navy Stores, Miss Chesney. My brother was one of the foremen there before he died, and he got me the connection. That's how I've done so well. Now I'm going to walk in its streets and live like a lady in it."

"But," said Hope, "how will you be able to adapt yourself to town life after this? How can you leave this? You will feel lost there!"

"Not at all," responded Miss Rill. "I'm an educated woman, and can appreciate all that London has to give me. I will visit picture-galleries, and read the latest books, and have a sitting in Westminster Abbey itself if the sermons there are to my taste."

Hope tried not to smile.

"And," Miss Rill continued, with increased earnestness, "there will be shops, and dressmakers, if I want to be amused; and perhaps a very choice concert, and a sight of the King and Queen. I've thought it all out. It's the dream of my life coming true."

The passionate ring of her tons seemed quite pathetic to Hope.

Then as Hester took her leave, she accompanied them down to the garden gate.

Hester paused there, and looked back at the house.

"It is the dream of my life to come here," she said. "I wonder if I ever will? Have you heard of any purchaser yet?"

"No, not yet. They say it's too far from the station. Smart farmers laugh at my donkey-cart, but it has been quite sufficient for me. I'm in a hurry to get it off my hands before the winter comes on. I'd let it go very cheap, Miss Chesney."

"Yes, I know."

Miss Rill looked up her flagged path to her cottage, then she tapped the bricks gently with her foot.

"It isn't as if I shall be alone in London," she said softly. "And if I can be buried in the London cemetery with him, we'll be close together on the Resurrection Day. You understand, Miss Chesney, don't you?"

"Indeed I do. But you may meet him alive and well."

"No, I'm not desirous of doing so. I can explain in the next world. That will satisfy me."

Hope was mystified. The soft light in Miss Rill's faded blue eyes and the hush of her voice transformed her at once from an ordinary countrywoman into an interesting personality.

When they were in the dog-cart again, Hope turned to her friend.

"I scent a romance. Do tell me."

Hester smiled.

"Poor little woman! It was only the other day she confided in me, and having once broken the ice, she now alludes to it whenever we meet each other. It was many years ago. Quite twenty, I think she told me. A certain Robert Manners, farming with his father, wanted to marry her, and she was foolish. She fancied that another man, a country solicitor, was courting her, and though her heart was with Robert, her ambition told her that the solicitor would raise her in the social scale. So she refused the substance for the shadow. The solicitor never proposed to her, but married some one else; and though Robert remained faithful, her pride would not let her yield to him.

"She explained at some length to me that she would not have him think that she accepted him as a last resource. The poor man was desperately in love with her. He lived only half a mile away, and spent all his leisure time in helping her with her poultry. At last, he grew restless and gave up his farming, going up to London to join an uncle in the bookselling trade.

"The last day he was at home, he spent in planning a surprise for her. She was away at market, and he brought over a load of bricks, and with his own hands flagged that little path for her. She had often complained of the mud and wet in winter time. When she came home, she found it done, and a note on the doorstep with these words only:

"'When you tread your garden path you will be treading on rejected love.'

"The poor thing sobbed as she repeated these words to me. I am sure she expects to meet him in London, but she won't admit it. Her whole life lately has been spent in saving for this object."

"Poor woman! What a pathetic romance! I should not like to tread that path so often." Hope's eyes filled with tenderness.

Hester glanced at her and smiled.

"Ah, well, she has an object in life. No one is really unhappy who has that."

"You are a delightful person to talk to, for you give food for thought," said Hope, in her bright tone. "Is that the reason of so many people's 'ennui,' I wonder?"

"Don't you think it is? A life without an object is so pitiful, so animal, if you understand the expression."

"I am thinking over all my friends and acquaintances—myself included. But I have known some very unhappy people who certainly have had an object in their lives. They have striven for it relentlessly and untiringly, but it has not made them happy."

"But it has given or maintained zest for life, has it not? I think the saddest part of a woman's life is when she sees nothing in front of her, and can only look back. Then she doesn't care if she lives or dies."

Some hidden passion in Hester's tone set Hope wondering. They did not speak much for the rest of the drive. Hester was a good hostess, and Hope took herself to task for the enjoyment she felt at being once again in luxurious surroundings. It seemed so much more natural to sit down to a dainty luncheon, and then to rest in the soft cushioned chairs in the pretty drawing-room, and talk of books and topics of the day, than to be absorbed with Anne's black fingermarks on dinner-plates, the boys' worn stockings, or upon the butcher's or baker's weekly books.

Then Hester took her out to her bees, and here Hope was interested at once.

Hester had been allowed to take possession of one of the old walled kitchen gardens; here in rows against the sunny south wall were her beehives. She had houses for storing and packing the honey, and the old garden was filled with borders of flowers.

"It is such an interesting study to discover the flowers that the bees love best. They don't always go to those we should think the sweetest and the most luscious. They are very fond of blue as a colour, and my mignonette border also is always full of them. You see I have an ideal spot for them. Clover fields outside, and a wild bit of moor upon which they find broom and gorse and heather and pines; then they visit our other kitchen garden for herbs and vegetables. They are fond of turnips and cabbages, borage and wild thyme."

"I always fancied bees visited flowers only."

"Oh no; there are certain trees that they need. The willows by the river are good for them. Now as the autumn begins, I shall have to start feeding them. Did you ever notice that most of our autumn flowers are scentless?"

"I suppose they are," Hope said, running over in her mind's eye the tribes of asters, dahlias, and chrysanthemums, with a variety of them that occurred to her.

"The time for getting honey is over," said Hester, "so the scent is not needed."

"But," said Hope, "I like to think that the sweet-smelling flowers are for us as well as for the bees."

Hester laughed.

"I look at life now from my bees' point of view," she said.

And then she took Hope into her packinghouses and showed her the cases of honey that she had taken quite lately from the hives.

"I send these up to London," she explained. "The sale helps my expenses."

"Oh," said Hope, as they were leaving the garden, "what a wholesome sweet life you lead, Hester, amongst your bees and flowers! How fascinating it must be! And why do so many girls prefer the rush and stir of town life to the rest and peace of the country?"

"Well," said Hester slowly, "I don't know how it will look when the accounts of one's life are jotted up. I shall not rest my head comfortably for the last time on my pillow remembering the total sum of my pounds of honey. It would be rather a poor harvest for a lifetime, would it not?"

"Hester, do you want what I did?"

Hope spoke impulsively, adding quickly:

"Don't stop me,—don't say you don't believe in it!—that it is sentiment, fanaticism, or fancy. It makes life worth living, it gives one a deep undercurrent of peace, and opens up such a wide range of possibilities for a fuller, more abundant life!"

"You little enthusiast!"

Hester stopped by the old garden gate in the wall and stood looking at Hope with a smile upon her face.

"Yes, I know you think it is enthusiasm. Do let me tell you what a difference it has made to me. I have no one to talk to at home. I feel you are sympathetic. I have never forgotten the way you spoke of May Fosberry. 'She is all right,' you said, and if she is, why shouldn't we all be like her?"

"Ah, why?" said Hester, with a twinkle of humour in her eye. "But May is young, and like you, full of enthusiasm. I have lived longer in the world, and seen the end of some phases of life as well as the beginnings."

"I am certain," said Hope stoutly, "that you have never seen the end of any one individual. I'm very ignorant and inexperienced, but I know, like Job, that 'my Redeemer liveth.' It is not a dead Christ we serve, and He will never fail or come to an end if 'phases,' as you call them, will. He came to give life more abundantly, Hester, and I know He has given it to me."

Hester opened the garden gate.

"What a pity your brother is going away," she remarked. "Shall I ever be able to tear you away from your family again?"

"I don't know. Yes, I shall miss Brian dreadfully. Do you know he is the first really unselfish young man that I have seen! I am lost in admiration sometimes. He never seems to think of what he would like or wish, only what others would."

"That sort are rare," remarked Hester.

She kissed Hope upon parting.

"You would shine in any circle," she said, smiling, "for you can fit yourself into any kind of corner."

"But a circle has no corners," said Hope, with her merry laugh. "Goodbye. You must come and see me next, if you will."