The Keeper of the Bees, page 30
Then Jamie turned out the lights and lay down on his pillow and decided that he would go to sleep very speedily. Out of the darkness a voice said to him in the vernacular of the little Scout: “What’s eating you? Did you want her to be dead? Did you want her to go to the horrors that are facing the beautiful body of Alice Louise?” Jamie turned over and buried his face in the pillow and cried: “Oh, my God, no! I didn’t think of that! I don’t want her heart broken! I don’t want her dead! What I want is to know who she is, where she is, to have her depend on me, to be able to do something for her, to be released from my promise not to seek her. No! Not For her I want life, I want happiness!”
17. The Interloper
If the little Scout had not been taking a double share of responsibility for the new baby Jamie, very likely the thing that happened during this period never would have happened to Jamie the elder, who did not come far from being considerable of a baby himself under the right circumstances. To begin with, Jamie had not as yet been able to reconcile himself to the fact that he owned an acre of California and a house beautifully furnished with the exception of one room. He had not been able to take it in that a world of flowers, an orchard of fruit trees, a garden of vegetables, and a long row of hives of bees yielding the most delicious of honey, a very large percentage of it having been gathered in the delicate blue garden of the bees and in adjoining gardens—he had not been able to realize that the most attractive small house he had ever seen and half of the Sierra Madre Apiary were his. He had not been able to bring himself to feel that it was either just or right that all these things should be his.
He was still looking upon his possessions in a state of bewilderment. It was true that he had been before the probate judge; he had fulfilled the requirements of the law.
The property had been transferred to him and Jean Meredith according to the exactions of the law. Money had been drawn from the bank and the inheritance tax paid as the Bee Master had provided. And still Jamie did not feel that he really owned the acre that was standing in his name. He had the feeling that if he had stayed there for a long period, say ten years, and had studied the bees and had worked faithfully; if he had taken the place of a son to the Bee Master for that length of time and then the Bee Master had made his crossing and left his property to him, knowing him thoroughly and feeling that he could depend on him, that, to Jamie, would have been a right and reasonable transaction. He did not realize that any one who met him and who was a judge of human nature, in one good look from Jamie’s head to his heels, would have been able to say definitely what he thought concerning him with very nearly the same degree of truthful delineation as could have been rendered at the end of ten years’ acquaintance.
Jamie was the kind of a man that women and children and other men and dogs trusted without asking any questions. Jamie was the kind of a man who could forget the biggest problem preying on his mind to bind up the broken leg of a dog, to heal a hurt for a child. His present predicament was proof of what he would do for another man, glowing proof of what he would do for a woman. He had not been accustomed ever to think seriously of himself until the shrapnel wound tore his breast, and then for two years he had been forced to think. In the regime of hospitals and medical treatment he had faced for such a long period the thought that the end of him was not so far away that it had become an obsession. Gradually garden had worked its magic until now Jamie was once more a man, a man who was thinking for the little Scout, for Margaret Cameron, for a girl who had risked her life and lost it and, dying, had left him a second inheritance, one that Jamie was more willing to accept than the first.
In the absence of Margaret Cameron he was cleaning house. His thrifty mother had trained him to be her assistant in childhood. He knew how to sweep and dust, how to arrange furniture, how to keep a house immaculate.
He was using the broom on the entrance porch when a taxi stopped before the door. A very smartly dressed young woman stepped from it and verified the house number.
She looked over the premises with approving eyes and a smile of reassurance on her lips that caused panic in Jamie’s heart. He had not felt that he had earned the property; he had not felt that he had first right to it; but he was quite certain that God Himself did not know how much he loved it, how much he wanted it, and when this attractive young lady with the smile of assurance that was almost too assured for the best degree of breeding, looked the premises over and inquired: “I am not mistaken in thinking that this is the residence of Mr. Michael Worthington, am I?” Jamie shook his head.
“I think,” said the young lady, confidentially, “that I could have selected Papa’s house from any on this street.
It looks so exactly like him.”
Jamie had thought that he was fortified for this very thing, but when it happened he learned that he had not been prepared in the least. He felt precisely as if someone had slugged him over the head with a very substantial piece of extremely hard wood. He had only brains enough left for an observation that he was too polite to make at hazard, so he said to himself: “Well, it may be that this house looks exactly like ‘Papa,’ but God knows that you don’t!” He went further: “And I’d always been taught that there was a strong probability that girls would resemble their fathers.”
What Jamie did outwardly was to get his heels together, square his shoulders, and manage a bow.
“Am I to understand,” he asked, “that you are a daughter of the Bee Master?”
The young lady looked at Jamie and smiled, probably the most attractive smile she could muster.
“I am not only a daughter,” she said, “but I am his whole family. Of course, when the news came of Papa’s having died so suddenly and unexpectedly, it was necessary for me to spend some time seeing that he was laid away as he would have desired to be and doing everything that I could to comfort Mamma.”
Jamie suddenly found himself putting up what he considered a fight.
“I had understood from the Bee Master,” he said, “that both his wife and daughter were dead.”
“I don’t know much about his first marriage. Of course, his first wife was dead before he married Mamma, and I think they did have a child. I seem to have heard it mentioned, but, of course, that was long before I was born.”
“Oh, I see,” said Jamie.
“And I might as well tell you, if you are in charge here, that Mamma and Papa never could agree. They were always having difficulties, and at last she was forced to secure a divorce. She could not live with a man so irritable and exacting, a man who never wanted to do anything but drone over a book or occupy himself with some kind of highbrow stuff that nobody human ever could have been interested in. I didn’t blame her a bit. I was entirely on her side. After she got the divorce, Papa went somewhere. She never knew where he had gone. He did not communicate with us directly. His lawyer sent the money for my support, and I suppose it is to him that I shall have to appeal to secure the property which rightfully belongs to me as his only child, his only living heir.”
“Has nobody told you,” asked Jamie, “that the Bee Master left a will in which he bequeathed this property to a partner he has had for a period of several years, and to me?”
The young lady laughed pleasantly.
“There was a rumor. Somebody said something about there being no effects—possibly a letter from a nurse at the hospital where Papa died—but, of course, when people here know that I am Miss Worthington and Papa’s only child, there isn’t going to be any question as to whom the place rightfully belongs.”
Jamie looked very hard at the young person before him. He could see no reason as to why he should not believe what she said, but she did not in any way, in any faint degree, resemble the Bee Master, not a mannerism, not a word of speech, not in the shaping of hands or feet, not in facial formation or expression. At the same time, if she carried with her credentials to prove who she was and that her claim was just, it was nothing more than he had expected, nothing more than he had been insisting would happen, so he said:
“If you furnish proof that the Bee Master was your father by blood, if you furnish proof that you have a legal claim to this property, there is no contesting the fact that it is yours; but the Bee Master was very clear in his mind, according to the testimony of his doctors and nurses, until he made his crossing, which happened in his sleep, and he was very emphatic in his statements that he had no heir of his immediate blood. What you will have to do is to show your proof, establish your identity, and make your claims convincing to the Probate Court of this county. In case you can do this, there is no question but that the property is yours. In the meantime, it is standing on the records in my name and in the name of the Master’s partner, and I am in charge here and I am going to remain in charge until your identity is established and your claims substantiated.”
“And where,” cried the young lady, “am I going to remain? If I have to go into court and make a legal fight of this it may require weeks or months even, and I had barely enough funds to bring me here. The allowance
Papa made me never was half what it should have been.” “I know nothing about that,” said Jamie. “I have nothing to do with it. But I do know that there is a small fortune in the bees and the trees and the flowers of this property, and that its value depends upon the bees being watched, as many of them are swarming at the present time. There is honey that must be removed to save the bees from starting robbing, and always in California the watering must be strictly attended to. In the event that what the Bee Master wished and intended can be substantiated before a court, I do not propose, for the sake of his partner, who is now mine, and for my own sake, to have value depreciate as it will if I step out and leave the place to the care of a stranger.”
Then the first really ugly streak showed in the disposition of the young woman. She laughed disagreeably.
“Well, there will be no question about your stepping out,” she said, “and about your stepping very speedily. There is not a court in the world that would cut off an only daughter and an only child and leave a man’s property to almost a perfect stranger. That would be a little bit too low. And since this house is Papa’s, I think I have every right to remain here.”
She turned toward the street and beckoned to the taxi man.
“Bring my trunk and bags,” she ordered.
The taxi driver shouldered a small steamer trunk, carried it into the house, and set it in the middle of the living room, placing upon it a suitcase and a dressing bag. He was paid for his services and he climbed in his taxi and drove away, and a strange young woman with a very determined countenance took off her hat and looked around.
Jamie was worsted in the first round. He should not have allowed her to come in the house. He should not have permitted the taxi driver to leave the trunk. But she had said that she had very insufficient funds; there was a possibility that a judge might substantiate her claims; whatever Jamie did or did not do, he had to be a gentleman. He thought swiftly and he thought correctly. He thought: “Margaret Cameron is away. If she were here in this emergency, she would give me a room. She would let me sleep in the bed that belonged to her nephew, and since I know positively that this is what she would do, why shouldn’t I climb in her back window and take possession? I will water her garden and see that her flowers are carefully kept until her return, and in her kitchen I can cook me something to eat.”
So Jamie went into the bedroom and gathered up the clothing in which he had come, the things that he had bought since his occupancy, and the package containing the personal belongings of Alice Louise. He made them all into a bundle and went down the walk, through the side gate, burgled a back window, and established himself in the room that he felt certain, from the wall decorations and its location, had belonged to Margaret Cameron’s nephew. Then he went down to the corner grocery and purchased some food with which he filled the ice chest. He hung up the “Ice Wanted” sign and removed the milk and tomato and orange juice he had in the Bee Master’s ice chest, and inside an hour he was dispossessed; but he was still holding the job, still weeding, still watering trimming, and keeping careful watch on more than the bees.
As he worked it appealed to him that the first thing he should do was to call Mr. Meredith and let him take what action he chose in his child’s interest. So he went to the telephone and, after hearing all the latest particulars which were enthusiastically delivered concerning little Jamie, he asked for Mr. Meredith. He was told that he was out of town and would be away for a week or ten days. Right there Jamie hesitated. He could take care of his little partner’s interests in the same manner as he would his own. He could see what legal action was taken and report it when the time came. There was no necessity for setting Mrs. Meredith and the little Scout to worrying when there was probably nothing they could do. So Jamie hung up the receiver without saying that at that minute the apiary was in the hands of an interloper.
As Jamie worked, this same interloper came down through the garden on a tour of observation. She had changed her dress for another, light and attractive. With the stains of travel removed, she seemed more like a world of girls such as Jamie saw everywhere every day. The difficulty was that she seemed so much like them that Jamie was not interested. It had to be an unusual girl, someone different, someone giving at least slight evidence of having a human heart, mental culture, and consideration of others, to make Jamie look twice. This young party evidently was thinking mostly of herself. Jamie watched her advancing toward him down the back walk and the first thought that came to him as she was sharply delineated in a patch of sunlight was: “She looks hard.”
Persistently he went on with his work. The girl was now within a few yards of him. She stopped and studied him intently.
“I’ve been thinking,” she said, “there’s nothing here that can suffer greatly in the few days that will be required to arrange the papers so that I can come into possession of my property. I prefer that you leave me in undisputed possession.”
Jamie looked at the girl and smiled, and it was a winsome smile, a bonny smile.
“Don’t you think,” he said, “that you are asking a good deal of human nature? I’ve been caring for this place for quite a while now; I’ve been thinking it was my own for some time past. You are confident to an unusual degree if you think I am going to walk out and turn over property that stands on the records in my name without having seen any proof you have to offer, without knowing whether you can establish the claims you make before a court. Do you mean that if you came into possession of this property you would live here, you would make your home here?” The young lady glanced around her. Jamie’s incredulity irritated her.
“What kind of a back number are you?” she asked. “As we came here I thought we were going about twenty! miles from the station I came in at.”
“And so you were,” replied Jamie. “You are a good guesser.”
“And what would a girl, just when she has a right to have a good rime, want to be marooned in a place like this for? If there is anything I am afraid of it’s a bee. If there’s anything I hate it’s a mountain. If there’s anything I hate worse than a mountain it’s the sea. If there is anything I can’t abide for a few hours at a stretch it is such stillness as this, such deadening, sickening silence. Does anything ever happen here?”
“Yes,” said Jamie, “you came, and the bees are beginning to swarm every few days. There’s fruit to be picked. There’s sprinkling to be done. There’s hoeing and cleaning and work a-plenty, more work than any one man can do as well as it should be done.”
“In other words,” said the young woman, “you are proposing to stay here and keep an eye on me.”
“You said that,” said Jamie. “What I said was that I was proposing to stay here and take care of the property, to do the sprinkling, to hive the bees.”
“I’m not such a fool that I don’t know why you will not go,” said the young person.
“Draw your own conclusions,” answered Jamie. “This side of the garden needs watering today. I am going to water it.” And he quietly went on with his work.
The young woman stood still a minute and then she said: “I want the keys to the chest Papa always kept his papers in. Undoubtedly there are things there that will help me to establish my interests.”
“Tell that to the probate judge,” said Jamie. “If he wants that chest unlocked and the papers that it contains turned over to you, he will send a clerk to go through them with you and to make a record of them and place them in evidence before they are tampered with.”
It happened that Jamie was keeping watch—oblique watch, but nevertheless a sharp watch—on the face of the girl when he made that statement. He saw the arrested breath; he saw the whitened face; he saw the tense pause and the deep thought, and the voice that sometimes talked to him inside himself said to him: “Now she doesn’t like that. She doesn’t want any one present when that chest is opened. She doesn’t want a record made of those papers. She doesn’t like the idea of asking the probate judge to send a man to go through them with her.”
Jamie immediately attached another length of hose and drew his work up the slope until he was opposite the window that gave the best view from the living room.
In this manner time went on. He had occupied Margaret’s house and kept his eye on the young person for two days and one night, and he was fairly well tired out when the young lady passed Margaret Cameron’s and Jamie watched her take the trolley for the city. He went over to the house. He did not see how it could wear the same expression on its face that it had always worn. It would have comforted him if it had looked very much disgusted and displeased, but it did not. It smiled on the roadway and the mountainside on which it looked with exactly the same serene, placid smile of invitation that it always wore for him. He tried its doors, but they were all locked. He looked in the window, but he could see nothing except that the trunk was standing in the middle of the living room and the wardrobe of the young lady seemed to be mostly draped over the Bee Master’s chair. He decided that this would be a good time to work Margaret Cameron’s garden, so he went over and turned on the hose. He was busy there when he heard the light padding of beach shoes behind him and turned to face the little Scout.
