The Keeper of the Bees, page 9
He climbed a few steps farther and paused again to study the face of the sea and the towering crest that in his own mind he named the throne. It was a throne, a place for a man to captain his own soul. A man would be a monarch of all he could survey even for a short time on that crest, and it was better to be a monarch even for an hour than never to have had a kingly aspiration.
So Jamie went to the supper that Margaret Cameron had prepared for him and because that climb had wearied him so, because his feet were throbbing almost unendurably from the long, unaccustomed march to which he had forced them, he decided that he was not so well as he had been when he left the hospital. And right there he made a large mistake. His body might have been tried to such an extent that it was not so well, but his heart and brain had been given some exercise that was decidedly beneficial.
While he ate his supper, Margaret Cameron went through the rooms, touching a curtain here and there, wiping a speck of dust from the wonderful pieces of old furniture, searching with jealous eyes to see if the stranger were doing any damage to the property of a neighbor whom she had learned, through the years, not only to respect but to cherish with a devotion that was deep and lasting.
Presently she came from the living room and dropped abruptly to a chair beside the table at which Jamie was eating his supper.
“You know,” she said, “I’ve had about all I can stand today. I’m worried over matters of my own. I’ve only one child and she has always been a good girl. She did her school work well and her training course, and she hadn’t any difficulty in getting a school when she wanted it, but I can’t see why she was bent on going so far from home when she might have had a position here where she could have stayed with me. Maybe she was tired of the little house and the exacting old woman always scouring and cleaning, always fussing about how the young people are going to ruin. I’m not sure that I didn’t drive her away, and I am sure that her Cousin Molly coaxed her away. I’m not sure that there is any sense in the idea that the present generation is going to ruin. My mother thought exactly the same thing about the girls of my day. When I wanted to go with the boy I married to a barn dance or a corn husking or on horseback to a picnic or a rally, she thought surely we were doing something that youngsters had never done before, and that perdition was yawning wide for us. Maybe it was, for all I know. Anyway, I’m unhappy about Lolly. She seemed to me to have something on her mind that she wouldn’t tell me, and that isn’t all.”
“I am free to admit that if the Bee Master doesn’t survive this operation and come back to his home and his neighbors, the rest of this world is going to be decidedly tasteless to me. We’ve lived here, side by side, for a good many years. I’ve come over and helped him fix up his place, and he’s been over and helped me fix up mine, and when the young folks would go away in the evening and the time dragged, he’d come over and we’d play cribbage or checkers. I never had brains enough to play chess so it would interest him. Sometimes I’d come over here and he’d sit there by the fire and read aloud from some of those fine old books.” She paused and looked at Jamie. “Are you familiar,” she asked, “with Donne’s ‘Devotions’?”
Jamie nodded.
“They were in my father’s library,” he said, “but nobody even thought to save his books for me. He died while I was in the war, and Mother had gone not long before, and they sold everything, not even a scrap of clothing or furniture did any of the neighbors save for me. Donne’s ‘Devotions’ went with the rest. I don’t know where, and I was too sick to search, and I hadn’t the money. I had to stay where the Government would care for me. But I can see what it would mean to see the Bee Master with a tinge of firelight on his fine old face and John Donne in his lean fingers.”
Slowly Margaret Cameron nodded.
“Yes,” she said, half breathlessly, “yes, it was a wonderful picture he made. Never in all my life have I seen even a painting of a man so physically and spiritually beautiful as the Bee Master. I hope when he comes back that you will stay until you thoroughly learn the fineness of his spirit. It would be a help to you all the rest of your days only to learn how gentle and tender and fine a man like Michael Worthington can be. The papers today are so full of what men are that they should not be. I wish every young man in the whole world could live a year with a man like the Bee Master in order to learn his patience and his forbearance, his breadth of view, his loving outlook on life, and his fearlessness concerning the hereafter.”
“Then, why,” asked Jamie, “did he fight the operation so?”
A dingy flush of red crept up in Margaret Cameron’s cheek.
“Well, for one thing,” she said, “he came here with a broken heart. He never has talked to me in detail but I have started over here on two occasions when he was talking to the little Scout, and I think that child knows who it was or what it was that broke his heart. I think that kiddy knows what he fled from when he came here alone with only furnishings for his library and his bedroom. There is a picture in his bedroom, probably his wife. I asked him once about her and he only said that she had been dead for many years and that he had lost, too, her child, whom he adored. But there was something more than that. Death isn’t insurmountable if it’s accompanied by hope, and the face of the woman who hangs in the Bee Master’s bedroom might very well stand for a typical portrayal of hope, of purity, of steadfast courage—almost any fine quality that any woman could have. He had lost her, he had lost her child; I feel sure he had lost his home and friends. I think he deliberately went to the end of his tether, and when he could go no farther he fell and left his case in the hands of the good Lord.”
So they talked on until dusk. When the remnants of his supper were packed in the small basket and Margaret Cameron went home, she invited Jamie to come over any time he was lonely, and she promised to help him with the morning work until she was sure that he had learned to do the watering right, because the lilies must not have enough water to rot the bulbs, and the roses must not start mildew, and the palms must be just dry enough, and the acacias just wet enough. Jamie felt, by the time she had finished enumerating the reasons as to why she should come, that there certainly was necessity for her presence when he began operations.
Then he went into the living room and, because his blood was full of poison and circulating slowly, he scratched a match and lighted the fire that was laid on the hearth.
He looked at the chair that stood beside it for a long time, a high-backed chair with wide arm rests, a chair of invitation. Without even closing his eyes he could see the silken hair and beard and the white forehead and the beautiful eyes of the grand old man whose spirit was the master of the bees and the master of the house and the master of his soul, and something in Jamie that was part of the thing that made him what he was refused to take the Master’s chair. He pushed it back to one side and selected another that he thought would fit his long frame very nearly as well. Then he opened the case above the writing desk and picked down one of the volumes that the Little Scout had pointed out to him. It fell open of its own volition at one page, and the first paragraph that Jamie’s eyes rested on read:
“There are two kinds of rulers among bees—If there are too many rulers they perish, for thus they become distracted. The olives and the swarms of bees multiply at the same time. They begin by making comb, in which they place the progeny. The comb is deposited with their mouths, as those say who affirm that they collect it from external sources. Wax is made from flowers. They bring the material of wax from the dropping of trees, but the honey falls from the air, principally about the rising of the stars and when the rainbow rests upon the earth.”
When Jamie read that paragraph his shoulders shook with a dry chuckle. He paused and began communing with the fire.
“Left on this job to keep the bees,” he said, “what I should do is to go over there into the working library and select a volume of instructions for beginners and find out for myself about a few of those things the little Scout mentioned—how to tell a queen from a worker, a drone from a nurse. I think I’d feel mentally brilliant if I could look at a bee climbing over a rose and tell whether it was a working bee or a nurse. I wonder if the little Scout knows those things?”
Jamie looked at the fire.
“I shouldn’t be surprised a particle,” he said. “I can see that what I should do is to get the practical part of the bee business first and read the romance afterward, but by my crossbow and halberd, I swear this romance of the bees is entrancing reading!”
Jamie drew the lamp closer and threw another oak knot on the fire and slouched to comfort in the chair and read on until he found his eyes were tiring and the fire was low, and then he went to bed.
When he awoke the following morning from a long, sound sleep and managed his bath and the straps that bound the bandages on his chest over his shoulders and around his back to hold his dressings in place, he had made a distinct step forward because he was not thinking about the wound or how soon it would finish him. He was thinking about whether the little Scout would come again that day; about whether, after he finished the work he must do, he would have strength left to carry him to the lavender and yellow boundary of the beach; about honey that rained from Heaven so very obligingly for the bees of ancient times to gather it up and fill it into cells. He was thinking about almost anything, except himself, and that was one of the best things that had happened to him in two long years.
That day, when the watering was over and he had taken a nap after lunch, he made the journey that he had contemplated and sat on the hot sands, and he was so intrigued with the evening perfume of the little lavender flowers that grew there, so charmed with the beauty of the gold, that he decided that he would hunt through the Bee Master’s books and see if he could find a book on flowers that would tell him what these strange and beautiful things were. And as from the higher point of vantage he looked with longing eyes toward the clean, cold water of the sea and toward the stretch that lay between him and the throne, he decided that possibly in a week he could make it that far, because his feet were feeling much better after the night of rest, after long application of water, and his muscles were not so stiff and his bones were not aching so intolerably.
That evening at six the telephone rang and Doctor Grayson reported that the operation was over, the Bee Master was back in his own room, and was conscious. Almost his first question had been whether there was any message for him concerning the bees, and the Doctor had told him that everything was fine, but if there was any special report that he could make for the morning dressing, it might help. So Jamie reiterated the statement that everything was fine and added particulars as to the watering and inquired when he might see the Bee Master.
Doctor Grayson had replied: “He doesn’t realize how precarious his condition is or how weak he is; but I should think that in a week or ten days you might come for your first visit. In the meantime, I will call you and give you a report each evening, to let you know how he is, and I would be interested in knowing how you are feeling yourself.”
Jamie hesitated over that. He did not know exactly what to say. But before he had time to say anything, the Doctor continued: “There was no time, when the life of the Bee Master was in jeopardy, to give you any attention; but you look to me like one of our boys who was carrying a pretty serious problem somewhere in his anatomy, and I had my doubts as to whether you were equal to the job you were undertaking. Any time you would like to come in and let me look you over—get a pencil and I’ll give you instructions how to reach the hospital, If you are a stranger in these parts.”
So Jamie said he was a stranger and he would very much like to have the location of the hospital, and when he came to see the Master, If the Doctor would be kind enough to keep that offer open, that would be famous.
So another day and then another went by, and each day Jamie finished watering the flowers and the fruits and mixing the drink for the bees and his inspection of the hives slightly earlier. He had followed the little Scout’s advice. When he went among the bees he had donned the coat worn by the Bee Master and he had rubbed Madonna lily over his hands and hair and made himself intimately familiar with the cinnamon pink bed. There was a question in his mind, from what the child had said, as to whether the sensitive organs of the bee might not detect a faint odor of the dressings he wore and resent it as unfamiliar, but nothing of the kind had happened. He had been so near the Bee Master’s height and form; he had worn the familiar coat; he had practiced frequently on “Highland Mary,” and the bees paid no attention whatever to him in so far as he had given them a chance. The isolated hives of the Black Germans he kept away from. Down in the depths of his soul he had a feeling that if he got near a hive of anything that was named Black German, he would very likely muster what remaining strength he had and kick it into the middle of the Pacific regardless of what might happen by way of retaliation.
When he hung the coat on the hook on which he had found it, his fingers struck something rough and warm which on examination proved to be a bathing suit of wool, a warm, heavy suit. Jamie took it down and fingered it eagerly and then he walked to the back porch and looked out over the blue waters of the sea. He held the bathing suit up to his shoulders and drew it around him, and wondered whether it would cover the bandages and what would happen if the dressings were soaked with salt water.
He was afraid that would not do, so he turned back regretfully and slowly hung the woolen bathing suit, not where it had been, but on the first hook nearest the casing of the back door, hung it right up prominently where he must see it each time he went in and out that door, and every time he saw it, he stood and looked at it, and in a few days more he decided that it would not be a bad idea to put it on and go with bared feet down on the hot sands. There would be no chill about that during the heat of the day, and then he might walk where the little waves were breaking enough to wet his feet, merely to feel the joy that he imagined he would experience in having those cold, salty waves creep up and run over them. He could go back to the warm sand and dry them rapidly and why might not a process like that stimulate circulation? Why would not the hot sand draw the sluggish poisoned blood in his veins to his feet? Why would not the cold salt water drive it back? Why would not the stimulation thus gained help to throw off the poison bred by the wound in his breast?
So, through the warm golden days, Jamie kept his trust with the Bee Master the level best he could, with the help of Margaret Cameron, and his mind had as much exercise as his body. Much sooner than he had expected he reached the foot of the throne. The climb was not bad at all and he did find, around on the side of the huge rock facing the sea, a long gash that made a wonderful seat, a seat that fitted the curves of his body, a seat that, when upholstered with the Bee Master’s old working overcoat, would be wonderful to slouch in, to rest, to soak in the sun, to breathe in the salt from west of the crest.
He had not reached the point where he had definitely decided that he would fight. His mind was merely stirred with suggestions, conjectures, possibilities. If any one had asked him, who had the right to ask, and had been given a frank answer, Jamie would have said that six months, without any doubt whatever, would be the length of his tenure. A year of the best treatment the Government could give him had left him worse. He thought about six months would see the finish. Sometimes he was considerably disquieted because the call for him to visit the hospital had not come. Each night at six o’clock he answered the telephone and heard that the Bee Master was barely holding his own. He was not yet able to converse or be bothered about business.
Each time he received one of these reports, he called the little Scout at the number that had been given him and passed the report on. Twice the little Scout had been in the garden for a short visit after school hours. Each time Jamie parted with his new friend with deeper regret. Each time he had seen some new emanation of the mentality of the youngster that had surprised, sometimes shocked, sometimes delighted him, and as for the question of sex, he was not a bit nearer the solution than he had been the first day.
After supper on the ninth day, for the second time Jamie made his way the length of the back walk, across the beach, and climbed to the throne. He was armed with a broad-brimmed old slouch hat and the old overcoat. He climbed the throne and settled in an especial seat of his own that he had managed with considerable work and more strength than he had known he could muster. He had collected some broken pieces of rock and fitted them in differently and farther to the left than there had been an accessible seat. Wrapped in the overcoat, he dropped on the seat and faced the eternal verifies of sky and sea. No land was intruding. It was the bowl of the sky closing down; the smooth wash of the sea rolling in; and away in the distance a faint red glow marked the spot where the sun threw its light on a world that was steadily turning from it.
There Jamie did some more thinking. He was having plenty of mental exercise in those days. He still thought Death, but at least he had a manlier thought in facing it. And when he thought Life, he did not think of himself, or upbraid his government, or pity other wounded men. He thought merely of that one thing he might possibly do and what it might possibly be that would give him some justification, when he faced his Maker, for the spending of his latter days.
