Uneasy Money, P. G. Wodehouse [little bear else holmelund minarik txt] 📗

laughing. It was a trait in her character which she had often lamented, that she could not succeed in keeping angry with anyone for more than a few minutes on end. Sooner or later some happy selection of a phrase of abuse would tickle her sense of humor, or the appearance of her victim would become too funny not to be laughed at. On the present occasion it was the ridiculous spectacle of Nutty cowering beneath the bedclothes that caused her wrath to evaporate. She made a weak attempt to recover it. She glared at Nutty, who at the sound of her laughter had emerged from under the clothes like a worm after a thunderstorm.

“I mean it,” she said. “It really is too bad of you! You might have had some sense and a little consideration. Ask yourself if we are in a position here to entertain visitors. Well, I’m going to make myself very unpopular with this Mr. Chalmers of yours. By this evening he will be regarding me with utter loathing, for I am about to persecute him.”

“What do you mean?” asked Nutty, alarmed.

“I am going to begin by asking him to help me open one of the hives.”

“For heaven’s sake!”

“After that I shall⁠—with his assistance⁠—transfer some honey. And after that⁠—well, I don’t suppose he will be alive by then. If he is I shall make him wash the dishes for me. The least he can do, after swooping down on us like this, is to make himself useful.”

A cry of protest broke from the appalled Nutty, but Elizabeth did not hear it. She had left the room and was on her way downstairs.

Lord Dawlish was smoking an after-breakfast cigar in the grounds. It was a beautiful day, and a peaceful happiness had come upon him. He told himself that he had made progress. He was under the same roof as the girl he had deprived of her inheritance, and it should be simple to establish such friendly relations as would enable him to reveal his identity and ask her to reconsider her refusal to relieve him of a just share of her uncle’s money. He had seen Elizabeth for only a short time on the previous night, but he had taken an immediate liking to her. There was something about the American girl, he reflected, which seemed to put a man at his ease, a charm and directness all her own. Yes, he liked Elizabeth, and he liked this dwelling place of hers. He was quite willing to stay on here indefinitely.

Nature had done well by Flack’s. The house itself was an ordinary frame house, more pleasing to the eye than most of the houses in those parts, owing to the black and white paint which decorated it and an unconventional flattening and rounding of the roof. But Nature had made so many improvements that the general effect was unusually delightful. From where Bill stood linden trees, chestnut trees, locust trees and a solitary blue fir, the aristocrat of the garden, met his eye. The porch that ran round two sides of the house was almost hidden by masses of roses of Sharon. There were hydrangeas on the turf beyond the sandy drive, and more roses. To the left, shaded by a little regiment of apple trees, stood the beehives. The sun shone, a gentle breeze blew up from the bay, and the air was full of the soothing murmur of bees and the cheerful gossiping of crickets. Assuredly the lines were fallen unto him in pleasant places.

He perceived Elizabeth coming toward him from the house. He threw away his cigar and went to meet her. Seen by daylight she was more attractive than ever. She looked so small and neat and wholesome, so extremely unlike Miss Daisy Leonard’s friend. And such was the reaction from what might be termed his later Riegelheimer’s mood, that if he had been asked to define feminine charm in a few words, he would have replied without hesitation that it was the quality of being as different as possible in every way from the Good Sport. Elizabeth fulfilled this qualification. She was not only small and neat, but she had a soft voice to which it was a joy to listen.

“I was just admiring your place,” he said.

“Its appearance is the best part of it,” said Elizabeth. “It is a deceptive place. The bay looks beautiful, but you can’t bathe in it because of the jellyfish. The woods are lovely, but you daren’t go near them because of the ticks.”

“Ticks?”

“They jump on you and suck your blood,” said Elizabeth carelessly. “And the nights are gorgeous, but you have to stay indoors after dusk because of the mosquitoes.” She paused to mark the effect of these horrors on her visitor. “And then, of course,” she went on, as he showed no signs of flying to the house to pack his bag and catch the next train, “the bees are always stinging you. I hope you are not afraid of bees, Mr. Chalmers?”

“Rather not. Jolly little chaps!”

A gleam appeared in Elizabeth’s eye.

“If you are so fond of them perhaps you wouldn’t mind coming and helping me open one of the hives?”

“Rather!”

“I’ll go and fetch the things.”

She went into the house and ran up to Nutty’s room, waking that sufferer from a troubled sleep.

“Nutty, he’s bitten.”

Nutty sat up violently.

“Good Lord; what by?”

“You don’t understand. What I meant was that I invited your Mr. Chalmers to help me open a hive, and he said ‘Rather!’ and is waiting to do it now. Be ready to say goodbye to him. If he comes out of this alive his first act, after bathing the wounds with ammonia, will be to leave us forever.”

“But look here, he’s a visitor⁠—”

“Cheer up! He won’t be much longer.”

“You can’t let him in for a ghastly thing like opening a hive. When you made me do it that time I was picking stings out of myself for a week.”

“That was because you had been smoking.