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

and fro as if some hidden fire had been lighted beneath it. Only after a closer inspection was it apparent to the lay eye that this seeming fluid was in reality composed of mass upon mass of bees. They shoved and writhed and muttered and jostled, for all the world like a collection of home-seeking New Yorkers trying to secure standing room on a subway express at half-past five in the afternoon.

Nutty, making this discovery, had emitted one wild yell, dropped the frame, and started at full speed for the house, his retreat expedited by repeated stings from the nervous bees. Bill, more prudent, remained absolutely motionless. He eyed the seething frame with interest but without apparent panic.

“I want you to help me here, Mr. Chalmers. You have stronger wrists than I have. I will tell you what to do. Hold the frame tightly.”

“I’ve got it.”

“Jerk it down as sharply as you can to within a few inches of the door, and then jerk it up again. You see that shakes them off.”

“It would me,” agreed Bill cordially, “if I were a bee.”

Elizabeth had the feeling that she had played her ace of trumps and by some miracle lost the trick. If this grisly operation did not daunt the man, nothing, not even the transferring of honey, would. She watched him as he raised the frame and jerked it down with a strong swiftness which her less powerful wrists had never been able to achieve. The bees tumbled off in a dense shower, asking questions to the last, then sighting the familiar entrance to the hive they bustled in without waiting to investigate the cause of the earthquake.

Lord Dawlish watched them go with a kindly interest.

“It has always been a mystery to me,” he said, “why they never seem to think of manhandling the Johnny who does that to them. They don’t seem able to connect cause and effect. I suppose the only way they can figure it out is that the bottom has suddenly dropped out of everything, and they are so busy lighting out for home that they haven’t time to go to the root of things. But it’s a ticklish job for all that, if you’re not used to it. I know when I first did it I shut my eyes and wondered whether they would bury my remains or cremate them.”

“When you first did it?” Elizabeth was staring at him blankly. “Have you done it before?”

Her voice shook. Bill met her gaze frankly.

“Done it before? Rather! Thousands of times. You see, I spent a year on a bee farm once, learning the business.”

For a moment mortification was the only emotion of which Elizabeth was conscious. She felt supremely ridiculous. For this she had schemed and plotted⁠—to give a practiced expert the opportunity of doing what he had done a thousand times before!

And then her mood changed in a flash. Nature has decreed that there are certain things in life which shall act as hoops of steel, grappling the souls of the elect together. Golf is one of these; a mutual love of horseflesh another; but the greatest of all is bees. Between two beekeepers there can be no strife. Not even a tepid hostility can mar their perfect communion. The petty enmities which life raises to be barriers between man and man and between man and woman vanish, once it is revealed to them that they are linked by this great bond. Envy, malice, hatred and all uncharitableness disappear, and they look into each other’s eyes and say “My brother!”

The effect of Bill’s words on Elizabeth was revolutionary. They crashed through her dislike, scattering it like an explosive shell. She had resented this golden young man’s presence at the farm. She had thought him in the way. She had objected to his becoming aware that she did such prosaic tasks as cooking and washing up. But now her whole attitude toward him was changed. He could stay there as long as he liked, the longer the better.

“You have really kept bees?”

“Not actually kept them, worse luck; I couldn’t raise the capital. You see, money was a bit tight⁠—”

“I know,” said Elizabeth sympathetically. “Money is like that, isn’t it?”

“The general impression seemed to be that I should be foolish to try anything so speculative as beekeeping, so it fell through. Some very decent old boys got me another job.”

“What job?”

“Secretary of a club.”

“In London, of course?”

“Yes.”

“And all the time you wanted to be in the country keeping bees!”

Elizabeth could hardly control her voice, her pity was so great.

“I should have liked it,” said Bill wistfully. “London’s all right, but I love the country. My ambition would be to have a whacking big farm, a sort of ranch miles away from anywhere⁠—”

He broke off. This was not the first time he had caught himself forgetting how his circumstances had changed in the past two weeks. It was ridiculous to be telling hard-luck stories about not being able to buy a farm, when he had the wherewithal to buy dozens of farms. It took a lot of getting used to, this business of being a millionaire.

“That’s my ambition too,” said Elizabeth eagerly. This was the very first time she had met a congenial spirit. Nutty’s views on farming and the Arcadian life generally were saddening to an enthusiast. “If I had the money I should get an enormous farm, and in the summer I should go through the East Side and borrow all the children I could find there, and take them out to it and let them wallow in it.”

“Wouldn’t they do a lot of damage?”

“I shouldn’t mind. I should be too rich to worry about the damage. If they ruined the place beyond repair I’d go and buy another.” She laughed. “It isn’t so impossible as it sounds. I came very near being able to do it.” She paused for a moment, but went on almost at once. After all, if you cannot confide your intimate troubles to