If Love Be Love Page 7

  By the end of six weeks the electricity had been installed and so had a brand new cooker. Coal had been delivered, and although the days were often warm, a fire was needed in the evenings.

  The trees in the garden were now in full leaf. The rhododendrons had bloomed, red, white and violet, and so had the other shrubs. Clumps of perennials had pushed through the dark soil of the borders and the rose which clambered round the porch door was already showing pale pink buds.

  Nancy was constantly amazed by the mildness of the climate in the sheltered south-west corner of the peninsula and by the peace and quiet of the garden. She often wondered why her father had left such a place of beauty to go and live in Dulthorpe. Surely the scenery and the timeless way of life were sufficient compensation for the lack of amenities.

  Before she had come to live at Lanmore she would never have believed it was possible to spend the whole day doing housework, feeding animals and gardening and to feel contented too. But she was contented and she looked forward to every day as each morning brought its share of new experiences. Some of her contentment, she realised, was bound up with the fact that Don was happy too. He had done the right thing returning to the land of his forebears. Linda also seemed happier and there had been fewer tantrums during the past weeks.

  Lanmore had cast a spell on the three of them, thought Nancy fancifully. It was another fine June day, slightly warmer than usual, and to her consternation one of the hives of bees had swarmed, rising in a dark cloud and making off over the dyke towards the little clump of trees which encircled a small hillock in a field across the road.

  Don was working, so she would have to go after the swarm herself because she knew he would not want to lose it. Ever since that first day when Logan Maclaine had talked to him about bees and had given him instructions on how to look after them Don had been a keen beekeeper. Nancy remembered vaguely Don mentioning something about a basket called a skep. He had said that when the bees swarmed you must go after them, make them enter the basket and then take them back to the hive.

  Swallowing her fear at the thought of having to face so many bees, Nancy found the skep together with a hat and thick veil and tough leather gauntlet gloves which she had seen Don wear when he had been working with the bees. Dressed in the hat and gloves and carrying the skep and a clean white cloth, she climbed over the wall into the field and made for the copse.

  The sun beat upon her back and under the close heavy veil she felt stifled. As she walked she remembered that this was the direction in which Logan Maclaine had gone the day he had stayed with them for lunch. It was, she had learned from the Macraes, a short cut across the fields and moors to the Lodge. Although she had seen most of the other houses on Lanmore by now she still hadn’t seen the lodge which was on the western tip of the peninsula, and although they were such near neighbours they hadn’t seen Logan once since he had taken Linda to school. There was no doubt in Nancy’s mind that he didn’t know how they were progressing, because everyone knew what everyone else did on the peninsula, but she felt faintly hurt that he had not shown any further interest in them. Presumably he thought he had done enough to help them and that any future assistance from him could come to them through Harris.

  At last she reached the copse which consisted of a few windswept pines and a couple of small rowan trees. A humming noise assured her that the bees were there and she found them closely encircled about one of the rowans. They resembled a close black collar round the slim trunk of the tree.

  The whole operation depended on being able to get the queen bee into the skep, Nancy remembered. Once that was done the rest of the bees would follow. The queen should be in the middle of the swarm. But how could you tell which was the middle of this swarm?

  Approaching cautiously, she began to sweep the bees into the skep with the small brush which she had found with the basket. The bees buzzed angrily and perspiration beaded Nancy’s forehead. Suddenly one got under the veil and stung her on the cheek. At that moment the queen flew off and the whole swarm followed, leaving Nancy hot and bothered with an empty skep.

  The swarm did not go far. After making a short reconnaissance round the copse it attached itself to the branch of the other rowan and hung downwards, a giant dark globule.

  Nancy eyed it apprehensively. The sting on her cheek smarted. Who was it who had told her recently that swarming bees rarely sting? Ian Macrae, who else? He who was so adept at handing out advice. Well, to-night when she saw him as the ceilidh at his house she would prove him wrong!

  She had also been warned that bees sense fear and that they know when the person approaching was afraid of them, so marshalling all her courage she moved towards them with a display of confidence.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  The childish voice startled her, making her jump so that she dropped the skep. Turning round, she encountered the bland gaze of a small thin boy who was standing a few yards away.

  For a few seconds they stared at each other in silence. Nancy was silent because she was surprised to see a child of that age. None of the people she knew living on Lanmore had any children under ten. He was painfully thin, his legs looking like matchsticks and making his grey shorts seem too wide and baggy. He was also extremely pale and his large grey eyes seemed to be too big for his thin wedged-shaped face.

  ‘I’m trying to collect a swarm of bees,’ replied Nancy gently.

  ‘You do look funny in that thing, and I can’t see your face properly. Why are you wearing it?’

  Nancy removed the hat and veil from her head.

  ‘To protect my face from the bees,’ she explained. ‘They might sting me, because they don’t like anyone trying to make them go back into the hive.’

  ‘Then why try to make them?’

  ‘Because I don’t want to lose them. They belong to my brother and he wants to keep them so that he can have their honey.’

  ‘I think that’s horrid, taking the bees’ honey. It’s like stealing. What’s your name?’

  Nancy told him and with similar youthful directness asked him the same question.

  ‘I’m Neil Maclaine. I’m five, nearly six, and I’ve run away from my wickedunclelogan.’

  He said the last three words as if they were one long word and it was a second before Nancy was able to make out what he meant. Keeping to herself the surprise she felt on hearing that the boy was Logan’s nephew, she asked, ‘Why do you say he’s wicked?’

  ‘My nanny always said he was wicked because he wanted to take me away from her and my mummy. Nanny went away and I had some other nannies, but they weren’t as good. Then I was ill and wickedunclelogan came and brought me here to con ... con...’

  He stumbled in his speech as he tried to pronounce a word he had often heard but had never spoken. Nancy smiled sympathetically.

  ‘Convalesce,’ she supplied softly, and was immediately rewarded with a sweet smile.

  ‘That doesn’t sound very wicked to me,’ went on Nancy. ‘This is a lovely place and you’ll get better faster here than you would in London.’

  ‘Oh, do you think so? I hope so. I’m tired of being ill. Wickedunclelogan says it’s because I’ve been neg ... neg...”

  ‘Neglected,’ offered Nancy.

  ‘That’s right. I heard him tell Mummy. Is your hair really that colour or is it painted?’

  Taking the change of subject and the question in her stride, Nancy answered him seriously.

  ‘It is really this colour. Awful, isn’t it?’

  He considered her silently for a moment and then shook his head in disagreement.

  ‘No. It makes you look like a marigold. I’ve seen marigolds, they’re orange and bright. My mummy has fair hair like me and she’s much prettier than you. Aren’t you going to collect your bees?’

  Amused by his childishly honest comments, Nancy turned to look at the gently humming bees.

  ‘Yes. I’ve never collected a swarm of bees before and I’m not sure I’m doing it right. But don’t you th
ink it’s time you went back to your uncle? He’ll be wondering where you are.’

  Neil’s face crumpled pathetically and tears glinted in his eyes.

  ‘I didn’t really mean to stay away from him. I meant to go back, but I couldn’t find my way back. He was fishing in a burn, and I don’t like fishing, so I thought I’d go for a walk and maybe he’d come after me. I’m lost,’ he wailed.

  Touched by his distress, Nancy kneeled on the ground before him. She put her arms round him and drew him against her and smoothed his shaking shoulders.

  ‘Don’t cry, Neil. You can stay with me while I collect the bees. You can help me and then I’ll take you to my cottage and you can have a biscuit and a drink, then I’ll ring up the Lodge and tell your uncle you’re here with me and he can come and fetch you.’

  He seemed comforted by her words because gradually his sobs stopped and he knuckled his eyes to dry the tears. He leaned against her shoulder and Nancy’s arms tightened around him as she reacted to his obvious need for love. Silently she reviled Logan Maclaine for being so engrossed in his fishing that he had not noticed his nephew’s boredom.

  ‘Wickedunclelogan will be cross with me. I don’t like him when he’s cross,’ whispered Neil. ‘He frowns and speaks very quietly.’

  ‘Don’t worry. He won’t be cross when he finds you’re here with me,’ said Nancy, with more confidence than she felt.

  She stood up and became aware immediately that someone was approaching the copse across the field of tussocky grass. It was Logan and he was making straight towards them.

  Grasping Neil’s small, warm hand in hers, she whispered, ‘Here’s your uncle now. I wonder how he guessed you were here?’

  ‘He’s very clever at guessing,’ said Neil.

  If Logan was cross there was no sign of anger on his face, which wore its usual expression of cool politeness. He stopped in front of them and his heavy-lidded glance rested on Neil. Nancy felt the little boy’s hand clutch at hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze while she tried to deal with the sudden speechlessness and breathlessness which attacked on meeting Logan face to face again. He was dressed in a blue and white finely checked shirt, dark trousers and the thick-soled rubber Wellington boots which he had worn the last time he had visited and which Nancy had learned the hard way were essential footwear for walking the fields.

  He glanced from Neil to her and said gravely,

  ‘Good afternoon. Nancy Allan. Do you make a habit of talking to small boys?’

  Although his reference to their first meeting at the Roman fort when she had reprimanded him for speaking to Linda surprised her and slightly undermined her confidence, Nancy looked him straight in the eye and retorted,

  ‘I didn’t speak to him. He spoke to me first.’

  A slight lift to the corner of one eyebrow showed his acknowledgement of her retaliation and he looked down at Neil again.

  ‘Why did you run away? I thought I told you to stay near me. You’ll never learn to fish if you aren’t patient.’

  He spoke quietly, but even so Nancy felt the tremor which shook Neil. Still holding her hand tightly, Neil looked down at the ground and stubbed with one rubber-booted foot at the grass.

  ‘I don’t like fishing,’ he muttered obstinately.

  Logan’s heavy eyebrows lowered in a frown and for a moment Nancy thought he might retaliate unkindly, but the frown was quickly displaced by the usual urbane polite mask. With a slight shrug of his shoulders he turned away from the child and looked at the rowan tree.

  ‘Yours?’ he inquired, pointing to the swarm.

  Nancy nodded. ‘They collected round another tree and I tried to get them into the skep, but they swarmed again. I was wondering what to do next when Neil came up to me.’

  ‘I see you’ve been stung. Swarming bees rarely sting. You must have annoyed them in some way,’ he asserted coolly and authoritatively, making her feel as usual as if she was ignorant and inept. But she had no chance to retort because he picked up the skep and went towards the swarm. While Neil and Nancy watched from a safe distance he persuaded the swarm to move up into the skep which he placed above the cluster of bees. Once the bees were in the basket he covered it with the cloth and set off immediately down the hill in the direction of the cottage.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Still holding Neil’s hand, Nancy urged the little boy to accompany her and together they followed Logan down the hill and across the fallow field to the cottage. By the time they had climbed the garden wall Logan was already shaking the bees out of the skep on the floorboard of the frame hive which Don had prepared in case there was a swarm.

  Watching him working silently with the bees Nancy recalled the last time he had visited the croft, that first Sunday more than a month ago when he had talked and laughed as he had shown Don and her how to deal with the goats and cows. This afternoon there was no sign of the warmth and gaiety he had shown then. He was once more the withdrawn stranger of the journey north.

  The bees were gradually entering the hive.

  ‘I’m glad Don took notice of my instructions and prepared a spare hive,’ murmured Logan, ‘otherwise we’d have been in trouble. Look, Neil, they like the hive because there’s wax in there, all ready for them. Come closer and look at them.’

  He held out a hand to the boy, who shrank against Nancy and blurted out loudly,

  ‘No. I don’t like them. They’ll sting me!’

  ‘Only if you show your fear,’ replied Logan patiently, although the heavy frown had darkened his face again.

  ‘Neil will look at them another day,’ Nancy intervened swiftly, sensing the tension which existed between man and boy. ‘He’s had rather a harassing afternoon. He meant to leave you for only a few minutes, but he got lost, and couldn’t find his way back to you.’

  ‘He shouldn’t have left me,’ replied Logan coldly, giving her one of his supercilious glances which told her clearly that he resented her defence of Neil and her interference.

  ‘Maybe he shouldn’t ... and perhaps he wouldn’t have done if you’d paid him more attention. You can’t expect a small boy to stand waiting for a fish to bite in the same way that a man can,’ retorted Nancy.

  ‘I used to, when I was six. And my brother Angus, Neil’s father, was even younger when he first went fishing.’

  ‘But you and he were born here and grew up here. Neil has been living in a city and isn’t accustomed to animals and country life. Give him time,’ pleaded Nancy.

  ‘You seem to know a lot about him already,’ was the dry response, accompanied by another disdainful look.

  Nancy could not help the flush which stained her cheeks at the implication that she was a busybody, concerning herself too much with the problems of the Maclaine family, and all the original dislike she had felt for Logan came surging to the fore. She tossed back her head and her eyes sparked with anger as she stood her ground.

  ‘Poor little boy, he’s exhausted after walking so far. I’m going to give him a biscuit and some milk. You can wait for him.’

  Suddenly she realised she was being rather rude and added belatedly,

  ‘Thank you for taking in the swarm. I think I’d have lost it if you hadn’t come, and then Don would have been furious with me.’

  ‘I think you’d have lost it too,’ he agreed with maddening equanimity, ‘because you’re also afraid of bees, otherwise you wouldn’t have been stung. I’ll look at the sting while Neil and I are having those biscuits and milk you’ve just mentioned.’

  The glint of amusement in his eyes disconcerted her—she would have been able to deal with more disdain better. But when he laughed at her she felt confused. With a muttered excuse she fled into the house to prepare the milk and biscuits.

  When she returned to the garden Logan was lounging on the bench which was set against the cottage wall under the kitchen window and Neil was perched beside him, his skinny legs looking more pathetic than ever as they hung downwards too short for his feet to touch the ground.<
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  Neil ate and drank quickly and asked for another biscuit. Then noticing the rope swing which Linda had arranged to hang from the branches of an old tree in the corner of the garden he asked if he could go and swing on it. Since Logan did not seem to hear the request, for he neither refused nor assented, Nancy took the little boy to the swing, helped him to climb on to it and stood for a while pushing him. He wanted her to stay, but she hadn’t finished her own milk, so after telling him to play for a while on his own she went back to the bench to sit beside the silent Logan, who seemed to be lost in thought.

  Drinking her milk, Nancy did not attempt to break the silence. Her eyes wandered past the gently swinging child to the sun-hazed expanse of water, to the shimmering roll of mountain and moor, grey-green and dappled with purple shadows.

  ‘Who’s been gardening?’ asked Logan idly.

  ‘I have.’

  ‘It looks better ... and yet you’ve managed to preserve its naturalness. Your grandfather would be pleased with your efforts. It was his great consolation.’

  He eased his shoulders against the wall behind him as if trying to relax and then said softly, musingly,

  ‘ “Here, where the world is quiet”. The quietness is really the only aspect it has in common with Swinburne’s Garden of Proserpina, for everything seems to grow here, whereas in that other garden only the green grapes grow “whereout she crushes for dead men, deadly wine”. Do you know the poem?’