The Pride of the Peacock (11 page)

She didn’t have to try to make me understand that. I knew well enough having experienced the same thing myself.

“As I was older than Miriam there had been a lot of talk about my coming out before we left Oakland. We had had little Minnie jobber making dresses for me and I had some lovely garments made. In particular there were two pretty ball dresses. I remember Mama’s looking at them when we knew we were going to leave Oakland and saying: ” You’ll never need them now. ” One was more beautiful than the other; it was in cherry-coloured silk trimmed with Honiton lace; it fell off the shoulders, and I had a pretty neck and shoulders. It had been cut in that style for the sole purpose of showing them.

“Poor neck, poor shoulders,” I used to say, “you will never be shown off now.”

“One could talk to Mr. Henniker about anything so I told him about the dress. It was strange that he-a miner really and I suppose a rough one-could understand how I felt about almost anything I mentioned. He said: ” You shall wear the cherry dress. After all, why should the world be deprived of a glimpse of your divine neck and shoulders just because your father was a gambler? We’ll have a ball and you shall bring cherry red to it. ” I said I would never dare and he answered:

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Never be afraid to dare.” Then he laughed and said he was a wicked man who was leading his neighbour’s daughter from the strait and narrow path. He laughed a good deal over that.

“Strait and narrow paths are so restricting. Miss Jessica,” he

said.

“The wide open spaces are much more stimulating.” 2 “Well, I digress again. I didn’t intend to. At first I meant this to be a brief letter, but as soon as I took up my pen I felt impelled to write like this. I had to make you see it all. I didn’t want you to think I was just a wanton. It wasn’t like that at all.

There was a house party at Oakland. Ben Henniker often had them. His guests were mostly people who were in his business. They used to come bringing special stones to him. He bought them afld sometimes sold them; there was a lot of talk about opals. I began to learn something of how they were mined and marketed and found it fascinating.

“He told me there was to be a ball and that I must come to it and be one of his guests. It was thrilling, but I knew I couldn’t put on my cherry red dress and walk out of the house in it, so Ben suggested that I smuggle cherry red (as he called it) into Oakland and then on the night of the ball slip over and change into it there. He would get one of the maids to help me dress. So this was arranged.

“What a night that was, for during it I met Desmond for the first time. I must make you see Desmond. Everyone was wrong about what happened afterwards. That is what I want you to understand more than anything. It couldn’t have been the way it seemed. It just wasn’t possible.

The gallery at Oakland looked beautiful with the musicians at one end and decorated with flowers from the greenhouses. It made a beautiful ballroom with the candles flickering in their sconces. It was like my coming out ball and that was what Mr. Henniker intended it to be. He once said: “I didn’t mind taking Oakland from your father-he took a gamble and lost. I’m glad I took it from your mother because she deserves to lose it. I sometimes feel a twinge when I see your brother looking so mournful, but he’s a young man and he should be seeing what he can do about getting it back, or some place like it. But for you.

Miss Jessica, I’m right down sorry. So now we’re going to have a ball. ” It was an enchanted evening. There had never been such an evening in the whole of my life and never will be again, for it was at the ball that night that I met Desmond.

“He was young … not much older than I, but twenty-one seemed a responsible age to me. It was not a crowded ballroom because Mr. Henniker had asked none of the people from the neighbourhood. He told me that he couldn’t ask them because they would know me and that might cause trouble.

This was to be my ball-the ball of the cherry red gown and the divine neck and shoulders, he told me. So there were the house guests only and Oakland must have been rather full at that time, for there were so many rooms which could be used for guests. Right from the first Desmond found me. He asked me to dance and we did. I wish you could see the gallery as it was that night. It was so beautiful . so romantic. I expect over the centuries there have been many balls there, but I was sure there was never one like that one. He was tall and fair-though his hair was considerably bleached by the sun. He had what I call Australian eyes, which meant that they were half closed and had thick lashes.

“Ifs the sun,” he told me.

“It’s brighter and hotter than here. You half shut your eyes against it and I expect nature provides the lashes as a protection.” He talked rather like Ben Henniker about opals. He was fanatical about them. He told me what he had found so far and what he intended to find. “There never has been anything so fine as the Green Flash at Sunset,” he told me.

“Ben’s got it. You ought to ask him to show it to you some time.” I wasn’t interested in the Green Flash at Sunset. I wasn’t interested in anything that night but Desmond. Most of the other guests were older than we were. We danced together and talked and talked.

“He told me he intended to go back to Australia in about two or three weeks’ time. He had been longing to get back because he had discovered land which he was sure was opal country, and he wanted to go out and prospect it. Ben and some others were interested in the project; it was going to need a good deal of money to develop it. He had a feeling about it. Some of the old miners laughed at him. They called it Desmond’s Fancy. But he believed in it. He was going to make his fortune out of Desmond’s Fancy.

‘ “I can feel it, Jessie,” he said. (He always called me Jessie. ) “It’s Opal Country. Dry bush land … flat … lots of saltbush and not much timber except the mulga-that’s a sort of acacia-and mulga grass too. Ifs lowlying, scorched, eroded, with dry watercourses. I said to myself. That land speaks for itself. There’s something there-gold or tin perhaps, wolfram or copper, but something tells me it’s opal … precious opal.” He talked in an exdted way . rather like Ben Henniker and I couldn’t help being exdted too.

“We talked … how we talked, and I only realized how the time was flying when I heard the clock in the courtyard chime midnight. When

the ball was over, Hannah helped me to change into my day dress. She was one of the servants who had stayed on at Oakland when we left. She hadn’t been there very long and was about my age, which I suppose made her understanding. Maddy helped too. She crept down the Dower House stairs and let me in. Without those two it would have been very difficult for me. The next day Hannah was to bring my ball dress across the stream and I would be able to choose my moment to take it into the house unobserved. So there was only Miriam to placate. That was easy. All she wanted was to hear about the ball so I told her. She was completely on my side then and thought with me that it was a wonderful adventure.

“When I brought the dress back next day there was a note from Desmond, delivered by Hannah at the stream. He must see me that afternoon. Of course I was there. We walked through Oakland Park and talked and talked and that night I went once more to Oakland to dine. I knew the servants were very pleased to see me there. Hannah told me that I had always been a favourite with them and that they enjoyed working for Mr. Henniker, so the fact that I had become friendly with him even though the rest of the family hadn’t -pleased them. Hannah said they talked of little else in the servants’ hall.

“They talked about you and Mr. Desmond Dereham,” she said.

“They think it’s beautiful.”

“And beautiful it was. You guess, of course, that we were in love. We were absolutely sure before the first week was out that there couldn’t be anyone else for either of us. It was true.” You must believe that.

Opal, in spite of what happened. I know they were all wrong. I know how it appeared. But it couldn’t be true. I never believed it for one moment. not even the very worst and most tragic moment. I knew it was untrue.

“He didn’t go back at the end of two weeks. He kept putting it off.

When he went, he said, he would take me with him. We would marry and go out together.

“How will you like being a miner’s wife, Jessie?” he used to ask.

“Ifs not an easy life, but never mind, we’ll make our fortunes just as Ben has, and then everything you wish for shall be yours.” Every night I would slip out across the bridge into the park and there he would be waiting for me. I couldn’t describe the bliss of those September nights. I couldn’t have managed without Maddy and Hannah. They were wonderful. I must have been very deceitful for Mama never guessed, and how I managed that I cannot imagine.

7i

We had planned it all carefully. We were going to be married in three weeks’ time. Desmond would get a special licence and afterwards we would go to Australia together. We had told no one . not even Ben.

I was sure Ben would help us, but Desmond was not so sure. Ben seemed to think I was a fragile little doll who must not be subjected to the hardships of life, and life in a mining camp was very different from that lived in a gracious Dower House. I knew this and I was prepared.

So we put off telling anyone . even Ben . and then we came to that terrible night.

“Desmond told me that several of Ben’s associates were coming to Oakland and very soon Ben himself would be leaving for Australia. Such knowledge would have upset me some time ago but now that I was to go to Australia too I was glad that Ben would be there. They would decide about this project of exploiting the land which Desmond was so sure of and discuss prospecting and setting up shafts. Desmond was very excited.

“There’ll be Ben, myself and one of the leading opal merchants there,” he told me.

“When we get the funds we shall start at once.” Because of this conference which was to be held that night he wouldn’t be able to see me until the following afternoon, he told me.

Then he would be waiting by the stream as usual.

“But he never came. I never saw him again. What happened on that night nobody really knew, but many thought they did. Desmond had gone. He had disappeared without saying goodbye to anyone, and the Green Flash at Sunset had disappeared at the same time.

“You can guess what people said, for they were both missing at once.

They said there was only one answer-but it wasn’t the right one. I know it wasn’t. I will never believe it was. How could he have gone like that without telling me? We were going to be married in a few weeks. He was going to get the licence and I was going to Australia with him, but he had gone without telling me, although we were to have met that afternoon. He had gone . and the Green Flash at Sunset was gone too.

“I waited for him the next afternoon. Hannah came to me there. She had been crying.

“He’s gone. Miss Jessica,” she said.

“He went last night or early this morning. No one saw him go but he’s gone.”

“Gone, Hannah!” I cried.

“Gone where?” Hannah shook her head, then she said angrily: “As far as

he can get from here. He’d better. He’s taken the Green Flash opal with him.” I cried out: “It’s not true. It can’t be true. ” I “I’m afraid it is,” said Hannah mournfully and looking at me with such pity in her eyes that I wanted to weep. She went on: “It wasn’t until mid-morning that we discovered his^ bed hadn’t been slept in. We couldn’t make it out. He’d taken his things with him though, and his room was quite empty. Then just when everyone was wondering why he went off like that, Mr. Henniker went to his safe for something. He knew right away that someone had been there … things weren’t just in their right places … and when he opened the case where he kept this Green Flash, it was empty. Mr. Henniker’s raging mad. He’s going to have that Desmond Dereham’s blood, he reckons. He’s calling him a thief, a scoundrel and a lying hound. You should hear the names he calls him. Are you all right. Miss Jessica ?”

‘ “I don’t believe it, Hannah. I just don’t believe it.”

‘ “You wouldn’t, but everyone else does.”

“I felt sick with fear, but I kept telling myself how absurd it was. I couldn’t forget how Desmond had glowed when he talked of the opals he would find.

“There’d never be one like the Green Flash,” he had said.

Then he had added quickly;

“But why shouldn’t there be?”

The days started to pass while I felt that I was living through a nightmare. I kept telling myself that it was a silly mistake and that Ben would find he had put his opal in another case. I went to see Ben.

He was like a raging bull.

“He’s got it,” he shouted.

“He’s gone off with the Green Hash. By God, I’ll have his blood. I showed it to them that night. They were all there when I took it out of the safe. He was sitting on my right … the young devil. I’ll shoot him dead. He’s got my Green Flash.”

‘ “He didn’t do it, Ben,” I cried.

“I know he didn’t.”

“He stopped raging and stared at me.

“He’s deceived you,” he said soberly.

“Such a good-looking boy … such a pleasant young man. But he wasn’t all he appeared to be.”

There was nothing to be done, nothing to say. I couldn’t bear to talk to Ben. He was going away, he said. He was going to lose no time. He was going to follow Master Desmond Dereham to Desmond’s Fancy because he reckoned that was where he had gone. He would not be able to stay away from that place. Ben had seen the opal lust in his eyes and he had thought it was for what awaited finding in the Fancy, but it was for the Green Hash. He hadn’t realized this when he’d

opened his safe and disclosed what lay in the box. He’d been blind, and he ought to have known what the young devil was after.

“I couldn’t bear to hear Ben talk like that so I stopped going to Oakland. I shut myself in with my grief, and they thought I was ill, for I grew pale and listless. For a time I simply didn’t care what happened to me. Then Hannah told me that Ben was going back to Australia.