The Pride of the Peacock

3. A LETTER FROM THE DEAD

The next day when I was sitting by the stream Hannah appeared on the other side of it, carrying a package.

“I wanted to speak to you. Miss Clavering,” she said.

“All right, Hannah. I’ll come over.” As I crossed the bridge I noticed how solemn she was looking.

“I’ve been thinking the time has come for me to give you this,” she said.

“What is it?”

“Ifs something that was given to me to be given to you when the time came or on your twenty-first birthday-which ever came first, and I reckon, after all that’s been said, that the time is now.”

I took the packet which she thrust into my hands.

What is it? ” I repeated.

“It’s writing. It was written to you and given to me When ? And who gave it to you ?”

“It’s all in there. I hope I’ve done what was right She hesitated for a moment, her brow puckered in consternation then she turned and hurried across the bridge, leaving me standing there with the large envelope in my hands. I opened it and pulled out several sheets of paper on which someone had written in dear neat writing.

I glanced at the first page.

“My darling child. Opal,” it began.

“It will be many years after I write this that you will read it, and I hope when you do you will not think too badly of me. Always remember that I loved you, and that what I am going to do, I do because it is the best way out for all of us. I want you to know that my last thoughts were of you …”

I could not understand what this meant, so I decided to take the papers to the Waste Land where few people ever came and there, close to the grave of Jessica, I started to read.

“I shall start right at the beginning. I want you to know me, because if you do you will understand how everything happened I think in every family there is one who is different, the one in the litter who doesn’t bear much resemblance to the rest They called it a win nick I believe. Well, I was like that. There was Xavier who was so clever and good at lessons and ready to help everybody; and there was Miriam who could get up to mischief but mostly when I led her into it. Miriam was malleable; she could be moulded any way and would at times be a model child. I was always a bit of a rebel. I used to pretend I was a ghost and play the spinet in the gallery and then go and hide when people came to look so that the rumour started that the gallery was haunted and the servants wouldn’t go up there alone. I used to flatter Mrs. Bucket into making the special cakes which I liked and she would always bake an extra one for me. I was Papa’s favourite, though not Mama’s. Papa taught me how to play poker. I shall never forget Mama’s face when she came to his study and found us there with the cards in our hands. I think it must have been then that I first realized the uneasy state of affairs in our household. She stood there, so dramatic that I wanted to burst out laughing. She said: ” Fiddling while Rome’s burning! ” I said: ” This isn’t fiddling. Mama. It’s poker. ” She cried: ” I wonder you’re not ashamed. ” And she picked up the cards and threw them into the fire.

“Now ifs cards they are burning, not Rome,” I said, for I could never guard my tongue and words always slipped out before I could stop them.

Mama lifted her hand and slapped me across the face. I remember the shock it gave me because it showed how distraught she was. Usually she was calm and her reproaches were verbal. Papa was shocked too. He said sternly:

“Never lift your hand against the children again.” Then it came out:

“And who are you to tell me how to behave? You are teaching our daughter to be as dissolute as you are. Cards, gambling … and gambling means debts, which is why we are in the position we are in today. Do you realize that the roof needs immediate repair? There is water seeping into the gallery. There is dry rot under the floor boards in the library. The servants have not been paid for two months.

And what is your answer? To teach your daughter to play pokeri “I was standing there, holding my face where she had slapped it. Papa said pleadingly: ” Not in front of Jessica, please, Dorothy. ” And she answered: ” Why not? She will know soon enough. How long before everyone knows that through your gambling your fortune away . and mine. we cannot afford to go on like this. “

“I saw the Queen of Hearts writhe in the flames and then Mama had gone and Papa and I were alone together.

“I don’t know why I should tell you this. Ifs irrelevant really. But I do want you to know something of me. Opal, and what our lives were like. I don’t want to be just a name to you. I want you to try to understand why things happened as they did, that’s why I’m writing all this down. Perhaps I shall tear this up when I’ve finished. Perhaps I shall decide that there is no need for you to know it. Perhaps ifs just making excuses. However, just at first I will write whatever comes into my head, and that scene in Papa’s study seems to me in a way a beginning, because if it hadn’t been for the fact that we had to sell Oakland Hall it would never have happened the way it did.

“It wasn’t long after that that there were scenes quite often. It was always money. Money was wanted to pay for this and that, and it wasn’t there. I knew Papa was wrong. It was some devil’s streak in the family which had come down and was in him. He used to talk to me about it in the long gallery, where he would show me pictures of his ancestors and explain what they were noted for. There was Geoffrey, born three hundred years before, who had nearly brought us to ruin. Then there was James, who had gone to sea and was a sort of buccaneer. He had filched treasure from Spanish galleons and we grew rich on them. Then there was Charles, who gambled again. This was at the time of Charles I, and then came the war and we were naturally for the King yet managed to live somehow through the Commonwealth until the Restoration when we acquired more land and riches because we had been loyal to the monarchy. For a hundred years we lived in comfort and then came Henry Clavering the greatest gambler of them all-friend of George, Prince of Wales, a dandy and a spendthrift. We never recovered from him, although in the early part of this century we made an effort to.

Papa’s father, however, inherited the family failing and then it was passed on to Papa himself. Two generations running of gamblers was more than Oakland could take. That was how it came about that there was one course open to us. We had to sell Oakland.

“I was sixteen at the time. It was so depressing. Papa was so miserable that I feared he would take his life. Mama was bitter. She kept saying it need never have happened. We had to sell not only the house but so much that was precious in it. The lovely tapestries, some of the silver and furniture. Then we went to the Dower House. It’s a beautiful house, Xavier kept saying, but Mama wouldn’t hear of it and grumbled continually. Nothing was right, and I used to hate the way she reproached Papa. She would bring it into everything that happened.

As if it wasn’t bad enough!

“We all seemed to change. Xavier was much quieter; he didn’t reproach Papa, but he was withdrawn. We kept one farm and he managed that, but it was different from the large estate we had had. Miriam was fifteen and our governess was dismissed, so Mama taught her. I was considered old enough to dispense with lessons, and Mama said we must help in the kitchen, learning to bottle fruit and make preserves; we must try to be useful, for the type of man who might be expected to marry us would be very different from those who would have come our way had the recklessness of our father not driven us from our home. Miriam caught my mother’s bitterness. I never did. I understood the irresistible urge, the compulsion which had beset Papa. I had that myself not for cards, but for life. I was of a nature to follow my impulses, to act first and consider the wisdom of that act afterwards. I hope you will not grow up to be of that nature, dear Opal, because it can bring you trouble.

AA Mr. Ben Henniker, who had made a fortune in Australia, had bought Oakland. He was a friendly sort of man and one day called on us at the Dower House. I shall never forget it Maddy brought him into the drawing-room where we were having tea.

“Well, M’am,” he said to Mama, “I thought that as we are neighbours we ought to be neighbourly and as I’m having a little bit of a gathering next week, it struck me you might like to join us.” Mama could freeze people with a look-it was a habit she employed with the servants and it worked as well in the Dower House as it had at Oakland. None of the servants was ever allowed to forget that we were Claverings, however depleted our worldly goods.

“A gathering, Mr. Henniker?” she said as though he were suggesting a Roman orgy.

“I’m afraid that is quite out of the question. My daughters have not yet come out and we shall most certainly be engaged on the date you mention.”

“I said: ” I could go. Mama. ” Mama’s look froze the words on my lips.

“You are not free to go, Jessica,” she said coldly.

“Mr. Ben Henniker’s face was quite purple with rage. He said: ” I understand, M’am, you are engaged next week and will be any week if I were to have the impertinence to invite you. Have no fear. You are safe . you and your family. You’ll never be asked to Oakland Hall while I’m there. ” Then he walked out.

“I was so angry with Mama for her rudeness because after all he had tried to be friendly and it seemed absurd to me to resent him merely because he had bought Oakland. We had put it up for sale. We had sought a buyer. I slipped out and ran after him, but he was half way up the Oakland drive before I caught up with him.

“I wanted to say how sorry I am,” I panted.

“I’m so ashamed that my mother spoke to you like that. I do hope you won’t think badly of us all.”

“He had such fierce blue eyes which were then blazing with fury, but as he looked at me, slowly -he began to smile.

“Well,fancy that,” he said.

“And you’re little Miss Clavering, I reckon.”

“I’m Jessica,” I told him.

“You don’t take after your mother,” he said.

“And that’s the nicest compliment I can pay you.”

“She has some good points,” I defended her, “but they are a little hard to recognize.”

“He started to laugh, and there was that about his laughter which made it impossible not to join in. Then he said: ” I like you for running after me like this. You’re a good girl, Miss Jessica, you are indeed.

You must come and see me in your old home. What about that? ” He almost choked with laughter.

“After all, she was only speaking for herself.

You come and meet some of my friends. They’re good people, some of them. It’ll be an eye-opener for you. Miss Jessica. I reckon you’ve lived in a cage all your life. How old are you? ” I told him I was seventeen.

“It’s a beautiful age,” he said.

“It’s an age when you ought to be setting out on your adventures. I reckon that’s what you want, eh? You come over and see me sometime .. that’s if you think it’s right and proper. Don’t you find life pretty dull, living as you must have done?”

I told him that I hadn’t found it dull. There was a lot to interest me in the country. I liked to visit people and we had done a good deal of that at Oakland. As the squire’s family we had had to see to the welfare of our tenants; our days had been divided into sections: lessons in the mornings, working on village affairs, sewing, talking, making some of our clothes, planning the dances we would have when we came out. Alas, we hadn’t come out into society-only out of Oakland and our old life. But I had never found it dull, and it was only when Mr. Henniker opened a new vista for me that I discovered how wonderful the old life had been. “What an escape those visits to Oakland Hall were …” I paused in my reading and stared at the grave before me, and I was beset by an uncanny notion that my life was repeating an old pattern. What had happened to Jessica was happening to me. I wanted to read on quickly, and yet I had to savour these events as I went. I felt it was important for me to know this Jessica, to see her life unfold before me; and that was what she wanted and was why she was telling me in such detail.

I went on reading:

“Of course I was deceiving the family, though I did confide a little in Miriam. I used to wish I could take her to Oakland with me. But I knew that if I were discovered there would be terrible trouble and I didn’t want her involved because she was younger than I and I felt responsible for her. Miriam was so easily led. When she was with me she would be ready for a certain amount of mischief; in the old days we had had a governess, a rather forceful lady who was secretly a Buddhist; Miriam was for a while in danger of becoming one too. When she was with Mama she would become snobbish and scornful of Papa for bringing us down in the world. I used to call her the Chameleon, for she took her colour from whatever rock she was resting on. Therefore I hesitated about taking Miriam with me. Instead I would satisfy myself by telling her of my adventures as we lay in bed at night. She would listen avidly and applaud what I did, but I knew that if Mama pointed out the wickedness of my actions she would immediately agree with her. She was not in the least devious-just incapable of having a view of her own. Malleable-that was the only way to describe her. When I watched Mrs. Cobb kneading the dough into cottage, wheat sheaf and farmhouse loaves I would say to myself: That is just like Miriam; she will go into whatever shape she is put. It was different with Xavier, but who would confide in him? He felt very deeply about our change in fortune and saw it as a disgrace to the family. He had loved Oakland and had naturally been brought up to believe it would be his one day; therefore he necessarily felt a sense of outrage since it had been taken from him, though he never abused Papa as Mama did; he was just sad and withdrawn. I used to feel very sad about Xavier, but of course I didn’t know him as I did Miriam.

“I’m digressing because I’m putting off what happened. I do want you to understand. Please don’t blame me and don’t blame Desmond. I met him at one of Mr. Henniker’s gatherings. I was frequently going to the house and it soon seemed to me more like home than the Dower House ever could be. Life was so miserable there, mainly because Mama could not stop baiting Papa. Sometimes I wondered whether he might do her an injury. He was so quiet and calm that I could imagine he was plotting against her, for there were times when I caught him looking at her oddly. There was a brooding tension in the house. I said to Miriam one night when we lay in bed: ” Something’s going to happen. You can feel it in the air. It’s as though Fate’s waiting to strike. ” Miriam used to get frightened and so did I. I little realized from what direction the blow would come.

“I was going more often to Oakland and getting really reckless. Mr. Henniker always welcomed me. Once when we were in the gallery I told him how I used to play the spinet and frighten the servants. He was very amused and thereafter asked me to play for him. He loved to sit there listening while I went through most of the Chopin waltzes. I used to think it would go on like this always, that Mr. Henniker would always be there and interesting people would come to the house. Then I learned that this was not so and Mr. Henniker’s stays at the house were brief. He had what he called ” a property” in New South Wales. Oakland Hall was just a fancy, ” a bit of folly if you like”, he said. He’d seen it when he was a boy and had vowed to have it, and he was a man who believed in sticking to his vows. I wish I could tell you how he interested me. I had never known anyone like him.”

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.”

“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 and 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. It's 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 excited way . rather like Ben Henniker and I couldn’t help being excited 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.

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.

“He’s going after the Green Flash,” she said.

“I saw him before he went, but our friendship had changed. Desmond was between us. Ben was so sure he was guilty. I was so certain that he was not.

“I cannot describe the desolation which had come into my life. Ben had gone and I had lost Desmond. I could not imagine greater tragedy. I still went to Oakland to see Mrs. Bucket and the rest, and they used to entertain me in the kitchen and talk about when Mr. Henniker would come back, for he would come back, they were sure. He had to keep coming back to Oakland; he had such a fancy for the place. They didn’t mention Desmond to me, but I knew they talked about him when I was not there.

“Miriam knew what had happened because it hadn’t been possible to keep her in the dark about my nocturnal ad ventures. In the past she had lain awake awaiting my return and then she would want to know all about it. Now she was aware that everything had gone wrong and was beginning to veer round to the side of law and order.

“It was towards the end of November when my suspicions became confirmed. When the fear first came to me I tried not to consider it.

It couldn’t possibly be, I told myself. Yet there had been those meetings in the park when we had talked and dreamed and loved so passionately. Desmond had said: “We are married really. I shall never look at anyone else and at the earliest possible moment you are going to be my wife.” I thought of myself as his wife. I pictured our arriving in Australia and what a help I should be to him, and when I looked into the future I saw the children we would have. Before Christmas I knew I was going to have a child. I did not know what to do. I told Hannah because I could trust her. We talked and talked but could find no solution. If Mr. Henniker had been there I was sure he would have helped me, but he was far away and there was no one.

“I had to tell Miriam. It was on Christmas night, I remember. It had scarcely been a happy time. We went to the midnight service on Christmas Eve and in the morning of Christmas Day we went again to church. Such times as this brought back to my mother more vividly the old ways at Oakland Hall. During dinner-which took place at midday-she talked continuously of other Christmases, how they had brought in the yule log, and decorated the gallery with holly and mistletoe and how the house had been full of guests. I cried out suddenly: ” You should give Papa a Christmas present-silence about the glorious past. ” I had been unable to restrain myself because I thought all this was so trivial set against what had happened to me, and the fact that Desmond had disappeared and was suspected of stealing the Green Flash.

“Everyone was horrified. No one-simply no one-ever spoke to Mama like that. Papa said rather sadly: ” You should show more respect to your mother, Jessica. ” And I cried out:

“It’s time she showed more consideration to us. We’ve lost Oakland.

All right. This is a comfortable home. There are worse troubles in the world than having to live with your family in a Dower House. ” Then I burst into tears and ran from the room. As I went I heard Mama say:

“Jessica is getting impossible.”

“I said I had a headache and spent the afternoon in the room I shared with Miriam, but I had to go down in the evening. It was a wretched day and that night I told Miriam because I had to tell someone. She was horrified. She didn’t understand much, but she did know that one of the servants had once ” got into trouble” as it was called and she had been dismissed and sent back to her family, disgraced forever.

“Disgraced forever,” she kept repeating until I wanted to scream. But what was I going to do? That was the question. I had no answer to that and, naturally, nor had Miriam. When I tried to explain to her she seemed to understand, but I knew that she would have to listen to my mother and all her sympathy would vanish.

“I knew too that they would have to be told one day and I wanted to tell them before they discovered. I told Xavier first, for although he always seemed so remote I felt he would understand more than the others. I went to his room on a bleak January day when there were snow clouds in the sky and when I told him he looked at me for some moments as though he thought I bad gone mad. He was kind though. Xavier would always be kind. I told him everything-how I had become friendly with Ben Henniker and met Desmond, how we had intended to many and how Desmond had disappeared.

“Are you sure you are to have a child?” he asked. I told him I was.

“We must make certain,” he said.

“You must see Dr. Clinton.”

“Not Dr. Clinton,” I cried out in horror. He had attended us for years and I knew he would be deeply shocked. Xavier understood and said he would take me to a doctor who did not know us, and he did. When it was confirmed that I was to have a child, there was nothing to do, said Xavier, but tell my parents. It could not be kept from them for long and we really should make plans as to what must be done without delay.

“It’s strange but when a woman is going to have a child she seems to acquire some special strength. That was how it was with me. I was heartbroken because I had lost Desmond but there was some new kind of hope in me. It was due to the baby. Even the scene with my parents did not distress me as much as might have been imagined. Xavier was calm and strong; he was a very good brother to me. He told Mama and Papa that there was something they must know and the four of us went into the drawing-room. Xavier shut the door and said very quietly:

“Jessica is going to have a baby.” There was a moment’s silence. I thought that that was how it must have been before the walls of Jericho came tumbling down. My father looked blank; my mother just stared at us.

“Yes,” said Xavier, “I fear it is so. We have to decide what we must do.”

“My mother cried out: ” A baby! Jessica! I don’t believe it. “

“It’s true,” I said.

“I am. I was going to be married, but there’s been a terrible accident.”

“Accident!” cried my mother, having overcome her first surprise and taking charge.

“What do you mean? This is quite impossible.”

“It has happened Mama,” said Xavier, “so let us consider what action we can best take.”

“I want to know more about this,” said my mother.

“I can’t believe that a daughter of mine …”

“It’s true. Mama,” I said.

“A doctor has confirmed it.”

“Dr. Clinton!” cried my mother, aghast.

“No,” Xavier reassured her, “a doctor who doesn’t know us.”

“My mother turned on me like an enraged tigress. She said the most bitter things to me. I don’t remember them; I deliberately shut my ears to them. I kept thinking of the baby. I wanted that baby, and I thought then, even in the thick of my trouble, that having it would make up for a great deal. My mother turned on my father. It was his fault, she said. If he had not been so feckless we should still have been at Oakland and no wicked miner would have come there bringing his evil friends to seduce silly wicked girls. That was what came from having those sort of people living near one. Now I was going to produce a bastard. There had never been such a disgrace in the Clavering family.

“Oh yes. Mama,” I said, “there was. There was Richard Clavering, who shared a mistress with Charles II …”

“As if this were the same sort thing!” she said indignantly.

“That was Charles II and most of the aristocracy shared their mistresses with him.”

“But there was his bastard whose son married his legitimate cousin and came back into the family.”

“Be silent, you slut. The family has never been so disgraced and it is all due to the fact that your father …” She raved for some time and I knew she would go on doing so as long as she lived. I told myself then: Desmond will come back. Something went wrong and we shall discover what and then it will all come right. So I shut my ears to her raving.

“It was Xavier who decided what should happen. It was unthinkable that anyone should know that I had produced an illegitimate child. The fact that I was pregnant could be disguised for a few months. Perhaps as long as six. Skirts were voluminous and mine could be discreetly let out. The baby was due in June. In April my parents and I would go to Italy. My mother’s health could be said to be giving my father some concern. We should have to sell the silver salver and punch bowl which had been given by George IV to one of our ancestors, because being very valuable they would provide the money for a two months’ trip for the three of us and the expenses of the birth. My child should be born there, and when we returned we would say that my mother’s ill health had been due to a pregnancy, which she had not suspected, and because of her time of life there had not been the usual symptoms. This would mean that we could return with a child and give no cause for scandal.

“How unhappy those months were! We took a villa in Florence for a while-Florence with its Medici Palace and its golden light! How I should have loved it in other circumstances. I used to escape from my misery by imagining myself strolling along the Arno with Desmond. When I saw opals in a shop window on the famous bridge I turned shuddering away and could not bear to look at them.

“A few weeks before my confinement we went to Rome and there my baby was born. That was June 1880 and I called her Opal. Mama said it was a foolish name and that she should be given another. So the baby had my name too; she was Opal Jessica.

“We came home, and such was my mother’s indefatigable energy that although there might have been those who put a certain construction on our departure and return with a newly born baby, no one dared mention it. You, my dear Opal, as you have guessed, were that child. Never be ashamed of your birth. You were conceived in love. Always remember that, and no matter what people may tell you of your father do not believe them. I knew him well, and it could not be so. He was not capable of stealing that miserable opal. How I wish it had never been found. But he knew nothing of it. Someone else stole the Green Flash at Sunset. It was not your father. One day the truth will be known.

I’m sure of it.

‘now, my dearest child, I come to the end of my story. After you were born I was beset by such despair that I did not know where to turn for comfort. We had never been happy in the Dower House; now Mama made our lives a misery-not only mine, but Papa’s as well. I watched him as he grew more and more miserable every day. I would look up suddenly and see her eyes fixed on me with utter distaste. Constantly she blamed him. It was his weakness which had come out in me, she said. He was to blame for everything. Miriam took an interest in you, and I think she loved you in her way, though she was afraid to show it too much when Mama was around. You liked her too. You would always go to Miriam; and Xavier was fond of you, so was Papa.

“I was so unhappy. I used to go down to the stream which divides the Dower House from Oakland and I’d stare at the cool shallow water. I thought a lot about my life then, and the belief came to me that I should never see Desmond again, for since he would never have deserted me, he must be dead. The conviction was so strong that as I sat there by the stream it was as though the waters beckoned to me. It was as though Desmond himself was asking me to come and join him. The only solution could be that he was dead, for if he was not, why had he disappeared? Of one thing I was , certain: he would never have gone away and left me. There was one answer only, someone had stolen the opal and laid the blame on him. They had killed him perhaps that he might appear to be the thief. I knew no one else would believe this, I but my conviction was strong. He would never come back. That was why he called me to the stream because he wanted me to be with him.

“My presence in the Dower House was bringing more and more unhappiness there. My mother was blaming my father more than she ever had before.

I tried to think of what my life would be like because I was never going to see Desmond again on this Earth. The servants all loved the baby . everybody loved her . except Mama, and I don’t think she ever loved anybody. So I used to sit by the stream and think of all the trouble I had brought the family and how much better they would be without me. Even the baby would be better off, because as she grew up the reproaches would go on. It would be better for her not to know that her mother had brought disgrace on the family, and while I was there Mama would always continue to regard me with contempt “I dreamed then of lying face downwards in that cool water, and when I did I experienced a perfect peace. I couldn’t talk about it to anyone but Hannah. She knew the whole story, but she was very discreet. She told me that they talked about it in the servants’ hall at Oakland and although they had considered the possibility of the baby’s being mine and not my mother’s, they weren’t sure about it. Even Mrs. Bucket was of the opinion that Mama would never have lent herself to such a thing and that it was a well-known fact that women getting on in years often ” got caught” when they least expected it, and her Aunt Polly had been just like that … feeling not up to the mark and the doctors not being sure what was wrong … and then all of a sudden she’s pregnant and the baby almost ready to be born.

“I didn’t tell them different,” said good, kind Hannah, “A few weeks passed and I was still going to sit by the stream. When I talked to Hannah about what I felt she cried out: ” It’s wrong. You mustn’t think like that. ” I said: ” It might be for the best. The baby would be all right. They’ll care for her. It’s better for me not to be there. “

“Perhaps you could go away for a while,” suggested Hannah.

“Time’s not important,” I said.

“It’s now that counts. Perhaps in twenty years I could look back at all this and find it tolerable, but it’s not twenty years from now. It’s now, and I’ve got to live through a lot before twenty years passes.” Hannah said: “If you were to do away with yourself they couldn’t bury you in consecrated ground.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“I tell you they won’t if you were to … do that. It’s a law, I think, a law of the Church. They bury people at the cross-roads or some other place … never in consecrated ground in the churchyard.”

I thought about that quite a lot, but I continued to go down to the stream, and one day I shall go down there and not come back. I think of you, my daughter, growing up, and I wonder what they will tell you about me . and your father . and that is why I have decided to write so that you can know the truth as I saw it. And that is the real truth, Opal. So I sit by the stream and write and as I sit here the past comes vividly back to me. You see, you must know what happened and how it happened. I shall give this to Hannah, and she will give it to you when the time comes. It may be that the time will never come and that I shall tell you the story myself.

Today I am giving this to Hannah so this will be the last I shall write to you.

“Goodbye, little Opal. May God bless you and one day you will discover the truth about your father. I promise you there will be nothing to discredit him. One last word, my dear little daughter, if I should not be there when you grow up and if I am, you will not have read this-never let anyone say a word against him. Perhaps one day you will be the one to discover the truth.”

I stared ahead of me. I was seeing it all so clearly.

Then I went and knelt by her grave and when I touched my cheeks I found that they were wet, although I had not known that I was weeping.

I did not appear at dinner that evening because I could not face them.

I was thinking of them as different people; I was seeing them all so much more dearly than I ever had before. I was angry with them. They drove her to it, I thought. If they had been kinder to her, she would have been alive today and I should have had a mother. How miserable she must have been! I wanted to storm at them every one of them; my poor ineffectual father my grandfather in fact; my proud unloving grandmother (how glad I was that she was not after all my mother); Miriam, who always had to have her mind made up for her; and Xavier with his negative kindness, so remote that he had not done anything to save her.

I feigned a headache and when Miriam came to see me I closed my eyes and turned away. The next day I saw Hannah who, I think, had been watching for me. “So you read it. Miss Jessica?” she said. I nodded. Tell me what happened afterwards. “

They found her in the stream. She was lying face downwards. The water was quite shallow. It just washed over her. “

“And they buried her there,” I said, pointing to the Waste Land.

“Reverend Grey was very strict about it. They don’t bury suicides in consecrated ground.”

“How cruel!” I cried.

“I’ll make it consecrated ground! She was good and meant no harm to anyone. I shall clear her grave and grow plants on it and keep them watered.”

“Best not. Miss.”

“Why not ? She was my mother.”

“I knew you’d take it bad. She wouldn’t have Wanted that. She wouldn’t have wanted you to know, if it was going to make trouble.”

Tell me exactly what happened, Hannah. “

They found her there and buried her quietly; That’s all. People didn’t speak of it . much. They said she’d always been different from the rest of the family. It was put about that she’d fallen in love and that he had gone away. Her heart was broken and she, being young, had thought there was nothing left to live for. I always put flowers on her grave at Easter time. “

Thank you, Hannah. Did anyone suspect I was her child? “

“If they did, it wasn’t said. It was accepted that you were an ” afterthought”. It happens that way sometimes, and Miss Jessica was drowned some time after your birth. It was a hot July day I remember.”

She turned away, her lips quivering. They’d only been home a few weeks so people said it was someone she’d met in Italy. It was the last day in July, and you were born on the first of June . so that tells how old you were . nothing but a baby, little knowing what your coming had cost. “

“How she must have suffered! You must have known my father. Tell me about him.”

“He seemed such a nice young gentleman. Tall, with a pleasant face. He was quite a favourite with Mr. Henniker at one time. Then of course he couldn’t say anything bad enough. I shall never forget the day…”

Tell me everything, Hannah, just everything. “

“It began like an ordinary sort of day. We took the hot water up to the guests, and one of the maids came down and said, ” Mr. Dereham’s not in his room. His bed’s not been slept in and all his things have gone. ” We said it couldn’t be, but it was, of course. And then Mr. Henniker found his precious opal was missing, and it seemed only natural that he’d taken it with him. “

“But it wasn’t so, Hannah. You know it wasn’t.”

That’s how your mother used to talk, but he was gone and so was the opal. “

“She knew he hadn’t taken it’ She was in love with him.”

She would never have fallen in love with a thief “Love don’t take account of such dungs.”

“I know it wasn’t true.”

There again . you’re talking just like your mother. I never thought she’d do it. I would have found some way of stopping her. She told me he’d come to her in a dream and said he loved her and he never would have left her in this life.

“Come to me,” he said in this dream.

“Come to me by the stream. Only death could keep me from you.” It was after that she made up her mind, I’m sure. She was certain he was dead. They would be together now. forever. “

“She should have lived to prove his innocence.”

“But she had these strange fancies and she thought he was calling her to come to him.”

“I wish I could find out the truth, Hannah, and discover what really happened to that opal.”

“Bless you. Miss, there has been them that’s tried to find it these many years. I reckon Mr. Henniker has never given up the search. And you think you’re going to be the one! You just don’t know anything about these things. You’ve only just learned how you came into the world!”

“But he’s my father. She’s my mother. Don’t you see that makes all the difference.”

Hannah shook her head sadly.

Although I could not talk to my family about the tragedy, I could do so to Ben, and at our next meeting I blurted out:

“I know about my mother and father and that you think he stole the Green Flash opal.”

We were in the drawing-room, he in his chair with his crutch propped up beside him. He did not speak for a few moments, and I saw that a great sadness had come to him.

There’s no one I can talk to about it but you,” I went on.

Who told you ? ” he asked.

I explained about the papers she had left for me.

He nodded.

“You knew?” I asked.

“I guessed. You’re so like her with your dark eyes and those thick lashes and well-marked brows, with your turned-up nose and your mouth which somehow says you’re going to laugh at life even at its worst. I could believe she was sitting there at this moment. You’re about the same age now as she was then, but she was more innocent of the world than you are, less able to look after herself.”

“Did you know about her and my father?”

“It was as clear as daylight.”

“And you were pleased … at first? You didn’t mind?”

It was the first time I had known him hesitate.

“It wasn’t for me to mind,” he said at length.

“I could see how it was with them from the moment they met. I thought he was a good honest young fellow… then.”

“He didn’t do it, you know, Ben.”

“What do you mean-he didn’t do it? He broke her heart, didn’t he? I’d kill him for that… yes, I would. ” You loved her, Ben,” I said.

He was thoughtful.

“I reckon you could say that. She was a pretty, dainty creature … and look at me-a rough old gouger.”

“You would have liked to many her yourself, Ben.”

That wouldn’t have been right. “

“If you had,” I reminded him, “I should have been your daughter.”

“That’s not a bad idea.”

“I’d have been different though. I wouldn’t have been a bit like myself.”

“Then it’s a mercy the tragedy was averted.” He was becoming his old self again, and I was finding comfort in talking to him.

“Yes,” he went on, “I loved her. She was like this house … you know what I mean. A bit remote from me. Something I could covet and want to possess. But it’s different with a woman … she’s not a house. I blame myself for not being here. If I had been, it wouldn’t have happened.”

“What would you have done, Ben ?”

“I would have married her. Perhaps she would have had me then.”

I ran to him and, putting my arms about him, hugged him.

“Oh, Ben, wouldn’t that have been wonderful ? We should all have lived here together and I should have escaped from the Dower House.”

He stroked my hair and said: "You’d have liked that, eh? “

“It would have been wonderful.”

“Well, it didn’t work out that way, did it? No, here we are and it’s no use looking back and saying ” if”. That’s what fools do. Yesterday has to be forgotten. It’s today that’s important because of tomorrow.

We got acquainted and we’re good friends. I’d say friendship’s a fine thing. “

I went back to my chair and said: Tell me your version of what happened. “

Tour mother came to Oakland. “Yes, I know, there was a party and she wore a cherry red dress.”

“That’s right. She met your father, it was love at first sight, and they were going to be married and go out to opal country. I didn’t think it was any place for such a dainty creature, but she was raring to go. As long as he’d be there, that was the place for her. She was fast catching opal fever; she swore she’d put up with anything as long as they could be together. And she would have too. I used to envy Desmond Dereham his happiness; he was a handsome boy, good family too.

And honest . so I thought. He’d got adventure in his blood and that was what sent him out to Australia. He’d come for gold at first, like we all do, and when he found his first opal he no longer cared for gold. He had a feeling he’d stumbled on one of the richest opal mines in New South Wales. He talked constantly about this place. He had a feeling for it and we joked about it, calling it Desmond’s Fancy. Then we started to think there might be something in it. It was to discuss this that we all gathered together at Oakland. Then he met your mother and they fell in love and planned to marry. That was how it was up to that night. “

“What actually happened on that night?”

Ben appeared to consider carefully. There was Joss, Desmond, Croissant, and myself. Joss was fourteen then, going to school over here. My goodness, he was a sharp one. You’d never take him for so young. He already knew what he was going to do. He was going to be the biggest opal man in Australia . oh no, not just Australia . the whole world! That was his way of looking at everything. He was already telling me what I ought to do. That made me sit up, I can tell you.

But the crunch was that he was sometimes right. He already towered above us all and he hadn’t finished growing Six feet five inches.

That’s Joss now and in his stockinged feet. “

“Yes, yes,” I said a little impatiently, being eager to hear about the fateful night and tired of hearing of the perfections of his son Joss Madden.

“Well, Joss then, and David Croissant. David had merchanted stones all over Australia, America, England and the Continent of Europe.

Where opals were concerned he was a man who knew what he was talking about. Then there was Desmond Dereham. Very enthusiastic, he was. We sat here in this room and Desmond laid out his plans for the Fancy and we studied them. He’d examined the land, done a bit of prospecting and although so far he’d found only the smallest traces of opal, he had the feeling that this could prove one of the richest fields in New South Wales. Of course we wanted proof and so far there was little to go on. He’d found opal dirt there and he’d found round hard lumps of silica-just fine grains of sand cemented together and in this are veins of opal. Anyway it’s an indication that somewhere in land like this there could be big fine opals. We worked out where the best place to sink the shafts would be. We were going to keep it fairly small just at first, and then if Desmond’s hunch proved correct we’d go all out in a big way. David Croissant was coming to examine the first finds and decide what would be the best way of marketing them. Then we’d need cutters and the latest equipment to get things in motion.

There we were discussing all this, feeling our way, as it were. I remember Desmond’s enthusiasm. He knew we were going to make a big strike, he said. Gougers are superstitious in a way. Some of them believe that there’s a guiding hand that leads them to success, and that’s how we all felt about Desmond’s hunch that night. There was something in him . a sort of sheen of confidence. I know it sounds crazy, but I’ve seen it before. It nearly always means success and I think that every one of us sitting round the table that night believed that Desmond’s Fancy was going to yield the finest, opals yet come to light. We reckoned it would be black opal, and the market was growing for that kind. At one time it was all for the light milky ones, as I’ve told you. Pretty enough, but black was coming into fashion. I said I reckoned we’d never find anything as good as the Green Flash at Sunset. Then we got talking of the Flash and they wanted to look at it.

“I brought them all in here and opened the safe to show them. There it lay in its velvet nest. What a sight! You haven’t seen opal till you’ve seen the Green Flash. Desmond Dereham stretched out his hands to take the Flash. He let her lie in his palm for a moment, and then he called out: ” I saw it. I saw the Green Flash. ” I snatched it from him and stared at the opal. I turned it round, but I couldn’t catch the flash.

You know I saw the real green flash once when I was coming home from Australia, just as the sun dropped below the horizon I saw it as I had seen it once in the opal.

“You really saw it, Desmond?” I cried then.

“I’m sure of it,” answered Desmond. Joss swore he saw it too. He always had to be there right in the centre of everything. No one must score over him. The next morning your father had gone. He had packed his bags and taken his belongings with him and quietly slipped away.

And the Green Flash had disappeared. “

“I can’t believe that my father took it.”

“four loyalty does you credit, but it’s never wise to blink facts when they’re as plain as all the pike staffs in the world. Desmond Dereham came here, lived here for a while in this house, seduced your mother, promised to marry her, and then the temptation of the Green Flash was too strong for him … so he took her and ran off with her instead.”

“There must be another explanation.”

Ben leaned forward and took my hand.

"I know what you’re thinking. He was your father. Well, I understand how you feel. But what happened to the Green Flash? David Croissant wouldn’t have taken it. He’d never have had the guts. He was a salesman. He saw opals just as money. He knew their quality as few people did, but he didn’t have the sentimental feeling for any one stone. He’d see its market value, and what market value would the Green Flash have had when it was offered? It would be recognized at once, and he’d be exposed as a thief, Joss? ” Ben chuckled.

“Granted Joss would be capable of anything. I knew how he felt about the Green Rash, but he could see it when he wanted to. Unless of course the urge came over him to own it.. ” You said it was that sort of stone. It had a peculiar fascination. “

“Now you are trying to put this on to joss, are you … to I exonerate your father? There were a lot of people who were II afraid of the Green Flash. As I told you, it was sometimes known as the Unlucky One. There were legends attaching to it. It was said to bring misfortune. I never believed it. But look at me now.”

“But you’d lost it. I just don’t believe my father would have deserted my mother.”

“He didn’t know you were on the way then. Perhaps that would have made a difference … or perhaps not. You’ve never seen the Green Flash. If you had you might understand what effect it can have on people. There’s a lot you’ve got to learn about men and the world and this thing called fascination, obsession … never mind what you call it, it’s what it is that counts.”

“What happened to my father’s Fancy?"

” It’s now one of the finest opal fields in Australia. “So he was right about that.”

“Oh yes, he was right.”

“Do you think he would never have come back to look at it?”

“How could he when he had the Green Hash?”

“Do you believe he would have given up his dream … his Fancy .. and my mother … for the sake of one opal which be would never be able-openly-to call his own?”

“I can only repeat. Miss Jessie, that you have never seen the Green Flash.” He reached for his crutch.

“You watch me walk across the room.

I’m getting used to old peg leg I’ll soon be moving around as though I had two sound limbs. Then.“

I looked at him searchingly, but he just shook his head. I knew what he meant and that he didn’t want to tell me now. If he could get about more easily he would be thinking of leaving Oakland Hall. I did not want to contemplate how I wretched I should be without him. ‘

When I left Ben that day and was coming down the Oakland Drive, my grandmother, who had been taking some hemmed busters to the ‘poor’, saw me. She stood very still and stared at me as though she thought she were dreaming. I felt defiant. There was not going to be any more pretence.

“Jessica,” she cried incredulously, ‘where have you been? “

I answered almost flippantly: “Visiting Mr. Ben Henniker!” I waited for the storm to burst. It didn’t immediately, of use. Her sense of decorum would always govern her anger, as we went into the Dower House, Xavier and Miriam ‘e just coming and she cried to them: “Come into the wing-room and, Miriam, ask your father if he can tear is elf away from his cards and spare us a moment’ when we were all gathered together in the drawing-room, I grandmother shut the door so that the servants couldn’t pw,

"Jessica, I should like an explanation,” she said. simple. I retorted.

“I was visiting my friend Mr. Ben"

Your friend! “

“Yes, and a better friend than anyone in this house has ever been to me.”

“Have you taken leave of your senses ?” “No. I am in full possession of them and that is why I seek friendship outside this house of pretence and shame.”

“Pray be silent. You had better explain at once how you came to be at Oakland Hall.”

“First I should like you to explain why you have pretended to be my mother all these years and why you made her life so miserable that she drowned herself…”

They were all staring at me. I was sure it was the first time in her life that my grandmother had ever felt at a disadvantage.

“Jessica!” cried Miriam, looking from her mother to Xavier, seeking a clue as to what she should think, I supposed, while my grandfather looked about him as though searching for The Times to cower behind; only Xavier was calm.

“I suspect someone has told you the story of your birth,” he said.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” I answered.

“It depends on what you’ve heard.”

“I know that my mother is dead and how she died and that she’s buried in the Waste Land and you tried to forget her.”

“It was a tragic time for us all,” said Xavier.

“And mostly for her,” I cried.

Then my grandmother spoke.

“We had done nothing to deserve it.”

“You deserved everything that came to you,” I retorted scornfully.

This,” said my grandmother, ‘is what comes of friendship with miners.”

“Please do not speak slightingly of Mr. Henniker. He’s a good man. If he had been here he would have helped her as none of you did.”

“On the contrary,” went on my grandmother, ‘we inconvenienced ourselves greatly to help her. We sold the silver salver and the George IV punch bowl to get her abroad, and I accepted you as my daughter. “

"You didn’t give her kindness, and that was what she wanted. You made her life miserable . you and your silly conventions. You didn’t love her and help her. Don’t you realize she had lost the one she loved ?

The one she loved! ” cried my grandmother.

“A thief … a seducer… the stupid girl!”

“Oh, I can see how wretched you made her. You … who always do the right thing-or think you do. The right thing is to be cruel then, is it? Why didn’t you comfort her? Why didn’t you make life easier for her? You could have helped her. But you didn’t. You let her die, you my grandmother pretending to be my mother. I might have known you were not, for you were never a mother to me. And you-‘ I turned to my grandfather, ‘you haven’t the guts’ (I was talking like Ben Henniker and even at such a dramatic moment I saw my grandmother wince)-‘not you nor Miriam nor Xavier … not one of you helped her. You’re despicable. Miriam can’t face life with her curate because he’s too poor. Xavier can’t marry Lady Clara because she’s too rich. It makes me laugh. What are you made of … all of you? Straw!” I turned on my grandmother.

“Except you. You’re made of the granite of unkindness and carelessness towards others put together with so much pride that there’s little else beside it’ …” And coming to the end of my tirade I turned to the door and ran up to my room.

I was shaking with emotion. I had told them what I thought, of them, and for once they had no answer for me.

Miriam came up soon afterwards. She looked bewildered and what she said was: “We shall no longer have to hide the Family Bible.” This struck me as so funny that I burst out laughing, which did something to relieve my feelings. Then she went on as though talking to herself:

“I suppose it’s better to be poor than let everything pass you by.”

Later I saw the Family Bible, which had hitherto been locked away in the drawing-room cabinet. There was my mother’s name inscribed in beautiful copperplate and mine too. I turned the pages and looked at the names of long-dead Claverings and wondered what trials and secrets they had had to suffer.

When I went down to dinner that night nothing was said about my outburst. It was as though it had never happened, and I couldn’t help marvelling at the conversation, which was all about the weather and village affairs as usual. No one would have believed that in the afternoon there had been such a storm. In a way I had to admire them.

But of one thing I was certain. No one was going to stop my friendship with Ben Henniker. Strangely enough, no one tried to, and after that I walked boldly up the drive to Oakland Hall and made no secret of my visits.