“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 that sort of people living near one. Now I was going to produce a bastard. There had never been such 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 of 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 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 know no one else would believe this, but my conviction is 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 increasing 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 dreamed thus, 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. 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 crossroads 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 this 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 Ha
nnah so this will be the last I shall write to you.
“Good-bye, 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 here 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 clearly 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 Gray 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 Eastertime.”
“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,’ 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 favorite 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 things.”
“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. He had to be unless he had deserted her, and because she believed he would never do that, she was sure 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 marry 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 lik
e 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.”
“Your 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.”