We had reached Peacocks and I said: “You’ll come in now, won’t you?”
“For half an hour, please. Then I must get back to work. But I shouldn’t like to call and not say hello to Mrs. and Miss Laud.”
I took him into the drawing room and sent one of the servants to tell Lilias and her mother that we had a visitor.
It was Lilias who came. I was amazed at the change in her. She smiled and went forward, holding out both her hands which Jeremy Dickson took. “I brought Mrs. Madden back,” he explained.
“You must be hot and tired,” said Lilias. “Shall I send for something refreshing?”
“Please do,” I told her.
She pulled the bell rope and asked for lemonade.
She had made it herself early that morning, she told us, and had stood it in ice so that it would be delightfully cooling.
We sipped and talked, and I thought how pleasant it was. Jeremy Dickson was so English that I felt completely at home with him. As for Lilias, she seemed like a different person. I wondered whether she was fond of the young man, since he seemed to have such an effect on her.
We talked of the township and what I had seen that morning, and he told us about a piece of opal that had just come in and could be wonderful if there was no flaw in it, and how breathtakingly exciting it was to watch the layers of useless stuff being removed to reveal the gem beneath.
Then Mrs. Laud came in.
She stood at the door looking at us, her expression enigmatical and her eyes not on me but on Lilias.
“So Mr. Dickson has called,” she said.
“Yes, Mother. He brought Mrs. Madden back. The lemonade I made this morning has come in useful.”
“How nice,” said Mrs. Laud, her eyes downcast as though she did not want to look at any of us. She seemed nervous.
“I found it most refreshing,” I said, feeling the need to say something while I asked myself: Why are we talking about lemonade when something dramatic seems to be happening?
My eyes went to the proud peacock looking down on us with his disdainful stare, and he reminded me of Joss. Again I had the impression that I had stepped into a drama with a plot which was a puzzle to me—but in this scene it was not I who was playing the principal part.
***
Each morning for the next three days I rode into the town with Joss. The first event on arrival was the meeting with the heads of department when the business of the day was discussed, with Joss presiding. If any finds of special interest had been brought in by the gougers on the previous day they were closely examined. Joss would always hand the rock to me with what I thought of as a superior smile, and, as I examined it, I determined to learn quickly just to confound him. But that was not really my only reason. Each day I became more and more genuinely fascinated.
I made a point of getting to know, as soon as possible, many of the people who worked in the building…the few clerks and those who did their job at the benches. I talked to the miners when they came in, and although at first I was aware that they thought my presence something of a joke, when they discovered that I wasn’t quite as ignorant as they expected me to be, they began to have a little respect. I was finding it all a tremendous challenge—not only to confute Joss but to show these people that a woman was not only fit to manage a house and bear children, which I knew was what they were thinking.
I was most interested in the sorting and snipping and the work that went on at the facing wheels. As this was Jeremy Dickson’s concern, I was seeing more of him than other members of the Company. There was little that was practical about his approach to opals; he was a romantic.
On my fourth morning he boiled water on a spirit lamp in his tiny office and made tea in a billycan. As we sat drinking it, he talked of opals and told me marvelous stories about them.
“The ancient Turks,” he said, “had a theory that a great fire stone was thrown out of Paradise in a flash of lightning. It was shattered and fell in a great shower which was scattered over certain areas of the world. That is now opal country.” His eyes glowed. “Do you know, it used to be called the Fire Stone. You can understand it, can’t you? That glow! Does it thrill you, Mrs. Madden, in a rather unaccountable way? Do you have to keep gazing and feel you could lose yourself in it?”
“I’m beginning to.”
“You’ll get more so. I’ve often thought these stones have some odd power because of the hold they get on people. It seems to be universally felt that they have some uncanny influence.”
As we talked, the door opened and Joss looked in.
“Am I interrupting a tea party?” he asked.
“It’s a working tea party,” I replied. “Mr. Dickson is teaching me a great deal.”
“I hope you are finding my wife an apt pupil.” He stressed the words “my wife” as though he were reminding Jeremy Dickson who I was. Quite unnecessary, I thought, and as he shut the door and went off I felt annoyed because he had spoiled our tête-à-tête. I could see that Jeremy Dickson was thinking he should be back at work.
The day after that, when I went down to breakfast, Joss said: “It’s time I showed you something of the countryside. I thought we’d take a ride this morning. You’d better get some idea of the layout of the land. It wouldn’t be wise for you to go riding alone until you had.”
“I dare say I could find someone to go with me for a while.”
“That’s what I’m offering to do now. You’d surely find others too. I dare say young Dickson would be ready to oblige.”
“He’s very knowledgeable about opals.”
“He wouldn’t hold the job he does if he weren’t,” replied Joss curtly.
We walked our horses away from Peacocks in the opposite direction of Fancy Town.
I said: “Are you doing nothing about the theft of the Green Flash?”
“Can you suggest what should be done?”
“Surely when something so valuable has been stolen some effort should be made to retrieve it.”
“This is rather an unusual theft. In the first place, no one knows when it took place.”
“It must have been some time after Ben left for England. I wonder why he didn’t bring the stone with him.”
“It would have been risky traveling with such a valuable piece and he thought it was safe where he had put it.”
“But someone found the hiding place. Surely we should make some effort…”
“I am,” he said.
“Don’t forget it’s partly my stone.”
“I don’t.”
A thought entered my head then that he had been in Peacocks after Ben had left. Suppose he had been the one who had found the stone in the picture!
Surely he would not have stolen the opal from Ben! Yet that stone had a strange effect on people. My own father had been so bewitched by it that he had contemplated leaving my mother for it. Who could say…? And it would explain why he was doing nothing about finding it.
“Leave this to me,” Joss said. “I’ll think of something. We’re going to find the stone, but in due course. You want everything done so dramatically. Life’s not a melodrama, you know. Things can’t be tied up into neat little parcels and labeled. The thing I’m most anxious about at the moment is to stop all this talk about the Green Flash because with it comes the idea that opals are unlucky. I can’t tell you how hard Ben and I used to fight to quash that. We want to keep the old legends going when they were said to be talismans against evil. So remember, not too much talk about the Green Flash.”
“You make it sound like an order.”
“That’s not a bad way of looking at it. For everyone’s comfort, forget it.”
He turned from me and made his way towards a range of low hills. The ground was dry and sandy so that a cloud of dust was displaced by his horse’s hooves, and as he galloped straight through a gap in the hill
s, I lost sight of him for a few moments. How I should have liked to turn back, but already I was aware of the fact that one part of the Bush looked very like another and there were so few distinguishing landmarks. I knew I should not be able to find my way back to Peacocks without his guidance.
I came through the gap and there he was waiting for me.
“This is known as Grover’s Gully,” he told me. “There was a very flourishing mine here at one time. Now it’s duffered out, as we say out here, which means it’s no longer productive. Yet it was once one of the biggest-yielding opal mines in New South Wales. It’s full of underground chambers. There’s a rumor that it’s haunted.”
“I thought you were too down to earth to believe in such things out here.”
He grinned at me. “Not all of us. In fact some of us are very superstitious. Men who work in dangerous operations are. Fishermen, miners…they are some of the most superstitious people on earth. There are so many occasions in their lives when they tempt fate. The story is that a man named Grover made his fortune here and then went to Sydney to settle down. He found a woman, married her, and together they gambled his fortune away. Then he found out she was only interested in his money when she left him, and he was bitter. He turned into a bushranger, and some said he used to hide in the underground chambers of his old mine which had made him rich. He was always masked, and he was actually known as the Masked Ranger of Grover’s Gully. Of course when he was operating nobody knew he was Grover. It was only when he was shot dead by the driver of a small carriage he was holding up that they took off his mask and discovered who he was. After that people said he haunted the place, and they don’t like passing it at night. Some have sworn they’ve seen a masked man. I reckon it was mulga bush and imagination did the rest. Well, that’s the legend of Grover’s Gully so make sure you don’t pass this way after sundown. If you do you might see the masked ghost or hear Grover crying for his woman and his fortune.”
“There’s certainly something desolate about the place.”
We walked our horses until we were close to the old mine. A deep shaft had been sunk, and I saw an old iron ladder, which had been used for the descent, still in position. In spite of the fact that I knew he was watching me closely, I could not repress a shudder.
He came closer to me. “You will sense it,” he said. “The eerie atmosphere, the presence of the dead.” He spoke in a low, mocking voice.
“I’m just wondering what I should have thought if you hadn’t told me the story. I should have said it was just another…what did you say…duffered-out mine?”
“Good. You’re learning. Come on. That’s enough of Grover’s Gully.”
He moved off and I followed. He was a little way ahead of me when he pulled up once more and pointed away to the horizon.
“Can you see a building there?”
“I can just make it out. Is it a house?”
“A homestead.”
“Whose?”
“You’ll see,” he called over his shoulder, and rode on.
A white house lay ahead of us gleaming in the brilliant sunshine.
“This is the Bannock homestead,” said Joss, and my spirits fell. The last person I wished to see was Isa Bannock.
As we approached the dogs started to bark and Ezra Bannock came out. He cried out in his hearty way when he saw us: “Well, look who’s here.” He opened the gate and took us into a grass enclosure. Wattle gave a whinny of delight as he stroked and patted her and asked how she was getting along and told her how glad he was to see her.
“Come along in,” he said. “Isa will be pleased. Come to the stables first, and I’ll show you the new little filly I’ve got. I reckon that’s what you came out to see, eh, Joss?”
Joss answered: “I knew Jessica would like to come.” And he looked at me quizzically as though he was amused and knew it was the last place to which I wanted to come because of the antagonism between me and Isa.
We went into the stables, which were as big as those at Peacocks. Wattle was clearly in good spirits to be where she considered was home. She had been an easy mount for me and I wondered whether this really was because Ezra had told her to be. That seemed rather fanciful, but to see Ezra with horses made one feel that he had a special magic for transforming them into human beings while he talked to them.
We went into the house. An artistically arranged bowl of flowers stood on an ornately carved oak chest. The hall was tiled, which gave a gratifying coolness to the place.
“Isa,” shouted Ezra. “Visitors.”
Then I saw her. She was wearing a kind of morning gown in a soft, voilelike material with a frilly skirt and flowing sleeves. She looked fresh and, I had to admit, beautiful; the dress of a light-brown color brought out the tawny lights in her hair and eyes.
“But this is fun,” she said, coming towards us. “Mrs. Madden and her husband.”
Joss took her hand and kissed it. I was shocked and surprised that he should do that for it seemed out of character. But apparently he could be different with Isa than with anyone else.
“My dear Joss,” she murmured tenderly, “it is good of you to come to our little homestead.”
“I hope we haven’t come at an inconvenient time,” I said to draw her attention to the fact that I was also present.
“My dear Mrs. Madden…but don’t you think we should call each other by our Christian names? After all we are going to see each other frequently, and Joss has always been Joss to me, so it seems only right and proper that I should call his wife by her Christian name. Jessica then…it suits you…” The manner in which she said my name suggested a rather prim woman, tight-lipped, stern-faced, inclined to take life very seriously. She laughed. “Jessica, there can never be a wrong moment for calling. We get so few visitors out here that they are always welcome.”
“It’s a short time ago that we met.”
“Too long,” she cooed. “You will stay for luncheon,” she went on eagerly. “Ezra was working at home this morning so it will be good to have you join us. You can talk business to your hearts’ contentment, but over my table instead of in that gruesome boardroom of yours.”
“That does sound an excellent idea,” said Joss warmly. “In fact I was hoping to be asked. Then we can go back in the cool of the afternoon.”
I was deeply conscious of the change in his voice when he addressed her, and it filled me with resentment.
“First cool drinks in my parlor,” said Isa. “Now Ezra, my darling, please summon Emily.”
The parlor was essentially hers. Indeed I wondered what part Ezra played in this menage. I had thought of her as a jungle cat; now I saw her as a female spider who devours her mate—but only of course when he has ceased to be useful to her. It was a frilly, feminine room with muslin curtains and the inevitable sun-blinds. Pots of brightly colored plants gave the room an air of gaiety and the chintz-covered chairs and the curtains augmented that impression. Tall cool drinks were brought in and we were very grateful for these.
“We’re very neighborly out here, Jessica,” said Isa. “You must never think that we shouldn’t be pleased to see you. We like all visitors…especially those who are friends.” She threw a coquettish glance at Joss, who was smiling at her in a way which was beginning to madden me. At least, I thought, he might not show his besotted admiration so blatantly in front of his wife…for even though our relationship is not the usual one, there are conventions to be observed.
They chatted about people of whom I had never heard. Isa made sure of that because I guessed she was determined to shut me out until they mentioned the yearly treasure hunt which was held at Peacocks.
“Oh, haven’t you heard about it, Jessica? Oh, Joss, you are very slack. Fancy not telling Jessica about the treasure hunt.”
Joss turned to me. “It’s a little entertainment we do once a year. It’s due in a few weeks’ time. I
must tell you all about it.”
“It’s the greatest fun,” said Isa. “We all go…how many Joss…about fifty, sixty, seventy of us…to Peacocks and there we’re given clues and we search and search. It’s one of the events of the year. Ben thought of it to keep the people happy. He was always trying to keep his workers from being bored. He used to say trouble starts with boredom.”
“It sounds interesting,” I said. I looked at Joss coldly. “I should like to hear about it.”
“There’s been such a lot to show you,” he said. “I forgot to explain about it. It’s a little childish perhaps…”
“But it’s fun,” cried Isa.
“And people seem to enjoy it,” added Joss.
Isa changed the subject as abruptly as she had introduced it.
“I did promise to show you my collection, Jessica, didn’t I? Perhaps I will. What do you think, Joss?”
She and Joss exchanged a glance, which I was aware of without—then—fully understanding.
He said: “By all means show her, Isa. Jessica’s getting really interested in opals. It’ll be part of the education she’s rapidly acquiring.”
“Then after lunch,” promised Isa. “And we’ll have that now.”
We went into the dining room for luncheon which consisted of cold chicken and salad and there was fruit which she told me her servants bottled and preserved when there was a glut.
“You will probably do your own bottling and preserving, Jessica. I am sure you do it beautifully. I’m afraid my talents stop short of housekeeping. Still, I have other uses I believe.”
Ezra laughed loudly and Joss smiled as though she had said something very witty.
My irritation was growing and my great desire was to get away from this woman for among those talents she mentioned there was certainly one for making me feel unattractive. It was all the more galling because I felt that Joss was aiding and abetting her in this.
After lunch we settled down to see her collection. We went back into the shady parlor with its frills and femininity—Isa’s room. We sat at a table and from a safe she took out the now familiar rolled-up cases. She had some magnificent stones and she was clearly knowledgeable about them. They were of all varieties and all exquisite.