Ezra was a skilled man, but he was not a big shareholder in the enterprise. If he displeased Joss he could be asked to go. Did pleasing Joss extend as far as turning a blind eye on his affair with his wife?
I couldn’t believe that. I thought of his affection for Wattle and hers for him. Surely a man who was so beloved by his horse—and dogs too, I had discovered—could not so degrade himself. But who could say? There were so many facets to all our characters.
And there was something overpowering about Joss. Perhaps people behaved differently with him. I wished I could stop thinking of him.
I had learned that he did not like my being in the company of Jeremy Dickson. He did not say so, and I longed for him to, but he somehow implied it.
On some mornings I rode into the town with Jimson Laud as my companion, for I would arrive downstairs to find that Joss had already left. I would pretend to be quite pleased at the prospect, although I found Jimson like his mother and sister—strangely indeterminate.
He would talk to me about bookkeeping which he had taken over from Tom Paling who had apparently run everything in a most primitive way.
I supposed I should have to learn something about bookkeeping sometime, but I was too fascinated by the active side to feel any great interest.
Sometimes I would be overcome with amazement to think that Ben had given me a major share in this thriving Company, and I used to fancy that he was beside me, urging me on. I could hear his voice coming back to me often; his racy conversation was something I would never forget. He had loved opals and he had wanted me to do the same. He had loved my mother and thought of me as his daughter, I believed, so he had loved me too. He had admired Joss…the son who had been all he wanted his son to be. That was adventurous, hard, ruthless, not too scrupulous—a man of this land and his times. And he had forced us into this marriage. Why? He was a wise man and he had loved me dearly. He had wanted to rescue me from the Dower House. Had he known me so well that he had had a premonition that before the year was out I should be in love with Joss?
Had he known of Joss’s infatuation for Isa? I did not think Ben would have liked Isa very much. Perhaps he had wanted to break that connection by giving Joss a young wife.
Ben had loved me and perhaps he thought that because he did others must too. How wrong he had been! No one had ever really loved me except Ben. My mind went back to the days in church when I had asked Miriam about the she-bear. How could my mother’s love cease when it had never existed? I had asked. A tragic question on the lips of a child. But then the woman whom I had thought was my mother was not after all. My real mother had loved me, but not enough to live for me.
I longed to be loved as Isa was loved; and I knew then how happy I should have been if my marriage had turned out differently, if we had grown to know each other and Joss had in due course fallen in love with me as I had with him.
***
It was the night of the Treasure Hunt. Thousands of candles blazed throughout the house, for the party started at sundown. I thought how romantic it looked and how excited I should have been to have shared such a house with a husband who loved me.
Lilias came to my room while I was dressing to see, she said, if I needed any help.
“Why, your dress is beautiful,” she cried.
It was another of the shade of peacock blue, which strangely enough I had always loved. I had been allowed to choose my own materials which I had thought a great concession at the time, but now when I considered all I had brought my family, I understood why I had been shown this clemency. I had not adhered closely to fashion because the mode of the day was not, I considered, very becoming. I had been wise in this, for fashions meant little out here. So I had gone back to an earlier and more charming age, and my skirt resembled, though not quite, a crinoline. It billowed out in tiers of chiffon and my bodice was close-fitting, falling off the shoulders in an elegant austerity which made a contrast to the skirt.
Lilias herself looked pretty in a modest gown of pale gray silk embroidered with pink moss roses, which she admitted she had worked herself.
“I wondered if you needed any help with your hair,” she said.
I had piled my thick, dark hair high on my head—again defying fashion and going back to an even earlier age than the style of the dress.
“I’ve always done it myself.”
“I’m sure you’ll be much admired. I’ve never seen such beautiful clothes as yours except Isa Bannock’s.”
“Of course,” I answered.
“She has her materials sent out from England. I wonder what she’ll look like tonight. You know we choose our partners for the Treasure Hunt. It’s a tradition. Mr. Henniker used to say: ‘This is the night the ladies choose.’”
The prospect excited me. I would choose Joss, I promised myself. Perhaps it would be a start. To be fair I had to admit that the unsatisfactory state of our relationship was to a large extent due to me, so perhaps it was for me to set the pace. I remembered the first days of our marriage. It was not he who had then suggested separate rooms. But I was glad that I had, for I did not want a makeshift marriage. I wanted to explore these new and fierce emotions, but I wanted him to feel the same. I would never be the sort of wife who would compromise. I wanted to be the one in his life. He would have to abandon Isa and his philanderings.
Lilias was saying timidly: “I thought I’d ask Mr. Dickson, unless, of course…”
I looked surprised and she went on quickly: “Unless you wanted to ask him.”
“I hadn’t thought of it,” I replied, and she looked relieved.
The door opened and Joss came in. He looked magnificent. He, too, wore the shade of peacock blue almost identical with mine. It was a velvet dinner jacket and he wore white ruffles at his neck and the edge of his cuffs. He looked even taller than usual and the blue jacket brought out vividly the blue of his eyes.
Lilias said: “Excuse me,” and scuttled out.
“She’s like a frightened rabbit,” he said.
“You look rather formidable.”
He regarded himself in the mirror, approvingly, I thought. His eyes met mine and he smiled. “I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Peacock!”
“It’s the right color. Do you know, I’ve never heard any but Ben call you by that name.”
“They do it behind my back. They wouldn’t think of using it before my loving wife. They would think she might find it offensive. I collected the name when I was a boy. I used to strut round with the peacocks and I was rather fond of myself.”
“An endearing quality which you haven’t lost.” Why did I have to continue in this strain, I asked myself. I suppose the fact was that I was afraid of betraying my true feelings.
He smiled at me ironically. “So you admire my pride, my arrogance, my conceit. It makes me so happy to please you in some way.”
It was hard to meet his eyes, for I feared to reveal the true state of my feelings. The time was not ripe. His complacence would be intolerable. I had a horror of his going to Isa and telling her that I had at last succumbed to his attractions and that I was going to be a good and docile wife in future.
He had caught me by the shoulders and turned me around so that we were standing side by side looking at our reflection in the mirror. “We’re a good match, you must agree. A handsome pair. You’re not exactly displeased with your appearance, are you? Is there a bit of the peacock in you?”
“I hope that people will share my good opinion,” I retorted. “The difference is that you don’t care whether they like yours or not. That’s the peacock element.”
“How clever of you to discover that. I believe you’re beginning to learn something about me at last.”
“I think I know a little.”
“A little knowledge, they say, can be a dangerous thing.”
“I’ll keep out of danger.”
“Don’t be too sure of that.”
“This is a very cryptic conversation.”
“Ours is a very cryptic relationship.”
“Perhaps it won’t remain so,” I said, and I wondered if he noticed the little catch in my voice.
“Nothing remains static, I’ve heard.”
A great impulse came to me then to tell him that I wanted to change everything. I wanted us to see more of each other. I wanted him to tell me everything about his true relationship with Isa and how deep it went. I wanted to say: “Let us give ourselves a chance to make something of our lives.” One little sign from him and I should have done so.
I said on impulse: “I understand it’s the lady’s privilege to choose her partner for the Treasure Hunt. I suppose I should choose you.”
It sounded ungracious—as though I didn’t want to, as though I regarded it as a duty when all the time I wanted to say: I want to be with you. I want us to walk through this house hand in hand, searching for the treasure which will be symbolic in a way…searching for that happiness which we can only find together.
A few seconds passed when everything seemed to be silent…watching—an important moment. I had taken the first step and this could be a beginning. I saw a fierce light in those dark blue eyes as they came to rest on my bare shoulders fleetingly, almost caressingly, and my heart beat fast.
Then he said: “My dear, there is no need to choose me. In fact it would hardly be right. Suppose we found the treasure. They would think it was collusion.”
I felt deflated. I knew of course that he had already allowed Isa to choose him.
“It’s time we went down to greet the guests,” he said.
We stood side by side in the hall and received them as they arrived. People whom I had not met before shook my hand warmly, congratulated me on my marriage, and welcomed me to Fancy Town. They were noisy, friendly people all out for an evening’s enjoyment—the high spot of the year, the greatest of Ben Henniker’s circuses.
The prize, as usual, was two opals which had been found in the Fancy field, cut, polished, and recognized to be of fair value.
“It’s not the opals themselves which are so important,” one of the wives told me. “It’s the fact of winning. Everyone wants the honor of having solved the clues first.”
There was one fair-haired young woman who came to talk to me and told me that she was glad her baby had arrived in time to let her come to the Treasure Hunt. The baby, with his young brother, was in the charge of her elder sister who herself was too heavily pregnant to come.
“It’s the luck,” she told me. “Treasure Hunt opals are always lucky. That’s what people say. They must be to the ones who find them, because that’s luck isn’t it? That’s one reason why people want them. They really are lucky.”
The buffet was attacked with gusto, and after people had eaten their fill the hunt began.
“All ladies must take their partners,” announced Joss.
I felt sick with misery, for I saw Isa with her arm through that of Joss. She looked beautiful, of course, in one of her tawny brown and yellow gowns touched with green—a mass of silk, ribbons, and lace. She wore a band of topaz like a tiara in her hair, and it brought out the strange color of her eyes. Predatory, prowling, very much the jungle cat that night.
“I’ve taken your husband,” she cried with a hint of malice in her voice. “I hope you won’t mind.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t,” I answered.
Joss was watching me closely, an unfathomable expression in his eyes. Ezra stood by sheepishly.
“He made no objection,” retorted Isa.
“Then perhaps I’d better retaliate by taking yours.”
Ezra beamed on me. “Why, that’s wonderful,” he said. “There was I wondering who would ever choose me and the beautiful hostess herself comes along.”
“I’m sure you’ll be very good at solving the clues,” I said.
“I’m going to do my best to win with you, Jessica.”
“We’ll work together,” I told him.
I heard Isa’s laughter and saw her white hands with their long clawlike fingers on Joss’s arm as I turned away with Ezra.
Mrs. Laud handed out the first clue. Like her daughter, she was dressed in gray, but instead of moss roses she wore touches of white. Jimson was at her side. I think he had been hoping I would ask him to partner me. I noticed Lilias looking almost gay with Jeremy Dickson.
The game was the old English one which most people had played before. I was one of those who had not. We did not indulge in such frivolities in the Dower House, but I imagined the rest of the family must have had similar occasions in the Oakland days. Players were given a clue to start with which led them to the next; they kept their clues which were written on small pieces of paper and the first to collect the entire set was the winner.
The first was traditionally easy, to give everyone a start and interest in the game.
It was something like:
“You have come to pay a call
Take a drink beside the wall.”
This meant, of course, that it was the hall where callers would come on their arrival and there was a large pewter punch bowl on a table close to the wall. The second clues were in this.
Then the real hunt began.
We found the second in the drawing room and the next led us upstairs, and it occurred to me on occasions like this when there were so many people in the house, it could have been possible for one of them to have come upon the hidden Green Flash. How ironical if it had been lost through a Treasure Hunt. I thought of the remark that any opal found in this hunt must be lucky for the one who found it because he or she had been led to it by luck.
“How are you getting on with Wattle?” asked Ezra.
“Very well.”
“She’s happy, I think. There’s something very special about that little filly, Jessica.”
“I know it.”
“Bright as a button. All there, as they say. That’s our Wattle.”
“She still remembers you.”
“She’ll remember me till the day she dies. Faithful creatures, horses. That’s more than you can say for some human beings, eh?”
I looked at him sharply, wondering whether he was referring to Isa.
“You have a way with animals. That’s perfectly clear. Even the peacocks on the lawn seem to be aware of you. In a mild way of course, because they can’t think very much about anything but themselves.”
He laughed. “I always have had this. Was born with it. Funny. I was never much to look at. I could never make out why Isa fancied me in the first place. Mind you, when I came out here I had big dreams…everyone has. I was going to find the crock of gold.”
“Well, you’ve done very well haven’t you?”
“I know my job, and there’s nothing I’d rather work with than opals.”
“Then you’re fortunate. It’s not everyone who finds satisfaction in his work. Where are we going?”
“Into the gallery. There’s bound to be something in the gallery.”
“I suppose so, but I expect others will think the same.”
We opened the door. There was no one there. Six candles flickered in their sconces. It looked eerie and remarkably like the gallery at Oakland Hall. My eyes went to the spinet at one end.
“It looks as if it ought to be haunted,” said Ezra. “But I don’t suppose it’s old enough for that. Why are those drapes placed at intervals around the room?”
“That’s how they are at Oakland. There the walls are partially paneled and the drapes hang where there is no paneling. It’s quite effective.”
“Can you play the spinet, Jessica?”
“A little. I had lessons when I was a child. My Aunt Miriam taught me. I was not very good.”
“Play something no
w.”
I sat down and played a Chopin waltz as well as I could remember it.
“Hello! This place is haunted then.” It was Joss’s voice. I swung around sharply, for he and Isa had come into the gallery.
“Why,” he went on, “the ghost is Jessica.”
“Why did you think I was a ghost?” I demanded.
“I didn’t. I don’t believe in them. But Ben used to say in his sentimental moments that he used to fancy he could hear the spinet being played and he’d like someone who used to play it at Oakland to come back and play for him here. He had strange fancies sometimes for such a practical man.”
“He always said he had an open mind about everything,” said Ezra.
“Yes,” went on Joss, “Ben was prepared to believe anything if it could be proved to him, so he believed that if he built a gallery just like the one at Oakland and put a spinet in it, his ghost might come.”
“How are you getting on with my husband?” asked Isa, with a hint of mischief in her voice.
“Tolerably well,” I replied. “We’ve solved three so far. How are you getting on with mine?”
“More than tolerably well,” she replied. “Come along, Joss. I want that opal.”
“It won’t be worthy of your collection,” he told her.
“Then I shall ask you to swop it for one that is.”
I said to Ezra: “We should be going. I don’t think there’s anything here.”
We went out. Joss and Isa had disappeared, and shortly afterwards we found ourselves at the top of the house in a section which was unfamiliar to me. The rooms here were smaller and there was one which was furnished as a sitting room. A lighted oil lamp stood on the table which held a pot of dried leaves and a wooden workbox with the lid open. A piece of needlework lay on the table with a needle case, cottons, and scissors. A door leading from this room was half open and I looked out onto a narrow terrace bounded by a low wall. We were at the very top of the house.
“I believe these are the Lauds’ quarters,” I said.
“Sounds rather holy,” answered Ezra with a chuckle.
“L.A.U.D.,” I spelled out. “I don’t know whether we’re supposed to be here.”