“The Claverings gambled while he worked,” I said. “It’s like the ant and the grasshopper. It’s no use blaming him. They both got their desserts.”
“What’s insects got to do with it? You’re what I call a hopper yourself, Miss Jessica. You’re no sooner on to one thing before you’re after another.”
“This is all part of the same subject,” I protested. “I’d like to get into the Hall. Is he going to stay here?”
“You can’t get about all that easy when you’ve had one of your legs off. Still, he got the fortune, though it did cost him a leg.” Maddy shook her head. “It only goes to show that money’s not everything…though in this house you’d sometimes think it was. Mrs. Bucket says she reckons he’s home to stay.”
“Who’s Mrs. Bucket?”
“She’s cook over there.”
“What a perfectly glorious name. Bucket! Though that ought to have been the housemaid. The cook should be Mrs. Baker or Mrs. Stewer. So you know Mrs. Bucket, do you, Maddy?”
“Considering that she was at Oakland when I was there it seems natural that I should know her.”
“And you see her now and then?”
Maddy pursed her lips. I knew that she was visiting Mrs. Bucket and I was glad. A little careful prodding and I might learn something.
“Well, it ain’t for me to stick my nose up in the air when I pass someone I’ve known for twenty years, just because…”
“It certainly is not. You’re an example…”
“It couldn’t be laid to Mrs. Bucket’s door, nor Mr. Wilmot’s neither. It wasn’t as though there was a place for them here. To expect them to throw themselves out just because…”
“I understand perfectly. So he lost a leg, did he?”
“You’re on your cross-questioning again, Miss. I can see through that sure as eggs is eggs. It’s one thing for me to have a word with Mrs. Bucket now and then and it would be another for you to. So you make certain you keep on the right side of the stream and don’t go asking so many questions about things that don’t concern you.”
So in spite of the fact that Maddy had visited Mrs. Bucket I was not going to prize any more information out of her.
***
It was a sultry July day and I was sitting by the stream looking over Oakland territory when it happened. A chair, with a man sitting in it, came into view. I started up because as the chair came towards me I realized that the occupant was the man I had seen arriving in the carriage. There was a tartan rug over his knees, so I couldn’t make out whether or not he had one leg. I watched while the chair seemed to gather speed as it came towards me. Then I realized what had happened. It was because the chair was out of control that it moved so fast and it was gathering momentum as it came down the slight incline towards the stream. In a few moments it would be there and would surely overturn.
I wasted no time. I ran down the slope and waded through the stream. Fortunately we had had a drought and there was not a great deal of water, but willingly I splashed through what there was and ran up the slope on the other side just in time to catch the chair before it went down into the stream.
The man in the chair had been yelling: “Banker! Banker! Where in God’s name are you, Banker?” until he caught sight of me. I was clinging to the chair and it took all my strength to hang onto it and at one moment I thought it was going to carry me down with it.
The man was grinning at me; his face was redder than ever.
“Goodo!” he shouted. “You’ve done it. A little shaver like you and you’ve done it.”
There was a kind of steering bar in front of him; he guided this, and the chair started to move along parallel with the stream.
“There,” he said. “That’s better. I’m not used to the perishing thing yet. Well, now I’ve got to say my piece, haven’t I? Do you know I’d have turned over but for you.”
“Yes,” I said, coming round to the side of the chair. “You would.”
“Where were you then?”
“On the other side of the stream…our side.”
He nodded. “Lucky for me you were just at the right spot at that time.”
“I’m often at that spot. I like it.”
“Never seen you before. Do you live over there?”
“In the Dower House.”
“You’re not a Clavering?”
“Yes, I am. What are you?”
“A Henniker.”
“You must be the one who bought Oakland from them.”
“The very same.”
I started to laugh. “What’s funny?” he said; he had a rather sharp way of talking.
“Meeting like this after all these years,” I said.
He started to laugh too. I don’t know why it should have seemed so funny to us both, but it did.
“Nice to meet you, Miss Clavering.”
“How do you do, Mr. Henniker?”
“Quite well, thank you, Miss Clavering. I’m going to drive my chair up a bit. It’s uncomfortable here. Up under the trees there…in the shade. Let’s come and get acquainted.”
“Don’t you want…Banker?”
“Not now.”
“You were shouting for him.”
“That was before I saw you.”
I walked beside the chair, thinking what a marvelous adventure this was, and I heartily applauded his suggestion, for I had no wish for us to be seen. He brought the chair to rest in the shade and I sat down on the grass. We studied each other.
“Are you a miner?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Gold, I suppose.”
He shook his head.
“Opals.”
A sudden shiver of excitement ran through me. “Opals!” I cried. “My name is Opal.”
“Well, now is it? Opal Clavering. It sounds very grand to me.”
“They never call me by it. I’m always Jessica. That’s rather ordinary after Opal, don’t you think? I often wonder why they gave me the name if they didn’t want to call me by it.”
“You couldn’t have a prettier name,” he said. The reddish tinge in his cheeks deepened, and his eyes were a very bright blue. “There’s nothing more beautiful than an opal. Don’t start talking to me about diamonds or rubies…”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“I can see you know better than to do that to an old gouger.”
“A what?”
“An opal miner.”
“What do you do? Tell me about it.”
“You smell out the land and you hope and you dream. Every miner dreams he’s going to find the most beautiful stones in the world.”
“Where do you find them?”
“Well, there’s South Australia—Coober Pedy and Mooka Country, and there’s New South Wales and Queensland.”
“You’re from Australia,” I said.
“That’s where I found opal, but I started out from the Old Country. Australia’s rich in opal. We haven’t scratched the surface of the land yet. Who’d have thought there was opal in Australia? You can picture the excitement when they found it was. Can you picture it? Some brumbies scratching the land with their hooves and…there’s opal. By God, what a find! In those days we thought they had to come from Hungary…never thought to look elsewhere. They’d mined them there for hundreds of years. That milky kind. Very pretty…but give me the black opals of Australia.”
He paused and looked up at the sky. He was scarcely aware of me, I was sure. He was back in time, in space, miles away on the other side of the world, gouging—or whatever he called it—for his black opals.
“Diamonds…pah!” he went on. “What’s a diamond? Cold fire, that’s what. White! Look at an opal…”
How I should have loved to, but the next best thing was to listen to him.
“Australian opals are the
best,” he went on. “They’re harder. They don’t splinter as easily as some. They’re lucky stones. Long ago people used to believe opals brought good fortune. Do you know emperors and nabobs used to wear them because they were said to protect them against attack? It used to be said that an opal could prevent your being poisoned by your enemies. Another story was that they cured blindness. What more can you ask than that?”
“Nothing,” I agreed heartily.
“Oculus Mundi. That’s what they’re called. Do you know what that means?”
I confessed that my education did not carry me so far.
“The Eye of the World,” he told me. “Wear it and you’ll never commit suicide.”
“I’ve never had one, but I’ve never wanted to commit suicide.”
“You’re too young. And you say Opal’s your name? And Jessica too. Do you know, I like that. Jessie. It’s friendly.”
“At least it doesn’t make you think of a cure for blindness and a protection against the poison cup?”
“Exactly,” he said, and we both burst into laughter.
“Opals bring the gift of prophecy,” he went on. “So they used to say—prophecy and foresight.”
He took a ring from his little finger and showed it to me. It was a beautiful stone set in gold. I slipped it on my thumb, but even that was too small for it. I watched the light play on the stone. It was deep blue shot with red, yellow, and green lights. He held out his hand for the ring as though he were impatient that it should be too long out of his possession so I gave it back to him.
“It’s beautiful,” I said.
“New South Wales…that’s where it comes from. I tell you this, Miss Jessie, there are going to be some big finds there one day…even bigger than we’ve had already. I won’t be in on it though.” He tapped the tartan rug. “Hazards of the business. Got to accept them, you know. Think of the rewards. I’ll never forget the day this happened. I thought it was the end of me. I was collecting nobbies. Clinging to the roof, they were, like oysters…yes, just like oysters. I couldn’t believe my luck. Picture me…gouging away. It was in a cave and I was deep in, and there they were in this gritty, reddish seam…lovely nobbies. Suddenly there was a rumble and down came the roof of this cave. It was three hours before they could get me out. I’d got my opals though, and one of them—well, it was a real beaut, worth losing a leg for, or so I told myself. But between you and me your own limbs shouldn’t be bartered for anything…not even this little beauty of mine. By God, she’s a prize. For a moment I thought I’d found the Green Flash again. Not quite, though…still there’s a wonderful green in this one…a magic sort of green. She was the first thing I saw when I came around…because I was in a hospital for a long time while they cut my leg off. Had to. Gangrene and all that. It was a long time before they could get me down to Sydney, and by that time the leg was a goner. And the first thing I said was: ‘Show me that green opal.’ And there she was, lying in the palm of my hand, and though I knew there was nothing there where my leg used to be, I felt such pride as you wouldn’t understand just to look at the lovely thing lying there in my hand.”
“It ought to have brought you protection against the falling rock,” I commented.
“Well, you see, it wasn’t mine until the rock started to crack. I look at it like this: It was the price I had to pay for my nobbies.”
“It would have been awful to lose your leg for nothing.”
“I knew it was the end of my mining days. Who ever heard of a one-legged gouger? But perhaps I’ll get out again when I get used to hobbling around. But first I’ll have to educate myself in the way of my wooden leg. I’ve got to have a long rest, they tell me, so I thought the best place to come to was Oakland. And here I am trying to get used to a crutch and a wooden leg and relying on this old chair to carry me around, and you see what nearly happened to me but for a certain young lady.”
“I’m so glad I saw you, not only because…”
“Yes, because what?”
“So that we could meet and I could hear about opals.”
“There’s been a sort of feud between our families.” He laughed aloud, and I laughed with him. It was a certain bond between us, which kept us laughing for not much reason, for it wasn’t so much the laughter provoked by amusement as that of sheer pleasure and the unusual nature of our meeting. I thought then—and I became sure of it later—that he liked the idea of snapping his fingers at my family.
“I bought their home, you see,” he said, “and it had been in their family for ages. They’ve got the Clavering arms over the hall fireplace…all drawn out on the wall and very pretty too. This one married that one and there’d been Claverings at Oakland Hall since 1507, until this rough Henniker came along and took it from them—not with fire and sword, not with gunpowder and battering rams—but with money!”
“The Claverings should never have let it go if they wanted to keep it so much. As for you, Mr. Henniker, you risked your life to get it and you’ve got it…and I’m glad.”
“Strange words from a Clavering,” he said. “Ah, but this one’s an Opal.”
“I could never think why they gave me such a name—except that I was born in Italy. I think my mother must have been very different then.”
“People change,” said Mr. Henniker. “What happens to them can often bring a turnabout. I’ve got a man calling to see me at half-past four, so I shall have to go now, but listen. We’re going to meet again.”
“Oh yes, please, Mr. Henniker.”
“What about here…at this spot…tomorrow at this time?”
“I’d love it.”
“I reckon we’d have a lot to say to each other. Same time tomorrow then.”
I watched him guide his chair towards the house and then, in high spirits, I ran down to the bridge. I stood on it looking back. The trees hid the house—his house now—but I was picturing him in it, shouting for Banker, laughing because one of the Claverings had become his friend.
“He’s an adventurer,” I thought, “and so am I.”
***
I tried to hide my exuberance, but Maddy noticed it and commented that she couldn’t make up her mind what I resembled most—a dog with two tails to wag or a cat who’s stolen the cream.
“Very pleased with ourself, I’d say,” she added suspiciously.
“It’s a lovely day,” I answered blithely.
“Thunder in the air,” she grumbled.
That made me laugh. Yes indeed, the atmosphere would be decidedly stormy if it was discovered that I had actually spoken to the enemy and arranged another meeting.
I could scarcely wait to see him again.
He was there when I arrived. He talked—how he talked and how I loved to listen! He told me about his life when he had been very poor in his early days in London.
“London!” he cried. “What a city! I never could forget it, no matter wherever I was. But there were some hard memories too. We were poor—not as poor as some others, there being only one child…me. My mother couldn’t have more, which in some ways was a blessing. I went to a dame school, where I learned my letters, and after that to a ragged school, where I learned the ways of the world, and when I’d done with education at the age of twelve, I was ready to fight my battles. By that time my father had dropped dead. He was a drinker so it wasn’t much of a loss, and I started to keep my mother in a degree of comfort to which she had not been accustomed.”
I wondered why he was telling me all this. He was an actor of a kind, for when he talked of people his voice and his expression would change. When he told me of the baked-potato seller, his face would be grizzled and he’d shout: “Come, me beauties, all hot and floury. Two a penny hot spuds. Fill your bellies and warm your hands.”
“There, Miss Jessie,” he would go on becoming himself. “I’m being a bit vulgar now, you’ll be thinking, but that was the s
treets of London when I was a nipper. Life! I never saw such life…no, never. There it was all over the streets of London. It’s something you don’t take much notice of when you’re there, but you never forget it. It gets in your blood. You get away from it, but you’ll always love it and it’ll always draw you back.”
Then he would tell me of the orange woman and the sellers of pins and needles. “Five sheets a penny, pins,” he sang out, “all neat and middlings”; then there were the vendors of what he called “green stuff,” which was mainly watercress gathered in the fields onto which, in those days, the city had not encroached. Why there were fields just beyond Portland Place—meadows and woods; and there were market gardens too, so there was plenty of green stuff about. “Woorter creases,” he shouted. “All fresh and green.”
“Funny, when I talk of it, it all comes back fresh to me. Most clear in my memory is Eastertime. Good Friday was what I thought of as the Day of the Buns. It was the first thing I thought of when I got up on Good Friday morning. It was the day of the buns.”
He began to sing:
“One a penny, two a penny, hot cross buns
If your daughters won’t eat them, give them to your sons.
If you ain’t got any of those pretty little elves
Then you can’t do better than to eat them up yourselves.”
“We used to go round singing that with our trays of buns on our heads.”
I was fascinated. I had never met anyone like him. He talked all the time about himself. That didn’t worry me, because I wanted to hear and I was getting a glimpse into a world hitherto unknown to me.
“I was born to make money,” he said. “The Midas Touch, that’s what I’ve got. Ever heard of that, Miss Jessie? Everything he touched turned to gold. That was how it was with old Ben Henniker. If I tossed with a pieman, I’d be the winner. You know what was done, don’t you? There was the pieman with his tray of pies. You tossed your penny. ‘Heads,’ he’d say, for the pieman always called heads. And sure enough if it was old Ben’s penny, it would come up tails. So I kept the penny and the pie. Other people—they’d lose every time. Never me. A proper gambler I was then and have been ever since. I found selling things was the answer. You find something people want and they can’t do without and you bring it out much better and, if you can, cheaper than the next man. You get the idea? Even when I was only fourteen I knew how best to sell things. I knew where to get the cheapest and give the best value—sheep’s trotters, pigs’ trotters, whelks, sherbet, ginger beer, and lemonade. I had a coffee stall once, and when I got the idea of making gingerbread it seemed I was set fair to make my fortune. I hit on the idea of making it in fancy shapes—horses, dogs, harps, girls, boys…the Queen herself with her crown on her head. My mother made ’em and I sold ’em. It got so big we had a little shop right there on the Ratcliffe Highway, and a fine shop it was. The business grew and we were more comfortably off. Then one day my mother died. Right as rain one day and the next gone. She just dropped dead on the floor when she was making her gingerbread fancies.”