The Pride of the Peacock (35 page)

In the faint moonlight I saw the handle slowly turning.

There was a brief silence and then the sound of retreating footsteps.

I lay still, trembling, wondering what would have happened if the door had not been locked.

9.

TREASURE HUNT

For several days the bustle of preparation went on at Peacocks. The servants were absent-minded, giggling together.

“It’s always like this when the treasure hunt approaches,” Lilias told me.

She asked how I was getting on with the Company and I

told her that I was growing more fascinated every day. I was tremendously interested in the processes and was thrilled when 3 I saw colours emerging.

“I dare say you see a great deal of Jeremy Dickson,” she said.

“He happens to be in charge of the side which interests me , most.”

She looked a little mournful and like her mother, as though she were afraid of betraying something. I wondered whether their attitude had something to do with their living with the ^ family and yet not quite being of it. Rather like poor relations, I thought; but in this case there was never any attempt to ^ treat them as such. Joss was the same in his manner towards i them as he was to me. In fact, I thought ruefully, perhaps a little more considerate.

t I was trying not to think of him, but I couldn’t help it. Every time I heard his voice I felt exdted, eager to hear what he had to say.

When he rode out I wondered whether he was going to Isa, how they were together. I wondered about Ezra and whether he was afraid of Joss in some way. Everyone was afraid of Joss. Once when I had remarked that everyone seemed to hold him in great respect he had retorted:

They’d better, hadn’t they? They depend on me for the jobs. “

“On me too, perhaps,” I suggested.

“You’re going to be someone to reckon with,” he replied. Don’t mock.

”

“Mock,” he cried.

“I’m in deadly earnest ^ I remembered the things he said so vividly.

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 y his affairs with his wife?

I couldn’t believe that. I thought of his affection for Wattle y and hers for him. A man who was so beloved by his horses a and dogs too I had discovered-could not so degrade him self. But who could say? There were so many facets to all vi our characters.

p And there was something overpowering about Joss. Perhaps 0 people behaved differently with him. I wished I could stop y thinking of him.

y I had learned that he did not like my being in the company H of Jeremy Dickson. He did not say so and I longed for him y to, but he somehow implied it.

; On some mornings I rode into the town with Jimson Laud as my companion, for I would arrive down 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 some time, 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 i’ 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. i 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 dose 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 grey silk embroidered with pink moss roses which she had admitted she had worked herself.

“I wondered if you needed any help with your hair.” she said. a 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. j “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. y “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. Ifs a tradition. Mr. Henniker used to say;

^ “This is the night the ladies choose.”

The prospect excited me. I would choose him, I promised n myself. Perhaps it would be a start. To be fair, I had to p admit that the unsatisfactory state of our relationship was t, 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 y wanted to be the one in his life.

He would have to abandon Isa and his philanderings.

Ijlias was saying timidly: “I thought I’d ask Mr. Dickson, unless of course…”

I looked surprised and she went on quietly: “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 colour. 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 complacency 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 round so that we were standing side by side looking at our reflections 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 be221

ginning to learn sometlung 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.”

Terhaps 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.8 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 cares singly 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 drcuses.

The prize, as usual, was two opals which had been found in the Fancy field, cut, polished and recognized to be of fan-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 honour 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 in her hair which was like a tiara and it brought out the strange colour 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. “

Tm 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 claw-like fingers on Joss’s arms as I turned away with Ezra.

Mrs. Laud handed out the first clue. Uke her daughter, she was dressed in grey 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 UUas looking almost