The Pride of the Peacock (7 page)

“Come and sit down at the table,” he said, ‘and I’ll show you some of the finest opals that have ever been gouged out of rock. “

He sat down at a round table and I drew a chair to sit beside him. He opened one of the boxes inside which, lying in little velvet hollows, were the opals. I had never seen such beautiful gems. The top row was of great pale stones which flashed with blue and green fire; those on the next row, also of remarkable size, were darker-blue, almost purple-and in the last row the stones had a background which was almost black and the more startling because they flashed fire with red and green lights.

There,” he said, ‘your namesakes. What do you think of them? I see.

Speechless. That’s what I thought. That’s what I hoped. Keep your diamonds. Keep your sapphires. There’s nothing anywhere in the world to beat these gems. You agree with me, don’t you ? “

“I have never seen a great many diamonds or sapphires,” I said, ‘so it wouldn’t be fair for me to be so sure, but I can’t imagine anything more lovely than these. “

“Look at her!” he commanded as, with a gnarled finger, he gently touched one of the stones. It was deep blue and there was a touch of gold in it.

“She’s known as the Star of the East. They’ve got names, these opals. The Star of the East! Couldn’t you see her, there in the sky just before the sun rises and shuts off her light. It must have been something like her that the wise men saw on that Christmas night years and years ago. I tell you this: she’s unique. They’re all unique, these opals. You’ll find others that you think are just like them, then you’ll see your mistake. They’re like people, no

two alike. That’s one of the marvels of the universe . all those people . all those opals . and no two exactly alike. And sometimes you find something like the Star of the East and you think of all you’ve suffered . for believe me a gouger’s life is no picnic . and you say it was all worth while. Now, for him who owns the Star of the East, it tells him the best is yet to come, for the Star is rising, you see, and wasn’t it there to announce the birth of the Christ child?

”

“So your best is yet to come, Mr. Henniker?”

You’re to call me Ben. Didn’t I tell you ? “

Tes, but it’s hard to get used to when you’ve been brought up not to call grown-up people by their Christian names. “

“In here we don’t care what was done because someone said it should be without rhyme or reason. Oh no. We do what’s right for us, and I’m Ben to you as I am to all my friends and I trust you’re one of them.”

“I want to be… Ben.”

That’s the ticket, and that’s the idea. The best is yet to come for me while I’ve got the Star of the East. “

I put out a finger and touched it.

That’s right,” he said. Touch it. Look at the light on the stone. And that’s not the only one. Here’s Pride of the Camp. A fine piece of opal there. Not quite up to the Star of the East, but a fine gem. She came from White Cliffs in New South Wales. A roaring camp, that was. Some prospector had been there and moved on; then some fossickers came by and started to tap round as fossickers do. And what happened? He finds opal… not potch … oh dear me, no. Real precious opal. What a find for a fossicker. Before the month’s out there’s a camp there and everyone’s gouging like made. I was caught up in it. It was my luck to hit on Pride of the Camp.”

“Do you sell them?” I asked.

He was thoughtful for a moment.

“Well, that would seem to be the object, but there sometimes comes a stone that no matter what it can bring you, you just can’t sell. You get a sort of feeling for it. It belongs to you and you only. You’d rather have it than all the money in the world, and that’s plain straight.”

“So all these you are showing me are stones which you felt like that about?”

That’s it. Some are there for their beauty and some for Other reasons.

Look at this one here . See the green fire in it? That cost me my leg. ” He shook his fist at it ” You cost me dear, my beauty,” he went on, ‘and for that reason I keep you.

She’s got fire, that one. Just look at her sitting there. She cares nothing for me. She says, “Oh, if you want me, take me but don’t start counting the cost.” I call her Green Lady, for that was the name of a cat I once had. I’m rather fond of cats. They’ve got a sort of disdainful pride that I like. Have you ever noticed the grace of a cat? How it walks alone? It’s proud. It never cringes. I like that.

This cat I had was called Lady. It suited her, that name. She was a lady, and her eyes were as green as the green you see in her namesake there. So that’s why I won’t let her go, though she cost me my leg and you might think I wouldn’t like to be reminded. There she was glinting at me in the candlelight . and I had to have her though the roof fell in and crippled me. “

I took up the Green Lady in my hands and studied her. Then I laid her gently back in her soft velvet case.

“And look here. Miss Jessie. Look at this heart-shaped cabochon. See the violet in it. It’s Royal Purple, this one. Look at the colour. Fit for a royal crown she is.”

I was fasdnated, and he opened more boxes and I saw a variety of stones from the milky kind flashing their reds and greens to the dark blue and black variety with their stronger colours.

He talked about them all, pointing out their qualities, and I was caught up in his enthusiasm.

One box he took out was empty. It was smaller than the others, for it was meant to “cushion one single stone, and in the centre of the black velvet was a hollow somehow almost accusing in its emptiness. He stared at it in a melancholy way for some moments.

What was there? ” I asked.

He turned to me. His eyes had narrowed, his mouth hardened and he looked murderous. I stared at him, astonished by this change of mood.

“Once,” he said, ‘the Green Hash at Sunset was there. “

I waited but said nothing. His jaw protruded and his mouth was set and angry.

“It was a specially beautiful opal?” I ventured.

He turned to me, his eyes blazing. There was never such a beauty,” he cried.

“No, never such an opal in the whole world. It was worth a fortune, but I would never’ have parted with it. You’d have to see it to believe this, but you’d know it if you did. The green flash … it wasn’t there all the time. You had to watch for it. It was the way the light caught it

. and the way you held it. it was something about you as well as the stone. “

“What happened to it?8 ” It was stolen,” he said.

“Who stole it?”

He was silent. Then he turned to look at me, his eyes narrowed. I could see how the loss of the stone upset him.

“When was it stolen ?” I prompted.

“A long time ago.”

“How long?”

“Before you were born.”

“And all that time you never found it?”

He shook his head. Then he snapped the box shut. He put it back in the safe with the others, and when he had locked the safe he turned to me and laughed. But there was a slightly different note in his laughter than there had been before.

“Now,” he said, ‘we’re going to have some tea. I told them to bring it precisely at four. So let us go back there. ” He pointed to the drawing-room.

“You can pour out and entertain me, which is somehow right and fitting as you’re the Clavering. ” The spirit lamp and silver teapot were already there, with plates of sandwiches, scones and plum cake. Beside Wilmot stood a maid.

“Miss dave ring will pour out,” said Ben.

“Very good, sir,” replied Wilmot graciously; and I was glad when he and the maid had retired.

“All very ceremonious,” said Ben.

“I confess to you I’ve never quite got used to it. Sometimes I say: ” Enough of that I” You can imagine how a man feels when he’s boiled his own billy-can and cooked his own damper round’ a campfire. Today’s special, though. Today’s the day when the first Clavering comes to be my guest.”

“But not a very important one, I’m afraid,” I said with a laugh.

“The most important. Never underestimate yourself. Miss Jessie. People are going to think you’re not up to much if you think that way yourself. You’ve got to find a nice way between because it doesn’t do to be too big for your boots nor for your hat. Then they won’t fit.”

I asked him how he liked his tea, poured out, and when I carried it to him, he smiled at me appreciatively. I set his cup and plate on a table by his chair and felt very pleased with myself as I took my place behind the silver teapot.

Tell me about this Green Hash at Sunset,” I said.

He was silent for a second or so and then he asked: “Have you ever heard of the green flash. Miss Jessie?”

“Only this afternoon.”

“I don’t mean the opal … that other green flash. They say that there’s a precise moment when the sun goes down-just before it disappears-that there is a green flash on the sea. You can only see it in tropical seas and then conditions have to be exactly right. Ifs a rare phenomenon. It’s beautiful and exciting to see. People watch for it; some never catch it at all. If you as much as blink your eyes you could miss it. It’s there and it’s gone and you hardly know it’s been.

You’ve got to be in the right spot at the right moment, looking in the right direction, and you’ve got to be quick to see it. I saw it once.

It was on the voyage back to England from Australia. There I was on deck, and it was sunset time. I was watching that great ball of fire drop into the ocean. It’s different in the tropics. There’s little twilight like we have here. And there was this peaceful scene . no cloud and the great sun so low that I could just bear to look at it.

Then it was gone and there was this green flash.

“I’ve seen it,” I cried out loud.

“I’ve seen the green flash.” Then I went and looked at my opal. It was very valuable, the finest opal of all. I remember on that journey home I carried it about with me. I’d look at it now and then just to assure myself that it was there. Now this opal reminds you of the green flash at sea. You’d look at it, you’d see its beauty, you’d see the red and blue flashes. There was a darkening of colour right across it so that it looked like the meeting of land and sea, and there was such red fire in it that it was like the sun, and if you were looking at the right moment and you were holding it at a certain angle and the light was right, suddenly the red would seem to disappear and then you’d see the green flash. First I believe it was called the Sunset Opal and then when I had caught the green flash that was it. She couldn’t be anything else but the Green Flash at Sunset. “

“And you loved it best of all your stones ?”

There was never one like it. I’d never known that green flash in a stone before. You had to watch for it. It was something that was rare, and you’d got to be ready for it. It was like no other green and if you missed it you might not get the opportunity again. “

“Did you never find out who took it 1’ I had my suspicions. In fact everything pointed to him, the

young devil. By God, if I could lay my hands on him . ” He seemed to be lost for words, which was rare with him, and he was for the moment unaware of me. I guessed he was back in that time when he had opened the box and found the opal gone.

I went over to him, took his cup and brought it over to refill it; and when I handed it back to him I said softly:

“How did it happen, Ben ?”

“It was here,” he said, ‘in this house. ” He pointed over his shoulder to the room we had just left.

“I hadn’t had the place long then. I was anxious to show it off for I had a great pride in it. It was more than just a house. Thafs how you’d feel about a place like this. I reckon your family felt it. Well, their loss was my gain. I used to have people to stay here because I wanted to say: ” Look what I’ve got. This is what all these years of toil and disappointments have got for me.

Success at last” Some of them had never seen a place like this. It was pride, pride going before a fall, as they say. Look what I’ve got.

Look at my mansion. Look at my opals. We went in there . ” He pointed to the study door. There were four of us and on this occasion I brought out my opals just as I have for you and that was the last I saw of the Green Flash at Sunset. I put her back in her box and put that in the safe. The next time I went there, the box was in its place all the opals were there except one-the Green Flash at Sunset.”

“Who had stolen it?”

“Someone who knew the combination of the safe. It must have been.”

“And didn’t you know who it was ? There was one young man. He disappeared. I never saw him again, although I searched for him. He was dearly the one who had the Green Rash.”

“What a wicked thing to do There are wicked people in the world.

Never forget it. Funny thing was, I’d never have thought it of him. He had that dedication, that determination which almost always ends in success. But when he set eyes on the Green Flash, that was his downfall. You see, there’ll never be another like her. She’s the Queen of Opals. The way you had to look for the flash and it never came for some, you see what I mean. And I’d lost her forever. “

“Surely the police could find him.” - “He was far away in next to no

time. Sometimes I tell myself that one of these days I’m going to find him and the Hash.”

“Do you think he sold it?”

“It wouldn’t have been easy. She’d have been recognized. Every dealer knew her and would have reported the sale. He may have taken her with him … just to keep her to himself. She had a terrible fascination for everyone who saw her. In spite of all the tales of bad luck, everyone who laid eyes on her wanted her.”

“What tales, Ben?8 ” Well, you know how these things get round. She was unlucky, they said. There’d been one or two people who’d owned her and misfortune had come to them. The Green Flash meant death they used to say. “

“So you didn’t find it in the first place, then ?”

“Oh dear me no. It had passed through other hands before mine. You might say I won it.”

“How did you do that?”

“I was always a bit of a gambler. Take a chance, that’s me. I’d always keep a reserve though. I’ve never gambled to my last coin, like some.