The Pride of the Peacock (8 page)

I liked to be rich and then do my gambling from there, if you know what I mean. There was old Harry Wilkins who’d got this stone, and from the moment he showed it to me I wanted it. I’d fallen under its spell, you might say, and I was bent on getting it. Ill luck dogged Harry. They said it was the stone. His son had never been much good and one night he went out and never came back. He was found with his neck broken. He’d always drunk too much. Old Harry went to pieces after that. He was a great gambler. He’d take a bet on anything. A couple of raindrops falling down a window pane.

“I’ll bet you a hundred quid the right one gets to the bottom first,” he’d say. He just couldn’t help it. Well, I wanted that stone and it was about all he’d got because this son of his had robbed him right and left before he died. To cut a long story short he staked the Green Flash for a fortune. I took the gamble and won. He shot himself a few weeks later.

Disaster follows the Green Flash, they used to say. “

“And what about you ?”

“I wouldn’t believe in the curse.”

“You lost the stone so perhaps you escaped it ” One day she’ll be back where she belongs. “

You talk about the Green Hash as though she were a woman. “

That’s how she was to me. I loved her. I used to take herj out and look at her when I was downcast. I’d watch for the’ flash and I used to say to myself: “Times will change. You’ll;

find happiness as well as stones, old Ben. ” Thafs what she’s telling you.”

Suddenly it seemed as though he could no longer bear to talk of his loss and he started telling me of the days when he had been a young man and had done what he called ‘a bit of fossicking’ and how he had first felt the lure of the opal. Then he said he reckoned I’d like to see the house, and as he was not able to get around as fast as he’d like, he’d tell one of the servants to take me.

Much as I disliked leaving him, I did want to see the house, and as I hesitated-which seemed to please him-he said:

“You’ll come again. We must make a point of these meetings, for there’s one thing that’s certain sure. You and I have quite taken a fancy to each other. I hope you agree with my feelings.”

“Oh I do, and if I can come again and hear more, I’d love to see the house now.”

“Of course you would and so you shall. Then you can think what it would have been like if you’d lived your life here as you would have done if one of these get-rich-quick johnnies hadn’t come along and grabbed the ancestral home.”

“I shall always be glad of that now,” I assured him, and he looked very pleased.

He pulled a bell-rope and Wilmot appeared immediately.

“Miss dave ring would like to see the house,” said Ben.

“One of you must show her round.”

“Very good, sir,” murmured Wilmot.

“Just a minute,” cried Ben.

“Let Hannah do it. Yes, Hannah’s the one.”

“As you say, sir.”

I went to Ben’s chair and took his hand. Thank you. I have enjoyed it so much. May I really come again? 4 Next Wednesday. Same time. “

Thank you. “

His face looked strange for a second. If he had been anyone else I should have said he was about to cry. Then he said:

“Off with you. Hannah will show you round.”

I wondered why he had selected Hannah. She was the one who interested me most She was a tall, spare woman with rather gaunt features and large dark eyes which seemed to

bore right into me. She was clearly gratified that she was the one who had been chosen to show me round.

“I was with your family for five years,” she told me.

“I came here when I was twelve years old. Then I stayed on, and when they went they couldn’t afford to keep me.”

That happened with so many, I’m afraid. “

“Would you care to start at the top of the house. Miss Clavering, and work down?”

I said I thought that seemed an excellent idea, and together we climbed the newel staircase to the roof.

“You can see the turrets best from up here. And look what a fine view of the countryside.” She looked at me intently. There’s a good view of the Dower House. “

I followed the direction in which she was looking and there it was nestling among the trees and the greenery. The house looked like a doll’s house from here. The clean lines of its architecture were very obvious and the smooth lawn looked like a neat square of green silk. I could see Poor jar man working on the flowerbeds.

“You have a better view of us than we have of you,” I commented.

“In summer Oakland House is completely hidden.”

“I often come up here and look round,” said Hannah.

“You must have seen us in the garden now and then.”

Oh, often. “

I felt a little uneasy at having been watched by Hannah.

“Do you prefer it now to the days when my family were here?”

She hesitated, then she said: “In some ways. Mr. Henniker goes away a lot and we have the place to ourselves. It seems funny that … at least it did at first, but you get used to most things. He’s easy to work for.” I could see that she was implying that my mother was not.

“Miss Miriam was only a girl when she lived here,” she went on.

That was a long time ago. Before I was born. “

They won’t be pleased to hear you’ve been here. Miss, I reckon. “No, they won’t,” I agreed and added: “If they find out.”

Mr. Henniker is a very strange gentleman. “

“Unlike anyone I’ve ever known,” I agreed.

“Well, you just think of the way he came here. Who’d have thought a gentleman like that would take a place like this?”

We were silent for a while contemplating the view. My eyes kept going back to the Dower House. Poor Jarman had

5i

straightened himself up as Maddy came out and started io| talk to him.

I was amused that unbeknown to them I could I watch them. I Shall we go in now. Miss dave ring suggested Hannah, ‘y I nodded and we descended the circular stairs and entered , a room-I admired the moulded beams of the ceiling, the ;

panelled walls and the carved fireplace.

There are so many rooms like this that you lose count of them,” said Hannah.

“We don’t use them all even when there’s a house party.”

“Is there often a house party?”

“Yes, gentlemen come to talk business with Mr. Henniker. At least that’s how it was. I don’t know if it will be the same since his accident.”

“I suppose they come about opals.”

“All sorts of business Mr. Henniker’s engaged in. He’s a very rich gentleman. That’s what we say is so good about being here … in the servants’ hall, I mean. There’s never all this talk about economizing, and wages come prompt, not …”

“Not like it was when my family was here.”

Most of the gentry have their money troubles, it seems. I’ve talked to others in houses like this. But someone like Mr. Henniker . well, he’s got to have a lot of money to buy the place, hasn’t he, so it stands to reason he can afford to keep it up-not like someone inheriting it and finding it’s a drain. “

“I see that it must be a great comfort to work for Mr. Henniker after my family.”

“It’s all so different. Mr. Wilmot’s always saying it’s not what he’s used to, and I reckon he sometimes hankers for a house with more dignity. But it’s nice to know your wages are there … on the dot just when they’re due, and there doesn’t have to be all this pinching and scraping. He never locks up the tea or anything like that … never asks to see Mrs. Bucket’s accounts, but I reckon he’d know fast enough if there was any fiddling.”

We had come to a gallery.

“Once,” she went on, ‘there were pictures of the family all along here. They were taken away, and Mr. Henniker never put up pictures of his own. A gallery’s not a gallery without pictures of the family, Mr. Wilmot says, but we don’t know much about Mr. Henniker’s. “

The gallery was beautiful, with carved pillars and long i narrow

windows, the stained glass of which threw a lovely glow over the place. There were curtains of rich velvet at intervals round the walls. They hid the part which wasn’t panelled, Hannah explained.

They say this is haunted,” she told me. There always has to be one haunted room in a house like this. Well, this is it. No one’s seen or heard anything since Mr. Henniker’s been here. He’d frighten any ghost away, I reckon. They used to say that they could hear music here coming from the spinet that was once there. Mr. Henniker had it shipped out to Australia. It meant something special to him, I heard. Mrs. Bucket says it’s a lot of fancy. Mr. Wilmot believes it though, but then he’d think that any family that didn’t have a ghost wouldn’t be fit for him to work for.”

“But he works for Mr. Henniker now.”

“It’s something of a sore point.”

We went on with our tour of exploration and, as Hannah had said, there were so many rooms of the same kind that it would be easy to lose oneself. I hoped that if I visited Mr. Henniker frequently I should be able to see it all again and enjoy exploring at my leisure. Hannah was not the most comfortable of guides because whenever I looked at her I would find her eyes fixed on me as though she were assessing me. I put this down to > the fact that I was a member of the family she had once served. However, I couldn’t stop thinking of her looking down on to the Dower House and watching me.

I admired the carved fireplaces which had been put in during Elizabeth’s reign; their theme was scenes from the Bible, and I picked out Adam and Eve and Lot’s wife being turned into a pillar of salt and felt very ignorant when others had to be explained to me.

I thought the solarium delightful, with its windows facing south and its walls covered in tapestry, which had no doubt been sold to Ben Henniker by my family, and I pictured my mother pacing up and down here in the gallery while they discussed how they could possibly go on living here.

Finally we came down to the hall and passed through a vestibule to what Hannah called the Parlour.

“In the very old days,” she explained, ‘this was where guests were received. ” The walls were panelled, the windows leaded, and there was a suit of armour in a corner.

“Right at the other end are the kitchens with the buttery and pantry and that sort of thing. That’s the Screens end of the hall. You’ll want

to see them. Some of them go right back to the days when the house was built and that was long enough ago, goodness knows. “

She led me back across the hall to what she called the Screens a door which shut off the servants’ quarters from the hall and I was in a vast kitchen. An enormous fireplace took up almost the whole of one side. In this were bread ovens, roasting spits and great cauldrons. There was a big table with two benches, one on either side;

two armchairs-wide and ornate were placed at each end of the table, and I later learned that one of these was occupied by Mrs. Bucket and the other by the butler, Mr. Wilmot.

As I entered the kitchen I was aware of whispering voices. I knew that I was being watched from some vantage point.

A large woman came smiling into the kitchen followed by three maids.

Hannah said: This is Miss dave ring Mrs. Bucket. “

“How do you do. Mis Bucket,” I replied.

“I have heard of you.”

“Is that so?” she’ asked pleased.

“Maddy who is with us often mentions you.”

“Ah, Maddy, yes. Well, Miss Qavering, this a great day for us to have one of the Family here.”

“It is wonderful for me to be here.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Bucket, ‘perhaps this is going to be a beginning.

”

I felt a little embarrassed because they were all assessing me. I wondered whether they were thinking that a Clavermg who had been brought up in a Dower House was not quite a true one. After all, I had never known the grandeurs of a house like this.

“I’ll never forget the day the Family told us they were going. Lined up in the Hall we were … even the stable boys.”

Hannah was signalling to Mrs. Bucket, but I blessed the plump cook for I could see that she was one who could not stop herself talking and that the sight of me in the kitchen -a dave ring-had brought back such memories that she could not stop herself recalling them.

“Of course, we’d heard it before. Money, money, money … It was affecting people all over the place. There was talk of this income tax and how it was ruining everybody. They’d ;

already cut down in the stables. The horses they had when;

I first came here! And the gardeners! That’s where the cuts | always

have to come first . the stables and the gardens. I’ said as much to Mr. Wilmot, which he will tell you is the truth if you will ask him. I said to him. “

“It’s a long time ago, Mrs. Bucket,” interrupted Hannah.

“It seems like yesterday. Why at that time you wasn’t born, Miss Clavering. When we heard that a gentleman coming from Australia had bought the place, we couldn’t believe it. You ask Mr. Wilmot. But it was so, and then it was all different and the dave rings went to the Dower House and we wasn’t on speaking terms. And now…”

“Miss Clavering has become acquainted with Mr. Henniker,” said Hannah firmly, ‘so he asked her to tea with him. “

Mrs. Bucket nodded.

“And did you enjoy the scones. Miss Clavering? I always remember Miss Jessica…”

Hannah was staring at Mrs. Bucket as though she were Medusa herself. I could see that she was imploring her to be discreet.

But I was not going to allow that. I said: “Miss Jessica? Who was she?”

“Mrs. Bucket meant Miss Miriam. She loved the scones. Don’t you remember, Mrs. Bucket, how she’d come down to the kitchen while you were baking them?”

“She said Miss Jessica,” I insisted.

“She gets muddled sometimes over names, don’t you, Mrs. Bucket? This is Miss Jessica. It was Miss Miriam and Mr. Xavier who used to love your scones. I reckon that Mrs. Cobb’s are not a patch on yours.”

“Nobody’s was a patch on mine,” said Mrs. Bucket emphatically.

“I thought they were delicious,” I said, but I was asking myself why she had said Miss Jessica.

Hannah asked quickly if I would like to see the stables. I said I thought I’d better not, for it had just occurred to me that though my visits were supposed to be secret, some of the servants would certainly talk, so the fewer I saw the better. I could imagine my family’s consternation if it was discovered that I had become friends with Ben Henniker. I was seventeen years old, still a minor and I had to obey orders to a certain extent, rebel that I was. It was therefore better for the time being to keep my visits as secret as possible and the fewer people I saw the better.