The Pride of the Peacock

  “I don’t think it was Jeremy Dickson.”

  “I saw his letter. Lilias brought it to me.”

  “Lilias! Where did she get it from?”

  “She found it in your room. Like you, she doesn’t believe he wrote it. Thank God she had the sense to bring it to me without too much delay. I went straight to the mine because I guessed he meant you some harm.”

  “He was not there. It was just that I began to feel so strange.”

  “You felt strange because you were poisoned. Jeremy Dickson sent you into that mine because he knew just what would happen. Now we’ve got to find out why he wanted to kill you. People hereabouts know that nobody goes into mines that have been disused for a long period without first expelling the poisonous gases. There are several ways of doing it. You should have seen that your candle didn’t stay alight.”

  “I did.”

  “That was a warning. It meant…get out quickly. There are pockets of poisonous gases down there. We’ve searched the place now. There’s no sign of Dickson. He was never there. No one was there…but you.”

  “So people went down after I came up?”

  “We had made it safe by lighting dry bracken and throwing it down. The descending blaze changes the temperature, stirs up the currents of fresh air in the shaft and so drives out the poison. Then we give it the candle test, and if the flame stays we say it’s safe to go down. Dickson lured you there for some reason. I’m going to find out what.”

  “It was something to do with the Green Flash. I had talked to him about it.”

  “Why not to me?”

  “You had other interests.”

  “What nonsense.”

  There was silence for a few moments; then he said: “There was something you said when I brought you out. You said: ‘So you came to kill me. So it was you, Joss…’ That was what you said.”

  “I spoke my thoughts aloud.”

  “You really believed that of me. Oh my God, this farce has gone on long enough.”

  “Why shouldn’t I believe it? It fitted. You got rid of Ezra. I thought it was my turn…”

  He stared at me incredulously. “Don’t you understand anything,” he said with the old contempt.

  “I understand that you hated me…you avoided me…you humiliated me whenever possible.”

  “What did you expect me to do? Didn’t you avoid me…humiliate me by your constant assurance that you wanted me out of your way.”

  “Because I didn’t fall victim to your virility…”

  “I can see you have a lot to learn, and it’s not about opals. Get well quickly. I have to start to teach you right away.”

  I half rose in my bed and he took me by the shoulders and kissed me.

  “Joss,” I began, “there’s so much…”

  But neither of us wanted explanations then.

  At length he said: “Ben was right. I realized that pretty soon. I was waiting for you to come and tell me.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?”

  “Too proud,” he replied. “I wanted it to come from you. Many times at night I’ve come to your bedroom door. Once I almost burst in.”

  “I know. I heard you. I thought you’d come to murder me.”

  “You’re crazy,” he retorted. “I’ll have a lot to say to you. Just now you’ve had a shock. We might have gone on and on like this, but when you asked me if I’d come to kill you that was the end of it. I plot to kill my own wife…the only wife I ever wanted!”

  “Say that again.”

  He did, and I cried: “Why didn’t you tell me before? Didn’t you know it was what I wanted to hear more than anything else?”

  “What a deceiver you are! You made me feel you were trying to get away from me all the time. Now you’re getting excited. You mustn’t. You came very close to death in that old mine. It has its effect. Perhaps you’ll wake up tomorrow morning and find you still hate me.”

  “Don’t talk of hate…talk of love,” I begged.

  “I will…endlessly…when you’ve rested. Don’t forget I’m in command. You’ve had a great shock and you need to stay here quietly.”

  “Will you stay with me?”

  “I will, but you must lie still and rest. Just lie there thinking of two foolish people who have said good-bye to their folly and are now going to wake up and live.”

  I felt light-headed, as I had in the underground passages of the mine; but with a difference. This was not the delirium of fear but of joy.

  ***

  I must have slept a long time, for it was midmorning when I awoke. Joss was sitting by my bed watching me.

  “You’re better now,” he told me. “You’ve had a good night’s sleep. You’ve cast off the effects of the poison, but you’ll have to go quietly for a day or two.”

  “There’s so much we have to say.”

  “We’ve a long time to say it.”

  “Just tell me one thing: Is it really true that you care about me?”

  “It’s the truest thing that ever happened.”

  “Yet you were planning to go to England with Isa Bannock.”

  “When I go to England you’re coming with me.”

  “Why did you pretend…?”

  “Because I wanted to goad you. I wanted you to show some feeling for me.”

  “You seemed so involved with her.”

  “I’ve only been involved with one woman since I married. The rest was pretense to try to break through her indifference.”

  “You gave her a magnificent opal.”

  “Why did you think I did that?”

  “Because she wanted it and you were so besotted by her and wanted to please her at all cost. You liked to show her what an important man you were. She only had to express a wish for you to grant it.”

  “Wrong again. I gave it to her because I knew you’d hate it. I thought it might show you how foolishly you were acting and arouse some feeling in you. I thought it might be a first step towards sanity…”

  “Rather an expensive step.”

  “Anything that brought about that state couldn’t have been too expensive.” Then he turned to me and kissed me fiercely. “That’s what I mean by sanity.”

  “You have changed…changed overnight. Because I go down into a mine…”

  “Because I came near to losing you I made up my mind I was going to keep you and make you understand.”

  “Why didn’t we talk before?”

  “We did nothing else but talk. In fact I think we got rather fascinated by all those verbal fireworks. Time and time again I was on the point of pushing all that aside and being the primitive male.”

  “Which I believe you are.”

  “You’ll discover,” he replied. “But just now you have to recover from a rather shattering experience. You think you have already, but the shock was great. I want you to stay quietly in the house for the rest of the day.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To find Jeremy Dickson. He’s concerned in this, and I want to know the meaning of that letter.”

  “Lilias said it wasn’t his handwriting.”

  “Lilias is trying to defend him. He’s somewhere in the neighborhood, and I’m sending people out to look for him. I was waiting for you to wake up so that I could tell you this and where I was going.”

  “I cannot believe this of Jeremy Dickson.”

  “One can never believe these things of the people who do them. That’s why they get away with them…up to a point.”

  “You really believe he sent that letter, don’t you? Why should he want me dead? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “That’s what we have to find out. I’ve sent off parties in all directions. I’m going off now and taking Jimson with me.”

  “Do you think he had anything to do with the purse
?”

  “What purse?”

  “Ezra’s. I found it in the orchard…buried there.”

  “You couldn’t have.”

  “I did and later someone took it from my room.”

  He was puzzled. I had an idea that he thought the poisonous gases had made me a little light-headed.

  He said: “We’ll talk about all that later. I just wanted to make sure you were all right before I went.” His eyes blazed for a moment. “I can’t forget,” he went on, “that you might have died in that mine…believing that I wanted to kill you.”

  “It’s over now,” I answered. “What I’m remembering now is that you risked your life to save me.”

  He grinned, his old self again. “I just had to,” he said. “It was pure selfishness, for what good would the mine have been to me without you?”

  I felt then that I had reached the summit of happiness.

  Joss became brisk. “You’re to have a restful day. I’m going to leave you in the care of Mrs. Laud and I’ll be back before sundown.”

  Then he took me into his arms and held me as though he would never let me go, and I was content to remain there.

  He said: “If Ben were looking down…or up from wherever he is…he’d be pleased with himself. I reckon he’s laughing in the way we remember so well and saying: ‘I told you so.’”

  Then he kissed me again and again.

  “Till sundown.”

  The Green Flash

  I rose in a leisurely way, washed, and dressed. I was still feeling a little dazed. Mrs. Laud came to my room to see how I was.

  “Not at all bad,” I answered. “Just a little tired.”

  “It’s to be expected after what happened. What would you like to eat?”

  “I’ll wait for luncheon.”

  “Come to my room and I’ll make a cup of tea.”

  “That would be nice,” I said.

  “Come up when you’re ready. I’ll go and put the kettle on.”

  Within five minutes I was knocking at her door.

  “Do come in. You look so much better. The tea’s all ready. I’ve poured out.”

  “What a cozy room this is,” I said.

  “I always thought so. Mr. Henniker used to like to come in for a cup of tea.”

  I sat down in the chair she had pulled up to the table with the plush runner. Her workbox was open, and a piece of needlework lay on the table.

  “Oh Mrs. Madden, what bad luck you’ve had lately. First you nearly fall down the stairs and then you get into that mine. It looks like bad luck, doesn’t it? People will be saying you must have taken the Green Flash and this is the result of it.”

  I sipped the tea, which was refreshingly warming.

  “People will say anything.”

  “That’s a fact, they will. But it was bad luck, wasn’t it?…first one and then the other. I’d like to know what that Jeremy Dickson thought he was up to. How’s the tea?”

  “It’s very good, thank you.”

  “Drink it up and I’ll give you another cup. I always say there’s nothing like a nice cup of tea.”

  “There’s a good deal in that.”

  “They’re regular tea drinkers out here…every bit as much as we are at Home. Let me give you that other cup.”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Laud.”

  “Do you feel rather sleepy?”

  “I feel a little…strange.”

  “I thought you did somehow. The house is quiet now, isn’t it? Do you know we’re the only ones here. Everybody’s out. They’ve all gone on this wild goose chase. All except two of the girls and I said they could ride into the town and get some goods for me. They’re both friendly with gougers there.” She chuckled. “I reckon they won’t hurry back.”

  Then I noticed that she was watching me very intently and that there was a strange gleam in her eyes.

  “I’m going to show you something before you go,” she said.

  “Show me something…before I go…where?”

  “It’s in my workbox. There’s a little secret drawer. You remember that night…the Treasure Hunt? That Ezra…he knew. I could see the look in his eyes that something had led him to my workbox.”

  I tried to stand up but I couldn’t. My legs seemed as though they were not part of my body.

  “Don’t try to go yet. You’ll want to see this. I had it since he went away. Mr. Henniker couldn’t have been far out at sea when I found it. I was always particular about the spring cleaning. You can’t trust those servants. There was always a lot I liked to do myself. I was always very fond of that picture. Mr. Henniker used to like it. He said it reminded him of Joss, and he had a way of looking at it and laughing to himself, and it struck me that there was something rather special about it. That was why I paid such special attention to it. I found the spring, and then I knew it was meant. That was how it happened.” She leaned forward, her arms on the table. “There’s something inside it, something that’s alive…a living god. Do you remember Aladdin’s lamp? Well, it’s like that, you see. The genie is there and it does your bidding.”

  I said: “You’re talking about the Green Flash at Sunset, Mrs. Laud.”

  “Yes,” she answered. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

  “Are you telling me that you had it all the time?”

  She started to laugh. A change had come over her yet again. It was as though she had been impersonating someone at a masque and now it was the time for the unmasking. I had never known this woman. No wonder I had felt that she was like the chorus in a Greek play—she and her family. She was no longer the mild housekeeper so grateful to have become the master’s mistress and found shelter for herself and her family all those years. She was someone else. But perhaps the mild housekeeper was the real person and that it was another which looked out at me from those wild eyes. She was possessed.

  She repeated: “You shall see it before you go. I want you to see it. I shall never forget the moment when I found it at the back of that picture and it just burst on me…all that brilliance, all that power. ‘I’m yours,’ it said to me. ‘Keep me. I’ll work for you. Anything you want will be yours.’ I wasn’t going to keep it at first. I was just going to have it in my room and look at it. I used to wake up in the night and remember I’d got it. I’d get out of bed and look at it. And then I started to see that I could do anything I wanted because the Green Flash would give it to me.”

  “Show it to me, Mrs. Laud,” I said quietly.

  She drew the workbox towards her and fumbled there. I have never seen a miser counting his gold, but I could imagine what he would look like and that was as Mrs. Laud looked at that moment. Her face changed again; her mouth twitched and her eyes blazed. I thought: She really is mad. The Green Flash has driven her mad.

  She took out a mass of cotton wool; her fingers shook as she unwrapped it. Then she took something in the palms of her hands and crooned over it as a mother might over a baby.

  She leaned across the table and there it lay in all its fabulous glory, the most magnificent opal of all time, the stone which had shaped my destiny, the unlucky one, the most beautiful jewel I had ever or would ever see in my life.

  It is impossible to put into words the qualities of that stone. I can say it was large…even larger than I had expected it to be; even with my sparse knowledge I knew that it was perfect in every way. I can say that there was the deep blue of a tropical sea and the lighter blue of a cloudless sky, and the glint of red was like shafts of sunlight breaking over the sea. But this does not convey the utter fascination, the aura, the living quality. It had life; it changed as one looked. I was feeling more and more dizzy and hazy and it really seemed to me that I could lose myself in that scintillating color, drown in that deep deep blue sea. It had a power, that stone; a subtle emanation came from it. It was magnetic and I could not stop myself
reaching out to take it.

  “Oh no you don’t,” she said. “You think you’re going to take it from me, don’t you? You think you’ve found it at last. I tell you this, Mrs. Madden, I’m only showing it to you, that’s all. I thought you should see it before you died.”

  “Before…I died…?”

  “Feel sleepy, don’t you? It won’t hurt. You won’t know anything. It was something I put in your tea…nice, peaceful sleep, that’s all. Look at my hands. They’re strong. You’ve got a little neck. I’ve often looked at it. It’ll be easy. I know just where to press. But I’ll wait until you’re fast asleep. I don’t like hurting things…so it’s better that way. You’ll know nothing about it.”

  I could feel the hair rising on my scalp, and it was because she spoke so quietly in such a matter of fact way that was so sinister. It was only when she mentioned the Green Flash that her hysteria became apparent. I was alone in this house with a mad woman. I had not really taken her seriously until I had seen the Green Flash. Then I knew that she was indeed mad. She had put a sleeping draught into my tea; and I was going to get more and more drowsy under its influence.

  I wondered if I could make a dash for the door, but my limbs were already leaden. I kept thinking: Alone in the house…everybody gone…alone with a woman who is mad.

  She was looking down at her hands…those hands which were waiting to strangle me…but not till I slept, so I must not sleep. I must keep awake. I must find some way of outwitting her.

  I said: “You play the spinet well, Mrs. Laud.”

  It was eerie—the manner in which she slipped from the malevolent personality of the murderess to that of the homely housekeeper.

  “Oh yes, I used to play for Mr. Henniker. He told me about this Jessica who was your mother. I didn’t like that much, because I was fond of Mr. Henniker myself. He had this fancy about playing and her coming back. So I played for him and he said it reminded him of her.”

  “And then you played for me?”

  “You started to pry, didn’t you? As soon as you got back you did. You always had your eyes open and you were looking for the Green Flash. I knew that. I got wonderful ideas from the power that’s there. I was there when you looked with Mr. Madden and later with Mr. Dickson. I watched you take down ‘The Pride of the Peacock.’ I didn’t want Lilias to marry Jeremy Dickson. I wanted Mr. Madden for her. That was a fancy of mine. I guessed Mr. Henniker would leave him the Green Flash and then it would be partly hers. But no, it was mine. Never mind Lilias…because you’d come then and you’d have to be got rid of. I didn’t want Lilias to have it even. It was mine and I wanted to keep it.”