“It’s a beautiful age,” he said.

“It’s an age when you ought to be setting out on your adventures. I reckon that’s what you want, eh? You come over and see me sometime .. that’s if you think it’s right and proper. Don’t you find life pretty dull, living as you must have done?”

I told him that I hadn’t found it dull. There was a lot to interest me in the country. I liked to visit people and we had done a good deal of that at Oakland. As the squire’s family we had had to see to the welfare of our tenants; our days had been divided into sections: lessons in the mornings, working on village affairs, sewing, talking, making some of our clothes, planning the dances we would have when we came out. Alas, we hadn’t come out into society-only out of Oakland and our old life. But I had never found it dull, and it was only when Mr. Henniker opened a new vista for me that I discovered how wonderful the old life had been. “What an escape those visits to Oakland Hall were …” I paused in my reading and stared at the grave before me, and I was beset by an uncanny notion that my life was repeating an old pattern. What had happened to Jessica was happening to me. I wanted to read on quickly, and yet I had to savour these events as I went. I felt it was important for me to know this Jessica, to see her life unfold before me; and that was what she wanted and was why she was telling me in such detail.

I went on reading:

“Of course I was deceiving the family, though I did confide a little in Miriam. I used to wish I could take her to Oakland with me. But I knew that if I were discovered there would be terrible trouble and I didn’t want her involved because she was younger than I and I felt responsible for her. Miriam was so easily led. When she was with me she would be ready for a certain amount of mischief; in the old days we had had a governess, a rather forceful lady who was secretly a Buddhist; Miriam was for a while in danger of becoming one too. When she was with Mama she would become snobbish and scornful of Papa for bringing us down in the world. I used to call her the Chameleon, for she took her colour from whatever rock she was resting on. Therefore I hesitated about taking Miriam with me. Instead I would satisfy myself by telling her of my adventures as we lay in bed at night. She would listen avidly and applaud what I did, but I knew that if Mama pointed out the wickedness of my actions she would immediately agree with her. She was not in the least devious-just incapable of having a view of her own. Malleable-that was the only way to describe her. When I watched Mrs. Cobb kneading the dough into cottage, wheat sheaf and farmhouse loaves I would say to myself: That is just like Miriam; she will go into whatever shape she is put. It was different with Xavier, but who would confide in him? He felt very deeply about our change in fortune and saw it as a disgrace to the family. He had loved Oakland and had naturally been brought up to believe it would be his one day; therefore he necessarily felt a sense of outrage since it had been taken from him, though he never abused Papa as Mama did; he was just sad and withdrawn. I used to feel very sad about Xavier, but of course I didn’t know him as I did Miriam.

“I’m digressing because I’m putting off what happened. I do want you to understand. Please don’t blame me and don’t blame Desmond. I met him at one of Mr. Henniker’s gatherings. I was frequently going to the house and it soon seemed to me more like home than the Dower House ever could be. Life was so miserable there, mainly because Mama could not stop baiting Papa. Sometimes I wondered whether he might do her an injury. He was so quiet and calm that I could imagine he was plotting against her, for there were times when I caught him looking at her oddly. There was a brooding tension in the house. I said to Miriam one night when we lay in bed: ” Something’s going to happen. You can feel it in the air. It’s as though Fate’s waiting to strike. ” Miriam used to get frightened and so did I. I little realized from what direction the blow would come.

“I was going more often to Oakland and getting really reckless. Mr. Henniker always welcomed me. Once when we were in the gallery I told him how I used to play the spinet and frighten the servants. He was very amused and thereafter asked me to play for him. He loved to sit there listening while I went through most of the Chopin waltzes. I used to think it would go on like this always, that Mr. Henniker would always be there and interesting people would come to the house. Then I learned that this was not so and Mr. Henniker’s stays at the house were brief. He had what he called ” a property” in New South Wales. Oakland Hall was just a fancy, ” a bit of folly if you like”, he said. He’d seen it when he was a boy and had vowed to have it, and he was a man who believed in sticking to his vows. I wish I could tell you how he interested me. I had never known anyone like him.”

She didn’t have to try to make me understand that. I knew well enough having experienced the same thing myself.

“As I was older than Miriam there had been a lot of talk about my coming out before we left Oakland. We had had little Minnie jobber making dresses for me and I had some lovely garments made. In particular there were two pretty ball dresses. I remember Mama’s looking at them when we knew we were going to leave Oakland and saying: ” You’ll never need them now. ” One was more beautiful than the other; it was in cherry-coloured silk trimmed with Honiton lace; it fell off the shoulders, and I had a pretty neck and shoulders. It had been cut in that style for the sole purpose of showing them.

“Poor neck, poor shoulders,” I used to say, “you will never be shown off now.”

“One could talk to Mr. Henniker about anything so I told him about the dress. It was strange that he-a miner really and I suppose a rough one-could understand how I felt about almost anything I mentioned. He said: ” You shall wear the cherry dress. After all, why should the world be deprived of a glimpse of your divine neck and shoulders just because your father was a gambler? We’ll have a ball and you shall bring cherry red to it. ” I said I would never dare and he answered:

“Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Never be afraid to dare.” Then he laughed and said he was a wicked man who was leading his neighbour’s daughter from the strait and narrow path. He laughed a good deal over that.

“Strait and narrow paths are so restricting. Miss Jessica,” he said.

“The wide open spaces are much more stimulating.”

“Well, I digress again. I didn’t intend to. At first I meant this to be a brief letter, but as soon as I took up my pen I felt impelled to write like this. I had to make you see it all. I didn’t want you to think I was just a wanton. It wasn’t like that at all.

There was a house party at Oakland. Ben Henniker often had them. His guests were mostly people who were in his business. They used to come bringing special stones to him. He bought them and sometimes sold them; there was a lot of talk about opals. I began to learn something of how they were mined and marketed and found it fascinating.

“He told me there was to be a ball and that I must come to it and be one of his guests. It was thrilling, but I knew I couldn’t put on my cherry red dress and walk out of the house in it, so Ben suggested that I smuggle cherry red (as he called it) into Oakland and then on the night of the ball slip over and change into it there. He would get one of the maids to help me dress. So this was arranged.

“What a night that was, for during it I met Desmond for the first time. I must make you see Desmond. Everyone was wrong about what happened afterwards. That is what I want you to understand more than anything. It couldn’t have been the way it seemed. It just wasn’t possible.

The gallery at Oakland looked beautiful with the musicians at one end and decorated with flowers from the greenhouses. It made a beautiful ballroom with the candles flickering in their sconces. It was like my coming out ball and that was what Mr. Henniker intended it to be. He once said: “I didn’t mind taking Oakland from your father-he took a gamble and lost. I’m glad I took it from your mother because she deserves to lose it. I sometimes feel a twinge when I see your brother looking so mournful, but he’s a young man and he should be seeing what he can do about getting it back, or some place like it. But for you.

Miss Jessica, I’m right down sorry. So now we’re going to have a ball. ” It was an enchanted evening. There had never been such an evening in the whole of my life and never will be again, for it was at the ball that night that I met Desmond.

“He was young … not much older than I, but twenty-one seemed a responsible age to me. It was not a crowded ballroom because Mr. Henniker had asked none of the people from the neighbourhood. He told me that he couldn’t ask them because they would know me and that might cause trouble.

This was to be my ball-the ball of the cherry red gown and the divine neck and shoulders, he told me. So there were the house guests only and Oakland must have been rather full at that time, for there were so many rooms which could be used for guests. Right from the first Desmond found me. He asked me to dance and we did. I wish you could see the gallery as it was that night. It was so beautiful . so romantic. I expect over the centuries there have been many balls there, but I was sure there was never one like that one. He was tall and fair-though his hair was considerably bleached by the sun. He had what I call Australian eyes, which meant that they were half closed and had thick lashes.

“Ifs the sun,” he told me.

“It’s brighter and hotter than here. You half shut your eyes against it and I expect nature provides the lashes as a protection.” He talked rather like Ben Henniker about opals. He was fanatical about them. He told me what he had found so far and what he intended to find. “There never has been anything so fine as the Green Flash at Sunset,” he told me.