Виктория Холт - The Pride of the Peacock

“I mean the whole family of us … living here and enjoying so many privileges.”

“I believe it is what Mr. Henniker would have wished.”

“Oh yes, he remembered us in his will. He was always fond of Jimson and Lilias. They were only children when we came here … Lilias nothing more than a baby. I will always be grateful to him. I was at my wits’ end. Jim-that was my husband-had been so close to me. I had thought it was a mistake to come out to Australia but Jim wanted to.

Then he died and there was I. homeless, penniless and Mr. Henniker came along. “

“It worked out very well, then.”

"Yes, it did for all those years. Then he died and I thought there’d be changes and when Mr. Madden came back with a wife. “

"You were all amazed, I know. But don’t worry. I’m very glad that you are here. I don't think I should do without you. “

She seemed overcome with emotion and said in a practical voice:

“Perhaps I could show you the draft of the invitations I’m sending to Sydney to get done. They’re the same every year.”

“Don’t bother to show me. just go ahead as you always have. I I’m sure that’s best.”

She looked at me so anxiously that I went on: “I’m really more interested in learning the affairs of the Company than running a house, Mrs. Laud.”

“You’re a very unusual lady. I realize that. I think you are the kind who will master what you set out to do. ”

” I hope so, Mrs. Laud,” I said. Then she went and left me with my thoughts.

I could not sleep that night. I kept thinking about that moment when Isa had unrolled the case and revealed the  Harlequin Opal. He had known that she was going to show it to me. He had given her permission to do so. It occurred to me that he had taken me there for that purpose. It was tan tv amount to an act of defiance.

It meant: I don’t care for you any more than you care for me. And yet I fancied he did not like my growing friendship with Jeremy Dickson. How dared he resent something so a, innocent when his relations with Isa were far from innocent! And what did Ezra think? Was he prepared to stand aside for Joss because of the power Joss held with the Company? I What sort of husband was he? He seemed equally besotted ready to grant her every wish. What was the power she had over them? Hers was an evil sort of beauty. She was what was known as a siren, the sort who would lure men to destruction when all the time they knew that would be their end but they couldn’t resist it. I was more upset than I would have believed possible, but the revelation was clear. In spite of everything I had allowed myself to be caught up in some sort of fascination. While I hated him, I wanted him to be near me, to take my hands, to laugh at me, to thrust aside my resistance.  What had happened to me?

If it had not been for Isa . But what was the use of saying that? Isa was there. She existed. It had taken my jealousy to reveal the true state of my feelings.

I dozed fitfully and dreamed we were all sitting round the table and Isa unrolled the case and showed us the Harlequin Opal.

“Look at it,” she said, and I looked into the fire that extended all across the table and in it I could see pictures. I saw myself and Joss and Joss was saying: “Of what use are you to me? You are no wife. I don’t want you. I want Isa. You are in the way. If you weren’t here the Green Flash would be mine. You’re in the way … in the way …”

I felt his hands about my throat and I awoke calling out.

I lay in the darkness trembling.

It was only a dream, I assured myself. But as I lay in the darkness the thought came to me that the dream was a warning. There was something strange about Peacocks. If Ben had been here it would have been different He would have blown draughts of fresh air through the place, blowing away . I knew’ not what.

How I longed for Ben. I could have explained to him how I felt. The Lauds with their meek unobtrusiveness were pale shadows of people, and it seemed to me that all of them were living two lives-the real one which I didn’t see and the shadow one which I did. Both Jimson and Lilias seemed afraid of their mother . not exactly afraid . protective, was it? I suppose that was natural, and yet. And then as I lay there I heard the sound of footsteps outside my door as I had heard them before. Someone was prowling out there . right outside my door now. I got out of bed and sat on it, watching the door. I had locked it as I always did.

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.

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 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 them as he was to me. In fact, I thought ruefully, perhaps a little more considerate.

I was trying not to think of him, but I couldn’t help it. Every time I heard his voice I felt excited, 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 his affairs with his wife?

I couldn’t believe that. I thought of his affection for Wattle 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 our characters.

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

I had learned that he did not like my being in the company of Jeremy Dickson. He did not say so and I longed for him 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.