“Yes; I said.
“I know that.”
“I thought it would be a nice rounding off if I married her and brought her back to her old home. I thought we’d have children and my name would be on that family tree in the hall. I couldn’t see her in Australia, though … not like I can you. She was more delicate, fragile-like. Well, then Desmond came along. A handsome young fellow he was, with what I call the gift of the gab. A bit of a rogue too. Oh yes, I’ve got to tell you the truth. He’d roamed the world a bit and learned a few tricks. He was dead serious about his Fancy, though, and he’d got opal fever as bad as the rest of us. He was always one for the ladies and when he came down here to stay for a while to persuade me to invest in the Fancy and we waited for David Croissant to join us, he took up with your mother and in his way he was in love with her. She was innocent and believed all he told her. He might have married her. I reckon he would have, but he couldn’t, the way it turned out.
“I was mad with him … mad for his being young and handsome and having his way with women. Joss was here … home from school, agitating about not going back there, and he was learning a lot about opals. That brings me to the night when I showed them the Green Flash.
I saw the way it had got Desmond. He couldn’t take his eyes from it.
He picked it up, and I remember now how his fingers curled round it.
Desire! There’s no other word for it. Mad, demanding desire . like thirst in the desert, like food to the starving. You look sceptical, Jessie. That’s because you haven’t experienced it. But I saw it and I knew what the result would be, so I was ready. When I went to bed that night I left my door open and I sat fully dressed listening. Then I heard the sound of creeping footsteps so I came down to the study.
“He was there at the safe. He had the Flash in his hands. I said:
“What are you doing, Desmond Dereham?” He Just stared at me . white as these sheets. I said: “You’ve seduced little Jessica Clavering and now you’re trying to steal the Green Bash. And when you’ve got it what would you do? There’s only one thing you could do. Get out of here .. sharp … and leave her, eh. You’d desert her, wouldn’t you, for the sake of the Green Flash? Do you know, I. reckon you’re not fit to live.”
“Oh Ben,” I cried, ‘you killed my father! “
He shook his head.
"No . no . not that. Though I had a gun in my hand and would have done it too. But I thought, No. I don’t want this man’s life on my hands. It’s not worth lais was even m< it. So I said: “I’ve caught you red-handed. You’ll put that opal back in the safe where it belongs and you’re going to get out of here fast.
You’ll never show your face here or at the Fancy, for if you do I’ll expose you for the thief you are. Get out. Leave my house . now.
I’ll swear you’ve got your bags packed and are ready to leave. ” Oh, I was mad with him. I can’t tell you what restraint I had to put on myself to prevent my pulling the trigger. That would have been silly . messy … and wouldn’t have done me any good. So he put the opal back in the safe and I marched him back to his room. Sure enough, there were his bags … already packed. He planned to get the opal and clear out … like a thief in the night… which was what he was.”
“So you sent him away … away from my mother.”
“He would have been no good to her. He knew he’d have to keep out of the way if he’d got the Flash. He’d planned it all. He was going to take the opal and get out.”
“My poor mother!”
There’d been women in his life. Nothing had lasted. I knew this. I wanted him out of the way . for her sake. I didn’t know you were on the way then. That could have been different. “
“You said he had stolen the Green Bash.”
That's what I want to tell you. It was a pretence on my part. He’d gone . disappeared in the night. He wasn’t coming back. He wouldn’t dare face me for I’d let it be known that he was a would-be thief.
We’re very rigid in Australia. We have to be. There’s a rough and ready justice. We don’t tolerate thieves and we don’t tolerate murderers. We can’t. There’s too much to take care of. He was finished for the Fancy when I found him at the safe. He knew that and he had been ready to risk everything for the Green Flash. That was the effect it had on people. I thought then:
I’ll make people believe he’s got the Green Flash, then no one would seek to rob me of it. No one would ill-wish me with that certainty that misfortune was going to overtake me. I left soon after for Australia . taking the Green Flash with me. “
“Does Joss know this?”
“He does now because I’ve told him as I’ve told you. Believe me, Jessie, I’d have acted different if I’d known you were on the way … You don’t speak.”
“I fed so shocked.”
“It’s in the past. Your life is about to open out. You’re going to be happy. You’re going to have all your mother didn’t have. I promise you you’re going to find life a great adventure.”
I can’t think of the future. I can’t stop dunking of my mother. “
“You’ve got to forget all that.”
“I wonder where my father is.”
"He’d fall on his feet. he always did. “
“All those years you have allowed him to be suspected, and my poor mother…”
She should never have done what she did. “
“She was driven to it.”
No, Jess, we’re none of us driven. We act on our own free will, and if we find life too much to be borne, then dearly there’s no one to blame but ourselves. “
I turned my face away. I was going over it all, my father caught at the safe, Ben forcing him to get out. His belongings already packed, so he had meant to go with the Green Hash and leaving my poor little mother to bear me and then destroy herself.
Ben was caressing my hand.
“Don’t think badly of me, Jessie,” he said.
“I’ll not be here much longer, you know. I couldn’t bear there to be bitterness at the end.
I’m a violent man. I’ve lived dangerously. I don’t belong in a historic manor like this. I’ve had to fight throughout my life and it’s made me hard and strong and ruthless. Perhaps I don’t set so much store on morals as I should. In the Outback there were men who were ready to kill me for the Green Flash. Do you understand? Tell me you do understand. “
“Yes, I do understand, Ben.”
“And we’ve loved each other, haven’t we? Didn’t your life change when we met and wasn’t it for the better?”
“It did, and I love you, Ben.”
Then you’ll have learned something. When you love it’s not for rhyme nor reason. And whatever the loved one’s done makes no difference . not to true love. I don’t love you any less because I’m a wicked man on some days. I’m still the same old Ben, sentimental and loving where he gives his love, and when he gives it he gives it for good. “
“It’s true, Ben. I could never do anything but love you. I can’t bear to think of your not being here…”
“Never mind, never mind, because I’m not leaving your life empty.
There’s better coming into it than was ever there before. That’s what I’m going to promise you if you’ll listen to me, if you’ll take my advice. There’s a lot I know about human nature and that means I know you perhaps even better than you know yourself. I’m going to talk to you tomorrow. You’ve had enough for one day. You’re a gambler as I am, and you’re going to have to gamble a bit with life. I always have. You wouldn’t want to turn your face away from life. You wouldn’t want to live out your days in that dismal old Dower House, would you? “