Lilias said: “Excuse me,” and scuttled out.
“She’s like a frightened rabbit,” he said.
“You look rather formidable.”
He regarded himself in the mirror, approvingly, I thought. His eyes met mine and he smiled.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said.
“Peacock!”
“It’s the right colour. Do you know, I’ve never heard any but Ben call you by that name.”
They do it behind my back. They wouldn’t think of using it before my loving wife. They would think she might find it offensive. I collected the name when I was a boy. I used to strut round with the peacocks and I was rather fond of myself. “
“An endearing quality which you haven’t lost.” Why did I have to continue in this strain? I asked myself. I suppose the fact was that I was afraid of betraying my true feelings.
He smiled at me ironically.
“So you admire my pride, my arrogance, my conceit. It makes me so happy to please you in some way.”
It was hard to meet his eyes for I feared to reveal the true state of my feelings. The time was not ripe. His complacency would be intolerable. I had a horror of his going to Isa and telling her that I had at last succumbed to his attractions and that I was going to be a good and docile wife in future.
He had caught me by the shoulders and turned me round so that we were standing side by side looking at our reflections in the mirror.
“We’re a good match, you must agree. A handsome pair. You’re not exactly displeased with your appearance, are you? Is there a bit of the peacock in you?”
“I hope that people will share my good opinion,” I retorted. The difference is that you don’t care whether they like yours or not.
That’s the peacock element. “
“How clever of you to discover that. I believe you’re beginning to learn something about me at last. “
“I think I know a little.”
“A little knowledge, they say, can be a dangerous thing.”
“I’ll keep out of danger.”
“Don’t be too sure of that’ This is a very cryptic conversation.”
“Ours is a very cryptic relationship.”
Perhaps it won’t remain so,” I said. and I wondered if he noticed the little catch in my voice.
“Nothing remains static, I’ve heard.“ A great impulse came to me then to tell him that I wanted to change everything. I wanted us to see more of each other. I wanted him to tell me everything about his true relationship with Isa and how deep it went. I wanted to say: ” Let us give ourselves a chance to make something of our lives. ” One little sign from him and I should have done so.
I said on impulse: “I understand it’s the lady’s privilege to choose her partner for the treasure hunt. I suppose I should choose you.”
It sounded ungracious-as though I didn’t want to, as though I regarded it as a duty when all the time I wanted to say: I want to be with you.
I want us to walk through this house hand in hand, searching for the treasure which will be symbolic in a way . searching for that happiness which we can only find together.
A few seconds passed when everything seemed to be silent . watching . an important moment. I had taken the first step and this could be a beginning. I saw a fierce light in those dark blue eyes as they came to rest on my bare shoulders fleetingly, almost cares singly and my heart beat fast.
Then he said: “My dear, there is no need to choose me. In fact it would hardly be right. Suppose we found the treasure? They would think it was collusion.”
I felt deflated. I knew of course that he had already allowed Isa to choose him.
“It’s time we went down to greet the guests,” he said.
We stood side by side in the hall and received them as they arrived.
People whom I had not met before shook my hand warmly, congratulated me on my marriage and welcomed me to Fancy Town. They were noisy, friendly people all out for an evening’s enjoyment-the high spot of the year, the greatest of Ben Henniker’s circuses.
The prize, as usual, was two opals which had been found in the Fancy field, cut, polished and recognized to be of fan-value.
“It’s not the opals themselves which are so important,” one of the wives told me.
“It’s the fact of winning. Everyone wants the honour of having solved the clues first.”
There was one fair-haired young woman who came to talk to me and told me that she was glad her baby had arrived in time to let her come to the treasure hunt. The baby, with his young brother, was in the charge of her elder sister who herself was too heavily pregnant to come.
“It’s the luck,” she told me. Treasure hunt opals are always lucky.
That’s what people say. They must be to the ones who find them, because that’s luck, isn’t it? That’s one reason why people want them.
They really are lucky. “
The buffet was attacked with gusto and after people had eaten their fill the hunt began.
“All ladies must take their partners,” announced joss.
I felt sick with misery for I saw Isa with her arm through that of Joss. She looked beautiful, of course, in one of her tawny brown and yellow gowns touched with green-a mass of silk, ribbons and lace. She wore a band of topaz in her hair which was like a tiara and it brought out the strange colour of her eyes. Predatory, prowling, very much the jungle cat that night.
“I’ve taken your husband,” she cried with a hint of malice in her voice.
“I hope you won’t mind.”
“I’m sure he doesn’t,” I answered.
Joss was watching me closely, an unfathomable expression in his eyes.
Ezra stood by sheepishly.
“He made no objection,” retorted Isa.
Then perhaps I’d better retaliate by taking yours. “
Ezra beamed on me.
“Why, that’s wonderful,” he said. There was I wondering who would ever choose me and the beautiful hostess herself comes along. “
Tm sure you’ll be very good at solving the clues,” I said.
“I’m going to do my best to win with you, Jessica.”
We’ll work together,” I told him.
I heard Isa’s laughter and saw her white hands with their long claw-like fingers on Joss’s arms as I turned away with Ezra.
Mrs. Laud handed out the first clue. Like her daughter, she was dressed in grey but instead of moss roses she wore touches of white. Jimson was at her side. I think he had been hoping I would ask him to partner me. I noticed Lilias looking almost gay with Jeremy Dickson.
The game was the old English one which most people had played before. I was one of those who had not. We did not indulge in such frivolities in the Dower House, but I imagined the rest of the family must have had similar occasions in the Oakland days. Players were given a due to start with which led them to the next; they kept their clues which were written on small pieces of paper and the first to collect the entire set was the winner.
The first was traditionally easy to give everyone a start and interest in the game.
It was something like:
“You have come to pay a call.
Take a drink beside the wall.”
This meant, of course, that it was the hall where callers, would come on their arrival and there was a large pewter punch bowl on a table close to the wall. The second clues were in this.
Then the real hunt began.
We found the second in the drawing-room and the next led us upstairs and it occurred to me that on occasions like this when there were so many people in the house, it could have been possible for one of them to have come upon the hidden Green Hash. How ironical it it had been lost through a treasure hunt. I thought of the remark that any opal found in this hunt must be lucky for the one who found it because he or she had been led to it by luck.