One of these days I’m going to have a house like Oakland Hall and no one’s going to stop me. In six months’ time I was on my way to Australia.
"To look for opals,” I cried.
“No. I hadn’t thought of opals then. I was after what every. one else was after-gold. I said to myself: I’ll find gold and I won’t rest until I we made my little pile and when I’ve got it I’ll come home and buy myself such a house. And that’s why I went to Australia.
What a journey! I worked my passage. I’ll never forget that trip. I thought it would be the end of me. Such storms we had, and the ship-she nearly turned turtle, she did, and I thought it would be all hands to the pump and save the women and children first. I couldn’t believe it when I stepped ashore. That sun! Those flies! Never seen neither like it before. But something told me it was the place for me, and I swore there and then that I wouldn’t come home till I was ready to buy me a house like Oakland Hall. “
“And you did, Mr. Henniker.”
“Call me Ben,” he said.
“Mr. Henniker makes me sound like someone else.”
“Ought I to? You’re very old.”
Not when I’m with you. Miss Jessie. I feel young and gay. I feel seventeen again. “
“Just as you did when you stepped ashore at Sydney.”
“Just like that. Well, I was certain I was going to be rich. So I worked my way across New South Wales to Ballarat and there I panned for gold.”
“And you found it and made your fortune.”
He turned his hands over and stared down at them.
“Look at them,” he said. A bit gnarled, eh? Not the hands of a gentleman of leisure, you’d say. Those hands don’t fit Oakland Hall. Nor does anything else, as far as you can see. But something inside me fits. ” He tapped his chest. There’s something in here that loves the old place as it couldn’t have been loved more by all the grand ladies and gentlemen who lived here. They took it for granted. I won it, and I love it because of that. Never take anything for granted. Miss Jessie. If you do you might lose it. If ifs worth cherishing, cherish it. Think how I snapped up Oakland Hall.”
“I am thinking,” I said.
“So you made your fortune.”
“It wasn’t done in a night Years it took. Disappointments, frustrations … that was my lot. Shirting from place to place … living in the fields, staking my claim … I remember the trek out of Melbourne. There they were-a ragged army, you might say-a crowd of us all marching off to the Promised Land. We knew that some of us were going to strike it rich and others were going to die disappointed men, but which of us? Hope marched with us on that journey, and we all thought we’d be the chosen ones. Some of us had wheel” barrows carrying our load, some took what they had on their backs … across the Keilor Plains, through forests where the fires had blazed, making you shiver, for the first time realizing something of what these fires meant, never being quite sure whether some bushranger was going to spring out on us and murder us for our bit of tucker. We’d camp at night Oh, it was something-singing round the campfires … all the old songs from Home we used to sing and I’m not going to say that there weren’t some of us glad of the darkness so no one could see the tears in our eyes. And then on … to Bendigo then … living in a little calico tent. I sweltered there one summer and longed for the cool weather, but when it came with the driving rain and the mud I was longing for the sun again. Hard days-and there was no luck at Bendigo.
It was Castlemaine where I had my first big find-not enough to make me rich but an encouragement. I banked it in Melbourne right away. I wasn’t spending it on drink and women like so many did and then be surprised at the short time it lasted. I knew all about that. It wasn’t bought women for me. It had to be love, not money. That’s a wise way and you don’t squander your hard-earned gold. But I’m talking out of turn. You can see why the Claverings didn’t want to know me.
”This Clavering does,” I assured him.
“Well, I’m beginning to discover she’s a most unusual young lady. Now where was I ?”
Tour women. for love, not money. “
“We’ll skip them. It was Heathcote and after that to Ballarat. I wasn’t a poor man any more-nor yet a rich one. I had time to look about and ask myself which way now. It’s a funny thing-there’s something about mining-finding something the Earth has to offer. It gets in your blood. You’ve got to Know what’s under that hard crust of earth. It’s not only for the money. When men talked of money out there they thought of gold. Gold! It’s another name for money, you might say. But there’s other things besides gold, as I was to find.”
“Opals!’ I said.
Yes, opals. At first it was just a bit of fossicking. There I was with a nice little bit in the Melbourne bank and I thought I’d go on a trek into New South Wales . just to take a look at the country, you might say. I was in the Bush camping, at nights . when I fell in with a party who were looking for opal. Oh, not like proper gougers, oh no. Just a bit of fun.
Weekend fossickers, you’d call them, just going out to see what beginner’s luck would bring them.
“What you looking for, mates?” I asked and they answered “Opal.”
“Opal,” I said, and I thought: Not for me! I was always a man to look for my market whether it was saveloys and pigs’ trotters or gold and sapphires. Well, to cut a long story short, as they say, I went along with them for a bit of fossicking.
All I had was a couple of picks-one was a driving pick, the other a sinking pick. Then I had my shovel and a rope and what we call a spider, which is a sort of candlestick-for you may have to work in the dark. You want a snip too . that’s a sort of pincers for snipping off the useless potch. Oh, I can see I’m getting a bit too technical for you, but with a name like yours you’ll want to know. “
“And you found opals?”
“Nothing to speak of … fossicking. That just gave me the taste for it. But I knew I had to go on, and within a month I was a proper gouger. Then I started to get my first real finds. I just knew as soon as I held it in my hands and it winked and twinkled at me that it was opals I was going after. Funny, you know. They say there’s a story in each stone … Nature’s pictures. I could show you something”
He looked at me and laughed.
“I’m going to show you. You’re going to come and see my collection. We’re not going to go on meeting out here, are we ?”
“It seems the best way,” I said, visualizing what would happen if I introduced him to my parents or Miriam and Xavier.
He winked.
“We’ll find a way. Leave it to me.” He was laughing again.
“I do talk, don’t I? And all about myself. What do you think of me, eh ?”
“I think you’re the most exciting person I ever met. ” Here! ” he cried.
“It’s time I went in. Next time you come to the house, eh? I’ll show you some of my most precious opals. You’d like that, wouldn’t you ?”
"Yes, I would, but if they knew. “
“Who’s to know?”
Servants talk. “
"You can be sure they do. Well, let ‘em, I say. “
“I should be forbidden.”
He winked again.
“What do people like us care for a bit of forbidding, eh? We’re not going to let them stop us, are we?”
They could forbid me to see you. “
“Leave it to me,” he said.
“When shall I see you again?”
Tomorrow I have visitors so it won’t be then. Business, you see-and they’ll be with me for a while. Say next Wednesday. You come and walk boldly up the drive to the front porch. They’ll be expecting you, and they’ll bring you straight to me and I’ll entertain you in a fashion worthy of one of the Claverings. “