The Thorn Birds (63 page)

Though he had abandoned his clerical regalia in favor of boots, breeches and a white shirt, the ruby ring was still on his finger, must never be withdrawn as long as he lived. Dane O’Neill knelt, took Cardinal Ralph’s slender hand in his own slender ones, and kissed the ring reverently.

“It’s all right, Dane. I’m not here as Cardinal de Bricassart. I’m here as a friend of your mother’s and your grandmother’s.”

“I’m sorry, Your Eminence, I ought to have recognized your name the minute I heard it. We say it often enough round here. Only you pronounce it a bit differently, and your Christian name threw me off. My mother will be very glad to see you, I know.”

“Dane, Dane, where are you?” called an impatient voice, very deep and entrancingly husky.

The hanging fronds of the pepper tree parted and a girl of about fifteen ducked out, straightened. He knew who she was immediately, from those astonishing eyes. Meggie’s daughter. Covered in freckles, sharp-faced, small-featured, disappointingly unlike Meggie.

“Oh, hello. I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we had a visitor. I’m Justine O’Neill.”

“Jussy, this is Cardinal de Bricassart!” Dane said in a loud whisper. “Kiss his ring, quickly!”

The blind-looking eyes flashed scorn. “You’re a real prawn about religion, Dane,” she said without bothering to lower her voice. “Kissing a ring is unhygienic; I won’t do it. Besides, how do we know this is Cardinal de Bricassart? He looks like an old-fashioned grazier to me. You know, like Mr. Gordon.”

“He is, he is!” insisted Dane. “Please, Jussy, be good! Be good for
me
!”

“I’ll be good, but only for you. But I won’t kiss his ring, even for you. Disgusting. How do I know who kissed it last? They might have had a cold.”

“You don’t have to kiss my ring, Justine. I’m here on a holiday; I’m not being a cardinal at the moment.”

“That’s good, because I’ll tell you frankly, I’m an atheist,” said Meggie Cleary’s daughter calmly. “After four years at Kincoppal I think it’s all a load of utter codswallop.”

“That’s your privilege,” said Cardinal Ralph, trying desperately to look as dignified and serious as she did. “May I find your grandmother?”

“Of course. Do you need us?” Justine asked.

“No, thank you. I know my way.”

“Good.” She turned to her brother, still gaping up at the visitor. “Come on, Dane, help me. Come on!”

But though Justine tugged painfully at his arm, Dane stayed to watch Cardinal Ralph’s tall, straight figure disappear behind the roses.

“You really are a prawn, Dane. What’s so special about him?”

“He’s a cardinal!” said Dane. “Imagine that! A real live cardinal on Drogheda!”

“Cardinals,” said Justine, “are Princes of the Church. I suppose you’re right, it
is
rather extraordinary. But I don’t like him.”

Where else would Fee be, except at her desk? He stepped through the windows into the drawing room, but these days that necessitated opening a screen. She must have heard him, but kept on working, back bent, the lovely golden hair gone to silver. With difficulty he remembered she must be all of seventy-two years old.

“Hello, Fee,” he said.

When she raised her head he saw a change in her, of what precise nature he couldn’t be sure; the indifference was there, but so were several other things. As if she had mellowed and hardened simultaneously, become more human, yet human in a Mary Carson mold. God, these Drogheda matriarchs! Would it happen to Meggie, too, when her turn came?

“Hello, Ralph,” she said, as if he stepped through the windows every day. “How nice to see you.”

“Nice to see you, too.”

“I didn’t know you were in Australia.”

“No one does. I have a few weeks’ holiday.”

“You’re staying with us, I hope?”

“Where else?” His eyes roamed round the magnificent walls, rested on Mary Carson’s portrait. “You know, Fee, your taste is impeccable, unerring. This room rivals anything in the Vatican. Those black egg shapes with the roses are a stroke of genius.”

“Why, thank you! We try our humble best. Personally I prefer the dining room; I’ve done it again since you were here last. Pink and white and green. Sounds awful, but wait until you see it. Though why I try, I don’t know. It’s your house, isn’t it?”

“Not while there’s a Cleary alive, Fee,” he said quietly.

“How comforting. Well, you’ve certainly come up in the world since your Gilly days, haven’t you? Did you see the
Herald
article about your promotion?”

He winced. “I did. Your tongue’s sharpened, Fee.”

“Yes, and what’s more, I’m enjoying it. All those years I shut up and never said a thing! I didn’t know what I was missing.” She smiled. “Meggie’s in Gilly, but she’ll be back soon.”

Dane and Justine came through the windows.

“Nanna, may we ride down to the borehead?”

“You know the rules. No riding unless your mother gives her permission personally. I’m sorry, but they’re your mother’s orders. Where are your manners? Come and be introduced to our visitor.”

“I’ve already met them.”

“Oh.”

“I’d have thought you’d be away at boarding school,” he said to Dane, smiling.

“Not in December, Your Eminence. We’re off for two months—the summer holidays.”

Too many years away; he had forgotten that southern hemisphere children would enjoy their long vacation during December and January.

“Are you going to be staying here long, Your Eminence?” Dane queried, still fascinated.

“His Eminence will be with us for as long as he can manage, Dane,” said his grandmother, “but I think he’s going to find it a little wearing to be addressed as Your Eminence all the time. What shall it be? Uncle Ralph?”

“
Uncle
!” exclaimed Justine. “You know ‘uncle’ is against the family rules, Nanna! Our uncles are just Bob, Jack, Hughie, Jims and Patsy. So that means he’s Ralph.”

“Don’t be so rude, Justine! What on earth’s the matter with your manners?” demanded Fee.

“No, Fee, it’s all right. I’d prefer that everyone call me plain Ralph, really,” the Cardinal said quickly. Why did she dislike him so, the odd mite?

“I couldn’t!” gasped Dane. “I couldn’t call you just
Ralph
!”

Cardinal Ralph crossed the room, took the bare shoulders between his hands and smiled down, his blue eyes very kind, and vivid in the room’s shadows. “Of course you can, Dane. It isn’t a sin.”

“Come on, Dane, let’s get back to the cubbyhouse,” Justine ordered.

Cardinal Ralph and his son turned toward Fee, looked at her together.

“Heaven help us!” said Fee. “Go on, Dane, go outside and play, will you?” She clapped her hands. “Buzz!”

The boy ran for his life, and Fee edged toward her books. Cardinal Ralph took pity on her and announced that he would go to the cookhouse. How little the place had changed! Still lamplit, obviously. Still redolent of beeswax and great vases of roses.

He stayed talking to Mrs. Smith and the maids for a long time. They had grown much older in the years since he had left, but somehow age suited them more than it did Fee. Happy. That’s what they were. Genuinely almost perfectly happy. Poor Fee, who wasn’t happy. It made him hungry to see Meggie, see if she was happy.

But when he left the cookhouse Meggie wasn’t back, so to fill in time he strolled through the grounds toward the creek. How peaceful the cemetery was; there were six bronze plaques on the mausoleum wall, just as there had been last time. He must see that he himself was buried here; he must remember to instruct them, when he returned to Rome. Near the mausoleum he noticed two new graves, old Tom, the garden rouseabout, and the wife of one of the stockmen, who had been on the payroll since 1946. Must be some sort of record. Mrs. Smith thought he was still with them because his wife lay here. The Chinese cook’s ancestral umbrella was quite faded from all the years of fierce sun, had dwindled from its original imperial red through the various shades he remembered to its present whitish-pink, almost ashes of roses. Meggie, Meggie. You went back to him after me, you bore him a son.

It was very hot; a little wind came, stirred the weeping willows along the creek, made the bells on the Chinese cook’s umbrella chime their mournful tinny tune: Hee Sing, Hee Sing, Hee Sing.
Tankstand Charlie he was a good bloke
. That had faded, too, was practically indecipherable. Well, it was fitting. Graveyards ought to sink back into the bosom of Mother Earth, lose their human cargo under a wash of time, until it all was gone and only the air remembered, sighing. He didn’t want to be buried in a Vatican crypt, among men like himself. Here, among people who had really lived.

Turning, his eyes caught the glaucous glance of the marble angel. He raised his hand, saluted it, looked across the grass toward the big house. And she was coming, Meggie. Slim, golden, in a pair of breeches and a white man’s shirt exactly like his own, a man’s grey felt hat on the back of her head, tan boots on her feet. Like a boy, like her son, who should have been his son. He was a man, but when he too lay here there would be nothing left living to mark the fact.

She came on, stepped over the white fence, came so close all he could see were her eyes, those grey, light-filled eyes which hadn’t lost their beauty or their hold over his heart. Her arms were around his neck, his fate again within his touch, it was as if he had never been away from her, that mouth alive under his, not a dream; so long wanted, so long. A different kind of sacrament, dark like the earth, having nothing to do with the sky.

“Meggie, Meggie,” he said, his face in her hair, her hat on the grass, his arms around her.

“It doesn’t seem to matter, does it? Nothing ever changes,” she said, eyes closed.

“No, nothing changes,” he said, believing it.

“This is Drogheda, Ralph. I warned you, on Drogheda you’re mine, not God’s.”

“I know. I admit it. But I came.” He drew her down onto the grass. “Why, Meggie?”

“Why what?” Her hand was stroking his hair, whiter than Fee’s now, still thick, still beautiful.

“Why did you go back to Luke? Have his son?” he asked jealously.

Her soul looked out from behind its lucent grey windows and veiled its thoughts from him. “He forced me to,” she said blandly. “It was only once. But I had Dane, so I’m not sorry. Dane was worth everything I went through to get him.”

“I’m sorry, I had no right to ask. I gave you to Luke in the first place, didn’t I?”

“That’s true, you did.”

“He’s a wonderful boy. Does he look like Luke?”

She smiled secretly, plucked at the grass, laid her hand inside his shirt, against his chest. “Not really. Neither of my children looks very much like Luke, or me.”

“I love them because they’re yours.”

“You’re as sentimental as ever. Age suits you, Ralph. I knew it would, I hoped I’d have the chance to see it. Thirty years I’ve known you! It seems like thirty days.”

“Thirty years? As many as that?”

“I’m forty-one, my dear, so it must be.” She got to her feet. “I was officially sent to summon you inside. Mrs. Smith is laying on a splendid tea in your honor, and later on when it’s a bit cooler there’s to be roast leg of pork, with lots of crackling.”

He began to walk with her, slowly. “Your son laughs just like you, Meggie. His laugh was the first human noise I heard on Drogheda. I thought he was you; I went to find you and I discovered him instead.”

“So he was the first person you saw on Drogheda.”

“Why, yes, I suppose he was.”

“What did you think of him, Ralph?” she asked eagerly.

“I liked him. How could I not, when he’s your son? But I was attracted to him very strongly, far more so than to your daughter. She doesn’t like me, either.”

“Justine might be my child, but she’s a prize bitch. I’ve learned to swear in my old age, mostly thanks to Justine. And you, a little. And Luke, a little. And the war, a little. Funny how they all mount up.”

“You’ve changed a lot, Meggie.”

“Have I?” The soft, full mouth curved into a smile. “I don’t think so, really. It’s just the Great Northwest, wearing me down, stripping off the layers like Salome’s seven veils. Or like an onion, which is how Justine would rather put it. No poetry, that child. I’m the same old Meggie, Ralph, only more naked.”

“Perhaps so.”

“Ah, but
you’ve
changed, Ralph.”

“In what way, my Meggie?”

“As if the pedestal rocks with every passing breeze, and as if the view from up there is a disappointment.”

“It is.” He laughed soundlessly. “And to think I once had the temerity to say you weren’t anything out of the ordinary! I take it back. You’re the one woman, Meggie.
The one
!”

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. Did I discover even Church idols have feet of clay? Did I sell myself for a mess of pottage? Am I grasping at nothing?” His brows drew togther, as if in pain. “And that’s it, perhaps, in a nutshell. I’m a mass of clichés. It’s an old, sour, petrified world, the Vatican world.”

“I was more real, but you could never see it.”

“There was nothing else I could do, truly! I knew where I should have gone, but I couldn’t. With you I might have been a better man, if less august. But I just couldn’t, Meggie. Oh, I wish I could make you see that!”

Her hand stole along his bare arm, tenderly. “Dear Ralph, I do see it. I know, I know…. Each of us has something within us which won’t be denied, even if it makes us scream aloud to die. We are what we are, that’s all. Like the old Celtic legend of the bird with the thorn in its breast, singing its heart out and dying. Because it has to, it’s driven to. We can know what we do wrong even before we do it, but self-knowledge can’t affect or change the outcome, can it? Everyone singing his own little song, convinced it’s the most wonderful song the world has ever heard. Don’t you see? We create our own thorns, and never stop to count the cost. All we can do is suffer the pain, and tell ourselves it was well worth it.”

“That’s what I don’t understand. The pain.” He glanced down at her hand, so gently on his arm, hurting him so unbearably. “Why the pain, Meggie?”

“Ask God, Ralph,” said Meggie. “He’s the authority on pain, isn’t He? He made us what we are, He made the whole world. Therefore He made the pain, too.”