The Thorn Birds (62 page)

“Erckle! What a fate!” chuckled Dane. “Fancy half of you still being alive while the other half of you is busy being digested.”

Avid reading—that Drogheda passion—had given the two O’Neill children excellent vocabularies at an early age. They were intelligent, alert and interested in everything. Life was particularly pleasant for them. They had their thoroughbred ponies, increasing in size as they did; they endured their correspondence lessons at Mrs. Smith’s green kitchen table; they played in the pepper tree cubbyhouse; they had pet cats, pet dogs, even a pet goanna, which walked beautifully on a leash and answered to its name. Their favorite pet was a miniature pink pig, as intelligent as any dog, called Iggle-Piggle.

So far from urban congestion, they caught few diseases and never had colds or influenza. Meggie was terrified of infantile paralysis, diphtheria, anything which might swoop out of nowhere to carry them off, so whatever vaccines became available they received. It was an ideal existence, full of physical activity and mental stimulation.

When Dane was ten and Justine eleven they were sent to boarding school in Sydney, Dane to Riverview as tradition demanded, and Justine to Kincoppal. When she put them on the plane the first time, Meggie watched as their white, valiantly composed little faces stared out of a window, handkerchiefs waving; they had never been away from home before. She had wanted badly to go with them, see them settled in for herself, but opinion was so strongly against her she yielded. From Fee down to Jims and Patsy, everyone felt they would do a great deal better on their own.

“Don’t mollycoddle them,” said Fee sternly.

But indeed she felt like two different people as the DC-3 took off in a cloud of dust and staggered into the shimmering air. Her heart was breaking at losing Dane, and light at the thought of losing Justine. There was no ambivalence in her feelings about Dane; his gay, even-tempered nature gave and accepted love as naturally as breathing. But Justine was a lovable, horrible monster. One had to love her, because there was much to love: her strength, her integrity, her self-reliance—lots of things. The trouble was that she didn’t permit love the way Dane did, nor did she ever give Meggie the wonderful feeling of being needed. She wasn’t matey or full of pranks, and she had a disastrous habit of putting people down, chiefly, it seemed, her mother. Meggie found much in her that had been exasperating in Luke, but at least Justine wasn’t a miser. For that much be thankful.

A thriving airline meant that all the children’s vacations, even the shortest ones, could be spent on Drogheda. However, after an initial period of adjustment both children enjoyed their schooling. Dane was always homesick after a visit to Drogheda, but Justine took to Sydney as if she had always lived there, and spent her Drogheda time longing to be back in the city. The Riverview Jesuits were delighted; Dane was a marvelous student, in the classroom and on the playing field. The Kincoppal nuns, on the other hand, were definitely not delighted; no one with eyes and a tongue as sharp as Justine’s could hope to be popular. A class ahead of Dane, she was perhaps the better student of the two, but only in the classroom.

The
Sydney Morning Herald
of August 4th, 1952, was very interesting. Its big front page rarely bore more than one photograph, usually middle and high up, the interest story of the day. And that day the picture was a handsome portrait of Ralph de Bricassart.

His Grace Archbishop Ralph de Bricassart, at the present time aide to the Secretary of State of the Holy See of Rome, was today created Cardinal de Bricassart by His Holiness Pope Pius XII.

Ralph Raoul, Cardinal de Bricassart has had a long and illustrious association with the Roman Catholic Church in Australia, extending from his arrival as a newly ordained priest in July 1919 to his departure for the Vatican in March 1938.

Born on September 23, 1893, in the Republic of Ireland, Cardinal de Bricassart was the second son of a family which can trace its descent from Baron Ranulf de Bricassart, who came to England in the train of William the Conqueror. By tradition, Cardinal de Bricassart espoused the Church. He entered the seminary at the age of seventeen, and upon his ordination was sent to Australia. His first months were spent in the service of the late Bishop Michael Clabby, in the Diocese of Winnemurra.

In June 1920 he was transferred to serve as pastor of Gillanbone, in northwestern New South Wales. He was made Monsignor, and continued at Gillanbone until December 1928. From there he became private secretary to His Grace Archbishop Cluny Dark, and finally private secretary to the then Archbishop Papal Legate, His Eminence Cardinal di Contini-Verchese. During this time he was created Bishop. When Cardinal di Contini-Verchese was transferred to Rome to commence his remarkable career at the Vatican, Bishop de Bricassart was created Archbishop, and returned to Australia from Athens as the Papal Legate himself. He held this important Vatican appointment until his transfer to Rome in 1938; since that time his rise within the central hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church has been spectacular. Now 58 years of age, he is rumored to be one of the few men actively concerned in the determination of papal policy.

A
Sydney Morning Herald
representative talked to some of Cardinal de Bricassart’s ex-parishioners in the Gillanbone area yesterday. He is well remembered, and with much affection. This rich sheep district is predominantly Roman Catholic in its religious adherence.

“Father de Bricassart founded the Holy Cross Bush Bibliophilic Society,” said Mr. Harry Gough, Mayor of Gillanbone. “It was—for the time especially—a remarkable service, splendidly endowed first by the late Mrs. Mary Carson, and after her death by the Cardinal himself, who has never forgotten us or our needs.”

“Father de Bricassart was the finest-looking man I’ve ever seen,” said Mrs. Fiona Cleary, present doyenne of Drogheda, one of the largest and most prosperous stations in New South Wales. “During his time in Gilly he was a great spiritual support to his parishioners, and particularly to those of us on Drogheda, which as you know now belongs to the Catholic Church. During floods he helped us move our stock, during fires he came to our aid, even if it was only to bury our dead. He was, in fact, an extraordinary man in every way, and he had more charm than any man I’ve ever met. One could see he was meant for great things. Indeed we remember him, though it’s over twenty years since he left us. Yes, I think it’s quite truthful to say that there are some around Gilly who still miss him very much.”

During the war the then Archbishop de Bricassart served His Holiness loyally and unswervingly, and is credited with having influenced Field Marshal Albert Kesselring in deciding to maintain Rome as an open city after Italy became a German enemy. Florence, which had asked in vain for the same privilege, lost many of its treasures, only restored later because Germany lost the war. In the immediate postwar period, Cardinal de Bricassart helped thousands of displaced persons seek asylum in new countries, and was especially vigorous in aiding the Australian immigration program.

Though by birth he is an Irishman, and though it seems he will not exert his influence as Cardinal de Bricassart in Australia, we still feel that to a large extent Australia may rightly claim this remarkable man as her own.

Meggie handed the paper back to Fee, and smiled at her mother ruefully.

“One must congratulate him, as I said to the
Herald
reporter. They didn’t print that, did they? Though they printed your little eulogy almost verbatim, I see. What a barbed tongue you’ve got! At least I know where Justine gets it from. I wonder how many people will be smart enough to read between the lines of what you said?”

“He will, anyway, if he ever sees it.”

“I wonder does he remember us?” Meggie sighed.

“Undoubtedly. After all, he still finds time to administer Drogheda himself. Of course he remembers us, Meggie. How could he forget?”

“True, I had forgotten Drogheda. We’re right up there on top of the earnings, aren’t we? He must be very pleased. With our wool at a pound per pound in the auctions, the Drogheda wool check this year must have made even the gold mines look sick. Talk about Golden Fleece. Over four million pounds, just from shaving our baa-lambs.”

“Don’t be cynical, Meggie, it doesn’t suit you,” said Fee; her manner toward Meggie these days, though often mildly withering, was tempered with respect and affection. “We’ve done well enough, haven’t we? Don’t forget we get our money every year, good or bad. Didn’t he pay Bob a hundred thousand as a bonus, the rest of us fifty thousand each? If he threw us off Drogheda tomorrow we could afford to buy Bugela, even at today’s inflated land prices. And how much has he given your children? Thousands upon thousands. Be fair to him.”

“But my children don’t know it, and they’re not going to find out. Dane and Justine will grow up to think they must make their own ways in the world, without benefit of dear Ralph Raoul, Cardinal de Bricassart. Fancy his second name being Raoul! Very Norman, isn’t it?”

Fee got up, walked over to the fire and threw the front page of the
Herald
onto the flames. Ralph Raoul, Cardinal de Bricassart shuddered, winked at her, and then shriveled up.

“What will you do if he comes back, Meggie?”

Meggie sniffed. “Fat chance!”

“He might,” said Fee enigmatically.

He did, in December. Very quietly, without anyone knowing, driving an Aston Martin sports car all the way from Sydney himself. Not a word about his presence in Australia had reached the press, so no one on Drogheda had the remotest suspicion he was coming. When the car pulled in to the gravelly area at one side of the house there was no one about, and apparently no one had heard him arrive, for no one came out onto the veranda.

He had felt the miles from Gilly in every cell of his body, inhaled the odors of the bush, the sheep, the dry grass sparkling restlessly in the sun. Kangaroos and emus, galahs and goannas, millions of insects buzzing and flipping, ants marching across the road in treacly columns, fat pudgy sheep everywhere. He loved it so, for in one curious aspect it conformed to what he loved in all things; the passing years scarcely seemed to brush it.

Only the fly screening was different, but he noted with amusement that Fee hadn’t permitted the big house veranda facing the Gilly road to be enclosed like the rest, only the windows opening onto it. She was right, of course; a great expanse of mesh would have ruined the lines of that lovely Georgian facade. How long did ghost gums live? These must have been transplanted from the Dead Heart interior eighty years ago. The bougainvillaea in their high branches was one sliding mass of copper and purple.

It was already summer, two weeks left before Christmas, and the Drogheda roses were at their height. There were roses everywhere, pink and white and yellow, crimson like heart’s blood, scarlet like a cardinal’s soutane. In among the wistaria, green now, rambling roses drowsed pink and white, fell off the veranda roof, down the wire mesh, clung lovingly to the black shutters of the second story, stretched tendrils past them to the sky. The tank stands were quite smothered from sight now, so were the tanks themselves. And one color was everywhere among the roses, a pale pinkish-grey. Ashes of roses? Yes, that was the name of the color. Meggie must have planted them, it had to be Meggie.

He heard Meggie’s laugh, and stood motionless, quite terrified, then made his feet go in the direction of the sound, gone down to delicious giggling trills. Just the way she used to laugh when she was a little girl. There it was! Over there, behind a great clump of pinkishgrey roses near a pepper tree. He pushed the clusters of blossoms aside with his hand, his mind reeling from their perfume, and that laugh.

But Meggie wasn’t there, only a boy squatting in the lush lawn, teasing a little pink pig which ran in idiotic rushes up to him, galloped off, sidled back. Unconscious of his audience, the boy threw his gleaming head back and laughed. Meggie’s laugh, from that unfamiliar throat. Without meaning to, Cardinal Ralph let the roses fall into place and stepped through them, heedless of the thorns. The boy, about twelve or fourteen years of age, just prepubescent, looked up, startled; the pig squealed, curled up its tail tightly and ran off.

Clad in an old pair of khaki shorts and nothing else, bare-footed, he was golden brown and silky-skinned, his slender, boyish body already hinting at later power in the breadth of the young square shoulders, the well-developed calf and thigh muscles, the flat belly and narrow hips. His hair was a little long and loosely curly, just the bleached color of Drogheda grass, his eyes through absurdly thick black lashes intensely blue. He looked like a very youthful escaped angel.

“Hello,” said the boy, smiling.

“Hello,” said Cardinal Ralph, finding it impossible to resist the charm of that smile. “Who are you?”

“I’m Dane O’Neill,” answered the boy. “Who are you?”

“My name is Ralph de Bricassart.”

Dane O’Neill. He was Meggie’s boy, then. She had not left Luke O’Neill after all, she had gone back to him, borne this beautiful lad who might have been his, had he not married the Church first. How old had he been when he married the Church? Not much older than this, not very much more mature. Had he waited, the boy might well have been his. What nonsense, Cardinal de Bricassart! If you hadn’t married the Church you would have remained in Ireland to breed horses and never known your fate at all, never known Drogheda or Meggie Cleary.

“May I help you?” asked the boy politely, getting to his feet with a supple grace Cardinal Ralph recognized, and thought of as Meggie’s.

“Is your father here, Dane?”

“My
father
?” The dark, finely etched brows knitted. “No, he’s not here. He’s never been here.”

“Oh, I see. Is your mother here, then?”

“She’s in Gilly, but she’ll be back soon. My Nanna is in the house, though. Would you like to see her? I can take you.” Eyes as blue as cornflowers stared at him, widened, narrowed. “Ralph de Bricassart. I’ve heard of you. Oh!
Cardinal
de Bricassart! Your Eminence, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to be rude.”