"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 rained 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 bougainvillea 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 pinkish grey 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."
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."
