第60章 TWO 1921-1928 Ralph(40)

He stopped on the far side of the lawn and stood looking up at the sky, an instinctive aerial searching for God. Yes, up there somewhere, between the winking points of light so pure and unearthly; what was it about the night sky? That the blue lid of day was lifted, a man permitted glimpses of eternity? Nothing save witnessing the strewn vista of the stars could convince a man that timelessness and God existed. She's right, of course. A sham, a total sham. No priest, no man. Only someone who wishes he knew how to be either. No! Not either! Priest and man cannot coexist-to be a man is to be no priest. Why did I ever tangle my feet in her web? Her poison is strong, perhaps stronger than I guess. What's in the letter? How like Mary to bait me! How much does she know, how much does she simply guess? What is there to know, or guess? Only futility, and loneliness. Doubt, pain. Always pain. Yet you're wrong, Mary. I can get it up. It's just that I don't choose to, that I've spent years proving to myself it can be controlled, dominated, subjugated. For getting it up is the activity of a man, and I am a priest.

Someone was weeping in the cemetery. Meggie, of course. No one else would think of it. He picked up the skirts of his soutane and stepped over the wrought iron railing, feeling it was inevitable that he had not yet done with Meggie on this night. If he confronted one of the women in his life, he must also deal with the other. His amused detachment was coming back; she could not disperse that for long, the old spider. The wicked old spider. God rot her, God rot her!

"Darling Meggie, don't cry," he said, sitting on the dew-wet grass beside her. "Here, I'll bet you don't have a decent handkerchief. Women never do. Take mine and dry your eyes like a good girl."

She took it and did as she was told.

"You haven't even changed out of your finery. Have you been sitting here since midnight?"

"Yes."

"Do Bob and Jack know where you are?"

"I told them I was going to bed."

"What's the matter, Meggie?"

"You didn't speak to me tonight!"

"Ali! I thought that might be it. Come, Meggie, look at me!" Away in the east was a pearly luster, a fleeing of total darkness, and the Drogheda roosters were shrieking an early welcome to the dawn. So he could see that not even protracted tears could dim the loveliness of her eyes. "Meggie, you were by far the prettiest girl at the party, and it's well known that I come to Drogheda more often than I need. I am a priest and therefore I ought to be above suspicion-a bit like Caesar's wife comb I'm afraid people don't think so purely. As priests go I'm young, and not bad-looking." He paused to think how Mary Carson would have greeted that bit of understatement, and laughed soundlessly. "If I had paid you a skerrick of attention it would have been all over Gilly in record time. Every party line in the district would have been buzzing with it. Do you know what I mean?" She shook her head; the cropped curls were growing brighter in the advancing light.

"Well, you're young to come to knowledge of the ways of the world, but you've got to learn, and it al- ways seems to be my province to teach you, doesn't it? I mean people would be saying I was interested in you as a man, not as a priest."

"Father!"

"Dreadful, isn't it?" He smiled. "But that's what people would say, I assure you. You see, Meggie, you're not a little girl anymore, you're a young lady. But you haven't learned yet to hide your affection for me, so had I stopped to speak to you with all those people looking on, you'd have stared at me in a way which might have been misconstrued."

She was looking at him oddly, a sudden inscrutability shuttering her gaze, then abruptly she turned her head and presented him with her profile. "Yes, I see. I was silly not to have seen it."

"Now don't you think it's time you went home? No doubt everyone will sleep in, but if someone's awake at the usual time you'll be in the soup. And you can't say you've been with me, Meggie, even to your own family." She got up and stood staring down at him. "I'm going, Father. But I wish they knew you better, then they'd never think such things of you. It isn't in you, is it?"

For some reason that hurt, hurt right down to his soul as Mary Carson's cruel taunts had not. "No, Meggie, you're right. It isn't in me." He sprang up, smiling wryly. "Would you think it strange if I said I wished it was?" He put a hand to his head. "No, I don't wish it was at all! Go home, Meggie, go home!"

Her face was sad. "Good night, Father."

He took her hands in his, bent and kissed them. "Good night, dearest Meggie."

He watched her walk across the graves, step over the railing; in the rosebud dress her retreating form was graceful, womanly and a little unreal. Ashes of roses. "How appropriate," he said to the angel. Cars were roaring away from Drogheda as he strolled back across the lawn; the party was finally over. Inside, the band was packing away its instruments, reeling with rum and exhaustion, and the tired maids and temporary helpers were trying to clear up. Father Ralph shook his head at Mrs. Smith.

"Send everyone to bed, my dear. It's a lot easier to deal with this sort of thing when you're fresh. I'll make sure Mrs. Carson isn't angry." "Would you like something to eat, Father?"

"Good Lord, no! I'm going to bed."

In the late afternoon a hand touched his shoulder. He reached for it blindly without the energy to open his eyes, and tried to hold it against his cheek.

"Meggie," he mumbled.

"Father, Father! Oh, please will you wake up?" At the tone of Mrs. Smith's voice his eyes came suddenly very awake. "What is it, Mrs. Smith?"

"It's Mrs. Carson, Father. She's dead."