Colleen McCullough - The Thorn Birds

“Justine? Not Justine!” Meggie cried.

He reached out to take her hand, beating frantically against her knee. “No, no, no , Mrs. O’Neill! Justine has absolutely no idea of it, and I pray she never will! Her slip was quite unintentional, believe me.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, I swear it.”

“Then in God’s Name why doesn’t she come home? Why won’t she come to see me? Why can’t she bring herself to look at my face?”

Not only her words but the agony in her voice told him what had tormented Justine’s mother about her absence these last two years. His own mission’s importance dwindled; now he had a new one, to allay Meggie’s fears.

“For that I am to blame,” he said firmly.

“You?” asked Meggie, bewildered.

“Justine had planned to go to Greece with Dane, and she’s convinced that had she, he’d still be alive.”

“Nonsense!” said Meggie.

“Quite. But though we know it’s nonsense, Justine doesn’t. It’s up to you to make her see it.”

“Up to me? You don’t understand, Mr. Hartheim. Justine has never listened to me in all her life, and at this stage any influence I might once have had is completely gone. She doesn’t even want to see my face.”

Her tone was defeated but not abject. “I fell into the same trap my mother did,” she went on matter-of-factly. “Drogheda is my life… the house, the books… Here I’m needed, there’s still some purpose in living. Here are people who rely on me. My children never did, you know. Never did.”

“That’s not true, Mrs. O’Neill. If it was, Justine could come home to you without a qualm. You underestimate the quality of the love she bears you. When I say I am to blame for what Justine is going through, I mean that she remained in London because of me, to be with me. But it is for you she suffers, not for me.”

Meggie stiffened. “She has no right to suffer for me! Let her suffer for herself if she must, but not for me . Never for me! ”

“Then you believe me when I say she has no idea of Dane and the Cardinal?”

Her manner changed, as if he had reminded her there were other things at stake, and she was losing sight of them. “Yes,” she said, “I believe you.”

“I came to see you because Justine needs your help and cannot ask for it,” he announced. “You must convince her she needs to take up the threads of her life again—not a Drogheda life, but her own life, which has nothing to do with Drogheda.”

He leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs and lit another cigarette. “Justine has donned some kind of hair shirt, but for all the wrong reasons. If anyone can make her see it, you can. Yet I warn you that if you choose to do so she will never come home, whereas if she goes on the way she is, she may well end up returning here permanently.

“The stage isn’t enough for someone like Justine,” he went on, “and the day is coming when she’s going to realize that. Then she’s going to opt for people—either her family and Drogheda, or me.” He smiled at her with deep understanding. “But people are not enough for Justine either, Mrs. O’Neill. If Justine chooses me, she can have the stage as well, and that bonus Drogheda cannot offer her.” Now he was gazing at her sternly, as if at an adversary. “I came to ask you to make sure she chooses me. It may seem cruel to say this, but I need her more than you possibly could.”

The starch was back in Meggie. “Drogheda isn’t such a bad choice,” she countered. “You speak as if it would be the end of her life, but it doesn’t mean that at all, you know. She could have the stage. This is a true community. Even if she married Boy King, as his grandfather and I have hoped for years, her children would be as well cared for in her absences as they would be were she married to you. This is her home! She knows and understands this kind of life. If she chose it, she’d certainly be very well aware what was involved. Can you say the same for the sort of life you’d offer her?”

“No,” he said stolidly. “But Justine thrives on surprises. On Drogheda she’d stagnate.”

“What you mean is, she’d be unhappy here.”

“No, not exactly. I have no doubt that if she elected to return here, married this Boy King—who is this Boy King, by the way?”

“The heir to a neighboring property, Bugela, and an old childhood friend who would like to be more than a friend. His grandfather wants the marriage for dynastic reasons; I want it because I think it’s what Justine needs.”

“I see. Well, if she returned here and married Boy King, she’d learn to be happy. But happiness is a relative state. I don’t think she would ever know the kind of satisfaction she would find with me. Because, Mrs. O’Neill, Justine loves me, not Boy King.”

“Then she’s got a very strange way of showing it,” said Meggie, pulling the bell rope for tea. “Besides, Mr. Hartheim, as I said earlier, I think you overestimate my influence with her. Justine has never taken a scrap of notice of anything I say, let alone want.”

“You’re nobody’s fool,” he answered. “You know you can do it if you want to. I can ask no more than that you think about what I’ve said. Take your time, there’s no hurry. I’m a patient man.”

Meggie smiled. “Then you’re a rarity,” she said.

He didn’t broach the subject again, nor did she. During the week of his stay he behaved like any other guest, though Meggie had a feeling he was trying to show her what kind of man he was. How much her brothers liked him was clear; from the moment word reached the paddocks of his arrival, they all came in and stayed in until he left for Germany.

Fee liked him, too; her eyes had deteriorated to the point where she could no longer keep the books, but she was far from senile. Mrs. Smith had died in her sleep the previous winter, not before her due time, and rather than inflict a new housekeeper on Minnie and Cat, both old but still hale, Fee had passed the books completely to Meggie and more or less filled Mrs. Smith’s place herself. It was Fee who first realized Rainer was a direct link with that part of Dane’s life no one on Drogheda had ever had opportunity to share, so she asked him to speak of it. He obliged gladly, having quickly noticed that none of the Drogheda people were at all reluctant to talk of Dane, and derived great pleasure from listening to new tales about him.

Behind her mask of politeness Meggie couldn’t get away from what Rain had told her, couldn’t stop dwelling on the choice he had offered her. She had long since given up hope of Justine’s return, only to have him almost guarantee it, admit too that Justine would be happy if she did return. Also, for one other thing she had to be intensely grateful to him: he had laid the ghost of her fear that somehow Justine had discovered the link between Dane and Ralph.

As for marriage to Rain, Meggie didn’t see what she could do to push Justine where apparently she had no desire to go. Or was it that she didn’t want to see? She had ended in liking Rain very much, but his happiness couldn’t possibly matter as much to her as the welfare of her daughter, of the Drogheda people, and of Drogheda itself. The crucial question was, how vital to Justine’s future happiness was Rain? In spite of his contention that Justine loved him, Meggie couldn’t remember her daughter ever saying anything which might indicate that Rain held the same sort of importance for her as Ralph had done for Meggie.

“I presume you will see Justine sooner or later,” Meggie said to Rain when she drove him to the airport. “When you do, I’d rather you didn’t mention this visit to Drogheda.”

“If you prefer,” he said. “I would only ask you to think about what I’ve said, and take your time.” But even as he made his request, he couldn’t help feeling that Meggie had reaped far more benefit from his visit than he had.