From the organ gallery came the shuffling of feet, a preparatory wheeze, a breathy expulsion of air from pipes. The Saint Mary's Cathedral Boys' School choir was coming in early to sandwich a little practice between now and the coming ritual. It was only a Friday midday Benediction, but one of Dane's friends and teachers from Riverview was celebrating it, and he had wanted to come.
The organ gave off a few chords, quietened into a rippling accompaniment, and into the dim stone-lace arches one unearthly boy's voice soared, thin and high and sweet, so filled with innocent purity the few people in the great empty church closed their eyes, mourned for that which could never come to them again.
Panis angelicus
Fit panis hominum,
Dat panis coelicus
Figuris terminum,
O res mirabilis,
Manducat Dominus,
Pauper, pauper,
Servus et humilis....
Bread of angels, heavenly bread, O thing of wonder. Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord; Lord, hear my voice! Let Thine ear be attuned to the sounds of my supplication. Turn not away, O Lord, turn not away. For Thou art my Sovereign, my Master, my God, and I am Thy humble servant. In Thine eyes only one thing counts, goodness. Thou carest not if Thy servants be beautiful or ugly. To Thee only the heart matters; in Thee all is healed, in Thee I know peace.
Lord, it is lonely. I pray it be over soon, the pain of life. They do not understand that I, so gifted, find so much pain in living. But Thou dost, and Thy comfort is all which sustains me. No matter what Thou requirest of me, O Lord, shall be given, for I love
Thee. And if I might presume to ask anything of Thee, it is that in Thee all else shall be forever forgotten....
"You're very quiet, Mum," said Dane. "Thinking of what? Of Drogheda?" "No," said Meggie drowsily. "I'm thinking that I'm getting old. I found half a dozen grey hairs this morning, and my bones ache."
"You'll never be old, Mum," he said comfortably. "I wish that were true, love, but unfortunately it isn't. I'm beginning to need the borehead, which is a sure sign of old age."
They were lying in the warm winter sun on towels spread over the Drogheda grass, by the borehead. At the far end of the great pool boiling water thundered and splashed, the reek of sulphur drifted and floated into nothing. It was one of the great winter pleasures, to swim in the borehead. All the aches and pains of encroaching age were soothed away, Meggie thought, and turned to lie on her back, her head in the shade of the log on which she and Father Ralph had sat so long ago. A very long time ago; she was unable to conjure up even a faint echo of what she must have felt when Ralph had kissed her.
Then she heard Dane get up, and opened her eyes. He had always been her baby, her lovely little boy; though she had watched him change and grow with proprietary pride, she had done so with an image of the laughing baby superimposed on his maturing face. It had not yet occurred to her that actually he was no longer in any way a child.
However, the moment of realization came to Meggie at that instant, watching him stand outlined against the crisp sky in his brief cotton swimsuit. My God, it's all over! The babyhood, the boyhood. He's a man. Pride, resentment, a female melting at the quick, a terrific consciousness of some impending tragedy, anger, adoration, sadness; all these and more Meggie felt, looking up at her son. It is a terrible thing to create a man, and more terrible to create a man like this. So amazingly male, so amazingly beautiful.
Ralph de Bricassart, plus a little of herself. How could she not be moved at seeing in its extreme youth the body of the man who had joined in love with her? She closed her eyes, embarrassed, hating having to think of her son as a man. Did he look at her and see a woman these days, or was she still that wonderful cipher, Mum? God damn him, God damn him! How dared he grow up? "Do you know anything about women, Dane?" she asked suddenly, opening her eyes again.
He smiled. "The birds and the bees, you mean?" "That you know, with Justine for a sister. When she discovered what lay between the covers of physiology textbooks she blurted it all out to everyone. No, I mean have you ever put any of Justine's clinical treatises into practice?"
His head moved in a quick negative shake, he slid down onto the grass beside her and looked into her face. "Funny you should ask that, Mum. I've been wanting to talk to you about it for a long time, but I didn't know how to start."
"You're only eighteen, love. Isn't it a bit soon to be thinking of putting theory into practice?" Only eight equals teen. Only. He was a man, wasn't he? "That's it, what I wanted to talk to you about. Not putting it into practice at all."
How cold the wind was, blowing down from the Great Divide. Peculiar, she hadn't noticed until now. Where was her robe? "Not putting it into practice at all," she said dully, and it was not a question. "That's right. I don't want to, ever. Not that I haven't thought about it, or wanted a wife and children. I have. But I can't. Because there isn't enough room to love them and God as well, not the way I want to love God. I've known that for a long time. I don't seem to remember a time when I didn't, and the older I become the greater my love for God grows. It's a great mystery, loving God."
Meggie lay looking into those calm, distant blue eyes. Ralph's eyes, as they used to be. But ablaze with something quite alien to Ralph's. Had he had it, at eighteen? Had he? Was it perhaps something one could only experience at eighteen? By the time she entered Ralph's life, he was ten years beyond that. Yet her son was a mystic, she had always known it. And she didn't think that at any stage of his life Ralph had been mystically inclined. She swallowed, wrapped the robe closer about her lonely bones. "So I asked myself," Dane went on, "what I could do to show Him how much I loved Him. I fought the answer for a long time, I didn't want to see it. Because I wanted a life as a man, too, very much. Yet I knew what the offering had to be, I knew.... There's only one thing I can offer Him, to show Him nothing else will ever exist in my heart before Him. I must offer up His only rival; that's the sacrifice He demands of me. I am His servant, and He will have no rivals. I have had to choose. All things He'll let me have and enjoy, save that." He sighed, plucked at a blade of Drogheda grass. "I must show Him that I understand why He gave me so much at my birth. I must show Him that I realize how unimportant my life as a man is."
"You can't do it, I won't let you!" Meggie cried, her hand reaching for his arm, clutching it. How smooth it felt, the hint of great power under the skin, just like Ralph's. Just like Ralph's! Not to have some glossy girl put her hand there, as a right?
"I'm going to be a priest," said Dane. "I'm going to enter His service completely, offer everything I have and am to Him, as His priest. Poverty, charity and obedience. He demands no less than all from His chosen servants. It won't be easy, but I'm going to do it.
The look in her eyes! As if he had killed her, ground her into the dust beneath his foot. That he should have to suffer this he hadn't known, dreaming only of her pride in him; her pleasure at giving her son to God. They said she'd be thrilled, uplifted, completely in accord. Instead she was staring at him as if the prospect of his priesthood was her death sentence. "It's all I've ever wanted to be," he said in despair, meeting those dying eyes. "Oh, Mum, can't you understand? I've never, never wanted to be anything but a priest! I can't be anything but a priest!" Her hand fell from his arm; he glanced down and saw the white marks of her fingers, the little arcs in his skin where her nails had bitten deeply. Her head went up, she laughed on and on and on, huge hysterical peals of bitter, derisive laughter.
"Oh, it's too good to be true!" she gasped when she could speak again, wiping the tears from the corners of her eyes with a trembling hand. "The incredible irony! Ashes of roses, he said that night riding to the borehead. And I didn't understand what he meant. Ashes thou wert, unto ashes return. To the Church thou belongest, to the Church thou shalt be given. Oh, it's beautiful, beautiful! God rot God, I say! God the sod! The utmost Enemy of women, that's what God is! Everything we seek to do, He seeks to undo!" "Oh, don't! Oh, don't! Mum, don't!" He wept for her, for her pain, not understanding her pain or the words she was saying. His tears fell, twisted in his heart; already the sacrifice had begun, and in a way he hadn't dreamed. But though he wept for her, not even for her could he put it aside, the sacrifice. The offering must be made, and the harder it was to make, the more valuable it must be in His eyes.
She had made him weep, and never in all his life until now had she made him weep. Her own rage and grief were put away resolutely. No, it wasn't fair to visit herself upon him. What he was his genes had made him. Or his God. Or Ralph's God. He was the light of her life, her son. He should not be made to suffer because of her, ever. "Dane, don't cry," she whispered, stroking the angry marks on his arm. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. You gave me a shock, that's all. Of course I'm glad for you, truly I am! How could 1 not be? I was shocked; I just didn't expect it, that's all." She chuckled, a little shakily. "You did rather drop it on me like a rock."
His eyes cleared, regarded her doubtfully. Why had he imagined he killed her? Those were Mum's eyes as he had always known them; full of love, very much alive. The strong young arms gathered her close, hugged her. "You're sure you don't mind?"
"Mind? A good Catholic mother mind her son becoming a priest? Impossible!" She jumped to her feet. "Brr! How cold it's got! Let's be getting back." They hadn't taken the horses, but a jeeplike LandRover; Dane climbed behind the wheel, his mother sat beside him.
"Do you know where you're going?" asked Meggie, drawing in a sobbing breath, pushing the tumbled hair out of her eyes. "Saint Patrick's College, I suppose. At least until I find my feet. Perhaps then I'll espouse an order. I'd rather like to be a Jesuit, but I'm not quite sure enough of that to go straight into the Society of Jesus." Meggie stared at the tawny grass bouncing up and down through the insect-spattered windscreen. "I have a much better idea, Dane." "Oh?" He had to concentrate on driving; the track dwindled a bit and there were always new logs across it.
"I shall send you to Rome, to Cardinal de Bricassart. You remember him, don't you?"
"Do I remember him? What a question, Mum! I don't think I could forget him in a million years. He's my example of the perfect priest. If I could be the priest he is, I'd be very happy."
"Perfection is as perfection does!" said Meggie tartly. "But I shall give you into his charge, because I know he'll look after you for my sake. You can enter a seminary in Rome."
"Do you really mean it, Mum? Really?" Anxiety pushed the joy out of his face. "Is there enough money? It would be much cheaper if I stayed in Australia."
"Thanks to the selfsame Cardinal de Bricassart, my dear, you'll never lack money."
At the cookhouse door she pushed him inside. "Go and tell the girls and Mrs. Smith," she said. "They'll be absolutely thrilled."
One after the other she put her feet down, made them plod up the ramp to the big house, to the drawing room where Fee sat, miraculously not working but talking to Anne Mueller instead, over an afternoon tea tray. As Meggie came in they looked up, saw from her face that something serious had happened.
For eighteen years the Muellers had been visiting Drogheda, expecting that was how it always would be. But Luddie Mueller had died suddenly the preceding autumn, and Meggie had written immediately to Anne to ask her if she would like to live permanently on Drogheda. There was plenty of room, a guest cottage for privacy; she could pay board if she was too proud not to, though heaven knew there was enough money to keep a thousand permanent houseguests. Meggie saw it as a chance to reciprocate for those lonely Queensland years, and Anne saw it as salvation. Himmelhoch without Luddie was horribly lonely. Though she had put on a manager, not sold the place; when she died it would go to Justine.
"What is it, Men!" Anne asked.
Meggie sat down. "I think I've been struck by a retributory bolt of lightning."
"What?"
"You were right, both of you. You said I'd lose him. I didn't believe you, I actually thought I could beat God. But there was never a woman born who could beat God. He's a Man."
Fee poured Meggie a cup of tea. "Here, drink this," she said, as if tea had the restorative powers of brandy. "How have you lost him?" "He's going to become a priest." She began to laugh, weeping at the same time.
Anne picked up her sticks, hobbled to Meggie's chair and sat awkwardly on its arm, stroking the lovely redgold hair. "Oh, my dear! But it isn't as bad as all that."
"Do you know about Dane?" Fee asked Anne.
"I've always known," said Anne.
Meggie sobered. "It isn't as bad as all that? It's the beginning of the end, don't you see? Retribution. I stole Ralph from God, and I'm paying with my son. You told me it was stealing, Mum, don't you remember? I didn't want to believe you, but you were right, as always."
Is he going to Saint Pat's?" Fee asked practically. Meggie laughed more normally. "That's no sort of reparation, Mum. I'm going to send him to Ralph, of course. Half of him is Ralph; let Ralph finally enjoy him." She shrugged. "He's more important than Ralph, and 1 knew he'd want to go to Rome." "Did you ever tell Ralph about Dane?" asked Anne; it wasn't a subject ever discussed.
"No, and I never will. Never!"
"They're so alike he might guess."
"Who, Ralph? He'll never guess! That much I'm going to keep. I'm sending him my son, but no more than that. I'm not sending him his son." "Beware of the jealousy of the gods, Meggie," said Anne softly. "They might not have done, with you yet."
"What more can they do to me?" mourned Meggie. When Justine heard the news she was furious, though for the last three or four years she had had a sneaking suspicion it was coming. First of all, because Justine had been at school in Sydney with him, and as his confidante had listened to him talk of the things he didn't mention to his mother. Justine knew how vitally important his religion was to Dan caret.; not only God, but the mystical significance of Catholic rituals. Had he been born and brought up a Protestant, she thought, he was the type to have eventually turned to Catholicism to satisfy something in his soul. Not for Dane an austere, Calvinistic God. His God was limned in stained glass, wreathed in incense, wrapped in lace and gold embroidery, hymned in musical complexity, and worshipped in lovely Latin cadences.
Too, it was a kind of ironic perversity that someone so wonderfully endowed with beauty should deem it a crippling handicap, and deplore its existence. For Dane did. He shrank from any reference to his looks; Justine fancied he would far rather have been born ugly, totally unprepossessing. She understood in part why he felt so, and perhaps because her own career lay in a notoriously narcissistic profession, she rather approved of his attitude toward his appearance. What she couldn't begin to understand was why he positively loathed his looks, instead of simply ignoring them. Nor was he highly sexed, for what reason she wasn't sure: whether he had taught himself to sublimate his passions almost perfectly, or whether in spite of his bodily endowments some necessary cerebral essence was in short supply. Probably- the former, since he played some sort of vigorous sport every day of his life to make sure he went to bed exhausted. She knew very well that his inclinations were "normal," that is, heterosexual, and she knew what type of girl appealed to him tall, dark and voluptuous. But he just wasn't sensually aware; he didn't notice the feel of things when he held them, or the odors in the air around him, or understand the special satisfaction of shape and color. Before he experienced a sexual pull the provocative object's impact had to be irresistible, and only at such rare moments did he seem to realize there was an earthly plane most men trod, of choice, for as long as they possibly could.
He told her backstage at the Culloden, after a performance. It had been settled with Rome that day; he was dying to tell her and yet he knew she wasn't going to like it. His religious ambitions were something he had never discussed with her as much as he wanted to, for she became angry. But when he came backstage that night it was too difficult to contain his joy any longer. "You're a prawn," she said in disgust.
"It's what I want."
"Idiot."
"Calling me names won't change a thing, Jus."
"Do you think I don't know that? It affords me a little much-needed emotional release, that's all."
"I should think you'd get enough on the stage, playing Electra. You're really good, Jus."
"After this news I'll be better," she said grimly. "Are you going to Saint Pat's?"
"No. I'm going to Rome, to Cardinal de Bricassart. Mum arranged it." "Dane, no! It's so far away!"
"Well, why don't you come, too, at least to England? With your background and ability you ought to be able to get a place somewhere without too much trouble."
She was sitting at a mirror wiping off Electra's paint, still in Electra's robes; ringed with heavy black arabesques, her strange eyes seemed even stranger. She nodded slowly. "Yes, I could, couldn't I?" she asked thoughtfully. "It's more than time I did.... Australia's getting a bit too small.... Right, mate! You're on! England it is!"
"Super! Just think! I get holidays, you know, one always does in the seminary, as if it was a university. We can plan to take them together, trip around Europe a bit, come home to Drogheda. Oh, Jus, I've thought it all out! Having you not far away makes it perfect."
She beamed. "It does, doesn't it? Life wouldn't be the same if I couldn't talk to you."
"That's what I was afraid you were going to say." He grinned. "But seriously, Jus, you worry me. I'd rather have you where I can see you from time to time. Otherwise who's going to be the voice of your conscience?" He slid down between a hoplite's helmet and an awesome mask of the Pythoness to a position on the floor where he could see her, coiling himself into an economical ball, out of the way of all the feet. There were only two stars" dressing rooms at the Culloden and Justine didn't rate either of them yet. She was in the general dressing room, among the ceaseless traffic. "Bloody old Cardinal de Bricassart!" she spat. "I hated him the moment I laid eyes on him!"
Dane chuckled. "You didn't, you know."
"I did! I did!"
"No, you didn't. Aunt Anne told me one Christmas hol, and I'll bet you don't know."
"What don't I know?" she asked warily.
"That when you were a baby he fed you a bottle and burped you, rocked you to sleep. Aunt Anne said you were a horrible cranky baby and hated being held, but when he held you, you really liked it."
"It's a flaming lie!"
"No, it's not." He grinned. "Anyway, why do you hate him so much now?" "I just do. He's like a skinny old vulture, and he gives me the dry heaves."
"I like him. I always did. The perfect priest, that's what Father Watty calls him. I think he is, too."
"Well, fuck him, I say!"
"Justine!"
"Shocked you that time, didn't I? I'll bet you never even thought I knew that word."
His eyes danced. "Do you know what it means? Tell me, Jussy, go on, I dare you!"
She could never resist him when he teased; her own eyes began to twinkle. "You might be going to be a Father Rhubarb, you prawn, but if you don't already know what it means, you'd better not investigate."
He grew serious. "Don't worry, I won't."
A very shapely pair of female legs stopped beside Dane, pivoted. He looked up, went red, looked away, and said, "Oh, hello, Martha," in a casual voice. "Hello yourself."
She was an extremely beautiful girl, a little short on acting ability but so decorative she was an asset to any production; she also happened to be exactly Dane's cup of tea, and Justine had listened to his admiring comments about her more than once. Tall, what the movie magazines always called sexsational, very dark of hair and eye, fair of skin, with magnificent breasts.
Perching herself on the corner of Justine's table, she swung one leg provocatively under Dane's nose and watched him with an undisguised appreciation he clearly found disconcerting. Lord, he was really something! How had plain old cart-horse Jus collected herself a brother who looked like this? He might be only eighteen and it might be cradle-snatching, but who cared?
"How about coming over to my place for coffee and whatever?" she asked, looking down at Dane. "The two of you?" she added reluctantly. Justine shook her head positively, her eyes lighting up at a sudden thought. "No, thanks, I can't. You'll have to be content with Dane." He shook his head just as positively, but rather regretfully, as if he was truly tempted. "Thanks anyway, Martha, but I can't." He glanced at his watch as at a savior. "Lord, I've only got a minute left on my meter! How much longer are you going to be, Jus?"
"About ten minutes."
"I'll wait for you outside, all right?"
"Chicken!" she mocked.
Martha's dusky eyes followed him. "He is absolutely gorgeous. Why won't he look at me?"
Justine grinned sourly, scrubbed her face clean at last. The freckles were coming back. Maybe London would help; no sun. "Oh, don't worry, he looks. He'd like, too. But will he? Not Dane."
"Why? What's the matter with him? Never tell me he's a poof! Shit, why is it every gorgeous man I meet is a poof? I never thought Dane was, though; he doesn't strike me that way at all."
"Watch your language, you dumb wart! He most certainly isn't a poof. In fact, the day he looks at Sweet William, our screaming juvenile, I'll cut his throat and Sweet William's, too."
"Well, if he isn't a pansy and he likes, why doesn't he take? Doesn't he get my message? Does he think I'm too old for him?" "Sweetie, at a hundred you won't be too old for the average man, don't worry about it. No, Dane's sworn off sex for life, the fool. He's going to be a priest."
Martha's lush mouth dropped open, she swung back her mane of inky hair. "Go on!"
"True, true."
"You mean to say all that's going to be wasted?" "Afraid so. He's offering it to God."
"Then God's a bigger poofter than Sweet Willie."
"You might be right," said Justine. "He certainly isn't too fond of women, anyway. Second-class, that's us, way back in the Upper Circle. Front Stalls and the Mezzanine, strictly male."
"Oh."
Justine wriggled out of Electra's robe, flung a thin cotton dress over her head, remembered it was chilly outside, added a cardigan, and patted Martha kindly on the head. "Don't worry about it, sweetie. God was very good to you; he didn't give you any brains. Believe me, it's far more comfortable that way. You'll never offer the Lords of Creation any competition."
"I don't know, I wouldn't mind competing with God for your brother." "Forget it. You're fighting the Establishment, and it just can't be done. You'd seduce Sweet Willie far quicker, take my word for it."
A Vatican car met Dane at the airport, whisked him through sunny faded streets full of handsome, smiling people; he glued his nose to the window and drank it all in, unbearably excited at seeing for himself the things he had seen only in pictures-the Roman columns, the rococo palaces, the Renaissance glory of Saint Peter's.
And waiting for him, clad this time in scarlet from head to foot, was Ralph Raoul, Cardinal de Bricassart. The hand was outstretched, its ring glowing; Dane sank on both knees to kiss it.
"Stand up, Dane, let me look at you."
He stood, smiling at the tall man who was almost exactly his own height; they could look each other hi the eye. To Dane the Cardinal had an immense aura of spiritual power which made him think of a pope rather than a saint, yet those intensely sad eyes were not the eyes of a pope. How much he must have suffered to appear so, but how nobly he must have risen above his suffering to become this most perfect of priests. And Cardinal Ralph gazed at the son he did not know was his son, loving him, he thought, because he was dear Meggie's boy. Just so would he have wanted to see a son of his own body; as tall, as strikingly good looking, as graceful. In all his life he had never seen a man move so well. But far more satisfying than any physical beauty was the simple beauty of his soul. He had the strength of the angels, and something of their unearthliness. Had he been so himself, at eighteen? He tried to remember, span the crowded events of three fifths of a lifetime; no, he had never been so. Was it because this one came truly of his own choice? For he himself had not, though he had had the vocation, of that much he still was sure.
"Sit down, Dane. Did you do as I asked, start to learn Italian?" "At this stage I speak it fluently but without idiom, and I read it very well. Probably the fact that it's my fourth language makes it easier. I seem to have a talent for languages. A couple of weeks here and I ought to pick up the vernacular."
"Yes, you will. I, too, have a talent for languages."
"Well, they're handy," said Dane lamely. The awesome scarlet figure was a little daunting; it was suddenly hard to remember the man on the chestnut gelding at Drogheda.
Cardinal Ralph leaned forward, watching him.
"I pass the responsibility for him to you, Ralph," Meggie's letter had said. "I charge you with his wellbeing, his happiness. What I stole, I give back. It is demanded of me. Only promise me two things, and I'll rest in the knowledge you've acted in his best interests. First, promise me you'll make sure before you accept him that this is what he truly, absolutely wants. Secondly, that if this is what he wants, you'll keep your eye on him, make sure it remains what he wants. If he should lose heart for it, I want him back. For he belonged to me first. It is I who gives him to you." "Dane, are you sure?" asked the Cardinal.
"Absolutely."
"Why?"
His eyes were curiously aloof, uncomfortably familiar, but familiar in a way which was of the past.
"Because of the love I bear Our Lord. I want to serve Him as His priest all of my days."
"Do you understand what His service entails, Dane?" "Yes."
"That no other love must ever come between you and Him? That you are His exclusively, forsaking all others?"
"Yes."
"That His Will be done in all things, that in His service you must bury your personality, your individuality, your concept of yourself as uniquely important?"
"Yes."
"That if necessary you must face death, imprisonment, starvation in His Name? That you must own nothing, value nothing which might tend to lessen your love for Him?"
"Yes."
"Are you strong, Dane?"
"I am a man, Your Eminence. I am first a man. It will b[*thorn] hard, I know. But I pray that with His help I shall find the strength."
"Must it be this, Dane? Will nothing less than this content you?" "Nothing."
"And if later on you should change your mind, what would you do?" "Why, I should ask to leave," said Dane, surprised. "If I changed my mind it would be because I had genuinely mistaken my vocation, for no other reason. Therefore I should ask to leave. I wouldn't be loving Him any less, but I'd know this isn't the way He means me to serve Him."
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