Back to brown and silver, back to dust, back to that wonderful purity and spareness North Queensland solacked. No profligate2 growth here, no hastening of decay to make room for more; only a slow, wheelinginevitability like the constellations3. Kangaroos, more than ever. Lovely little symmetrical wilgas, round andmatronly, almost coy. Galahs, soaring in pink waves of undersides above the truck. Emus at full run. Rabbits,hopping out of the road with white powder puffs4 lashing6 cheekily. Bleached7 skeletons of dead trees in the grass.
Mirages8 of timber stands on the far curving horizon as they came across the Dibban-Dibban plain, only theunsteady blue lines across their bases to indicate that the trees weren't real. The sound she had so missed butnever thought to miss, crows carking desolately9. Misty10 brown veils of dust whipped along by the dry autumnwind like dirty rain. And the grass, the silver-beige grass of the Great Northwest, stretching to the sky like abenediction.
Drogheda, Drogheda! Ghost gums and sleepy giant pepper trees a-hum with bees. Stockyards and butteryyellow sandstone buildings, alien green lawn around the big house, autumn flowers in the garden, wallflowersand zinnias, asters and dahlias, marigolds and calendulas, chrysanthemums12, roses, roses. The gravel13 of thebackyard, Mrs. Smith standing14 gaping15, then laughing, crying, Minnie and Cat running, old stringy arms likechains around her heart. For Drogheda was home, and here was her heart, for always. Fee came out to see whatall the fuss was about. "Hello, Mum. I've come home."The grey eyes didn't change, but in the new growth of her soul Meggie understood. Mum was glad; she justdidn't know how to show it. "Have you left Luke?" Fee asked, taking it for granted that Mrs. Smith and the maidswere as entitled to know as she was herself. "Yes. I shall never go back to him. He didn't want a home, or hischildren, or me.""Children?""Yes. I'm going to have another baby."Oohs and aahs from the servants, and Fee speaking her judgment16 in that measured voice, gladness underneath17.
"If he doesn't want you, then you were right to come home. We can look after you here."Her old room, looking out across the Home Paddock, the gardens. And a room next door for Justine, the newbaby when it came. Oh, it was so good to be home!
Bob was glad to see her, too. More and more like Paddy, he was becoming a little bent18 and sinewy19 as the sunbaked his skin and his bones to dryness. He had the same gentle strength of character, but perhaps because hehad never been the progenitor20 of a large family, he lacked Paddy's fatherly mien21. And he was like Fee, also.
Quiet, self-contained, not one to air his feelings or opinions. He had to be into his middle thirties, Meggiethought in sudden surprise, and still he wasn't married. Then Jack22 and Hughie came in, two duplicate Bobswithout his authority, their shy smiles welcoming her home. That must be it, she reflected; they are so shy, it isthe land, for the land doesn't need articulateness or social graces. It needs only what they bring to it, voice-lesslove and wholehearted fealty23.
The Cleary men were all home that night, to unload a truck of corn Jims and Patsy had picked up from theAMLANDF in Gilly.
"I've never seen it so dry, Meggie," Bob said. "No rain in two years, not a drop. And the bunnies are a biggercurse than the kangas; they're eating more grass than sheep and kangas combined. We're going to try to handfeed,but you know what sheep are."Only too well did Meggie know what sheep were. Idiots, incapable24 of understanding even the rudiments25 ofsurvival. What little brain the original animal had ever possessed26 was entirely27 bred out of these woollyaristocrats. Sheep wouldn't eat anything but grass, or scrub cut from their natural environment. But there justweren't enough hands to cut scrub to satisfy over a hundred thousand sheep.
"I take it you can use me?" she asked.
"Can we! You'll free up a man's hands for scrubcutting, Meggie, if you'll ride the inside paddocks the way youused to."True as their word, the twins were home for good. At fourteen they quit Riverview forever, couldn't head backto the black-oil plains quickly enough. Already they looked like juvenile29 Bobs, Jacks30 and Hughies, in what wasgradually replacing the old-fashioned grey twill and flannel31 as the uniform of the Great Northwest grazier: whitemoleskin breeches, white shirt, a flat-crowned grey felt hat with a broad brim, and ankle-high elastic-sided ridingboots with flat heels. Only the handful of half-caste aborigines who lived in Gilly's shanty32 section aped thecowboys of the American West, in high-heeled fancy boots and ten-gallon Stetsons. To a black-soil plainsmansuch gear was a useless affectation, a part of a different culture. A man couldn't walk through the scrub in high-heeled boots, and a man often had to walk through the scrub. And a ten-gallon Stetson was far too hot and heavy.
The chestnut33 mare34 and the black gelding were both dead; the stables were empty. Meggie insisted she was happywith a stock horse, but Bob went over to Martin King's to buy her two of his part-thoroughbred hacks35 comacreamy mare with a black mane and tail, and a leggy chestnut gelding. For some reason the loss of the oldchestnut mare hit Meggie harder than her actual parting from Ralph, a delayed reaction; as if in this the fact ofhis going was more clearly stated. But it was so good to be out in the paddocks again, to ride with the dogs, eatthe dust of a bleating36 mob of sheep, watch the birds, the sky, the land.
It was terribly dry. Drogheda's grass had always managed to outlast38 the droughts Meggie remembered, but thiswas different. The grass was patchy now; in between its tussocks the dark ground showed, cracked into a finenetwork of fissures39 gaping like parched40 mouths. For which mostly thank the rabbits. In the four years of herabsence they had suddenly multiplied out of all reason, though she supposed they had been bad for many yearsbefore that. It was just that almost overnight their numbers had reached far beyond saturation41 point. They wereeverywhere, and they, too, ate the precious grass. She learned to set rabbit traps, hating in a way to see the sweetlittle things mangled42 in steel teeth, but too much of a land person herself to flinch43 from doing what had to bedone. To kill in the name of survival wasn't cruelty.
"God rot the homesick Pommy who shipped the first rabbits out from England," said Bob bitterly.
They were not native to Australia, and their sentimental44 importation had completely upset the ecologicalbalance of the continent where sheep and cattle had not, these being scientifically grazed from the moment oftheir introduction. There was no natural Australian predator45 to control the rabbit numbers, and imported foxesdidn't thrive. Man must be an unnatural46 predator, but there were too few men, too many rabbits.
After Meggie grew too big to sit a horse, she spent her days in the homestead with Mrs. Smith, Minnie and Cat,sewing or knitting for the little thing squirming inside her. He (she always thought of it as he) was a part of heras Justine never had been; she suffered no sickness or depression, and looked forward eagerly to bearing him.
Perhaps Justine was inadvertently responsible for some of this; now that the little pale-eyed thing was changingfrom a mindless baby to an extremely intelligent girl child, Meggie found herself fascinated with the process andthe child. It was a long time since she had been indifferent to Justine, and she yearned47 to lavish48 love upon herdaughter, hug her, kiss her, laugh with her. To be politely rebuffed was a shock, but that was what Justine did atevery affectionate overture49. When Jims and Patsy left Riverview, Mrs. Smith had thought to get them back underher wing again, then came the disappointment of discovering they were away in the paddocks most of the time.
So Mrs. Smith turned to little Justine, and found herself as firmly shut out as Meggie was. It seemed that Justinedidn't want to be hugged, kissed or made to laugh. She walked and talked early, at nine months. Once upon herfeet and in command of a very articulate tongue, she proceeded to go her own way and do precisely50 whatever shewanted. Not that she was either noisy or defiant51; simply that she was made of very hard metal indeed. Meggieknew nothing about genes52, but if she had she might have pondered upon the result of an intermingling of Cleary,Armstrong and O'neill. It couldn't fail to be powerful human soup.
But the most dismaying thing was Justine's dogged refusal to smile or laugh. Every soul on Drogheda turnedinside out performing antics to make her germinate54 a grin, without success. When it came to innate55 solemnity sheoutdid her grandmother. On the first of October, when Justine was exactly sixteen months old, Meggie's son wasborn on Drogheda. He was almost four weeks early and not expected; there were two or three sharp contractions,the water broke, and he was delivered by Mrs. Smith and Fee a few minutes after they rang for the doctor.
Meggie had scarcely, had time to dilate57. The pain was minimal58, the ordeal59 so quickly over it might hardly havebeen; in spite of the stitches she had to have because his entry into the world had been so precipitate61, Meggie feltwonderful. Totally dry for Justine, her breasts were full to overflowing62. No need for bottles or tins of Lactogenthis time. And he was so beautiful! Long and slender, with a quiff of flaxen hair atop his perfect little skull64, andvivid blue eyes which gave no hint of changing later to some other color. How could they change? They wereRalph's eyes, as he had Ralph's hands, Ralph's nose and mouth, even Ralph's feet. Meggie was unprincipledenough to be very thankful Luke had been much the same build and coloring as Ralph, much the same infeatures. But the hands, the way the brows grew in, the downy widow's peak, the shape of the fingers and toes;they were so much Ralph, so little Luke. Better hope no one remembered which man owned what.
"Have you decided-on his name?" asked Fee; he seemed to fascinate her. Meggie watched her as she stoodholding him, and was grateful. Mum was going to love again; oh, maybe not the way she had loved Frank, but atleast she would feel something.
"I'm going to call him Dane.""What a queer name! Why? Is it an O'neill family name? I thought you were finished with the O'neills?""It's got nothing to do with Luke. This is his name, no one else's. I hate family names; it's like wishing a pieceof someone different onto a new person. I called Justine Justine simply because I liked the name, and I'm callingDane Dane for the same reason.
"Well, it does have a nice ring to it," Fee admitted. Meggie winced66; her breasts were too full. "Better give himto me, Mum. Oh, I hope he's hungry! And I hope old Blue remembers to bring that breast pump. Otherwiseyou're going to have to drive into Gilly for it."He was hungry; he tugged67 at her so hard his gummy little mouth hurt. Looking down on him, the closed eyeswith their dark, gold-tipped lashes68, the feathery brows, the tiny working cheeks, Meggie loved him so much thelove hurt her more than his sucking ever could.
He is enough; he has to be enough, I'll not get any more. But by God, Ralph de Bricassart, by that God you lovemore than me, you'll never know what I stole from you-and from Him. I'm never going to tell you about Dane.
Oh, my baby! Shifting on the pillows to settle him more comfortably into the crook69 of her arm, to see moreeasily that perfect little face. My baby! You're mine, and I'm never going to give you up to anyone else. Least ofall to your father, who is a priest and can't acknowledge you. Isn't that wonderful?
The boat docked in Genoa at the beginning of April. Archbishop Ralph landed in an Italy bursting into full,Mediterranean71 spring, and caught a train to Rome. Had he requested it he could have been met, chauffeured72 in aVatican car to Rome, but he dreaded74 to feel the Church close around him again; he wanted to put the moment offas long as he could. The Eternal City. It was truly that, he thought, staring out of the taxi windows at thecampaniles and domes76, and pigeon-strewn plazas77, the ambitious fountains, the Roman columns with their basesburied deep in the centuries. Well, to him they were all superfluities. What mattered to him was the part of Romecalled the Vatican, its sumptuous78 public rooms, its anything but sumptuous private rooms.
A black-and-cream-robed Dominican monk79 led him through high marble corridors, amid bronze and stonefigures worthy81 of a museum, past great paintings in the styles of Giotto, Raphael, Botticelli, Fra Angelico. Hewas in the public rooms of a great cardinal82, and no doubt the wealthy Contini-Verchese family had given muchto enhance their august scion's surroundings.
In a room of ivory and gold, rich with color from tapestries83 and pictures, French carpeted and furnished,everywhere touches of crimson84, sat Vittorio Scarbanza, Cardinal di Contini-Verchese. The small smooth hand,its ruby85 ring glowing, was extended to him in welcome; glad to fix his eyes downward, Archbishop Ralphcrossed the room, knelt, took the hand to kiss the ring. And laid his cheek against the hand, knowing he couldn'tlie, though he had meant to right up until the moment his lips touched that symbol of spiritual power, temporalauthority.
Cardinal Vittorio put his other hand on the bent shoulder, nodding a dismissal to the monk, then as the doorclosed softly his hand went from shoulder to hair, rested in its dark thickness, smoothed it back tenderly from thehalf-averted forehead. It had changed; soon it would be no longer black, but the color of iron. The bent spinestiffened, the shoulders went back, and Archbishop Ralph looked directly up into his master's face. Ah, there hadbeen a change! The mouth had drawn87 in, knew pain and was more vulnerable; the eyes, so beautiful in color andshape and setting, were yet completely different from the eyes he still remembered as if bodily they had neverleft him. Cardinal Vittorio had always had a fancy that the eyes of Jesus were blue, and like Ralph's: calm,removed from what He saw and therefore able to encompass88 all, understand all. But perhaps it had been amistaken fancy. How could one feel for humanity and suffer oneself without its showing in the eyes?
"Come, Ralph, sit down.""Your Eminence89, I wish to confess.""Later, later! First we will talk, and in English. There are ears everywhere these days, but, thank our dear Jesus,not English-speaking ears. Sit down, Ralph, please. Oh, it is so good to see you! I have missed your wisecounsel, your rationality, your perfect brand of companionship. They have not given me anyone I like half sowell as you."He could feel his brain clicking into the formality already, feel the very thoughts in his mind take on morestilted phrasing; more than most people, Ralph de Bricassart knew how everything about one changed with one'scompany, even one's speech. Not for these ears the easy fluency90 of colloquial91 English. So he sat down not faraway, and directly opposite the slight figure in its scarlet92 moiré, the color changing yet not changing, of a qualitywhich made its edges fuse with the surroundings rather than stand out from them. The desperate weariness hehad known for weeks seemed to be easing a little from his shoulders; he wondered why he had dreaded thismeeting so, when he had surely known in his heart he would be understood, forgiven. But that wasn't it, not it atall. It was his own guilt93 at having failed, at being less than he had aspired94 to be, at disappointing a man who hadbeen interested, tremendously kind, a true friend. His guilt at walking into this pure presence no longer purehimself.
"Ralph, we are priests, but we are something else before that; something we were before we became priests, andwhich we cannot escape in spite of our exclusiveness. We are men, with the weaknesses and failings of men.
There is nothing you can tell me which could alter the impressions I formed of you during our years together,nothing you could tell me which will make me think less of you, or like you less. For many years I have knownthat you had escaped this realization95 of our intrinsic weakness, of our humanity, but I knew you must come to it,for we all do. Even the Holy Father, who is the most humble96 and human of us all.""I broke my vows97, Your Eminence. That isn't easily forgiven. It's sacrilege.""Poverty you broke years ago, when you accepted the bequest98 of Mrs. Mary Carson. Which leaves cha/y andobedience, does it not?" "Then all three were broken, Your Eminence.""I wish you would call me Vittorio, as you used to! I am not shocked, Ralph, nor disappointed. It is as Our LordJesus Christ wills, and I think perhaps you had a great lesson to learn which could not be learned in any way lessdestructive. God is mysterious, His reasons beyond our poor comprehension. But I think what you did was notdone lightly, your vows thrown away as having no value. I know you very well. I know you to be proud, verymuch in love with the idea of being a priest, very conscious of your exclusiveness. It is possible that you neededthis particular lesson to reduce that pride, make you understand that you are first a man, and therefore not asexclusive as you think. Is it not so?" "Yes. I lacked humility100, and I believe in a way I aspired to be God Himself.
I've sinned most grievously and inexcusably. I can't forgive myself, so how can I hope for divine forgiveness?""The pride, Ralph, the pride! It is not your place to forgive, do you not understand that yet? Only God canforgive. Only God! And He will forgive if the sincere repentance101 is there. He has forgiven greater sins from fargreater saints, you know, as well as from far greater villains103. Do you think Prince Lucifer is not forgiven? Hewas forgiven in the very moment of his rebellion. His fate as ruler of Hell is his own, not God's doing. Did he notsay it? "Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven!" For he could not overcome his pride, he could not bear tosubjugate his will to the Will of Someone else, even though that Someone was God Himself. I do not want to seeyou make the same mistake, my dearest friend. Humility was the one quality you lacked, and it is the veryquality which makes a great saint-or a great man. Until you can leave the matter of forgiveness to God, you willnot have acquired true humility."The strong face twisted. "Yes, I know you're right. I must accept what I am without question, only strive to bebetter without having pride in what I am. I repent102, therefore I shall confess and await forgiveness. I do repent,bitterly." He sighed; his eyes betrayed the conflict his measured words couldn't, not in this room.
"And yet, Vittorio, in a way there was nothing else I could do. Either I ruined her, or I took the ruin uponmyself. At the time there didn't seem to be a choice, because I do love her. It wasn't her fault that I've neverwanted the love to extend to a physical plane. Her fate became more important than my own, you see. Until thatmoment I had always considered myself first, as more important than she, because I was a priest, and she was alesser being. But I saw that I was responsible for what she is .... I should have let her go when she was a child,but I didn't. I kept her in my heart and she knew it. If I had truly plucked her out she would have known that, too,and she would have become someone I couldn't influence." He smiled. "You see that I have much to repent. Itried a little creating of my own.""It was the Rose?"The head went back; Archbishop Ralph looked at the elaborate ceiling with its gilded105 moldings and baroqueMurano chandelier. "Could it have been anyone else? She's my only attempt at creation.""And will she be all right, the Rose? Did you do her more harm by this than in denying her?""I don't know, Vittorio. I wish I did! At the time it just seemed the only thing to do. I'm not gifted withPromethean foresight106, and emotional involvement makes one a poor judge. Besides, it simply . . . happened! ButI think perhaps she needed most what I gave her, the recognition of her identity as a woman. I don't mean thatshe didn't know she was a woman. I mean 1 didn't know. If I had first met her as a woman it might have beendifferent, but I knew her as a child for many years.""You sound rather priggish, Ralph, and not yet ready for forgiveness. It hurts, does it not? That you could havebeen human enough to yield to human weakness. Was it really done in such a spirit of noble self-sacrifice?"Startled, he looked into the liquid dark eyes, saw himself reflected in them as two tiny manikins of insignificantproportion. "No," he said. "I'm a man, and as a man I found a pleasure in her I didn't dream existed. I didn't knowa woman felt like that, or could be the source of such profound joy. I wanted never to leave her, not only becauseof her body, but because I just loved to be with her-talk to her, not talk to her, eat the meals she cooked, smile ather, share her thoughts. I shall miss her as long as I live." There was something in the sallow ascetic107 visagewhich unaccountably reminded him of Meggie's face in that moment of parting; the sight of a spiritual burdenbeing taken up, the resoluteness108 of a character well able to go forward in spite of its loads, its griefs, its pain.
What had he known, the red silk cardinal whose only human addiction109 seemed to be his languid Abyssinian cat?
"I can't repent of what I had with her in that way," Ralph went on when His Eminence didn't speak. "I repent thebreaking of vows as solemn and binding110 as my life. I can never again approach my priestly duties in the samelight, with the same zeal111. I repent that bitterly. But Meggie?" The look on his face when he uttered her namemade Cardinal Vittorio turn away to do battle with his own thoughts.
"To repent of Meggie would be to murder her." He passed his hand tiredly across his eyes. "I don't know ifthat's very clear, or even if it gets close to saying what I mean. I can't for the life of me ever seem to express whatI feel for Meggie adequately." He leaned forward in his chair as the Cardinal turned back, and watched his twinimages grow a little larger. Vittorio's eyes were like mirrors; they threw back what they saw and didn't permitone a glimpse of what went on behind them. Meggie's eyes were exactly the opposite; they went down and downand down, all the way to her soul. "Meggie is a benediction11," he said. "She's a holy thing to me, a different kindof sacrament.""Yes, I understand," sighed the Cardinal. "It is well you feel so. In Our Lord's eyes I think it will mitigate113 thegreat sin. For your own sake you had better confess to Father Giorgio, not to Father Guillermo. Father Giorgiowill not misinterpret your feelings and your reasoning. He will see the truth. Father Guillermo is less perceptive,and might deem your true repentance debatable." A faint smile crossed his thin mouth like a wispy114 shadow.
"They, too, are men, my Ralph, those who hear the confessions115 of the great. Never forget it as long as you live.
Only in their priesthood do they act as vessels116 containing God. In all else they are men. And the forgiveness theymete out comes from God, but the ears which listen and judge belong to men."There was a discreet117 knock on the door; Cardinal Vittorio sat silently and watched the tea tray being carried to abuhl table. "You see, Ralph? Since my days in Australia I have become addicted118 to the afternoon tea habit. Theymake it quite well in my kitchen, though they used not to at first." He held up his hand as Archbishop Ralphstarted to move toward the teapot. "Ah, no! I shall pour it myself. It amuses me to be 'mother."""I saw a great many black shirts in the streets of Genoa and Rome," said Archbishop Ralph, watching CardinalVittorio pour. "The special cohorts of II Duce. We have a very difficult time ahead of us, my Ralph. The HolyFather is adamant120 that there be no fracture between the Church and the secular121 government of Italy, and he isright in this as in ail1 things. No matter what happens, we must remain free to minister to all our children, evenshould a war mean our children will be divided, fighting each other in the name of a Catholic God. Wherever ourhearts and our emotions might lie, we must endeavor always to keep the Church removed from politicalideologies and international squabbles. I wanted you to come to me because I can trust your face not to giveaway what your brain is thinking no matter what your eyes might be seeing, and because you have the bestdiplomatic turn of mind I have ever encountered."Archbishop Ralph smiled ruefully. "You'll further my career in spite of me, won't you! I wonder what wouldhave happened to me if I hadn't met you?" "Oh, you would have become Archbishop of Sydney, a nice post andan important one," said His Eminence with a golden smile. "But the ways of our lives lie not in our hands. Wemet because it was meant to be, just as it is meant that we work together now for the Holy Father.""I can't see success at the end of the road," said Archbishop Ralph. "I think the result will be what the result ofimpartiality always is. No one will like us, and everyone will condemn123 us.""I know that, so does His Holiness. But we can do nothing else. And there is nothing to prevent our praying inprivate for the speedy downfall of 11 Duce and Der Fuehrer, is there?""Do you really think there will be war?""I cannot see any possibility of avoiding it."His Eminence's cat stalked out of the sunny corner where it had been sleeping, and jumped upon the scarletshimmering lap a little awkwardly, for it was old.
"Ah, Sheba! Say hello to your old friend Ralph, whom you used to prefer to me."The satanic yellow eyes regarded Archbishop Ralph haughtily125, and closed. Both men laughed.
Drogheda had a wireless126 set. Progress had finally come to Gillanbone in the shape of an AustralianBroadcasting Commission radio station, and at long last there was something to rival the party line for massentertainment. The wireless itself was a rather ugly object in a walnut127 case which sat on a small exquisite128 cabinetin the drawing room, its car-battery power source hidden in the cupboard underneath.
Every morning Mrs. Smith, Fee and Meggie turned it on to listen to the Gillanbone district news and weather,and every evening Fee and Meggie turned it on to listen to the ABC national news. How strange it was to beinstantaneously connected with Outside; to hear of floods, fires, rainfall in every part of the nation, an uneasyEurope, Australian politics, without benefit of Bluey Williams and his aged37 newspapers. When the national newson Friday, September 1/, announced that Hitler had invaded Poland, only Fee and Meggie were home to hear it,and neither of them paid any attention. There had been speculation129 for months; besides, Europe was half a worldaway. Nothing to do with Drogheda, which was the center of the universe. But on Sunday, September 3rd all themen were in from the paddocks to hear Father Watty Thomas say Mass, and the men were interested in Europe.
Neither Fee nor Meggie thought to tell them of Friday's news, and Father Watty, who might have, left in a hurryfor Narrengang.
As usual, the wireless set was switched on that evening for the national news. But instead of the crisp,absolutely Oxford130 tones of the announcer, there came the genteel, unmistakably Australian voice of the PrimeMinister, Robert Gordon Menzies.
"Fellow Australians. It is my melancholy132 duty to inform you officially that in consequence of the persistence133 byGermany in her invasion of Poland, Great Britain has declared war upon her, and that, as a result, Australia isalso at war . .. .
"It may be taken that Hitler's ambition is not to unite all the German people under one rule, but to bring underthat rule as many countries as can be subdued134 by force. If this is to go on, there can be no security in Europe andno peace in the world .... There can be no doubt that where Great Britain stands, there stand the people of theentire British world .... "Our staying power, and that of the Mother Country, will be best assisted by keeping ourproduction going, continuing our avocations135 and business, maintaining employment, and with it, our strength. Iknow that in spite of the emotions we are feeling, Australia is ready to see it through. "May God, in His mercyand compassion136, grant that the world may soon be delivered from this agony."There was a long silence in the drawing room, broken by the megaphonal tones of a short-wave NevilleChamberlain speaking to the British people; Fee and Meggie looked at their men.
"If we count Frank, there are six of us," said Bob into the silence. "All of us except Frank are on the land, whichmeans they won't want to let us serve. Of our present stockmen, I reckon six will want to go and two will want tostay.""I want to go!" said Jack, eyes shining.
"And me," said Hughie eagerly.
"And us," said Jims on behalf of himself and the inarticulate Patsy. But they all looked at Bob, who was theboss. "We've got to be sensible," he said. "Wool is a staple137 of war, and not only for clothes. It's used as packingin ammunition138 and explosives, for all sorts of funny things we don't hear of, I'm sure. Plus we have beef cattle forfood, and the old wethers and ewes go for hides, glue, tallow, lanolin-all war staples139.
"So we can't go off and leave Drogheda to run itself, no matter what we might want to do. With a war on it'sgoing to be mighty140 hard to replace the stockmen we're bound to lose. The drought's in its third year, we're scrub-cutting, and the bunnies are driving us silly. For the moment our job's here on Drogheda; not very excitingcompared to getting into action, but just as necessary. We'll be doing our best bit here."The male faces had fallen, the female ones lightened. "What if it goes on longer than old Pig Iron Bob thinks itwill?" asked Hughie, giving the Prime Minister his national nickname. Bob thought hard, his weatherbeatenvisage full of frowning lines. "If things get worse and it goes on for a long time, then I reckon as long as we'vegot two stockmen we can spare two Clearys, but only if Meggie's willing to get back into proper harness andwork the inside paddocks. It would be awfully141 hard and in good times we wouldn't stand a chance, but in thisdrought I reckon five men and Meggie working seven days a week could run Drogheda. Yet that's asking a lot ofMeggie, with two little babies." "If it has to be done, Bob, it has to be done," said Meggie. "Mrs. Smith won'tmind doing her bit by taking charge of Justine and Dane. When you give the word that I'm needed to keepDrogheda up to full production, I'll start riding the inside paddocks.""Then that's us, the two who can be spared," said Jims, smiling. "No, it's Hughie and I," said Jack quickly.
"By rights it ought to be Jims and Patsy," Bob said slowly. "You're the youngest and least experienced asstockmen, where as soldiers we'd all be equally inexperienced. But you're only sixteen now, chaps.""By the time things get worse we'll be seventeen," offered Jims. "We'll look older than we are, so we won't haveany trouble enlisting143 if we've got a letter from you witnessed by Harry144 Gough.""Well, right at the moment no one is going. Let's see if we can't bring Drogheda up to higher production, evenwith the drought and the bunnies." Meggie left the room quietly, went upstairs to the nursery. Dane and Justinewere asleep, each in a whitepainted cot. She passed her daughter by, and stood over her son, looking down athim for a long time. "Thank God you're only a baby," she said.
It was almost a year before the war intruded146 upon the little Drogheda universe, a year during which one by onethe stockmen left, the rabbits continued to multiply, and Bob battled valiantly147 to keep the station books lookingworthy of a wartime effort. But at the beginning of June 1940 came the news that the British ExpeditionaryForce had been evacuated148 from the European mainland at Dunkirk; volunteers for the second Australian ImperialForce poured in thousands into the recruiting centers, Jims and Patsy among them.
Four years of. riding the paddocks in all weathers had passed the twins' faces and bodies beyond youth, to thatageless calm of creases149 at the outer corners of the eyes, lines down the nose to the mouth. They presented theirletters and were accepted without comment. Bushmen were popular. They could usually shoot well, knew thevalue of obeying an order, and they were tough. Jims and Patsy had enlisted150 in Dubbo, but camp was to beIngleburn, outside Sydney, so everyone saw them off on the night mail. Cormac Carmichael, Eden's youngestson, was on the same train for the same reason, going to the same camp as it turned out. So the two familiespacked their boys comfortably into a first-class compartment151 and stood around awkwardly, aching to weep andkiss and have something warming to remember, but stifled152 by their peculiar153 British mistrust ofdemonstrativeness. The big C-36 steam locomotive howled mournfully, the stationmaster began blowing hiswhistle.
Meggie leaned over to peck her brothers on their cheeks self-consciously, then did the same to Cormac, wholooked just like his oldest brother, Connor; Bob, Jack and Hughie wrung154 three different young hands; Mrs.
Smith, weeping, was the only one who did the kissing and cuddling everyone was dying to do. Eden Carmichael,his wife and aging but still handsome daughter with him, went through the same formalities. Then everyone wasoutside on the Gilly platform, the train was jerking against its buffers155 and creeping forward. "Goodbye,goodbye!" everyone called, and waved big white handkerchiefs until the train was a smoky streak156 in theshimmering sunset distance. Together as they had requested, Jims and Patsy were gazetted to the raw, half-trained Ninth Australian Division and shipped to Egypt at the beginning of 1941, just in time to become a part ofthe rout157 at Benghazi. The newly arrived General Erwin Rommel had put his formidable weight on the Axis158 endof the seesaw159 and begun the first reversal of direction in the great cycling rushes back and forth160 across NorthAfrica. And, while the rest of the British forces retreated ignominiously161 ahead of the new Afrika Korps back toEgypt, the Ninth Australian Division was detailed162 to occupy and hold Tobruk, an outpost in Axis-held territory.
The only thing which made the plan feasible was that it was still accessible by sea and could be supplied as longas British ships could move in the Mediterranean. The Rats of Tobruk holed up for eight months, and saw actionafter action as Rommel threw everything he had at them from time to, time, without managing to dislodge them.
"Do youse know why youse is here?" asked Private Col Stuart, licking the paper on his cigarette and rolling itshut lazily. Sergeant164 Bob Malloy shifted his Digger hat far enough upward to see his questioner from under itsbrim. "Shit, no," he said, grinning; it was an oft-asked query165.
"Well, it's better than whiting gaiters in the bloody166 glasshouse," said Private Jims Cleary, pulling his twinbrother's shorts down a little so he could rest his head comfortably on soft warm belly167. "Yair, but in theglasshouse youse don't keep getting shot at," objected Col, flicking168 his dead match at a sunbathing169 lizard170. "Iknow this much, mate," said Bob, rearranging his hat to shade his eyes. "I'd rather get shot at than die of fuckin'
boredom171."They were comfortably, disposed in a dry, gravelly dugout just opposite the mines and barbed wire which cutoff the southwest corner of the perimeter172; on the other side Rommel hung doggedly173 on to his single piece of theTobruk territory. A big .50-caliber Browning machine gun shared the hole with them, cases of ammunitionneatly beside it, but no one seemed very energetic or interested in the possibility of attack. Their rifles werepropped against one wall, bayonets glittering in the brilliant Tobruk sun. Flies buzzed everywhere, but all fourwere Australian bushmen, so Tobruk and North Africa held no surprises in the way of heat, dust or flies. "Just aswell youse is twins, Jims," said Col, throwing pebbles174 at the lizard, which didn't seem disposed to move. "Youselook like a pair of poofters, all tied up together." "You're just jealous." Jims grinned, stroking Patsy's belly.
"Patsy's the best pillow in Tobruk.""Yair, all right for you, but what about poor Patsy? Go on, Harpo, say something!" Bob teased.
Patsy's white teeth appeared in a smile, but as usual he remained silent. Everyone had tried to get him to talk,but no one had ever succeeded beyond an essential yes or no; in consequence nearly everyone called him Harpo,after the voiceless Marx brother.
"Hear the news?" asked Col suddenly.
"What?""The Seventh's Matildas got plastered by the eightyeights at Halfaya. Only gun in the desert big enough to wipeout a Matilda. Went through them big buggers of tanks like a dose of salts.""Oh, yeah, tell me another!" said Bob skeptically. "I'm a sergeant and I never heard a whisper, you're a privateand you know all about it. Well, mate, there's just nothing Jerry's got capable of wiping out a brigade ofMatildas.""I was in Morshead's tent on a message from the CO when I heard it come through on the wireless, and it istrue," Col maintained. For a while no one spoke175; it was necessary to every inhabitant of a beleaguered176 outpostlike Tobruk that he believe implicitly177 his own side had sufficient military thrust to get him out. Col's news wasn'tvery welcome, more so because not one soldier in Tobruk held Rommel lightly. They had resisted his efforts toblow them out because they genuinely believed the Australian fighting man had no peer save a Gurkha, and iffaith is nine-tenths of power, they had certainly proved themselves formidable. "Bloody Poms," said Jims. "Whatwe need in North Africa is more Aussies." The chorus of agreement was interrupted by an explosion on the rimof the dugout which blew the lizard into nothing and sent the four soldiers diving for the machine gun and theirrifles. "Fuckin' Dago grenade, all splinters and no punch," Bob said with a sigh of relief. "If that was a Hitlerspecial we'd be playing our harps178 for sure, and wouldn't you like that, eh, Patsy?"At the beginning of Operation Crusader the Ninth Australian Division was evacuated by sea to Cairo, after aweary, bloody siege which seemed to have accomplished180 nothing. However, while the Ninth had been holed upinside Tobruk, the steadily181 swelling182 ranks of British troops in North Africa had become the British Eighth Army,its new commander General Bernard Law Montgomery.
Fee wore a little silver brooch formed into the rising sun emblem183 of the AIF; suspended on two chains below itwas a silver bar, on which she had two gold stars, one for each son under arms. It assured everyone she met thatshe, too, was Doing Her Bit for the Country. Because her husband was not a soldier, nor her son, Meggie wasn'tentitled to wear a brooch. A letter had come from Luke informing her that he would keep on cutting the sugar; hethought she would like to know in case she had been worried he might join up. There was no indication that heremembered a word of what she had said that morning in the Ingham pub. Laughing wearily and shaking herhead, she had dropped the letter in Fee's wastepaper basket, wondering as she did so if Fee worried about hersons under arms. What did she really think of the war? But Fee never said a word, though she wore her broochevery single day, all day. Sometimes a letter would come from Egypt, falling into tatters when it was spread openbecause the censor's scissors had filled it with neat rectangular holes, once the names of places or regiments184.
Reading these letters was largely a matter of piecing together much out of-virtually nothing, but they served onepurpose which cast all others into the shade: while ever they came, the boys were still alive. There had been norain. It was as if even the divine elements conspired186 to blight187 hope, for 1941 was the fifth year of a disastrousdrought. Meggie, Bob, Jack, Hughie and Fee were desperate. The Drogheda bank account was rich enough tobuy all the feed necessary to keep the sheep alive, but most of the sheep wouldn't eat. Each mob had a naturalleader, the Judas; only if they could persuade the Judas to eat did they stand a hope with the rest, but sometimeseven the sight of a chewing Judas couldn't impress the rest of the mob into emulating189 it.
So Drogheda, too, was seeing its share of bloodletting, and hating it. The grass was all gone, the ground a darkcracked waste lightened only by grey and dunbrown timber stands. They armed themselves with knives as wellas rifles; when they saw an animal down someone would cut its throat to spare it a lingering death, eyeless fromthe crows. Bob put on more cattle and hand-fed them to keep up Drogheda's war effort. There was no profit to behad in it with the price of feed, for the agrarian190 regions closer in were just as hard hit by lack of rain as thepastoral regions farther out. Crop returns were abysmally192 low. However, word had come from Rome that theywere to do what they could regardless of the cost.
What Meggie hated most of all was the time she had to put in working the paddocks. Drogheda had managed toretain only one of its stockmen, and so far there were no replacements193; Australia's greatest shortage had alwaysbeen manpower. So unless Bob noticed her irritability194 and fatigue195, and gave her Sunday off, Meggie worked thepaddocks seven days a week. However, if Bob gave her time off it meant he himself worked harder, so she triednot to let her distress196 show. It never occurred to her that she could simply refuse to ride as a stockman, plead herbabies as an excuse. They were well cared for, and Bob needed her so much more than they did. She didn't havethe insight to understand her babies needed her, too; thinking of her longing197 to be with them as selfishness whenthey were so well cared for by loving and familiar hands. It was selfish, she told herself. Nor did she have thekind of confidence that might have told her that in her children's eyes she was just as special as they were to her.
So she rode the paddocks, and for weeks on end got to see her children only after they were in bed for the night.
Whenever Meggie looked at Dane her heart turned over. He was a beautiful child; even strangers on the streets ofGilly remarked on it when Fee took him into town. His habitual198 expression was a smiling one, his nature acurious combination of quietness and deep, sure happiness; he seemed to have grown into his identity andacquired his self-knowledge with none of the pain children usually experience, for he rarely made mistakes aboutpeople or things, and nothing ever exasperated199 or bewildered him. To his mother his likeness200 to Ralph wassometimes very frightening, but apparently201 no one else ever noticed. Ralph had been gone from Gilly for a longtime, and though Dane had the same features, the same build, he had one great difference, which tended to cloudthe issue. His hair wasn't black like Ralph's, it was a pale gold; not the color of wheat or sunset but the color ofDrogheda grass, gold with silver and beige in it.
From the moment she set eyes on him, Justine adored her baby brother. Nothing was too good for Dane,nothing too much trouble to fetch or present in his honor. Once he began to walk she never left his side, forwhich Meggie was very grateful, worrying that Mrs. Smith and the maids were getting too old to keep asatisfactorily sharp eye on a small boy. On one of her rare Sundays off Meggie took her daughter onto her lapand spoke to her seriously about looking after Dane.
"I can't be here at the homestead to look after him myself," she said, "so it all depends on you, Justine., He'syour baby brother and you must always watch out for him, make sure he doesn't get into danger or trouble." Thelight eyes were very intelligent, with none of the rather wandering attention span typical of a four-year old.
Justine nodded confidently. "Don't worry, Mum," she said briskly. "I'll always look after him for you." "I wish Icould myself," Meggie sighed.
"I don't," said her daughter smugly. "I like having Dane all to myself. So don't worry. I won't let anythinghappen to him."Meggie didn't find the reassurance202 a comfort, though it was reassuring203. This precocious204 little scrap205 was going tosteal her son from her, and there was no way she could avert86 it. Back to the paddocks, while Justine staunchlyguarded Dane. Ousted206 by her own daughter, who was a monster. Who on earth did she take after? Not Luke, notherself, not Fee. At least these days she was smiling and laughing. She was four years old before she sawanything funny in anything, and that she ever did was probably due to Dane, who had laughed from babyhood.
Because he laughed, so did she. Meggie's children learned from each other all the time. But it was galling,knowing they could get on without their mother very well. By the time this wretched conflict is over, Meggiethought, he'll be too old to feel what he should for me. He's always going to be closer to Justine. Why is it thatevery time I think I've got my life under control, something happens? I didn't ask for this war or this drought, butI've got them.
Perhaps it was as well Drogheda was having such a hard time of it. If things had been easier, Jack and Hughiewould have been off to enlist142 in a second. As it was, they had no choice but to buckle207 down and salvage209 whatthey could out of the drought which would come to be called the Great Drought. Over a million square miles ofcrop-and stock-bearing land was affected210, from southern Victoria to the waist-high Mitchell grasslands211 of theNorthern Territory.
But the war rivaled the drought for attention. With the twins in North Africa, the homestead people followedthat campaign with painful eagerness as it pushed and pulled back and forth across Libya. Their heritage wasworking class, so they were ardent212 Labor104 supporters and loathed213 the present government, Liberal by name butconservative by nature. When in August of 1941 Robert Gordon Menzies stepped down, admitting he couldn'tgovern, they were jubilant, and when on October 3rd the Labor leader John Curtin was asked to form agovernment, it was the best news Drogheda had heard in years. All through 1940 and 1941 unease about Japanhad been growing, especially after Roosevelt and Churchill cut off her petroleum215 supplies. Europe was a longway away and Hitler would have to march his armies twelve thousand miles in order to invade Australia, butJapan was Asia, part of the Yellow Peril216 poised217 like a descending218 pendulum220 above Australia's rich, empty,underpopulated pit. So no one in Australia was at all surprised when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor; theyhad simply been waiting for it to come, somewhere. Suddenly the war was very close, and might even becometheir own backyard. There were no great oceans separating Australia from Japan, only big islands and little seas.
On Christmas Day 1941, Hong Kong fell; but the Japs would never succeed in taking Singapore, everyone said,relieved. Then news came of Japanese landings in Malay and in the Philippines; the great naval221 base at the toe ofthe Malayan peninsula kept its huge, flat-trajectoried guns trained on the sea, its fleet at the ready. But onFebruary 8th, 1942, the Japanese crossed the narrowStrait of Johore, landed on the north side of Singapore Island and came across to the city behind its impotentguns. Singapore fell without even a struggle.
And then great news! All the Australian troops in North Africa were to come home. Prime Minister Curtin rodethe swells222 of Churchillian wrath223 undismayed, insisting that Australia had first call on Australian men. The Sixthand Seventh Australian Divisions embarked224 in Alexandria quickly; the Ninth, still recovering in Cairo from itsbattering at Tobruk, was to follow as soon as more ships could be provided. Fee smiled, Meggie was deliriouswith joy. Jims and Patsy were coming home.
Only they didn't. While the North waited for its troopships the seesaw tipped again; the Eighth Army was in fullretreat back from Benghazi. Prime Minister Churchill struck a bargain with Prime Minister Curtin. The NinthAustralian Division would remain in North Africa, in exchange for the shipment of an American division todefend Australia.. Poor soldiers, shuttled around by decisions made in offices not even belonging to their owncountries. Give a little here, take a little there. But it was a hard jolt226 for Australia, to discover that the MotherCountry was booting all her Far Eastern chicks out of the nest, even a poult as fat and promising227 as Australia.
On the night of October 23rd, 1942, it was very quiet in the desert. Patsy shifted slightly, found his brother inthe darkness, and leaned. like a small child right into the curve of his shoulder. Jims's arm went around him andthey sat together in companionable silence. Sergeant Bob Malloy nudged Private Col Stuart, grinned.
"Pair of poofs," he said.
"Fuck you, too," said Jims.
"Come on, Harpo, say something," Col murmured. Patsy gave him an angelic smile only half seen in thedarkness, opened his mouth and hooted228 an excellent imitation of Harpo Marx's horn. Everyone for several yardshissed at Patsy to shut up; there was an all-quiet alert on.
"Christ, this waiting's killing230 me," Bob sighed. Patsy spoke in a shout: "It's the silence that's killing me!" "Youfuckin' side-show fraud, I'll do the killing!" Col croaked231 hoarsely232, reaching for his bayonet.
"For Crissake pipe down!" came the captain's whisper. "Who's the bloody idiot yelling?""Patsy," chorused half a dozen voices.
The roar of laughter floated reassuringly233 across the minefields, died down in a stream of low-toned profanityfrom the captain. Sergeant Malloy glanced at his watch; the second hand was just sweeping234 up to 9:40 pipemma.
Eight hundred and eighty-two British guns and howitzers spoke together. The heavens reeled, the groundlifted, expanded, could not settle, for the barrage235 went on and on without a second's diminution236 in themindshattering volume of noise. It was no use plugging fingers in ears; the gargantuan237 booming came up throughthe earth and traveled inward to the brain via the bones. What the effect must have been on Rommel's front thetroops of the Ninth in their trenches239 could only imagine. Usually it was possible to pick out this type and size ofartillery from that, but tonight their iron throats chorused in perfect harmony, and thundered on as the minutespassed. The desert fit not with the light of day but with the fire of the sun itself; a vast billowing cloud of dustrose like coiling smoke thousands of feet, glowing with the flashes of exploding shells and mines, the leapingflames of massive concentrations of detonating casings, igniting payloads. Everything Montgomery had wasaimed at the minefields-guns, howitzers, mortars243. And everything Montgomery had was thrown as fast as thesweating artillery240 crews could throw it, slaves feeding the maws of their weapons like small frantic244 birds a hugecuckoo; gun casings grew hot, the time between recoil245 and reload shorter and shorter as the artillerymen gotcarried away on their own impetus246. Madmen, maddened, they danced a stereotyped247 pattern of attendance on theirfieldpieces.
It was beautiful, wonderful-the high point of an artilleryman's life, which he lived and relived in his dreams,waking and sleeping, for the rest of his anticlimactic248 days. And yearned to have back again, those fifteen minuteswith Montgomery's guns.
Silence. Stilled, absolute silence, breaking like waves on distended249 eardrums; unbearable250 silence. Five minutesbefore ten, exactly. The Ninth got up and moved forward out of its trenches into no man's land, fixing bayonets,feeling for ammunition clips, releasing safety catches, checking water bottles, iron rations241, watches, tin hats,whether bootlaces were well tied, the location of those carrying the machine guns. It was easy to see, in theunholy glow of fires and red-hot sand melted into glass; but the dust pall251 hung between the Enemy and them,they were safe. For the moment. On the very edge of the minefields they halted, waited.
Ten pip-emma, on the dot. Sergeant Malloy put his whistle to his lips and blew a shrill252 blast up and down thecompany lines; the captain shouted his forward command. On a two-mile front the Ninth stepped off into theminefields and the guns began again behind them, bellowing253. They could see where they were going as if it hadbeen day, the howitzers trained on shortest range bursting shells not yards in front of them. Every three minutesthe range lifted another hundred yards; advance those hundred yards praying it was only through antitank mines,or that the S-mines, the man mines, had been shelled out of existence by Montgomery's guns. There were stillGermans and Italians in the field, outposts of machine guns, 50-mm small artillery, mortars. Sometimes a manwould step on an Unexploded S-mine, have time to see it leap upward out of the sand before it blew him in half.
No time to think, no time to do anything save crabscuttle in time to the guns, a hundred yards forward everythree minutes, praying. Noise, light, dust, smoke, gut-watering terror. Minefields which had no end, two or threemiles of them to the other side, and no going back. Sometimes in the tiny pauses between barrages254 came thedistant, eerie255 skirl of a bagpipe256 on the roasting gritty air; on the left of the Ninth Australian, the FiftyfirstHighlanders were trekking258 through the minefields with a piper to lead every company commander. To a Scot thesound of. his piper drawing him into battle was the sweetest lure259 in the world, and to an Australian very friendly,comforting. But to a German or an Italian it was hackle-raising. The battle went on for twelve days, and twelvedays is a very long battle. The Ninth was lucky at first; its casualties were relatively261 light through the minefieldsand through those first days of continued advance into Rommel's territory.
"You know, I'd rather be me and get shot at than be a sapper," said Col Stuart, leaning on his shovel262.
"I dunno, mate; I think they've got the best of it," growled263 his sergeant. "Waiting behind the fuckin' lines untilwe've done all the work, then out they toddle264 with their bloody minesweepers to clear nice little paths for thefuckin' tanks.""It isn't the tanks at fault, Bob; it's the brass265 who deploy266 them," Jims said, patting the earth down around the topof his section of their new trench238 with the fiat267 of his spade. "Christ, though, I wish they'd decide to keep us in oneplace for a while! I've dug more dirt in the last five days than a bloody anteater.""Keep digging, mate," said Bob unsympathetically.
"Hey, look!" cried Col, pointing skyward.
Eighteen RAF light bombers268 came down the valley in perfect flying-school formation, dropping their sticks ofbombs among the Germans and Italians with deadly accuracy.
"Bloody beautiful," said Sergeant Bob Malloy, his long neck tilting269 his head at the sky.
Three days later he was dead; a huge piece of shrapnel took off his arm and half his side in a fresh advance, butno one had time to stop except to pluck his whistle from what was left of his mouth. Men were going down nowlike flies, too tired to maintain the initial pitch of vigilance and swiftness; but what miserable270 barren ground theytook they held on to, in the face of a bitter defense272 by the cream of a magnificent army. It had become to them allno more than a dumb, stubborn refusal to be defeated. The Ninth held off Graf von Sponeck and Lungerhausenwhile the tanks broke out to the south, and finally Rommel was beaten. By November 8 he was trying to rallybeyond the Egyptian border, and Montgomery was left in command of the entire field. A very important tacticalvictory, Second Alamein; Rommel had been forced to leave behind many of his tanks, guns and equipment.
Operation Torch could commence its push eastward273 from Morocco and Algeria with more security. There wasstill plenty of fight in the Desert Fox, but a large part of his brush was on the ground at El Alamein. The biggestand most decisive battle of the North African theater had been fought, and Field Marshal Viscount Montgomeryof Alamein was its victor. Second Alamein was the swan song of the Ninth Australian Division in North Africa.
They were finally going home to contend with the Japanese, on the main land of New Guinea. Since March of1941 they had been more or less permanently274 in the front line, arriving poorly trained and equipped, but goinghome now with a reputation exceeded only by the Fourth Indian-,Division. And with the Ninth went Jims and Patsy, safe and whole.
Of course they were granted leave to go home to Drogheda. Bob drove into Gilly to collect them from theGoondiwindi train, for the Ninth was based in Brisbane and would depart after jungle training for New Guinea.
When the Rolls swept round the drive all the women were out on the lawn waiting, Jack and Hughie hangingback a little but just as eager to see their young brothers. Every sheep left alive on Drogheda could drop dead if itso desired, but this was a holiday.
Even after the car stopped and they got out, no one moved. They looked so different. Two years in the deserthad ruined their original uniforms; they were dressed in a new issue of jungle green, and looked like strangers.
For one thing, they seemed to have grown inches, which indeed they had; the last two years of their developmenthad occurred far from Drogheda, and had pushed them way above their older brothers. Not boys any more butmen, though not men in the BobJack-Hughie mold; hardship, battle euphoria and violent death had madesomething out of them Drogheda never could. The North African sun had dried and darkened them to rosymahogany, peeled away every layer of childhood. Yes, it was possible to believe these two men in their simpleuniforms, slouch hats pinned above their left ears with the badge of the AIF rising sun, had killed fellow men. Itwas in their eyes, blue as Paddy's but sadder, without his gentleness.
"My boys, my boys!" cried Mrs. Smith, running to them, tears streaming down her face. No, it didn't matterwhat they had done, how much they had changed; they were still her little babies she had washed, diapered, fed,whose tears she had dried, whose wounds she had kissed better. Only the wounds they harbored now werebeyond her power to heal.
Then everyone was around them, British reserve broken down, laughing, crying, even poor Fee patting them ontheir backs, trying to smile. After Mrs. Smith there was Meggie to kiss, Minnie to kiss, Cat to kiss, Mum to hugbashfully, Jack and Hughie to wring275 by the hand speechlessly. The Drogheda people would never know what itwas like to be home, they could never know how much this moment had been longed for, feared for.
And how the twins ate! Army tucker was never like this, they said, laughing. Pink and white fairy cakes,chocolate-soaked lamingtons rolled in coconut276, steamed spotted277 dog pudding, pavlova dripping passion fruit andcream from Drogheda cows. Remembering their stomachs from earlier days, Mrs. Smith was convinced they'dbe ill for a week, but as long as there was unlimited278 tea to wash it down, they didn't seem to have any troublewith their digestions280.
"A bit different from Wog bread, eh, Patsy?""Yair.""What's Wog mean?" asked Mrs. Smith.
"A Wog's an Arab, but a Wop's an Italian, right, Patsy?" "Pair."It was peculiar. They would talk, or at least Jims would talk, for hours about North Africa: the towns, thepeople, the food, the museum in Cairo, life on board a troopship, in rest camp. But no amount of questioningcould elicit281 anything but vague, change-the subject answers as to what the actual fighting had been like, whatGazala, Benghazi, Tobruk, El Alamein had been like. Later on after the war was over the women were to findthis constantly; the men who had actually been in the thick of battle never opened their mouths about it, refusedto join the ex-soldiers' clubs and leagues, wanted nothing to do with institutions perpetuating282 the memory of war.
Drogheda held a party for them. Alastair MacQueen was in the Ninth as well and was home, so of courseRudna Hunish held a party. Dominic O'Rourke's two youngest sons were in the Sixth in New Guinea, so eventhough they couldn't be present, Dibban-Dibban held a party. Every property in the district with a son in uniformwanted to celebrate the safe return of the three Ninth boys. Women and girls flocked around them, but the Clearyreturned heroes tried to escape at every opportunity, more scared than they had been on any field of war. In fact,Jims and Patsy didn't seem to want to have anything to do with women; it was to Bob, Jack and Hughie theyclung. Late into the night after the women had gone to bed they sat talking to the brothers who had been forcedto remain behind, opening their sore, scarred hearts. And they rode the paddocks of parched Drogheda, in itsseventh year of the drought, glad to be in civvies.
Even so racked and tortured, to Jims and Patsy the land was ineffably283 lovely, the sheep comforting, the lateroses in the garden a perfume of some heaven. And somehow they had to drink of it all so deeply they'd neveragain forget, for that first going away had been a careless one; they had had no idea what it would be like. Whenthey left this time it would be with every moment hoarded284 to remember and treasure, and with Drogheda rosespressed into their wallets along with a few blades of scarce Drogheda grass. To Fee they were kind and pitying,but to Meggie, Mrs. Smith, Minnie and Cat they were loving, very tender. They had been the real mothers. Whatdelighted Meggie most was the way they loved Dane, played with hum for hours, took him with them for rides,laughed with him, rolled him over and over on the lawn. Justine seemed to frighten them; but then, they wereawkward with anyone female whom they didn't know as well as they knew the older women. Besides which,poor Justine was furiously jealous of the way they monopolized285 Dane's company, for it meant she had no one toplay with.
"He's a bonzer little bloke, Meggie," said Jims to Meggie when she came out onto the veranda286 one day; he wassitting in a cane287 chair watching Patsy and Dane playing on the lawn.
"Yes, he is a little beauty, isn't he?" She smiled, sitting where she could see her youngest brother. Her eyes weresoft with pity; they had been her babies, too. "What's the matter, Jims? Can't you tell me?" His eyes lifted to hers,wretched with some deep pain, but he shook his head as if not even tempted288 "No, Meggie. It isn't anything Icould ever tell a woman.""What about when all this is over and you marry? Won't you want to tell your wife?""Us marry? I don't think so. War takes all that out of a man. We were itching289 to go, but we're wiser now. If wemarried we'd have sons, and for what? See them grow up, get pushed off to do what we've done, see what we'veseen?""Don't, Jims, don't!"His gaze followed hers, to Dane chuckling290 in glee because Patsy was holding him upside down.
"Don't ever let him leave Drogheda, Meggie. On Drogheda he can't come to any harm," said Jims.
Archbishop de Bricassart ran down the beautiful high corridor, heedless of the surprised faces turning to watchhim; he burst into the Cardinal's room and stopped short. His Eminence was entertaining Monsieur Papee, thePolish government-in-exile's ambassador to the Holy See. "Why, Ralph! What is it?""It's happened, Vittorio. Mussolini has been overthrown291.""Dear Jesus! The Holy Father, does he know?""I telephoned Castel Gandolfo myself, thoughradio should have it any minute. A friend at German headquarters phoned me." "I do hope the Holy Father hashis bags packed," said Monsieur Papee with a faint, a very faint relish292.
"If we disguised him as a Franciscan mendicant293 he might get out, not otherwise," Archbishop Ralph snapped.
"Kesselring has the city sealed tighter than a drum.""He wouldn't go anyway," said Cardinal Vittorio. Monsieur Papee got up. "I must leave you, Your Eminence. Iam the representative of a government which is Germany's enemy. If His Holiness is not safe, nor am 1. Thereare papers in my rooms I must attend to. Prim131 and precise, diplomat122 to his fingertips, he left the two priestsalone.
"He was here to intercede294 for his persecuted295 people?""Yes. Poor man, he cares so much for them.""And don't we?""Of course we do, Ralph! But the situation is more difficult than he knows.""The truth of the matter is he's not believed.""Ralph!""Well, isn't it the truth? The Holy Father spent his early years in Munich, he fell in love with the Germans andhe still loves them, in spite of everything. If proof in the form of those poor wasted bodies was laid out in front ofhis eyes, he'd say it must be the Russians did it. Not his so-dear Germans, never a people as cultured andcivilized as they are!" "Ralph, you are not a member of the Society of Jesus, but you are here only because youhave taken a personal oath of allegiance to the Holy Father. You have the hot blood of your Irish and Normanforebears, but I beg of you, be sensible! Since last September we have been only waiting for the axe63 to fall,praying 11 Duce would remain to shelter us from German reprisal297.
Adolf Hitler has a curious streak of contradiction in his personality, for there are two things he knows to be hisenemies yet wishes if at all possible to preserve: the British Empire and the Holy Catholic Church of Rome. Butwhen pushed to it, he has done his level best to crush the British Empire. Do you think he would not crush us,too, if we push him to it? One word of denunciation from us as to what is happening in Poland and he willcertainly crush us. And what earthly good do you think our denouncing that would achieve, my friend? We haveno armies, no soldiers. Reprisal would be immediate298, and the Holy Father would be sent to Berlin, which is whathe fears. Do you not remember the puppet pope in Avignon all those centuries ago? Do you want our Pope apuppet in Berlin?""I'm sorry, Vittorio, I can't see it that way. I say we must denounce Hitler, shout his barbarity from the rooftops!
If he has us shot we'll die martyrs299, and that would be more effective still.""You are not usually obtuse300, Ralph! He would not have us shot at all. He understands the impact of martyrdomjust as well as we do. The Holy Father would be shipped to Berlin, and we would be shipped quietly to Poland.
Poland, Ralph, Poland! Do you want to die in Poland of less use than you are now?"Archbishop Ralph sat down, clenched301 his hands between his knees, stared rebelliously302 out the window at thedoves soaring, golden in the setting sun, toward their cote. At forty-nine he was thinner than of yore, and wasaging as splendidly as he did most things.
"Ralph, we are what we are. Men, but only as a secondary consideration. First we are priests.""That wasn't how you listed our priorities when I came back from Australia, Vittorio.""I meant a different thing then, and you know it. You are being difficult. I mean now that we cannot think asmen. We must think as priests, because that is the most important aspect of our lives. Whatever we may think orwant to do as men, our allegiance is to the Church, and to no temporal power! Our loyalty303 lies only with the HolyFather! You vowed304 obedience99, Ralph. Do you wish to break it again? The Holy Father is infallible in all mattersaffecting the welfare of God's Church." "He's wrong! His judgment's biased305. All of his energies are directedtoward fighting Communism. He sees Germany as its greatest enemy, the only real factor preventing thewestward spread of Communism. He wants Hitler to remain firmly in the German saddle, just as he was contentto see Mussolini rule Italy.""Believe me, Ralph, there are things you do not know. He is the Pope, he is infallible! If you deny that, youdeny your very faith."The door opened discreetly306, but hastily.
"Your Eminence, Herr General Kesselring."Both prelates rose, their late differences smoothed from their faces, smiling.
"This is a great pleasure, Your Excellency. Won't you sit down? Would you like tea?"The conversation was conducted in German, since many of the senior members of the Vatican spoke it. TheHoly Father was fond of speaking and listening to German.
"Thank you, Your Eminence, I would. Nowhere else in Rome does one get such superbly English tea."Cardinal Vittorio smiled guilelessly. "It is a habit I acquired while I was the Papal Legate in Australia, andwhich, for all my innate Italianness, I have not been able to break.""And you, Your Grace?""I'm an Irishman, Herr General. The Irish, too, are brought up on tea." General Albert Kesselring alwaysresponded to Archbishop de Bricassart as one man to another; after these slight, oily Italian prelates he was sorefreshing, a man without subtlety307 or cunning, straightforward308.
"As always, Your Grace, I am amazed at the purity of your German accent," he complimented.
"I have an ear for languages, Herr General, which means it's like all talents-not worth praising.""What may we do for Your Excellency?" asked the Cardinal sweetly. "I presume you will have heard of the fateof Il Duce by now?" "Yes, Your Excellency, we have.""Then you will know in part why I came. To assure you that all is well, and to ask you if perhaps you wouldconvey the message to those summering at Castel Gandolfo? I'm so busy at the moment it's impossible for me tovisit Castel Gandolfo myself.""The message will be conveyed. You are so busy?" "Naturally. You must surely realize this is now an enemycountry for us Germans?""This, Herr General? This is not Italian soil, and no man is an enemy here except those who are evil.""I beg your pardon, Your Eminence. Naturally I was referring to Italy, not to the Vatican. But in the matter ofItaly I must act as my Fuehrer commands. Italy will be occupied, and my troops, present until now as allies, willbecome policemen."Archbishop Ralph, sitting comfortably and looking as if he had never had an ideological309 struggle in his life,watched the visitor closely. Did he know what his Fuehrer was doing in Poland? How could he not know?
Cardinal Vittorio arranged his face into an anxious look. "Dear General, not Rome herself, surely? Ah, notRome, with her history, her priceless artifacts? If you bring troops within her seven hills there will be strife,destruction. I beg of you, not that!"General Kesselring looked uncomfortable. "I hope it won't come to that, Your Eminence. But I took an oathalso, I too am under orders. I must do as my Fuehrer wishes.""You'll try for us, Herr General? Please, you must!
I was in Athens some years ago," said Archbishop Ralph quickly, leaning forward, his eyes charmingly wide, alock of white-sprinkled hair falling across his brow; he was well aware of his effect on the general, and used itwithout compunction. "Have you been in Athens, sir?" "Yes, I have," said the general dryly.
"Then I'm sure you know the story. How it took men of relatively modern times to destroy the buildings atopthe Acropolis? Herr General, Rome stands as she always was, a monument to two thousand years of care,attention, love. Please, I beg of you! Don't endanger Rome."The general stared at him in startled admiration310; his uniform became him very well, but no better than thesoutane with its touch of imperial purple became Archbishop Ralph. He, too, had the look of a soldier, a soldier'ssparely beautiful body, and the face of an angel. So must the Archangel Michael look; not a smooth youngRenaissance boy but an aging perfect man, who had loved Lucifer, fought him, banished311 Adam and Eve, slainthe serpent, stood at God's right hand. Did he know how he looked? He was indeed a man to remember.
"I shall do my best, Your Grace, I promise you. To a certain extent the decision is mine, I admit it. I am, as youknow, a civilized296 man. But you're asking a lot. If I declare Rome an open city, it means I cannot blow up herbridges or convert her buildings into fortresses312, and that might well be to Germany's eventual313 disadvantage.
What assurances do I have that Rome won't repay me with treachery if I'm kind to her?"Cardinal Vittorio pursed his lips and made kissing noises at his cat, an elegant Siamese nowadays; he smiledgently, and looked at the Archbishop. "Rome would never repay kindness with treachery, Herr General. I amsure when you do find the time to visit those summering at Castel Gandolfo that you will receive the sameassurances. Here, Kheng-see, my sweetheart! Ah, what a lovely girl you are!" His hands pressed it down on hisscarlet lap, caressed314 it. "An unusual animal, Your Eminence.""An aristocrat28, Herr General. Both the Archbishop and myself bear old and venerable names, but beside herlineage, ours are as nothing. Do you like her name? It is Chinese for silken flower. Apt, is it not?" The tea hadarrived, was being arranged; they were all quiet until the lay sister left the room.
"You won't regret a decision to declare Rome an open city, Your Excellency," said Archbishop Ralph to thenew master of Italy with a melting smile. He turned to the Cardinal, charm falling away like a dropped cloak, notneeded with this beloved man. "Your Eminence, do you intend to be "mother," or shall I do the honors?" was"Mother"?" asked General Kesselring blankly. Cardinal di Contini-Verchese laughed. "It is our little joke, wecelibate men. Whoever pours the tea is called "mother." An English saying, Herr General."That night Archbishop Ralph was tired, restless, on edge. He seemed to be doing nothing to help end this war,only dicker about the preservation315 of antiquities316, and he had grown to loathe214 Vatican inertia317 passionately318.
Though he was conservative by nature, sometimes the snaillike caution of those occupying the highest Churchpositions irked him intolerably. Aside from the humble nuns319 and priests who acted as servants, it was weekssince he had spoken to an ordinary man, someone without a political, spiritual or military axe to grind. Evenprayer seemed to come less easily to him these days, and God seemed light-years away, as if He had withdrawnto allow His human creatures full rein321 in destroying the world He had made for them. What he needed, hethought, was a stiff dose of Meggie and Fee, or a stiff dose of someone who wasn't interested in the fate of theVatican or of Rome.
His Grace walked down the private stairs into the great basilica of Saint Peter's, whence his aimless progresshad led him. Its doors were locked these days the moment darkness fell, a sign of the uneasy peace which layover Rome more telling than the companies of greyclad Germans moving through Roman streets. A faint,ghostly glow illuminated322 the yawning empty apse; his footsteps echoed hollowly on the stone floor as he walked,stopped and merged323 with the silence as he genuflected324 in front of the High Altar, began again. Then, betweenone foot's noise of impact and the next, he heard a gasp325. The flashlight in his hand sprang into life; he leveled hisbeam in the direction of the sound, not frightened so much as curious. This was his world; he could defend itsecure from fear.
The beam played upon what had become in his eyes the most beautiful piece of sculpture in all creation: thePieta of Michelangelo. Below the stilled stunned326 figures was another face, made not of marble but of flesh, allshadowed hollows and deathlike.
"Ciao," said His Grace, smiling.
There was no answer, but he saw that the clothes were those of a German infantryman of lowest rank; hisordinary man! That he was a German didn't matter.
"Wie geht's?" he asked, still smiling.
A movement caused sweat on a wide, intellectual brow to flash suddenly out of the dimness.
"Du bist krank?" he asked then, wondering if the lad, for he was no more, was ill.
Came the voice, at last: "Nein."Archbishop Ralph laid his flashlight down on the floor and went forward, put his hand under the soldier's chinand lifted it to look into the dark eyes, darker in the darkness.
"What's the" matter?" he asked in German, and laughed. "There!" he continued, still in German. "You don'tknow it, but that's been my main function in life to ask people what's the matter. And, let me tell you, it's aquestion which has got me into a lot of trouble in my time." "I clime to pray," said the lad in a voice too deep forhis age, with a heavy Bavarian accent.
"What happened, did you get locked in?""Yes, but that isn't what the matter is."His grace picked up the flashlight. "Well, you can't stay here all night, and I haven't got a key to the doors.
Come with me." He began walking back toward the private stairs leading up to the papal palace, talking in aslow, soft voice. "I came to pray myself, as a matter of fact. Thanks to your High Command, it's been a rathernasty day. That's it, up here .... We'll have to hope that the Holy Father's staff don't assume I've been arrested, butcan see I'm doing the escorting, not you."After that they walked for ten more minutes in silence, through corridors, out into open courts and gardens,inside hallways, up steps; the young German did not seem anxious to leave his protector's side, for he kept close.
At last His Grace opened a door and led his waif into a small sitting room, sparsely327 and humbly328 furnished,switched on a lamp and closed the door. They stood staring at each other, able to see. The German soldier saw avery tall man with a fine face and blue, discerning eyes; Archbishop Ralph saw a child tricked out in the garbwhich all of Europe found fearsome and awe179-inspiring. A child; no more than sixteen years old, certainly. Ofaverage height and youthfully thin, he had a frame promising later bulk and strength, and very long arms. His facehad rather an Italianate cast, dark and patrician329, extremely attractive; wide, dark brown eyes with long blacklashes, a magnificent head of wavy330 black hair. There was nothing usual or ordinary about him after all, even ifhis role was an ordinary one; in spite of the fact that he had longed to talk to an average, ordinary man, His Gracewas interested.
"Sit down," he said to the boy, crossing to a chest and unearthing331 a bottle of Marsala wine. He poured some intotwo glasses, gave the boy one and took his own to a chair from which he could watch the fascinatingcountenance comfortably. "Are they reduced to drafting children to do their fighting?" he asked, crossing hislegs. "I don't know," said the boy. "I was in a children's home, so I'd be taken early anyway.""What's your name, lad?""Rainer Moerling Hartheim," said the boy, rolling it out with great pride. "A magnificent name," said the priestgravely. "It is, isn't it? I chose it myself. They called me Rainer Schmidt at the home, but when I went into thearmy I changed it to the name I've always wanted.""You were an orphan332?""The Sisters called me a love child."Archbishop Ralph tried not to smile; the boy had such dignity and self-possession, now he had lost his fear.
Only what had frightened him? Not being found, or being locked in the basilica.
"Why were you so frightened, Rainer?"The boy sipped333 his wine gingerly, looked up with a pleased expression. "Good, it's sweet." He made himselfmore comfortable. "I wanted to see Saint Peter's because the Sisters always used to talk about it and show uspictures. So when they posted us to Rome I was glad. We got here this morning. The minute I could, I came." Hefrowned. "But it wasn't as I had expected. I thought rd feel closer to Our Lord, being in His own Church. Insteadit was only enormous and cold. I couldn't feel Him."Archbishop Ralph smiled. "I know what you mean. But Saint Peter's isn't really a church, you know. Not in thesense most churches are. Saint Peter's is the Church. It took me a long time to get used to it, I remember." "Iwanted to pray for two things," the boy said, nod-ding his head to indicate he had heard but that it wasn't whathe wished to hear.
"For the things which frighten you?""Yes. I thought being in Saint Peter's might help.""What are the things which frighten you, Rainer?" "That they'll decide I'm a Jew, and that my regiment185 will besent to Russia after all.""I see. No wonder you're frightened. Is there indeed a possibility they'll decide you're a Jew?""Well, look at me!" said the boy simply. "When they were writing down my particulars they said they'd have tocheck. I don't know if they can or not, but I suppose the Sisters might know more than they ever told me." "Ifthey do, they'll not pass it on," said His Grace comfortingly. "They'll know why they're being asked.""Do you really think so? Oh, I hope so!""Does the thought of having Jewish blood disturb you?" "What my blood is doesn't matter," said Rainer. "I wasborn a German, that's the only important thing.""Only they don't look at it like that, do they?" "No.""And Russia? There's no need to worry about Russia now, surely. You're in Rome, the opposite direction.""This morning I heard our commander saying we might be sent to Russia after all. It isn't going well there.""You're a child," said Archbishop Ralph abruptly334. "You ought to be in school.""I wouldn't be now anyway." The boy smiled. "I'm sixteen, so I'd be working." He sighed. "I would have likedto keep going to school. Learning is important."Archbishop Ralph started to laugh, then got up and refilled the glasses. "Don't take any notice of me, Rainer.
I'm not making any sense. Just thoughts, one after the other. It's my hour for them, thoughts. I'm not a very goodhost, am I?""You're all right," said the boy.
"So," said His Grace, sitting down again. "Define yourself, Rainer Moerling Hartheim."A curious pride settled on the young face. "I'm a German, and a Catholic. I want to make Germany a placewhere race and religion won't mean persecution335, and I'm going to devote my life to that end, if I live." "I shallpray for you-that you live, and succeed.""Would you?" asked the boy shyly. "Would you really pray for me personally, by name?""Of course. In fact, you've taught me something. That in my business there is only one weapon at my disposalprayer. I have no other function." "Who are you?" asked Rainer, the wine beginning to make him blink drowsily336.
"I'm Archbishop Ralph de Bricassart.""Oh! I thought you were an ordinary priest!""I am an ordinary priest. Nothing more.""I'll strike a bargain with you!" said the boy, his eyes sparkling. "You pray for me, Father, and if I live longenough to get what I want, I'll come back to Rome to let you see what your prayers have done."The blue eyes smiled tenderly. "All right, it's a bargain. And when you come, I'll tell you what 1 think happenedto my prayers." He got up. "Stay there, little politician. I'll find you something to eat."They talked until dawn glowed round the domes and campaniles, and the wings of pigeons whirred outside thewindow. Then the Archbishop conducted his guest through the public rooms of the palace, watching his awewith delight, and let him out into the cool, fresh air. Though he didn't know it, the boy with the splendid namewas indeed to go to Russia, carrying with him a memory oddly sweet and reassuring: that in Rome, in Our Lord'sown Church, a man was praying for him every day, by name.
By the time the Ninth was ready to be shipped to New Guinea, it was all over bar the mopping up. Disgruntled,the most elite337 division in Australian military history could only hope there might be further glory to amasssomewhere else, chasing the Japanese back up through Indonesia. Guadalcanal had defeated all Japanese hopesin the drive for Australia. And yet, like the Germans, they yielded bitterly, grudgingly338. Though their resourceswere pitifully stretched, their armies foundering339 from lack of supplies and reinforcements, they made theAmericans and the Australians pay for every inch they gained back. In retreat, the Japanese abandoned Buna,Gona, Salamaua, and slipped back up the north coast, to Lae and Finschafen.
On the fifth of September 1943 the Ninth Division was landed from the sea just east of Lae. It was hot, thehumidity was 100 percent, and it rained every afternoon though The Wet wasn't due for another two full months.
The threat of malaria340 meant everyone was taking Atabrine, and the little yellow tablets made everyone feel assick as if they had the actual malaria. Already the constant moisture meant permanently damp boots and socks;feet were becoming spongy, the flesh between the toes raw and bloody. Mocka and mosquito bites turned angry,ulcerated.
In Port Moresby they had seen the wretched state of the New Guinea natives, and if they couldn't stand theclimate without developing yaws, beriberi, malaria, pneumonia341, chronic342 skin diseases, enlarged livers andspleens, there wasn't much hope for the white man. There were survivors343 of Kokoda in Port Moresby as well,victims not so much of the Japanese but of New Guinea, emaciated344, masses of sores, delirious225 with fever. Tentimes as many had died from pneumonia nine thousand feet up in freezing cold wearing thin tropical kit119 as diedfrom the Japanese. Greasy345 dank mud, unearthly forests which glowed with cold pale spectral346 light after darkfrom phosphorescent fungi347, precipitous climbs over a gnarled tangle348 of exposed roots which meant a mancouldn't look up for a second and was a sitting duck for a sniper. It was about as different from North Africa asany place could get, and the Ninth wasn't a bit sorry it had stayed to fight the two Alameins instead of KokodaTrail. Lae was a coastal349 town amid heavily forested grasslands, far from the eleven-thousand-foot elevations350 ofthe deep interior, and far more salubrious as a battleground than Kokoda. Just a few European houses, a petrolpump, and a collection of native huts. The Japanese were as ever game, but few in number and impoverished351, asworn out from New Guinea as the Australians they had been fighting, as disease ridden. After the massiveordnance and extreme mechanization of North Africa it was strange never to see a mortar242 or a fieldpiece; justOwen guns and rifles, with bayonets in place all the time. Jims and Patsy liked hand-to-hand fighting, they likedto go in close together, guard each other. It was a terrible comedown after the Afrika Korps, though, there was nodoubt about it. Pint-size yellow men who all seemed to wear glasses and have buck208 teeth. They had absolutely nomartial panache352.
Two weeks after the Ninth landed at Lae, there were no more Japanese. It was, for spring in New Guinea, avery beautiful day. The humidity had dropped twenty points, the sun shone out of a sky suddenly blue instead ofsteamily white, the watershed353 reared green, purple and lilac beyond the town. Discipline had relaxed, everyoneseemed to be taking the day off to play cricket, walk around, tease the natives to make them laugh and displaytheir blood-red, toothless gums, the result of chewing betel nut. Jims and Patsy were strolling through the tallgrass beyond the town, for it reminded them of Drogheda; it was the same bleached, tawny354 color, and long theway Drogheda grass was after a season of heavy rain.
"Won't be long now until we're back, Patsy," said Jims. "We've got the Nips on the run, and Jerry, too. Home,Patsy, home to Drogheda! I can hardly wait.""Yair," said Patsy.
They walked shoulder to shoulder, much closer than was permissible355 between ordinary men; they would toucheach other sometimes, not consciously but as a man touches his own body, to relieve a mild itch60 or absentlyassure himself it is still all there. How nice it was to feel genuinely sunny sun on their faces instead of a moltenball in a Turkish bath! Every so often they would lift their muzzles356 to the sky, flare357 their nostrils358 to take in thescent of hot light on Drogheda-like grass, dream a little that they were back there, walking toward a wilga in thedaze of noon to lie down through the worst of it, read a book, drowse. Roll over, feel the friendly, beautiful earththrough their skins, sense a mighty heart beating away down under somewhere, like a mother's heart to a sleepybaby.
"Jims! Look! A dinkum Drogheda budgie!" said Patsy, shocked into speaking. Perhaps budgerigars werenatives of the Lae country, too, but the mood of the day and this quite unexpected reminder359 of home suddenlytriggered a wild elation360 in Patsy. Laughing, feeling the grass tickling361 his bare legs, he took off after it, snatchinghis battered362 slouch hat from his head and holding it out as if he truly believed he could snare363 the vanishing bird.
Smiling, Jims stood watching him.
He was perhaps twenty yards away when the machine gun ripped the grass to flying shreds364 around him; Jimssaw his arms go up, his body spin round so that the arms seemed stretched out in supplication365. From waist toknees he was brilliant blood, life's blood.
"Patsy, Patsy!" Jims screamed; in every cell of his own body he felt. the bullets, felt himself ebbing366, dying.
His legs opened in a huge stride, he gained momentum367 to run, then his military caution asserted itself and hedived headlong into the grass just as the machine gun opened up again.
"Patsy, Patsy, are you all right?" he cried stupidly, having seen that blood.
Yet incredibly, "Yair," came a faint answer.
Inch by inch Jims dragged himself forward through the fragrant368 grass, listening to the wind, the rustlings of hisown progress. When he reached his brother he put his head against the naked shoulder, and wept.
"Break it down," said Patsy. "I'm not dead yet.""How bad is it?" Jims asked, pulling down the bloodsoaked shorts to see blood-soaked flesh, shivering.
"Doesn't feel as if I'm going to die, anyway."Men had appeared all around them, the cricketers still wearing their leg pads and gloves; someone went backfor a stretcher while the rest proceeded to silence the gun at the far side of the clearing. The deed was done withmore than usual ruthlessness, for everyone was fond of Harpo. If anything happened to him, Jims would never bethe same.
A beautiful day; the budgerigar had long gone, but other birds trilled and twittered fearlessly, silenced onlyduring the actual battle. "Patsy's bloody lucky," said the medic to Jims some time later. "There must be a dozenbullets in him, but most of them hit the thighs369. The two or three higher up seem to have embedded370 themselves inpelvic bone or muscle. As far as I can judge, his gut's in one piece, so is his bladder. The only thing is . . .""Well, what?" Jims prompted impatiently; he was still shaking, and blue around the mouth.
"Difficult to say anything for certain at this stage, of course, and I'm not a genius surgeon like some of theblokes in Moresby. They'll be able to tell you a lot more. But the urethra has been damaged, so have many of thetiny little nerves in the perineum. I'm pretty sure he can be patched up as good as new, except maybe for thenerves. Nerves don't patch up too well, unfortunately." He cleared his throat. "What I'm trying to say is L%"caret might never have much sensation in the genital region." Jims uropped his head, looked at the groundthrough a crystal wall of tears. "At least he's alive," he said.
He was granted leave to fly to Port Moresby with his brother, and to stay until Patsy was pronounced out ofdanger. The injuries were little short of miraculous371. Bullets had scattered372 all around the lower abdomen373 withoutpenetrating it. But the Ninth medic had been right; lower pelvic sensation was badly impaired374. How much hemight regain375 later on no one was prepared to say.
"It doesn't much matter," said Patsy from the stretcher on which he was to be flown to Sydney. "I was never tookeen on marrying, anyway. Now, you look after yourself, Jims, do you hear? I hate leaving you.""I'll look after myself, Patsy. Christ!" Jims grinned, holding hard onto his brother's hand. "Fancy having tospend this. rest of the war without my best mate. I'll write an. I tell you what it's like. Say hello to Mrs. Smith andMeggie and Mum and the brothers for me, eh? Half your luck, going home to Drogheda."Fee an. Mrs. Smith flew down to Sydney to meet the Americas plane. which brought Patsy from Townsville;Fee remained only a few days, but Mrs. Smith stayed on in a Randwick hotel close to the Prince of Walesmilitary hospital. Patsy remained there for three months. His part in the war was over. Many tears had Mrs.
Smith shed; but there was much to be thankful for, too. In one way he would never be able to lead a full life, buthe could do everything else: ride, walk, run. Mating didn't seem to be in the Cleary line, anyway. When he wasdischarged from hospital Meggie drove down from Gilly in the Rolls, and the two women tucked him up on theback seat amid blankets and magazines, praying for one more boon376: that Jims would come home, too.
Not until the Emperor Hirohito's delegate signed Japan's official surrender did Gillanbone believe the war wasfinally over. The news came on Sunday, September 2, 1945, which was exactly six years after the start. Sixagonizing years. So many places empty, never to be filled again: Dominic O'Rourke's son Rory, Horry Hopeton'sson John, Eden Carmichael's son Cormac. Ross MacQueen's youngest son, Angus, would never walk again,Anthony King's son David would walk but never see where he was going, Paddy Cleary's son Patsy would neverhave children. And there were those whose wounds weren't visible, but whose scars went just as deep; who hadgone off gaily378, eager and laughing, but came home quietly, said little, and laughed only rarely. Who could havedreamed when it began that it would go on so long, or take such a toll379? Gillanbone was not a particularlysuperstitious community, but even the most cynical380 resident shivered that Sunday, September 2nd. For on thesame day that the war ended, so did the longest drought in the history of Australia. For nearly ten years no usefulrain had fallen, but that day the clouds filled the sky thousands of feet deep, blackly, cracked themselves openand poured twelve inches of rain on the thirsty earth. An inch of rain may not mean the breaking of a drought, itmight not be followed by anything more, but twelve inches of rain means grass. Meggie, Fee, Bob, Jack, Hughieand Patsy stood on the veranda watching it through the darkness, sniffing381 the unbearably382 sweet perfume of rainon parched and crumbling383 soil. Horses, sheep, cattle and pigs spraddled their legs against the shifting of themelting ground and let the water pour over their twitching385 bodies; most of them had been born since rain like thishad last passed across their world. In the cemetery386 the rain washed the dust away, whitened everything, washedthe dust off the outstretched wings of the bland387 Botticelli angel. The creek388 produced a tidal wave, its roaringflood mingling53 with the drumming of the soaking rain. Rain, rain! Rain. Like a benediction from some vastinscrutable hand, long withheld389, finally given. The blessed, wonderful rain. For rain meant grass, and grass waslife. A pale-green fuzz appeared, poked390 its little blades skyward, ramified, burgeoned391, grew a darker green as itlengthened, then faded and waxed fat, became the silver-beige, knee-high grass of Drogheda. The HomePaddock looked like a field of wheat, rippling392 with every mischievous393 puff5 of wind, and the homestead gardensexploded into color, great buds unfurling, the ghost gums suddenly white and lime-green again after nine yearsof griming dust. For though Michael Carson's insane proliferation of water tanks still held enough to keep thehomestead gardens alive, dust had long settled on every leaf and petal394, dimmed and drabbed. And an old legendhad been proven fact: Drogheda did indeed have sufficient water to survive ten years of drought, but only for thehomestead.
Bob, Jack, Hughie and Patsy went back to the paddocks, began seeing how best to restock; Fee opened a brand-new bottle of black ink and savagely395 screwed the lid down on her bottle of red ink; Meggie saw an end comingto her life in the saddle, for it would not be long before Jims was home and men turned up looking for jobs. Afternine years there were very few sheep or cattle left, only the prize breeders which were always penned and handfedin any time, the nucleus396 of champion stock, rams397 and bulls. Bob went east to the top of the Western slopes tobuy ewes of good blood line from properties not so hard hit by the drought. Jims came home. Eight stockmenwere added to the Drogheda payroll398. Meggie hung up her saddle.
It was not long after this that Meggie got a letter from Luke, the second since she had left him.
"Not long now, I reckon," he said. "A few more years in the sugar should see me through. The old back's a bitsore these days, but I can still cut with the best of them, eight or nine tons a day. Arne and I have twelve othergangs cutting for us, all good blokes. Money's getting very loose, Europe wants sugar as fast as we can produceit. I'm making over five thousand quid a year, saving almost all of it. Won't be long now, Meg, before I'm outaround Kynuna. Maybe when I get things together you might want to come back to me. Did I give you the kidyou wanted? Funny, how women get their hearts set on kids. I reckon that's what really broke us up, eh? Let meknow how you're getting on, and how Drogheda weathered the drought. Yours, Luke." Fee came out onto theveranda, where Meggie sat with the letter in her hand, staring absently out across the brilliant green of thehomestead lawns. "How's Luke?""The same as ever, Mum. Not a bit changed. Still on about a little while longer in the damned sugar, the placehe's going to have one day out around Kynuna.""Do you think he'll ever actually do it?""I suppose so, one day.""Would you go to join him, Meggie?""Not in a million years."Fee sat down in a cane chair beside her daughter, pulling it round so she could see Meggie properly. In thedistance men were shouting, hammers pounded; at long last the verandas399 and the upper-story windows of thehomestead were being enclosed by fine wire mesh400 to screen out the flies. For years Fee had held out, obdurate401.
No matter how many flies there were, the lines of the house would never be spoiled by ugly netting. But thelonger the drought dragged on the worse the flies became, until two weeks before it ended Fee had given in andhired a contractor402 to enclose every building on the station, not only the homestead itself but all the staff housesand barracks as well.
But electrify403 she would not, though since 1915 there had been a "donk," as the shearers called it, to supplypower to the shearing404 shed. Drogheda without the gentle diffusion405 of lamps? It wasn't to be thought of. However,there was one of the new gas stoves which burned off cylindered gas on order, and a dozen of the new kerosenerefrigerators; Australian industry wasn't yet on a peacetime footing, but eventually the new appliances wouldcome. "Meggie, why don't you divorce Luke, marry again?" Fee asked suddenly. "Enoch Davies would have youin a second; he's never looked at anyone else." Meggie's lovely eyes surveyed her mother in wonder. "GoodLord, Mum, I do believe you're actually talking to me as one woman to another!" Fee didn't smile; Fee still rarelysmiled. "Well, if you aren't a woman by now, you'll never be one. I'd say you qualified406. I must be getting old; Ifeel garrulous407."Meggie laughed, delighted at her mother's overture, and anxious not to destroy this new mood. "It's the rain,Mum. It must be. Oh, isn't it wonderful to see grass on Drogheda again, and green lawns around the homestead?""Yes, it is. But you're side-stepping my question. Why not divorce Luke, marry again?""It's against the laws of the Church.""Piffle!" exclaimed Fee, but gently. "Half of you is me, and I'm not a Catholic. Don't give me that, Meggie. Ifyou really wanted to marry, you'd divorce Luke.""Yes, I suppose I would. But I don't want to marry again. I'm quite happy with my children and Drogheda."A chuckle408 very like her own echoed from the interior of the bottle-brush shrubbery nearby, its drooping409 scarletcylinders hiding the author of the chuckle.
"Listen! There he is, that's Dane! Do you know at his age he can sit a horse as well as I can?" She leanedforward. "Dane! What are you up to? Come out of there this instant!"He crawled out from under the closest bottle brush, his hands full of black earth, suspicious black smears410 allaround his mouth. "Mum! Did you know soil tastes good? It really does, Mum, honestly!" He came to stand infront of her; at seven he was tall, slender, gracefully411 strong, and had a face of delicate porcelain412 beauty. Justineappeared, came to stand beside him. She too was tall, but skinny rather than slender, and atrociously freckled413. Itwas hard to see what her features were like beneath the brown spots, but those unnerving eyes were as pale asthey had been in infancy414, and the sandy brows and lashes were too-fair to emerge from the freckles415. Paddy'sfiercely red tresses rioted in a mass of curls around her rather pixyish face. No one could have called her a prettychild, but no one ever forgot her, not merely on account of the eyes but also because she had remarkable416 strengthof character. Astringent417, forth-right and uncompromisingly intelligent, Justine at eight cared as little whatanyone thought of her as she had when a baby. Only one person was very close to her: Dane. She still adoredhim, and still regarded him as her own property.
Which had led to many a tussle418 of wills between her and her mother. It had been a rude shock to Justine whenMeggie hung up her saddle and got back to being a mother. For one thing, Justine didn't seem to need a mother,since she was convinced she was right about everything. Nor was she the sort of little girl who required aconfidante, or warm approval. As far as she was concerned, Meggie was mostly someone who interfered419 withher pleasure in Dane. She got on a lot better with her grandmother, who was just the sort of person Justineheartily approved of; she kept her distance and assumed one had a little sense.
"I told him not to eat dirt," Justine said.
"Well, it won't kill him, Justine, but it isn't good for him, either." Meggie turned to her son. "Dane, why?"He considered the question gravely. "It was there, so I ate it. If it was bad for me, wouldn't it taste bad, too? Ittastes good.""Not necessarily," Justine interrupted loftily. "I give up on you, Dane, I really do. Some of the best-tastingthings are the most poisonous." "Name one!" he challenged.
"Treacle420!" she said triumphantly421.
Dane had been very ill after finding a tin of treacle in Mrs. Smith's pantry and eating the lot. He admitted thethrust, but countered. "I'm still here, so it can't be all that poisonous.""That's only because you vomited422. If you hadn't vomited, you'd be dead." This was inarguable. He and his sisterwere much of a height, so he tucked his arm companionably through hers and they sauntered away across thelawn toward their cubbyhouse, which their uncles had erected423 as instructed amid the down-drooping branches ofa pepper tree. Danger from bees had led to much adult opposition424 to this site, but the children were proven right.
The bees dwelled with them amicably425. For, said the children, pepper trees were the nicest of all trees, veryprivate. They had such a dry, fragrant smell, and the grapelike clusters of tiny pink globules they bore crumbledinto crisp, pungent426 pink flakes427 when crushed in the hand.
"They're so different from each other, Dane and Justine, yet they get along so well together," said Meggie. "Itnever ceases to amaze me. I don't think I've ever seen them quarrel, though how Dane avoids quarreling withsome one as determined428 and stubborn as Justine, I don't understand."But Fee had something else on her mind. "Lord, he's the living image of his father," she said, watching Daneduck under the lowest fronds429 of the pepper tree and disappear from sight.
Meggie felt herself go cold, a reflex response which years of hearing people say this had not scotched430. It wasjust her own guilt, of course. People always meant Luke. Why not? There were basic similarities between LukeO'neill and Ralph de Bricassart. But try as she would, she could never be quite natural when Dane's likeness tohis father was commented upon. She drew a carefully casual breath. "Do you think so, Mum?" she asked,nonchalantly swinging her foot. "I can never see it myself. Dane is nothing like Luke in nature or attitude to life."Fee laughed. It came out as a snort, but it was a genuine laugh. Grown pallid431 with age and encroachingcataracts, her eyes rested on Meggie's startled face, grim and ironic432. "Do you take me for a fool, Meggie? I don'tmean Luke O'neill. I mean Dane is the living image of Ralph de Bricassart." Lead. Her foot was made of lead. Itdropped to the Spanish tiles, her leaden body sagged433, the lead heart within her breast struggled against its vastweight to beat. Beat, damn you, beat! You've got to go on beating for my son!
"Why, Mum!" Her voice was leaden, too. "Why, Mum, what an extraordinary thing to say! Father Ralph deBricassart?""How many people of that name do you know? Luke O'neill never bred that boy; he's Ralph de Bricassart's son.
I knew it the minute I took him out of you at his birth.""Then-why haven't you said something? Why wait until he's seven years old to make such an insane andunfounded accusation434?" Fee stretched her legs out, crossed them daintily at the ankles. "I'm getting old at last,Meggie. And things don't hurt as much anymore. What a blessing435 old age can be! It's so good to see Droghedacoming back, I feel better within myself because of it. For the first time in years I feel like talking.""Well, I must say when you decide to talk you really know how to pick your subject! Mum, you have absolutelyno right to say such a thing: It isn't true!" said Meggie desperately436, not sure if her mother was bent on torture orcommiseration.
Suddenly Fee's hand came out, rested on Meggie's knee, and she was smiling-not bitterly or contemptuously,but with a curious sympathy. "Don't lie to me, Meggie. Lie to anyone else under the sun, but don't lie to me.
Nothing will ever convince me Luke O'neill fathered that boy. I'm not a fool, I have eyes. There's no Luke inhim, there never was because there couldn't be. He's the image of the priest. Look at his hands, the way his hairgrows in a widow's peak, the shape of his face, the eyebrows437, the mouth. Even how he moves. Ralph deBricassart, Meggie, Ralph de Bricassart."Meggie gave in, the enormity of her relief showing in the way she sat, loosely now, relaxed. "The distance inhis eyes. That's what I notice myself most of all. Is it so obvious? Does everyone know, Mum?" "Of course not,"said Fee positively438. "People don't look any further than the color of the eyes, the shape of the nose, the generalbuild. Like enough to Luke's. I knew because I'd been watching you and Ralph de Bricassart for years. All hehad to do was crook his little finger and you'd have gone running, so a fig80 for your "it's against the laws of theChurch" when it comes to divorce. You were panting to break a far more serious law of the Church than the oneabout divorce. Shameless, Meggie, that's what you were. Shameless!" A hint of hardness crept into her voice.
"But he was a stubborn man. His heart was set on being a perfect priest; you came a very bad second. Oh, idiocy439!
It didn't do him any good, did it? It was only a matter of time before something happened." Around the corner ofthe veranda someone dropped a hammer, and let fly with a string of curses; Fee winced, shuddered440. "Dearheaven, I'll be glad when they're done with the screening!" She got back to the subject. "Did you think youfooled me when you wouldn't have Ralph de Bricassart to marry you to Luke? 1 knew. You wanted him as thebridegroom, not as the officiating cleric. Then when he came to Drogheda before he left for Athens and youweren't here, I knew sooner or later he'd have to go and find you. He wandered around the place as lost as a littleboy at the Sydney Royal Easter Show. Marrying Luke was the smartest move you made, Meggie. As long as heknew you were pining for him Ralph didn't want you, but the minute you became somebody else's he exhibitedall the classical signs of the dog in the manger. Of course he'd convinced himself that his attachment441 to you wasas pure as the driven snow, but the fact remained that he needed you. You were necessary to him in a way noother woman ever had been, or I suspect ever will be. Strange," said Fee with real puzzlement. "I alwayswondered what on earth he saw in you, but I suppose mothers are always a little blind about their daughters untilthey're too old to be jealous of youth. You are about Justine, the same as I was about you."She leaned back in her chair, rocking slightly, her eyes half closed, but she watched Meggie like a scientist hisspecimen.
"Whatever it was he saw in you," she went on, "he saw it the first time he met you, and it never left offenchanting him. The hardest thing he had to face was your growing up, but he faced it that time he came to findyou gone, married. Poor Ralph! He had no choice but to look for you. And he did find you, didn't he? I knew itwhen you came home, before Dane was born. Once you had Ralph de Bricassart it wasn't necessary to stay anylonger with Luke." "Yes," sighed Meggie, "Ralph found me. But it didn't solve anything for us, did it? I knew hewould never be willing to give up his God. It was for that reason I was determined to have the only part of him Iever could. His child. Dane.""It's like listening to an echo," Fee said, laughing her rusty442 laugh. "You might be me, saying that.""Frank?"The chair scraped; Fee got up, paced the tiles, came back and stared hard at her daughter. "Well, well! Tit fortat, eh, Meggie? How long have you known?""Since I was a little girl. Since the time Frank ran away.""His father was married already. He was a lot older than me, an important politician. If I told you his name,you'd recognize it. There are streets named for him all over New Zealand, a town or two probably. But for thepurpose, I'll call him Pakeha. It's Maori for "white man," but it'll do. He's dead now, of course. I have a trace ofMaori blood in me, but Frank's father was half Maori. It showed in Frank because he got it from both of us. Oh,but I loved that man! Perhaps it was the call of our blood, I don't know. He was handsome. A big man with amop of black hair and the most brilliant, laughing black eyes. He was everything Paddy wasn't cultured,sophisticated, very charming. I loved him to the point of madness. And I thought I'd never love anyone else; Iwallowed in that delusion443 so long I left it too late, too late!" Her voice broke. She turned to look at the garden. "Ihave a lot to answer for, Meggie, believe me." "So that's why you loved Frank more than the rest of us," Meggiesaid. "I thought I did, because he was Pakeha's son and the rest belonged to Paddy," She sat down, made a queer,mournful noise. "So history does repeat itself. I had a quiet laugh when I saw Dane, I tell you.""Mum, you're an extraordinary woman!""Am I?" The chair creaked; she leaned forward. "Let me whisper you a little secret, Meggie. Extraordinary ormerely ordinary, I'm a very unhappy woman. For one reason or another I've been unhappy since the day I metPakeha. Mostly my own fault. I loved him, but what he did to me shouldn't happen to any woman. And there wasFrank .... I kept hanging on to Frank, and ignoring the rest of you. Ignoring Paddy, who was the best thing everhappened to me. Only I didn't see it. I was too busy comparing him with Pakeha. Oh, I was grateful to him, and Icouldn't help but see what a fine man he was . . . ." She shrugged444. "Well, all that's past. What I wanted to say wasthat it's wrong, Meggie. You know that, don't you?""No, I don't. The way I see it, the Church is wrong, expecting to take that from her priests as well.""Funny, how we always infer the Church is feminine. You stole a woman's man, Meggie, just as I did.""Ralph had absolutely no allegiance to any woman, except to me. The Church isn't a woman, Mum. It's a thing,an institution.""Don't bother trying to justify445 yourself to me. I know all the answers. I thought as you do myself, at the time.
Divorce was out of the question for him. He was one of the first people of his race to attain446 political greatness; hehad to choose between me and his people. What man could resist a chance like that to be noble? Just as yourRalph chose the Church, didn't he? So I thought,I don't care. I'll take what I can get of him, I'll have his child to love at least."But suddenly Meggie was too busy hating her mother to be able to pity her, too busy resenting the inferencethat she herself had made just as big a mess of things. So she said, "Except that I far outdid you in subtlety,Mum. My son has a name no one can take from him, even including Luke." Fee's breath hissed229 between herteeth. "Nasty! Oh, you're deceptive447, Meggie! Butter wouldn't melt in your mouth, would it? Well, my fatherbought my husband to give Frank a name and get rid of me: I'll bet you never knew that! How did you know?""That's my business.""You're going to pay, Meggie. Believe me, you're going to pay. You won't get away with it any more than I did.
I lost Frank in the worst way a mother could; I can't even see him and I long to .... You wait! You'll lose Dane,too.""Not if I can help it. You lost Frank because he couldn't pull in tandem448 with Daddy. I made sure Dane had nodaddy to harness him. I'll harness him instead, to Drogheda. Why do you think I'm making a stockman out ofhim already? He'll be safe on Drogheda.""Was Daddy? Was Stuart? Nowhere is safe. And you won't keep Dane here if he wants to go. Daddy didn'tharness Frank. That was it. Frank couldn't be harnessed. And if you think you, a woman, can harness Ralph deBricassart's son, you've got another think coming. It stands to reason, doesn't it? If neither of us could hold thefather, how can we hope to hold the son?" "The only way I can lose Dane is if you open your mouth, Mum. AndI'm warning you, I'd kill you first.""Don't bother, I'm not worth swinging for. Your secret's safe with me; I'm just an interested onlooker449. Yesindeed, that's all I am. An onlooker." "Oh, Mum! What could possibly have made you like this? Why like this, sounwilling to give?"Fee sighed. "Events which took place years before you were even born," she said pathetically.
But Meggie shook her fist vehemently451. "Oh, no, you don't! After what you've just told me? You're not going toget away with flogging that dead horse to me ever again! Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish! Do you hear me, Mum?
You've wallowed in it for most of your life, like a fly in syrup452!" Fee smiled broadly, genuinely pleased. "I usedto think having a daughter wasn't nearly as important as having sons, but I was wrong. I enjoy you, Meggie, in away I can never enjoy my sons. A daughter's an equal. Sons aren't, you know. They're just defenseless dolls weset up to knock down at our leisure."Meggie stared. "You're remorseless. Tell me, then, where do we go wrong?" "In being born," said Fee.
Men were returning home in thousands upon thousands, shedding their khaki uniforms and slouch hats forcivvies. And the Labor government, still in office, took a long, hard look at the great properties of the westernplains, some of the bigger stations closer in. It wasn't right that so much land should belong to one family, whenmen who had done their bit for Australia needed room for their belongings453 and the country needed moreintensive working of its land. Six million people to fill an area as big as the United States of America, but a merehandful of those six million holding vast tracts454 in a handful of names. The biggest properties would have to besubdivided, yield up some of their acreages to the war veterans. Bugela went from 150,000 acres to 70,000; tworeturned soldiers got 40,000 acres each off Martin King. Rudna Hunish had 120,000 acres, therefore RossMacQueen lost 60,000 acres and two more returned soldiers were endowed. So it went. Of course thegovernment compensated455 the graziers, though at lower figures than the open market would have given. And ithurt. Oh, it hurt. No amount of argument prevailed with Canberra; properties as large as Bugela and RudnaHunish would be partitioned. It was self-evident no man needed so much, since the Gilly district had manythriving stations of less than 50,000 acres. What hurt the most was the knowledge that this time it seemed thereturned soldiers would persevere456. After the First World War most of the big stations had gone through the samepartial resumption, but it had been poorly done, the fledgling graziers without training or experience; graduallythe squatters bought their filched457 acres back at rock-bottom prices from discouraged veterans. This time thegovernment was prepared to train and educate the new settlers at its own expense.
Almost all the squatters were avid377 members of the Country Party, and on principle loathed a Labor government,identifying it with blue-collar workers in industrial cities, trade unions and feckless Marxist intellectuals. Theunkindest cut of all was to find that the Clearys, who were known Labor voters, were not to see a single acrepared from the formidable bulk of Drogheda. Since the Catholic Church owned it, naturally it was subdivision-exempt. The howl was heard in Canberra, but ignored. It came very hard to the squatters, who always thought ofthemselves as the most powerful lobby group in the nation, to find that he who wields458 the Canberra whip doespretty much as he likes. Australia was heavily federal, its state governments virtually powerless.
Thus, like a giant in a Lilliputian world, Drogheda carried on, all quarter of a million acres of it.
The rain came and went, sometimes adequate, sometimes too much, sometimes too little, but not, thank God,ever another drought like the great one. Gradually the number of sheep built up and the quality of the woolimproved over pre-drought times, no mean feat65.
Breeding was the "in" thing. People talked of Haddon Rig near Warren, started actively459 competing with itsowner, Max Falkiner, for the top ram112 and ewe prizes at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney. And the price of woolbegan to creep up, then skyrocketed. Europe, the United States and Japan were hungry for every bit of fine woolAustralia. could produce. Other countries yielded coarser wools for heavy fabrics460, carpets, felts; but only thelong, silky fibers461 from Australian merinos could make a woolen462 textile so fine it slipped through the fingers likesoftest lawn. And that sort of wool reached its peak out on the black-soil plains of northwest New South Walesand southwest Queensland.
It was as if after all the years of tribulation463, a just reward had arrived. Drogheda's profits soared out of allimagination. Millions of pounds every year. Fee sat at her desk radiating contentment, Bob put another twostockmen on the books. If it hadn't been for the rabbits, pastoral conditions would have been ideal, but the rabbitswere as much of a blight as ever. On the homestead life was suddenly very pleasant. The wire screening hadexcluded flies from all Drogheda interiors; now that it was up and everyone had grown used to its appearance,they wondered how they had ever survived without it. For there were multiple compensations for the look of it,like being able to eat al fresco464 on the veranda when it was very hot, under the tapping leaves of the wistaria vine.
The frogs loved the screening, too. Little fellows they were, green with a delicate overlay of glossy465 gold. Onsuckered feet they crept up the outside of the mesh to stare motionless at the diners, very solemn and dignified466.
Suddenly one would leap, grab at a moth56 almost bigger than itself, and settle back into inertia with two-thirds ofthe moth flapping madly out of its overladen mouth. It amused Dane and Justine to time how long it took a frogto swallow a big moth completely, staring gravely through the wire and every ten minutes getting a little moremoth down. The insect lasted a long time, and would often still be kicking when the final piece of wingtip wasengulfed. "Erckle! What a fate!" chuckled467 Dane. "Fancy half of you still being alive while the other half of you isbusy 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 theirthoroughbred ponies468, increasing in size as they did; they endured their correspondence lessons at Mrs. Smith'sgreen kitchen table; they played in the pepper tree cubbyhouse; they had pet cats, pet dogs, even a pet goanna,which walked beautifully on a leash469 and answered to its name. Their favorite pet was a miniature pink pig, asintelligent as any dog, called Iggle-Piggle. So far from urban congestion470, they caught few diseases and never hadcolds or influenza471. Meggie was terrified of infantile paralysis472, diphtheria, anything which might swoop473 out ofnowhere to carry them off, so whatever vaccines474 became available they received. It was an ideal existence, fullof physical activity and mental stimulation475.
When Dane was ten and Justine eleven they were sent to boarding school in Sydney, Dane to Riverview astradition demanded, and Justine to Kincoppal. When she put them on the plane the first time, Meggie watched astheir white, valiantly composed little faces stared out of a window, handkerchiefs waving; they had never beenaway from home before. She had wanted badly to go with them, see them settled in for herself, but opinion wasso strongly against her she yielded. From Fee down to Jims and Patsy, everyone felt they would do a great dealbetter on their own.
"Don't mollycoddle476 them," said Fee sternly.
But indeed she felt like two different people as theDC-3 took off in a cloud of dust and staggered into the shimmering124 air. Her heart was breaking at losing Dane,and light at the thought of losing Justine. There was no ambivalence477 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 feelingof being needed. She wasn't matey or full of pranks478, and she had a disastrous188 habit of putting people down,chiefly, it seemed, her mother. Meggie found much in her that had been exasperating479 in Luke, but at least Justinewasn't a miser271. 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 schooling480. Dane was always homesickafter a visit to Drogheda, but Justine took to Sydney as if she had always lived there, and spent her Droghedatime longing to be back in the city. The Riverview Jesuits were delighted; Dane was a marvelous student, in theclassroom 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 asJustine's could hope to be popular. A class ahead of Dane, she was perhaps the better student of the two, but onlyin the classroom.
The Sydney Morning Herald481 of August 4th, 1952, was very interesting. Its big front page rarely bore more thanone photograph, usually middle and high up, the interest story of the day. And that day the picture was ahandsome 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 ofRome, was today created Cardinal de Bricassart by His Holiness Pope Pius XII. Ralph Raoul, Cardinal deBricassart has had a long and illustrious association with the Roman Catholic Church in Australia, extendingfrom his arrival as a newly ordained482 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 familywhich can trace its descent from Baron483 Ranulf de Bricassart, who came to England in the train of William theConqueror. By tradition, Cardinal de Bricassart espoused484 the Church. He entered the seminary at the age ofseventeen, and upon his ordination485 was sent to Australia. His first months were spent in the service of the lateBishop Michael Clabby, in the Diocese of Winnemurra.
In June 1920 he was transferred to serve as pastor191 of Gillanbone, in northwestern New South Wales. He wasmade Monsignor, and continued at Gillanbone until December 1928. From there he became private secretary toHis Grace Archbishop Cluny Dark, and finally private secretary to the then Archbishop Papal Legate, HisEminence Cardinal di Contini-Verchese. During this time he was created Bishop70. When Cardinal di Contini-Verchese was transferred to Rome to commence his remarkable career at the Vatican, Bishop de Bricassart wascreated Archbishop, and returned to Australia from Athens as the Papal Legate himself. He held this importantVatican appointment until his transfer to Rome in 1938; since that time his rise within the central hierarchy486 of theRoman Catholic Church has been spectacular. Now 58 years of age, he is rumored487 to be one of the few menactively concerned in the determination of papal policy.
A Sydney Morning Herald representative talked to some of Cardinal de Bricassart's ex-parishioners in theGillanbone area yesterday. He is well remembered, and with much affection. This rich sheep district ispredominantly Roman Catholic in its religious adherence488. "Father de Bricassart founded the Holy Cross BushBibliophilic Society," said Mr. Harry Gough, Mayor of Gillanbone. "It was-for the time especially-a remarkableservice, splendidly endowed first by the late Mrs. Mary Carson, and after her death by the Cardinal himself, whohas never forgotten us or our needs.""Father de Bricassart was the finest-looking man I've ever seen," said Mrs. Fiona Cleary, present doyenne ofDrogheda, one of the largest and most prosperous stations in New South Wales. "During his time in Gilly he wasa great spiritual support to his parishioners, and particularly to those of us on Drogheda, which as you know nowbelongs to the Catholic Church. During floods he helped us move our stock, during fires he came to our aid, evenif it was only to bury our dead. He was, in fact, an extraordinary man in every way, and he had more charm thanany man I've ever met. One could see he was meant for great things. Indeed we remember him, though it's overtwenty years since he left us. Yes, I think it's quite truthful489 to say that there are some around Gilly who still misshim very much."During the war the then Archbishop de Bricassart served His Holiness loyally and unswervingly, and is creditedwith having influenced Field Marshal Albert Kesselring in deciding to maintain Rome as an open city after Italybecame 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 helpedthousands of displaced persons seek asylum490 in new countries, and was especially vigorous in aiding theAustralian immigration program.
Though by birth he is an Irishman, and though it seems he will not exert his influence as Cardinal de Bricassartin 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 saidto the Herald reporter. They didn't print that, did they? Though they printed your little eulogy491 almost verbatim, Isee. What a barbed tongue you've got! At least I know where Justine gets it from. I wonder how many peoplewill 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. "Undoubtedly492. After all, he still finds time to administerDrogheda 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 earnings493, aren't we? He must be very pleased. With our wool at a pound perpound in the auctions494, the Drogheda wool check this year must have made even the gold mines look sick. Talkabout 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 oftenmildly withering495, was tempered with respect and affection. "We've done well enough, haven't we? Don't forgetwe get our money every year, good or bad. Didn't he pay Bob a hundred thousand as a bonus, the rest of us fiftythousand each? If he threw us off Drogheda tomorrow we could afford to buy Bugela, even at today's inflatedland 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 theymust make their own ways in the world, without benefit of dear Ralph Raoul, Cardinal de Bricassart. Fancy hissecond 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, winked496 at her, and then shriveled up.
"What will you do if he comes back, Meggie?"Meggie sniffed497. "Fat chance!""He might," said Fee enigmatically.
He did, in December. Very quietly, without anyone knowing, driving an Aston Martin sports car all the wayfrom Sydney himself. Not a word about his presence in Australia had reached the press, so no one on Droghedahad the remotest suspicion he was coming. When the car pulled in to the gravelly area at one side of the housethere was no one about, and apparently no one had heard him arrive, for no one came out onto the veranda. Hehad felt the miles from Gilly in every cell of his body, inhaled498 the odors of the bush, the sheep, the dry grasssparkling restlessly in the sun. Kangaroos and emus, galahs and goannas, millions of insects buzzing andflipping, ants marching across the road in treacly columns, fat pudgy sheep everywhere. He loved it so, for in onecurious aspect it conformed to what he loved in all things; the passing years scarcely seemed to brush it. Only thefly screening was different, but he noted499 with amusement that Fee hadn't permitted the big house veranda facingthe Gilly road to be enclosed like the rest, only the windows opening onto it. She was right, of course; a greatexpanse of mesh would have rained the lines of that lovely Georgian facade500. How long did ghost gums live?
These must have been transplanted from the Dead Heart interior eighty years ago. The bougainvillea in their highbranches was one sliding mass of copper501 and purple.
It was already summer, two weeks left before Christmas, and the Drogheda roses were at their height. Therewere roses everywhere, pink and white and yellow, crimson like heart's blood, scarlet like a cardinal's soutane. Inamong the wistaria, green now, rambling502 roses drowsed pink and white, fell off the veranda roof, down the wiremesh, clung lovingly to the black shutters503 of the second story, stretched tendrils past them to the . sky. The tankstands were quite smothered504 from sight now, so were the tanks themselves. And one color was everywhereamong the roses, a pale pinkish-grey. Ashes of roses? Yes, that was the name of the color. Meggie must haveplanted 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 thesound, gone down to delicious giggling505 trills. Just the way she used to laugh when she was a little girl. There itwas! Over there, behind a great clump506 of pinkish grey roses near a pepper tree. He pushed the clusters ofblossoms aside with his hand, his mind reeling from their perfume, and that laugh.
But Meggie wasn't there, only a boy squatting507 in the lush lawn, teasing a little pink pig which ran in idioticrushes up to him, galloped508 off, sidled back. Unconscious of his audience, the boy threw his gleaming head backand laughed. Meggie's laugh, from that unfamiliar509 throat. Without meaning to, Cardinal Ralph let the roses fallinto place and stepped through them, heedless of the thorns. The boy, about twelve or fourteen years of age, justprepubescent, looked up, startled; the pig squealed510, 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, hisslender, boyish body already hinting at later power in the breadth of the young square shoulders, the well-developed calf511 and thigh257 muscles, the flat belly and narrow hips163. His hair was a little long and loosely curly, justthe bleached color of Drogheda grass, his eyes through absurdly thick black lashes intensely blue. He looked likea 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 beenwhen he married the Church? Not much older than this, not very much more mature. Had he waited, the boymight well have been his. What nonsense, Cardinal de Bricassart! If you hadn't married the Church you wouldhave remained in Ireland to breed horses and never known your fate at all, never known Drogheda or MeggieCleary.
"May I help you?" asked the boy politely, getting to his feet with a supple512 grace Cardinal Ralph recognized, andthought 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 takeyou." 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 wasstill on his finger, must never be withdrawn320 as long as he lived. Dane O'neill knelt, took Cardinal Ralph's slenderhand in his own slender ones, and kissed the ring reverently513. "It's all right, Dane. I'm not here as Cardinal deBricassart. 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 enoughround here. Only you pronounce it a bit differently, and your Christian514 name threw me off. My mother will bevery 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 whoshe 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.""Jussy, this is Cardinal de Bricassart!" Dane said in a loud whisper. "Kiss his ring, quickly!"The blind-looking eyes flashed scorn." "You're a real prawn515 about religion, Dane," she said without botheringto lower her voice. "Kissing a ring is unhygienic; I won't do it. Besides, how do we know this is Cardinal deBricassart? He looks like an old-fashioned grazier to me. You know, like Mr. Gordon.""He is, he is!" insisted Dane. "Please, Jussy, be good! Be good for me!" "I'll be good, but only for you. But Iwon't kiss his ring, even for you. Disgusting. How do I know who kissed it last? They might have had a cold.""You don't have to kiss my ring, Justine. I'm here on a holiday; I'm not being a cardinal at the moment.""That's good, because I'll tell you frankly516, I'm an atheist," said Meggie Cleary's daughter calmly. "After fouryears at Kincoppal I think it's all a load of utter codswallop.""That's your privilege," said Cardinal Ralph, trying desperately to look as dignified and serious as she did.
"May I find your grandmother?" "Of course. Do you need us?" Justine asked.
"No, thank you. I know my way.""Good." She turned to her brother, still gaping up at the visitor. "Come on, Dane, help me. Come on!"But though Justine tugged painfully at his arm, Dane stayed to watch Cardinal Ralph's tall, straight figuredisappear behind the roses. "You really are a prawn, Dane. What's so special about him?" "He's a cardinal!" saidDane. "Imagine that! A real live cardinal on Drogheda!""Cardinals," said Justine, "are Princes of the Church. I suppose you're right, it is rather extraordinary. But Idon't like him."Where else would Fee be, except at her desk? He stepped through the windows into the drawing room, but thesedays that necessitated517 opening a screen. She must have heard him, but kept on working, back bent, the lovelygolden hair gone to silver. With difficulty he remembered she must be all of seventy-two years old.
"Hello, Fee," he said.
When she raised her head he saw a change in her, of what precise nature he couldn't be sure; the indifferencewas there, but so were several other things. As if she had mellowed518 and hardened simultaneously519, become morehuman, yet human in a Mary Carson mold. God, these Drogheda matriarchs! Would it happen to Meggie, too,when her turn came?
"Hello, Ralph," she said, as if he stepped through the windows every day. "How nice to see you.""Nice to see you, too.""I didn't know you were in Australia.""No one does. I have a few weeks" holiday.""You're staying with us, I hope?""Where else?" His eyes roamed round the magnificent walls, rested on Mary Carson's portrait. "You know, Fee,your taste is impeccable, unerring. This room rivals anything in the Vatican. Those black egg shapes with theroses are 4 stroke of genius.""Why, thank you! We try our humble best. Personally I prefer the dining room; I've done it again since youwere here last. Pink and white and green. Sounds awful, but wait until you see it. Though why I try, I don't know.
It's your house, isn't it?""Not while there's a Cleary alive, Fee," he said quietly. "How comforting. Well, you've certainly come up in theworld since your Gilly days, haven't you? Did you see the Herald article about your promotion520?"He winced. "I did. Your tongue's sharpened, Fee.""Yes, and what's more, I'm enjoying it. All those years I shut up and never said a thing! I didn't know what Iwas missing." She smiled. "Meggie's in Gilly, but she'll be back soon."Dane and Justine came through the windows.
"Nanna, may we ride down to the borehead?""You know the rules. No riding unless your mother gives her permission personally. I'm sorry, but they're yourmother's orders. Where are your manners? Come and be introduced to our visitor.""I've already met them.""Oh.""I'd have thought you'd be away at boarding school," he said to Dane, smiling.
"Not in December, Your Eminence. We're off for two months-the summer holidays."Too many years away; he had forgotten that southern hemisphere children would enjoy their long vacationduring December and January.
"Are you going to be staying here long, Your Eminence?" Dane queried521, still fascinated.
"His Eminence will be with us for as long as he can manage, Dane," said his grandmother, "but I think he'sgoing to find it a little wearing to be addressed as Your Eminence all the time. What shall it be? Uncle Ralph?""Uncle!" exclaimed Justine. "You know "uncle' is against the family rules, Nanna! Our uncles are just Bob, Jack,Hughie, Jims and Patsy. So that means he's Ralph.""Don't be so rude, Justine! What on earth's the matter with your manners?" demanded Fee.
"No, Fee, it's all right. I'd prefer that everyone call me plain Ralph, really," the Cardinal said quickly. Why didshe dislike him so, the odd mite279? "I couldn't!" gasped522 Dane. "I couldn't call you just Ralph!"Cardinal Ralph crossed the room, took the bare shoulders between his hands and smiled down, his blue eyesvery kind, and vivid in the room's shadows. "Of course you can, Dane. It isn't a sin.""Come on, Dane, let's get back to the cubbyhouse," Justine ordered. Cardinal Ralph and his son turned towardFee, looked at her together. "Heaven help us!" said Fee. "Go on, Dane, go outside and play, will you?" Sheclapped her hands. "Buzz!"The boy ran for his life, and Fee edged toward her books. Cardinal Ralph took pity on her and announced thathe would go to the cookhouse. How little the place had changed! Still lamplit, obviously. Still redolent ofbeeswax and great vases of roses.
He stayed talking to Mrs. Smith and the maids for a long time. They had grown much older in the years sincehe had left, but somehow age suited them more than it did Fee. Happy. That's what they were. Genuinely almostperfectly happy. Poor Fee, who wasn't happy. It made him hungry to see Meggie, see if she was happy. But whenhe left the cookhouse Meggie wasn't back, so to fill in time he strolled through the grounds toward the creek.
How peaceful the cemetery was; there were six bronze plaques523 on the mausoleum wall, just as there had beenlast time. He must see that he himself was buried here; he must remember to instruct them, when he returned toRome. Near the mausoleum he noticed two new graves, old Tom, the garden rouseabout, and the wife of one ofthe stockmen, who had been on the payroll since 1946. Must be some sort of record. Mrs. Smith thought he wasstill with them because his wife lay here. The Chinese cook's ancestral umbrella was quite faded from all theyears of fierce sun, had dwindled524 from its original imperial red through the various shades he remembered to itspresent whitish pink, almost ashes of roses. Meggie, Meggie. You went back to him after me, you bore him ason. It was very hot; a little wind came, stirred the weeping willows525 along the creek, made the bells on theChinese cook's umbrella chime their mournful tinny tune526: Hee Sing, Hee Sing, Hee Sing. TANKSTANDCHARLIE HE WAS A GOOD BLOKE. That had faded, too, was practically indecipherable. Well, it was fitting.
Graveyards527 ought to sink back into the bosom528 of Mother Earth, lose their human cargo529 under a wash of time,until it all was gone and only the air remembered, sighing. He didn't want to be buried in a Vatican crypt, amongmen like himself. Here, among people who had really lived. Turning, his eyes caught the glaucous glance of themarble angel. He raised his hand, saluted530 it, looked across the grass toward the big house. And she was coming,Meggie. Slim, golden, in a pair of breeches and a white man's shirt exactly like his own, a man's grey felt hat onthe back of her head, tan boots on her feet. Like a boy, like her son, who should have been his son.
He was a man, but when he too lay here there would be nothing left living to mark the fact.
She came on, stepped over the white fence, came so close all he could see were her eyes, those grey, light-filledeyes which hadn't lost their beauty or their hold over his heart. Her arms were around his neck, his fate againwithin his touch, it was as if he had never been away from her, that mouth alive under his, not a dream; so longwanted, so long. A different kind of sacrament, dark like the earth, having nothing to do with the sky. "Meggie,Meggie," he said, his face in her hair, her hat on the grass, his arms around her.
"It doesn't seem to matter, does it? Nothing ever changes," she said, eyes closed..
"No, nothing changes," he said, believing it. "This is Drogheda, Ralph. I warned you, on Drogheda you're mine,not God's.""I know. I admit it. But I came." He drew her down onto the grass. "Why, Meggie?""Why what?" Her hand was stroking his hair, whiter than Fee's now, still thick, still beautiful.
"Why did you go back to Luke? Have his son?" he asked jealously. Her soul looked out from behind its lucentgrey windows and veiled its thoughts from him. "He forced me to," she said blandly531. "It was only once. But I hadDane, so I'm not sorry. Dane was worth everything I went through to get him.""I'm sorry, I had no right to ask. I gave you to Luke in the first place, didn't I?""That's true, you did.""He's a wonderful boy. Does he look like Luke?" She smiled secretly, plucked at the grass, laid her hand insidehis shirt, against his chest. "Not really. Neither of my children looks very much like Luke, or me.""I love them because they're yours.""You're as sentimental as ever. Age suits you, Ralph.
I knew it would, I hoped I'd have the chance to see it. Thirty years I've known you! It seems like thirty days.""Thirty years? As many as that?""I'm forty-one, my dear, so it must be." She got to her feet. "I was officially sent to summon you inside. Mrs.
Smith is laying on a splendid tea in your honor, and later on when it's a bit cooler there's to be roast leg of pork,with lots of crackling."He began to walk with her, slowly. "Your son laughs just like you, Meggie. His laugh was the first human noiseI heard on Drogheda. I thought he was you; I went to find you and I discovered him instead.""So he was the first person you saw on Drogheda.""Why, yes, I suppose he was.""What did you think of him, Ralph?" she asked eagerly. "I liked him. How could I not, when he's your son? ButI was attracted to him very strongly, far more so than to your daughter. She doesn't like me, either.""Justine might be my child, but she's a prize bitch. I've learned to swear in my old age, mostly thanks to Justine.
And you, a little. And Luke, a little. And the war, a little. Funny how they all mount up.""You've changed a lot, Meggie.""Have I?" The soft, full mouth curved into a smile. "I don't think so, really. It's just the Great Northwest,wearing me down, stripping off the layers like Salome's seven veils. Or like an onion, which is how Justinewould rather put it. No poetry, that child. I'm the same old Meggie, Ralph, only more naked.""Perhaps so.""Ali, but you've changed, Ralph.""In what way, my Meggie?""As if the pedestal rocks with every passing breeze, and as if the view from up there is a disappointment.""It is." He laughed soundlessly. "And to think I once had the temerity532 to say you weren't anything out of theordinary! I take it back. You're the one woman, Meggie. The one!" "What happened?""I don't know. Did I discover even Church idols533 have feet of clay? Did I sell myself for a mess of pottage? Am Igrasping at nothing?" His brows drew together, as if in pain. "And that's it, perhaps, in a nutshell. I'm a mass ofclichés. It's an old, sour, petrified534 world, the Vatican world." "I was more real, but you could never see it.""There was nothing else I could do, truly! I knew where I should have gone, but I couldn't. With you I mighthave been a better man, if less august. But I just couldn't, Meggie. Oh, I wish I could make you see that!" Herhand stole along his bare arm, tenderly. "Dear Ralph, I do see it. I know, I know.... Each of us has somethingwithin us which won't be denied, even if it makes us scream aloud to die. We are what we are, that's all. Like theold Celtic legend of the bird with the thorn in its breast, singing its heart out and dying. Because it has to, it'sdriven to. We can know what we do wrong even before we do it, but self-knowledge can't affect or change theoutcome, can it? Everyone singing his own little song, convinced it's the most wonderful song the world has everheard. Don't you see? We create our own thorns, and never stop to count the cost. All we can do is suffer thepain, and tell ourselves it was well worth it.""That's what I don't understand. The pain." He glanced down at her hand, so gently on his arm, hurting him sounbearably. "Why the pain, Meggie?" "Ask God, Ralph," said Meggie. "He's the authority on pain, isn't He? Hemade us what we are, He made the whole world. Therefore He made the pain, too."Bob, Jack, Hughie, Jims and Patsy were in for dinner, since it was Saturday night. Tomorrow FatherWatty was due out to say Mass, but Bob called him and said no one would be there. A white lie, to preserveCardinal Ralph's anonymity535. The five Cleary boys were more like Paddy than ever, older, slower in speech, assteadfast and enduring as the land. And how they loved Dane! Their eyes never seemed to leave him, evenfollowed him from the room when he went to bed. It wasn't hard to see they lived for the day when he would beold enough to join them in running Drogheda.
Cardinal Ralph had also discovered the reason for Justine's enmity. Dane had taken a fancy to him, hung on hiswords, lingered near him; she was plain jealous.
After the children had gone upstairs, he looked at those who were left: the brothers, Meggie, Fee.
"Fee, leave your desk for a moment," he said. "Come and sit here with us. I want to talk to all of you."She still carried herself well and hadn't lost her figure, only slackened in the breasts, thickened very slightly inthe waist; more a shaping due to old age than to an actual weight gain. Silently she seated herself in one of thebig cream chairs opposite the Cardinal, with Meggie to one side, and the brothers on stone benches close by.
"It's about Frank," he said.
The name hung between them, resounding536 distantly. "What about Frank?" asked Fee composedly.
Meggie laid her knitting down, looked at her mother, then at Cardinal Ralph. "Tell us, Ralph," she said quickly,unable to bear her mother's composure a moment longer.
"Frank has served almost thirty years in jail, do you realize that?" asked the Cardinal. "I know my people keptyou informed as we arranged, but I had asked them not to distress you unduly537. I honestly couldn't see what goodit could do Frank or yourselves to hear the harrowing details of his loneliness and despair, because there wasnothing any of us might have done. I think Frank would have been released some years ago had he not gained areputation for violence and instability during his early years in Goulburn Gaol538. Even as late as the war, whensome other prisoners were released into armed service, poor Frank was refused."Fee glanced up from her hands. "It's his temper," she said without emotion. The Cardinal seemed to be havingsome difficulty in finding the right words; while he sought for them, the family watched him in mingled539 dreadand hope, though it wasn't Frank's welfare they cared about. "It must be puzzling you greatly why I came back toAustralia after all these years," Cardinal Ralph said finally, not looking at Meggie. "I haven't always beenmindful of your lives, and I know it. From the day I met you, I've thought of myself first, put myself first. Andwhen the Holy Father rewarded my labors540 on behalf of the Church with a cardinal's mantle541, I asked myself ifthere was any service I could do the Cleary family which in some way would tell them how deeply I care." Hedrew a breath, focused his gaze on Fee, not on Meggie. "I came back to Australia to see what I could do aboutFrank. Do you remember, Fee, that time I spoke to you after Paddy and Stu died? Twenty years ago, and I'venever been able to forget the look in your eyes. So much energy and vitality542, crushed.""Yes," said Bob abruptly, his eyes riveted543 on his mother. "Yes, that's it." "Frank is being paroled," said theCardinal. "It was the only thing I could do to show you that I do care."If he had expected a sudden, dazzling blaze of light from out of Fee's long darkness, he would have been verydisappointed; at first it was no more than a small flicker544, and perhaps the toll of age would never really permit itto shine at full brightness. But in the eyes of Fee's sons he saw its true magnitude, and knew a sense of his ownpurpose he hadn't felt since that time during the war when he had talked to the young German soldier with theimposing name.
"Thank you," said Fee.
"Will you welcome him back to Drogheda?" he asked the Cleary men. "This is his home, it's where he ought tobe," Bob answered elliptically. Everyone nodded agreement save Fee, who seemed intent on some private vision.
"He isn't the same Frank," Cardinal Ralph went on gently. "I visited him in Goulburn Gaol to tell him the newsbefore I came here, and I had to let him know everyone on Drogheda had always been aware what had happenedto him. If I tell you that he didn't take it hard, it might give you some idea of the change in him. He was simply . .
. grateful. And so looking forward to seeing his family again, especially you, Fee.""When's he being released?" Bob asked, clearing his throat, pleasure for his mother clearly warring with fear ofwhat would happen when Frank returned.
"In a week or two. He'll come up on the night mail. I wanted him to fly, but he said he preferred the train.""Patsy and I will meet him," Jims offered eagerly, then his face fell. "Oh! We don't know what he looks like!""No," said Fee. "I'll meet him myself. On my own. I'm not in my dotage545 yet; I can still drive to Gilly.""Mum's right," said Meggie firmly, forestalling546 a chorus of protests from her brothers. "Let Mum meet him onher own. She's the one ought to see him first.""Well, I have work to do," said Fee gruffly, getting up and moving toward her desk.
The five brothers rose as one man. "And I reckon it's our bedtime," said Bob, yawning elaborately. He smiledshyly at Cardinal Ralph. "It will be like old times, to have you saying Mass for us in the morning."Meggie folded her knitting, put it away, got up. "I'll say good night, too, Ralph.""Good night, Meggie." His eyes followed her as she went out of the room, then turned to Fee's hunched547 back.
"Good night, Fee." "I beg your pardon? Did you say something?""I said good night.""Oh! Good night, Ralph."He didn't want to go upstairs so soon after Meggie. "I'm going for a walk before I turn in, I think. Do you knowsomething, Fee?" "No." Her voice was absent.
"You don't fool me for a minute."She snorted with laughter, an eerie sound. "Don't I? I wonder about that." Late, and the stars. The southernstars, wheeling across the heavens. He had lost his hold upon them forever, though they were still there, toodistant to warm, too remote to comfort. Closer to God, Who was a wisp between them. For a long time he stoodlooking up, listening to the wind in the trees, smiling.
Reluctant to be near Fee, he used the flight of stairs at the far end of the house; the lamp over her desk stillburned and he could see her bent silhouette548 there, working. Poor Fee. How much she must dread73 going to bed,though-perhaps when Frank came home it would be easier. Perhaps. At the top of the stairs silence met himthickly; a crystal lamp on a narrow hall table shed a dim pool of light for the comfort of nocturnal wanderers,flickering as the night breeze billowed the curtains inward around the window next to it. He passed it by, his feeton the heavy carpeting making no sound.
Meggie's door was wide open, more light welling through it; blocking the rays for a moment, he shut her doorbehind him and locked it. She had donned a loose wrapper and was sitting in a chair by the window looking outacross the invisible Home Paddock, but her head turned to watch him walk to the bed, sit on its edge. Slowly shegot up and came to him.
"Here, I'll help you get your boots off. That's the reason I never wear knee ones myself. I can't get them offwithout a jack, and a jack ruins good boots.""Did you wear that color deliberately549, Meggie?" "Ashes of roses?" She smiled. "It's always been my favoritecolor. It doesn't clash with my hair."He put one foot on her backside while she pulled a boot off, then changed it for the bare foot.
"Were you so sure I'd come to you, Meggie?""I told you. On Drogheda you're mine. Had you not come to me, I'd have gone to you, make no mistake." Shedrew his shirt over his head, and for a moment her hand rested with luxurious550 sensitivity on his bare back, thenshe went across to the lamp and turned it out, while he draped his clothes over a chair back. He could hear hermoving about, shedding her wrapper. And tomorrow morning I'll say Mass. But that's tomorrow morning, andthe magic has long gone. There is still the night, and Meggie. I have wanted her. She, too, is a sacrament.
Dane was disappointed. "I thought you'd wear a red soutane!" he said. "Sometimes I do, Dane, but only withinthe walls of the palace. Outside it, I wear a black soutane with a red sash, like this.""Do you really have a palace?""Yes.""Is it full of chandeliers?""Yes, but so is Drogheda.""Oh, Drogheda!" said Dane in disgust. "I'll bet ours are little ones compared to yours. I'd love to see yourpalace, and you in a red soutane." Cardinal Ralph smiled. "Who knows, Dane? Perhaps one day you will." Theboy had a curious expression always at the back of his eyes; a distant look. When he turned during the Mass,Cardinal Ralph saw it reinforced, but he didn't recognize it, only felt its familiarity. No man sees himself in amirror as he really is, nor any woman.
Luddie and Anne Mueller were due in for Christmas, as indeed they were every year. The big house was full oflight-hearted people, looking forward to the best Christmas in years; Minnie and Cat sang tunelessly as theyworked, Mrs. Smith's plump face was wreathed in smiles, Meggie relinquished551 Dane to Cardinal Ralph withoutcomment, and Fee seemed much happier, less glued to her desk. The men seized upon any excuse to make itback in each night, for after a late dinner the drawing room buzzed with conversation, and Mrs. Smith had takento preparing a bedtime supper snack of melted cheese on toast, hot buttered crumpets and raisin260 scones552. CardinalRalph protested that so much good food would make him fat, but after three days of Drogheda air, Droghedapeople and Drogheda food, he seemed to be shedding the rather gaunt, haggard look he had worn when hearrived.
The fourth day came in very hot. Cardinal Ralph had gone with Dane to bring in a mob of sheep, Justine sulkedalone in the pepper tree, and Meggie lounged on a cushioned cane settee on the veranda. Her bones felt limp,glutted, and she was very happy. A woman can live without it quite well for years at a stretch, but it was nice,when it was the one man. When she was with Ralph every part of her came alive except that part which belongedto Dane; the trouble was, when she was with Dane every part of her came alive except that which belonged toRalph. Only when both of them were present in her world simultaneously, as now, did she feel utterly553 complete.
Well, it stood to reason. Dane was her son, but Ralph was her man. Yet one thing marred554 her happiness; Ralphhadn't seen. So her mouth remained closed upon her secret. If he couldn't see it for himself, why should she tellhim? What had he ever done, to earn the telling? That he could think for a moment she had gone back to Lukewillingly was the last straw. He didn't deserve to be told, if he could think that of her. Sometimes she felt Fee'spale, ironic eyes upon her, and she would stare back, unperturbed. Fee understood, she really did. Understood thehalf-hate, the resentment555, the desire to pay back the lonely years. Off chasing rainbows, that was Ralph deBricassart; and why should she gift him with the most exquisite rainbow of all, his son? Let him be deprived. Lethim suffer, never knowing he suffered.
The phone rang its Drogheda code; Meggie listened idly, then realizing her mother must be elsewhere, she gotup reluctantly and went to answer it. "Mrs. Fiona Cleary, please," said a man's voice. When Meggie called hername, Fee returned to take the receiver. "Fiona Cleary speaking," she said, and as she stood listening the colorfaded gradually from her face, making it look as it had looked in the days after Paddy and Stu died; tiny andvulnerable. "Thank you," she said, and hung up.
"What is it, Mum?""Frank's been released. He's coming up on the night mail this afternoon." She looked at her watch. "I must leavesoon; it's after two.""Let me come with you," Meggie offered, so filled with her own happiness she couldn't bear to see her motherdisappointed; she sensed that this meeting couldn't be pure joy for Fee.
"No, Meggie, I'll be all right. You take care of things here, and hold dinner until I get back.""Isn't it wonderful, Mum? Frank's coming home in time for Christmas!" "Yes," said Fee, "it is wonderful."No one traveled on the night mail these days if they could fly, so by the time it had huffed the six hundred milesfrom Sydney, dropping its mostly second-class passengers at this small town or that, few people were left to bedisgorged in Gilly.
The stationmaster had a nodding acquaintance with Mrs. Cleary but would never have dreamed of engaging herin conversation, so he just watched her descend219 the wooden steps from the overhead footbridge, and left heralone to stand stiffly on the high platform. She was a stylish556 old girl, he thought; up-to-date dress and hat, high-heeled shoes, too. Good figure, not many lines on her face really for an old girl; just went to show what the easylife of a grazier could do for a woman.
So that on the surface Frank recognized his mother more quickly than she did him, though her heart knew himat once. He was fifty-two years old, and the years of his absence were those which had carried him from youth tomiddle age. The man who stood in the Gilly sunset was too thin, gaunt almost, very pale; his hair was croppedhalfway up his head, he wore shapeless clothes which hung on a frame still hinting at power for all its small size,and his well-shaped hands were clamped on the brim of a grey felt hat. He wasn't stooped or ill-looking, but hestood helplessly twisting that hat between his hands and seemed not to expect anyone to meet him, nor to knowwhat next he ought to do.
Fee, controlled, walked briskly down the platform. "Hello, Frank," she said.
He lifted the eyes which used to flash and sparkle so, set now in the face of an aging man. Not Frank's eyes atall. Exhausted557, patient, intensely weary. But as they absorbed the sight of Fee an extraordinary expression cameinto them, wounded, utterly defenseless, filled with the appeal of a dying man.
"Oh, Frank!" she said, and took him in her arms, rocking his head on her shoulder. "It's all right, it's all right,"she crooned, and softer still, "It's all right!"He sat slumped558 and silent in the car at first, but as the Rolls picked up speed and headed out of town he beganto take an interest in his surroundings, and glanced out of the window. "It looks exactly the same," he whispered.
"I imagine it does. Time moves slowly out here."They crossed the rumbling384 wooden-planked bridge over the thin, muddy river lined with weeping willows, mostof its bed exposed in a tangle of roots and gravel, pools lying in still brown patches, gum trees growingeverywhere in the stony559 wastes.
"The Barwon," he said. "I never thought I'd see it again."Behind them rose an enormous cloud of dust, in front of them the road sped straight as a perspective exerciseacross a great grassy560 plain devoid561 of trees.
"The road's new, Mum?" He seemed desperate to find conversation, make the situation appear normal.
"Yes, they put it through from Gilly to Milparinka just after the war ended.""They might have sealed it with a bit of tar75 instead of leaving it the same old dirt.""What for? We're used to eating dust out here, and think of the expense of making a bed strong enough to resistthe mud. The new road is straight, they keep it well graded and it cut out thirteen of our twenty-seven gates. Onlyfourteen left between Gilly and the homestead, and just you wait and see what we've done to them, Frank. Nomore opening and closing gates." The Rolls ran up a ramp562 toward a steel gate which lifted lazily; the moment thecar passed under it and got a few yards down the track, the gate lowered itself closed.
"Wonders never cease!" said Frank.
"We were the first station around here to install the automatic ramp gates--only between the Milparinka roadand the homestead, of course. The paddock gates still have to be opened and closed by hand.""Well, I reckon the bloke that invented these gates must have opened and closed a lot in his time, eh?" Frankgrinned; it was the first sign of amusement he had shown.
But then he fell silent, so his mother concentrated on her driving, unwilling450 to push him too quickly. When theypassed under the last gate and entered the Home Paddock, he gasped.
"I'd forgotten how lovely it is," he said.
"It's home," said Fee. "We've looked after it."She drove the Rolls down to the garages and then walked with him back to the big house, only this time hecarried his case himself. "Would you rather have a room in the big house, Frank, or a guesthouse all to yourself?"his mother asked.
"I'll take a guesthouse, thanks." The exhausted eyes rested on her face. "It will be nice to be able to get awayfrom people," he explained. That was the only reference he ever made to conditions in jail. "I think it will bebetter for you," she said, leading the way into her drawing room. "The big house is pretty full at the moment,what with the Cardinal here, Dane and Justine home, and Luddie and Anne Mueller arriving the day aftertomorrow for Christmas." She pulled the bell cord for tea and went quickly round the room lighting563 the kerosenelamps. "Luddie and Anne Mueller?" he asked.
She stopped in the act of turning up a wick, looked at him. "It's been a long time, Frank. The Muellers arefriends of Meggie's." The lamp trimmed to her satisfaction, she sat down in her wing chair. "We'll have dinner inan hour, but first we'll have a cup of tea. I have to wash the dust of the road out of my mouth."Frank seated himself awkwardly on the edge of one of the cream silk ottomans, gazing at the room in awe. "Itlooks so different from the days of Auntie Mary."Fee smiled. "Well, I think so," she said.
Then Meggie came in, and it was harder to assimilate the fact of Meggie grown into a mature woman than tosee his mother old. As his sister hugged and kissed him he turned his face away, shrank inside his baggy564 coat andsearched beyond her to his mother, who sat looking at him as if to say: It doesn't matter, it will all seem normalsoon, just give it time. A minute later, while he was still searching for something to say to this stranger, Meggie'sdaughter came in; a tall, skinny young girl who sat down stiffly, her big hands pleating folds in her dress, herlight eyes fixed565 first on one face, then on another. Meggie's son entered with the Cardinal and went to sit on thefloor beside his sister, a beautiful, calmly aloof566 boy.
"Frank, this is marvelous," said Cardinal Ralph, shaking him by the hand, then turning to Fee with his left browraised. "A cup of tea? Very good idea."The Cleary men came into the room together, and that was very hard, for they hadn't forgiven him at all. Frankknew why; it was the way he had hurt their mother. But he didn't know of anything to say which would makethem understand any of it, nor could he tell them of the pain, the loneliness, or beg forgiveness. The only one.
who really mattered was his mother, and she had never thought there was anything to forgive. It was the Cardinalwho tried to hold the evening together, who led the conversation round the dinner table and then afterward567 backin the drawing room, chatting with diplomatic ease and making a special point of including Frank in thegathering.
"Bob, I've meant to ask you ever since I arrived where are the rabbits?" the Cardinal asked. "I've seen millionsof burrows568, but nary a rabbit." "The rabbits are all dead," Bob answered.
"Dead?""That's right, from something called myxomatosis. Between the rabbits and the drought years, Australia wasjust about finished as a primary producing nation by nineteen forty-seven. We were desperate," said Bob,warming to his theme and grateful to have something to discuss which would exclude Frank.
At which point Frank unwittingly antagonized his next brother by saying, "I knew it was bad, but not as bad asall that." He sat back, hoping he had pleased the Cardinal by contributing his mite to the discussion. "Well, I'mnot exaggerating, believe me!" said Bob tartly569; how would Frank know?
"What happened?" the Cardinal asked quickly.
"The year before last the Commonwealth570 Scientific and Industrial Research Organization started anexperimental program in Victoria, infecting rabbits with this virus thing they'd bred. I'm not sure what a virus is,except I think it's a sort of germ. Anyway, they called theirs the myxomatosis virus. At first it didn't seem tospread too well, though what bunnies caught it all died. But about a year after the experimental infection it beganto spread like wildfire, they think mosquito-borne, but something to do with saffron thistle as well. And thebunnies have died in millions and millions ever since, it's just wiped them out. You'll sometimes see a fewsickies around with huge lumps all over their faces, very ugly-looking things. But it's a marvelous piece of work,Ralph, it really is. Nothing else can catch myxomatosis, even close relatives. So thanks to the blokes at theCSIRO, the rabbit plague is no more."Cardinal Ralph stared at Frank. "Do you realize what it is, Frank? Do you?" Poor Frank shook his head, wishingeveryone would let him retreat into anonymity.
"Mass-scale biological warfare571. I wonder does the rest of the world know that right here in Australia be tween1949 and 1952 a virus war was waged against a population of trillions upon trillions, and succeeded inobliterating it? Well! It's feasible, isn't it? Not simply yellow journalism572 at all, but scientific fact. They may aswell bury their atom bombs and hydrogen bombs. I know it had to be done, it was absolutely necessary,and it's probably the world's most unsung major scientific achievement. But it's terrifying, too."Dane had been following the conversation closely. "Biological warfare? I've never heard of it. What is itexactly, Ralph?""The words are new, Dane, but I'm a papal diplomat and the pity of it is that I must keep abreast573 of words like"biological warfare." In a nutshell, the term means myxomatosis. Breeding a germ capable of specifically killingand maiming only one kind of living being."Quite unselfconsciously Dane made the Sign of the Cross, and leaned back against Ralph de Bricassart's knees.
"We had better pray, hadn't we?" The Cardinal looked down on his fair head, smiling.
That eventually Frank managed to fit into Drogheda life at all was thanks to Fee, who in the face of stiff maleCleary opposition continued to act as if her oldest son had been gone but a short while, and had never broughtdisgrace on his family or bitterly hurt his mother. Quietly and inconspicuously she slipped him into the niche574 heseemed to want to occupy, removed from her other sons; nor did she encourage him to regain some of the vitalityof other days. For it had all gone; she had known it the moment he looked at her on the Gilly station platform.
Swallowed up by an existence the nature of which he refused to discuss with her. The most she could do for himwas to make him as happy as possible, and surely the way to do that was to accept the now Frank as the alwaysFrank.
There was no question of his working the paddocks, for his brothers didn't want him, nor did he want a kind oflife he had always hated. The sight of growing things pleased him, so Fee put him to potter in the homesteadgardens, left him in peace. And gradually the Cleary men grew used to having Frank back in the family bosom,began to understand that the threat Frank used to represent to their own welfare was quite empty.
Nothing would ever change what their mother felt for him, it didn't matter whether he was in jail or onDrogheda, she would still feel it. The important thing was that to have him on Drogheda made her happy. Hedidn't intrude145 upon their lives, he was no more or no less than always. Yet for Fee it wasn't a joy to have Frankhome again; how could it be? Seeing him every day was simply a different kind of sorrow from not being able tosee him at all. The terrible grief of having to witness a ruined life, a ruined man. Who was her most beloved son,and must have endured agonies beyond her imagination.
One day after Frank had been home about six months, Meggie came into the drawing room to find her mothersitting looking through the big windows to where Frank was clipping the great bank of roses alongside the drive.
She turned away, and something in her calmly arranged face sent Meggie's hands up to her heart.
"Oh, Mum!" she said helplessly.
Fee looked at her, shook her head and smiled. "It doesn't matter, Meggie," she said.
"If only there was something I could do!""There is. Just carry on the way you have been. I'm very grateful. You've become an ally."
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1
ail
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| v.生病，折磨，苦恼 | |
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profligate
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| adj.行为不检的；n.放荡的人，浪子，肆意挥霍者 | |
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constellations
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| n.星座( constellation的名词复数 )；一群杰出人物；一系列（相关的想法、事物）；一群（相关的人） | |
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puffs
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| n.吸( puff的名词复数 )；（烟斗或香烟的）一吸；一缕（烟、蒸汽等）；（呼吸或风的）呼v.使喷出( puff的第三人称单数 )；喷着汽（或烟）移动；吹嘘；吹捧 | |
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puff
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| n.一口(气)；一阵(风)；v.喷气，喘气 | |
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6
lashing
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| n.鞭打；痛斥；大量；许多v.鞭打( lash的现在分词 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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bleached
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| 漂白的，晒白的，颜色变浅的 | |
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mirages
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| n.海市蜃楼，幻景( mirage的名词复数 ) | |
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desolately
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| 荒凉地，寂寞地 | |
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misty
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| adj.雾蒙蒙的，有雾的 | |
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benediction
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| n.祝福；恩赐 | |
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chrysanthemums
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| n.菊花( chrysanthemum的名词复数 ) | |
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gravel
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| n.砂跞；砂砾层；结石 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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underneath
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| adj.在...下面，在...底下；adv.在下面 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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sinewy
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| adj.多腱的，强壮有力的 | |
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progenitor
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| n.祖先，先驱 | |
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mien
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| n.风采；态度 | |
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jack
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| n.插座，千斤顶，男人；v.抬起，提醒，扛举；n.（Jake）杰克 | |
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fealty
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| n.忠贞，忠节 | |
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incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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rudiments
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| n.基础知识，入门 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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aristocrat
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| n.贵族，有贵族气派的人，上层人物 | |
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juvenile
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| n.青少年，少年读物；adj.青少年的，幼稚的 | |
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jacks
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| n.抓子游戏；千斤顶( jack的名词复数 )；（电）插孔；[电子学]插座；放弃 | |
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flannel
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| n.法兰绒；法兰绒衣服 | |
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shanty
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| n.小屋，棚屋；船工号子 | |
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chestnut
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| n.栗树，栗子 | |
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mare
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| n.母马，母驴 | |
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hacks
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| 黑客 | |
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bleating
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| v.（羊，小牛）叫( bleat的现在分词 )；哭诉；发出羊叫似的声音；轻声诉说 | |
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aged
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| adj.年老的，陈年的 | |
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outlast
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| v.较…耐久 | |
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fissures
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| n.狭长裂缝或裂隙( fissure的名词复数 )；裂伤；分歧；分裂v.裂开( fissure的第三人称单数 ) | |
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parched
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| adj.焦干的；极渴的；v.（使）焦干 | |
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saturation
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| n.饱和(状态)；浸透 | |
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mangled
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| vt.乱砍（mangle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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flinch
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| v.畏缩，退缩 | |
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sentimental
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| adj.多愁善感的，感伤的 | |
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predator
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| n.捕食其它动物的动物；捕食者 | |
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unnatural
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| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
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yearned
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| 渴望，切盼，向往( yearn的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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lavish
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| adj.无节制的；浪费的；vt.慷慨地给予，挥霍 | |
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overture
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| n.前奏曲、序曲，提议，提案，初步交涉 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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defiant
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| adj.无礼的，挑战的 | |
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genes
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| n.基因( gene的名词复数 ) | |
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53
mingling
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| adj.混合的 | |
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54
germinate
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| v.发芽；发生；发展 | |
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innate
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| adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的 | |
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56
moth
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| n.蛾，蛀虫 | |
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dilate
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| vt.使膨胀，使扩大 | |
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minimal
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| adj.尽可能少的，最小的 | |
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ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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60
itch
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| n.痒，渴望，疥癣；vi.发痒，渴望 | |
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precipitate
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| adj.突如其来的；vt.使突然发生；n.沉淀物 | |
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62
overflowing
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| n. 溢出物,溢流 adj. 充沛的，充满的 动词overflow的现在分词形式 | |
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63
axe
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| n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减 | |
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64
skull
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| n.头骨；颅骨 | |
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65
feat
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| n.功绩；武艺，技艺；adj.灵巧的，漂亮的，合适的 | |
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66
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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67
tugged
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| v.用力拉，使劲拉，猛扯( tug的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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68
lashes
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| n.鞭挞( lash的名词复数 )；鞭子；突然猛烈的一击；急速挥动v.鞭打( lash的第三人称单数 )；煽动；紧系；怒斥 | |
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69
crook
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| v.使弯曲；n.小偷，骗子，贼；弯曲(处) | |
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70
bishop
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| n.主教，（国际象棋）象 | |
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71
Mediterranean
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| adj.地中海的；地中海沿岸的 | |
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72
chauffeured
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| v.受雇于人的汽车司机( chauffeur的过去式 ) | |
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73
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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74
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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75
tar
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| n.柏油，焦油；vt.涂或浇柏油/焦油于 | |
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76
domes
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| n.圆屋顶( dome的名词复数 )；像圆屋顶一样的东西；圆顶体育场 | |
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77
plazas
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| n.（尤指西班牙语城镇的）露天广场( plaza的名词复数 )；购物中心 | |
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78
sumptuous
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| adj.豪华的，奢侈的，华丽的 | |
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79
monk
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| n.和尚，僧侣，修道士 | |
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80
fig
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| n.无花果(树) | |
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81
worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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82
cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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83
tapestries
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| n.挂毯( tapestry的名词复数 )；绣帷，织锦v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的第三人称单数 ) | |
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84
crimson
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| n./adj.深(绯)红色(的)；vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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85
ruby
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| n.红宝石，红宝石色 | |
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86
avert
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| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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87
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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88
encompass
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| vt.围绕，包围；包含，包括；完成 | |
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89
eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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90
fluency
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| n.流畅，雄辩，善辩 | |
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91
colloquial
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| adj.口语的，会话的 | |
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92
scarlet
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| n.深红色，绯红色，红衣；adj.绯红色的 | |
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93
guilt
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| n.犯罪；内疚；过失，罪责 | |
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94
aspired
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| v.渴望，追求( aspire的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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95
realization
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| n.实现；认识到，深刻了解 | |
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96
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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97
vows
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| 誓言( vow的名词复数 )； 郑重宣布，许愿 | |
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98
bequest
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| n.遗赠；遗产，遗物 | |
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99
obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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100
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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101
repentance
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| n.懊悔 | |
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102
repent
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| v.悔悟，悔改，忏悔，后悔 | |
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103
villains
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| n.恶棍( villain的名词复数 )；罪犯；（小说、戏剧等中的）反面人物；淘气鬼 | |
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104
labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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105
gilded
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| a.镀金的，富有的 | |
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106
foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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107
ascetic
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| adj.禁欲的；严肃的 | |
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108
resoluteness
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109
addiction
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| n.上瘾入迷，嗜好 | |
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110
binding
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| 有约束力的，有效的，应遵守的 | |
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111
zeal
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| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
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112
ram
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| (random access memory)随机存取存储器 | |
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113
mitigate
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| vt.（使）减轻，（使）缓和 | |
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114
wispy
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| adj.模糊的；纤细的 | |
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115
confessions
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| n.承认( confession的名词复数 )；自首；声明；（向神父的）忏悔 | |
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116
vessels
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| n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人 | |
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117
discreet
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| adj.(言行)谨慎的；慎重的；有判断力的 | |
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118
addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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119
kit
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| n.用具包，成套工具；随身携带物 | |
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120
adamant
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| adj.坚硬的，固执的 | |
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121
secular
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| n.牧师，凡人；adj.世俗的，现世的，不朽的 | |
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122
diplomat
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| n.外交官，外交家；能交际的人，圆滑的人 | |
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123
condemn
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| vt.谴责，指责；宣判(罪犯)，判刑 | |
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124
shimmering
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| v.闪闪发光，发微光( shimmer的现在分词 ) | |
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125
haughtily
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| adv. 傲慢地, 高傲地 | |
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126
wireless
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| adj.无线的；n.无线电 | |
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127
walnut
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| n.胡桃，胡桃木，胡桃色，茶色 | |
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128
exquisite
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| adj.精美的；敏锐的；剧烈的，感觉强烈的 | |
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129
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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130
Oxford
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| n.牛津（英国城市） | |
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131
prim
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| adj.拘泥形式的，一本正经的；n.循规蹈矩，整洁；adv.循规蹈矩地，整洁地 | |
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132
melancholy
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| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
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133
persistence
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| n.坚持，持续，存留 | |
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134
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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135
avocations
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| n.业余爱好，嗜好( avocation的名词复数 )；职业 | |
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136
compassion
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| n.同情，怜悯 | |
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137
staple
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| n.主要产物，常用品，主要要素，原料，订书钉，钩环；adj.主要的，重要的；vt.分类 | |
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138
ammunition
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| n.军火，弹药 | |
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139
staples
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| n.（某国的）主要产品( staple的名词复数 )；钉书钉；U 形钉；主要部份v.用钉书钉钉住( staple的第三人称单数 ) | |
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140
mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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141
awfully
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| adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地 | |
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142
enlist
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| vt.谋取(支持等)，赢得；征募；vi.入伍 | |
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143
enlisting
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| v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的现在分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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144
harry
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| vt.掠夺，蹂躏，使苦恼 | |
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145
intrude
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| vi.闯入；侵入；打扰，侵扰 | |
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146
intruded
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| n.侵入的，推进的v.侵入，侵扰，打扰( intrude的过去式和过去分词 )；把…强加于 | |
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147
valiantly
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| adv.勇敢地，英勇地；雄赳赳 | |
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148
evacuated
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| 撤退者的 | |
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149
creases
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| （使…）起折痕，弄皱( crease的第三人称单数 )； （皮肤）皱起，使起皱纹 | |
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150
enlisted
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| adj.应募入伍的v.（使）入伍， （使）参军( enlist的过去式和过去分词 )；获得（帮助或支持） | |
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151
compartment
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| n.卧车包房，隔间；分隔的空间 | |
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152
stifled
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| （使）窒息， （使）窒闷( stifle的过去式和过去分词 )； 镇压，遏制； 堵 | |
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153
peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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154
wrung
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| 绞( wring的过去式和过去分词 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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155
buffers
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| 起缓冲作用的人（或物）( buffer的名词复数 )； 缓冲器； 减震器； 愚蠢老头 | |
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156
streak
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| n.条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹；v.加条纹，变成条纹，奔驰，快速移动 | |
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157
rout
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| n.溃退，溃败；v.击溃，打垮 | |
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158
axis
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| n.轴，轴线，中心线；坐标轴，基准线 | |
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159
seesaw
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| n.跷跷板 | |
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160
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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161
ignominiously
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| adv.耻辱地，屈辱地，丢脸地 | |
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162
detailed
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| adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的 | |
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163
hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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164
sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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165
query
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| n.疑问，问号，质问；vt.询问，表示怀疑 | |
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166
bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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167
belly
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| n.肚子，腹部；(像肚子一样)鼓起的部分，膛 | |
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168
flicking
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| （尤指用手指或手快速地）轻击( flick的现在分词 )； （用…）轻挥； （快速地）按开关； 向…笑了一下（或瞥了一眼等） | |
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169
sunbathing
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| n.日光浴 | |
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170
lizard
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| n.蜥蜴，壁虎 | |
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171
boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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172
perimeter
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| n.周边，周长，周界 | |
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173
doggedly
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| adv.顽强地，固执地 | |
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174
pebbles
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| [复数]鹅卵石； 沙砾； 卵石，小圆石( pebble的名词复数 ) | |
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175
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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176
beleaguered
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| adj.受到围困[围攻]的；包围的v.围攻( beleaguer的过去式和过去分词)；困扰；骚扰 | |
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177
implicitly
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| adv. 含蓄地, 暗中地, 毫不保留地 | |
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178
harps
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| abbr.harpsichord 拨弦古钢琴n.竖琴( harp的名词复数 ) | |
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179
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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180
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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181
steadily
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| adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地 | |
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182
swelling
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| n.肿胀 | |
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183
emblem
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| n.象征，标志；徽章 | |
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184
regiments
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| （军队的）团( regiment的名词复数 )； 大量的人或物 | |
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185
regiment
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| n.团，多数，管理；v.组织，编成团，统制 | |
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186
conspired
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| 密谋( conspire的过去式和过去分词 )； 搞阴谋； （事件等）巧合； 共同导致 | |
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187
blight
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| n.枯萎病；造成破坏的因素；vt.破坏，摧残 | |
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188
disastrous
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| adj.灾难性的，造成灾害的；极坏的，很糟的 | |
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189
emulating
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| v.与…竞争( emulate的现在分词 )；努力赶上；计算机程序等仿真；模仿 | |
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190
agrarian
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| adj.土地的，农村的，农业的 | |
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191
pastor
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| n.牧师，牧人 | |
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192
abysmally
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| adv.极糟地；可怕地；完全地；极端地 | |
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193
replacements
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| n.代替( replacement的名词复数 )；替换的人[物]；替代品；归还 | |
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194
irritability
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| n.易怒 | |
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195
fatigue
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| n.疲劳，劳累 | |
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196
distress
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| n.苦恼，痛苦，不舒适；不幸；vt.使悲痛 | |
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197
longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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198
habitual
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| adj.习惯性的；通常的，惯常的 | |
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199
exasperated
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| adj.恼怒的 | |
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200
likeness
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| n.相像，相似（之处） | |
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201
apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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202
reassurance
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| n.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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203
reassuring
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| a.使人消除恐惧和疑虑的，使人放心的 | |
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204
precocious
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| adj.早熟的；较早显出的 | |
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205
scrap
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| n.碎片；废料；v.废弃，报废 | |
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206
ousted
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| 驱逐( oust的过去式和过去分词 )； 革职； 罢黜； 剥夺 | |
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207
buckle
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| n.扣子，带扣；v.把...扣住，由于压力而弯曲 | |
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208
buck
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| n.雄鹿，雄兔；v.马离地跳跃 | |
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209
salvage
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| v.救助，营救，援救；n.救助，营救 | |
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210
affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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211
grasslands
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| n.草原，牧场( grassland的名词复数 ) | |
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212
ardent
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，强烈的，烈性的 | |
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213
loathed
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| v.憎恨，厌恶( loathe的过去式和过去分词 )；极不喜欢 | |
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214
loathe
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| v.厌恶，嫌恶 | |
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215
petroleum
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| n.原油，石油 | |
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216
peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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217
poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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218
descending
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| n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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219
descend
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| vt./vi.传下来，下来，下降 | |
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220
pendulum
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| n.摆，钟摆 | |
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221
naval
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| adj.海军的，军舰的，船的 | |
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222
swells
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| 增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情） | |
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223
wrath
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| n.愤怒，愤慨，暴怒 | |
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224
embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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225
delirious
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| adj.不省人事的，神智昏迷的 | |
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226
jolt
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| v.（使）摇动，（使）震动，（使）颠簸 | |
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227
promising
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| adj.有希望的，有前途的 | |
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228
hooted
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| （使）作汽笛声响，作汽车喇叭声( hoot的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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229
hissed
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| 发嘶嘶声( hiss的过去式和过去分词 )； 发嘘声表示反对 | |
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230
killing
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| n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财 | |
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231
croaked
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| v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
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232
hoarsely
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| adv.嘶哑地 | |
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233
reassuringly
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| ad.安心，可靠 | |
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234
sweeping
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| adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的 | |
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235
barrage
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| n.火力网，弹幕 | |
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236
diminution
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| n.减少；变小 | |
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237
gargantuan
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| adj.巨大的，庞大的 | |
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238
trench
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| n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕 | |
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239
trenches
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| 深沟，地沟( trench的名词复数 )； 战壕 | |
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240
artillery
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| n.(军)火炮，大炮；炮兵(部队) | |
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241
rations
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| 定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量 | |
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242
mortar
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| n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合 | |
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243
mortars
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| n.迫击炮( mortar的名词复数 )；砂浆；房产；研钵 | |
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244
frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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245
recoil
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| vi.退却，退缩，畏缩 | |
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246
impetus
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| n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力 | |
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247
stereotyped
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| adj.(指形象、思想、人物等)模式化的 | |
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248
anticlimactic
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| adj. 渐降法的, 虎头蛇尾的 | |
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249
distended
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| v.（使）膨胀，肿胀( distend的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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250
unbearable
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| adj.不能容忍的；忍受不住的 | |
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251
pall
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| v.覆盖，使平淡无味；n.柩衣，棺罩；棺材；帷幕 | |
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252
shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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253
bellowing
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| v.发出吼叫声，咆哮（尤指因痛苦）( bellow的现在分词 )；（愤怒地）说出（某事），大叫 | |
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254
barrages
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| n.弹幕射击( barrage的名词复数 )；火力网；猛烈炮火；河上的堰坝v.火力攻击（或阻击）( barrage的第三人称单数 )；以密集火力攻击（或阻击） | |
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255
eerie
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| adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的 | |
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256
bagpipe
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| n.风笛 | |
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257
thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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258
trekking
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| v.艰苦跋涉，徒步旅行( trek的现在分词 )；（尤指在山中）远足，徒步旅行，游山玩水 | |
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259
lure
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| n.吸引人的东西，诱惑物；vt.引诱，吸引 | |
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260
raisin
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| n.葡萄干 | |
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261
relatively
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| adv.比较...地，相对地 | |
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262
shovel
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| n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出 | |
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263
growled
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| v.（动物）发狺狺声， （雷）作隆隆声( growl的过去式和过去分词 )；低声咆哮着说 | |
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264
toddle
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| v.（如小孩）蹒跚学步 | |
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265
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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266
deploy
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| v.（军）散开成战斗队形，布置，展开 | |
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267
fiat
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| n.命令，法令，批准；vt.批准，颁布 | |
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268
bombers
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| n.轰炸机( bomber的名词复数 )；投弹手；安非他明胶囊；大麻叶香烟 | |
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269
tilting
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| 倾斜，倾卸 | |
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270
miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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271
miser
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| n.守财奴，吝啬鬼 (adj.miserly) | |
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272
defense
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| n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩 | |
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273
eastward
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| adv.向东；adj.向东的；n.东方，东部 | |
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274
permanently
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| adv.永恒地，永久地，固定不变地 | |
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275
wring
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| n.扭绞；v.拧，绞出，扭 | |
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276
coconut
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| n.椰子 | |
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277
spotted
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| adj.有斑点的，斑纹的，弄污了的 | |
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278
unlimited
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| adj.无限的，不受控制的，无条件的 | |
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279
mite
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| n.极小的东西；小铜币 | |
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280
digestions
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| n.消化能力( digestion的名词复数 )；消化，领悟 | |
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281
elicit
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| v.引出,抽出,引起 | |
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282
perpetuating
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| perpetuate的现在进行式 | |
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283
ineffably
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| adv.难以言喻地，因神圣而不容称呼地 | |
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284
hoarded
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| v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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285
monopolized
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| v.垄断( monopolize的过去式和过去分词 )；独占；专卖；专营 | |
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286
veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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287
cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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288
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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289
itching
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| adj.贪得的，痒的，渴望的v.发痒( itch的现在分词 ) | |
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290
chuckling
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| 轻声地笑( chuckle的现在分词 ) | |
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291
overthrown
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| adj. 打翻的，推倒的，倾覆的 动词overthrow的过去分词 | |
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292
relish
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| n.滋味，享受，爱好，调味品；vt.加调味料，享受，品味；vi.有滋味 | |
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293
mendicant
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| n.乞丐；adj.行乞的 | |
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294
intercede
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| vi.仲裁，说情 | |
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295
persecuted
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| （尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的过去式和过去分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人 | |
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296
civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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297
reprisal
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| n.报复，报仇，报复性劫掠 | |
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298
immediate
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| adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的 | |
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299
martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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300
obtuse
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| adj.钝的；愚钝的 | |
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301
clenched
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| v.紧握，抓紧，咬紧( clench的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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302
rebelliously
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| adv.造反地，难以控制地 | |
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303
loyalty
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| n.忠诚，忠心 | |
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304
vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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305
biased
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| a.有偏见的 | |
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306
discreetly
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| ad.(言行)审慎地，慎重地 | |
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307
subtlety
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| n.微妙，敏锐，精巧；微妙之处，细微的区别 | |
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308
straightforward
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| adj.正直的，坦率的；易懂的，简单的 | |
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309
ideological
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| a.意识形态的 | |
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310
admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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311
banished
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| v.放逐，驱逐( banish的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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312
fortresses
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| 堡垒，要塞( fortress的名词复数 ) | |
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313
eventual
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|
| adj.最后的，结局的，最终的 | |
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314
caressed
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| 爱抚或抚摸…( caress的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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315
preservation
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| n.保护，维护，保存，保留，保持 | |
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316
antiquities
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|
| n.古老( antiquity的名词复数 )；古迹；古人们；古代的风俗习惯 | |
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317
inertia
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|
| adj.惰性，惯性，懒惰，迟钝 | |
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318
passionately
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|
| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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319
nuns
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|
| n.（通常指基督教的）修女， （佛教的）尼姑( nun的名词复数 ) | |
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320
withdrawn
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|
| vt.收回；使退出；vi.撤退，退出 | |
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321
rein
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|
| n.疆绳，统治，支配；vt.以僵绳控制，统治 | |
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322
illuminated
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|
| adj.被照明的；受启迪的 | |
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323
merged
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|
| （使）混合( merge的过去式和过去分词 )； 相融； 融入； 渐渐消失在某物中 | |
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324
genuflected
|
|
| v.屈膝（尤指宗教礼节中）( genuflect的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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325
gasp
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|
| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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326
stunned
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|
| adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词 | |
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327
sparsely
|
|
| adv.稀疏地；稀少地；不足地；贫乏地 | |
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328
humbly
|
|
| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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329
patrician
|
|
| adj.贵族的，显贵的；n.贵族；有教养的人；罗马帝国的地方官 | |
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330
wavy
|
|
| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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331
unearthing
|
|
| 发掘或挖出某物( unearth的现在分词 )； 搜寻到某事物，发现并披露 | |
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332
orphan
|
|
| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
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333
sipped
|
|
| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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334
abruptly
|
|
| adv.突然地，出其不意地 | |
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335
persecution
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|
| n. 迫害,烦扰 | |
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336
drowsily
|
|
| adv.睡地，懒洋洋地，昏昏欲睡地 | |
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337
elite
|
|
| n.精英阶层；实力集团；adj.杰出的，卓越的 | |
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338
grudgingly
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339
foundering
|
|
| v.创始人( founder的现在分词 ) | |
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340
malaria
|
|
| n.疟疾 | |
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341
pneumonia
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|
| n.肺炎 | |
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342
chronic
|
|
| adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的 | |
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343
survivors
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|
| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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344
emaciated
|
|
| adj.衰弱的，消瘦的 | |
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345
greasy
|
|
| adj. 多脂的，油脂的 | |
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346
spectral
|
|
| adj.幽灵的，鬼魂的 | |
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347
fungi
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|
| n.真菌，霉菌 | |
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348
tangle
|
|
| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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349
coastal
|
|
| adj.海岸的，沿海的，沿岸的 | |
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350
elevations
|
|
| （水平或数量）提高( elevation的名词复数 )； 高地； 海拔； 提升 | |
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351
impoverished
|
|
| adj.穷困的，无力的，用尽了的v.使（某人）贫穷( impoverish的过去式和过去分词 )；使（某物）贫瘠或恶化 | |
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352
panache
|
|
| n.羽饰；假威风，炫耀 | |
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353
watershed
|
|
| n.转折点，分水岭，分界线 | |
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354
tawny
|
|
| adj.茶色的，黄褐色的；n.黄褐色 | |
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355
permissible
|
|
| adj.可允许的，许可的 | |
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356
muzzles
|
|
| 枪口( muzzle的名词复数 )； （防止动物咬人的）口套； （四足动物的）鼻口部； （狗）等凸出的鼻子和口 | |
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357
flare
|
|
| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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358
nostrils
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|
| 鼻孔( nostril的名词复数 ) | |
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359
reminder
|
|
| n.提醒物，纪念品；暗示，提示 | |
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360
elation
|
|
| n.兴高采烈，洋洋得意 | |
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361
tickling
|
|
| 反馈，回授，自旋挠痒法 | |
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362
battered
|
|
| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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363
snare
|
|
| n.陷阱，诱惑，圈套；（去除息肉或者肿瘤的）勒除器；响弦，小军鼓；vt.以陷阱捕获，诱惑 | |
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364
shreds
|
|
| v.撕碎，切碎( shred的第三人称单数 )；用撕毁机撕毁（文件） | |
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365
supplication
|
|
| n.恳求，祈愿，哀求 | |
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366
ebbing
|
|
| （指潮水）退( ebb的现在分词 )； 落； 减少； 衰落 | |
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367
momentum
|
|
| n.动力，冲力，势头；动量 | |
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368
fragrant
|
|
| adj.芬香的，馥郁的，愉快的 | |
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369
thighs
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|
| n.股，大腿( thigh的名词复数 )；食用的鸡（等的）腿 | |
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370
embedded
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|
| a.扎牢的 | |
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371
miraculous
|
|
| adj.像奇迹一样的，不可思议的 | |
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372
scattered
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|
| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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373
abdomen
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|
| n.腹，下腹(胸部到腿部的部分) | |
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374
impaired
|
|
| adj.受损的；出毛病的；有（身体或智力）缺陷的v.损害，削弱( impair的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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375
regain
|
|
| vt.重新获得，收复，恢复 | |
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376
boon
|
|
| n.恩赐，恩物，恩惠 | |
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377
avid
|
|
| adj.热心的；贪婪的；渴望的；劲头十足的 | |
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378
gaily
|
|
| adv.欢乐地，高兴地 | |
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379
toll
|
|
| n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟) | |
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380
cynical
|
|
| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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381
sniffing
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|
| n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
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382
unbearably
|
|
| adv.不能忍受地，无法容忍地；慌 | |
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383
crumbling
|
|
| adj.摇摇欲坠的 | |
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384
rumbling
|
|
| n. 隆隆声, 辘辘声 adj. 隆隆响的 动词rumble的现在分词 | |
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385
twitching
|
|
| n.颤搐 | |
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386
cemetery
|
|
| n.坟墓，墓地，坟场 | |
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387
bland
|
|
| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
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388
creek
|
|
| n.小溪，小河，小湾 | |
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389
withheld
|
|
| withhold过去式及过去分词 | |
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390
poked
|
|
| v.伸出( poke的过去式和过去分词 )；戳出；拨弄；与（某人）性交 | |
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391
burgeoned
|
|
| v.发芽，抽枝( burgeon的过去式和过去分词 )；迅速发展；发（芽），抽（枝） | |
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392
rippling
|
|
| 起涟漪的，潺潺流水般声音的 | |
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393
mischievous
|
|
| adj.调皮的，恶作剧的，有害的，伤人的 | |
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394
petal
|
|
| n.花瓣 | |
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395
savagely
|
|
| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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396
nucleus
|
|
| n.核，核心，原子核 | |
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397
rams
|
|
| n.公羊( ram的名词复数 )；(R-)白羊（星）座；夯；攻城槌v.夯实（土等）( ram的第三人称单数 )；猛撞；猛压；反复灌输 | |
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398
payroll
|
|
| n.工资表，在职人员名单，工薪总额 | |
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399
verandas
|
|
| 阳台，走廊( veranda的名词复数 ) | |
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400
mesh
|
|
| n.网孔，网丝，陷阱；vt.以网捕捉，啮合，匹配；vi.适合； [计算机]网络 | |
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401
obdurate
|
|
| adj.固执的，顽固的 | |
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402
contractor
|
|
| n.订约人，承包人，收缩肌 | |
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403
electrify
|
|
| v.使充电；使电气化；使触电；使震惊；使兴奋 | |
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404
shearing
|
|
| n.剪羊毛，剪取的羊毛v.剪羊毛( shear的现在分词 )；切断；剪切 | |
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405
diffusion
|
|
| n.流布；普及；散漫 | |
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406
qualified
|
|
| adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的 | |
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407
garrulous
|
|
| adj.唠叨的，多话的 | |
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408
chuckle
|
|
| vi.／n.轻声笑，咯咯笑 | |
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409
drooping
|
|
| adj. 下垂的，无力的 动词droop的现在分词 | |
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410
smears
|
|
| 污迹( smear的名词复数 )； 污斑； （显微镜的）涂片； 诽谤 | |
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411
gracefully
|
|
| ad.大大方方地；优美地 | |
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412
porcelain
|
|
| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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413
freckled
|
|
| adj.雀斑；斑点；晒斑；（使）生雀斑v.雀斑，斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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414
infancy
|
|
| n.婴儿期；幼年期；初期 | |
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415
freckles
|
|
| n.雀斑，斑点( freckle的名词复数 ) | |
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416
remarkable
|
|
| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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417
astringent
|
|
| adj.止血的，收缩的，涩的；n.收缩剂，止血剂 | |
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418
tussle
|
|
| n.&v.扭打，搏斗，争辩 | |
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419
interfered
|
|
| v.干预( interfere的过去式和过去分词 )；调停；妨碍；干涉 | |
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420
treacle
|
|
| n.糖蜜 | |
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421
triumphantly
|
|
| ad.得意洋洋地；得胜地；成功地 | |
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422
vomited
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423
ERECTED
|
|
| adj. 直立的，竖立的，笔直的 vt. 使 ... 直立，建立 | |
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424
opposition
|
|
| n.反对，敌对 | |
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425
amicably
|
|
| adv.友善地 | |
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426
pungent
|
|
| adj.（气味、味道）刺激性的，辛辣的；尖锐的 | |
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427
flakes
|
|
| 小薄片( flake的名词复数 )； （尤指）碎片； 雪花； 古怪的人 | |
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428
determined
|
|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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429
fronds
|
|
| n.蕨类或棕榈类植物的叶子( frond的名词复数 ) | |
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430
scotched
|
|
| v.阻止( scotch的过去式和过去分词 )；制止（车轮）转动；弄伤；镇压 | |
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431
pallid
|
|
| adj.苍白的，呆板的 | |
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432
ironic
|
|
| adj.讽刺的，有讽刺意味的，出乎意料的 | |
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433
sagged
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|
| 下垂的 | |
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434
accusation
|
|
| n.控告，指责，谴责 | |
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435
blessing
|
|
| n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿 | |
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|
436
desperately
|
|
| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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437
eyebrows
|
|
| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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438
positively
|
|
| adv.明确地，断然，坚决地；实在，确实 | |
参考例句： |
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|
439
idiocy
|
|
| n.愚蠢 | |
参考例句： |
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|
440
shuddered
|
|
| v.战栗( shudder的过去式和过去分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
参考例句： |
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|
441
attachment
|
|
| n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附 | |
参考例句： |
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|
442
rusty
|
|
| adj.生锈的；锈色的；荒废了的 | |
参考例句： |
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|
443
delusion
|
|
| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
参考例句： |
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|
444
shrugged
|
|
| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
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|
445
justify
|
|
| vt.证明…正当(或有理)，为…辩护 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
446
attain
|
|
| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
参考例句： |
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|
447
deceptive
|
|
| adj.骗人的，造成假象的，靠不住的 | |
参考例句： |
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|
448
tandem
|
|
| n.同时发生；配合；adv.一个跟着一个地；纵排地；adj.（两匹马）前后纵列的 | |
参考例句： |
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449
onlooker
|
|
| n.旁观者，观众 | |
参考例句： |
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|
450
unwilling
|
|
| adj.不情愿的 | |
参考例句： |
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451
vehemently
|
|
| adv. 热烈地 | |
参考例句： |
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452
syrup
|
|
| n.糖浆，糖水 | |
参考例句： |
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453
belongings
|
|
| n.私人物品，私人财物 | |
参考例句： |
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|
454
tracts
|
|
| 大片土地( tract的名词复数 )； 地带； （体内的）道； （尤指宣扬宗教、伦理或政治的）短文 | |
参考例句： |
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455
compensated
|
|
| 补偿，报酬( compensate的过去式和过去分词 )； 给（某人）赔偿（或赔款） | |
参考例句： |
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456
persevere
|
|
| v.坚持，坚忍，不屈不挠 | |
参考例句： |
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|
457
filched
|
|
| v.偷（尤指小的或不贵重的物品）( filch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
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458
wields
|
|
| 手持着使用（武器、工具等）( wield的第三人称单数 )； 具有； 运用（权力）； 施加（影响） | |
参考例句： |
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|
459
actively
|
|
| adv.积极地，勤奋地 | |
参考例句： |
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|
460
fabrics
|
|
| 织物( fabric的名词复数 )； 布； 构造； （建筑物的）结构（如墙、地面、屋顶）：质地 | |
参考例句： |
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461
fibers
|
|
| 光纤( fiber的名词复数 )； （织物的）质地； 纤维，纤维物质 | |
参考例句： |
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462
woolen
|
|
| adj.羊毛(制)的；毛纺的 | |
参考例句： |
|
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|
|
463
tribulation
|
|
| n.苦难，灾难 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
464
fresco
|
|
| n.壁画；vt.作壁画于 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
465
glossy
|
|
| adj.平滑的；有光泽的 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
466
dignified
|
|
| a.可敬的，高贵的 | |
参考例句： |
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|
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|
467
chuckled
|
|
| 轻声地笑( chuckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
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|
468
ponies
|
|
| 矮种马，小型马( pony的名词复数 )； ￡25 25 英镑 | |
参考例句： |
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|
469
leash
|
|
| n.牵狗的皮带，束缚；v.用皮带系住 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
470
congestion
|
|
| n.阻塞，消化不良 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
|
471
influenza
|
|
| n.流行性感冒，流感 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
472
paralysis
|
|
| n.麻痹(症)；瘫痪(症) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
473
swoop
|
|
| n.俯冲，攫取；v.抓取，突然袭击 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
474
vaccines
|
|
| 疫苗，痘苗( vaccine的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
475
stimulation
|
|
| n.刺激，激励，鼓舞 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
476
mollycoddle
|
|
| v.溺爱，娇养 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
477
ambivalence
|
|
| n.矛盾心理 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
|
478
pranks
|
|
| n.玩笑，恶作剧( prank的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
479
exasperating
|
|
| adj. 激怒的 动词exasperate的现在分词形式 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
480
schooling
|
|
| n.教育；正规学校教育 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
481
herald
|
|
| vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎 | |
参考例句： |
|
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|
|
482
ordained
|
|
| v.任命（某人）为牧师( ordain的过去式和过去分词 )；授予（某人）圣职；（上帝、法律等）命令；判定 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
483
baron
|
|
| n.男爵；(商业界等)巨头，大王 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
484
espoused
|
|
| v.（决定）支持，拥护（目标、主张等）( espouse的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
485
ordination
|
|
| n.授任圣职 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
486
hierarchy
|
|
| n.等级制度；统治集团，领导层 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
487
rumored
|
|
| adj.传说的，谣传的v.传闻( rumor的过去式和过去分词 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
|
488
adherence
|
|
| n.信奉，依附，坚持，固着 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
|
489
truthful
|
|
| adj.真实的，说实话的，诚实的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
490
asylum
|
|
| n.避难所，庇护所，避难 | |
参考例句： |
|
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|
|
491
eulogy
|
|
| n.颂词；颂扬 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
492
undoubtedly
|
|
| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
参考例句： |
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|
|
|
493
earnings
|
|
| n.工资收人；利润，利益，所得 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
494
auctions
|
|
| n.拍卖，拍卖方式( auction的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
495
withering
|
|
| 使人畏缩的，使人害羞的，使人难堪的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
496
winked
|
|
| v.使眼色( wink的过去式和过去分词 )；递眼色（表示友好或高兴等）；（指光）闪烁；闪亮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
497
sniffed
|
|
| v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的过去式和过去分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
498
inhaled
|
|
| v.吸入( inhale的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
499
noted
|
|
| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
500
facade
|
|
| n.(建筑物的)正面，临街正面；外表 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
501
copper
|
|
| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
502
rambling
|
|
| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
503
shutters
|
|
| 百叶窗( shutter的名词复数 )； （照相机的）快门 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
504
smothered
|
|
| （使）窒息， （使）透不过气( smother的过去式和过去分词 )； 覆盖； 忍住； 抑制 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
505
giggling
|
|
| v.咯咯地笑( giggle的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
506
clump
|
|
| n.树丛，草丛；vi.用沉重的脚步行走 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
507
squatting
|
|
| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
508
galloped
|
|
| （使马）飞奔，奔驰( gallop的过去式和过去分词 )； 快速做[说]某事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
509
unfamiliar
|
|
| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
510
squealed
|
|
| v.长声尖叫，用长而尖锐的声音说( squeal的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
511
calf
|
|
| n.小牛，犊，幼仔，小牛皮 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
512
supple
|
|
| adj.柔软的，易弯的，逢迎的，顺从的，灵活的；vt.使柔软，使柔顺，使顺从；vi.变柔软，变柔顺 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
513
reverently
|
|
| adv.虔诚地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
514
Christian
|
|
| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
515
prawn
|
|
| n.对虾，明虾 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
516
frankly
|
|
| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
517
necessitated
|
|
| 使…成为必要，需要( necessitate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
518
mellowed
|
|
| （使）成熟( mellow的过去式和过去分词 )； 使色彩更加柔和，使酒更加醇香 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
519
simultaneously
|
|
| adv.同时发生地，同时进行地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
520
promotion
|
|
| n.提升，晋级；促销，宣传 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
521
queried
|
|
| v.质疑，对…表示疑问( query的过去式和过去分词 )；询问 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
522
gasped
|
|
| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
523
plaques
|
|
| （纪念性的）匾牌( plaque的名词复数 )； 纪念匾； 牙斑； 空斑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
524
dwindled
|
|
| v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
525
willows
|
|
| n.柳树( willow的名词复数 )；柳木 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
526
tune
|
|
| n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
527
graveyards
|
|
| 墓地( graveyard的名词复数 )； 垃圾场； 废物堆积处； 收容所 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
528
bosom
|
|
| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
529
cargo
|
|
| n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
530
saluted
|
|
| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
531
blandly
|
|
| adv.温和地，殷勤地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
532
temerity
|
|
| n.鲁莽，冒失 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
533
idols
|
|
| 偶像( idol的名词复数 )； 受崇拜的人或物； 受到热爱和崇拜的人或物； 神像 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
534
petrified
|
|
| adj.惊呆的；目瞪口呆的v.使吓呆，使惊呆；变僵硬；使石化(petrify的过去式和过去分词) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
535
anonymity
|
|
| n.the condition of being anonymous | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
536
resounding
|
|
| adj. 响亮的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
537
unduly
|
|
| adv.过度地，不适当地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
538
gaol
|
|
| n.(jail)监狱；(不加冠词)监禁；vt.使…坐牢 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
539
mingled
|
|
| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
540
labors
|
|
| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
541
mantle
|
|
| n.斗篷，覆罩之物，罩子；v.罩住，覆盖，脸红 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
542
vitality
|
|
| n.活力，生命力，效力 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
543
riveted
|
|
| 铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 )； 把…固定住； 吸引； 引起某人的注意 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
544
flicker
|
|
| vi./n.闪烁，摇曳，闪现 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
545
dotage
|
|
| n.年老体衰；年老昏聩 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
546
forestalling
|
|
| v.先发制人，预先阻止( forestall的现在分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
|
547
hunched
|
|
| （常指因寒冷、生病或愁苦）耸肩弓身的，伏首前倾的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
548
silhouette
|
|
| n.黑色半身侧面影，影子，轮廓；v.描绘成侧面影，照出影子来，仅仅显出轮廓 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
549
deliberately
|
|
| adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
550
luxurious
|
|
| adj.精美而昂贵的；豪华的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
551
relinquished
|
|
| 交出，让给( relinquish的过去式和过去分词 )； 放弃 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
552
scones
|
|
| n.烤饼，烤小圆面包( scone的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
553
utterly
|
|
| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
554
marred
|
|
| adj. 被损毁, 污损的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
555
resentment
|
|
| n.怨愤，忿恨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
556
stylish
|
|
| adj.流行的，时髦的；漂亮的，气派的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
557
exhausted
|
|
| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
558
slumped
|
|
| 大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
559
stony
|
|
| adj.石头的，多石头的，冷酷的，无情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
560
grassy
|
|
| adj.盖满草的；长满草的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
561
devoid
|
|
| adj.全无的，缺乏的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
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562
ramp
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| n.暴怒，斜坡，坡道；vi.作恐吓姿势，暴怒，加速；vt.加速 | |
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563
lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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564
baggy
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| adj.膨胀如袋的，宽松下垂的 | |
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565
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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566
aloof
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| adj.远离的；冷淡的，漠不关心的 | |
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567
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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568
burrows
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| n.地洞( burrow的名词复数 )v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的第三人称单数 )；翻寻 | |
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569
tartly
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| adv.辛辣地，刻薄地 | |
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570
commonwealth
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| n.共和国，联邦，共同体 | |
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571
warfare
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| n.战争(状态)；斗争；冲突 | |
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572
journalism
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| n.新闻工作，报业 | |
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573
abreast
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| adv.并排地；跟上(时代)的步伐，与…并进地 | |
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574
niche
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| n.壁龛；合适的职务(环境、位置等) | |
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