"To see me?" she asked in surprise. As if to cover sudden confusion, she went immediately to a safer subject: "My brothers speak of you often. You were very kind to them while they were in Rome for Dane's ordination." She said Dane's name without distress, as if she used it frequently. "I hope you can stay a few days, and see them."
"1 can, Mrs. O'neill;" he answered easily.
For Meggie the interview was proving unexpectedly awkward; he was a stranger, he had announced that he had come twelve thousand miles simply to see her, and apparently he was in no hurry to enlighten her as to why. She thought she would end in liking him, but she found him slightly intimidating. Perhaps his kind of man had never come within her ken before, and this was why he threw her off-balance. A very novel conception of Justine entered her mind at that moment: her daughter could actually relate easily to men like Rainer Moerling Hartheim! She thought of Justine as a fellow woman at last. Though aging and white-haired she was still very beautiful, he was thinking while she sat gazing at him politely; he was still surprised that she looked not at all like Justine, as Dane had so strongly resembled the Cardinal. How terribly lonely she must be! Yet he couldn't feel sorry for her in the way he did for Justine; clearly, she had come to terms with herself. "How is Justine?" she asked.
He shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't know. I haven't seen her since before Dane died."
She didn't display astonishment. "I haven't seen her myself since Dane's funeral," she said, and sighed. "I'd hoped she would come home, but it begins to look as if she never will."
He made a soothing noise which she didn't seem to hear, for she went on speaking, but in a different voice, more to herself than to him. "Drogheda is like a home for the aged these days," she said. "We need young blood, and Justine's is the only young blood left."
Pity deserted him; he leaned forward quickly, eyes glittering. "You speak of her as if she is a chattel of Drogheda," he said, his voice now harsh. "I serve you notice, Mrs. O'neill, she is not!"
"What right have you to judge what Justine is or isn't?" she asked angrily. "After all, you said yourself that you haven't seen her since before Dane died, and that's two years ago!"
"Yes, you're right. It's all of two years ago." He spoke more gently, realizing afresh what her life must be like. "You bear it very well, Mrs. O'neill."
"Do I?" she asked, tightly trying to smile, her eyes never leaving his. Suddenly he began to understand what the Cardinal must have seen in her to have loved her so much. It wasn't in Justine, but then he himself was no Cardinal Ralph; he looked for different things. "Yes, you bear it very well," he repeated.
She caught the undertone at once, and flinched. "How do you know about Dane and Ralph?" she asked unsteadily.
"I guessed. Don't worry, Mrs. O'neill, nobody else did. I guessed because I knew the Cardinal long before I met Dane. In Rome everyone thought the Cardinal was your brother, Dane's uncle, but Justine disillusioned me about that the first time I ever met her."
"Justine? Not Justine!" Meggie cried.
He reached out to take her hand, beating frantically against her knee. "No, no, no, Mrs. O'neill! Justine has absolutely no idea of it, and I pray she never will! Her slip was quite unintentional, believe me."
"You're sure?"
"Yes, I swear it."
"Then in God's Name why doesn't she come home? Why won't she come to see me? Why can't she bring herself to look at my face?" Not only her words but the agony in her voice told him what had tormented Justine's mother about her absence these last two years. His own mission's importance dwindled; now he had a new one, to allay Meggie's fears. "For that 1 am to blame," he said firmly.
"You?" asked Meggie, bewildered.
"Justine had planned to go to Greece with Dane, and she's convinced that had she, he'd still be alive."
"Nonsense!" said Meggie.
"Q. But though we know it's nonsense, Justine doesn't. It's up to you to make her see it."
"Up to me? You don't understand, Mr. Hartheim. Justine has never listened to me in all her life, and at this stage any influence I might once have had is completely gone. She doesn't even want to see my face."
Her tone was defeated but not abject. "I fell into the same trap my mother did," she went on matter-of-factly. "Drogheda is my life . . . the house, the books . . . . Here I'm needed, there's still some purpose in living. Here are people who rely on me. My children never did, you know. Never did." "That's not true, Mrs. O'neill. If it was, Justine could come home to you without a qualm. You underestimate the quality of the love she bears you. When I say I am to blame for what Justine is going through, I mean that she remained in London because of me, to be with me. But it is for you she suffers, not for me."
Meggie stiffened. "She has no right to suffer for me! Let her suffer for herself if she must, but not for me. Never for me!" "Then you believe me when I say she has no idea of Dane and the Cardinal?" Her manner changed, as if he had reminded her there were other things at stake, and she was losing sight of them. "Yes," she said, "I believe you." "I came to see you because Justine needs your help and cannot ask for it," he announced. "You must convince her she needs to take up the threads of her life again-not a Drogheda life, but her own life, which has nothing to do with Drogheda."
He leaned back in his chair, crossed his legs and lit another cigarette. "Justine has donned some kind of hair shirt, but for all the wrong reasons. If anyone can make her see it, you can. Yet I warn you that if you choose to do so she will never come home, whereas if she goes on the way she is, she may well end up returning here permanently.
