"I sent a telegram. She's in my room; I thought it would give you more space."

Hobbling in their wake, Anne went into her bedroom. Meggie was lying on the bed, wide-eyed and giving no indication of pain except for an occasional spasm of her hands, a drawing-in of her body. She turned her head to smile at Anne, and Anne saw that the eyes were very frightened.

"I'm glad I never got to Cairns" she said. "My mother never went to hospital to have hers, and Daddy said once she had a terrible time with Hal. But she survived, and so will I. We're hard to kill, we Cleary women."

It was hours later when the doctor joined Anne on the veranda.

"It's a long, hard business for the little woman. First babies are rarely easy, but this one's not lying well and she just drags on without getting anywhere. If she was in Cairns she could have a Caesarean, but that's out of the question here. She'll just have to push it out all by herself."

"Is she conscious?"

"Oh, yes. Gallant little soul, doesn't scream or complain. The best ones usually have the worst time of it in my opinion. Keeps asking me if Ralph's here yet, and I have to tell her some lie about the Johnstone in flood. I thought her husband's name was Luke?"

"It is."

"Hmmm! Well, maybe that's why she's asking for this Ralph, whoever he is. Luke's no comfort, is he?"

"Luke's a bastard."

Anne leaned forward, hands on the veranda railing. A taxi was coming from the Dunny road, and had turned off up the incline to Himmelhoch. Her excellent eyesight just discerned a black-haired man in the back, and she crowed with relief and joy.

"I don't believe what I see, but I think Luke's finally remembered he's got a wife!"

"I'd best go back to her and leave you to cope with him, Anne. I won't mention it to her, in case it isn't him. If it is him, give him a cup of tea and save the hard stuff for later. He's going to need it."

The taxi drew up; to Anne's surprise the driver got out and went to the back door to open it for his passenger. Joe Castiglione, who ran Dunny's sole taxi, wasn't usually given to such courtesies.

"Himmelhoch, Your Grace," he said, bowing deeply.

A man in a long, flowing black soutane got out, a purple grosgrain sash about his waist. As he turned, Anne thought for a dazed moment that Luke O'Neill was playing some elaborate trick on her. Then she saw that this was a far different man, a good ten years older than Luke. My God! she thought as the graceful figure mounted her steps two at a time. He's the handsomest chap I've ever seen! An archbishop, no less! What does a Catholic archbishop want with a pair of old Lutherans like Luddie and me?

"Mrs. Mueller?" he asked, smiling down at her with kind, aloof blue eyes. As if he had seen much he would give anything not to have seen, and had managed to stop feeling long ago.

"Yes, I'm Anne Mueller."

"I'm Archbishop Ralph de Bricassart, His Holiness's Legate in Australia. I understand you have a Mrs. Luke O'Neill staying with you?"

"Yes, sir." Ralph? Ralph? Was this Ralph?

"I'm a very old friend of hers. I wonder if I might see her, please?"

"Well, I'm sure she'd be delighted, Archbishop"-no, that wasn't right, one didn't say Archbishop, one said Your Grace, like Joe Castiglione-"under more normal circumstances, but at the moment Meggie's in labor, and having a very hard time."

Then she saw that he hadn't succeeded in stopping feeling at all, only disciplined it to a doglike abjection at the back of his thinking mind. His eyes were so blue she felt she drowned in them, and what she saw in them now made her wonder what Meggie was to him, and what he was to Meggie.

"I knew something was wrong! I've felt that something was wrong for a long time, but of late my worry's become an obsession. I had to come and see for myself. Please, let me see her! If you wish for a reason, I am a priest."

Anne had never intended to deny him. "Come along, Your Grace, through here, please." And as she shuffled slowly between her two sticks she kept thinking: Is the house clean and tidy? Have I dusted? Did we remember to throw out that smelly old leg of lamb, or is it all through the place? What a time for a man as important as this one to come calling! Luddie, will you never get your fat arse off that tractor and come in? The boy should have found you hours ago!

He went past Doc Smith and the midwife as if they didn't exist to drop on his knees beside the bed, his hand reaching for hers.

"Meggie!"

She dragged herself out of the ghastly dream into which she had sunk, past caring, and saw the beloved face close to hers, the strong black hair with two white wings in its darkness now, the fine aristocratic features a little more lined, more patient if possible, and the blue eyes looking into hers with love and longing. How had she ever confused Luke with him? There was no one like him, there never would be for her, and she had betrayed what she felt for him. Luke was the dark side of the mirror; Ralph was as splendid as the sun, and as remote. Oh, how beautiful to see him!

"Ralph, help me," she said.

He kissed her hand passionately, then held it to his cheek. "Always, my Meggie, you know that."

"Pray for me, and the baby. If anyone can save us, you can. You're much closer to God than we are. No one wants us, no one has ever wanted us, even you."

"Where's Luke?"

"I don't know, and I don't care." She closed her eyes and rolled her head upon the plllow, but the fingers in his gripped strongly, wouldn't let him go.

Then Doc Smith touched him on the shoulder. "Your Grace, I think you ought to step outside now."

"If her life is in danger, you'll call me?"

"In a second."

Luddie had finally come in from the cane, frantic because there was no one to be seen and he didn't dare enter the bedroom.

"Anne, is she all right?" he asked as his wife came out with the Archbishop.

"So far. Doc won't commit himself, but I think he's got hope. Luddie, we have a visitor. This is Archbishop Ralph de Bricassart, an old friend of Meggie's."

Better versed than his wife, Luddie dropped on one knee and kissed the ring on the hand held out to him. "Sit down, Your Grace, talk to Anne. I'll go and put a kettle on for some tea."

"So you're Ralph," Anne said, propping her sticks against a bamboo table while the priest sat opposite her with the folds of his soutane falling about him, his glossy black riding boots clearly visible, for he had crossed his knees. It was an effeminate thing for a man to do, but he was a priest so it didn't matter; yet there was something intensely masculine about him, crossed legs or no. He was probably not as old as she had first thought; in his very early forties, perhaps. What a waste of a magnificent man!

"Yes, I'm Ralph."

"Ever since Meggie's labor started she's been asking for someone called Ralph. I must admit I was puzzled. I don't ever remember her mentioning a Ralph before."

"She wouldn't."

"How do you know Meggie, Your Grace? For how long?"

The priest smiled wryly and clasped his thin, very beautiful hands together so they made a pointed church roof. "I've known Meggie since she was ten years old, only days off the boat from New Zealand. You might in all truth say that I've known Meggie through flood and fire and emotional famine, and through death, and life. All that we have to bear. Meggie is the mirror in which I'm forced to view my mortality."

"You love her!" Anne's tone was surprised.

"Always."

"It's a tragedy for both of you."

"I had hoped only for me. Tell me about her, what's happened to her since she married. It's many years since I've seen her, but I haven't been happy about her."

"I'll tell you, but only after you've told me about Meggie. Oh, I don't mean personal things, only about what sort of life she led before she came to Dunny. We know absolutely nothing of her, Luddie and I, except that she used to live somewhere near Gillanbone. We'd like to know more, because we're very fond of her. But she would never tell us a thing-pride, I think."

Luddie carried in a tray loaded with tea and food, and sat down while the priest gave them an outline of Meggie's life before she married Luke.

"I would never have guessed it in a million years! To think Luke O'Neill had the temerity to take her from all that and put her to work as a housemaid! And had the hide to stipulate that her wages be put in his bank-book! Do you know the poor little thing has never had a penny in her purse to spend on herself since she's been here? I had Luddie give her a cash bonus last Christmas, but by then she needed so many things it was all spent in a day, and she'd never take more from us."

"Don't feel sorry for Meggie," said Archbishop Ralph a little harshly. "I don't think she feels sorry for herself, certainly not over lack of money. It's brought little joy to her after all, has it? She knows where to go if she can't do without it. I'd say Luke's apparent indifference has hurt her far more than the lack of money. My poor Meggie!"

Between them Anne and Luddie filled in the outline of Meggie's life, while Archbishop de Brioassart sat, his hands still steepled, his gaze on the lovely sweeping fan of a traveler's palm outside. Not once did a muscle in his face move, or a change come into those detachedly beautiful eyes. He had learned much since being in the service of Vittorio Scarbanza, Cardinal di Contini-Verchese.

When the tale was done he sighed, and shifted his gaze to their anxious faces. "Well, it seems we must help her, since Luke will not. If Luke truly doesn't want her, she'd be better off back on Drogheda. I know you don't want to lose her, but for her sake try to persuade her to go home. I shall send you a check from Sydney for her, so she won't have the embarrassment of asking her brother for money. Then when she gets home she can tell them what she likes." He glanced toward the bedroom door and moved restlessly. "Dear God, let the child be born!"

But the child wasn't born until nearly twenty-four hours later, and Meggie almost dead from exhaustion and pain. Doc Smith had given her copious doses of laudanum, that still being the best thing, in his old-fashioned opinion; she seemed to drift whirling through spiraling nightmares in which things from without and within ripped and tore, clawed and spat, howled and whined and roared. Sometimes Ralph's face would come into focus for a small moment, then go again on a heaving tide of pain; but the memory of him persisted, and while he kept watch she knew neither she nor the baby would die.

Pausing, while the midwife coped alone, to snatch food and a stiff tot of rum and check that none of his other patients were inconsiderate enough to think of dying, Doc Smith listened to as much of the story as Anne and Luddie thought wise to tell him.

"You're right, Anne," he said. "All that riding is probably one of the reasons for her trouble now. When the sidesaddle went out it was a bad thing for women who must ride a lot. Astride develops the wrong muscles."

"I'd heard that was an old wives' tale," said the Archbishop mildly.

Doc Smith looked at him maliciously. He wasn't fond of Catholic priests, deemed them a sanctimonious lot of driveling fools.

"Think what you like," he said. "But tell me, Your Grace, if it came down to a choice between Meggie's life and the baby's, what would your conscience advise?"

"The Church is adamant on that point, Doctor. No choice must ever be made. The child cannot be done to death to save the mother, nor the mother done to death to save the child." He smiled back at Doc Smith just as maliciously. "But if it should come to that, Doctor, I won't hesitiate to tell you to save Meggie, and the hell with the baby."

Doc Smith gasped, laughed, and clapped him on the back. "Good for you! Rest easy, I won't broadcast what you said. But so far the child's alive, and I can't see what good killing it is going to do."

But Anne was thinking to herself: I wonder what your answer would have been if the child was yours, Archbishop?

About three hours later, as the afternoon sun was sliding sadly down the sky toward Mount Bartle Frere's misty bulk, Doc Smith came out of the bedroom.

"Well, it's over," he said with some satisfaction. "Meggie's got a long road ahead of her, but she'll be all right, God willing. And the baby is a skinny, cranky, five-pound girl with a whopping great head and a temper to match the most poisonous red hair I've ever seen on a newborn baby. You could't kill that little mite with an axe, and I know, because I nearly tried."

Jubilant, Luddie broke out the bottle of champagne he had been saving, and the five of them stood with their glasses brimming; priest, doctor, midwife, farmer and cripple toasted the health and well-being of the mother and her screaming, crotchety baby. It was the first of June, the first day of the Australian winter.

A nurse had arrived to take over from the midwife, and would stay until Meggie was pronounced out of all danger. The doctor and the midwife left, while Anne, Luddie and the Archbishop went to see Meggie.

She looked so tiny and wasted in the double bed that Archbishop Ralph was obliged to store away another, separate pain in the back of his mind, to be taken out later, inspected and endured. Meggie, my torn and beaten Meggie...I shall love you always, but I cannot give you what Luke O'Neill did, however grudgingly.

The grizzling scrap of humanity responsible for all this lay in a wicker bassinet by the far wall, not a bit appreciative of their attention as they stood around her and peered down. She yelled her resentment, and kept on yelling. In the end the nurse lifted her, bassinet and all, and put her in the room designated as her nursery.

"There's certainly nothing wrong with her lungs." Archbishop Ralph smiled, sitting on the edge of the bed and taking Meggie's pale hand.

"I don't think she likes life much," Meggie said with an answering smile. How much older he looked! As fit and supple as ever, but immeasurably older. She turned her head to Anne and Luddie, and held out her other hand. "My dear good friends! Whatever would I have done without you? Have we heard from Luke?"

"I got a telegram saying he was too busy to come, but wishing you good luck."

"Big of him," said Meggie.

Anne bent quickly to kiss her check. "We'll leave you to talk with the Archbishop, dear. I'm sure you've got a lot of catching up to do." Leaning on Luddie, she crooked her finger at the nurse, who was gaping at the priest as if she couldn't believe her eyes. "Come on, Nettie, have a cup of tea with us. His Grace will let you know if Meggie needs you."

"What are you going to call your noisy daughter?" he asked as the door closed and they were alone.

"Justine."

"It's a very good name, but why did you choose it?"

"I read it somewhere, and I liked it."

"Don't you want her, Meggie?"

Her face had shrunk, and seemed all eyes; they were soft and filled with a misty light, no hate but no love either. "I suppose I want her. Yes, I do want her. I schemed enough to get her. But while I was carrying her I couldn't feel anything for her, except that she didn't want me. I don't think Justine will ever be mine, or Luke's, or anyone's. I think she's always going to belong to herself."

"I must go, Meggie," he said gently.

Now the eyes grew harder, brighter: her mouth twisted into an unpleasant shape. "I expected that! Funny how the men in my life all scuttle off into the woodwork, isn't it?"

He winced. "Don't be bitter, Meggie. I can't bear to leave thinking of you like this. No matter what's happened to you in the past, you've always retained your sweetness and it's the thing about you I find most endearing. Don't change, don't become hard because of this. I know it must be terrible to think that Luke didn't care enough to come, but don't change. You wouldn't be my Meggie anymore."

But still she looked at him half as if she hated him. "Oh, come off it, Ralph! I'm not your Meggie, I never was! You didn't want me, you sent me to him, to Luke. What do you think I am, some sort of saint, or a nun? Well, I'm not! I'm an ordinary human being, and you've spoiled my life! All the years I've loved you, and wanted to forget you, but then I married a man I thought looked a little bit like you, and he doesn't want me or need me either. Is it so much to ask of a man, to be needed and wanted by him?"

She began to sob, mastered it; there were fine lines of pain on her face that he had never seen before, and he knew they weren't the kind that rest and returning health would smooth away.

"Luke's not a bad man, or even an unlikable one," she went on. "Just a man. You're all the same, great big hairy moths bashing yourselves to pieces after a silly flame behind a glass so clear your eyes don't see it. And if you do manage to blunder your way inside the glass to fly into the flame, you fall down burned and dead. While all the time out there in the cool night there's food, and love, and baby moths to get. But do you see it, do you want it? No! It's back after the flame again, beating yourselves senseless until you burn yourselves dead!"

He didn't know what to say to her, for this was a side of her he had never seen. Had it always been there, or had she grown it out of her terrible trouble and abandonment? Meggie, saying things like this? He hardly heard what she said, he was so upset that she should say it, and so didn't understand that it came from her loneliness, and her guilt.

"Do you remember the rose you gave me the night I left Drogheda?" he asked tenderly.

"Yes, I remember." The life had gone out of her voice, the hard light out of her eyes. They stared at him now like a soul without hope, as expressionless and glassy as her mother's.

"I have it still, in my missal. And every time I see a rose that color, I think of you. Meggie, I love you. You're my rose, the most beautiful human image and thought in my life."

Down went the corners of her mouth again, up shone that tense, glittering fierceness with the tang of hate in it. "An image, a thought! A human image and thought! Yes, that's right, that's all I am to you! You're nothing but a romantic, dreaming fool, Ralph de Bricassart! You have no more idea of what life is all about than the moth I called you! No wonder you became a priest! You couldn't live with the ordinariness of life if you were an ordinary man any more than ordinary man Luke does!

"You say you love me, but you have no idea what love is; you're just mouthing words you've memorized because you think they sound good! What floors me is why you men haven't managed to dispense with us women altogether, which is what you'd like to do, isn't it? You should work out a way of marrying each other; you'd be divinely happy!"

"Meggie, don't! Please don't!"

"Oh, go away! I don't want to look at you! And you've forgotten one thing about your precious roses, Ralph-they've got nasty, hooky thorns!"

He left the room without looking back.

Luke never bothered to answer the telegram informing him he was the proud father of a five-pound girl named Justine. Slowly Meggie got better, and the baby began to thrive. Perhaps if Meggie could have managed to feed her she might have developed more rapport with the scrawny, bad-tempered little thing, but she had absolutely no milk in the plenteous breasts Luke had so loved to suck. That's an ironic justice, she thought. She dutifully changed and bottle-fed the red-faced, redheaded morsel just as custom dictated she should, waiting for the commencement of some wonderful, surging emotion. But it never came; she felt no desire to smother the tiny face with kisses, or bite the wee fingers, or do any of the thousand silly things mothers loved to do with babies. It didn't feel like her baby, and it didn't want or need her any more than she did it. It, it! Her, her! She couldn't even remember to call it her.

Luddie and Anne never dreamed Meggie did not adore Justine, that she felt less for Justine than she had for any of her mother's younger babies. Whenever Justine cried Meggie was right there to pick her up, croon to her, rock her, and never was a baby drier or more comfortable. The strange thing was that Justine didn't seem to want to be picked up or crooned over; she quieted much faster if she was left alone.

As time went on she improved in looks. Her infant skin lost its redness, acquired that thin blue-veined transparency which goes so often with red hair, and her little arms and legs filled out to pleasing plumpness. The hair began to curl and thicken and to assume forever the same violent shade her grandfather Paddy had owned. Everyone waited anxiously to see what color her eyes would turn out to be, Luddie betting on her father's blue, Anne on her mother's grey, Meggie without an opinion. But Justine's eyes were very definitely her own, and unnerving to say the least. At six weeks they began to change, and by the ninth week had gained their final color and form. No one had even seen anything like them. Around the outer rim of the iris was a very dark grey ring, but the iris itself was so pale it couldn't be called either blue or grey; the closest description of the color was a sort of dark white. They were riveting, uncomfortable, inhuman eyes, rather blind-looking; but as time went on it was obvious Justine saw through them very well.