so no one on Drogheda worried
“Oh, Meg!” he said helplessly. “Look, sweetheart, it won’t be forever, I promise! And this summer I’m going to take you to Sydney with me, word of an O’neill! Arne’s aunt has a flat coming vacant in her house, and we can live there for three months, have a wonderful time! Bear with me another year or so in the cane, then we’ll buy our property and settle down, eh?” The moon lit up his face; he looked sincere, upset, anxious, contrite. And very like Ralph de Bricassart.
Meggie relented, because she still wanted his babies. “All right,” she said. “Another year. But I’m holding you to that promise of Sydney, Luke, so remember!”
Once a month Meggie wrote a dutiful letter to Fee, Bob and the boys, full of descriptions of North Queensland, carefully humorous, never hinting of any differences between her and Luke. That pride again. As far as Drogheda knew, the Muellers were friends of Luke’s with whom she boarded because Luke traveled so much. Her genuine affection for the couple came through in every word she wrote about them, so no one on Drogheda worried. Except that it grieved them she never came home. Yet how could she tell them that she didn’t have the money to visit without also telling them how miserable her marriage to Luke O’neill had become?
Occasionally she would nerve herself to insert a casual question about Bishop Ralph, and even less often Bob would remember to pass on the little he learned from Fee about the Bishop. Then came a letter full of him. “He arrived out of the blue one day, Meggie,” Bob’s letter said, “looking a bit upset and down in the mouth. I must say he was floored not to find you here. He was spitting mad because we hadn’t told him about you and Luke, but when Mum said you’d got a bee in your bonnet about it and didn’t want us to tell him, he shut up and never said another word. But I thought he missed you more than he would any of the rest of us, and I suppose that’s quite natural because you spent more time with him than the rest of us, and I think he always thought of you as his little sister. He wandered around as if he couldn’t believe you wouldn’t pop up all of a sudden, poor chap. We didn’t have any pictures to show him either, and I never thought until he asked to see them that it was funny you never had any wedding pictures taken. He asked if you had any kids, and I said I didn’t think so. You don’t, do you, Meggie? How long is it now since you were married? Getting on for two years? Must be, because this is July. Time flies, eh? I hope you have some kids soon, because I think the Bishop would be pleased to hear of it. I offered to give him your address, but he said no. Said it wouldn’t be any use because he was going to Athens, Greece, for a while with the archbishop he works for. Some Dago name four yards long, I never can remember it. Can you imagine, Meggie, they’re flying? “Struth! Anyway, once he found out you weren’t on Drogheda to go round with him he didn’t stay long, just took a ride or two, said Mass for us every day, and went six days after he got here.”
Processing your request, Please wait....
