One day at the beginning of December, Anne came out onto the veranda and sat down beside her, watching her. Oh, she was so thin, so lifeless! Even the lovely goldy hair had dulled.
"Meggie, I don't know whether I've done the wrong thing, but I've done it anyway, and I want you at least to listen to me before you say no." Meggie turned from the rainbows, smiling. "You sound so solemn, Anne! What is it I must listen to?"
"Luddie and I are worried about you. You haven't picked up properly since Justine was born, and now The Wet's here you're looking even worse. You're not eating and you're losing weight. I've never thought the climate here agreed with you, but as long as nothing happened to drag you down you managed to cope with it. Now we think you're sick, and unless something's done you're going to get really ill."
She drew a breath. "So a couple of weeks ago I wrote to a friend of mine in the tourist bureau, and booked you a holiday. And don't start protesting about the expense; it won't dent Luke's resources or ours. The Archbishop sent us a very big check for you, and your brother sent us another one for you and the baby-I think he was hinting go home for a while-from everyone on Drogheda. And after we talked it over, Luddie and I decided the best thing we could do was spend some of it on a holiday for you. I don't think going home to Drogheda is the right sort of holiday, though. What Luddie and I feel you need most is a thinking time. No Justine, no us, no Luke, no Drogheda. Have you ever been on your own, Meggie? It's time you were. So we've booked you a cottage on Matlock Island for two months, from the beginning of January to the beginning of March. Luddie and I will look after Justine. You know she won't come to any harm, but if we're the slightest bit worried about her, you have our word we'll notify you right away, and the island's on the phone so it wouldn't take long to fetch you back." The rainbows had gone, so had the sun; it was getting ready to rain again. "Anne, if it hadn't been for you and Luddie these past three years, I would have gone mad. You know that. Sometimes in the night I wake up wondering what would have happened to me had Luke put me with people less kind. You've cared for me more than Luke has."
"Twaddle! If Luke had put you with unsympathetic people you would have gone back to Drogheda, and who knows? Maybe that might have been the best course." "No. It hasn't been pleasant, this thing with Luke, but it was far better for me to stay and work it out."
The rain was beginning to inch its way across the dimming cane blotting out everything behind its edge, like a grey cleaver. "You're right, I'm not well," Meggie said. "I haven't been well since Justine was conceived. I've tried to pull myself up, but I suppose one reaches a point where there isn't the energy to do it. Oh, Anne, I'm so tired and discouraged! I'm not even a good mother to Justine, and I owe her that. I'm the one caused her to be; she didn't ask for it. But mostly I'm discouraged because Luke, won't even give me a chance to make him happy. He won't live with me or let me make a home for him; he doesn't want our children. I don't love him -I never did love him the way a woman ought to love the man she marries, and maybe he sensed it from the word go. Maybe if I had loved him, he would have acted differently. So how can I blame him? I've only myself to blame, I think."
"It's the Archbishop you love, isn't it?"
"Oh, ever since I was a little girl! I was hard on him when he came. Poor Ralph! I had no right to say what I did to him, because he never encouraged me, you know. I hope he's had time to understand that I was in pain, worn out, and terribly unhappy. All I could think was it ought by rights to be his child and it never would be, never could be. It isn't fair! Protestant clergy can marry, why can't Catholic? And don't try to tell me ministers don't care for their flocks the way priests do, because I won't believe you. I've met heartless priests and wonderful ministers. But because of the celibacy of priests I've had to go away from Ralph, make my home and my life with someone else, have someone else's baby. And do you know something, Anne? That's as disgusting a sin as Ralph breaking his vows, or more so. I resent the Church's implication that my loving Ralph or his loving me is wrong!" "Go away for a while, Meggie. Rest and eat and sleep and stop fretting. Then maybe when you come back you can somehow persuade Luke to buy that station instead of talking about it. I know you don't love him, but I think if he gave you half a chance you might be happy with him."
The grey eyes were the same color as the rain falling in sheets all around the house; their voices had risen to shouting pitch to be audible above the incredible din on the iron roof.
"But that's just it, Anne! When Luke and I went up to Atherton I realized at last that he'll never leave the sugar while he's got the strength to cut it. He loves the life, he really does. He loves being with men as strong and independent as he is himself; he loves roaming from one place to the other. He's always been awanderer, now I come to think of it. As for needing a woman for pleasure if nothing else, he's too exhausted by the cane. And how can I put it? Luke is the kind of man who quite genuinely doesn't care if he eats his food off a packing crate and sleeps on the floor. Don't you see? One can't appeal to him as to one who likes nice things, because he doesn't. Sometimes I think he despises nice things, pretty things. They're soft, they might make him soft. I have absolutely no enticements powerful enough to sway him from his present way of life."
