"No, not in Rome. The Cardinal probably doesn't know anything about it. In Crete. The man said he was drowned, a sea rescue. He was on holiday, Mum, he asked me to go with him and I didn't, I wanted to play Desdemona, I wanted to be with Rain. If I'd only been with him! If I had, it mightn't have happened. Oh, God, what can I do?"
"Stop it, Justine," said Meggie sternly. "No thinking like that, do you hear me? Dane would hate it, you know he would. Things happen, why we don't know. The important thing now is that you're all right, I haven't lost both of you. You're all I've got left now. Oh, Jussy, Jussy, it's so far away! The world's big, too big. Come home to Drogheda! I hate to think of you all alone."
"No, I've got to work. Work is the only answer for me. If I don't work, I'll go mad. I don't want people, I don't want comfort. Oh, Mum!" She began to sob bitterly. "How are we going to live without him?" How indeed? Was that living? God's thou wert, unto God return. Dust to dust. Living's for those of us who failed. Greedy God, gathering in the good ones, leaving the world to the rest of us, to rot. "It isn't for any of us to say how long we'll live," said Meggie. "Jussy, thank you so much for telling me yourself, for phoning."
"I couldn't bear to think of a stranger breaking the news, Mum. Not like that, from a stranger. What will you do? What can you do?" With all her will Meggie tried to pour warmth and comfort across the miles to her devastated girl in London. Her son was dead, her daughter still lived. She must be made whole. If it was possible. In all her life Justine seemed only to have loved Dane. No one else, even herself. "Dear Justine, don't cry. Try not to grieve. He wouldn't have wanted that, now would he? Come home, and forget. We'll bring Dane home to Drogheda, too.
At law he's mine again, he doesn't belong to the Church and they can't stop me. I'll phone Australia House right away, and the embassy in Athens if I can get through. He must come home! I'd hate to think of him lying somewhere far from Drogheda. Here is where he belongs, he'll have to come home. Come with him, Justine."
But Justine sat in a heap, shaking her head as if her mother could see. Come home? She could never come home again. If she had gone with Dane he wouldn't be dead. Come home, and have to look at her mother's face every day for the rest of her life? No, it didn't bear thinking of. "No, Mum," she said, the tears rolling down her skin, hot like molten metal. Who on earth ever said people most moved don't weep? They don't know anything about it. "I shall stay here and work. I'll come home with Dane, but then I'm going back. I can't live on Drogheda."
For three days they waited in a purposeless vacuum, Justine in London, Meggie and the family on Drogheda, stretching the official silence into tenuous hope. Oh, surely after so long it would turn out to be a mistake, surely if it was true they would have heard by now! Dane would come-in Justine's front door smiling, and say it was all a silly mistake. Greece was in revolt, all sorts of silly mistakes must have been made. Dane would come in the door and laugh the idea of his death to scorn, he'd stand there tall and strong and alive, and he'd laugh. Hope began to grow, and grew with every minute they waited. Treacherous, horrible hope. He wasn't dead, no! Not drowned, not Dane who was a good enough swimmer to brave any kind of sea and live. So they waited, not acknowledging what had happened in the hope it would prove to be a mistake. Time later to notify people, let Rome know. On the fourth morning Justine got the message. Like an old woman she picked up the receiver once more, and asked for Australia. "Mum?"
"Justine?"
"Oh, Mum, they've buried him already; we can't bring him home! What are we going to do? All they can say is that Crete is a big place, the name of the village isn't known, by the time the cable arrived he'd already been spirited away somewhere and disposed of. He's lying in an unmarked grave somewhere! I can't get a visa for Greece, no one wants to help, it's chaos. What are we going to do, Mum?"
"Meet me in Rome, Justine," said Meggie.
Everyone save Anne Mueller was there around the phone, still in shock. The men seemed to have aged twenty years in three days, and Fee, shrunken birdlike, white and crabbed, drifted about the house saying over and over, "Why couldn't it have been me? Why did they have to take him? I'm so old, so old! I wouldn't have minded going, why did it have to be him? Why couldn't it have been me? I'm so old!" Anne had collapsed, and Mrs. Smith, Minnie and Cat walked, slept tears.
Meggie stared at them silently as she put the phone down. This was Drogheda, all that was left. A little cluster of old men and old women, sterile and broken.
"Dane's lost," she said. "No one can find him; he's been buried somewhere on Crete. It's so far away! How could he rest so far from Drogheda? I'm going to Rome, to Ralph de Bricassart. If anyone can help us, he can."
Cardinal de Bricassart's secretary entered his room. "Your Eminence, I'm sorry to disturb you, but a lady wishes to see you. I explained that there is a congress, that you are very busy and cannot see anyone, but she says she will sit in the vestibule until you have time for her."
"Is she in trouble, Father?"
"Great trouble, Your Eminence, that much is easy to see. She said I was to tell you her name is Meggie O'neill." He gave it a lilting foreign pronunciation, so that it came out sounding like Meghee Onill. " Cardinal Ralph came to his feet, the color draining from his face to leave it as white as his hair.
"Your Eminence! Are you ill?"
"No, Father, I'm perfectly all right, thank you. Cancel my appointments until I notify you otherwise, and bring Mrs. O'neill to me at once. We are not to be disturbed unless it is the Holy Father."
