She reared back, stunned and outraged, then shook her head, half-smiling as if at the antics of some inanimate object beyond her power to influence; then she trembled, licked her lips, seemed to come to a decision and sat up straight and stiff. "Do you really love my son as if he were your own, Ralph?" she asked. "What would you do for a son of yours? Could you sit back then and say to his mother, No, I'm very sorry, I can't possibly take the time off? Could you say that to the mother of your son?" Dane's eyes, yet not Dane's eyes. Looking at her; bewildered, full of pain, helpless.
"I have no son," he said, "but among the many, many things I learned from yours was that no matter how hard it is, my first and only allegiance is to Almighty God."
"Dane was your son too," said Meggie.
He stared at her blankly. "What?"
"I said, Dane was your son too. When I left Matlock Island I was pregnant. Dane was yours, not Luke O'neill's."
"It-isn't-true!"
"I never intended you to know, even now," she said. "Would I lie to you?" "To get Dane back? Yes," he said faintly.
She got up, came to stand over him in the red brocade chair, took his thin, parchment-like hand in hers, bent and kissed the ring, the breath of her voice misting its ruby to milky dullness. "By all that you hold holy, Ralph, I swear that Dane was your son. He was not and could not have been Luke's. By his death I swear it."
There was a wail, the sound of a soul passing between the portals of Hell. Ralph de Bricassart fell forward out of the chair and wept, huddled on the crimson carpet in a scarlet pool like new blood, his face hidden in his folded arms, his hands clutching at his hair.
"Yes, cry!" said Meggie. "Cry, now that you know! It's right that one of his parents be able to shed tears for him. Cry, Ralph! For twenty-six years I had your son and you didn't even know it, you couldn't even see it. Couldn't see that he was you all over again! When my mother took him from me at birth she knew, but you never did. Your hands, your. feet, your face, your eyes, your body. Only the color of his hair was his own; all the rest was you. Do you understand now? When I sent him here to you, I said it in my letter. "What I stole, I give back." Remember? Only we both stole, Ralph. We stole what you had vowed to God, and we've both had to pay."
She sat in her chair, implacable and unpitying, and watched the scarlet form in its agony on the floor. "I loved you, Ralph, but you were never mine. What I had of you, I was driven to steal. Dane was my part, all I could get from you. I vowed you'd never know, I vowed you'd never have the chance to take him away from me. And then he gave himself to you, of his own free will. The image of the perfect priest, he called you. What a laugh I had over that one! But not for anything would I have given you a weapon like knowing he was yours. Except for this. Except for this! For nothing less would I have told you. Though I don't suppose it matters now. He doesn't belong to either of us anymore. He belongs to God."
Cardinal de Bricassart chartered a private plane in Athens; he, Meggie and Justine brought Dane home to Drogheda, the living sitting silently, the dead lying silently on a bier, requiring nothing of this earth anymore. I have to say this Mass, this Requiem for my son. Bone of my bone, my son. Yes, Meggie, I believe you. Once I had my breath back I would even have believed you without that terrible oath you swore. Vittorio knew the minute he set eyes on the boy, and in my heart I, too, must have known. Your laugh behind the roses from the boy-but my eyes looking up at me, as they used to be in my innocence. Fee knew. Anne Mueller knew. But not we men. We weren't fit to be told. For so you women think, and hug your mysteries, getting your backs on us for the slight God did you in not creating you in His Image. Vittorio knew, but it was the woman in him stilled his tongue. A masterly revenge.
Say it, Ralph de Bricassart, open your mouth, move your hands in the blessing, begin to chant the Latin for the soul of the departed. Who was your son. Whom you loved more than you loved his mother. Yes, more! For he was yourself all over again, in a more perfect mold. "In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti . . ."
