About a week later she ran into Luke O'neill again, down by the creek. She suspected he had lain in wait for her, but she didn't know what to do about it if he had.
"Good afternoon, Meghann."
"Good afternoon," said she, looking straight between the chestnut mare's ears.
"There's a woolshed ball at Braich y Pwll next Saturday night. Will you come with me?"
"Thank you for asking me, but I can't dance. There wouldn't be any point." "I'll teach you how to dance in two flicks of a dead lamb's tail, so that's no obstacle. Since I'll be taking the squatter's sister, do you think Bob might let me borrow the old Rolls, if not the new one?" "I said I wouldn't go!" she said, teeth clenched. "You said you couldn't dance, I said I'd teach you. You never said you wouldn't go with me if you could dance, so I assumed it was the dancing you objected to, not me. Are you going to bark out?" Exasperated, she glared at him fiercely, but he only laughed at her.
"You're spoiled rotten, young Meghann; it's time you didn't get all your own way."
"I'm not spoiled!"
"Go on, tell me another! The only girl, all those brothers to run round after you, all this land and money, a posh house, servants? I know the Catholic Church owns it, but the Clearys aren't short of a penny either." That was the big difference between them! she thought triumphantly; it had been eluding her since she met him. Father Ralph would never have fallen for outward trappings, but this man lacked his sensitivity; he had no inbuilt antennae to tell him what lay beneath the surface. He rode through life without an idea in his head about its complexity or its pain.
Flabbergasted, Bob handed over the keys to the new Rolls without a murmur; he had stared at Luke for a moment without speaking, then grinned. "I never thought of Meggie going to a dance, but take her, Luke, and welcome! I daresay she'd like it, the poor little beggar. She never gets out much. We ought to think of taking her, but somehow we never do." "Why don't you and Jack and Hughie come, too?" Luke asked, apparently not averse to company.
Bob shook his head, horrified. "No, thanks. We're not too keen on dances." Meggie wore her ashes-of-roses dress, not having anything else to wear; it hadn't occurred to her to use some of the stockpiling pounds Father Ralph put in the bank in her name to have dresses made for parties and balls. Until now she had managed to refuse invitations, for men like Enoch Davies and Alastair MacQueen were easy to discourage with a firm no. They didn't have Luke O'neill's gall.
But as she stared at herself in the mirror she thought she just might go into Gilly next week when Mum made her usual trip, visit old Gert and have her make up a few new frocks.
For she hated wearing this dress; if she had owned one other even remotely suitable, it would have been off in a second. Other times, a different black-haired man; it was so tied up with love and dreams, tears and loneli- ness, that to wear it for such a one as Luke O'neill seemed a desecration. She had grown used to hiding what she felt, to appearing always calm and outwardly happy. Self-control was growing around her thicker than bark on a tree, and sometimes in the night she would think of her mother, and shiver. Would she end up like Mum, cut off from all feeling? Was this how it began for Mum back in the days when there was Frank's father? And what on earth would Mum do, what would she say if she knew Meggie had learned the truth about Frank? Oh, that scene in the presbytery! It seemed like yesterday, Daddy and Frank facing each other, and Ralph holding her so hard he hurt. Shouting those awful things. Everything had fallen into place. Meggie thought she must always have known, once she did. She had grown up enough to realize there was more to getting babies than she used to think; some sort of physical contact absolutely forbidden between any but a married couple. What disgrace and humiliation poor Mum must have gone through over Frank. No wonder she was the way she was. If it happened to her, Meggie thought, she would want to die. In books only the lowest, cheapest girls had babies outside of marriage; yet Mum wasn't cheap, could never have been cheap. With all her heart Meggie wished Mum could talk to her about it, or that she her- self had the courage to bring up the subject. Perhaps in some small way she might have been able to help. But Mum wasn't the sort of person one could approach, nor would Mum do the approaching. Meggie sighed at herself in the mirror, and hoped nothing like that ever happened to her. Yet she was young; at times like this, staring at herself in the ashes-of-roses dress, she wanted to feel, wanted emotion to blow over her like a strong hot wind. She didn't want to plod like a little automaton for the rest of her life, she wanted change and vitality and love. Love, and a husband, and babies. What was the use of hungering after a man she could never have? He didn't want her, he never would want her. He said he loved her, but not as a husband would love her. Because he was married to the Church. Did all men do that, love some inanimate thing more than they could love a woman? No, surely not all men. The difficult ones, perhaps, the complex ones with their seas of doubts and objections, rationalities. But there had to be simpler men, men who could surely love a woman before all else. Men like Luke O'neill, for instance. "I think you're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen," said Luke as he started the Rolls.
Compliments were quite out of Meggie's ken; she gave him a startled sidelong glance and said nothing.
"Isn't this nice?" Luke asked, apparently not upset at her lack of enthusiasm. "Just turn a key and press a button on the dashboard and the car starts. No cranking a handle, no hoping the darned donk catches before a man's exhausted. This is the life, Meghann, no doubt about it." "You won't leave me alone, will you?" she asked. "Good Lord, no! You've come with me, haven't you? That means you're mine all night long, and I don't intend giving anyone else a chance." "How old are you, Luke?"
