"You don't understand, Paddy!" the lawyer said in a slow, distinct voice, as if he were explaining to a child. "It isn't just Drogheda I'm talking about. Drogheda was the least part of what your sister had to leave, believe me. She's a major shareholder in a hundred gilt-edged companies, she owns steel factories and gold mines, she's Michar Limited, with a ten-story office building all to herself in Sydney. She was worth more than anyone in the whole of Australia! Funny, she made me contact the Sydney directors of Michar Limited not four weeks ago, to find out the exact extent of her assets. When she died she was worth something over thirteen million pounds." "Thirteen million pounds!" Paddy said it as one says the distance from the earth to the sun, something totally incomprehensible. "That settles it, Harry. I don't want the responsibility of that kind of money." "It's no responsibility, Paddy! Don't you understand yet? Money like that looks after itself! You'd have nothing to do with cultivating or harvesting it; there are hundreds of people employed simply to take careof it for you. Contest the will, Paddy, please! I'll get you the best KC'S in the country and I'll fight it for you all the way to the Privy Council if necessary."
Suddenly realizing that his family were as concerned as himself, Paddy turned to Bob and Jack, sitting together bewildered on a Florentine marble bench. "Boys, what do you say? Do you want to go after Auntie Mary's thirteen million quid? If you do I'll contest, not otherwise."
"But we can live on Drogheda anyway, isn't that what the will says?" Bob asked.
Harry answered. "No one can turn you off Drogheda so long as even one of your father's grandchildren lives."
"We're going to live here in the big house, have Mrs. Smith and the girls to look after us, and earn a decent wage," said Paddy as if he could hardly believe his good fortune rather than his bad.
"Then what more do we want, Jack?" Bob asked his brother. "Don't you agree?"
"It suits me," said Jack.
Father Ralph moved restlessly. He had not stopped to shed his Requiem vestments, nor had he taken a chair; like a dark and beautiful sorcerer he stood half in the shadows at the back of the room, isolated, his hands hidden beneath the black chasuble, his face still, and at the back of the distant blue eyes a horrified, stunned resentment. There was not even going to be the longed-for chastisement of rage or contempt; Paddy was going to hand it all to him on a golden plate of goodwill, and thank him for relieving the Clearys of a burden.
"What about Fee and Meggie?" the priest asked Paddy harshly. "Do you not think enough of your women to consult them, too?" "Fee?" asked Paddy anxiously.
"Whatever you decide, Paddy. I don't care."
"Meggie?"
"I don't want her thirteen million pieces of silver," Meggie said, her eyes fixed on Father Ralph.
Paddy turned to the lawyer. "Then that's it, Harry. We don't want to contest the will. Let the Church have Mary's money, and welcome." Harry struck his hands together. "God damn it, I hate to see you cheated!" "I thank my stars for Mary," said Paddy gently. "If it wasn't for her I'd still be trying to scrape a living in New Zealand."
As they came out of the drawing room Paddy stopped Father Ralph and held out his hand, in full view of the fascinated mourners clustering in the dining room doorway.
"Father, please don't think there are any hard feelings on our side. Mary was never swayed by another human being in all her life, priest or brother or husband. You take it from me, she did what she wanted to do. You were mighty good to her, and you've been mighty good to us. We'll never forget it." The guilt. The burden. Almost Father Ralph did not move to take that gnarled stained hand, but the cardinal's brain won; he gripped it feverishly and smiled, agonized.
"Thank you, Paddy. You may rest assured I'll see you never want for a thing."
Within the week he was gone, not having appeared on Drogheda again. He spent the few days packing his scant belongings, and touring every station in the district where there were Catholic families; save Drogheda. Father Watkin Thomas, late of Wales, arrived to assume the duties of parish priest to the Gillanbone district, while Father Ralph de Bricassart became private secretary to Archbishop Cluny Dark. But his work load was light; he had two undersecretaries. For the most part he was occupied in discovering just what and how much Mary Carson had owned, and in gathering the reins of government together on behalf of the Church.