68 / COLLEEN MCCULLOUGH
"I must confess, Father, that this past year has been very pleasant," she said. "You're a far more satisfactory shepherd than old Father Kelly was, God rot his soul." Her voice on the last phrase was suddenly harsh, vindictive. His eyes lifted to her face, twinkling. "My dear Mrs. Carson! That's not a very Catholic sentiment." "But the truth. He was a drunken old sot, and I'm quite sure God will rot his soul as much as the drink rotted his body." She leaned forward. "I know you fairly well by this time; I think I'm entitled to ask you a few questions, don't you? After all, you feel free to use Drogheda as your private playground—off learning how to be a stockman, polishing your riding, escaping from the vicissitudes of life in Gilly. All at my invitation, of course, but I do think I'm entitled to some answers, don't you?" He didn't like to be reminded that he ought to feel grateful, but he had been waiting for the day when she would think she owned him enough to begin demanding things of him. "Indeed you are, Mrs. Carson. I can't thank you enough for permitting me the run of Drogheda, and for all your gifts—my horses, my car." "How old are you?" she asked without further preamble. "Twenty-eight," he replied. "Younger than I thought. Even so, they don't send priests like you to places like Gilly. What did you do, to make them send someone like you out here into the back of beyond?" "I insulted the bishop," he said calmly, smiling. "You must have! But I can't think a priest of your peculiar talents can be happy in a place like Gillanbone." "It is God's will." "Stuff and nonsense! You're here because of human failings—your own and the bishop's. Only the Pope is infallible. You're utterly out of your natural element in THE THORN BIRDS / 69
Gilly, we all know that, not that we're not grateful to have someone like you for a change, instead of the ordained remittance men they send us usually. But your natural element lies in some corridor of ecclesiastical power, not here among horses and sheep. You'd look magnificent in cardinal's red." "No chance of that, I'm afraid. I fancy Gillanbone is not exactly the epicenter of the Archbishop Papal Legate's map. And it could be worse. I have you, and I have Drogheda." She accepted the deliberately blatant flattery in the spirit in which it was intended, enjoying his beauty, his attentiveness, his barbed and subtle mind; truly he would make a magnificent cardinal. In all her life she could not remember seeing a better-looking man, nor one who used his beauty in quite the same way. He had to be aware of how he looked: the height and the perfect proportions of his body, the fine aristocratic features, the way every physical ele- ment had been put together with a degree of care about the appear- ance of the finished product God lavished on few of His creations. From the loose black curls of his head and the startling blue of his eyes to the small, slender hands and feet, he was perfect. Yes, he had to be conscious of what he was. And yet there was an aloofness about him, a way he had of making her feel he had never been en- slaved by his beauty, nor ever would be. He would use it to get what he wanted without compunction if it would help, but not as though he was enamored of it; rather as if he deemed people be- neath contempt for being influenced by it. And she would have given much to know what in his past life had made him so. Curious, how many priests were handsome as Adonis, had the sexual magnetism of Don Juan. Did they espouse celibacy as a refuge from the consequences? "Why do you put up with Gillanbone?" she asked. "Why not leave the priesthood rather than put up with it? You could be rich and powerful in any one of a