The Thorn Birds

Father Ralph de Bricassart, 28 years old, must take an outback posting in Australia as punishment for insulting a bishop. He visits with Mary Carson, his 64-year-old benefactor, at Drogheda, her homestead. She provides him with a car and other comforts in exchange for the opportunity to spend time with him. A wealthy widow, Mary must decide whether to leave her fortune to the church or to distant relatives. During the visit, Mary and Father Ralph spend time flirting and irreverently discussing Catholicism. Mary observes that the priest is very attractive: “In all her life she could not remember seeing a better-looking man, nor one who used his beauty in quite the same way” (70). Their conversation reveals that Mary’s distant relation is Padraic Cleary, who is Mary’s estranged younger brother. Mary plans to invite him and his family to Australia to run her estate, but her impulse is not a generous one.

In the meantime, Fiona has had yet another child, a sickly boy named Harold. Meggie, now nine years old, helps Fiona take care of him. The family income is dwindling, and the tension between Frank and Paddy continues; increasingly resentful, Frank laments the fact that Paddy has yet again impregnated Fiona: “A decent man would have left her alone” (78).