by Rhys Bowen
The memory of my mother’s quote flashed back into my head. Satan finds work for idle hands to do. Clearly they were making sure that Satan could not find a chink through which to enter this sanctuary.
“All the girls are expected to do their share of the labor, in return for our kindness in taking you in,” Sister said, shutting the door behind us. “They will all be hard at work now. You’ll find yourself working in the laundry, the kitchen, or out in the garden, depending on your physical state. You look like a good strong girl. From a farm, were you?”
“Yes, Sister. We lived on an estate owned by an English family. My father worked in the fields for them.”
“And how did he feel about that?” she asked. “Working for the enemy indeed.”
“I don’t know how he felt,” I said. “We never discussed it. As far as I know our family had always lived in that cottage. That was just the way things were in Ireland. Most people owned no land of their own.”
“Do you think that’s right?” she demanded. “Do you think we should be subjected to the tyranny of overlords?”
“Of course I don’t. And my own brother is working for the Republican Brotherhood, putting his own life in danger for the cause.”
“Is he? God love him,” she said. “I took to you from the moment I saw you. We’re going to get along just fine, Molly, I can tell.”
“So are you from Ireland, Sister?” I asked because her accent sounded American.
“I count myself as Irish although I wasn’t born there. My family came here during the great famine and I was born two years later. Thrown out of their cottage, they were, and do you know, the landowner had his men tear down the cottage, stone by stone, so that they could never return. They were already starving to death and yet the landowner saw fit to destroy the home before my parents could get out all their possessions. My mother said it broke her heart to see her china teapot smashed. She begged them for just a minute or two, but they didn’t care. They just pushed her out of the way. That’s how they treated us in our own country.”
“I know,” I said. “There have been some terrible wrongs. My little brother was sold into servitude by the landowners, after our father died and there was no one to look after him.”
“Terrible.” She shook her head. “We must do all we can to right these wrongs, Molly. Of course all I’m able to do is to pray, but you can do your share, once you’re free of this burden. Can’t you, my dear?”
“I’ll do what I can,” I said cautiously, because her face had become so intense and dangerous looking.
“I can put you in touch with people who are working for the cause,” she said. “It is good to find meaning in your life when you’re trying to get over the sad business of giving up a child.”
I was tempted to ask if she had sent Maureen on a quest to save Ireland and Maureen had heeded the call, but I decided to keep quiet until I knew more. But one thing I had to ask.
“Sister, I believe I saw you when I was in New York,” I said. “You were walking alone through the Lower East Side.” The image came into my head quite clearly. Me stepping out of the shadows on the crowded sidewalk and almost bumping into the nun with the beak-like nose. But she had been wearing a different kind of habit.
She shook her head. “Not me. We are an enclosed order. Part of our vow is never to leave the convent again. Our nuns never go outside these walls. We are even buried here.”
“I must have been mistaken then,” I said. “But I saw a nun who looked very like you. Although I’m sure many nuns look alike when all one can see is the face.”
“I tell you what,” she said. “It was probably my sister that you saw. Folks say that we look alike, although I’ve not seen her for several years so I can’t tell you how she looks now.”
“Is she also a nun?”
“She is.”
“In your order?”
“No. Not in the same order. Our parents thought that I was suited to the contemplative life and my sister could face exposure to the wickedness of the world. I don’t know if that was a correct assessment of our personalities. We were too young to know what was good for us and nobody gave us a choice. Shipped off to the convent, we were, when we were sixteen. I think I would have been well suited to life outside these walls. But I have made full use of my talents here. The other sisters have no notion of the outside world, no head at all for business or organization. I make sure this place runs as it should.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to suggest that pride was a sin. But she seemed to have taken to me and I had to make the most of that. I nodded in agreement when she looked at me.
“I’m sure it’s not an easy job that you do,” I said, buttering her up even more.
“Oh, I enjoy making this place run like clockwork,” she said. “But I’m currently having to train another sister to take over this section, which means that I sometimes have to act as midwife, until she gets the hang of it—and I’m not sure she will ever have the gift. That’s not a job that comes easily to me. I am not used to—the messiness of it all. I am extremely fastidious by nature. I was brought up that cleanliness is next to godliness. It is a real penance to have to assist with the delivery of a child. And a devastating blow if I lose either the mother or the child. We lost a child recently. It still haunts me that maybe I should have done something differently.”
“Could you not have called in a doctor?” I asked. “Could you not have taken the girl to a hospital?”
“The doctor was summoned, but he was out on another case, some miles from town. Things go wrong so quickly sometimes and I don’t have the gift like Sister Francine did.”
“Sister Francine, who was she?” I asked.
“She ran the maternity ward and delivered the babies until she died three months ago. A true saint—beloved by everybody and with a gift of knowing exactly what to do when it came to babies. I find her shoes very hard to fill and pray daily that one of our novices may hear the call to take over this task.”
We continued walking down the hall. “These are my quarters,” she said, indicating a closed door, which she did not attempt to open. “I no longer live and sleep with the rest of my sisters. Since my job calls for me to be available at any hour of the day or night it would be unfair to disturb their few hours of repose. My office is here and my cell beyond. You will find me here if I am not among you and you need me in an emergency.”
“Thank you, Sister,” I said again.
She looked at me with her head on one side, reinforcing the bird-like impression. “I don’t know why I’m talking so much to you. I don’t usually chat with our young charges. It must be that you’re a fellow Irishwoman and I feel a bond between us.”
“Have you not had any other Irish girls here then?” I asked innocently.
“Not at the moment,” she said. She went to move on then added, “We had one girl here recently direct from Ireland like yourself. It’s a pity you two didn’t get a chance to meet.”
“What a pity,” I reiterated. “I’d love to have had someone from home here. It’s all rather frightening to me to know I’m all alone in a strange new world. So she’s had her baby and gone then, has she?”
“She has,” Sister Jerome said in clipped tones.
“Is she living somewhere nearby?” I asked. “I’d love to meet her after I get out of here. We’d have a lot in common to talk about, wouldn’t we?”
“I’ve not the slightest idea where she went,” Sister said curtly. “And you probably wouldn’t have gotten on at all, now I think about it. She was not at all like you. A difficult girl, if you want to know. Stubborn. Wouldn’t be led or advised. Then ran off without a word of thank you. Disappeared during the night.”
“How awful,” I said. “That must have been worrying for you.”
“Disappointing,” she said. “After all we did for her.”
“Perhaps it was hard for her to give up her child,” I suggested. “I know I wouldn’t find it easy.”
“None of the girls finds it easy,” she said, “but most of them want what’s best for their baby and they see that a good, stable home, with loving parents, is the only practical solution. Maureen was always too headstrong.”
I remembered the fight Emily had reported to me with Maureen shouting, “You can’t make me. It’s cruel.” Was that about giving up her baby? Had she changed her mind at the last minute? I couldn’t think of any way to ask any more questions at this moment without making Sister Jerome suspicious of me.
“I know I’ll want what’s best for my child,” I said, continuing to play the good obedient girl. “How could I possibly hope to support the little dear?”
She gave me another approving nod. “Now let’s get you settled with a uniform and a place to sleep. Your dormitory is up these stairs.”
There was a flight of stairs at the end of the hall past Sister’s office. She went ahead of me, up the steps at a great rate. She must have been at least fifty, I reasoned, if she was born at the time of the famine, but she seemed remarkably agile for her age, especially wearing that heavy and cumbersome habit.
Our footsteps echoed with the sound bouncing from the stone steps to the stone walls as we came out to a hallway above. It was the only sound I had heard here apart from the swish of her robes. I looked down the deserted hallway. The windows on this hall were frosted so that light came in, but there was no view—obviously to prevent the girls from seeing beyond that wall into the world outside.
“It’s really quiet in here, isn’t it?” I said. “Not a single sound.”
“We usually maintain a rule of silence at all times,” she said, “and that applies to you girls as well as our sisters. No talking or whispering at any time in the hallways or in the dormitory after lights out. Only minimal talking on the job when a question needs to be asked. Silence also at meals when the girls take it in turns to read from a holy book. You know how to read, do you?”
“Of course,” I said, a little too readily. Would a girl in my situation really know how to read?
“Some of the girls are barely literate,” she said with a sniff of disapproval. “And some of their personal cleanliness habits—well, they leave a lot to be desired.” She pointed down the hallway. “The last door on your left is the bathroom. And there is a WC beside it. We expect girls to wash themselves well daily and take a bath at least once a week. Towels can be found in the laundry closet next to the bathroom.”
“So where are the other girls?” I asked, realizing I had seen no one apart from Blanche.
“They are all at their daily tasks,” she said. “Either working in the laundry or out in the garden or in the kitchen. There is a lot to do at this time of year—preserving and bottling our fruits and vegetables to keep us going through the winter. We like to be almost self-sufficient here.”
It seemed I was doomed to do my share of bottling and preserving wherever I went!
“Of course we do not have the grounds to keep any animals except our hens, but we eat little meat anyway.”
She pushed open the first door we came to. I noticed it must be directly above her quarters. So she’d hear if anyone got up during the night, I thought. The room was dark, with only a couple of high windows sending shafts of sunlight to the top of the opposite wall. It contained a row of narrow iron bedsteads, eight in all, a small cupboard beside each, and a row of hooks on the far wall. On the far wall was a large crucifix, and a statue of St. Anthony, holding the child Jesus, stood on a shelf in one corner. These were the only decorations, except that one of the beds had a small vase of flowers beside it and one other held a photograph.
“Now we have to decide where we can put you,” Sister said. “Not much room, as you can see. I doubt that we could squeeze a cot in here if we tried.”
At the sound of her voice a figure rose up from one of the beds. My heart skipped a beat and I stepped backward involuntarily.
“Blanche, what are you doing here?” Sister demanded angrily. “You should be at your assignment. Aren’t you supposed to be our porter this week?”
“I am, Sister, but I started feeling dizzy again so Sister Perpetua said I could go and lie down for a while.”
“Blanche, you have to stop this malingering,” Sister said angrily. “It won’t help you in the long run. You are fully recovered from the birth and you have to put it behind you. No amount of grieving will bring that baby back, and there is no point in wallowing in guilt and self-pity. In fact I think it would be far better for you if you went back to the outside world and got on with life.”
A terrified look came over Blanche’s face. “Don’t make me go yet, Sister. I’m not ready. I can’t face it.”
“Pull yourself together, girl,” Sister snapped. “You’ll be just fine.”
“But I’ve nowhere to go,” she wailed. “They won’t take me back at home. I’ve nobody.”
“I will give you a letter to take to my sister in New York,” Sister Jerome said. “Her convent has been most helpful in placing girls like you in domestic service. But if you can’t buck up and pull yourself together, who would want you?”
Tears were now running down Blanche’s pale face. “I try to buck up,” she said. “But I just feel so awful all the time. So sad. As if nothing good will ever happen to me again.”
“Of course it will, you silly girl. You’ll get a job and soon this will all seem like a bad dream. Now then, pack up your things and change the sheets on your bed. Molly will be sleeping here from now on.”
“Oh, Sister,” I intervened. “I’m sure I wouldn’t want to take Blanche’s bed. If she’s not feeling strong enough to go yet, then I really think she should stay. I’m sure we could find a place to put a cot for me until she’s ready. Or I could sleep on the sofa in the common room for now. I really don’t mind.”
“Blanche can sleep in the sisters’ guest room tonight, while we get together her letters of reference and a new outfit of clothes for her. Pack up your things, Blanche, and make your bed for Molly, then take her to the clothes closet and find her a uniform. I have letters to write, but I’ll be back for you in half an hour.”
As she turned to walk out of the room I heard the swish of those robes again and I realized what had struck me as strange about her from the first. Her habit was made of silk.
Twenty-four
“I’m so sorry,” I said to Blanche as soon as I heard sister’s feet going down the stairs. “I would never have turned you out. I’d rather sleep on the floor.”
She gave me a sad smile. “It’s not you,” she said. “She hates me. She can’t wait to get rid of me. It has really angered her that I’ve been allowed to stay for so long.”
“What has she got against you?” I asked as I helped her pull the sheet from the bed. She seemed a frail and delicate little thing, like an expensive French china doll.
She looked up at me. “My baby died,” she said.
“She blames herself for her own failure as a midwife?” I asked.
She shook her head. “In her mind she never fails,” she muttered. “No, she blames me because I let her down. She had a good home waiting for that particular baby, you see, and she didn’t want to lose out on that money.”
“What money?”
She moved closer to me so that our shoulders were touching. “The convent gets requests from couples who want a baby that they can pass as their own,” she said. “This couple wanted a fair-haired child with blue eyes and of course she was sure my baby would be light-haired—which it was, poor little thing.”
“And couples pay for this?”
“Oh, yes. From what we’ve heard they are asked to make a donation to the convent and sometimes it’s a generous donation. That’s why sister was so angry with me. I suppose the convent really needs the money.”
“As if you could have done anything to stop your baby from being born dead!” I said indignantly. “It must have been really upsetting for you.”
She nodded and her light blue eyes fil
led with tears. “I can’t seem to get over it. I hate this place, but I have nowhere to go. I don’t think I’m strong enough to get a job yet.”
I was so tempted to say that I’d take her on and look after her and nurse her back to health and wholeness, but how could I, when I was supposed to be in the same position as her.
“Look,” I said. “I think I might know some people in New York who could help you. But they won’t be home for a few days. If you go and stay with the nuns as Sister suggests, then by the end of the week you can safely go to this address and tell them that Molly sent you.”
“So what are you doing here if you have friends in New York, people who can help you?” she asked. It was a good question and I had to think before I answered.
“They are women who help destitute young girls to find employment,” I said. “They suggested I come up here to the convent and then go to them when I’ve had my baby.”
“I see.” She looked almost hopeful.
“Do you have a pencil and paper?” I asked. The only thing I had in my bag was my calling card and that would never do.
She looked around and shook her head. “Then repeat after me,” I said. “Nine Patchin Place. Can you remember that?”
She repeated it. I nodded. “Good. Keep repeating it to yourself. Any constable in New York will tell you the way. It’s in Greenwich Village and it’s where these women live.”
“Thank you,” she said.
We finished stripping the bed and Blanche led me down the hall to a linen closet for clean sheets. “And there should be a clean uniform in here for you.” It was more like a small room than a closet, with shelves of neatly folded linens on all sides. She looked around the shelves then reached up, hauled down some folded gray-and-blue cloth and handed it to me. It was a gray dress with its grayish-blue overgarment like the one she was wearing made of coarse cloth. It was hard for me to take it, knowing that I wouldn’t be needing it and that some girl would have to launder it again, but I couldn’t find a way to refuse.