Wild Geese

by Caroline Pignat

  “Annie doesn’t talk,” says the little redhead with the dishtowel. I realize it’s Tish Crean, her friend from Ireland. If Tish is here, then she must be an orphan, too, God rest her parents. What have these poor girls been through, I wonder.

  I wrap my arms around Annie. She seems so fragile. Still, it feels good to hold her again. Her wet hands slowly circle my waist, soaking the back of my shirt, squeezing tighter and tighter. “I found you, Annie. I found you,” I whisper into her hair. “Everything is going to be all right now.”

  “God listens,” Tish said. “Annie prayed right hard, so she did. Every day on the boat she asked God to watch over you. And here you are, safe and sound.”

  “But, Kit,” Tish says looking around the floor behind me. “Where’s the puppy she prayed for?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  After my reunion with Annie, I don’t want to leave her, but Mother Bruyere tells me I’m too old to stay with the orphans. As it turns out, Father Molloy has just opened a new place on Church Street, Saint Raphael House, for girls my age. “It’s the perfect place to help you get back on your feet again,” she says. “There are a few girls living there now, mostly Irish. Perhaps you will find a friend.”

  I don’t bother telling her ’tis money I need, not friendship.

  The house is tiny and a bit of a shambles. Even the inside looks fit for rats and mice, truth be told. Though I suppose orphaned, pauper teenage girls aren’t worth much more.

  “Marie?” Mother Bruyere calls to a girl tending a small fire in the darkened room. “Voici Kathleen, une immigrante nouvelle. Donne-lui des vêtements.”

  Marie looks at my boyish appearance questioningly but nods and leaves the room.

  “A girl?” an Irish voice asks. I see a dark-haired girl looking me over, her arms folded. Two more girls stand behind her.

  “Yes,” Mother Bruyere answers. “Rose, I expect you to show Kathleen the same charity you have received.”

  Rose smiles, but the flickering firelight, her face seemed almost evil. “Of course, Mother.”

  Mother Bruyere shows me to the upstairs room where five sparse beds are crammed. “This one is yours,” the nun says, nodding at the bed under the window. Marie returns with a pile of neatly folded items and hands them to me. Blankets, a nightdress, skirts and tops, shoes. “All donations from the Ladies of Charity,” Mother Bruyere says. “Everything in this house is a gift given out of the generosity of others.”

  My eyes roam the dingy room, the mouse scurrying in the corner. I clutch the pile of clothes, knowing I should be grateful.

  “While you live in this house and look for work, all donations of food or clothing are equally shared among the girls,” Mother Bruyere says to me. It sounds fair, but the way Marie cowers at Rose’s glare makes me think differently. “Room and board, clothing, training for domestic work, Saint Raphael House is here to help you help yourself.”

  Mother Bruyere bids us goodnight but, as she leaves, an uneasiness scurries in the corners of my mind. As soon as the front door closes, Rose turns on me.

  “I’ll take that!” she says, snatching the blankets and shoes while the others rummage through my meager pile.

  “But—” I say, as the words are slapped from my mouth.

  “Shut your gob!” Rose says. “You’re in my house now.” The other two girls laugh.

  “Let me tell you the real rules, shall I?” Rose continues. “I don’t cook or clean for nobody. Not some high and mighty Upper Town snot and definitely not for some poor culchie girl, like you.”

  “Are you sure ’tis a girl?” one of the two asks from the shadows, as a hand reaches out and tweaks my breast. I cry out and slap it away. “Sure, she’s as flat as a plank.”

  “Aye, Norah, but she cries like a little girl.”

  More laughter.

  Rose steps in closer, backing me into the corner of the tiny room. “I get first dibs here, Kathleen. Anything that comes through that door, any bit of food or clothing, or work, ’tis mine for the taking or leaving.” She pokes me hard. “Understand?”

  I nod, even though I know she can barely see me in the darkened room.

  “Well, then, welcome to Saint Raphael House,” she proclaims. “The ideal place to help me help myself.”

  “Good one, Rose,” a voice chuckles.

  “Sheila, leave the dress,” Rose orders over her shoulder. “We can’t have The Goose suspecting anything, now, can we?” It lands in a heap at my feet.

  Rose turns back to face me, stepping in close. “Go crying to Mother Bruyere, Sister Phelan, or Father Molloy,” she lowers her voice, “and you’ll find yourself floating face down in the canal.”

  No one laughs. Evidently, this threat is no joke.

  They leave the room and I slump in the corner on the thin pallet. The tiny mattress is near emptied of all its straw, pilfered no doubt by Rose and her cronies. I’ve no blankets, but the night is warm. Besides, now that I’ve found Annie, I plan on being long gone by the time the autumn chill comes. We’ll get some money and get a place of our own. Bundling the dress under my head, I lay back and look at the moon’s clipping as it shines through the dirty window. The same moon I studied through the window of my cell in Wicklow Jail.

  I survived that hell, I tell myself. The famine, the jail, the crossing. I found Jack. I found Annie. I will survive this.

  I will.

  Someday, I’ll be looking at that moon through the window of my own home with my family gathered ’round. There is a way; there has to be, even if I can’t see it yet.

  I stare at the sliver of light and just beyond to where its heavenly body is swallowed in shadow.

  Just because I can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “Get up there, girls,” a woman’s voice calls as she rings a bell downstairs. The other girls grumble and pull their blankets over their heads. Slipping on my dress, the only item I’ve left from last night’s raid, I leave the room and enter the small kitchen where Marie stirs a pot over the fire. Another woman—a nun, I can tell by the same brown habit they all wear—is emptying some items from her basket onto the rickety table: a loaf of bread, a jug of milk, some cheese, and three apples. My mouth waters at the sight.

  “You must be Kathleen,” she says to me. There’s a hint of Irish in her voice. “I’m Sister Phelan.” She looks at my wrinkled dress. “Look at the state of you. Did you sleep in that, or what?” Her accent and tone remind me of Mam.

  Marie glances at me and I see her dress is just as wrinkled. With no boy’s clothes, I imagine she must have slept in hers. But before I can answer, Sister Phelan notices my bare feet.

  “Where are your shoes, girl?” she asks me as Rose, Norah, and Sheila enter the room.

  “Rose has them,” I say.

  Marie gasps and drops the spoon. It splatters porridge down her skirts. Rose glares at me from behind Sister Phelan; her dark eyes hit me like black stones from a slingshot.

  “I never wore shoes back home,” I lie. “They hurt my feet.”

  Sister Phelan shakes her head at me. “Well, you’ll have to get used to them. You can’t work Uptown in bare feet. I guess Rose will take that job. But Rose, try to keep this one. ’Tis the third job this month.”

  Rose smiles and grabs an apple. “Of course, sister.”

  Sighing, Sister Phelan takes the apple back and cuts it in half. She hands the other half to me. “Our last domestic just quit, Kathleen. The job is yours.”

  “A job?” I blurt. Amazed at how last night’s problem of money is already solved. “A paying job?”

  “’Tisn’t much, but it’s a start,” Sister Phelan answers, picking up her basket. “You’ll be helping Martha Hagan with the laundry. She’s waiting for you at the boarding house.”

  “You couldn’t pay me enough to do that filthy work,” Rose mutters, ignoring the look from Sister Phelan. Rose cuts into the bread, letting a thick slice fall on the table. “You’re welcom
e to it.”

  “Thanks, Rose,” I say, taking the slice of bread and a bit of cheese to go with it. A bold move for sure, but hunger does that to me. Rose scowls, both of us knowing I’d have neither when Sister Phelan left. Not wanting to find out, I follow after Sister Phelan as she exits the tiny house.

  I visit with Annie and Tish for a bit while waiting for Martha. Annie hasn’t spoken to me yet; Tish speaks for her. Like peas in a pod, the pair of them. But Annie does sit with me and hold my hand. I even get a wee smile out of her before I have to leave with Martha.

  “I take it you’ve done washing before?” Martha asks, handing me a bar of soap.

  I nod, thinking fondly of doing the day’s wash with Mam. I don’t mind washing; besides, how dirty could sisters habits be?

  She hands me one of the heaping baskets. I realize then it’s the dirty rags of the immigrants. They stink to high heaven from weeks of wear, caked with filth, vermin, and God knows what. They should be burned, not washed. Just like that, my memory of Mam is gone, buried under dark and dingy memories of long days laundering uniforms in Wicklow Jail. That was my penance, my punishment for stealing. Yet, here I am again.

  Martha leads me up St. Patrick Street, past the great stone cathedral, over the hill, and down to the water’s edge. The early morning light dances on the Ottawa River as the thick woods around us rustle in the wind. A pretty scene; too bad it’s for such dirty work.

  Martha takes a bit of laundry and, kneeling, plunges into the river. Following her lead, I pull a filthy shirt from the basket but drop it quick, for ’tis speckled with nits and lice.

  “This is disgusting,” I say, flicking the few that jump up my arms. “I can see now why the last domestic quit.”

  “Do you think your clothes were any less dirty when Mother Bruyere washed them?” Martha asks with a smile as she wrings and plunges again.

  “Why are we washing these rags anyway?” Taking a stick, I carry and plunge the infested rag into the river, drowning the little devils. “Sure, there’ll be nothing but a collar and cuffs to hang with all the dirt gone.”

  “Think of it as prayer,” Martha says.

  Prayer? What sort of a church does she attend?

  “Every sacrifice is one step closer to heaven,” she explains.

  I doubt that, but every rag is one step closer to buying a way out of here for Annie and me.

  “Are you an orphan, too?” I ask. She seems about my age, and I wonder why she doesn’t live at Saint Raphael’s.

  “No, my parents live in Bytown. My father is Hugh Hagan. He runs a private school on Sussex.”

  I know the school. I saw it yesterday in my travels.

  “Hagan? So you’re Irish, then?”

  She nods. “My parents are from Derby County but I was born in Quebec.”

  “Are you a student at the school?” Mother Bruyere had mentioned her school yesterday, as well. It had to close while the sick immigrants took up all the sisters’ time.

  “I was,” Martha says. “Soon, I’ll be going to Montreal to do my novitiate studies. I’m a postulant,” she explains, as though any of those words make sense to me. She gestures to her purple dress. “A sister in training.”

  I frown. ’Tis beyond me why anyone with a home and family, and a well-off one at that, would choose to leave them, choose this life of orphans, poverty, and illness, choose the very life I am trying to escape.

  “There are a few postulants,” Martha continues as she wrings and flicks the shirt in her hands before laying it on the branches to dry. She takes a pair of breeches and starts washing again. “When we make our novitiate vows, we get the habit the sisters wear.”

  She says it like it’s a good thing. She is giving up everything I am working so hard to get. Is she mad?

  “Oh, so you’re not a sister yet,” I say, dunking the shirt down for another rinse just to be sure. “You can still change your mind. That’s good.”

  She stops scrubbing and sits back on her heels, looking at me like I’m the crazy one.

  “Kit, doing this work makes me happy.” She brushes a hair off her forehead with the back of her wrinkled, reddened hand. “It’s where God wants me. Why would I say no?”

  We stare at each other in confusion, two young girls side by side on the same shore, yet worlds apart.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  I spend the next few weeks scrubbing rags on rocks and lugging baskets and buckets for Mother Bruyere. ’Tisn’t really part of my job, but she wants me to come on some visits with her. She says it’s good to see the faces of those I’m serving.

  I don’t see the point. I don’t want to know them, don’t want to hear that Agnes is doing worse. Haven’t I enough of my own troubles without worrying about theirs? For one thing, after nearly a month of scouring, I’ve only red hands and a pittance of pennies to show for it. Even with the extra work Sister Phelan gave me cleaning the cathedral, I’ll never get a home for Annie and me at this rate.

  Can they not kneel without making such a mess? I polish this blasted banister every day, and every day ’tis covered in greasy handprints.

  I run my rag along the worn wood, wiping away the fingerprints of the faithful. The altar rail curves around on the right end, around the statue of Our Lady. You’d never see that spot empty. Today a woman kneels deep in prayer before the rows of candles.

  Like the Mother of God has nothing better to do than listen to those never-ending pleas. Like I’ve nothing better to do than clean those never-ending smudges.

  A bit of polish on the rag helps, and, of course, a bit of elbow grease. After a few wipes, the wood shines as good as new as I move along to the right end. If only sin were so easy to clean. But my soul isn’t just smudged, ’tis gouged by anger and bitterness. I’m still not sorry I tried to kill Lynch, only sorry it didn’t work. I didn’t even forgive Tom on his deathbed. I wanted him to suffer, like I had.

  What kind of a person does that make me?

  Mam always said that trials test our faith and make it stronger, just like how a pruned branch grows thicker. Mam, Da, and Jack. Mick. I miss them so. How much cutting back can one tree take before there’s nothing left but a dead stump?

  The woman mumbles as she slips the rosary through her fingers, bead by bead. I can well imagine Mam there, too. She would have loved this place, would have marveled at the great stone arches and smooth, carved pillars. Even I was amazed when I first entered those massive doors. Even I felt the power as I wandered up the aisle as wide and long as Sappers Bridge, to see Saint Patrick and Saint Jean-Baptiste like two sentinels, Irish and French, waiting at its end. In that moment, I felt Mam’s awe.

  But the statues and carvings, the windows and pews, the banisters and railings, they’re just more things for me to clean, really. If I’ve learned anything, I know now that every church has its dirty corners. Bigger ones just have more.

  Sister Phelan opens the poor box with the key on her belt. As promised, she hands me my wages and I drop them in my pocket. Martha may work for her heavenly reward, but I’ll take the money, thanks very much. The coins jingle when I go back to buffing the railing. The praying woman shushes me, as though her muttering prayers are music to my ears. Still, I put one coin into my other empty pocket. ’Tisn’t to please her sour puss, but the sound of money can only bring problems later. Especially if Rose hears it.

  I don’t keep my money at Saint Raphael’s after Rose ransacked my bed a couple of times, looking for my pay. I tell her it’s spent and she can’t get blood from a stone, but she surely knows how to get it from my face. She’s vicious, that one. Just last week, she snatched a loaf right from my hands as Father Molloy gave it to me from his basket. I grabbed it back only to have Norah and Sheila join in, all of us squawking and scratching, fighting like wild hens right there in front of Father Molloy. By the time he intervened, the loaf was flittered to crumbs, wasted from want.

  Father Molloy took off, basket and all, and wouldn’t come back without Sister Phelan, who
was none too pleased. She gave us a tongue lashing, so she did. Said she was ashamed of us, disgusted with our behavior. And in front of a priest, no less!

  We stood there, heads hung, as she scolded us that night. I knew Sister Phelan’s temper was getting the better of her. Her face grew redder with every wave of her arms. “What! Were! You! Thinking!” she honked each word at us. I saw it then, why Rose calls Sister Phelan The Goose; those flapping sleeves, that gray-brown dress, the black bib and bonnet. I half expected her to stick out her neck, raise her arms, and come charging over the breadcrumbs at me. Oh, she was that riled.

  Behind Sister Phelan’s back, Rose stuck her thumbs in her armpits and flapped once. Well, that was it. The giggles came gurgling out of me. I knew I should stop; of all times to get a fit of tittering, of all people to be laughing at. Sister Phelan glared at me as I clapped my hand over my mouth, but I might as well try to stop a bubbling spring, for the sniggers spilled between my fingers and all over poor Sister Phelan. The other girls bit their smiles. Sister Phelan looked to heaven, as if to say, she’s your daughter, then without another word, she turned on her heels and left. ’Twas a good thing she did, too. By the look in her eyes, if she’d stayed, if she’d spoken her mind, she’d be doing penance even longer than us.

  The woman praying before the statue eyes me as I wipe nearer to her part of the railing. She glares as though she wants neither me nor my dirty rag near her. As though a rag’s filth is its own fault. Doesn’t she know? ’Tis the dirt of others that made it so.

  Sister Phelan gave us a long lecture after the night we fought over the bread, spoke for ages about the way young ladies should behave. But we aren’t ladies. We’re Saint Raphael’s girls. Not orphans. Not adults. We’re nothing, really, and no amount of polishing can change what we are.

  Hasn’t she herself had a terrible time of finding us work? I used to think it was because we cannot read or write. But if the only quills a maid needs to know how to use are those feathers in a duster, why should I know how to read? For a while, I even thought it was because we were born in Ireland or baptized Catholic. Bytown’s English and Scottish Protestants make it clear they don’t want us around. They even challenge Mother Bruyere herself for helping us. Many of those Upper Town high and mighties are no different than our landlords back home.